Judy opened her eyes to the early morning sunshine, wondering, just for a second, why the dread in the pit of her stomach. And why the silence?
The dread was for Emma. The silence was because this was the first time she had woken of her own accord since the eighth of January.
She got up, and padded quickly through to the nursery, smiling when she saw Charlotte, like her father, soundly, deeply, earnestly asleep. Judy had slept like that once, but her ability to sleep through anything but very sunny mornings hadn’t been able entirely to withstand Lloyd’s habit of staying up until all hours before coming to bed, had been further eroded by pregnancy, and destroyed altogether by the living alarm clock in the cot.
If only they had found Emma, this would have been a pleasant change; solitary Saturday morning moments when no one was demanding her attention. But Lloyd’s mystery baby seemed to belong to Kayleigh, so that ray of hope, never exactly brilliant, had faded away.
She pulled on a robe, and went into the kitchen, wondering if she dared try to make herself breakfast. She always used to have a cooked breakfast, but she had found it too difficult after Charlotte’s arrival; a plate of bacon and eggs would make her feel a whole lot better about life, she was sure. Lloyd would feed Charlotte if she announced that she was hungry while Judy was still eating. He hadn’t been home until late and he had to go into work, so it wasn’t very fair to expect him to do that, but she risked it anyway.
Charlotte graciously allowed Judy to make and eat her own breakfast before she demanded to know where hers was, and Lloyd, showered and shaved, came into the kitchen to find Charlotte being burped. He reached for his coffee – all he ever had in the morning – with one hand, and with the other seized the digital camera that he had bought before Charlotte was even born.
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that! I must look awful. You’re never going to look at them all anyway.’
‘Yes, I am. You can do all sorts of things with them once they’re on the computer. If you look awful, my love, I can make you look radiant. I can even turn you into someone else altogether, if that seems preferable.’
The man who once positively backed out of a room with a computer in it had discovered that they Did Things, and that was all he needed to know. Lloyd loved gadgets. Judy shook her head. ‘Are you going to need a lift to a petrol station? Because if you are, you’d better put that thing down and get dressed. You said you were going to Barton to see Kayleigh before you went to work.’
‘Oh – yes. I’d forgotten about the car.’ He drank some coffee, and disappeared again, while Judy got herself and Charlotte ready.
‘We’re going to the garage,’ she said to Charlotte. ‘ Where we have to buy not just petrol, but a whole new petrol can, because daddy’s left his somewhere, and he’s not sure where. Then we have to go and put the petrol in daddy’s car, because he let it run out. He’s had to leave it on a road in a business park, and it will probably have been vandalized, if not stolen. And he lectures me.’
Charlotte beamed at her, and Judy felt guilty about having what Nina Crawford had lost. And about wanting to go back to work, especially now that she knew she might be going to run Malworth CID. It would be a challenge; it was hard to win back the trust of the community when it had been lost. But it would be a challenge that she would relish, and she had liked what she had seen of McArthur, so that hadn’t put her off.
But that young woman with her Gucci shoes and briefcase and her old pram had. Charlotte meant everything to her, she knew that now, and she didn’t want ever to think of her as a chore, a burden to be off-loaded, as coming second. But she did want to go back to work, so did that make her just the same as Ms Gucci? She would see what Lloyd thought, when he wasn’t so busy. For now, all he could think of was his murder investigation.
And despite Dean Fletcher having come on the scene, he still seemed to suspect Ian Waring, Judy found out, as she drove him to the petrol station. ‘But why would he do that?’ she asked. ‘Surely you don’t think he murdered the woman because he didn’t want to go to Australia?’
‘Because she was rich, perhaps.’
‘Does he get her money?’
Lloyd shrugged.
‘Anyway – didn’t you say he was with his ex-partner when the postman heard the row going on?’ She was watching the car behind her in the rear-view mirror; he was a little too close for comfort. She had become very aware of that since having Charlotte in the back. ‘ He couldn’t be in two places at once.’
‘Why does everyone assume that this row was with Lesley Newton?’
‘Because she’s the one who was found dead.’ The driver behind her turned off, much to Judy’s relief. She wondered about one of these stickers telling people there was a baby in the back, but she decided against it. People always thought they could stop in time, and would whether there was a sticker or not. Besides, she had always hated them before.
‘We have rows,’ Lloyd pointed out. ‘Nobody finds battered bodies lying around as a result.’
‘Not yet.’ She signalled the turn for the service station.
‘Isn’t the row more likely to have been with Kayleigh herself? Who else could tell Fletcher with any authority that he wasn’t the father?’
That seemed reasonable. ‘Do you think that’s true?’
‘I doubt it. I’m still having trouble accepting that Kayleigh had relations with one man, never mind more than one. I suspect he came causing trouble, and she told him that purely to get rid of him.’
‘But if Waring had already killed Lesley before he took the van back to Theresa Black,’ Judy said, when Lloyd had returned with his new petrol can and was filling it up, ‘that means Kayleigh and Fletcher were having this argument with Lesley’s dead body in the house.’
‘Yes,’ said Lloyd, thoughtfully. ‘It does, doesn’t it? And it wouldn’t surprise me. Fletcher says he fell over a dead body, and perhaps he did, because I think Kayleigh knew her mother was dead before I told her. She seemed to know something had happened to her, at any rate. And she was anxious to know where Ian was.’
‘Of course she knew something had happened to her mother – the police were all over the place. And she wanted to know where Ian was because she needed to see a friendly face.’
‘I’m not convinced his was a friendly face.’ Lloyd went off to pay for the petrol, and Judy realized what else was wrong with Lloyd’s theory.
‘Don’t you think Theresa Black would have noticed the blood on Waring’s clothes, if he’d done it before he left?’ she asked, when they were under way again.
‘He had other clothes there. He could have dumped the ones he was wearing, and changed.’
‘Where did he dump them? No one’s found any bloodstained clothes, have they?’
‘Well, no, not unless you count the ones Mrs Newton was unpacking, and that would mean he was wearing a size ten floral-print summer dress when he did it, so all right, he didn’t dump the clothes. But he could have been stark naked, for all we know.’
‘Why? Or are you saying it was planned?’
‘Oh, I’m sure it was planned.’
He obviously wasn’t going to tell her why he was so sure, which meant it was something he had yet to prove. But Waring did have blood on his clothes, which seemed to negate what he had just said. Judy pointed that out.
‘So he did,’ he conceded. ‘And yet, whatever way you look at it – whether he murdered her or not – there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for him to have blood on his clothes. So it’s a little puzzle, isn’t it?’
It wasn’t really a puzzle, Judy thought, as she drove to where Lloyd had left his car. Just because seasoned police officers, used to the aftermath of violence, used to dealing with road accidents, recognized death when they saw it, didn’t mean that Waring did – he could have tried to revive her, however useless the attempt. Or could simply have held her in his arms, unwilling to believe what had happened; Freddie was quite right – there was no right way to react to sudden and violent death.
But Lloyd was into his theorizing stride. ‘ So let’s say that Waring has done away with Lesley, and has left the cottage. Kayleigh comes back from wherever she’s been – Waring got rid of her on some pretext or other – and she’s on her own with Alexandra when Dean Fletcher arrives. He argues with her about taking Alexandra to Australia, and she tells him he’s not Alexandra’s father to get rid of him.’
Judy nodded.
‘But he doesn’t give up, so Kayleigh, carrying Alexandra, tries to leave by way of the utility room. She’s still in the kitchen when she puts the utility room light on, and she sees her mother’s body. She comes back out of the kitchen, just as Waring arrives home. She realizes that he must have killed her, and runs out of the house, into the woods, and stays there until she feels brave enough to come back.’
‘OK.’
‘No objections yet? This must be a record.’ He thought for a moment before carrying on. ‘Meanwhile, Waring and Dean are left in the house. Waring can’t trot out his story about having found the body, so he has to dispose of the witnesses, starting with Dean. He hopes to deal with Kayleigh later.’
Now, poor Ian Waring was turning into a would-be multiple murderer, but Judy still didn’t raise any objections. Theorizing was how Lloyd disposed of his little puzzles, and their disposal made the big puzzle easier to solve, according to him. He was very often right.
‘Yes …’ Lloyd expanded on his theme. ‘Waring fought with Dean, and the fight took them into the sitting room, where Dean was pushed into the mirror, getting covered in cuts from the broken glass. Possibly was attacked with that little table, getting the blow to his head, cracking his ribs.’
Judy smiled. ‘Why didn’t Waring just use the doorstop again? It would have been more effective.’
‘Because it was still in the utility room. And Dean Fletcher is covered in cuts, which is more than anyone else is – he must have got them somehow. And the cracked ribs.’
‘Perhaps he fell over the branch of a tree, like he said. He was found in the woods, wasn’t he?’
Lloyd ignored her mundane solution. ‘He managed to get away, and ran through to the kitchen, with Waring following. In the utility room, they struggled again – disturbing the body, and each getting the victim’s blood on their clothing – until Dean finally got away from him and ran into the garage.’
‘Intrepid, isn’t he?’ Judy pulled into the kerb ahead of Lloyd’s car, which had remained unmolested during the night. ‘He’s got cracked ribs and concussion, but Dean wins through.’
‘He didn’t have concussion,’ said Lloyd, in defence of his story. ‘Just a bang on the head. He was woozy, but not concussed. Anyway, Waring runs out of the utility room via the kitchen and hallway – leaving shoeprints – arriving at the front door as Dean drives out. And Dean runs the car into him.’
‘Why?’
‘To stop him doing anything to Kayleigh.’
‘And then he kindly stopped to ring the police?’ She undid her seatbelt. ‘Are you going to put that petrol in your car, or what?’
They got out, and Lloyd unlocked his petrol cap. Judy checked Charlotte, who had predictably fallen asleep, and felt again a pang of guilt.
‘No reason why he shouldn’t ring the police. He wouldn’t want the man to die, because it would make it more difficult for him if he got caught.’ Lloyd emptied the contents of the petrol can into his tank as he spoke. ‘But, obviously, he had no intention of getting caught – he didn’t even want us knowing he’d been there, since that would land him in trouble, so he gave Waring’s name, then he drove off, and abandoned the car.’ He put the empty can in the boot and slammed it shut. ‘Well? Does it pass muster?’
It accounted for the shoeprints, and the blood on Fletcher’s and Waring’s clothes. It accounted for Kayleigh wandering round carrying a fourteen pound baby for three and a half hours. Judy couldn’t see anything immediately wrong with it, except that, it was nonsense, but Lloyd knew that already. She watched him drive off, then got back into the car, and drove Charlotte home, firmly putting the missing Emma and her own shortcomings as a mother out of her mind and concentrating on Lloyd’s investigation instead.
Lloyd didn’t believe his wild theories; they were just possible answers to the questions they found themselves with, until they could be disproved. He wanted them to be challenged, to have the holes in them pointed out, so that he could see the facts more clearly. Judy hadn’t been able to find much in the way of elimination that time, so she probably hadn’t helped very much; it wasn’t as easy when she was having to work on his puzzles second-hand.
But she had a little puzzle of her own, because, while Lloyd didn’t think for a minute that all that had gone on exactly as he had outlined it, he really did seem to suspect Waring of this murder, and it was for no reason at all that Judy could see.
It was DCI Lloyd, Mrs Spears said, and once again, Kayleigh found herself in the quiet room. She had discovered that it was a room that you had to have permission to go into; if someone was in there who wanted to be alone, you couldn’t just barge in on them. But the system didn’t seem to work with her; she hadn’t been alone in it for five minutes.
DCI Lloyd smiled his serious smile, and she and Mrs Spears sat down, but he didn’t; he walked slowly round the room, looking at the pictures on the walls – drawings that the children had done, mostly. ‘I’d like to talk to you about Alexandra,’ he said.
Kayleigh’s heart gave such a dip that it hurt.
‘I think I was mistaken,’ he went on, ‘ when I assumed that Alexandra was your sister. She isn’t your sister, is she?’
Kayleigh shook her head, waiting to see what was coming before allowing herself to speak.
‘And last night, I spoke to Dean.’ DCI Lloyd wasn’t looking at her; he was putting his glasses on to read the names of the children who had done the pictures. He glanced at her as he said Dean’s name.
They’d got Dean. She still couldn’t understand why he had gone to the cottage. And why did he take her mother’s car? That must be how they found him.
‘Was it you and Dean who were having the argument about Alexandra?’
She didn’t know what to do. But if she said that it was, then they might not work out that it must have been Phil, arguing with her mother. She swallowed, and nodded.
‘All right, Kayleigh.’ He gave her shoulder a little pat. ‘I’ll leave you alone now.’ He walked to the door and turned back. ‘We haven’t been able to get hold of Mr Roddam yet, but we’ll get him here as soon as we can. Do you think you might feel able to talk to him?’
Kayleigh nodded again. If she could talk to Phil on his own, it might make things a bit easier.
They had given him trousers and an open-neck shirt, old, but clean; he was clearly going to be here for some time, or it would have been paper overalls. Now he was in an interview room, watching while they set up the tape. He had waived his right to have a solicitor present. In his experience, solicitors just complicated things, and what he was going to tell them was very simple.
‘You know why you’re here, Mr Fletcher?’ said Chief Inspector Lloyd.
‘No.’
‘Well, for one thing,’ said the man who had called himself acting Detective Inspector Sandwell, ‘you’ve admitted taking and driving away a car without the owner’s consent.’
‘Fair enough.’ Dean turned to Lloyd. ‘ But you arrested me for trying to murder someone I’ve never even heard of.’
‘Ian Waring,’ said Lloyd. ‘Who owns Brook Way Cottage. He’s in intensive care at Barton General Hospital, having been run down in his own driveway, and our laboratory has confirmed that the car you’ve admitted taking and driving away is the car that was used to run him down.’
Dean didn’t understand. He hadn’t run anyone down. Why did they think he had? Ian Waring must be the guy at the cottage. But … it didn’t make sense. If that’s who he was, and they found him on his driveway, then who had run him down? And when? He thought about those desperate moments in the garage, and felt himself grow pale as he realized what must have happened. Just like when they had interviewed him about Kayleigh, he was discovering that he had done what they were accusing him of doing, and once again, he hadn’t known he’d done it. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said.
‘Go on, Mr Fletcher.’
‘Oh, God. Oh, look – I swear to God, I didn’t know I’d hit anyone. I just backed out as fast as I could, and there was all this stuff piled up in the back, you know? I couldn’t see where I was going. I just turned the car left so I could drive out of the gates frontwards, and I knew I’d hit something, but I swear – I didn’t know it was him!’ He couldn’t believe it; of all the things that had happened yesterday, he had thought that taking the car was the least of his troubles.
‘And if you had known you’d hit someone,’ Sandwell said, his voice heavily sarcastic, ‘ you would of course have stopped and rendered assistance?’
‘No, I’m not saying that! I wanted out of there, and I’d probably have just carried on – but I didn’t know I’d hit anyone. I thought I’d banged into one of those pillars. It wasn’t deliberate, for God’s sake!’
Lloyd stood up then; he started wandering round, like he’d done last night in the hospital. Dean watched him for a moment.
‘All right,’ said Sandwell. ‘ What were you doing at the cottage in the first place?’
‘I thought Kayleigh would be there.’ Dean prepared himself to tell his story, but as far as he could see, Lloyd wasn’t even going to listen, never mind believe him. ‘I didn’t get an answer when I knocked, but I could see there was a side door off the garage into the house, and it was open, so I went in that way. But it was dark, and I tripped over something heavy.’
He glanced at Lloyd, who was looking out of the clear pane of glass at the top of the frosted window, as though anything and everything was more interesting than listening to him.
So he addressed himself to Sandwell, told him that he had picked himself up after falling on the body, and had then heard a car pulling up. He had frozen for a few moments, panicking, then had hidden behind the car in the garage. He saw the utility room light go on and heard someone dialling 999, asking for help, and tried to get away before he got the blame, but he was seen. The keys were in the ignition of the Audi; he got in, and reversed out. He had not realized that he had run anyone over.
Sandwell had asked the odd question – did he know whose body it was, did he see the man who had called the police, did he see anyone else there, that sort of thing. His answers were that he thought the body looked like Kayleigh’s mother, no, he hadn’t seen the man who had called the police, just heard him, and no, there had been no one else there to the best of his knowledge.
Lloyd had got tired of looking out of the window; now, he was perched on the edge of a low cabinet, leafing through some booklet.
‘How did you find out where Kayleigh lived?’ Sandwell asked.
‘Hasn’t she told you?’
‘Just answer the question.’
He explained about her writing to him in prison.
Sandwell made a disbelieving noise. ‘And why would she do that? She was the one who had you put away – why would she want to get in touch with you?’
‘Look, I know what it sounded like in court, but it wasn’t like that.’
‘It doesn’t matter what it was like,’ Sandwell said. ‘She was a thirteen-year-old child.’
‘I know that now, but she didn’t look thirteen. She told me she was eighteen, and she wasn’t a child. When I finally did ring her she told me she had had my baby in December, before the trial.’ He gave up on Sandwell ever believing him, and looked at Lloyd, who now seemed to be reading with great interest the notice giving advice to people in custody. ‘She had my baby,’ he repeated. ‘Doesn’t that prove she wasn’t a child?’
Lloyd ignored him, and Sandwell was still unimpressed. ‘ She was barely thirteen years old,’ he said again. ‘Baby or no baby. And why would she tell you about it now? She didn’t mention it at the trial, did she?’
‘But she did tell me. And she said she wanted to see me.’
‘It didn’t sound to our witness as though she wanted to see you.’
‘Witness?’ repeated Dean, baffled. ‘What witness? And what is your witness supposed to have witnessed?’
‘All in good time, Dean. How did you really find out about the baby? How did you know where she lived?’
Dean looked down at the table. He didn’t have any proof that Kayleigh had wanted to see him, and for some reason, she hadn’t told them that she did. He wondered, then, if something had happened to her. ‘Is Kayleigh all right?’ he asked.
‘She’s fine.’
Then why hadn’t she told them? They thought he’d come looking for her, and that would make it all even worse than it already was. He supposed she thought she should keep quiet about him being there at all, since he was breaking the conditions of his parole. ‘She told me,’ he said wearily. ‘How else could I have found out?’
‘Prisons have grapevines. If you wanted to know where she was, there are people who can find out for you.’
‘Oh, yeah, like I was one of the lads.’ He looked up. ‘ No one would give me the time of day, never mind Kayleigh’s address. She told me. And she wanted to see me.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Sandwell. ‘You wanted to see her, though. You heard that she’d had your baby, and that she was going to take her to Australia, and you didn’t like that, did you?’
Dean blinked at him. ‘Australia?’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Sandwell sat forward. ‘You were overheard, Dean. Someone heard you shouting at her that she couldn’t take your daughter to Australia.’
Dean stared at him. ‘I never even saw her or the baby! They weren’t there. I don’t know anything about Australia, and I didn’t have an argument with anyone.’
‘All right – let’s say I believe you. She asks you to meet her, and despite the fact that you say she lied to you about who she was and how old she was, despite the fact that she then reported you to the police and made you out to be an Internet paedophile, despite the fact that you could find yourself back in prison if you were seen with her, you agreed to meet her?’
Put like that, it sounded crazy. It had been crazy, he supposed. But though he had done many things in his life before thinking them through, that hadn’t been one of them. ‘To start with, I said no, but she really wanted me to do it, and I thought maybe it was the least I could do.’
‘Wanted you to do what?’
‘She wanted a photograph of me holding Alexandra,’ Dean said. ‘She wanted Alexandra to have it. So that she would know that her father had seen her, and held her. I said I’d do it.’ He looked up again at Sandwell, not expecting to he believed, and he wasn’t disappointed.
‘You came to have your photograph taken? Do me a favour, Dean.’
‘Yes, I came to have my photograph taken. Because I knew that she had a real hang-up about not knowing who her father was. I think it really screwed her up – I think that’s why she got involved with me in the first place, why she told me all these lies about herself. I didn’t want the baby to be screwed up like that because of me. If this photograph would help, then I was prepared to do it.’
Sandwell raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Did you do a psychology course in prison?’
Dean ignored the sarcasm. ‘It didn’t seem much to ask, and she said she could make sure no one saw me.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Sandwell’s face was like stone.
It didn’t matter, Dean told himself, if they didn’t believe him. Kayleigh would confirm it once she realized that there was no point in keeping quiet about it. He described how she’d told him to wait on Brook Way bridge, and that she would come and meet him.
‘She said to watch for a white van, because they’d borrowed it for the move and it had to go back to its owner. Once it had gone, she would tell her mother that she was taking Alexandra out for some fresh air, and she would meet me without the risk of anyone seeing me with her, because her mum would be in the cottage, and her mum’s boyfriend would be driving the van.’ He grew tired of Sandwell’s disbelieving expression, and turned once again to Lloyd. ‘But she hadn’t turned up, so I went to the cottage.’ He was talking, of necessity, to Lloyd’s back, since he seemed to be reading the instructions for the fan that sat in the corner of the room.
‘What time was she supposed to meet you?’ asked Sandwell.
‘No particular time – any time after the van passed, she said. I don’t know what time it was.’
‘What made you think she wasn’t coming?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Then why didn’t you wait for her? Why did you go to the cottage? I thought you didn’t want her mother to know you were there.’
‘I thought Kayleigh would be on her own. I thought her mum must have taken the van back instead, because I’d seen the van go past, and then I saw her mum’s boyfriend leaving.’
That got Lloyd’s attention. He looked up from the fan instructions. ‘You saw him leaving? In a vehicle, or on foot?’
‘On foot.’
‘How do you know her mother’s boyfriend?’ asked Sandwell.
‘Kayleigh told me about him. And he came to the trial, sat with her mother.’
‘Describe him to me.’
‘He’s in his late forties, early fifties, maybe. Not a lot of hair. Not fat, but he doesn’t exactly work out a lot.’
Lloyd shook his head, and went back to the instructions, apparently not in the least interested in that.
‘Sorry, Dean,’ said Sandwell. ‘Nice try. But her mother’s changed boyfriends since the trial. That one doesn’t live with her any more.’
He had known they wouldn’t believe him. ‘ I saw him,’ he repeated. ‘So I started walking back through the woods to the cottage. I thought I’d either meet Kayleigh on her way to the bridge, or see her at the cottage. But when I got there, no one answered the door. And everything happened after that the way I’ve already told you.’
The fan whirred into life. Lloyd examined it closely, pushed in a button, and the blades speeded up.
‘There’s just one problem with that,’ said Sandwell.
Dean, fascinated by Lloyd’s activities, brought his attention back to Sandwell with some difficulty. ‘What problem?’
‘Kayleigh’s confirmed that you and she were the couple having the row.’
He felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach, and he closed his eyes, almost in physical pain. ‘No,’ he said. She couldn’t be screwing his life up again, not again. Why? Why would she? Why would she do that? He opened his eyes and looked at Sandwell. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘I don’t care what she’s saying. I wasn’t arguing with Kayleigh or anyone else. Kayleigh wasn’t there. The baby wasn’t there. I fell over a dead body, and now you tell me I ran someone over, and I’m sorry about that, but it was an accident. That’s what I did. And it’s all I did.’
Sandwell was entirely unmoved. ‘She told you that you weren’t Alexandra’s father – did that upset you?’
Dean stared at him. What was all this? Was Sandwell making it up? Was his so-called witness? Was Kayleigh? It made no sense, anyway. ‘Why would she tell me that? She got me here because I’m Alexandra’s father!’
Sandwell nodded, his face thoughtful. ‘All right – I’ll accept that. But you went to the cottage, instead of waiting for her where she’d told you to wait, and you were wrong about Kayleigh being there on her own, because her mother was there. So was it her mother who told you that you weren’t the father? Was that who you had the row with? Did she find out about your tryst with Kayleigh, and put a stop to it?’ His eyes widened slightly as another solution presented itself to him. ‘ Did Kayleigh kill her? Is that why you keep saying she wasn’t there?’
Dean didn’t even bother to answer. Lloyd pushed another button, and the fan began to oscillate slowly. He moved the fan experimentally, presumably trying to gauge the best position for the even distribution of disturbed air.
‘Just tell us the truth, Dean,’ said Sandwell. ‘I’m tired of playing guessing games.’
‘I’ve told you the truth. I’ve told you a dozen times.’
The fan’s configuration finally met with Lloyd’s approval. Now, he came and sat down opposite Dean. ‘From the top,’ he said.
Dean frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s an informal musical expression, Mr Fletcher. It means to repeat what you have just done, from the beginning. In your case, I want you to tell me your story again, from the beginning – by your reckoning, for the thirteenth time. By mine, for the second time.’
‘You mean right from where Kayleigh wrote to me in prison?’
‘I do. You can, of course, refuse. That is your right.’
Dean shook his head wonderingly. ‘No, I don’t mind. But if you listened the first time round, you’d find your interviews would go a lot quicker.’
And tiredly, a little self-consciously, he began all over again.
Theresa had stayed all night, despite the attempts of the hospital staff to make her go home. He was breathing for himself now, and the doctors were very pleased with his progress – they said that his level of consciousness had improved considerably, and they really seemed to think he was going to be all right. Except, she thought, as she looked at his peaceful, blank, sleeping face, Chief Inspector Lloyd believed he had murdered Lesley. It seemed ludicrous. But then – he had never been bullied before. And perhaps …
No, she told herself, that was nonsense. He could never have been so calm, so ordinary, if he had just done something like that. But at the back of her mind, she knew she had heard those words, read those words in the accounts of murder trials. People who murdered and then went to the pub as usual, people who murdered and went to work. Everyone saying how normal they had seemed.
Not Ian, though. Not Ian. She had known Ian all her adult life; he never lost his temper. He would put up token resistance and then just go along with people, like he was going along with Lesley about Australia.
Phil – well, by his own admission, he flew into rages. He said he’d never been violent towards another person, but Theresa didn’t know that he hadn’t. And he had been very angry when she’d told him about them going to Australia. She had tried to ring him several times, but all she got was the answering service, on his home phone and his mobile. He did seem to have disappeared. Oh, but surely not. Surely he wouldn’t have done something like that.
She tried not to think about it, because if he had, it was all her fault.
Fletcher was telling his story again, still looking perplexed about why he was being asked to do it.
But Lloyd always found it best to let people talk, and then go over what they had said. That way, he could find out if it had been rehearsed – people tended to use exactly the same phrases, tell the story in exactly the same order, if it had. And he could seek clarification of any points that concerned him with the benefit of having already heard the whole story. So far, Fletcher was passing his tests; he hadn’t had to interrupt him at all.
But he couldn’t understand why he was so anxious to keep Kayleigh out of it. As Fletcher had pointed out, if she had brought him here purely so that the baby could have a photograph of her father holding her, telling him when he got here that he wasn’t the father would seem a particularly perverse thing to do. And yet she had confirmed that she was the one having the argument, so someone was lying. It was much more likely to be Fletcher; much more likely that Kayleigh hadn’t told him about the baby at all, that he’d heard about it from someone else, and had gone there to make trouble. The problem was that Lloyd believed Fletcher, and he didn’t believe Kayleigh. Fletcher was convincing; even Bob Sandwell seemed to be coming round to that way of thinking.
When he had finished, Lloyd pulled a bundle of papers towards him. ‘ I had this faxed through,’ he said. ‘It’s a transcript of your trial.’
Dean rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Look – I know you think I’m some sort of creep who looks in chat rooms for underage girls, but I’m not.’
‘She said that she was nervous of being there with you and wanted to leave, but you persuaded her to stay and got her drunk so that you could have sex with her. That afterwards you told her not to tell anyone or you’d get into trouble. That you gave her presents to let you, to use her words, ‘‘do things’’ with her.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Did you stop her leaving?’
Dean looked uncomfortable. ‘Well – yes, I suppose. I thought she had just got cold feet because she’d never done anything like that before, but neither had I, so we were in the same boat. I mean, I just said she couldn’t run out on me, not after all the stuff she’d been writing to me. I was on a promise – that sort of thing.’
‘Did you buy alcohol?’
‘Well – yes. A half bottle of vodka. She suggested it. She said it would steady her nerves.’
‘Was she under the influence of the vodka when she finally did let you have sex with her?’
Fletcher sighed, nodded. ‘A bit. But she wasn’t drunk.’
‘Did you say anything about getting into trouble?’
‘I – well … I knew she had sneaked out to meet me, that she wasn’t being completely straight with me. So I said I hoped she’d keep me out of it if she got found out, because I didn’t want to get any bother about it. But I meant with her boyfriend or husband or whatever. And, yes, before you ask, I bought her presents! Didn’t you ever buy your girlfriends presents?’
‘No lies, then.’
Dean looked down at the table. ‘Not lies, exactly. But she made it sound … I don’t know … dirty. And it wasn’t. I didn’t abuse her! We made love. Both of us.’
‘She was thirteen years old,’ Bob Sandwell said for the third time.
‘She told me she was eighteen.’
We’ve seen Kayleigh,’ Sandwell said. ‘Spoken to her. Even if she did tell you she was eighteen, you must have known it wasn’t the case. You just didn’t care. It amounts to the same thing.’
Sandwell was right, of course, thought Lloyd. Fletcher couldn’t possibly have believed she was old enough. But as for the rest, the truth could be stretched to breaking point without actually committing perjury. It didn’t lessen the offence, but it did put a different complexion on it.
Dean sat back. ‘Has Kayleigh told you all this about Australia and me having a row with her about Alexandra? It isn’t true.’
‘She’s told us very little,’ said Lloyd. ‘Which is why I’m inclined to believe you.’
Dean sighed. ‘Is this where he’s the aggressive cop and you’re the sympathetic one? There’s no need for all that. Just ask me what you want to know.’
Lloyd did have sympathy for Fletcher, but not because he and Bob had worked out some interviewing strategy. Kayleigh’s youth was what made the relationship illegal, but hardly unnatural; Lloyd was inclined to agree that anyone sexually mature enough to give birth was no longer a child. After all, he thought, Judy was thirteen when he was twenty-three; he hadn’t known her then, but what if he had? He would have had the sense not to get involved with her, but he might well have fallen for her. He couldn’t voice any of that, of course, but yes, he did have sympathy for Fletcher.
‘Look – all I want is for you to stop thinking of me as some sort of child abuser, because I’m not. We met over the Internet. Hundreds of couples have met that way – I didn’t think anything of it. And I’ve had it up to here with being treated like some sort of monster, like one of those sickos who get their kicks doing it with kids, because I’m not one!’
‘You sound very bitter about it,’ Lloyd said.
‘Of course I’m bitter about it! I’ve got to notify the police of every address I use. Even if I go for two weeks to Blackpool! And what happens? You tell me. What happens if some kid goes missing in Blackpool while I’m there?’
‘You would be routinely brought in for questioning.’
‘That’s right. And I’ll be routinely spat at when I leave. And routinely hounded out of my own home if it gets out that I’m on the register. You better believe I’m bitter, but because that’s not how it was!’
‘You can’t have it both ways,’ said Sandwell. You want us to believe that she told a pack of lies to send you to prison, and yet you also want us to believe that you came running when she called.’
‘It wasn’t her fault – I told you, I think she got screwed up somewhere along the way, and that’s why she told me all these lies about herself. And I added to her problems, even if I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. She probably resented that. Resented me, for making her pregnant. So if coming here meant I could make things better …’ He shrugged.
‘Oh, spare me,’ said Sandwell.
‘It wasn’t how it looked! We had a real relationship.’ Fletcher looked down, his face reddening slightly. ‘It sounds strange now I know how old she is, but I loved her.’ He looked up defiantly. ‘I still do. That’s why I did what she asked. Because I once told her I’d do anything for her, and I meant it.’
Did he now, thought Lloyd. Did that include covering up for her when she dispatched her mother with the doorstop? Or, perhaps, covering up for her when she tried to murder Waring in revenge for what he had done to her mother? Kayleigh could have found her mother, as he had suggested to Judy, but rather than running into the woods, had run to the safety of the car, locked herself in, leaving Dean to fight off Waring. He joined her in the car, drove out … and perhaps Kayleigh, seeing Waring, had grabbed the wheel, driven the car into him. Perhaps that was why he kept denying that she was there at all.
‘How did you get the swollen mouth?’ he asked. ‘The cracked ribs and the cuts? Were you in a fight with someone?’
‘No. I got the cuts when I ran through a load of greenery in the woods. And I told you how I cracked my ribs. I fell over a low branch at the base of a tree. That’s how I got the smack in the mouth, too.’
‘You can take me to this aggressive tree, can you?’
‘Of course I can’t! I don’t know where the hell I was.’
At ten forty-five, Lloyd terminated the interview, and was summoned to Case’s office as soon as he had got back into his own.
‘Roddam finally rang Sandwell – he’s on a train to Stansfield.’
At least now they would get a positive identification of the body. ‘I’ll meet him at the station,’ said Lloyd. ‘Take him to Barton General myself – I want his help with Kayleigh, so we can go to the children’s home afterwards.’
He turned to go, wondering why Case couldn’t have vouchsafed this information on the phone instead of dragging him all the way upstairs – why, indeed, he hadn’t left it to Sandwell to tell him. But he didn’t have to wonder long.
‘Why didn’t you arrest Fletcher for Mrs Newton’s murder? Why just the attempted murder?’
Lloyd turned back and looked at his boss, knowing that his face held the slightly mutinous expression that would cause Judy to give him the Look. ‘Mainly because I don’t think he did murder Mrs Newton,’ he said.
Case reached for his cigarettes, a sure sign that this was a complication he could do without. ‘I know better than to dismiss your theories out of hand, so I won’t.’ He lit up. ‘But everyone else thinks he murdered her. Why don’t you?’
Lloyd sat down. ‘I can’t work him out.’
Case released cigarette smoke. ‘What’s to work out? He’s a violent offender who abuses little girls.’
That was certainly how it looked on paper, and Lloyd was having a problem with it. ‘Does that strike you as someone who would give a damn what happened to Alexandra?’ he asked.
‘Ownership. It wouldn’t matter if it was Alexandra or a microwave oven. If he owns it, he claims it.’
Lloyd shook his head. ‘And murders for it?’
‘Like I said, he’s violent.’ Case shrugged. ‘She said he wasn’t the father, so he picked something up, hit her – realized he’d better finish the job.’
‘So you think that the row the postman heard was between Fletcher and Lesley Newton?’
‘Yes, Lloyd, oddly enough, I do.’ Case took a long drag of his cigarette, expelled the smoke, and looked at Lloyd through the haze. ‘Since she’s the one who’s been murdered.’
That was what Judy had said, but Lloyd thought they were both wrong about that. ‘I think that Kayleigh said it to get rid of him. And I can’t see it being something that her mother would say even for that reason.’
‘I expect he was rowing with both of them.’ Case ground out his cigarette, only half smoked. ‘When it turned nasty, Kayleigh took Alexandra away from it, like you said all along.’
Lloyd smiled to himself. Case was hoping the admission that he had been right in the first place would appease him, but it wouldn’t. There was something all wrong about this.
Case sat back and looked at him. ‘You,’ he said, after long moments, ‘ think that Waring did it. Without a scrap of evidence. And why? All right, so Lesley Newton has money – so what? He only went to live with her in January – they haven’t married. Her money probably goes to this Roddam bloke and Kayleigh.’
‘Very probably. I’d be happy to entertain either of them as suspects. Fletcher says he saw Roddam leaving the cottage just before he got there.’
‘And you believe him?’ Case’s voice was incredulous.
‘Not necessarily – he obviously thought he still lived with Lesley Newton, and he was possibly just trying to shift suspicion on to someone else.’ He gave Case the bare bones of Dean’s statement. ‘But I’ll certainly ask Roddam where he was yesterday morning, because regardless of her money, Lesley Newton had taken up with Waring, so he had a motive, as you yourself pointed out.’
‘So had Fletcher, and he’s got a record of violence going way back.’
Lloyd frowned. ‘What motive?’
‘Anger is a motive, Lloyd. All right, you believe him that Kayleigh brought him here – fair enough. The way I see it is that Kayleigh wanted him to see the baby, and her mother found out. She was waiting for him at the cottage, and she told him he wasn’t the father in the hope that he would go away. He lost his rag, picked up the first heavy object he could find and battered her with it. Kayleigh grabbed the baby and ran away when it got violent.’
Lloyd considered that. It sounded plausible. It was more or less what Bob Sandwell thought. But he didn’t think that Fletcher tried to cure Kayleigh’s problems by murdering her mother.
‘And there’s the little matter of evidence,’ Case said. ‘ He’s the one who deliberately ran down Ian Waring. He’s the one who abandoned the car and ran away, who has Mrs Newton’s blood all over his clothes …’
‘He says he ran Waring down accidentally.’ He told Case what Fletcher had said about the car. ‘And if the baby’s things were in it, that could be true, too. But he keeps insisting that Kayleigh and the baby weren’t there at all, and we know that they were, so he could be covering up for her. She could have caused what happened to Waring in revenge for what he had done to her mother. Or she could have murdered her mother herself.’
Case sat back, and looked at him, his mouth slightly open. ‘ You’re happy to – how did you put it? – ah, yes, you’re ‘‘happy to entertain’’ Waring and Kayleigh and Phil Roddam as suspects, but not Fletcher? Am I missing something here?’
‘I haven’t crossed anyone off. But Waring’s my favourite, and Kayleigh’s my second favourite. Roddam’s odds could shorten or lengthen – it depends. And as far as I’m concerned, Fletcher is the rank outsider.’
Case ground out his cigarette, and swivelled his chair round to look out of the window for a moment before turning back. ‘You know what I feel like around you? I feel as though I’m playing one of those namby-pamby parlour games, where everyone’s in on the joke but me. ‘‘ Mrs Newton loves butter but she doesn’t like cream.’’ ’ He employed a high-pitched, camp, middle-class voice for his example, then it dropped back to its usual gruffhess. ‘I never could get the hang of them, and I never can get the hang of you.’
Lloyd smiled.
‘Am I supposed to guess why he’s the odd one out? You only suspect people whose first names have an I in them?’
Case wasn’t that unfamiliar with namby-pamby parlour games, thought Lloyd, still smiling. ‘Not quite that off the wall. But it wouldn’t stand up in court.’
Case shook his head. ‘ To hell with court. You don’t think it would stand up in this office!’
True. And he hadn’t felt sure enough of it to tell Judy, so nothing would induce him to tell Case what it was. But it was more than that; he believed that Fletcher had fallen over a dead body, and that he hadn’t deliberately attempted to kill Waring.
And, despite having advanced the notion to Case, he felt that covering up for Kayleigh seemed unlikely, because he even believed Fletcher’s statement that he hadn’t seen her, hadn’t had an argument with her or her mother. And he believed him, not because he had Waring down for the murder, but because he liked to think that he knew when someone was speaking the truth. Kayleigh – even though she hadn’t spoken – was not, in his estimation, being entirely truthful, and if Fletcher had not been having the argument with her, then perhaps there was someone else who was claiming to be the father of her baby.
‘Tell me,’ said Case. ‘I know Theresa Black’s alibi checked out, but if it hadn’t – would she have been on your A list?’
‘That’s an impossible question to answer.’ Lloyd smiled again, knowing just how much he was about to irritate his superintendent. ‘It’s because she’s not a suspect that I’ve got an A list at all.’
Tom Finch wasn’t looking forward to his interview with Andrea, because she was still living with the Crawfords. He would have preferred the station, but McArthur was very big on interviewing people at home unless and until it was necessary to take them in for questioning.
A tear-stained, tight-lipped Nina Crawford opened the door to him. She had known to expect him, and he immediately told her that he had no news, but he hadn’t been able to stop the hope rising and dying in her eyes. He introduced Sarah, the WPC – not that he called her that, of course, not being in any way sexist – who had come to chaperone the visit since it would take place in Andrea’s bedroom, and was invited in.
‘No news,’ said Mrs Crawford, when her husband jumped up from where he sat, and he sat down again, his face tortured.
‘I was surprised to discover that Andrea was still with you,’ said Tom. ‘In the circumstances.’
‘She’s under notice,’ said Mrs Crawford. ‘But I won’t throw a seventeen-year-old girl out on the street. I have to give her time to find somewhere to live.’
Tom nodded. Why did things like this happen to good people?
‘What do you want with her?’ asked Roger Crawford.
‘Oh, just details,’ said Tom. ‘Sometimes people remember things afterwards – she may have seen something that she didn’t recollect in the shock of finding Emma gone.’
‘Is anything happening?’ Crawford’s question sounded like a plea. ‘Have you been told anything at all that you can go on?’
‘I’m sure Mr McArthur would have let you know if we had anything concrete,’ said Tom. ‘But it is a fact that babies taken in this way are almost always found, and returned unharmed.’
‘Almost always,’ repeated Mrs Crawford, her voice flat.
‘I’d be lying if I said always, Mrs Crawford. But believe me, every lead is being checked. Everything that can be done is being done.’ It was cold comfort; he knew that. But it was all he had to offer.
Upstairs, they found Andrea sitting on her bed, looking, if anything, even more devastated than the Crawfords. Once again, Tom had to say that there was no news, and once again, he had to try to reassure someone who was in near despair.
‘She’s not coming back, is she?’ she said, rocking slightly on the edge of the bed. ‘ She’s not coming back.’
‘I’ve just told Mrs Crawford,’ said Tom, ‘that stolen babies are almost always found. And they’ve usually been very well looked after.’
‘No. No – she’s gone. Something’s happened to her. Something must have happened to her, or why hasn’t anyone brought her back?’
Andrea had had direct responsibility for Emma, Tom thought. That was why she was feeling even more wretched than the baby’s parents, and wasn’t allowing herself the luxury of hope, as she dissolved into tears of desperation.
It seemed impossible that the distress was manufactured, but he had to question her again, just in case. As soon as Sarah managed to calm her down.
Phil Roddam nodded. ‘ Yes. That’s Lesley.’
That morning he had taken a long walk along the promenade, blown away some of the demons that had haunted him in the night, and then had come in to the heartiest breakfast he’d had in years, courtesy of Aunt Jean, who might never have needed a man, but who knew how to look after one.
She wanted to see his mobile phone, she said. If he explained to her how they worked, she might get one. Not in case she broke her hip, but in case she broke down. It would be handy, being able to ring from the car.
The phone had informed him, as he was showing her how it worked, that he had seven messages. He couldn’t remember the last time seven people had wanted to get in touch with him, so he presumed that it was one person who wanted to get in touch with him very badly.
He tried to ignore them, but in the end, she made him listen to them. The first was from acting Detective Inspector Sandwell of Stansfield CID, and he groaned quietly. Sandwell wanted him to ring him; he left his direct line number, and his mobile number. The others were all from Theresa, wanting him to ring her.
He hadn’t rung Theresa, because he had rung Sandwell first, and had caught the next train out of Worthing. Now he was with Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd in the hospital mortuary, looking down at Lesley’s dead body.
Lloyd took him out into the fresh air; he suddenly felt very light-headed. They sat on the low wall which bounded the car park.
‘When did you last see Mrs Newton?’ asked Lloyd.
Phil wiped the cold beads of perspiration from his forehead. ‘Last January,’ he said. ‘I went to see her in the hope of a reconciliation, but she had found someone else.’
‘Ian Waring?’
‘Yes.’
‘He was very badly hurt during the incident. Someone drove a car into him.’
Phil stared at him, trying to make sense of that. ‘What was it all about? Who did it?’
‘We know who was driving the car, but we don’t know that he was responsible for what happened to Mrs Newton. We’re hoping Kayleigh can tell us.’
Phil was immediately alarmed. ‘Was Kayleigh there when it happened? Did she see something?’
‘Quite possibly. She has been very badly shaken up, and she won’t speak to us. Literally. She might nod or shake her head, but that’s it. She indicated that she would speak to you, and we’d be very grateful if you could try to get her to tell us what happened.’
Poor little Kayleigh, thought Phil. More upheaval, and more and more.
‘I believe you haven’t seen her for a while?’
‘I saw her in January, too. Not under the best of circumstances.’
‘At Dean Fletcher’s trial?’
‘Oh, you know about that, do you? Yes. But I haven’t seen her properly since last June.’
‘In that case,’ said Lloyd, clearly preparing hirn for something he wasn’t going to want to hear, ‘I think perhaps you won’t know that she’s had a baby.’
Oh, Lesley, Lesley. Phil closed his eyes, shook his head slightly. ‘I thought I’d won that one, at least.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Lloyd sharply.
‘I said she should have a termination, and Kayleigh was quite happy about that. Lesley didn’t believe in abortion, but I thought I’d persuaded her that it was the right thing to do.’
He supposed that had been a naïve thing to think. And Lesley had seen how she could solve two problems at once; if she threw him out, she could go her own sweet way about Kayleigh’s pregnancy, and clear a space for Waring while she was at it. Sensible, organized Lesley, who simply wouldn’t face facts. And, of course, the baby would be due mid to late December. That was why Kayleigh was mysteriously on holiday at Christmas.
‘It’s a girl. Alexandra.’
Phil wished he could feel happy about it, but he didn’t suppose Lloyd expected him to be popping champagne corks, so it probably didn’t seem strange to Lloyd that the news simply made him anxious. He took out cigarettes. ‘ Do you mind? I’d given up, but what with one thing and another …’
He’d bought them that morning, at the station, and he only had four left now. He had needed something to make him able to face identifying Lesley’s body. As a crutch, it was better than booze, he supposed. Perhaps not much better for the consumer, but a lot better for those who had dealings with him. But then, no one wrote wistfully soulful songs about chain-smokers. They wrote them about drunks and winos and drug addicts, but chain-smokers were unromantic. He thought he’d better resign himself to the fact that he was not the stuff of story and song.
‘Did you speak to Kayleigh during the trial?’
‘Oh, yes – she and Lesley and I had meals together, that sort of thing.’
‘And neither of them told you about the baby?’
‘If I’d seen Kayleigh on her own, she’d have told me, but Lesley was always there.’ He flicked the ash from his cigarette on to the ground. ‘ Kayleigh’s not … not mature enough to look after a baby,’ he said. ‘That was why a termination seemed the sensible solution. What happens about this sort of thing?’
‘Social Services have got it in hand.’
‘Will they let me visit Kayleigh? I mean – I’m not officially anything to her, but … well, I’d like to help.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll be able to sort something out.’ Lloyd looked at his watch. ‘Well, Mr Roddam, I think we should get you and Kayleigh reunited, now that you know what to expect. It would be extremely helpful if you could get her to—’
‘Chief Inspector?’ A young woman was crossing the grass towards them. ‘Mr Waring’s come round,’ she said. ‘The doctor says you can have five minutes.’
It had been an odd sensation; not really like waking up, because he felt, in a way, as though he had been awake all along. As though he simply hadn’t been paying attention. It took him a moment to make out Theresa’s features; gradually, he realized he was in hospital. He had absolutely no idea why. It hurt if he tried to move at all, and he felt physically tired. But mentally, apart from not knowing why he was there, he felt as though he’d had a good night’s sleep. He asked what he was doing there, and his voice was weak.
‘You were hit by a car,’ said Theresa.
‘When? Where?’
‘Yesterday morning. At the cottage. While you were moving in.’
He remembered then that it shouldn’t be Theresa at his bedside. Not now. Lesley wouldn’t like it if she knew. ‘Where’s Lesley?’ he asked. ‘Was she hurt too?’
Theresa nodded. ‘I’m afraid she was.’ And she told him, gently, that Lesley had died.
He stared at her. ‘Died? Lesley’s dead?’
‘I’m so sorry, Ian.’
He blinked. Lesley was dead.
‘They said I shouldn’t tell you. But I wasn’t going to let you believe she was alive. I didn’t think you’d like that.’
Ian nodded. Theresa knew him better than anyone ever had. He couldn’t really react to the news; he didn’t know how. He felt detached, a little unreal.
The nurse came in and told him that a Chief Inspector Lloyd would like to speak to him. ‘You can say no. But if you do see him, I’ll throw him out after five minutes, so don’t worry.’
‘I’ll see him. But I don’t—’ Ian looked back at Theresa, as Chief Inspector Lloyd came into the room, assuring the nurse that he only wanted a few moments with her patient. ‘ How did it happen? Where’s Kayleigh? Is someone looking after her?’
‘Kayleigh’s fine,’ said Theresa. ‘And the baby.’
Ian frowned. He couldn’t raise his voice above a whisper; he couldn’t move without pain; he couldn’t remember the accident, and he couldn’t really grasp that Lesley was dead. He felt a little as though he was watching all this being played out on a stage, but he did know how many beans made five.
‘Baby?’ he said. ‘What baby?’