by Alex Walters
‘For the killing of my ex-husband, yes. I’m not an idiot.’
‘We just have to be sure you’re being treated appropriately in the circumstances. We appreciate yesterday’s events must have been a shock.’
‘At the time, yes. But as soon as I saw Ronnie standing there, it all made sense.’
‘I’m glad it makes sense to you,’ Jennings said. ‘I’m not sure it makes much sense to us.’
‘No one else could have known. No one else could have made the connections.’ Wentworth shrugged. ‘Frankly, no one else would even have bothered. Ronnie was obsessed.’
‘You’ll need to join the dots for us,’ Annie said. ‘We know you had an affair with Keith Chalmers at the time of your marriage to Ronnie Donahue. And we know that Justin was Chalmers’ son rather than Donahue’s.’
For the first time, Michelle Wentworth looked surprised. ‘You know more than I do, then. We always thought it was probably the case, but I never confirmed it.’ She nodded. ‘But of course you have DNA results for both of them.’
‘You should have told us. It would have provided us with a clear link between Justin and Keith Chalmers. That might have led us to your ex-husband more quickly.’
‘It didn’t occur to me that would be the link,’ Wentworth said. ‘I didn’t imagine that Ronnie would suddenly have decided to take that sort of revenge twenty years after the event.’
‘So why did he?’
‘He didn’t. Not on his own. The whole thing’s nagged away at him all this time, but it was never really about the affair. That just added to the humiliation for him. It was the fact that, as he saw it, I’d used his experience and knowledge to establish the business and then I just dumped him. He’d probably have been happier if I had left him for Chalmers, but I didn’t. He thought I was a cold-hearted bitch who just used people to get what I wanted and then moved on.’
And I’m not sure he was wrong, Annie thought. There was something about the way that Wentworth was telling this story that Annie herself found chilling. It wasn’t just that she was talking so dispassionately about the deaths of people who’d supposedly once been close to her. It was that she seemed almost pleased, as if she’d achieved an outcome she’d been striving for.
‘You said he wouldn’t have done this alone,’ Annie said. ‘What did you mean?’
‘Ronnie was terminally ill and had nothing to lose. But he wouldn’t have had the wit or initiative to have done this by himself. He’d spent twenty years brooding on this stuff, developing a deep hatred – for me, for Justin, for Chalmers. But I don’t think he’d ever have acted on it. Until Peter Hardy came along.’
‘Hardy?’
‘Hardy became involved in the business, initially advising us on various legal matters. He came highly recommended. An ambitious business lawyer who seemed to have good contacts in the areas we wanted to get involved in. He did a few bits of good work for us, and I eventually brought him on board in a non-exec role. He built up his credibility with us – by which I mean with me – and I began to trust him more and more. Which, in retrospect, was bloody stupid of me. About six months ago, he came to me with a business proposition. He had contacts with an overseas group looking to invest in the UK, in a business like mine. To be honest, it all seemed slightly shady and I resisted. But he gradually persuaded me that it would enable us to take the business to a new level. I’d been looking for a while to be able to expand the business to the point where it was less dependent on me, so that I could maybe begin to wind down a bit.’
Annie wasn’t sure where all this was heading. ‘So you went along with the proposed deal?’
‘I agreed to pursue it further. Peter was playing his cards very close to his chest, which made me suspicious.’
‘Suspicious of what?’
‘Both about the source of the investment and about whether Peter was looking to use this to muscle his way into the business. But he could be very persuasive. He suggested I just dip a toe into the water, take a limited amount of the investment and use it to pitch for work in some of the new areas.’
‘And you were looking to do what? Test out what he was up to?’
‘To test the ground. I’m ambitious in business, but my instinct’s always to be cautious. This sounded too good to be true. But I didn’t know whether someone was pulling the wool over Peter’s eyes, or whether he was trying to pull it over mine. Or whether it might actually be legitimate.’
Annie was trying to make sense of this. It was a world she didn’t fully understand. ‘What happened?’
‘It went okay at first. We won the contracts. That didn’t surprise me. We’re good at what we do. But then things started to go wrong.’
‘Such as?’
‘Business stuff at first. Unexpected technical problems. Issues in the contracts we hadn’t expected. I always make a point of checking everything we sign up to, but some of this was outside my areas of experience so I was more dependent on Peter than I would have been normally. And we started to run into industrial relations problems. Even after we split up, Keith and I had had a good working relationship, and, well, one way or another, he’d usually managed to smooth the waters for us in dealing with the workforce. But he thought he was being undermined from within, that there was some ringer stirring up trouble.’ She stopped. ‘Then the really serious stuff happened. The stuff that brought it really close to home. Justin. Keith himself. And then poor bloody Sammy Nolan…’
‘I don’t understand,’ Annie said. ‘What’s the link with Sammy Nolan?’
Wentworth was silent for several seconds. Eventually she said, ‘There’ve been a few Sammy Nolans over the years. Young men in the business I’ve taken a shine to.’ She stopped and laughed ruefully. ‘That sounds awful. I don’t mean in a sexual way or anything like that. Just a few that I’ve thought had potential. I’ve always told myself it was a smart business move. Growing internal talent so that the business might outlive my involvement. But I’m not sure that was the sole motivation. Quite often they were kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who I thought I could do something for. Ronnie called Sammy a surrogate Justin, and he was maybe not wrong. I failed Justin from the start, and I’ve wanted to make up for it ever since.’ She paused, as if expecting Annie to respond. ‘I’ve not always got it right. A couple have progressed in the business, but others I’ve had to let go. I’ve always made a point of looking after them. Financially, I mean. I’ve treated them fairly.’ She sounded defensive now. ‘Sammy was the latest of those. I came across him when we first took over the contract. He seemed bright, conscientious and ambitious. This was when things were starting to go wrong, including some unexpected operational glitches. I was beginning to distrust Peter, so I wanted someone to be my eyes and ears on the shop floor. A spy in the camp. Sammy was working directly for me, though no one else knew it.’ She shook her head. ‘It seemed like a good idea. We concocted a story about planning to make him redundant along with other local staff, so that people would trust him. He got himself on to the local union committee but I was ultimately intending to move him to another part of the business. He’d already fed back some useful stuff to me, not least that Keith was right about there being some deliberate troublemakers in there. It was something else that increased my suspicions about Peter.’ She paused again. ‘The truth is, I was fond of Sammy. I thought I could help him make something of himself. I never imagined it would end like that. Poor bugger.’
‘But it was your ex-husband who committed the murders?’ Jennings said.
‘There was never any grand conspiracy,’ Wentworth said. ‘Never any mysterious overseas investors. I’m sure of that now. Peter wasn’t short of a bob or two, and the limited funding that appeared was just what he’d raised from his own sources. He’d concocted the whole scam with the aim of either driving me out of the business or at least making me increasingly dependent on him. He was making romantic overtures at the same time, though he should have known he stood bugger all chance in that direct
ion. He knew he wouldn’t be smart enough to beat me in business – he was a clever man but not streetwise in the way I am – so he had to resort to something more basic. And he got Ronnie to do his dirty work for him. Everything from the killings to that supposed threatening phone call. All designed to scare the hell out of me, so he could step in as my knight in shining armour. He must have inveigled his way into Ronnie’s life in the same way he tried to inveigle himself into mine. Then he wound Ronnie up into making real the revenge he’d dreamed of for twenty years.’
‘But Hardy ended up dead too?’ Annie said.
‘Peter was never as smart as he thought he was. He understood law and numbers, but he never really understood people. He’d have thought he was using Ronnie. Probably tried to entice him with a promise of a share in the business or some sort of pay-off. I presume that’s why they came here tonight. Peter had realised I was seeing through him and that he wouldn’t be long for my inner circle. I assume he’d brought Ronnie here to issue some kind of threat or ultimatum to me.’ She was smiling now, her tone unexpectedly calm in the circumstances. ‘But Ronnie never really cared about any of that. There was something obsessive about him. When I left him, he didn’t really care about the business. He cared because he thought I’d used him, sucked him dry and then cast him aside. In that sense, he saw Keith as a fellow victim rather than a rival. And in different ways he thought I’d done the same to Justin and to Peter, and that in due course I’d do the same to Sammy. I’m no psychologist, but my guess is that he thought he was putting all those people out of the same misery that he’d endured for twenty years. He was killing the drones before he finally killed the Queen Bee.’
She laughed, but Annie was finding all this deeply chilling. There was a note almost of glee in Wentworth’s voice now, and it suddenly occurred to Annie to wonder how much Wentworth had engineered all this. To wonder how long she’d known what Hardy was up to, whether she’d realised that Ronnie Donahue had been responsible for the killings. If in some way she might have actively engineered last night’s denouement.
Annie had spoken to Zoe earlier, and there were several points that had struck her in Zoe’s account of the evening. It was Michelle Wentworth who’d claimed to have seen Hardy standing in the garden. Zoe hadn’t seen him there alive. It was Wentworth who’d left the gates open, supposedly accidentally, so allowing Ronnie Donahue access. And then, after Donahue had succeeded in entering the house, someone had left the side window open, allowing Zoe to be present when Donahue was killed.
Was it possible that there was an alternative scenario to that which had apparently played out tonight? Had Hardy and Donahue really come to Wentworth’s house together to issue that ultimatum? Or was it possible that Hardy had come earlier, and that Michelle Wentworth had been responsible for his death? Was it conceivable that she had engineered for her ex-husband to enter the house, even leaving the window open so that Zoe could be present at the moment he was killed?
Annie had no evidence to support that idea, and she suspected that, even if she was correct, they’d never find any. The spanner Donahue had been carrying had apparently not been used on Hardy or, as far as they could judge, in the previous killings. If a different murder weapon had been used to kill Hardy, it could have been any suitable heavy object, and might well be anywhere by now. There was little prospect of searching all the woodland in this vicinity. There might be evidence from phone calls but it was unlikely that Michelle Wentworth would have been careless enough to use her usual phone. Some burner phone could have been dumped or even destroyed anywhere, with little chance it would ever be found. Even if they found traces of Hardy’s blood or DNA on Wentworth, it would be difficult to prove that those hadn’t been transmitted by Donahue during their struggle.
It was an absurd idea, Annie thought, generated by nothing more than her own unease at Michelle Wentworth’s unexpectedly relaxed demeanour. But Wentworth had been through a severe shock, and shock could affect people in very different ways. There was no reason to go searching for some more convoluted explanation.
‘You’re being charged with manslaughter,’ Annie said to Wentworth. ‘Clearly, you have a very strong mitigation in terms of self-defence. One of our officers was present and witnessed the events that led to your ex-husband’s death. Even so, at this stage we can’t offer you any guarantees as to the potential outcome. It’ll be up to the Crown Prosecution Service as to whether this goes to trial. And if it does then it’ll ultimately be a decision for the jury.’
Wentworth nodded. ‘Of course. I’ve every confidence in the due process of law.’
‘There are some questions we need to ask you, though. You had a loaded shotgun concealed beneath the sofa. I take it that’s not usually the case.’
‘Of course not. But you can check it out. I do field sports from time to time. The shotgun’s fully licensed and I’ve complied with all the regulations. It’s normally stored in a shotgun safe, unloaded. I’d just literally taken it out of the safe and loaded it while DS Everett and I were checking the downstairs of the house. It was stupid of me, I know, but I’d been genuinely rattled by seeing Peter outside. I couldn’t envisage any good reason why he’d be out there. I was intending to seek DS Everett’s advice on the gun when she returned. I imagine she’d have told me to put it back.’
‘I imagine so,’ Annie said.
‘Although, as it turned out, if I hadn’t had the gun, both DS Everett and I would probably now be dead.’
Annie took a moment to digest this. ‘The gun was concealed under the sofa?’ she prompted.
‘I’d just put it down on the carpet. I thought that would be the safest place. Then I was startled to see Ronnie enter the room. I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I must have just kicked it under the sofa so he wouldn’t see it. To be honest, it’s all a bit of a blur now.’
Annie nodded, conscious she had nowhere to take her suspicions. ‘This is obviously a tremendous strain for you in the circumstances. I suggest we adjourn the interview for the moment to give you a break. I’ll organise some refreshments for you.’ She completed the formalities for the recording, and followed Stuart Jennings out of the interview room.
‘What do you think?’ Jennings said once they were out in the corridor.
Annie hesitated. ‘It’s a hell of a mess.’
‘It could have been a lot worse, though. She’s right that, if Donahue had succeeded, we’d be dealing with two more deaths. Including one of our own. At least we won’t have to go through the challenges of bringing him to trial. Christ, just imagine what that would have been like.’
Annie nodded. Jennings was right. As it was, the whole case was largely tied up and completed. The only real loose end was Michelle Wentworth’s arrest. Annie could already envisage the lurid terms in which the media would cover that, and she suspected the case would never come to trial. Jennings was already planning the media conference he’d be leading alongside the Chief Superintendent later than afternoon. Fair enough, Annie had thought. It wasn’t something she had any desire to be involved in, and she couldn’t blame either Jennings or the force for wanting to grab any positive publicity that was going. Apart from anything else, Jennings had told her he was intending to highlight Zoe’s courageous role in helping to save Michelle Wentworth’s life. After Jennings’ doubts of recent months, that should provide a welcome boost to Zoe’s morale, not to mention her career.
Whatever might or might not have happened back at Wentworth’s house, there was nothing to be achieved by undermining all that simply to indulge a half-baked suspicion she’d almost certainly never be able to substantiate.
‘You’re looking thoughtful,’ Jennings said. ‘Something wrong?’
Annie glanced back into the interview room. Through the glass panel in the door, she could see Michelle Wentworth gazing apparently at nothing in particular. Annie recalled a training session she’d once attended on body language. The trainer had talked about a phenomenon called ‘duper’s delight’,
the giveaway smirk that passes across the face of a con artist who thinks they’ve pulled off a successful deceit. ‘I was just thinking about Wentworth.’
‘She’s some woman, isn’t she?’ Jennings said. ‘Though I suppose in some ways she’s not had the happiest of lives. She’s lost her son. She’s lost this other young man. Her ex turns out literally to have been a psychopath. She’s going to have to go through the hell of a possible manslaughter trial. I suppose it just goes to show that, however single-minded you might be, you still can’t always get what you want.’
Annie was still gazing through the one-way glass at Wentworth. Wentworth’s expression had changed now, and there was something playing across her lips that might almost have been a smile.
Annie felt a chill run down her spine. ‘You know, Stuart, I sometimes wonder if that’s true at all.’
Detective Annie Delamere
Small Mercies
Lost Hours
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About the Author
Alex Walters has worked in the oil industry, broadcasting and banking and provided consultancy for the criminal justice sector. He is the author of thirteen previous novels including the DI Alec McKay series set around the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands where Alex lives and runs the Solus Or Writing Retreat with his wife, occasional sons and frequent cats.
Also by Alex Walters
Detective Annie Delamere
Small Mercies
Lost Hours
First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Oxford OX2 0DF
United Kingdom
Copyright © Alex Walters, 2020
The moral right of Alex Walters to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.