“Can I get you a drink?” A man’s voice is close behind me as I’m waiting at the bar. “You look like you could do with one.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to request a gin and tonic, but then I remember I can’t. “Just a soda water, please.” I’m well out of my comfort zone here, amongst all these people. I long for the sanctuary of home. Then I remember that home is no longer a sanctuary. Not after the other night. Normally, a drink in hand would allow me to be less reserved within this sea of strange faces. As is always the case at funerals, the atmosphere is calmer now we’re at the wake. The snippets of conversation I catch are more normal than they were at the crematorium. Most people have their drink now and are tucking into the buffet. I massage my temples, which are throbbing after swapping the sunshine for this gloomy but well air-conditioned room.
“I’m Kev,” the athletic-looking man says as we wait for the barman. “I was in the cycle club with Rob. I’d got to know him well over the last year or so.”
“Nice to meet you.” I hold my hand out. “Though I wish it could have been in different circumstances.”
“Me too.” He shakes my hand. “He did really love you you know. All that trouble he got into with his work. He only wanted to make you happy. Somehow, he thought he was doing the right thing.”
“You know all about that? Have you spoken to the police? They’ve been trying to implicate me.”
“I only got a rough gist of things from Rob and I didn’t know about the police involvement till today. I’ve been away on business. But I’ll certainly speak to them if you think it’ll help.”
Dad doesn’t know I’m on the medication and swoops to my side. “I’ll get this,” he says to Kev. He’s probably worried that I’ll get blitzed. Especially after last Friday. “Have you seen your mother love? I think she’s disappeared with her bloody phone again.”
I glance out of the window. It’s hard to see clearly, as they haven’t fully opened the shutters. But Mum is there on her phone, looking like before, as though she is arguing with someone.
“I thought things were getting better between you two. You’ve just been away, for God’s sake.”
Dad looks utterly miserable, and I see shadows of how he was, when in the throes of his previous depression. I’m going to have to keep an eye on him if he and Mum split up. There’s only me who will. My grandmother flashes into my mind. I’ve missed her today. Rob’s death and funeral have brought to the surface some of what I went through when she died. I make a mental note to drive over and lay some flowers on her grave this weekend.
“I thought we might be getting somewhere, your mother and I, only she’s been talking about moving away, really moving away. If I’m honest, I don’t want to.” Dad avoids my eye. “I think she’d regret it if we uprooted ourselves. She seems desperate though - it’s almost like she’s trying to run away from something.”
“From herself.” I watch her, waving her arm around as she speaks into her phone. She looks like she’s crying. “Though she would have to run a long way.”
Mum drops her phone into her bag, and sinks to the wall behind her, shoulders hunched. “Are you going to see what’s up with her Dad?”
“Soon.” He puts an arm around my shoulders. “Today, however, is about you, helping you through it. Starting with getting some food down your neck. I’ll fill a plate before it all goes.”
As he walks away, Lynne returns to my side. “I’m going to make a move Fiona. Are you alright for getting home later? I need to do some shopping before I pick the boys up.”
“I’ll be fine. And thanks, for picking Jack up, I mean. I really appreciate it.”
“What are friends for?” She gives me a smile so genuine that I decide to put aside my suspicions about her having an agenda. Maybe, just maybe, she’s sincere and wants to be my friend. I must start letting people in. Apart from Jack and Dad.
“Do you want me to check if your mum’s OK on my way out?” I follow her gaze to the window. “She looks like she’s struggling.”
“No. Leave her. Dad’s going to nip out after he’s got me some food. I’d stay well away, looking at the mood she’s in.”
“OK, I’ll slip past her. I’ll see you later. Be as long as you need.”
“Get that eaten.” Dad thrusts a plate laden with sandwiches and vol-au-vents at me. “They’re vultures, that lot.”
I’m glad he’s come back before anyone else has come over to express condolences. Hopefully, they’ll see I’m having something to eat now and give me a few more minutes’ peace. I’m happier standing out of the way with Dad.
“How are you doing?” He sprays sausage roll crumbs into his beard as he speaks. “Now that the service is over?”
“Just putting one foot in front of the other, to be honest. I can’t do a right lot else, can I?” I nibble at a sandwich. “The police want to talk to me again tomorrow. It sounds as though they have a new lead with the man who’s taken our money.” I’m about to fill him in on what I know, when Mum bursts in, pursued by some man. He stands in the doorway, scanning the room. There’s something familiar about him.
“Shane, no. Not now. Not here!”
Shane. No wonder he looks familiar. I stalked him on Facebook when Mum first started using me as a decoy.
“Which one of you is Fiona?”
I raise my hand, as though I’m in class or something. The clattering of plates from the back of the room has paused. Conversations have stilled. All eyes are on Shane. He walks towards me.
“Shane, you say anything and I’ll…”
“Shut up, Maggie.” He raises his palm in her direction. “I know I should really have gone to the police first. But I wanted you to hear this from me.”
“It’s you that’s been carrying on with my wife?” Dad is trembling at my side. “I can’t believe you’ve got the nerve to turn up here.”
“Let him speak Dad.” I put my hand on his arm, feeling strangely stronger than I have in a long time. After losing Rob and coping with everything else over the last fortnight, things can’t get any worse.
Mum’s heels clip-clop across the parquet floor as she rushes to Shane’s side and tugs at his arm. I’ve never seen such desperation in her face. “Shane! I wasn’t telling you the truth! I made it all up!”
Someone’s brought the flowers from the crematorium. The stench of lilies is overpowering, making my head feel woozy. What is this truth, or not-truth, that Mum is wittering on about? The crowd has moved closer.
“You might have been wondering why Maggie came back so suddenly the other week.” Shane looks from me to Dad. He’s a nice-looking man and reminds me of Richard Gere. He’s easily half a foot taller than Dad, but perhaps ten years younger.
“I thought she was staying with our daughter and grandson,” Dad replies. “But whatever has happened, you shouldn’t be turning up at my son-in-law’s funeral like this.”
“Just leave,” Mum hisses, tugging at his arm again.
“Get off.” He shakes his arm away. “Don’t touch me.” He turns his attention back to me. “I’m here to tell you what happened to your husband.”
Mum, with the wide-eyed expression of an animal caught in headlights looks from Dad to me, then bolts towards the doorway.
* * *
I’ve got to get away.
And if they catch me,
I’m taking her down as well.
Chapter 44
I wasn’t going to come to Mum’s court hearing.
Whether she gets bail has been left for the court to decide. She’s been in custody for the entire weekend, so I haven’t had the chance to hear her side of things. Not that there’s much she could say after what she’s done. Soon, she will be brought up from the underground cells and I will face her across the courtroom.
“Fiona. Can we have a word before we go in?” DI Green and PC Robinson hurry towards me. I expect they’re knackered after hours of interviewing Shane and my mother over the last couple of days. No one co
uld accuse them of not putting the hours in.
“Sure.” I follow them into a room off the corridor, glad to leave the marble walls and floor with sunshine glaring through the glass roof. I’d have a migraine if I sat there for much longer.
The green of the room I step into reminds me of the interview rooms I’ve recently been in. I’m thankful they’re a thing of the past.
“Is your Dad not here with you?”
I take a deep breath. “He’s really struggling with all this. He’s taken Jack to school and then he’s driving home to see his GP.”
“He’s had a lot to cope with.” There is a genuine concern in PC Robinson’s tone and face as he gestures for me to sit down. “As have you. Is he coming back afterwards?”
“Yes. He needs to. He’s got a history of depression, so I need to monitor him.” I sit facing them, as I have in interviews.
“You’re doing really well.” DI Green speaks now. “It’s admirable, how well you’re holding up.”
“I have got little choice. I must stay strong for my dad, and I’ve also got a young son to look after.” I glance at the clock. It’s approaching ten o’clock and I’m aware that this time a fortnight ago, my world was still normal. Or so I thought.
The events leading up to Rob’s death were made known to me and Dad when DI Green and PC Robinson visited us yesterday.
Rob’s work fraud, the loan and the re-mortgage had been Mum’s idea. How Mum had convinced him with her and Rob not seeing eye to eye over the years, I’ll never know. Apparently, they had both been eager to make some serious money. She’d taken on the administrative side of things, and Rob had handled the money. Some of Dad’s savings, unbeknown to Dad, were Mum’s stake.
She believed, DI Green said, that any monies coming were rightfully hers, after losing out with Grandma’s will all those years ago. She had become greedy though and was threatening Rob with exposure if he didn’t give her a bigger cut than what they had agreed.
When the police had interviewed her, she had apparently tried to implicate me. Eventually, it had been a handwriting analyst, as well as internet provider address checks that had exonerated my involvement in the fraud.
With Turner not responding to any contact attempts from Rob, Mum had become angrier and was suspecting Rob of having duped her. He had told her, like he had told me, that it was a done deal – a deal which should have been done a week before.
“I’ve been wracking my brains all night, and I never got a hint of what was going on.” I tell DI Green. “But I have remembered one thing.”
“Go on.”
“My mum arrived the night before Rob died, and they were having words in the garden. I was in the house and couldn’t hear what they were saying. But something was off.”
“She seemed quite normal the next morning, though me and her had disagreed strongly over how she was treating my dad. But she took Jack to school.” I feel sick to the stomach for ever trusting her with my son.
“Rob, as we know, called in at his ex-wife’s house. According to Denise’s neighbour, who was around there, he gave her some maintenance money and was apologising for getting mixed up with the arrangements at the weekend.”
That’s not what Denise told me. “At least she can’t blacken his name anymore.”
“Rob then met your mother at the farmhouse shop café. We eventually got footage of their meeting off their antiquated security camera system.” PC Robinson leans back in his chair and yawns. “I’m sorry. It was a late one yesterday.”
“The café is about a mile before the site of his accident,” I say.
“Which explains the time of it.” DI Green adds. “Your mum didn’t believe Turner had simply disappeared. She wanted what she believed she was owed, before setting off to Devon. On the day she left, she apparently had no intention of returning.”
“Poor Dad,” I stare down at the table.
DI Green takes a sip from her paper cup. “She was angry. Not only was she not getting her cut of the money from Rob, but she said Rob had threatened her at the café with telling your Dad about her affair.”
“She was desperate for my dad not to find out. I thought it was mostly because of his depression.”
PC Robinson rubs his eye. “It seems to have more to do with what she stood to lose. She is very bitter.”
DI Green looks at her watch. “Your mum wanted everything on her terms, and to let your Dad find out, or not find out, whenever and however it was best for her.”
“It’s very noble of Rob to have wanted to put a stop to my mum’s affair, but I don’t see how he could come over all high and mighty with anyone, not after his relationship with Bryony.”
“Bryony has told us it was strictly a platonic friendship, albeit a deep one,” says DI Green, with an expression like she is trying to make me feel better. “From what I’ve heard from you all, your husband’s anger towards your mother was mainly due to how she was treating you.” She flicks her fringe from her eyes. “Making you lie, whilst pretending she was spending time with you and your son.”
“It was this threat of the money being scuppered, and your Dad finding out before she was ready for him to know – that’s what seems to have tipped her over the edge.”
“What do you mean? Tipped her over the edge.”
“Fiona.” She pauses for a couple of seconds. I know what she’s going to tell me, and I do not want her to say the words. But she does anyway. “It’s your mother who killed your husband. Though she claims to have set out to only injure him. To give him a warning. Obviously, she didn’t bank on him landing on his neck and severing his spine.”
I rub at my head again. The room feels like it is tilting. “And then she brazenly drove on to Devon?”
She nods. “After, it would seem, she pretended to be you, having her blown out tyre fixed.”
It’s all falling into place. She’s looked nothing like her age. “But – they had my registration number.”
“She gave it to them. We’ve been back again first thing this morning and checked. They did the tyre replacement outside and then went into the office to fill in the paperwork. The young mechanic couldn’t be bothered checking on the exact registration of the car he had fixed. He said he had no reason to suspect your mother was giving him a different registration. I think she’d been very flattering towards him and had promised to come to him for more repairs”
I can’t help feeling aghast at my mother being so brazen. “The young lad was only about twenty-two.”
“Don’t worry. He’s in plenty of trouble with his boss,” PC Robinson adds.
“I was thinking it was Denise who’d killed Rob. She’s got damage to her car too.”
“Coincidence, it would seem. She made no secret of her disdain for Rob when we spoke to her, but you were our main suspect.”
“It was the information from the garage that went against you.” A dark look crosses PC Robinson’s face. “We got it wrong. Sometimes we do.”
“And what did Shane have to do with it all? Other than having an affair?”
“We have charged him with perverting the course of justice. If he’d come forward earlier, he could have saved a lot of heartache.”
“How?”
PC Robinson looks at DI Green as if to check how much he’s allowed to tell me.
She nods at him.
“When your mother arrived in Devon that Monday, Shane had already decided he was going to return to his wife and two sons.”
“I already knew that. She showed up at mine in a right state. Got drunk out of her brains. That was two days later though.”
DI Green carries on with the explanation. “Your mother told Shane on the Tuesday what she had done to Rob. It was given as a warning what she would be capable of doing to him, his wife or his sons, if he proceeded with his decision of ending things with your mother.”
“According to Shane, your mum can’t have actually planned to tell him what she’d done,” says PC Robinson. “When she s
aw Shane’s reaction, she backtracked - told him she’d made it all up to scare him.”
I massage my forehead. She is utterly evil.
“But he couldn’t get it out of his mind.” DI Green raises the paper cup to her lips again. “Obviously. And when your mum kept begging and pleading, even after she’d returned to Yorkshire, Shane knew he had to tell us what she had confessed to, even if she had tried to retract it. Plus, deep down, he feared she would carry out her initial threat to hurt him and his family. She’d already proven herself to be more than a little unhinged. He’s come up here as he says he wants to see her put away, with his own eyes.”
I’m as numb as I was when I first discovered Rob had died. My mother has killed my husband. And for what? Because, as always, she couldn’t control her impatience, or her anger? Had Shane not come forward, she would probably have let me be tried for it. Not only was she prepared to do that to me, but to Jack as well.
“And what about Turner?”
“We believe he got on a plane to South America yesterday. Interpol have been informed, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.” PC Robinson tilts his phone screen towards him, either checking the time or an autopilot check of any messages. “We’re keeping in touch with his wife. She’s not happy with his dealings and disappearance and will contact us with anything she hears.”
“So she didn’t know anything about it? I thought so. I threatened that I was going to tell her.”
“You should have left things to us.” DI Green frowns. “We can’t say for certain, but the footage of his car that we’ve seen on several occasions says to me that he is behind the personal threats you have suffered. Things could clearly have been much worse - we feel he was trying to frighten you more than anything.”
“My head is spinning with all it all. To be honest, I really thought it was Turner who had killed Rob as well. I can’t believe it was my own mother,” I spit the word out, “that has killed my husband.”
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