Death Rope

by Leigh Russell

  ‘What are you grinning about?’ Ian asked her, seeing her smiling to herself as she sat at her desk.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘You’re usually so earnest,’ he persisted. ‘Is it because the old battleaxe has come round to your way of thinking?’

  Geraldine shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

  She looked away, deflated by his comment. Was that how he saw her, as serious and intense? It made her sound boring. Perhaps she was. With a dismissive sniff, she focused her attention on her screen, muttering about having work to do. While they waited for the results of DNA tests on all the traces of blood and skin that could be found in Amanda’s house, Ian set to work coordinating a team to question all the neighbours of both victims. Geraldine barely had time to register that he had elected to work with Naomi before she settled down to investigate Mark and Amanda’s family background. It was possible the reason for their deaths lay in their common past.

  Neither Mark nor his sister had left York where they had grown up. On their father’s death, their mother had continued to live in the family home with Amanda who had cared for her and kept the house when her mother had died. Both of the parents had died years ago of natural causes. The property had been left to Amanda, but there was nothing to suggest that Mark had disputed his mother’s will. Established in a lucrative career, he had his own expensive property by then, and wasn’t reliant on inheriting anything from his parents’ estate. By contrast, Amanda’s will was controversial. She hadn’t named any of her brother’s family, choosing instead to leave her entire estate to a cousin in Wales who ran a home for stray cats.

  The only interesting discovery that day came from the team examining CCTV film from the area around Amanda’s house that spotted a dark van driving in the vicinity two hours before the probable time of her death. The same vehicle was also identified driving along the Tadcaster Road the evening before her body was discovered. The times fitted. But the van couldn’t be traced as it was using false licence plates. They might have found how Amanda’s body had been transported to the roadside, but they were no closer to discovering the identity of her killer.

  26

  Geraldine wondered whether their mother’s house had been a source of friction between Amanda and her brother. The following morning she decided to pursue her investigation by looking into their relationship. Charlotte looked vaguely irritated when she came to the door. Although her eyes were no longer bloodshot, she seemed exhausted and dazed. Geraldine wondered if her doctor had prescribed her something to help her cope with the shock.

  ‘I’ve told you people everything I know,’ she said, speaking in a slightly slurred voice. ‘Can’t you go away and leave me in peace?’

  Nevertheless, she led the way submissively enough into the living room.

  ‘Amanda dead?’ Charlotte repeated, staring blankly at Geraldine who had just given her the news. ‘What do you mean, she’s dead?’

  Geraldine repeated her account of what had happened. Although Charlotte appeared to be listening, she didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Geraldine asked after they had sat in silence for a few moments.

  Charlotte continued staring blankly at her. ‘My husband’s dead,’ she whispered at last. ‘What am I going to do with myself now? I know he was older than me, and I knew he might die first, but not yet. I’m too young to be left on my own like this.’

  Speaking very slowly, Geraldine repeated what she had said about Amanda. ‘Charlotte, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill her?’

  The widow shook her head. ‘They said it was suicide,’ she mumbled. ‘They said he killed himself.’

  It took a while for Geraldine to get through to Charlotte that she hadn’t come there to talk about her husband’s death. Eventually Charlotte seemed to grasp that Amanda had been murdered, and Geraldine repeated her question.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill her?’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘What’s going on?’ she whispered. ‘Why is everyone dying? What’s happening?’

  Geraldine shook her head. ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Charlotte, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill your husband and sister-in-law?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’

  ‘Charlotte, are you feeling all right?’

  ‘Of course I’m not all right. My husband’s dead.’

  ‘Have you been to see your doctor? They might be able to help you.’

  ‘Oh yes, the doctor. She gave me some pills, but they just make me feel tired.’ She shrugged. ‘How can pills help me when my husband’s dead? They won’t bring him back, will they?’

  ‘How did you feel about your mother-in-law leaving her house to Amanda?’ Geraldine asked, changing the subject abruptly.

  Intending to catch Charlotte off guard, Geraldine was disappointed by her response.

  ‘Amanda lived with her, so obviously she kept the house,’ Charlotte replied, sniffing vigorously. ‘We all knew Amanda would inherit just about everything. And before you ask, no, of course we weren’t happy about it, but we didn’t need the money and Amanda had nowhere else to go. If she hadn’t kept the house, where would she have gone? What were we supposed to do with her? We weren’t going to have her come and live here. In any case, we thought she’d leave everything to Eddy when she died anyway. I mean, we assumed… although knowing Amanda she’s probably left everything to her cat. We never spoke to her about it. We weren’t on bad terms or anything like that. I mean, there wasn’t an argument, but it’s not as if she ever gave us so much as the time of day when she was alive. She only ever thought about herself. Oh,’ she broke off, embarrassed, ‘I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead. She wasn’t a bad person, but she was difficult. She kept herself to herself, and that suited us. We weren’t close, but I had nothing against her. She never did us any harm.’

  Geraldine wondered whether Charlotte had any idea that Amanda had been to the police to accuse her of murdering her husband, but nothing would be gained from letting her know. It was a dreadful accusation to level against someone – unless it was true.

  ‘So you were expecting Amanda to leave her house to Eddy?’

  Charlotte hedged, sensing that she had said too much already. ‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, she is family, after all, and it’s not as if she’s got anyone else.’

  Geraldine pressed her to continue, but it was no use. Charlotte was careful to say nothing further against her sister-in-law. She didn’t mention her previous allegation that she had been stalked, and Geraldine made no reference to it. Leaving, she went to speak to Eddy who lived about three miles away from his stepmother, in a small house on the other side of the city. Brushing her long black hair off her face with the back of her hand, Luciana scowled at her visitor as she opened the door. Without any make-up, her skin was pasty and she looked far less attractive than when Geraldine had seen her at the funeral. As she turned her head to the light, fine lines were visible on her forehead and around her eyes.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said ungraciously. ‘What do you want?’

  Before Geraldine could answer, Eddy joined her in the doorway. ‘Yes? Can we help you?’

  Thin and wiry, he spoke softly, with a nasal quality to his voice that made it sound as though he was whining, and his hazel eyes narrowed when he saw Geraldine. Used to people’s expressions altering when they saw her, especially when she came to call on them at home, she wasn’t bothered by his air of faint hostility.

  ‘I’d like to have another word with you,’ she said. ‘It won’t take long.’

  Eddy frowned. ‘Do we have a choice?’

  ‘Mark died over a month ago,’ Luciana said. ‘Do you really have to come here and rake it all up again? Can’t you see how your questions upset Eddy? You’ve got no business coming here and pestering us like this.’ She nodded at her husband. ‘You go back inside, love. I’ll deal with this.’ She turne
d back to Geraldine. ‘If you’ve got any more questions, you can ask me.’

  ‘Actually, I’d like to have a word with both of you,’ she said. ‘This isn’t about Mark, at least not directly.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Luciana asked, putting one hand on her husband’s arm.

  Eddy seemed more shocked than his stepmother had been to hear of Amanda’s death.

  ‘You’d better come in then,’ Luciana said.

  Eddy remonstrated that Geraldine had no right to come barging into their home, disturbing their evening, but Luciana quietened him.

  ‘She’s only doing her job,’ she said. ‘We might as well find out what she wants and get it over with.’

  Eddy confirmed that his aunt hadn’t got on with his parents, and for that reason he hadn’t known Amanda very well. Luciana said little while her husband talked, but sat watching him protectively.

  ‘I don’t know what you expect me to say,’ she replied when Geraldine asked her about Amanda. ‘I hardly knew Eddy’s aunt. I only met her a few times even though she didn’t live far away. She seemed like a decent woman.’

  ‘Was there a falling out?’ Geraldine asked.

  Eddy shrugged. ‘My aunt and grandmother used to come to us every year on Christmas Day. But after my father remarried, they stopped coming. I don’t think there was an argument or anything like that. They just stopped coming round. My father grumbled about it a bit, but my stepmother said there was nothing she could do if they didn’t want to come round. There was no point in asking them over if they always refused, and it only caused rows between my mother and father.’

  ‘Rows?’

  ‘Yes, he wanted to keep asking them over and my stepmother said there was no point. She was right, because they never came anyway. Then my grandmother died and my stepmother said there wasn’t any point in asking my aunt. I don’t think my father was really that bothered any more.’

  ‘Just because someone’s family doesn’t mean you have to get on with them,’ Luciana interjected. ‘That’s not a crime, is it?’

  27

  ‘It can’t be coincidence, a brother and sister dying so soon after one another. There’s something going on that we don’t know about. But we’ll find it.’

  While they waited for the results of the exhumation of Mark’s body, the team had assembled for a briefing. Geraldine almost felt sorry for the detective chief inspector. Eileen clearly wanted to stay in control of the investigation, but she was hardly likely to retain that responsibility if the case grew beyond the scope of the regional team. As they were talking, information arrived from the forensic laboratory. Microscopic fibres from the cord used to strangle Amanda came from a rope similar to the one used to hang Mark. It stretched credulity to suggest that this was another coincidence. Eileen was forced to abandon the theory that Mark’s death had been suicide. The similarity between the rope used in both deaths seemed conclusive proof that the two were connected.

  ‘So we’re looking at a double murder,’ Eileen said heavily. ‘And to make matters worse, Mark’s been buried for over a week. We’ve lost so much time and possible evidence.’

  ‘Do you think both murders were planned all along in advance?’ Geraldine asked. ‘Or was Amanda killed because she knew, or discovered something, about the circumstances of her brother’s death?’

  There was a murmur around the room as colleagues responded to the question.

  Eileen looked at Geraldine. ‘You spoke to Amanda, didn’t you? What do you think?’

  ‘I’d say Mark’s murder was thought out very carefully. We don’t yet know how the killer managed it, but at the time only his sister suspected it was anything other than suicide. No one else even questioned whether he might have been murdered. It was a very slick job. To pull it off would have taken considerable planning. By contrast, Amanda’s murder was clumsy and careless. The attempt to pass her death off as a hit and run was really amateurish. It didn’t take the pathologist long to see through it, and the SOCOs suspected something wasn’t right at the scene before the body had even been removed for examination. Any one of us could have worked out that all her injuries from the vehicle happened after she was dead, even apart from the markings on her neck where she’d been strangled.’

  ‘Are you suggesting they weren’t victims of the same killer?’ Ian asked.

  ‘Which would mean we’ve got two different killers using the same rope,’ Ariadne pointed out. ‘There has to be a connection, at least. Two killers working together if it wasn’t the same killer.’

  ‘It’s possible two killers were working together,’ Ian said.

  ‘Or perhaps there’s only one killer and he was in a hurry, and didn’t have time to plan out the second murder properly,’ Geraldine suggested.

  Eileen frowned. ‘“Properly” is hardly a word I’d use to describe what happened.’

  ‘Or maybe he wasn’t planning to kill her just then, but the opportunity came up and he seized it,’ Geraldine went on. ‘My guess is that Mark was murdered in a meticulously planned attack that left nothing to suggest he had been killed. Amanda seems to have been alone in refusing to believe her brother had committed suicide.’

  ‘Why was she sceptical?’ Eileen asked.

  Geraldine thought for a second. ‘She was adamant that her brother wasn’t the kind of man who would kill himself.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Eileen pressed her.

  Geraldine frowned with the effort to remember. ‘She told me he loved life. He wasn’t a weak man, and in any case he had no reason to want to end his life. He was in robust health and had never suffered from depression.’

  ‘Do you want to check your notes? It’s important to be exact,’ Eileen said.

  Geraldine shook her head. Slowly she went through a mental list of points covering what Amanda had told her. ‘I don’t need to check. I can remember everything she said. “I knew my brother. He would never have killed himself. He had a cheerful disposition. He didn’t suffer from depression. He didn’t have money worries, or a problem with drink or drugs. There was nothing in his life that might have made him want to end it. Hanging doesn’t happen by accident.” That’s the gist of what she told me.’

  Eileen had been checking her iPad while Geraldine was talking. She must have been impressed by Geraldine’s accurate recall of what she had heard nearly a week earlier, because she smiled approvingly at her.

  ‘It’s a mercy Mark and Amanda’s parents aren’t alive,’ Ariadne said softly.

  Geraldine nodded in agreement. To lose even one child in so violent a manner would be unbearable. Two was unthinkable. Yet it had happened.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why she was wearing her slippers and what one of her shoes was doing outside the house,’ Naomi said.

  ‘What we need is not speculation, but more evidence to clarify what really happened to the two victims,’ Eileen said.

  ‘I think you’re right; Amanda must have known something about Mark’s murder and that’s why she was killed,’ Naomi told Geraldine when they met by chance in the canteen that afternoon.

  They sat down at a table together to drink coffee and discuss the questions raised by Amanda’s death. Geraldine couldn’t understand why the killer had attempted to disguise the murder as a hit and run, when it must be obvious to any fool that the ruse would be exposed as soon as the body was examined.

  ‘The killer’s an idiot,’ Naomi responded promptly. ‘Good thing too. It’ll make our job a whole lot easier.’

  Geraldine put her mug down and shook her head. ‘But that doesn’t stack up with the first murder being so cleverly managed.’

  ‘Maybe that was just luck?’

  Geraldine shook her head again. No one concealed a murder by fluke. The police had too many sophisticated resources at their disposal for analysing the minutest shred of evidence. Mark had been killed by someone capable of plotting and executing a plan as clever as it was diabolical. Given that they were fairly certain both Mark and Amanda h
ad been killed by the same person, using the same kind of rope, the only answer that made any sense was that Amanda had been killed in a hurry, meaning the killer hadn’t been able to cover his tracks so skilfully. It seemed that Amanda had been killed in order to prevent her from convincing the police that Mark had been murdered. Ironically, not only had that scheme failed, but Amanda’s murder had been the catalyst for opening an investigation into Mark’s death which would hopefully result in a conviction. In killing Amanda to protect himself from discovery, the killer had sealed his own fate. But first they had to find him. And in the meantime, there might be other witnesses whose lives were at risk.

  ‘We’ll soon track him down,’ Naomi said.

  ‘We could be looking for a woman,’ Geraldine pointed out.

  ‘Either way, he or she can’t stay hidden for long.’

  Geraldine frowned. The killer didn’t need to hide, because no one knew who had committed the murders. Right at that moment he or she could be walking the streets in broad daylight, planning another murder.

  28

  By Sunday Geraldine was exhausted but there was no time for her to have a lie in. She had too much to do, but she didn’t mind that. Her days off were generally empty, unless she was going to see one of her sisters. She thought wistfully of her lazy mornings in North London, when she had been working for the Met. Occasionally she used to get up late and wander along Upper Street for coffee and breakfast in one of the smart cafés along the High Street in Islington. Today she had to settle for a home-brewed pot of coffee and some toast. She had decided not to go and see either Helena or Celia that weekend. For a while she had been bouncing from one to the other, depending on which sister she felt most guilty about not visiting.

  Celia had a new baby, which gave her a claim on Geraldine’s attention. Although they were only sisters by adoption, they had grown up together and developed a far closer relationship than Geraldine was ever likely to establish with the birth twin she had recently met. But balanced against Celia’s situation was the fact that Helena was a recovering heroin addict who had recently come out of a private rehabilitation clinic, which Geraldine had paid for. It was difficult having to opt for one sister or the other, and she was never sure whether she had made the right choice. But today was different, because she had work to do.