by Angela Arney
And whose fault is that? Anyone married to you and treated the way I’ve been would have nerves! But of course the words were silent, just a noise in her own head. Geoffrey never heard them, wouldn’t even have heard them if she’d screamed them at him. ‘But I like Tom,’ she said, disagreeing with him once again, and noting with a degree of satisfaction that she seemed to be better at it since they’d returned to Stibbington. Geoffrey glanced at her, and she could see he was annoyed. ‘And I want to spend Christmas with them,’ she continued defiantly. ‘We can go to London as well. Stay at their house in Primrose Hill.’
But Christina wouldn’t even consider going back. ‘You’ll pick up in a couple of days, Mother,’ she said blithely. ‘It’s just a little bug and Tom has got to be exposed to those. Besides, it’s so lovely here beside the sea.’
Joan hugged Tom, who’d been deposited on her lap.
‘Tell you what,’ Christina continued, ‘you give me a list tomorrow, and I’ll do all the shopping for Christmas, and then we’ll only have to get odd things in on Christmas Eve. And if you’re still feeling under the weather, which I’m sure you won’t be, I’ll help with the cooking. Niall agrees with me, don’t you Niall? We ought to stay here.’
Yes,’ said Niall, without looking up from the book he was reading. He seemed to do nothing but read these days, Joan had noticed, his conversation merely consisting of monosyllabic grunts.
She longed to shout, But three of your friends have been murdered! You are in danger! but as usual, kept silent. The habit of years was impossible to break.
‘And another thing,’ Christina rattled on, seemingly oblivious to her husband’s lack of interest in things. ‘We are going out tonight to a barn dance at Steepletoe Village Hall. We’ve been counting on you to have Tom to sleep over; I don’t want to leave him with that Mrs Matthews at The House on the Hard, or that rather creepy Mrs Smithson. My friend Louise is coming as well, and between the two of us we’ve managed to persuade Niall to come. Haven’t we, Niall?’
‘Yes,’ said Niall again.
Smiling, Christina came over and tickled Tom under the chin. You are the only one in this room who is happy thought Joan, and didn’t know whether to be envious or angry.
‘The band is Peter Pod and the Peas,’ said Christina. ‘It should be a real hoot.’
It was settled. Baby Tom would stay overnight, and Niall would drive the three of them to Steepletoe, which was about eight miles away through the forest further along the coast. Joan tried to comfort herself with the thought that Niall would be safe because he would never be alone. The apartment was safe with all of them there, and he had Christina and her friend Louise with him this evening. The other murders had all been committed when the victims had been alone. It couldn’t happen to Niall. She cuddled Tom close to her, resting her head on his silky golden hair, and tried not to worry.
Three hours later Niall still sat in the lounge overlooking the quay, eyes glued to a book he was not reading, and wondered why neither of his parents had even mentioned the deaths of Darren or Tarquin. Did they know about them but were afraid to mention them because of the possible connection with himself? Or did they know and not care? Or had they blotted out the past so firmly from their minds that they hadn’t even made the connection? Niall didn’t know. His father had always been something of a stranger to him, impossible to get close to. But now even his mother seemed to be holding back.
‘Hold him for me while I start getting dinner.’ His mother dumped Tom on to Niall’s lap. ‘If the three of you are going to this barn dance, and Louise is going to eat with us, we’ll need to eat a little earlier. I’d better get started whilst Christina is picking up Louise from Silver Cottage. And I must say, dear, I do think you were a little awkward refusing to go and fetch her with Christina. You know the way much better than she does.’
‘Louise is her friend, not mine.’
Silver Cottage, Deer Leap Lane. If only his mother knew how difficult it had been restraining himself from driving out to his old home. But it was someone else’s home now, and would be different, and besides, he didn’t think he could bear to see the place where Tarquin had died. Burned. The newspaper had said he had been shot dead before the fire, and he’d said a silent prayer hoping that it had been so. Shooting was quick, no time to think; being burned alive was too horrible to even contemplate. He shut it from his mind, and like his mother took comfort from burying his head in Tom’s soft golden hair. He smelled sweet and clean, was a warm, round wriggling bundle. Suddenly he felt near to tears. What lay in store for this small human being now held safely in his arms?
Christina and Louise erupted into the apartment. ‘Oh, heavens,’ said Louise. ‘I forgot to tell my mother I was going out.’
‘Phone her.’
‘No point. She’s won’t be in yet, and she never leaves the answerphone on, and she switches her mobile off when she’s off duty.’
‘Talk about incommunicado,’ said Christina. ‘How very inconvenient.’
Louise agreed but added, ‘It’s a habit she started as a GP in London. It doesn’t do to let people get you on the answerphone or mobile, not the sort of people my mother dealt with, anyway – most of them were weird. I’ll phone from Steepletoe – she’ll be in then – and tell her what we’re doing. She won’t mind.’
Christina took Tom from Niall. ‘I’ll feed him and put him down for the night. He’s sleeping in the carry cot in your parents’ bedroom, that way we won’t have to worry about him while we’re enjoying ourselves.’
While you are enjoying yourselves, thought Niall resentfully, watching the two girls. It was all a great big laugh for them, a village barn dance, full of country yokels, or so they thought. Once village affairs had been the highlight of his week and no doubt if he’d stayed they still would be. The people of Stibbington and Steepletoe were not yokels, as Christina had called them; they were different to the people of Primrose Hill, less sophisticated, but somehow, Niall felt, more real. He’d been different when he’d lived in Stibbington. In fact, if he were honest, he grieved for the person he’d left behind in Stibbington all those years ago.
When Lizzie stalked out of Maguire’s office she resolved to do nothing more with the knowledge she had acquired concerning Giles Lessing. Maguire had been right. This wasn’t a cosy TV series, and she wasn’t a clever amateur. She was a doctor and should leave well alone. She would leave it to the police now that she’d told them all she knew.
That resolve lasted until she got back to the Health Centre. The centre was still busy; a glowing island of light in a darkened street, car park full, three surgeries running, and Maddy for once running a clinic instead of attending some high-powered meeting. Tara, alone at the reception desk, was struggling to deal with patients’ telephone calls as well as making appointments on the new computer system, which, she complained, made the work much slower. So Lizzie didn’t ask Tara to put the notes away as she’d intended, instead she let herself into the cupboard at the end of the corridor to do it herself. Standing on the stool to reach the highest shelf where the Lessing notes belonged, she lost her balance and dropped the bundle of notes. The elastic band holding them together broke, and notes, letters, old hospital report cards, all spilled out across the floor. Cursing, she got down on her hands and knees to gather them together. It was then that her resolve not to get further involved evaporated. She should have gone home as she was off duty, but she didn’t.
Kneeling down on the cold lino tiles amidst old paper clips and balls of fluff, her excitement grew as she sifted through the paper detritus of Giles Lessing’s life. She found the address of the doctor in London to whom he’d been transferred, and she also found a hospital haematology report, which showed that Giles Lessing had developed leukaemia before he had left Stibbington. Dr Burton had written a personal letter to the GP he was transferring to, a Clifford Beeston, and kept a copy in the file. Sitting back on her heels Lizzie gathered the notes together and started thinking. It was
n’t the most aggressive form of leukaemia, but he’d had it now for almost ten years. Giles Lessing would either be in remission or he’d be dead. She had to find out which.
A surge of adrenalin tingled. It was significant. She was sure. Never mind what Adam Maguire said about gut feelings, she had one and was going to follow it. Deciding her wits needed refuelling, she grabbed a cup of Tara’s ghastly coffee from the communal rest room, then took the notes and the coffee and slipped into her consulting room, where she switched on and booted up the computer.
Surely the London practice would have a website. She tapped in the address, Regent Canal Corner Health Centre, waited, and then almost clapped her hands with glee. Not only was the practice there, but Clifford Beeston had his own website and e-mail address. She sent an exploratory e-mail informing him of who she was, what she wanted to know, very vaguely referring to the possibility that it might be connected to a homicide case. She had to think about that: what were the rules of libel or was it slander when it came to e-mail? But she took a chance and was rewarded with a phone call.
‘Your e-mail intrigued me,’ said Clifford Beeston. ‘I’m off duty and as it happened was playing around with my computer. Taking into account that you are not in the deepest depths of Arizona I thought I’d phone you back.’
Giles Lessing, so Dr Beeston informed Lizzie, had been in and out of remission for years, and his life had been saved several times by using his own plasma, which had been taken and stored while he was in remission. However, lately things had not been so good and he knew his days were numbered.
‘What kind of man is he?’ asked Lizzie.
There was a long silence, then Clifford Beeston said, ‘He has never confided in me, not about his life before he came to this part of London, nor about how he feels about his illness. All I know is what Dr Burton told me in that initial letter. I was prepared to help him, to counsel him, but he has always kept me at arm’s length. At first I thought he was deeply unhappy, after all he has good reason to be, but now I don’t think he is. He’s beyond that. It’s almost as if he’s devoid of feeling, cleaned out of emotion for himself or anyone else. He knows he’s going to die soon, and he doesn’t care.’
A shiver crept slowly along Lizzie’s spine. Devoid of feeling, cleaned out of emotion for himself or anyone else. But perhaps not devoid of hatred. A hatred so deep, so intense that it blotted out all other feelings. She thought of herself; how would she feel if Louise was killed and her killer got away with it? Distraught, vengeful, that’s how she would feel. But life would have to go on; she’d have to come to terms with it. But what if life was not going to go on? Terminal illness altered one’s state of mind. Life itself would become pointless. With nothing to lose, perhaps the termination of another life could seem logical.
‘Strange thing is,’ Clifford Beeston’s voice made her jump, she’d forgotten she was still sitting there holding the phone in her hand, ‘in spite of the fact that his blood count is far from good, he’s gone away. He told me he was taking a holiday for a couple of weeks. The oncologist at the local hospital asked me to try to persuade him to stick around here, near to the hospital, but he wouldn’t.’
‘Do you know where he went?’ She asked the question but was already sure of the answer: he’d come to Stibbington.
‘No, but I think it must be in Hampshire. I do know that he had some of his own plasma transferred to a private hospital near Southampton. For insurance purposes, he said. I suppose he’s hoping that if he suddenly starts to come out of remission the plasma will help him.’
‘You’ve been very helpful,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’ll be in touch later.’ She put the phone down and thought hard. She ought to ring Maguire and give him the information. It confirmed, as far as was possible, that Lessing was in the area. But he’d told her to keep out of it, and anyway that was the job of the police, to find out things. No, she decided, she’d leave it for the time being. The damage was done; three people had been murdered but at least the fourth was safely tucked away in London somewhere. There was no urgency. Then conscience got the better of her and she rang Maguire.
‘It’s Lizzie Browne here,’ she said, ‘and I’ve got some more information for you that indicates that Lessing is, or certainly was, in this area recently.’
‘And I’ve got news for you,’ said Maguire. ‘Mrs Brockett-Smythe has come back to the station and confessed to the murder of her stepdaughter.’
‘Confessed?’ Lizzie found it difficult to believe. ‘I can’t believe it. You must have frightened her into saying it.’
Maguire snapped. ‘Frightened her?’ He thundered down the phone so loudly that Lizzie held the phone away from her ear, ‘Those are not my tactics. Believe me she was not intimidated. She wasn’t even here, had gone back home, in fact. Then she just arrived back at the station out of the blue, on her own, and confessed. We’ve had to arrest her, of course.’
‘Well, of course, I suppose you had to.’ Lizzie thought Maguire was beginning to sound despondent. His next words confirmed it.
‘I was just beginning to think you were right with the Lessing theory,’ he said, ‘and now we’ve had a hole blown right through it.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Do you want me to take her statement, sir? And shall I phone and tell Major Brockett-Smythe now?’ Grayson waited in Maguire’s office. ‘Bit of a sod, this,’ he said, pacing about anxiously. ‘Just when the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to slot together and make some sense, she comes along and messes everything up.’ He was obviously fed up with the turn of events, and Maguire knew he was itching to get home to Ann and a cosy supper. But it was not to be; they were both likely to go hungry tonight, a quick snatched take-away if they were lucky. He wondered if Grayson ever regretted coming into the CID. A desk job or the Traffic Division had more predictable hours. Grayson was evidently thinking along the same lines. ‘There they go,’ he said, nodding towards the window as a police car drew out of the car park, ‘off to put up the flood warning signs, then they’ll be going home.’
‘On call, though,’ said Maguire. ‘Give them some credit for working. We may not have motorway pile-ups around Stibbington, but we do have floods.’
‘Yes, but they’re on call at the end of a telephone,’ said Grayson gloomily.
‘Pretty boring job, though.’ Maguire looked at the notes on the desk before him. Mrs Brockett-Smythe had certainly thrown one enormous spanner into his theory.
Grayson suddenly grinned. ‘Too right. Their job is boring, and this is getting more exciting by the moment.’
‘Unpredictable is a more apt word, I’d say,’ said Maguire.
Grayson started towards the door. ‘I’d better ring Ann and tell her to expect me when she sees me.’ He paused, nodded in the direction of the interview rooms and said, ‘Do you honestly think she did it?’
Maguire thought for a moment. Did he? He had suspected that she was holding something back, but somehow had doubted that it was murder. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that she was the murdering kind, but on the other hand there was plenty of evidence littered through the annals of criminal history to show that fact was very often stranger than fiction. It was never possible to be sure of anything unless the evidence proved it beyond any shadow of doubt.
‘It’s possible,’ he said, ‘although at the moment there’s no forensic evidence to support it. We’ll have to go over that room and the house and garden again with a fine-tooth comb. And she’ll have to be examined by forensics as well.’ He thought about the woman now sitting quietly in the interview room. She looked so frail. Would she have had the strength to have slashed the throat of a crazed girl, who, according to her father, was strong and aggressive? ‘Yes, and you’d better tell the major and get him up here, and get a WPC to stay with her and make arrangements for forensics and a doctor to examine her thoroughly. But keep the major in another room; don’t let him talk to her until we’ve got everything we want.’
Outside ther
e was a flash of lightning followed by an enormous clap of thunder. ‘Storms in December,’ said Grayson. ‘It’s not natural.’
‘There’s a lot in this world that’s not natural,’ said Maguire. He was thinking of the three murders. Were they linked or was it just coincidence? The link was a more comfortable theory as it meant they knew who they were looking for; it meant that the killer was not killing at random. But if the deaths were not linked then it was altogether a more chilling prospect. Psychopaths were notoriously difficult to catch; they always led, on the surface at least, such normal lives that no one ever suspected them. So far there hadn’t been a vociferous public demand for the police to do something, because they’d managed to keep the lid, more or less, on the press. The deaths of two dropouts and a mentally ill girl hadn’t excited Fleet Street. If it had been the deaths or abduction of children, then, Maguire knew, that would have been an entirely different matter. Half the TV crews and press reporters in the United Kingdom would have been camped out in Stibbington. And as for the population of Stibbington itself, it was a small community, and everything had happened so quickly, that people had hardly been given the chance to take it all in. But that wouldn’t last. Maguire guessed that by the following day, if not sooner, the press would be howling at their door, demanding to know what was being done. ‘Her confession has pushed us back to square one. Back into unknown territory,’ he said. ‘It’s a bloody nuisance.’
‘I know.’ Grayson was sombre. ‘Are you going to tell the super and give a press statement now that she’s confessed?’
Maguire walked outside to the corridor, where a coffee machine resided with a permanent pot of coffee stewing on a hotplate. Usually, he didn’t bother to drink it, as it tasted foul, but today thought it better than nothing, and he needed something to stimulate his brain. He poured himself a cup and contemplated the situation as he walked back into the office. The super should be told – he’d asked to be kept informed on any progress, and this was progress, although not in the direction Maguire had envisaged. If anything he’d put the major in line as a suspect, not his downtrodden little wife. He took a sip of coffee; it was bitter on his tongue, but hot and reviving.
