She tried to keep the pictures out of her mind, of a further body – or even bodies – being found in another property.
‘Keep me informed, Alex,’ was all she said, but he sensed that she was disturbed.
Tuesday morning
The team was assembled and arrived at the house in Bayston Hill at nine o’clock. To their relief there were no journalists and no more than a passing interest from the other inhabitants of the road. They’d offered to move Mrs Mistery to a hotel for a few days but she would have none of it. ‘Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘Miss out on all the fun? This’ll probably be the only murder investigation I’ll ever be involved in. This is my moment of fame. Go to a hotel? You must be joking. I’m staying put and what’s more, if some of my very dear friends want to come to tea, which I’m sure they will, I shall invite them.’
Hughes and his team looked at one another, shrugged and carried on with their work, certain that a steady stream of elderly ladies would be observing what they could through Mrs Mistery’s patio doors.
Luckily the ground wasn’t still frozen. The slabs of concrete were heavy and they stacked them neatly against the fence. It took them all day to remove all the stones and underneath was a concrete level, which would take all the next day to take up with the help of a percussion hammer. Hughes swallowed a smile as he saw a rim of bird-like faces watching him through the window. See what the old biddies made of the noise of that. The building work, he noted, had been done very thoroughly. By four the light was going. They set up arc lights (another disturbance for the inquisitive women).
At six p.m. there was a briefing with plenty to report.
WPC Delia Shaw related the conversation she’d had with Plumley. ‘I’m just waiting for his call back,’ she said, ‘with the address Mrs Isaac moved to when she left the house in The Mount. He absolutely insists that no one had an unaccompanied viewing at number 41,’ she added.
Talith related the odd behaviour of Aaron Sedgewick at the Mount the previous afternoon, then Randall picked up the threads of the investigation of what lay underneath the patio stones in Bayston Hill. Could the baby have been kept there and moved? Were there other bodies?
‘We’ll know a bit more when we see what SOCO unearth,’ he said. ‘They’re still lifting the patio as we speak.’
Plumley rang back just as Delia Shaw was putting her coat on. ‘I’ve got the details you want.’ He rattled off an address in Birmingham.
‘Do you have a telephone number?’
There was the sound of papers rustling and Plumley gave her a Birmingham landline. She glanced at the phone. It was seven o’clock. She was already late.
She dialled the number anyway.
TWELVE
A man answered the phone and listened politely as she spoke. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I had read something about a child’s body being found in a house in Shrewsbury but I had no idea that the house in question was my mother’s.’
‘Is there any possibility,’ Delia suggested tentatively, ‘that I could come down and speak to you about the property?’
‘Of course,’ he said, sounding surprised, ‘though I can’t see that I can help you in any way. You do know my mother died a couple of years ago?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s OK. She was elderly. She didn’t suffer. Her last couple of years with us were happy. The children got to know her. No regrets. Anyway, I’m around tomorrow if that’s any good.’
‘Yes – that would be really convenient.’
‘OK. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’ He sounded buoyant, unconcerned.
Innocent, she decided. ‘About eleven?’
‘That’ll be fine.’
‘Thank you,’ she said and hung up.
At least, Delia Shaw thought, as she switched the light off and left the room, now she too would have some contribution to make to the case.
Maliciously Roddie Hughes started the noisy work digging up the concrete at seven a.m. the following morning and was rewarded by a sleepy looking Mrs Mistery drawing back the curtains and looking slightly less delighted at being at the centre of a crime drama. They had also spoilt her fun by erecting a screen right around the small patio which completely blocked her view. They did not want Mrs Mistery’s geriatric gang of mates witnessing their activities, drinking cups of tea, pointing fingers and generally mischief-making.
He and the team worked steadily, lifting the concrete until they had exposed the underlying hardcore, finally exposing the soil.
They had almost finished this task when Shotton returned, bringing Holmes and Watson with him. As soon as they were out of the van, the dogs scampered towards the patio, eagerly pressing their noses to the newly exposed earth. They concentrated their attention over practically the same spot as before, yelping excitedly, wagging their tails and waiting for their reward. The SOCO team looked at one another.
They had a hit.
The M6 was its usual nightmare and WPC Delia Shaw worried that she would arrive late for her appointment with the Isaacs, but in the event, with the luck of a sudden clearing of the traffic and the aid of her Satnav she pulled up outside their house only a few minutes after eleven, having left a message at the station to let them know where she was going.
Mrs Isaac’s son lived in a similar house to the one his mother had inhabited, a large detached Victorian property near the centre of Moseley Village, a stylish suburb two miles south of Birmingham’s city centre. It was an area with its own character, a village green, shops and cafes, both bohemian and cosmopolitan, reminiscent of Greenwich Village, New York.
Two saloon cars stood in the driveway and the door was opened to her as soon as she knocked. The Isaacs were ready for her. They welcomed her warmly into a large, cosy kitchen, bright with cream bespoke units and amply warmed by an Aga. PC Shaw thanked them for seeing her and reassured them that no suspicion fell on either them or the late Mrs Isaac. They sat companionably around a kitchen table, a cafetière of coffee supplying the dual purpose of scenting the room and providing refreshment. Paul Isaac was a tall, dark-haired man in his fifties. Rebecca Isaac was quite a lot younger than her husband, maybe in her thirties, Delia noted. She was also heavily pregnant.
Paul Isaac spoke first. ‘I really can’t see how we can help you.’
PC Shaw gave them both a disarming smile. ‘It’s a very puzzling case and we feel we would like to get to the bottom of it,’ she said. ‘We haven’t really got any substantial leads so we’re clutching at straws.’ Another of her wide smiles. ‘Hence the trip down the M6 to see you. So anything – absolutely anything that you can think of – even if it appears irrelevant to the case, might just be the tip we need.’ Her smile was returned by both of them.
Paul Isaac spoke first. ‘It’s difficult for us to think of anything that can possibly have any bearing on your case,’ he said. ‘It was about eight years ago now that we brought mother to live with us. She was getting a little forgetful, a bit frail and we thought it safer to keep her under our eye. The house in Shrewsbury is a big place. Far too big for her. She couldn’t really manage it, even with help.’
‘What help?’ WPC Shaw asked sharply.
‘She had a lady come in in the mornings for a couple of hours,’ Rebecca said.
Delia Shaw drew out her notebook. ‘Her name and address?’
‘Maisie somebody,’ Rebecca said vaguely. ‘I can’t remember her surname. She lived somewhere on Castlefields. I probably threw away her contact details years ago – after mother died.’ She glanced quickly at her husband. ‘But she can’t have had anything to do with a baby. She was well into her fifties.’ Her hands brushed her swollen stomach.
‘How did your mother-in-law find her?’