Some Particular Evil Read online

  A crime novel

  Vera Morris

  There is, I believe, in every disposition, a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.

  Jane Austen

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to:

  My number one fan, Gladys Firth, for her praise and encouragement.

  All my writing friends, you know who you are, but especially to Maureen, Barbara, Bill, Jennifer, and Julie, for your positive criticism and support.

  My editor, Jay Dixon, who has been meticulous, thoughtful and supportive. A joy to work with.

  All the members of Accent Press for their hard work, professional approach, help and support.

  Last, but by no means least, Mr T, who tries to keep my feet on the ground, and sometimes succeeds.

  1

  Saturday, March 1, 1969

  The mortuary was as cold as a butcher’s fridge and smelt of Dettol and fear. Laurel Bowman stood rigid between two policemen she’d never met before.

  ‘Are you ready, Miss Bowman?’ the detective inspector asked.

  The sheet undulated over the body, showing curves of breasts, a slight swelling of the belly and the lines of legs. The police were mistaken. Laurel stared at it and inhaled deeply. ‘Yes, I’m ready.’

  The attendant’s gloved hand gripped the edge of the material. He slowly peeled it back.

  ‘Is this your sister, Angela Bowman?’

  The face was a wax imitation, a macabre joke. The harsh strip-light played on hair that was too dark, combed back from the forehead. Angela’s red hair curled round her face. These features were hard, not soft and beautiful, and the skin had a greenish glow, freckles standing out across the nose and cheeks like the first signs of decay.

  Pain and loss gripped her heart and ripped into her guts. She swayed and the detective sergeant moved closer, holding her arm as though afraid she’d collapse.

  ‘Is this your sister, Angela Bowman?’ the inspector asked again.

  Laurel nodded, gulping back the bile rising in her throat.

  The sergeant tightened his grip as she struggled to breathe. Then, as she straightened her body and raised her head, he relaxed his hold.

  ‘You must say if it is her, or not.’ The inspector’s voice was as cold and unfeeling as the white-tiled room.

  ‘Yes, it’s Angela.’

  She turned and looked at the inspector. He wore a loose, black gabardine raincoat, too large for his frame, sweeping past his knees. Iron-grey hair was painted over his scalp and the hooded eyes showed no warmth or sympathy.

  She glanced at the sergeant who’d supported her. His thickly lashed green eyes, level with hers, stared back, unblinking.

  ‘Are you in charge of this … case?’ she asked the inspector.

  ‘I am. Sergeant Diamond is also on the team.’ He gave a cursory nod towards him.

  She looked at her dead sister. She’d lost her. She’d never again see her smile, never hear her laughter, and never share their memories. Her breathing deepened, her hands curling into fists. ‘How did she die? Who did this?’

  The inspector pushed his chin forward. ‘The post-mortem will establish the cause of death and no doubt our investigation –’

  The man sounded like an actor from a third-rate TV crime series. Before they could stop her she stepped forward and pulled the sheet from Angela’s body. Up close she could see eyeballs pushed against the lids, lips twisted as though she was trying to tell her what had happened. Purple bruises sullied the cream flesh of her long neck and small breasts. She reached out and pressed her fingers against Angela’s cheek – it was cold. Cold and clammy like Plasticine. Laurel’s body shook, her nostrils widened and she raised her fists. Who’d done this to her?

  The sergeant pulled her back and the mortuary attendant, his eyes inflated like a frog’s, scrambled to pull the sheet from her hands and cover her sister’s body.

  ‘This is not helpful, Miss Bowman. Please try to control yourself.’ The inspector spoke as though she were a naughty schoolgirl who’d had a temper tantrum. Laurel felt like socking him on the jaw.

  Sergeant Diamond grasped her shoulders and moved her away from the table. ‘We’ll get him. Whoever murdered your sister we’ll find him and bring him to justice.’ His low voice was angry. With the killer or the inspector? She couldn’t tell.

  Justice – there could never be enough justice. Even if he died a thousand times, or rotted for a thousand years in gaol, it would never be enough.

  She turned again to the inspector. ‘Who found her?’

  Lines of irritation creased his forehead. ‘I can’t reveal details at this point in the investigation, Miss Bowman. I think it would be better for you to return home to be with your parents. Sergeant Diamond, will you drive Miss Bowman?’

  ‘My pleasure, s … i … r.’

  She looked from one man to the other, recognising undeniable insolence: she’d seen and heard it often enough in her job.

  The inspector’s face flushed maroon. ‘I shall be at your house in about an hour, Miss Bowman. I need to ask you and your parents some questions about your sister’s life.’

  They would be waiting for her. She would see hope die in their eyes as she broke the news. They would be devastated. ‘Now? Today? I don’t think my parents will be capable of talking about Angela just yet.’

  Sergeant Diamond touched her arm. ‘I know it’ll be hard, but the sooner we know more about Angela’s life the sooner we’ll be able to find her killer.’

  ‘Sergeant Diamond, you are not to question the family. That’s an order. I will do that when I arrive. Do you understand?’

  Diamond’s nostrils flared. ‘I understand completely.’

  No love lost between these two. Whatever was between them they’d better put a lid on it if they were going to find Angela’s murderer.

  Sergeant Diamond was silent as they drove through the suburbs of Ipswich.

  ‘I presume this is your car?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What is it? A Chevrolet?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Correct. ’62 Chevy Corvair. Bit of a rust bucket, but I’m getting a new one soon.’

  ‘Another American?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  The car suited him: his slim body, long hair and leather jacket said rock star rather than policeman. No wonder he and the inspector hadn’t jelled. ‘Will you help me when I get home? I don’t know how I’m going to tell them.’

  He glanced at her. ‘Of course I will. Would you like me to break it to them?’

  She hesitated. Knowing he’d be there if she couldn’t frame the words was a comfort. ‘I need to say it. But if I need help …’

  He nodded, changing down a gear before a sharp bend. ‘Angela didn’t look like you. I wouldn’t have guessed you were sisters.’

  Beautiful Angela: small, delicate, with Titian hair; whereas she was a blonde, five foot eleven, with Amazonian shoulders. It wasn’t only their physical differences, they had different personalities: she’d known what she wanted to do from the moment she’d won her first race at primary school, whereas Angela had drifted from job to job, and boyfriend to boyfriend, unsure of herself.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t know we’re sisters … were sisters.’

  ‘How did you get on?’ He looked relaxed, at home behind the steering wheel.

  ‘I thought the inspector told you not to question us?’

  The eyebrow rose again. ‘We’re having a friendly chat, that’s all.’

  ‘She was my little sister. I loved her. I love her.’ She screwed her eyes tight, trying to stop the tears. She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief and blew her nose.

  ‘That’s what I like,
a good trumpeting into a sheet, none of this delicately wiping the nose with a lace handkerchief.’

  Laurel said nothing. He was doing his best to lighten this appalling situation.

  ‘A fisherman found her early this morning. His boat is beached just north of Felixstowe pier. He always walks under it first thing to see if anything’s been thrown up by the tide. That’s where he found her. By the way, try to look surprised if the inspector tells you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ At least there was one policeman she could relate to. ‘Was she in the sea?’

  ‘No, she was above high water mark.’

  She wanted to know more. Was she naked? Had she been raped? But she couldn’t get the words out. Thoughts of Angela suffering, terrified and fighting for her life were too awful. Over the past few months she hadn’t paid her enough attention, hadn’t talked with her the way they used to – and now it was too late. She twisted her engagement ring round her finger until it hurt. She’d been so tied up in her own life – would that guilt ever leave her?

  ‘Do you mind if I open the window?’ she asked, conscious of her faltering voice.

  ‘No, fresh air will be good for both of us – plenty of fresh air today.’

  He was right. A cold wind rattled through the half-opened window, making her eyes water and lifting the sergeant’s dark curls so they waved Medusa-like about his head. It was a strong east wind bringing a tang of salt from the North Sea, blowing rain clouds west to shed their load on higher parts. No sign of spring in the hedgerows: the buds tight on the oaks and hawthorn. They looked as lifeless as the dead elms. They’d never leaf again.

  Angela was dead. It was finally sinking in. She’d thought the police had made a terrible mistake, but that hope had shrivelled and died.

  Although it was only a few hours since the police, a man and woman, had come to the family home, it seemed like a lifetime ago.

  It was seven in the morning, her mum was making tea. Angela wasn’t up. ‘Take Angie a cup, dear,’ Mum said to Laurel. Then there were loud knocks on the front door.

  They told them a woman’s body had been found and the contents of a nearby handbag suggested it might be her sister. She refused to believe it could be Angela. She’d rushed upstairs to her sister’s bedroom. The eiderdown was smooth, her pillow plump. Where was she?

  She slowly walked down the stairs. Mum saw her face and collapsed into an armchair. Dad rushed to Mum’s side. He turned and looked at Laurel. She shook her head. His face crumpled. The WPC went to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water and held it to Mum’s lips.

  ‘Someone must come to Ipswich to see if the body we found is your sister,’ the PC said.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Laurel said.

  She turned back from the car’s side window and faced the road. How was she going to break the news to them?

  ‘What do you do for a living?’ he asked as they turned onto the A45.

  ‘I teach. I’m head of a PE department in a girls’ grammar school.’

  ‘I bet they don’t mess with you.’ Laughter lines crinkled the corners of his eyes.

  ‘The pupils or the staff?’

  ‘Both; and throw in the governors and parents for good measure.’

  She couldn’t help smiling, though it seemed wrong, and she blessed him for trying to take her mind off Angela. ‘Am I that frightening?’

  ‘Terrifying.’

  As they came off the A45 into Felixstowe she started to give him instructions. On High Road West they passed the Conservative club and the primary school. She swallowed hard, her guts twisting into knots. From High Road East they turned into Rosemary Avenue. She wanted to grip his arm and make him turn the car round. He turned the corner into Colneis Road and pulled up in front of her house. There was someone standing behind the net curtains of the window. A shadow moved towards the front door.

  He turned off the ignition and faced her. ‘Ready? You can do it. I’ll be there.’

  She knew she’d have to be as hard as granite to get through the next few hours, days, weeks, and possibly months. She’d have to be a rock for her parents. It was hell to lose a sister, but to lose a child? She couldn’t imagine it. They must stand together and do everything they could to help the police find out who’d done this. That’s all she cared about. Whoever he was he must pay. She wanted to see him in the dock, convicted and sent down for life.

  2

  Eighteen Months Later

  Monday, September 7, 1970

  Laurel braked when she saw the sign.

  Blackfriars School

  Dunwich

  Suffolk

  Headmaster Mr P M Nicholson BA (Hons) MEd

  She turned the Ford Cortina GT into a gravelled drive which looped in front of a Georgian mansion. There were two cars in the car park: a Morris Traveller with moss growing round the wooden frames of the rear windows, and an electric-blue American car – a Ford Mustang? Surely that wasn’t the headmaster’s car?

  She’d arrived – her new home, a new career. She peeled off her driving gloves and tossed them onto the passenger seat. Had she done the right thing? As soon as she’d accepted the post of senior mistress she’d started to have doubts. Was this the kind of school she wanted to teach in? A small, private school miles from anywhere? But she’d been desperate to get away from Felixstowe – the last eighteen months had been sheer hell.

  She loved her parents but their grief was killing her She often found Mum crying in Angela’s bedroom, had to prise crumpled sheets from her hands, and rock her in her arms until her sobs quietened. It was making her ill listening to her parents’ stilted conversation, or even worse face their silences and blank eyes as they asked themselves the perpetual questions to which they had no answers. Why did it have to happen to Angela? How much did she suffer? Who killed her? She could give them the answer to one of these questions. But she didn’t dare.

  She’d had to get away from the stalled investigation and especially Sergeant Diamond. When his eyes locked with hers she was sure he knew what had happened, what she’d done. In August she went on holiday, staying with a friend in Edinburgh, taking in the British Commonwealth Games. When she got back Mum told her he’d been promoted and moved to another case. She was relieved, although in some ways she would miss him. He’d never stopped trying to find Angela’s murderer. If she’d known he would move away perhaps she wouldn’t have taken the job, but it was too late; she’d committed herself to Blackfriars.

  She was glad to be away, but was she glad to be here? Laurel opened her door. She couldn’t see anyone. She smiled, imagining boys and girls milling round, boisterous, shouting, laughing – this place would change next week when the pupils came back. Schools without people were false, empty shells; without the sights and sounds of children they were nothing. She’d have several new challenges: teaching boys, living day and night in a school and being part of the senior management. She was sure all that would help her to regain her life.

  The mizzle of rain, which started as she left Felixstowe, had stopped, leaving a sea-fret swirling round the house. Glimpses of the ruined walls of Blackfriars Priory and the Leper Hospital, nearer to the cliffs than the school, came in and out of focus.

  She swung her legs from the car and paused. Distant waves were thudding against the shingle beach. How long before the ruins tumbled from the cliff’s edge to join the gravestones and other shattered remains of medieval Dunwich on the sea’s bed? Autumn and winter storms would rip at the sandy cliffs, eating into the land and spewing earth, trees and masonry onto the beach forty feet below, mixing with flotsam and jetsam thrown up by the sea.

  She smoothed the skirt of her suit and patted the back of her head to make sure the French pleat was still intact. She hoped she looked like a senior mistress – she didn’t feel like one. Squaring her shoulders, she marched to the main entrance and pushed open the door.

  It was a spacious hall, with mahogany-panelled walls and floorboards. Opposite the front door a wide, shallow stairc
ase led to a balconied corridor; at the top of the stairs was a door signed Headmaster. Left of the stairs was a cosy group of coffee table and three easy chairs; behind them cabinets displayed silver trophies. She’d been pleased at her interview to find the school still believed in sports days and competition.

  To the right of the stairs was an office. Through the glass window Miss Piff, the school secretary, was bent over a typewriter, fingers a blur. Laurel knocked on the window. Miss Piff’s head shot up, grey curls bobbing, her eyes widening behind blue-framed glasses. She stood up and opened the office door.

  ‘Miss Bowman. Good journey, I hope?’ With ram-rod back she held out her hand, smiling, apple-red cheeks high in her round face. Her warm voice matched her firm handshake.

  ‘The A12 was busy, but I made good time.’

  ‘I do hope you’ll be happy at Blackfriars. We were all impressed when you came for the interview. I’m so glad you accepted the post, I was afraid you’d find us too quiet after teaching in a large school. Come into the office.’ She glanced at her wrist watch. ‘It’s nearly sixteen hundred hours: tea time. Would you like a cup?’ She waved Laurel in.

  Laurel smiled as she looked down on Miss Piff, all five foot two of her, dressed in a tweed skirt and beige twin set. ‘That would be lovely.’

  Miss Piff pointed to a chair in front of her desk and busied herself with teapot and kettle. ‘Make yourself comfortable, Miss Bowman.’

  ‘Please call me Laurel.’ The office was well organised: telephone books, pencils, reams of paper arranged in regimented rows.

  Miss Piff smiled. ‘Are you sure? Perhaps when we’re by ourselves; doesn’t do to let standards drop. My name’s Dorothy, by the way.’ The red flush of her cheeks spread to the rest of her face.

  ‘Thank you, Dorothy. I’ve always found school secretaries to be helpful, and the fount of all wisdom and knowledge.’ She’d learnt it paid to have the school secretary on your side.

  ‘I’d offer you a cigarette but I make it a point not to smoke in school, even in the holidays.’

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t smoke.’