Frozen Charlotte by Priscilla Masters Page A

museum in Cairo, all dried up, bones sticking out. I nearly dropped it. I didn’t know what to do with it. I decided I must bring it out of the loft.’ Her voice was quickening, the tone rising, threatening hysteria.
    Alex prompted her delicately. ‘You wrapped it up in . . . ?’
    ‘I had a blanket,’ Alice said. ‘A little baby’s blanket.’
    ‘Where did it come from?’
    Alice’s face changed again to become secretive. ‘I just had it,’ she said baldly.
    Oh, yes? Alex thought.
    The change of tone affected Acantha too. She gave her client a long, questioning stare but said nothing.
    Alex thought. Already he was tossing a few points around in his mind. He had seen the blanket. It was no more than a few years old. Alice’s children must be well into their twenties.
    ‘Have you grandchildren?’ he asked.
    Alice shook her head.
    So this blanket had not been bought new for them. So for whom? A friend’s child? Then why hadn’t she given it? He squirreled the questions away. Now was not the time to interrupt. He needed to let Alice Sedgewick roll on without working out too much detail. So he left the question of the blanket, knowing he would return to it later on in the investigation. In such a puzzle he needed an explanation for every single anomaly.
    ‘Do you know anything about the child, Mrs Sedgewick?’
    Acantha opened her mouth as though to speak, but said nothing, only giving her friend an encouraging look.
    ‘No,’ Alice Sedgewick said.
    ‘You know nothing about a baby being born in your house?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘Or anyone who has been to your house who was pregnant?’
    ‘Not that I can think of.’
    Acantha Palk spoke. ‘Do you know when the child died, inspector?’
    ‘Not exactly. We have a rough time scale.’
    He returned to Alice Sedgewick. ‘How long have you lived at The Mount?’
    ‘A little over five years.’ Which was well within the time line.
    ‘Where did you live before you moved to The Mount?’
    ‘In Shawbury. Aaron was employed by the RAF so we lived there, in the village.’
    Alex frowned. ‘This was before he went into business?’
    Alice looked uneasy. ‘I’m not really sure about my husband’s business dealings,’ she said. ‘I only know he does a lot of travelling.’ Alice Sedgewick looked positively guilty now.
    Unexpectedly this was another fact to be tucked away. Something about her husband’s business dealings made Alice very uncomfortable indeed.
    Alex consulted his notes again. ‘When you were in the hospital and the sergeant took the baby from you, you said the baby’s name was Poppy. Why did you assume the child was a girl and where did you get the name, Poppy, from?’
    Quite unexpectedly Alice’s eyes pooled with tears. She was almost too upset to cry properly. This was sheer, terrible, sniffing misery. Alex looked helplessly at Acantha who was looking equally confused.
    ‘I think we’ll have a bit of a break now,’ he said, keeping back the ace card that the baby had actually been a little boy. There was no need to tell her – yet.
    While they were having a break he thought he’d give Martha a ring. He’d always known that she was more than superficially interested in some of the cases which came before her, particularly puzzling ones like this. If she had had her way, he knew that the coroner’s role would have included wearing a deerstalker, carrying a magnifying glass and doing part of the investigation herself. In fact he couldn’t absolutely swear that on occasions she hadn’t done a little sleuthing herself. He’d always had his suspicions that she had met some of the schoolchildren in the Callum Hughes case before they stood in front of her in the court. But he had said nothing.
    Martha was sifting through an even bigger pile of paper than usual. A cold January, swine flu and Norovirus had resulted in a doubling of her usual workload. She listened, intrigued, as Alex spoke. ‘So you’re saying that the name, Poppy,