Death in the Family

by Jill McGown

  They were in the lounge bar of the Derbyshire Hotel, where he had booked in, having been advised not to leave Stansfield. It seemed strange, sitting over drinks, with music playing softly in the background, discussing all these dreadful happenings.

  “So that’s it. I thought you ought to know.” He sounded desperately weary. “I find out that Lesley’s dead, then that I’m suspected of murdering her, and Kayleigh has been arrested for abducting a baby. Apart from that, I’ve had a great day.”

  “It surprises me a little that Lesley didn’t consider bringing up Kayleigh’s baby herself,” Theresa said. “If she was so keen for her to have it.”

  Phil swallowed hard, and she could see that he was suddenly fighting tears as well as fatigue; she had been in his company for about twenty minutes, and already she had put her foot in it.

  “Oh—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, don’t apologize. I’ll tell you why she didn’t. It might help you understand why feelings were running so high about Kayleigh.”

  “Well, only if you think . . .” She felt a little flustered; she was supposed to be giving him moral support, not jabbing an insensitive finger on a raw nerve.

  “After Lesley and I had been together for about five years, she became pregnant, and we had a little boy. Luke.” He blinked away the tears. “Sorry. I never quite know who I’m crying for. Myself, I suppose.”

  “Phil, I really didn’t mean to bring up anything that upsets you. You don’t have to—”

  “I’d like to tell you.” He cleared his throat. “When he was born, Kayleigh couldn’t do enough for him—it was a problem, as usual. She wanted to do everything for him, got angry if anyone else touched him.”

  He took out a new packet of cigarettes, tearing off the cellophane, his hand shaking slightly. He was having trouble getting a cigarette out, so Theresa took it out for him and put her hand round his to hold the lighter steady as he lit it. He drew deeply on it before he carried on.

  “When Kayleigh gets obsessed about something, it takes her over. Then suddenly, she loses interest. Except that she doesn’t just lose interest—she resents whoever or whatever it was for having . . .” He moved his hands, as though he were grasping something, as he searched for the right word. “. . . possessed her, I suppose. She turns on them—well, she turned on Dean Fletcher, for instance. And maybe he deserved it, but not everyone does.”

  He took a moment, then, to compose himself, smoothing the ash on the end of his cigarette on the rim of the ashtray. Theresa didn’t speak.

  “After a few months she’d had enough of Luke. She ignored him, took nothing to do with him. Until one evening, when she was upstairs getting ready for bed, and Luke was in his cot, and he started crying. Then we heard a bump, and Kayleigh screaming, and went out to find Luke lying at the bottom of the stairs. She said she was bringing him downstairs to us when she missed her footing, and dropped him. He died.”

  Theresa closed her eyes.

  “Everyone chose to believe it was an accident. The hospital, Lesley, me . . . everyone. Perhaps it was an accident. But we couldn’t take the risk of letting her keep this baby, and fortunately—I thought—she didn’t seem interested in keeping it. I’m certain that if Lesley had just let her have the termination, she would have taken it in her stride, but . . .” He shook his head. “To Lesley, abortion was murder. So she talked Kayleigh into adoption. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do, but there was no third choice—she couldn’t have let Kayleigh keep the baby. She really couldn’t.”

  “Oh, Phil—I’m so sorry.”

  He took a sip of his cold beer. “I just thought you ought to know.”

  That was twice he had said that. There was, of course, no reason at all that she ought to know any of his business, except that there was: their relationship thus far might have consisted only of telephone conversations of the most platonic nature, but they had become close, as she had told Lloyd. Very close. And what had happened yesterday had thrown them together in a way that they couldn’t have imagined.

  She could, of course, be sitting having a drink and a heart-to-heart with Lesley’s killer, but she wasn’t sure that she would run screaming from the room even if she found that she was. Obviously, she didn’t know Lesley’s side of the story, but she knew secondhand of her intransigence, and now that she knew about Luke, she understood how desperate Phil had been to get help for Kayleigh. If his frustration had led him to that—well, she could understand that.

  “I don’t know if Kayleigh can ever really be straightened out.” He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette, looking at what he was doing, not at her. “But I feel about her the way I would about my own daughter, and I won’t desert her. I should have adopted her when Lesley and I were together, and if I can, I intend to adopt her now.” He looked up then. “I think you ought to know that, too.”

  His cards were well and truly on the table; the word had not been mentioned, but Phil was saying love me, love my daughter. And, impossible though it seemed, after a long-distance courtship of which neither of them had been aware, Theresa knew that she did love Phil, and that he felt the same about her.

  Kayleigh was glad that Emma was back with her mother now. She hadn’t known what to do when she found out what had happened at the cottage, and just when she wanted to tell them who Emma really was, Mr. Lloyd had told her about the argument.

  She was still worried about Phil; his assurances that they knew all about his being there, as though he’d sorted it all out, seemed a bit unlikely when they wouldn’t let him go with her. But they hadn’t arrested him or anything; he had telephoned her and told her that he would be staying at the Derbyshire Hotel.

  She still didn’t understand why Dean was at the cottage or why he’d taken her mother’s car. And had he really run Ian over? She was going to see Ian in the hospital tomorrow; they said he was going to be all right, except maybe for his foot. He might be able to tell her what had happened. But it looked as though Dean must have been the intruder he’d seen.

  She hadn’t spoken to Andrea yet; she thought it best to leave it until she’d got over it a bit. She wanted to tell her how sorry she was, explain to her why she had done it, but common sense told her that this wasn’t the time. Andrea would be very angry with her, but she would make it up with her.

  The knock at her door turned out to be Mrs. Spears, bearing the case with her clothes in it, and Kayleigh smiled her thanks to her. It was nice of her, going all the way to Malworth for it.

  Kayleigh wasn’t sure what was going to happen to her, but she hoped that they would let her stay in Bartonshire.

  When Lloyd told her that Emma was safely back with Nina Crawford, Judy felt almost light-headed with relief. Then she listened, her eyes widening, as he told her Kayleigh’s plan.

  “Kayleigh and Andrea would buy clothes together, and wear the same things on the same days,” he said. “According to Tom, Andrea thought it was because Kayleigh saw her as some sort of role model—hero-worshiped her. He thinks Andrea was quite flattered by that, and I think Kayleigh did feel like that about her, to some extent. But she engineered the business about the clothes so that she could steal Emma.”

  Judy shivered. Tom had been right that Emma had been targeted, but she would have preferred the criminals they had thought they might be dealing with to this.

  “That way, she could make her mother believe it was Andrea she was obsessed with, rather than the baby. And wearing the same clothes as Andrea meant that she would just disappear when witnesses were asked about who they’d seen in the park, because the descriptions would match, and it would look as though everyone had seen Andrea.”

  Judy shook her head. “But when she did plan all this?”

  “She had been going to take Emma from the moment she saw her, and she was always going to do it when her mother moved house again, which she knew she would do sooner or later. She just didn’t know exactly how, until the temporary move to Stansfield provided the solutio
n.” He shook his head, almost in admiration. “In Tom’s words, she’s nuts, but she’s clever.”

  He was, of course, happy that Emma was back where she belonged, but he was ruefully reflecting on how easily he had been swayed from his original belief that Alexandra was Emma.

  “When Alan Marshall found this practically new pram on the rubbish tip, we thought we’d got it all worked out. These kids looted the car, and the baby’s stuff was in it—our finely honed detective instincts told us that.” He smiled. “But there you are. The boys did help themselves to what was in the car—once we knew what we were looking for, we recovered some of it—but there was no pram in it, because there was no baby. And someone did throw the pram away, however profligate that might seem to Alan and me.” He smiled. “Theories always come to grief, like the man said.”

  “Speaking of babies,” said Judy, wrinkling her nose and holding Charlotte at arm’s length. “Yours needs changing.”

  Lloyd took her. “All right, Chaz, let’s get you presentable, shall we?” He put his face close to hers, making her laugh.

  Judy watched him, finding it hard to believe, even with the evidence of her own eyes, that Lloyd really didn’t mind changing nappies at all. And he did it quickly and efficiently, like he did so many things that she found difficult.

  “Who’s Daddy’s gorgeous girl? Maybe Mummy will find you more socially acceptable now.” He sat with Charlotte on his knee, playing This Little Piggy with her.

  Judy smiled at them. She could enjoy this much more than she had now that Emma was home. But there was still the problem of work versus Charlotte. Judy wanted to be Malworth’s DCI, but she put that to the back of her mind. “What do you think will happen to Kayleigh?” she asked.

  “And this little piggy cried ‘wee, wee, wee’ all the way home!” Charlotte smiled, and Lloyd shrugged. “The courts are usually pretty understanding about mental illness.” He played absently with Charlotte’s feet as he talked. “And perhaps it’s an ill wind. At least it’s brought Kayleigh’s problem to other people’s attention, and no harm done to Emma.”

  “And how’s the murder investigation going?”

  “Well—on the one hand we have Phil Roddam, who had a violent row with the deceased and a positive embarrassment of motives, but who, half an hour later, was waiting for a train, his clothes innocent of bloodstains, and who came to us of his own accord, and on the other we have Dean Fletcher, who believed Lesley Newton to be the author of his misfortune, who knew she would be alone in the cottage, whose clothes have her blood on them, who stole her car and drove it into Waring before going on the run, and who was captured only because he passed out while trying to evade arrest.”

  “Don’t tell me; let me guess. You think it was Phil Roddam.”

  “Well . . .” Lloyd smiled. “No.”

  Judy’s eyebrows rose. “Do you mean you’re going along with the majority?” She gave a little sigh. “I’m glad you don’t think it was Roddam—that would be the last straw for Kayleigh.”

  “Either way, it wouldn’t be good. If it was Fletcher, it’s her fault for bringing him to Stansfield, and if it was Roddam, she loses her dad as well as her mum.”

  Lloyd didn’t use tenses loosely; if he thought it had to be either Roddam or Fletcher, he would have said that it wasn’t good, not that it wouldn’t be good. She frowned. “You don’t think it was either of them, do you?” Then her mouth opened slightly. “You don’t still think it was Waring!”

  He looked like a child who wanted to stay up and watch television when he was being told to go to bed.

  “Lloyd, you know it can’t be him. He was with Theresa Black when Roddam was at the cottage. And Lesley Newton was still alive.”

  “Well . . . that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On when Roddam was at the cottage. You see—we’ve been assuming that it was around quarter to eleven. But what if it was earlier than that? Say fifteen or twenty minutes earlier? It could have been, according to the taxi driver. That way, Waring would still have been there when Roddam arrived, and he would have stayed out of the way—what they were discussing was none of his business, was it? So Roddam thought Lesley was alone. Then, when Roddam leaves, Waring kills Lesley and takes the van back to Theresa Black.”

  “So how did he end up with blood on his clothes? Does he still have the fight with Fletcher in this scenario?”

  “Ah—no.” Lloyd smiled. “I think that has a much more down-to-earth explanation. He used Lesley’s phone to call the police—he had to, because Kayleigh had hidden his. He would have to turn her over to get it, because she had it clipped to her belt. That’s how the blood got on his clothes.”

  Charlotte had grabbed both his thumbs; he was moving his hands, making her look as though she were sending semaphore signals; she was giggling.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s what happened whether he genuinely found her or not. It also explains why there was blood on the phone itself.”

  Judy was relieved to hear that he was still allowing for the fact that Waring had probably simply found Lesley dead. “Anyway,” she said. “Why would Waring want to kill her? Does he get money in her will?”

  “Not unless she changed it from the copy we found, and she’s very organized, so I doubt it.”

  “So what motive did he have?”

  “Well . . . I saw him today with Theresa Black—the man’s still in love with her; I’m sure of that. And he was being dragged off to Australia with this woman and her mad daughter—he could have decided that doing away with her was the easiest way to get out of it.”

  “But he didn’t know Kayleigh was going to be left behind in Malworth. He’d hardly plan to murder her mother with her in attendance, would he?”

  “He was going to get rid of her somehow. She just made it easier for him.”

  Judy gave him the Look.

  “All right,” he conceded, with some reluctance. “I think I must be wrong about it having been planned, though I don’t see why Lesley would—” He shook his head and didn’t finish what he was saying. “I suppose it’s just another theory come to grief.”

  Judy smiled. “Does that mean that Waring is no longer your prime suspect?”

  “Probably,” Lloyd conceded. “But even if he didn’t plan it, it could still have been him. It isn’t impossible that he did it because Roddam was there causing trouble, and would be a perfect fall guy.”

  There was one big flaw in this scenario. “I thought you said the postman was very definite about the time he heard the argument.”

  “Yes, but why was he definite? Because he was running late and he checked his watch.” He picked Charlotte up, held her face close to his again. “But what if he wasn’t running late?” he asked her. “What if he only thought he was running late?”

  “Ba-ba-ba,” said Charlotte.

  “Charlotte wants to know why he would think he was running late if he wasn’t,” said Judy.

  “Elementary, my dear Charlotte.” Lloyd beamed at her. “Because his watch was fast.”

  Judy laughed. “Don’t you think he might have mentioned it to you when he found out?”

  Lloyd conceded that it was a little unlikely. “But the fact remains that we’ve been taking what he said as gospel, and we shouldn’t—there’s nothing to corroborate it. And as far as I’m concerned,” he solemnly told Charlotte, “this is still a three-horse race with two favorites and one outsider.”

  An outsider who was, of course, everyone else’s favorite, Judy thought. But she wouldn’t bet against Lloyd.

  * * *

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Phil opened his eyes to the semidarkness of the hotel bedroom. The thick, lined curtains kept out the morning light except at the very top, where a band of sunlight made its way in, and the shapes around him resolved themselves into recognizable objects. The TV, the wardrobe, the drinks cabinet, the dressing table, Theresa.

  Last night had happened so naturally, so inevitably, that he hadn’
t given a thought to the morning after; now, as he looked down at Theresa sleeping beside him, he reviewed how it had happened. Had he made the first move? Had she? He couldn’t remember either of them suggesting it, openly or obliquely; they had had a meal and then had come up to his room.

  He hoped she didn’t think that was why he had asked her to come to the hotel, because nothing had been further from his thoughts when he had rung her; he had felt so weary, so defeated by life, that it was a miracle that anything had happened at all. He smiled. It hadn’t exactly been earth-moving stuff, but then he had never claimed any particular expertise in that department and he was not at his best. He wondered then if he had disappointed her, as he had wondered when he met her, and hoped, once again, that he hadn’t been too much of a letdown.

  It was a strange situation to be in; he thought he might, in his youth, have slept with someone he had just met, but it wouldn’t have been someone like Theresa, and anyway, he didn’t think he had. And it hadn’t been overwhelming desire for each other; it had just seemed the right, the natural, thing to do. At least, it had to him and still did; he felt as though they had been together for a long time, that they knew each other, that they belonged with each other. And he didn’t feel defeated any longer. He could get through this, especially if Theresa was with him.

  But she might not feel the same way; she might want to cut and run, and he wouldn’t blame her for that. He lay back and watched the band of sunlight creep slowly over the ceiling. He mustn’t get ahead of himself, mustn’t make Theresa feel that he expected any more of her than she was prepared to give.

  She had already given him hope and confidence and love. He couldn’t ask for more than that.

  Tom was packing up the incident room, listening to the tape of Kayleigh’s interview. Lloyd had told him some of it, but he had wanted to hear for himself what Kayleigh had to say. A fourteen-year-old kid had put the Crawfords, him, Judy, Andrea—even the couple who had originally come under suspicion—through an emotional wringer, and he wanted to know what made her tick.