These Little Lies

by GRETTA MULROONEY

  ‘What time is it?’ Mrs Galloway asked, looking around the walls as if expecting to see a clock.

  ‘Ten fifteen. I’m sorry to wake you.’

  ‘I made a hot drink. Not sure where I put it now. Maybe it’s in the living room.’

  There was a smell in the kitchen, similar to the one coming from the drain outside. ‘Can we sit down for a moment? Some more detectives will be arriving soon. I’ll just switch off the TV, so we can talk.’

  She pressed the remote and there was a wonderful silence. Mrs Galloway rested back in her chair. Her eyes were large, distant, blank.

  ‘Mrs Galloway, did you know James Stenning?’

  ‘James. Yes . . . he died. He helped out with the money one time. Gave my Sammy advice.’

  ‘He was a financial advisor, that’s right. Did James sometimes keep his car here?’

  ‘His car?’ She frowned and looked around. ‘I think Sammy said he could. Time to time, like. Think he paid a bit. I left all that sort of thing to Sammy. Cancer got him.’

  ‘I’m sorry. How long has Sammy been gone?’

  ‘I’m not sure. A while, anyway.’

  ‘Whereabouts did Mr Stenning put the car when he brought it here?’

  ‘In one of the small sheds, I suppose. The field at the back. I’ve not been down there since Sammy died.’

  ‘Have you noticed anyone else going down there recently?’

  ‘Why would anyone be going there?’

  You could have driven a tank past the house and Mrs Galloway wouldn’t notice. ‘Do you have keys to the sheds?’ Siv asked.

  ‘Not sure. I’d have to look. They might be in Sammy’s room.’

  ‘Could you look for me? It’s important.’

  Siv waited while she pottered out of the room. She heard Ali’s car and went out to meet him. He’d brought Patrick, and she led them to the back door.

  ‘Jesus H. Christ, this place is minging!’ Ali said, turning around slowly on the spot. ‘But, hey, guv, this guy hasn’t been on our radar. Did we miss a trick earlier on?’

  Patrick was looking twitchy, scuffing the filthy floor with the toe of his shoe.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. There were no flags for him and it’s still tenuous. Joan Galloway lives here. Her son’s dead and I suspect the place has been disintegrating around her since.’

  Patrick surveyed the kitchen. ‘Wow. What’s the smell?’

  ‘Drains, I think. Nothing worse, I hope. It sounds as if Stenning had an arrangement with the son to leave his car here sometimes. A lock up. I’m hoping it’s here and that it has a front left tyre with a worn tread. Mrs Galloway’s looking for the shed keys.’

  Mrs Galloway came back with a set of keys. ‘I don’t know if these are the ones. I can’t find any others.’ Taking no notice of Ali and Patrick, she went to switch the kettle on.

  ‘We’ll just have a look then, Mrs Galloway,’ Siv said, but the woman didn’t respond. She reached for a tea caddy.

  Ali took a torch from his pocket and they stepped over a broken fence beyond the bungalow. The torch picked out a rutted track leading towards the outbuildings. They made their way in silence past two long sheds and then saw three smaller metal structures. As they approached the nearest, Siv saw that the door was slightly ajar.

  ‘Switch the torch off, I think someone’s in there,’ she whispered to Ali.

  Patrick stepped forward, caught at the edge of the door and pulled it back sharply. A tall, bearded man with his long hair drawn back in a ponytail and wearing a head torch was in there, looking in the boot of the Volkswagen. The man Siv had seen supervising the children in the garden at the nursery and playing his accordion at the May festival. He started up.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked, sounding alarmed.

  ‘Berminster police. We were looking for this car. You being here is an added bonus,’ Ali said, sweeping his torch around the shed, and then bending to look at the front tyres.

  ‘Step away from the car, Mr Wilby, don’t touch it again,’ Siv ordered.

  He stepped back. ‘No need to make a fuss. I’m just taking care of it for Julia Stenning. She asked me to help out.’

  Siv moved forward. ‘Really? Since admission to hospital, she’s had no visitors and no calls from you. How did she ask you to come here and how did you get the keys for the shed and the car?’

  He opened and closed his mouth. Siv always liked it when a suspect did the goldfish impression.

  Ali raised a thumb. ‘Michelin with an interesting tread front left,’ he told her.

  That was all she needed for now. ‘Jeremy Wilby, you are under arrest on suspicion of the murders of Lauren Visser and Matis Rimas on Monday twenty-ninth of April. Also on suspicion of breaking and entering Julia Stenning’s home.’

  Patrick handcuffed him while she finished the caution. Wilby was silent, dazed-looking. Siv told him to sit on an old stool at the back of the shed and wait. She called for a car to take him away and then phoned forensics, stressing that she needed teams urgently, both at the shed and at Wilby’s home.

  ‘Patrick, you escort Wilby to the station and we’ll wait for forensics. Sorry about your film, Ali. Was it any good?’

  ‘I’m not missing much, put it that way. But I was looking forward to the meal afterwards. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut. I’m going to step outside and have a fag, take my mind off it. Still, happy days, eh guv?’

  Her own stomach was grumbling. Patrick touched her arm, spoke softly.

  ‘Hope I haven’t let you down, guv. When I talked to him, there was nothing to raise concern and none came up later either.’

  ‘It’s okay, Patrick. We can talk later. We followed every lead. It looks as if Visser was on the right track after all. He said the murderer was connected to the nursery.’ She looked back at Wilby, who was staring at the floor, his lips moving. He glanced up and beckoned her with a toss of his head.

  ‘I didn’t mean to kill the young man. I panicked. I was just leaving when I saw him walking down to the river and I couldn’t get past him, back to the car. I felt trapped. I had to get away. I was hoping he wouldn’t be long. He caught a fish and put his rod down and I thought he was going. But then he walked up to where she was . . . near where I was hiding and he was staring at her. I didn’t have time to think. I just came at him and then he was on the ground. I’m so sorry about him. Tell his family I’m sorry.’ He was trembling, his voice reedy.

  ‘What about Lauren Visser’s husband? Do you want me to say sorry to him?’

  He looked past her. ‘If it will make any difference. It was hard to like Lauren. She was so full of herself, always preaching about food and the environment, lording it over the rest of us. Thought she was God’s gift at work. She’d give me patronizing little tips about how to handle the children, as if I didn’t know my own job. She might not have realized it but she caused a lot of unhappiness and heartache. Talk to Julia, then you’ll understand. Julia’s the person who’s really suffered. That woman’s been to hell and back.’

  ‘I have talked to Julia. She’s confessed to killing Alan Vine at Halse woods. Did you know about that?’

  ‘What? No! I haven’t talked to her since . . . who’s Alan Vine? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Just another person who got in the way because he knew something. Julia was worried he’d trap her. So she stabbed him with a knife. Three dead now. You’ve been keeping bad company.’

  He gave her a look of pure misery. ‘Julia wanted me to use the scissors. She insisted it had to be scissors. I understood but I thought maybe a knife would have been less painful. Quicker, like.’

  She found it hard to believe what she was hearing. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel as if you were trying to be kind-hearted? Give me a break! I don’t want to hear any more out of you until the formal interview.’

  His eyes clouded and his head slumped again. She reckoned he’d be dying to get it all off his chest.

  Chapter Thirty

&nb
sp; It was two in the morning before Siv fell into bed. She lay sleepless for a while, from a mixture of relief and anxiety. She wondered how Julia and Wilby had met and what had driven him to plan a murder with her. She’d visit Julia on her way to the station, she decided as she finally drifted off, to see her reaction to Wilby’s arrest.

  At six, her phone woke her from a deep sleep.

  ‘Ma’am, it’s PC Beaumont at Berminster General. Julia Stenning’s dead.’

  She sat up, muddle-headed. ‘Christ’s sake! How did that happen?’

  ‘She deteriorated suddenly around four a.m. with a blood infection, and was rushed back to the ITU. She died twenty minutes ago. Sorry, ma’am.’

  She slumped back on the pillow. Her eyes were full of grit. No chance now of working on Julia with the new evidence. She rang Ali while she put the kettle on.

  ‘Bloody hell! She’s made the final escape!’

  His voice was so loud she had to hold the phone away from her ear. ‘Hospitals can be dangerous places when you’re sick.’

  He sighed. ‘Tricky in life, tricky in death.’

  ‘Yep. I’m heading to the station now. I’m hoping forensics will get some results this morning.’

  ‘I’ll arrange for someone to tell Granger about Julia.’

  She took a quick shower to wake herself up. She thought about Julia while she dried herself, her life and death. She’d been a killer but she felt sad for the woman and the tragedy and deception she’d endured. It had soured her life, made her bitter and vengeful. Siv swiped moisturiser across her face and her lip stung. She’d forgotten to buy medication for her cold sore. It was looking angrier against her washed-out skin. She stopped at Gusto for coffee and a ham croissant, devouring the food on the way into the building. She drank the hot coffee from one side of her mouth to avoid her sore lip and splashed some on the desk, but missed her shirt.

  She called a quick team meeting at 8.30 and updated them.

  ‘When Bartel Nowak told me about the man he’d seen, it rang bells with me. I’d seen Jerry Wilby in the garden at the nursery and he was playing the accordion by the Polska stall on the May bank holiday. I remembered the square box for his instrument stacked on a table with violin cases by the side of the stall. We spoke briefly. He’d come up squeaky clean in the background searches, and when Patrick interviewed him. I think we can be sure that his story regarding Lauren having concerns about a man by the river was a fiction. He just wanted to see if he could weasel out any information about how the investigation was progressing. He had no connection to Lauren outside of work and no apparent disagreements with her. But he lives in Marton, a village near Aldmarsh. When I spoke to Betty Marshall, she confirmed that Julia knew Wilby because he’d played at a Christmas concert at the church in Aldmarsh, and that’s how she’d booked him for the festival. Betty didn’t know anything else but she did tell me that when Lauren got her promotion at the nursery, Wilby was the other candidate. She said he’d been very disappointed at not securing the post.’

  ‘He must have had more reason than that for killing Lauren,’ Ali said.

  ‘I hope so. We have confirmation at least that Matis Rimas was just unfortunate because he strayed into a murder scene. Wilby must have been involved in some way with Julia. We’ll hear more about that when we interview him. Now that we have the car and his DNA, we’ll hopefully find forensic evidence. Wilby has a small council house and lives on his own. Forensics are there now. He has a sister two doors down. Apart from Ali and Patrick, I want you all out at Marton, door knocking, asking if anyone saw him with Julia and interviewing the sister. Patrick, start digging again on Wilby, go over everything and talk to Jenna Seaton.’

  Mid-morning, she and Ali were preparing to interview Wilby with his solicitor. Patrick knocked on her door. He was smiling.

  ‘Forensics called, guv. The Volkswagen tyres are the same as the tracks found near the river. Overshoes, scissors and coverall in the boot. Traces of carpet fibre in the boot of the car same as the material used on the overshoes. Also, a speck of Lauren’s blood on the gear stick of the car. Plenty of Wilby’s DNA around the driver’s seat, on the gear stick and in the boot. And best of all, one of Rimas’s hairs on the outer rim of Wilby’s washing machine in his house. They’ve found other fibres but haven’t processed those yet.’

  She leaned back against the wall, relief washing through her. Ali took a small round tin from his pocket and offered her a sweet.

  ‘Mango drops,’ he said. ‘Sugar-free, of course.’

  ‘What happened to the mints? I liked those.’

  ‘Polly banned them and bought me these instead. She keeps on my case where the sugar’s concerned. They’re okay. You can get used to anything if you try.’ He popped one in his mouth, sounding unconvinced.

  ‘It’s not bad. I can taste the mango,’ Siv lied.

  * **

  After they’d charged Wilby, Siv sat with Mortimer, watching him tidy his cuticles. Wilby’s bewildered sister and a neighbour said that they’d seen Julia visit him at his house. No one had a bad word to say about him. He was apparently an all-round nice man, dedicated to his job and a good accordionist. A bit like the reports of Lauren, Siv thought. She could see why Wilby had that reputation. He was softly spoken, apparently unassuming, with a quiet manner. Patrick said that he’d been the same when he interviewed him.

  ‘Should we have spotted him sooner?’ Mortimer asked.

  ‘I don’t see how we could have, and I have no issues with DC Hill’s initial interview with him at the nursery, his contact in a subsequent phone call or with our background checks. Wilby was under the radar in every way and appeared to be genuinely helpful and concerned. No previous police involvement, no debt, no apparent issues with Lauren or connection to Julia Stenning, no history of violence. He met Julia the Christmas not long after she’d found out what Stenning had done. Wilby played the accordion at the church fete and they had mulled wine at her house afterwards. He told Julia that his father had died and he’d recently discovered that the man had been a bigamist with three other children. Wilby’s family is still full of bitterness about that. They never refer to the father. His sister told us that when they found out, only a couple of weeks after the funeral, Wilby removed his father’s headstone from the grave and smashed it up. That resonated with Julia. She wasn’t a woman to spill out her troubles but hearing about that betrayal must have struck a chord.

  ‘So, over the mulled wine she told Wilby about Sophie’s death and Lauren being Stenning’s daughter. He realized it was the Lauren he worked with. He’s a good listener, I’d say. Empathetic, with a kindly manner. That’s why he’s good with kids. He felt deeply sorry for Julia and her suffering. He told her he worked at the nursery with Lauren and that she’d got promotion over him despite the fact he’d been there longer. He had a real, slow-building resentment about that. Their phone records show lots of contacts in the following months, then it stops. She’d go to his house to make plans. He claims that it took a long time before Julia could persuade him to kill Lauren, that she was the driving force behind it all. She wanted scissors used, and Sophie’s photo left there. Given their personalities, I think I buy that.’

  ‘So his motives for killing were resentment about his own father, sympathy for Mrs Stenning and not getting a job?’ Mortimer looked dubious.

  ‘Not quite. True, he didn’t think that Lauren was as effective as he was at work and the more he talked about her the more his dislike showed. No — his real motive was money. Julia was going to pay him once it had all died down. Twenty thousand. He had ambitions to set up a proper business, promote his own folk group. A nursery job doesn’t pay much. He’d already started talking to a couple of musicians about it.’

  ‘Old-fashioned blood money, then.’

  ‘Yes. Julia had earmarked a portion of the inheritance she received from her husband. She apparently liked the symmetry of his money being used to erase Lauren, just as she liked the thought of his car being used a
s transport for the murder. Wilby and Julia knew about Lauren’s wild swimming and they’d decided it would provide the opportunity for him to kill her. Julia gave him the keys to the shed and the car and he organized the rest. Then at lunch on the Friday, Lauren mentioned to Wilby that she was going to swim at Lock Lane on the Monday morning. He phoned Julia from a callbox in Berminster on the Friday evening and they agreed that he’d stab her then. They arranged that he’d pick up James Stenning’s car early on Monday morning. He walked across the fields from Marton to collect it.’

  ‘Matis Rimas was an unfortunate extra casualty.’

  ‘Yes, wrong place, wrong time. Wilby panicked because he couldn’t get past him without being seen. After the murders, Wilby drove the car back to Galloway’s, put the overshoes, coverall and scissors in the boot and left the keys under a stone outside the shed. The plan was for Julia to get rid of it. When Wilby heard that Julia was in intensive care, he got anxious. He didn’t know what was wrong with her and couldn’t find out. Apart from anything else, he thought she might die and he wouldn’t be paid. It was all getting too complicated and he worried that if she was very ill, she might start to feel remorseful and tell us about his role in the murders. He thought he’d better check to see if she’d disposed of the car and take it away if it was still there. He went back to the shed, but the keys weren’t under the stone. That’s why he broke into Julia’s house. He says he knew nothing about Alan Vine’s murder and there’s nothing to connect him with that.’

  Mortimer’s phone rang. He picked it up, listened and thanked the caller. ‘That was the CPS. They agree that the case has passed the evidence threshold. Good result. I’m pleased to see you can think on your feet. It meant that you caught Wilby at the car. Although of course, it’s best to do things carefully and by the book.’

  She stood. He was so mealy-mouthed. ‘Do you read the Journal of Homicide Investigation, sir?’

  He looked taken aback. ‘At times. Why?’

  ‘There’s an interesting article in volume nine about using flair and independent thinking in major crime investigation, as well as following the rules. It concludes that there’s room for both. I can send you a link if you like.’