Chapter 55
FIFTY-FIVE
Oliver Wray’s immediate concern was to make everyone move back, so nothing was disturbed before the police got there.
Even so, Kate, glancing involuntarily at the pond as she was shepherded past with the others, got a horrific glimpse of some white bones – a ribcage and what looked like a jaw, still wrapped in a leather jacket with a fur hood, lying half-submerged in the mud.
Nearby, gold glinted from the buckles of what might have been a handbag.
‘Everyone back behind the tanker,’ Oliver ordered as one or two workmen still pressed forward to see. ‘Right back. Now!’
Kate saw the drainage contractor, Mick, turn to Steve, the builder. ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ he said quietly. ‘Martina. It must be.’
The builder nodded. ‘I remember the police circulating a picture of that jacket. Fake leather and fur, they said. Must be why it hasn’t rotted. And if she was in that pond, it must be—’
‘Probably best not to speculate,’ Mick said quickly.
Kate saw Steve bite back his words. He’d been about to say it must be murder, she realised with a shock of horror. And who was Martina? She turned to Steve, to ask him, but he and Mick had already moved away, back behind the tanker.
Moments later, the police arrived – two squad cars, followed by a van.
They made everyone move further back still, then began taping the area off.
Kate recognised Sergeant Dickinson. She was getting the builders to move their vehicles.
Only the drainage tanker stayed where it was, its hoses still in the pond.
Nearby, two scenes of crime officers were already pulling on the white paper overalls familiar from a thousand TV shows.
Sergeant Dickinson came over to speak to Kate.
‘We may need you to evacuate the property, so you should go and pack a bag, in case. If we don’t require that, we’ll put screens around the retrieval scene, so your children don’t have to see it.
But you should be aware that going past those tapes under any circumstances is a criminal offence. ’
‘I understand,’ Kate said. She hesitated. ‘One of the tradesmen seemed to think he knew who it was. He mentioned the name Martina.’
‘It’s obviously much too early to speculate,’ Sergeant Dickinson said firmly.
‘Of course. But . . . who was Martina?’
There was a pause before the sergeant answered. ‘It was way before I joined. Back in the nineties, as I understand it, there was a young woman who went missing from this area. Her name was Martina Boban. But it’s far too soon to say that’s who it might be.’
‘She had a distinctive fake leather jacket, apparently,’ Kate persisted, but she was trying the officer’s patience now.
‘You need to go back inside. We’ll let you know if we need anything else.’
Aware she was more likely to be told to leave Trade Cottage altogether if she made a nuisance of herself, Kate nodded meekly and did as she was instructed.
She packed a suitcase, then called Matt.
They considered taking the children to a hotel even if they weren’t told to evacuate, but decided against it.
Will and Tilly would hear about the discovery of a body at Trade Cottage eventually, in any case.
Better to explain before they got home, then make sure they stayed inside the house until the remains had been taken away.
She told Matt about the acoustic test earlier, and Oliver Wray taking a DNA swab and her clothes, apparently as a result of Jamie’s insinuations.
‘It’ll just be process,’ Matt said reassuringly. ‘They have to eliminate possibilities, that’s all.’
‘Let’s hope that’s all it is.’ A sudden thought hit her, and she gasped. ‘What if it’s connected?’
‘What is?’
‘This body and Paul’s suicide. We’ve been assuming he killed himself because of his MND, yes?
While Jamie’s been implying it’s because we got permission to make all these changes to his beloved Trade Cottage.
But what if Jamie’s actually right? What if Paul shot himself now because he was worried about what we might find when the building work started? ’
There was a pause while Matt digested that. ‘That seems pretty far-fetched,’ he said at last.
‘Is it, though? It would explain why he was always so against Trade Cottage being bought by developers. And why he was so keen for Jamie to buy it back. He even had a go at me about digging up the garden. His standing in this community has always been so high. Losing that, over something as awful as this – the shame would be devastating.’
‘But he couldn’t have known for certain the pond was going to be drained,’ Matt objected. ‘It’s complete chance that body was ever found.’
‘True,’ Kate admitted. ‘But what if he didn’t know its precise location?
What if he only knew it was somewhere in Trade Cottage’s grounds?
’ She hesitated, knowing that what she was about to say was so momentous, it might even sound a little crazy.
‘What if he suspected Jamie of killing this Martina woman all along?’