Turning Nasty (Anna McColl Mystery Series Book 4) Read online

  Turning Nasty

  Penny Kline

  © Penny Kline 1999

  Penny Kline has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1995 by Macmillan.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter One

  One glance and I had the man typecast. Shaved head. Rolled-up jeans. A row of tattoos on his thick, muscular neck. Someone who was happy to be identified as a right-wing extremist, a racist, possibly a member of The Party. His dog, a cross between a bull terrier and something with longer, hairier legs, crouched in the gutter, relieving itself. A moment later, as I waited for a break in the traffic, the man snapped his fingers and the creature darted to his side, nose pressed against his master’s boot. I watched them dodge between several hooting cars, then disappear into the park.

  At the time it never occurred to me that there was any particular reason for the man being there, in that particular part of Bristol, at that particular time.

  Someone had parked in my space, not that any of the spaces in the Psychology Service car park were sacrosanct, but for a creature of habit like me this minor event contributed to a bad start to the day. Monday morning. A tricky client at eleven, and before that Janice and Trev, a married couple who had been preying on my mind all weekend. They were worried about their seven-year-old son — or were they? Janice was the more articulate of the two, but when Trev managed to get a word in I had a feeling there was something he was trying to tell me, something Janice would prefer me not to know.

  Pushing in the aerial on my car I caught sight of a familiar figure, climbing out of his unmarked Escort, wrapping his arms around his chest in a half-hearted attempt to keep out the cold. He was wearing a dark grey suit, with narrow lapels, that looked virtually brand new. At least it was new to me.

  ‘Anna, thought it’d be a good time to catch you.’

  ‘Ten to nine on an icy Monday morning? What could be better?’

  He smiled, a brief twitch at one corner of his mouth. ‘Just a quick word. Won’t take a moment.’

  ‘How quick? Shall we go up to my office or would you prefer to stand here freezing to death?’

  ‘After you, Dr McColl.’ He held open the door, then thought better of it and pushed through ahead of me. ‘That’s what we have to call you now, right? How did it all turn out.’

  ‘Could be worse.’

  ‘A study of people who confess to crimes they haven’t committed? Sounds impressive.’

  I pulled a face. My eyes were level with the point between his shoulder blade. ‘That’s one of the ways clinical psychology’s going these days. We’re catching up with how they do things in the States.’

  ‘So you’ll be giving up on the patients, concentrating on the forensic angle.’

  I shook my head. ‘The clients’ll still come first.’

  We were passing Reception, where Heather stood warming her hands on the ancient cast-iron radiator. When she saw Howard Fry she straightened up, then gave him one of her admiring beams.

  ‘Morning, Heather.’ He responded in like manner, turning on the charm. ‘All right?’

  ‘Fine thanks, Superintendent. And you?’

  The times I had told her. If he calls you Heather you call him by his Christian name too. Some hope. In any case, the silly smile on her face probably had more to do with the new man in her life, whom she kept insisting was ‘just a friend’.

  At the bottom of the stairs I glanced through the door at the deserted waiting room. The picture of a country cottage garden on the opposite wall had slipped to one side. Forget it. Someone — an obsessional client maybe — would soon put it straight. Since it was Monday my first clients were booked in at nine-thirty. That way I had time to acclimatize myself, read through my notes, get my head together so I could give the clients my undivided attention. Today it looked as though the precious half-hour would be taken up indulging Howard Fry’s new-found interest in the psychology of the criminal mind.

  Still, it could be just the opportunity I needed. A chance to propose a more formal link between us — a consultancy, an advisory role, something that could bring the Psychology Service some useful revenue.

  ‘Right, how can I help?’ I sat on the edge of my desk, hoping I was giving the impression that, even if the CID had time on its hands, there was no way I was going to settle down for a cosy chat.

  Howard remained standing, with his hands resting on the back of a chair. ‘One of your patients,’ he said slowly. ‘Clients. We call them clients.’

  His face was expressionless. He turned his back on me and moved towards the window. ‘Dr Margaret Hazeldean — I believe she had an appointment arranged for this afternoon.’

  ‘Yes, but how did you — ’

  He held up his hand. ‘You know her well?’

  ‘No, it’s her first appointment. We’ve never met.’

  As part of an economy drive Martin had set the heating to come on at eight forty-five. There was ice on the inside of the windows. The room smelled damp, musty, or it could have been the sickly scent of a blue hyacinth on the window sill that was struggling to produce one pale flower.

  ‘Too cold for it there,’ said Howard, stretching out an arm to lift the white ceramic pot, then holding it up to the light. ‘Should’ve been kept in the dark a few weeks longer.’

  ‘I know.’

  He replaced the plant, then turned to face me. ‘She’s dead,’ he announced. ‘Margaret Hazeldean. She was killed in a fire on Saturday night.’

  I found a chair. ‘Dead? What happened? God, that’s awful.’

  ‘She was living in Bishopston, up near the school. Not her own house. She was renting it — from someone else at the university.’

  I was thinking fast, trying to remember exactly when the appointment had been made. ‘How did you know she was coming to see me?’

  ‘They found the appointment card on a bedside cabinet. DI Barnes is in charge of the case but I said, since I was coming in this direction, I’d have a word with you. The fire started downstairs, just inside the front door. She’d been upstairs, having a bath. It was half full of soapy water. She was wearing a white towelling bathrobe — at least it had once been white. As far as we can tell she must have come down when she smelled smoke, then been overcome by fumes.’

  He glanced at the ugly, old-fashioned metal clock that helped the clients to pace themselves, monitor how much time they had left. ‘The owner of the house is in Melbourne,’ he said, ‘on some kind of exchange. He’d let it out while he was away. Incidentally, the fire was deliberate.’

  ‘Arson? You’re sure?’

  He nodded, brushing the cushion on one of the spare chairs as if he thought it might be covered in crumbs, then sitting down, his eyes never leaving my face. ‘At first we assumed it was an accident. Electrical fault. Cigarette end. But Fire Investigation collected samples, found petrol had been poured through the letter box. Not a large amount, even allow
ing for the fact that some of it had dripped through the floorboards, and in normal circumstances it might have started a fire but the flames would never have got a hold so fast. Unfortunately the front door opened straight into the living room. Six polyurethane foam seats had been pushed together to form a kind of L-shaped settee.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘She was dead when the fire engine arrived?’

  He nodded. ‘Didn’t stand a chance.’ ‘Why? Why would anyone… ’

  ‘For want of anything better we’re working on the theory it could be a racist reprisal. She worked with the Asian community. Helped run some kind of Saturday club for deprived kids.’

  ‘And that’s a reason to set light to her house?’

  He shrugged. ‘The victim of a revenge fire usually has a history of interpersonal or professional conflict with the offender. I doubt they intended to kill her. Just warn her off.’

  ‘So you don’t think whoever did it had been inside the house before? I mean, they wouldn’t have known about the foam-filled furniture near the front door.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Suddenly he sounded tired, depressed. I noticed his thick, dark red hair was starting to recede a little above the temples. It made him seem more human, less self-sufficient. Just because he was losing control of his hair?

  ‘Without that she’d probably still be alive,’ he said. ‘Listen, didn’t you once tell me your friend Owen Hughes had carried out some research into organized violence? Saturday night. Tanked up with booze. Those kind of yobs aren’t thinking rationally, they just act on the spur of the moment.’

  My skin felt cold. I had never met Margaret Hazeldean but Owen had. By now a colleague would have told him about the fire. The news would be spreading through the university.

  Howard took out a notebook, studied a couple of pages, then returned it to his inside pocket. ‘Of course, the racist angle’s the last thing we want with tension still running high over the drug raids. Anything involving ethnic minorities tends to attract unwelcome media interest.’

  ‘So you’d like someone to come up with a nice non-racist motive, neighbour with a grudge, kid obsessed with fire?’

  He looked up sharply and I regretted the hint of sarcasm in my voice. ‘Sorry. What I mean is, weren’t there any witnesses, someone who noticed a group of yobbos hanging about?’

  ‘It was dark. Around ten. Oh, just one more thing, d’you know if Owen was acquainted with the victim?’ The victim. Already she was becoming part of crime statistics. ‘I wonder if they’d worked together.’

  ‘No, they never did that. I believe he’s mentioned her once or twice.’

  ‘And he knew about the appointment. I suppose he was the one who suggested she came to see you?’

  ‘No, of course not. She rang up. Heather took the call.’

  ‘Did she ask for you by name?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Did she say why she wanted to see you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Certain. People who refer themselves very rarely do.’

  He was watching me closely, running a finger backwards and forwards across his lower lip, employing his usual technique for making me feel as if I was keeping something from him.

  ‘How much d’you know about her?’ I asked. Ten minutes ago I’d wished he’d leave. Now I wanted to find out as much as I could.

  ‘Very little, apart from the fact that she’d worked at the university since last September and was involved in research into children with behaviour problems.’ ‘Nothing about her private life?’

  ‘She was separated. One fifteen-year-old son. Father’s got custody.’

  ‘Poor kid. No, I mean losing his mother.’

  A faint smile crossed his face. ‘Yes, I thought that’s what you meant.’

  Outside in the car park Nick was chaining his bike to the rack. He looked up, but didn’t see me. His eyes were narrowed, cutting out the glare of the sun. He looked very small.

  ‘Nick’s mother’s in hospital,’ I said. Howard leaned across to look through the window. ‘Your colleague?’

  ‘She had a stroke on Friday. Nick hopes for her sake she never regains consciousness.’

  Howard made no comment, simply left a decent pause before he returned to the subject in hand. ‘So. You can’t help me very much. Never mind, there’s another reason I’m here. The Chief Superintendent though you might be able to advise us on interview techniques, finding the right balance, choosing the correct approach for particular types of offenders.’

  I opened my mouth but he continued talking. ‘Not now. In a week or two. In the meantime, if you hear anything about Dr Hazeldean you think might be of use to us…’

  ‘I’ll let you know. By the way, how’s your wife?’ I sounded cooler than I meant to. I felt cross, upset that he seemed to be taking Margaret Hazeldean’s death so calmly, and expecting me to do the same. ‘Is she glad to be back in Bristol, or does she miss the country?’

  He hesitated, clenching his jaw for a moment then assuming a tone of voice so relaxed he could almost have been dropping off to sleep. ‘Oh, that. It didn’t work out. She and Stuart are living with relatives. In Swansea as a matter of fact.’ ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Just one of those things.’ His eyes met mine for a fraction of a second, then he turned away, fiddling with the knot in his tie. ‘By the way, the double rapist — you remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘We picked him up last week and the psychological profile was wrong on pretty well every count, apart from the bad relationship with his mother.’

  ‘Don’t blame me.’

  He laughed. ‘You think you could’ve done better? Yes, well next time we’ll know where to come. Incidentally, there was one interesting thing the fire investigators reported. The victim had a brand new double bed that hadn’t even been taken out of its polythene cover, let alone had its legs screwed into place.’

  ‘Where did it come from?’

  His eyebrows moved a little. ‘Why d’you ask? Someone’s checking up on that. And the date of delivery.’

  *

  After he left I closed my eyes and tried to remember if Owen had pointed out Margaret Hazeldean to me on the campus. Maggie Hazeldean. She called herself Maggie. Had we met at the dreadful Christmas party? But she worked in a different department. Owen only knew her through a mutual friend who was another expert in child development. What was the friend’s name? I couldn’t remember him either. I had been speaking the truth when I said Owen knew nothing about the appointment. When Heather told me the name I had recognized it as that of someone Owen had mentioned now and again. A woman who had studied at the university as a mature student, then been lucky enough to find a job as a lecturer as soon as she completed her PhD. I’d been looking forward to meeting her. Now…

  I tried to push the fire out of my mind. Janice and Trevor Baker would be in the waiting room, Janice turning the pages of a glossy magazine, Trev walking backwards and forwards, looking at his watch. A couple in their late twenties, they had come to see me about Trev’s nervous rash. Then it had turned into wanting help with their sex life, except they both hated talking about sex. Then a different story, a new problem: they were worried about their son, Bradley. Janice worked part-time in a pet shop in Fishponds Road. Trev drove a van, delivering furniture. They both worked Tuesday to Saturday which made it easy for them to come and see me on Mondays, although I wondered what happened to the boy at the weekend.

  The last session had consisted of Janice, more in sorrow than anger, providing me with a list of Trev’s shortcomings and Trev muttering something about the temper he had inherited from his Uncle Kevin. None of it had rung true. Janice had said she though Trev was too hard on Bradley, punishing him by not letting him watch the telly, instead of trying to talk things over and explain why he had to put away his toys, or eat his tea, or ask permission before he borrowed his father’s body-building equipment. Trev thought it was Janic
e spoiling the boy that had led to all the trouble at school.

  Each of them spoke as if they had learned their lines before they came for the appointment, as if the whole conversation had been rehearsed ahead of time.

  I flicked through my notes, checking their ages, backgrounds, non-existent social life. There was something about them, something I found hard to put my finger on, a feeling of desperation, of being close to a crisis point that threatened to burst through the minor squabbles they allowed me to witness. They wanted to help Brad, that much I believed, and they thought a psychologist might be able to settle their disputes about child-rearing, but there was something else…

  The news about Margaret Hazeldean had thrown me. It was pure coincidence that the fire had taken place two days before she was due to see me. There could be any number of explanations for the arson attack, the most likely being that the fire-raisers were bored teenagers who wanted to see a fire engine arrive and were horrified that what had started as a bit of a joke had resulted in an innocent woman’s death.

  Why had she wanted to see a psychologist? There were so many possibilities it was pointless to speculate. In the course of their investigations the police might find out something that would provide a clue as to why she had made the appointment, but most likely the reason would never come to light — and, in any case, what difference did it make? I froze. Supposing the reason was far from irrelevant. Supposing someone had wanted to make sure she never had time to see me, never had a chance to tell me what was on her mind, or to pass on a particular piece of information.

  The Bakers were late. As I reached the waiting room they came through the front door, arguing in hushed voices. Brad’s teacher had wanted to have a word, then Janice had discovered she had left her purse at home and had to go back, then the front door had jammed and Trev couldn’t turn the key in the mortice lock, and the street where they lived was alive with petty criminals.

  Up in my room Trev moved his chair as far away from his wife as the size of my office allowed. He was dressed in the same shiny brown trousers, open-neck shirt and emerald green fleece jacket he had worn on each previous visit. Janice had the same grey jeans and purple sweatshirt. She was taller than Trev by about three inches. They arrived on foot — I had seen them crossing the car park — but whatever the weather Janice never wore a coat.