by Ruth Rendell
‘Who’s the third killer, sir?’ This was Barry Vine.
‘It will soon emerge,’ said Wexford. ‘I want to go back now to Amber Marshalson,’ he continued. ‘Poor little Amber was a classic example of what may happen when you give an only child everything she wants. Everything she asks for, call her a princess and tell her she’s the most marvellous thing to happen since the wheel.’
‘Excuse me, sir.’ This was Barry again. ‘But shouldn’t that be “sliced bread”?’
‘We’re a non-cliché shop here, I hope, Barry. Back again to Amber. Those of you who have no children but will have, take warning. George Marshalson gave his daughter everything she wanted, everything he thought she wanted, including another mother. Diana had no children of her own, though she was still young enough to have them, but George, of course, wanted no more. He had one and that one was perfect, never to be matched. Probably, Diana tried to be what a parent should be and George had never been: a mentor as well as a mother, an exemplar and teacher or perhaps, worse, a big sister. Nothing worked. Amber hated Diana.’
‘Amber’s pregnancy must have shaken George’s slavish admiration for her, if not his love. But perhaps not. In his eyes Daniel Hilland would have been entirely to blame. He told himself this was the result of near-rape, certainly seduction. I don’t think giving birth to Brand was particularly traumatic for Amber. In her circle, having a baby in your teens is looked upon as rather dashing. Cool, I dare say, or wicked.’
‘Hard-core,’ said Damon.
‘Yes, thank you, DC Coleman. Amber didn’t even have to leave school. The hated Diana, barely spoken to in former days, was handy as babysitter and full-time nanny. Why didn’t Diana go? Why didn’t she just leave? She no longer loved George and she had never loved Amber. She had money of her own, plenty of it, even without working. But she didn’t go. She stayed and looked after Brand. And it seemed as if Amber and Brand would be there for ever. Well, Brand would because Amber would very likely go off to university and after university would come a job. Brand would stay and Amber might possibly go to London or America or somewhere in Europe - or even marry a man who didn’t want her child.’
‘Then the Hillands offered Amber their flat in a London suburb. Not that offer but her acceptance of it accomplished what you would call, Barry, “signing her own death warrant”. If she had said no she’d be alive today. But she said yes.’
He looked at the perplexed faces confronting him and at one which wasn’t puzzled, one on which light was dawning, causing her to wince. ‘Oh, my God,’ Hannah said softly.
‘Ross Samphire was having a love affair. His much-vaunted happy family life was so much image making. We saw Ross driving away from Mill Lane and then we saw Lydia Burton at her gate. Knowing Lydia Burton “had someone”, as they say, we assumed, or we assumed for a while, she was Ross’s girlfriend. But if this were so it would have meant Ross had actually been in Mill Lane at half past midnight on the eleventh of August, somewhere he would never have dreamt of being when his brother was due there an hour or so later to do murder. Besides, why would Ross and Lydia have used Colin Fry’s flat for their assignations when Lydia was a single woman with a house of her own?'
‘No, Ross’s girlfriend lived in Mill Lane but she wasn’t Lydia Burton. She was a rich woman and a married woman who had no wish for her affair to be discovered and she perhaps divorced. Diana Marshalson wanted her affair with Ross to continue but there was some thing else she wanted far more. Enough to kill for and pay someone to kill for.’
Wexford paused, looking from one startled face to another, all but Hannah’s. He went on, ‘All the way through this case we’ve been looking for the reason why. Why? What was the motive for killing Amber? Amber was leaving, she was going to take away the child George and Diana found such a burden, take him to London, and maybe they’d scarcely see him again. So why take the appalling step of killing her? Maybe Diana didn’t think of it. It could have been Ross. But Diana handed over the money to be passed on to Ross’s poor brother, so dogged by ill luck as he was.’
‘Why? Diana put up a very good show of finding Brand a nuisance, a bit of a pain to have around. No one would have guessed how she really felt, that though she had had no children with her first husband, the blame for that she thought was his. George didn’t want children. She was growing older, by now she was too old to have a baby. But Amber had one and by chance it was she who was destined to look after him, to bring him up. Diana may have found caring for Brand a chore at first. Not for long. She soon came to love him. She loved him, she adored him, as if he were her own. No wonder she didn’t want to keep a nanny. And Brand was virtually hers. She was becoming first in his life. His mother wasn’t indifferent to him but she was very young and she was careless. Without Diana, where would he have been? She worshipped him - much as her husband had worshipped Amber.’
‘But Amber was going. She was going to London and taking the beloved child with her. It was a curious situation, wasn’t it? There was George wanting Amber and Brand to stay because he wanted Amber, and Diana wanting Amber and Brand to stay because she wanted Brand. And Amber wanting to go because a flat in London meant freedom and life and excitement.’
‘So Diana paid Ross to pay Rick to kill Amber so that she could keep Brand whom she loved,’ said Wexford. He walked behind his desk and sat down, resisted the temptation to put his head in his hands, spoke the final words of his explanation. ‘Love doesn’t excuse every thing. It doesn’t excuse anything. This was the worst and the wickedest motive - and I mean wicked in its old true sense, Damon - for murder I have ever known. This was what evil is. Look no further.’
