Doomed to Die

by Dorothy Simpson

  He wasn’t even aware that Lineham had been out of the room until the sergeant came back and said, ‘Report time, I see.’

  Thanet nodded.

  Lineham pulled a face, sighed, sat down at his desk and was immediately engrossed.

  For the next hour they worked steadily, the silence broken only by the occasional comment. Thanet shifted position from time to time, trying to ease the familiar dull ache which was the result of a back injury many years before. He was just beginning to wonder how Draco would react if he entered the room and found his Detective Inspector stretched out on the floor doing back exercises when there was a knock and Bentley put his head around the door. Thanet could tell at once that there was something up. The DC’s usually placid face was animated, his eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘Someone asking to see you, sir.’

  ‘Who? Well come in, man, come in.’

  ‘Mrs Broxton, sir. And her husband.’ He paused, to give emphasis to his next words. ‘And her solicitor.’

  The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed as Thanet and Lineham exchanged glances. Had Thanet hit the nail on the head after all?

  His lethargy of a moment ago was gone, the ache in his back forgotten. His stomach clenched with excitement. ‘Send them up.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Vanessa Broxton wasted no time on preliminaries.

  ‘I’ll come straight to the point, Inspector.’

  Superficially she looked as she always did in Court – well-groomed and confident. She was wearing a dark grey herringbone tweed suit with a black velvet collar, white blouse, high heels. Studying her more closely, though, Thanet could detect the signs of strain: the too rigid posture, the occasional tightening of her jaw muscles and the fear which lurked at the back of her eyes. Despite the latter, however, she looked – what was the word? – resolute, that was it. Yes, resolute.

  The two men who flanked her were a complete contrast: her husband tall, fair, well built, striking; the solicitor short, dark, slight, nondescript. Thanet was not fooled by the man’s appearance. Geoffrey Mordent was the senior partner in one of Maidstone’s largest firms of solicitors, and widely respected for his ability as well as his humanity.

  Vanessa Broxton was looking Thanet straight in the eye. I have nothing to hide.

  Guy Broxton had been watching her. Now he turned an assessing eye on Thanet.

  Mordent, too, had been looking at her. Now, as she glanced at him he gave a faint smile and nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  ‘When you interviewed me on Monday night, Inspector, I’m afraid I was less than frank with you. No, to be blunt, I lied to you. I’ll explain why in a minute, but for the moment suffice it to say that I now realise how very foolish I was. So I’ve come to tell you what really happened.’

  She glanced at Mordent, who nodded again and said, ‘Mrs Broxton is here entirely with my approval. I am in full agreement with her desire to be frank with you, and wish to make it clear that although I shall naturally protect her interests, I am present chiefly as a friend.’

  Thanet nodded. ‘Please continue, Mrs Broxton.’

  She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘The first thing I lied to you about was the time. I said I arrived home at 9.30, but in fact it was half an hour earlier.’

  Thanet restrained himself from casting a triumphant glance at Lineham. So he had been right.

  ‘As I told you, the moment I opened the front door I heard Henry screaming – no, it was before that, even. I could hear him as I put my key in the lock. Then it happened just as I told you. In the hall I hesitated for a moment, calling Perdita, but I didn’t wait to see if she was around, I rushed straight upstairs to Henry’s room. As I said, he was practically hysterical, I’d never seen him in such a state before. So naturally I picked him up, walked about with him, did everything I could to soothe him, quieten him down. And all the time I was getting more and more angry, wondering where on earth Perdita was, wondering how she could possibly have let him get into such a state … ‘Anyway, he had just calmed down and I was on the point of putting him back to bed when I heard the front door slam. Up until then it had simply never occurred to me to think she could actually have gone out and left the children alone in the house …’

  Her voice was beginning to rise in remembered outrage and she stopped, took a deep breath and waited a moment before continuing.

  ‘I put Henry down in his cot, but of course this woke him up and he clung to me, started to cry again. Perdita must have heard him and she came straight upstairs and into the nursery. She looked pretty appalled to see me there, as you can imagine. She started to apologise, but I just hissed at her to go away, go downstairs and wait for me. It took a good five minutes longer to get Henry settled and all the while I was seething, thinking of what I was going to say to her when I saw her. Then suddenly Henry went out like a light. I suppose he was exhausted with all the crying. So I tiptoed out on to the landing, then ran downstairs.’

  Thanet could visualise it all: Perdita truly appalled, as Vanessa Broxton had said, to find Henry in distress and Vanessa returned home unexpectedly. Still upset after her forced excursion to the pub with Giles, full of guilt, distress and self-justification, she would have been in a highly volatile state by the time Vanessa came down. Probably she had started to make a hot drink in an attempt to calm herself down by the familiar, soothing domestic task … And Vanessa, churning with fury, boiling up for a confrontation, flying down the stairs and bursting into the kitchen …

  Vanessa Broxton’s composure was slipping and her husband reached out and took her hand, clasped it tightly. ‘It’s all right, love. Keep going, the worst’ll soon be over.’

  She shook her head, her eyes bleak. This will never be over, for me.

  ‘She was in the kitchen. She was holding a saucepan with milk in it. All I could think was, she goes out and leaves my babies alone and then calmly comes into the kitchen and makes herself cocoa!’

  ‘What the hell d’you think you were doing?’

  ‘It was …’

  ‘I come home unexpectedly and what do I find? Henry hysterical and you’re not even here! You’d gone out, for God’s sake! Gone out and left my babies alone in the house!’

  ‘It wasn’t …’

  ‘I don’t care what you say, there can be no possible excuse, d’you hear me, no possible excuse!’

  ‘But, Vanessa …’

  ‘Don’t Vanessa me! In fact, don’t ever speak to me again. Get out of my house this minute, d’you hear me, get out!’

  Vanessa Broxton buried her face in her hands.

  Her husband put his arm around her and briefly she turned, rested her forehead against his shoulder. Then she looked back at Thanet. ‘It was an accident, I swear,’ she whispered. ‘And even now, looking back, I can’t really tell you what happened. I’ve thought and thought about it, and I’ve worked out what must have happened, but that’s not the same, is it? I think I must have pushed her, but … All I really know is that one minute she was standing in front of me and the next she was … just lying there, on the floor. I vaguely remember hearing a crash, but apart from that … Her eyes were closed and her head was bleeding … I couldn’t believe it. I knelt down beside her, calling her name. I felt for her pulse and it wasn’t there … Dear God, it wasn’t there …’

  Vanessa Broxton shook her head in remembered disbelief. ‘I realised she was dead and I’d killed her.’ She bent her head in shame and contrition.

  There was a moment’s silence before Thanet said, ‘And then what did you do?’

  She looked up. ‘I didn’t mean to harm her, I swear it. It’s just that … I’d never been so angry in my life before. I was beside myself.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Never again will I disbelieve a client when he says he didn’t know what he was doing.’

  Thanet repeated his question. His calm acceptance of her account seemed to reassure her. Or perhaps she felt that she was now past the part of her story that was hardest for her to tell. In any case
she made a visible effort to be brisk and matter-of-fact.

  ‘Naturally I didn’t know what to do. I was, well, stunned, I suppose, for the first minute or two. And then my first instinct was to call the police. Which is, of course, what I should have done. There’s a phone in the kitchen and my hand was actually on the receiver when I thought, but if I do call them, and I’m arrested what will happen to the children? Angela was in hospital, my husband abroad … There were a couple of friends I could ring, but that would have involved getting Henry and Alice up out of bed and transferring them and I wasn’t sure, if I were arrested, if the police would allow me to do that. And after the upset Henry had already had that night I certainly wasn’t going to allow him to be frightened out of his wits by having a complete stranger do it.’ She gave an apologetic smile. ‘I wasn’t thinking ahead at all, as you see. I was in a panic, I suppose. I knew I’d have to call the police eventually, but I just couldn’t think straight and I realised I had to have a little while to myself, first, to work out what I was going to say to them.

  ‘I went into the drawing room. I was still shaking and I decided to allow myself just one drink – no more, because I knew I couldn’t risk not being able to think clearly. So I poured myself a stiff whisky and drank it, telling myself that as soon as I’d finished it I’d ring you. But I kept thinking about the children and worrying about what would happen to them if I was arrested. Then there was my work … If this all came out, I was finished. Even if I were acquitted I couldn’t imagine many solicitors would be anxious to employ me … Then I suddenly thought, why own up at all? I could just say I’d come home and found her like that. It would buy me some time, give me a chance to pull myself together and sort something out for the children …’ Vanessa Broxton stopped, shook her head and gave a wry smile. ‘I can’t believe it really, can’t believe I was so stupid! Me, of all people, with the sort of work I do! It was a sort of madness and I’m deeply ashamed of myself, I assure you … Anyway, that was what I decided to do. But I knew I’d have to make sure an intruder would have been able to get in, so I steeled myself to go back into the kitchen and unlock the door. Then I returned to the drawing room and tried to think calmly, work out exactly what I was going to tell the police when they arrived. Then I dialled 999 and reported the murder.’

  There was a long silence. Thanet was aware that they were all looking at him expectantly, awaiting his reaction, but he was thinking furiously. Had Vanessa Broxton told him the whole story, or not? She had said nothing about the plastic bag and Thanet was inclined to believe her. Her story had the ring of truth to it. He could imagine it all happening as she had said, what he could not swallow was the possibility that she had then decided to finish Perdita off. Because if she had, it would have been a conscious, deliberate act, and he really didn’t think her capable of calculated murder, however upset she might have been at the time. But if she hadn’t …

  Light suddenly dawned.

  Of course!

  How stupid, how blind he had been!

  All along, as Lineham had said, that polythene bag had been the stumbling block. But if not one, but two people had been involved, the whole thing became comprehensible.

  He could see it all: the murderer – faceless as yet – looking in through the kitchen window, seeing Perdita lying unconscious on the floor, trying the door and finding it unlocked and then, seeing his – or her – golden opportunity, seizing his chance … It would have taken no time at all.

  Lineham was frowning. He hadn’t seen it yet, then. The sergeant glanced up, caught Thanet’s eye, his gaze sharpening as Thanet’s excitement communicated itself to him.

  The silence in the room had become uncomfortably protracted. Broxton stirred, cleared his throat as if to remind Thanet that they were waiting.

  ‘Mrs Broxton,’ said Thanet, picking his words with care. ‘Are you sure you have told us the whole story? I want you to think back now, and make sure that you have omitted nothing.’

  There, he had given her one last chance to mention of her own free will that final act if she had indeed committed it.

  She was frowning, puzzled, obviously aware that he had something specific in mind. She shook her head. ‘Not to my knowledge, no. If there is something it’s because I’ve just forgotten about it.’

  ‘This is scarcely something you could have forgotten.’ Thanet’s tone was dry. If she were innocent, it was time to put her out of her misery.

  The three of them were staring at him intently, trying to read his mind.

  ‘Well?’ said Broxton impatiently. ‘Are you going to tell us what it is?’

  ‘Mrs Master did not die from that fall. As she fell she did bang her head hard against the corner of the kitchen table, yes, and this knocked her out. But she died of asphyxiation.’

  The astonishment on their faces – including Vanessa Broxton’s – was, he would swear, genuine.

  Then they all spoke together.

  ‘Asphyxiation?’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Someone,’ said Thanet, ‘took a polythene bag and pulled it over her head as she was lying there unconscious, and smothered her.’

  He was watching Vanessa Broxton as he spoke. Her eyes opened wide in horror, the whites showing clear around the irises. One hand went up to her mouth and the other raked through her hair.

  Her husband and Geoffrey Mordent had turned to look at her.

  ‘But … But that’s impossible!’ she whispered.

  Thanet shook his head. ‘I’ve read the post mortem report and I’m satisfied that that was the cause of death. And of course I saw the polythene bag over her head myself.’ He glanced at Lineham. ‘We all did.’

  Lineham nodded.

  Suddenly Broxton was on his feet. ‘Now look here, Thanet, are you implying that my wife cold-bloodedly murdered that woman? Because if you are –’

  Geoffrey Mordent reached across Vanessa and tugged at Broxton’s sleeve. ‘Sit down, Guy. We both know she would have done no such thing. And I don’t believe that Inspector Thanet is implying anything, he’s simply informing us. Besides, don’t you see? As far as Vanessa is concerned, this alters the whole thing? Someone else killed her.’

  ‘But I felt for her pulse,’ whispered Vanessa. ‘It wasn’t there. She was dead, I tell you …’

  Thanet shook his head decisively. ‘No. It’s an easy mistake to make, one that’s been made many times before, I assure you. The shock of it all would have blunted your perception.’

  ‘But then, how … who …?’

  ‘That, obviously, is what we yet have to discover. Tell me, when you arrived home, did you put your car in the garage before going into the house?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’

  So no one would have known she was there, thought Thanet. To all intents and purposes the place was deserted.

  ‘Did you hear anyone knock at the front door?’

  ‘No. No one. The doorbell isn’t working, of course, and the door is so thick and heavy it’s very difficult to make anyone hear just by knocking on it, unless you really hammer at it. And I was upstairs with Henry and he was crying most of the time. Even if he hadn’t been, I don’t suppose I would have heard, it’s not as though I was expecting anyone and listening out for them. You mean …?’

  ‘Did you hear any cars outside?’

  Again she shook her head. ‘I was too preoccupied with Henry to have noticed …’

  ‘And when you were downstairs, in the drawing room, after the incident?’

  ‘No. I was in such a state I don’t suppose I’d have noticed if a herd of elephants had thundered through the front garden.’ For the first time she managed a faint, rueful smile.

  Thanet was working it out. If Perdita arrived back at 9.20 it would have been 9.25 before Vanessa went down to the kitchen. The brief confrontation with Perdita would have taken only a minute or two, say until 9.30 at the latest. Vanessa had rung the police at 9.40 and they had
taken a further ten minutes to arrive …

  ‘You must have been in the drawing room for at least twenty minutes before the police arrived?’

  She frowned, paused to work it out. ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘And how long was it before you went back into the kitchen to unlock the back door?’

  ‘Five, ten minutes? It’s difficult to tell.’

  So the murderer could have slipped into the kitchen either before or after that.

  ‘Now think carefully: did you on that occasion look at Mrs Master’s body?’

  ‘You’re suggesting that the murderer might already have come in by then?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you there. I’m afraid I studiously avoided looking at her. I was aware of her lying there, of course, out of the corner of my eye, but I certainly didn’t notice a polythene bag over her head, or obviously all this wouldn’t have been such a shock to me.’

  ‘That polythene bag … Might it have been lying around somewhere, in the kitchen?’

  She shook her head emphatically. ‘Absolutely not. Angela and I have always been very careful not to leave plastic bags lying around, and I’m sure Perdita would have done the same.’ She frowned. ‘Though until all this happened I would have sworn that she would never have left young children alone in the house … I still can’t believe that she did.’

  Lineham shifted position and Thanet knew what he was thinking: why don’t you tell her that Master forced his wife into the car, blackmailed her into staying with him?

  Thanet said nothing. He had his reasons.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Broxton to his wife, ‘you can now stop tormenting yourself. Someone else killed her.’ He glanced at Thanet. ‘You can’t imagine what a relief it is, to know that.’

  ‘But that’s not true!’ said Vanessa. ‘Don’t you see that, Guy? I killed her just as surely as if I had put that bag over her head!’

  Broxton took her hand. ‘Darling, don’t be ridiculous! How can you say that?’