The Final Act of Miss Tidy

By Chris Marr

A care assistant, Fiona Tidy, has gone missing and DCI Michael Janaway sets out to find her, encouraged by one of her service users, a young autistic man called Stewie. Janaway, who has autistic traits himself, is working against time, since two women have already been murdered recently in his home city of Cambridge, and the more he looks into F

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Marr
• Release date: Aug 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781913036270

Chris Marr

Chris Marr was born in 1964 and went to school in Hertfordshire. After reading history at the University of Southampton he became a qualified librarian, worked full-time as an IT system administrator at The Times, before devoting himself to bringing up two children.

Book preview

Part One

1

The boy, who looked about sixteen, was clearly observing him. He was slim and gangly, at least six foot tall, and wore old-fashioned browline glasses under a raft of brown hair. He had taken up a position, first on one side of Janaway and then on the other, twenty yards away, and would stoop a little to size up his target, as if taking a photograph, before moving off again.

Presumably, at some point, he would introduce himself. He reminded Janaway of Stephen Hawking as a young man. He had the same wide mouth and the same kind of foal-like stance. It was difficult to explain, but Janaway instinctively took a shine to him. There was a certain innocence to his espionage activities. Evidently, he wasn’t aware that his ‘prey’ was aware of what he was doing.

They were executing their pas de deux on Parker’s Piece, an extensive square common that could be viewed from Janaway’s third floor office. If there was any focus to the chief inspector’s wanderings, it involved Reality Checkpoint, a huge four-headed lamppost, located in the middle of the common at the intersection of the common’s two criss-crossing paths. Built in 1860, three years before the first game of Association football was played here, this landmark was at the edge of the ‘bubble’ of academic life in Cambridge and the ‘reality’ of the life of the locals beyond.

Janaway, at 6’ 4" and powerfully built, could be considered somewhat of a landmark himself. He was sweltering in the sun, strolling about in a white shirt and blue tie, his jacket slung over his shoulder. Before the appearance of his admirer, he had been thinking about going away on a holiday. Last Christmas, his late wife’s aunt, Polly Rodwell, had invited him to her place in Sydney, and he might just take her up on the offer.

Going for a walk at lunchtime was a recent habit of his. At times he quietly viewed other people sauntering about, but mostly he indulged in his own reflections. He had given up trying not to think about Josie and Sophie. Josie, his wife, had committed suicide 19 months earlier. She had been depressed over what had happened with Sophie, who had been born 29 weeks into Josie’s pregnancy and who had died in her parents’ arms an hour later.

Yesterday evening, his mother, Ludmila, had suggested, not for the first time, that he find another partner. This time, however, she had produced a new suggestion for how to go about doing so.

‘Misha,’ she said, employing the Russian form of his name, ‘have you thought about joining a dating website?’

‘Mum—’

‘You’re not getting any younger. You’ll be forty in October.’

He imagined the smiles around Parkside Station if it were discovered that he had signed up to a site like UniformDating.com. His mother continued by saying that he was working too hard and that it was important – a point she had been making since his childhood – that he enjoyed a social life.

‘Life is precious. You want to make the most of it.’

This fact was borne out later that night. Victor, his next-door neighbour from his previous house, called to say that his wife, Jean, had died four days earlier from a stroke, aged 67. Janaway passed on his condolences – Jean had been a lovely neighbour – but, after putting the phone down, his thoughts had turned again to Josie. She and Jean had sometimes gone shopping together.

And now, guiltily (although he had nothing to feel guilty about), his thoughts turned to a certain female colleague. It was ironic that his mother should talk about other women, as if she sensed that something was afoot. Thoughts along those lines had started a month ago when DC Laura Sutton had passed him on the stairs at Parkside Station with tears in her eyes.

‘Are you OK?’ he had asked.

Tentatively – very tentatively, for he was anything but a touchy-feely person – he had placed his hand on her shoulder.

‘Come into my office,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea.’

It transpired in conversation that Laura’s boyfriend had ended their 11-month relationship the previous evening. Alec was a property lawyer who earned a high salary and was nine years her senior.

‘I thought we were ready to move in together.’ She looked at him through glassy eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I should get a grip on myself. It doesn’t compare to what you’ve been through.’

On the contrary, he had been touched by her openness. Looking back, that meeting had been a turning point. She had talked about her hurt feelings and, for his part, he had admitted that he had felt lonely after Josie’s death. There had been an emotional connection – or at least there had been on his side. Ever since, he had looked forward to their conversations and felt disappointed if a day went by without seeing her.

And yet… well, the thought of them together was ridiculous! For one thing, there was the fact that they worked together which, although it didn’t stop them from dating, might set tongues wagging. (And so what? he asked himself.) For another, there was the age difference. Laura was fifteen years younger than him. (And so what? he asked himself again.) But, most importantly, there was the feeling, even after this time, that he was betraying Josie. At present, he felt relatively happy with his life. Wouldn’t it be putting that happiness at risk if he became involved with someone else?

In any case, he had no idea how Laura felt about him, despite his knowledge of body language…

‘Woah!’

He had changed direction and nearly bumped into the boy with the lolloping gait.

‘Sorry,’ he said instinctively.

‘You’re… you’re a policeman, aren’t you?’

The boy was looking over Janaway’s left shoulder. His thick glasses were not quite level with the bridge of his nose.

‘I am, that’s correct.’

‘Pleased… pleased to meet you.’

It made a change for Janaway, who also felt embarrassed by eye contact on first meeting people, to look at the other’s face. He was fascinated by the boy’s mouth, which was very large and mobile and seemed unlikely to be able to frame words.

‘Pleased to meet you as well.’

‘I’m Stewart Hester, but everyone calls me Stewie. Are you the man in the paper?’

‘Possibly.’

It was an unusual start to a conversation. The boy wore a black-and-white T-shirt, which depicted the number 23. His voice was louder than average and had a monotone quality.

‘I think you are,’ he said. ‘You’re Cambridge’s Inspector Morse.’

He was quoting a headline in the Cambridge News. The article had come about because Janaway had helped to solve a fraud involving a couple who had been ripping off old people, one of whom happened to be the reporter’s mother.

‘That was written three weeks ago,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised that you can remember it.’

‘Miss Tidy was carrying a pile of newspapers. The article about you was on top. She… she said I was like you.’

‘In what way?’

Miss Tidy, Janaway imagined, was an assistant in some sort of care home.

‘You have an eye for detail. You like playing chess.’

The reporter, Sally Allsop, had presumably mentioned chess because even an interest in the game was perceived as evidence as intelligence. She had also dropped in the fact that he had studied at Cambridge, although, for some reason, had omitted that when he was younger he had nearly been admitted to a special needs school. (Perhaps she thought that that had sounded too improbable.) The article had shown him in a faultless light, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Chief Superintendent Gray.

‘Just shows you should never believe what you read in the papers,’ he had said. ‘There was one thing I did agree with, though.’ He found the relevant section. ‘DCI Janaway gets involved in fieldwork more than the typical chief inspector. Well, ain’t that the truth? Otherwise, there were times when I felt I could have been reading a fairy tale.’

He had nonetheless seemed pleased with the impression the article had given of one of his staff. Janaway felt, on the other hand, that there had been a certain amount of envy in other quarters. DS Mark Prosser, for example, had mentioned the article three times. The headline about ‘Cambridge’s Inspector Morse’, it seemed, had especially struck a nerve.

‘I do like playing chess,’ he replied to Stewie’s comment. ‘Did you want to talk to me about anything in particular?’

Stewie gulped. ‘Miss Tidy.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘She… she’s missing. No one has seen her since July the twenty-first.’

This was the Sunday just past. It was now Wednesday.

‘She said that if something should happen to her,’ Stewie continued, ‘I should talk to you.’

‘Were those her exact words? If something should happen to me…’

‘I should talk to you. And she pointed to the picture in the paper.’

Janaway was about to ask why anything should happen to Miss Tidy, but Stewie carried on speaking.

‘She was at work between eight and ten am on Sunday morning. On Monday, she was meant to come in between nine forty-five am and midnight. I… I heard Mrs Baker say the swear word beginning with s when she didn’t turn up on that day. Yesterday, she was meant to come in between eight and ten am. And today she was meant to come in between nine forty-five am and midnight.’

‘Those are very precise timings. There are days, then, when she works for two hours, and others when she works for fourteen hours and fifteen minutes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll note all of this down, if you don’t mind.’

In spite of the baking hot weather, Janaway donned his jacket to free up his hands and removed a notebook from one of the pockets. His lunchtime stroll, when he was supposed to relieve his mind from work worries, had been interrupted, although, on the other hand, since his thoughts had drifted on to Josie and Sophie, perhaps it was a good thing. He, too, had suffered from a stammer when he was younger, and naturally warmed towards anyone who exhibited ‘different’ behaviour.

‘It’s important we establish a timeline,’ he explained, writing the details down in front of his interested companion.

As it happened, he had attended a review of long-term missing cases that morning. When somebody went missing and was still unaccounted for, reviews took place every 28 days for the first three months, followed by further reviews at six-monthly and twelve-monthly intervals. Unfortunately, many of these cases came about because action to find the missing person had not been taken immediately. The ‘golden hour’ was crucial.

‘Has Miss Tidy gone missing before?’ he asked.

‘Um… I don’t think so.’

‘Would she try to get in touch with you, do you think, to say what she was doing?’

‘Yes, definitely.’

Upon further questioning, it turned out that Stewie was a resident at Coleridge Residential Home on Winslow Road. Miss Tidy, whose first name was Fiona and whom Stewie thought was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, was his main care assistant. He had taken the bus to the city centre on his own – not apparently an unusual event – although on this occasion his intention had been to talk to Janaway. On his own initiative, he had looked up the address of the police station and, by chance, had noticed Janaway on his walk across Parker’s Piece.

As these facts emerged, Janaway’s respect for Stewie grew. He clearly cared a lot about Miss Tidy and was prepared to go out of his way to help her if she might be in danger. Tellingly, he, rather than the supervising adults at Coleridge Residential Home, appeared to be the most concerned about her welfare. It demonstrated empathy, even though Janaway had no doubt that, although high-functioning and able to lead a fairly independent life, Stewie had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Janaway himself was nearer the spectrum than most people, which was why, for example, he fought against the instinct to avoid looking people in the eye.

‘Thank you for telling me this,’ he said. ‘You’ve done absolutely the right thing.’

Stewie looked very serious. These were grown-up affairs that they were discussing.

‘They… they were thinking of calling the police,’ he said.

‘Who was thinking of calling the police?’

‘Mrs Baker and Ruth.’

‘The people in charge?’

‘Miss Tidy told me that she was unhappy.’

Janaway gazed at Stewie’s profile. He had very long eyelashes, which were on display as he blinked.

‘What about, do you know?’

‘Her boyfriend.’

‘Go on.’

Stewie cocked his head on one side. ‘She was crying. She… she said that he upset her.’

‘What about?’

‘I don’t know.’

Were other people on Parker’s Piece looking at them and wondering what they were talking about? It was interesting what constituted acceptable social behaviour. Stewie was standing almost at a right angle to him, still not looking at him in the face. Meanwhile, some thoughtless person in a car with the windows wide open had a radio that was blaring out rock music.

‘What’s her boyfriend’s name?’ Janaway asked.

‘B.’

‘B?’

‘I… I don’t like him.’

‘His name is B?’ Janaway confirmed. ‘Is that a Christian name or a surname?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why don’t you like him, Stewie?’

The boy plainly found the conversation difficult. He was concentrating hard and biting his lip. ‘He… he makes me feel funny inside. He scares me.’

‘In what way?’

‘His eyes.’ Stewie paused for a full two seconds. ‘They’re strange. They show no feeling.’

Although it was true, in general, that autistic people found it harder to identify emotions in others, that was not to say, at the upper end of the spectrum, that they could not sense that something was amiss.

‘Does he work at the home?’ Janaway asked.

‘No.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘At Christmas. I also saw him in April and on the sixth of July.’

That was 18 days ago.

‘You have an amazing memory,’ Janaway remarked.

‘He… he laughed at me. If he’s done anything to Miss Tidy, I’ll kill him.’

It was possible, of course, that Stewie had an obsession with Miss Tidy, which had prompted a fierce dislike for her boyfriend. Nevertheless, for the time being, Janaway was prepared to take his account at face value.

‘I promise to look into it, Stewie.’

‘I trust you.’

The boy held out his hand for Janaway to shake. The formal gesture, which was quite unexpected, touched Janaway for some reason. They shook hands and their eyes met for an instant, forming a bond.

Janaway’s mobile went off. It was Chief Superintendent Gray.

‘Where are you?’ Gray demanded.

‘Reality Checkpoint.’

‘Nice, is it?’

‘As a matter of—’

‘Stop!’ Gray interjected. ‘I know very well what it’s like. The reality checkpoint I’m facing is that two young women have been murdered in the last six weeks. It’ll be good if—’

But before he could finish the sentence, Janaway’s mobile cut out. He looked at the screen to see it fade to black. The battery needed charging, a circumstance which, he imagined, wouldn’t improve Gray’s mood.

‘I have to go now, Stewie.’

‘The number of Coleridge is zero, one, two, two, three… six, six, seven… one, eight, nine.’

‘OK.’

‘Do… do you need to write it down?’

The first five numbers were the area code but, even if Janaway forgot the other six, it would be easy to look them up.

‘I rarely forget a number,’ he said. ‘I wish, though, that I had your ability with faces.’

Stewie looked puzzled.

‘You remembered mine from the newspaper,’ Janaway added.

2

Although the mystery of Fiona Tidy’s disappearance was solved within a few days by straightforward police work, it would always stick in Janaway’s memory. Real-life crime might not have the twists and turns of fiction. There might, at most, be one major twist and, perhaps, only one suspect. But that didn’t mean that real-life crime was devoid of interest. There were, in this instance, the characters of the perpetrator and the victim of the crime to consider. The victim, who worked in a caring profession, was genuinely naïve. The perpetrator, in spite of also working in a job that should entail sympathy for others, was one of the coldest and cleverest people Janaway had ever encountered.

Before he returned to his office, he asked Stewie if he needed a lift back. The extra time that this would have taken would doubtless not have endeared him to Gray but, in any event, Stewie said that he would be all right on his own.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

They walked off at right angles to each other. It hadn’t rained for a couple of weeks and the grass had been burned into various shades of brown. Janaway removed his jacket, which he had unthinkingly kept on during their conversation. He was not overweight or unfit, but nevertheless his skin felt itchy and his forehead was moist. The sun beamed unrelentingly in a giant sky. The heat was energy-sapping and made one’s breathing shallower.

He looked to his left to see Stewie’s slightly bent frame striding away in the distance along one of Reality Checkpoint’s radial paths. At one point, Stewie placed his arms by his sides and jumped up and down several times. Did such self-stimulatory behaviour (or stimming) mean he was happy? Like many others with autism or autistic traits – including Janaway and the fictional detective, Sonya Cross, in the TV series The Bridge – truth and justice were important to him. Perhaps he felt he had done his duty in reporting Miss Tidy’s disappearance and was pleased that he had found the courage to speak to Janaway. Almost certainly, he had felt lonely since her departure. It was incorrect to say that autistic people at the upper end of the spectrum did not value friendship. In fact, they could see it as very desirable, even if, in practice, it might be hard to achieve.

Back in his office, Janaway plugged his mobile into his charger and picked up the landline phone. It was tempting to close the blinds to shut out the sun, but when he had performed this perfectly logical act a couple of times last year, he had received the odd strange look from colleagues seeing him work in less than optimum brightness.

‘She isn’t in today,’ he was told, when he asked to speak to Fiona Tidy. ‘I’ll see if Mrs Baker is available.’

While waiting, Janaway did a search on Google. ‘Fiona Tidy Profiles | Facebook’ appeared on the first line. He logged into Facebook and did another search. Three Fiona Tidys came up. The profile picture of the second one gave him a shock. The woman in question looked remarkably like Josie – Josie from about ten years ago. Furthermore, it was undoubtedly the right Fiona Tidy. The line underneath read, ‘Works at Coleridge Residential Home’. The resemblance between the two was uncanny. She had the same mouth, the same shape of face, the same hairstyle. The hair was particularly interesting because Josie had hated her hair and Fiona had also, it seemed, fluffed it up to make it look thicker.

A fanciful thought occurred to him. If there was any truth in physiognomy, the idea that one can tell a person’s character from their appearance, then could the two women, who looked so alike, have similar characters? Josie had been a chemistry teacher and the special educational needs coordinator at her secondary school. She had been brilliant with autistic children and perhaps, conceivably, Fiona Tidy had a comparable gift.

According to Fiona’s timeline on Facebook, she had last posted a message on December 31, wishing a happy new year to her friends.

‘Hello. Chief Inspector Janaway?’ A voice came on the line. ‘I’m Anne Baker, the manager at Coleridge. I believe that you’re calling about Fiona Tidy.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Fiona has missed the last two – no, three – days of work. I was intending to get in touch with you today to report our concerns.’

She sounded very efficient and businesslike.

‘I’ve just spoken to a young man worried about her whereabouts.’

‘Who?’ she said, a little sharply.

‘Stewart Hester.’

‘When was this? Did he call you?’

‘Actually, we met up near the station. He said it wasn’t unusual for him to go into the city centre on his own.’

Janaway heard what sounded like a sigh.

‘Yes, well, we’ve given Stewie essentially the flexibility to go where he likes. Our approach, with those whom we think can manage it, is to encourage independence with a view to moving on to supported living. Stewie, at eighteen, is our youngest resident. This is a home for adults between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five who suffer from learning disabilities, mental health problems and autism.’

‘I thought for some reason Stewie was younger – about sixteen.’

‘In many ways, he’s younger even than that. But anyway’ – she sniffed – ‘as regards Fiona, we’ve tried to track her down, but she hasn’t been answering her phone. Last night, I got somebody to visit her flat.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘Hold on. I’ll give you the details.’

There was a delay of five seconds. Janaway was hypnotized by Fiona Tidy’s appearance on his computer screen. He had never seen anyone who looked so like Josie. It gave him a sinking feeling. It was probably too late now to justify bringing in air support or CamSAR (Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue) to look for her. A helicopter was expensive and, unless one had some idea of where the missing person might be, it was usually kept in reserve.

‘Here we are. Twenty-five Wellesley Close. She didn’t answer her door when Alvin called round.’

Whether it was a coincidence or not, Fiona Tidy’s flat was about a mile away from the address of the first of the two murdered women, Tess Whittaker, and a mile and a half away from the second, Arabella Jones.

Mrs Baker passed on Fiona Tidy’s landline and mobile numbers.

‘I hope to goodness nothing has happened to her,’ she said. ‘Frankly, we have enough to worry about with residents going missing without having to worry about members of staff. Not, I should point out, that we often have residents go missing. We have strict safeguarding procedures in place.’

‘Is it unusual for Fiona to miss work?’

‘Without an explanation, yes, certainly.’

‘Are her family worried about her disappearance?’

‘Well – hmmm!’ she intoned significantly. ‘That’s rather a tragic story. She has no next of kin. Both her parents and her sister died in a car crash when she was six.’

‘That’s horrendous!’