She moved closer to inspect the kitchen garden gates. There was no sign that they had been forced open. Someone had used a key.
As yet, Carole didn’t speculate as to who that someone might have been. She was still too numb, too much in shock, to think of attributing blame for Sheila’s murder. And, even though logic dictated that the weapon which killed her had been an old service revolver, Carole did not let her traumatized mind form the thought.
Uncertain what she was expecting, she looked fearfully towards the spot where the skeleton had been unearthed less than a fortnight before. There was nothing to see. No boxing-in with fabric structures, no police tape. So far as she could tell in the gloom of the wall’s shadow, the ground where the body had lain had been neatly raked over. Whatever official investigations were still going on into that death, they were no longer taking place at the scene of the crime.
Sheila’s great triumph, she thought, had been delaying the announcement of that little titbit to the hungry press.
But as Carole Seddon turned to face the approaching headlights of the police car, she didn’t somehow think any amount of influence with the Chief Constable was going to allow Sheila Cartwright’s own murder to be kept quiet for long.
The police were very calming, and tried the make the process of questioning as gentle as possible. Carole was taken back to the Administrative Office, where Gina Locke had reappeared. The small, dark woman seemed to have grown in stature, a model of efficiency as she showed round and answered the questions of the investigating officers. The news of her predecessor’s death had lifted a cramping shadow from her, instantly providing her with the space into which she could expand in her role as Director of Bracketts.
It was Gina who suggested that the police take over the outer office used by her secretary as a temporary centre for their operations, and it was there that Carole Seddon was questioned. She had the sensation of only being half-there. The death of Sheila Cartwright felt as though it had taken place in a different existence, and yet Carole’s watch told her less than an hour had elapsed since she had made her call to the police.
There was a plain-clothes male detective and a uniformed WPC. They punctiliously gave their names, but the information did not take any grip on her shaken mind. She was in serious shock, and a part of her consciousness seemed to detach itself to observe the phenomenon. Come on, you’re Carole Seddon, it urged, you’re the ultimately sensible person. In your Home Office career, you were respected for your control and objectivity. You shouldn’t be disoriented by the sight of a little blood.
But she had been. Of that there was no doubt. And the detached part of her wondered whether her agitation might have been caused by her proximity to Sheila Cartwright at the moment of death. Had the bullet strayed only a couple of feet to the left, it would have been Carole Seddon lying face-down in the mud. Perhaps that knowledge had caused the coldness and the involuntary trembling that twitched through her body?
All she knew, as she went through the basics of her name, address and other personal information, was that she was not in control of the situation. Or of herself. And Carole hated not being in control.
The questioners, whose names she had so carelessly lost, asked her to describe the moment of Sheila Cartwright’s death, and her answers felt dismally inadequate. Why hadn’t she been concentrating? Why hadn’t she noticed the exact direction in which the victim had stumbled? Why hadn’t she looked back after the shot? Why hadn’t she run back towards the house to see if there was anyone about? Why hadn’t she listened for the sounds of a departing vehicle?
To be fair, this guilt-inducing tone of questioning was all her own. The police were much less hard on her, careful of her emotional state, grateful for the meagre titbits of recollection she could provide for them.
They took her gently back from the moment of murder to the events of earlier in the evening – the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting, the reasons for its calling, and the topics which had been discussed during it.
When asked to describe the business of the meeting, Carole felt an instinct for caution. Sheila Cartwright’s overbearing manner had been particularly insulting to Gina Locke and Graham Chadleigh-Bewes. Wasn’t giving the police a blow-by-blow account of this tantamount to providing them with two murder suspects?
But Carole was too traumatized to cope with duplicity. She could only tell the unspun truth. And, after all, she was giving information which the police would be getting soon enough from some other source. What did it matter?
The male detective indicated the end of the interview by saying, ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Seddon. You’ve been most helpful, and we much appreciate your frankness, at a time which must be very difficult for you. I’m afraid, inevitably, as our investigations continue, we will need to talk to you further, and I apologize for that now. Given the circumstances of the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting you’ve just described, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to avoid discussion of this evening’s events with any member of the press. All media contact will be handled by the police.’
‘Of course.’
‘Finally, Mrs Seddon, there’s one thing I do have to ask you. Though we await forensic confirmation, it would appear that what you witnessed tonight was a violent crime against Mrs Cartwright. Can you think of anyone who might possibly have had a motive to kill the lady?’
Given the direct question, some of Carole’s customary circumspection returned. ‘Sheila Cartwright had a very strong personality. She had her own ways of doing things, particularly so far as Bracketts was concerned. She seemed to regard this place as her personal fiefdom. As a result, she did tend to put a lot of backs up. But whether annoyance at Sheila’s manner would be a sufficient reason for someone actually to kill her –’ Carole shrugged ‘– I have no idea.’
‘No. Well, thank you very much indeed, Mrs Seddon.’
‘Now do you think you feel all right to drive yourself home?’ asked the WPC solicitously.
‘Yes. I was very shaken, but I feel a lot better now.’
‘We could easily make arrangements for . . .’
‘No. No, thank you, I’ll be fine.’
As the detective led her to the door, Carole could feel in his body language the urgency to be rid of her and move on to the next interview, but that didn’t stop her from asking, ‘Would you imagine there’s a connection between Sheila Cartwright’s death and the discovery of the body in the kitchen garden?’
He smiled indulgently. ‘Mrs Seddon, even if I knew the answer to that question, you know I wouldn’t tell you. We are very early into the investigation of tonight’s tragic event. Far too early to be making the kind of connections you suggest.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ said Carole, as she left the Administrative Office.
But there was no doubt in her own mind that there was a connection between the two deaths.
Chapter Twenty-Six
In the short time she had been talking to the police, the area around the kitchen garden gates had been transformed. Floodlights, a battery of vehicles and equipment now surrounded the scene. And a white, tent-like structure had already been erected over the dead body of Sheila Cartwright.
A polite policeman in a bright yellow waterproof escorted her to the car park. This was only partly, she knew, from solicitude. His main purpose was to make sure that she did actually leave the premises.