These Little Lies

by GRETTA MULROONEY

  ‘We don’t know when Julia found that letter, though, or where she found it. If Stenning left it with his solicitor, she’d have received it soon after he died.’

  ‘That would have been in early 2017. Can you phone the hospital and check on how she’s doing? I’m going to have a look around her house. By the way, I’ve been generous. I haven’t said I told you so.’

  Ali stopped at the door, eyebrows raised. ‘About what?’

  ‘About Lauren’s mother. She is part of the story. My hunch was right.’

  ‘Yeah . . . well . . . ach, have another mint as you’re so clever.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant, very gracious.’ She sucked her second mint but it wasn’t as good as the hit of the first. Frankie. She’d seen or heard that name somewhere. She’d mull it over on the drive to Aldmarsh.

  * * *

  She spent an hour in Julia’s house. The forensic team had finished, so she was able to look around uninterrupted. The kitchen had been aired but was still smoky, so she opened a window before going through to the living room and looking through the drawers and shelves. She flicked through several photo albums. None of the photos was recent. She guessed that Julia and James had stopped taking any after Sophie died. Their lives hadn’t been worth recording after that. There were plenty of the little girl from baby to three years old — Sophie doing somersaults and headstands, splashing in a paddling pool, skipping, dancing and perched on a climbing frame. Her scant three birthdays and Christmases were marked. She was always smiling. The ones taken with her parents showed them looking thrilled, leaning in towards their child, glowing with love. She found herself moved by them.

  Upstairs she found two bedrooms, one on either side of the landing. Julia’s bedroom was neat, slightly clinical even, and she found nothing of interest. The second, smaller bedroom was used as an office. She looked through the filing cabinet where the letter had been found. Everything was secured in alphabetical pockets — bank statements, church activities, gym membership, health, insurances, work. The bank statements showed that Julia had healthy savings and a couple of thousand in her current account. She found a copy of Julia’s will filed in an envelope under “W.” It was short and had been drawn up just over a year ago. She noted the contents, her brain whirring, a tingle of excitement up the back of her neck, and photographed it before returning it to its pocket.

  She rang the number of the solicitor who had drawn up the will. After a few minutes she spoke to a Ms Perbright who confirmed that she had also acted on behalf of Mrs Stenning with regards to probate on Mr Stenning’s will, and that his papers had not included a letter for his wife. She confirmed that Mr Stenning had made a new will in 2011, but that one had been drawn up through another solicitor in Ashford. Mr Stenning had left everything to his wife. But I wonder how much less than she and Frankie had been expecting, and all because of a secret daughter.

  She closed the cabinet drawers. Which pocket had Julia put the letter from her husband in? C for cheat or L for liar? As she pulled the front door shut, she saw an older man hovering at the bottom of the steps. It wasn’t raining but he was using a large folded umbrella with a curved handle as a stick. He looked anxious.

  ‘Are you from the police?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right. DI Drummond.’

  ‘I saw you go in. I was hoping to catch you. I wondered how Julia is doing. I’m Peter Bacon, her neighbour from across the way.’

  ‘She’s Okay, still very ill. Do you know Julia well?’

  ‘Pretty well, yes. We’ve been neighbours since she and James moved here. And she’s a good neighbour. She was so kind to me when my wife died. This has been a dreadful shock.’

  Siv looked down into his kindly, concerned eyes. ‘Could you spare me a glass of water, Mr Bacon?’

  ‘Of course, come on in. I’m sure I can run to a tea or coffee if you’d prefer.’

  She followed him across the narrow lane and into his tiny two-up, two-down cottage. It had a majestic wisteria inching across the front and heading for the top windows. She was expecting clutter and old-world charm but the living room was updated, with neutral colours and white wood shelving in the alcoves. The fireplace held a wood burner similar to her own.

  ‘My daughter had the place done up for me last year as a surprise,’ Bacon told her. ‘I felt like I was in one of those TV makeover programmes. I went away for a week and when I came back, it was like this. I thought I was going to die of shock, killed with kindness. I felt quite ill for a couple of weeks. I’d get up and think I was in the wrong house. I still can’t find some of my things but I have to pretend I like it because my daughter went to so much trouble. Do take a seat.’ He stood in the doorway, a hand against the frame. ‘Someone said that Julia tried to kill herself. Surely that can’t be right?’

  ‘I can’t comment on that for now,’ Siv said.

  ‘I see. Well . . . I won’t be long.’

  Siv waited, feeling as if she was skiving off school, being given afternoon tea while the others were busy. She imagined what Mortimer would say if he saw her. No doubt Tommy Castles wouldn’t waste time taking tea with the elderly neighbour. She’d formed a mental image of Castles — beefy and cocky, a mansplainer and manspreader. She had the reckless thought that Mortimer could say and do what he liked. The worst that could happen to her already had. Everything else was small detail.

  She heard Mr Bacon coming back, breathing wheezily, with two large mugs of tea and a plate of scones with butter and strawberry jam in a pretty glass bowl.

  ‘I make these myself, a batch every week. I always give some to Julia. She does the jam. Oh dear, I can’t take in what’s happened at all.’

  Siv sliced a scone and spread jam on it. She wasn’t hungry but she did have an appetite for information, and Mr Bacon looked like a man who’d know what went on around his manor. A wealth of small details would accompany the day-to-day neighbourly trading of scones and jam. ‘This is delicious. Full of fruit. Does Julia have any family around here?’

  ‘Well, of course her husband died a few years ago. Out like a light as he was watching TV. That’s the way I’d prefer to go, but of course we don’t get a say in the matter, do we?’

  ‘Not usually. Unless we go to a Swiss clinic for an injection.’

  ‘Goodness . . . I see you have a macabre sense of humour. Did you have that before you joined the police, or has it developed with the job?’

  ‘Bit of both, Mr Bacon.’

  ‘I imagine it helps you deal with the kinds of things you must deal with. The Stennings didn’t have any children and I think James’s family hailed from Cambridgeshire. Julia used to go off sometimes and visit her parents in Derby but they both died. I never saw any family visit them and Julia never talked about anyone. They were both very active, always out and about and involved in things. James was a keen angler.’

  ‘Was there anyone else close to the Stennings?’

  Mr Bacon scooped up jam on a spoon and held it mid-air for a moment. ‘I don’t think so. There was a chap who visited Julia one day last year. I think she said he was her godson. I only saw him in passing. You don’t hear much of godparents these days, do you? I don’t think many children have them anymore. It was a big thing when I was a little boy. I had two godfathers and one godmother. They always gave me money on my birthdays, though I don’t think God or religion came into it much.’

  ‘I think it’s a custom that’s dying out a bit. I don’t remember having any.’ Siv picked up her tea and sipped it. It was weak, and made with UHT milk, but she swallowed it gamely and sat back, smiling at him. ‘Tell me about this visitor last year. Can you describe him to me?’

  ‘I’m not sure I remember him that well. It was just after I came home to this “surprise” and I wasn’t feeling too good.’

  She listened as Mr Bacon half closed his eyes to summon up the man he’d seen. She forgot the stale milky taste in her mouth as she heard his description.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

&
nbsp; The ward staff reported that Julia Stenning had had no visitor requests. Betty Marshall, the vicar of the church in Aldmarsh, a Mr Bacon and someone from Polska had phoned to enquire about her.

  The nurse pulled the curtains around her bed, and Siv and Ali sat on either side of her. She was attached to a drip and her neck was swathed in dressings. She’d insisted that she wanted to speak to them and they’d been granted fifteen minutes.

  ‘We found the letter your husband left for you. We know about Lauren and his altered will,’ Siv said. ‘That must have come as a terrible shock to you.’

  Julia nodded. She spoke slowly and hoarsely. ‘He left it for me in one of his old jackets. He knew I always went through pockets carefully. I found it months after he died when I was sorting through things to take to the charity shop. I was stunned when I found out he’d made a new will without telling me. I couldn’t understand it, or why he’d left a lot less than I expected. Then when I found that despicable letter, it all fell into place.’

  ‘Why did you try to kill yourself?’ Siv asked.

  Ali looked at her. She could see he was surprised that she wasn’t just cutting to the chase about the murders. She hadn’t told him yet about the will she’d found, or her conversation with Peter Bacon and the possibility she’d been considering. She needed to draw Julia out, not deliver any hammer blows, and she’d told him to take it easy.

  Julia ran her tongue over her lips. Her long face looked sunken, the skin tight below her cheekbones. ‘After Sophie died we agreed we wouldn’t have any more children. We said we couldn’t bear to tempt fate again. So we slowly rebuilt a life and we did that thing that childless people do, we took up interests and activities. We were never really close again but we muddled through. We were kind to each other. Or so I thought. Eventually we moved away from Ashford and the memories there. James was keen on Aldmarsh, said he knew it from his work, so I agreed to settle there. Once I’d read the letter I knew he steered us there to be near Berminster. Near his daughter. Such cruel deception. And he . . . he was on the phone and distracted while Sophie reached for those scissors. It was his fault, yet I forgave him. And then he did that to me.’ She stared ahead, stony and cold. ‘I wished he’d had a painful, more drawn-out death.’

  ‘Did you get to know Lauren?’ Siv asked.

  Julia looked contemptuous. ‘No. Why would I have wanted to know her?’

  ‘Who’s Frankie?’ Ali asked impatiently.

  ‘Frankie?’

  ‘Yes. Your husband said he was sorry he couldn’t leave anything to Frankie.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant,’ Julia said.

  Why do you have to rush in, Ali? We would have got her to Frankie. Siv swallowed her annoyance. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I think Frankie is relevant and you need to tell us about him.’

  Wincing, Julia pushed herself up a little and looked Siv straight in the eye, unblinking. ‘I killed Lauren and that other man, Rimas, and I killed Alan Vine. That’s why you’re here, so that I can tell you. I put that postcard of the scissors though Lauren’s door. I wanted her to feel the terror that my poor Sophie would have known as the blades cut her beautiful skin. I began having dreams about killing her the night I found James’s letter. I couldn’t bear the thought that she was alive when my daughter was dead. I killed her to get my revenge on my husband who betrayed me and allowed our little girl to die.’ She swallowed, pressing her fingers to the base of her throat. ‘I didn’t plan to kill the two men. They got in the way. Vine rang me, talking about Sophie’s photo and James, asking questions. I couldn’t let him live. That sounds callous but it’s just how it was. I have thought about killing myself so many times since Sophie died. Once I realized it was only a matter of time before you found out I killed them, I decided it was the only way out. And yet here I am. Now do whatever you have to do. I’ll make a full statement.’

  ‘Before we get to that, tell me how you killed Alan Vine,’ Siv said.

  ‘James had taken Sophie with him to go fishing at the river, Vine had been there. He remembered and worked out she was my daughter. Sounded very pleased with himself. I said I’d meet him in Halse woods at the frog pond. I waited in the bushes. I killed him with a kitchen knife. I couldn’t afford to let him bumble around in case he led you to me. You’ll find the knife and the protective clothing I wore in a plastic bag, shoved into a tree hollow just outside Aldmarsh at the start of the footpath towards Clayfield. His phone’s in there too. I threw the scissors I used at Lock Lane and Lauren’s rucksack into the sea at the far end of Minster Beach.’

  Ali was looking delighted. He opened his mouth to speak, but Siv silenced him with a shut up look. ‘I see. Tell me why you left Sophie’s photo at the murder scene.’

  ‘My Sophie was gone. We had promised each other we would never have another child. Yet, while I was deprived of any other child, James betrayed my trust and fathered her. He took away my future, so I took away his.’

  ‘But he was dead,’ Ali said.

  Do you have to be so literal? Siv suppressed her mounting impatience. But Julia was explaining anyway.

  ‘Of course, but his genes can never be passed on, so his line is truly ended. It gave me great satisfaction to do that.’ Her voice was fading and she was even paler now.

  Siv leaned in to her. ‘Mrs Stenning, where exactly did you leave Sophie’s photo?’

  Julia looked puzzled. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The photo. Where at Lock Lane did you leave it?’

  Her eyes flickered. ‘Just . . . just beside Lauren. Yes, by her hand.’

  ‘At her side, by her hand.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said hesitantly, looking anxiously at Siv as if she might read the correct answer from her face. ‘That’s where I left it.’

  ‘Which side?’

  Another hesitation. ‘Her right.’

  Siv wanted to ask her who she was protecting and why, but they’d already gone over time and there was someone else they needed to find in a hurry. She stood as she spoke. ‘Julia Stenning, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Alan Vine.’ She issued a caution, while Ali stared at the distressed woman in the bed.

  Julia pushed herself up, gasping. ‘But no! You need to arrest me for three murders. I’m confessing to all three. Don’t you see?’

  Siv had never heard anyone pleading to be arrested for a triple killing before. ‘No, not three murders. Just the one. From now on while you’re in hospital, you’ll be in custody.’

  Ali arranged round the clock police cover on Julia Stenning while Siv explained the situation to an ITU manager. Until further notice, Julia was not allowed any visitors and if anyone contacted them saying they were family, the police should be notified. Then she called Patrick with orders to get to Aldmarsh with colleagues and search for the evidence. Outside in the corridor, she looked for a bookmarked page she’d saved on her phone. Ali hurried ahead, returning with a coffee and holding one out to her.

  ‘Here. I figured you needed one too. Why’s she insisting she killed Lauren and Rimas? Is she protecting someone?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Here, look at this.’ She showed him the page on her phone. ‘Mason Granger’s an animator. When I was looking him up before I met him, I noticed that he runs a website with guides to animation and tips about developing the skills. I didn’t read it in any depth but when I was at Julia’s house, I remembered something I’d seen.’

  Ali scanned the page. ‘Squiggle Animation by Frankie Granger.’

  ‘That’s right. His full name is Mason Francis Granger. He’s Julia’s godson. He’s also named as sole beneficiary in her will.’

  ‘Why would he call himself Frankie?’

  ‘I don’t know, but people do employ name variations for different aspects of their lives. Maybe it’s a family pet name. When I visited Julia’s, I talked to a neighbour. He told me that he’d seen Julia’s godson visiting last year and he was called Frankie. He described him and it fitted Granger.’

  ‘You think he c
arried out the Lock Lane murders?’ Ali said.

  ‘We’ve got nothing at present to link him to them. She didn’t want to talk about Frankie just then. That might be significant. She clearly didn’t kill Lauren and Rimas. A photo might have fallen down off Lauren’s chest but it could hardly fall upwards from the ground.’

  ‘Unless Vine lied to us and moved it when he was having a look.’

  ‘But then his fingerprints would have been on it. That morning was warm and he wasn’t wearing gloves. Anyway, we can’t ask him now, but we do need to ask Granger some questions. He hasn’t been in touch with the hospital, so either he doesn’t know what’s happened or he’s lying low. I think that if he’s around, it means he doesn’t know.’

  But there was no answer when they rang the bell to his flat. Siv was debating whether to phone him when a woman arrived with a bag of shopping.

  ‘Do you know if Mr Granger is around?’ Siv asked.

  ‘I saw him about half an hour ago on his bike. He said he was going to Halse woods. Something about a hedgerow survey.’

  ‘He can only just have got there,’ Ali said to her as they headed back to the car. ‘And if he’s in the woods the warden should know where he is.’

  ‘Put your foot down,’ she said. ‘I’ll feel happier when he’s in my sights. When we find him, he’s coming to the station. I’m not risking any more attempts at self-harm.’

  ‘But what if he—?’

  Siv held up a hand. ‘Quiet now, and by the way, sometimes a more gradual approach works better with suspects, especially when they’re in intensive care, rather than full on barnstorming.’

  ‘Oh. Right. I just thought, as we didn’t have much time with her, we needed to get answers fast.’

  Siv ignored him. At some point she’d arrange for him to go on interview training but she hadn’t time for that now. ‘I’m thinking aloud. Granger has no alibi for the Monday morning. He’d had disagreements with Lauren. She was blocking his grand plans for Minstergreen and generally irritating him. He lied about when he’d last seen her. If he’d expected to inherit money from James Stenning, he was disappointed. And if he then discovered that the money had gone to Lauren instead, that would add to his dislike of her. If he knew James was Lauren’s father, only Julia could have told him.’