Rather to Be Pitied

by Jan Newton

  She was out of the car before Swift had stopped. Two paramedics, a man and a woman stood by the open back doors of their ambulance.

  Julie showed them her ID and the woman shrugged and pointed towards the stable block. ‘He won’t let us anywhere near him,’ she said. ‘Hope you have more luck, he looks pretty bloody from what we could see.’

  Julie flung the gate open, ran down the path and into the yard while Swift was still climbing out of the car. The first door stood open, its handle hanging by one screw. Splinters of bright red wood lay on the ground, along with a large screwdriver. Julie slowed and peeped round the door.

  ‘Mick? Mrs Wilkinson?’

  ‘Come in, Sergeant.’ Mrs Wilkinson was standing behind the sofa, holding Mick’s arm aloft with both hands, squeezing the arm for all she was worth. The sofa, Mick and Mrs Wilkinson were covered in blood to varying degrees and Mick was conscious, but as pale as young Sean had been. His arm was wrapped in a towel and a linen tea-towel, and Mrs Wilkinson’s knuckles were white from the pressure she was exerting.

  ‘We found him, the man you drew.’ Julie sat down on the sofa next to him. ‘You helped us so much, we wouldn’t be as far as we are without you.’ Mick smiled a slow smile and gave a little nod. ‘I need you to tell me what’s bothering you, what you saw, and how I can help you.’

  With great effort, Mick raised his undamaged hand and pointed to the dresser, then slumped back into the sofa, his head resting on Mrs Wilkinson. She stood like a rock as the big man leaned into her.

  ‘Are you OK there for a minute longer?’ Julie asked. Mrs Wilkinson nodded. Julie ran to the dresser and opened the doors. Twenty, maybe thirty sketches tumbled to the floor.

  ‘These?’ she asked Mick. He nodded, causing Mrs Wilkinson to wobble. Julie picked them up and flicked through them. They were the story of Jason Quigley’s death, in beautifully drawn sketches. She knelt in front of him. ‘This is why you’ve hurt yourself?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Mick, I don’t want you to worry about anything. We’ve got the information you wanted to give us and it will help us such a lot, but I need you to get yourself put back together so you and I can talk about it all. Do you understand?’

  Mick’s eyes began to close, and Mrs Wilkinson whimpered with the pain of holding up his arm. Swift appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Sir, could you go and get the paramedics in here now. Knife wound, plenty of blood loss.’

  Swift turned around and they could hear his uneven jog receding across the concrete.

  ‘We’ve let him down.’ Mrs Wilkinson looked down on Mick. She was unable to wipe away her tears, which dripped off her chin and into Mick’s matted hair. Julie stood and took hold of Mick’s damaged arm, releasing Mrs Wilkinson. The smell of iron was overpowering.

  ‘You’ve not let him down. Far from it.’

  ‘If he could only have come and told us.’ Mrs Wilkinson pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. The paper stuck to her bloodied fingers. ‘He was terrified of my husband.’

  ‘Still am.’ Mick’s words were barely audible, but he looked across at Mrs Wilkinson and winked. ‘Not your fault,’ he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Day Eight

  The sketches were spread out across two desks in the office. It was all there, the whole story. They were even numbered, so there was no doubt at all about the sequence of gruesome events.

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever had a storyboard of a crime.’ Swift tugged his ear. ‘Do we know how Mick is?’

  ‘The hospital think Mrs W saved his life. She did all the right things,’ Julie said.

  ‘She must be the only person in this case who has.’

  ‘He lost a fair bit of blood, but he’s going to be fine.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ Swift looked down at the drawings. ‘These must have taken him hours and hours to do. Why didn’t he just come and talk to us?’

  ‘He’s still wary of being interviewed. Mrs W thinks he was tortured when he was captured in Afghanistan. He won’t tell her, but she does know that he hates being questioned.’

  ‘So he drew it instead.’ Rhys picked up the first picture. ‘He’s got a real talent. So this is Rosa?’

  Julie nodded. ‘And that’s Quigley, and this is the scaffolding pole he smashed her head with.’

  Rhys sighed. ‘I’ll never get over how people can do things like that to each other.’

  ‘So, what if he didn’t hit her twice?’ Julie picked up the fourth picture, where Quigley had the pole raised above his head. ‘What if he hit her once, she tottered to the cottage to find Lizzie for help, and Lizzie caused the second injury?’

  ‘But why would Lizzie do that?’ Rhys picked up the fifth picture, Rosa on her knees, holding her head with her left hand ‘Does she look as though she’s crawling away?’

  ‘I’d have said so.’ Julie took the picture from him.

  ‘And this is lovely Lizzie.’ Swift handed her the next. ‘Standing in the bushes by the cess pit, watching. And look, she’s wearing her coat.’

  ‘So she didn’t help Rosa then?’ Julie asked. ‘Oh God, I hope Mick’s able to talk soon. The gaps between these pictures could tell a different story.’

  Swift walked down the line of remaining drawings. ‘Quigley being caught off balance, being pushed into the cess pit by Lizzie, Quigley attempting to crawl out of the pit and being garrotted by none other than Lizzie Slaithwaite.’

  ‘God, this is gruesome.’ Morgan shuddered and Rhys passed him the wastepaper bin. ‘Who told him?’ Morgan frowned at Julie.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ Julie laughed. ‘It’s happened to all of us.’

  I bet it hasn’t happened to you,’ Morgan said. ‘Mrs Iron Guts.’

  ‘Just give me empty eye sockets and a kite or two circling overhead and I’ll be with you. Now, concentrate, is there any sign of James Pritchard in these pictures?’

  ‘No, Sarge, just Rosa, Quigley and Lizzie.’

  ‘Right,’ Swift said. ‘I’m going in. Are you ready for this, Julie?’

  ‘I certainly am. Shall I bring these with me?’

  Swift nodded. ‘Bring a selection. Rhys, you go and get James Pritchard and see if you can raise Eurig will you? Let’s start by telling Pritchard the good news that he’s almost certainly not related to Lizzie Slaithwaite, shall we, before we see what she’s got to say?’

  Pritchard was shaking. It was only slight, but Julie could see a tremor in his fingers. He sat down in the orange plastic chair and looked down at the table.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Swift asked him.

  ‘I’m just wishing I never got involved in any of this, wishing I’d come to you instead of being persuaded to move poor Rosa. What was I thinking? When I think what I gave up.’ He shook his head. ‘I must have been mad.’

  ‘Maybe not as mad as you think,’ Julie said. ‘We think you have been manipulated, that you would have confessed to anything, if it kept Lizzie Slaithwaite happy.’

  Pritchard raised his head and looked at her. He couldn’t have slept a wink. His hair was lank, and the stubble on his face included a surprising amount of grey. Already he looked like a different man to the one who had walked with them into the station yesterday. He didn’t speak.

  ‘We have some news for you about Lizzie Slaithwaite.’ Julie waited but there was no response. ‘We have received information which makes it less likely that she is in fact your daughter.’

  Pritchard closed his eyes.

  ‘Apparently her mother couldn’t remember which of the four of you she slept with. She kept a newspaper cutting with a photograph of your debating team. Lizzie had worked out who you all were and what had happened to you. She knew that one member of the team had emigrated to Arizona, another had been killed in a car accident. The third is a prison officer in Swansea, and then there was you, slap bang in the middle of rural Wales, the only one who she could use to achieve her goal.’ Julie shook her head. ‘Of course,
it might not have been any one of the four of you at all. It could have been someone else entirely. Especially given the fact that Lizzie’s actually eight years younger than she has been claiming.’

  Pritchard looked at his solicitor. ‘What do I say?’ His face was white now. This would be the moment he remembered, Julie thought, the moment he realised that he had allowed a total stranger to systematically unravel his life.

  ‘I think the best policy now would be to tell the truth, James,’ the solicitor said.

  Swift waited until Pritchard raised his head from his hands. ‘Mr Pritchard, new evidence has come to light which suggests you were not involved in the murder of Jason Quigley. We also think that you had absolutely nothing to do with Rosa Quigley’s death. We think you were persuaded by Lizzie to move Rosa’s body, which implicated you beautifully for Rosa’s murder.’

  ‘Lizzie wouldn’t do that.’

  Swift laughed a totally mirthless laugh. ‘Ha. You think so? After all you now know, you would still lie for her? What makes you think this wasn’t her plan all along? We now think what she wanted was Sean. That was always the case. Even if she had to kill his parents to make sure she got him permanently.’

  ‘No. It can’t be true. She told me. She only took Sean because she was afraid for his life.’

  ‘And nobody can corroborate that now, can they, Mr Pritchard?’ Pritchard suddenly looked totally defeated and Julie felt so sorry for him. His world had been turned upside down twice in under a year. She very rarely felt sorry for anyone who was guilty of wrong-doing, but this man had lost everything because of Lizzie Slaithwaite.

  ‘Did you kill Jason Quigley or Rosa Quigley?’ Swift was business-like, sharp even. ‘Please answer the question.’

  ‘No.’ It was whispered, barely there.

  ‘You’ll need to speak up for the tape.’ Pritchard’s solicitor smiled at his client. ‘It won’t be heard otherwise.’

  Pritchard paused. ‘No. I didn’t kill either of them. I moved Rosa’s body away from the cottage because Lizzie and Sean were in danger from Quigley.

  ‘But they weren’t, Mr Pritchard. Jason Quigley died before Rosa did,’ Julie said.

  ‘That can’t be right. Lizzie told me he was out there somewhere, looking for them both.’

  ‘Lizzie told you that?’

  ‘She was terrified, she couldn’t have known he was already dead.’

  ‘Mr Pritchard, we believe that Lizzie Slaithwaite murdered Jason Quigley. We also suspect that Rosa, having been seriously assaulted and badly injured by Quigley, crawled as far as the gateway to the cottage and that Lizzie inflicted a second, fatal head injury on Rosa,’ Swift said. ‘We think she planned the whole thing.’

  Julie had never enjoyed seeing grown men weep. She knew that Pritchard cried for the damage he had done to his real family, for the daughter he thought he had finally found and lost again and for his own stupidity.

  ‘You will want to make a new statement.’ Swift was still clipped, much to Julie’s puzzlement. Pritchard nodded.

  ‘Can we just have a few moments for Mr Pritchard to gather his thoughts?’ the solicitor asked.

  ‘I’ll send another officer in to take Mr Pritchard’s statement, Swift said. He signed off from the tape and stood up. ‘I can only hope you never realise how much damage you’ve done to so many people with your blind faith in that woman.’ He swept out, leaving Julie with the two men.

  ‘I’ll give you twenty minutes before I send in someone to take your new statement. I’ll arrange for coffee to be sent in.’ She stood up and opened the door.

  ‘Thank you.’ Pritchard’s voice was hoarse. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Day Eight

  Lizzie was in far better shape than James Pritchard. That didn’t make Swift’s mood any better, Julie noted. She had appointed a new solicitor, recommended by a colleague of her husband’s and he was city-smart in a tight, dark suit, white shirt and crimson tie. His pilot’s bag contained colour-coded files. He withdrew a red one for Lizzie. With some satisfaction, Julie noted that it was Rhys’s colour coding for both murdered and murderer on the board in the office.

  ‘My client is concerned at the lack of suitable representation to date,’ the solicitor said. Swift did not respond, nor did Julie.

  ‘Perhaps we could get on with the matter in hand,’ Swift said. ‘Namely, that your client is accused of the murders of both Jason Quigley and Rosa Quigley, on or about the fifth of July.’

  ‘These are charges which she most strenuously denies.’

  Swift stared at the solicitor before applying his gaze to Lizzie. ‘The man you say is your father now denies any involvement in the two deaths.’

  ‘The man I say is my father? Have you any real evidence to suggest otherwise?’ Lizzie blinked slowly. ‘And what did you do to him to make him change his mind?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be in anyone’s interest for us to do anything that would prejudice the outcome of this case, Lizzie.’ Julie smiled.

  ‘Sergeant, I would tread carefully if I were you.’ The solicitor stroked a gold signet ring on the third finger of his left hand with long, slender fingers.

  ‘We also have new evidence which puts you at the scene of Jason Quigley’s death.’

  For the first time, Lizzie seemed wrong-footed. ‘What new evidence?’

  ‘We have a witness who saw the whole thing and recorded it for posterity.’ Julie smiled.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Lizzie glowered at them both. ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘We’re not lying.’ Swift turned over the drawing of Lizzie standing in the bushes, watching.’ Lizzie gasped and the solicitor scribbled notes in a leather-backed book. ‘How do you explain this?’

  ‘That could have been anywhere. And who was spying on me?’

  ‘Nobody was spying on you, they were just unfortunate enough to see what happened that day,’ Julie said.

  ‘This is probably a better indication of location, wouldn’t you say?’ Swift placed another drawing in front of Lizzie. This one showed her pushing Quigley and him toppling into the cess pit, the next showed him crawling out and the third showed what sharpened florists’ wire can do to a man’s throat. Mick had even captured the glint of the wire along with the blood and ‘matter’. The last pictures Swift turned over showed Lizzie leaving her coat behind in the scrub, and then running away from the scene of her gruesome crime.

  ‘You’ve just got a police artist to draw out what your vivid imaginations have come up with,’ Lizzie said.

  Julie shook her head. ‘Unfortunately for you, we have a witness who drew these and a good many more from the images he saw on that day.’

  ‘I think, perhaps, this might be a good moment for me to speak to my client,’ the solicitor said. ‘I wonder if you would be kind enough to leave us.’

  Swift signed off, collected the drawings and with one last long, withering look at the pair opposite, he stood and left the interview room.

  ‘There will be an officer outside if you need anything.’ Julie addressed the solicitor. She wasn’t altogether happy at leaving him with this disturbed woman.

  Swift was still out of sorts when she caught up with him in the office.

  ‘But we’ve cracked it, Sir. She’s not coming back from this one.’

  ‘We need to speak to that soldier, we need to make sure he’ll testify to what he saw in court.’

  ‘How likely is that, do you think?’ Morgan Evans asked. ‘I thought he was a basket case.’

  ‘Evans, my office. Now.’ Swift spoke quietly but everyone heard. Morgan trotted after Swift, who closed his door rather too firmly. The glass in the windows of all three small offices rattled.

  ‘Why does he do that?’ Goronwy shook his head. ‘That boy’s got a death wish.’

  They could hear Swift’s voice booming through the glass, could see Morgan’s shoulders sag further and further. When Morgan was dismissed and slunk out of the office, everyone was suddenl
y very busy. He walked through the middle of them and out onto the corridor. Swift followed, but stopped by the board.

  ‘Right, we need to get to the hospital and interview Mick. Julie, you can do that. I want to know if Mick told the other two lads up at the alpaca farm anything about this. Rhys, take Goronwy and go and ask all of them, the lads and the Wilkinsons. I’m going to go and ask Mal and Sarah if there’s anything else they remember. Evans is staying here and manning the phones. Are we clear?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ Swift strode out of the office. Julie grabbed her bag and ran after him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Aren’t you letting this get to you just a bit, Sir?’ Julie closed one eye as she trotted behind him, waiting for the retort. Instead, Swift stopped suddenly and Julie walked into him. ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  ‘No, Julie, you’re right. I’m sorry. I over-reacted to what Morgan said too. I just can’t believe what that blasted woman has done, how many people she has affected with her scheming, the fact that she was prepared to let Pritchard take the blame for everything, that Mick is so disturbed by what he saw that he tried to kill himself. How can one person wreak so much havoc and think they can get away with it?’ Swift tugged his ear. His face was flushed and damp with sweat. What if he was about to keel over on her?