Just What Kind of Mother Are You?

by Paula Daly

  I rang the hospital last night and was told that, all being well, Kate would be home some time today. When I voiced my concerns about her state of mind I was told that she’d been evaluated and a community psychiatric nurse would stay with her on her return.

  Mrs Corrie asks when I think Kate will be back on her feet again, the subtext being: Will she be in to help with the Christmas fair? Which is a ridiculous thing to suggest with Lucinda gone, and the state Kate’s in at the moment. But I know she’s only asking because they are going to be totally sunk without her.

  Kate is the spine of school fundraisers, from which everything else hangs. Without her, the Christmas fair will be a disaster. No one will do as they promised. No one will bring in the prizes, the wine, the cakes, the games. Nothing will get done without gentle reminders from Kate. As it stands now, it will probably end up costing the school money even to throw the party.

  The day is as grey as was promised. And as mild. There’s a noticeable rise in temperature and I have no need for my gloves, my hat. The exhaust on the car is still blowing, but I ignore it. It’ll have to wait.

  When I get into work Lorna tells me she’s updated the website and that there’s a message on the answer machine to say Bluey will be returned some time later this morning. They have managed to collect the samples they needed. And there’s another message. A mad message from a frantic woman (who sounds drunk) in Grasmere. She needs us to collect a dog, urgently, because of a change in her circumstances, and she can’t get the dog to us herself because her car has been towed away. The dog is a Doberman.

  ‘Have you rung her back?’ I ask Lorna.

  ‘There’s no answer. She’s probably passed out. She left an address, though. Are you going to go up there?’

  ‘I’ll see how the morning goes.’

  ‘You look tired, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘It’s not been the best week of my life.’

  ‘Want me to go?’ Lorna asks.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say, and smile. ‘I’d rather be driving than cleaning out kennels … sorry.’

  ‘Worth a shot.’

  Lorna’s done her hair with henna again and the dye has stained the skin behind her ears and at the nape of her neck. I don’t say anything. Her fingernails are brown as well.

  ‘How’s your friend?’ Lorna asks. ‘They found her daughter yet?’, and I shake my head. ‘Must be awful,’ she adds, and I feel something stirring softly inside.

  I’m gazing over at the door deep in thought, Lorna saying, ‘Lisa, are you okay?’ a sympathetic tone to her voice.

  ‘What? Yes,’ I reply quickly. ‘Just need to get busy. How are those kittens doing?’

  ‘Only one left. I’ve christened him Buster.’

  ‘Buster’s good,’ I tell her, and go through to the back room to get started. See if I can syringe some food into him.

  When I walk in I see Lorna has bagged up the last two kittens that didn’t make it through the night ready for collection, and hear the tiny mewling sound of Buster.

  I reach down into the cage and pick him up. He’s jet black on his back, with a white chest and white undercarriage and a small, black, triangular patch of fur under his chin. It’s as if he’s wearing a dinner suit, like a tiny James Bond. He purrs as I lift him. I begin checking him for fleas and find two straight away. I grab the comb to get rid of them before starting on with the syringe. He’ll make it, I decide.

  I check his gums – they’re a good, healthy pink – and his eyes are bright. ‘Make sure you live,’ I say to him, and he stares back at me wide-eyed and mischievous.

  Then my mobile beeps in my pocket and I check the screen. My heart skips when I see it’s from Kate.

  Thank you. You’re a life-saver! reads the text, simply.

  And I reply, Any time, and sigh.

  She must be on her way home.

  39

  THREE SQUAD CARS are on their way to the George Hotel at Grasmere to pick up Mervyn Peterson. Joanne is in one of them, and, at the moment, as they wind their way along the eastern edge of Lake Windermere, she’s stuck behind a fifteen-year-old Escort with a fish sign in the rear window. ‘Bad case of Christian driving,’ she says to Ron, and taps her fingers on the steering wheel.

  This is the bit she lives for. The bit when she gets to string this fucker up by his testicles and deliver him to the courts for the abduction and repeated rape of three young girls.

  She knows it’s him. She can feel it’s him. Teresa Peterson detailed the previous allegations against him as well as saying he went AWOL on Wednesday night – when Francesca Clarke was abducted. There’s little doubt in Joanne’s mind. She can’t wait to get him in the interview room.

  Ron Quigley’s at the side of her, swallowing Rennies like Smarties, his right knee jumping and bouncing in anticipation.

  ‘What you thinking?’ he asks her.

  ‘I’m imagining slapping the cuffs on and holding the bastard down with my knee.’

  A fine drizzle has begun to fall as Joanne glances across to the lake. Beyond, the Langdale Pikes are obscured by cloud and the lake itself is granite-grey. Still plenty of snow around on the banks for now, but it’ll all be melted soon enough. The whole place is in monochrome.

  ‘Be good to get a conviction before Christmas,’ Ron muses, and Joanne agrees.

  She asked Teresa Peterson about the thing that’d been baffling her most about this case. ‘Where could he have taken the girls? Where could he have taken them without being seen?’

  Teresa had shrugged. Said she had no idea. So Joanne told her about Molly Rigg. ‘Molly said she could smell laundered sheets and the room was painted cream. She said it was bare.’

  And Teresa Peterson had blanched white before answering, ‘The hotel has a couple of cottages on the grounds. They’ve not been rented out for a while, we only open them up when we’re busy.’

  ‘Can you see them from the hotel?’ Joanne asked, and Teresa had shaken her head.

  ‘Not really. They’re off to the side of the main building. No one’s got any reason to go near them when they’re not being used.’

  Joanne had reported her findings to DI McAleese and the scene-of-crime boys were on their way.

  They drive through Ambleside and Joanne tries flashing her lights at the Escort in front to signal for it to pull over – it’s doing less than twenty miles an hour – but the woman driving is oblivious.

  She presses hard on the horn while Ron waves his arms around in the passenger seat and finally the woman pulls off to the right towards Rydal Mount – Wordsworth’s house when he wrote ‘Daffodils’. At last Joanne’s able to put her foot down.

  Ten minutes later and there’s the sound of gravel crunching and pinging in the wheel arches of the Mondeo as it pulls up outside the George Hotel, followed by the two other squad cars. ‘Let’s hope the lovely Mervyn is at home,’ Ron says, climbing out.

  They herd into reception. It’s a huge, oak-panelled space, a stag’s head on the far wall, big oak staircase.

  Joanne approaches the young skinny girl with blue-black hair who is behind the desk. Warrant cards are flashed, voices are kept hushed and the girl informs them in a Spanish accent that Mr Peterson is currently with the fire officer up on the third floor. ‘You like, I call him for you,’ she says flatly, and Joanne says, No – thanks, but they’ll go up and find him for themselves.

  DI McAleese leads and Joanne follows closely, with Ron and a couple of uniforms behind her. The hotel is overheated and the air is thick with the smells of newly laid carpet and furniture polish. The stairs turn at a right angle and a balding guy carrying a briefcase pauses to let them pass. ‘Something happened?’ he asks McAleese, who’s about to continue on but then changes his mind.

  ‘You a guest?’ McAleese asks him.

  The guy says, No, he’s the fire officer.

  ‘Have you just been with Mervyn Peterson?’

  He nods. ‘I’m on my way to inspect the pool area. Peterson’s f
inishing taking some notes in room eleven. Top of the stairs, turn right, end of the hallway.’

  McAleese sprints up the stairs two at a time. Adrenalin floods through Joanne’s blood as she does the same. They are so close now. She can hear the rush of bodies behind her as she moves. At the top she begins breathing hard. She thinks about whipping her parka off but there’s no time. McAleese is striding ahead of her.

  Room eleven. The door is closed. McAleese puts his ear to it, pulls a face to signal there’s no sound from within, and bangs on the wood. ‘Police. Mr Peterson, open the door.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Get ready,’ McAleese whispers.

  Joanne’s heart is beating in her throat.

  McAleese gestures for Joanne to push down on the handle. Silently, he counts with his fingers: one, two, three.

  They burst in, McAleese into the bedroom, Joanne heading straight for the bathroom. Then the wardrobe.

  ‘It’s empty, boss,’ she says.

  ‘Next room.’

  Ron is sent to check the fire escape while one of the uniforms radios to the officers left downstairs to cover the exits. Strange, Joanne hadn’t expected Mervyn to run. She’d formed a picture of him in her mind as the type of cocky bastard who would stand his ground, try and bullshit his way out. She hadn’t had him down as a runner.

  She knocks on the door of room nine. ‘Police!’ she shouts; doesn’t wait for an answer.

  The first thing she sees is a pair of calf skin loafers hanging off the end of the bed.

  Joanne takes four paces forward and sees his face for the first time. ‘Mervyn Peterson?’

  Instantly it’s clear to Joanne how he managed to get those girls into his car. He has a most beautiful face, but her eyes don’t stay on it for long.

  He smiles at her, sitting up, ‘You’ve caught me red-handed,’ he says, yawning. ‘I was just about to have a sneaky … nap.’

  ‘Boss, he’s in here!’ Joanne shouts towards the door. ‘Room nine.’

  She hears the pounding of feet, and Mervyn looks taken aback.

  ‘Heck,’ he says emphatically, ‘whatever is the matter? Has something terrible happened?’ His eyes are shining and he’s smirking like he’s Terry-Thomas caught in a sticky situation with the law.

  ‘Save it,’ Joanne says, and DI McAleese is at the side of her.

  He casts his eyes over Mervyn and his expression falters.

  Mervyn’s trousers are bunched around his ankles and his semi-erect penis lies flat across his stomach. He coughs and watches Joanne’s reaction as his dick twitches twice. Bouncing playfully on his flat, taut stomach.

  ‘Mervyn Peterson, I am arresting you on suspicion of—’

  Seconds later, Joanne tells Mervyn Peterson to put it away and to get dressed. So that she can cuff him. She fixes the cuffs tighter than she ought to and leads Mervyn out of the room by his elbow.

  As they make their way along the corridor towards the stairs, covered in front and behind by her fellow officers, Mervyn leans in close.

  ‘I saw you looking,’ he whispers in Joanne’s ear, his voice singing with delight. ‘I saw your face when you found me.’

  And Joanne replies, deadpan, ‘Did you.’

  40

  ‘NO COMMENT,’ REPLIES Mervyn smugly. He glances at his solicitor, who nods once in response. Mervyn is wearing a clean, thick-cotton Italian shirt, which he insisted on bringing along with him to the station, as well as clean socks and underwear. ‘In case I get searched,’ he said.

  Joanne shifts in her seat.

  She’d begged McAleese for this opportunity, for this interview. She needs to get something out of him. But they’ve been at this for more than twenty minutes now, and Merv the Perv isn’t talking.

  Joanne decides to break from the questions and just sit. She could do with running another tissue under her armpits, beneath the underwired section of her bra. It won’t be long before the sweat seeps through her shirt. The room is painfully hot.

  Mervyn’s smirking at her.

  ‘What?’ he says, in reaction to her silence. ‘Are we going to have a staring competition now, Detective? Have you run out of things to ask me?’

  ‘Your wife made a statement alleging you took photographs of adolescent girls, Mervyn. You don’t want to answer my questions, I can understand that. You think you’re just going to land yourself in more trouble by talking, so I can see you want to keep quiet. I’d most likely do the same in your shoes.’

  ‘My wife is delusional.’

  ‘Seemed pretty together to me. She came across as a sensible, clear-headed type of woman.’

  He scoffs. ‘No comment.’

  ‘Though I have to say, I wouldn’t have automatically put the two of you together.’

  He raises his eyebrows at Joanne.

  ‘You’re an odd pairing,’ she explains.

  ‘If you say so,’ he replies.

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘What about your daughter? How old is she, eleven?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘Only a year away from your favourite age, Mervyn. Where are you hiding Lucinda?’

  He leans forward in his seat and fixes her with a chilling stare. ‘I did not take those girls. I am a father. I am a husband. I am not a paedophile, as you are suggesting. You have no evidence, Detective, to prove I am involved in any of this, and if you’re hoping for some kind of weepy confession from me, then you will be waiting for a very long time. I’ve told you. I did not do it.’

  ‘What does the name Charles Lafferty mean to you?’

  He shrugs. ‘Never met him.’

  ‘I think you have.’

  Mervyn rolls his eyes.

  ‘It’s a name you use, isn’t it, Mervyn?’

  ‘You’re ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s an alias you use when you’re pretending to be someone else.’

  ‘Why would I want to be someone else?’

  ‘Perhaps you’re embarrassed of who you are,’ Joanne replies.

  Mervyn laughs contemptuously. ‘I am not at all embarrassed by who I am, Detective,’ he says, correcting her grammar. ‘Perhaps you mean yourself. Maybe it’s you who’s embarrassed by who you are.’ He pauses and gives her the once-over. ‘Not married, are you?’

  Joanne meets his stare. She doesn’t answer.

  ‘And why is that?’ he asks.

  ‘Good men are thin on the ground, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s more a case of butch women getting left on the shelf.’

  Joanne leans towards him. In a low voice, she says, ‘We know it’s you, Mervyn. We’ve got DNA.’

  He doesn’t speak, but she sees his expression quaver, just fleetingly.

  She continues, ‘Why don’t you help yourself and tell us why it is you do what you do. It can help your defence. If you keep on saying “No comment”, we’ve got nowhere to go. No one’s going to sympathize with a guy like you who won’t admit to what he’s done. Especially not inside. You start telling me what drives you, we might be required to get a psychiatric evaluation. I’ve heard they can be really useful when the time for sentencing comes around.’

  ‘What DNA?’ he asks.

  ‘Oh, Mervyn. I can’t go telling you all my secrets, can I?’

  ‘You’re bluffing.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to bluff.’

  He sits back in his chair. Takes one breath in and sighs it out heavily.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he says.

  ‘I’m not lying, Mervyn. We can place you with one of the victims. And now that we’ve got you here, I expect a line-up will be next on the agenda. There’s always a good chance one of them will pick you once they set eyes on you.’

  Mervyn looks to his solicitor. Joanne watches. The solicitor’s face is impassive. He drops his gaze and shakes his head to the side.

  ‘No comment,’ Mervyn says firmly.

  Joanne moves her hand across the desk as if she’s reachi
ng out to him. ‘Mervyn,’ she says softly, almost sadly, ‘we’ve got the dog. That dog you used to lure away your last victim? We found him. And guess what? He turned out to be a lovely old bundle of evidence.’

  Joanne runs her hands under the cold-water tap and rinses her face. Her cheeks are flushed crimson and her shirt is sticking to her. She grabs some paper towel from the dispenser and wets it before wiping it over the skin of her back and midriff. Nearly there, she tells herself. Almost there.

  McAleese, who’d been watching on a monitor next to the interview room, authorized the break. Mervyn had requested some time alone with his solicitor and McAleese granted it. He had a hunch that Mervyn would return to questioning singing a different tune, but Joanne wasn’t so sure. She got the impression Mervyn would keep this charade up till the death. He was a born liar. Joanne reckons she’s never met one quite so brilliant before. As if he himself believes every word to come out of his mouth. He’d be one of those people you hear about who can throw a polygraph.

  The team regroups in the briefing room before Joanne and McAleese make their way down to the cells to collect Mervyn for round two.

  The duty sergeant opens the door and the first thing Joanne sees are the pinstripes. And Mervyn’s bare torso. His ashen face stares at her as he hangs by his shirt from the iron bars of the cell window.

  Joanne runs forward.

  He’s already turning blue when she grabs him – grabs him around the hips, lifts his weight up in her arms.

  ‘Fuck,’ she hears someone say, but she’s not sure who, because she has everything focused on keeping this bastard up as high as she can.

  Joanne’s not going to let him die. She has Molly Rigg’s desolate face in her head as she summons strength in her arms. She won’t let him die.

  His weight has pulled the knot taut. The body is jerking as McAleese hacks through the cotton, trying to free him. Joanne feels another set of arms around Mervyn Peterson’s girth, halving her load.

  Then his body bends at the waist as the shirt is cut from the steel bar.

  His upper half flops forward and Joanne staggers, along with the duty sergeant, to lower Peterson to the floor without dropping him. ‘Get an ambulance,’ McAleese shouts to a figure in the doorway.