The Death of Jessica Ripley

by Andrew Barrett

  Jess turned for another look around. Everyone looked as confused as she was. When she turned back to him, his face was made of stone. There was nothing there for her, there were no feelings. He was talking to a wall. It was rehearsed, just bullshit to make her shut up and go home. Alone.

  His voice was sharp enough to cut through any ambiguity. “She was a better mother to me than you ever were.”

  Valentine shouted, “Michael, what did we agree?”

  His eyes didn’t even flicker. They remained on Jess. He blinked once, and then said, “You can’t just walk back into my life from stage left and start acting like my mother, pretending you sent me letters. It doesn’t fucking work like that, yeah? You are messing with my head, now fuck off and leave me alone.”

  “Michael!”

  “The show’s over,” he said. “No repeat performance.” He turned to his right and walked out of the lounge, closing the door behind him.

  Jess turned, and the rest was black.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Eddie kicked open the double door, pulling a cigarette out of a packet with his lips. As he looked up, he saw Benson standing there looking like either he’d just shit his pants or he was halfway through a favourite tree impression.

  “Has it been raining?” He laughed as Benson pulled his best ‘very funny’ face. “You in a rush to get home?”

  “I was trying to think of an excuse to avoid it, actually.”

  “Consider me your excuse. Starbucks?”

  Benson stared.

  “They do a good breakfast in a bun. And fantastic blueberry muffins.”

  * * *

  “Starbucks is my new McDonald’s,” Eddie said. “Much classier. And we struck it lucky,” he said, cocking his head. “Sometimes they play jazz. I have to shout at them when they play jazz.”

  “I like jazz.”

  Eddie looked at Benson and shook his head. “Explains a lot.” He put the drinks down and then brought over the food. “I’m in no rush to get home either.”

  Benson sipped.

  “My dad’s turned into a younger man than I am. He’s fallen for this old tart called Wendy. Keeps fawning over her on Facebook. I can’t go near him without gagging.”

  “Young love, eh?”

  “It’ll pass.” Eddie set to work on the muffin, keeping his eyes on Benson whenever Benson wasn’t looking. Something was wrong. “You okay?”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  “Lying bastard. Home getting you down?” Eddie could see that was the very question that put a hole in Benson’s hull, and now he was filling with water and sinking.

  Benson went quiet – not that he’d been saying much to begin with. But this was a different kind of quiet – contemplative, remorseful even. He just nodded and took a bite of the breakfast bun.

  And Eddie did what most men would do in this situation. Ignored it. “Why are you so wet?”

  Benson chewed and swallowed. “Hmm, got the CCTV of the murderer stealing the pickaxe.”

  “How do you know he’s the murderer?”

  Benson rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so fucking pedantic. For once, just shut up, nod, and say ‘well done, Benson’. Okay?”

  “Hey, well done, Benson. What’s he look like?”

  “Like a tramp. Big, tall, has a beard and a yellowish baseball cap with Cat Diesel Power on it.”

  Eddie looked confused. “What’s a tramp doing mixing with the likes of Marchant?”

  Bensons shrugged. “I can’t think of a connection.”

  “How’s the list coming along? I mean, it could be someone straight off your list, or it could be someone paid by someone on your list.”

  “I know. Why are you always trying to tell me my fucking job?”

  Benson raised his voice, and several of the other guests – polite people, much better than the riff-raff who patronised McDonald’s, thought Eddie – looked his way. Eddie cocked an eyebrow and stared back at them. “I’m always telling you how to do your job because you’re shit at your job, you fucking Mars bar muncher.”

  “Shit? Me?”

  Eddie smiled, tipped his mug at Benson.

  Benson sighed. “Over the last twelve months, Marchant has defended twenty-four people—”

  “What about those released—”

  “Shut up.” He pointed a finger. “Don’t interrupt me ag—”

  “Why are you always so touchy?”

  “Now you’re sounding like my wife, and I have to tell you that I find it disturbing, okay?”

  “Sorry.”

  Benson carried on. “He defended twenty-four people. Eight of those made a formal complaint, against either the sentence or Marchant’s handling of their case.”

  Eddie raised his eyebrows again.

  “No” —Benson shook his head— “it’s normal, those stats are about average. Of course, we don’t know how many of the remaining sixteen are also pissed off at him but just aren’t inclined to make a formal complaint.”

  “I think we can discount any that would want to draw attention to themselves by making a formal complaint.”

  “Really? You don’t think it’d be a good bluff? ‘Why would I complain about him if I was going to kill him?’”

  “So you still have a list of twenty-four?”

  “Two of them died. And we have the families, of course. And the families of those he successfully defended against – victims can be nasty when it comes to losing.”

  “So there are lots of people who wouldn’t mind seeing him wearing a pickaxe for a tie?”

  “He’s not short of enemies.” Benson sipped, dug a nail into a chunk of food caught in his teeth, and sucked it off.

  “It’s like eating with my dad.” Eddie turned away. “Have you finished playing with your food?”

  “I’ve got Khan and a team of seven working on that little lot.”

  “Should have it wrapped up by tomorrow, then.” Eddie smirked.

  “How long before we get results back from the DNA mini-tapes from the axe handle?”

  “Don’t pin your hopes on them.”

  “I’m not. But how long?”

  “Five days.”

  Benson nodded.

  Eddie continued with his own line of thought. “So how about the list of people he’s defended who’ve been released over the last few months? That must be a lot shorter.”

  Benson smiled a little. “Four.”

  Eddie nodded. “If you did your job properly, I could take the rest of the week off.”

  “And who’s going to oversee your office?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Of the four, one is a woman currently out on license for murdering her ex-husband. She doesn’t look physically capable of swinging an axe.

  “There’s a man who had admitted to killing a rapist. He didn’t blame Marchant for his sentence, but he has no alibi for the date of Marchant’s death.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I had someone speak to him already. He lives in North Yorkshire.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can I continue?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Benson sighed. “One is a rapist who had been sent down, got released, and is now back inside for sexual assault.

  “And the last one is an arsonist with mental health issues. He has an alibi – he’s in Juniper Hill.”

  “So that means it’s the rapist killer. We should let him go; he’s doing a valuable public service.”

  “By killing the rapist or killing the defence lawyer?”

  “Either. Both. He’s medal material, really.”

  Benson made a start on the blueberry muffin.

  “So where does that leave your investigation?”

  Benson spat crumbs across the table as he said, “With Khan’s enquiry, more or less. Unless your DNA mini-tapes give us a name.”

  Eddie stared at him over the rim of his mug, and felt his hackles rising. Benson shrugged; content, it seemed, to wait for the murderer to
fall into his lap, clutching a signed confession. Eddie couldn’t believe that Benson wasn’t pushing forward with an active enquiry. “How about we go and see the rapist killer?”

  Benson worked the muffin like there was a toad in his mouth trying to get out. “It’s on my list.”

  “Short, is it? This list?”

  Benson’s eyes narrowed tight. “I’ll do it tomorrow. Satisfied?”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  Benson dropped the plate on the table. “Why the fuck would I want you to come with me?”

  Eddie stood up, threw the napkin on the table and dabbed his lips with his sleeve. “Suit yourself, you miserable twat.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The wind blew leaves and litter around what was loosely termed the front garden. It took Jess a few seconds to work out who the woman was, standing on the top step, clutching a small handbag in immaculate hands. Over the woman’s shoulder and beyond the leaves and litter, she could see a dark blue BMW – one of those big ones – parked at the kerb.

  And then Jessica’s eyes were drawn to the woman herself; to the deep copper-coloured hair waving at her from beneath a fur-lined hood, and the tight lips that tried and failed to raise a warm smile.

  “Valentine,” she said.

  The woman pulled her coat even tighter against the wind. “Can I come in?”

  Once inside the flat, Jessica found herself standing before Valentine with her hands planted across her groin, arms pulled in tightly over her breasts. She was fully clothed, but she felt naked, as though her lifestyle was under scrutiny. She began to bite her lips again, but she tried to maintain an illusion of decorum. “Can I offer you some tea?” She nodded towards the plastic kettle.

  “I’d love a green tea, if you have any?”

  Jessica screwed up her face. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll pass then. Thank you though.”

  “I can do coffee. Instant.”

  “I’ll get to the point, Jessica. We – that is, my husband and me – we’ve been taking care of Michael for twelve years.” And now it was Valentine’s turn to screw her face up. Embarrassment – fake or real – forced her to take a deep breath and spit the words as though they were bullets. “We want to adopt him. There,” she said, and let out the breath.

  Jessica’s legs became hollow and for a moment she thought she might just fall over sideways, but she turned and grabbed the worktop.

  “We love him,” she continued. “We’re a close family.”

  Jessica turned to face her, eyes squinting with something approaching hatred. She kept one hand resting on the worktop to steady herself. “I’ve lost all those years,” she said, keeping her voice quiet but strong; no hesitation, no cracking. “But despite that, I will get to know my boy again, and he’ll grow to love me—”

  “That’s not going to happen. You saw him—”

  “At least give me a chance. I’ll change him!”

  Valentine’s lips tightened, her eyes focused on Jessica’s, and she took another breath before saying, “This is a one-time offer. I’ll bring the papers tomorrow, you sign them, and I hand you a cheque for fifty thousand pounds.”

  Jessica’s mouth fell open.

  “We’re a family now, Jessica. It would be cruel to pull him away after all this time. He has school… exams…” She blinked, looked around the room. “You’ll never be more than a stranger to him. I mean, look at—”

  Jessica took her hand off the worktop and slapped Valentine’s smug face so hard that she fell against the door. Valentine drew fingertips across her lips; they came away smeared red. She turned to open the door, but before leaving she said over her shoulder, “When it all goes awfully wrong for you, Jessica – remember today. This was the beginning of it all.” She slammed the door. From the other side of it she said, “And we burned all of your letters. He didn’t get a single one of them.”

  Jessica buried her hot face in her cold hands.

  DAY 3

  Chapter Sixteen

  Charles had come home at a fairly respectable eleven-fifteen.

  Eddie had been in his darkened room listening to Floyd through his headphones, filling his ears with sound and his mind with images. The only light came from his glowing cigarette end, and the hated alarm clock on his bedside table. He was sinking into ‘Wish You Were Here’ when a slice of light from the hallway glided under his door. He pulled the headphones off and sure enough, there was Charles, singing something shit by Englebert Humperdinck.

  He’d been tempted to go and take the piss out of him, but decided it was better to leave the old fella alone with his new-found happiness. He’d put the cans back on again, closed his eyes and turned the volume up.

  And now, at ten to eight the next morning, he stared at the Major Crime Unit building from the comfort of the Discovery with something approaching hatred, cigarette dangling between his lips, arm out of the window and Floyd playing gently on the stereo. His mind was a million miles away, in a much better place.

  Even the timid rain dampening his shirt failed to draw him from his reverie. It was almost blissful – like spending the last few minutes in bed under a warm duvet replaying the disappearing tendrils of a fantastic dream before letting reality intrude.

  It seemed to sum up his life, that building. Ugly, bland, hiding everything behind a façade of clinical uniformity where there was no danger of any character being allowed even to exist, let alone flourish. He sighed, took a drag on the cigarette, and tried to sink into his thoughts again – they weren’t particularly pleasant, but they were his, and they were comfortable.

  But they weren’t allowed to return. Eddie heard the gate rattle across the car park entrance on its bent rail, and then a mobile boom box destroyed any chance of sinking back into casual thought as it parked right next to him. Eddie took a long slow blink and let out a mammoth sigh in preparation for the first ignorant prick of the day.

  The boom box was a black Vauxhall Astra with a spoiler bolted above the rear window, some kind of home-made splitter under the front valance, blacked-out windows and a No Fear decal across the door. This thing was dripping cool, thought Eddie, shaking his head. “Why me?” he whispered.

  The engine stopped, but the music did not, and Eddie resigned himself to having his morning prematurely shot to death by some ignorant twat with poor taste in music and a misdirected understanding of what constituted ‘cool’. But then the music – the noise – did stop and the car rocked as the driver climbed out. He smacked his door into Eddie’s car.

  “Hey, old man! I see you even drive a granddad’s car!” Troy howled to himself and slammed the door. The spoiler wobbled. “I bet you listen to Fleetwood Mac, eh? Or Simon and Garfunkel?”

  “How fucking dare you.” Eddie wound up his window and climbed out of the Discovery. He was in no mood for a confrontation, but sometimes other people just couldn’t resist goading him. “I’ve never listened to a Simon and Garfunkel song in my life.” He stepped up to Troy, slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t ever insult me again. And while we’re having a friendly chat like this, let me remind you that dinking someone’s car on purpose is criminal damage, okay? Do it again and I’ll pull your face off.” Eddie began to walk away.

  “Really?”

  Eddie stopped and turned. He flicked his half-smoked cigarette at Troy’s car, pointed a stabbing finger, and said, “And playing noise like that is a pollution offence, you ignorant bastard. Other people exist, you know. Selfish prick.”

  “Like you’d know about other people.” Troy held out his hand, palm up. “Pay me.”

  “‘Scuse me?”

  “Your cigarette blistered my paintwork. Pay me twenty quid and we’ll call it quits.”

  Eddie surprised himself by laughing. “You’re taking the piss, right? If I gave you twenty quid, I’d own the fucking car! And I’d want change.”

  “Twenty quid or I take this further.”

  The smile simply rolled off Eddie’s face and
his eyes grew dark. He stepped forward, but Troy remained planted to the spot, hand outstretched. Eddie slapped it aside and stepped right up to his face. “This can end in one of two ways.”

  “Oh goody, here comes the threat.”

  * * *

  In reception, Maggie checked her watch, straightened her suit again and cleared her throat. She tapped fingers on her desk, waiting. A voice came from beyond the double wooden doors that led up to the MCU first floor. The doors opened and Jeffery Walker entered the reception foyer, chatting to a besuited man who’d entered the building almost an hour ago without even looking at her.

  Jeffery was laughing, hands never still, nervous, as though he were trying to impress him. The stranger offered no smiles in return, even polite ones. He stared at Jeffery, and eventually Jeffery ran out of steam and stood there like a dog offering its throat to the alpha.

  “And who leads the forensic effort at the coalface?” His voice was quiet, but all Maggie could concentrate on was the reflection of the overhead lights on his bald head – surely he must polish it.

  “The coalface?”

  “Who’s below you, Mr Walker?” He began walking until he was level with Maggie.

  She hoped the phone wouldn’t ring – she didn’t want him analysing her like he was analysing Jeffery.

  “Feel free to call me Jeffery.” He smiled, fidgeted.

  “Who’s below you, Mr Walker?”

  Jeffery looked around, either to see who was watching this embarrassing spectacle, or to ask for help. Maggie smiled at him.

  “Mr Collins is our man at the coalface.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  Maggie saw Jeffery’s eyes widen slightly – and she wasn’t surprised. But she was surprised when his mouth fell open as though he was about to throw up. He stared at Maggie, and then over her shoulder. She stared back, wondering what the problem was.

  Jeffery flicked his eyes again, and she turned.

  Eddie was in the car park. He had Troy six inches off the ground by his jacket collar, snarling into his face. She squealed, and hurried around the reception desk towards the stranger, holding out her hand. “Good morning, I’m Maggie Darlington, receptionist. Pleased to meet you.”