Kiss Me, Kill Me

by Mullins, Louise

  Relying on Mel’s mum, Sam, who moved to Spain to be close to her brother, has also proven difficult. ‘I could never afford a camera,’ she said, when asked. And when I said Spanish authorities would have to visit her address to assist her in finding a photograph of her daughter as a matter of urgency when conducting initial enquiries into our arrestee’s identity, she said, ‘There’s no point looking. I don’t have any.’

  I suspect their relationship isn’t close considering she hadn’t spoken to her daughter in years and didn’t seem at all bothered about her wellbeing.

  I enter the interview room alone.

  If that’s Mel seated in front of me, she was the last person to have seen Kirsty, Garrett and the boys, before they vanished. But it doesn’t explain why she stole her friend’s identity.

  If she’s lied to us about who she is, then what purpose will it serve her since she’s admitted to leaving Humphrey to die, unless she’s trying to cover something else up?

  ‘He was right there,’ she says, stabbing the map with her fingertip. ‘How could he have disappeared? Unless…’

  ‘Unless?’ She, thankfully, doesn’t detect the annoyance in my voice.

  ‘I took a picture of us with Humphrey’s phone before he fell. When I looked at the photograph there was a man stood further up the hill of slate, above us.’

  ‘Someone witnessed you leave him lying injured on the ground. You didn’t think to tell us this before?’

  Neither did the man, it seems. We have no reports of anyone witnessing the incident.

  ‘Does Humphrey have a OneDrive account?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Without the phone we can’t access the memory card, but with his username and password we can hack into the folders of saved items on the Cloud registered to his mobile phone and any other devices he has linked to his Google account, find the picture and use it to appeal for the man to come forward and tell us what he witnessed.

  Someone knocks on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  Kate opens the door. ‘A word, Inspector.’

  I stand, and she steps aside to allow me past as I exit the room. I close the door behind me.

  ‘I’ve just received the call logs from Vodafone, and with them confirmation that both Humphrey and…’

  ‘Call her Bethan.’

  ‘Humphrey and Bethan’s mobiles were disabled from Google tracking and any searches made in north Wales, whatever they were, were scanned via the main London exchange.’

  I can understand why Bethan would want to remotely and anonymously access a community IP address by switching on the incognito tab, and unlink the microphone app which allows vocal recognition and voice recording to avoid keyword detection if her intention was to murder her husband, but I can’t explain why Humphrey did the same.

  Kate continues. ‘The mobile phone mast situated nearest the cottage in Llanberis hasn’t picked up a signal from Humphrey’s phone since the day Bethan told us he fell and injured his head.’

  CSI haven’t found a speck of blood in the bathroom where Bethan says she showered when she returned home that evening nor any evidence of the bloodied clothes she told us she’d burned on the fireplace.

  I glance at the clock on the wall.

  We’re almost out of time.

  *

  I return to my desk and email a copy of Bethan’s mugshot to Sam – something I’m allowed to do now that we have confirmation from the Royal Courts of Justice that Bethan Philips is not Kirsty Richardson, but is in fact Bethan Miller, born Melanie Driscoll – and await her reply.

  She might also be able to help fill in the gaps of information we have about her daughter, who would have needed an enrolled deed poll to open a bank account yet there doesn’t appear to be any record of her having applied for one using any of the names we know her by, which is odd.

  How has Bethan been supporting herself for the past five years?

  Bethan has admitted to swapping identities with Kirsty to enable her to escape her marriage to Garratt. So now everything’s resting on the Major Investigation Team finding Humphrey’s body and proving her responsible for his murder so we can charge her.

  Though Bethan says Garrett was physically abusive and controlling, we only have evidence that supports his allegations that Kirsty was violent towards him and neglected her children. Both theories provide suggestions as to why it’s proving difficult to locate Kirsty and the children, but had they run away from or been harmed by Garrett, it’s much harder to explain why he hasn’t yet been found even if his disappearance was voluntary. Which is I suppose why the detectives involved in the original investigation reasonably and appropriately considered it possible Kirsty had taken his life.

  Sam responds to my email sooner than expected. I’m surprised too that she wants to talk to me and offers to call the mobile number – my work phone – supplied generically to every email I send, offering to speak with her at 1 p.m.

  Yes, the woman you have in custody is my Mel. The photo you sent me reminds me of how much she looks like her father.

  I’m free to chat when I finish my shift at siesta.

  I pick up the phone to call the CPS.

  The designated caseworker I’ve been liaising with gives me her verdict. ‘All the evidence we have on Bethan is circumstantial. You haven’t yet identified and located the male from the photograph Bethan says she took minutes before Humphrey fell the second time. Without the discovery of blood, an object or material belonging to Humphrey at the site of the supposed crime there’s no forensic proof of death, and therefore no justifiable reason to extend the hold time on Bethan’s custody. Even though she’s confessed to gross negligence by failing to dial 999 or attempt resuscitation she’s stated some valid reasons for not doing so: no phone signal, which we’ve been able to prove; a lack of first aid knowledge; she froze, a scientifically proven response to trauma; and her belief that her husband had died as she says he’d stopped breathing by the time she’d stopped panicking. This means we must prove her responsible for his death by omission, which we can’t do without his body, which would need to be forensically examined via an autopsy before we could ascertain an official cause of death, and this would mean conducting further inquiries that are going to take far longer than a twelve-hour extension. She was not present to confirm her verbal agreement during the phone call to the brokers when Humphrey added her name to his life insurance policy, nor was she an attendee of the drawing up of the will at Derek’s law practice which dilutes the theory that her motive was financial.

  ‘I must also add that we have no evidence at all to link her to the disappearance of Mr and Mrs Richardson or their sons. Even though she provided the DVLA with a photograph of herself to obtain a driving licence in Kirsty’s name, records show she was the legal owner of the vehicle at the time staff inform us she collected Kirsty from St Cadoc’s hospital, suggesting neither Kirsty’s identity or car was stolen, but rather handed over to her. Whether that was consensually or coercively we cannot prove.’

  She pauses to take a breath before continuing. ‘As you’ve had her in custody for twenty-three hours and fifty-seven minutes. I’d advise you to let her go while you continue your investigation.’

  As I approach a slack-shouldered Jones I glance across to Winters and notice she’s rubbing the exposed skin of her forehead behind her fringe and I’m made suddenly aware of the flagging energy in the incident room.

  They’re both tired. We all are.

  Jones darts his eyes up at me with a knowing look in them.

  ‘Give her bail and put her under surveillance.’

  Aware that we’re on to her, Bethan might not return to the scene of Humphrey’s so-called accident. But if she’s concerned that she may have left evidence that could implicate her in his death, whether the incident occurred where she told us it did or elsewhere, it’s likely she’ll lead us to his body.

  It’ll also give me time to speak to her mum, and collect information on Bethan’s mo
vements, find out where she was between leaving St Cadoc’s and marrying Humphrey five years later.

  Because if she gained financially from Brandon’s death and she intended for Humphrey to die it’s possible there’ve been other victims between.

  BETHAN

  Now

  I stand in front of the desk at the custody suite. The police have insufficient evidence to charge me for Humphrey’s murder.

  The officer behind the desk reads the legislature from the screen of his computer. ‘You are being released from custody on pre-charge police bail pending further investigation in accordance with Subsections 37, Part 2, and Section 34, Parts 2 and 5 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. You are restricted from residing anywhere except Wildflower Manor, Goldcliff, Gwent. You are expected to present yourself to Newport Central police station in twenty-eight days. Failure to surrender will result in a breach of bail which will lead to your immediate arrest for obstructing the course of justice.’

  I exit the building and walk down the road to the bus stop for shelter, the cold hard rain slashing down from a thunderous grey sky as if god himself is pissing on me.

  I have seven pounds in my pocket but no phone to call an Uber, and no idea how much the ten-mile journey home will cost. I drop fifty pence into a payphone – probably the only one in Cwmbran still standing – that stinks of piss and has a window missing, to dial through to the only person I have any hope of answering my call so early in the morning.

  Kim arrives in her black Range Rover twenty minutes later.

  I open the nearside passenger door and I’m hit immediately by a waft of cedarwood, amber and patchouli perfume.

  ‘Christian Dior. Nice.’

  ‘You’re soaked.’

  I hoist myself up and land onto the seat.

  ‘Sorry, it took me so long to get here. Traffic was murder. Sorry, that was a thoughtless word choice.’

  I slam the door and put my seatbelt on. ‘It’s fine.’

  I’m too tired to give a shit.

  ‘I expect you’re looking forward to your own bed. Memory foam mattress, soft pillows…’

  Her eyes flit from the wing mirror, to me, to the rear-view mirror, to the windscreen, to the wing mirror, and back again so fast that just watching makes my head spin. Her one hand on the steering wheel grips it so tight her knuckles are white and the energy radiating off her causes the air in the cabin to thrum. ‘Are you high?’

  ‘I don’t drive under the influence.’

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’

  ‘Did you do it? Did you kill him?’

  ‘I didn’t kill Humphrey.’

  She gives me a sideways glance, smiles and pats my knee.

  I get the sudden urge to push her hand further up my leg, down the waistband of my trousers and into my knickers.

  ‘What do you think happened to Kirsty and the boys?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  A lie. Because on some level, I do. I think I’ve always known.

  ‘Were you and Kirsty an item?’ She says it so blasé I almost believe she isn’t jealous.

  I give her a sideways glance. ‘No.’

  The rumble of the tyres on the unlit, half-mile-long road is the only sound to fill the space between us where, before my arrest, it would have contained continued chatter and laughter.

  Kim parks the car directly in front of the house.

  I guess this is goodbye.

  ‘You had visitors earlier.’ When she doesn’t expand, I give her a quizzical look and she adds, ‘The local press was outside.’

  I inspect the mud-trampled lawn; the proof is evident. I scout the shadowed hollows between the trees, listen out for a shuffling footstep upon the undergrowth. ‘They’re not here now.’

  ‘There was a journalist here this morning.’ Her dark eyes are trained on me as if she’s anticipating the killer blow that she suspects I’m capable of.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I was here.’

  ‘Why were you here?’

  ‘The police needed keys to enter the property for CSI to conduct their search – the warrant to do so wasn’t ready until they’d shut the door after they arrested you. Derek sent me, told me to let them in. Otherwise they would have used a battering ram and broken the door down.’

  ‘You have a key to my house?’

  ‘Derek does. Humphrey gave it him in case of an emergency. Do you want it back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll get Derek to bring it over later.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, a little bitchier than intended.

  Could Derek, not Gerald, have found the driving licence? Could he have entered our home in search of evidence of my unfaithfulness – which he’d always suspected, and I’d blamed for his obvious dislike of me – while Humphrey and I were in Scotland celebrating our honeymoon, and found it then? And not as he told the police in the refuse bin where I’d dumped it last month?

  I turn to Kim. ‘I guess this is it then, for us?’

  She doesn’t even have the decency to restrain the impulse to laugh. ‘You know there wasn’t ever an “us”, I’m married.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘It was just a bit of fun. I love Derek.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better for cheating on him with me, Kim.’

  I exit the car and watch Kim drive away, back to her husband and her safe, comfortable life where she exists like a trapped butterfly.

  I was just a fantasy to her. An escape from the monotony of her Stepford-like existence. Even if she daren’t admit it, Kim’s no different to me or Roberta. We’re just trophies on the arms of rich men. Exchanging affection for the privileges they offer in return. There’s a term for what we are: whores.

  I tread around the circular lawn and head for the porch. I reach the door, shove my key in the lock, and startle at the snap of a branch near the hedgerow behind me. I ignore it and push open the door, flick on the hallway light, and enter the house. I close the door behind me, drop my handbag onto the floor below the coat stand, then unbutton my jacket, shrug it off and hang it up. I kick off my shoes, stretch my tired feet and tread upstairs for my slippers. I put them on, remove my makeup, comb my hair, then head down to the basement.

  A sound above – wind probably, blowing a branch into the side of the house – leads me to select a bottle of red from the shelf closest to the concrete steps and my only exit, rather than walk further into the bowels of the cellar where my favoured brand is kept.

  I carry it up to the kitchen, uncork it, fill a glass to the brim, glug it down, wipe the residue from my chin, pour another and take it with the three-quarters empty bottle along the hall and into the drawing room.

  I put the bottle down and lean behind the plant stand to switch on the billiards table lamp. A set of keys jangle from the other end of the room as though someone has flicked them to get my attention.

  I turn slowly to the corner to where a hulk of muscle sits, and a wave of terror floods my chest.

  DI LOCKE

  Now

  I’m about to enter Greggs, salivating at the thought of my morning bacon roll and looking forward to a much-needed white americano when Vickers calls. ‘We have blood.’

  Cadaver dogs detected the scent of human remains. A blood spot was found on a piece of Snowdonian slate. It’s being lab-tested. The results are expected to be available by midday. The sample will be compared to the saliva on Humphrey’s toothbrush, which CSIs removed from the country manor during yesterday’s search. But even if it’s a conclusive match, even if it’s cranial, it doesn’t prove he’s dead, or that he was murdered. It supports his wife’s story: that he suffered a head injury at the site where she states he fell.

  ‘Of course, you do,’ I sigh.

  About ninety per cent of our most useful evidence is discovered after we’ve released a suspect on bail.

  ‘I’ll update the team, but I’d like to see the preliminary results before arresting her
again.’

  I’d usually eat in but I’m in a hurry, so I pay for my food then take it to the car, hoping to finish it before I’m disturbed.

  I close the car door and manage a slurp of coffee before my phone chimes.

  ‘Hi, it’s Sam, Mel’s mum. So… my daughter’s being accused of knocking the old codger off his perch, according to Wales Online?’

  ‘I can’t divulge investigative details that aren’t public knowledge, but I can tell you that she was released on bail earlier this morning.’

  ‘It’s in the news article I read that she’s calling herself Bethan and that she was arrested on suspicion of murdering Norman.’

  ‘Norman?’

  ‘Her husband. I was disappointed not to have been invited to the wedding and I must say I’m surprised he made it. He wasn’t in the best of health when they met back in 2015. I thought he’d be dead by now.’

  ‘Do you happen to know Norman’s surname?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not him then? She found another old codger to fleece, huh?’

  As soon as I end the call, I ring Jones, ask him to find out all he can about Norman Webb.

  I’m still mulling over everything Sam told me as I pull up behind Johnno’s Mazda.

  ‘Mel replaced the boozy, drug-fuelled nights out that often ended in her blackout with an expensive taste that meant dining out with old men and conning them into funding her extravagant lifestyle was necessary to ensure it continued. Norman was one of those men. He was in his seventies when Mel began dating him,’ Sam told me.

  His wife had died ten months before they met. His daughter didn’t like Mel, called her a gold-digger, said she didn’t want Mel nursing her father in his final hours, predicted Mel would inherit his money when he died.

  ‘She wanted a sugar daddy and he was happy to oblige. Though I couldn’t tell you why she wanted a father figure, I guessed it was because Norman was able to provide her with financial stability. Something we lacked after her dad left us.’

  Sam’s relationship with her daughter was fraught with tension before they lost contact with each other shortly after Sam met a backpacker while visiting her brother in Spain.