Kennedy 03 - Where Petals Fall

by Shirley Wells

  ‘You carried on as best you could, keeping contact to a minimum. You worked for Carol and became her best friend. Why not? You’re a lovely woman, and she desperately needed a friend after the accident that claimed thelives of her sisters. Then, one day, she told you how much she was worth. Not only that, she told you that you’d inherit the lot. Hey presto. A solution. You and Finlay could be together. You could go right away, to somewhere no one knew you. You could live as man and wife. With millions in the bank, you could live anywhere. No longer would you have to fight the attraction.’

  ‘You’re mad!’ Ruth cried. ‘Mad, mad, mad! I won’t listen to this. I won’t.’

  ‘Then tell us your version of events,’ Max suggested.

  ‘How can I? I’ve never heard of Finlay Roberts. I never knew – I swear I never knew that Carol intended to leave me her money. Even if she had, it wouldn’t have mattered because I had no idea she was worth so much. It’s the truth, I swear it.’

  Never in a million years.

  ‘Finlay would have come across the video tapes. He knew Ralph Atkins’s wife, didn’t he? I don’t know how, but he got hold of those videos. Ah – Finlay used to buy and sell stuff, didn’t he? Ralph Atkins intended to sell those videos. So Finlay bought the videos from him. Oh, yes, the idea of copying the murders would have fascinated Finlay. He enjoys playing games. That’s why he was threading red ribbon through Carol’s hair. More games.’

  Jill paused for breath. Her heart was racing, but she had no doubts, none at all. With every second it all became much clearer.

  ‘It was Finlay getting those tapes that put the idea of murder into your heads, wasn’t it? That’s when the whole thing started and you realized you could be together. He killed Carol while you were safely on holiday in Spain. He was bright enough to know that, if Cass remembered him flirting with Carol in the shop, the finger would be pointed at him. But hey, that didn’t matter. If he was taken in for questioning, you could get him off the hook. You killed Nikki while he was under lock and key, didn’t you? You chose Nikki because she had a link to Vince Blakely. You’d heard him or Carol talking about the girl who damaged hiscar, the girl who had the audacity to tell him her name and dare him to call 999. You tried to make us think that he was behind it all. And you chose her because she was small – far easier for a woman to kill.’

  ‘No!’ The word came with all the force of a bullet.

  ‘Ruth Asimacopoulos –’

  Max got no further. A tall, rangy dark mass hurled itself at him.

  Finlay Roberts!

  Jill felt something hot and sticky splash on to her face. Blood. It was pouring out of Max’s arm as he tried to overpower Finlay Roberts.

  Ruth was screaming. ‘Finlay, no! Enough!’

  Jill lifted that heavy vase and brought it down on Roberts’s head. It dazed him, and he staggered sufficiently for Max to get him on the ground and pin him down.

  Jill tore off her shirt and tied it tight around Max’s arm. She hated the sight of blood, always had.

  Just as she was groping for her phone, Max’s rang and Jill grabbed it from his shirt pocket.

  ‘Never mind that,’ she cut off DC Simpson, ‘get an ambulance for Max and some back-up. Fourteen Dale Street. Quick!’

  DC Simpson didn’t stop to ask questions. Before he cut the connection, Jill heard him shouting, ‘Officer down!’

  Ruth had stopped screaming.

  ‘I’ll get you a shirt, Jill,’ she said, and her voice was chillingly calm now.

  Jill didn’t care that she was only wearing a bra and jeans. All that mattered was trying to lessen the amount of blood that Max was losing.

  Ruth returned with a long-sleeved black shirt. She draped it gently around Jill’s shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, and she gave Jill’s shoulder a brief squeeze.

  Then, quite still, she gazed at Finlay. ‘It’s all over, my love,’ she whispered.

  Too late, Jill saw the gun in her hand. ‘Ruth, no!’

  The noise was deafening.

  Jill glimpsed the hole in Finlay’s head, and quickly looked away.

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ Max lunged at Ruth, but he was a second too late.

  Ruth put the barrel of the gun inside her mouth and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The sun was relentless, and Jill knew she ought to seek out some shade. On the other hand, with a Lancashire winter ahead of her, she wanted to make the most of every ray the Spanish sun could offer.

  She was lying on her stomach with her eyes closed. As she wriggled her toes, hot sand wedged between them. This was the life. No work, no chores, no mail, no phone, nothing to think about other than summoning enough energy to wander back to the bar. Bliss.

  OK, so no phone was a slight exaggeration she thought as it rang out, but she wasn’t answering it unless she wanted to.

  Shielding her eyes from the sun, she groped in her bag and saw from the display that it was Louise. This was one call she did want to take.

  ‘Louise, hi.’

  ‘Did I wake you?’ Louise asked, concerned.

  ‘No. I might sound half asleep, but that’s only because it’s far too hot on the beach and I’m too lazy to move.’

  ‘Oh, poor you. Really, my heart bleeds for you,’ Louise said, and Jill laughed.

  ‘Sorry. So how are you, Lou?’

  ‘I’m good,’ she answered immediately. ‘I have bad days and good days, you know, but, on the whole, I’m OK. Anyway, I thought I’d let you know that I’ve decided to stay in Kelton Bridge. You were right; running away won’t solve anything. In any case, as much as I love Connie, she’ddrive me mad if I lived on her doorstep. She’s wonderful, but only in small doses.’

  ‘Yes, I can understand that.’

  Jill couldn’t have loved her own sister more, but life with Prue in close proximity would be sheer hell.

  ‘Oh, and I’m going out to dinner this evening.’

  ‘What? Who with?’

  ‘Only Jon,’ Louise told her, ‘and, really, it’s to discuss the fund I’m setting up in Nikki’s name, but, well, I thought you’d be interested.’

  ‘Jon?’ she teased. ‘I suppose that’s Dr Thorpe to the rest of us.’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘I don’t suppose you could discuss such things in his office? No, of course you couldn’t. Oh, Lou, I’m only joking. I couldn’t be more thrilled. He’s so good for you.’

  ‘He is. I couldn’t have coped without him.’

  Since visiting Louise the morning after Nikki’s body was found, Jon Thorpe had called on her every day. Sometimes twice a day. Jill had suspected he had more than a professional interest in his patient.

  ‘So how about you?’ Louise asked. ‘How’s Max?’

  ‘He’s gone wind surfing with the boys,’ Jill told her. ‘Mad fool. Still, it’s his neck.’

  ‘And how are the, um, accommodation arrangements working out?’

  Jill spluttered with laughter. ‘Just fine. And stop fishing for information. I’ll tell all when I get home.’

  Tears from nowhere filled her eyes, and she had to blink them back. Louise was going to be fine and the relief was immense.

  Jill ended the call and, although it was tempting to remain slothlike, she knew she had to get out of the sun. With great reluctance, she gathered up her few belongings and strolled along to the nearby beach bar. There were postcards to be written and she could deal with those while she enjoyed a long, cold drink in the shade.

  She was midway through a gloating note to her sister when Max strode up the beach and dropped on to the chair opposite her.

  ‘I’m knackered,’ he said. ‘God knows where they get their energy. Thankfully, they’ve just gone out on the boat so we’ve got some peace and quiet.’ He eyed her critically. ‘You’re looking very –’

  ‘Burnt?’ she suggested.

  ‘Well, yes, but that wasn’t the word I was groping for. Relaxed. Happy.’

  ‘I am.’ She
nodded with satisfaction. ‘Louise just phoned me. She’s going out to dinner with Jon this evening.’

  ‘Jon?’

  ‘Dr Thorpe.’

  ‘Is she indeed? I told you he’d got his eye on her.’

  ‘You did. That was very observant of you, Max.’

  The waiter came over, recognized Max and, as usual, tried out his English. ‘A big beer, yes?’

  ‘Very big, yes,’ Max replied. ‘Jill?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’m OK for the moment.’

  ‘Do you think Louise will get over this?’ he asked when they were alone again.

  ‘Yes, I do. As much as anyone ever does, at any rate.’

  He nodded at that. ‘And how about you?’

  ‘Me?’

  He moved his chair closer to her so that he wasn’t squinting. ‘You liked Ruth, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did, yes.’ For as long as she lived, Jill would never forget the way Ruth had turned that gun on herself . . .

  Max’s drink was put down on the table, and he nodded his thanks to the waiter.

  ‘It was good work, Jill.’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘You know as well as I do that instead of blundering on like that, we should have left the house and discussed it together. That way, two lives might have been saved.’

  ‘Two people would have been banged up for life,’ Maxcorrected her. ‘And neither of them would have wanted that,’ he added.

  Jill knew he had a point.

  ‘If the initial letters on the card with those flowers hadn’t been so large, I wouldn’t have associated the Truly, madly, deeply message with the TMD on the photo in Roberts’s bedroom,’ she mused. ‘It all made sense then. I knew that the only person Finlay Roberts would trust when it came to something as serious as murder was his much-loved half-sister. Ruth stood to cop the lot, yet we never gave her a second thought, did we?’

  ‘Because she was in Spain when Carol was murdered.’

  ‘I cocked up big style,’ Jill said. ‘I shouldn’t have faced her like that. But I liked her. I even thought of her as a friend. I certainly didn’t consider her dangerous.’

  ‘A plan might have come in useful,’ he agreed.

  ‘But how the hell was I to know Roberts was there? I mean, in the building. God, that gave me the shock of my life.’

  ‘It didn’t do much for me, either. Still, it’s over now.’

  It was certainly over for Ruth and Finlay.

  When Jill thought back to that day, the thing that stuck in her mind most was the way Ruth had draped that shirt so tenderly across her bare shoulders.

  Max’s phone rang and, just as Jill was cursing the things and thinking they should be banned on holiday, her own rang.

  She saw from the display that Andy Collins was calling her and her heart skipped a quick beat. What had seemed like a good idea now resembled madness.

  She hesitated briefly, but Max was busy talking on his phone, so she answered it.

  ‘Hi, Andy.’

  ‘How’s Spain?’ he asked her.

  ‘Hot and sunny. Just what the doctor ordered.’ But she didn’t want to discuss the weather. She wanted to know if she owned Kelton Manor. ‘Well?’

  ‘Sorry, Jill. It made far more than we expected. One point four million, in fact.’

  ‘One point four million?’

  Her shocked outburst had Max looking at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

  ‘Oh, well, never mind, Andy. It was a stupid idea.’

  ‘An American businessman’s bought it,’ he told her. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. Actually, I’m quite relieved . . .’

  She was, too. It had been a crazy idea.

  She ended her call at the same moment that Max ended his.

  ‘One point four million, eh?’ he murmured.

  ‘Kelton Manor,’ she explained. ‘I’d asked Andy to let me know how the auction went.’

  ‘Really.’ That unfathomable expression was still there. ‘You weren’t bidding for it, were you?’

  ‘Me? Good heavens, no.’

  It was fortunate that the hours spent in the sun meant the wave of colour that invaded her face wasn’t noticeable.

  ‘Apparently, an American’s bought it,’ he said.

  She looked at him, frowning. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I asked someone to let me know, too.’

  ‘You weren’t bidding for it, were you?’ she asked in amazement. ‘Good God, you were, weren’t you? Would you believe that? Between us, we’ve made that American pay a fortune for it.’

  ‘Ah, so you were bidding.’

  ‘I might have been,’ she admitted. ‘I heard it wasn’t expected to fetch much. The reserve was only five hundred grand.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But why the devil would you want to live in Kelton? You hate villages.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said with amusement, ‘I might hate them, but there’s something in that particular village that I’m desperate to get my hands on.’

  She laughed at that. ‘You’re full of crap.’

  She watched him take a long drink from his glass, absently rubbing the scar on his arm as he did so.

  ‘So,’ he said idly, gazing around at the tables, ‘how much do you reckon this place is worth? I reckon we could easily afford it. We could have Shergar fixing the drinks –’

  ‘Lord Lucan in charge of the cellar –’

  ‘Elvis knocking up the burgers –’

  ‘Phil Meredith cleaning the tables –’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’ Max grinned at that. ‘Yes, I like that idea.’

  They lapsed into silence and sat back to enjoy their surroundings. Max soon ordered them more drinks and the minutes ticked by in a companionable silence.

  At long last, they were easy together, Jill thought. Three years had passed since they split up and, somehow, they’d weathered the ups and downs. Now, finally, they were at ease.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked curiously.

  ‘Max, if I wanted you to know what I was thinking, I’d be talking to you.’

  ‘Hm.’

  The silence lasted a few more minutes.

  ‘I suppose a quick shag’s out of the question?’ he asked at last, and Jill felt a smile tugging at her lips.

  ‘Why not? I’ve got a couple of minutes to kill. It must be your lucky day, detective.’