by GJ Minett
‘And if it’s more than just a vase?’
Sam paused before answering, as if weighing up alternatives.
‘Tell you what, why don’t I make a few calls? I could give Isaac a ring . . . ask him to check this firm of solicitors out. What was their name again?’
‘I don’t remember,’ she lied. ‘The letter’s in the kitchen somewhere and I’m in the bath.’
‘So ring me back, OK? Or better still, I’ll give you ten minutes or so, then call you back – save your phone bill. You let me have their name and I’ll give Isaac a ring. He’ll take care of everything for you. If there’s anything even remotely iffy about it, he’ll sniff it out for sure. And if it’s all legit, he can give you the good news in person. What d’you say? Save you a lot of trouble.’
Ellen assured him this wouldn’t be necessary and thanked him for his concern. Sam persisted for a while but she held firm, made it clear she wasn’t about to change her mind. She moved on to other matters as soon as she was able and asked to talk with Mary for a couple of minutes. Then she rang off before Sam could get back on the line and start all over again.
She put the handset on the floor beside the bath and slid down into the water until it covered her head. After a few seconds, she resurfaced and swept her hair back from her face. Then, resting her head on the edge of the bath, she replayed the entire phone call in her mind.
She tried to rebuild the conversation as accurately as possible. She might be wrong, of course. It wasn’t as if she’d been paying particularly close attention to what she was saying in the early part of the call, so yes – she might have said something, somewhere along the line, to suggest that a visit to the solicitors would involve a long journey. She might. Although she was inclined to doubt it.
But one thing she was sure of and nothing would persuade her otherwise. At no stage had she said anything about Eudora Nash being a widow.
Not once.
COTSWOLD DAILY GAZETTE
APRIL 22ND 1967
EVERY PARENT’S NIGHTMARE
John Michael Adams, aged 12, was yesterday sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure for the murder of 14-year-old schoolgirl, Julie Kasprowicz and the attempted murder of her classmate Carol Bingham. Although no actual fixed term was specified, Mr Justice Lawson recommended that he ‘should remain in custody for some considerable time’. Legal experts were suggesting last night that it may be 15–20 years at the very least before he will be considered for release. As the verdict was read out, there were cries of triumph from relatives of the two girls, interspersed with angry shouts aimed in the direction of the prisoner, who seemed unmoved by what was taking place. His father, sitting near by, buried his head in his hands as his son was taken down in the company of two social workers.
Mr Justice Lawson, recalling the attack in the playground of Fairfield Secondary Modern School in Churchdown, Gloucester, described it as ‘unspeakably barbaric and depraved’. He said that, in his opinion, the jury had discharged its duty honourably and shown ‘commendable integrity in wading through the volumes of conflicting and confusing psychiatric reports which had been placed before them.’ It was his considered opinion that these tactics represented nothing more than deliberate obfuscation on the part of the defence. There was ‘nothing there which either provided a plausible explanation or went any way towards offering mitigation for the tragic events of that morning’. Addressing the prisoner, he went on: ‘You are every loving parent’s nightmare. You have willfully cut short one young life and ruined several others, yet not once have you shown any remorse for the suffering you have caused. Clearly you represent a major threat to society and I would be failing in my responsibilities if I were to allow you your freedom until such time as we can be sure that this threat has been removed.’
Pages 2 and 3: ‘Nowhere he can hide’ – the anger of Phil Bingham
Pages 4, 5 and 6: Anatomy of a Child Killer
Page 22: Leader Comment
PART TWO:
THE JOURNEY
4
February 2008: Ellen
Thursday morning dawned cold but clear. When she stepped outside, Ellen was relieved to find nothing more challenging than a light dusting of frost coating the back lawns. What she could see of the sky, above the dull gleam of streetlamps, appeared to be cloudless for the first time in weeks. She made a mental note to remind Jack to make sure Megan wore her sweatshirt.
A thin layer of ice proved troublesome on the minor roads near home, but by the time she’d bypassed Winchester and reached the Berkshire Downs a pale, wintry sun was already fingering its way across the hilltops. She settled back to enjoy the rest of the drive.
She tried to remember the last time she’d taken this road. Her only memory of it was a trip to Snowdonia with Jack, a few months before their wedding. Their first time away together had unfortunately coincided with the wettest fortnight any of the locals could remember. The storms, unrelenting in their ferocity, had practically washed them off the hillside, turning established campsites and well-worn trails into little more than quagmires overnight. The rain came at them all day long in horizontal bands, lashing their faces and giving the lie to their supposedly waterproof clothing.
It was all the same to Ellen. She loved the drama, the thunder echoing off the hills, the insistent tattoo of the raindrops and hailstones on the canvas while she and Jack huddled together, rubbing frantically at each other’s hair with permanently damp towels and snuggled inside their double sleeping bag to keep the cold at bay. She would have been happy to make the best of it.
Jack, on the other hand, always had to be doing something. He was stir-crazy after as little as half an hour of crouching inside a small tent with just her for company. He needed others around him, people he could dazzle. For him, there was nothing romantic about being soaked through, frozen and miserable. Even that far back in their relationship, Ellen knew that keeping him on board for the whole fortnight was going to be a delicate balancing act. True to form, he came down with a cold before the first week was out and convinced himself it was pneumonia at the very least, so that was that. They came home a week early. Over almost before it had started.
She remembered asking, as they headed towards Newbury, if this was where Watership Down had been set. Jack had laughed – ‘European Capital of the Hunt’ he called it. ‘Wall-to-wall fascists’. Then he slipped seamlessly into one of his tirades against the ‘landed gentry’ and the hypocrisy which underpinned their supposed love of the countryside. All that was missing was the T-shirt: FUCK THE RABBITS! She smiled at the memory.
She reached the outskirts of Cheltenham at least half an hour earlier than expected but then had to contend with a bewildering one-way system, which seemed determined to show off as much of the town as possible. She found herself being funnelled down a succession of broad, tree-lined avenues, past imposing Regency buildings and expansive municipal gardens. Then she seemed to double back on herself as the traffic snaked its way around the less commercial part of the town before bringing her to a theatre she was sure she’d driven past earlier. When she found Oriel Road at last, she had to drive away in search of a car park, every roadside space having been snapped up, even this early in the morning. As a result, she was five minutes late when she walked through the doors of Aitcheson, Wilmot and Lowe.
The moment she gave her name in Reception, she was shown straight into a light, spacious office where a man introduced himself as Derek Wilmot. It wasn’t until he spoke that she made the connection. The voice was unmistakable, even though he was nothing like the dusty old fossil she’d imagined from the other end of the phone. He was at least twenty years younger, trim and dressed in a light grey suit which, if it didn’t exactly make him a sharp dresser, nevertheless suggested a certain sense of style. As he stepped forward to shake her hand, he made eye contact and sketched out the vaguest hint of a smile.
He offered her a seat and a cup of tea, which she gratefully accepted.
‘Pleasant journey?’ he asked, retreating behind the desk and removing a number of documents from a large blue folder.
‘Pretty much,’ she replied. She offered a few throwaway observations on her day so far, finishing with a light-hearted account of the difficulties she’d had in locating the building and finding somewhere to park. He murmured something vague in response, without looking up from the documents. It sounded like ‘Splendid’, and she realised that she could have been giving the shipping forecast for all he knew. His question had been a reflex, another tick on the checklist. His attention was already elsewhere.
He took a pair of spectacles from a Specsavers case on his desk and perched them on the end of his nose, tilting his head as he peered at the documents spread out before him. From time to time he mumbled quietly to himself as if confirming that everything was in order. Then, just as she was wondering if he’d forgotten she was there, he looked up, peeled off the glasses and handed over the first sheet for her to sign at the appointed place. Ellen smiled to herself. So much for the social niceties.
She spent the next few minutes, reading and signing documents as they were passed to her. Wilmot came round the desk to stand at her shoulder, constantly nudging the next paper closer for her perusal. He did at least faithfully discharge his professional responsibilities in urging her to read them carefully before signing, but she sensed this was done more for form than anything else. By the time her cup of tea arrived, the formalities had been more or less completed.
‘Miss Devonshire,’ he said, speaking into the intercom, ‘would you please ask Liam to come in? And if Mr and Mrs Coleridge are here, would you tell them I’ll be with them shortly?’
Ellen winced as she took a quick sip of tea, burning the roof of her mouth.
‘So, is that it, then?’ she asked. Although amused by his lack of interest in the social conventions, she was nevertheless a little confused by the stark contrast between his elaborate wooing of her over the phone just twenty-four hours earlier, when she was made to feel that her presence here would be so much appreciated, and the almost indecent haste with which she was now being processed. It felt as if, simply by walking through the door, she had automatically become yesterday’s business, slipped inside a folder which was about to be consigned to the depths of some filing cabinet, never again to see the light of day. It seemed to her that some sort of acknowledgement of her efforts wouldn’t have gone amiss.
‘That’s all we can do for now,’ said Wilmot. ‘It will take forty-eight hours for the documents to be finalised. My client did everything possible to expedite matters. Thanks to her foresight, the property should be legally yours by the weekend.’
‘This weekend?’ Even though he’d said as much on the phone the previous day, it still seemed remarkably soon. In her experience at Langmere Grove, solicitors moved no more quickly than was absolutely necessary. They liked to ponder, deliberate, eke things out for as long as possible. The whole concept of ‘expediting matters’ was alien to them. ‘So if I were to come up again on Saturday . . .?’
‘Well, Saturdays are not normally part of our business hours,’ said Wilmot, checking the temperature of the radiator behind him, ‘but I’m often here for a while in the morning. You could collect the keys from me. Do you find it a little warm in here?’ Without waiting for any kind of response, he walked over to the thermostat on the wall by the door and adjusted it slightly. ‘We can agree a time, if you wish. As for this morning, Mr Sharp will drive you over to Oakham to see the cottage. I’m assuming you would rather be driven?’
Ellen thanked him. After three hours behind the wheel, it would be nice to sit back and leave the driving to someone else.
‘He’ll have the keys to Primrose Cottage and will be able to show you around. I’m sorry I can’t accompany you myself, only I have a number of appointments this morning. I’m sure you understand.’
Ellen waved vaguely to acknowledge the fact.
‘One thing though,’ he continued, raising a finger as if to emphasise the point. ‘Please don’t be offended but I am obliged to remind you that the cottage is not legally yours until these papers have been processed. You’re not entitled to remove anything from the property until then.’
Ellen nodded. She bent her head to take another sip of tea but had barely drunk half of it before Liam Sharp came in to escort her to his car. Wilmot hovered by the door, as if to make it clear that the meeting was over. As she passed him in the doorway, he offered his hand once more. It felt like little more than a gesture as he led the way back into the reception area, where an elderly couple rose to meet him. His mind had already turned to other things.
Liam Sharp was in his early twenties. Ellen needed all of a minute to classify him as an irritant. Maybe it was the handshake which lasted a little longer than necessary. Alternatively, it might have been his excessive use of hair gel or his restless, fidgety manner, expressed in a series of yanks at the cuffs beneath his jacket and the occasional tug at his trousers. Whatever it was, Ellen’s regrets about accepting a lift began long before they reached the shiny black Mazda convertible in the company car park at the rear of the building. She hoped it wouldn’t be a long drive.
He opened the passenger door for her and settled behind the wheel, running one hand through his hair as he sneaked a quick look in the mirror. Then he fired up the engine with what struck her as an exaggerated blast of the accelerator and launched the car into the unsuspecting traffic threading its leisurely way through the centre of the town. At the first set of lights, he flipped open his mobile and made a brief call, apparently to someone’s answerphone, explaining that he was going to Oakham and would be out of the office all morning.
Ellen sneaked a glance at him, wondering how on earth she was going to handle it when Megan brought home someone like him . . . which she surely would do, even if she made clear her disapproval. Especially if she made clear her disapproval. If her own adolescence was any sort of yardstick, she could expect her daughter to go through her fair share of shallow, vacuous, self-preening nonentities before stumbling on someone acceptable.
She remembered the little girl in the red sweatshirt, skipping off merrily into the playground on her first day at school and recalled how proud she’d felt that her daughter was so self-possessed and confident, not clinging tearfully to her mother like so many of the others. Now, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, Megan was a teenager in all but chronology and Ellen found herself wishing for a little less of the independent spirit. She wished she could hold on to the little girl in her for a while longer. Her grip already felt a touch too tenuous. For just a moment she caught herself wondering how her own mother had coped with these same doubts all those years ago. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought to ask and there wasn’t much to be gained from seeking answers now.
Sharp apparently knew only one way to drive, which was to tailgate with excessive use of the horn. All of this was done to the accompaniment of a raucous soundtrack issuing from his speakers.
‘Linkin Park,’ he said by way of enlightenment.
‘Sorry?’
‘You like it?’
‘Actually,’ she said, raising her voice and applying one hand to her forehead for emphasis, ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache. Have you got anything a bit quieter?’
‘Quieter? Dunno. I’ll have a look.’ He reached across and rummaged through a stack of CDs in a compartment in the dashboard. Then he looked up just in time, braking sharply to avoid ramming the car in front.
‘Linkin Park will be fine,’ she said.
‘Cool.’ He went back to his arrhythmic tapping on the steering wheel.
The traffic thinned out gradually as they left Cheltenham, which for him represented the ideal opportunity to show what the car could do. They roared through the village of Prestbury and picked up a B-road heading for Cleeve Hill.
‘Actually, would you mind slowing down a little? It’s making me feel sick.’
‘Cool.’ He ease
d down a fraction.
Ellen sat back and closed her eyes, hoping this might somehow convey the impression that small talk was off the agenda. She turned her thoughts to Eudora Nash. In a quarter of an hour or so, they’d be arriving in Oakham and she would get her first glimpse of Primrose Cottage. She’d gone over it all so many times since yesterday morning. She’d been distracted at work, had slept fitfully and then spent most of this morning’s journey trying to come up with an explanation.
Deep down there lurked the fear that this might yet turn out to be one huge mistake. She’d half-expected Wilmot to greet her this morning with a rueful expression and profuse apologies. So sorry to have wasted your time. It was a different Ellen Catherine Harrison after all. Who’d have thought it? She’d have been angry, frustrated at the waste of a day, but she’d have got over it soon enough. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d actually lost anything. It had never been hers in the first place.
But in a quarter of an hour or so, she knew, that would all change. Once she’d seen the cottage, walked around it, taken emotional possession, she suspected the disappointment would be that much harder to take. She knew what she was like.
So for now she clung to the other possibility . . . that this was not a mistake. That she was precisely the person Eudora had in mind. And if that was the case, that begged any number of questions which she knew she’d never be able to ignore. She’d want to know everything there was to know about Eudora Nash.
‘You can see the racecourse down there,’ he said, breaking into her thoughts as they levelled out at the top of Cleeve Hill. ‘Behind you – to your left.’ By the time she’d manoeuvred herself into a position where she could see behind her, they’d swung right and it was gone. Then a few minutes later he was pointing to an attractive modern house set in splendid isolation.