Chapter 23: A Tangled Web

0600 hrs. Friday 12th April. 27 Castle Road, Bury St Edmunds.

DAY 12

I woke to the sight of Molly stepping into her knickers, which was nearly as arousing as watching her stepping out of her knickers. She saw I was awake and further woke me with a searching tongued kiss.

“If we go in early we can hit the gym and then have breakfast together before you start work,” she said after I reluctantly disengaged from her and started to get dressed. A swift swill and I was ready with my training kit. Molly drove us to Thurston Hall and it was a temptation not to keep running my hand up her smooth bare leg and under her shorts. As we walked from the car to the gym I took her hand and she gave me that wonderful smile of hers. We were hand in hand when entering the gym and Janice Rawlins saw us.

“The lovebirds have landed,” she said. Molly kissed me and went into the women’s changing room and me into the men’s.

Several others were hitting the gym early that morning and I was surprised to see the two PCSOs, Liza with a zed and Gloria, among them. They both wore leotards and both had supple and well-formed bodies. Molly and Janice joined them and I – after filling my eyes for several delightful minutes with their sexy bodies in motion -- got back to pumping iron instead of sprouting wood. An hour later, showered and in my suit, I walked up the stairs to the canteen with Molly. On entering the room I noted Vicky at her payment kiosk was wearing a chiffon scarf around her neck, and a smile that informed me she was getting a really good seeing to.

Marcel appeared at our side. “A table for two is it, Molly?” He led us to the secluded table where Maddy and I used to meet and he remembered. “Oh, there’s a better table over...”

“This one is fine, Marcel,” Molly said but she was looking at me when she spoke. I nodded and we sat down at the table. I had the Full Monty breakfast and Molly had wheaty bangs, and a cheese and bacon omelette.

“I know this is the table where you and Michelle sat,” she said after we had finished eating. “Does it bother you to sit here with me?”

“It doesn’t bother me so long as it doesn’t bother you.” We exchanged smiles.

“Liza and Gloria send their love,” Molly said. “You are certainly are top of the pops with that pair. They said when I get tired of you to pass you onto them. I said they would be too old to do anything with you if ever that time should come.” She leaned across the table and kissed me. “There, now everyone at the Hall will know we are an item.”

“And I will be the envy of every red-blooded man here,” I said and returned her kiss with interest.

She stood up from the table, a smile lighting up her face and the room. “Marcel and I have to discuss menus for the coming month. I will let you get on, but give me a call when you’re ready to go home. We have some unfinished business to attend to in the bedroom, and at various other venues, at number twenty-seven Castle Road.”

Bill Clark was the sole occupant when I entered the CID room.

“Is Sammy at Marley Manor?” I asked.

“Yes, and I will be joining her in half an hour. Some of the names on the list of workers at the manor have raised flags, and she and I are going to have to interview all fifteen of them.”

“Where’s the DI?” I said looking towards her empty office. “She will want to know how I’m getting on with interviewing Eloise Donizetti.”

“I haven’t seen her since yesterday afternoon when we saw her smooching with Bruno.”

Just then my mobile chirped with an incoming text from DI Warren. I read the message and frowned. “She says she forgot to tell me yesterday that she has a meeting in Cambridge this morning and won’t be in until eleven. The DI is usually very good at keeping me up to speed with what she’s doing. Did she mention anything to you about a meeting?”

“No, Sarge, but I expect...”

At that moment his mobile beeped with an incoming text message. He read it and grinned. “Mystery solved. Bruno’s texted to say his car has thrown a wobbly and he won’t be in until about eleven. They must have overslept!”

“You mean they...”

“You saw them yesterday. They must have spent the night going at it hammer and tongs, probably at Bruno’s pad in Stowmarket.”

“Good for them,” I said, “but I have to interview Eloise.”

“You’ve made up your mind to destroy Kate’s blackmail letter?”

“Yes, unless something happens at the interview to change my mind. I will have to shred the photos and letter in front of Eloise. Have we a document shredder handy?”

Bill nodded.” Yes, there’s one in the stationery cupboard. It can only manage one sheet at a time so it’s quite portable.”

I picked up the shredder and made my way to the custody suite. The sergeant on duty wasn’t the jobsworth of the afternoon before and I was soon in the interrogation room awaiting Eloise.

She arrived looking not quite as pristine as the day before but still in a smart and presentable condition. Although Thurston Hall’s custody suite was far more luxurious than the cells in a police station it was not the Hilton either, and even in Thurston Hall’s custody suite most people looked the worse for wear after being banged up for the night.

Eloise greeted me with a smile that looked a trifle forced. “Are all the recording devices switched off in the observation room, Ajay?”

I held up the key. “The room is locked and all devices switched off as per yesterday’s agreement.” Before she asked me I unbuttoned my shirt, and then removed my mobile phone from my jacket and placed it on the table.

“You have a well-toned body, Ajay,” Eloise murmured and dragged her nails lightly across my chest. I shuddered, whether in pleasure or revulsion I couldn’t say. “We have time for some recreational sex. No one can see or hear us in here and I know you are gagging for me.” Eloise wore the same wrap-around dress as the day before and she unfastened the cloth tie, allowing the dress to fall open. She wore nothing beneath other than a pair of black holdup stockings and high heeled FM shoes. She had a body to die for. Creamy skin, thrusting breasts with nipples as red and as large as loganberries, a trim waist and a smooth shaved pudenda.

I knew Eloise was softening me up before the interview, although there was one part of my anatomy that was as stiff as a poker. However, that was due to an unconditional reflex action and had nothing to do with me. A week earlier, I would have jumped at the chance to jump Eloise’s bones but now I had Molly who was all the woman. I would ever want. ‘What about Maddy?’ asked my inner angel, or it may have been my inner devil. I ignored the voice and Eloise’s invitation.

“Business before pleasure, Eloise,” I said firmly and refastened my shirt. She made a moue but retied her dress and sat back in her chair. “But before we carry on with business please explain why Betty Smith’s body was embalmed; something to do with Health and Safety you said?”

She nodded. “Yes, Fowler’s was due a Health and Safety inspection. They arrive unannounced and check the refrigeration system of the cold store is working correctly, that our embalming fluid is stored safely, and that all our documentation regarding the ‘guests’ we have on-site are in order, plus a host of other pettifogging bureaucratic nonsense. We are informed in which week the inspectors will arrive but not the date or time. Betty was stashed in one of the six cold stores in the mortuary, but there were no documents relating to her as I had been awaiting delivery of banknotes. It was only when I knew the destination of a consignment, usually Cracow but sometimes Lodz, that Ashby could forge the necessary export licence. Betty had already been exsanguinated, so we embalmed her and hid her in Ashby’s flat; actually in his bed. Ashby was in his element for the week she was his guest. It was only when you made your second visit that I worried the Police might search the premises. Betty would have been dispatched when the next batch of banknotes was delivered but unfortunately your snooping around the Funeral Home necessitated me dumping her body. Ashby made the cock-up of getting rid of her and deserves everything he gets.”

“But why didn’t you embalm her at the same time as you exsanguinated her, that is standard practice is it not?”

“My, my, Ajay, you certainly have been boning- up on the subject. Yes, that is the usual procedure when embalming corpses but then the blood is contaminated with embalming fluid. There are some toxic chemicals in embalming fluid, including formaldehyde, which is not something you would wish to have on your skin.” Her smile was evil personified.

“So the rumours are true?”

“What rumours?”

“The rumours that you and your mother bathe in blood to keep your skin looking young.”

“We do not bathe in blood. It is mixed with lanolin, balsam, and various herbs and unguents to make a lotion. The recipe for the lotion has been handed down the female side of the Lazouche family since the eighteenth century, and in time I will hand it on to my granddaughters. I could make a fortune selling the lotion if I didn’t have to name every ingredient in each bottle; people are so squeamish!”

Well, I had my answer as to why Betty Smith had been embalmed, so got back to the business in hand.

[It was much later that it occurred to me Betty Smith might have been alive when exsanguinated! A person’s blood is pumped through their body by the action of their heart. However, blood in a corpse begins to coagulate in less than half an hour after the heart ceases working and will not flow freely from out of the body without external aid. It is the embalming fluid being pumped into a body that forces out the congealing blood from a corpse.]