HER HUSBAND’S KILLER an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  ‘I — I’m not sure of the time.’ Her voice was almost inaudible at first. ‘Half one, two, perhaps? But I left Ed safe and well.’

  She looked up at Hackett and her lashes were wet. ‘I said some terrible things to him. I confronted him, said I knew he was being unfaithful to me. How could he do that to me?’ Hackett searched her face, but the irony of what she had said seemed beyond her understanding.

  ‘Now I don’t know — maybe I was wrong. I don’t understand why he didn’t just tell me he was going to look after me — why he let me think those awful things about him?’

  ‘More games?’ Hackett asked.

  ‘Maybe he was seeing someone else and wanted you as well,’ Tact suggested.

  She looked at him sharply, but he had that bland, vague look on his face. She shrugged. ‘He didn’t deny it. But then Edward never denied anything. “Never apologize, never explain.” It was kind of a motto for him.’ She fell silent.

  ‘Clara?’ Hackett prompted.

  ‘He was so calm. It didn’t seem to matter to him that I was going to leave him. I was so upset—’ He gave a little sob. ‘But he smiled and smiled and—’

  ‘Did you have intercourse with Professor Wilkinson that afternoon?’ Hackett asked.

  ‘Of course not!’ Clara gaped at Hackett, shocked. ‘What do you take me for?’

  Hackett left that question unanswered.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she gasped. ‘David said he’d been found in bed. You mean—?’

  ‘Do you know who he was . . . seeing — apart from yourself, that is?’ Hackett said.

  She shook her head.

  ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Clara’s hand went to her hair and she tugged at a strand, worrying and twisting it. ‘I was only there about a quarter of an hour. I couldn’t speak to him when he was like that.’

  ‘Like what?’ Tact asked.

  She turned from Hackett to the young constable. ‘Cold, distant, cruel.’

  * * *

  ‘He was found naked in bed,’ Hackett said. ‘Semen on the sheets. Clean sheets, fresh on that morning. He wasn’t alone, either — forensic have got two types of pubic hair, and some fair or mousy hairs on the pillows, along with a few from his head. And from what Dr Wilkinson says, since her miscarriage there’d been no sexual contact between her and her husband.’

  ‘D’you believe her, Sarge?’ Tact asked.

  ‘No reason not to. She hated his guts.’

  Clara had been taken down to the cells after a tearful phone call to her babysitter. The babysitter would not hear of social services being called in and had agreed to keep the baby until Clara was released. Hackett and Tact had retired to the canteen to take a late, but well-earned breakfast.

  Tact shrugged.

  ‘Come on, Jem, let’s have it.’

  Tact carefully assembled a piece of fried egg, a sliver of bacon and a square of fried bread onto his fork, then dipped the lot in the yolk before sliding the lot into his mouth. ‘I don’t know what women see in that type.’

  ‘Takes all sorts,’ Hackett replied. ‘Wilkinson was a clever — some say a brilliant man — women find that attractive.’

  ‘No, I can understand that. But all the rest. The cheating, the lies, the power play.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong.’

  ‘Love life not up to snuff, Jem?’

  Tact narrowed his eyes but chose not to grace the comment with a reply. ‘Clara has no alibi, and plenty of motive,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you eating those mushrooms?’ Hackett was already regretting the fried breakfast he’d just eaten. He shoved his plate over and Tact scooped the mushrooms onto his own plate and continued. ‘She now admits she saw Ed at home on the afternoon of his death and argued with him.’

  ‘Closest we’ve had to an admission since the investigation began,’ Hackett said. ‘But Ellis did threaten the prof, so maybe we should have him in again.’ Nelson would be well pleased. It was time to call him anyway.

  Hackett accompanied Nelson to the university-approved accommodation at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning. It was a rambling Edwardian building, divided into flats and bedsits. The owners had made an effort to keep the paintwork in reasonable condition, but the occupants had put their own distinctive mark on the windows: coloured glass ornaments; stickers exhorting passers-by to legalize cannabis, to ban hare coursing, or organophosphates, or the second runway — this last was faded, the Sellotape yellowed and peeling from the window pane. Hackett reminded himself that this concern for the environment, mingled with rebellion against the constraints of conformity, were a natural progression, a modern equivalent of the rituals of rites of passage. It was just that Daniel, as the son of a policeman, had more to kick against than most teenage boys. He felt briefly consoled.

  The front door was open. The two policemen wove past a motor bike and a rusting VW Beetle parked on the concreted front garden, and went in. For the moment, all was quiet. Several bicycles leaned against a large grey cupboard in the hall, in varying states of disrepair. The house smelled of lubricating oil, accumulated dirt and fried food. They climbed the stairs and knocked at number seven and were admitted by a dishevelled and disorientated John Ellis.

  A quick glance around the grimy surfaces of the room confirmed Hackett’s suspicions: that Ellis was undisciplined, disorganized — clever, perhaps — but without the dedication and single-mindedness required to bring his projects to a satisfactory conclusion. The room, in short, was a mess. Several days’ dishes lay encrusted in the sink, several weeks’ washing unsorted, smelling rankly at the foot of the unmade bed. Books and papers were strewn without apparent organization on around the spindly kitchen table that served as a desk. A few old-fashioned third-of-a-pint bottles lay on their sides on various surfaces around the room, their blue, slightly crusted contents had shrunk from the sides, desiccated, as were the remains of the tiny insects which had fed off it. A few of them were tangled in the cotton wool bungs and several more clung to the filter paper which must have served some purpose to the once-thriving colonies.

  Nelson, Hackett knew, had made the same observations and come to the same conclusions he had. Hackett had stared for some moments at the logo on Ellis’s T-shirt, proclaiming E-quality for all! waiting until Ellis was visibly squirming before asking with guileless charm, ‘Something to do with women’s lib, sir?’

  They had taken Ellis to headquarters for questioning. Nelson had, with uncharacteristic candour, briefed Hackett regarding the shift to the station: its twin aims were to silence Mallory’s bleating about needing access to his office, and to encourage Ellis to be more forthcoming, a possibility Nelson felt was more likely in the unsettling atmosphere of an official interview room.

  * * *

  Ellis sat, transfixed by the glare of Nelson’s eyes. Sergeant Hackett stood near the door, his expression unreadable. Ellis tried to listen to what the inspector was saying, but the clamour of buzzing and sing-song twitterings in his head were distracting. The words formed like bubbles on Nelson’s lips, they floated upwards, like lysosomes: tiny organelles filled with self-destruct enzymes, poisonous packets of annihilation.

  ‘Something’s been bothering me,’ Nelson confided. Ellis turned his head, listening to the whispering somewhere to his left, trying to make sense of it. ‘You keep turning up all over the place.’

  Doesn’t he know the word ‘ubiquitous’? Ellis thought dreamily. His hands brushed at some invisible speck of dust, or fleck of ash on the worn surface of the interview room table. He giggled.

  Nelson squinted at him, and Ellis saw that he was fighting a hangover the size of Cheshire. The signs were all there, pallor, a faint sheen of perspiration on the forehead, photophobia. The inspector’s hands were folded in front of him on the desk, so he couldn’t make out the incipient signs of DTs. And Nelson had sneered at his E-quality T-shirt — bloody hypocrite!

  Nelson massaged his right temple and went on: ‘You argued with Pro
fessor Wilkinson the morning of the murder. Well, that’s not unusual. Most folk, from what I gather, had a fair old ding-dong with the prof that day.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘That’s one of the things that’s making our job so bloody difficult.’

  Ellis nodded, sympathizing with Nelson’s predicament; he knew their task had been hampered by the complexity of the situation, by Prof Wilkinson’s despicable treatment of so many people. He had it in his power to help the police, but he did not like the way Nelson looked at him.

  ‘Of course, the professor wasn’t what you’d call a popular character — and that’s another problem. But not yours, eh?’

  Ellis blinked, unsure. Didn’t they know that part yet? He relaxed a little. Perhaps he was safe after all.

  ‘I mean, your funding is guaranteed to the end of your doctoral research. When is that? End of summer?’ At Ellis’s confirmative nod, Nelson went on: ‘So by October you should have your thesis all boxed off.’ Perhaps he saw the hesitation before his second nod, because he added, ‘It is going to plan, is it, John?’

  Whose plan? Ellis thought, but he hissed a ‘yes’, and Nelson took up where he’d left off:

  ‘Still, it’d be nice to have something set up for the autumn, eh? Is that why you wanted to speak to Dr Wilkinson? To ask her to put in a good word?’ Ellis swallowed, unable to speak, and Nelson seemed to feel the need to clarify: ‘Twice, when I’ve been to interview Dr Wilkinson, you’ve been lurking about.’ He flashed Ellis a shark-like grin. ‘You see the kind of conclusions a man like me might feel compelled to—’

  Nelson stopped, and Ellis thought he saw shock — perhaps even fear — in the inspector’s amber eyes. He glanced anxiously towards Sergeant Hackett.

  ‘Sir?’ Hackett stepped forward from his position by the doorway and placed a hand on Nelson’s shoulder.

  Nelson shook him off, impatiently and Hackett let his hand drop. ‘You must see how it could look, John?’ he finished belatedly.

  ‘How it could look,’ Ellis echoed, tilting his head, listening more intently. If they didn’t know, he might be in the clear. But ideas had been coming to him, recently. Dangerous ideas, and they made him afraid. He hadn’t felt this way since his A’ levels, since that other, terrible time . . .

  ‘You’ve been . . . edgy — let’s call it that — since we arrived. It does make me wonder—’ Nelson pulled the corners of his mouth down in an apologetic moue. ‘Bound to.’

  Ellis sighed.

  Nelson changed tack. ‘There was a disagreement, a fracas — call it what you like — yesterday in the um, refectory.’ He sounded embarrassed to use the word, like he wasn’t sure if he was using it correctly.

  Ellis sat completely still. The whisperers, by some miracle, were beginning to be comprehensible to him.

  ‘Over money, was it, sir?’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘There were lots of witnesses.’

  Ellis nodded. ‘Technicians!’ He felt a little glow of pleasure at the disdain in his voice and found that he could now hold Nelson’s gaze.

  Then Nelson produced two fifty-pence coins from his pocket. ‘Someone wanted them to buy coffee from the machine. There were ten fifty-pence pieces in the machine when it was opened. Unexceptional, ordinary fifty-pence coins.’ He held up a plastic bag.

  Ellis could see the coins clearly through the plastic but couldn’t read the label. He leaned forward, reaching for them, stopping himself in time. ‘An evidence bag?’

  Nelson scrutinized the bag, resting his elbow on the tabletop, and speculating as if to himself. ‘Professor Wilkinson’s eyes were closed.’

  Ellis stared, dry-mouthed at the inspector. What was he saying? What did he know?

  ‘There’s some people can’t even keep their eyes closed when they’re asleep, let alone . . .’ He focused on Ellis, staring intently. ‘Did you know that, John? The eyes tend to flit open — or at least half open. Now like I say, Professor Wilkinson’s eyes were closed. He looked asleep almost, but for the blood.’ Nelson tilted the bag and the coins jingled softly, sliding together into one corner of the bag. ‘In the old days they used to keep ’em closed with pennies — the big old ones, not the piddly post-decimalization toytown tiddlers. The big, solid old-fashioned type — you probably wouldn’t remember — with Britannia ruling the waves on the one side and often as not king George on the other. About the size of fifty p’s they were, only round of course.’

  Ellis looked into those dangerous eyes and knew it was hopeless trying to explain. His life was falling apart; his research was treated as a departmental joke by everyone except his supervisor — and that was only because Dr Mallory was so out of touch he couldn’t see that it was a heap of shit. Everyone was waiting for him to fall: he had been so close to scientific eminence — and now nobody respected him, even the technicians tormented him.

  Suddenly Ellis could stand it no more. He leapt to his feet and his chair shot back, bouncing off the far wall. He flung himself towards the door and Nelson was too slow to prevent him.

  But Hackett grabbed Ellis as he scrabbled at the door handle and swung him round by the collar and the hem of his jacket. Nelson set the chair right and Hackett lowered Ellis into it. He was crying, muttering about needing the coins, that they didn’t have the right, on and on. Nelson let him, waiting for the waves of nausea and the pounding in his head, brought on by the surge of adrenaline, to subside.

  When, at last, Ellis was quiet, he said, ‘Now then, Mr Ellis, perhaps you’d like to tell me exactly why these two coins were so important to you.’

  * * *

  Helen sat at the kitchen table of her parents’ home, trying to make sense of the dream that had woken her from her afternoon snooze. Her father had taken his tea and his copy of the Manchester Evening News through to the sitting room as she came into the kitchen, mumbling something about catching up on the final scores on the telly. Helen tried not to feel the painful thud of rejection, but her face betrayed her, and her mother said, ‘Now don’t look like that, Helen. Your Dad’s had a hard week, that’s all.’

  A hard week had been the standard excuse for years for her father’s avoidance of Helen on her weekend visits. When she had been able to persuade Edward to come with her, he had made more of an effort to be sociable, to hide his feelings for her. She realized that her parents had seen Edward as a substitute, and now she had taken even that away from them. Her mother set about making tea and Helen, calmed and reassured by the familiarity, the predictability of the ritual, prepared herself to answer her mother’s questions. She would not tell her about Mick, not yet — there was nothing to tell. Despite which, Helen found herself thinking of him constantly.

  ‘You’ve had time to do some thinking, then,’ her mother began.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘What have you decided?’ The question was posed over the shoulder, face-to-face questions being difficult for Helen’s mother, as if she thought them impertinent, and eye contact rude.

  ‘I haven’t decided anything, Mum. I still don’t know . . .’

  ‘You’re still not sleeping. Not eating?’ Since she could not show Helen the affection that she really needed, her mother had fallen into the habit of nagging her about her health: at least it gave the appearance of concern.

  ‘A little, of both. Oh, Mum, I am trying, really, but—’

  There was a silent build-up of tension; the air seemed almost to crackle with it, as before an electrical discharge, then:

  ‘When your brother died—’

  Helen gasped. Her mother had broken an unspoken rule which, until now, had been inviolate.

  ‘Mum, please.’ Her voice was barely audible. She felt a prickling in her scalp, a tingling sensation ran from her chest to her fingertips. She tried to get up, but her legs would not support her.

  ‘What happened to him was a tragedy.’

  Helen was finding it hard to breathe.

  ‘We’ve tried, Helen, but we can’t put it behind us, not entirely.�
�

  Helen shook her head, to dislodge the image of her brother screaming in pain and clutching his head.

  ‘We can’t blame you.’

  As if blame, the apportioning of responsibility, would make it better, easier to bear.

  ‘If we’d stayed and to hell with what his friends might think, maybe we’d’ve been able to stop him — or do something to help.’

  This was a well-worn circular track, spiralling inwards to a claustrophobic centre. They blamed themselves, for Robbie’s death. They might have stopped him taking the pill that killed him, where Helen had failed. They couldn’t blame Helen, and yet they did blame her, needing someone to share the burden, despite all their rationalization, and this increased their guilt.

  ‘It’s such a bloody waste!’ Helen burst out, suddenly angry.

  A waste and a shame, and what happened after was a shame and a waste of two years of her young life. It had happened, and life would never be the same, but they still had to live it. Helen looked into her mother’s face and saw the sadness of the years etched deep, and the unrelenting anger that she, whom they had trusted with their most precious gift, had proved unfit, had taken from them their only son.

  Helen had suffered two years of black despair following his death. She would rather have died than let Robbie go through that terrifying pain, but she did not regret what she had done after his funeral.

  It was unplanned. She had wanted to see the man who had taken so much from her family, to understand how he operated, and she had driven her car from the quiet suburban street where they lived through to the terraced houses of the estates on the rough side of town. She sat in her car, watching him in the dark winter night, and he had turned and smiled at her. That smile! His casual arrogance that made her want to kill, because he was alive, vibrant, and Robbie was dead. She had buried her kid brother the day before, and this thug was able to walk the streets, selling his poison, turning a profit.