Blood on the Marsh

by Peter Tickler

  EPILOGUE

  They sat either side of a featureless rectangular table – Holden and Fox nearest the door, Maureen Wright and her solicitor (disconcertingly surnamed Constable) opposite. The room itself was featureless too – a door that might briefly, in the 1980s, have seemed modern, a single double-glazed window some six feet from the floor (and so offering only delinquent basketball players a view), and a flooring so inoffensive that Holden, who had been in there often enough, wouldn’t, if asked, have been able to describe its colour, let alone its pattern. They sat on moulded plastic chairs with metal legs, and both Fox and Constable had a sheaf of paperwork on the table in front of them.

  Holden had already completed the formalities – pressed the record button, announced the date and time, and listed the persons present – but there was a hiatus of several seconds before she asked her first question.

  ‘Maureen, yesterday, at a time of intense pressure, you claimed that you killed Paul Greenleaf and your husband Jim Wright.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am now asking you to confirm and clarify that statement.’ She paused. Maureen was looking directly at her, head up. ‘Did you kill Paul Greenleaf?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘And did you kill your husband, Jim Wright?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I most certainly did.’

  ‘Tell me how you killed Mr Greenleaf.’

  This question surprised her. ‘How? You know how.’

  ‘I need you to tell me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In case you’re lying.’

  ‘Why should I be lying?’

  Holden leant forward. ‘You wouldn’t be the first parent who lied to protect a son or daughter.’

  Maureen glanced across at her solicitor. He nodded. She turned back and leant forward too, so that her face was barely eighteen inches from Holden’s. ‘I used a piece of garden wire, stretched between two trees. It caught him round the throat. At least I think it did, only it was hard to see clearly, and I wasn’t actually that bothered. What I was bothered about was beating the bastard with a hammer until I was sure he was dead.’ She leant back, and folded her arms. ‘Is that enough detail?’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘I only needed to hit him once. He went down like a sack of potatoes.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I thought he was dead. I dragged him onto the rails. I wanted to be sure. I wanted to watch him be obliterated.’

  She fell quiet, and a smile crept across her face as she remembered. She shook her head as if she could barely believe what she was remembering, and she laughed. ‘Then he gave a groan. Christ, he didn’t half make me jump. If I’d had the hammer with me still, I’d have given him another thump, but I’d had to put it down while I dragged him onto the tracks, the fat bastard. What I did have in my pocket was some garden wire. In case I’d needed to tie his hands with it. It’s very handy stuff, garden wire. So I pulled his stupid bloody woollen hat over his face in case he opened his eyes, and I looped the wire under a sleeper and then round his leg several times. His left leg I think it was. And then I sat on top of him. I could hear a train, so I waited, and when I saw its lights and I knew for sure it was coming straight for us, I got off him and walked over to the bushes. It was dark, but I could see enough. I saw him clutching at his hat, trying to pull it off his face. I saw him stagger to his feet, and I saw and heard him die.’ She had a faraway look on her face, the look of someone remembering, and enjoying the memory.

  She rocked forward. ‘Is that enough detail, Inspector?’

  Holden flinched. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Is that it, then?’

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?’

  Maureen frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did you kill Nanette too?’

  The question seemed to startle her. ‘Nanette, no of course not. Why would I?’

  ‘Money, maybe?’

  Maureen eyes narrowed. They were hard eyes, Holden reckoned, behind which a formidable woman lay. A tough woman, capable of who knows what. Lying certainly. And more if necessary. ‘If,’ Maureen said, ‘you want my opinion, I think Jim did it.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Like you say, money. Jim was short of it, whereas his mother had money in the bank. The only problem was the nursing home fees were racing their way through her savings like a bush fire.’

  ‘So you knew this, but said nothing?’

  ‘Hey, that isn’t what I said. I don’t know. It’s just that it makes sense.’

  ‘I need proof.’

  Maureen considered this for at least ten seconds. She sat back and massaged the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. ‘Not proof. Intuition. Woman’s intuition.’

  ‘Intuition doesn’t tend to stand up in court.’

  ‘Well it bloody well should do.’

  Holden smiled. ‘I agree. But unfortunately I don’t make the law. I merely enforce it.’

  Maureen grunted, unimpressed. An uncertain silence descended.

  Holden looked down and inspected her fingers. Not that there was much to inspect on them. She wore no rings, the nails were cut short and were unpainted, and there were no discernible spots or lumps that might have been worth inspection. Eventually, she raised her head: ‘You see, Maureen, I have another theory. Would you like to hear it?’

  Maureen shrugged. ‘If you want.’

  ‘My theory is that you are lying through your teeth.’

  Maureen returned Holden’s stare. If there was any emotion in her face, it was well hidden. She said nothing. Cat and mouse watching each other, though who was cat and who was mouse was hard to say.

  ‘My theory is this,’ Holden continued. ‘That you are lying to protect your son. That you know that it was he who put the morphine in the whisky flask. I also have a theory that it wasn’t you who killed your husband or Greenleaf, but David. And you know that too. And yet you are prepared to lie for him, and to take his punishment, to prove that you love him.’

  Maureen shook her head in an exaggerated gesture of disbelief. ‘That’s plain ridiculous. You haven’t a shred of evidence to link David to any of the deaths. And why on earth would he have killed Greenleaf? What’s his motive, Inspector?’

  ‘Love for his mother, of course, Maureen. That is to say, love for his birth mother, Bella.’ Holden let this sink in for several seconds, and wondered if perhaps Maureen really hadn’t considered this as a possibility. Then she continued. ‘Greenleaf got Bella suspended from work after she laughed off his sexual performance. She told David about it, and he killed Greenleaf for her. It seems a strong motive to me.’

  ‘But you have no evidence.’

  ‘What makes you think that? David ran away, after all. That implies guilt, if you ask me.’

  ‘Jesus wept!’ Maureen slammed the palm of her hand on the table. ‘It could imply anything. Fear. Confusion. But actually, David ran away because of Jim. Do you know what that bastard did? He told David the truth.’

  She paused, checking that she had got Holden’s attention. She had. ‘The other Sunday David told us that he had met his birth mother, his real mother as he called her. You can’t imagine how much that hurt me. But he was so excited. I tried to be calm. I asked him if he was sure. Sometimes David is easily led and I was genuinely worried that he had somehow got confused. It was the last thing that I wanted to hear, but I tried to not to show how upset I was. “She’s wonderful!” David kept saying at the top of his voice, and there was such a grin all over his face. Only Jim soon wiped that off. “Wonderful?” he screamed. “Your mother wasn’t wonderful, you stupid fool. Why do you think we got you, you bloody idiot. Why? Well I’ll tell you why. Because your so-called real mother was a crack head, and so was your useless father. The reason we were lumbered with you, was because both of them were constantly doped up to the eyeballs.”

  ‘David went crazy, calling him a liar, but Jim hadn’t finished. “I’
m not a liar, David. Just the opposite. I’m going to tell you the truth. Listen. I’ll tell you what happened. One day, when you were a little toddler, the social services came round to your parents’ flat, and they found you lying on the floor eating cat food. Out of the cat’s bowl! That’s the sort of mother you had before you came to us! She let you eat cat food, and she let you shit all over the floor like a dirty little kitten.” What he said … it was unforgiveable. I had spent a lifetime building my son David up, and in a few moments of utter spite he destroyed him. Because as far as I was concerned, whoever this other woman was, David was my son. I tell you, when David ran off down the road screaming, if I’d had a gun I’d have killed that husband of mine then and there.

  ‘I finally saw what a complete bastard I had married. I saw how I could never trust him. And, of course, you were right about those photos. They had really freaked me. Ask Ania Gorski. She told me about them later that day. She rang me up before Sunday lunch in hysterics, so I’d agreed to meet her. We’d hit it off at Sunnymede. She was very good to Nanette. She told me how they’d taken these photographs of her and Vickie on Saturday night, and how she was really worried about Vickie because of the way Greenleaf had been looking at her. I knew I had to do something to protect Vickie. So I killed them both.’

  ‘But not Nanette?’

  ‘No. And neither did David kill her.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘A mother knows, Inspector. I know David. David doesn’t lie to me. He never did. He topped up her flask with whisky that Sunday as he always did, but he told me he never put anything else in it. And I believe him. He had no reason to kill her. And in his own way, he was very upset when she died. He doesn’t show it, the way you or I might, but I know he was upset. He couldn’t have killed her. You’ve got to believe me.’

  Holden leant over and clicked the recorder button off. She stood up, and brushed a crumb off the sleeve of her jacket. She gave the faintest of smiles to the woman who had just admitted two murders. ‘Actually, Maureen, in my experience, any man or any woman is capable of murder. And that would include David. But as it happens, I agree with you. I don’t think David killed Nanette.’

  ‘How are you feeling, David?’

  The room into which Holden and Fox had just walked was significantly more comfortable than the one from which they had come. There were two people there already. David Wright was sitting on a sofa; he was wearing brown whipcord trousers and a navy-blue cardigan zipped right to his neck. He was rocking ever so slightly backwards and forwards. Next to him, her hands folded across her stomach, was Jaz Green; she wore jeans, a pink T-Shirt and denim jacket, and she looked up at the sound of their entry, anxiety smeared across her face.

  ‘He’d be feeling a lot better if he wasn’t stuck here.’

  Holden acknowledged the criticism with a nod of her head.

  ‘You were very lucky, David.’ He didn’t look up, but she continued nevertheless. ‘For a moment, when you fell onto the track I thought … I thought.…’ But what she thought refused to materialize.

  David looked up now. ‘You thought I was dead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wish I was.’

  Holden nodded again, but again found she had nothing to say.

  ‘What will happen to Mum?’ he asked. ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘Later. But first I need you to answer some questions. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you remember when your Nan died?’

  ‘Yes. On a Tuesday night. I was listening to the football.’

  ‘Two days before that, she came home for Sunday lunch, didn’t she, like she always did. And you filled up her flask, David, didn’t you. Like you always did.’

  ‘With whisky.’

  ‘Did you add anything to the whisky, David?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even just to help her sleep, maybe?’

  ‘I’ve told you before. No.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure, David?’

  Jaz made a guttural noise that signified disgust. ‘He’s said no, he means no. He’s a good lad. He wouldn’t have hurt his Nan.’

  ‘I know it’s difficult,’ Holden said, trying to be sympathetic.

  But Jaz Green had had enough. ‘No you fucking well don’t. You’ve no idea what it’s like for him. I certainly don’t know, and I’ve known him since he was little.’ The two women eyed each other.

  It was David who interrupted. ‘Are you going to lock me up?’

  Holden turned towards him. ‘No. In fact, Jaz can take you home.’

  ‘Are you going to lock Mum up?’

  ‘Would you like to come and visit her tomorrow?’

  David stood up, ready to go. ‘I visit her on Wednesdays and Sundays,’ he said, and he walked towards the door. Jaz got up and followed him out.

  ‘We found some interesting things in your flat, Bella.’

  ‘What were you doing there? You can’t just walk into my flat and—’

  ‘We had a search warrant, Bella, so we have every right to turn your flat upside down if we so wish.’

  ‘Well, fuck you.’

  The woman sitting on Maureen’s left flinched perceptibly. Holden hadn’t come across Ms Althea Potter before. She was dressed the part – dark suit, white blouse, discreet necklace and earrings – but Holden sensed a fragility in her.

  ‘We found this, for example, in your kitchen bin.’

  Fox leant forward and placed a polythene evidence bag on the table. Inside was a small white cardboard box, with a printed label on it.

  ‘Haven’t you got better things to do than go through my rubbish?’

  ‘On the label it says temazepam.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘We found traces of temazepam in Detective Constable Wilson’s bloodstream.’

  ‘Did you, now.’

  ‘My guess is you added it to the cup of tea you made for him.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Because you wanted him to go to sleep so you could go and find David.’

  ‘And my guess is that you haven’t got any proof for any of this. And besides, your detective constable is OK isn’t he? He just had a nice long sleep.’

  Holden gestured with her right hand, and Fox placed another polythene bag on the table with another white box inside it. ‘We also found this box in one of your drawers. It once contained morphine capsules, though there’s only one left now.’

  This time Bella said nothing. She turned briefly to Ms Potter for support, but the solicitor was writing something on her notepad.

  ‘Did you give the rest of it to Nanette Wright? Did you put it in her flask?’

  ‘No.’

  Althea Potter looked up, and adjusted her glasses. ‘Unless I am mistaken, Inspector, this is all only circumstantial evidence.’

  Holden turned to her right. ‘We have another piece of evidence, don’t we, Sergeant? Two in fact.’

  Fox leant forward again. This time it was his turn to speak. ‘We found this photograph in your book. You remember the book, don’t you? Unless, by Carol Shields. With all those funny chapter titles. Well, the photograph was inside it, at the beginning of the chapter titled “Forthwith”.’

  Fox laid two more polythene bags on the table, one containing a paperback copy of the book, and the other a small photograph. Bella ignored the book, and picked up the photograph. Its faded colour betrayed its age. A small child, maybe six months old, sat on the floor. It was looking slightly to the side, directly perhaps at someone trying to catch and keep its attention while the photographer focused.

  ‘Who is that?’ Holden asked quietly.

  ‘David.’ There was no delay in the answer. ‘I want to keep it,’ she said firmly.

  ‘It’s evidence, I’m afraid, but I’ll see if I can have a copy made.’

  ‘It’s mine. You can have a copy. I want the original.’

  ‘It’s only yours because you stole it.’

  For the first
time in the interview, a look of uncertainty crept into Bella’s eyes. Holden saw it, and pressed on. ‘You stole it from Nanette Wright. This was her photo. Maureen has confirmed it.’

  ‘You can’t believe that murdering bitch.’

  ‘Vickie has confirmed it too.’

  There was a silence. It was almost over. They had reached the end game. Holden sensed it. Even Fox could feel it.

  Bella picked up the plastic cup of water that was sitting in front of her, and drank it all. ‘That woman was a miserable cow. She was always complaining. I shouldn’t have called Maureen a bitch. Maureen is OK. It was Nanette who was the bitch. Maureen, David, Vickie, even that miserable arse Jim visited her regularly, took her out every Sunday, and she wasn’t the least bit grateful. She was particularly unpleasant about David. Used to call him a stupid spastic. Not to his face, of course. But that’s how she described him to me. Anyway, one time after I’d had to clean her up after she’d messed her bed, she grabbed my arm, and said she wanted to show me something. So she showed me this photo of David as a baby. Of course, I recognized it. It was the only photo I ever remember us taking of him. It was my child.’ Bella stopped talking, and sank her face into her hands. Holden waited. Outside, from down the corridor, there came the sound of laughter, that soared and dived like an out-of-control submachine gun. Holden thought she recognized DC Rachman, and vowed to strangle him later.

  Inside the room, a huge sob erupted from somewhere deep within Bella, causing her trim figure to heave and shudder. Then she looked up and rubbed at her eyes. ‘Imagine! David, the big gawky guy who came to visit her, was my son. Christ that was a shock. Not that I told her. Not that I had a chance to tell her, because she then started to spout off about how David wasn’t really her grandson. “He’s adopted,” she said. “You can see he’s not our flesh and blood. He’s not like Vickie. But what can you expect? His mother was a slut. A drug-addled slut. Tell me, Bella,” she said, looking straight into my eyes, “what sort of chance does a boy have when his mother feeds him cat food off the floor?”’