Reflections

by Bannister, Jo

  “Not if everyone thinks he’s in Venezuela. There was no reason to expect a trap. He thought he could see the girls, maybe apologise, maybe make plans to meet again, then he could leave the country. Ten days after the event it’ll be easier to move around than it would have been earlier.”

  “But if he risked his liberty to see them, why stay just long enough to terrify them?”

  “Because they’d raised the alarm before they realised who it was. Johnny took him by surprise, before he was ready, and yelled before he could reassure her. Then Em was screeching too, you were fumbling for the landing light and I was stumbling across the yard with my shoes half on. He could rely on the girls not to call the police, maybe he’d have tried to persuade you, but I was an unknown quantity. He got out while he could.”

  Peris chewed reflectively on the inside of her lip. “Do you suppose they know now who it was?”

  “I hope not. If he daren’t risk coming back, it’s better the girls don’t realise there was a chance to talk to their father but they scared him off.”

  Peris sipped her coffee, still thinking. “Would they have talked to him? Would they want to? He killed their mother and abandoned them. He might get a more sympathetic hearing from us than from them.”

  “He’s the only parent they have left,” said Daniel simply. “They may be willing to adjust their perception of what happened in order to leave the door open for him.”

  “Will you tell Superintendent Deacon what you suspect?” Daniel considered for a moment. “Yes. But he won’t believe it.”

  When Deacon found the message on his desk at eight in the morning, his first instinct was to find someone to shout at. As he couldn’t see a way it could be DS Voss’s fault he went to shout at the duty sergeant instead.

  “A break-in at a house where I’m investigating a murder and nobody thinks to let me know? Worrying about the phone-bill, were you? Or is there a general consensus that I need my beauty-sleep?”

  Sergeant McKinney had been stationed in Dimmock as long as Deacon had, and was about as easy to intimidate. He wore half-moon glasses for paperwork: now he lowered his head to stare over the top of them. The effect was of a bull buffalo lowering its head to charge. He rumbled, “If you wish to be informed of every event which could conceivably have a bearing on a case in which you’re involved. Superintendent, I will make a note accordingly and ensure it happens. After ten days without sleep you won’t know the difference between a clue and a cauliflower. If that isn’t what you’re aiming at you’ll have to continue relying on my discretion. Let me know what you decide.”

  Now he was forty-seven and ostensibly a grown-up. Jack Deacon tried to avoid fist-fights. But enough proved unavoidable that he knew there were still very few people he couldn’t take. His skill with the spoken word was less comprehensive. He lost arguments all the time: with Sergeant McKinney, Superintendent Fuller, Brodie, even Daniel Hood. In the depths of his soul where he tried to be fair he suspected he’d have lost them with his own sergeant if Voss hadn’t been so adept at throwing in the towel at the last minute.

  But no amount of practice would have made him a good loser. He curled his lip and sniffed. He growled, “You should have called me,” and about-turned quickly enough to ensure that, if Sergeant McKinney had the last word, he wouldn’t hear it.

  Voss was coming in from the car-park as Deacon went out. He whistled him up like a sheep-dog. “There’s been another incident at Sparrow Hill.”

  He found the household at breakfast in the kitchen: the two girls, the African woman and Daniel. “Mr Daws not here?”

  For a moment the two adults were nonplussed, thinking he meant Robert. Then Peris realised he meant Hugo. “He flew home yesterday. He couldn’t leave the business any longer.”

  The policeman nodded. “So what happened last night?”

  Daniel listened carefully while the girls told the story again, waiting for some hint that they’d gone through the same thought process that he had and come to the same conclusion. There was none. They talked about a tall man in the dark hall who swore, grabbed Johnny and ran when Em started screaming.

  “How did he get in?”

  They showed him the broken pane in the kitchen door, the glass lying where it fell. Immediately Deacon saw what Daniel had seen. His eyes flicked across the kitchen and saw Daniel’s drop. “Mm.” He thought for a moment. “Sergeant Voss, perhaps the girls would give you a conducted tour of the house. Make sure that whoever was here really has left, and that he didn’t drop any clues as he went.”

  When they had gone he sat down heavily in the chair opposite Daniel’s. “You know there wasn’t a break-in, don’t you?”

  Daniel pursed his lips. “I don’t think anyone broke in through the kitchen door. I think there was someone here.”

  “Then how did he get in?”

  “I think he had a key.”

  Deacon’s eyes narrowed as he made the connection. “You think Robert Daws was here? Did anyone see him?”

  “Only the girls, and they didn’t recognise him. But it was dark and they were scared out of their wits.”

  “Then how did the glass get broken?”

  “After he was inside,” said Daniel. “To make it look like a break-in, I suppose. To stop you asking yourself who had a key. That’s what woke Johnny”

  Deacon nodded slowly. “So he returned to the house where, ten days ago, he was murdering his children’s mother. And he let himself in quietly with his key, and then he smashed the glass in the back door loudly enough to wake people. That’s what you reckon happened?”

  If Daniel wasn’t entirely happy with the explanation, he couldn’t see a better one. “There wasn’t time after he bumped into Johnny—I’d have seen him if he’d left that way.”

  “And you didn’t. And”—his eyes switched to Peris—“you didn’t. When the light came on he was gone. That’s a stone floor in the hall: did you hear him running away? Or the front door?” Peris shook her head. “Did either of you hear a car?”

  “No,” said Daniel. “What are you saying—no one was here?”

  “Think about it,” said Deacon. “Those two girls have been through hell. If they’re sleeping at all, they must be having nightmares. Suppose the older one was sleep-walking. The younger one heard her moving about and went to investigate. In the dark they bumped into each other. The older girl thought she was being attacked, and the younger one thought if she was screaming there must be something to scream about. They were struggling with one another.”

  Daniel stared at him in frank disbelief. “Then who broke the glass in the back door?”

  “Maybe the girl who was sleep-walking,” said Deacon. “And that woke the younger one.”

  “They have names,” Daniel complained softly. “Juanita and Emerald; or Johnny and Em.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Deacon heavily “Well, I'll get the door dusted for prints but I don’t think we’ll find anything. I think Juanita”—he put an impolite degree of emphasis on the unusual name—“was sleep-walking in here and either tried to open the door or fell against it and that’s how the glass got broken. Emerald heard the noise and came downstairs. They met in the hall, and for a few moments each thought they’d bumped into a burglar. Their yells woke you two, but by the time you could respond the drama was over.”

  Daniel’s voice was incredulous. “You’re saying they made it up.”

  “Actually, that’s not what I said. Daniel, they’re two deeply disturbed young girls who had a sort of waking nightmare, and they don’t know exactly where the dream ended and reality began. I think they probably believe there was an intruder; but I don’t believe that. Either a burglar, or their father come to bid them a fond farewell before heading for parts unknown. Why would he swear at them? He’d tell them who he was and they’d stop screaming. Even if Mrs Daws was awake by then, all he had to do was hide in the kitchen till everything quietened down again. The girls could have said they had a bad dream but they were going
back to bed now, and half an hour later have come downstairs again.

  “What you’re suggesting doesn’t make any sense. It would be a big risk for Robert to come back here, even if he’s still in the area. If he was willing to take such a chance to see his daughters, he wouldn’t just run away.”

  When he was wrestling with a dilemma Daniel’s face twisted up as if it was trying to squeeze the answer from his brain. Deacon saw him grimace and knew what it meant. “You’re not convinced.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It would explain why neither Peris nor I caught even a glimpse of this man, or heard him running away. But what if you’re wrong?”

  Deacon shrugged. “If I’m wrong and it was Robert Daws he may try again.”

  “Yes. Try what?”

  The detective didn’t understand. “To talk to his daughters, I suppose. To apologise? Tell them he loves them?”

  Daniel nodded slowly. “Yes. Maybe. If that’s all he has in mind there’s nothing much to worry about.”

  Deacon always had problems in his dealings with Daniel Hood. It wasn’t that the younger man meant to be difficult, more that he seemed to see things from a different angle. He was doing it again now. “So what might he have had in mind that would be something to worry about?”

  Daniel flicked a glance into the hall but DS Voss and the girls were elsewhere. He glanced apologetically at Peris. “Robert Daws murdered his wife. Everyone says it was desperately out of character, that he wasn’t a violent man. But he took a knife and stabbed Serena thirteen times—and smashed the phone so she couldn’t call for help. If that wasn’t an act of calculating evil, then it was insanity.

  “Superintendent, if Robert Daws has genuinely lost his mind, we can’t count on him behaving like a loving father. He may no longer be thinking of the girls as his daughters. He may be thinking of them as witnesses.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Deacon stared at him in astonishment. After a long minute he gave his head a bemused shake. “People reckon I have a nasty suspicious mind. But compared with you, Daniel, I’m an open book.”

  “Do you think so?” There wasn’t a trace of irony in it: he was desperate for reassurance. “You think I’m letting my imagination run away with me?”

  “Daniel,” said Deacon patiently, “you’re letting your imagination drive you off in an open-top sports car and book you into a Brighton hotel under the names of Mr and Mrs Imagination. I never heard anything so foolish in all my life.”

  “But is it? We know what he’s capable of.”

  It might have been absurd but Daniel’s concern was real. Deacon sighed and bridled his tongue. “He’s their father. His wife was cheating on him, she taunted him about it and he stabbed her. There’s no reason in the world to think he wants his children dead too.”

  But Daniel wasn’t convinced. “Don’t say it doesn’t happen because it does. Every year some man somewhere murders his wife, then murders his children in their beds, because he can’t face the break-up of his family. They use guns and knives and hammers and fire. And the neighbours say they never saw it coming. That he seemed a decent, hard-working man, a good husband and father. That a kind of madness must have got into him.

  “Well, we know a kind of madness got into Robert Daws. And I don’t think it’s safe to assume it seeped away after Serena was dead. Some force he couldn’t resist brought him back here, to the one place where people knew his face and knew what he’d done. Maybe it was just the longing to see his girls again. But if it was, why did he run so quickly, before they even knew it was him?

  “Because he didn’t want them to know it was him, that’s why. Because he has unfinished business here, and once the alarm was raised he knew he wouldn’t be able to complete it. If he ran, there’d be another chance. He’ll make another chance.”

  “To kill them,” said Deacon. “Let me get this right: that is what you’re saying? That Robert Daws came here to kill his daughters.”

  “Yes,” said Daniel, dipping his head. “At least, I don’t know. But that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Why? He killed Serena in a storm of passion, but that was ten days ago. He’s had time to calm down, to think about what he’s done and what he does next. The sort of killings you’re talking about, they happen inside a few minutes, an hour at the most. Nobody disappears for ten days and then comes back to finish the job.”

  “But who knows what a man’s going to do after he’s taken leave of his senses? To kill Serena like that, to leave his daughters to find her, Robert Daws had become detached from reality. He was no longer the man everyone thought he was, the man he used to be. He’d lost all contact with who he was and what other people meant to him. And he can’t reconnect because there’s nothing left to reconnect to. He can’t come home, his wife is dead, his children know he’s a murderer. He’s all alone. What he did cut him off from normal human relationships, even normal human feelings.

  “He knows that what he did was unforgivable. He can’t live with it and he can’t find a way past it. He’s stuck in the intolerable present with his guilt. And those girls know what he did—saw some of it and found the rest. I think maybe he can’t bear them knowing. He can’t undo it, but once everyone who was involved is dead it’ll be almost as if it never happened.”

  Peris Daws was viewing him with horror. Jack Deacon felt a quiver in his gut that another man would have recognised as pity. Daniel’s reading of the situation struck him as highly improbable, but it opened a window into his yellow head.

  And it was a place full of violence and the fear of violence. Monsters lurked in its dark comers.

  Deacon didn’t suppose it was always so. But if you take a mild man and brutalise him, you rip the ground from under his feet. Daniel Hood had believed in order and social responsibility and basic human decency; and men who believed in none of these things had torn him apart in a quest for something he could never have given them.

  Somehow he survived. But the scars on his body were only part of the damage he’d sustained. He no longer knew what to expect of people. There was no aberration so vile, no hurt so intense, no cruelty so calculated he felt it could safely be discounted. Deacon had thought Daniel’s problem was an occasional panic attack. In fact his life had become one enduring panic attack which he struggled to master every waking minute.

  The policeman found himself reaching out a hand to Daniel’s narrow shoulder. His voice was low. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”

  Now Peris was viewing him with dismay. “You mean he’s right? My brother-in-law came to kill his children? And he could come back?”

  “No. No,” said Deacon, taking back his hand and shaking his head. “I don’t think so.” He dragged his gaze away from Daniel’s face to answer her. “Yes, people do bizarre things at times. But they don’t go away for a fortnight then come back and do some more. Either the madness has passed by then or the ability to operate has. Genuine insanity is so disruptive that most sufferers can’t get themselves dressed let alone plan, execute and get away with murder.

  “I’m not convinced there was anyone here. But if there was, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Robert Daws.”

  “But he has killed once already,” said Peris steadily. “Can anyone predict what a psychopath will do next?”

  “Your brother-in-law isn’t a psychopath,” said Deacon shortly “That’s not something you can be driven to, by an unfaithful wife or anything else. It’s a personality disorder.

  built in at a fundamental level. If Robert had been a psychopath, everyone who knew him would have known. Instead of expressing amazement at what happened, colleagues and acquaintances would be telling us they saw it coming. That they were always uneasy round him, knew instinctively what he was capable of.

  “No one says that about Robert. The only way anyone can understand it is that Serena’s behaviour, in general and particularly in those few minutes, made him lose control. That does happen, but it passes. If he’d hung around long enough for me t
o ask why he did it he’d have said he didn’t know. That it was as if someone else was doing it while he watched. He’d have been in shock. But a psychopath would have explained calmly how Serena brought it on herself; and he’d have expected me to understand.”

  Peris was slowly shaking her head. “I don’t know him that well, but Hugo does. He’d have known if there was always something wrong with him.”

  “Yes, he would,” agreed Deacon. “Robert isn’t a psychopath. He’s a desperately sad individual who was unlucky enough to find himself in the same room as the woman he loved, a painting of the boy she betrayed him with, and a knife. It’s not a complicated scenario. It’s a very simple one.”

  As he listened intently to Deacon’s argument Daniel’s expression passed through understanding and relief and settled on faintly embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said to Peris, “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was just … so worried. But Superintendent Deacon’s right. I put two and two together and came up with a hundred and eighty six.”

  Peris flicked him a weak grin. “I guess we’re all a bit twitchy after last night. So can we mend the back door? We’d feel pretty silly if we really did get burgled tonight.”

  Deacon chuckled. “Yes, go ahead. The Scenes of Crime Officer has got everything he needs. I’ll call a glazier, should I? He’ll probably come quicker for me than he would for you.”

  Voss returned and Daniel saw them out. Again he felt the need to apologise. “I’m sorry for wasting your time. It seemed to make sense. I was frightened for them.”

  “I know,” said Deacon. “But I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

  “Should I put it to them?” wondered Daniel. “When they’ve settled down a bit. That they may have had bad dreams and startled one another?”

  “Why not? When they’re feeling calmer the idea might occur to them, in which case they’ll be glad that you know. Or they may always be convinced that someone broke in. Don’t make a big deal of it, either way It was an honest mistake.”