The Wrong Mother

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘No. Encarna would have complained… about Jonathan and Amy. Oh, my God!’ This time Charlie knew she understood.

  ‘The names had to change, if we were going to believe it was Geraldine’s diary. Quickest way? Find and replace all. Any idiot can do it in a keystroke.’

  ‘So all the Jonathans became Marks. Amy became Lucy.’

  Simon nodded, playing bumper cars with the Audi in front of him. ‘Come on!’ he muttered through gritted teeth.

  ‘But… So William Markes…?’

  ‘Encarna Oliva called her husband Jon. And the “find and replace” manoeuvre did a bit more than Hey wanted it to. It changed Jon to Mark wherever necessary, yes, but Hey forgot that the letters j-o-n, like m-a-r-k, might crop up in other contexts too.’

  Charlie chewed the skin around her thumbnail. ‘Which would make William Markes… William Jones?’

  ‘Right,’ said Simon. ‘The husband of Michelle Jones, who used to be Michelle Greenwood-Amy Oliva’s nanny. When Michelle told Encarna she had a boyfriend, Encarna was terrified he’d want to marry her; she was right, as it turns out. She was scared Michelle would have a family of her own, a life of her own. That’s what she meant when she said that a man called William Jones-a man she hadn’t yet met, but had heard about from Michelle-was probably going to ruin her life.’

  ‘Simon, you are a marvel of the modern world.’ Charlie inhaled deeply. This would be the best cigarette she had ever smoked, she could tell immediately. ‘But hang on… So you’d worked out that someone had done find and replace, but how did you get from that to knowing it was Jonathan Hey? How did you know Mark had replaced Jon, rather than, say, Paul or Fred?’

  ‘I got it wrong at first,’ Simon muttered, embarrassed. ‘When Sellers told me Amy Oliva’s father’s name was Angel. I assumed William Markes was William Angeles; thank God I didn’t go straight to the Snowman with it. Maybe on some level I knew it didn’t sound right. Because it wasn’t. Hey sent us on a wild-goose chase, pretending to be the man who’d bought the Olivas’ house, calling himself Harry Martineau. He invented a completely made-up father for Amy: Angel Oliva, a heart surgeon at Culver Valley General.’

  ‘Where Sally Thorning’s husband works,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Yeah, Hey knew that. No doubt it was his inspiration. This is no good.’ Simon jerked the car to the left and started to drive too fast along the pavement.

  ‘Simon, no! You’ll-’

  ‘Hey was obsessed with Geraldine Bretherick. He pretended to be her husband when he met Sally Thorning at Seddon Hall. One reason for pretending to be a man is envy: if you covet his wife and daughter-’

  ‘Covet? Have you been at the Bible again?’

  ‘But he ended up killing Geraldine, maybe because she didn’t want him. So who’s the next best thing? Sally Thorning, carbon copy of his murdered love object, a woman he’s already met a year previously. He kidnaps her-this time he’s not going to risk rejection. He transfers his fixation from Geraldine to Sally. And when he next needs a persona to hide behind, when Sellers and Gibbs are knocking on his door, Hey makes himself a colleague of Nick Thorning, Sally’s husband.’

  ‘But… if Harry Martineau was Hey’s invented alias, why did you think you recognised the name?’ asked Charlie, confused.

  ‘I thought I’d come across it before, but I hadn’t. Not as a man’s name, anyway,’ said Simon. ‘It hit me when Pam Senior started talking about When Harry Met Sally. The fictional Harry Martineau was a tribute to one of Hey’s idols: Harriet Martineau, the sociologist. I saw her name on dozens of books in his office in Cambridge-books about her, books by her. That’s why the name seemed familiar.’

  The traffic had started to flow freely again. Simon drove back on to the road and speeded up to sixty. Ten seconds later he had to slam on the brakes as they approached the falling arms of the level crossing. ‘Fucking hell! Come on!’

  Charlie could see the tension in his shoulders. She thought about massaging the back of his neck with her fingertips. Impossible. She said, ‘Assuming you’re right about Hey killing Geraldine because she didn’t want him, why kill Lucy too?’

  ‘I don’t know. I could guess.’

  Charlie waited.

  ‘He didn’t only want Geraldine. He wanted Geraldine and Lucy, the whole happy family package, exactly what Mark Bretherick had. Like a lot of people, Hey saw the Brethericks as the perfect happy family-the dream, the ideal. If he’d killed his own wife and daughter in order to replace them with that ideal and then Geraldine rejected him…’ Simon shrugged. ‘Just a theory,’ he said.

  ‘The note,’ said Charlie. ‘You said it wasn’t a suicide note.’

  Simon’s shoulders lost a little of their stiffness. He was back on safe ground: answers he knew for certain. ‘Sally Thorning was carrying a black-covered book when she let herself into the flat last night. Did you notice?’

  ‘No. I was too busy scraping her up off the floor.’

  ‘I found the first page of a letter tucked inside the cover, a letter in Geraldine Bretherick’s handwriting. First thing this morning I put it together with the so-called suicide note…’

  ‘Second page of the same letter?’ Charlie guessed.

  Simon nodded. ‘Geraldine used two sheets instead of turning the first one over and writing on the back of it. I made copies of the full letter; there’s one on the back seat. Lean over, you might be able to grab it.’

  Charlie was already unbuckling her seat belt. With her cigarette in her mouth, and using her index finger and thumb as pincers, she gripped the sheet of paper and swung back round. You could see the join where the two sheets of paper had been placed side by side, a grainy grey line on the photocopy.

  She started to read.

  Dear Encarna,

  I very nearly didn’t write this letter. I was scared of being honest, as people so often are, but a rumour got back to me that you didn’t believe we were really going away, and I simply couldn’t let that go unanswered. We have rented a place in Tallahassee, Florida, for the whole of half-term. We fly from Heathrow on Sunday, 21 May at 11 a.m. Our flight number, if you want to ring up and check, is BA135. We fly back on Sunday, 4 June, setting off at 7.30 a.m., and the flight number for our return flight is BA136. I have the tickets at home, and would be happy to let you see them if it would help.

  If I were not going away, if I were planning to spend the whole holiday here in Spilling, I hope I would have had the courage to say no to having Amy for two weeks anyway, no matter what gifts or payment you offered me. Your offers were hugely generous, and I’m flattered that you thought of me, and I hope you’ll believe me when I say I mean you no ill-will. I don’t blame you for anything-I don’t agree at all with the whole blame-the-parents line. I’ve always liked and respected you, and thought you hilariously outspoken and brave and assertive in a way I could never be, which is why I want to be absolutely honest with you. You know that I, along with many of the other parents from Form 1, have certain issues about Amy’s behaviour, particularly around the matter of truthfulness. I know the teachers as well as some of the parents have spoken to you about it. I hope that you know by now these problems are genuine and serious and not just all of us being over-protective mother hens. Put yourself in my position: how could I ignore my concerns and say yes? Mark and I have brought Lucy up to be totally open and honest, and so it’s upsetting and confusing for her to be around Amy.

  The rest, the second page, Charlie had read once before, but she read it aloud now for the first time, knowing its author had not planned to take her own life. ‘ “I’m so sorry. The last thing I want to do is cause any hurt or upset to anyone. I think it’s better if I don’t go into a long, detailed explanation-I don’t want to lie, and I don’t want to make things any worse. Please forgive me. I know it must seem as if I’m being dreadfully selfish, but I have to think about what’s best for Lucy. I’m really, truly sorry. Geraldine.” ’

  ‘Hey must have felt like the cat who got the cream wh
en he realised he could use the second page of that letter as Geraldine’s suicide note,’ said Simon.

  Charlie read it again. ‘Encarna obviously accused her of lying about the Florida trip. What a cheek.’

  Simon turned into the lane that led down to Corn Mill House. ‘Nearly here,’ he said. ‘Probably too late.’

  Charlie blinked. She hadn’t noticed that they weren’t still stuck at the level crossing. Her seat belt clicked and stiffened each time she banged against it. Simon was driving as if in training for an Olympic hurdling event. ‘Watch out,’ she yelled. ‘You can drive around potholes, you know. Use the steering wheel!’

  A heavy sigh, but he did as she suggested.

  ‘The diary file,’ said Charlie, throwing her cigarette end out of the car window. ‘If it was on Geraldine’s laptop before she died…’

  ‘Weeks before,’ said Simon. ‘And it wasn’t all done in one go-the file was opened more than once. Norman gave me the dates. Every time it was opened apart from the last time, Geraldine was still alive.’

  ‘But not the last time?’

  ‘No. That was the third of August-she was dead by then. Hey opened it after he’d killed her. Oh, no, I don’t believe it!’ Simon smacked the steering wheel with both hands. A DHL delivery van was approaching them head-on and there was no room for it to pass. ‘I hate this fucking lane. No! No, you reverse, you fucking wanker!’

  ‘Look at his face,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s not going to budge. We’ll have to go back. What are you…? Simon, by the time you’ve got out and told him you’re CID… We’ll get there quicker if we go back and let him out!’

  Simon slammed his door shut and started to jerk back over the potholes. Charlie pictured herself getting married in a neck-brace. To stop Simon swearing continually under his breath, she asked another question. ‘How did Hey get access to the Brethericks’ computer while Geraldine was still alive, then?’ Are men like babies? Is trying to distract them a better tactic than asking them to behave reasonably? ‘And does that mean Hey had been planning Geraldine and Lucy’s murders for months, or weeks? If he opened the diary file long before-’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Simon.

  ‘He didn’t? Then who did? Encarna herself?’

  ‘She’d been dead over a year.’ Simon almost smiled. ‘The book Sally Thorning was holding when she walked in last night-you haven’t asked me what it was.’

  ‘Oh, God, I’m going to start drafting a suicide note in a minute.’

  ‘It was Encarna Oliva’s diary. Written in Spanish. Remember where Geraldine Bretherick worked?’

  ‘She was an IT helpdesk bod, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, but where?’

  ‘Um… I don’t know!’

  ‘The Garcia Lorca Institute-a language school. A Spanish language school.’ Charlie’s eyes widened; she said nothing. ‘The diary we found on Geraldine’s laptop was a second draft. Norman found the deleted first draft: the writing was stiff and wooden. It made sense, but it was clumsy-’

  Charlie gasped. ‘Did Geraldine speak Spanish?’

  ‘I phoned the Garcia Lorca Institute the second I left Norman’s office. Yes, she did. They’ve got a policy: all their employees must be fluent in Spanish, even the techies.’

  ‘Oh, my God! Geraldine translated Encarna’s diary. She translated it for Hey. That’s why it was on her computer.’

  Simon nodded. ‘But I’ve got to make him talk if I want to find out why.’

  The DHL van had passed them. They were going forwards again. ‘I could and should have made the connection sooner,’ said Simon. ‘Between Geraldine’s old workplace and Encarna Oliva being Spanish. The diary: it’s full of words and phrases inside quotation marks, things Encarna thought were best expressed in English. “Hunky-dory”, “crunch time”, “status quo”…’

  ‘That’s Latin,’ Charlie pointed out.

  ‘In the original handwritten diary, hunky-dory and most of the other phrases in speech-marks are written in English. Geraldine, when she translated the diary, must have decided to keep the quotes around those words.’

  ‘That’s how you worked it out.’ Charlie shook her head in disbelief. ‘Stacey’s French assignment, “My Friend François”.’

  ‘I’d have got it anyway,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ said Charlie crossly. His solving the puzzle had been accidental, a by-product of doing his job. He hadn’t sweated over it… ‘You cheated,’ she said quietly.

  They pulled up outside Corn Mill House. In the heat’s haze, the house and garden seemed still and remote, like an apparition more than a real physical presence. Bretherick isn’t here, thought Charlie, feeling the emptiness all around her.

  Simon rang the doorbell, then smashed a side window when he got no answer. There were a few frantic minutes of running, up and down the stairs, opening every door, looking underneath and behind every piece of furniture. And of course the bathrooms: Charlie noticed that Simon left it to her to check both of them.

  They did not find Mark Bretherick. They found nothing but silence and rooms full of air that felt unnaturally cool, given the temperature outside.

  ‘What do you reckon that line means?’ Sellers asked Gibbs, looking at the long, thin strip of red tape that bisected the floor area. They’d got a key to the premises of Spilling Magnetic Refrigeration from Hans, Mark Bretherick’s second-in-command, an earnest, stick-thin German whose baggy corduroy trousers and enormous white trainers looked as if they weighed more than he did.

  ‘Some kind of health and safety shit,’ said Gibbs, stepping over the red line.

  ‘Careful,’ said Sellers. ‘Something might explode.’

  ‘We can’t just look in the office and leave it at that. He might be in here somewhere.’

  Sellers sighed and followed him. He’d been rubbish at science at school, had been slightly afraid of it and hated all the trappings-Bunsen burners, goggles, pipettes. He had no desire to leave the beige-carpeted, potted-plant-studded haven of the office and venture into the workshop, with its metallic smell, harsh spotlights and dusty concrete floor.

  ‘He isn’t here, though, is he?’ Sellers complained, looking around at what was. Six large silver cylinders were lined up against one wall: were these the fridges Mark Bretherick made? They looked very different from Sellers’ idea of a fridge; perhaps they were units for storing… oh, who the fuck knew what they were?

  Wooden shelves covered another wall, on which were piled coils of wire, cables, drills, something that looked like a large steel snake, something else that looked like a television remote control, a machine that resembled a cash register. It had to have some more confusing scientific purpose, one Sellers wouldn’t be able to fathom if he examined it for a million years. His eyes were drawn to a small machine with a part attached to it that might rotate, or looked as if it might. Part of a magnetic refrigeration unit? Does rotation cause coldness?

  On a cork notice board, several sheets of paper were held in place by drawing pins with round, red heads. Sellers tried to read one that was headed ‘SMR Experimental Insert’, but was quickly deterred by words he’d never heard of: flange, brazing, goniometer, dewar, baffles. Baffled-now there was a word Sellers understood. He thought about doing an OU degree.

  ‘Bretherick’s not here,’ he said. ‘Let’s ring Stepford and head back.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Gibbs. He nodded at the silver cylinders. ‘We need to check those, and the wooden crates next to them; anything big enough to fit a body in.’

  ‘Oh, come on! Hey hasn’t killed Bretherick. Why would he?’

  Gibbs shrugged. ‘He enjoys killing people? He’s clocked up four so far. Would have been five if Sally Thorning hadn’t fought back.’

  ‘Bretherick’s not here,’ said Sellers. ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘So where is he? Why hasn’t he been in touch? He’d want to keep tabs on our progress. There’s no way he’d go off somewhere and switch off his mobile. I don’t buy it.’
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br />   ‘I do,’ said Sellers. ‘First we accuse his wife of murder, then him. Then we say, “Oh, sorry, mate, we fucked up. You’re in the clear, so’s your missus. Pity she’s dead.” I’m not surprised he wants nothing to do with us.’

  Gibbs dragged a chair from the office through to the workshop. Sellers watched as he moved it and himself patiently along the line of large silver vats, looking inside each one. ‘Well? What’s in them?’

  ‘Long, transparent tubes, looks like. With little-’

  ‘Not Mark Bretherick, then? He’s all we’re looking for.’

  One by one, Gibbs threw open the doors of the seven large wooden packing crates. ‘Empty,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘I’ll just ring Stepford and…’ Sellers fiddled with his mobile phone. ‘Can’t get a signal.’

  ‘Use a phone in there.’

  Sellers headed back to the office area and Gibbs followed, carrying the chair in front of him. He’d almost reached the red line, about to cross to safety, when he heard Sellers shout, ‘Watch out, there’s-’ It was too late. Gibbs was on the floor clutching his shin, trying to swallow the loud, undignified noises he wanted to make. Next to his face was a cylinder of solid metal with a rounded edge, about twenty inches across and four inches high. It was sticking out of a hole in the floor. He’d tripped and banged his shin on the cold, hard metal.

  ‘Are you okay? Let’s have a look.’

  Gibbs wasn’t going to roll up his trouser leg and let Sellers inspect his wound like an old woman. ‘I’m okay,’ he said, though the pain felt as if it was ripping through his whole body.

  Sellers grinned. ‘Shouldn’t have crossed the red line.’ He swore under his breath. ‘This phone’s not working either.’

  ‘You’ll get a signal outside.’

  ‘Chris? None of the phones in this office are working. All the wires have been cut.’ Sellers waved a length of white cable in the air.

  ‘He was here.’ Gibbs tried to stand.