When the Dead Speak

by Sheila Bugler

  ‘Of course not.’ But something in his face must have given him away.

  ‘No, you knew,’ Karen said. ‘That’s why you want to see Kyle, isn’t it? Because you want him to tell you what Lauren told him about your uncle. Well, I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. My son isn’t here, and when he comes back I’ll make sure he keeps well away from you and your busybody girlfriend.’

  She started to close the door and Ed pushed his body against it, preventing her from shutting it.

  ‘Lauren found a letter at her grandmother’s house,’ he said. ‘I want to ask Kyle about it. That’s the only reason I want to speak to him.’

  ‘You’d better let me shut this door right away,’ Karen said. ‘If you don’t I’m going to dial 999 and report you.’

  ‘Just tell him I need to see him,’ he said, stepping back. ‘Please?’

  But he was too late. She’d already slammed the door shut.

  On the way back to his car, Dee called again. This time, when he saw her name on the screen he switched his phone off. He needed to calm down before he spoke to her. Because the way he felt now, he would say things that he might regret later. Part of him knew that his anger was irrational, that Dee had only been doing her job. But a bigger part of him didn’t care how irrational he was being.

  Early on in their relationship, they’d spoken about the challenges of a detective and a journalist being in a relationship together. They’d agreed that, where possible, they would do everything they could to keep work separate from their relationship. Except the moment it had suited her, Dee had ignored that and used Ed’s name to get what she wanted. Right now, Ed didn’t see how he could forgive her for that.

  From the diary of Emma Reed

  6 April 1966

  Annabelle Palmer got married yesterday. The wedding took place in St Michael and All Angels in Berwick. Before Mary’s murder, Annabelle’s wedding would have taken place in St Mary’s in Old Town, or St John’s in Meads. It would be inconceivable, of course, to do that now. Her niece was murdered in the former, and buried in the latter. I’ve never been to the little church in Berwick, although I’ve read about the murals. Miriam’s brother got married there. She says the murals are beautiful, but the way she describes them, I think they sound rather ugly. They were painted by Vanessa Bell and her lover, Duncan Grant.

  Annabelle’s new husband is the Right Honourable Andrew Shaw. He’s a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party. According to Miriam, he’s a man with a lot of ambition but not enough money to take him to where he wants to go. Which is where Annabelle comes in. She’s a rich woman now her brother has passed away. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why Andrew Shaw would find her an attractive prospect.

  Miriam and Stuart were invited to the wedding. She was giddy with the excitement of it all when she came to visit this morning. It wasn’t easy, sitting across the table from her and listening to her jabbering on about the bride and groom, and what a fine day it had been and how lucky they’d been with the weather and did I know the Prime Minister’s nephew was a friend of the groom’s? On and on she went, her voice like a woodpecker’s beak peck-peck-pecking at the side of my head until it ached.

  When she told me the bride looked beautiful, I almost laughed. Because we both know that couldn’t have been true. I’d decided I couldn’t take any more and was about to tell her to put a sock in it when she told me Richard Partridge had been there with his new bride by his side.

  I asked if she was sure about that, and she said oh yes, and his wife looked so beautiful in her pale pink silk shift dress, and didn’t I think it was strange David wasn’t there too and blah, blah, blah. It’s strange to think I used to admire Miriam. She’s one of the few women I know who’s managed to have her own career, alongside a family. Now, there are times I think she’s one of the silliest women I’ve ever known. But beggars can’t be choosers and she’s the only friend I’ve got left.

  I let her blabber on, while my mind wandered back to that morning when I’d seen them together in Brighton. I’d been so sure then. Yet five years later, I’m no closer to proving what I know – that Richard killed Mary and used Annabelle to spread rumours about my son.

  Since then, Richard has married and had two children, and now Annabelle is married too. I’d assumed their affair – or whatever it was – had ended. But if he attended her wedding, does that mean they are still seeing each other behind their spouses’ backs? No. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I think it’s something else. Something darker, and stronger, has kept these two people close to each other all this time.

  Richard killed Mary. Annabelle told everyone Graham did it. And then Graham was killed, because of the things Annabelle said about him. Why was she so ready to lie for him? Annabelle may not be the prettiest of women, but there’s no doubting how clever she is. Her sharp mind and her quick wit are the two things people always mention when talking about her.

  If she’s as clever as everyone says she is, wouldn’t she have worked it out? But if she knew, why would she lie to protect him? The answer’s here somewhere, but no matter how hard I look for it, I can’t see it.

  Twenty-nine

  On Monday morning, Dee woke to a blue sky and a silver sea as still as glass. She lay in bed, watching the wind whisper across the surface of the ocean and thinking about Ed. Something was wrong, but she didn’t know what or how to fix it. He’d been due to come over Saturday evening, but he’d called at the last minute and cancelled. Told her he had to work late, but she could tell from his voice that he was lying. Since then, she hadn’t heard from him. She’d called him a few times and left messages, but he hadn’t got back to her.

  At least she had a busy morning ahead to take her mind off Ed. True to his word, Philip had put Dee in touch with Miriam Anderson – Emma Reed’s friend. The two women had spoken on the phone yesterday evening and arranged to meet later this morning at Sunshine Nursing Home, where Miriam had lived since last year.

  Dee was familiar with the nursing home – a large, elegant, three-storey Victorian building on Darley Road in Meads. A friend of her mother’s had lived out the last few years of her life there. As Dee got a taxi across this morning, she remembered the times she’d driven her mother to the same place so she could catch up with her old friend. It felt strange coming back this morning without her mother. Stranger still to be doing this journey by taxi instead of her mother’s Volvo. Yesterday evening, she’d gone online and booked a hire car. She was due to pick it up later today. Until then, she’d have to keep using taxis to get around.

  At the reception, Dee signed in and was directed to Miriam’s room on the first floor. She knocked on the open door and stepped into a light and airy space with beautiful views across the landscaped garden and the South Downs. A small, frail-looking woman with short white hair and a lined face was sitting in an armchair by the window.

  ‘Mrs Anderson?’ Dee said.

  ‘Miriam, dear. And you must be Dee. Oh, what beautiful flowers. Are they for me?’

  ‘Of course.’ Dee had picked up a bouquet of twelve roses on her way over. She looked around the room for a vase and, when she couldn’t see one, she put the flowers in the sink and filled it with water.

  ‘One of the nurses will bring a vase if I ask for one,’ Miriam said. ‘Would you like a hot drink?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Dee said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you mind if we go outside?’ Miriam took a packet of cigarettes from her cardigan pocket and winked at Dee. ‘Ciggies are strictly off-limits in this place, but there’s a little corner of the garden where you can smoke without anyone seeing you. Shall we?’

  Feeling like she was back at school, Dee followed Miriam back down the stairs and outside to a covered patio area in one corner of the extensive grounds.

  ‘You smoke?’ Miriam offered the pack to Dee, who shook her head.

  ‘Very sensible.’ Miriam put a cigarette in her mouth, lit it with a gold Zippo lighter and inhaled de
eply.

  ‘I have no idea why we’re not allowed to smoke in this place. We’re all dying anyway.’

  ‘I’m sure they’d like to delay that for as long as possible,’ Dee said.

  Miriam chuckled.

  ‘I rarely get visitors, you know. My son lives in Australia and I don’t have any other relatives nearby. This is quite a novelty. I didn’t want to talk to you at first, you know. Not when I heard you were a journalist. They were terrible to Emma and her family first time round. But Philip has promised me you’re nothing like that.’

  ‘I’m not going to write anything nasty about the family,’ Dee said. ‘In fact, Graham’s nephew is a close friend of mine. I wouldn’t do anything to upset him.’

  ‘A close friend?’ Miriam’s watery blue eyes twinkled. ‘What sort of close friend, exactly?’

  ‘Close enough,’ Dee said, smiling.

  ‘That would be Nicola’s boy. Edward, isn’t it? He had a sister too, although I can’t for the life of me remember her name. Don’t grow old, Dee. I really don’t recommend it. Your body stops working properly and your mind is incapable of remembering anything important. You spend your days wondering how your life has passed by so fast you barely noticed it happening.’

  ‘The alternative’s worse,’ Dee said. ‘Or so I’ve heard.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Miriam threw her cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out. ‘Would you disapprove if I smoke one more before we go back inside?’

  ‘I wouldn’t disapprove,’ Dee said. ‘But I might point out it’s freezing out here and you’re shivering like a leaf.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’ Miriam smiled. ‘Very well then. Let’s go back inside.’

  On their way back to her room, Miriam gave Dee a running commentary on the other residents, the staff and what it was like moving from the house she’d lived in all her life into this nursing home.

  ‘I hated it at first,’ she said, sitting down and gesturing for Dee to do the same. ‘But I’ve got used to it now. I suppose you get used to anything after a while. Vanessa! That’s the girl’s name, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ed’s sister?’

  ‘That’s right. She was a pretty little thing. Those children had a difficult time too, you know. Mary’s murder didn’t just hurt her own family. So many people were affected by what happened. Nicola, Edward’s mother, had a terrible time growing up. Poor Emma was never the same after Graham’s death. I always felt her obsession with proving Graham’s innocence meant she neglected the child she had left.’

  ‘Why were people so quick to assume Graham was the killer?’ Dee asked.

  ‘He was an easy target,’ Miriam said. ‘I never believed he’d killed her. But I was in the minority back then, I can tell you. That family were shunned after Mary’s murder. Within a few days, that Partridge boy had convinced the whole town of Graham’s guilt. The truth is, Graham wasn’t capable of something like that. I’m not saying he was perfect, because he was far from that. But he was a soft lad.’

  ‘When you say that Partridge boy, you mean Richard?’

  ‘The very one.’ Miriam frowned. ‘A horrible child who grew up to be a horrible man.’

  ‘Philip told me there was a rumour Annabelle and Richard were seeing each other. Did you ever hear about anything like that?’

  Miriam shook her head.

  ‘That’s nonsense. Richard had a real eye for the girls, but he liked them young and pretty. I’m afraid Annabelle was neither of those things. Emma thought Annabelle was in love with Richard, and she might have been right. But it was never reciprocated, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You said Emma was obsessed,’ Dee said. ‘Did she ever talk to you about it?’

  ‘It was all she ever talked about. Poor Emma, she was such a complicated woman. Even before all that happened. She was very clever, you know. I liked her enormously when I first got to know her. She used to make me laugh. Although not everyone warmed to her as easily as I did. She thought she was better than everyone else, you see. It’s one of the reasons that whole business hit her so hard. She didn’t like people feeling sorry for her. As time went by, she cut herself off from everyone. It didn’t have to be like that. There were plenty of people who would have been there for her, but she wouldn’t have it. I was the only person she saw. And that wasn’t because she particularly liked me. It was because I was happy to let her pretend she was cleverer than I was.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘She’d lost so much,’ Miriam said. ‘I felt sorry for her. Although I have to admit, as her obsession with Annabelle grew worse, she became very difficult. It was Myra Hindley’s fault, you know.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Whatever Dee had been expecting, it wasn’t that.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Miriam said. ‘She was always changing her mind about who the killer could have been. Although towards the end, she did rather fixate on Annabelle. But no matter how hard she tried, she was never able to prove anything. In the end, I think it simply became too much for her.’

  ‘Did she ever confront Annabelle about her suspicions?’

  ‘Probably,’ Miriam said, ‘towards the end of her life, Emma was drinking too much. She could be a bit impulsive after a few drinks. I’ve always thought that’s what happened the night she died.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Annabelle was there,’ Miriam said.

  ‘The night Emma killed herself?’

  Miriam’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Those two women hated each other. I’m convinced Annabelle said something that tipped Emma over the edge. I really can’t see any other reason Emma would have done what she did. She wasn’t remotely suicidal. I know people say things like that after someone takes their own life, but in Emma’s case it’s true. She was driven by her determination to clear Graham’s name. I’ve never understood why she took her own life before she was able to do that.’

  An idea flickered at the back of Dee’s mind, but when she tried to focus on it, it faded away.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘You must have had your own ideas about who killed Mary.’

  ‘Annabelle had the most to gain by Mary’s death,’ Miriam said. ‘And I admit, for a while, Emma’s arguments were quite persuasive. But Emma never found anything to back up her theory. I think she realised, at the end, that her fixation on Annabelle had been a mistake.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  Miriam shook her head.

  ‘I barely saw her towards the end. She was drinking a lot, and she’d become rather difficult to be around. I regretted it later, of course. Always wondered if I’d been a better friend, if she’d had someone to talk to, maybe she wouldn’t have gone up to Beachy Head that night and done what she did. Or maybe she’d have done it anyway. We’ll never know, will we?’

  Dee wanted to ask more questions, but she could see Miriam was getting tired. When she asked if Miriam would like her to go, the old woman nodded.

  ‘I’m not used to talking for such a long time,’ she said. ‘It’s been lovely to see you though. I do hope you’ll come again sometime.’

  Promising she would, Dee thanked her for her time and said goodbye. On her way back to the entrance, she thought over the conversation, trying to work out what – if anything – she’d learned. She hadn’t come any closer to finding out what Lauren had discovered. But she’d found someone else who believed Graham Reed was innocent. Which was good news for Ed, at least.

  * * *

  Louise was running late. She’d been due to pick the children up from Sadie, the childminder, twenty minutes ago. Sadie was normally pretty laid-back, but she was going out this evening and Louise had promised she’d be on time. A promise she wouldn’t be able to keep unless, by some miracle, there was no traffic between her office and Sadie’s house in Old Town.

  She’d spent the afternoon visiting a bereaved family. The father, a man in his early fifties, had been killed the previous week in a road accident. This aspe
ct of the job was the one Louise liked the least – having to visit the family of someone who’d died, asking if they wanted the paper to do a write-up on the deceased. ‘The death knock’, Louise and her colleagues called it. Today, the dead man’s family had been falling over themselves to tell Louise all the wonderful things about him that she needed to include in her obituary. Which meant she’d stayed longer than she’d planned. By the time she’d got back to the office, she had a mountain of emails to get through, as well as the dead man’s obituary to write, before she could finish for the day.

  She’d planned to call Dee as well, but that would have to wait. They’d barely spoken since Dee had called Louise the other day to tell her what had happened to her car. Dee had sounded fine, but Louise knew shock could hit people in different ways. As she ran towards her car, rummaging in her bag for the key fob, she made a mental note to phone Dee as soon as she got home. She normally kept the key in the same part of her bag, but it wasn’t there when her fingers scrabbled around for it. She was so intent on finding it that she didn’t see the man standing in front of her and she ran straight into him.

  ‘Sorry.’ She stepped out of his way to let him pass. ‘I wasn’t paying attention.’ She would have said more but her brain caught up with her eyes and she realised the man she’d bumped into was Nigel Shaw. Louise didn’t have time to stop and talk, but she could hardly hurry past without at least asking how he was doing. Even if she already knew the answer. He looked dreadful. Wild-eyed and red-faced and… something else as well. There was a desperation about him that made her uneasy.

  ‘Are you okay, Nigel?’

  He grabbed her arm and held it tight. She yelped, a combination of shock and pain, as his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her upper arm.

  ‘I need your help,’ he said. He pulled her close, too close, the smell of sweat and alcohol invading the air she breathed in. He looked like a man on the edge, a man capable of anything.