Death in the Family

by Jill McGown

  “And there’s another thing Dean Fletcher was telling the truth about,” he said. “I don’t know about looking eighteen—she looks about twenty-five in that getup. I didn’t recognize her.”

  “Who?”

  “Kayleigh—that’s her, with the camera.”

  Judy looked across, without much interest, just as Lloyd saw the Finches’ car pulling in, then went back to her activities with the tweezers before her head swiveled back in a perfect double take. “That’s Kayleigh Scott?”

  “It is. But she doesn’t normally look like that—no one believed Fletcher that she could look like that.” Lloyd was beginning to wonder just who had taken advantage of whom in the Dean/Kayleigh relationship. “I don’t know the other girl.”

  “That’s Andrea Merry.” A slight frown was bringing her carefully plucked eyebrows together.

  “Is it? I wouldn’t have thought Andrea would be too keen on staying friends with her after what she did to her.”

  “Are you sure that’s Kayleigh?”

  “Of course I’m sure!”

  Tom, Liz, and their children were coming over to them, but Judy didn’t seem terribly interested in that.

  “But I saw . . .” she began, and her voice trailed off. “And I know that was before ten, because . . . and it wasn’t until after eleven that . . . and that bus stop means that she would just have to—” She broke off completely then, as the Black-Roddam wedding party made its way toward the car park.

  “Why have you suddenly become incoherent?” he asked, looking back at her, and closed his eyes when he saw her face.

  She couldn’t possibly be looking like a gundog. Not now. Not today. She hadn’t even worked on the investigation—how could she be looking like a gundog? But she was.

  Suddenly she was scrambling out of the car. “Tom,” she said, her voice urgent. “Do you recognize that girl with Andrea Merry?”

  Tom looked at Kayleigh, at first shaking his head, then nodding vigorously as the group of people came closer to him. Lloyd saw the girl half smile, her face slightly puzzled, and the girl he now knew to be Andrea Merry caught her arm. The two of them started discussing something, casting glances over at Tom and Judy.

  Lloyd looked at Liz and shrugged. “Sorry about this,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on, either.”

  “Lloyd?” Judy bent down to talk to him through the window, her voice quiet and apologetic. “I think you’re going to have to arrest them.”

  Lloyd stared at her. “What? No—no, absolutely not. We came here to get married, and that’s what we’re doing. They’re on their way to a wedding reception, for goodness’ sake. Phone the station if you want them arrested. They’re not going to run away.”

  But Judy was shaking her head. “I think that’s just what they are going to do. She’s recognized me and Tom—Andrea’s telling her right now who Tom is, and she’s putting two and two together, just like I am. Look at them!”

  “She’s right, guv,” said Tom. “If ever anyone would have a contingency plan, it’s Kayleigh.”

  It was all too obvious that both Judy and Tom knew something that he didn’t know and that he wasn’t going to be able to ignore it. The girls were still in tense discussion, and his bride and his best man were standing by, waiting for him to make a decision.

  It was his wedding day; he had guests. His father, his mother-in-law and his baby daughter, his sisters, his son and his wife, his daughter and her current boyfriend, Freddie and his wife, his friends, his colleagues . . . they would all be arriving any minute now. The girls were getting into their car, but you didn’t just drop everything and arrest people on your wedding day, especially other people’s wedding guests. He was sure that all wedding etiquette books would agree that it was the height of bad form.

  “I mean it, Lloyd—if you want to get Dean Fletcher out of prison anytime soon, you’re going to have to arrest them. Quick—box them in before they drive off!”

  He looked helplessly at the other car and back at Judy.

  “Lloyd? Now would be good.”

  It was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding, Lloyd thought, and he knew when he was beaten. He fired the engine and drove out, stopping the car across the bows of the other one as it tried to reverse out of the parking space.

  He got out of the car and went to one side of the girls’ car as Tom went to the other. “This had better be worth it,” Lloyd said as Judy ran up to join them.

  “It is.” She was ringing the station as she spoke. “I’m still piecing it together, but if I’m right, then all your little puzzles were spot-on.”

  She’d be right. His gundog was never wrong.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “What do you mean, I can’t see her? She’s fourteen years old! She’s got to have an adult present if you’re going to interview her!”

  “I know that, Mr. Roddam, and there will be an appropriate adult present when we do interview her. But for the moment, I’m afraid you can’t talk to her.”

  “Why not? Have you got her locked up in a cell?”

  Constable Sims remained as maddeningly reasonable as Lesley always had. “No, sir, she isn’t in a cell—we prefer not to keep juveniles in cells if we can help it.”

  “Then why don’t you interview her now, and get her out of here one way or the other? I’m present.” He jabbed his own chest. “I’m an appropriate adult.”

  The constable smiled sympathetically. “I’m afraid you’re not, Mr. Roddam. One of Kayleigh’s foster parents will be here when we interview her.”

  Phil felt himself grow red with frustration. “But she’s my d—” He broke off. No. He mustn’t say that. The constable would simply remind him, as Lesley had, that she wasn’t. “As good as . . . my daughter,” he said. “I should be with her.”

  “Where possible the appropriate adult should be someone with current care and control of the child,” said Sims. “And you’re a witness in the investigation into Mrs. Newton’s death, even if that wasn’t the case. It really wouldn’t be appropriate. I appreciate how you must feel, but there honestly is nothing I can do.”

  Phil accepted that the young man was just doing his job and that he was right; they probably wouldn’t have let him see Kayleigh even if he were her natural father. But he couldn’t help worrying. “Is she all right? Has she asked for a solicitor?”

  “Yes, sir. And one is on his way.”

  The truth was that Kayleigh didn’t need him, not for this. She needed lawyers and doctors to help her now. What she needed him for was to understand why she had done it, and he thought he did, just. He understood that Andrea had become more important to her than anything or anyone and that Andrea had felt the same about her, just as Lesley had said; like two cars colliding head-on, the impact was at double the speed at which they were individually traveling. Lesley had known Kayleigh better than he had given her credit for and had tried, in her own way, to steer Kayleigh out of the path of the oncoming vehicle.

  But it had been much too late.

  “If this clears up the murder inquiry and proves that you were right about Dean Fletcher, will I be forgiven?”

  Lloyd didn’t look as though he was in a forgiving mood. “I’ve told Tom just to take everyone across to the Derbyshire and have the reception without us. At least the food won’t go to waste.”

  “Good.”

  Lloyd sat back. “Well? Have you pieced it together now?”

  She nodded. “I think so.” She had no notebook to refer to; she felt a little lost about where to start without being able to leaf through mounds of notes, ticking them off. But she had had time to think now, and she thought she knew the sequence of events.

  “Things are becoming clear, at last,” she said. “Like Andrea Merry, screaming one minute, calm the next, and then practically suicidal by the time Tom saw her.” She smiled. “And do you remember Kayleigh’s running-away suitcase?”

  “Yes,” said Lloyd.

  “Wa
s it black leather?”

  “Yes.”

  “I bet I can tell you what was in it. A lilac Versace trouser suit and a navy-and-lilac striped top that probably cost the best part of three hundred pounds on its own.”

  Lloyd smiled. A reluctant smile but a smile nonetheless. “I wouldn’t know the price. But even I could read the label. Yes, amongst other things, that’s what was in it.”

  “One of the other things being a mobile phone.”

  “Am I going to get an explanation of this in due course? Or do I have to become a member of the Magic Circle before you can divulge your methods?”

  “And the pram that was too good for someone to have thrown away.” Judy was enjoying herself now. It was usually Lloyd who was mysterious. “You have still got it, haven’t you?”

  Lloyd nodded. “We got fingerprints from it. We never did anything with them, because it didn’t seem to have anything to do with it. I take it that you think it has?”

  “Oh, yes. Do you remember I told you about that girl I saw going to the nursery? The one who didn’t seem to have much time for her baby? That was Kayleigh.”

  Lloyd’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m one hundred percent sure. I’ve thought about her over and over again—you know I have. And the pram she was wheeling is the one Alan found in the woods. I know that without seeing it.”

  “But—” Lloyd frowned as he thought about that. “But you said it was an old, shabby pram. The one we found is in perfect condition.”

  Judy had thought about that, too. And, as she had told herself not so very long ago, everything was relative. “A pram that looks old and shabby when it’s being pushed by someone in Versace turns into a practically new one when it’s found on a rubbish tip,” she said. “All either of us meant was that it looked out of place. But not so out of place that we couldn’t just accept it.”

  Lloyd nodded, but his face still held some doubt. “Are you saying it was Emma that she had in this pram?”

  “Yes. And she left her at the Riverside Nursery well over an hour before she was supposed to have been stolen.”

  “But you saw Andrea Merry with the baby. So did half a dozen other people.”

  “No. We saw what we took to be a baby—why would we think it was anything else? Tom thought it was a baby, too, when he saw it in the river. He said it didn’t look like a real baby close to, but from a distance . . .” She leaned forward, her arms on the desk. “We all saw it from a distance. Surveillance cameras watch from a distance. It was a doll, Lloyd. A lifelike doll that looks just like a baby until you take a closer look. No one was allowed a closer look—Andrea made sure of that.”

  Lloyd tipped his chair back as he thought. “So . . . Kayleigh contrives to get left in Malworth on her own. She puts on makeup and designer clothes to make herself look older. And Andrea leaves the Crawfords’ house with Emma, saying she’s taking her shopping . . .”

  “. . . but instead goes straight to Kayleigh’s,” Judy said. “Where they give Emma a different set of clothes and put hers on the doll. Then Kayleigh pops Emma in the pram and takes her to the nursery.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then she goes home and changes again. She puts her designer clothes into a case, along with her mobile phone and the doorstop. And she takes out of the case, and changes into, what she wore when she murdered her mother. A size ten floral print dress. You were right about that, too, even if it was just a joke.”

  The floral print dresses, Lloyd had discovered, were the summer uniform of the exclusive girls’ school in Malworth at which Kayleigh was a pupil. Should he have begun to wonder then about Kayleigh? She was, after all, the only person in the whole drama who could entirely remove the coincidence to which Case and he had objected.

  “Andrea must have driven Kayleigh to Stansfield, dropped her somewhere she could walk to the cottage—probably at the bus stop by the Civic Centre. She would walk through the woods, and watch for Waring leaving with the van. And Andrea drove back to Malworth, parked in the car park by the shops, and went to Riverside Park with the doll masquerading as Emma. That’s why she went to where the willow tree would screen her from other people.”

  “And meanwhile, Kayleigh killed Lesley,” said Lloyd.

  And Lloyd had been right about the ultraorganized Lesley, Judy thought. Of course she hadn’t been unpacking clothes in the utility room; why would she? She just happened to be in there, and she was going to be killed wherever Kayleigh had found her. Kayleigh had taken the packing case to Lesley, got her to look in it, Judy supposed, since that would give her the height advantage that Freddie had mentioned . . . then she had put her bloodstained dress on top of the ones that had spilled out and become stained when it had got knocked over during the murder.

  Lloyd’s chair moved back and forth as he thought aloud. “And then she changed back into the designer gear, used the mobile phone to tell Andrea that it was done, and went back through the woods to the town center, where she presumably got the bus to Malworth.” He let the chair fall forward. “And when Andrea got the message?”

  “She removed the Winnie-the-Pooh all-in-one and dropped the doll in the river. Then she went back to the car park, stuffing the all-in-one into a waste bin on the way, and apparently got her mobile from the car. Came back and started screaming.”

  “And all the time everyone was looking for Emma, she was safe and well in the Riverside Nursery,” said Lloyd. “Being fed—which is why she wasn’t hungry until late afternoon. And when Tom worked out—or thought he had—that Andrea had left the baby with Kayleigh, we thought several people had actually seen Kayleigh in Malworth five minutes after the murder had taken place in Stansfield.”

  Judy nodded. “That’s why they wore the same clothes. Not so Kayleigh could disappear—so she could appear. But only Andrea was there, just like we thought in the first place.”

  “And when Kayleigh got back to Malworth, she picked Emma up again from the nursery.”

  “Yes. I saw her then, too. That’s when Tom saw her. I thought it was a briefcase she had with her.”

  Then she had taken the baby back to the house, removed the makeup, changed yet again—back into the clothes she had been wearing in the first place, the ones that matched Andrea’s—and put the designer clothes in the case with the mobile, filling it up with other clothes and personal things to give credence to its being a case packed for running away with Fletcher.

  She smiled, a little reluctantly. “She even realized that walking about with a change of clothes in a suitcase might seem suspicious, so she left the suitcase in Malworth, and then told Mrs. Spears what was in it, once she’d planted the running-away story, because by that time, there was nothing suspicious about it. It was just slightly pathetic.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Lloyd. “The baby-food touch was nice.”

  “And then she went back to Stansfield, with the baby in the pram,” Judy went on, “which is why the bus drivers didn’t notice anyone without one. She was going to be traveling on that bus after everyone knew a baby had gone missing—she didn’t want to be carrying one in her arms. She walked through the woods, dumped the pram, and carried Emma the rest of the way to the cottage.”

  The pram hadn’t been there when those boys had looted the car, Lloyd thought. That was why they had failed to notice its secondhand value. That was a puzzle he hadn’t even voiced.

  “And when she arrived at the cottage with Emma,” Judy went on, “she thought that Ian Waring would be there, and that as soon as he saw the baby, he would want to know where it had come from. She would confess what she had done, her alibi would be in place, and the Crawfords would have Emma back safely within three hours of finding out she was missing. That was why she was anxious to know where Ian was. You were right about that, too.”

  “Yes,” said Lloyd absently. “I noticed the puzzles, but I misread them.”

  “Andrea knew that was the plan, which is why she didn’t seem to be that c
oncerned to begin with. But when it didn’t happen, she genuinely believed that something must have happened to Emma. No wonder she was frantic when Tom saw her. Killing Mrs. Newton was one thing—but an innocent baby . . . a baby she really did love, unlike Kayleigh—the thought that something had happened to Emma was too much for her to bear.”

  Lloyd frowned. “But why didn’t Kayleigh tell us herself about Emma?” he asked. “When she realized Ian wasn’t there?”

  “How could she tell you herself?” asked Judy. “By saying, ‘Oh, by the way, I just stole this baby’?” She shook her head. “No—she hadn’t bargained for Ian not being there, and she had no idea what had been going on in the cottage. She needed thinking time, and that’s what she gave herself.”

  “And then I told her about the row,” said Lloyd. “And she knew that Phil Roddam must have been there. She hadn’t meant him to come under suspicion, so she just clammed up altogether and hoped we wouldn’t find out about him. She didn’t mean anyone else to get the blame—not even Fletcher. She had no idea he’d been to the cottage.”

  He loosened his tie slightly, giving up his effort to look smart now that he wasn’t getting married after all. Judy smiled; she liked him better crumpled.

  “Fletcher was just part of the smoke screen,” she said. “She had to have a reason for taking the baby. Pretending it was Emma she couldn’t bear to leave and that she had planned to steal her and run away with Fletcher was as good a reason as any. It didn’t matter that Fletcher would never have agreed to such a thing—it didn’t even matter if he failed to turn up at all. All that mattered was that he would confirm that she had asked him to be there, and that we believed that was what she intended doing.” And they had believed it, she thought. They had believed it all.