Pooh Bridge: conscience stricken Read online

  The more I thought about it the more whisky I drank, and the more I drank the more bizarre my thoughts became. I had come to Derbyshire to mourn the loss of a woman who had meant more to me than life itself: a woman for whom I would have died if it had meant she could have lived. Now I found myself grieving for a complete stranger: a stranger who entered my life in the most unusual – and dramatic – of circumstances, and a matter of hours later had left in the most ghastly of ways.

  Half a bottle of whisky told me that I was responsible and that I really should have behaved in a totally different way. I may not have thrust the blade of the knife into Ingrid’s heart, but I was now, in my addled mind, an accessory.

  I retained sufficient self-control to know that my melancholy was alcohol induced. Not having touched a drop of alcohol for a week hadn’t helped. All too often I decided, alcohol makes people say and do things that reveal their inner psyche – the real person behind the veneer we think we want others to see. Seeing a young girl murdered and mutilated, a girl with whom I had been speaking only hours earlier, a girl who had half-cooked me a meal before being dragged to her death, was too much.

  She hadn’t been a photograph in a paper, an unknown body lying by the road, she had been a real person and I felt guilty.

  When the bus I was on passed the turning for the village of Tissington, I looked left towards Dove Dale but I could only see the tops of the trees in the valley. I had decided to leave the area and use public transport to get me back to Buxton before retracing my steps back to Medbourne and home.

  The need for escapism had left me.

  Having woken up that morning with a thumping headache and the expected hangover hadn’t surprised me. I didn’t need to look at the half empty bottle of whisky to find out why I felt awful.

  Neither the weather nor my mood had improved and returning home seemed the only option that might introduce a semblance of normality back into my life. I called in to the police station and left a message for DS Matthews – he was out – which explained that there had been a change of plan and I would be contactable at the address I’d given him after all.

  I was no longer sure how the police really felt about me.

  The DNA from the swab they had taken would prove that if Ingrid had been raped I wasn’t the man they were looking for, but I was sure I was still high up on their suspect list, if they had a list. Maybe I was the only one they suspected, but thus far they had no proof and nor, if my faith in the legal processes was to be substantiated, would they ever find any.

  I didn’t speak to anybody during my journey home.

  The effects of my over-indulgence with the whisky bottle took a long while to wear off and my need for sleep was impossible due to grotesque images of Belinda, rather than Ingrid, lying dead and mutilated in Dove Dale.

  The taxi driver from the station in Market Harborough tried to strike up a conversation but he was astute enough to appreciate that I wasn’t in the mood. To make up for my rudeness I gave him an unnecessarily large tip when he dropped me off – he went away happy.

  The sun was shining and there was a light breeze coming across the fields. I began to open the gate but hesitated as I remembered Belinda watching me put it in place. I had bought a five-bar gate from a local farmer when he had decided to make one field out of two. Although I was considered a leading expert on the design and construction of dams, Belinda’s opinion – and I suppose mine also if I were being truthful – of my ability to complete simple DIY tasks was unenthusiastic to say the least. She had watched me from the house and then used the excuse of bringing me a mug of tea to assess, surreptitiously, my progress. We were both surprised when the gate had stayed in place, and even more surprised when it survived the rigours of gales, heavy rain and the odd minor collision with visiting cars.

  That was three years ago and it was still standing, although it did need a damn good oiling.

  The gravel crunched under my feet as I walked up the driveway. The lawn was in need of a mow but it would have to wait. The front flowerbeds, although colourful, required weeding – I didn’t look too closely.

  Charles and Elizabeth, Belinda’s parents, had said they would check on the house while I was away but the mail on the floor inside the front door suggested they had yet to make their first visit. They, quite naturally, took their only daughter’s death extremely badly – every parent wants to die before their offspring – but added to the pain was the fact that Belinda had idolised them and her parents reciprocated her feelings in every way.

  In fact, they were so close that on occasions I felt a pang of envy, quickly followed by guilt. I had undergone a rigid but subtle vetting process before they accepted that Belinda and I were right for each other. Although I felt resentment at first I eventually came to understand their motives, even more so after the twins, and especially Isabelle, were born.

  Before I embarked on my attempt at escapism, I met up with Charles in a local pub and he explained that they both needed time, time not to forget but to recover. Elizabeth had found it difficult to be in the house knowing that Belinda wasn’t there. On the two occasions they had visited since Belinda died, Elizabeth wandered from room to room with tears in her eyes – I had done the same but only in the privacy of my own company. The value of the daughter, mother and wife we had lost was incalculable.

  Shaking myself out of my reverie, I opened the front door.

  The phone was bleeping to tell me there were some messages but I ignored it, taking the mail and local papers into the kitchen. Most of the letters were circulars that went straight into the bin unopened except for the ones addressed to Belinda. Even seeing her name on an impersonal piece of paper gave me something to hang onto. There were the usual bills and a credit card statement.

  After making a mug of black coffee – there was no milk in the fridge and I hadn’t thought of buying any – I toured the house, going into every room, opening the curtains and subconsciously making sure nothing had been disturbed. I would ring Charles to tell him I was home. I didn’t want them driving past and wondering why the curtains were no longer drawn closed.

  I talked to Belinda as I went from room to room, explaining how I felt. Her personality was there on every wall, in every carpet, in every cushion cover, in every pattern, in everything. Although she had included me in the decision making process and listened attentively to the suggestions I made, I knew I was useless at such things.

  The house was her and therefore it was us.

  We bought the house five years ago – was it really five years? – for a good price as it was in dire need of renovation. We kept its original name, Blue-Ridge, although David in particular thought it was naff – his word! Evidently, its name had changed in 1890 when one of the sons of the then owners moved to Virginia. We had a family discussion and finally decided to leave it as it was for the time being.

  Built in the early 1800s, the only original features were the outer, and some of the inner, supporting walls, the inglenook fireplace in the living room, and the outhouses. We spent thousands on rewiring, new floorboards, central heating and decorating. The value of the house almost tripled but that was irrelevant. It stood in about half an acre, most of which was taken up by a reasonably productive orchard. From the front bedroom windows, we could see the rest of the village, but Blue-Ridge’s isolation had also meant extra thousands being spent on the security system.

  It was now a lovely house but its attractiveness, as with its market value, was worth nothing without the person who had laboured to make it that way.

  The twins loved it.

  Looking out of David’s bedroom window, I could see him and Isabelle playing in the garden with some of their many friends from the village, and others they often brought home from school during exeat weekends and half terms. After Belinda died and the day before they went back to school, Isabelle had stood with me at the same window, her arm round my waist and mine round her shoulders, and let her heart out.

  “You’l
l never sell Blue-Ridge, will you, Daddy?” she implored.

  “One day I may have to,” I replied, tightening my grip on her shoulder, knowing that it wasn’t the answer either of us wanted. At thirteen, there were times when she could have the perspective of a twenty-year old: at other times she was still a little girl.

  “You can’t,” she said quietly. “This house is mummy and if you sell it you’ll sell all the memories that go with it.” She looked up at me and there were tears in her eyes.

  I tried to smile. “Don’t worry, Bella. If the need ever arises I’ll have it redecorated before selling it and then those memories will stay as ours.”

  I didn’t want to make promises I couldn’t keep but inwardly I knew that it would take a herd of wild horses to drag me away.

  She frowned as tears rolled down her cheeks. “What do you mean?”

  “Mummy wouldn’t have wanted this house to become a mausoleum. She would want us to move on with our lives.”

  This time her eyes opened wide with shock. “You’re not going to remarry are you?”

  I managed a real smile and, shaking my head, I turned my daughter round until she was facing me. “Bella, your mother and I were devoted to each other and although I can’t promise that there will never be another woman in my life, she will never replace what we had. Your mummy will always be your mummy. Wherever any of us might be, and whoever we might be with, in the future, she will always be with us.”

  Reaching up she placed her hands on either side of my face. “I understand, Daddy,” she said but I hoped she didn’t.

  In the main bedroom, I lingered at the end of the bed as I pictured us together; together until the end. Her clothes were still in the wardrobes, her bottles and potions still on the dressing table with her photographs. This room, the whole house, told me that she was with me, alive in my mind and my heart: still alive in whatever I looked at.

  Was I wrong to tell Isabelle that mummy wouldn’t have wanted the house to become a mausoleum? Belinda had no control over what the house became.

  Only I could do something about that.

  From our bedroom window, the village had become less stark in appearance. The spring, and now early summer, had revitalised its winter isolation and the trees had become more rounded, green with energy and beauty. The trees also hid quite a lot of what was evident during the winter but the church still dominated the landscape, its spire pointing towards where Belinda was now at peace.

  It seemed only yesterday when Belinda and I had stood by the same window when we had been viewing the house and, without saying a word, knew it was for us. Smoke was rising from a few of the cottage chimneys in the valley, a cockerel crowed and the church bell struck eleven o’clock – it was idyllic, as we had thought our lives were.

  Now I looked down towards the village on my own. A young couple, maybe in their thirties, were walking hand in hand down the lane. They stopped at the gate to Blue-Ridge where they paused for a few seconds looking at the house before moving on. I saw the woman look back before making some comment to the man, and then they carried on with their afternoon stroll in the welcome sun.

  I hadn’t recognised them.

  There wasn’t a sound other than the grandfather clock ticking in the hall and the bleeping of the answer-machine, the latter snapping me out of my musing and bringing me back to the present.

  Suddenly, an image of Ingrid lying dead and mutilated in Dove Dale flashed through my mind. It was something I would never forget, maybe something I would never want to forget.

  In the hall, I picked up the backpack I had dropped by the front door and took it into the utility room. After emptying it and putting the washing straight into the machine, I hung it in the cupboard wondering if it would ever have any further use. I had bought it, along with everything else, specifically for my short-lived escape. Taking my walking boots off, I realised that Belinda would have disapproved of my tramping round the house in them and, as for going upstairs wearing anything but socks or slippers on my feet, that would have guaranteed verbal if not physical abuse.

  There were three messages on the answer-phone.

  One was unintelligible, another was from my solicitor in Market Harborough asking me to pop in the next time I was in town to discuss the progress of probate on Belinda’s will, and the third was from Peter Schuter III. Peter was my boss in America, and based in Denver, Colorado. He had accepted my resignation with great reluctance, arguing that I was far too young and talented to be giving up such a satisfying and lucrative career. I had thanked him for his unwarranted compliments but I had made up my mind.

  I think if my main reason hadn’t been losing Belinda he would have persisted, but he hadn’t. Rather presumptuously, he did advise me that he would approach the Board with a recommendation that I should receive a significant golden handshake. His call was to tell me the Board had agreed his recommendation, but on one condition, and would I contact him about it when I got back from my trekking?

  I checked my watch.

  It was four o’clock and although still the morning in Denver I decided to leave it until the following day.

  What I didn’t know as I pressed the button on the answer-machine to delete the messages, was that the phone call I would make the next day was only going to add to the frightening episode in my new life that had started with the grim discovery in Dove Dale.

  Chapter Six

  The rectangular fields and long straight roads that made up the countryside on the approach to Düsseldorf Flughafen in Germany were visible at the time the aircraft started its descent

  It was a clear day and the flight from Birmingham was short and uneventful. The aircraft was flying parallel to what I knew to be the Düsseldorf to Roermond autobahn, and at after five o’clock on a Tuesday, the roads were busy with commuters speeding home after a day’s work.

  The aircraft wasn’t full by any means and I had enjoyed a reasonably comfortable flight. Being one of only two passengers in business class, the flight attendant – she told us her name was Mandy – was able to look after her charges extremely well and without being obtrusive.

  Peter Schuter III hadn’t said in so many words that my golden handshake was dependent on my attendance at this year’s annual conference, but he implied that it could be beneficial. He wanted me to share my experiences from a project in Africa I had been involved with since the previous year’s get-together. The project had been particularly difficult due to the location of the prospective dam and the over deposition of coarse materials from the surrounding hills could have caused problems.

  I had reluctantly agreed.

  Before leaving England, I had another session with DS Matthews, at his request. Informing him that I needed to go abroad for a conference seemed to generate unnecessary activity but I had reached the stage where I found it amusing rather than an inconvenience. DS Matthews came down to Market Harborough to see me and we spent a couple of hours together going over my version of events yet again. I got the distinct impression that either they didn’t have any other leads or those they did have hadn’t taken them anywhere and I remained, for perhaps the wrong reasons, on their suspect list.

  Nothing Matthews said suggested that they had cause to speak to me again other than if they continued clutching at straws. With no evidence to support the alternative recommendation, he had to accept the fact that I was going to Germany and that I would get back in touch on my return. He did advise me that the Coroner’s Inquest wouldn’t sit for at least another two to three weeks but whenever it did sit I would, quite naturally, be required to attend as the main witness.

  I spent the remainder of the two weeks before setting off for Germany sorting out the house and garden. I called in to see Charles and Elizabeth a couple of times and told them about my experiences in Derbyshire. After the mandatory two days of coverage, the media’s interest in Ingrid’s brutal murder waned, as was to be expected. My name, much to my relief, was kept out of all the papers and away from the pr
ess.

  Charles was circumspect and Elizabeth was distraught.

  After the worry and anguish brought on by Belinda’s death, what had I done to deserve being thrown straight into a murder enquiry? Elizabeth’s logic sometimes warranted time for reflection but on this occasion, I agreed with her and left it at that.

  The weekend before I flew to Germany was an exeat weekend and we’d already planned that I should go down to the children’s school and take them into London for a treat.

  We did exactly that.

  The cultural aspects of the weekend were interspersed with far too much junk food but we had a thoroughly enjoyable time walking, visiting museums and going to the cinema. A chorus of negativity greeted the suggestion of the theatre, so I reluctantly went and watched the new Star Wars movie. I didn’t mention the murder to them. I saw little point. They may have read about it in the papers and, if they had raised the coincidence of my being in the same area, I was prepared to tell a little white lie to steer them away from the truth. It was the second time I had seen them back at school since their mother’s death. I think we found it easier but there were still long silences during which it didn’t need a mind reader to know what each of us was thinking.

  I took every opportunity to look at them both. At thirteen, or nearer fourteen as David constantly reminded me, they were still alike and yet different. Similar to many others of her age, Isabelle was thirteen, going on seventeen or eighteen, or even twenty as I implied earlier.

  Belinda and I hadn’t allowed her to grow up too quickly and fortunately she didn’t seem to resent our control. We wanted her to enjoy her childhood and again, fortunately, many of the other parents of daughters of a similar age in the village seemed to have the same attitude towards their offspring. Of course there were parents whose daughters were allowed to wear make-up, nail varnish and ‘unsuitable’ clothes, but they were in the minority.