Chapter Forty-Five

Hedley Atkins had been apprehended, not, as had been planned, outside Mrs. Prance’s house in Birkenhead, so that he could be charged with her intended assault, perhaps with intent to murder her, but on the platform at Liverpool Lime Street Station. He was now being held in custody in a secure mental unit. He appeared to have suffered a complete mental breakdown, according to Chief Inspector Collins, but Tim Yates was sceptical. Having met Hedley’s mother, he suspected that he might have inherited the same formidable gift of dissimulation. He would wait until he saw Hedley, and judge for himself.

Tim decided not to tell Peter Prance of Hedley’s arrest, because he wanted him to finish the narrative that he had begun in the early hours of that morning, and he was afraid that he might change his story if he knew that Hedley was no longer at large. There was no guarantee that Peter would tell the truth in any case, but it was worth giving it a try. If Peter could give Tim a logical explanation for the events that had happened in the Atkins family over the past forty years, he might be persuaded to believe that it was the truth.

Tim looked at his watch. It was almost 9 a.m. Earlier, Peter Prance had asked permission to wash, and Chris McGill had used the opportunity to go home and take a shower himself. Peter Prance had also been provided with breakfast. Tim himself felt grimy. His adrenalin high was beginning to wear off and he had drunk so many cups of coffee during the night that there was a dull ache in his stomach. He ran his tongue over his teeth. They felt as if they were coated with a thick film of something unpleasant; something gluey and industrial. He resolved that he himself would go home to shower and change after this next, and, he hoped, final interview with Peter.

They had agreed to reconvene at nine o’clock. Peter Prance was escorted to the interview room punctually by Andy Carstairs. Peter regarded Tim with a kind of wary triumph. He no longer seemed afraid, or even remorseful.

“It’s disgusting, having to get dressed again in the clothes that I was wearing yesterday,” he observed.

“I’m sorry for that, Mr. Prance. I understand that you were offered some fresh clothes.”

“You don’t think that I would have contemplated even touching those rags, do you, let alone put them next to my skin? Goodness knows where they have been, or what kinds of person have worn them already.”

“They may not match your usual standards, but they have been laundered, sir. That was the point of offering them to you: they are clean.”

“How much longer do you intend to keep me here?”

“That rather depends on you, sir.”

“You’re bluffing,” said Peter Prance, rather nastily. “As you said yesterday – and, as it happens, I knew it already – you have to bring me before a judge or a magistrate within twenty-four hours. Or let me go.”

Tim looked at his watch.

“I see you’re an expert on the law. If you’re correct, we’ve still got a good few hours left, then, sir.”

Chris McGill entered the room at that point. He looked from one to the other of its inmates, evidently picking up the tension in the atmosphere.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “Shall we sit down?”

“Would anyone like coffee?” asked Andy Carstairs. Tim waved him away for answer, but Peter Prance said unctuously:

“I should like a cup.” Andy left the room.

“We don’t have to wait until he comes back,” said Tim. “If you’re ready, Mr. Prance, I should like to pick up where we left off earlier. You were about to tell me what it was you thought was haunting the Atkins family, and to offer me your version of the events that took place in the house at Westlode Street in 1975.”

“Was I really about to do that? It seems a long time ago, now.” Peter Prance narrowed his eyes. “Why did you halt the meeting earlier, Inspector? I heard the comment about the policeman in Liverpool. Have they found Hedley?”

“I’ll answer your questions later, if I may, sir. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to answer my questions first. Please remember that, by your own admission, you could still be charged with conspiracy to commit murder.”

“I very much doubt that you could make that stick. I’ve told you already, I just wanted him to frighten Mummy. Besides, if you have found Hedley, as I suspect, it was because of the information that I provided, wasn’t it?”

Tim sighed. Chris McGill intervened.

“I suggest that you answer the questions, Mr. Prance. The information that the Detective Inspector is asking for can’t incriminate you, and, as I mentioned last night, if you are co-operative it is likely to benefit you later.”

“Oh, very well.”

“I’d like you to continue from where you broke off earlier, Mr. Prance. You were about to tell us why you thought Tirzah agreed to take up temporary residence at the house in Westlode Street.”

Peter Prance settled himself back in his chair, and prolonged the pause, for effect.

“Fear of scandal,” he said, steepling his fingers again and observing Tim over the pyramid that he had constructed. “Colin wanted everyone under the same roof for his own purposes. He wanted as many people to be in the house as possible if the need arose to take drastic action before his mother could change her will, so that he could dilute suspicion. He blackmailed Tirzah into agreeing to come to help his sister look after his mother, knowing that she would arrive accompanied by Hedley and Bryony.”

“Leaving aside that this sounds very far-fetched, you haven’t explained how he managed to blackmail her.”

“It’s quite simple. Colin was Hedley’s father.”

Peter Prance made this announcement with a kind of nasal fanfare. He almost took a bow after he had uttered his bombshell, and stared Tim squarely in the eye. He was clearly disappointed by the low-key response that he elicited.

“Yes, I have heard that that might have been a possibility; but I don’t understand how it could have led to Doris Atkins’ death.”

“Tirzah would have done anything to avoid a scandal – just as her own mother had managed to do after her birth, by moving to a different part of the country and passing herself off as a married woman. Respectability counted for everything in Tirzah’s world – everything except material gain, that is. I’m persuaded that she agreed to have an affair with Colin in the first place because of his comparative wealth. She had not only trapped herself in a loveless marriage, but – what was worse from her point of view – a poverty-stricken one.”

“OK, so Tirzah agreed to help Doris Atkins look after her aged mother because Colin wanted her to, and because – presumably –otherwise he threatened to expose their shameful secret. Assuming that Colin did not care whether or not he himself became engulfed in a scandal, I still don’t understand his motive. Why was he so desperate to have Tirzah help with his mother? Tirzah was not renowned for her caring qualities.”

“Colin adored his mother, and he was also a little tiny bit twisted. He had come to believe that Doris was going to persuade his mother to alter her will, and make Doris an equal beneficiary with himself, in recognition for having taken care of her for so many years. In other words, she had decided at last to forgive Doris for the shame that she had brought on the family by giving birth to Ronald out of wedlock. Oh, thank you so much.” This last comment was directed at Andy Carstairs, who had returned bearing a tray set out with three coffees in cardboard cups and a fourth in the canteen’s single china cup. Peter Prance quickly removed the latter, and sipped at it delicately.

“But if the old lady had altered her will, the ultimate beneficiary would still have been Ronald – the heir that Colin himself named in his own will.”

“Correct. But there was a difference between Ronald inheriting eventually and Doris inheriting almost immediately. Colin would have had to share everything with Doris; more to the point, he would have lost his sense of control over her. And,” – Peter Prance lowered his voice here, and looked very grave – “there is a further important point which I have myself deduced, although it is the one thing on which Hedley simply refuses to agree with me, so you may, if you wish, take it as conjecture . . .”

Tim nodded encouragement.

“It is my own view that Colin may also have been Ronald’s own father.” There was no flourish this time. Just a simple statement. Against Tim’s better judgment, perhaps because this time Peter Prance had not embellished what he said in any way, he almost made Tim believe that he may have stumbled upon the truth. With some effort, Tim chose not to offer an opinion.

“Let me get this straight. By threatening to tell the truth about who Hedley’s father was, Colin blackmailed Tirzah into going to stay at his house to help look after his mother, so that she could spy on Doris and report back if there were any indication that Doris was trying to influence the old lady to alter her will. Doris herself had stayed all her life in a house where she was treated like a servant, because she had borne a child by Colin (one assumes that her mother did not know or would not believe that Colin was the father), and she could not afford to live anywhere else unless she married: but marriage for her was out of the question, because then she would probably have to tell her future husband who Ronald’s father was. Assuming that you are absolutely correct about all of this, I still don’t see how it led to the deaths of two women, Bryony Atkins and Doris Atkins. Especially as circumstantial evidence suggests that Bryony died before Doris.”

Peter Prance’s boot-button eyes became very black.

“Oh, so you have found Bryony’s body, then? Or is it merely your conjecture that she died at about the same time as Doris?”

“We have found some remains which we believe to have been Bryony’s.”

“Let me guess: they were buried in the garden?”

“Why do you say that?”

“It explains Tirzah’s rather gnomic remark at the time of her trial, that her mother-in-law had been too fond of gardening.”

“Indeed – and if your deduction is correct, it also suggests, as I said, that Bryony died before Doris did. Can you offer any explanation for that?”

“As a matter of fact I can. I did not ‘deduce’, as you put it, the facts of what I am about to tell you. Hedley told them to me during an extraordinary outburst, during which he seemed to lose not only his temper, but every vestige of his reason. I therefore have no doubt that what I am about to say is the truth.”

Tim nodded again, reigning in his scepticism.

“When Bryony and Hedley were children, they, and Hedley in particular, realised that their parents’ marriage was a very unhappy one. For whatever reason, Hedley attributed the cause of their unhappiness to the visits of Tirzah’s mother, Eliza Drake. He was nine and Bryony was ten when together they arranged for Eliza to have an ‘accident’ when she visited their house. They caused her to trip and fall down the stairs. It killed her. Despite her honest nature, Tirzah was obliged to suppress the truth about the fall and present it as a true accident, because she knew that, at the age of ten, Bryony had reached the age of criminal responsibility. She believed that Hedley, who had been nine at the time and therefore not criminally responsible, was the main culprit, and this had an effect on their relationship ever afterwards, although after the inquest Eliza Drake was never mentioned by the family again. No-one knew about the exact circumstances of Eliza’s death except Hedley and Bryony. Tirzah did not see it happen, and Ronald had been out of the house.”

“What does this have to do with Bryony’s death?”

“I’m coming to that – give me time, Detective Inspector. Soon after Tirzah and her family moved into the house at Westlode Street, Bryony went out for a drink with Kathryn Sheppard, with whom she had kept in touch after Kathryn’s relationship with Hedley had ended. Hedley, apparently, although he says he no longer entertained any particular feelings for Kathryn, was jealous of all of Bryony’s friends. He doesn’t explain why, but my guess is that he was haunted by his maternal grandmother’s death, for which he felt he had taken an unfair share of the blame, and therefore he believed that Bryony owed him her undivided friendship in return. She was much more popular with everyone than Hedley was. Whatever the reason, when Bryony returned to the house that night to find the house in darkness and Hedley sleeping in his made-up bed on the landing, he awoke and got up, and they had a violent disagreement. Triggered by his resentment of her night out with Kathryn, he accused her of refusing to take some of the blame for Eliza’s death, and therefore of turning Tirzah against her. Apparently she gave him a shove and he pushed her back, and she fell down the stairs, in a ghastly parody of Eliza’s own death. Like Eliza’s, her neck was broken. But this time it really was an accident.”

“If that was the case, why didn’t Hedley report it to the police?”

“For a number of reasons, chief among which was that Colin and Ronald emerged from their respective rooms, and persuaded Hedley that because of the earlier incident with Eliza, the police would not believe that Bryony’s death had been an accident. Hedley is vague about why they were so insistent about this, but he certainly believed them. And, of course, they had a point, though not on the face of it one that was as compelling for them as it was for Hedley. So why were they so insistent? For what it’s worth, my own opinion is that now that Bryony was dead, if Hedley had been sent to prison, Tirzah would have had no reason left to co-operate with Colin’s plans, which I’m sure Ronald must also have been party to. Colin would have found it very hard to stop Doris from influencing her mother’s will, if that was indeed what she intended to do, and impossible to get rid of her if he saw the need, had there already been one suspicious death reported at the house. And then of course there is the additional reason that I believe in but Hedley won’t acknowledge: Ronald’s possible parentage. Ronald and Colin had always seemed to get on. If Ronald thought that Colin was his father, he was not appalled by it in the same way that Hedley was. They worked together.”

“If all this is true, where were Doris and Tirzah while this was going on, and how did Colin and Ronald get them to agree to be accomplices as well?”

“They didn’t agree: or Doris didn’t, at any rate. As it happened, neither Doris nor Tirzah had gone to bed when Bryony died, because the old lady had had one of her episodes. I’m not sure exactly what form these took: Hedley seems to think that she had fits, though it’s equally possible that she invented some malady when she wanted attention. Anyway, both were with the old girl in her improvised bedroom in the scullery during the drama with Bryony. Doris in fact stayed with her mother all night. By the time that Tirzah retired to bed at some point after Bryony’s fall, Colin and Ronald had concealed the body in the passageway that ran the length of the house, which Colin used as a storeroom. All three of them – Colin, Ronald and Hedley – then got up early next morning and buried the body. Hedley did not actually tell me where it was buried, so I had to work it out for myself, which I must admit I was slow to do. That cryptic remark of Tirzah’s had me puzzled for far too long. Far too long.” Peter Prance repeated the phrase with emphasis, waving his hands.

“So at some point they told Tirzah what had happened, and what they had done?”

“They had to. Although she wasn’t particularly maternal, Tirzah was closer to Bryony than to any of them. It was true, of course, that Bryony was about to leave for university, but she wouldn’t have gone without saying goodbye to Tirzah, and indeed involving her in her preparations.”

“But surely if Tirzah was close to Bryony, which is my own impression, too, she would have been angry and upset about her death, and refused to co-operate with them?”

“I’m sure that she was quite devastated by it: but a moment’s reflection would have told her that she had no choice. She had supped with the devil, and reaped her reward. If she were to retrieve anything from the situation, it would be the freedom of her only living child, and the promise of reasonable prosperity for herself and Ronald when Colin died. And, of course, being allowed to maintain her ‘respectability’ intact. There was still every likelihood that Colin would betray her if he didn’t get his own way exactly. She was a cold and self-interested woman, as you know, or became one,but he was even more calculating.”

“So Tirzah was party to the interment of Bryony’s body, but Doris wasn’t?”

“Yes. Doris remained the only threat – and she was a double threat, now. Not only might she persuade her mother to change her will, but she would be very likely to report all of them to the police if she had the slightest suspicion that something untoward had happened to Bryony. And she was suspicious. She had not gone to bed the following day until Tirzah came downstairs to sit with the old lady again. When Doris awoke, it was almost lunchtime, and Bryony was not there. Tirzah explained Bryony’s absence by saying that she had mistaken the dates of some preparatory meetings that she had to attend at the University of Reading, and had had to leave in a hurry. Doris accepted this at first, but when Bryony failed to return after a couple of days, she began to say how odd it was not to have heard from her. No doubt the replies that she received from the other residents of the house failed to convince her that all was well: as you know, Tirzah in particular was a clumsy liar, and Hedley and Ronald were undoubtedly consumed with guilt by what they had done. Whether or not Doris actually went as far as thinking that Bryony might be dead, I don’t know. I surmise that she may have been taking an undue interest in the wet patch of earth in the orchard – the garden was her province, after all – but of course I don’t know that.”

“Are you saying that Doris became so troublesome in voicing her worries about Bryony that Tirzah was forced to kill her? Because I have to say that I don’t find that argument very convincing.”

“My dear Inspector, I don’t find it convincing, either: moreover, I’m pretty certain that that was not the case. I should tell you that I began my investigations into Tirzah and her crimes because I was interested in what made her tick, and therefore in what made Hedley tick. I later came to the conclusion that in all probability she did not murder her mother-in-law, and I must admit that, for a brief time, I thought that Hedley himself might have been the murderer. In view of the recent deaths of both Tirzah and Ronald, which, as you are aware, shocked me very considerably, and which seemed to have followed too close on each other not to be attributable to foul play, I may have to revise my opinion again. Nevertheless, at this moment I pronounce myself at least ninety-five per cent convinced that it was Colin Atkins who killed his sister.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he had both the motive and the opportunity. Because Tirzah could never describe in detail exactly how Doris died. Because Hedley is either shifty and evasive – not to say mendacious – or downright aggressive, when I bring the subject up, but we know that he and Ronald were both at work at the time of her death. And finally, because of all the possible culprits – Tirzah, Ronald, Hedley and Colin himself – the only plausible murder scenario that my fertile but, if I may say so, extremely logical imagination can paint is one that puts Colin firmly in the role of protagonist.”

“Really, Mr. Prance, I don’t think that the Inspector wants . . .” It was Chris McGill, speaking for the first time in almost an hour.

“I agree that I don’t usually listen to conjecture,” said Tim quietly. “But on this occasion, I should be quite interested to hear an account of Mr. Prance’s ‘scenario’. Although it will be inadmissible as evidence in any future trial that may take place, of course.”

Peter Prance gave a gracious little bow.

“I don’t actually think that Doris died because of her obsession with the garden, though Tirzah may have believed this or been told it. Doris was a very conscientious housewife. She kept the house and the shop immaculate. She had been upset some years previously when a health and safety inspector had discovered evidence of rodents in the passage that Colin used as a storeroom, and threatened to close the shop down if it happened again. Colin had not allowed her into the storeroom until then, probably because of his extreme miserliness. He made her pay for any goods that she took for herself from the shop, and despite her sterling honesty he probably harboured groundless worries that she would have a better opportunity for appropriating goods from the storeroom undetected. Anyway, after the incident with the health and safety man, she insisted on cleaning the passage thoroughly every fortnight, herself moving the boxes around as she worked until every area of the floor had been scrubbed. It’s my guess that she set out to clean the storeroom again a few days after Bryony’s death, and found some evidence that her body had been lying there. A shoe or an article of clothing, perhaps, or even something more unpleasant.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Colin either followed her, afraid that she might discover something, or was already there by chance – there was a lavatory at the far end of the passage, and he may have just been using it. Either way, she confronted him, and he killed her. Tirzah came in shortly afterwards, perhaps alerted by a noise of some kind, and he made her agree to take the blame for Doris’s death, probably by using his old threat of otherwise exposing Hedley’s parentage, and by making the additional point that she was already an accessory after the fact of concealing her daughter’s body, and could easily be charged with Bryony’s murder, too.”

“And Ronald?”

“He certainly wasn’t there when the murder took place. Either he believed Colin’s version of events, or he was party to making Tirzah take the blame. As you know, there was little love lost between them. I think that Hedley may have known the truth – or at least guessed it. He certainly lied to me when I first asked him for his recollections of the day that Doris Atkins died. But Hedley was afraid of being charged with Bryony’s murder, and he would have kept his mouth shut for that reason. How is Hedley, by the way? I do hope that the dear boy has managed to regain his equilibrium.”

“Why do you say that?”

Peter Prance shrugged. His black eyes glinted.

“No particular reason. But you have chosen to keep me in the dark about what is happening with him; and I must say that recently his behaviour has been somewhat erratic. He is very highly strung, you know. Capable of having quite a serious breakdown, I should say.”