Three Little Maids(6)

‘So you’ve moved out?’

‘Yes, but it’s only temporary. My frail old bones.’ She grinned widely. ‘Can’t suffer the chill and the mist creeping in from the sea front any more. Stella Frost has most kindly found a comfortable room at the White Rock Hotel for me. So, I’m booked in there for as long as it takes to get the work finished.’

‘Oh! I suppose then you might have heard about the discovery of the young girl’s body?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I saw it all in the Tarot cards last evening. I don’t suppose the Wilberforce sisters told you that I foretold a death and....’ She paused dramatically. ‘Another could follow quite soon. Bad things have a habit of following in threes, don’t they?’ she declared loudly.

‘Esmeralda.’ Viviane shook her head in dismay. ‘Hush! You mustn’t say that. You’ll give us all the frights.’

‘Pshaw! Why not? Those two silly old women, they made such a song and dance about my reading the Tarot cards for Mrs Frost,’ she said scornfully, glancing down to the end of the fiction shelves where the Wilberforce sisters hovered, obviously listening to every word. ‘They said that they were the Devil’s cards and should be burnt,’ she snorted loudly. ‘Stuff and rubbish!’

‘Esmeralda! Shush!’

Her deep booming voice carried around the library like the tones of Big Ben and Alice uttered a shrill squeak of alarm and trembled as it reached her.

Esmeralda’s wicked grin reminded Viviane of the grimace on the face of stone church gargoyle. ‘I’ll browse along the shelves awhile before picking up my book.’ She stared at Viviane intently for a moment then said with a wealth of meaning in her dark eyes. ‘I’ve got to give you fair warning, my girl. Do watch where that inquisitive nose of yours, takes you, Viviane. I sense an aura of evil at work here and more people could get badly hurt, good people that you know before it runs out ...’





3




‘So you say the cause of death was due to severe strangulation, Matthews?’ Kent and Turner in matching green overalls stood on the periphery of the post mortem table. The latter wishing he was anywhere else but there. And more especially since his daughter knew the victim personally and had been invited to her last birthday party a short while ago.

‘I would say so, definitely. Terrific pressure was put on her throat causing a fracture of one of the horn bones of the cartilage. And with this pretty thing stuffed down it. Look! The poor kid choked on it and didn’t stand an earthly!’

The medical examiner waved a pink object in the plastic envelope like a conjurer in the air and explained, ‘She was choked to death by her own panties, gentlemen.’

‘Good God!’ Turner stopped chewing his peppermint lump to gasp his comment. ‘What a bastard.’

‘So - what was the motive? Rape? Was she sexually assaulted before this was done?’ Kent studied the schoolgirl’s body again carefully. This was the usual motive in a case like this but the way this one was going he had a gut feeling that he wasn’t going to like what he heard next.

Henry Matthews shook his green capped head. ‘No signs of sexual activity. But she wasn’t a virgin, I can tell you that much. She’d had some sexual experience. Her age was fifteen going on sixteen? So that’s not entirely unexpected. Practically the norm these days.’ He shrugged his thin shoulder in his creased green overall. ‘She was obviously no different.’

Not if you knew the Carey’s, Turner skilfully covered his immediate impulse to grin.

‘There are no signs of semen on the body whatsoever. It’ll be hard to find any DNA. Looks like someone cleaned her up, save for that torn ear. So if she was enticed up there to meet someone for sex, it didn’t happen. She was a pretty child before this happened to her. Well nourished. She’s a natural platinum blonde by the way. She’d have been a real stunner in a year or so.’

‘Christ!’ Kent moved in closer. ‘What a waste. What was the motive, man? Are there any signs of drugs? Could she have met up with a dealer for a fix? But if that was the case why was she found in this state and starkers?’

‘Bear in mind another strange thing,’ Matthews said wiping his hands with a cloth. ‘This killer came well prepared for the kill. We know that he washed or wiped the body over thoroughly, could be with baby wipes. He cleaned off any DNA we might find and there are no traces of skin under the girl’s nails either. He was very thorough indeed. Took one of her gold earrings with him. Hence the torn left ear. See... It was done after death.’