‘It wasn’t quite like that. Alan wrote a book which has some sort of connection with what happened at Branlow Hall, but at the time I didn’t know anything about you or Frank Parris. I only heard about it when Lawrence told me.’ I paused. ‘Did you ever meet Alan?’
Stefan said nothing for a moment. It was obvious that he didn’t trust me. He considered every word before he spoke. ‘He wrote to me when I was in remand but why would I have wanted to meet him? He wasn’t offering to help me. Anyway, I had other things on my mind.’
‘Did you ever read the book?’
He shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen it in the prison library. They do have quite a lot of murder stories. They’re popular here.’
‘But you knew about it?’
He ignored my question. ‘Where is Cecily?’ he asked. ‘In your letter, you said she’s disappeared.’
Stefan hadn’t known about Cecily – not until I’d written to him. And why should he have? He probably had limited access to newspapers inside the prison and Cecily’s disappearance wouldn’t have made it onto national TV. Again, I was angry with myself. I had broken the news to him without any thought of the consequences. It had just been another piece of the puzzle.
Now I chose my words more carefully. ‘We still don’t know where she is. The police are looking for her. They have no reason to believe that she’s in any danger.’
‘Why are you saying that? Of course she’s in danger. She was afraid.’
‘How do you know that? Did she visit you?’
‘No. But she wrote to me.’
‘When?’
By way of an answer, he reached into his pocket and produced a single sheet of paper, which he held on to for a moment before handing it to me. The first thing I saw was the date at the top of the page – 10 June. So Cecily had written this the day before she had disappeared! The letter was short, typed. I felt a stirring of excitement. It was new evidence. Nobody else could have seen it.
‘Can I read this?’ I asked.
‘Go ahead.’ He sat back, watching me all the time.
I unfolded the letter and read:
10 June
Dear Stefan,
You may be surprised to hear from me after such a long silence but we had always agreed not to write to each other again, and after the verdict, when you pleaded guilty, I thought it was better that way.
I was wrong. I’m so sorry. I know now that you did not kill Frank Parris. I still don’t understand why you took the blame and I want to come and see you and talk to you.
It’s difficult to explain. A man called Alan Conway came to the hotel after it all happened and wrote a book called Atticus Pünd Takes the Case. It’s just a detective story but he seems to have used people and things from the hotel. Mum and Dad are in it and Derek and there’s a hotel called the Moonflower. The story isn’t the same but that’s not the point. I knew from the very first page who killed Frank Parris. I’d known it all along, but reading the book made it clear to me.
I need to come and talk to you. I’m told you have to put me on a list or something. Can you do that? I’m also sending the book to Mum and Dad. They’ll know what to do. But I have to be careful. I don’t think I’m in any danger, but you know what the hotel is like. Everyone knows everything and I don’t want anyone to find out.
I’m writing this quickly but I will write to you again next week, I promise. And when I see you, I’ll explain everything.
With love,
Cecily
So it was true. All along, Cecily had known the identity of the killer. She had actually found it on the first page. I wished now that I had brought the paperback with me. The book opens with Eric and Phyllis Chandler in the kitchen at Clarence Keep. There’s a mention of florentines and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, neither of which could have had any relevance to Frank Parris’s murder. Then I remembered that Andreas had a copy in the car. Once I was outside, I would read the whole chapter again.
‘As soon as I got this, I put her on the list for a visit,’ Stefan said. ‘I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from her. Then you wrote to me. That was why I agreed to see you.’
‘Stefan—’ I felt completely out of my depth. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him but at the same time I was afraid of offending him. Eight years in prison! How could he seem so calm, so unaffected? ‘I really want to help you,’ I said. ‘But I have to know. What exactly was your relationship with Cecily Treherne?’
‘She was the one who hired me after I came out of the Carlford Unit at Warren Hill. Her dad had this rehabilitation programme. She was kind to me when I was at the hotel. And when I was accused of murder, she was the only one who believed in me.’
‘You realise this letter could change everything?’
‘If anyone actually believes her.’
‘Will you let me keep this, Stefan? I’m in touch with the police detective who’s looking for Cecily. He also investigated Frank Parris’s murder.’
‘Locke?’
‘Detective Chief Superintendent Locke. Yes.’
For the first time, Stefan was angry. ‘I don’t want you to show him this,’ he said. He took the letter back and folded it away. ‘That man is the reason why I’m here.’
‘You confessed.’
‘He made me confess!’ I could see Stefan fighting with himself, trying to keep his emotions under control. He leaned towards me, speaking softly but with venom. ‘That bastard persuaded me that things would go easier if I pleaded guilty. All the evidence was against me. I had a criminal record. They’d found the money and there were bloodstains in my room. He said that if I signed a confession, he would put in a word for me and like the fool I was, I believed him. So I did what he said and I got life with a minimum of twenty-five years. That means I’ll be nearly fifty before I’m free again. You give him that letter and he’ll tear it to pieces. He doesn’t want anyone to believe me. If I was found not guilty, how do you think that would make him look? He wants me to stay here and rot.’
He slumped back in his chair but he hadn’t finished yet.
‘I was finished the moment I came to this country,’ he said quietly. ‘I was twelve years old and I didn’t want to be here. Nobody wanted me to be here. I was trash – Romanian trash – and the first chance they got, they threw me in this place and forgot about me. You think anyone will read this letter? You think anyone will care? No! I could die in here. I could kill myself tomorrow and I would except for the one brightness in my life, the one dawn that gives me hope.’ I was going to ask him what he meant but then he asked: ‘Do you know who killed Frank Parris?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Not yet.’
‘You’re an editor. Books! Not a lawyer. Not a detective. You can’t help me.’
‘Maybe I can.’ I reached out and rested my hand on his arm. It was the first contact between us. ‘Tell me what happened that night,’ I said. ‘Friday the fifteenth of June 2008.’
‘You know what happened. A man called Frank Parris was beaten to death with a hammer.’
‘Yes. But what about you? Where were you that night?’ He wasn’t going to answer so I went on. ‘What are you going to do, Stefan? Go back to your cell and sit on your own? How will that help you – or Cecily?’
He thought for a moment, then nodded.
‘I went to a party. Cecily and Aiden had a party for all the staff, next to the swimming pool.’
‘Did you have a lot to drink?’
‘I had some wine. A couple of glasses. I was very tired. After a bit I didn’t want to be there and I walked back to my room with the spa guy . . .’
‘Lionel Corby.’
‘Yes. He had the room next to mine.’
‘Did you ever call him Leo?’
‘No. I called him Lionel. Why do you ask?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Go on.’
‘I was asleep almost at once. That’s all there is to tell you. I slept all night and I woke up quite late. Maybe half past eight the next day. I didn’t go back int
o the hotel. I didn’t go anywhere near room twelve.’
‘But Derek Endicott saw you.’
‘He saw someone. It wasn’t me.’
‘Do you think you were deliberately framed?’
‘Of course I was framed. Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said? I was the obvious target.’
‘Tell me about you and Lisa.’
That stopped him. ‘She’s a bitch,’ he said, simply, swearing for the first time.
‘You were in a relationship with her.’
‘There was no relationship. There was sex.’
‘She forced you . . .’
‘You’ve met her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why else would you imagine someone like me would want to have sex with someone like her?’
‘And when you refused to do what she wanted, she fired you.’
‘No, of course not. She was much cleverer than that. After I stopped seeing her, she came up with these stories about me stealing money and things. It was all lies. She was threatening me. She made sure everyone knew she was suspicious about me and then she fired me.’
‘But you were still seeing her.’ I was remembering what Lionel Corby had told me, what he had seen in the wood. ‘A couple of weeks before the wedding, you were seen together in the wood near Oaklands Cottage.’
Stefan hesitated. I saw something, a memory, flash across his eyes. ‘That was the last time,’ he said. ‘I thought if I gave her what she wanted I would get her off my back. It didn’t work. Two weeks later she fired me anyway.’
He was lying to me. I don’t know how I knew it and I had no idea what he was hiding, but his demeanour had changed. Some of that innocence of his had become tarnished at the edges. I thought of challenging him but knew it would do no good. I watched him as he finished the Coke and put it down, his hands enclosing the can, almost crushing it.
‘You can’t help me,’ he said.
‘At least let me try,’ I replied. ‘Trust me, Stefan. I’m on your side. I’m sorry we didn’t meet sooner but now that we have, I’m not going to let you down.’
He levelled his eyes at me. They were very gentle, a soft shade of brown. ‘Why should I trust you?’ he asked.
‘Who else is there?’ I replied.
He nodded. Then, very slowly, he took out the letter and slid it across the table towards me. ‘This is all I have,’ he said. ‘There is nothing else.’
He stood up. Before he walked away, he took all the food from the table: the crisps, the chocolate bars, even the cold hamburger. That told me as much about life in prison as anything that had happened since I had arrived. Then, without another word, he left.
* * *
I couldn’t drive.
Andreas took over behind the wheel. He hadn’t asked me what had happened inside the prison. He could see that I was too upset to talk about it. We drove a few miles through the Norfolk countryside, which became just a little softer and more welcoming when it became the Suffolk countryside, and then stopped for a late lunch at a pub, the Plough and Stars, just south of Thetford. Andreas ordered sandwiches but I wasn’t hungry. The food made me think of the horrible, cold hamburger that Stefan had taken back to his cell. Eight years of his life!
‘Susan, do you want to talk to me about it?’ Andreas asked, eventually.
The pub might have been a cheerful place on a Friday night. It had flagstones and a wood-burning stove and old-fashioned wooden tables. But we were almost alone. The man behind the bar looked fed up.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I just feel so angry with myself about the way I went careering into all this. First of all, I abandoned you. But seeing that poor man just now, stuck in that place . . .’
‘You know he’s innocent.’
‘I’ve known that all along, Andreas. I just never thought about it from his point of view.’
‘So what happens next?’
‘I don’t know. That’s the worst of it. I just don’t know what else I can do.’
I remember the moment exactly. We were sitting in a corner. The barman was wiping a glass. The only other customer – a man with a dog – got up and left. A wind had sprung up and I could see the pub sign swinging outside.
‘I know who killed Frank Parris,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry?’ Andreas stared at me. ‘I thought you just said—’
‘I know what I said. But I’ve worked it out!’
‘Did Stefan tell you?’
‘No. He told me more than he meant to. But it wasn’t him. It all just came together.’
Andreas stared at me. ‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘Yes. Of course. But not yet. I need to think.’
‘Really?’
‘Give me a little time.’
He smiled at me. ‘You’re worse than Alan Conway!’
We didn’t eat the sandwiches. We got back in the car and drove off.
The Killer
We didn’t go back to Woodbridge. We drove straight on to Heath House in Westleton. We walked up to the front door together and I more or less leaned on the doorbell, daring the occupants not to answer. After about thirty seconds, Martin Williams opened the door. He looked at Andreas with suspicion and at me with a mixture of surprise and anger. It had, after all, only been one day since he had told me never to come back.
‘You can’t come in,’ he said.
‘Are you busy?’
‘Joanne doesn’t want to see you. Nor do I. We told you that the last time you were here.’
‘I know who killed Frank Parris,’ I said. ‘My friend, Andreas, also knows. You can hear it from me or from the police. It’s your choice.’
He stared at me, making his calculations. He wasn’t a big man but he had been leaning diagonally across the door frame, blocking my way. For once he wasn’t wearing overalls. He was dressed in jeans, leather boots and a paisley shirt open at the neck, as if he was about to go out line dancing. He straightened up. ‘You’re talking rubbish,’ he said. ‘But I wouldn’t want you to make a fool of yourself. You can have five minutes.’
Joanne Williams came down the stairs as we entered the kitchen. She was furious to see me and didn’t pretend otherwise. She didn’t even look at me. ‘What’s she doing here?’ she asked Martin. ‘You promised me she wouldn’t come back!’
‘Hello, Joanne,’ I said.
‘Susan claims she knows who killed Frank,’ Martin told her. ‘I thought it best to hear what she has to say.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m not interested.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ I said. ‘Maybe I should repeat what I just told your husband – if you won’t talk to me, I’ll go straight to the police. Which is it to be?’
I saw them exchange glances and knew that they needed no further convincing.
‘Come in here,’ Martin said.
We went back into the kitchen. It was a room I was beginning to know too well. Andreas and I sat on one side of the table, Joanne and Martin on the other. We glared at each other across the pine surface. It was like a council of war.
‘This won’t take very long,’ I said. ‘This is the third time I’ve come to see you and you’ll be glad to hear it’s going to be the last. As I explained at the start, I was asked by Lawrence and Pauline Treherne to look into their daughter’s disappearance and to find out if there was any connection with the murder of Frank Parris eight years ago. The first time I came here, I won’t say you lied to me, but let’s just say that you were rather flexible with the truth. It didn’t take me very long to discover that the two of you – and only the two of you – had a good reason to kill Frank Parris. The collapse of his advertising business in Australia meant that he needed money and so he was going to force you to sell Heath House, which had been left to you, fifty-fifty, by your mother. It was your family home and if he died, assuming he hadn’t left it to anyone else in his will, you’d get to keep it.’
‘He left it to Joanne, actually,’ Martin said.
�
��Did he really?’ Andreas and I both looked amazed.
‘That’s what he always told us.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘That’s what I just don’t understand, Martin,’ I said. ‘Why are you telling me that? I’d have thought that’s the last thing you’d want me to know. It just makes you look more suspicious. If you were left the house in his will, then you definitely had a motive for the murder, but here you are, blurting it out without a second thought. It’s like when I came here yesterday and instead of denying everything like any sane man would, you spelled out exactly the reason why you might have committed the murder. Why have you even allowed me in now when you told me you never wanted to see me again?’
‘Because I want to put these ridiculous accusations to bed.’
‘That’s not what it sounds like to me. Is that what it sounds like to you, Andreas?’
‘No,’ Andreas agreed. ‘I’d say he’s stirring it up.’
Joanne was watching Martin so intently that she might not actually have been breathing. I waited for him to speak.
‘I think you should leave,’ he said.
‘It’s too late for that,’ I replied. ‘I know the truth.’
‘You can make any accusations you like. But you can’t prove anything.’
‘As a matter of fact, I can, Martin,’ I countered. ‘I can prove one hundred per cent, without any doubt at all, that you did not kill Frank. How can I do that? Because as I told you at the door, I know the identity of the real killer and it wasn’t you.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’ Joanne demanded.
‘Because I’m fed up with both of you and I want to put an end to your little charade once and for all. From the moment I first walked into this house you’ve been pissing me around, play-acting—’
‘I don’t know what you mean!’ Martin interrupted.
‘Don’t you, Martin? Well, I’ll tell you. Let’s imagine, just for the sake of argument, that you found yourself trapped in a generally shit marriage with a wife who bullied you and who made you feel small about yourself—’
‘How dare you!’ Joanne sat bolt upright, her cheeks darkening.
‘That’s more or less what my sister, Katie, told me. She had dinner with you once and she described you, Joanne – I think the word “ball-breaker” was the one she used. She said you walked all over Martin like a doormat. She wondered how the two of you even managed to stay together.’
Moonflower Murders Page 46