Meriel stared at him. ‘So you agree with me? I should confess to manslaughter?’
Probus nodded emphatically. ‘Oh yes. Now I do. Most certainly. Firstly, it is obviously the lesser of the two possible charges, although in any case it is perfectly clear that this case really is one of manslaughter, and not murder. There was absolutely no malice aforethought.
‘Secondly, a confession always results in a lighter sentence than if charges are contested and a guilty verdict then follows.
‘And thirdly, as I have just said, there are strong mitigating factors here. You suffered a decade of mental cruelty at this unpleasant man’s hands. I shall require details, of course, a list of incidents that stand out in your memory.’
Meriel gave a grim laugh. ‘That won’t be difficult. But I’m not sure what evidence I can produce. That’s the thing about mental cruelty, isn’t it? No bones are broken or scars left behind. Not visible ones, anyway.’
‘Leave that to me. We shall commission and present detailed psychiatric reports.’ Probus hesitated. ‘However, I must warn you, you will almost certainly be remanded in custody, at least at first.’
Meriel swallowed. ‘Will I have to wait long for my trial?’
For the first time that afternoon, the lawyer smiled.
‘Oh, there won’t be any trial, not now that we are going to make a full confession. No jury, either, nothing like that. There’ll simply be a form of hearing where a judge decides what to do with you, taking mitigation into account. And any time you’ve spent on remand will be brought into consideration, too. But that won’t be long – confessions are a fast track to justice. In any event, I certainly don’t anticipate that you will receive a long sentence.’
He leaned forward and squeezed her shoulder.
‘You didn’t plan to do what you did, my dear. You just snapped. Countless women will understand that. They’ll even sympathise.’
Meriel shook her head despondently.
‘Not when they read what I wrote about killing Cameron, they won’t.’
‘No, no! Only the judge and one or two court officials will ever see your diary, my dear. Your confession means there’s no requirement to present detailed evidence in public. Those copies of The Night Book will simply remain on file, gathering dust.’
‘Really? Really? That would be such a relief!’
He regarded her shrewdly. ‘In fact, given the tide of popular sympathy I anticipate, and frankly intend to orchestrate, I’d say that when this is all behind you, you may even be able to resume your career. Perhaps write a book about it all. Go on lecture tours, that sort of thing. You could become a feminist icon for our times; carry a torch for mentally abused women everywhere.’
Meriel looked at him in near-disbelief. ‘Mr Probus, I am about to go to jail.’
‘But not for long. And in any case, think what a chapter that would make!’
He sucked his pen, considering. To her astonishment, he began to hum.
‘What is it? Why are you humming like that?’
He stopped abruptly, looking a little sheepish.
‘I’m so sorry, my dear. An unfortunate habit of mine. But I was just thinking to myself that with a little luck and a following wind, we might even be fortunate enough to get a woman judge.’
The story was too late to make the early editions. There was nothing about it on the front pages of the national papers that were unloaded off the night train to Carlisle, just headlines screeching that Meriel continued to be interrogated. The Sun’s – KIDD KEPT IN CLINK: THE AGONY GOES ON – was typical.
But the news had broken in plenty of time for breakfast radio. Seb’s wireless alarm switched itself on automatically just before six o’clock and a minute later he was sitting up in bed, staring blearily at the little loudspeaker.
‘In fast-developing news overnight, Cumbria Police have confirmed that Lake District FM’s Meriel Kidd has confessed to the manslaughter of her husband, millionaire businessman Cameron Bruton. Shortly before midnight Miss Kidd’s solicitor emerged from police headquarters in Penrith, where his client has been held for two days, to make this brief statement.’
The calm, measured tones of Maxwell Probus followed. Seb thought the man sounded as if he were reading from the telephone directory.
‘This evening my client, Miss Meriel Kidd, accepted responsibility for her husband’s drowning in Ullswater earlier this summer. Specifically, she has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of manslaughter, as the police accept that death occurred without malice aforethought. I emphasise, therefore, that this is NOT an admission of murder and neither are the police treating the case as such. Furthermore I believe there are clear and abundant mitigating factors involved, which will emerge in due course. Meanwhile I expect my client to be remanded in custody until sentencing. That is all I have to say at this time.’
The newsreader’s voice was back, but the rest was pure background to the story. Seb switched the radio off and lit a cigarette – that damned coroner had got him started on the bloody things again – and tried to think.
Unless Meriel had had some sort of breakdown under questioning, the police must have made a breakthrough.
And they’d clearly offered her a trade-off – a lesser charge in return for a confession and quick conviction. Case closed.
Seb rolled out of bed and into his clothes. He was due in the office at seven for news-gathering duties, but he’d be free by two and then he planned to drive straight down to Penrith. He was going to see DI Thompson; he’d wait all afternoon if he had to.
And then he would try to talk to Meriel, if she’d let him. They’d have to allow her visiting rights, wherever she was being held.
He was unable to think of any women’s prisons in Cumbria. Seb had the depressing feeling that Meriel would turn out to be locked up somewhere a very long way from the Lake District.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The instant Seb stepped outside his flat, he felt it: the change. He came to an abrupt halt, disoriented and confused. What the hell was different?
It took several moments for him to realise exactly what had happened.
The sun had gone. Not half-hidden, glowing palely silver behind an early-morning heat-haze that it would quickly scorch into nothingness, but comprehensively banished by thick, gun-metal-grey cloud that hung heavy and almost motionless across the sky.
It was the first morning in months that he could remember where no dappled sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees onto the pavements beneath. No sharply defined black shadows of chimneys or lampposts slanted obliquely across the road. Everything appeared colourless and drab, a faded black-and-white world compared to the seemingly endless sun-painted days that had, of course, ended, as they were always going to end, slipping away faithlessly in the night to some other land.
It remained hot, but it was no longer the dry heat of yesterday and the hundred days before it. Now the atmosphere was humid and heavy; almost sub-tropical. It reminded Seb of his newspaper days when he was in Ghana, on assignment with the local regiment.
He sniffed at the air. It had an electric tang to it; the unmistakable promise of thunder later.
Even with a sky so dark and threatening, Seb found it almost impossible to consider the prospect of rain, the actual reality of it. As he pulled away in his Spitfire, he realised he’d almost forgotten what rain felt like.
His memory, along with everyone else’s, was about to be comprehensively refreshed.
Meriel had been too weary to make her full confession the evening before. Mark Thompson had to be satisfied with her signed statement of intent to do so the following morning. Probus had countersigned it, and the detective supposed that would have to do.
When the DI arrived home he was pretty much exhausted himself. It had been one hell of a day, up before dawn to be at Ullswater in time for the dive, then back for one of the trickiest interrogations he’d ever had to conduct. There was no doubt the case against Meriel Kidd was largely circumsta
ntial. It had been vital to keep her under intense, relentless pressure from the moment he produced the watch in what he admitted to himself was a piece of pure coup de théâtre.
But it had bloody worked, he reflected with deep satisfaction, as he fumbled with his Yale to find the keyhole on his front door. Dammit . . . why was it so dark out here? The moon had been riding high when he left headquarters half an hour ago.
He looked up at the sky. The stars and the moon had vanished from sight.
The door suddenly opened from the other side and light streamed out from the hall. It was Clemmie.
‘What’s the matter, Mark? Why can’t you open the door? Oh God, you’re not pissed, are you?’
She looked so pretty in the soft lamplight and he stepped forwards, took her in his arms, and kissed her for a long time before letting her go again. She smiled at him. ‘What was that for? And I apologise, you can’t be drunk, I can’t smell any booze on you.’
He pushed the door shut behind him.
‘No, I’m not. But I will be in about half an hour. And so will you. Because I have good news, my beautiful Clementine: Meriel Kidd has agreed to confess, first thing in the morning.’
He held up one finger as his wife was about to speak.
‘Wait, Clemmie, it gets better. This means that as of tomorrow the case is closed. I can legitimately hand over to my DC to wind things up. So, much more importantly, you and I can go on holiday after all. Pretty much right away. Flights to the Med are going begging thanks to the heatwave here; it’s a buyer’s market. Never mind Portugal: how do you fancy southern Italy and the Amalfi coast? Sorrento, Positano, Ravello . . . maybe even Naples? Sí?’
She kissed her own finger and pressed it firmly against his lips.
‘Sí. But you’re not to tell anyone at work where we’re going. Not a bloody soul, OK? If we get one single phone call from your sodding superintendent or anyone else while we’re away, I swear I’ll pay the Mafia to drag you behind a mule up Mount Vesuvius and chuck you into the crater. Understood?’
He clicked his heels and bowed formally from the waist.
‘Sí, signora. Comprendo. Now let’s open some wine and take it up to bed with us.’
Meriel made her confession verbally in the presence of DI Thompson and a woman officer she hadn’t seen before.
Although the little room had windows overlooking a small courtyard, all the ceiling lights were switched on and a standard lamp had been dragged in from somewhere and placed next to the table. It was growing steadily darker outside, even though it was mid-morning. Occasionally a faint rumble of thunder muttered in the distance.
Probus sat at her elbow, murmuring an occasional suggestion concerning the phrasing. As well as being recorded on cassette, a police shorthand secretary scribbled it all down at incredible speed and when she was finished, bore it away to be typed up and copies made.
Less than an hour later, Meriel was reading through the neatly typed pages before she carefully signed each one at the bottom. They were a fleshed-out version of what she’d told Probus the afternoon before. There was no attempt at mitigation; her lawyer told her that was a separate matter and something for later. This was just a straightforward laying out of the brutal facts.
She felt oddly detached and dispassionate as she reviewed what she’d just said. She’d been unable to sleep in her humid cell the previous night, wondering what effect seeing what she’d done set down in black and white (well, black and sepia, actually; the confession forms had a distinctly nineteenth-century look about them) would have on her.
But she needn’t have worried. It was almost as if she were reading about someone else. Someone she knew vaguely and felt rather sorry for. Someone who’d got themselves into an awful lot of trouble, by the look of things.
She signed the final page and sat back in her chair. She felt remarkably calm, everything considered.
‘There. What happens now, Inspector?’
‘Thank you, Miss Kidd.’
There was another rumble of thunder, louder than before. Mark took the pages and slid them carefully into a cheap cardboard file. ‘What happens next is that the custody sergeant will come in to explain where you are to be taken to from here. There’ll be a short remand hearing here in Penrith and then you’ll be making quite a long journey in a prison van, I’m afraid. Everything will be made clear to you on your eventual arrival, and Mr Probus here will be in touch in a day or so, won’t you, sir?’
The solicitor nodded. ‘Yes indeed, Inspector, but I have already explained to Miss Kidd how matters will unfold. I think she was asking you how much longer she will be held here in Penrith.’
Mark got to his feet and glanced at his watch.
‘About ten minutes, I should think,’ he said shortly. He turned to Meriel.
‘Thank you for your co-operation, Miss Kidd. It will count in your favour with the judge, as I am sure Mr Probus has explained. The next time we see each other will be at the hearing to determine sentence. Goodbye until then.’
He swiftly left the room.
Meriel leaned back in her chair and stared listlessly at the ceiling while Probus quietly made notes on his yellow legal pad.
‘I must say, Mr Probus,’ she said at last, ‘I had no idea events would move along quite so quickly this morning. If I’d realised, I would have taken it all a bit slower. Do you know . . . I don’t think I’m going to get any lunch.’
Whatever Probus began to say in reply was completely drowned out by a colossal bang, apparently coming from directly overhead. A brilliant flash almost simultaneously filled the little room with pure white light and there was a second, ear-splitting explosion, followed by a tremendous rattling from the window panes.
They turned to see enormous hailstones pounding the glass in a furious assault, almost as if some godlike entity was trying to smash its way into the little room. There was a third thunderclap, even louder than the first two. It sounded to Meriel as if giant tree-trunks were being violently split apart just above them.
She turned to her lawyer.
‘Oh well, I suppose there’s one comfort,’ she said, almost shouting so that her voice could be heard above the angry drumming at the windows and yet another shivering thunderclap.
‘At least it looks like I’m going to be kept safe and warm in the dry for a while, doesn’t it?’
Meriel was long gone when Seb arrived at police headquarters soon after three o’clock. He’d phoned ahead before driving down from Carlisle and Mark was expecting him. The reporter had been delayed by the huge thunderstorm – roads were awash in places – and he was shown straight into the detective’s office.
‘Seb.’
‘DI Thompson.’
The policeman smiled. ‘You can call me Mark, now, Seb. The Meriel Kidd case is closed. We won’t be needing you any further.’
Seb stared at him in surprise. ‘But I thought you wanted me to make a full witness statement. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.’
The other man shook his head. ‘It won’t be necessary. We’re able to keep your name completely out of things. Miss Kidd made a detailed confession this morning – the argument on the boat, the reasons for it, how she lured her husband to his death.’
‘All because of what I told you she said to me?’
‘Up to a point. But – and I’m telling you this strictly off the record, Seb – it was mainly because we found the watch.’
Seb was electrified.
‘I thought that was why you must have sent the divers down yesterday. So that bloody Rolex did have something to do with it all.’
Mark nodded. ‘Yup. You were completely right about that. We found it at the bottom of the lake, directly under the spot where Cameron Bruton drowned.
‘You were right about a lot of things, actually, Seb,’ he went on. ‘About Bruton threatening Meriel with exposure over The Night Book. And about the connection between the missing watch and him asking her the time just before he died.’
‘What exactly happened there?’
‘When he called up to her she threw the watch into the lake, just out of his reach. She admitted hoping that, when it began to sink, he’d go after it and would get in difficulties when he hit the icy layer beneath the surface. And when he did precisely that, she simply stood back and let him drown. It’s true Meriel can’t swim but she delayed throwing him the lifebelt until she knew it was too late.’
‘Christ. Christ. I think I suspected something like that all along, but hearing you say it out loud . . . well . . . and she’s admitted all this, has she?’
‘Yup.’
Seb sat in silence for a while, before asking: ‘What will happen to her now?’
The DI considered. ‘Personally I think even a top silk might struggle to get a charge of murder to stick, so we decided to go with manslaughter, especially as she was willing to confess to it. Keeps everything neat and tidy. She’ll—’
‘No, no,’ Seb interrupted. ‘I mean today. What’ll happen to Meriel today? Can I see her, assuming she’ll want me to?’
The DI shook his head.
‘I’m afraid not. She was remanded in custody by local magistrates a couple of hours ago and by now she should be snug as a bug in jail, assuming they kept ahead of this storm. I think they’ve taken her to Low Newton women’s prison. It’s just outside Durham, about an hour and a half from here. She won’t get visiting rights for a while yet.’
He hesitated. ‘You can always write to her.’
Seb looked despondent.
‘She’ll probably send my letters straight back unopened. Even if she had still been here at Penrith, I didn’t hold out much hope that she’d agree to see me. She must hate me.’
Mark Thompson looked at the unhappy young man opposite, and came to a sudden decision.
‘Here’s something else I shouldn’t be telling you. But I can’t see the harm.’
He weighed his next words carefully.
‘I had quite a long private chat with Mr Probus – he’s Miss Kidd’s solicitor – after her confession this morning. Incidentally, I must say it sounds to me as if she’ll have some pretty strong grounds for mitigation. But Probus also made reference to you, in passing. To be precise it was something his client said about you. You might be surprised to hear it.’
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