To Die For: A chilling British detective crime thriller (The Hidden Norfolk Murder Mystery Series Book 9)

by J M Dalgliesh

  "I mean, not literally, obviously. I'd report him to the proper authori—"

  "Don't worry, I get it. I'd feel the same if he was filming Alice or Saffy."

  "Do you think…?" She looked at the still frames again, comparing them. "Yeah… maybe. Sisters?"

  "I'm thinking not, no."

  "I wish I knew who they were," she said, staring at the screen.

  "Well, it's a good job you have me then, Kerry," Tom said, tapping her shoulder with his forefinger. She looked at him expectantly. "And I know just where to find them." He pointed at the screen. "Can you print some of those off to take with us?"

  "Sure. Where are we going?"

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tom slowed the car as they made their way up the gravel-lined driveway. Glancing at the clock, it had just passed eight o'clock and he was worried they might have taken too long getting here. The morning rush hour was something different in coastal Norfolk. One day your journey would be uninterrupted only to run the exact same route the following day to find it take almost a third longer. If you were unlucky enough to pick up a tractor or a tourist, who didn't quite know where they were heading, you could find yourself in a significant tailback.

  Driving into the courtyard, Tom saw a Range Rover parked outside the entrance to the property. Voices carried from indoors as they got out of the car. Approaching the vehicle from the rear, Tom spotted damage to the offside rear corner. Range Rovers, despite their luxury finish, were still incredibly hardy and weighing more than two tonnes, they could both cause damage as well as take it.

  Tom dropped to his haunches, examining the scuffs and scrapes along that corner. The vehicle had impacted on something ragged, and subsequently pulled away from it leaving another set of almost identical markings. Kerry stood at his shoulder. He looked up at her and she nodded.

  "Santorini Black," she said, pointing at the car. "It's distinctive, premium paint."

  "Should be easy to match in that case."

  The voices grew louder and two people came out of the house, startled by their presence. Ginette Finney was surprised.

  "Inspector Janssen. W–What are you doing here?"

  Her daughter stepped out from behind her, dressed in her school uniform, nervously looking at Tom and Kerry in turn.

  "We wanted a quick word, if that's okay?"

  She glanced at her watch, then her daughter. "My husband is inside—"

  "I would like to speak to you first, if you don't mind?"

  "I'm afraid this is a rather bad time, Inspector." She put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "You see, we're just leaving for school."

  "I appreciate that, Mrs Finney, but it is rather important."

  She met Tom's eye and held his gaze, unwavering. She wasn't smiling anymore.

  "Of course. If you think it important?"

  "I do."

  Ginette swallowed hard, as if her mouth was suddenly dry. She looked at her daughter, smiling weakly. "You go and wait in the car, Kimmy."

  Kim didn't need to be asked twice and she slipped out from under her mother's grasp and clambered up into the front passenger seat, closing the door and nervously tucking her hair behind her left ear, but staring straight ahead.

  "What's this about, Inspector? You do look very serious."

  Tom looked at Kerry who stepped forward with a folder in hand. She opened it and passed the first of the downloaded screenshots to Ginette. At first, the woman's eyes lingered on the image and she appeared reluctant to accept it, but after an awkward moment, she did so.

  Holding the image in her left hand, she brought her right up to loosely cover her mouth, stuttering intakes of breath followed but she didn't take her eyes off it. Ginette didn't utter a word.

  "That's you, Mrs Finney," Tom said.

  Her eyes darted up at him and away again, back to the image, her expression fixed but clearly agitated.

  "And something tells me you're not altogether surprised to see them," he said, watching her intently. "Feel free to correct me if you believe I am mistaken."

  Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head. Tom nodded to Kerry and she passed Ginette the next image. She looked up at Kim, still staring straight ahead as if they weren't there.

  "Kim?" Tom asked.

  She lowered her head, answering almost inaudibly, "Yes."

  "I think Kim might be late for school today, Mrs Finney."

  "You don't understand," she said, suddenly thrusting the pictures back into Kerry's hands.

  "Explain it to me then."

  Ginette tried to push past him and walk to the car. Tom didn't try to restrain her.

  "You can't run away from these questions, Ginette. You can talk to us here or at the station if you'd prefer."

  She spun on her heel to face him, anger flashing. Kim looked up, an expression of anguish on her face. She'd been paying attention all along. "Damn you! Damn all of you."

  "What the hell is going on here?"

  Tom turned to see Alan Finney standing in the doorway, hands on his hips.

  "That's just what we would like to know, Mr Finney. Where were you last Thursday night?"

  The farmer was momentarily taken aback, his face changing as he sought an answer to the question. Realisation dawned and his expression took on a scowl. "Now, you just hold on a damn minute—"

  Tom snatched the pictures out of Kerry's hand, his patience wearing thin, stepping forward and holding them up in front of Finney's face. The scowl faded and he averted his eyes from the images.

  "I think the two of you have some questions to answer," Tom said, "and I've had enough of you giving me the runaround."

  Finney held up his hands in supplication, his tone conciliatory. "Now look, I can see where you're going with this, but it's not what it looks like—"

  "Is it not?"

  Tom turned the images so that he could see them himself, tapping the topmost one with his forefinger. "Your wife!" He put the first to the back and held the second aloft, lowering his voice and ensuring the image wasn't visible to Kim, still sitting in the car. "Your daughter!" Tom hissed. He forcibly placed the pictures in Alan Finney's hand and took a couple of steps to the rear of the Range Rover, pointing to the damage. "And you smacked your car when leaving Billy Moy's place. In something of a hurry, were you?"

  Finney firmly shook his head. "It's not what you think, it just isn't!"

  Tom marched across, squaring up to him. "Then you'd better start talking because right now, I'm thinking about dragging you back to the station in chains—"

  "I didn't kill him!" Finney barked. His eyes shot to his daughter, watching them from her vantage point. "I didn't, and that's the truth." He chuckled but without any genuine humour. "And wanting the truth to be anything other than that is a waste of your time, because it just isn't so."

  "You went to Billy's house that night," Tom took the images and held them up to him. "And you confronted him about these, didn't you?"

  Finney refused to look at the pictures, shaking his head.

  "And then you lost your temper and you killed him—"

  "No! That's not what happened at all." His head bowed and he ran both hands through his hair. "You're not listening. I went there, yes, that's true. We had words…"

  "Words?"

  "Yes, words," Finney snapped. "And… all right, I was tempted to put one on him."

  "You struck him?"

  "No… yes, sort of." He shook his head, grimacing. "Wouldn't you want to lay into him? Put yourself in my place, Inspector Janssen… and you catch this… this vermin touching—"

  "Alan, please!" Ginette barked at him. Her husband fell silent. Tom looked at her. Behind Ginette, he could see Kim had started to cry.

  "Maybe we should go inside," Tom said, adopting a conciliatory tone.

  Alan Finney bobbed his head in agreement and gestured with an open hand for them to enter the house.

  Ginette Finney ushered Kim upstairs to her bedroom, whilst Alan led the detectives into a large op
en-plan kitchen, dining room, offering them seats at a table beside an expansive wall of glass. It overlooked the pasture adjoining their house. Alan sat down opposite Tom, his hands nervously clasped together. They waited until Ginette entered the room, coming to stand behind her husband where she placed her hands reassuringly on his shoulders. It was an affectionate and supportive gesture. Alan reached up with his right hand, resting it on top of Ginette's left.

  Tom knew he should be separating the two of them and arranging transport to the station where they could be interviewed. However, Tom had an inkling that he might get more out of them this way rather than being heavy-handed.

  "I think you ought to start from the beginning, don't you?" Tom said, gesturing to Kerry to make notes. Alan Finney made to speak but it was Ginette who spoke over him. Surprisingly to Tom, he appeared happy for her to do so.

  "I'm afraid it begins with me, Inspector." Her hands drifted away from Alan's shoulders and he reluctantly released his hold on her left hand, lowering his head as she took a seat beside him. "I told you before how my family have been living in these parts for a long time."

  "Yes, I do recall you said the same about the Moys. And also that your mother and Billy's – Maureen – were somehow entwined."

  "Yes, that's right. You don't need all the details, but my mother had a difficult time of it for a number of years and it was Maureen who helped steer her through it all, in one way or another."

  "And you felt beholden to her, to look out for her son, Billy?"

  "Sort of, yes. I wasn't entirely… candid with you, Inspector." Tom leaned in to the table, resting his elbows on the surface and interlocking his fingers before him. "You see, Billy and I are the same age. We went right through school together, from juniors up to high school and… our mothers being so close, it was inevitable that we would spend a lot of time together."

  Tom saw Alan bristle slightly, covering his mouth and chin with one hand and slowly rubbing his fingers as his wife spoke. He looked ready to talk but refrained, allowing her to continue.

  "Billy… Billy was a special type of boy; do you understand what I mean by that?"

  Tom inclined his head, indicating he needed more clarification.

  "I guess these days someone would say he has some kind of social disorder or dyslexia, or something I don't know, and maybe he'd be treated differently, but when we were growing up he was just considered thick, pushed to the back of the class and pretty much left to his own devices. But he was a sweet boy… arguably a little disturbed at times, but a sweet boy nonetheless."

  "Can you define disturbed?"

  "Prone to intense emotional outbursts, often if things didn't go his way. He would overreact to the slightest setback. That sort of thing. He could fixate on things, still does – did – anyway."

  "That's why he is so good with machinery," Alan said, lifting his head to interject. "Stays focussed until the job is done. The man would skip lunch if he had a job to do." He shook his head. "Not many are built like that these days, to be fair. I don't have many working for me as dedicated to their tasks. More's the pity."

  "You were saying, Mrs Finney?"

  "Right, yes. Billy didn't have many friends at school. He found it hard to socialise. I suppose many do in their teens, all those hormones floating around, I guess. I did and he found it awkward, trying to stay latched on to me while I was growing, moving away from him."

  "He had feelings for you?" Tom asked.

  "Infatuated is the word—"

  "Alan, please. Let me explain."

  Alan Finney held up a hand by way of an apology and made a signal of locking his lips shut with an invisible key.

  "Billy had feelings for me. Eventually, it all came to a head and I had to tell him that it wasn't going to happen. Not then, not ever. He took it hard. Very hard… but that was all years ago and after his mother died, I knew he was struggling with the farm… with life." She glanced at her husband. "I was still his friend. A good friend. So, I spoke to Alan—"

  "And talked me into throwing work his way from time to time," Alan said, begrudgingly. "He was good, that much is true, but if I'd known how bloody weird he was then I would never have entertained the idea."

  Tom took a breath, allowing Kerry to catch up with her note taking.

  "This weirdness you speak of," Tom said, "does that relate to the pictures?"

  Alan scoffed. "We didn't know about that until last week. One of the stable hands saw him at the back of the house, loitering somewhere he had no business being."

  Tom waited patiently, fixing his gaze on Alan. After a few moments, he splayed his hands wide.

  "Yeah, it turns out he was perving… but he ran off when challenged."

  "When was this?"

  "Last week, while he was supposed to be working in the barn. Kimmy," he coughed, evidently uncomfortable. "Kimmy had been at an after-school sports club. She got home early evening and… had been for a shower. I realised what he must have been looking at. It turns out…"

  He couldn't say the words. He grew more increasingly agitated. Ginette took a deep breath and picked up the narrative.

  "It turns out… Billy hadn't moved past his… attraction to me. I don't know what reignited his interest, but it would appear he also saw me in our daughter."

  "And when we asked Kim if she'd had any problems with Billy, she told us how he'd…"

  "How he'd what, Mr Finney?"

  "Touched her, Inspector," Alan said through gritted teeth.

  "Not abused, Inspector," Ginette said. "We should be clear, but Kimmy said he'd helped her into the saddle," she took another breath, again stuttering the intake, and then speaking very quickly as if she needed to get it out as fast as possible, "placing his hand where it shouldn't be… and leaving it there, stroking."

  Alan slammed a flat palm against the table making Ginette jump.

  "Now do you see why I went over to his place? Why I roughed him up a bit? The pervy sod bloody deserved it!"

  "And this was when exactly?"

  "Wednesday night – evening. Wednesday evening."

  "The night before his death, Mr Finney," Tom said, "and let us be clear, you're admitting to going over to Billy Moy's home and attacking him."

  "I know! And I'm guilty of throwing him around, certainly, but I swear on my daughter's life that it was on the Wednesday, not Thursday, and he was very much alive when I left him."

  "The photographs?"

  Alan shook his head. "I made him burn them. As I said, we didn't know he was taking pictures… it makes me sick to think of him standing out there, watching… my family. Kimmy is only fifteen, Inspector Janssen. You think about that for a second. Fifteen!" Alan sat back, looking to the ceiling and back to Tom again. "Anyway, he fessed up, told me what he'd been up to. He even showed me the pictures, the dirty little bastard. He promised to stop. He said he'd tried everything he could to do things differently, and that he knew it was wrong, but it wasn't working."

  "What wasn't working?"

  "I'm sorry, what do you mean?"

  "You said that Billy told you it wasn't working. So, what wasn't working?"

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Alan looked perplexed. He glanced sideways at his wife, open mouthed, but her expression was vacant. He turned back to Tom.

  "I'm sorry. I–I don't know what he meant by it. Is it important, do you think?"

  "Perhaps. Tell me what happened after you confronted him and he showed you his collection."

  Alan shrugged. "Like I said, I threw him around a bit. I'm not proud of that, but don't ask me to feel sympathy for him. He offered to destroy the photographs. We took them out into the yard and burned them… in an old makeshift brazier that he used for garden waste and stuff, I guess. I thought that was it. I suppose," he flicked a hand towards the folder on the table next to Tom, "he had more. I knew I couldn't trust him."

  "This fight you had—"

  "It wasn't a fight, as such," Alan said. "I was furious. I confronted
him and I lost my temper. That's it. It wasn't a fight."

  "How many times did you strike him?"

  Alan's eyes looked skyward, sucking air through his teeth. "I'm not sure I did." Tom looked at him with scepticism. "I swear it. I pushed him around, squared up to him… Billy started whimpering and then crying like some little child… telling me he deserved it." Finney tensed, his fists clenched. "I wanted to kill him, to beat him to a pulp, but he just lay there, in a ball at my feet… crying. It was the most pathetic thing I'd ever seen."

  "It would be very easy in the heat of the moment to reach out for the closest thing at hand and strike him with it—"

  "I did not beat him nor did I stab the man to death. As God is my witness, Billy was alive and kicking when I left."

  Tom stared at him, reading the expression on his face. He was willing Tom to believe him. "Tell me about the house."

  "Which one?"

  "Billy's. How did you find it?"

  Alan shook his head. "Like any other. I'd never been in there before, so I don't know what you're looking for me to say."

  "How was it? Tidy, messy, anything out of place, unusual?"

  Alan laughed. "Inspector Janssen, this was Billy Moy we're talking about. The man's odd at the best of times." Tom stared at him and eventually, Alan relented. "It was… nothing to write home about. Bland, ordinary. Like how most people live. Ghastly."

  "What happened to your car, Mr Finney?"

  "Oh, as I left," he waved his hands in a circle in front of his face, "I reversed into something outside the house. I heard it but I wanted to get away from there. Get home to my family. I'd done what I set out to do. My mind wasn't right, that's all." He shook his head. "I was angry, confused… shaking. Probably unfit to drive, to be honest. I only saw the damage the next day. I haven't got around to fixing it."

  "If you thought Billy Moy was interfering with your daughter, perving on your family, why didn't you call us?"

  Alan Finney took a deep breath, glancing sideways at his wife. Ginette made to speak, struggling to find the words.