Homicide in Herne Hill

by Alice Castle

  So transfixed was she that she whipped round without thinking, then confronted the dead Potter again, so still that she’d virtually forgotten he was there. She suddenly realised what she was doing, and how long she was taking. She had to hurry. It wouldn’t look good if the police got here and she was poking around in the dead man’s office.

  She wondered what to do with the key, still shrouded in the horrible old cloth. She looked up to the top of the Rothko. Getting the key down had been one thing, but putting it back was out of the question. It was much too high for her to reach all the way up to the edge, and the thought of dragging her chair through from outside yet again made her feel tired, even if the police didn’t catch her in the act. They surely wouldn’t be long now.

  She dithered, thinking how ridiculous her life sometimes was. Here she was, a blameless single mum, and yet she was standing in front of a corpse with a purloined key to get rid of, with a mind full of fraud, fingerprints, and DNA, instead of thinking about what Christmas present to get for her son. Could things get any more out of control?

  Just then, she heard the faint wail of the siren. Even though so much seemed to have happened since she’d got to work, it was still early, and the sound travelled ominously in the quiet streets. God, that meant she had no time at all to get rid of the key.

  She darted forward to the desk. Could she just dump it there? She looked over at the sprawl that was Potter. Should she put it near his hand? Or maybe in his hand? It would look very odd if something that was often used had no fingerprints at all on it. Beth studied the position of Potter’s big, meaty paws on the desk. Could she slip the key under his hand? Maybe rub it across the pads of his fingers first? It was revolting, but she had to. Using the cloth and averting her gaze and looking determinedly at the rubbish bin, she swiped the key across the nearest hand. Even through the cloth, it didn’t feel like flesh. The fingers were inanimate, like chunks of wood. Just as well, or she really might finally have been sick. She turned back and nudged the key into a better position, under the stiff, curled digits.

  Now that she was at this angle, and altogether a lot closer to Potter than she wanted to be, she could see that he was folded over a piece of paper on the desk. It was close to the edge, so his head and torso had shielded it from view before. She knew she shouldn’t look, but she couldn’t resist a peep. Ducking down, and gazing along the plane of the desk, she could just about see the typed words, ‘No more.’

  As suicide notes went, it was pretty crummy, she thought. No mention of the wife or children, no apology, absolutely no explanation. She’d give it a scant two out of ten. And not many points for effort, either. It wasn’t even handwritten. It looked as though he’d run it off on the office printer. Well, if she were Letty, she’d consider that as the cherry on the top of a particularly rubbishy cake from Paul Potter. If he’d been on the Great British Bake Off, she sincerely hoped he’d have been drummed out even faster than that guy who’d chucked his Baked Alaska in the bin. Of course, being dead would have meant he had little chance of winning, she conceded.

  But poor Letty. Beth knew what it was like to be left in the lurch by your husband. James had had no choice, but it looked as though Potter had bowed out for his own reasons. She felt a curl of anger rise in her stomach. No-one deserved this.

  Just then, there came a thudding at the door. She took a last quick glance at the desk, checking nothing was out of place. The cloth. She quickly scooped it up, flung it into the cleaning cupboard as she ran past, and opened up the door to the police.

  Sitting at home later, Beth thought it had been one of the longest days of her life. If she’d known what was coming, she definitely wouldn’t have got up early. Hell, she might not have got up at all, though having Ben on the premises would have made that impossible. He was now happy as anything, on the sofa, inducting little Wilf into the mysteries of the PlayStation and very much enjoying winning every single game. When Charlie was clutching the other console, things were much more even. At last, there was an upside to Katie’s skiing jaunt.

  Beth, meanwhile, felt as used and gritty as that microfibre rag, hunched over her umpteenth cup of tea while Nina intoned, ‘I can’t believe it, I just can’t,’ at her side. Beth shot her a daggers look. She couldn’t help it. She had every sympathy, and certainly shared the same sense of disbelief, but intoning it like a mantra was getting them nowhere fast.

  First, she’d gone through the basics with the Constable, then it had been off to the police station to make a statement and, finally, her least favourite part of a really terrible day so far, the chance encounter with Harry just as he’d been coming in and she’d been let go. She cursed her bad timing, though she realised it was inevitable that he’d have found out about the whole business in time. But maybe he’d have dealt with it better if he hadn’t bumped right into her. His face had been a picture – but not one she personally would pay to see in any gallery.

  ‘What are you doing here, Beth?’ he said, a momentary smile of delight disappearing instantly as he realised that Beth’s unannounced presence in a police station could only ever betoken a major calamity. ‘Anything you’d like to tell me about?’ he tacked on with admirable restraint, given the circumstances.

  Beth, looking back on the awkward encounter, could only wish her fringe was a metre longer and obscured her entire face. Of course, she’d started to blush guiltily right away, and of course, she couldn’t look him in the eye. If she’d only been able to style things out, pretend she was just a blameless eyewitness. But no. It had taken him about a minute to ascertain that yes, she’d found another body, and yes, she’d filled in forms saying she was an employee of Potter’s. It would be fair to say he then goggled at her incredulously.

  ‘Can we have a chat?’ he’d said pleasantly, for the benefit of his colleague manning the front desk. But anyone who knew him as well as Beth could identify a certain tautness of manner that was a dead giveaway for rage – not of the murderous variety, but certainly enough to make Beth wish she was dead anyway.

  She had smiled back, despite her red face and darting eyes, and made an anodyne excuse about picking up Ben from the childminder’s.

  ‘Childminder?’ said Harry, doing an excellent Lady Bracknell impression. Ah yes. Amongst the welter of half-truths and downright lies, Beth had forgotten Harry had known nothing of her peculiar arrangement with Nina. She ducked her head and strode for the door before he could stop her. And he’d let her go. What could he have done, short of arresting her?

  But now, Beth almost wished he’d done just that. A couple of hours had since passed. Surely he must have read her statement and seen that she’d been masquerading as Potter’s receptionist? He’d want to know why; she knew him. He’d want every spit and cough of the story. And yet, he hadn’t been in touch. And though she was semi-dreading his call, this silence was equally unbearable. Possibly even more unbearable than a roasting, as she badly needed the comfort of reliable, strong arms around her and a reassuring pea coat to snuggle up to. Nina, with her constant refrain, was no substitute at all.

  But as the day wore on and the sense of shock diminished, Nina’s bouncy nature reasserted itself and Beth was glad of her presence. After brewing up yet another pot of tea, Beth went to the fridge.

  ‘We’ve only gone and finished all the milk,’ she smiled.

  ‘I’ll nip out and get some. Wilf and Ben are ok, aren’t they?’

  Beth nodded. To her shame, they were now glued to the cartoons that Ben had become hopelessly addicted to during his days at Nina’s. It certainly wasn’t a triumphant childcare day for her. But then again, even for her, it wasn’t every day that she stumbled over a body. Maybe she should cut herself a little slack.

  It was kind of Nina to volunteer. She’d have to sprint down to the Sainsbury’s Local and back, passing the office and the Potter home. But she seemed ok with that. Once she’d pulled on her snowman coat and wound a scarf round her neck, she looked ready for anything.

 
; As soon as she’d left, Beth fished out her phone. It had been resolutely silent all day, nothing at all from Harry. She scrolled through his last messages, peppered with kisses and more, until they got to today, when their rolling words of love had come to an abrupt standstill. Would he ever trust her again? she wondered miserably. The minutes dragged on, but Beth was too jittery to settle to anything. She had the newspaper on the kitchen table, but there didn’t seem any point in reading it when it had been so comprehensively scooped by events unfolding in real time. And she had her freelance work to do, but there wasn’t a hope in hell of her getting down to that. She could barely muster the concentration to switch on her laptop, let alone formulate a coherent sentence.

  She gazed out of the kitchen window, but instead of the wintry garden scene, with overgrown shrubs and a lawn where the bare patches had finally started to sprout only to be blighted by frost, all she saw was Potter, sprawled across his desk.

  Finally, the doorbell shrilled. Beth was glad to get up from the table and push her gloomy thoughts aside. It was Nina, but not the somewhat subdued woman who’d left. This was Nina alive – and agog. She tiptoed theatrically past the sitting room, where the boys gawped as neon colours flickered over their vacant faces, and bustled into the kitchen, shutting the door that was so rarely closed.

  ‘You’ll never believe this, but there were police all over the Potter house. I thought I’d just go and take a look.’

  Beth was confused. ‘That’s no surprise, though, is it? They must be investigating, trying to work out why he did what he, you know, did?’

  ‘Yes, one constable with a notebook, maybe, probably one of those nice girl officers off the telly with the frown lines from looking sympathetic the whole time,’ said Nina, while Beth wondered exactly which TV shows she’d been watching. ‘But no, this was something different. The whole place was crawling with cops. There was crime scene tape across the drive, a policeman posted on the gate, great big vans outside the house. If it was like any telly show, it would be Silent Witness. I tell you, it was really creepy. I even saw a bloke in one of them white spacesuits. And I talked to the neighbours.’

  Nina, who’d been gabbling so fast that Beth had a hard time making sense of her words, now leaned back in her chair, and Beth couldn’t help leaning forwards.

  ‘The neighbours? Who?’

  ‘You know, that woman with the kids in Year 4 who always power dresses, even though she was made redundant? The one who hangs around laughing at Belinda’s jokes?’

  Beth thought. Laughing at Belinda’s jokes was pretty universal. But yes, she did remember someone on the fringes of the group who always had a very corporate look. Beth rather envied her the sharp little ponte dresses and kitten heels.

  ‘That’s Lisa, isn’t it? Was she made redundant? That’s terrible,’ she said absently. In normal times, she would have dwelt thoroughly on the impulses that had led Lisa to keep up her façade. Was she hoping to attract another job, somehow? Or maybe she just didn’t have any casual clothes. But today, well, after a moment’s consideration, it couldn’t have seemed less important. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘You won’t believe this. It’s incredible. But it looks like he tried to do away with the lot of them.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Potter. He drugged them. Kids, Letty, the lot of ’em.’

  ‘What?’

  Beth stood for a moment, holding onto the sink, feeling dizzy and trying to make sense of what Nina had said. Potter, the family man, killing his wife and children?

  ‘No. No, I just don’t believe it.’ Beth shook her head, not just saying no to the idea, but almost trying to shake the very thought of it out of her mind. It just didn’t compute. ‘Are they all dead, then?’ she whispered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nina pushed Beth into a chair and did what the English do best in a crisis – reached for the kettle, filled it, and turned it on. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to spring that on you. It didn’t work, for some reason. Letty and the kids have all been hauled off to the hospital to be checked over, but they’re fine. Oh, and while I was talking to Lisa, guess who came past, looking all shifty? Only that guy from Wyatt’s, the one everyone sucks up to.’

  ‘What, Dr Grover?’ said Beth faintly. She wouldn’t have been surprised by anything at this point.

  ‘Nah, that other one, the bruiser whose trousers always look like they’re going to burst. The sporty one.’

  Beth had to think for ages, but then it popped into her head. ‘Tom Seasons. Are you sure? How do you know him?’

  ‘Friend of the Potters, innit? Came by the office sometimes, when Letty was there,’ said Nina.

  Beth tried to process it all. It was astonishing, not only to hear that Potter had tried to kill his family – but even more so to hear that he’d failed. Everything she’d heard about these awful cases, when a husband snapped and did away with his nearest and dearest, suggested they tended to be pretty thorough. Stabbings, shootings, sometimes combinations of the two. Messy, awful, but invariably lethal. And then, an equally gory suicide at the end. Sometimes this last step was botched, true, and the man had to live with his crimes for the rest of his life, which to Beth seemed a fair punishment. But this? If Potter had managed to kill himself, why had it gone wrong for the rest of the family? It was all very odd.

  And, in the middle of her horror, a part of registered that this was probably why Harry hadn’t been in touch. He was going to be angry, that was for sure. But he must also be up to his eyes.

  ‘This all seems wrong, don’t you think?’ Beth said to Nina, who was already taking the fiddly white film top off the new container of milk. ‘You knew him much better than me, you’d worked for him for much longer. But from what I saw, he loved Letty and the kids so much! Everything was about them, the family. And the way he was with Letty! That time I saw them together, he mooned over her like they’d just met. It was…’

  ‘Revolting?’

  ‘I was going to say sweet,’ said Beth reprovingly. ‘But I know what you mean. It was a bit… over the top in a way. Certainly unusual.’

  ‘I’m no psychopath, but couldn’t that sort of mad love go sour? End up in a really, really bad way?’

  Beth paused. ‘Well, I’m no er, psychologist either, but I suppose it might. I just didn’t get the feeling that Potter would ever hurt a hair on their heads. Though he could definitely be menacing. That time he was cross with me, I was terrified, I don’t mind admitting.’

  ‘Yeah, but you were poking around in his business, weren’t you? Fair enough if he went a bit doolally about that,’ said Nina. ‘But we’re talking about actual murder here.’

  ‘Yes. And in a sneaky sort of way. If you’d told me he’d bludgeoned them all to death, then I would have been able to imagine that. Rage, loss of control. That red mist people talk about. He definitely looked as though he wanted to strangle me, and he was a big, strong guy. But drugging them?’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t want to mess them up,’ Nina raised her eyebrows. ‘My Wilf, he looks so peaceful when he’s asleep. No way I’d want to wreck his little chops. Even if I was going to murder him, if you know what I mean.’

  Beth, who’d had her own moments of gazing in wonder at Ben as he dreamed, knew there was nothing on earth so lovely as the face of your sleeping child. She could forgive Ben any daytime mischief, when she saw him in his dino-print jim-jams. Surely Potter would have been the same? But who could ever know?

  ‘You might be right, Nina. But this is silly. We’ll never be able to put ourselves into his head. He must have gone to a very odd place, to be capable of this.’

  Nina nodded sadly. ‘First the dogs, now it’s people. What’s the world coming to, eh?’

  Beth put down her cup. She flicked her fringe to one side impatiently and leaned forward again. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Just what’s the world coming to? It’s the kind of thing you do say, at times like this, in’t it?’ Nina said defensivel
y. But Beth didn’t stop staring.

  ‘No, before that?’

  ‘Um?’ Nina looked upwards, her red-gold curls catching the light from the garden, where Magpie was staring hard at a robin in the apple tree. ‘About the dogs?’

  ‘The dogs. Exactly,’ said Beth. ‘Nina, I’ve got to go out for a while. Are you ok to watch the boys?’

  Nina shrugged. As far as she was concerned, they didn’t need much watching.

  ‘You could go and sit with them for a bit,’ Beth suggested.

  Nina peered into her tea and sighed. The excitement of her revelation about the Potters had definitely worn off, and she suddenly seemed pretty down. It was an understandable reaction to the day’s events.

  Beth thought for a second, then rummaged in a cupboard and brought out a selection pack of crisps. It was supposed to last them weeks, but today seemed to be developing into an emergency – for the grown-ups more than the children. Nina brightened a little at the prospect. ‘You could take it through to the sitting room, have a rest on the sofa with the boys,’ Beth suggested. It might be better than being alone with her thoughts.

  ‘But where are you going?’ Nina eyed Beth, who was suddenly full of energy. ‘Not got one of your mad ideas?’

  ‘They’re not always mad. Thanks for your support, Nina,’ Beth said as loftily as she could from her starting point.

  ‘Don’t suppose you want to tell me, do you?’ Nina said idly. Her expectations were as low as her mood.

  ‘You’ll think it’s silly. I’d rather just get on and do it, then tell you in a few minutes if it pans out.’

  ‘As long as it’s not dangerous,’ mumbled Nina, who’d already inserted her head into a packet of cheese and onion and looked as though she was quite unlikely to go through with Beth’s suggestion of sharing this new bounty with the boys.

  Beth smiled then headed out to the hall, popped her head briefly round the sitting room door, and waved to Ben who hardly looked up from the telly. She pulled on her pixie boots and coat, slung her bag over her shoulder, and shut the door quietly.