by Penny Grubb
‘Was she going to jump?’
Ahmed shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
Webber thought back to the account he’d had from the teacher, Jack Meyer, of Stevenson’s paranoid hatred of being the centre of attention. Melinda’s actions had brought people to the bridge ahead of Stevenson. Maybe they’d prevented her leaping into oblivion, though no one had stopped a wealth of evidence hitting the water.
The sound of an engine revving grabbed his attention. It was the ambulance moving off. They seemed to have stayed a long time; he wondered suddenly if anyone had thought to tell them that Suzie was pregnant. It hadn’t occurred to him. It was something that everyone knew but no one mentioned.
Ahmed watched Webber’s gaze track the path of the ambulance as it bumped its way out along the track. It went slowly over the uneven ground. He wondered what was happening inside, what had been used to knock out the two women … why had Webber fastened on to that comment about Stevenson making tea?
Webber suddenly spun on his heel and marched towards the front of the buildings. Ahmed hurried after him.
The voices of the team were close by, they’d moved from the first garage to the one he had scoured for a jemmy to break into the car. He saw people lifting wire cages, took in their puzzled expressions, listened to half theories tossed about as they searched and bagged the artefacts.
‘… must have been years … but …’
Webber stepped forward to peer at the materials now being unearthed. ‘How far back do those remains go?’ Ahmed heard him ask. ‘Best guess.’
An overalled woman tipped her head in an indeterminate gesture. ‘A year … 18 months … but don’t quote me.’
‘I thought they were a lot older than that.’ Webber sounded surprised.
‘Oh yeah, there’s some desiccated stuff from way back, must be decades old.’
He saw Webber’s eyes narrow and wondered what the woman had thought he was asking. Her response was disjointed from the question. A year … 18 months … decades …?
‘So they actually go back …’ Webber was snappish but he stopped abruptly. Ahmed tried to read his expression. ‘The really old stuff …’ The annoyance was gone. Webber’s tone was speculative as he asked, ‘Could we be talking four decades?’
The woman gave a shrug and spread her gloved hands. ‘I suppose so, but really don’t quote me on that one.’
‘But there’s a gap, isn’t there? It’s relatively new or very old. Nothing in between.’
‘It looks that way.’ She nodded and went back to her evidence bags. Webber turned to him. ‘When Suzie was at Drake’s house … she phoned you … she was making tea. Tell me what she said.’
Making tea …? What was Webber chasing? Ahmed struggled to get the memories in order. ‘She’d left him upstairs with some excuse about …’
‘Don’t summarise,’ Webber said. ‘Tell me what she said.’
He stepped aside to be out of the way of the team as they tracked back and forth to their vehicle, then itemised his conversation with Suzie as best he could, Suzie making tea … her derogatory comments about the Drake’s kitchen … her giving him the addresses of Tiffany’s friends … Drake upstairs searching for the password book; a book that probably never existed at all he thought now. Webber’s stare was intense but Ahmed had the impression his thoughts were racing beyond the words he was listening to.
‘What is it, Martyn?’ he had to ask. ‘What have you got?’
‘Not sure,’ Webber murmured. ‘Something and nothing. I’m wondering if I’ve caught another of Drake’s red-herrings or if …’ Ahmed watched Webber pull out his phone. ‘I need to ring Mel, tell her I’m on my way back.’
That didn’t shed any light on what had caught Webber’s attention about making tea. Ahmed felt a frustrating sense of a lack of substance … like the gossamer strands that had shrouded the car interior.
‘It might be another misdirection,’ Webber went on, pausing in the act of clicking a number into his phone. ‘But we can at least test this one.’ His eye met Ahmed’s. ‘Go and get us some transport. I’m going home. I want to talk to China Kowalski and I want a landline to do it from. But first off, find out where they took Tiffany Drake. I need to talk to the medics. I think I know what he’s been up to.’
Chapter 59
Melinda was waiting for him, bright, alert, ready to talk. Her evidence boards stood against the blank TV screen. Half an hour in front of some mind-numbing programme while he ate would be good, but she wasn’t going to allow that without a fight and he didn’t have the energy. He needed space to get his thoughts in line for talking to China Kowalski.
As he’d climbed into his own car the other side of the gravel pits, he’d sent her an email labelled Pamela Morgan. He’d expected his name and the subject to push it to the top of her priority list and he was right. The reply had beeped into his inbox before he was half way home.
‘Says she’s in a meeting,’ he told Melinda, ‘but she’ll be free in thirty minutes. She keeps some long hours, it can’t be more than seven a.m. where she is.’
‘I’ll bet she’s not had a good night’s sleep since Pamela Morgan died,’ Melinda said, walking across to the boards. ‘I can cross her off, can’t I?’
Webber nodded, finished the mouthful he was chewing and added, ‘You can cross them all off bar one.’
She applied the eraser. He watched as each name disappeared until only Michael Drake was left. ‘Have you enough to charge him?’
‘For Pamela Morgan, no. Though I’d rather have him behind bars for her than all the rest together.’
She gave him a speculative look. ‘So what can you pin on him?’
‘Attempted murder of his wife. At least I hope we don’t have to fight to upgrade that from GBH. It’s looking good for Trent and Jenkinson, too. I think Jenkinson will be the jewel in the crown. That’ll please Ayaan. We’ll have a good look at Will Jones but … unlikely … and I doubt we’ll get a sniff at the post office brother or Tilly Brown.’
‘The first Mrs Drake?’ Melinda asked.
‘Maybe … maybe not. She’s a long-shot.’
‘Brad Tippet won’t like seeing his ex-brother-in-law in the dock without Tina on the charge sheet.’
Webber grunted, indifferent to Brad Tippet’s likes and dislikes. ‘And of course we’ll have another look at Gary Yeatman,’ he added, ‘but we’ve zilch on him for that.’
‘Other than you know he did it,’ Melinda said sharply.
He shrugged, conceding the point. Neither of them had mentioned Suzie’s name. He’d simply said, ‘They’re OK,’ when he’d rung her. She’d get to know the detail from Fiona. He wasn’t going to be the one to tell her that the rest of Suzie’s pregnancy would be shadowed by the knowledge that the baby could have been damaged by what Drake had done to her. If he said anything, Mel would want to talk about it and he’d yet to work out what his feelings were, other than murderous towards Michael Drake.
‘What’s so important about Pamela Morgan,’ she said suddenly. ‘Why would you rather do him for her than all the others?’
‘Because she’s the one he minds about … the one he regrets. If he were to end up in court on eight counts of murder …’
‘Eight? Is that right?’
‘I mean apart from Pamela.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Tilly Brown bashed over the head and buried, his first wife poisoned, Pamela Morgan’s husband hit over the head and fed to tigers, big brother post office bludgeoned and buried, Will Jones likewise, Gary Yeatman the car stunt, Tom Jenkinson bludgeoned and Arthur Trent the car thing again. Yes, eight. He’d be fine with that. He’d love it as long as Pamela wasn’t in the list. He wants to boast about how clever he’s been.’
‘Not so clever that he hasn’t been caught.’
‘We haven’t got him yet. But if the charge sheet’s heavy enough that he knows he’s looking at life, he’ll probably tell all so he can have his day in the limelight.’
�
�But he’ll not confess to Pamela,’ she murmured.
‘No, he regrets killing Pamela. Regrets it to the point of denial. I wonder why he did it. Maybe she found out about Robert and was going to shop him.’
‘How did he kill her, Martyn?’
Webber blew out a breath. ‘Fed her an overdose somehow … got her to write that note … I don’t know. I’ve a feeling we already have the answer, all the pieces anyway, in the various interviews. Just haven’t put them together yet, and until we do I’ve no idea if they’ll turn into hard evidence or not.’
‘Why are you so sure it was him who did it?’
‘Because of the way he minds about it.’
Melinda glanced at the clock. ‘Half an hour you said?’
He sighed and pulled himself upright. Maybe if he hadn’t put Pamela’s name in the subject line China Kowalski wouldn’t have replied so promptly, but she had, so he supposed he’d better get it done.
‘Will you take notes for me?’ he asked, adding, ‘The line might not be good enough for speakerphone.’
He knew that curiosity would make her agree. It would mean sitting close, leaning together so they could both hear. It would be a struggle not to get too comfortable, not to give in to the temptation to doze off on her shoulder.
China Kowalski’s voice was alert and eager. ‘Have you found out about Pamela?’
‘We’re close,’ said Webber. ‘But I need some more detail. I’d like you to tell me about Michael Drake’s first marriage, it seemed to take everyone by surprise.’
‘Yes, it did. Tina Tippet. Does that mean that …?’
‘Please, Dr Kowalski, could you answer my questions first. I need to fill the holes in the background before I can give you any definitive answers.’ He twisted his head to share a brief raised-eyebrows look with Mel.
‘Yes, of course. And yes it was a surprise. Tina had been running after him but no one thought … then she was pregnant and they had to get married.’
‘Yes, you told me that before. She miscarried, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, she was very ill. It was a late miscarriage. I don’t know if it … uh … damaged her in any way. They didn’t have children and of course she died not so long after.’
‘Would they have married if she hadn’t been pregnant?’
‘Oh no. Michael was livid. He thought she’d trapped him. Still, he made the best of it. He always did make the best of things.’
‘Dr Kowalski … China … uh, can I call you China? You told me – I think it was the first time you emailed me – you told me it was nothing to do with the quintets.’
‘It wasn’t,’ she said. ‘It was Michael. It was always Michael. I’m just so glad you’ve got there.’
He shared a look of surprise with Melinda.
‘China, I get the feeling you’re being more open with me than when we spoke face to face.’
‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m out of your reach here. I had to be careful when I was in York. I didn’t know if I might get dragged in.’
‘Why would you have been dragged in? Were you involved?’
‘In what!’ She sounded shocked. ‘No, I wasn’t involved in anything, but they might have drawn me in the way they did Tilly and Pamela.’
He mouthed the name Tilly at Melinda, indicating that she should make a note. He wanted to explore that little outburst further. But for now … ‘So Michael didn’t want to marry Tina Tippet. Did he want to marry Pamela?’
‘I thought so at the time, but I hadn’t realised how much he hated her … how much he hated us all. Except Edith.’
Webber’s mind flew across memories of the various accounts he’d had. Something didn’t fit. Was China Kowalski wrong, was he wrong … were they all falling victim to Michael Drake’s misdirections?
‘You were such a close-knit group,’ he said. ‘Everyone says so.’
‘Yes, but he was using us. We couldn’t get away. I made it but only because I realised what would happen if I didn’t.’
‘Robert Morgan’s funeral,’ he said, changing tack, feeling Mel’s irritation, she’d wanted him to explore that line to the end. ‘There was some kind of rift. Tell me about it.’
There was a long enough silence that he’d begun to wonder if the line had cut, but when she spoke, her tone was quieter, firmer, as though she’d made up her mind about something.
‘That’s a good guess, Superintendent Webber.’
‘Martyn,’ he murmured.
‘Martyn … yes, I think that’s when I knew … really knew …’
‘Knew what?’ he prompted.
‘That they hated Pamela as much they hated us. I hadn’t … it was horrible to think of. It’s hard to look back.’
‘Who’s they, China?’
‘Michael Drake and Edie Stevenson.’
‘Talk to me about what went on … who said what to who … whatever you can remember.’
It was a disjointed story. He was pretty sure she was mixing different events … Robert Morgan’s funeral, Gary Yeatman’s, Tina Drake’s … and even a couple of school reunions. She told of feeling apart from the group, of drawing closer to Gary Yeatman in mutual repugnance at Michael Drake and Edith Stevenson.
‘It was as though they were trying to jolly her out of it,’ she said. ‘At the funeral, for heaven’s sake. Edith even told me that Pamela’s grief was put on, that she was pleased really because she’d been going to divorce Robert.’
‘Had she been going to divorce him?’
‘I don’t know. They had their ups and downs. Winning all that money made it easier for them. People say it drives you apart, that sort of windfall, well it didn’t them. I don’t think Robert liked the way she gave so much away but that was just Quinny.’
It had occurred to him before that Robert Morgan might have been less than pleased at his wife’s generous gifts to her old school friends. ‘Were they just gifts, China, or was Pamela paying them to leave her alone?’
She gave an uncertain laugh. Webber had the feeling this was a new idea to her. ‘Well … no … I don’t know … That was Quinny. It’s just how she was.’
Tiredness was creeping up on him now. He wanted to keep the conversation going more to feel Melinda leaning up against him than that he wanted to unravel all China Kowalski’s stories. He was too tired to be properly on point for this. And if he thought Mel would stay here beside him, he would end the call right now.
‘So you know that Pamela gave a large sum of money to Michael Drake … also to Edith Stevenson. I don’t know whether Robert knew or not.’
‘Oh, he’d have known. Quinny didn’t keep secrets from anyone.’ He noticed she’d lapsed into the old nickname. He glanced at Melinda’s notes. There’d been a couple of things he wanted to go back to, but before he could speak, she said, ‘Oh, just a moment. There’s someone here that I need a word with … can I ring you back?’
‘How long will you be?’
‘No more than a couple of minutes.’
‘I’ll stay on the line.’
He smiled at Melinda. Easing the handset from between them and covering the mouthpiece he said, ‘This way she’ll hurry,’ letting his head rest into her shoulder, and turning to nuzzle her neck.
She didn’t respond, but she didn’t pull away.
‘When you rang, you told me you had to get on to the hospital, that you knew how he’d been poisoning his wife.’
‘Yes, possibly.’ He hadn’t envisaged using this break to discuss rotten meat. ‘I remembered something about rank meat in the Drakes’ fridge. Offal of some kind. A couple of people commented on it, Ayaan and … uh … anyway, I just put two and two together, might have made five.’
He felt her stiffen. ‘You mean Harmer. You can say her name, you know.’ The words were ice-coated and she sat upright away from him.
‘Well anyway … you can do nasty things with contaminated meat, and then we found all that stuff. Of course it hangs on the age of it, but it looked like a trail of new
ish carcasses or the remnants of decades-old stuff. I thought maybe he’d poisoned his first wife with it and he was doing the same with the new one.’
‘What sort of remains?’
‘Dogs and cats mainly.’
‘Eww! Offal from dogs and cats? That’s gross.’ Her face pinched in disgust. It reminded him of the way Ahmed had looked. ‘How could you possibly poison someone with that? Who’d go near it?’
‘Like I said, I hadn’t really thought it through, but the timing … it fitted too well. I spoke to the medics. They got quite excited, thought there might be something in it.’
‘Martyn … Martyn … are you still there?’
He clamped the phone back to his ear. ‘Hello, China, yes.’ He gave Melinda a quick smile as he returned to the call. She picked up her pen and pad. ‘Just a couple more things. You said they drew in Tilly and Pamela. By they you mean Edith and Michael, don’t you? What do you mean by drew in?’
He reached across and hugged Melinda to him so that they were close again and she could hear the call.
‘He was jealous … they were both jealous of Tilly. She was a lovely girl, she’d have done so well. They’d no need to be like they were. Gary wasn’t jealous of her and she teased him just as much.’
‘When her parents moved away, didn’t she stay with Edith to finish out the school year?’
‘Yes, with her stupid rocking horse …’ Out of nowhere, China Kowalski’s voice cracked. They heard her gulp in a couple of breaths. He shared a look of surprise with Melinda as Kowalski pulled herself together and added, ‘They persuaded her to come back that summer, in secret.’
‘You didn’t say anything at the time,’ he said gently, ‘and I know you were questioned.’
‘I didn’t know then. I didn’t know how much they hated her … hated all three of us. It was Gary who told me to keep my distance. I was talking to him and his wife, saying we needed to keep an eye on Quinny. Edie and Michael were being so obnoxious, acting like it was a celebration after Robert died. Gary said, “Keep your distance from Michael Drake, I’m going to.” And I have. I don’t think I saw him again until Gary’s funeral. I had to come back for that. Gary was the first of us to die. The first of us to have a funeral anyway. The first to die was poor Tilly. She … she was lying dead nearby when the police were round asking questions all those years ago.’
