by P. F. Ford
He stopped speaking and looked expectantly at her face. It took a few seconds for the penny to drop.
‘Goodness!’ said Watson. ‘That means the mother was just a child herself. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen when she gave birth!’
‘Or possibly even younger, if you’re following that train of thought,’ added Cutter.
‘Jesus!’ said Slater. ‘If that’s right, this can’t be Kylie! Are you sure about their ages?’
‘We were lucky to have two full sets of teeth as well as the bones. It’s true we can’t tell you their exact ages yet, but I would stake my reputation on our estimates. I’ve asked for much more detailed analysis, to be more accurate, but that will take a few days.’
Watson and Slater exchanged a look.
‘But hang on a minute, this doesn’t make sense,’ said Slater. ‘When we went to see David Hudson, the boy’s father, he showed us photos of the mother. He says she was eighteen when the kid was born, and the photos back that up.’
‘And I’m sure that’s probably correct,’ said Cutter.
‘Well, make your mind up,’ said Slater, testily. ‘You just told us the mother was a child.’
‘No,’ said Cutter. ‘I didn’t say that. You two jumped to that conclusion, but there is another possible explanation. I would suggest it could also mean the mother was killed some time ago and the child was kept somewhere for several years before he, too, was killed, and then buried close to his mother.’
‘But didn’t you say the boy couldn’t be more than ten years old, and might be as young as five?’ asked Watson.
‘That’s right.’
‘So, if he has been kept somewhere, it’s possible he had only just been born when the mother died?’
‘It has to be a possibility, yes,’ agreed Cutter.
‘So this could still be Kylie,’ said Slater. ‘Could she have died in childbirth?’
‘The state of the skeletal pelvis suggests she had given birth not long before her death, but the pelvis is damaged, so it’s almost impossible to say how recently with any certainty.’
‘But it’s a possibility?’ persisted Slater.
‘I’d say it’s a possibility, but unlikely,’ conceded Cutter.
‘Okay, Henry,’ said Slater. ‘This is what we think we’ve got so far. Eighteen-year-old Kylie Mason had a baby in July 2000 while her husband-to-be, David Hudson, was in Kosovo. On 20 October she moved into Trillington while Hudson was still away. The baby doesn’t sleep well, and she had taken to walking the streets carrying the kid to get him to sleep. The watch you found suggests she died at 22.45 on 22 October. That ties in with our story, because she disappeared around then. Would this scenario fit with what you have found?’
‘Get me that DNA sample from her parents and we’ll know for sure it’s her,’ said Cutter, ‘but yes, it all seems to add up, doesn’t it?’
‘All except the baby,’ said Watson.
‘Yes, that’s the million-dollar question,’ muttered Slater. ‘What happened to the baby? Where was he for all that time? And how did he come to end up alongside his mother, years later?’
Chapter 27
Number fifteen Maple Avenue was a small bungalow typical of so many others built in the seventies in the small seaside town of Inglethorpe on the south coast. Just like its neighbours, it had been modernised with double-glazed windows, a new front door, a small extension on one side, and a conservatory on the other side to catch the evening sun. The immaculate garden was a tribute to a green-fingered resident and was in perfect keeping with all the others in the avenue. As he climbed from the car, Slater felt optimistic, and as he followed Watson to the front door, he reflected on how funny it was that one’s surroundings could do that.
She rang the doorbell and they waited. ‘Nice garden,’ she observed.
Slater took a closer look at his surroundings. He wasn’t what you might call a keen gardener; reluctant would have been a much more fitting adjective. It was all he could do to mow his small patch of grass when he remembered, but he had to agree being in this garden did make him feel good. He remembered he had read somewhere that gardening was supposed to be therapeutic and good for the soul. Maybe he should think about taking it up – he often felt he could do with a hobby. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and he turned his attention back to the job in hand, and to the bright-eyed, silver-haired lady smiling at them.
‘Mrs Mason?’ asked Watson.
‘Pardon?’ She was obviously hard of hearing. ‘If you’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, we’re not interested.’
Watson opened her wallet and showed her warrant card. ‘We’re from the police,’ she announced. ‘I’m DS Brearley, and this is DI Slater.’
Mrs Mason peered uncertainly at the unfamiliar couple on her doorstep and then looked at the warrant card. ‘Police?’ she said. ‘We didn’t call for the police.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ agreed Watson, ‘but we’d like to talk to you if you don’t mind.’
Mrs Mason leaned out of the door and looked up and down the road, apparently concerned what the neighbours might think. ‘Am I under arrest?’ she asked conspiratorially. ‘I’ll come quietly, there’s no need for the neighbours to know.’ Her voice had faded as she uttered the last sentence, soundlessly mouthing the last few words.
Slater was trying hard not to smile, but he had not seen Watson looking flustered before and was finding her obvious discomfort quite hard to resist. He was wondering exactly how Watson was going to deal with the situation, especially when Mrs Mason offered her wrists towards her with the words ‘Okay, cuff me if you must.’ Now he had to turn away.
Mrs Mason was obviously quite harmless, but it was equally obvious she had no idea what was going on. Talking to her was going to be hard work, and it seemed unlikely they would get any sense out of her. Slater was enjoying the situation so much he had turned away to have a good laugh at Watson’s expense.
‘No, Mrs Mason,’ she said, carefully enunciating every syllable. ‘We need to come inside and speak to you.’
‘Inside? Shouldn’t I face trial first? You haven’t even told me what I’ve done?’
‘It’s about your daughter,’ explained Watson, slowly, and now, for the first time, Mrs Mason seemed to join them in the real world, but before she could speak, a man appeared at the door behind her. He gently placed his hands on her shoulders.
‘We don’t have a daughter,’ he said. ‘We haven’t had one for years.’
‘Are you Mr Mason?’ asked Watson.
The man was in his seventies, but he stood tall and proudly defiant. ‘I am,’ he said, sternly, ‘and I’d appreciate it if you would go away and stop bothering my wife. You can see she’s not well.’
‘Mr Mason, we wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t important. It’s about your daughter, Kylie.’
At the mention of Kylie’s name, his wife looked round at him, eyes pleading.
‘I told you, we don’t have a daughter,’ said Mr Mason.
‘Your wife seems to think you have,’ said Watson, and Mrs Mason looked back at her, bright eyes now filled with tears. ‘And those tears look real enough.’
Mason drew his wife into his arms. ‘I don’t want her getting upset.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t promise that,’ said Watson. ‘Can we come inside, please?’
‘We haven’t set eyes on the little bitch in nearly twenty years,’ he said, bitterly. ‘It’s her fault her mother’s like this. If she had wanted to see us, she knew where we were, no one was stopping her. Now you’re just causing her more upset.’
Watson looked into Mrs Mason’s frightened eyes, and then up at her husband again. ‘I don’t think it’s me that’s upsetting your wife, Mr Mason. Please let us in. The sooner we come in, the sooner we’ll go away and leave your wife in peace.’
Mason seemed to be fighting his own indecision, but eventually he relented. ‘I want you to understand I’m not happy about this,’ he s
aid.
‘That’s duly noted, Mr Mason,’ said Watson, ‘but I promise you, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.’
Mason led them into a neat and tidy sitting room. He pointed to the two armchairs, and then, keeping hold of his wife’s hand, he led her across to the settee where the two of them sat, hand in hand.
‘I suppose she’s in some sort of trouble, is she?’ asked Mason. ‘I always knew it would happen, sooner or later. I told her to keep away from that man, but she wouldn’t listen. Got herself banged up by him and then cleared off. We never heard a word from her, you know? Honestly, you bring them up as best you can, and then the ungrateful little buggers just up and leave.’
Watson waited for him to run out of steam, before she spoke. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘the story we heard wasn’t quite like that. We heard you asked her to leave when she got pregnant. You told her she had to choose between you and David Hudson.’
Mason’s wife tried to draw her hand away from him, and he looked momentarily furious. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ he snapped. ‘How dare you come here spreading lies like that!’
‘I’ll ask you to keep your temper under control, Mr Mason,’ said Slater. ‘Judging from the look on your wife’s face, she’s just heard the truth for the first time in many years.’
‘That daughter of ours broke her heart,’ said Mason. ‘I kept telling her to stay away from that Hudson character. I tried everything to keep them apart. You would have done, too. And what happened? He got her pregnant. I knew he was a bad sort. I expect she never saw him again after that.’
‘So you kicked her out when she was pregnant,’ said Watson, ‘and you didn’t have a clue what happened to her?’
‘Don’t you judge me, young lady. It’s that Hudson you need to judge, not me.’
‘David Hudson was the one who looked out for her,’ argued Watson. ‘He was the one who found her a flat to live in. He was the one who helped her pay the rent. He was the one who left the army to look after her and their son. He was the one who found them a cottage to live in after the baby was born.’
Mason looked suitably uncomfortable.
‘So you had no idea you had a grandson?’
Mason just shook his head. Mrs Mason may have been unwell, but she was well enough to understand what was going on. ‘Where is she?’ she wailed.
‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ said Watson, ‘but I’m afraid we believe she is dead, Mrs Mason. I’m sorry.’
The scream was both unexpected and chilling. It obviously completely unnerved Watson, and Slater, too, felt he’d never heard anything quite like it before. Mr Mason grabbed his wife and clutched her to his chest. At first she tried to fight him off, beating him with her fists, but eventually she gave up and let him pacify her.
‘Did you have to do this?’ asked Mason. The fight seemed to have drained out of him now.
‘I’m afraid we have a duty to identify the body,’ said Slater, ‘and we have a duty to notify the next of kin.’
‘And are you sure it’s her?’
‘Ninety per cent sure,’ said Slater. ‘DNA samples from the two of you will confirm it.’
‘Of course. Just give my wife a minute or two.’
‘Yes, take your time,’ said Slater. ‘We don’t want to make this any worse than it is.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘We believe she died in October 2000,’ explained Watson.
‘How?’
‘We don’t know for sure yet.’
‘You mean she was killed?’
Watson didn’t answer.
‘Well, I’d look very closely at that David Hudson,’ said Mason. ‘He’d be my prime suspect.’
‘I hate to disappoint you,’ said Slater, ‘but David Hudson was in Kosovo on his last tour of duty before he left the army to spend his life with Kylie. It was only when he returned that anyone even knew she was missing.’
‘She was on her own, you see. He was all she had,’ added Watson. ‘He says he tried to get in touch with you several times.’
‘I had no time for the man,’ said Mason.
‘Yes, you’ve made that quite clear,’ said Watson. There was so much more she wanted to add, but she wouldn’t, not in front of Mrs Mason.
Chapter 28
‘Hello, Slater, it’s DCI Lipton here. I just called to see how your visit to the Randalls went.’
‘Hello, sir, I suspect you already know how it went, and now you’re calling to give me the bollocking you warned me about,’ Slater said. ‘I’m surprised it’s taken you so long to call.’
Lipton laughed. ‘Alan Randall only called me yesterday. Apparently Diana was very upset when you left.’
‘I wasn’t exactly happy,’ said Slater. ‘It took us more than three hours to get there, and then we were only there about five minutes and he asked us to leave.’
‘Was that when you asked about a DNA sample? I thought that might happen.’
‘You could have warned me,’ said Slater. ‘We wasted the best part of day driving all the way up there and then back.’
‘Well, now you see what you’re up against,’ said Lipton. ‘They wouldn’t give us a sample either. Diana insisted they would only do it if we found her son.'
‘Didn’t you think that was strange?’ asked Slater.
‘Of course, but what can you do? She started on about data protection and all that crap.’
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, we’ve got DNA evidence to prove it’s not their son,’ said Slater.
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Lipton. ‘What about the pendant?’
‘You’ve got me there,’ admitted Slater, ‘I’m certain Diana recognised the pendant when I showed it to her, but she’s adamant it’s not her son’s, and at the moment I can’t prove any different. Besides, they tell me DNA doesn’t lie.’
‘You sound disappointed.’
‘I am. It was the way she reacted to the pendant. I was convinced it was their son.’
‘Are you going to go back and apologise?’ asked Lipton.
‘Is that what you want me to do?’
‘He’s insisting you should, but I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.’
Slater was thinking. ‘D’you know, I think that might be a good idea. I’m sure the Randalls are hiding something, maybe I can find out what it is. I’ll tell them you sent me to apologise.’
‘I’ll expect another call from them, shall I?’ asked Lipton.
‘I’ll do my best not to upset anyone, but I can’t promise.’
‘You know, Slater, I get the impression you’re not the sort who loses sleep over the idea of upsetting people in pursuit of an inquiry.’
‘I have to admit, the Randalls aren’t the first people I’ve upset,’ confessed Slater.
Lipton laughed. ‘A man after my own heart. I thought as much. Is there anything we can do to help from this end?’
‘Well, it’s quite possible there is,’ said Slater. ‘Let me explain what’s going on . . .’
* * *
As Slater put the phone down, he felt DCI Lipton had just done him a big favour by giving him an excuse to revisit the Randalls, and he was determined to make sure he made the most of it.
The revelation that Kylie Mason was the mother of the little boy certainly seemed to have eliminated the possibility of the child being Sonny Randall, but he was still convinced they were missing something, even if it wasn’t related to their inquiry, so he decided he would have to go back through Diana Randall’s work history again. He wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find, but now he knew about her relationship with Colin Norton, maybe he would spot something he had previously dismissed as not being relevant.
Chapter 29
If Diana Randall was surprised to see them when she swung her front door open, she certainly managed to hide it, but she made no attempt to hide the distasteful curl of her lip. Slater gave her a cheery smile. Being unpopular didn’t bother him one little bit, and he
was happy to know he was already getting under her skin.
‘Good morning Mrs Randall,’ he said. ‘DCI Lipton was most insistent we should come back and see you.’
‘What do you want?’ she snapped.
‘If we could just come inside for a couple of minutes. DCI Lipton felt we owed you an apology.’
For a moment it looked as though she was considering slamming the door in their faces, but then she relented and stepped back inside. ‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ she said, sullenly.
‘They followed her inside, Watson carefully closing the door behind them.
‘Is Mr Randall here?’ asked Slater. ‘We seemed to upset both of you last time we were here, so it’s only right we should apologise to both of you.’
‘I’m afraid my husband’s away on business. He won’t be back until tomorrow morning.’
‘Oh dear, what a pity,’ said Slater.
‘I’ll pass your apologies on,’ said Diana.
‘While we’re here, I’d like to ask one or two questions if that’s okay?’
‘I don’t see how you can have any questions I can possibly help you with,’ said Diana, testily. ‘I’ve already told you it’s not my son you’ve found!’
‘Oh, we know it’s not your son, Mrs Randall,’ said Watson. ‘We have DNA evidence to show his father was a man called David Hudson. I don’t suppose you know him?’
Diana seemed to be completely nonplussed by Watson’s question. Her mouth flapped open a couple of times before she gathered her thoughts and actually spoke. ‘That’s a coincidence,’ she said. ‘There used to be a David Hudson living on the farm next door, but it can’t be the same man, can it?’
‘Did you know him before he came to live on the farm?’ asked Slater.
‘What? Why would I have known him?’