Dead Alone (32 page)

Jessie pressed the bell of the Regency house until a harassed-looking woman came to the door.

‘I need to speak to Dame Henrietta.’

‘Who may I say is calling?’

‘DI Driver of West End Central CID.’ The woman did not move aside. ‘May I come in?’

‘Sorry, she is writing. I’m not normally supposed to –’

‘Is it normal for the police to show up on the doorstep?’

‘No.’

‘Well then.’

Jessie followed the nervous, retreating woman down an impressive hallway and into a room on the right. The floor was solid walnut, the skirting boards were white, the walls were cream. The large sofas were also rich white, the cushions were jewel-coloured silk and black-and-white sketches by famous artists adorned the walls. Jessie was disappointed, there was no art deco fireplace.

On the ottoman were three of the daily newspapers. Ray St Giles was on the front cover of every single one. ‘Ray the Voice of Reason.’ ‘Ray St Giles – patron saint of the people’s pocket!’ ‘No more rip-offs, says Ray.’ His latest coup had been to expose Jami Talbot live on television for the fraud that she was. She had paid some junkie to beat her up and the junkie had found a way to
double his money. It seemed there were people who would stop at nothing to reach their goal. But the goal was a mirage. As soon as you reached it, it moved. These people were chasing the spotlight, but the light eluded them. It was a dangerous light. A fool’s light. They thought they could bask in it for ever, but in the end it moved on, leaving them in total darkness. Alone. Perhaps where they had always been.

‘I know you,’ said a blustering voice from the doorway. ‘You’re the little thing my son was talking to at the L’Epoch party. Jessica? The one with the broken heart.’

‘Detective Inspector Driver,’ she said, holding out her ID. Henrietta Cadell waved it away, seemingly unimpressed. She picked up a cigarette box and removed a white-tipped Marlboro. Jessie watched the smoke unfurl.

‘Those parties are dreadful, aren’t they? I couldn’t do it if it wasn’t for Joshua. My husband hates that sort of thing, poor man. He’d be much happier at home with a good book.’

So the woman was deluded and possessive. No different to Frances Leonard, except that Henrietta Cadell was better packaged. Jessie held out the hardback edition.

‘Oh, sweet, you want a dedication?’

‘Where was the photo taken?’ asked Jessie.

‘Here, why?’

‘May I see the room?’

‘Well, I’m writing at the moment, and I don’t
like to have my concentration broken.’

‘I understand. This won’t take long.’ Jessie stood up.

‘I really must insist that you allow me to return to work. Deadlines, you know.’

‘Did you know Verity Shore or Eve Wirrel?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure? Your husband said you introduced him to Verity Shore.’

‘Very unlikely. I try to avoid people like that.’

‘What about Lady Cosima Broome?’

Henrietta laughed. ‘The Titled Tart? The only thing that stupid little girl wrote well was a cheque.’

‘You know they are all dead?’

Henrietta took a long drag of her cigarette and then flicked the ash. ‘Cosima, too?’ she enquired, trying to feign concern, and failing.

Jessie nodded.

‘And what exactly has that got to do with me?’

Jessie showed her the photographs of the fireplace.

‘Oh God, that was ages ago. I needed the money at the time. It isn’t easy being the major breadwinner, bringing up a son, and keeping a certain, well, you know, reputation. You don’t know what it’s like out there. One Duchess of Devonshire and you’re all but forgotten.’

‘I’d like to see it, please.’

‘What? Why?’

‘This is a murder investigation. You knew the
deceased. I’m simply crossing off names.’

‘I didn’t really know them – you don’t really know those sort of people, you just kiss them hello occasionally and make an excuse as you move on.’

Jessie slid the photograph of Mr Cadell and Verity Shore in the hotel lobby across the ottoman. ‘And your husband, when he isn’t sitting at home with a good book, does he also kiss and move on?’

With extraordinary calmness Henrietta slowly screwed her cigarette into the base of a solid silver ashtray. ‘You think knowing about my husband’s affairs makes you a good detective?
Everyone
knows my husband screws around. Little girls who think he is impressive,’ she laughed harshly. ‘I really don’t know who I feel more sorry for – him for having to pretend that what they talk about is interesting, or them for having to pretend his wrinkly old sterile body is attractive.’

‘He told me you liked to use that against him.’

‘God, he tried that on you too, did he? That line tends to work best on the stupid and the desperate. Don’t tell me, I am the witch for getting pregnant without him. Someone had to do something. It was too awful knowing he was endlessly beating away into a plastic cup only to discover one or two healthy ones. Very difficult to respect a man after that. So, keep your picture, it doesn’t even raise my temperature. And the answer is, yes, eventually, he always moves on. Houses like this don’t come cheap and he isn’t a bedsit sort of man.’

‘And Joshua? Did he also kiss and move on?’

Henrietta winced. ‘My son has better taste than that. What would a boy of his calibre want with those women?’

‘Breathing space, perhaps?’

Henrietta stood up. ‘What exactly are you accusing me of ?’

‘Me? Nothing.’

‘I love my son. If there is a crime in that then I give up. The world has become a stupid place.’

‘And a violent one.’

‘Hardly. We don’t even know the meaning of the word.’

‘Dame Henrietta, could I see your study, please?’

‘You are a very irritating person, aren’t you? Ambition and envy are not attractive traits, Detective Inspector Driver.’

‘Your study. Now.’

It was a shrine. An altar to Joshua. It wasn’t a large room but every available space had a photograph of him on it. They all but drowned out the history books and the beautifully moulded 1930s pewter fireplace. Jessie held up the pictures of Eve Wirrel and Verity Shore. She traced the line of the wall, the fringe of the lamp, the pattern of the club fender. It was the same fireplace. The same room. The same soft furnishings. Verity Shore and Eve Wirrel had been ‘at home’ with Henrietta Cadell. And Henrietta Cadell had been playing house with her son. Christopher Cadell couldn’t compete.

Jessie picked up a photo of Joshua. He was on a beach wearing skimpy swimming trunks. The trunks were wet. The material clung to him suggestively. He had his arms spread out wide and his head thrown back laughing. Joshua Cadell. Eve Wirrel’s well-endowed nude. Henrietta took the photo from her. She might not mind her husband fooling around with the likes of Verity Shore, but her son? Her precious son. That was unthinkable. Here was a woman surrounded by literature documenting the barbaric acts of mankind and constant reminders of what she was missing. Could maternal love turn murderous? Could anyone be that jealous of their own flesh and blood?

‘Will there be anything else?’ Henrietta was holding the door open.

‘He lives with you, doesn’t he?’

‘Downstairs. It’s a self-contained flat and he isn’t in at the moment.’

‘Isn’t he a little old to be living with his mother?’

Henrietta wore the same self-satisfied smile Jessie had seen before. ‘A pity, I know, that his writing career didn’t quite take off as he would have liked. I felt terrible that his novels were turned down – people can be so cruel. I feel guilty, of course. The publishers compared him to me and, well … As I said, I feel terrible about it.’

Jessie didn’t think so. P. J. Dean had taught her one thing about the world Dame Cadell inhabited. If you were at the top of your profession there was very little you couldn’t manipulate to your
advantage. Henrietta Cadell didn’t want her son to go. A word here, a threat there … It was like P.J. controlling the press over his errant wife. Henrietta had stopped her son achieving anything. That was what Christopher had meant when he said his wife had made sure Joshua was always there for her.

‘What publishers did Joshua send his work to?’ asked Jessie.

‘I can’t recall,’ said Henrietta.

‘The subject?’

‘Love stories, I’m afraid.’

‘Good?’

‘A little unbelievable, but yes, of course. He’s my son.’

‘And he hasn’t had a love affair himself?’

‘He has rather high standards, I’m pleased to say.’

Jessie handed Henrietta a list of dates. ‘Where were you at these times?’

Henrietta folded the page in half and passed it back. ‘Have you any idea how busy I am? My PA will be able to tell you, but I do write, I spend great swathes of time in isolation. It’s the only way to get the work done. I wouldn’t expect the likes of you to understand.’

‘I need to see her then.’

‘Him, actually. And he isn’t here yet.’

‘Where can I find him?’

Henrietta folded her arms under her shelf-like breasts.

‘Three women are dead. I don’t expect to have to ask twice.’

‘He won’t be in until midday. You are welcome to wait, but I really have to work.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jessie, a false smile fixed on her face. ‘I think I will.’

Jessie took herself to a small café to think. The PA had arrived at twelve and shown Jessie the secrets of Henrietta’s schedule. Henrietta had been as busy as she claimed around the times that the first two women died. Although she still had no exact time of death for Cosima, Jessie didn’t see how Henrietta could have got to Haverbrook Hall and back in time to present a literary award, attend a dinner and visit the Reading Festival. On the other hand, Reading was not far from Haverbrook Hall, and if the murder had taken place at night and she’d had help … Jessie sighed out loud. It was all too tenuous, circumstantial. The CPS wouldn’t buy it. She wouldn’t have bought it. And Henrietta knew it. Jessie didn’t have one grain of evidence.

As the barista handed over her takeaway coffee, Jessie’s phone rang. She pressed it to her ear.

‘DI Driver.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ The voice sounded constrained. Angry. Hurt.

‘Clare?’ Jessie pushed through the crowd to the street.

‘You knew, didn’t you? About my mother and that bastard!’

‘Clare, where are you? I’ll come and get you.’

‘You bloody knew, you all bloody knew.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Never you fucking mind. Stupid, stupid, stupid me! Well, fuck your pity.’

‘Clare, let’s meet, we’ll talk.’

‘Too fucking late for that. I’m going to finish this, now, once and for all!’

‘Clare?’

Her voice echoed in the silence.

‘Clare? Damn!’

Jessie dialled the surveillance team outside St Giles’ house. How on earth had Clare found out? Had Fry let it slip? Had she seen a file? Overheard someone discussing the case? The surveillance team seemed uneasy hearing Jessie’s voice and it worried her. She wanted to know what was going on. But they couldn’t give her an answer. Ray had given his followers the slip walking through a shopping centre. Jessie paced the street angrily.

‘He got mobbed, women everywhere. By the time the crowd cleared, he’d disappeared.’

‘You idiots, he probably did it on purpose.’ Jessie was stuck. There was no point trying to find him, he could be anywhere. The man on the phone was apologising again. Jessie couldn’t be bothered to listen to his paltry excuses.

‘Find him, and bring him to West End Central.’ She was going to get Clare back on the phone, talk
some sense to her, calm her down. She’d send Fry to go and get her …

‘With all due respect, DI Driver, I don’t think St Giles was up to no good. He left the house carrying a bunch of yellow roses –’ Jessie’s coffee fell to the ground and splattered over the pavement.

It took forty minutes to get to Woolwich Cemetery in the car, even with the lights flashing. There was a man leaning a bike against the forlorn gates. Jessie recognised the hunch of the shoulders as she switched the engine off.

‘What are you doing here, Mark?’

He turned round. The side of his face was still discoloured from the bruising.

‘Clare disappeared from the station. She isn’t at home, she hasn’t been to work. I couldn’t shake this bad feeling, so I checked myself out of hospital. I was hoping she’d be here.’

‘Isn’t she?’

‘No. But there are some fresh flowers, so I guess that means Irene is okay.’

Jessie shook her head and started to run along the cracked, weed-infested pathway to Veronica Mills’ grave. ‘Irene didn’t leave those flowers. Ray did!’

She was running too fast to hear Mark’s response. She saw the bright yellow roses lying on the ground in front of the luminous white cross. They were still in their paper. And their dead predecessors were still scattered over the grave. Ray
had been interrupted. Jessie moved closer to the cross. Mark panted behind her.

‘How could he have left them? He was in the nick.’

‘He didn’t have to do it himself. He has enough influence to get this done without anyone knowing. Irene must have covered for him, like she always has.’

‘Clare knows, doesn’t she?’

Jessie didn’t reply directly. Instead she pointed to the splash of red blood on the corner of the headstone then put a finger to her lips. There was a rustle in the bordering hedgerow. Someone was watching them. She pointed to her eyes then indicated the spiky hawthorn bushes. Mark nodded and began to walk along the edge. Jessie scanned the big tombstones. Clare must have seen Ray leave the roses; she’d called Jessie because she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. St Giles leaving roses on her mother’s grave. Jessie tried to imagine the rage Clare would have felt. It would have superseded any fear Clare may have felt for the man. She would have gone for him, no question. Jessie would have done the same. But Ray had been fighting off opposition for years. Jessie was pretty certain it was Clare’s blood on the gravestone. Mark walked up beside her.

‘Whoever was there, they’ve scarpered.’

‘Well, he didn’t have time to move her very far. She must be here somewhere.’ They reached the crypts on the brow of the hill and started trying
doors. The crypts looked as forgotten as the cemetery; they belonged to a different time, when families stayed in one place, lived, died and were buried together. She approached the last one, saw the name above the door and stopped in her tracks. GILES. Carved in a roman-style script into the crumbling York stone. Jessie reached for the thick steel door. She knew already it would open. The ground had been disturbed and the bolt was drawn. Jessie retrieved the torch from her bag, took a deep breath and pulled the door towards her. The beam of light cut through the inky black space within. Ray’s ash-white face and glassy eyes loomed back at her. She dropped the torch.

‘Mark! Mark! Come here quick –!’

Jessie scooped the torch up from the musty earth-covered floor and forced herself to look at Ray St Giles. He was semi-naked, tied up against the wooden frame of the shelves upon which his dead family lay. He would be joining them soon if Jessie didn’t do something. He was bleeding profusely from a gash in his inner thigh. His femoral artery had been severed. Blood was pouring down his leg on to the dusty floor. He was five foot nine, weighed approximately thirteen stone and he’d be dead in thirty-five minutes. Jessie pointed the torch downward. Clare Mills was balled up on the floor at Ray’s feet. She too was unconscious. Bleeding from the head. Jessie thought of Eve Wirrel’s painting and wondered whether two worlds could really collide like this.

Mark went straight for Clare. ‘She’s breathing,’ he said. ‘She’s got a nasty bump on the head.’

Jessie put her bag on the floor. ‘Cut?’

‘It’s a bit sticky, but it’s not bleeding badly.’

‘I don’t mean her head, I mean like that –’ she shone the torch on the oozing wound on Ray’s thigh. A long, clean, deep incision glistened in the torchlight.

‘No.’

‘We’ve got to stem this bleeding,’ said Jessie.

‘I’ll call for back-up.’

‘We don’t have time. Come here, I need that bottle of whiskey.’

‘What whiskey?’

‘The one in your pocket. Quick.’

Mark looked bewildered as Jessie accepted the quarter-bottle.

‘Get him down, Mark. Make a tourniquet with your tie and pen around the top of his thigh and raise the leg up, above his heart.’

Jessie snapped a Bic biro in half. She pulled out the ink tube and threw it aside. With the torch in her mouth, she dipped the end section of the biro into the whiskey then poured a little over her hands. The flow of blood had slowed because of the tourniquet and the elevation of the leg. Jessie slipped the biro over one end of the exposed artery and with her other hand fed the severed artery down inside the biro.

‘Now, gently undo the tourniquet, just enough to keep a fresh blood supply to the leg. That way
he might not lose it.’ They watched the see-though biro fill with blood.

‘It’s weeping a bit, but I think it’ll work,’ said Jessie. ‘Okay, now call for back-up.’

‘Where the hell did you learn to do that?’ said Mark.

‘That would be telling.’

‘Very impressive,’ said Mark. Except this time his lips didn’t move.

Jessie turned round in time to see the door close. She threw herself against it, but the person outside was too quick. The door was bolted. She kicked it. The steel jarred against the sole of her foot and reverberated up her leg.

‘Stupid kids,’ said Mark, not sounding as confident as he’d like.

‘That wasn’t kids,’ said Jessie, watching the sliver of light under the steel door slowly disappear.

‘Hey!’ shouted Mark, jumping over Clare and hitting the door. ‘Hey!’

Jessie was watching their airway disappear.

Mark took out his phone. She didn’t need him to tell her there was no signal in the lead-lined mausoleum, his face in the beam told her everything she needed to know. The torch started fading, so she switched it off. ‘Damn,’ said Jessie. Paul and Ty had run the batteries down and she didn’t have any spares.

Mark lit his lighter. ‘What happened?’

‘Batteries. How’s the wound?’

Mark passed the small blue flame over Ray’s leg. ‘Holding. What the fuck is going on?’

‘I don’t know. This doesn’t fit the pattern,’ said Jessie. ‘I was so sure it was a mother-son thing, but Joshua wasn’t sleeping with Ray St Giles –’

‘Ow!’ Mark dropped the lighter. ‘Shit!’ Jessie could hear Mark’s breathing shorten. ‘I can’t find it!’ He was scrabbling around in the dust furiously. ‘Oh Christ, he moved!’

Jessie crouched down in the darkness. ‘Mark,’ said Jessie softly. ‘Take my hand – here. Now stand up with me. There’s plenty of room in here. See, here’s the door, I want you to lean against it. Don’t move, just breathe slowly.’

Mark’s hand was clammy and he was struggling to control his breathing.

‘I can’t breathe, I can’t …’

‘Yes, you can. In for four, out for six. Keep going.’ Jessie slowly let go of his hand.

‘Don’t leave me. I can’t, I can’t see …’

‘It’s okay, I’m here. I’m going to pass you the torch. Then you know you have it if you need it.’ Jessie pressed the torch into his other hand. He clicked it on, pointed it to the floor. ‘There, my lighter.’

Jessie bent down and retrieved it. In the fading light, she looked at Clare. Mark must have moved her as he was frantically searching for the lighter. Her arm was stretched across Ray St Giles’ leg, her body was no longer curled up in a ball. Mark
clicked the torch off as Jessie stood up again.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Mark, taking her hand again.

‘Claustrophobia is a horrible thing.’

‘It isn’t that, it’s the dark.’

They stood in the echoing blackness holding hands. Total darkness was not something Jessie experienced often. It made her feel very closed-in while at the same time very small.

‘We were poor,’ said Mark quietly. ‘Mum had to work after the old man left. It was a different time, there wasn’t the help. She didn’t know what to do with me.’

Jessie squeezed his hand.

‘It was for my safety,’ said Mark. ‘I couldn’t come to any harm in the closet, but it was so dark and she was away for so long. I …’

‘It’s okay. They’ll find us. The surveillance team know about the roses, someone will put it together.’

‘Not as fast as you did.’

Jessie smiled in the darkness. ‘You’re not going soft on me, are you?’

Mark didn’t respond.

‘Will you be all right? I want to check Ray’s wound.’

He handed the torch back and took the lighter. Jessie shone the pale orange light at Ray’s leg.

‘I think the biro must have slipped,’ said Jessie. ‘His pulse is barely there. Mark, we’re losing him.’

‘Him we can afford to lose,’ said Mark. ‘It’s the
three of us I’m worried about.’ He passed Jessie the whiskey. She let the stringent blend sit on her tongue until it burned. The darkness in the tomb was overwhelming. Heavy. It bore down on them. She didn’t allow herself to think of the cold spreading through her own limbs or the man slowly bleeding to death beside her. She thought instead of Henrietta Cadell, of Joshua and of Clare Mills. She thought long and hard and when she stopped Ray St Giles was dead. She heard the long exhalation. His last breath. She had failed. Her bag of tricks had failed. She couldn’t get them out of this and she felt utterly demoralised.

‘I should have let you call for back-up –’

Mark put his arm around Jessie. ‘This isn’t your fault.’

‘I should have got Clare out first, I should have known.’

‘Known what? We thought Ray was a suspect, not a victim.’

‘He isn’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing,’ said Jessie, listening to the silence.

‘Hey,’ said Mark, flicking his lighter on. ‘I won’t have you falling apart – not the unsinkable Jessie Driver.’

‘I’ve made a cock-up of this, Mark.’

‘Rubbish. You’ve done what detectives are supposed to do: examine every avenue, and never apologise if it’s a dead end.’

‘I think I can smell burning skin.’

The flame went out, leaving its imprint floating around in front of Jessie’s eyes.