‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ he said.
‘I think you do.’
‘I want my solicitor present.’
‘By all means call them. But while we’re waiting for them to arrive, I’m going to ask you a question anyway. Are you Della Cardle’s father?’
69
Bramwell tried to hide his shock but failed miserably. His mouth went slack and he clamped his right hand to his chest, as though he couldn’t breathe.
‘You do remember Helen Cardle, don’t you?’ said Maggie measuredly as she sat down again at his bedside. He watched her keenly, his eyes filled with apprehension.
‘Is Della your daughter?’ she asked again. Bramwell had already proved how good he was at masking the truth: if she let him have too long to think he could concoct even more lies. ‘You knew her mother well, didn’t you? Were you the one-night stand she had that resulted in Della?’
Bramwell shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes you do.’ She changed tack for a moment. ‘Did you know your wife secretly booked a hotel room two weeks ago in Mansell? At the Langston Hotel on Bishop’s Hill. You might remember it from when you lived in the town as Niall Hargreaves; it’s been there for decades.’
‘I know the hotel, but I don’t know why Eleanor would’ve booked a room there.’
‘She paid for it in cash and the name she used when she registered was Helen Cardle. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
Bramwell didn’t respond.
‘What’s really ironic is that Helen’s daughter, Della, actually works in the very same hotel. You know Della, don’t you? She was just three when Helen walked out on her. The date was August twenty-first 1999 – the same day you killed your friends in that crash and also the same day you and Helen were pictured together at the Mansell Show. The Echo ran the photo in its coverage. I found it in their archives: that’s how I recognized you.’
The door opened and Maggie looked round as DI Green entered the room. Their eyes locked and a look of understanding passed between them. Green said nothing as she leaned against the wall by the door, arms folded, face impassive.
‘So we know you’ve met Helen Cardle at least once,’ Maggie continued. ‘Although judging by the way your hand was groping her thigh, I’d say it was probably more than that.’
Finally Bramwell spoke. His voice was raspy and thin.
‘That photograph doesn’t prove anything.’
‘No, it doesn’t. So I’ll ask you again: are you Della’s biological father?’
Bramwell clamped his hand tighter to his chest.
‘I know Della is very keen to find out more about her parents. It’s been very hard for her growing up without a mum and dad,’ said Maggie. ‘I don’t think she’ll ever get over the loss she feels.’
His eyes flickered shut. When he opened them again, they brimmed with unshed tears.
‘How is her grandmother?’
‘I’m afraid Sadie Cardle died on Wednesday.’
His hand moved from his chest to his mouth.
‘You need to tell us everything,’ said Maggie firmly. ‘What is your relationship to Helen and her family and why did Eleanor attack Sadie?’
Bramwell shook his head.
‘Please, for Della’s sake.’ Maggie held his gaze. ‘She lost her mum when she was just a kid, she doesn’t know who her dad is and the only family she had left was her nan and now she’s dead. At the very least, she deserves to know why Sadie was targeted by your wife.’
He finally broke down.
‘I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,’ he sobbed.
DI Green moved from the doorway and sat down quietly beside Maggie. Surreptitiously she took out her notebook and began to write.
‘I never thought Eleanor would find out. I don’t know how she did.’
‘Are you Della’s father?’ Maggie asked again.
He shook his head.
‘No. I never slept with Helen.’
‘So you do admit to knowing her?’
‘We were friends. Fleur introduced us. Fleur was seeing my best mate, Ross.’
‘We know you and Eleanor are struggling to have children. Perhaps she believes you’re Della’s father and that’s why she went to Sadie’s house? We think she stole dozens of photographs of Della as a child from some albums Sadie had. They’ve been found in the hotel room she booked in Helen’s name, along with Sadie’s wedding and engagement rings.’
‘Eleanor doesn’t think I’m Della’s father,’ said Bramwell flatly.
‘Okay, you need to help me out here, because I’m confused,’ said Maggie. ‘So why go after Sadie?’
Bramwell’s shoulders slumped and he slowly exhaled. The fight had gone out of him. DI Green said quietly, ‘It’s time to tell us the truth, Mr Bramwell.’
He gazed off into the distance as he began to talk, eyes unfocused as his memory transported him right back to that day in August 1999, as real as if he was sitting there again on the grass with his friends.
‘I fancied Helen, I had done for ages. She was beautiful. Not just to look at, but as a person too. She was funny and intelligent and we would talk for hours. But every time I asked her out she said no and she always used the baby as an excuse, saying she didn’t have time to get involved with anyone. But I knew that was rubbish because she wasn’t exactly the model mum. She hardly spent any time with the kid.’ He swallowed hard. ‘She didn’t like me like that. She only saw me as a friend.’
‘Tell us about the day of the crash,’ said Maggie. ‘Did Helen arrange to meet you at the Mansell Show?’
‘Yes, in the afternoon. We hung out there for a bit and then sat in the park, drinking and talking.’
‘Was she with you all day?’
‘By late afternoon she said she wanted to go home in time for Della’s bedtime. Her parents were giving her grief and threatening to chuck her out if she didn’t get her act together. But I talked her out of going. I thought that if I got her to stay, something might finally happen.’
‘Such as?’ said Green, clearly wanting him to spell it out.
‘I thought I could get her drunk enough to sleep with me.’
There was no shame in his voice as he said it. Maggie guessed it was because it wasn’t the worst thing he did that evening.
‘Did she?’ asked Green.
‘No.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Someone, I don’t remember who, suggested we all go for a drive in my van, which was nuts because I’d been drinking all afternoon. But in those days you didn’t care about drink driving like you do now. I think it was Ross who said we should go up to Barnes Wood to check out the disused chalk mines. They’d been boarded up for years but he reckoned he knew a way to get in. It took us a while to find them though; we had to leave the van in a lay-by and walk through the woods.’
‘How did you get into the mine? A lot of the tunnels have collapsed,’ said Maggie. ‘The entrance was closed up and grassed over once the mines were shut down in the 1950s.’
‘Not everything was covered over – there are the air vent shafts. Some of them weren’t filled in and Ross knew where to find one. There was a grille over the vent that was padlocked shut but Kelvin managed to pick it open. We had to climb down this ladder inside the vent to get to the bottom but it was amazing once we got inside. All these little tunnels and caves to explore.’
‘What happened once you were down there?’ asked Maggie.
‘We had more booze with us and carried on drinking. But then Fleur started to freak out about feeling claustrophobic and that’s when someone suggested we play a joke on her by locking her in. But I thought that wouldn’t be fair if she didn’t like confined spaces, so then we decided to pretend to lock someone else in just to see how Fleur would react. It was a stupid, stupid joke.’
He suddenly turned to them.
‘It wasn’t my idea but all of us were in on it, including Helen. The plan was to drive
round the block then go straight back. I even dragged Fleur to the van to make it look more convincing but she became hysterical and went for me as I was driving and I swerved into the path of the other car. I couldn’t get out of the way in time.’ He cried out in anguish. ‘I killed my friends.’
They waited for a few moments to allow him to compose himself. Eventually Bramwell wiped his eyes roughly with his fingertips.
‘You have to believe me,’ he said. ‘We always intended to go back and open the grille. We never meant to leave her down there.’
Maggie was confused. ‘You mean Fleur? I thought she was in the van?’
‘No, he means Helen,’ said DI Green softly.
Maggie reeled back in shock.
‘It was Helen you left down in the chalk mine, wasn’t it?’ said Green.
Bramwell couldn’t stop the tears falling again. ‘It was only meant to be a joke.’
‘You left her there to die,’ said Green matter-of-factly.
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone about her being down there when you came round in hospital after the crash?’ Maggie butted in.
‘It was nearly a month later by then. I didn’t think she’d be alive without any food or water and I thought I’d be done for leaving her. I freaked out. I was already facing prison for the crash – it would’ve been a whole lot worse if the police knew about Helen as well.’
‘You didn’t think she might’ve managed to get out?’ asked Green.
‘I really hoped she had, but we’d padlocked the grille shut again and I didn’t see how she could’ve opened it on her own. So I called her parents from the hospital. Her mum answered and said Helen hadn’t been home for weeks and they didn’t know where she was or when she’d be back. That’s when I knew for sure that she was still down there.’
‘You let them and Della think she walked out on them?’ said Maggie sharply.
Bramwell moaned, clasping his hands to his cheeks. ‘There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about what we did. But I would never have hurt Helen on purpose,’ he cried. ‘I mean, she was in on it – there’s no way we would’ve locked her up and left her if she hadn’t been. She thought it would be funny to see Fleur’s reaction when we went back and Fleur found out it was all a wind-up.’
‘But you said she had wanted to go home to see her daughter. Why would she agree to being locked up if she wanted to go home?’ said Maggie.
‘We were so drunk by that point I doubt Helen remembered she had a kid.’
Maggie battled not to show how upset she felt. All those years Della spent thinking Helen didn’t love her and had abandoned her and all that time she was rotting away a few miles down the road.
‘Does Eleanor know what you did?’ she asked.
Bramwell rested his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more now. I want a solicitor present.’
‘I could probably charge you with murder, you know,’ said DI Green as amiably as if she was discussing the weather with him. ‘How do I really know you didn’t kill Helen on purpose?’
His eyes flew open.
‘What? But I didn’t kill Helen! It wasn’t my idea to lock her up and leave her down there. Someone else suggested it, not me.’
‘It all leads back to you though. The others are all dead. There’s no one who can corroborate your story. You left Helen Cardle locked up down a mine to die and seventeen years later your wife attacks her mother.’
Bramwell paled. ‘What I did then has nothing to do with Eleanor now.’
‘The evidence stacked up against her suggests otherwise,’ said Green, sitting back in her chair and hooking one leg over the other knee. ‘Best you start telling us the truth.’
‘I can’t go back to prison,’ said Bramwell, clearly terrified.
Green turned to Maggie. ‘I bet it’ll be a lot less cushy than the one he was in last time. And his stay will be a lot longer . . .’
‘All right! But before I tell you, I want you to know I love my wife. When you find her, please tell her that. Tell her I love her.’
Maggie and DI Green both nodded.
He wiped his eyes again and took a deep breath.
‘I was telling the truth when I said it wasn’t my idea to leave Helen down there that day.’
‘So who’s was it?’ asked Maggie.
‘Eleanor’s.’
70
Green pitched forward and placed her clenched fist on the edge of Bramwell’s bed before Maggie could react.
‘Repeat that,’ said the DI sternly.
‘I said it was Eleanor who suggested we leave Helen locked up for a joke.’
Bramwell sagged against his pillows and closed his eyes. He seemed to have aged twenty years before their eyes.
‘You’re telling us Eleanor was with you that day?’ said Green, still leaning on the bed. She was as tense as a coiled spring.
His eyes flickered open. ‘Not Eleanor . . . Gillian.’
Maggie gasped. ‘Of course,’ she breathed. ‘Gillian Smith.’
‘Who?’ Green demanded.
‘Gillian Smith was Helen’s best friend. She was there that day too, wasn’t she, at the Mansell Show?’ said Maggie, talking directly to Bramwell. He nodded slowly, as though it hurt to move his head. ‘Her picture was in the Echo as well, but when I saw her I thought she was Eleanor and I couldn’t work out what her connection was to Mansell. But now it makes sense. Eleanor was Gillian Smith back then.’
Green turned and gaped at Maggie. ‘You’re telling me Eleanor’s changed her name too? How the hell did we not know that?’
‘Because we weren’t looking for it,’ said Maggie. ‘Eleanor was the victim when all this started and we had no reason to suspect her of anything.’ She refocused her attention on Bramwell. ‘There was no mention in the newspaper report of her being in the crash on the night you left Helen down the mine.’
‘It was my side of the van that bore the brunt of the impact. Eleanor was in the passenger seat and had a few stitches but that’s all. Maybe that’s why it didn’t mention her.’
‘If she was only walking wounded, why didn’t she tell everyone about Helen straight away?’
Bramwell’s voice cracked. ‘She said she wanted to protect me. She knew I’d be in trouble for drink-driving and didn’t want to make it worse for me.’
‘But Helen would’ve been alive to confirm she was in on the joke,’ said Green.
‘I know. I didn’t really understand why Eleanor kept quiet but by then it was too late.’
Maggie thought back to the statement Gillian Smith gave the police investigating Helen’s disappearance, when she revealed they’d rowed on the day of the Mansell Show after Helen brought up a boyfriend who’d mistreated her.
‘Did you go out with Eleanor back when she was Gillian?’ she asked.
‘Yes, for a couple of months,’ said Bramwell. ‘But then I started to like Helen more and after that I didn’t think it was fair to carry on.’
‘No wonder she wasn’t eager to tell anyone about Helen’s whereabouts. She had you all to herself, didn’t she?’ said Green. ‘How long after the crash was it before you two were a couple again?’
‘Not long,’ Bramwell admitted. ‘Eleanor came to see me every day and was there for me throughout the trial. She waited for me while I was in prison.’
‘So you changed your names together to start afresh? You lied to us about her not knowing you were once called Niall,’ Green sniped.
‘I love my wife. It’s my turn to protect her now.’
‘Too late for that,’ said Green. ‘Why did she attack Sadie Cardle? What sparked all this?’
Bramwell looked completely broken, his face ashen as he pulled at the final thread of the story to unravel it.
‘It started about eighteen months ago, after our first round of IVF failed. I don’t know if it was down to all the hormones she was taking, because she’s always been a bit overanxious, but Eleanor became paranoi
d and suspicious about everyone she came into contact with. She got it into her head that one of the nurses at the IVF clinic was really Helen.’
‘Even though she knew Helen was almost certainly dead?’ queried Green.
‘I kept telling her that but she wouldn’t have it. Eleanor was convinced it was the real Helen and that she was tampering with our embryos as some kind of revenge and that’s why they weren’t implanting. I really tried, but I couldn’t make Eleanor see how crazy it sounded.’
Maggie thought about Belmar’s wife, Allie, and the emotional rollercoaster she was on. Perhaps it wasn’t so crazy.
‘By the time our third try had failed Eleanor was delusional,’ Bramwell continued. ‘She got it into her head that this nurse, this so-called Helen, must be living back in Mansell and that Sadie would know where. She wanted to confront the nurse, to tell her to leave us alone. When she started talking about going to see Sadie I put my foot down and said that was it, no more IVF. It was sending her mad, and after all these years, the last thing we needed was for anyone to find out what really happened to Helen. I was so relieved when Eleanor agreed with me, but all the time she must’ve been planning to visit Sadie anyway and drugged me so she could.’
‘Why do you think she disguised herself with a wig to visit Sadie and pretended to be a reporter?’ said Green. ‘Why not simply say she was Gillian coming back to visit?’
‘Why has she done any of this? Booking the other hotel room, stealing the rings, stabbing herself to frame me? None of this is rational behaviour.’ Bramwell began to cry again. ‘I love my wife. I just want her found.’
‘So do we, Mr Bramwell,’ said Maggie gently. ‘Do you honestly have no idea where she might be? Does she have any family remaining in Mansell?’
‘No. Both our parents moved to Trenton when I came out of prison and Eleanor and I got a house there. It was easier that way: no difficult questions from neighbours about me being inside, no one referring to us by our old names. My parents had been under a huge strain too so it was a fresh start for all of us. I honestly don’t know where Eleanor could be now.’
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