The Sleeping and the Dead

‘Couldn’t we be talking a random nutter?’ The contribution came from Charlie Luke, who’d been sitting in the front row, his brow furrowed with concentration throughout the presentation. He had the build and squashed features of a boxer. Approaching middle-age he was still a constable and would remain one. No one was quite sure how he’d slipped through the assessment process to get into the service. Claire dismissed him as having the IQ of a gnat, but Porteous didn’t care and rather liked him. He was dogged and did what he was told. He didn’t let the job get under his skin. Beer and sport would always be more important.

‘Nothing’s ever completely random, is it, Luke? The killer must have met these young people somewhere. Their paths crossed even if he only came across them opportunistically, if he had no other motive than the thrill of killing. It should be possible to learn something about the pattern of his life from theirs.’

Luke seemed bewildered by the concept but he nodded enthusiastically.

‘Of course,’ Porteous went on, ‘we’ve already discovered one connection between Theo Randle and Melanie Gillespie…’ He turned towards Stout who was already rising to his feet. ‘Eddie, perhaps you’d like to tell us that part of the story.’

‘Hannah Morton,’ Stout said. ‘Maiden name Hannah Meek. She works as a librarian in Stavely nick. She’s recently separated from Jonathan, who’s deputy head of a high school on the coast, the high school where Melanie Gillespie was a student. There’s one daughter, Rosalind, aged eighteen, still living at home and waiting to go to university. On the surface you couldn’t find anyone more respectable than Mrs Morton. Anyone less likely to commit murder. But she did know both victims.

‘We were already interested in Mrs Morton before the Gillespie murder. She was Theo’s girlfriend, the love, she thought, of his life. She caught him…’ Stout hesitated, seemed to be searching for an appropriate euphemism.

‘Shagging?’ Luke suggested helpfully.

‘Quite.’ Still Stout couldn’t bring himself to say the word: ‘… the young actress who played Lady Macbeth. They were together by Cranford Water after an end-of-performance party. That’s the last record we have of the boy alive. Mrs Morton claims he phoned her the following day but after all this time it’s impossible to check.’

Stout paused. ‘She has a surprisingly clear recollection of all the details. That, in itself, raises suspicion. She didn’t tell us about Theo two-timing her until she knew we’d find out anyway. She was stage manager for the school play so she’d have access to the dagger which could well have been the murder weapon. She had motive and opportunity. There’s no one else in the frame.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘But I don’t see it. I don’t see her as the sort of person who’d stab the boy she was in love with, tie an anchor round his body and hoy him in the lake. I certainly don’t see her living with herself for thirty years afterwards-’

‘Unless she’d repressed the memory,’ Luke interrupted. He looked round as if he expected congratulation from his colleagues for the contribution. When none came he added defensively, ‘Well, it happens. I saw this programme on the telly… And when the boy’s body was dredged up from the lake perhaps it all came back.’ He looked at Porteous for help.

‘You’d have to ask a psychiatrist,’ Porteous said. ‘Not my field.’ Recognizing the irony of the words as he spoke.

‘Unless she repressed the memory,’ Stout said impatiently. ‘But then why kill Melanie Gillespie? She had a motive for killing Randle, but none at all for murdering the girl. Melanie couldn’t have been a witness to the first murder. She couldn’t be any threat.’

‘How did Mrs Morton know Melanie?’ Claire Wright asked.

‘Melanie and Rosalind Morton were best friends. They went to the same school. Hannah met Melanie when Rosalind had friends to the house.’

‘Quite a tenuous connection then.’

Porteous, who’d been leaning against a table at the front of the room, stood up to answer.

‘Quite tenuous,’ he said. ‘And as Eddie’s said, Hannah Morton has no motive for the Gillespie murder. She does, however, have opportunity.’

He picked up the remote control and another slide was projected. It showed a narrow footpath with a stone wall on one side and a hawthorn hedge on the other. The footpath was crossed with blue and white tape. ‘Melanie’s body was found wrapped in black plastic at the bottom of the hedge.’

He clicked the remote and there was a shot of a lay-by on a main road, the entrance to the footpath. ‘Melanie wasn’t killed where she was found. The murderer must have parked here and carried the body the fifty yards or so to where it was dumped. We’ve already said she was anorexic so she wasn’t heavy. But not a pleasant job. It would have taken nerve.’

Another click and the footpath was seen from a different angle, so it was possible to see over the stone wall to a row of headstones.