‘What the hell are you talking about, woman? All five of us will be a family in the school holidays. There’ll be plenty of time for the three of us. Would you like to go back to boarding school, kids, and come out to Gerda and Daddy in the holidays? It’s very hot and sunny and you’re going to have a new brother or sister.’
‘I want my Mummy,’ wailed Jade, while Sholto tried to get out of bed to run away, but his legs felt funny and he couldn’t stand.
‘Help me, Daddy,’ he implored, and Kenneth looked towards his children, then at Gerda who was already approaching the bed again, pillow at the ready.
‘You have to understand, Kenneth, I cannot bring up another woman’s children. I have to wipe out anything that reminds me of my days as someone else’s servant, and we need time together by ourselves for our own baby.’
Kenneth couldn’t think straight. What was happening? Was he dreaming? Gerda loved the children, didn’t she? She’d agreed that he should apply for custody, and she’d agreed to his plan to take them and make Lauren more compliant.
‘Daddy, my legs feel funny. What’s wrong with them?’
‘Daddy, I want to go and see Mummy. I’m frightened.’
‘You do understand, Kenneth, don’t you, that we can’t have these snivelling brats as part of our life together?’
Kenneth was confused as to whether what he was experiencing was real or a very vivid nightmare. The one thing he did know, definitely, was that he wanted it to stop, and all the drugs in his system welled up and came out as pure, blind rage.
He lunged forward, snatched the pillow from Gerda’s hands and grabbed her round the arms, enclosing her in his savage embrace and dragging her to the bedroom next door. The children, already exhausted by their outbursts in their drugged state, sank slowly back into a reclining position and went back to sleep.
In the bedroom next door, Gerda was fighting Kenneth’s manic hold of her and trying to justify what she had been about to do but, just like Lauren at the end of the last year, she had underestimated the power of his fury when he felt thwarted, and he was also fuelled by alcohol.
He had thrown her down on the floor and then banged her head against its unyielding surface and, before he had even realised he was going to do it, had his hands around her throat and was choking the life out of her. Unable to distinguish fact from fantasy, he just wanted all this to stop so that he could go back to bed and wake up in the morning with everything as normal, or as normal as things could be with the children abducted.
Gerda stopped struggling, at last, and he got to his feet and made his way unsteadily to the children’s room to make sure that they were settled and could go back to sleep. This was only a dream, really, and tomorrow he would contact Lauren and make his conditions known to her regarding their children. She would not defy him on this.
As he crawled back on to the bed, the drugs in his system finally triumphed, and he lost consciousness within seconds.
He didn’t wake again until after dawn, and when he did return to the conscious world, he felt like death. His head was thumping, his mouth was like sandpaper, and his stomach contents roiled and fought to be released. He had a heavy feeling in his mind as if he’d had a terrible nightmare – it was only when he got to his feet and saw Gerda’s legs protruding from the floor at the foot of the bed that he realised that he had not suffered from bad dreams at all, and that everything that he thought was just his sleeping imagination was, in fact, reality.
He slumped down on the side of the mattress and tried to make sense of what he remembered from the night before. His main memory was of Gerda with a pillow over the face of his son, and the madness in her eyes. He remembered, too, the feeling of his hands round her throat as he choked the life out of her, and it finally dawned on him that, not only had he killed her, but he had murdered their unborn child too.
After a few minutes of self-pity, during which tears of remorse rolled down his cheeks – at the loss of the baby, not Gerda – he realised that he couldn’t just sit there and feel sorry for himself. He had to do something with Sholto and Jade, and he had to get back out of the country.
Getting dizzily to his feet again, he checked in the children’s room and noted that they were still asleep. That at least was a good thing. He then packed up what he could of his possessions and went outside to get the hire car out of the garage. Only when everything was loaded into the boot did he go back inside and wake the children, who had been sleeping so soundly that he didn’t doubt that they would drop off again in the car. But before he did that, he closed the master bedroom door on the mortal remains of Gerda and all his hopes and dreams for their future together with their baby.
He then headed for the coast. He would drop off the children at his old home, make his way to the airport and get a last-minute seat. It didn’t cross his mind that he might be unfit to drive as he sped along the road that led to the little hamlet where the barn conversion was situated.
He unloaded the black bags he had stuffed quickly with all the new toys and the clothes bought in preparation for this abduction, and put them on the ground in front of the house, then he went back to the vehicle and gently lifted out his daughter, rousing his son as he did so. Plonking them at the front door, he gave a long peal of the bell, then rushed back to the car and drove off with a screech of tyres. He didn’t want to be in the vicinity when Gerda’s body was found, and he knew he would never get custody now. He had no idea how long it would take for the agent who had leased him the house to put two and two together and how long after that they would find Gerda, but he certainly didn’t want to be there when that happened. The only thing he could run towards was work. His passport was in his jacket pocket and there was a battery shaver in his holdall. He could smarten himself up when he got to the airport.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Olivia was woken by the ringing of both the landline and her mobile. Not knowing which to answer first, she picked up both and shared a ‘hello’ between them. In one ear she could hear Lauren’s voice, in the other a voice that sounded official.
Snapping, ‘Hang on a minute, will you; I’m on another call,’ into her mobile to Lauren, she put down the phone and spoke into her landline.
‘DI Olivia Hardy speaking. How can I help you?’
She discovered that it was a call from the station to inform her of a traffic accident just outside the town where a man had been killed, and he had been identified as Kenneth Groves. Did she think she could break this news to her sergeant and bring her in to identify the body?
‘I’ve got her on the other line,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll call you back.’ This was the best she could do for now. Going back to her mobile, she spoke calmly into the handset, telling Lauren to be calm and explain slowly why she’d phoned. Did she already know about her husband, and where on earth were the children, if he had been killed? Were they in the car as well? Were they injured or even worse?
‘Olivia, the children are back. I don’t know how or why, but I’ve just been woken by the doorbell, and I found them on the doorstep with bags and bags of toys. What’s going on? Has Kenneth been arrested?’
‘When did this happen?’
‘About forty minutes ago. When I opened the door they became hysterical and asked me why I wasn’t in hospital, and then they said all sorts of odd things about Christmas and Gerda and a pillow, and it’s taken me all this time to calm them down and get them settled into bed. What should I do now?’
‘Leave it with me. I’ll call it in and I’ll be straight over. I’m going to end the call now. Make yourself a cup of tea and I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’ What on earth was going on here? How could Kenneth be dead and the children back at home? She didn’t have the faintest understanding of what was going on, but she dutifully called the station and informed them of the children’s return before asking for more details of the accident that had claimed Kenneth’s life.
She was told that a witness had seen him in the outside lane of t
he motorway driving at considerable speed on the route to the airport, and then he had just seemed to slump at the wheel and veer across the other two lanes. The witness had been able to brake and stop, but Kenneth had careered into two other cars, the impact from which had knocked his vehicle off the carriageway.
Several cars had stopped, but when they got to him, they found him dead behind the wheel. They had no medical information, as yet, but it was thought by the paramedics who attended that the impact had thrown him so hard against his seatbelt that his ribs had been broken, and that his lungs had been pierced. The shock of the trauma may then have caused his heart to stop. Whatever, he was dead, and there were three others in various stages of trauma.
Having learnt as much as she could, Olivia threw on some clothes with a sad look over to Hal’s side of the bed, and went off on her unpleasant errand. This was a totally unexpected end to the incident that had begun with the abduction of the children from their school, and she had no idea how Lauren would feel at this sudden change to her life.
How would she cope as a widow?
As the town woke up to another day, an estate agent who had, about a week ago, leased a remote house to a respectable man and his good lady for the three months of summer, went into the office earlier than usual for a Saturday to check his records. He thought he had recognised the man he had seen on the late news the night before, and he wanted to see if the name was the same. On the other hand, if someone was going to abduct children, would he give his real name for a short-term lease?
When the name didn’t tally he wasn’t surprised, but decided to ring the station anyway to voice his fears. God forbid that something should happen to the children and he had done nothing. As managing agent, he still retained a key, and after the phone call, when he was assured that someone would come down to his office and have a chat with him, he felt as if he had done his duty as a citizen. Estate agents weren’t universally loved, but he was a good man at heart, and maybe this small act would raise his status slightly.
His call had evidently been taken seriously, for it was only about ten minutes later that PC Shuttleworth tapped on the door to be let in, it being still too early for the office to be open. Having assured the agent that his patrol car did, indeed, have satnav, he dutifully signed for the key and went back to his car on a mission to investigate.
He had been the only officer available, as every other member of the service was tied up with sorting out the large number of arrests that had been made the night before and resultant interviews, or had pleaded associated paperwork. The pressure on staff would be even higher tonight, this being Saturday, and this still being Operation Zee-Tee weekend.
The house certainly was out of the way, but it looked well enough cared for, he thought as he pulled up outside it. There was no answer to his knocks and rings on the doorbell, and he eventually got out the key and let himself in. After calling a few times, he decided that there was no one at home and wondered why, if it was the house where DS Groves’ two abducted children had been taken. Surely her soon-to-be ex-husband hadn’t taken them on a jolly – that would be much too public, and they were bound to be recognised.
To his puzzlement, there were lights blazing on a Christmas tree in the living room, and decorations hung about the room. When he went into the dining room, there were bowls still on the table, and the remains of a Christmas pudding in the middle of it. What had gone on here?
In the kitchen was a forlorn turkey carcase still in its roasting tin. He would have to search upstairs before he drew any conclusions. Through an open bedroom door he spied piles of brightly decorated wrapping paper on the floor. Something here was out of kilter, time-wise.
A boxroom door was ajar, and he pushed it open to find no signs of occupation. That only left the bathroom and what he assumed was the master bedroom. The smallest bedroom also proved unoccupied, and he approached the final door off the landing with caution. ‘Police!’ he shouted. ‘I’m coming in.’ Anything could lie beyond this final barrier.
As the door slammed back on his hinges he became aware of the smell of stale alcohol on the air, and the presence of the figure of a woman sprawled on the floor at the foot of the bed. Dropping down to his knees, he felt for a pulse but found nothing. There were no signs of life, and her body was cooling fast. He’d have to call this in immediately, especially as he could see bruises on her neck on closer inspection. Could this be the woman who had leased the house with Kenneth that the estate agent had mentioned?
When Olivia had reached Lauren’s huge home, she found her sergeant outwardly calm. Her children were home, and she could not afford to waste any emotion on her errant husband, but she would no doubt be very shocked at his demise. The inspector decided to take things slowly. ‘Did you see Kenneth when he brought back the children?’ she asked, innocently.
‘I didn’t see hide or hair of him – not that I wanted to,’ was her reply.
‘Did you not think it odd that he hadn’t stopped to apologise and perhaps ask you not to press charges?’ This question hinted at events about which Lauren had no knowledge, but she was too flustered to think about what it might imply.
‘He wouldn’t dare. I’d have killed him.’ Olivia winced at this phrase. Little did she know. A sudden decision made her just go for it.
‘Look, there’s no easy way to tell you this …’
‘What? The children are in bed asleep. It can’t be anything to do with them.’
‘Let me put the kettle on, and then I’ve got something to say.’
‘Just spit it out. I don’t want any more tea or coffee.’
‘Well, I do. You called me at stupid o’clock, and I’ve come straight over without any breakfast or even a hot drink.’
‘Sorry. I’ll do it.’
‘And after we’ve had a drink, I’ve got something to tell you.’
Olivia tried not to show too tragic a face before delivering her news, but she saw a worried frown cross Lauren’s forehead. The sergeant was, in fact, quite anxious about whether her little fling with Daz Westbrook had been discovered. What on earth did she have to say in her own defence? That she was, literally, gagging for it? Had he been missed the night before when he had called round to see her – to fuck her, actually?
She could hardly contain herself whilst Olivia savoured her Colombian coffee. Finally she urged, ‘Come on, spit it out. I’m on tenterhooks here.’ Please don’t let this be about Daz and me, please God, she silently prayed. Please, please, please.
Olivia could not understand her impatience, now that the children were home, but addressed her in her most soothing voice. ‘There’s no easy way to break this to you, but Kenneth’s dead.’
‘Is that all?’ Lauren’s body sagged with relief. She hadn’t been rumbled.
‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’
‘As long as he doesn’t have the children any more, I don’t give a damn, but I suppose you’re going to tell me.’
‘We think he was heading for the airport when he collapsed behind the wheel …’
Olivia’s mobile rang, and she reached for it from her pocket. ‘I’ll have to take this,’ she said, grateful to get a breather before going on with her story of Kenneth’s end, although Lauren didn’t seem particularly bothered. As she listened, her face creased into a frown and with a final, ‘Thanks for the information,’ she turned to her friend again.
‘There’s just been an update. A house that was leased for three months has been traced back to Kenneth and Gerda through the good memory of an estate agent, and Liam Shuttleworth’s been out there. He found the place all decked out for Christmas, and the body of a woman on the main bedroom floor. It appears that she had been strangled, but we have no confirmation of that medically, yet.’
‘Is it Gerda?’
‘Nobody knows, but if we don’t find any identification, you’re going to have to identify the body – you’ll have to anyway, unless you know of a particular friend she had while she was w
orking for you.’
‘She didn’t really seem to have a social life. I suppose she was too wrapped up thinking about Kenneth.’
‘If you wait until we can get the bodies transferred to the mortuary, then you could see them both at the same time.’
Still Lauren was calm and in control. ‘He’s got hefty life insurance, you know, and I’m still, legally, his wife. All three of us will be fine, and I’m still earning.’
Suddenly her face crumpled. ‘How on earth am I going to tell the children? They coped really well with him leaving, but this is permanent. They’ll never see him again. I just don’t know how they’ll take it.’
‘And what was all that about the place being done out for Christmas, I wonder,’ murmured Olivia.
‘It was probably because he didn’t see them at Christmas, and he wanted to make it up to them. It would have provided a distraction while they were in his care. My God, how on earth am I going to break it to them?’
‘They’ll be fine, Lauren. Children are a lot more resilient than we realise.’
Lauren’s face was drenched with tears now, but she was not sobbing, rather she was thinking hard, working out the best way to tell the children that their father was never coming back.
‘Did they ever go to Sunday school? And they go to a Church of England school now, don’t they? Maybe you could tell them that he’s gone to heaven.’
‘Jade might swallow that, but I don’t think Sholto would. He’s just that little bit older.’ Lauren was considering the idea, though.
‘Perhaps he would go along with it because it gave Jade comfort,’ Olivia suggested, a little seed of hope in her voice. ‘And remember, if that woman’s body Liam found was Gerda’s, then it’s saved them having to go through him being tried for murder and going to prison.’
‘That’s what I call really looking on the bright side of life.’ Lauren smiled weakly at her partner, as there was the sound of feet coming down the stairs.
Tightrope Page 15
