Wrongful Death

by Lynda La Plante

  Gloria promptly had a minor meltdown, crying, swaying as if she was about to faint and grabbing Ian Holme’s arm to steady herself. It was obvious she was about to reveal Aisa’s parentage and Anna was worried that Langton was starting to believe her, but before she could say anything he played Gloria at her own game.

  Langton slapped his hand to his forehead.

  ‘No, oh, my God, please don’t tell me Aisa and Josh were related as well!’ he exclaimed as, unseen by Gloria and Holme, he tapped Anna’s knee beneath the table.

  Gloria played her part to the hilt, sighing and shaking her head, as she explained that Aisa was in fact her and Xavier Alleyne’s daughter. Langton raised both arms up and in a very wretched voice remarked how tragic to discover that not one but two daughters were sleeping with her son.

  Gloria for a second flicked a glance towards Langton, unsure if he was being sarcastic or genuine.

  ‘I’m slightly confused, Lady Lynne, as Aisa told DI Barolli and Agent Dewar she was adopted,’ he said.

  Yet again, Gloria had an answer that depicted her as the aggrieved party: ‘When I met Lord Henry, he assumed, because of the colour of Aisa’s skin, that I had adopted her.’

  ‘Did you not tell him the truth?’ Langton asked.

  ‘He never asked me, as I said he assumed as much, and when Aisa was naughty one day he told her how lucky she was to find someone as kind as me to adopt her. Before I knew it he was telling everyone, even Donna, that Aisa was adopted, so what could I do? She was just a small child, and would have been so confused if I’d said anything different.’

  ‘What a terrible predicament to find yourself in, Lady Lynne,’ Langton said, looking concerned. Thinking of Dewar’s advice he decided to try and throw her off track and without pausing changed direction.

  ‘May I ask why you wanted Esme and not Marisha to care for Arum?’

  ‘I don’t mean this in a nasty way,’ Gloria confided, ‘but Marisha was very similar to her brother Samuel – she liked to put her own needs before others’.’

  ‘What happened between you and Samuel after you gave Arum to Esme?’ Langton asked.

  ‘I left him, or should I say I ran away when his drinking and violence became worse. I couldn’t get off the island as I had no money, so I went to Montego Bay, where I met and married Xavier.’ Gloria paused to blow her nose, and this time Anna tapped Langton’s knee beneath the table, wanting him to hold back on the subject of the bigamous marriage. How ever, Gloria, sharp as ever, went on to say that what she was about to tell them next was shameful but it was the truth. When Xavier proposed to her, she told him about her marriage to Samuel, but not about their son Arum as she had made a promise to Esme. She and Xavier returned to the fishing village where Samuel lived and Gloria asked him for a divorce but he refused. Xavier had said that he loved her and the marriage to Samuel didn’t matter, so he arranged for a private ceremony at the plantation and her wedding certificate recorded that she was a widow.

  ‘So you’re marriage to Xavier was bigamous,’ Langton said with mock surprise, noticing that Gloria shied away from using the word.

  ‘Yes, but we loved each other deeply and saw no wrong in what we had done. When he died it was tragic, a terrible wretched time for me,’ Gloria replied, turning up the crocodile tears.

  ‘Well it was many years ago now, but of course you then married Lord Henry . . .’

  The expression on Gloria’s face changed to one of insult but her voice remained calm. ‘I filed for divorce from Samuel in Jamaica and it was granted, so my marriage to Henry was lawful, as is my title of Lady Lynne.’

  Anna had wrongly assumed that Gloria had never divorced Samuel, but it didn’t change her view about him blackmailing her. She knew that in this instance Gloria was telling the truth as her divorce could be easily checked and a lie would not serve her purpose. She had noticed that so far Gloria had not given her the slightest attention, not even a casual glance. Anna would have liked to think that it was because she unnerved her, but she recognized that Gloria was merely trying to belittle her, by treating her as insignificant. Gloria’s sob story just got better and better as it went along and Anna wondered, but for her knowledge that the woman was a sociopath, would she also have been taken in by her deceit and lies? The answer, she thought, was probably ‘yes’.

  Langton spread his hands flat on the table between them.

  ‘Well I don’t know what to say, Lady Lynne. I really feel for you – it must have been like a bolt out of the blue discovering that Josh Reynolds was actually Arum, the son that you had no choice but to give up thirty years ago.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Langton, for being so kind. You cannot believe the pain it caused me when Arum took his own life,’ Gloria said and blew her nose. ‘I couldn’t grieve the way a mother should for fear that Donna would find out who he really was.’ She reached into her handbag to get some more tissues but had run out. Langton produced a clean folded handkerchief from his pocket, flicked it open like a waiter with a napkin and handed it to her.

  ‘I’ve been so moved by your strength and character in times of great hardship that I feel I’ve missed something,’ he said, hoping that Gloria would invite his next question, but she just gave him a doe-eyed look.

  ‘I was wondering when and how you came to know that Joshua Reynolds was your son Arum.’

  Anna, thinking that Langton had articulated and timed his question perfectly, fully expected a change in facial expression and a defensive reaction from Gloria, but none came.

  ‘From Samuel, of course – I would have thought that was rather obvious to a man of your intellect, Chief Superintendent,’ Gloria said, and deliberately paused, but just as Langton was about to continue, she cut back in.

  ‘I did tell Deputy Commissioner Walters about Samuel when I spoke with him on the phone.’

  Langton and Anna were taken aback by this and again Langton was about to speak but Gloria continued: ‘Not in as fine detail as I have just divulged to you.’

  Langton asked Gloria when Walters had phoned her and she told him it was the previous evening.

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  Gloria explained that Walters had informed her why Aisa had been arrested, at which moment many things about her erratic behaviour when Josh died suddenly fitted into place. Walters had said that although DCI Travis suspected Josh had committed suicide it was believed Aisa was present at the time and this shocked her.

  Gloria couldn’t remember Walters’ exact words but he asked if she knew a Samuel Peters who was related to Joshua. She told him that Samuel was her former husband, and he had been in contact with her since coming to London for his sister Esme’s funeral. Gloria went on to say that she was stunned when Walters informed her that Detective Travis had told him Samuel had died of a heart attack. She had asked him when but he didn’t know and she felt Travis was mistaken as Samuel had told her he was going back to Jamaica.

  ‘When did Samuel tell you he was going back to Jamaica?’ Langton asked.

  ‘Well, it was a little embarrassing really, he turned up at the Charity Ball drunk and looking like a tramp, he’d obviously been hitting the rum again.’

  ‘I’m more interested in what he spoke to you about, Lady Lynne,’ Langton said, becoming irritated.

  Gloria explained that Samuel asked her if he she had managed to end Josh and Donna’s relationship and she told him she was still working on it. He was annoyed and said that he knew he should have told Josh himself, but it was too late as he was returning to Jamaica in the morning.

  Langton, aware he was being taken for a fool, was tiring of Gloria’s lies and theatrics. Although a dangerous move, which could play to Gloria’s advantage, he decided to challenge her story.

  ‘Just like that, unannounced he turns up out of the blue after thirty years?’ Langton asked, raising his voice.

  ‘There’s no need to be aggressive, Mr Langton, Lady Lynne is trying to be helpful,’ Ian Holme said and Langton glared at him.
<
br />   ‘It’s fine, Ian, I can understand Mr Langton being annoyed that Mr Walters failed to pass on our conversation. Sorry, what was your question again?’ Gloria asked, and as Langton was about to repeat it, she continued: ‘Oh, yes, about Samuel. Well he actually phoned me a few times, he was doing some decorating at Donna and Josh’s flat and he saw a photograph of me with the girls. He recognized me even after all these years. I didn’t know at the time, but found out later that he got my number by taking a quick peek in Donna’s address book.’

  Langton felt himself becoming more and more annoyed as each lie rolled so comfortably off Gloria’s lips, and it angered him that someone of Ian Holme’s intellect couldn’t see her for what she really was. Langton had no hard evidence with which to challenge Gloria, no witnesses, no nothing, and it was clear to him she knew it. She was no longer just the actor in a play; she was now directing the bloody show!

  Unabated, Gloria continued, patting and refolding Langton’s handkerchief, explaining that on the first occasion Samuel phoned her she wanted nothing to do with him. He claimed he was a changed man and urgently needed to speak to her but wouldn’t say what it was about.

  ‘I was obviously stunned to hear he was in London, and I was equally rather scared to even agree to see him. I asked for a contact number and said I would call him back.’

  Langton was desperate to try to slow Gloria down, but it was easy for her, as she had memorized a script of lies that made her appear totally innocent of any wrongdoing. Unable to take notes, he was finding it hard to recollect everything that she had said so far.

  ‘Why would you want to call Samuel back when he had treated you so badly in the past?’ he asked, trying to break her flow.

  ‘If you hadn’t interrupted me so quickly, I was about to tell you that I didn’t call him back. The reality was I didn’t want anything to do with him. I ignored him, thinking he’d just go away, and I still had no idea who Josh really was at that time. I then received another call from Samuel who told me that Josh was actually Arum. That was enough to persuade me that we needed to sit down and talk so he said he would get back to me with a time and a place, which he did a few days later.’

  Anna could see that Langton was becoming exasperated and finding it hard to keep up with Gloria, while it was easier for her to take in everything as she was just listening. She knew that the woman had concocted a story that would cover every angle. Walters had been putty in Gloria’s hands, and his blabbing mouth had effectively destroyed any chance they had of proving she was a liar. Although Langton had said he would be the one to lay his neck on the line, that did not seem fair to Anna. Enough is enough, she thought to herself. If she could get Gloria to admit the blackmail she knew she could use it against her.

  ‘Was Samuel Peters trying to blackmail you?’ she asked. The room went silent as everyone turned to look at her. She thought that Langton would say something or at the least tell her to go get some more water to stop her going further, but he didn’t.

  ‘I beg your pardon, just who do you think you’re speaking to, Detective Travis?’ Ian Holme asked, looking down his nose at her.

  ‘Gloria, Mr Holme,’ Anna replied calmly, ignoring the woman’s official title. ‘It’s a perfectly reasonable question and one to which I’d expect an honest answer.’

  ‘Are you seriously suggesting Lady Lynne would allow herself to be blackmailed and not report it? I think you need to have a word with DCI Travis, Mr Langton, her behaviour is not acceptable.’

  Langton looked at Anna and smiled. ‘She’s being DEADLY serious, Mr Holme. The reason Gloria may not be admitting blackmail is because of the untold damage the truth about her past would do to her seemingly good character.’

  ‘This is outrageous. Lady Lynne has been more than helpful. She has persuaded her daughter to tell you the truth and gone through an emotional rollercoaster herself in telling you about her past. I think, Lady Lynne, that it would be best to terminate this interview now,’ Holme advised her.

  Anna had to admit Gloria was a consummate actress: she rested her hand on Holme’s arm, patting him as if to calm him. ‘I’m fine, Ian, dear, the officers are just doing their job, and if you knew Samuel’s past like I do then it’s understandable that they are suspecting blackmail.’

  She withdrew her hand and looked directly at Anna. ‘The answer to your question however is, no. One cannot bear grudges forever, but more importantly out of concern for Donna and my son Joshua, as I shall refer to him, I did meet with Samuel. We discussed how best to deal with the situation, he wanted to tell Josh, but I said that would do more harm than good. We agreed that neither of them should ever know the truth and it would be best left to me to split the pair of them up.’

  ‘And exactly how were you going to do that?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t just do it overnight, could I, Detective Travis? They had been in a sexual relationship for quite some time so the sin was already unknowingly committed. I don’t expect you to understand how emotional I felt – after all, you’re not a mother, are you?’ Gloria simpered in an attempt to rile her.

  Anna opened her folder and got out a photographed copy of all the marriage and birth certificates. ‘Samuel Peters ordered all these documents online. He used them to blackmail you, didn’t he?’

  Holme was about to speak on Gloria’s behalf but again she gently squeezed his arm, indicating she was happy to continue. She spread the photographed documents out on the table and looked over them.

  ‘I know, I know about these because he showed them all to me. You have to understand it was also very emotional for him. He hadn’t seen Josh in thirty years and had lost all contact with Esme. He thought he might have been jumping to conclusions and needed to know if he was right before coming to me, so he obtained all the certificates.’

  She frowned and tapped one of them with her red fingernail. ‘Can I ask why there is blood on Aisa’s birth certificate? It is blood, isn’t it?’

  ‘Because they were on the sofa next to Josh when a bullet went straight through his head,’ Anna said.

  ‘Must you be so uncaring and graphic about my son’s death?’ Gloria said, voice trembling, but Anna knew she didn’t really care about her son or anyone else for that matter.

  Gloria’s expression suddenly changed to one of shock as she then started shaking, crying and gripping Ian Holme’s arm. ‘The certificates were on the sofa? Oh, my God, no, he didn’t, please tell me he didn’t, why would Samuel tell Josh, why?’

  Ian Holme asked to see the picture of the man on the CCTV and Anna handed it to him. ‘Is this Samuel, Lady Lynne?’

  Gloria nodded and sobbed uncontrollably as Ian Holme glared at Langton and Travis. ‘You know full well that Aisa Lynne said this man was leaving Josh’s flat when she arrived. I demand to know if any property was missing from Josh Reynolds’ flat.’

  ‘We’re not sure,’ Anna said, realizing that Gloria had yet again turned the tables to her advantage.

  ‘What do you mean, you’re not sure? I will walk out of here straight to the Royal Courts of Justice if I have to, and get a subpoena to see all your evidence!’ Holme shouted.

  Langton also knew that matters were going from bad to worse, and that they had managed to salvage nothing. Gloria had played her part magnificently from start to finish; she knew they had only circumstantial evidence. She had fooled everyone and she had the best legal mind in the business on her side. Anna leaned over and whispered to Langton that they still needed to ask Gloria about the atropine poisoning, but he shook his head; he knew his hand was forced.

  ‘There was a substantial amount of money found at Esme Peters’ flat that had Josh Reynolds’ and Samuel’s fingerprints on it. Forensic evidence suggests it came from Josh’s safe.’

  ‘Did Samuel Peters have access to that flat?’ Holmes snapped.

  ‘Yes, and also to Josh Reynolds’, we found keys in his possession,’ Anna said, feeling it was not fair to let Langton take all the flak for something s
he had started.

  ‘You told Walters that you thought Josh Reynolds committed suicide; for the life of me I cannot see what made you think Lady Lynne was involved in his death,’ Holme protested.

  Anna licked her lips and faced him. ‘Mr Holme, I believed that Lady Lynne was involved in a cover-up, and I am sure she paid Samuel Peters money to keep quiet about Aisa being there when her son Joshua Reynolds died.’ She was trying very hard to maintain a calm positive delivery to keep Holme from overreacting. It didn’t work.

  Holme was so angry he banged the table. ‘I have never seen such shameless breaches of the rules of evidence in my career. You have not heard the end of this, detectives, I will be taking this matter up with the Commissioner himself.’

  ‘No, Ian, you will not,’ Gloria said in a motherly fashion.

  ‘Lady Lynne, you and your daughters have been treated dreadfully.’

  ‘I know, and I think Chief Superintendent Langton has been very much influenced by Detective Travis.’

  ‘Nevertheless—’

  Gloria again interrupted her lawyer: ‘As I said, Ian, I do not bear grudges, and Detective Travis was only doing her job, she was clearly convinced that I was somehow involved in Josh’s death and being blackmailed by Samuel. Admittedly, she has not conducted her investigation in an open and forthright manner; however, we achieve nothing if all we seek is retribution. I hope Detective Travis has learned a lesson here today and we can all move on.’

  Anna was fuming but Langton was the first to put his hand out and apologize to Gloria. Anna knew he was doing it for her sake but found it hard to accept he was giving in so easily. She so wanted to give Gloria a piece of her mind, but the look on Langton’s face said that it was finished.

  ‘I trust that as agreed everything that I have told you will remain strictly confidential?’