by Sam Short
“It’s not like that,” said Millie. “I don’t know who she is, yet, but George promised me it wasn’t what I thought it was, and I believe him. He’ll tell me when he’s ready, but I get the impression that she’s important to him in a different way than we thought.”
“So, you two are friends again?” said Judith.
“You could say that,” said Millie, heat in her cheeks.
“Wait!” said Judith. “Something happened! Did you kiss him, Millie Thorn?”
“Hold on,” said Millie, getting to her feet. “There’s a doctor coming. The doctor who treated Chester.”
“Saved by the bell,” said Judith. “I know you kissed him!”
“You can go in, now,” said the doctor, snaking a stethoscope around her neck. “But please don’t excite him. He’s still very poorly. He was badly burned, and he suffered smoke inhalation. Oh, and his wife is in the family waiting room. I told her she’s not allowed in to see him unless the police agree to it.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Sergeant Spencer, approaching from the vending machine he’d been standing next to, a half-eaten bar of chocolate in his hand. “I’ll speak with the wife myself.”
The doctor looked Sergeant Spencer up and down. “Undercover, are you?” she said, attempting to hide a smile.
“It’s my zoo visiting outfit,” said Sergeant Spencer. He patted the pocket of his shorts. “But I always carry my police notebook, so you could technically say I’m undercover.”
“Well, it’s a very nice outfit, Sergeant,” said the doctor, turning her back. “Chester Harris is in room eighty-seven. Next door to the last suspect you came here to question. The poor man who’s married to a biscuit baking machine.”
Only Chester’s eyes and a small portion of his mouth and nose were visible beneath the swathes of bandages which covered his head, chest and arms. The machine next to his bed beeped every few seconds, and a drip supplied antibiotics to the back of his hand.
Millie smiled at him. “How are you?” she asked, taking a seat next to the bed.
“Alive,” said Chester, his voice cracking. “Thanks to you. I don’t know what you and that young man did, or how you got me out of that car, but you saved my life.”
“After you tried to run us off the road,” said Millie.
“I’m sorry,” said Chester. “I was panicking. Are you both okay?”
“You’re lucky we’re both alive,” said Millie. “The motorbike is ruined, but we’re okay.”
“And my wife?” said Chester. “Is she okay?”
“She’s in the waiting room, Mister Harris,” said Sergeant Spencer. “You can’t see her until we’ve spoken to her, and if you’re going to tell us what Miss Thorn thinks you’re going to tell us, then I don’t think she’ll want to see you ever again. Only in court, on the day you get sent down for a very long time.”
“I’m not saying a word to anybody until my wife is here,” said Chester, a harsh rasp to his voice.
“We can wait,” said Sergeant Spencer. “You’ll speak to us eventually, whether it’s tomorrow, next week or next year.”
Chester attempted to prop himself up on his elbows but sank back down to the mattress with a groan of pain. “Miss Thorn couldn’t see my face properly when I was laying on the side of the road, or while she was in the ambulance with me, due to all the soot that was covering me,” he said. “But what’s beneath these bandages is not pretty. One ear is going to be removed when I’m strong enough to have surgery, the other one resembles pork crackling, my nose has no flesh on the bridge and my throat and lungs are scorched.
“My fingers have no feeling in them, and my scalp requires a skin graft, taken from my buttock. The painkillers are helping, but I realise that my life as I know it, is over. I know I’m going to prison, and I know I’ve lost the only person who means anything to me… my wife. If you think I’m going to speak to the police before I speak to my wife, who my confession concerns the most, then you are sadly mistaken. I don’t care about living, Sergeant. I certainly don’t care about providing you with a statement.”
Sergeant Spencer blew out a long sigh. “Okay, Chester,” he said. “I’ll go and speak with her. I’ll ask her if she wants to hear your confession.”
Chester groaned, and his head slumped to the side, blood beginning to seep through the portion of bandages covering his nose. “Thank you,” he grunted.
Sergeant Spencer wasn’t gone long, and when he returned, Jill Harris shuffled ahead of him, her head bowed, and a handkerchief clutched in her fist. She looked at the man in the bed, her eyes red and her cheeks wet with tears. “Did. You. Kill. My. Mother?” she said, standing at the foot of the bed.
“Jill,” said Chester. “I want to tell —”
The bed shook as Jill slammed her fist into the space between Chester’s feet. “Did you kill my mother?” she screamed.
Chester groaned. “I’m sorry, Jill. I’m so, so sorry. It was an accident. I couldn’t take her mood swings anymore, and she refused to get medical help for them. You thought she had bipolar, but I think it was something worse. She was awful to me, Jill. She wasn’t nice to me, not at all — she was only nice to me when you were around. When she had to pretend. She hated me, and one day I snapped. We had no money, we were both stressed — living in that tiny house with your mother, and she wouldn’t stop! She wouldn’t stop telling me how terrible I was! I’m sorry!”
“How did you kill my mother?” said Jill, her voice flat.
“It was an accident, it —”
Jill’s face reddened, and she slammed her fist into the bed again. “How did you kill my mother?” she shouted, spittle flying from her mouth.
“I drowned her,” murmured Chester. “While she was taking a bath. You were out with your friends, and when you came home I pretended I didn’t know where she was. I packed her suitcase and burned it along with her passport on the waste ground near the marshes.”
“And you buried my mother’s body in our garden?” said Jill, both hands forming tight fists.
“No,” said Chester. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do something so terrible! I buried her on the beach. In the sand dunes.”
“A metal detectorist found her ring, Mrs Harris,” explained Millie. “And when I saw the messages in French at the bottom of her letters from the Canadian gentleman, I put two and two together.”
“Don’t call me Mrs Harris, please,” said Jill. “I no longer want a murderer’s surname. Call me Jill. Jill Richards, the same surname my mother carried when she was murdered by this pig.”
“Okay, Mrs Richards,” said Millie.
“Miss Richards,” said Jill. She stood up straight and stared at the bandaged man in the bed. “No wonder the police couldn’t find my mother in Canada,” she said. “But how did you know the Canadian police wouldn’t be able to find the gentleman she loved?”
“I didn’t, Jill!” said Chester. “I didn’t plan it! It was an accident! It was a coincidence that the man she loved had left his wife! Maybe he didn’t love your mother at all, and maybe she didn’t love him. We surmised all the stuff about them being together because you and the police thought she was in Canada! She never was, Jill. She never was. She was always here, at the beach.”
“You cold, cold bastard,” said Jill. “I wish those flames had given you a lingering death and dragged you to hell with them.”
“You don’t mean that, Jill,” said Chester. “You don’t know what she did to me! She was horrible, always telling me I wasn’t good enough for you, and always telling me that you’d leave me when you realised it!”
“And she was right, wasn’t she, Chester?” said Jill. “On both points.”
“I love you, Jill,” said Chester. “I’m sorry! Please don’t leave me!”
“Are the bones that Harry dug up today in the garden, my mother’s bones?” said Jill, her legs giving way beneath her momentarily. “Was the bone that my little dog dragged into the kitchen a part of my own mother’s skel
eton?”
Sergeant Spencer’s pen danced across his notebook as the conversation unfolded, his eyes flicking between Millie and Judith, and his face locked in an expression of sadness. “Is this too much for you, Jill?” he said. “Do you need a break? A cup of tea, maybe?”
“No thank you, Sergeant,” said Jill. “I don’t want a cup of tea.” She stared at her husband. “What I do want to know is if that bone on my kitchen floor belonged to my poor mother.”
Chester shifted his weight, giving a gasp of pain as he moved his arms. “I didn’t see what Harry brought into the kitchen, Jill,” he said. “But yes. It was probably one of your mother’s bones. I’m sorry. I transferred them from the sand dunes late on Tuesday night. When I told you I couldn’t sleep and was going for a long drive.”
“And you told me you couldn’t sleep because the curry I’d made you was too spicy!” said Jill, “You told me it had given you acid. I felt awful, thinking of you driving the streets because of my cooking. I didn’t get to sleep for almost an hour! And while I was feeling guilty, you were digging up my poor mother’s remains and dragging them across town so you could bury them in our garden!”
“The garden was a temporary measure!” said Chester. “I wasn’t thinking straight! I was going to move them again. I promise. I’m not such a terrible man, Jill!”
Jill steadied herself with a hand on the foot-rail of the bed. “You’re removed from reality, Chester,” she said. “I don’t know what to say to you.” She sighed. “Why did you dig my mother up, Chester? Why did you move her from the sand dunes to our garden?”
Millie knew the answer, but she stayed quiet, wanting nothing more than to stand up and give Jill a hug, but aware that the poor woman needed to hear what her husband had to say. She gave her a reassuring smile instead, knowing that when Chester revealed the true extent of the crimes he’d committed, her life was going to be irrevocably altered.
Chester gave a rasping cough and reached for the glass of water next to his bed. Judith picked it up for him, and placed the straw between the small gap in the bandages around his mouth as he took slow sips. “Thank you,” he said. He looked at his wife. “I moved her remains because of that dinosaur skeleton that was found,” he said. “I knew they’d start digging around, and I knew the storm had shifted a lot of sand. I was worried that her remains would be revealed. I didn’t want to get found out, Jill! I didn’t want to go to jail! I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“That’s why you were so concerned about those stupid rare flowers,” said Jill. “That’s why you were on the phone to those DEFRA people! You hoped they’d stop people from digging in the dunes!”
“Only until I could remove your mother’s remains,” said Chester. “But they didn’t seem very concerned. I telephoned them twice, but nobody came out straight away, like I hoped they would. I had to move your mother that night, Jill. I thought the whole place would be dug up by fossil hunters the next day, and my secret would be out.”
Jill nodded. “But the fossil hunters couldn’t dig, could they? Because that poor man was murdered —” Her face whitened, and she stumbled backwards, into the arms of Sergeant Spencer, who helped her to a seat. She took long ragged breaths, her sobs loud in the small room. “You killed him, too, didn’t you, Chester? You murdered that man!”
“I had to!” said Chester, gasping for breath. “He saw me with your mother’s bones! It was an accident!”
Jill placed her head in both hands and let out an anguished cry, her body shaking as she sobbed. “Another accident. I can’t listen to any more of this,” she wept. “I want to leave.”
Judith leapt to her feet. “Let me help you,” she said, offering Jill her hand. “Come on. We’ll get a cup of tea.”
“Jill, wait!” said Chester, as his wife was led from the room, her body shaking and her head low. “Please come back.”
Sergeant Spencer approached the bed, his notebook in hand. “You may as well finish telling us what happened, Chester. Jill would want you to be honest.”
The machine next to the bed beeped a little faster, and Chester nodded. “I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “Any of it. I thought I’d got away with killing Jill’s mother, and I’d even begun to come to terms with what I’d done — to forgive myself, even. I thought she’d stay hidden in those dunes forever, or at least until I was dead. I knew those dunes were a good place to hide her body. Even all those years ago, those dunes were a protected area, because of those flowers. I knew it wouldn’t be long until she’d decomposed in that environment. I thought she’d never be disturbed.”
“You make it sound so clinical,” said Millie, a sadness in her throat.
Chester nodded. “It has to be,” he said. “If you don’t want to be caught.”
“Tell us about Tom,” said Millie. “I was there when you killed him. I heard the shovel hit his head.”
“You weren’t the only person who was there that night,” said Chester. “I couldn’t believe my misfortune. I arrived at the dunes as soon as it got dark and began searching for Jill’s mother. It took a while, but I knew where I’d buried her, and that storm had taken a lot of sand away. I soon found her.”
“Yes,” said Millie. “The shallower sand made it possible for Tom to find Jill’s mother’s ring. It must have slid off her finger over time, as she… decomposed. Tom could never have realised how close he was to discovering the poor woman’s remains.”
“What did you do when you’d found her bones?” said Sergeant Spencer.
“I put them in the big bag I’d brought with me,” said Chester. “Along with my shovel and torch. I was going to bury her somewhere else. Everything was going perfectly to plan.”
“Until some men with metal detectors arrived,” said Millie.
“Yes,” said Chester. “I thought the game was up! I hid in a dip in the sand. I couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see me, but luckily for me, the closest anybody got to me was a few feet away. It was dark, and they didn’t have torches. Nobody saw me. They were there for an hour… the longest hour of my life. I couldn’t hear what was being said — they were being quiet, but I could tell there was an argument going on by the tones in their voices, and then there was laughter.”
Millie looked at Sergeant Spencer. “They were laughing at Tom,” she said. “Because they’d changed the batteries in his detector so he couldn’t find any gold.”
Sergeant Spencer nodded. “Poor Tom had an awful night,” he said. “Tell us what you did to him, Chester.”
“I waited for them to leave,” said Chester. “And when they were far enough away, I began making my way back through the dunes. I’d parked my car on the main road and crossed the fields to get to the dunes, so I was going in the opposite direction to them. They must have parked in the nature reserve. But then I had an awful feeling. One of those feelings that you can’t ignore.”
“A feeling about what?” said Millie.
“I panicked. I had the awful feeling that perhaps I’d left a bone behind. Maybe just a small one, but one that might be found. I had to go back to check,” said Chester.
“But you didn’t know that Tom had stayed behind in the dunes,” said Millie.
“No,” said Chester. “And he was being very quiet. I was, too. Even though the cottage you live in is a couple of hundred metres from where I was, I could still hear you talking. You were on your patio, and I figured that if I could hear you, you could hear me.”
“I saw torchlight,” said Millie. “Was that you?”
“I was being as careful as I could to hide the light,” said Chester. “But I needed to be sure there were no bones left. I just moved the top layer of the sand I’d put back in the hole I’d dug to retrieve Jill’s remains, and had a good look around. And then I heard breathing, behind me. I looked up and saw him, and then he said something. He sounded shocked.”
“Tom,” said Millie.
“Yes,” said Ches
ter. “I was on my hands and knees in the sand, with the bag next to me. It was unzipped, and Jill’s mother’s skull was on full display. I’d switched my torch off, but the moon was bright enough to give Tom enough light to see what was in my bag. He looked terrified.”
“Go on,” said Sergeant Spencer.
Chester gave a groan of pain. “He shouted something. I don’t know what. So I stood up.”
“I heard,” said Millie. “Me and Judith were already in the dunes, looking for whoever was using a torch.”
“He had a shovel in his hand,” said Chester. “It was easier to grab his, than to turn around and pick mine up.”
“And you hit him with it,” said Sergeant Spencer.
Chester nodded, blood seeping through several parts of his bandages. “I did,” he said. “Then I panicked and threw the shovel aside, grabbed my bag and shovel, and ran.”
“Straight home,” said Millie. “And you buried the remains of Jill’s mother in your garden.”
“Yes, I wasn’t thinking straight, and it was all downhill from there,” said Chester. “I’d murdered a man, and buried the remains of my mother-in-law in my garden. My mind stopped working. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat, and every time I heard a car outside I thought it would be the police.” He looked at Millie, his eyes barely visible through the slit in his bandages. “And when you came today, I listened to what you were saying. I realised the game was up, and panicked.”
“So you slashed my tyres, and ran,” said Millie.
“Yes,” said Chester. “I’m sorry. For everything.”
Sergeant Spencer closed his notebook. “Two murders, the attempted murder of George and Millie, and criminal damage. You’ll be going away for a very long time, Chester Harris,” he said.
Chapter 23
Millie answered her phone. “Hi, Judith,” she said.
“Hey, detective of the year, twenty-eighteen,” said Judith. “The bones have been positively identified as Jill’s mother’s remains, and the fingerprints on Tom Temples’s shovel belong to Chester. How does it feel to have solved two murders at the same time? Well, one murder and one missing person’s case which turned out to be a murder. I bet it feels like a great excuse for a bottle or two of fine wine — which I just happen to have in my possession! What do you say? Shall I come round straight away?”