A Game of Minds

by Priscilla Masters

  It threw Jessica’s rhythm in storytelling. She paused as though uncertain which line to choose next. She took a swift look at Willard and must have realized she wasn’t cutting any ice with him. ‘It sort of grew from there. I realized there was something – different – about him.’

  Claire leaned forward, watching Kobi’s wife intently. Searching for signs. As a psychiatrist she would love to have questioned her about this ‘difference’, but in the role she was playing now – part doctor, part fact finder, part helper of the police, behind plate glass – she wasn’t going to head down that road. Neither, it appeared, was Willard.

  ‘And Marvel,’ he prompted. ‘Tell me about Marvel.’

  ‘I knew Marvel,’ Jessica admitted. ‘I was a bit of an outsider, joining the school for a brief time. I lived just down from Mow Cop and she lived in Gillow Heath. We walked to school every day. I’d seen some guys being horrible to her and told them to bugger off. After that she clung to me. I couldn’t get rid of her. She was like ivy growing up a wall, finding every crack and crevice to climb into. She was really annoying. Every time I went out of my front door she seemed to be there. It got oppressive.’ She chewed at her lip before saying, ‘I asked her to leave me alone but she just got all pathetic and started crying.’ She licked her lips. ‘It’s possible I mentioned this … problem to Jonah. Maybe that’s why …’ She sniffed and tailed off her story.

  Her blue eyes managed to look – not innocent – deceitful and watchful. She was waiting to see whether Willard swallowed the bait. ‘That’s all I would have wanted him to do.’ She frowned and pretended to retrieve a memory. ‘I think he said something like he would make sure she stopped bothering me. Something like that, anyway.’

  The swift, surreptitious glance she gave Willard might have been missed from anyone’s notice, but Claire had been waiting for it.

  After a suitable pause, Jessica picked up. ‘I didn’t expect him to do anything but have a word with her.’ This time the wide opening of her blue eyes was accompanied by a ‘shy’ smile as painted on as any one of her previous expressions.

  It wasn’t fooling Willard. ‘Were you with her the afternoon of November the twenty-second?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ Somehow she managed to sound affronted. But Zed continued in his most stolid, monotonic voice, slow and unstoppable as a tank. ‘When you heard she’d gone missing did you remember?’ He shuffled some papers around. ‘There’s no mention of you being questioned.’

  Jessica shook her head, managing to look regretful.

  ‘What did you think had happened to her?’

  ‘I just thought – I don’t know what I thought.’

  Zed Willard shifted his line of questioning. ‘And you decided to renew your acquaintance with Jonah Kobi.’ This time it was he who managed to inject the question with an accusation.

  Jessica gave him a sharp look. ‘I liked him.’

  ‘Even though …’

  ‘I read about him in the newspaper. I was curious.’

  Willard played along. ‘So did you ask him about your one-time friend?’

  ‘For years he told me she must have run away maybe because she was upset that I didn’t want to be her friend.’

  DS Willard smiled as though he had a fish on the end of a hook and again shifted the focus of his questions.

  ‘How did the little silver ballet shoe charm get into Tom’s car?’

  Jessica chewed her lips. ‘I really don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘You know that she was still wearing the charm bracelet complete with ballet shoes—’

  ‘She wasn’t. We—’

  ‘You bought another charm, didn’t you, to plant in Tom’s car. Your husband’s idea?’

  So now, Claire thought, she would fall back on Plan B.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Tuesday 19 November, 8.40 a.m.

  The day started badly.

  It was Yvonne who rang. Which caught Claire out.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she said without introducing herself or preamble. Claire struggled. Who was gone? Where? Yvonne followed the cryptic remark with, ‘Tom.’

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  But Yvonne needed to talk. ‘It was so peaceful in the end – after all that illness – he just went to sleep.’

  Claire murmured a response and Yvonne began again. ‘Doctor, I think it was knowing they’d found her.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘It meant he could let go so thank you for all you’ve done.’

  For all she’d done? She’d done nothing. But it can be hard to deflect thanks even when you know they are undeserved.

  Did Yvonne not realize this was just the start of things?

  In Hanley police station the case against Jessica Kobi was building as neatly as a flat pack chest of drawers. Marvel Trustrom’s handbag must have been open at the time of the assault. Inside was a tissue. And the tissue held some blood spatter.

  Wednesday 18 December, 11 a.m.

  Crematoria are not designed for double funerals. They had had to erect a second bier for the second coffin. Though when Claire thought about it she realized an entire coffin was hardly appropriate for the remains of the girl who was inside.

  They’d all turned up, Dixie, Yvonne, Shane and his wife, Sorrel and Clarice. Dixie looked pale but shed no tears for her daughter – or her husband. They played a Spice Girls oldie as well as Mozart. Claire, standing at the back with DS Willard, doubted either Tom or Marvel would have approved the choice of music. But then who does choose their own Requiem? The entire ceremony was strangely soulless. The pall engulfed her even after Claire had returned to Greatbach, still reflecting on the ceremony. In the end, was it what Tom had so wanted?

  Kobi’s life was held in the balance, the irony being that the final choice whether or when the ventilator was switched off would be made by doctors rather than the courts. One of the few times he had no control. Had he recovered there was always the possibility that he would have implicated or even accused his wife of murder. Who knew with Kobi?

  With the forensic evidence it was hard for Jessica to deny she had been at the crime scene. Her defence was coercion. The prosecution were optimistic that Jessica would be found guilty of Marvel Trustrom’s murder. The defence were just as hopeful they would win the case.

  And Ilsa?

  Claire gave her evidence and her one-time patient was detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

  So after the double funeral all she had to face now was her half-brother’s wedding.

  Which would be a trial. Not seeing her half-brother married to Adele. That was the easy bit. Adam was one of those blunt-mannered, easy-going men who take a happy, passive view of life. And Adele was sweet-natured. Although a solicitor, she could find the good in all.

  And it wasn’t her outfit either which she’d already chosen. A cherry-red dress with a bolero jacket over, killer heels and a jaunty black fascinator which sat easily on her blonde hair which she’d grown a little longer than usual, to just below her shoulders. And it wasn’t going with Grant either. He would turn up in a beautifully fitting navy suit and matching cherry red tie, his hair, freshly washed, thick and curly and his expression jaunty and optimistic enough to carry off the pirate-in-his-Sunday-best look. He would turn heads at the ceremony and make the day easier.

  No, it would be none of these. It would be the ordeal of meeting her mother. After years of hostility and alienation it would be unavoidable at this family occasion. She could already anticipate the moment when she would watch her mother file into the church, smiling at everyone until her eyes alighted on her daughter when her lips would tighten, her eyes blaze for a moment and she would cling on to her husband’s arm. Mr Perfect David Spencer.

  Claire knew exactly how Marvel Trustrom had felt.

  An outsider.

  She sat alone in her office, squared up a few papers and stared into her computer screen. The words were starting to dance in front of her, teasing her, drawing her in.

 
Why do women marry serial killers? By Dr Claire Roget MB ChB BSc FRCPsych.

  There are eight recorded cases of women marrying serial killers in the UK. Many more cases exist in the US and in Asia, particularly China, where there are eighteen recorded cases …

  When all else fails, there was always the distraction of academia and her work. The day was growing dark, and Claire carried on typing.