13/12/2015

Episode 19 - The midwife


On Tuesday morning, while Cleo was on her way to visit Mrs Singleton, Gary phoned Roger Stone.
“Sorry I could not come to your wedding,” said Roger Stone.
“It was not my wedding. It was Robert's.”
“Ouch! Wishful thinking. I can’t understand why Cleo went through with it. You and she are an item, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Cleo put loyalty before love.”

“Don’t be bitter about it, Gary. She’ll come to her senses if you hang on long enough.”
“I’ll hang on for as long as it takes. In all probability she’s having my baby.”
“It’ll be Robert’s legally, won’t it?”
“I could claim the fatherhood.”
“Assuming you ARE the father.”
“I believe Cleo.”
“Meaning Cleo is shoving the kid onto him, is she?”
“Not for long, I didn’t phone to talk about my emotional devastation. I need your advice.”
“Mine? I’m taking early retirement, remember?”
“You can’t. You’re needed here.”
“No one’s indispensable, especially when you have a wife with a criminal record.”
“But you’re divorced now, Roger. Forget her. Start afresh.”
“Correction. Divorce pending. I can’t forget what she did. In a way, I should be sharing in her guilt since I put work first and her needs a long way down the list.”
“I’m not sure you could have fulfilled her so-called needs, judging from her reputation elsewhere, but no one is force to kill,” said Gary. “Jealousy is not a motive for getting rid of someone. There are enough other solutions to problems. Get back to work and you’ll feel better. You’re too young to retire.”
“Message received. What do you want me to do for you, Gary?”
“Tell me about that women’s security prison near Oxford.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Is it all above board there?”
Roger laughed heartily.
“Apart from corruption, drugs and smuggling it’s fairly straight.”
“Could one of the warders be an undercover agent?”
“That’s a polite way of putting it, Gary. What’s happened?”
“Someone outside was warned by someone inside who had had no contact we know of with the bloke on the run.”
“That sounds like a cryptic clue.”
OK. A bloke outside got a tip-off from a prison warder about the whereabouts of someone he is planning to kill.”
“You can’t trace electronic tip-offs,” said Roger.
“So how would you trace someone you know has a vested interest in silencing at least five women, and already has two on his conscience? And those five are the ones we know about.”
“Do you know who his next target will be?”
“More or less. She’s a prisoner in that so-called high security establishment.”
“Move her.”
“Where to?”
“Somewhere far away, and don’t divulge it to those prison employees though I can’t guarantee that the transporters won’t say something. That should give you a few days leeway. Get an independent escort not connected with either prison.”
“The woman is actually innocent, but she knows too much.”
“Are you going to tell me who it is, Gary?”
“Not over the phone. Another of the women is in hospital and I’ve put a guard on her. A third one is at home and will get security from a policewoman in plain clothes.”
“Quite a list! Any others you know about or suspect?”
Gary hesitated. Up to now he hadn’t really taken the Courtneys and their child-minder status seriously, but now it occurred to him that they would know about the baby hatch business, so they were just as vulnerable as anyone who could be linked with Akbari. Serial murderers – and that’s what Gary believed Akbari to be – did not differentiate between their victims once they had a reason to kill them.
“Gary, are you still there?”
“I’ve just thought of something.”
“Tell me. I can at least advise you.”
“Can you come to my office?”
“Tell me over the phone if it’s that urgent,” said Roger.
“No. Walls have ears.”
“OK. I’ll come to the canteen. We can talk over coffee.”
“Thanks, Roger. Looking forward to seeing you.”
***
Waiting for Roger to turn up gave Gary time to send a patrol car to the Thumpton Hill area. The two officers would check that everything was as usual at that nursery and care home. Make it look like routine. Maybe check one or two other houses. Say there’d been a suspicious character reported. Improvise. The main thing is to verify that the Courtneys are OK.
***
But they weren’t. Not all of them.
A young patrol officer rang the doorbell and was greeted by a very young girl who said she was Mrs Courtney’s nursery assistant. The officer could hear squealing kids in the background.
“Don’t be alarmed, officer,” the girl said. “They’re fishing in the bathtub.”
“They’re what?”
“They’ve got nets and are catching plastic fish. The one who gets the most wins a prize.”
“And who are you, Miss?”
“Jane, Sir. Want to come in?
“No thanks, Jane,” said the officer, wishing to be spared the ordeal of excited kids, “but I need to talk to Mrs Courtney.”
“She’s in the back garden, Sir. She decided to mow the lawn while the kids go fishing.”
“Thanks. I’ll go there and talk to her.”
***
Mrs Courtney was straddled across her lawnmower behind the garden shed. She had been stabbed several times in the back.
The patrol officer phoned Gary on his direct line.
“Sir, we’ve got a corpse here,” he reported, with as much coolness as he could muster in the face of witnessing his first homicide. “Stabbed in the back, Sir.”
“Cordon the place off and don’t let anyone in or out. I can’t come yet, but I’ll notify forensics and send a squad car.”
Stabbing was not Akbari’s only method, but Gary was pretty sure the motive was the same. Killing a person is the surest way of silencing them.
That police officer had sounded distraught. So much for the psychological briefing for such events. And so much more reason to guard Mrs Daniels. Whoever was committing those murders was a deadly step ahead.
Gary’s first thought was to phone Cleo. She was horrified. They had not included the Courtneys on the assassination list.
“We slipped up, Gary.”
“We can’t mark everyone as a possible target, Cleo. I’m meeting Roger in the canteen. I don’t want to be late.”
A few minutes later, Gary was waiting nervously for Roger in the staff canteen. He had been too late to save Mrs Courtney and was reproaching himself. His mind had been on other things, he conceded.
“Let’s get some fresh air, Roger.”
“OK, but why?”
“As far as I know, they haven’t bugged all the trees yet. We could sit under one of them and talk freely. I need some fresh air.”
“You’re distraught Gary.”
“I’ll tell you why outside.
“OK, I’ll get the security system checked for bugs again”
“It’s a lost cause,” said Gary.
Roger Stone tried to ease Gary’s current dilemma after it had been explained in a kind of verbal shorthand.
“You can’t be held responsible for the behaviour of a maniac,” aid Roger. “Serial killers are an old phenomenon.”
“This killer is a man with a mission, Roger.”
“So are all serial killers, Gary. It’s the reason that justifies to them what they are doing.”
***
Roger had summed up the situation in just a few words. That made Gary feel even worse about his own hitherto casual approach. Was that the justification for war, too? Was it human nature? How much assassin is in everyone? What is the mechanism that turns thoughts into deeds?
***
“Come back to earth, Gary. That stay at the sanatorium might have healed the burnout, but it obviously did not make you forget that detectives use their own killer instinct to catch felons. Who knows how many women are involved in the current case? You can’t keep tabs on all of them.”
“I don’t even seem able to keep tabs on the ones I know about, Roger.”
“Are you sure it was that Iranian guy? What was the name? Akbari?”
“Yes, on both counts. Who else would have a motive covering all those women?”
“You tell me, Gary!”
Roger Stone wondered how he would have reacted to the situation. Had Gary’s wait-and-see approach been a direct reaction to Cleo Hartley’s energetic attitude to her job? What about that older woman, Dorothy Price, with her passion for late-night cops-and-robbers movies? He had laughed when Gary told him about her affiliation with the Hartley Agency, but that was before he knew she carried an old army gun in her rucksack. Only providence had prevented her from using it on at least one occasion. Providence had even led her to using it recently to catch his own wife, he remembered.
“I expect you’re involving the Hartley Agency,” he said. “If not, it’s time you let them in on it.”
“They’re already in on it.”
“And if the Akbari guy gets wind of their involvement, they are in just as much danger.”
Alarm bells sounded in Gary’s head. He hadn’t thought of that either. He went on the defensive.
“Cleo was the first to cotton on the baby-trading and it was only a short step to suspecting there was also trading in women and children. I have been tagging on telling her not to exaggerate, Roger.”
Gary did not reveal in so many words that he had first thought the baby-trading was a figment of Cleo’s imagination. While suspecting that Gary had simply not believed Cleo Hartley, Roger reluctantly admitted that he had kept some information to himself during his stint as head of homicide.
“I knew something like that was going on around here, but I could never discover who was involved,” he explained.
“How hard did you try, Roger?”
“There was no hard evidence, but I might have found some if I’d tried harder,” said Roger. “On the other hand, can a cop in charge of a department take the risk that his suspicions could go up in a puff of smoke?
“How can we guys know how women’s minds tick?” said Gary.
“Do women know what makes men tick with their pub friendships and the rest?” said Roger. “Men have been trying to understand women for thousands of year, Gary. I used to think we were the stronger sex, but I’m convinced that brains are more useful than brawn in most cases when it comes to the crunch.”
“I agree,” said Gary. “Cleo often spurs me on to do something practical about her and Dorothy’s hunches. The devilish part is that she lets me take the credit for things she has thought out and pushed me to investigate.”
“It’s the brains, again, Gary.”
“That’s why we’re here now, Roger. Cleo is no longer even sure about the security in this building.”
“You can’t trust anyone, even at a police station, Gary. Cops are no more free of human failings than priests. Being a cop is doing a job, but preferably one with a positive outcome. It’s no different with lawyers, doctors, and other professionals – and they are at the top of the job hierarchy.”
“What would you have done up to now about that baby snatching?”
“I’ve no idea, but assuming it’s the same ring as the one I came across and ignored all those years ago, it’s time to put our heads together. At least now there seems to be concrete evidence, or the promise of some, so the investigation has high priority. I’ll look at the reports on that earlier, abortive investigation from the archives and see if there are any parallels.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll start now. It’s a pity the Hartley Agency didn’t exist in those days.”
***
Roger Stone was grateful to Gary for the chance to get back to work after the numbness of the past months. Gary was glad he no longer had to bear the burden of his job alone. Roger knew that Gary would already have stumbled through the archives, but he would have ignored the reports on shoplifting, which is how Roger had classed the case in question as a matter of caution. Consequently, they were safe from the eyes of anyone who might raise the alarm. Reports on all cases were compulsory, but their contents were usually of little interest later.
Gary listened wide-eyed to that confession. Roger said he would find a qualified person with ethics to lead the documentation.
“I just have to look under shoplifting then,” said Gary. “We could ask Colin Peck if he wants to come back to Middlethumpton. He’d be ideal in the archive job.”
Gary returned to his office a wiser man. There was hope for him yet, he thought. And hope for him and Cleo, judging from what Roger had said.
***
Cleo set out early to check on what Hilda Bone had reported about the next-door neighbours. As she thought, Singleton was suspicious of Hilda Bone’s inquisitiveness and that morning she was nervous. Upper Grumpsfield was not policed regularly and Hilda Bone seemed to think she should jump into the breach. Could she have seen something? Mrs Singleton knew Cleo Hartley from the incident of that corpse in her swimming-pool and wondered if the detective woman was in contact with Hilda Bone. Did Mrs Bone have any idea what happened when cars drew up at the Singleton residence after dark? The other night it had been pitch black thanks to heavy rainclouds, but unfortunately it hadn’t actually rained, so the blood tracks at the swimming pool had not been washed away and there had been no time to get rid of them with a hosepipe. On the other hand, using a hosepipe in the garden at midnight would certainly have alerted Hilda Bone’s curiosity.
To Mrs Singleton’s relief, the police had not been in contact since that forensic team had finished gathering evidence after the murder of Mary Devonport. What really grieved her was the fate of Queenie, her faithful canine companion. Joe had taken it too far again. She sometimes wondered how demented her husband really was. She’d heard of people getting off scot free because they had been judged guilty but insane. What if he stopped doing what she said? What if he took a kitchen knife to her? What if she stopped working for Akbari? Would that solve any of the dilemmas? Akbari had seemed satisfied that all was well. Was it really?
Cleo reacted quickly when she saw Mrs Singleton. On no account was the woman to know she was really on her way to see Hilda first, so she had to pretend it was Singleton she wanted to see. On the other hand, it did mean she could immediately pursue her investigation into the missing child. Mrs Singleton was almost inviting her to do that.
“Don’t be alarmed, Mrs Singleton. I’m not on a mission from Police Headquarters.”
“Are you otherwise, Miss Hartley?”
“It has happened, but not recently. My husband’s daughter is in a relationship with Chief Inspector Hurley. That’s how I came to be here the other night. Pure curiosity, I assure you.”
“Was that the girl who took photos?”
“That’s her, Mrs Singleton.”
“I could have sworn she was with that other guy, the one in the white romper suit.”
Cleo was alarmed at Mrs Singleton’s astuteness, but there was no going back now. If Mrs Singleton could read body language, Cleo would avoid using any.
“I’ve been wondering about that, too, Mrs Singleton, but it’s their business how they conduct their relationship.”
The ice was broken. Mrs Singleton was convinced that Cleo had been on her way to visit her, so her main concern was to find out why. Beckoning to Cleo to come in, she stood at the foot of the narrow steps that led to the upper floor, a converted loft. The house was one of a row of similar houses with slanting roofs; not quite a bungalow, not quite a house.
“It’s only Miss Hartley, dear!,” Singleton called.”Don’t bother to come down.”
There was no answer. Mrs Singleton put her hands together and rested them on her cheek. “He sleeps a lot these days” she explained.
Mrs Singleton then shrugged her shoulders, showed Cleo into the lounge and offered her a drink. She put on a gushing manner that was totally out of character. Almost schizophrenic, thought Cleo, wondering if that was an explanation of Mrs Singleton’s lack of scruples.
“Just water, please.”
“On the rocks?”
“On the rocks.”
Mrs Singleton poured a triple gin onto the rocks in her own glass. Cleo decided that the florid veins and rosy flush on Mrs Singleton’s cheeks was caused by alcohol abuse.
“Make yourself at home, Miss Hartley. Anything new on the murder front?”
Cleo did not answer immediately. Mrs Singleton was brazen and self-assured. She swallowed a large gulp of her straight gin and looked at Cleo questioningly. Cleo sipped her soda water. Mrs Singleton was impatient.
“Well, what brought you here if it wasn’t a corpse, Miss Hartley?”
Since Mrs Singleton seemed eager to hear something new, Cleo decided that coming straight to the point would be more effective than prevarication. She was actually being invited to do so.
Cleo did not have any desire to sit with Mrs Singleton and watch her replenishing her gin with serious regularity. How did the woman keep the cool head she must have had when delivering and absconding with new-borns? How drunk was she on those excursions? The woman’s impatience to get to the point surprised Cleo, although Mrs Singleton did not seem to have a guilty conscience about what she was doing.
“I’m looking for a child, Mrs Singleton.”
Mrs Singleton tore at the corner of her tatting edged hanky. Later, Cleo remembered that. Solving crimes was a bit like doing jigsaw puzzles. You know (or hope) that all the pieces are in the box, but joining them up is usually a question of trial and error. Crime is three-dimensional; solving crime is working in two dimensions until you find the third one: the whole picture; the solution.
“You can call me Ruby,” the woman said.
“We should keep it on a business level,” Cleo replied.
“Business?”
Cleo realized she would have to pander to the woman’s offer.
“Well, finding the missing child is my business right now, Ruby. I’m Cleo.”
“Just one, is it?” Ruby Singleton asked and looked reassured when Cleo nodded. She was gratified that Cleo was using her first name and raised her glass in a toast.
“To friendship,” she called out, and Cleo nodded so as not to have to repeat the woman’s words.
Quite apart from Ruby’s relief that the corpse in the swimming pool was not to be the target of Cleo’s inquiry, being on first-name terms was a sign of friendship for her. She would rather have the Hartley woman as a friend than a foe. She had addressed her patients by their first names. In the intimate situation of birth, first names had seemed more comfortable, though for reasons of status she had continued to be addressed as Mrs Singleton or Nurse. It’s food for thought that she was on friendly first name terms with women whose babies she stole.
In the good cause of averting suspicion from herself, Ruby now felt that a little friendship would not come amiss, but before Cleo could carry on with her mission, Ruby’s phone rang. The phone was in the hall, but Cleo caught snatches of the conversation. Someone would be collecting something. Mrs Singleton was adamant that everything would go according to plan. Cleo hazarded a guess at what such a plan would entail.
There was a rustle of movement on the stairs. Someone was listening in. Cleo would have liked to get a glimpse of who it was, but was sitting with her back to the door of the room. Mrs Singleton glanced towards the hall and whoever it was could be heard climbing the stairs rapidly. Was it Mr Singleton? His wife had only just indicated that he was asleep.
The doorbell rang and Gary’s designated assistant arrived dressed in police uniform. Cleo could hear Ruby getting flustered and then putting on the hostess act in an exaggeratedly loud voice as the policewoman introduced herself and asked questions about suspicious characters and the like. Could she take up observation from a window for a while? Ruby was convinced of the genuineness of the request, so she relaxed.
Cleo couldn’t help thinking that Mrs Singleton was doing a repeat performance of her previous antics. She was again making the best of a bad job.
“Like a drink, Sergeant?” she addressed Barbara as she waved the whisky bottle.
“Officer, Mrs Singleton. Just soda, please. I’m on duty.”
Ruby scoffed a “sorry I’m sure” under her breath while she replenished her own glass with neat gin then squirted some soda into a second one.
“I’ll just refill this,” she said, waving the soda-streamer, and left the room.
Assuming this might be a ruse by Ruby to find out if the two women were connected in any way, Cleo asked in a loud voice about prowlers in the area, since it concerned her, living where she did. Barbara understood the message and reacted with a tale of phone-calls from various people in the district. Satisfied that there was nothing suspicious going on, Ruby reappeared smiling, squirted a little more soda into Barbara’s glass and handed it to her.
“What’s all this about a missing child, Miss Hartley?” Ruby asked Cleo.
How insolent she was. And much the worse for the gin she had been knocking back.
“Why come here? There are no missing children here, I assure you, Cleo.”
“But I think you delivered the child I’m looking for, Ruby,” said Cleo.
Cleo’s choice of verb startled Ruby.
“I’m a midwife, Cleo. I’ve delivered hundreds of babies. You’ll have to be more precise.”
“Sure.”
Ruby swallowed another large gulp of gin and replenished her glass. The amount of gin she poured out was larger each time. At that rate the bottle would soon be empty.
“For instance, how many pairs of twins have you delivered in your time?”
“Twins? More common than you’d think.”
“But they don’t always survive, do they, Ruby?”
Ruby’s voice took on an icy tone.
“Now and again there’s a fatality.”
“And now and again the women don’t even know they are expecting twins, do they?”
“It happens.”
“How do you cope when a baby dies, Ruby?”
“It’s sad, but it’s part of my job.”
“But it isn’t part of your job to relocate one of a pair of twins, is it, Ruby?”
Ruby was now panicking, partly thanks to the surfeit of gin she had drunk and partly because she now realized where the conversation was leading.
Barbara reacted to a sign by Cleo to leave them alone.
“I’ll check the back garden and shed for prowlers,” Barbara offered, and went to the back of the house, where she opened and shut the back door and remained concealed so that she could hear what Ruby Singleton had to say.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do, Ruby. You see, some of your patients remember your name, and one of them told me she had given birth to twins, but one had died and she had never even seen its little corpse.”
“Well, I….”
“The reason she never saw that baby was because it wasn’t dead, was it, Ruby?”
Ruby spluttered over her glass.
“Was that a yes, Ruby?”
Pearls of sweat formed on Ruby’s brow.
“What did you do with that baby, Ruby?”
Silence.
“I’m not from the police, and Officer Fielding is outside in the garden. I just want to know where that child is.”
“Well, I….”
Ruby Singleton got up so suddenly that her chair fell sideways.
The back door slammed. Barbara pretended she had just come back in. She could not risk being caught eavesdropping, so she came into the living-room and announced the all clear. Ruby ignored both Barbara and the fallen chair and toddled over to a bureau – an old-fashioned one with a writing flap and secret drawers. From one of them she took out a small notebook. Her fascination for order had compelled her to document every baby that had gone through her hands. She tried to appear sober and efficient.
“When did you say that was, Cleo?”
“6 or 7 years ago.”
“A little boy went to a couple called Johnston.”
“What do you mean by ‘went to’, Ruby?”
The alcohol had loosened Ruby’s tongue and lowered her level of caution, but not so far that she would admit the whole truth. Mrs Singleton was drunk, but she wasn’t stupid.
“Babies are safe with me,” she said.
“If you would just give me the address, I won’t bother you any longer.”
To Cleo’s surprise, Ruby ripped the page out of the little book and handed it over. Barbara watched the woman return the book to its hidey-hole before gulping down yet more of her potent drink before trying to justify herself.
“Tomorrow,” said Ruby. “That phone-call…”
“I’ll be gone by then, Ruby,” said Barbara. Singleton would be given space to complete her deal before the police stepped in. Barbara was glad that Gary had explained to her what was really at stake.
The officer witnessed Ruby being quite gracious in a drunken sort of way as she showed Cleo to the door and went with her down the garden path to make sure she left the premises. Barbara quickly opened the secret slat in the bureau and slipped the little book into an inside uniform pocket. Mrs Singleton would not notice it was missing for a while. By then Barbara would have photocopied the contents. Cleo would know how to deal with that record of Singleton’s criminal activities.
***
Back on the pavement and leaving the inebriated Mrs Singleton to totter back into the bungalow, Cleo reflected that the woman did not realize just how helpful she had been. Wasn’t that phone-call Ruby had received notice of an impending birth? She was in no fit state to deliver a baby now, or ever if she was fortifying herself with gin all the time. Stories of drunken midwives sprang to Cleo’s mind. Was that a preferred way of dealing with a brutally hard job?
***
Cleo phoned Gary to warn him about that promised ‘delivery’ the following day. Barbara knew about it and would have to leave soon. Cleo hoped that Barbara had used Ruby’s escort to the road to pocket the tell-tale notebook, it would be a good source for other misdeeds committed by the corrupt midwife. A quick text from Barbara confirmed that she had indeed take possession of what would prove to contain damning evidence against Singleton.
If Singleton was in danger, that was hard luck. Her forthcoming deal must not be thwarted. Ruby Singleton would not go through with the deal unless she felt it was safe to do so. That was Cleo’s only explanation of why she had not been caught long ago.
Akbari probably held the purse strings of that enterprise. Cleo suspected that he would turn up for his share in the deal after the baby was sold unless he had been paid in advance.
Gary wished Cleo’s words had been his. As it was, he had no alternative but to do as she requested, so Barbara received a phone-call with new instructions. She explained to Ruby that the prowler had been arrested so she had a new assignment to go to. Ruby’s relief that the officer was leaving did not escape Barbara. Mrs Singleton was definitely up to something. Gary was alarmed by the urgency in Barbara’s voice and despite himself irritated by her confirmation of Cleo’s report. An anonymous looking car would follow Singleton’s car to wherever she went to deliver the baby. She was on no account to be stopped and controlled.
Armed with the knowledge that Ruby Singleton kept a record of all births she had attended and presumably all ‘adoptions’ she had managed, Gary would soon have more than enough evidence to go to the court of appeal and ask for the Alice Crane case to be reopened.
On Cleo’s advice and considering Barbara’s urgent reaction to the situation, Gary would wait until the Singleton mission had run its course. If Cleo was right, it would be Mrs Singleton’s last, but it could not be ruled out that Akbari had the same idea, so the woman was in acute danger whatever transpired.
Having Roger back in the boat was probably the best thing that could have happened to him, Gary decided as they chatted in the archive, where Roger was painstakingly thumbing through countless older case files that had not yet been scanned and sorted into digital files. Roger agreed that it would be a shame not to wait a few hours so as to catch Singleton in the act of misappropriating a baby.
Barbara had watched Mrs Singleton anxiously consulting her mobile phone and asked for her number in case there was an emergency. Mrs Singleton had not smelt a rat. The phone was located and Singleton’s calls were being recorded. It was unlikely that Ruby Singleton would switch it off since she was dependent on it for up to date instructions. Gary hoped that it would be possible to locate everyone involved in the deal, including the mother of the as yet unborn child. But until Gary gave orders to move in, there must be no action. The unmarked car was the only other actor for the moment.
Hilda Bone phoned Cleo to rebuke her for not telling her that she was visiting the Singletons and ask what the policewoman was doing there. Had Cleo met her there by prior arrangement?
Cleo had not subsequently called on Hilda, since Singleton was not to know that Hilda Bone was in contact with her. The problem was that although Hilda’s snooping was useful, the conclusions she had hitherto drawn from it were fictive. It took a fair amount of imaginative storytelling to convince Hilda that she had been to Singleton’s for a different reason and it had been a coincidence that she met the policewoman, who was investigating possible burglars and stalkers in the area. On no account did she want to deter Hilda from believing in the smuggling of exotic animals, but Hilda’s curiosity about Cleo’s activities did not end there.  
“I never saw a stalker,” she retorted.
“Well there was one, and he has been caught.”
Hilda was put out that she had missed something.
“And you went next door because of the stalker?”
“I never said that,” said Cleo, who was now certain that Hilda Bone had got pretty well everything mixed up in her mind.
“But that woman is up to something,” Hilda said.
Was Hilda determined to be in at the kill? It sounded like that.
“Have you seen something, Hilda?” Cleo asked her. “Because we arranged that you would call me if you did.”
“Well, not exactly. It’s been days since anything exciting happened.”
“It might not stay that way, Hilda. Phone me immediately you spot something. It could be a matter of life and death.”
“Oooh, snakes again. We don’t like snakes, do we?” said Hilda. “Sneaky creatures, snakes, and silent a the grave. They don’t make a sound. They just creep up on you and bite.”
“Or strangle you, Hilda.”
Hilda promised to keep to instructions in future.
A few minutes after that phone-call, Ruby Singleton left the house, driving herself in the family saloon. Hilda reported that to Cleo immediately, but it wasn’t long before Gary also rang Cleo to say that Ruby had of course been followed and was now at a house in Mossfield Street, a notorious location in Middlethumpton. Anyone who went to Mossfield Street was up to no good.
Roger said he would drive to Mossfield Street himself and watch what went on. No one knew his new car there. His golf-clubs were in the back s the car looked private.
Gary took time to continue tracing Sybil Garnet, who might now be going by the name of Barnet. There is no universal registration in the UK, which makes it harder to find people who want to vanish. Armed with the information that her parents probably still lived somewhere in the Home Counties, he struck lucky. Some people called Barnet ran a smallholding on the road to Winchester, which Cleo only remembered from a Beatles song. Gary assured her that the cathedral was not a figment of a lyricist’s imagination.
“It’s quite a long trip,” he told her, “but we could drive there and back tomorrow. We can safely leave Singleton to Barbara and Roger.”
“OK,” said Cleo. “You’re on. The sooner we find Anna’s mother, the better.”
“It’s quite a long shot, Cleo. Don’t build up too many hopes.”
***
During daylight hours there was no development in the Singleton case. Ruby had not stayed all day at the house in Mossfield Street. She had also gone shopping and returned home laden. She spent the rest of the day doing the garden. Babies take their time, and presumably this one was in no hurry.
Hilda watched Mrs Singleton pottering in her garden, venturing for a time into her own back yard to engage her in idle conversation. There was no love lost between them. Ruby was ebullient. She had been drinking again.
Roger knocked on the door of the house Ruby Singleton had visited the previous day and improvised the reason for his visit by asking if he could visit Ruby. Laughter greeted his request, which was hardly surprising, seeing that Ruby was the midwife they knew by that name and certainly not one of the oriental beauties. An overpowering smell of burning incense, what he could see of quite opulent furnishings, and a couple of orientally adorned females propping up the bar confirmed the establishment’s reputation.
***
After politely refusing the invitation to indulge in an oriental massage, Roger left them to the trade they were plying and was quite relieved to be back on the main road into the city centre. He thought Ted Beasley might be interested in what went on there, since there was probably no record of a license to use the premises other than as a private dwelling. Quite often, those little dens of iniquity were also small cogs in the larger wheels of smuggling and other criminal activities. Ted thanked Roger for the tip and said he would take a personal interest in the goings-on.
“Not too personal, Ted,” said Roger, amused by the turn of phrase.
“Coincidence. I’m doing a turn observing that address,” said Ted.
“Doing a turn, Ted? I’ve never heard it called that.”
“I’ve never done a turn hiding behind a hedge, either,” said Ted.
“That kind of turn may not be a coincidence, Ted. Gary is putting pressure on all of us.”
“About time too,” said Ted.
“If someone comes out with a baby, probably in a wicker basket, can you trail them, Ted? It’s probably the midwife, a woman named Singleton.”
“Certainly. I’m in the picture on that.”
“I’ll send you a photo of Ruby Singleton now. We suspect her of delivering and then stealing babies.”
“Such as one in Mossfield Street?”
“Yes,” said Roger. “The baby is presumably taking its time and may also be unwanted if the mother is another of the oriental girls propping up the bar. But that wouldn’t make it any less of a crime to steal it, would it?”
“No, of course not. Unwanted babies have to go through adoption processes,” said Ted.
“Is it also possible that an Iranian Guy named Malik Akbari could be hiding out there, Ted? Do you know him or anything about him?”
“No, but we can’t rule that out. Once a place is run as a den of iniquity, there’s usually no end to the variety and versatility of its incumbents.”
“Never a wiser word! Your vice squad has a seedy job, Ted.”
“How did you get onto the case, Roger, I thought you were taking early retirement?”
“So did I. Gary roped me in.”
“So you know all about the Daniels’ business, too.”
“Yes. A bit of a black smudge on my CV, Ted. I was around when Daniels was suspected of violence years ago. I should have done more to haul him in,” said Roger.
“Better late than never.”
“If battered wives could be persuaded to tell the truth, we’d be better off.”
“I expect your own experience still hurts, doesn’t it?”
“I wasn’t battered and I didn’t batter,” protested Roger.
Roger was indignant. He could not shake off the feeling that he was being blamed for his wife’s criminal energy. Being accused of abuse was much too near home, and certainly unwarranted.
“Let’s get this clear, Ted! I did not batter Elinor.”
“Sorry. I meant the humiliation.”
“And embarrassment!”
“Put it all behind you, Roger. It’s good to have you working with us.”
“It’s good to be back, Ted.”
“While we’re talking, I have to tell you that I’ll be leaving the drugs team soon.”
“Why? Airport security, Roger. A top job and a fat salary.”
"Congratulations,Ted!"
“I’ll be indebted to the experiences in the drug squad here, Roger, but it’s all starting to fall apart. Those colleagues of mine are losing interest.”
“I hope Gary cam sort it out when he takes over,” said Roger-
“And when will that be?”
“Ask him, Ted. I’ve offered him the job and he’s dithering.”

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