Letting out the Worms: Guilty or not? If not then the alternative is terrifying (Kitty Thomas Book 1)

by Sue Nicholls

  Paul tried to visit Twitch to put things right, but she refused to see him and has banned him from the house.

  Sam and Kitty gaped at the page, unable to speak. Neither wanted this to be true.

  Sam passed Max’s notes to Kitty and muttered. ‘It might not be true.’

  ‘It can’t be.’ Kitty flung herself back in her seat. ‘I know my dad. He could not do a thing like that.’

  Sam kept his thoughts to himself.

  Porterhouse (cross-examining): Mr Rutherford, or should I call you Mr Owen?

  Owen-Rutherford: Either will do. My name is Maximus James William Owen-Rutherford.

  Porterhouse: But you made a point of using a different name with your late wife, from the one you assumed with Mr Thomas when he came to you for help. Is that not so?

  Owen-Rutherford: My business cards say Max Rutherford. My whole name is a bit of a mouthful. When I found that Fee was married to Paul, I’m afraid I was disingenuous. It wasn’t ethical to have a relationship with her, given that her husband, at the time, was a client, so I used the name Will Owen.

  Porterhouse: But you told her, eventually?

  Owen-Rutherford: No. I never told her. She never knew about Paul’s visits to me. I’m not that unscrupulous.

  Porterhouse: Well, you were unscrupulous enough to get her to sign forms without her knowledge and obtain her consent to marriage without her permission.

  Owen-Rutherford: Yes, I admit I did that. I was trying to surprise her. I was desperate to marry her.

  Porterhouse: Desperate, why? If she wasn’t ready, surely it would have been kinder to wait until she didn’t feel pushed into a corner.

  Owen-Rutherford: I felt she wanted to marry me but was afraid of the commitment.

  ‘Egotistical bugger.’ Sam slapped the paper with his open knuckles. Kitty was silent.

  Porterhouse: Going back to your meeting with Fee. You say you knew she was Mr Thomas’s wife on the day you met her.

  Owen-Rutherford: We bumped into each other in the supermarket. I asked her for a coffee. I didn’t realise who she was, at first then when I saw her business card, the penny dropped.

  Porterhouse: And is it true you told her you worked on an oil rig, on shift work?

  Owen-Rutherford: Yes. That is true. The fact is, I already had a girlfriend and I wanted to spend time with her too. No point in complicating things until I was sure of my feelings.

  Porterhouse: It seems overly complicated to lie so completely about your profession. Why not simply tell the truth about your circumstances?

  Owen-Rutherford: I wish I had. If I’d been more honest with them both, she might be alive today.

  Porterhouse: By ‘them both,’ I assume you mean Mr Thomas and your wife.

  Owen-Rutherford: Yes. I wove a very tangled web.

  Porterhouse: In fact, Mr Owen-Rutherford, it would be true to say you are a complete liar. There is no proof you wrote these notes at the time you say you did. Isn’t it perfectly possible you wrote them recently, to destroy my client’s reputation?

  Owen-Rutherford: I certainly did write them at the time.

  Porterhouse: And then you murdered your wife. You killed her and tried to blame Mr Thomas.

  Fitzsimmons: Objection

  Judge Cannon: May we know where this line of questioning is heading, Mr Porterhouse?

  Porterhouse: Sorry, My Lord. It goes to throwing doubt on the balance of the police investigation.

  Judge Cannon: I’ll allow it, but please get on with it.

  Owen-Rutherford: Why would I do that? I loved her. He’s the one with anger issues. He’s the one who pushed her over the cliff, after thumping people on two separate occ…

  Judge Cannon: That’s enough, Mr Rutherford. Kindly answer only the questions you are asked.

  Porterhouse: Tell me what you know about Mrs Sabrina Roman, known as Twitch for some reason.

  Owen-Rutherford: She was another one.

  Porterhouse: Another one?

  Owen-Rutherford: Yes, another woman who abandoned her husband.

  Porterhouse: Ms Roman shared a house with your wife, did she not?

  Owen-Rutherford: Yes.

  Porterhouse: And you thought of her in those terms? As a deserter of her husband. Is this also how you viewed your wife, and perhaps their other companion Ms Adu - the estranged wife of Mr Thomas’s friend Michael Adu?

  Owen-Rutherford: The world is full of such women. I deal daily with men who struggle to cope with life after their wives have left them.

  Porterhouse: And you blame these women for the damage they do?

  Owen-Rutherford: No. Not blame. They have become the regular fodder of my business; I suppose you could say.

  Porterhouse: Tell the court about your childhood, Mr Owen-Rutherford.

  Fitzsimmons: Objection

  Judge Cannon: Sustained

  Porterhouse: May I have a word in private, My Lord?

  Judge Cannon: Very well. My chambers.

  Kitty sucked in a shaking breath and blew it at the document. ‘I wonder what he said.’

  ‘It doesn’t say. Porterhouse was allowed to carry on, though.’

  Porterhouse: Tell the court about your upbringing, Mr Owen-Rutherford.

  Owen-Rutherford: You want me to tell you about my mother, Claudine Owen, I suppose. Well, she deserted me. I haven’t seen her since I was seven - apart from one occasion in my early twenties, when she made it perfectly plain that she had no interest in me.

  Porterhouse: And how was life with your father?

  Owen-Rutherford: He didn’t want me either. I went to live with my grandfather. My unhappy childhood is the reason I became a counsellor. Anger, violence, resentment, I know about these things first-hand. I wanted to…

  Porterhouse: Tell me, what are your hobbies?

  Fitzsimmons: Objection.

  Judge Cannon: Over-ruled.

  Owen-Rutherford: I don’t have much spare time. I do like to eat out.

  Porterhouse: Did you eat out at the restaurant called Feast, in Chelterton High Street.

  Owen-Rutherford: (no reply)

  Porterhouse: Mr Owen-Rutherford, did you eat at Feast?

  Owen-Rutherford: Yes, I did. Once or twice.

  Porterhouse: And was the restaurant, Feast run by Ms Millicent Adu?

  Owen-Rutherford: I’m not sure.

  Porterhouse: Not sure, Mr Owen-Rutherford? That seems unlikely, as Ms Adu was a friend of your wife and shared a house with her. A bit too much of a coincidence, don’t you agree?

  I’m sorry Mr Owen-Rutherford, would you repeat that for the benefit of the jury, please?

  Owen-Rutherford: It does seem a coincidence. I didn’t know she was a housemate of my wife.

  Porterhouse: Surely, we can’t believe that. Surely, Fee would have talked to you about Millie, who ran a restaurant, and Twitch, who suffered from depression. I imagine, Mr Owen-Rutherford, that between them Mr and Mrs Thomas fed you much information about the goings on at that semi in Crispin Road. Perhaps you also knew Ms Roman.

  Owen-Rutherford: I did not.

  Porterhouse: Do you have any other hobbies, Mr Rutherford?

  Owen-Rutherford: I get little time for a social life.

  Porterhouse: How about gambling? Do you like a flutter now and then?

  Owen-Rutherford: I do occasionally have a bet, yes.

  Porterhouse: Is it not true to say you have lost thousands of pounds, and that you are in debt to the tune of approximately one hundred and fifty thousand pounds?

  Owen-Rutherford: Yes.

  Porterhouse: Thank you, Mr Owen-Rutherford. That will be all.

  Sam frowned. ‘Mum had mental health problems. I wish I’d known.’ He stared through the window at the fading light and said, ‘He knew Millie, too. Does it say when he met her?’

  ‘He says he didn’t.’ Kitty grabbed her notebook and pencil. ‘But what if he knew them all - including your mum?’ She jotted down ‘Connect Max to Millie and Twitch.’

  Next i
n the transcript came Max’s receptionist, Julie Glover. She told the court she was not privy to Max’s consultation notes, and only looked after general correspondence. She also said Max had once propositioned her, knowing that she was married.

  One part of Julie’s cross-examination leapt out at Kitty.

  Fitzsimmons: And Mr Thomas there, did you confirm your boss’s appointments for him?

  Julie Glover: Yes, although on one occasion, he rang asking for an emergency consultation.

  Fitzsimmons: Would you tell the court when that was, please, Mrs Glover?

  Julie Glover: It was 2nd March.

  Fitzsimmons: Do you remember Mr Thomas arriving at the practice on that occasion?

  Julie Glover: Yes, I do.

  Fitzsimmons: And how did he seem?

  Porterhouse: Objection. The witness is being asked to speculate.

  Judge Cannon: Sustained.

  Fitzsimmons: Sorry, My Lord. Julie, would you describe to the court, the way Mr Thomas behaved on that day?

  Julie Glover: He looked stiff. He hardly spoke while he sat and waited for Mr Rutherford to come out and collect him.

  They reached the section detailing with the events in Mauritius.

  Fitzsimmons: The prosecution calls Detective Colin Robbins

  Fitzsimmons: Are you in charge of the investigation into Mrs Fiona Owen?

  DI Robins: I am.

  Fitzsimmons: I believe the Mauritian police passed the matter to you. Is that correct?

  DI Robins: It is. I received a telephone call from an Inspector Kipling on 15th November 1996.

  Fitzsimmons: And did you get the impression from Inspector Kipling that Mr Thomas was guilty?

  DI Robins: He gave no such impression, although he did reveal that Mr and Mrs Owen had come to Mauritius to marry, and that they were on their honeymoon. Apparently, they had made themselves extremely popular in their hotel and were regular visitors at the restaurant where they had booked a table when the murder occurred.

  Fitzsimmons: But of course, there were no witnesses, so you had to investigate Mr Owen-Rutherford and Mr Thomas, did you not?

  DI Robins: We knew Mr Owen-Rutherford had been accused repeatedly by Mr Thomas, but we could find no evidence that he had ever behaved in a dangerous or violent way. He had no criminal record. He had bought the glasses of wine and had thrown them to the ground when he started to run towards the crag, exactly as he claimed.

  He did admit to hiding his identity from Mrs Owen, but we were happy with his explanation that this was to protect his professional reputation.

  Mr Thomas, on the other hand, was already known to us as a violent man, so we concentrated our resources on his movements. We interviewed his eight-year-old daughter, Kitty, who advised us that Mr Thomas had been hiding in the bushes opposite the house where she and Mrs Owen, then Thomas, lived, presumably spying on his wife.

  Kitty recalled seeing her father’s head bobbing above the bushes opposite the house in Crispin Road. She had slammed the window shut in fright and run downstairs to be near her mother. Afterwards, Paul’s anguish when she closed the window and shut him out had haunted her. For a while, she had woken, screaming in the darkness, her dreams a muddle of her guilt and Paul’s anger. With the benefit of maturity, she realised she had shut Pop out because she needed time to come to terms with her new perception of him. Sitting here with the limp paper in her grasp, she felt seven years old again. The same emotions overwhelmed her. She was angry. Angry with him for putting her through that. ‘I don’t want to read any more,’ she said.

  ‘OK. We can stop for now.’

  ‘Can we have a break? Go for a drink?’

  In the pub they sat on either side of a small table and stared in silence over each other’s shoulders. The drink did not help, so when they had finished one round, Kitty said, ‘I don’t know about you, but I need to sleep.’

  Sam gave a half smile. ‘Yeah. I should get back too.’

  Back at her flat, Kitty made photocopies of the court transcript. She would read it when she had processed today’s revelations. She turned on the television, and with Countdown chattering in the background, sagged onto the cushions and into a healing sleep.

  Later, with a dry mouth and stiff neck, she switched off the gabble on the television. Her mind was clearer, but she needed to take stock. One grew up with a set of assumptions. Was it possible hers were wrong? Had she always suspected something bad in Paul and buried it away? Even wondering this seemed disloyal. She reached for the papers and read the rest of D.I. Robins’s testimony about Paul’s lurking outside their house.

  D.I. Robins: Further investigation revealed cigarette ends containing Mr Thomas’s DNA in those bushes. Three other witnesses, Mrs Margaret Stonier of 22 Gressingham Avenue, the road that runs down the side of Gressingham playing field, Mrs Gloria Adu and Mr Michael Adu, both known to the defendant, witnessed him on other occasions, emerging from the park onto Gressingham Road. The defendant has a history of violence, and Mr Owen-Rutherford’s notes from their sessions revealed that he was obsessed with his wife. He became angry at the mention of her name. He blamed her for their breakup, and as soon as he found she was re-marrying, booked an expensive flight to pursue her.

  When he arrived at the hotel in Mauritius, where the Owens were staying, he spoke to the manager rudely and displayed aggressive behaviour.

  Fitzsimmons: Thank you, Inspector. Now if we may, we will hear a little more about Mr Thomas’s violence…

  Kitty turned to Porterhouse’s cross-examination of Robins.

  Porterhouse: You say that at the beginning of March, Mr Thomas committed an act of rape on Ms Sabrina Roman, of 63 Crispin Road.

  DI Robins: That’s correct.

  Porterhouse: Did the police receive a complaint from Ms Roman to that effect?

  DI Robins: No. Ms Roman never reported the incident.

  Porterhouse: Was there any subsequent DNA evidence?

  DI Robins: We found Thomas’s fingerprints at the house, but no semen.

  Porterhouse: And Ms Roman is now deceased?

  DI Robins: Yes. She was murdered. We were already investigating Mr Paul Thomas for her murder when he was arrested in Mauritius.

  Porterhouse: Any evidence of rape on the corpse?

  DI Robins: Ms Roman drowned and spent some considerable time in the water. Her body was badly damaged.

  Porterhouse: Not so badly that you couldn’t tell she had been attacked and forcibly drowned. The arrest in Mauritius was just what you needed then. A very convenient corroboration of what you already suspected.

  DI Robins: We carried out a thorough investigation into Mr Thomas’s movements, as I’ve already stated.

  Porterhouse: Ah yes, so you did, into the movements of Mr Thomas, but did you check on Mr Rutherford’s movements? Was his DNA behind the bushes opposite that house in Crispin Road? Were his notes made at the time of his interviews with my client, or later? Did you investigate those things, Detective Inspector?

  DI Robins: No, we did not, but…

  Porterhouse: So, in fact, you have no evidence that my client committed rape, no evidence he pushed Mrs Owen over that cliff, and no evidence that Mr Owen-Rutherford wrote his notes at the time of his consultation with Mr Thomas. I think it is safe to say that you have no case against my client.

  No further questions, My Lord.

  Fitzsimmons: The prosecution calls Paul Thomas.

  Oh Lord. Here we go. Breathe, Kitty.

  Fitzsimmons: Would you tell the court why you consulted Mr Owen-Rutherford, Mr Thomas?

  Thomas: I was angry. I blamed Fee – my ex-wife for our breakup and the cold-hearted way she walked out with Kitty, my daughter. I was bad tempered at work, and Iris, a colleague, told me to get help with the anger.

  Fitzsimmons: You were angry, weren’t you? You beat up two men, frightened your daughter with your violence and raped a woman.

  Thomas: I did not rape anyone.

  Fitzsimmons: Well, Mr Thomas, accordi
ng to the notes made by Mr Owen-Rutherford at the time of your consultation with him, you admitted to the rape, denying responsibility and insisting she led you on.

  Thomas: I did not rape Twitch.

  Fitzsimmons: Well, I suppose you would say that, knowing there is no evidence to prove it.

  Thomas: I did not rape her.

  Fitzsimmons: Do you deny that you broke a man’s foot in a brawl?

  Thomas: I don’t deny that. I was defend…

  Fitzsimmons: Thank you, Mr Thomas. And how about your neighbour, whose music player was ruined, did you hit him?

  Thomas: I’m afraid I did. He was making so much noi…

  Fitzsimmons: Thank you, Mr Thomas.

  You saw Mr Owen-Rutherford in Chelterton one day, when you were with your friends Mr Adu and Mr Roman, is that correct?

  Thomas: Yes.

  Fitzsimmons: But you lied to them, didn’t you? You told them he was a neighbour.

  Thomas: I did but…

  Fitzsimmons: Thank you.

  Now, moving on to Mauritius if I may. You discovered that Mr Owen-Rutherford was in a relationship with your ex-wife and that they were going on holiday together, so in fury you purchased a highly priced ticket and followed her with the express purpose of murdering her.

  Thomas: I did not have any intention of murdering her.

  Fitzsimmons: But you couldn’t help yourself.

  Thomas: I did not murder Fee

  In cross-examination, Porterhouse began unpicking Fitzsimmons’s case.

  Porterhouse: When you began your sessions with Mr Owen-Rutherford, did you find him helpful?

  Thomas: Yes. It took a while, but eventually I realised that I was as much at fault as Fee. He showed me how to manage my anger. I’m a better man because of Max.

  Porterhouse: That’s very magnanimous of you, considering you tell us that the man murdered your ex-wife.

  Thomas: You asked me the question and I am telling you the truth. If you asked me how I feel about him now, I’d…

  Porterhouse: Thank you, Mr Thomas. Just answer my questions if you would.