Dead Alone (33 page)

‘Mark, your mum, was it just the two of you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you never told her you were afraid.’

‘How could I? She was doing her best. I was her little man, men are brave, so I put up with it, but took it out on everyone else. I probably still am. Especially on women. It’s not easy to trust women after the one who loved you the most locked you in a cupboard and left you in the pitch-black.’

‘Is that why you never got married?’

‘Oh I got married – to seventy-odd blokes in the Met. And I’m not angry with Ma. She didn’t do it to be cruel, she did it to be practical. Even then I knew the difference.’

‘And if it had been cruelty?’

‘I’d be one of the many fucked-up souls we deal with every day.’

‘Mark, do you think there are always extenuating circumstances?’

‘No, not always. Some people are born with a black hole where their heart should have been.’

As Jessie shifted her weight, the door behind her and Mark suddenly opened. They fell back squinting at the sudden brightness. A figure was standing over them.

‘Clare!’

It was Irene. She ran straight for the bundle on the floor as Jessie and Mark got unsteadily to their
feet. And Irene had not come alone. She had brought Fry and he had brought back-up and medical help. Jessie watched her cradle Clare. Irene had a bruise on the side of her face that almost matched Mark’s. Jessie wondered if it had anything to do with Irene’s recent absence.

Irene looked very briefly at Ray.

‘Is he dead?’

‘Yes,’ said Mark. Jessie didn’t begrudge Irene the relief that was palpable on her face. Her nemesis was dead. As Fry carried Clare out, she came round. He lay her on the ground and let Irene hold her and whisper to her reassuringly, keeping her close. Jessie watched the two women as the medical team swarmed the stone crypt. Clare seemed very calm; concussion could do that. What it couldn’t do was leave no physical mark. Clare Mills had no bruise.

Jessie had to move fast. She directed her first question to Irene. How had she known they were there? The answer was straightforward enough. The crypt was where Ray used to meet Veronica. It was the first place she thought to look. She knew Clare was missing because she had telephoned the station. When it became known that Jessie and Mark had disappeared and that Ray had last been seen carrying yellow roses, Irene put the pieces together and told DC Fry to meet her at the cemetery. It was a neat explanation, thought Jessie.

‘Did you see anything, Clare?’

She shook her head, then frowned. ‘I saw him put those roses on her grave. I couldn’t believe it, I thought maybe he just happened to be passing, and had seen the flowers, so I rang you and you told me everything I needed to know. Ray and my mother were …’ Clare shuddered.

‘I’m so sorry, love,’ sobbed Irene.

Clare clutched Irene’s wrist. Jessie noticed the blood on Clare’s fingers. ‘I saw red. I ran at him screaming, he turned around and hit me.’ She touched her head and winced. ‘I must have hit my head on something. I managed to get on to my hands and knees. I tried to crawl away. But I couldn’t get away quick enough. I remember seeing his feet.’ Clare started to cry. ‘I thought he was going to kill me.
I
begged
him
for mercy.
Him
. I should have spat in his face. I don’t know what happened next.’

‘Did you see anyone else?’

Clare frowned again. ‘Maybe I saw a man, I can’t remember. He’d gone by the time I’d finished talking to you.’

‘A man?’

Clare nodded. ‘Tall, white skin. Dark hair, I think.’

‘Are you sure, Clare?’

Clare stared back at Jessie, then slowly shook her head. ‘No, not completely. I was too angry.’

‘But you think you did?’

Irene squeezed Clare’s hand.

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘He looked like a ghost.’

Jessie returned to the station to see Frances Leonard. She was expecting a woman possessed with rage at having been duped into leaving her shrine. All dressed up and no hero to meet. Instead, Frances was sitting quietly in the corner with her dress folded neatly on her lap.

‘You’re back,’ said Frances, smiling. ‘I am so sorry I messed with your bike. When I get angry, I can’t seem to control what I’m doing. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Will I get into trouble?’

‘None of that matters,’ said Jessie, pulling up a chair. ‘But I do need you to answer those questions now.’

‘I know. P.J. told me. He was very kind and explained a lot of things. I have to leave him alone, he has some private things to deal with. But my goodness, it was so nice to talk to him.’

Jessie nodded in a way she hoped was noncommittal. If she imagined P. J. Dean had come to see her, good, now Frances would talk. Jessie needed one question answered very quickly. She pulled out a photograph of Henrietta Cadell and her son and showed it to Frances. Frances nodded.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s him. I saw him.’

So, thought Jessie, she was getting warmer. ‘What did you see him do, Frances?’

‘He went to the house in Barnes. He was doing it with Verity.’

‘That wasn’t all though, was it?’

Frances screwed up her face but said nothing.

‘Frances, you said you’d seen who
killed
Verity Shore, remember? Someone hit her over the head. Was it him?’

Frances chewed her lip.

‘Frances?’ said Jessie, getting angry. ‘You said –’

‘I know, I’m sorry. I did see him once. But I don’t know if it was him exactly. He looked different.’

‘But it was a man?’

‘I think so.’

‘You
think
?’

‘I’m sorry, I wanted to see P.J. They always lie and say he’s coming, and he never does, so why shouldn’t I tell lies? But you took me seriously. You really did send P.J. to see me.’

The woman was conveniently using her fantasy to absolve her from the trouble she’d got herself in. ‘Frances, I am very angry with you. I thought you were reliable. You’ve given me nothing to go on. P.J. will be angry with you too. He wants to see the killer caught as much as I do.’

‘I did see that man there,’ pleaded Frances. ‘And the woman. Not in Barnes. At the church in Richmond. She had a big fight with Eve Wirrel.’

‘When was this?’

‘A few days before she died.’

‘Frances, the person who hit Verity, was he tall, like this man?’

‘Yes. He had dark hair too.’

Jessie stood up. She explained that the next
people to come into the room were there to help her. Frances smiled. She knew, she said, P.J. had told her about them too. Jessie passed the mental health worker as she ran to the yard.

The garage were just delivering her mended bike. They couldn’t untie it from the truck quickly enough.

Jessie returned to the Cadells’ house, she kept her finger on the bell until it was answered by Henrietta herself, then she barged in.

‘Where is Joshua?’

‘Don’t you possess manners?’

‘I am moments away from arresting you, I suggest you answer my questions.’

‘No one speaks to me like that. If you had any sort of evidence then you would have already arrested me. So please don’t insult my intelligence with your vain threats.’

‘Why did you argue with Eve Wirrel? Was it because you discovered she was screwing your son? She also painted him naked – it’s hanging in the station. Quite a sight it is, too.’

‘Knowing that the girl was a jumped-up, talentless exhibitionist is one thing. Killing her is quite another.’

‘You said you didn’t know her.’

‘I don’t. I was trying to protect Joshua. She was a headline-hunting whore; Joshua is too sweet, he
doesn’t see it. She would have gone to the papers and dragged my name through the mud in order to get herself a little exposure. Well, I wasn’t having it. Joshua had to be told.’

‘Your son has killed four people. Not as sweet as you think.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Get out of my house!’

Jessie started to walk along the hallway, tapping the wall beneath the stairs.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘One of the themes of these murders has been secrecy. Hidden doorways, secret tunnels. Very mediaeval, wouldn’t you say? Where do you think the murderer would have got an idea like that?’

‘I am too busy for this nonsense.’

‘When did you separate the basement from the rest of the house, Henrietta?’ Jessie ran her hand along the underside of the stair tread. She found a cold copper button and pressed it. A panel in front of her popped open.

‘You don’t have a search warrant.’

‘You let me into your house. We’re still in it.’ The staircase disappeared into the basement.

‘If you take another step, I shall call your superiors.’

‘What have you got to hide?’

‘Nothing. This is an invasion of privacy and you know it.’

‘I am a fast-tracked detective. I’m bound to make some mistakes.’

The basement flat was tidy to the point of disorder. All the pens on the desk were lined up. The books exactly even. The cushions were plump and the carpet had been hoovered in lines. Sitting in an armchair by an unlit but neatly laid fire was Christopher Cadell.

‘What the hell are you doing in Joshua’s flat?’ demanded Henrietta.

Christopher looked at his wife with melancholic eyes and sighed loudly. ‘Thinking,’ he said.

‘Well, get out. You know he doesn’t like
you
being down here.’

‘No, Henrietta. He doesn’t like anyone being down here.’ Christopher looked at Jessie. ‘Joshua introduced me to Verity. Not my wife.’

‘I thought so,’ said Jessie. Henrietta was unlikely to grace Verity Shore with a nod, let alone an introduction to her philandering husband.

‘Shut up, Christopher. You can’t be effectual, but please don’t try and be actively destructive.’ Henrietta turned to Jessie. ‘He has always been jealous of Joshua. It was not my fault he loved me more.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Jessie, looking at Christopher.

‘NOT YOUR FAULT!’ shouted Christopher, standing up. ‘I could have forgiven the affairs, I could have forgiven you for letting the world know
I wasn’t a real man, but telling Josh, when he was just a child. That was unforgivable.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. He wanted to know why his daddy didn’t love him. He deserved the truth. You aren’t his daddy. Joshua understood after that.’

‘You have created a monster, Henrietta, and you won’t allow yourself to see it.’ Christopher turned back to Jessie. ‘She would play games with him –’

‘Do shut up!’

‘She’d tell him horrific tales then put him in places he couldn’t get out of. He would scream and shout and finally she would rescue him –’

‘Those were just games!’

‘The poor boy forgot it was
you
who put him in there –’

‘I will divorce you if you say another word. I will make sure you don’t get a penny. No more club, no more drink, no more little girls. I will ruin you.’

And there it was, Jessie realised. Henrietta’s tell. The closer anyone got to the truth behind the image, the more of a bully Henrietta would become.

‘This is a murder investigation, if you don’t tell me everything you can about your son, I shall arrest you both for obstruction of justice. That wouldn’t look so good on the front pages, would it?’

‘I’m calling my lawyer,’ said Henrietta finally.

‘Well,’ said Jessie. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ She leant back on Joshua’s desk, nudging
the mouse by accident and sending the sleeping computer whirring into action. Jessie let her eyes wander over the screensaver.

‘Oh no …’

‘What,’ said Henrietta cattily. ‘Have you never seen a picture of a naked girl?’

Jessie put her head in her hands. She’d been so stupid. All that time she’d wasted in the cemetery, back at the police station.

‘Where is she?’ Jessie took a menacing step towards Henrietta.

‘Splashed all over some magazine. You have to admit, it is tacky. Let go of me! Didn’t you know your flatmate was just another nasty little exhibitionist?’

‘I will make sure you never see the light of day unless you tell me now. Where has he taken Maggie?’

‘Have you read my wife’s books?’ said Christopher.

‘Shut up,’ shouted Henrietta.

‘No.’

‘You should have,’ he said. Just as his son had at the Epoch party. Joshua had been playing with her all along. Christopher directed Jessie to the bookshelf with his eyes. ‘She wrote about smuggling in the eighteenth century. There was a famous woman smuggler, as cruel as you like. And then there was the story of the priest hole, and the crippled man who’d been kept in a hole for years. He was the last recusant priest to hang.’

Jessie frantically began to pull out titles by
Dame Henrietta Cadell. How could she have been so blind? The Isabella Plantation – it had been screaming at her for days. ‘Which one is next?’

Henrietta shook her head. ‘You are insane, both of you. My Joshua would never do such a thing. Do you realise how intelligent he is?’

‘He could have done anything, been anyone,’ said Christopher. ‘But you stopped him. You made sure his books didn’t get published.’

‘How dare you! I’ve supported him every step of the way. Who do you think gave him the contacts in the first place? Who got him the column?’

‘Stop lying. Look what you’ve done.’

‘Me? Me? And where the fuck were you all this time? Drunk. Like you’ve always been. Well, congratulations. You are just as guilty as me. We’re in this together.’

Christopher sunk back into the chair and bowed his head. Henrietta had won. Again. Jessie was close to tears. There were too many books. Too many essays. Joshua had surrounded himself with his mother’s heavy-hitting words. They would have bored down on him every day, reminding him how ineffectual he too had become. And yet all around him were those women – Verity, Eve, Cosima and now Maggie. Splashed over the society pages, famous for no reason at all, naked on glossy pages, taunting him. He had lived in his mother’s shadow, dependent on her, wary of her, resentful of her, obsessed with her …

‘Which fucking book is it!’ screamed Jessie,
pulling another from the shelf.

Christopher shook his head. Henrietta didn’t move. ‘This is absolutely insane,’ she said, but the certainty had left her voice.

‘If she dies, if she fucking dies, I will …’

‘What? What could you possibly do to someone like me?’

Jessie closed her eyes for a moment as blood roared through her brain. She could feel herself expand with anger. She breathed again, slowly, like she had told Mark to do in the crypt. The crypt had put her off the trail. Joshua wasn’t interested in Ray St Giles – of course he wasn’t, there wasn’t any link, any clue. It hadn’t been him standing mysteriously in the cemetery.

Cosima and Maggie had some secret in their past, that was why Maggie was so jumpy around her. What were the other clues, what had she missed?

‘The plague,’ said Jessie suddenly. ‘The plague, you’ve written something about the plague?’

‘No,’ said Henrietta.

‘Yes,’ said Christopher.

Henrietta moved incredibly quickly for a woman her size. But Jessie was faster and she grabbed Henrietta’s arm just before she brought the lamp down on her husband’s head. Christopher jumped away. ‘You can’t protect him any more. She is writing about the plague now, how it affected London. She’s working on it at the moment. Josh has read it.’

‘You bastard, he’ll never forgive you now.’

‘And nor should he,’ said Christopher. ‘I was too feeble to stop you. I can’t forgive myself.’ He moved to the other side of the room and opened a drawer in Joshua’s desk. ‘Moorfields. There was a burial pit. It’s still wasteland, right in the middle of the City. Joshua has been there. It’s a car park and dealers use it to supply the City boys …’

Jessie didn’t hear the rest of the lesson. She didn’t care if the Cadells ripped each other to shreds. Maggie was dying in a wasteland in the city, surrounded by people too busy to stop, all because Jessie hadn’t wanted to see what Clare Mills had done.

The first policeman scrambled to the site radioed what he had found. A black VW beetle was parked next to the wire fence at the very back of the wasteland. Two people were sitting in it. One male. One female. They were talking. Jessie cried with relief. By the time she arrived, they had the car park surrounded.

Jessie went in alone, she didn’t want to ignite the situation. She pulled the driver’s door open. She didn’t know who was more surprised to see her. Maggie or Joshua. Joshua disguised it better, though that didn’t surprise Jessie.

‘Jessie! What are you doing here?’ exclaimed Maggie, leaning over the handbrake.

‘Joshua, Maggie,’ said Jessie, ‘would you both
mind stepping out of the car?’

‘Hey,’ moaned Maggie. ‘What’s going on?’

‘No problem,’ said Joshua.

‘Come on, we weren’t doing anything –’ Maggie caught the expression in Jessie’s eyes and stopped talking. ‘Christ, Barnaby, you’re no fun any more.’ Maggie’s television diction was slipping. Her eyelids kept sliding closed. Joshua followed Jessie’s eye to the near-empty bottle jammed between Maggie’s legs.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ slurred Maggie. ‘I wasn’t doing the driving. It’s been one of those days, you don’t know what …’ She stepped out of the car and her legs gave way. The bottle shattered on the ground. Maggie didn’t seem to notice. She kept on talking as she slowly sank lower.

‘Christ,’ she slurred. ‘I don’t feel so good.’ She hauled herself up again and made her way round to the back of the car, where she collapsed to the compressed rubble ground.

‘Your friend likes to drink,’ said Joshua, emerging from the driver’s seat. Jessie did not move. The keys were in the ignition of the car. He was nearer to them than she was.

‘She thinks I’ll help her career, but I can’t. She drinks too much, everyone knows it. She’s good, but she won’t get on unless she quits. But you know this, don’t you? It’s difficult telling someone you love to stop, isn’t it? Deep down you want their approval more and you know they’ll hate you for pointing out their weaknesses. Don’t be fooled, the
messenger always gets shot. And I suppose you need what she provides – the excitement, the parties, the famous people. Not for you a pint of bitter and a packet of pork scratchings.’

‘Joshua Cadell, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murders of Verity Shore, Eve Wirrel, Cosima Broome and the attempted murder of Maggie Hall.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? She’s killing herself. Don’t blame it on me.’

‘Maggie Hall will wake up when the Rohypnol in that drink wears off. She will not remember a thing until I tell her that you were going to slice her artery and leave her here to die above this human cesspit.’

Joshua smiled a wolverine smile then chuckled. ‘Oh. So even you didn’t know about the pills?’ Jessie wouldn’t fall for the trick. ‘Oh, come on,’ said Joshua. ‘You surely didn’t think the sudden mood swings were hormonal? It’s been going on under your nose. One minute sitting on the floor in a dark room, the next minute, all smiles. My, how she bounced back from those set-backs.’

Jessie felt a cold sweat creep over her.

‘She is dying. Right now. I have your stubbornness on my side. Don’t I? The more we wait, the less you have. You are so confident, you aren’t even wired. It didn’t cross your mind, did it? You are always in control. Let me tell you something, Miss Driver. I would not have had to slit another vein after Cosima died because everyone would
have known it was me whether it had my insignia or not. Eventually, all the great artists stop signing their name because their work spells it out for them. Maggie Hall, another tragic victim exposed as the sorry little junkie she was.’ Joshua stepped to one side. ‘Check her handbag, if you don’t believe me about the pills. You think she came here because I asked her to? A lot of pills change hands in this car park. Maggie took too many, that’s all. She loves her tranquillisers. Trust me,’ he said. ‘You won’t find a trace of Rohypnol in her bloodwork, and the autopsy report will pronounce liver failure brought on by prescription drug abuse.’