‘Sounds tenuous.’
‘Oh, it was but we took a chance, told him Ellen had labelled them as being shot by Ray. Told him that was proof that he’d both visited the farm and had access to a gun.’ Mac shrugged. ‘If he’d thought about it or allowed his solicitor to think about it, he’d have realized it was a whole load of nothing but I think he was ready to confess and that just gave him the final nudge.’
‘I’m glad,’ Rina said. ‘At least the family now know. I suppose that’s a good thing.’
‘He says he loved her. He says his mother was going all out to ruin her life and take the children away. Daphne had written a letter to social services accusing Ellen of abusing the children. She’d already made a series of anonymous phone calls to that effect. He says he was saving Ellen from a slow destruction.’
‘He says—’
‘I say he was so used to being bullied by his mother that he couldn’t refuse her in the end. I doubt she ever laid a finger on him, but she destroyed him all the same and in coming back he put himself back under her control. He pulled the trigger and killed the woman he loved.’
Mac took a walk to William Trent’s cottage. It looked lonely and forlorn at the end of the track. The local farmers had promised to keep an eye on it but it might be a long time before anyone cleared it out or moved in. Trent had a son, but no one knew where he was and then there’d be probate. Mac wondered if he could arrange to have Trent’s books and papers put in storage somewhere before the damp got to them.
His phone rang as he walked back to his car. It was Miriam. ‘Thought we might go for a walk and then dinner at the Marina,’ she said.
‘It’ll be dark by the time I get home.’
‘We’ve got torches. Or maybe we could just stay in. You could bring a takeaway and then we could have a … quiet evening?’
Mac smiled. ‘Sounds perfect,’ he said.
Forgotten Voices Page 26
