In the Family

by Christina James

  Tim carried on walking to the end of the garden. He examined the padlock on the gate. The padlock was rusted to the chain, and the small metal sleeve that protected the keyhole had corroded so much that it was immoveable. Clearly no-one had passed through this gate for a long time. He wondered why it had been kept locked. Answering his own question, he supposed that it had been to allow Ronald to play safely when he was a child; or perhaps to prevent snatch-thieves breaking into the shop via the back way. He made a mental note to have the chain removed, so that he could walk through the gate as Doris Atkins might have done when she was out tending her garden.

  He turned and glanced up at the house next door – once the residence of the pestilential Needhams – and thought that he saw someone step quickly back from one of the bedroom windows.

  He had intended to interview Doreen Atkins while he was waiting for the SOCOs to arrive, but upon reflection decided that he would leave the two Atkinses to stew for the time being. He was convinced that Ronald, at least, was keeping something secret that could have helped the police. Doreen was more of a known quantity. Not bright and prone to hysteria; he doubted if it would take long to persuade her to reveal everything that she knew under strict questioning and in due course he would put this to the test. He doubted that she knew very much, however. Even if Ronald trusted her, she was an outsider, not part of the unholy charmed circle that had been his original family. Doreen might even turn into an ally.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tim had thought hard and long about the best way to introduce himself to Dorothy Atkins. Like all of the other inmates at Elmete Park, she was considered to be psychologically vulnerable and he did not wish to become the object of the wrath of a care worker, or, even worse, have some complaint about his treatment of Dorothy leaked out and plastered all over the newspapers. At the same time, he knew from everyone to whom he had spoken about Dorothy – the two psychiatrists he had met and a retired prison warder whom he had interviewed by telephone – that she was dangerously manipulative and probably far less ‘emotionally fragile’ than he was himself. And he considered his own mental faculties to be pretty robust.

  He had now spoken to Mrs. Meredith, the matron at Elmete Park, and also arranged to meet her prior to visiting Dorothy. He had told the matron that he would take DC Juliet Armstrong with him and that at the meeting with Dorothy she would do most of the talking. Mrs Meredith had sent waves of approval down the telephone. He and Juliet would take advice from the matron on how best to approach Dorothy, and they would follow her recommendations exactly. The matron oozed concurrence.

  Unsurprisingly, when Juliet was informed of this plan she was a little less enthusiastic. Never brimming with self-confidence, she expressed doubts about her own ability to obtain anything useful from an allegedly cunning elderly female psychopath. Tim tended to agree, though of course he did not tell Juliet this. He wondered if there was any possible way that he could take over the interview with Dorothy without either incurring the displeasure of the matron or hurting Juliet’s feelings.

  The first hurdle to leap, however, was to get Dorothy to agree to the meeting.

  The matron, who by this time had decided that Tim was possibly the nicest young man she had ever met, offered to smooth the way. She did not tell Tim how she had achieved it, but she rang later the same day to offer him and Juliet an appointment to see Dorothy Atkins early the following afternoon.

  Tim was slightly peeved that he was reduced to ‘making appointments’ to see a suspect, yet at the same time also intimidated by the prospect of meeting Dorothy. This in turn made him annoyed with himself: so far, his reaction to the woman’s reputation had been little braver than Juliet’s. He frowned as he swung the car into the gravel sweep of the mid-Victorian mansion that was Elmete Park. Of weather-darkened grey stone, it was typical of the houses built by Lincolnshire’s wealthy gentlemen farmers when the newly-drained fens had reached the peak of their prosperity. He turned to Juliet, who sat, tense and silent, beside him.

  “I wonder which shepherd with delusions of grandeur commissioned this particular horror,” he said.

  “I believe it was actually built by Anstruthers, the brewing family,” she said. “They invented Green Giant – it’s now quite a celebrated real ale. The house isn’t so bad: the grounds are nice, and the rooms are probably spacious.”

  “Hmm, yes, but it reeks of institution, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, it is an institution,” said Juliet, not unreasonably.

  The matron was older than Tim had expected – probably in her late forties. She had a pleasant, careworn face. He could imagine that she would be good with difficult elderly people. He noticed that when she spoke, she included both Tim and Juliet in every part of the conversation. Not many people had the skills or could be bothered to do that.

  She did not beat about the bush, however, and launched straight into her account of Dorothy Atkins.

  “Something you must understand straight away, Inspector, is that Dorothy Atkins was not brought here as a criminal. We took her after she had served her time. It was decided by the court that she was no longer a menace to society. Her mental state is, however, considered to be delicate. She receives some psychiatric care here, but not the same kind of rigorous treatment that they gave her in her later years in prison. Latterly, that was to assess her suitability for release into the community, and consequently was well-documented: some of the key psychiatrists’ reports were published, with no permission from her required. Here the treatment that she receives is gently therapeutic and totally confidential. She is almost always called ‘Tirzah’, by the way.”

  “I had heard that was her nickname. Do you know why?”

  “Dorothy is never very expansive when it comes to her personal details, but I understand from one of the notes that I’ve read that it was a pet name given to her by an old man that she knew when she was a child. She seems to have liked it and used it for her whole life, at least with those with whom she is familiar. I was going to say ‘close’, but I don’t think that Tirzah is close to anyone. I wonder if she ever has been.”

  “What is she like as an inmate here?”

  Mrs. Meredith laughed.

  “The people that we care for are residents, Inspector, not ‘inmates’. I would say that Tirzah is a model resident, at least on the face of it. She obeys all the rules, she doesn’t cause disturbances, she behaves in a reasonably sociable manner – she will help others sometimes, and do them small favours, such as bringing the less mobile residents drinks or playing cards with the ones who are up to it. Beneath this veneer, however, she is – I hardly know the correct word to use – subversive? She has on occasion been believed by staff to have wound up some of the more vulnerable residents.”

  “What do you mean by ‘believed to have wound up’? How do your staff define such an activity? By overhearing her conversations with the others?”

  Mrs. Meredith laughed.

  “That’s a good question, and one to which I can’t necessarily supply a good answer. Of course, if we had definitely caught Tirzah in the act of distressing another patient, we would have regarded it as a breach of the rules and addressed the problem. But it is not as clear-cut as that and Tirzah is clever. Therefore I can only tell you that some of the residents here are not in full possession of their mental faculties, and these are the ones that Tirzah often chooses to help or to talk to. All very laudable, you might think, especially as these are the people most in need of help, and also, often, the ones least likely to receive it. The staff are too busy, and the ‘normal’ residents don’t get enough personal reward for bothering with people who can’t interact with them properly. I and others have often sat with Tirzah and one of the residents that she is in the act of befriending, and witnessed nothing untoward. But sometimes the same people have become very agitated and upset quite soon afterwards. When asked what is distressing them, they have mutte
red garbled accounts about their fears. More often than not, these are totally incomprehensible, but on occasions some very disturbing words have been thrown up by a little gentle probing: words such as ‘pain’, ‘death’ and ‘blame’, for example. But of course words like this can come up in ordinary conversation, and when we have tried asking Tirzah what has gone wrong, she has professed complete innocence. When she left the person in question, they appeared happy, cheerful, tranquil, etc. De-da, de-da, de-da”, she added, making her own scepticism clear.

  “Why don’t you keep her under permanent surveillance, or try to tape these conversations?”

  Mrs. Meredith gave him a look that was half-quizzical, half-reproving.

  “Really, Inspector, that would hardly be ethical, would it? As I’ve said, we aren’t a penal institution. Besides, these episodes don’t occur every time that Tirzah sits with someone. And, as she herself says, having her sit and talk to others is generally very beneficial, both for them and for the nursing staff – not to mention Tirzah herself.”

  Tim opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

  “Oh, I am quite aware that Tirzah is trying to manipulate me as well, Inspector, and she may even be succeeding. The real question as far as I am concerned is how best to respond. Don’t forget that she is under my care, as all the residents are; and please don’t make the mistake of thinking that she is the only tricky resident here. Anyone who has worked in an establishment like this will tell you that society’s received notions of sweet little old ladies and benign altruistic old gentleman are largely mythical – and probably always have been. Don’t forget that each of the residents here has fought and clawed and triumphed and suffered through seven, eight or nine decades of life. Some few may have achieved this with all their moral values intact and also have emerged with sunny dispositions; but most are just people of all the many hues of grey that I am sure that you encounter every day in your work, Inspector. Old age does not confer sainthood.”

  Tim inclined his head in agreement. Juliet Armstrong, sensing that he might be eroding the good opinion that he had won so effortlessly from Mrs. Meredith, decided to steer the conversation back to trying to elicit from her the more specific information about Dorothy Atkins which had been its original purpose.

  “Tell us what kind of approach works best with Tirzah,” she said, leaning forward so that she could make eye contact with Mrs. Meredith. “We should be really grateful for your help in understanding what we are up against.”

  Mrs. Meredith had visibly softened when Juliet started speaking, but she sighed when she heard the policewoman’s concluding words.

  “As I’ve tried to explain, that is just the sort of attitude that won’t work with her. If she thinks you are pitching yourselves ‘up against’ her, she will regard it as a competition: a battle of wills that she will be determined to win. And which she will win, I can promise you that.”

  Juliet dropped her eyes, and blushed.

  “What I would advise,” continued Mrs. Meredith more gently, “is to focus on Tirzah herself. Make it very clear that you are interested primarily in her. Tell her that you want to know more about Kathryn Sheppard because she is one of the few people alive who may be able to remember Kathryn clearly, and what she was like as a young woman. Ask Tirzah about herself, especially her own childhood and young womanhood. You can talk to her about her time in prison as well, if you must. But don’t ask about her family, especially her former husband or his mother, the woman that she was convicted of killing, unless she raises the subject first. Sometimes she is willing to talk about her conviction and the events which led up to it – though not necessarily in terms which you will find either helpful or intelligible – and at other times any mention of them makes her hostile, withdrawn and silent for days. Whether or not Tirzah is a psychopath and a killer, please understand that she is indeed very damaged. If I were a psychologist, I would say that her manipulativeness is a form of self-protection against her own vulnerability.”

  “Thank you. That is very helpful,” said Tim. “Your viewpoint also intrigues me – especially your comment about ‘the woman that she was convicted of killing’. Can I ask if you are in some doubt about this? It is a totally off-the-record conversation, of course.”

  Mrs. Meredith regarded him archly.

  “It is not my job to speculate about the residents, Inspector, and I am not properly qualified to comment on Tirzah’s case in particular. I have not read the contemporary reports on her conviction, nor am I familiar with the details of the case itself. I have, of course, read the subsequent psychiatric reports and I know in broad terms, but not specifically, what the psychiatrist who visits her here thinks about her condition. I am not privy to the details of their conversations – as I have said, she is not a prisoner, and she has not given permission for anyone else to be told of them.”

  She paused, and looked at Juliet alone.

  “But if we were to put all of this aside for a minute – and in the strictest confidence, of course – and always bearing in mind that Tirzah’s exceptional skills as a manipulator – I don’t think that murder is part of her make-up.”

  “Why do you say that?” It was Tim again.

  “Because Tirzah is about two things: ongoing control and self-promotion. You cannot practise either of these two things if your target is dead; and you only have limited capacity to exercise them in a prison environment. On the other hand, the type of environment that we have here is ideal – as is being the stronger partner in an unequal marriage, especially if there are children.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Meredith. You have prepared us well, even though some of the traits that you outline seem contradictory and, of course, hard to understand. Perhaps we can see Tirzah herself now?” He consulted the big round clock on the wall of Mrs. Meredith’s office. “I believe that she is expecting us to keep our appointment in five minutes’ time.”

  Mrs. Meredith smiled.

  “You learn quickly, Inspector. Courtesy and consideration are important here, and ‘an appointment’ is the correct way of describing this meeting. Elmete Park is Tirzah’s home.”

  Tim inclined his head in acknowledgement of the compliment.

  “There is just one thing, though . . .” He picked up the edge to her tone, and looked up quickly again.

  “You said that Detective Constable Armstrong would be taking the lead, but she has only been given the opportunity to speak once so far. May I suggest that your conversation with Tirzah is at least three-way, rather than a dialogue? Otherwise Tirzah is likely to cast DC Armstrong in the role of eavesdropper.”

  “Of course,” said Tim. “Good point.”

  “Thank you. There is more than one type of controlling behaviour, you know.”

  She smiled and stood up, adroitly indicating that the conversation was at an end before he could retort.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Peter has almost recovered from his beating now. He has no scars and his teeth have been expertly repaired. The bruises around his eyes have all but disappeared, leaving only dark hollows under his eyes that merely serve to make him look interestingly world-weary. His face is paler than it used to be, and perhaps not quite as tautly handsome. But his cherished good looks have weathered the experience and survived almost intact.

  As for our relationship, things have actually been going quite well between us. He has persuaded me that we need a holiday, and says that he will pay for it because I have ‘looked after him so well.’ I don’t know about this – my services have not been altogether ungrudging – and I am sceptical at first, fearing that my budget will not stretch to paying for the sort of holiday for both of us that Peter will expect. But I know that I ought to take some holiday soon, or forfeit my annual entitlement; and when I express my doubts about Peter’s capacity to pay, he looks mock-hurt. He demonstrates that I am wrong and I see that he has certainly got the mo
ney, although he does not vouchsafe where from: wads of it. He has suggested that we go to a little hotel that he knows on the Solway Firth, and although I’m not a great lover of Scotland, I agree.

  At present we are therefore on a train again, travelling First Class (on off-peak, advance tickets) and heading for the border. We have reached Berwick-upon-Tweed, and I am admiring the spectacular sweep of the coast and the wonderful old bridge that stretches across the mouth of the estuary, when I turn to Peter to make sure that he also is enjoying the view and notice for the first time what he is reading. Although he made his customary magazine purchases at the W.H. Smith’s on the station concourse before we boarded the train, I see that they are all neatly stacked up, unread, against the window. Instead of perusing them, he is deeply engrossed in some papers that he has taken from a pink cardboard wallet. When I look more closely, I see that they are photocopies of newspaper clippings.

  “What are you reading?” I say idly. “Whatever it is almost looks like work, the way you have it filed in that businesslike way.”

  I expect one of Peter’s indignant ripostes about the grubbiness of work. Instead, he scrutinises me over the top of his rimless spectacles and looks severe.

  “It is work, Hedley, no almost about it. Homework, to be a little more precise. I am finding out more about my nearest and dearest. History is a very fascinating thing.”

  “Are you interested in genealogy?” I ask, surprised. “I wouldn’t have thought it of you. After all, you know that your family were in trade, not aristocrats; and who knows what you might dig up about them if you go back far enough? You might find a convict, or even, God help us, a farm-labourer!”

  I intend my comment to be tinged with the type of humorous quasi-malice at which Peter himself excels. He flattens me effortlessly with one terse sentence.