by Keith Nixon
“Frankly, I don’t want to hear from you now, inspector.”
“Mrs Jessop, somehow, some way, we will be talking.” In reality, Gray couldn’t force Jessop to comply.
A long silence which Gray didn’t fill then a sigh. “If you insist. I’ve a few minutes.”
“I want to see you face to face.”
“At my house?”
“Yes, Mrs Jessop.”
“You’re a nasty man.”
“I assume that’s a yes?”
“It is. When will you arrive?”
“Within the hour.”
“I expect you not to overstay your welcome.”
She disconnected, robbing Gray of the opportunity to state he had absolutely no intention of spending any longer with her than he had to.
Twenty
Gray barely knew Rochester. He’d been there once to walk the historic heart when his kids were small. He remembered there was a castle built by William the Conqueror and that Charles Dickens had spent a lot of time in the town – the famous writer once had a country home the other side of the river. In fact, Dickens had died there.
He followed the sat nav’s command and took the junction off the M2, the motorway connecting Thanet to London. He followed the A229, a wide road with houses and grass verges either side, trees dotted periodically, straight north for several miles.
As he neared the centre of town the traffic flow congealed to a crawl and the buildings crowded together. Eventually the sat nav instructed him to head east – Susan Jessop lived not far from the river. His progress slowed to a crawl with bumper to bumper vehicle queues. When Gray finally arrived, he realised the road was narrow and parking was impossible – double yellow lines prevented anyone stopping. Even leaving a motorbike here would block the route.
Gray drove around the immediate area for a few minutes before he managed to find a space a few streets away in a time restricted zone. He had an hour. As he got out of his car, he caught the eye of a traffic warden in a blue uniform and peaked cap a few yards away writing in his notebook. He’d be making a list of registration numbers. The warden would return in precisely sixty minutes to catch anyone who’d overstayed. They operated on a basic wage and commission – cash for each driver they hit with a fine. Gray checked the time and got walking.
He wouldn’t be lining anybody’s pocket.
***
The Jessop residence was set back behind a low wall, topped with an ornate, painted metal fence. The small garden was neat, the bushes cut back ready for spring. The house itself was arranged over three stories, dark red brick, white painted sash windows, maybe Georgian architecture, definitely old. Gray couldn’t see inside because nets hung at the windows. He lifted a heavy cast iron knocker and rapped on the door. It was opened by a dapper lady in her 50s.
“Inspector Gray, you’re late.”
“There’s nowhere to park nearby.”
“It’s the middle of the day.” She stepped back. “Get yourself in.”
The hallway was well lit. Stairs led upwards just in front. The walls were decorated with a floral green paper, the floor stripped, and boards varnished. Standing by the bannister was a young man. He had the same aquiline nose as Mrs Jessop and was dressed in a black suit and bright red tie.
“My son, Edgar” said Mrs Jessop, “He’s a lawyer.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Edgar. “And I’m not yet fully qualified.”
Mrs Jessop glared at her son. She’d wanted to establish that she had legal representation to hand.
“Take them off,” she pointed to Gray’s shoes. “Put them there with the rest, next to Edgar.”
Gray shucked his shoes, not bothering to undo the laces. “Fortunately, I’ve got my good socks on today.”
Mrs Jessop huffed while Edgar coughed in an attempt to suppress a chuckle. A disapproving Mrs Jessop led Gray and Edgar through the first doorway. A big open fireplace was set in one wall. The floor was the same varnished boards as the hallway, but a rug filled most of the space. The furniture looked heavy. Thick curtains either side of the windows. The light was dim because of the nets.
She pointed to a high back chair and took one herself. Edgar perched nearby on a stool. The space looked and smelled like a rarely used reception room.
She sat back, crossed her legs at the ankle and folded her fingers in her lap. “Well, Inspector Gray, you mentioned something involving my daughter?” Her tone was cool. “She’s passed, you know. I hardly see her causing any more trouble now, do you?”
“I’m working on a case in which your daughter had some form an involvement.”
“Case? What case?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. What can you tell me about her?”
Jessop sighed. “Where to start? She was brought up correctly. As you can see, we come from a reasonable background. She could have had whatever she wanted, really. But what we offered wasn’t suitable. She started to get into trouble at school. We were paying a lot of money for her education, I’ll tell you. Eventually she got herself expelled.”
“Why?”
“Boys, drink, drugs. It was shameful.” Gray noticed Edgar pulling a face. Mrs Jessop continued, “She ran away when she was fourteen. We found her, in London on the streets, and brought her back. She left again at fifteen, twice. London again, then Thanet. When she reached sixteen and disappeared the next time, we let go of her. She clearly didn’t want to be with us.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“Thanet, but not until the police contacted us after her death. That’s when we found out.”
“And you didn’t have any contact with her in between?”
“As I said, Zara clearly didn’t wish to.”
“Why?”
Mrs Jessop leaned forward. “Do you have children, Inspector Gray?”
“Yes.”
“Did they ever stop talking to you?”
“When they were teenagers.”
“What about now?”
“Our relationship is decent enough.”
“Then you’re lucky.” Mrs Jessop sat back again, regaining her seemingly relaxed posture. “Zara and I fought all the time. It felt like from the moment we met we didn’t get on.”
“Met?” It was a strange word to use.
“I was step-mother to Zara. Edgar is her half-brother.”
“What about your husband? Did he try to speak with her?”
“Charles was in complete agreement with me throughout.” It sounded like there was no room for argument between husband and wife. “And we weren’t aware of any of her doings while she lived in Margate.”
“There’s nothing you can tell me at all?”
“No.” She checked her watch. “Now, I’d better be getting on.”
“That’s it?”
“I informed you of two things. One I could only give you a few minutes. And two, you were wasting your time driving here, Inspector Gray. Unsurprisingly I was proven correct on both counts.” She turned to Edgar and nodded.
“I’ll show you out,” said Edgar. He opened the front door for Gray to step through. Gray turned, expecting to say goodbye, but Edgar exited also. He pulled the door closed behind him. “She’s at the window, watching, come on.” Edgar led Gray onto the pavement. He pointed along the street. “So, she thinks I’m giving you directions.”
“What’s going on?” Gray couldn’t withdraw, Edgar still had held his arm.
“Mother was wrong about Zara. Mother drove her away with her incessant nagging though she’ll never admit it.” Gray opened his mouth to ask another question, Edgar stopped him. “If I stay any longer, she’ll be suspicious. Here, take these.” Edgar withdrew some envelopes, tied together with string from an inside pocket and passed them to Gray. “Don’t let her see these.” Gray slid them into his jacket and Edgar retreated. The whole process had been hidden by their proximity. “My number is on a card inside one of them, if you want to speak.”
Then Edgar turned away an
d headed back to the house. Mrs Jessop was at the window, the net lifted. She kept her eyes on Gray until he walked round the corner and out of sight.
***
Gray sat in his car and pulled the package Edgar had given him from out of his pocket. He undid the knot and fanned out the envelopes. There were five in total, the postmarks from Ramsgate and Margate, and from approximately eight to ten years ago. He flipped the uppermost envelope over. It had been neatly slit at the top, like Edgar had used a knife.
The letter inside was on a single sheet. The handwriting was shaky and sloped downwards. The layout was textbook, Zara’s address top right, which he recognised from the PNC search, the date, then lower on the left was Edgar’s address.
Dear Edgar,
I hope you’re well. I wish I could see you. Is your mother still being a bitch? I’m sorry, I can’t think of her as anything other than that after the way she’s treated me.
I have some good news, I’m to be a mother myself! I’ve known for a while but didn’t want to tell anyone in case I jinxed it. I’m sure I’m having a boy, he’s very active. I’ve had to stop work as my stomach has become obvious. Nobody wants to pay to watch a pregnant dancer – except the occasional weirdo, and I’m not into that stuff…
I’ve told the father, he’s ecstatic, but worried because he’s already married. I know, I know, I’m a home breaker, however he’s been really unhappy in his marriage for years. She’s not his type and never has been. He’s already got children, they’re all grown up, so I’m sure we will have a lot of support. I’d really like you to meet him, and the baby once he’s arrived. Do you think you can get away from The Witch for a few days? Ramsgate isn’t that far away from Rochester!
Anyway, I must dash. Speak soon.
All my love.
Z x
Gray blinked, went back to the date again, it wasn’t long before Zara’s suicide. She’d mentioned a baby. She must have given birth in between then and her death.
Perhaps Zara was the mother of the baby in the box? Yet Clough and Jenkinson said nothing about any signs of pregnancy in their PM reports. Unless she’d lost the child?
Someone knocked on his window. The traffic warden. He tapped on his watch, indicating Gray’s time was up. Gray showed the man his warrant card. The warden shrugged, a half sneer on his face, and hiked a thumb for Gray to move on. Gray put the letters on the passenger seat, started the engine and pulled away.
***
Gray moved a few streets away and found a spot in a car park. The space was allocated to the disabled and the car park pay and display, but he didn’t need long and he couldn’t drive back to Thanet before reading further.
He sorted the letters into date order. The earliest was when Zara had run away to London. Living on the streets, she said. The picture she painted was grim and depressing. Of the near-impossible task of trying to find a hostel bed for the night and, if not there, then somewhere safe and warm. A public toilet, the kind you had to pay to get into, seemed the best. Sleeping in a place like that, though. Gray shuddered.
There was worse. Some guy had attempted to rape her. A fifteen-year-old. The short paragraph had been dismissive, as if it was just one of those things.
The subsequent three letters were about Zara moving to Thanet around a year later. Finding somewhere to live and then getting a job. She named the club – Platinum, a back-street joint in Ramsgate.
And she again mentioned meeting someone, who took pity on her and would look after her. An unnamed professional, white collar worker in a responsible job. Zara’s benefactor was older, clearly (but at her age that could encompass a lot of people). And no mention of where or how they met.
Gray pulled out Edgar’s card and dialled the number.
“Hello?” Edgar answered, sounding uncertain, street noise in the background.
“Thanks for the letters,” said Gray.
“Were they helpful?”
“More than you could believe.”
“Good, that’s a relief. When I heard you were coming, I insisted I be there. It was father who went to London and brought Zara back, you know.”
“That was a good thing to do.”
“But it was all for nothing.”
Gray had no answer to that. “Do you know what happened to her baby?”
“We talked on the phone just before she died. She said she was going to give it up for adoption, because she was struggling to cope. I never knew any more after that.”
“And did Zara ever say who the father was?”
“No. But I’m convinced he had something to do with her death, Inspector.”
“Based on what?”
“Instinct.”
“I need more than that,” said Gray. “Why were you suspicious of the father?”
Edgar paused while he thought. “I don’t know, inspector. It was just a feeling I had. I couldn’t put my finger on it then, either. He just didn’t feel right. I can’t tell you anymore, I’m sorry.” Edgar rang off.
Gray felt vaguely unsatisfied. That he’d taken one further small step in the shadows but still didn’t have a clear picture of events. Most of the people who’d been directly involved in events eight years ago – Jessop, Fowler, Jenkinson, Ogilvy – were either dead or incapable. But there was one who may be able to tell him more.
“Sol, you must be a mind reader,” said Clough, the pathologist. “I’ve had the test results on the baby girl. They all came back negative. Therefore, I’m recording cause of death as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Just one of those sad, unexplained events.”
“Good to know, but that wasn’t the reason I rang.”
“Sounds mysterious.”
“Zara Jessop.”
Clough’s intake of breath was obvious over the phone. “What do you want to know?”
Twenty One
“I would have happily come over to Canterbury,” said Gray as he sat down with a pint and an apple juice.
“I prefer to keep a separation between where I live and work,” said Clough. “When I go home, I leave everything at the office. Besides, I wanted to speak as soon as possible. I’ve been on tenterhooks ever since you rang.”
Gray had driven straight here from Rochester. They were meeting in the Belle Vue Tavern, a deceptively large pub on a narrow road on the very edge of Ramsgate. The cliff-top beer garden overlooked the huge expanse of Pegwell Bay and across to the old pharmaceutical site near Sandwich where thousands had once worked until the company shut its doors and moved. On a clear day the pier in Deal, where Wyatt lived, could be seen as a small strip jutting out into the English Channel.
Clough had picked a table around the corner from the bar, tucked away. As it was still relatively early, not quite 6pm, the place was relatively empty. Soon it would fill with people here to eat.
“By your reaction you clearly remembered Zara,” said Gray.
“First, tell me why she’s come up.”
“She’s possibly the mother of the baby in the box.”
“Fuck.” Clough removed his glasses, dropped them on the table, squeezed his eyes shut. Gray didn’t think he’d ever heard Clough swear before. He allowed the silence to stretch until eventually Clough focused on Gray again. The pathologist’s eyes were bloodshot. “I’ll never forget her. She was the first PM I conducted on my own here and it created merry hell.”
“How?”
“I was junior pathologist at the time. I’d been in Thanet about a year. Amos was my boss.” Clough meant Jenkinson. “He was amazing, someone to learn from. An old school examiner from a different generation. He smoked, shouted, terrorised.”
Gray remembered the version of Jenkinson he’d seen only a few days ago. They were completely different people now.
“And he was brilliant too,” continued Clough. “Fantastic in court, lawyers were in awe of him. If Jenkinson pronounced a judgement on a PM, it was accepted. He really should have worked in one of the big cities, on big cases.”
“Why didn�
��t he?”
“I asked once, he told me he liked being a huge fish in a tiny pond. All that authority – he was bloody difficult to work for. Although his standards were very high, he could be inconsistent. He had favourites; others were allowed to get away with stuff that I simply couldn’t.”
“Were you friends?”
“Friends?” Clough gave a bitter laugh. “He used to scare the crap out of me! He was more of a reluctant mentor.”
“So, you didn’t socialise?”
“We went to the pub together, but it wasn’t like us now. Usually there was a group of colleagues, all there to listen as Jenkinson regaled us with past tales; either a PM or a court case where he’d given testimony.”
“Did you like him?”
“Like?” Clough drank some of his apple juice. “That’s not a word I’d use. I respected his mind and his abilities, but he wasn’t an easy man to get along with. He treated people he considered his juniors or from a lower class as little more than tools.”
“Including you, by the sound of it.”
“Correct. Status was important to Jenkinson. At the beginning it didn’t bother me, I was just happy to be learning from him. I played the inferior fiddle for a couple of years. It was okay until I realised how he was treating me and the team. I got more and more frustrated about being in the background. I’d joined the department to make a difference, yet I felt like I was only barely trusted to handle the basics. Learning, though slowly.”
“Treated, how?”
“These days Jenkinson would be called out for bullying and harassment. He wouldn’t have recognised those terms. He was from a different generation. Thankfully, those days are largely over.”
Gray recognised this kind of behaviour from his time in the police, particularly his first years when he was in uniform. It was supposed to toughen you up and woe betide anyone who complained. As Clough had said, things were different now.
“What’s this got to do with Jessop?”
“I’m coming to that. It was early summer, the beginning of June, and Amos had gone on holiday a couple of days previously. Up to Scotland for a week-long tour of the lochs. Another colleague, someone Jenkinson regularly turned to, was off sick. Meaning I was on call when her body was discovered. The sad thing is, looking back, although someone had died, my only emotion was excitement. Finally, a significant case to get my teeth into!”
