Dirty Secrets

by JANICE FROST

  And yet. Gail had had her suspicions when the police found those drugs in Dana’s room. Dana could never have afforded that much cocaine on what she was earning as a skivvy in the Cornish household. The likeliest explanation was that the drugs belonged to Hector.

  Paul had been to see Hector at the penthouse a couple of nights ago and had returned in a filthy mood. Whatever they’d discussed, Gail hadn’t been informed of it.

  “I’ve just had a text from Fin,” Gail heard Ruth say. “The police think someone ordered a hit on Darren and his brother. Can you believe that?”

  Ruth’s words struck home. The mobile phone she’d been holding slid from her hand and clattered on the floor.

  Val looked up, confused. “Gail?” She’d thought Gail had gone. “What’s wrong? You look . . . Oh! Did you overhear what Ruth was saying about Hector?”

  “Yes,” Gail said, flustered. As she bent to retrieve her phone, she felt a sudden crushing pain in her chest. A tingling sensation ran up and down her left arm, from her shoulder to her fingertips. It was difficult to breathe. Gail clutched at her chest and sank to the floor.

  “Mum?” Ruth turned to Val, panicking. “Is she having a heart attack?”

  Val knelt on the floor by Gail’s side and called for Ruth to get help. Suddenly Gail was afraid that she might be running out of time to put things right. Her right hand fastened itself on Val’s arm. The pain was more intense now, and it was hard to speak. “Paul . . . killed Russ . . . and . . . Dana,” she rasped. “He’s . . . been . . . laundering money for a man called . . . Leavitt . . . Russ . . . knew.”

  Had she said enough? She didn’t think she could speak any more. Not if she wanted to breathe. She let go of Val’s arm. Val took her hand. Gail wanted to tell her that she was sorry about the affair with Russ, but she really couldn’t utter a word. And besides, it wasn’t true. She hoped Val would understand.

  “Thank goodness,” she heard Val exclaim, as the room was suddenly invaded by medics. “I think she’s having a heart attack.”

  * * *

  “Bloody hell, what’s happening now?” Ava said, seeing the commotion outside Ruth’s room. A crash cart blocked the doorway, and a number of doctors and nurses were kneeling around someone lying on the floor.

  “Stand back!” shouted one of the medics.

  Ava saw Val and Ruth Marsh, standing at a distance, Ruth cradling Cam in her arms.

  The last thing Ava wanted to do was get in the way, but she edged nearer until she was able to see the face of the person the medics were working on.

  “It’s Gail Cornish,” she whispered to PJ, stepping back again. “Looks like a heart attack or something.”

  PJ shook her head. “These families . . .”

  Across the room, Val Marsh was signalling frantically to Ava and PJ. There was obviously something urgent she needed to tell them, but it would have to wait until the entrance was clear.

  After what seemed an eternity — in reality no more than a few minutes — Gail was wheeled off on a stretcher, an oxygen mask over her grey face. Val immediately rushed over to them.

  Ava and PJ listened to Val tell them what Gail had said as she lay in the throes of her attack. “I’m sure she believed she was dying,” Val said. “She seemed like she was sort of confessing, in case she never got another chance.”

  Ava glanced at Ruth. Seemed like deathbed confessions were the thing these days. She nodded to Val. “Right.”

  Inside, Ava was boiling over with excitement and anxiety. How much did Gail know? Did she have proof? Oh shit, don’t let her die, Ava thought, and immediately felt guilty. A glance at PJ’s face told her that she was equally conflicted. This could be a lucky break. But it would be a big fat nothing if Gail Cornish died before she could tell them.

  Val Marsh looked stricken. “Do you think it’s true? That Paul killed Russ? And . . . and that girl, Dana Schell?”

  “Gail might have been confused,” Ava said. “We need to question her, when . . .”

  “Or if,” Val added.

  “You said that you weren’t aware of any animosity lately between your husband and Paul Cornish?”

  “No, but Russ said he was worried about some aspect of the business.”

  “Did you ask if he’d spoken with Paul about it? Or did he give any clue that he might be taking it up with Paul?”

  “Not in so many words, but they were partners. I assumed he would as a matter of course.”

  Ruth helped her mother to a chair. She looked at PJ and shook her head. “This day. I can’t wait for it to be over.”

  “You can say that again,” said PJ.

  * * *

  Neal had stepped outside the interview room to take Ava’s latest call. Now he was back inside with Fin and DI Blunt.

  “There’s been a bit of a development,” he said. “Gail Cornish has had a heart attack. Before losing consciousness, she told Val Marsh and her daughter that Paul killed both Russ Marsh and Dana Schell.”

  Blunt stared at him. “Shit! Did she say anything to substantiate her claim? Is she going to survive?”

  Neal could forgive Blunt’s lack of concern for Gail Cornish’s welfare. He’d been thinking along exactly the same lines. “Don’t know. To both questions,” he answered.

  “Can I go back to the hospital?” Fin pleaded. “Ruth needs me.”

  “For now,” Neal said. Fin’s lies about Dana Schell had wasted a lot of police time. He’d also facilitated the buying and selling of a class A drug, but Neal appreciated that he’d done so under duress. He hadn’t yet decided whether to charge Fin with anything. Well, a bit of uncertainty about his future wouldn’t hurt the guy.

  “I’ll get Tom Knight to drive you there. That way he can keep an eye on you in case you get yourself into any more trouble.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Joel Agard had been the doctor treating Darren Sharp when he’d been rushed to A&E after he collapsed following being taken into custody for holding PJ, Ruth Marsh and Cam hostage. Ava had just finished speaking with him.

  “Any luck?” PJ asked.

  “His condition is stable. They’ll allow us to talk to him for a bit, though Joel says he’s pretty doped up.”

  “The chief will be pleased,” PJ said. “He’s been like a bear with a sore head since yesterday.”

  “Yeah, well, I think the frustration’s getting to us all,” Ava said.

  Until now, both Darren Sharp and Gail Cornish had been considered medically unfit for questioning. Frustrating indeed.

  “And Gail Cornish?”

  “They’re saying she needs surgery, a bypass operation. Apparently she’s desperate to talk to us. Joel says she shouldn’t be upset, but on balance, he reckons it will be more stressful for her if she’s not allowed to. Paul was with her until the early hours of the morning. That alone must have stressed her out.”

  Gail wasn’t the only one to be suffering from stress. She must have had good reason for accusing her husband of murder, but until she could be questioned, the police’s hands were tied. If only they could arrest Paul and bring him in, but they had no grounds for doing so, and every hour that passed gave him more time to cover his tracks.

  Of course, Paul knew nothing of Gail’s accusation. But by now he must be aware that the hit on Liam and Darren Sharp had gone badly wrong, and that would surely panic him. Ava had been on tenterhooks all night. From her colleagues’ drawn faces when they arrived for work that morning, she guessed that none of them had slept a wink either.

  “I’ll let Neal know,” Ava said.

  Neal looked up from his computer and beckoned her into his office. On hearing her news, he immediately snatched up his jacket. “Let’s go.”

  “Go get ’em,” PJ said, as Ava passed by her desk. Tom wasn’t around. Unable to bear the inaction, he’d gone to the forensics lab to chase the results on both cases.

  “Cam was discharged from the hospital last night,” Ava told Neal as they travelled to the hospital. The child’s r
ecovery was the one positive note in a day that looked to be as calamitous as the one before it.

  “Here we are again,” Ava sighed as she parked in the hospital car park. “Who first?”

  “Gail Cornish, I think.”

  Ava had learned from Joel that Gail was not out of danger. Apparently she had a congenital heart condition, for which she had been receiving treatment. Without surgery, there was considerable risk of a more serious heart attack. Neal had no doubt borne this in mind, but Ava suspected he also wanted to give her a chance to unburden herself.

  Hooked up to monitoring equipment and dressed only in a loose hospital gown, Gail bore little resemblance to the woman Ava and Neal had first met in the grand surroundings of Kingfisher Lodge. When she saw her grey, pinched face Ava wondered whether they should be disturbing her at all. But the nurse who had shown them to the bedside gave them a nod of encouragement. She said she would remain close by, to monitor her patient.

  Ava fetched two orange plastic chairs. Neal sat nearest to Gail. “Mrs Cornish, I know you’re not feeling your best, but we’ve been told that you are anxious to speak with us about the serious accusation you made against your husband last night.”

  Gail nodded. She lay, sunk back against the pillows, and made no attempt to rise. She wouldn’t have had the strength. The nurse approached the bed and offered her a sip of water. It seemed to revive her a bit.

  “Yes,” she said, in a low, hoarse whisper. “I thought I was going to die. I still might. I didn’t want to die without . . . the truth being told.”

  Ava wondered at Neal’s patient calm, and her own. Like her, he must be churning up inside, desperate to shake the words out of Gail Cornish so that they could get down to business. Ava thought back to the day before. She’d had to hold herself back then too, when PJ and the others were in danger. When she’d made the decision to become a police officer, she had envisioned a life full of action, not this constant need for restraint.

  “Take your time, Mrs Cornish. Tell us why you believe your husband is guilty of murdering Russ Marsh and Dana Schell.”

  “You can only live for so long with someone without knowing what they truly are,” Gail began. Just get to the point, Ava thought. But Gail seemed determined to set some sort of context.

  “It took a while, but there came a point when I began to suspect the kind of person Paul really was.” Her voice shook. “It wasn’t anything specific, you understand. That’s important. To me, at any rate.” Gail’s eyes sought Neal’s. He gave her an encouraging nod.

  “It crept up on me slowly. To think I didn’t see it for so long . . .” Her voice trailed off and she signalled for more water. She took a couple of sips. “Thank you. I suppose it was because we were leading such busy lives. We were in London for a few years, and then we moved to Stromford. Paul was busy all the time, first in the City, and then building up the business with Russ. I carried on working part-time until the twins came along. I was so . . . occupied. At home, and then socially as well. Paul and I were always out.”

  “When did you first suspect that Paul was a sociopath?” Neal asked. Ava was glad he’d been so blunt. The word was out there now. Gail didn’t need to skirt around it.

  “After the twins were born.”

  Ava did the maths. Rupert and Quentin were nearly eighteen. So Gail had been married for approximately six years when she realised she’d married a monster.

  “I knew he had a ruthless streak. You don’t thrive in the City without that.” She sighed. “There are always exceptions, of course.”

  “Russ Marsh?” Ava said.

  “Yes,” Gail said, tears in her eyes.

  “Mrs Cornish?” The nurse looked anxious. “Are you sure you want to continue?”

  “Yes, I’m alright.” She managed a weak smile, and turned back to Neal and Ava. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear all this. I just want to say one more thing. I did love Paul. I can see now that he was a controlling bully, but I never felt it at the time. I was completely under the spell of his charm, just like everyone else. I did what I was told without even realising it. Or, stranger still, I believed it was what I wanted too.”

  “Sociopaths can be very manipulative,” Neal said. “Their charisma is part of their power.”

  “Yes. That’s how it was. I wanted to please him, make him happy. And even after I began to suspect what kind of man he truly was, that didn’t change. I still admired him. It was only after I began seeing Russ that I understood . . . how different things could be.”

  Ava willed Gail to speed up, get to the heart of the matter.

  “Dana found out that I was still seeing Russ. She was trying to blackmail him over it. She sent him texts, even went round to his house and spoke to him about it.”

  “Yes, we recovered both their phones,” Ava said. “We saw the messages.”

  Gail looked surprised. “I was terrified of Paul finding out. He was furious when he found out the first time it happened. Russ and I were careless that time and I knew Paul suspected, so I confessed and told him it had been just one night. It was a stupid mistake that I wasn’t going to repeat. He made a big show of forgiving us, but he never did. Even though he had affairs all the time, he couldn’t bear the thought that his wife and friend had betrayed him. His family life was important to him, you see. He liked to think of himself as the perfect husband and father, and of course, it was useful for him to be seen that way. Good for business. It made people trust him.”

  “Gail, what did you know about your husband’s business practices? Did Russ ever mention that he suspected Paul of corruption?”

  “I knew that Paul could be ruthless, but I didn’t know how far he was prepared to go. And, yes, it was Russ who found out.” Gail’s eyes darted around the room, as if Paul were about to appear suddenly. There must have been a change in her vital signs, for the nurse stepped forward again, and asked if Gail needed to rest. “No, no, no,” Gail protested, fervently.

  Ava realised she’d been holding her breath. She let it go.

  “Russ told me he’d been concerned about what Paul was up to for some time. Paul had a lot of side projects that Russ wasn’t involved with. One day, Russ saw some financial transactions on Paul’s computer that made him suspicious. The amounts of money involved . . . He started making discreet enquiries. Russ suspected that Paul might be involved in money laundering.”

  “Did he have any proof?” Neal asked.

  “He hired a private investigator,” Gail said.

  Ava didn’t know why she felt so astonished. It was what Russ Marsh did, after all. He’d hired a PI to spy on his own daughter, hadn’t he?

  “And?” Neal prompted.

  “He took pictures. Of Paul, meeting with people the PI recognised. In particular, a man called Tony Leavitt. He said these people were known drug dealers who’d been on the police’s radar before. Can you believe it? Paul got himself so worked up over Hector being involved with drugs, yet he was deeply mired in that world himself.”

  “And this was what your husband and Russ really fought over that night when Russ advised Paul to watch his back?” Neal said. “It wasn’t about Russ lending Hector money at all.”

  “I think so. I told Russ to go to the police. But he was under Paul’s spell too. He said he wanted to give him a chance to explain himself.”

  “You gave your husband an alibi. Did you lie when you told us he was at home with you all evening?” Neal said.

  “Yes. He said he’d been working at his office, but that the police would never believe him because of the fight, and because he and Russ were business partners. He asked me to lie for him. I was going to tell you but I was afraid. I needed time to think. I called and asked to speak to the police. When the two of you came around, my courage deserted me. There were the children to consider . . . These people Paul’s involved with are ruthless, aren’t they? They come after your family. Look at Ruth Marsh. I did try to alert you. I hoped that telling you about the fight and linking it
to the business might make you look in the right direction.”

  Neal nodded. Ava suspected he was suppressing his anger. She was angry too. All that wasted time and energy. Not to mention resources. They could have offered Gail and her children protection.

  “And Dana? How do you know it was Paul that killed her?”

  “I had to do the housework myself after . . . after Dana died. I was collecting the laundry. I picked up one of Paul’s jumpers, a cashmere one. A lovely shade of blue. There was a snag in the wool. I found a fragment of a false nail caught in the sleeve. Dana had been to have her nails done the night she died . . .” Gail’s voice tailed off. She looked exhausted and her eyelids began to droop.

  “Did you keep it?” Ava spoke over Neal, unable to contain her excitement any longer. “Mrs Cornish?”

  The nurse intervened. “Her meds are kicking in, they’re making her drowsy.”

  Ava stood up. She had another strong urge to shake Gail Cornish. Then Gail said, faintly, but just loud enough to be heard. “Yes. It’s in my jewellery box.”

  And then she was asleep.

  * * *

  Neal instructed PJ to obtain a warrant to search Kingfisher Lodge. Next, he made a phone call and requested that Paul Cornish be brought in for questioning. He also contacted Val Marsh and asked for details of the private investigator Russ had hired to look into Fin O’Shea’s background.

  “Now for Darren Sharp.” Neal and Ava strode down the corridors to the side ward where Darren was being treated. A police guard stood at the door, and Darren was handcuffed to his bed. A nurse warned them that the patient was heavily medicated and would drift in and out of sleep.

  Ava found it hard to look at him. Despite his pathetic appearance — his ashen face and defeated look, the expanse of gauze across the wound on his stomach — she couldn’t summon much pity for the man who had held her friend hostage, and threatened to kill Ruth Marsh and an innocent child.