Free The Salton Killings by Sally Spencer Page A

village.”
    â€œExactly, sir. It was common knowledge, especially among the young people. Anyway, on the night she died, she met Ripley in the woods. He didn’t deny it. He claimed they were together for about half an hour, then he went back to the camp and she set off for home. She never made it. Her body was found at the edge of the woods the next day. She’d been strangled.”
    â€œAny evidence of sexual assault?”
    â€œThat’s the strange thing, sir,” Rutter said. “There was no PM report on file, and no mention of it in any of the other documents.”
    â€œBut the rest of the record was in good order?”
    Rutter shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œIt wasn’t how I would have . . . yes, I suppose it was all right, sir.”
    â€œSomething stinks,” Woodend said. “Go on, Sergeant.”
    â€œRipley was the obvious suspect. As soon as the police found out about him, they went straight to the camp. He met them with his arm in a sling, said he’d hurt it in a jeep accident the day before Mary Wilson died. He couldn’t have strangled her one-handed.”
    â€œAnd the local bobbies let it go at that?”
    â€œNo, sir. They questioned his commanding officer and the camp doctor. Both swore blind that the accident had happened when he said.”
    â€œHow did they feel about it in the village, Black?” Woodend asked.
    â€œMost people thought the Yanks were coverin’ up, sir, protectin’ their own. An’ they did say that this Ripley feller was rich.”
    â€œHe was,” Rutter confirmed. “At least, his family was. Oil wells. They had political connexions as well.”
    â€œSo the police just let him go?”
    â€œThey had to. And he was the only real lead they had. They never came up with anything else.”
    Lunch – dinner, as Woodend insisted on calling it – was served in the police house, a meat and potato pie baked by Mrs Davenport, whose ample form was testimony enough to her cooking. Woodend demolished the stodge with gusto, swilling it down with two mugs of tea, but the moment he had finished he was back to business.
    â€œTwo murders, both strangulations, sixteen years apart,” he said. “We can’t assume it’s the same killer, but we can’t assume it isn’t, either. An’ if it is one man, that narrows down the field quite a lot. For a start, he’ll be at least Davenport’s age. Where were you when Mary Wilson was killed, Constable?”
    Davenport shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
    â€œDon’t know exactly, sir. Somewhere in the Western Desert.”
    â€œAye,” Woodend said. “Most of the able-bodied men round here ’ud be in the army. So we’re lookin’ for someone who wasn’t or – like Lieutenant Ripley – was stationed close enough to Salton to have done the murder.”
    He passed around his untipped cigarettes, noting with amusement that this time Rutter took one. Cadet Black shook his head.
    â€œI don’t want to get started, sir.”
    â€œVery wise,” Woodend said, lighting his and inhaling deeply. “Now, we’re goin’ to have a problem with the press. They’re letting a stringer from the
Maltham Chronicle
cover it so far – I had him on the phone this mornin’ – but if they once get the idea it’s a double murder, they’ll be crawlin’ round here like ants. An’ they’ll do nothin’ but get in the bloody way. So I want us to move quickly on this. I don’t like the fact that there’s no PM on Mary Wilson. I’ll go down to Maltham this afternoon an’ sort that out.”
    â€œWith respect, sir,” Rutter said, “if speed’s important, I think you’d be more use in the village. I can handle the Maltham end of things.”
    â€œThere’s been a cock-up down there,” Woodend said. “I can feel it in my bones.