Dead to Me

by Pamela Murray

  Parkinson gave a nervous laugh when the door closed.

  ‘I’ve been advised not to say anything,’ she said, ‘but, quite frankly, I can’t see the point in that.’

  ‘We appreciate you doing this,’ Burton said to her. ‘So, what is it that you have to tell us?’

  She gave a deep sigh before proceeding. ‘I first met John at one of his office parties. As I’d just signed a contract for the lease on my business property, I was asked if I’d like to come along. I said yes. I took a fancy to him, I’ll admit it. I don’t usually let myself get involved so easily, but John was, well, I thought that he was different.’

  It was then that Burton produced a copy of the photograph Banks had managed to find of the Town Hall party. Parkinson reached across and took it.

  ‘Ah,’ she smiled, ‘so you already knew.’

  ‘We didn’t really know any more than the fact that you both knew one another,’ Fielding admitted. ‘I guess it was a little more than just that?’

  ‘Yes, it was. For me, at least. We saw one another for a few months. We were discreet, although I couldn’t really see the reason for us being so careful as neither of us was attached. Or so I thought. John then told me that he was ending our relationship. Said he’d met somebody else and it was serious. I thought that we were serious! The next thing I heard was that he was married. I felt so cheated. I saw him out and about with his new wife a short while afterwards. At least I thought it was his new wife, but later found out she wasn’t. So, not only did he drop me like a ton of bricks, he found himself a wife and was cheating on her. I have to admit that I followed him a few times, making sure that he couldn’t see me. I was still in love with him even though it was evident that he wasn’t with me. I’m not entirely sure he loved his wife either after having seen him with this other woman on his arm, the pair of them all lovey-dovey and laughing together.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it the day his wife Maria and her friends came to see me, the day she died. I recognised Maria as soon as I saw her, but I also recognised Caroline Watkins. She was often in the papers, some big solicitor or something, always representing this one or that one, but the main reason I recognised her was the fact that she was the woman I saw out and about with John – the one he pushed me aside for.’

  ‘So how did you feel about that, Marilyn?’

  ‘How did you think I felt? I felt angry, and annoyed, and cheated. The way any woman in love would feel if she saw the man she loved walking hand in hand with somebody else.’

  Fielding really couldn’t disagree with that. If she and Joe were to split up for any reason, and she were to see him around town with another woman, she knew for a fact that it would break her heart.

  ‘So, tell us about the two syringes?’

  ‘What two syringes? Like I said before I only saw one, the one that woman tried to attack me with. If she had two, then perhaps she brought it to give me two doses of whatever was in it.’

  Fielding believed her. Despite her solicitor advising against it, she’d been willing to speak to them and to admit her relationship with John Turnbull. So why did Watkins bring two syringes with her? Was it, as Parkinson said, as an extra precaution to make sure, or perhaps it was in case one syringe got broken?

  ‘Okay,’ Burton announced with a sigh, ‘I think we have all we need for the moment. We’ll get a new statement drawn up for you to sign.’

  As the three detectives left the room, Fielding knew that Burton had something up his sleeve. She knew him well enough that he wouldn’t end an interview just like that and had something else planned even though Parkinson had told them all she could – or all she was willing to tell.

  ‘What’s the plan then?’ she asked once the door behind them had closed.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said, before heading towards the next interview room door.

  Fielding stopped him by putting a hand on his arm. ‘But her solicitor told us she wouldn’t say anything.’

  ‘I’m not going in; I’m just going to stick my head through the door to announce something, not to ask her a question. She doesn’t even have to open her mouth and speak, which makes it a whole different story, doesn’t it?’ he winked.

  What was he up to, Fielding wondered? She was intrigued.

  When Burton opened interview room two’s door, Caroline Watkins looked up and frowned angrily when she saw who it was. She wanted to say something, remind him about what her solicitor had said, but knew that she couldn’t. She’d been advised to say nothing and not interact any further with the police. So why was he now trying to antagonise her?

  ‘Just to let you know,’ he said, half-in the door, ‘that both Marilyn Parkinson and John Turnbull have told us everything. The game’s over, I’m afraid.’ With that he shut the door. Moving on to the room where John Turnbull was sitting, he said the same thing to him.

  ‘What now?’ Fielding asked when he’d finished his little game.

  ‘Now we wait,’ he smiled smugly.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  As things were taking longer than he’d expected following his fabricated statement, Burton was getting a bit anxious, especially as he saw Fielding’s questioning expression. Had he made a mistake, he wondered? Despite both parties consulting with their solicitors, he’d expected the statement would make them want to put their side of things forward and override their decision not to say anything further. After all, they wouldn’t know that only Marilyn Parkinson had spoken to them. But, so far, nobody had taken the bait. Had he perhaps taken things one step too far? Had his plan backfired? If this were to come out in court proceedings, he’d be in deep trouble.

  But then Burton’s phone pinged with a text message. Phillipa Preston informed him that Caroline Watkins wanted to speak to him. He felt relieved in more ways than one.

  ‘Right,’ he said to Fielding, ‘here we go. I know you think that was a dangerous move, but it seems to have paid off. Watkins wants to talk.’

  ‘I think you’re very lucky,’ she said. ‘You took a big risk with that one.’

  ‘I know, and I was beginning to think that this was going to be the biggest mistake of my career. But, let’s see what she has to say for herself, shall we?’

  Caroline Watkins was a changed woman. Gone was the air of superiority and the arrogance, replaced by something more akin to defeat.

  ‘I don’t know what they’ve told you,’ she began, ‘but perhaps I should tell you my side of the story. If I stay quiet then that’s almost tantamount to admitting guilt.’

  Gone was the crossed arms defensive stance, both of her hands were now placed palm down on the table. There were beads of sweat on them and also on her forehead. The woman was worried, of that Burton was certain.

  ‘I think that would be a good idea,’ he said to her.

  ‘I met John through work. My firm had had legal dealings with his, contracts and things like that. I found him charming, and he was very much the flirty type. Perhaps I should have realised and shouldn’t have been so silly, but I found myself falling in love with him. Before we got together, I’d seen him at some of the company evening events with a woman. I later found out who she was: Marilyn Parkinson, or to give her her professional name, Madame Ortiz. I got jealous, and the next time I saw John I started to flirt with him too. It paid off and we became a couple. I didn’t ask him about his previous girlfriend as I didn’t want him to realise that I knew who she was. That would have made my actions look contrived even if I knew they were.’

  ‘I understand,’ Burton continued.

  ‘Do you?’ Watkins asked sorrowfully.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  Watkins continued. ‘Then I made the mistake of asking Maria along to one of the evenings. I even introduced him to her. I never for one moment thought that he would do to me what he’d done to Marilyn; that he’d dump me and go off with Maria. When I challenged him about it, John told me that he had a reason why he wanted to get to know her
better. I just thought that he was spinning me a line. Then when they got married quickly, I thought that perhaps she was pregnant or something; I mean, nobody gets married that quickly, do they, unless they are? I didn’t see her after the wedding, not until the night we all went out together. The other women had told me she wasn’t pregnant, so I wondered why there had been this almighty rush to get wed.’

  ‘Perhaps they’d genuinely fallen in love,’ Fielding said to her.

  Watkins laughed. ‘I suspected that it wouldn’t last, I mean, he seems to be a ladies’ man who just wants what he can take and to hell with the women he casts aside.’

  ‘But you still love him, right? And you’d do anything for him, even now?’

  She hung her head and said, barely audibly, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘So, tell us about the syringes. What was all that about?’ Burton resumed his cross-examination.

  ‘It was John, he told me to do it.’

  ‘To do what, exactly?’

  ‘To inject her with it. But I only had the one syringe. She must have had one as well from him. I guess we were both set up.’

  This was interesting, the detectives thought. Had Turnbull orchestrated the whole event by providing each with a syringe in order for them to do away with the other? In a strange, sick way it almost made sense.

  ‘And do you know what was in the syringe you had?’

  ‘He didn’t say precisely, but he said that she was pestering him and that it would make her sick for a while. I guess he told her the same thing.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Burton said to her. ‘They contained poison, digitalis, to be precise.’

  ‘What?’ She looked genuinely shocked. ‘No, no, no, that can’t be right. He would never ask me to do something like that.’

  ‘You think not? We think, in fact we know, that Maria was injected with digitalis some time just before she died.’

  ‘You mean that he . . . that he killed her? No, I don’t believe it; that can’t be right, it just can’t!’

  If Caroline Watkins was indeed guilty then she was putting up a very good show. Still, neither of the detectives could truly determine if she was telling the truth or not. Was it that her career as a solicitor had prepared her well to quick-wittedly respond to any form of questioning, or was it all a ruse to get her side of things across, genuine or not? In their minds she was definitely not out of the woods yet. Maybe now was the best time to speak to the man himself, to see what story he would come up with.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  As they opened the door to interview room number one, John Turnbull looked more relaxed than any other suspect they’d ever had in their custody. He was either innocent of all charges, or he was so mentally prepared for any question they chose to throw at him that nothing could possibly faze him. Then again, hadn’t he been into acting at school? Burton recalled the photograph of him in his parents’ home. It showed him performing in a school or college play. Like Summers, who’d actually considered going to study at RADA rather than becoming a police officer, perhaps Turnbull could psych himself up to act out a convincing scene? Playing the grieving husband when he, in fact, was quite the opposite: a cold-blooded, calculating killer, of not only his wife, but of three other people as well. Whatever he said to them now, could they really believe it to be the truth?

  As the constable on duty in the room was dismissed, Burton and Fielding sat down on the seats opposite Turnbull. He straightened himself up in his seat.

  ‘You wanted to speak to us?’ Burton asked, to which he nodded.

  ‘I don’t know what those two women have said to you, but I wanted to put whatever story they’ve told you straight.’

  ‘Why do you think they’ve said anything to us about you?’

  ‘Then why are they here?’

  ‘Actually,’ Burton admitted, ‘we brought them in because they were involved in a disagreement which ended in physical violence.’

  ‘What, were those two scrapping, over me?’ He gave an arrogant laugh. Pure narcissism, Burton felt contempt for the man.

  ‘We didn’t say it was over you, Mr Turnbull,’ Fielding corrected the man’s self-centred assumption.

  ‘Oh?’ he seemed disappointed. ‘Okay then.’

  ‘So, what do you have to tell us?’ Burton was impatient.

  ‘Yes, I knew both women, intimate with them even. But like every relationship, one ends and another begins. You know what it’s like.’

  ‘Go on,’ Burton said, hating the man more with each sentence.

  ‘When I finished with Marilyn, she became overly jealous and kept pestering me.’

  ‘Pestering you?’ Fielding was curious to hear Turnbull’s definition of the word.

  He sighed, as if bored by the recollection. ‘She’d ring me, text me, that kind of thing. I made it quite clear that I was not with her anymore and was with somebody else, but she kept on contacting me.’

  ‘Some people would think that flattering.’

  ‘Not when it’s all day and night. Anyway, I’d met Caroline by then and knew that she was the one I wanted to be with.’

  ‘Until Maria Richardson came along,’ Fielding reminded him.

  ‘What can I say,’ Turnbull laughed, ‘I’m a red-blooded male, I like to play the field.’

  ‘We heard that you had an underlying motive for marrying her; is that true?’

  Turnbull’s whole expression changed when he heard Burton’s question.

  ‘Which one of them told you that?’ he demanded.

  So, there was something in what Caroline Watkins had said, otherwise why would he have reacted the way he just did?

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Burton continued. He wasn’t going to give the man the satisfaction of knowing that. At least Watkins wasn’t lying about that little gem. ‘Just answer the question please.’

  ‘I’m afraid that I can’t, detective.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I think I need to speak to my solicitor again, if you don’t mind?’

  Burton did mind, and felt frustrated by the way Turnbull had wangled his way out of the question. But, if he couldn’t get an answer out of Maria’s husband, then perhaps the person who had told him that snippet of information might. Caroline Watkins had been forthcoming before, so he hoped that she would be again. That is, if she was to be believed in the first place. As far as he knew, all three of them could be in it together, covering for one another and making up stories as they went along just to confuse things.

  ‘So, Caroline, tell me exactly why John married Maria,’ he asked, as he and Fielding again sat in with Watkins.

  A half-smile crossed her lips. ‘Won’t he tell you?’ she asked.

  Burton shook his head.

  ‘I’m not surprised, although I am surprised that he’s talking to you. I suspect he thought that he’d got away with it and would blame either me or Marilyn for everything.’

  ‘And what is everything?’

  ‘The deaths . . . all of them. He did them all, you know. Him alone. Oh, I knew all about them, but I didn’t actually kill anybody.’

  ‘But he wasn’t alone; we know for a fact that he had an accomplice. Are you admitting to being an accessory?’ Burton couldn’t believe she was saying as much as she was, especially with her being a solicitor. But love can be a strange thing, and have a strange effect upon people, especially if they’ve been spurned by the one they love.

  ‘We all are, I guess, if you look at it like that. Has John told you exactly why he wanted to marry Maria? It wasn’t for love, you know.’

  Burton wanted to push her on that last comment, but sensed there was something wrong here. She seemed to be far too relaxed; her almost glazed eyes seemed to be looking at some distance point behind him and was slurring her words slightly.

  ‘Are you all right, Ms Watkins?’ he asked, noticing that there was now an even larger build-up of sweat particles on her forehead.

 
‘Actually . . . no . . . I . . . don’t . . . feel . . .’

  Then everything happened quickly. Caroline Watkins slid from the chair and fell awkwardly onto the floor behind the table, banging her head on the floor as she did. Burton was up in an instant and ran around to her side. It looked to him like she was having some kind of a fit as she was convulsing uncontrollably.

  ‘Quick, Sally, ring through for a medic!’ he shouted to his partner. Not being medically trained, he was unsure what to do in a situation like this, but thought the one thing he could do was to stop her head from crashing against the ground, so he cradled it on his lap.

  As Fielding ran out into the corridor, alarm bells started to ring throughout the station, making everyone aware that there was an emergency situation taking place. The lights also dimmed in the interview room and went onto emergency lighting, with a single flashing red one over the door pulsating to the sound of the siren. Within minutes, the station medical team arrived and they set to work on Ms Watkins. Burton left the room to find Fielding.

  ‘An ambulance is on its way,’ she said. ‘What just happened in there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, rubbing his neck. ‘But that’s a little bit more than a fit, I think.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking that she could have been poisoned.’

  ‘But how?’

  Burton shrugged. He’d never had a suspect die while in his custody, and he sincerely hoped that Caroline Watkins wouldn’t be the first.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Caroline Watkins was rushed from the interview room to the nearest hospital and was treated for suspected poisoning.

  ‘Your call was a good one,’ the on-call doctor informed Burton when he telephoned the hospital to follow up on the admission.