The Other Child

by Charlotte Link

  ‘But if this strange anonymous caller was Fiona’s murderer, then he wouldn’t have called this morning,’ said Jennifer. ‘He’d have known she was dead.’

  Valerie listened to her absent-mindedly. The problem was that at this point she could not exclude any options, and yet nor did she have anything that really seemed like a likely lead. An anonymous caller who wanted Fiona dead? How would the caller have known that late on Saturday night she would be walking along a lonely road that led to the Beckett farm? No one could have foreseen that. Only the people who had taken part in the unfortunate engagement party could have known of it. But which of them could have gone and murdered the old woman so brutally, and why?

  She said goodbye to Leslie and Jennifer and stepped out into the farmyard. In spite of its rundown state, it looked almost idyllic in the light of this glorious day. The wind blowing from the sea brought the smell of seaweed and the taste of salt.

  Valerie started to think.

  Leslie Cramer, the granddaughter, had by her own account left the farm a good while before her grandmother and had gone to the Jolly Sailors in Burniston, to drown her sorrows with a few whiskies. That would be easy to check up on. Valerie knew that around here a woman who went into a bar on her own and got plastered would stick out more than a sore thumb.

  Chad Beckett had chatted to Fiona in his study, and she had told him of the calls which were obviously troubling her. Chad had reassured her. According to Chad, they had then talked about this and that before she had decided to go home and he had gone to bed. Of course it was possible that he had followed her, but Valerie doubted it. Firstly, she saw no sign of any motive, and secondly she saw how difficult it was for him to get around. It was obviously painful for him to walk. He was an old man struggling more and more with his body. Fiona Barnes, on the other hand, had been described to her as unusually fit and mobile for her age. It was hard to imagine that Beckett could have made it to the gorge and then found the strength to beat a woman to death who could easily have run away from him.

  Colin Brankley. The holidaymaker who had called the cab. He had said goodnight to Fiona and gone to bed. His wife could not confirm this, as she had taken the dogs for a walk. Mentally, Valerie put a question mark by Colin’s name. He was an intellectual, a bookworm, for years he had spent his holidays on this wretched farm.

  ‘My wife is very attached to the dogs,’ he had explained. ‘So we don’t have much choice about where to go. Besides, Jennifer and Gwen are friends.’

  All right. That did not sound implausible. However, two facts remained. Colin was in his mid-forties, strong and agile; he certainly had the physical ability to kill an old woman. And he did not have an alibi. Valerie decided to check what he had done and where he had been at the time Amy Mills was murdered, although she already guessed that it would not lead to much. He would say that he had been asleep in his bed at home, and his wife would confirm that.

  His wife. Jennifer. Valerie could not have said why exactly, but there was something inscrutable about her. Her eyes darted about restlessly. It was as if she was under great pressure, ready to blow her top, and only her extreme force of will kept a lid on it. Something was not right. And the name Jennifer Brankley rang a bell with Valerie. She had come across it once before, but she could not put her finger on when.

  She would find out.

  Jennifer Brankley had spent the first hour and a half after the dinner’s sudden end in Gwen’s room, consoling the distraught young woman.

  Then she had persuaded her to go for a walk with her and the dogs. They had gone walking for a good hour and a half, Jennifer had said.

  Unfortunately they had taken the opposite direction to the road, and gone over the hills and down another gorge to the sea.

  ‘Wasn’t it too dark?’ asked Valerie, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘The moon was shining,’ replied Jennifer, ‘and I know the path well. The dogs too. When we’re here, I go that way two or three times a day. I’ve got a torch with me for emergencies.’

  Gwen Beckett had confirmed the story. She had not wanted to go, but Jennifer had said the exercise would do her good. She could not, however, say how long they had been out.

  ‘I was … somehow numb,’ she had said quietly. ‘I had been looking forward to the evening so much, and then it all went wrong. I was in despair. I thought everything was over.’

  Valerie took a few steps across the farmyard and sat down on a pile of firewood, letting her gaze wander over the eastern horizon. The farm lay at the foot of a gently rising hill, which was crisscrossed by old stone walls. Here and there were a few trees, shining fiery red and golden yellow in the sunlight. According to Jennifer a path, a dirt path, went part of the way up the hill and then straight south, ending at a gorge which a wooden hanging bridge crossed. Beyond the bridge there were steps which wound their way down into the gorge. You had to walk along the bottom for a bit. There was a path but it was very overgrown. Then the gorge opened out onto the beach and you found yourself in the little bay that belonged to the Beckett farm.

  ‘Can you swim there?’ Valerie had asked.

  Gwen had said you could. ‘But it’s pebbly. A long time ago my father planned to have sand brought in, to make a little bathing beach for our visitors. But it never happened.’

  The farm is a gem; all it needs is for someone to make use of it and its possibilities, thought Valerie, not knowing that she was following the exact same train of thought as Fiona. Tanner, she thought, must have seen this when he started to woo Gwen Beckett. How far would he go to stop a meddling old woman from trying to pull his fiancée and her property away from him?

  And Gwen had felt threatened too. No longer the youngest of women, suddenly an interesting man had appeared in her life and wanted to marry her. Valerie had sensed immediately that Gwen saw Dave as her only chance, and she might be right. That made Fiona a danger to her. If Fiona had continued to stir things up at every opportunity without showing any tact, when would the moment have come when Tanner would not take any more and give up? But would someone like Gwen Beckett go and kill a woman she had known all her life, whom she loved and was attached to? Gwen seemed to be suffering and in shock. Unless she was a very good actor, then the news of Fiona’s death had surprised her and thrown her off kilter.

  I’m going round in circles, thought Valerie. She felt that she did not yet know the real motive for Fiona Barnes’s murder. She only knew about the fight with Tanner, the scandal at the engagement party. But that was not enough. The murder was carried out with a brutal violence that far surpassed the venom of Fiona’s aggression. She had ruined everyone’s evening, but she was an old woman who would have been eighty on her next birthday. Who seriously thought she had the power to influence other people’s lives in a major way and possibly even to destroy them?

  And how did all this relate to Amy Mills’s murder?

  Forensics, next, thought Valerie. I have to know whether both crimes were committed by one and the same person. Then the argument Fiona started would be completely irrelevant.

  And Tanner would have to become the centre of her investigation again. He was the only person she knew who was connected to both cases, even if the connection to Amy Mills’s case was rather labyrinthine and elaborate, as she had to admit.

  It would be interesting to know whether Amy Mills had also received anonymous calls. And then there was Paula Foster, who had perhaps been intended as the victim. Someone might have known that she came to the shed every evening. Just as someone had known that Amy Mills walked late at night on her own through a deserted park every Wednesday evening. Two young women, not dissimilar types. That would mean Fiona’s death was not planned. Because she had disturbed someone? Why would she have taken the path to the gorge instead of going to Whitestone Farm? Or had she met her murderer on the road, recognised him and so he had not been able to let her live? Although it was a puzzle why someone out to get Paula Foster would have been around at half past ten. Pau
la was out at different times.

  Valerie stood up and walked to her car. She had to talk to the pathologist. When she had time, she wanted to put Jennifer Brankley’s name into the police computer. It might not be relevant to this case, but she wanted to find out where she had come across the name before.

  She opened the car door. She was tired. All the pieces of the puzzle were mounting up in her head in a confused pile, and she was afraid that she would never manage to order them.

  She forced herself to heed the old rule of thumb she had once worked out: not to look at the mountain of pieces, but just the next step. Then the next one. And the next one. She had a tendency to panic when everything piled up too high above her and became too confused and unfathomable.

  And she harboured a terrible fear of failure.

  Not exactly beneficial in her line of work, and she only hoped her colleagues did not suspect anything.

  Valerie turned her car around and drove off.

  5

  ‘Dr Cramer? Can I talk to you for a moment?’ Colin Brankley appeared at the door to the kitchen. He was holding a pile of papers in his hand and looking around uneasily, as if he wanted to be sure that no one was around.

  Leslie was at the sink, running water into a glass. She was thirsty, tired and numb, and at the same time excited. Her nerves seemed to be humming under her skin. She wondered to herself when she was going to cry or scream or break down. She must seem strangely calm to other people, as if it had not touched her. But she knew that all the emotions relating to her grandmother – to her violent death, but also to her life – were working away deep inside her. Images kept popping into her mind, scenes, episodes, moments, which she had not thought of for ages, which had been completely forgotten. It was like a fever.

  Probably that was why she needed water so much – and as cold and fresh as possible.

  ‘Leslie,’ she replied. ‘Just call me Leslie.’

  ‘All right.’ Colin stepped into the kitchen. ‘Leslie. Do you have time?’ He pulled the door to behind him.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ She put the glass to her lips, realising as she did that her hand was trembling slightly. She put the glass down. She did not want to spill it on her with Colin watching, even though it was just water. ‘There’s probably a lot I should be doing, but I don’t know …’ She paused, undecided. ‘At the moment I don’t know what to do next.’

  Colin looked at her, feeling for her. ‘I can understand. It was a terrible shock. For all of us, but especially for you. None of us … can really believe it.’

  His friendliness was what she needed. She felt a choking in her throat and swallowed, painfully. It would be good to cry, but not now. Not in this kitchen, not in front of Colin. She barely knew the man. She did not want to break down in front of him.

  ‘Do you have something for me?’ she asked calmly, pointing to the papers in his hand.

  ‘Yes.’ Hesitantly he laid the pile on the kitchen table. He looked around again, as if he were expecting someone to come in at any moment. ‘It’s something which … well, it probably should be handed over to the police but …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But I think it’s not up to me to decide. You are Fiona’s granddaughter. You have to decide what to do with it.’

  ‘What is it?’

  He lowered his voice. ‘Text files. Attached to emails that Fiona Barnes sent to Chad Beckett.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘Chad Beckett can work a computer? And has an email address?’

  ‘Well, “work the computer” might be an exaggeration. But he has an email address, yes. Because Fiona insisted, Gwen said. The two of them kept in touch by email. Not infrequently.’

  ‘And?’

  Colin seemed unsure of how to express what he had to say. ‘Fiona and Chad have known each other since childhood. And – it seems out of the need to make sense of certain events for herself – Fiona wrote down their story. At least the main points. And gave it a strange title, although that riddle is solved as you read it. The Other Child. She immerses herself in the past, describes their first meeting – you know: the evacuation, her arrival here at the Beckett farm …’

  Leslie was now fully alert and increasingly irritated. ‘I know the story. Fiona often told me it. How touching, that she wrote it down for Chad and herself. But what I don’t quite understand … is how you have a printout of it? Aren’t they files which were meant only for Chad?’

  ‘Absolutely. And that becomes even clearer when you read it. Their story. When you read what really happened.’

  ‘What really happened?’

  ‘I’m fairly sure,’ said Colin slowly, ‘that you heard a censored version from your grandmother. Just as Gwen only knows part of the truth. And with her, all of us too.’

  Leslie had a thought, and in spite of her sorrow she had to laugh. ‘Do you mean that Fiona and Chad had a relationship? Does my grandmother describe wild orgies in the hay? You know, of course she never said anything of the sort, but I was always convinced something had happened between Chad and her. And that doesn’t really shock me. I don’t think it would help the police any.’

  He looked at her in a strange way. ‘Read it. And then decide what to do.’

  She looked back at him icily. ‘Where did you get this? How did you get access to Chad’s emails?’

  ‘Gwen,’ he said.

  ‘Gwen?’

  ‘She uses the same computer as her father. She tried to … spy a little. It wasn’t hard to find the password he used. Fiona. That was it.’

  Leslie gulped.

  He had loved her. She had always thought that.

  ‘And then she snooped around in his emails?’

  ‘She opened the files and read the story. When she finished, she was so shocked that she printed it all out. As soon as we arrived last week, she gave it to Jennifer to read. Yesterday morning Jennifer gave me the pages, with Gwen’s permission. At that point of course none of us knew anything about the crime. I read all of it, yesterday and last night.’

  ‘OK. So three people now know all about things which are actually only Fiona and Chad’s business?’

  ‘Read it,’ he asked again.

  She felt anger rising inside her. What a betrayal of two elderly people who were nostalgic for the old days. She could just about see why Gwen, once she had found the beginning of her father’s life story, had not been able to stop herself from reading it. But why had she shared it with two outsiders? She might have had a close friendship with the Brankleys for many years, but they were not family. She would have liked to protect her grandmother, but she knew that it was too late now.

  ‘I’m not sure if I want to read it,’ she said. ‘You know, I always respected Fiona’s private life.’

  ‘Fiona is the victim of a horrific crime. This story could throw some light on her death.’

  ‘Why didn’t you give all this to Detective Inspector Almond while she was here?’

  ‘Because the story also throws light on Fiona. If what she describes here,’ he said pointing to the pile of paper, ‘is made public, which is more than likely if it lands in the hands of the police, and it arises there’s a direct link to Fiona’s murder, then it could be that Fiona won’t be remembered at all fondly here in Scarborough.’

  Leslie now made no effort to hide her annoyance. ‘So what did she do? Rob a bank? Was she a kleptomaniac, a nymphomaniac? Did she have perverse desires? Did she cheat on her husband? Did she and Chad cheat behind Chad’s wife’s back? Did they support the IRA? Was she a member of a terrorist organisation? What did she do?’

  ‘Read it,’ he said for a third time. ‘Take the sheets home. Gwen and Jennifer don’t need to know for now that you have them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘On no account does Gwen want the police to know their content. For her, it’s mainly about her father. Jennifer is on her side, as always. Both of them would be angry with me if they knew I was letting you have them. But I think …’
<
br />   ‘What do you think?’ asked Leslie after he had paused.

  ‘I think you have a right to know the truth,’ said Colin. ‘And that you, and only you, have the right to decide whether the truth is made public. I would completely understand if you didn’t want that. But the solving of the crime might depend on this. And that’s for you to decide too: whether your grandmother’s murder should remain unpunished. You might prefer that.’

  She was scared. She knew she would not get an answer, but she still asked, ‘What, Colin? What, for God’s sake, does it say?’

  He did not need to say Read it a fourth time. He just looked at her.

  It was almost a pitying look, it seemed to her.

  The Other Child.doc

  4

  Life on the Beckett farm proved not to be all that bad. Quite the contrary: in a short time I had settled in surprisingly well.

  Emma Beckett was as nice and kind as she had been when we arrived. She was more gentle than Mum, and not as strict. You could always ask her for something delicious: a little bit of bread and ham to keep you going between meals, a glass of homemade apple juice, sometimes even a piece of chocolate. She was convinced that I must be dying of homesickness, and I did nothing to dissuade her from the belief, as there was more in it for me that way.

  Her son Chad, though, saw right through me. ‘You’re a cunning little thing,’ he said to me once. ‘You play the lost sheep to my mother, but you don’t want to go back to London one little bit!’

  Not one little bit – that was not true. I missed our old house, the street, the children I had played with. Sometimes I missed Mum too, although she had always nagged so much. But after the night of bombing I had lost my home in any case. I certainly had no fond memories of Auntie Edith’s overcrowded flat. I do remember bawling one night when I thought of my father. Although he had drunk so much and had never given Mum any money, he was my father. I would see Mum again, London too, I was sure. But my father was lost for ever.