“I went from ’er place to buy a cinema ticket for the late-night show, and I called up my babysitter and told ’er I’d be later than I fort because we were getting the last viewing. I knew Irene wouldn’t wanna go wiv me. She’d been makin’ noises about not feelin’ up to it all morning. I knew she didn’t ’ave no bad toof, but I pretended to go along wiv it. Irene never wanted to go anywhere we weren’t gonna meet men.”
“So, you went back to the surgery that afternoon—in through the back door, I suppose?”
“Yeah,” said Janice, her eyes slightly unfocused now. “Nobody saw me. I knew Margot ’ad a doughnut in the fridge, because I’d been in there that morning and seen it, but there was people around all the time, so I couldn’t do nuffing. I injected it wiv Nembutal sodium solution, froo the cellophane.”
“You must’ve been well practiced by now? You knew how much to give her, so she could still walk up the road?”
“Nuffing’s certain,” said the nurse. Unlike Creed, she didn’t pretend omnipotence, but then, she’d also been, however reluctantly, in the business of healing as well as killing. “I ’ad a good feeling for dosages, but you can’t never be an ’undred percent sure. I’d ’eard she was going to meet some friend in a pub up the road, and she usually ate somefing before she went, but I couldn’t be sure she’d eat it, or still be able to walk up the road after, or when it would really hit ’er…
“All the time I was doing it, getting the concrete and drugging the doughnut, I was finking, this won’t work, it can’t work. You’re gonna go to prison, Janice… And you know somefing?” said the nurse, now pink cheeked and fierce, “By then, I didn’t even care. Not if she’d told Steve about me. I fort, I’ll go on trial and I’ll tell ’em ’ow ’e treated me like a mum and a nurse and took advantage, round my flat all hours. ’E’ll ’ave to bloody notice me and ’ear me then, won’t ’e? I didn’t care. I just fort, I want you dead, lady. I want you dead, you wiv your ’usband and your boyfriend on the side, and my man coming to see you three times a week…
“Eivver she dies, I fort, and I get away wiv it, or I’ll be famous, I’ll be in the papers… and I liked the idea, then.”
She looked around her small sitting room, and Strike was certain that she wondered what her cell would be like.
“I left the surgery and went round the long way to the Athorns’, but when I let myself in, Gwilherm wasn’t there. I fort, OK, that’s a problem. Where is ’e?
“And then Deborah and Samhain started moaning. They didn’t want their vitamin injections. I ’ad to get strict wiv ’em. I said to Deborah, it’s these injections what’s keeping you well. You don’t take ’em, I’ll have to ring an ambulance and get ’em to take you into ’ospital for an assessment… You could scare ’er into anyfing if you told ’er she’d ’ave to go outside. I give Deborah and Samhain their ‘vitamin injections,’ lying side by side in the double bedroom. Rolled ’em onto their sides. They were out for the count.
“So then I goes outside, and I waits in the phone box, pretending to be on the phone, keepin’ watch.
“It didn’t feel real, none of it. I didn’t fink it’d work. Probably I’d go into work next day and ’ear Margot passed out in the street, and then she’d start yelling the place down saying she was drugged, and I knew she’d point the finger at me…
“She didn’t come for ages. I fort, it’s over. She’s eaten the doughnut and got ill in the surgery. She’s called an ambulance. She’s guessed, she’s got sick. There was this girl, standing in front of the phone box, and I’m trying to see round ’er, trying to see…
“And then I saw Margot coming up the road. I fort, well, this is it. It was raining hard. People weren’t watchin’. It was all umbrellas and cars splashing. She crossed the road and I could see she was in a bad way. Wobbling all over the place. She got to my side of the road and leaned up against the wall. ’Er legs were about to go. I come out the phone box and I says, “Come on, love, you need to sit down.” Kept my face down. She come wiv me, a few steps, then she realized it was me. We ’ad a bit of a struggle. I got ’er a few more feet, just inside Albemarle Way, but she was a tall girl… and I fort, this is where it ends…
“And then I seen Gwilherm coming up the other way. It was me only chance. I called ’im to ’elp me. ’E fort ’e was ’elping ’er. ’E ’elped me drag ’er up the stairs. There wasn’t much fight in ’er by then. I told Gwilherm some rubbish to stop ’im phoning the ambulance. Said I could treat ’er myself… said ’e didn’t want no police coming up, looking round the flat…’E was a very paranoid man about the auforities, so that worked…
“I says, you go and see if Deborah and Samhain are still asleep. They’ve both been very worried about where you’ve been, and I ’ad to give ’em a little sedative.
“I suffocated ’er while ’e was out of the room. It didn’t take much. ’Eld ’er nose, kept ’er mouth shut. Did to Margot what I’d been planning to do to the Athorns.
“When I knew she was dead,” said Janice, “I left ’er sitting on the sofa and I went into the barfroom. I sat on the bog, looking at the flamingos on the wallpaper and I fort, now what? Gwilherm’s here. ’E’s seen ’er… and the on’y fing I could fink of was, let ’im fink ’e’s done it. ’E’s crazy enough. I fort, I’ll probably ’ave to kill ’im, too, in the end, but I’ll worry about that later…
“So I waited in the bog and let ’im go in the room and find ’er.
“I give ’im five minutes alone wiv the body, then I walk back in, talkin’ to Margot, like I left ’er alive. “You feeling all right now, Margot, love?” And then I says, “What’ve you done, Gwilherm? What’ve you done?”
“And he says, ‘Nuffing, nuffing, I ain’t done nuffing,’ and I’m saying, ‘You told me you can kill people with your powers. P’rhaps we better call the police,’ and ’e’s begging me not to, ’e didn’t mean to, it was all a mistake. So in the end I says, all right, I won’t give you away. I’ll make it disappear. I’ll take care of it.
“’E was crying like a baby and he asked me for one of my sedatives. ’E asked me to put ’im out, can you believe that? I give ’im some downers. Left ’im curled up asleep on Samhain’s bed.
“It was really ’ard, putting her in that big box fing all on me own. I ’ad to take out all the crap they kept in there. Folded ’er up. Once I ’ad ’er in there, I checked on all the Athorns. Made sure the airways weren’t obstructed. Then I ran back outside to the phone box. I says to Irene, are we still on for the cinema? And she says no, like I fort she would, fank Gawd.
“So I go back inside. I was there till midnight, near enough. I ’ad to mix the concrete bit by bit, by ’and, in a bucket. It took ages. Margot filled up most of that box fing, but it took a long time to get all the concrete round her. Then I closed the lid. It stuck to the concrete. I couldn’t get it up again, so that was good.
“When they was all awake, I told Gwilherm I’d taken care of it. I said to ’im quietly, the lid on that box thing ’as jammed. Best find somewhere else to put Samhain’s toys.
“’E knew, obviously. I fink ’e pretended to ’imself ’e didn’t, but ’e did. I was there free times a week, afterward. I ’ad to be. Keeping ’im happy. One time I went round and ’e’d painted all those symbols on the walls, like it was some sort of pagan temple or something.
“Weeks after, monfs after, I was worried sick. I knew ’e was tellin’ people ’e’d killed ’er. Luckily, everyone fort ’e was a nutcase, local. But it got bad, toward the end. ’E ’ad to go. I still can’t believe I waited a year to get rid of ’im…”
“And around the time you killed him, you phoned Cynthia Phipps and pretended to be Margot, didn’t you? To give the police another lead to hare after, and distract from Gwilherm, in case anyone had taken him seriously?”
“Yeah. That’s right,” mumbled Janice, twisting the old wedding ring.
“And you kept visiting Deborah and Samhain as Clare Spencer?”
“Well, yeah,” said Janice. “I ’ad to. They needed watching. Last fing I wanted was real social workers fiddling around in there.”
“And Deborah and Samhain never realized Clare was the same as Janice the nurse?”
“People with Fragile X don’t recognize faces easy,” said Janice. “I changed me ’air color and used me glasses. I done a lot to keep ’em ’ealfy, you know. Vitamin D for Deborah, cause she never goes outside. She’s younger’n me… I fort, I might well be dead before anyone finds the body. Longer it went on, less likely it was anyone would ever know I ’ad anyfing to do wiv it…”
“And what about Douthwaite?”
“’E scarpered,” said Janice, her smile fading. “That near enough broke my ’eart. There was me ’aving to go out on foursomes wiv Irene and Eddie, and act like I was ’appy wiv Larry, and the love of my life’s disappeared. I asked ev’ryone where Steve ’ad gone, and no one knew.”
“So why’s Julie Wilkes on your wall?” asked Strike.
“’Oo?” said Janice, lost in her self-pitying reverie.
“The Redcoat who worked at Clacton-on-Sea,” said Strike, pointing at the young blonde with her frizzy hair, who was framed on Janice’s wall.
“Oh…’er,” said Janice, with a sigh. “Yeah… I ran into someone ’oo knew someone ’oo’d met Steve at Butlin’s, few years later… oh, I was excited. Gawd, I was bored wiv Larry by then. I really wanted to see Steve again. I love a man ’oo can make me laugh,” repeated the woman who’d planned the murder of a family, for the pleasure of watching them die. “I knew there’d been somefing there between us, I knew we coulda bin a couple. So I booked me and Larry an ’oliday at Butlin’s. Kev didn’t wanna come—suited me. I got meself a perm and I went on a diet. Couldn’t wait. You build things up in your mind, don’t you?
“And we went to the club night and there ’e was,” said Janice quietly. “Oh, ’e looked gorgeous. ‘Longfellow Serenade.’ All the girls went crazy for ’im when ’e finished singing. There’s Larry boozing… After Larry went to bed in the chalet I went back out again. Couldn’t find ’im.
“Took me free days to get a word wiv ’im. I said, ‘Steve, it’s me. Janice. Your neighbor. The nurse!’”
She turned slowly redder than she’d been all interview. Her eyes watered with the intensity of her blush.
“He goes ‘Oh yeah. All right, Janice?’ And ’e walks away. And I seen ’im,” said Janice, and her jaw quivered, “kiss that girl, that Julie, and look back at me, like ’e wanted me to see…
“And I fort, no. After all what I’ve done for you, Steve? No.
“I did it on the last night but one of our ’oliday. Larry snoring ’is ’ead off as usual. ’E never noticed I wasn’t in bed.
“They all used to go to Steve’s chalet after work, I found that out, following ’em. She come out on ’er own. Pissed. Two in the morning.
“It wasn’t ’ard. There wasn’t anyone round. They didn’t ’ave cameras around like they do nowadays. I pushed ’er, and I jumped in after ’er, and I ’eld ’er under. It was the surprise what killed ’er. She took in a load of water on the way down. That was the only one I ever did wivvout drugs, but I was angry, see…
“Got out, toweled meself off. Mopped up all the footprints, but it was a warm night, you couldn’t see nuffing by morning.
“Next day, I seen ’im. I says, ‘Terrible fing, that girl, Steve. You look awful. Wanna get a drink?’
’E went white as a sheet, but I fort, well, you used me, Steve, and then you left me high and dry, didn’t you?”
A police siren sounded somewhere in the distance, and Strike, glancing at his watch, thought it was likely to be heading here, for Nightingale Grove.
“You took my sympafy and my kindness and you let me cook for you,” said Janice, still addressing an imaginary Steve Douthwaite. “I was even ready to kill my kid for you! And then you go off messing around wiv ovver women? No. Actions ’ave consequences,” said Janice, her cheeks still burning. “Men need to learn that, and take some responsibility. Women ’ave to,” she said, as the police siren grew ever louder. “Well, I’ll see ’im again in court, won’t I? You know, I’m quite looking forward to it, now I’m finking about it,” said Janice. “It’s not fun, living ’ere all on me own. It’ll be funny seeing Irene’s face. I’ll be all over the papers, won’t I? And maybe some men will read about why I done it, and realize they want to be careful ’oo they lead on. Useful lesson for men everywhere, if you ask me. Actions,” repeated Janice Beattie, as the police car drew to a halt outside her front door, and she squared her shoulders, ready to accept her fate, “’ave consequences.”
PART SEVEN
Then came October full of merry glee…
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
72
… they for nought would from their worke refraine…
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
Success, as Cormoran Strike had long since learned, is a much more complex business than most people suppose.
It wasn’t the first time that the press had turned its sights upon the detective agency, and while the acclaim was undoubtedly flattering and a good advert for the business, it was, as ever, severely prejudicial to the partners’ ability to keep working. Robin, whose home address was swiftly discovered by the press, took refuge at the house of Vanessa Ekwensi, and with the aid of a number of wigs and some skillful makeup, managed to continue to cover a certain amount of work, so that Barclay and Hutchins didn’t have to do everything themselves. Strike, on the other hand, was forced back into Nick and Ilsa’s spare room, where he let his beard grow, and lay low, directing the agency’s subcontractors by phone. Pat Chauncey alone remained based at the office in Denmark Street, taking care of administrative matters, stolidly opening and closing up each morning and evening.
“I’ve got no comment. You’d all do better sodding off,” she croaked twice a day at the knot of journalists hanging around Denmark Street.
The eruption of publicity that followed the twin discoveries of a woman’s body encased in concrete in a quiet flat in Clerkenwell, and a teenager’s skeleton hidden beneath debris in the depths of an underground well in Islington, showed no sign of abating quickly. There were far too many exciting angles to this story: the separate excavations and positive identifications of the bones of Margot Bamborough and Louise Tucker, the comments from two bereaved families, who scarcely knew whether they felt more relief or grief, the profiles of two very different killers and, of course, the private detectives now widely acclaimed as the capital’s most talented.
Gratifying though this was, Strike took no satisfaction in the way the press hounded either Gregory Talbot (“What would you say to people who say your father had blood on his hands?”) or Dinesh Gupta (“Do you regret giving Janice Beattie that glowing reference, doctor?”) nor in seeing the Athorns led out of their flat by genuine social workers, frightened, displaced and uncomprehending. Carl Oakden made a brief appearance in the Daily Mail, trying to sell himself as an expert on both Strike and Margot Bamborough, but as the article began with the words “Convicted con man Carl Brice, son of the old practice secretary, Dorothy…” it was perhaps unsurprising that Oakden soon slunk back into the shadows. Strike’s father, on the other hand, was happy to continue associating his name with Strike’s, issuing a fulsome statement of pride in his eldest son through his publicist. Fuming quietly, Strike ignored all requests for comment.
Dennis Creed, who for so long had received top billing in any news story including him, was relegated almost to a footnote in this one. Janice Beattie had outdone him, not only in the number of her suspected victims, but in remaining undetected for decades longer. Photographs of her sitting room in Nightingale Grove were leaked to the press, who highlighted the framed pictures of the dead on the walls, the folder of obituaries kept in her china cabinet, and the syringe, the cellophane and the hairdryer that Strike had found behind the sofa. The store
of drugs and poisons retrieved from her kitchen were carried out of her house by forensics experts, and the rosy-cheeked, silver-haired nurse dubbed “the Poisoner Granny” blinked impassively at news cameras as she was led into court and remanded in custody.
Meanwhile, Strike could barely open a newspaper or switch on the TV without seeing Brian Tucker, who was giving interviews to anybody who’d speak to him. In a cracked voice he wept, exulted, praised Strike and Robin, told the world they deserved knighthoods (“Or the other thing, what is it for women?” “Damehood,” murmured the sympathetic blonde presenter, who was holding the emotional Tucker’s hand), cried as he reminisced about his daughter, described the preparations for her funeral, criticized the police and informed the world that he’d suspected all along that Louise was hidden in the well. Strike, who was happy for the old man, nevertheless wished, both for his own sake and for Tucker’s, that he’d go and grieve quietly somewhere, rather than taking up space on an endless succession of daytime television sofas.
A trickle of relatives, suspicious about the way their loved ones had died under Janice’s care, soon turned into a tide. Exhumation orders were made, and Irene Hickson, the contents of whose food cupboards had been removed and analyzed by the police, was profiled in the Daily Mail, sitting in her swagged and flounced sitting room, flanked by two voluptuous daughters who closely resembled her.
“I mean, Jan was always a bit of a man-eater, but I never suspected anything like this, never. I’d’ve called her my best friend. I don’t know how I could’ve been such a fool! She used to offer to go food shopping for me, before I came back from staying at my daughter’s. Then I’d eat some of the stuff she’d put in the fridge, get ill, call her and ask her to come over. I suppose this is a comfier house than hers, and she liked staying here, and I sometimes gave her money, so that’s why I’m not dead. I don’t know whether I’ll ever get over the shock, honestly. I can’t sleep, I feel sick all the time, I can’t stop thinking about it. I look back now, and ask myself, how did I never see? And if it turns out she killed Larry, poor Larry who Eddie and I introduced her to, I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself, honestly, it’s all just a nightmare. You don’t expect this from a nurse, do you?”
Troubled Blood: A Cormoran Strike Novel Page 94