Hushabye

by Celina Grace

  There was a moment of silence in the kitchen, an oddly loaded period of quiet. Then Anderton spoke again. “If you have anything else to tell us, Mr Fullman, I suggest you do so now.”

  Nick Fullman looked frightened. Kate was reminded of what Rebecca D’Arcy-Warner had said. Underneath it all, he’s just a scared, uncertain little boy...

  “Is there anything you have to tell us, Mr Fullman?” repeated Anderton.

  “No,” said Nick Fullman, almost inaudibly. Then he said it again, in a firmer voice. “No, there’s not.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Olbeck was surveying the slipping piles of paperwork on his desk with dismay when the desk phone rang, almost hidden under a pile of reports. He pushed the paper to one side, cursing as several folders crashed to the floor, and lifted the receiver.

  “DS Olbeck.”

  The voice on the other end of the phone was quiet.

  “I don’t want to give my name.”

  “Fine. How can I help you?”

  It was a man’s voice, oddly furtive.

  “Did you get my note? About Councillor Jones?”

  Olbeck mentally sat up straighter.

  “We did. Do you have some further information for us, sir?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation. Then the anonymous voice spoke again.

  “Ask Councillor Jones about contaminated land and building on it. Ask Nick Fullman about his new development.”

  “Can you be more spe–” began Olbeck and then there was the click and burr of a broken connection. He regarded the buzzing handset for a second before replacing it.

  “What is it?” said Kate, who had been listening alertly from the other side of the desk.

  “The plot thickens. I’ll tell you in the car. Come on, we’re going to do some digging.”

  Kate raised her eyebrows.

  “Not literally, I hope.”

  “You never know.”

  Olbeck drove to Wallingham, pulling up on the edge of a building site. Kate stared through the windscreen at the activity going on: the hauling of bricks, the earth movers, the scaffolding.

  “I didn’t think you were serious about the digging.”

  Olbeck grinned. “Don’t worry, I just wanted to have a look.”

  “What is this?” asked Kate, pretty sure she knew the answer.

  “Nick Fullman’s new development,” said Olbeck. Kate nodded. “This is the main project he’s working on at the moment.”

  “Right,” said Kate. “And your anonymous caller believes that this land is actually contaminated?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “Contaminated with what?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Where’s their evidence?”

  “For all I know, they have none. It could be complete fantasy. Or a personal vendetta against Gary Jones. Or Nick Fullman.”

  Kate sighed. “So where do we go from here?”

  Olbeck took his notebook out of his pocket and started writing.

  “We get samples taken for evidence of contamination. If there’s something dodgy, then we’ve got something to go on. We can start questioning people.”

  “We need to question them anyway. Gary Jones, Nick Fullman and those brothers. How do they tie up with this?”

  Olbeck tapped his pen against the steering wheel. “They freely admit to knowing Nick Fullman. But I agree with you. They’re in this somewhere. The question is, is it actually relevant to the kidnapping and the murders? Or is it just coincidence?”

  Kate put her hands in her pockets, hunching her shoulders against the chill wind. She watched the excavators pushing mounds of earth up from a gigantic hole dug in the ground. Pallets of bricks and concrete blocks were stacked up against the chain link fence, and she saw the yellow mass of a digger move slowly along behind the makeshift barrier.

  “Let’s organise the samples,” she said, eventually. “And see where that takes us.”

  “I’ll get Theo to do it. Come on, it’s freezing, let’s go back.”

  *

  The next day Kate found herself driving towards Essex, visor tipped down against the winter sun. She found Mr Fullman Senior’s place without much drama, pulling into the driveway of a much-extended Thirties house and slotting the car behind a large, black Range Rover.

  The woman who answered the door was the person she’d spoken to on the phone. Evie Fullman was John Fullman’s second wife, a fact she appraised Kate of almost as soon as she was in the door.

  “Oh, no, I’m his step-mother, love,” she said, ushering Kate though to the kitchen and perching on one the stools by the breakfast bar. “John’s first wife died young, not long after Nick was born, poor soul. He felt it, you know. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?” She hopped off her stool and stood poised by the kettle. “Tea?”

  “Yes, please. Thank you for seeing me, Mrs Fullman.”

  “Ooh, call me Evie, please. It’s no problem. Anything I can do to help. I can’t sleep for thinking of poor Charlie, you know. That poor little mite.” She turned her head away sharply, looking at the boiling kettle as if it fascinated her. “Anyway, what was it you wanted to know?”

  Kate had heaved herself rather awkwardly up onto a stool.

  “I wanted to know about Nick, Mrs Fullman – Evie. Nick and Casey. Presumably you’ve known Nick for some years? When did you and Mr Fullman marry?”

  Evie pursed up her lips, pouring the tea with skill.

  “Now that would be telling. All of – ooh, twenty years or so, now. Gawd, doesn’t that make me sound ancient?” She handed Kate a mug of tea and hopped up onto her perch again. There was something very birdlike about her: she was a small woman, bosomed like a pigeon, her hair teased into a brittle beehive. Kate felt there was something familiar about her and after a moment, it came to her. Evie reminded her of her mum, except with an added dash of vigour and intelligence and, let’s face it, she probably wasn’t a piss-head.

  “Tea all right, love?” said Evie, with her head on one side.

  “Lovely, thanks,” said Kate. “So you’ve known Nick since he was a little boy? You said he was badly affected by his mother’s death?”

  Evie nodded. “Yes he was. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? There’s nothing like your own mother, is there?” Kate winced. “He felt it badly, and I don’t believe John really knew how to handle it, to be honest. Well, he’s a man, what are you going to do? You didn’t talk feelings in them days, not really. “

  “How do you and Nick get on?”

  Evie eyed her. “Fine, love, as far as I know. We don’t see him very often.”

  “Sorry, I meant more – how did you get on in his childhood? Did he resent his father marrying again?”

  That was probably slightly too personal a question, but Kate thought she’d chance it.

  “Oh, right you are. Well, it’s funny you should say that because you’d have thought that he’d be one to be very jealous. But he wasn’t. I think he was quite pleased to have a step-mum. He said as much to me, one day. Made me well up, that did.”

  “You thought he’d be jealous? Is he a jealous type of person?”

  Evie nodded. “He’s very intense, love. Always has been. He feels things – and when he was a little boy, he didn’t mind showing it. He and his Dad…” She paused for a second to take a sip of cooling tea. “His dad’s very old school. He’s proud of Nick, of course he is, but they ain’t got much in common anymore. Makes them both feel a bit lonely, I think, when they’re together.”

  Kate said nothing, turning her tea cup around in her hands. Then she asked about Casey.

  “Nick’s wife,” she nearly said second wife, “Nick’s wife, Casey. How do you get on with her?”

  “Me?” Evie raised her eyebrows. “She’s a nice girl. Not got a lot to her, to be honest. Not what I’d call a strong personality. That probably suits Nick, though. Always the same with these, what-do-yer-call-em, charismatic men, isn’t it? Got little, pretty, quiet wives in
the background.”

  “Would you say it was a happy marriage?”

  Evie laughed and then looked sober. “Gawd, I shouldn’t be laughing, not with how things are. But, just thinking about it, yes, it seems happy enough for two people who’ve only been married a year.” She winked. “Get to twenty years and then ask me, love, that’s when you can say it was happy or not.”

  Kate smiled. She was thinking that if she were Nick Fullman, she’d have been quite pleased to have this woman for a stepmother too.

  “He was with his previous girlfriend for a long time, wasn’t he?” she commented.

  “Rebecca?”

  “Yes,” said Kate.

  There was a slight change in the atmosphere, almost too subtle for Kate to notice but it was there, just the slightest chill in the air. She mentally sat up a little, alert.

  “Rebecca,” repeated Evie. She hopped back off her stool and went to the counter, hand poised over the kettle. “More tea, love?”

  “No, thanks,” said Kate. “Can you tell me anything about Rebecca D’Arcy-Warner?”

  Evie had her back turned, busying herself with the kettle.

  “Oh, she was a nice girl too,” she said. The unspoken “but” hung in the air.

  “But?” said Kate.

  Evie turned back around to face her. Behind her, the kettle threw clouds of steam into the air.

  “Well, for starters, she was a bit out of Nick’s league, wasn’t she?” Not waiting for an answer, she went on. “She was a cut or five above him, I’d say, and it showed. He felt that, too. Not so much when they were together but when they came here...or saw his old friends...” She trailed off, regarding the teapot blankly. “I always thought there was something a bit...oh, well, it doesn’t matter now.”

  “What do you mean, Evie?”

  “Oh, nothing really.”

  Kate hesitated, wondering whether to push it. Then Evie went on.

  “She wasn’t a happy girl. Well, woman. No, that she wasn’t. That family – well, there were a few stories about her people, posh as they were.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Evie pulled herself back onto her stool, slowly.

  “Perhaps it’s like that with all those old families,” she said, settling herself. “They go back so far, there’s always a few who are not quite right.”

  Kate mentally shook her head.

  “Would you say Rebecca, then, was ‘not quite right?’ Is that what you’re trying to say?” Evie said nothing for a moment. Kate persisted. “I know I sound really nosy, but it could be important. Evie?”

  Evie pulled out a packet of cigarettes from her cardigan pocket. Without answering, she lit one with a pink plastic lighter and regarded the blue coil of smoke rising slowly from the tip.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, reluctantly. “It’s just something that Nick said once. She’d had some sort of breakdown. Mentally, I mean.”

  “When?”

  “Ooh, I don’t know.”

  “When he was with her? Or afterwards?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Was it serious?” Kate wondered whether this was relevant or not. Was she wise to keep pushing for information?

  “I don’t know, love and that’s the truth.” Evie gazed at her, blandly, her bouffant head cocked to one side.

  “Well…” said Kate, hesitatingly.

  “He wasn’t kind to her,” said Evie, suddenly. She tapped non-existent ash from her cigarette into the ashtray.

  “Who wasn’t? Nick?”

  “I mean, I’m fond of him but even I could see he wasn’t kind. Told him too, I did. Never did hold back with giving my opinions.”

  “You’re saying Nick wasn’t kind to Rebecca?” Kate checked. “In what way? Was he abusive toward her?”

  Evie’s eyebrows went up. “Nick? Gawd, no. Not like that. I meant, it wasn’t kind of him to keep her hanging on like that.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, girls can say they’re not interested in getting married, but you show me one who really isn’t. They can say it all they like but they don’t fool me.”

  Kate shifted a little.

  “Some women really don’t want to get married,” she said stiffly.

  Evie gave her a wry look.

  “Righto. I don’t buy it myself. Even the gay ones want to get married nowadays, don’t they?”

  Kate refused to be sidetracked by this interesting side issue. “Rebecca and Nick were together for a long time. They did get engaged.”

  Evie snorted. “Engaged, yes, but what does that mean? She was pushing for something more, and Nick threw that her way to keep her happy. Didn’t mean it was ever going to actually happen.”

  “And it didn’t,” said Kate, almost to herself. She was thinking hard. “Rebecca said that her relationship with Nick fizzled out, that they both realised it was for the best when they split up. Do you think that was the case?”

  Evie shrugged. “Love, when you get to my age you realise you don’t know much about other people’s relationships. All I know is what I said to Nick. That girl wanted to get married and you kept her hanging on for it. That’s not kind.”

  “And how did he react when you said that?”

  Evie looked uncomfortable. “He laughed.” There was a moment’s silence. “He didn’t mean it to be cruel. He just didn’t see what he’d done wrong.”

  Kate nodded.

  “How is he with Charlie?” she asked, switching tack.

  Evie looked wary. “What do you mean?”

  Kate smiled, trying to put her at her ease. “Is he a hands-on dad, would you say? Was he excited to be a father?”

  Evie stubbed out her cigarette. She hopped down from her stool once more and began to to wash up her tea cup, slowly rinsing it under the tap.

  “I suppose so,” she said, over the noise of rushing water. “It’s hard when they’re tiny babies though, isn’t it? Men don’t really get it. They’re all for their mums, then, aren’t they? Dads aren’t really needed.”

  “Would you say he’d bonded with the baby?”

  “Bonded?”

  “Yes. Was he affectionate with Charlie? Did he–” Kate stopped herself. “Does he love him?”

  Something of Evie’s vivacity dimmed a little. She had a tea towel in her hands and she folded it very exactly, lining up the edges and hanging it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Kate had the feeling she was stalling for time.

  “He was fine with him,” she said, shortly. “As fine as he needed to be. There wasn’t much he could do with him, was there, Charlie being so young. They just want their mums at that age.” Kate flinched, unable to help herself.

  There was a moment’s silence. Kate knew she should keep questioning Evie, knew she should delve deeper into this line of enquiry, but she was suddenly taut with pain and she didn’t think she could trust her voice.

  Driving away from the house, uncomfortably full of tea, Kate heard the buzz of an incoming text message on her mobile. She pulled over and checked it. It was from Jay, her younger half-brother, one of her mother’s second family and her favourite sibling. Smiling, she opened up the message to find the smile dropping from her face. Sis, pls call me. Mum in hosp. J xx read the text.

  Kate leant her head against the steering wheel for a moment, swearing softly. This wasn’t the first time she’d received news like this. The first time had had her tearing to the hospital in question, even running a red light on the way, such was her hurry. She’d virtually sprinted to the ward to find her mother fast asleep in a hospital bed and apparently undamaged except for the reek of whisky fumes that permeated her clothes. Shame they don’t have drunk tanks in hospitals, Kate had hissed furiously to her when she finally woke up.

  Now, she just knew it would be something similar. She battled with her conscience for a moment and then texted Jay. Anything serious? Am flat out at wrk. Let me know, K xx. She drove on, listening out for the chime of an incoming text, hopin
g against hope that she wouldn’t hear it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Got something you might find interesting,” said Olbeck the next morning, waving a handful of paper under Kate’s nose. She looked up from the screen of her mobile – Jay had finally texted her back. Broken ankle. Sis CALL ME pls x. She sighed.

  “What’s up?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing that can’t wait. What am I going to find interesting?”

  Olbeck drew up a chair and fanned the papers out in front of her. “Soil samples from the Wallingham site.”

  Kate raised her eyebrows. “That was quick. And?”

  “It was only quick because apparently the lab had already had several samples posted to them – anonymously. So when our environmental scientist sent ours through, they matched them up pretty quickly.”

  “Someone had already sent some through?”

  Olbeck nodded. “Probably our mystery caller, don’t you think?”

  Kate bent over the papers.

  “I can’t make heads nor tails of this,” she said after a moment. “Is it contaminated, or isn’t it?”

  Olbeck grinned. “Once you get past the geek speak, I think the consensus is that although it’s nothing too drastically poisonous, the general opinion is that planning permission should not have been granted without, shall we say, some heavy decontamination of the land involved.”

  “And I assume that hasn’t happened?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hmm.”

  Theo walked over, having clearly overheard what they were discussing.

  “Another thing,” he said, perching on the side of the desk and knocking over Kate’s empty mug. “Whoops, sorry. Anyway, I was doing a bit more digging back into the building regs and paperwork for the site, and guess whose subsidiary company comes up as a part-backer of the development?”

  Kate struck a dramatic pose, hand to her forehead. “Could it possibly be...the Costa brothers’ company by any chance?”

  Theo grinned. “Got it in one.”

  Olbeck and Kate exchanged glances. Olbeck looked excited but Kate was surprised at her own lack of interest. She had played along with her colleagues, who were clearly pleased at their discovery. but beneath the surface, she was thinking, So what? That’s not it, that’s not why this happened.