#YouToo Read online

  ‘There’s a good girl.’ Mike didn’t look entirely at ease as he held his hand tentatively out to the smaller dog, snapping his fingers and making soothing noises.

  Jo took a closer look at the animal.

  ‘I think you’ll find that he’s a good boy, actually, Mike.’

  He checked the dog out as Jo picked at some of the brown hairs that had stuck to her cream jumper.

  ‘Why do dogs continually moult?’ she asked the Labrador, but the dog just took it as an invitation to jump up on Jo again.

  ‘Get off!’ Jo said crossly and eventually persuaded the dog back down. ‘Stay!’ she added firmly, hoping the dog would remember this time, and started to remove slime and hairs from her clothing all over again.

  ‘This one must be Tucker rather than Lady then, I can’t see anyone calling a boy Lady, even in this day and age.’

  ‘He’s a dog, Mike, not a boy, and anything’s possible.’

  Mike gave that some thought, whilst the dog refused to be mollified and continued to jump up and down yapping. Mike sat back and tried to ignore it, whilst Jo kept her eye on the panting Lab.

  At last Mrs Townsend returned with a tray holding delicate porce- lain mugs, a jug of milk, a sugar bowl, a brimming cafetiere of coffee and a plate of digestives. They watched as she sat down and busied herself, pouring out the coffee and handing it round. The dogs both sat possessively at her feet, clearly expecting some kind of payment for their guard-dog activities. They didn’t have to wait long before a broken biscuit fell to the floor and they both scrambled for it, the terrier winning. Both turned back to wait for the next crumb to fall.

  ‘Milk? Sugar? Biscuit? Just help yourselves, please. ‘ At last, she was done and sat back. ‘So, come along then. Tell me what’s happened. It’s Giles, isn’t it? Is he dead?’

  Mike cleared his throat and stirred his coffee vigorously, obviously hoping that Jo would jump in, but she glared at him. He was much more used to this than she was, and it was definitely in his job description to break the news of a sudden death, not hers.

  ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that your husband’s body was discovered at his flat in St Leonards first thing this morning.’

  Mrs Townsend said nothing for a moment or two and then took a sip of coffee.

  ‘Who found him? I hope it wasn’t Mrs Kanchowski, she’s got a weak heart and it really would have upset her.’

  ‘Mrs Kanchowski?’ Mike queried.

  ‘The cleaner. Lovely woman, but prone to nerves.’ Mrs Townsend explained.

  ‘No, it was the receptionist from his law firm. When he didn’t turn up for work….’

  Mike petered out.

  ‘Poor child. I hope she doesn’t get nightmares about it. Where did it happen? In his bed?’

  ‘Er, no.’ It seemed as if Mike intended to leave it at that.

  ‘The bathroom, judging by your face. I’d heard that most heart at- tacks happen on the loo. How awful for him. He was a great one for dignity in his working life, he would have hated for her to find him with his trousers round his ankles.’

  Mike looked at Jo in desperation and she realised that he didn’t know what to say. For a man who spent his working life informing relatives about their loved ones’ last moments, he had no idea what to tell Mrs Townsend. Jo wasn’t sure that she did either.

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Townsend. Forgive me, but although we will know more once the post mortem is done, I think we can be pretty sure it wasn’t actually a heart attack that killed your husband.’ Mrs Townsend looked at directly Jo for the first time.

  ‘Oh, I just assumed,’ she hesitated for a moment, sensing that Jo and Mike were both trying to tell her something, ‘Come along, out with it. How exactly did he die?’

  ‘Auto-asphyxiation.’ Jo came out with it, at last. ‘That’s when – ‘

  ‘Yes, yes. I’m perfectly well aware of what auto-asphyxiation means.’ Mrs Townsend interrupted her, and looked more than a little red in the face. They sat in silence for a moment whilst the full implications of her husband’s mode of death sank in.

  ‘Oh, Lord! Everyone’s going to know, aren’t they?’

  The Labrador chose that moment to take advantage of her owner’s distraction and tried to remove a biscuit from the plate in front of her. ‘Lady Markwick! Don’t you dare!’ Mrs Townsend said sharply and the dog sank down with an apologetic look on her face.

  ‘Can we keep the cause of death quiet?’ she continued to Mike.

  ‘It is confidential information, of course, but there will have to be an inquest.’ Mike fiddled with his cup, anxiously. ‘It’s the law, we have no choice.’

  ‘Will the press be there? At the inquest?’ Mike nodded.

  ‘I think it’s likely. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s not going to be nice. He will always be remembered as the man who, who – ‘ her voice broke slightly as she took a deep breath and absent-mindedly fed another biscuit to the dogs. ‘Is there no way we can keep the details from getting out? Have a closed inquest? What do they call hearings where the press aren’t allowed? In camera?’

  Mike cleared his throat.

  ‘I can ask the Coroner, but – ‘ He didn’t seem to hold out much hope, but she clutched at the straw.

  ‘Thank you, I would appreciate that.’ She seemed to make a de- cision. ‘I’ll get his partners onto it as well. I’m sure they won’t want it to get out that their colleague indulged in these, well, this type of practice.’

  ‘Did you know that he did?’ Jo couldn’t resist asking. ‘Indulge in these practices, I mean.’

  Mrs Townsend hesitated again and then shook her head. ‘Not really. We lead separate lives, have done for years. At the be- ginning, we – or rather I – wanted children, but Giles wasn’t so keen, had his little peccadilloes, shall we say, not that I knew the extent of them. Nothing like this, I mean. I was willing to try or do almost any- thing to get a child, our child, but once it became obvious that we weren’t going to be having any, there didn’t seem much point trying any more and he continued with his interests alone.’

  ‘But you stayed together?’

  ‘Yes. It’s not that we hated each other or anything. We just had different ways of life. Giles did what he wanted, in the confines of his own flat and left me alone. He was very generous. I got the house and he’d come and stay from time to time, in his own room, of course, and I went with him to official functions and to all the social dos where a wife is needed.’

  Jo looked at Mrs Townsend with a complete lack of comprehen- sion. How could anyone live a life like that? Two people, so separate, but still married. People, and the compromises they were prepared to make in life, never ceased to amaze Jo.

  ‘We will need someone to make a formal identification of the body, Mrs Townsend.’ Mike cut in, clearly worried that Jo might just voice her thoughts.

  ‘Of course. I’ll need to get changed, put on something more suitable.’

  Jo and Mike were happy to let her go and change. They knew that the bereaved often fussed about the unimportant details as a way of stopping themselves from thinking about the bigger, more distressing ones. It was a form of displacement activity, like arranging the funeral and contacting relatives. If people could only understand just how much the bereaved needed to do these small practical things in order to help them cope and come to terms with the death of a loved one, they wouldn’t insist on always rushing in and taking them over. Time after time, they had both heard the recently bereaved talk about how they wished they had been allowed to sort out the funeral, contact the bank, or make their own dinner, anything to take their mind off their future, alone.

  As they waited for Harriet Townsend to return, there was a sharp knock on the front door and Tucker went into a frenzy of yapping again.

  ‘I’ll see who that is.’ Jo called out to Mrs Townsend and went to open the front door, hanging on to Tucker’s collar as she did so, whilst Mike tried to hang on to Lady Markwick, the Labrador.


  Standing on the front doorstep, looking surprised to see her, were Antonia Hersham, and Mervyn Bartlett.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Antonia asked sharply.

  ‘My job,’ Jo answered curtly, irritated by the lawyer’s attitude. ‘What are you doing here?’ Although she was pretty sure that Giles Townsend’s partners had heard how he had died by now and were rallying round to try and prevent the details getting out.

  Much to Jo’s disappointment, both Mike Parton and Mervyn Bartlett stepped forward to intervene at this point.

  ‘Mrs Townsend is just changing her clothes, she’ll be down in a minute,’ Mike said hurriedly.

  ‘We came to give our condolences.’ Mervyn said.

  Jo stepped back from the door to let them in. She was just in time, as Antonia had moved forward, either confident that Jo would move, or uncaring whether she did or not and quite prepared to push her out of the way if necessary.

  Mervyn followed with an apologetic smile.

  Jo closed the door and let Tucker loose, pleased to see that the dog went straight for Antonia and jumped up at her, catching her fishnet tights, and pulling a hole in them. It was all Antonia could do not to kick out at the terrier.

  ‘You are such a naughty boy, Tucker!’ Mrs Townsend said as she came down the stairs to see who her visitors were, but her tone was insincere and even held the slightest hint of satisfaction at the dog’s behaviour. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Antonia, everything is in such a muddle today.’

  Antonia put on her best sympathetic face, and to do her justice, it was almost convincing.

  ‘Harriet, Harriet, don’t worry about it at all. I, well,’ she hesitated and glanced at Mervyn for confirmation, ‘We are so sorry about poor Giles. You must be devastated. If there’s anything, absolutely anything we can do, you will tell us, won’t you?’ She reached out and laid her hand on Mrs Townsend’s forearm, but the new widow brushed her aside.

  ‘I have to go and identify the body, now. I’m sorry to hurry away, but you do understand, don’t you? These things have to be done.’

  ‘Of course, we do.’ Mervyn replied, but there was no mistaking the look of anger on Antonia’s face at being summarily dismissed in public and it gave Jo great satisfaction.

  Chapter 3

  It was an awfully long time later, or so it seemed to Jo, that she was able to get away from the surgery, her patients and all the necessary grovelling and apologies to her colleagues, to meet up with Kate, a local solicitor, in their favourite pub, The Stag.

  ‘Tell me all about it or I will have to forcibly extract the details from you,’ Kate said as she set down her pint of Spitfire and two packets of crisps, and started to remove some of her layers of clothing: a deep maroon velvet coat, purple and crimson knitted scarf, black gloves, red hat. Her dark, almost black hair, tumbled out over her midnight blue jumper as she pulled the hat off, throwing it and her other outerwear into a heap at the end of the bench next to Jo, before sitting opposite her. Kate and Jo had been friends since school, and were exact opposites. Where Jo was slim and blonde, Kate was dark and voluptuous; where Jo was cool and considered, Kate was warm and unpredictable; whilst Jo usually wore neat, tailored clothes in neutral colours, Kate wore rich jewel colours, layered in a seemingly haphaz- ard manner. Chalk and cheese, they had been close friends and confidantes for many years.

  ‘I take it you’ve heard about Giles Townsend then?’

  ‘It’s been the talk of every law firm in town, so come on, was he really found in a dominatrix dungeon full of whips and instruments of torture?’

  ‘No! And you know I can’t talk about it. It will all come out at the inquest.’ Jo took a sip of her white wine spritzer and picked at a crisp. ‘Anyway, how come it’s the talk of the town? I would have thought his colleagues would have done their best to keep it quiet.’

  ‘Oh, they are desperately trying to deny everything, especially as they were seriously positioning themselves as upmarket. You know, getting rich celebs and politicians off drink driving and wife-beating charges, usually by highlighting faults in police procedure.’

  ‘I can see why he was so popular with the police now.’

  ‘Absolutely. But you know, any publicity is good publicity, partic- ularly if you want the business of every pervert in East Sussex, and let’s face it, who wouldn’t? Anything to make the law more interesting.’ Kate emptied the last of the salt and vinegar crisps into her hand and scrumpled the packet up before opening the next. Out of the corner of her eye, Jo watched the packet slowly unfurl again.

  ‘They don’t really seem the types, to be honest, way too straight, but then I’d probably have said the same of Mr Townsend.’ Unable to stop herself, Jo picked up the crisp packet and straightened it out, neatly folding it in half and anchoring it under menu holder, to be disposed of when she next went up to the bar.

  ‘It’s always the ones you least expect.’ Kate was used to her friends’ fastidious ways and knew better than to remark on them. ‘I mean look at Doreen Ponting.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Come on Jo, keep up. She’s the local Crown Prosecution Service chief and she’s been featuring in the tabloids all week.’

  ‘Why?’

  Kate sighed.

  ‘She’s been done for driving under the influence and no problems with police procedure this time, let me tell you.’

  ‘She should know better.’ Jo had no sympathy with drink drivers, having dealt with the consequences of their actions too many times.

  ‘Exactly. And not just that, she was found completely comatose behind the wheel of her car, parked at a well-known dogging site near Eastbourne and in a state of undress. The pictures have been all over the internet.’

  ‘How on earth did anyone get pictures?’

  ‘Presumably someone who was at the place recognised her and realised what a scoop it was.’

  ‘Probably someone she has prosecuted in the past.’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘Talk about courting danger! Surely it must have occurred to her that she would be recognised sooner or later?’

  ‘I know. You hear about politicians sexting teenagers and stuff like that because they get off on the possibility of being caught, but the head of the CPS?’

  ‘Unbelievable.’ Jo shook her head at the stupidity of others.

  ‘Of course, even the tabloids have been more circumspect than to actually publish the worst photos, which is why the photographer has put them on the web. Brilliant, isn’t it?’

  Kate finished her beer and looked at Jo’s still almost full wine glass. ‘Another spritzer?’

  ‘No, look, I’ll get you a pint.’ Jo stood up, grabbing her bag and the empty crisp packet.

  ‘Sit down, I’ll get myself a mezzanine and you can get the next round, unless you’re rushing off somewhere?’

  ‘No, it’s okay, I’ve no plans for tonight.’

  ‘Excellent, two old maids out on the town together. I suggest a night of beer, wine and calorie-laden food. We could even go to the Adelaide and see if we can pick up an Italian waiter each, if you like.’

  ‘No way. Last time I went to the Adelaide I only managed to pick up a schoolboy and a serial killer.’

  ‘That’s not strictly true, though is it? Because I seem to remember you also managed to bump into a certain Detective Inspector, too.’ Kate left Jo to her blushes and thoughts as she went to the bar for her beer.

  Detective Inspector Miller. Jo had started out disliking him intensely, thinking that he was the sort of man who beat up handcuffed prisoners, that he was arrogant and a bully, but then, as she got to know him better, her opinion of him changed. He was complex, strong, and dependable. He liked to be right, yes, but he was prepared to listen to arguments and change his mind where necessary. Oh, he was still irritating and occasionally patronising, but over the last few months, Jo had found herself more and more attracted to him. It was just a shame that he was married, and therefore out of bounds as far as Jo was conce
rned, and more than that, he loved his wife and she was expecting a baby. There was no way, despite knowing that he was attracted to her, that Jo would break up a family, no way at all.

  Chapter 4

  Jo rubbed a spot on her forehead, just between her eyebrows, where the pain seemed most concentrated, but it didn’t help. Why had she drunk that free liqueur at the end of the meal? Never mix your drinks was her rule, but she’d broken it, and all because Kate was flirting with the waiter and he insisted on bringing over the apple brandy, made by his family somewhere in Italy to a recipe only known by his grandfa- ther or something equally unlikely, and with a kick like a horse. How many had they had? Jo couldn’t remember past the second, but she was sure that she must have had at least one more. Liqueurs were always a mistake for her, she knew that. Kate said she had no staying power when it came to alcohol, that she was a complete wuss, and Jo had to accept that her friend was right. Jo was the one, throughout their friendship, who had always been the first to call a halt to a drink- ing session, usually by being sick. She also knew that because she didn’t drink often, she would never get past that, but hey, she might be rubbish at drinking, but at least her liver was probably in good shape, even if it didn’t feel that way right at this moment.

  There was a brief rap at the door and Linda, the Practice Manager, popped her head into the room. In her fifties, Linda treated the doctors in her practice like they were children and, God and Linda both knew, they certainly behaved worse than her children sometimes.

  ‘Dear Lord, you look like death,’ she said encouragingly. ‘I hope you enjoyed yourself last night because you are certainly paying for it now.’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t really remember.’ Linda clucked disapprovingly.

  ‘Well, that was a waste of good alcohol, then, wasn’t it? I’ll get you a coffee, a chocolate biscuit and a couple of Paracetamol. Hopefully one of them will revive you.’

  Jo hoped so too, but she wasn’t entirely convinced. She looked at her appointment list with trepidation, but they all seemed pretty benign, or at least, there were none of her usual heart-sink patients, and no Mr Herring, thank goodness. She popped a mint in her mouth, straightened the forms on her desk which had somehow got out of alignment and pressed the buzzer for the first one, praying it would be something simple.