by M S Morris
‘And that would give him a strong motive for murder,’ said Jake. ‘Especially since he and Louise have been unable to have children of their own. Perhaps it isn’t Louise who suffers from infertility, but Ian. That realisation would have fuelled his resentment.’
‘Plus he’s a doctor,’ said Andy, ‘so he would certainly recognise the symptoms of Huntington’s.’
‘And,’ said Harry, looking chuffed to make a contribution, ‘as a doctor, he would have easy access to hypodermic syringes and the chemicals he needed to poison her.’
‘It’s quite possible that he still has a set of keys to Diane’s house,’ said Ffion, ‘given that he used to live there. Or he might have taken Annabel’s set.’
Bridget put up her hands to stem the flow of information. ‘I think that’s more than enough to be going on with,’ she said. ‘It’s time for another visit to Headington.’
32
When Bridget rang the bell of the ivy-clad Georgian house this time, the door was opened by Ian’s new wife, Louise Morton. Ian’s Lexus Coupé was not parked outside. Neither, for that matter, was Daniel’s Golf.
Louise didn’t look particularly pleased to see Bridget. ‘Is there something I can help you with? Only, I don’t have much time. I’m just on my way to the gym.’
Louise was clad in tight-fitting gym shorts and a cropped top that did a great job of showing off her toned physique. Bridget had often been told by Chloe that the right clothing could make flab miraculously vanish. It never seemed to work for Bridget, but in Louise’s case there didn’t seem to be any spare fat for the clothing to hide.
‘Actually, it was Ian I wanted to speak to,’ said Bridget.
‘I’m afraid he isn’t here. He took a whole week off work to support Daniel, but he thought it was time he went back. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d lost someone very close to him. He and Diane had been divorced for years.’
But married for twenty-five, thought Bridget. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll find him at the hospital.’
At the John Radcliffe’s main reception desk, Bridget flashed her warrant card and was given directions to the cardiology department. She followed the signs through the corridors and up various flights of stairs. The woman at the department’s entrance desk informed her that Dr Dunn was currently with a patient but would be free to speak to her in about twenty minutes. Bridget took a seat in the waiting area and checked her phone for messages.
Inevitably there was a missed call from Vanessa. Bridget hadn’t spoken to her since they had argued about their parents. Vanessa had driven down to Lyme Regis on her own on Wednesday and had stayed for a couple of nights, firing off a stream of rebukes to Bridget by text message – ‘James is having to work from home so he can see to the children’ – ‘Mum could really use your support right now’ and so on. Vanessa had been planning to return today, and no doubt she would be full of self-righteous indignation at the sacrifices she had made on Bridget’s behalf. Bridget accessed her voicemail, bracing herself for the full impact of Vanessa’s wrath.
‘Bridget, I’ve just got back from Lyme Regis. Things are not good with Mum and Dad. Call me as soon as you get this. We need to talk urgently.’
Bridget’s heart sank. Was Vanessa exaggerating, or had the situation really deteriorated that much? When she’d spoken to her father the previous night, he’d sounded tired but upbeat. Was there really an urgent problem, or was this just her sister’s histrionics? Bridget’s thumb hovered briefly over the quick dial shortcut but then she caught sight of the receptionist approaching.
‘Dr Dunn can see you now.’
Bridget put her phone away, feeling as if she had just been granted a stay of execution. She followed the woman into a consulting room where Ian Dunn was seated behind a large desk on which sat a computer, a phone and an in-tray of case notes.
He rose to greet her. ‘Inspector Hart, this is a surprise.’ His professional manner was polished, but Bridget detected a wariness behind his eyes. No one enjoyed a visit from a police officer, especially not at their place of work. ‘Please, take a seat. Has there been a development with the case?’
‘Possibly,’ said Bridget. ‘I have some questions for you that might seem a little indelicate.’
He gave her a resigned smile. ‘I break difficult news to people every day as part of my job. I like to think that I’d be able to handle a little indelicacy.’
Bridget wondered if he’d already guessed what she was about to ask. Perhaps he had been waiting patiently for her to arrive at the obvious conclusion.
‘It’s about your son, Daniel. I’ve met him on a few occasions now and I can’t help noticing that he seems a little… clumsy. He drops things. He spills his tea. Now, I realise he’s just received a terrible shock, but he’s a young man and this… clumsiness, for want of a better word, seems unusual.’ She stopped and waited for a response.
Ian was gazing beyond her, as if lost in some distant memory. Then he nodded his head and shifted his focus back to her. ‘I wondered if you’d notice. But you’re a detective, so of course you have good observational skills. If you’d met Daniel just a year ago perhaps you wouldn’t have seen it, but now it’s becoming too pronounced to ignore.’
‘Huntington’s disease?’
‘Early-stage. At least, that’s my guess. He’ll need to be tested to be certain.’
‘How long have you known?’
‘I noticed the earliest signs a few years ago, but I tried very hard to convince myself that I was wrong.’
‘But now you don’t think you are?’
‘In my professional capacity as a doctor, no. But as a father, I would give anything to be wrong.’
‘But that’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it?’ said Bridget gently. ‘Is Daniel really your son? Or is John Caldecott his biological father?’
Ian gave a prolonged sigh, perhaps in relief that the secret he had borne for so long was finally out. ‘I’ve long suspected that John was Daniel’s father. To be honest, I began to wonder almost as soon as he was born. His hair colouring, his appearance, his personality traits… Even the timing of his birth cast doubts in my mind. But I pushed all those misgivings to one side and loved Daniel as dearly as any father loved a son. I was the one who brought him up. I was his father in every sense that mattered.’
‘And yet, if you had doubts about whether Daniel was really your son…’ Bridget struggled to find a sympathetic way to phrase what she wanted to say, but couldn’t.
Ian saved her. ‘Then Diane must have cheated on me. With her own sister’s husband – or boyfriend at the time. You think I was jealous of John? That I felt betrayed by Diane?’
‘Yes.’
‘It wasn’t as simple as that,’ said Ian.
‘Would you care to explain?’
He looked as if he was battling with himself over whether to reveal some deep, dark secret. After a moment or two he seemed to come to a decision. ‘We swapped,’ he said abruptly.
‘Swapped?’
‘We swapped partners. On holiday, in Italy. The country of love and passion.’ His voice was flat and deadpan, the antithesis of passionate. ‘When we set out on that trip, I was dating Annabel, and John was with Diane. By the time we returned, Diane and I were engaged, and Annabel and John were a couple.’
Bridget’s mind flashed to the photograph of the two young couples seated around the dining table in the shadow of Vesuvius. Who was dating who when that photograph was taken? It was impossible to tell from the photograph alone. Naples had been the final stop on their grand tour of Italy. They had left England with one configuration and returned with another. It had all the hallmarks of one of Mozart’s comic operas. But even comic operas had a dark vein running through their heart. In this case, a seed had been planted back then that would one day flower into tragedy.
‘So Diane was already pregnant with John’s child when you swapped partners?’
Ian spread out his hands. ‘That would be the logical
deduction.’
‘But how did this swap happen?’
Ian gave a short laugh. ‘You could explain it as a moment of madness, I suppose. Blame it on the wine and the sun. But the truth is more rational. All four of us got on very well, but as we travelled down through Italy, Annabel and John always wanted to go hiking up hillsides, whereas Diane and I preferred visiting churches and museums. It gradually became apparent that we were better suited with each other’s partners. The swap was natural. We were all happy with the arrangement.’
‘I see,’ said Bridget. ‘But how can I be sure you’re telling the truth?’
‘About what?’
‘About you being happy with the outcome of this romantic mix-and-match?’
‘Ah, I see what you’re getting at,’ said Ian, amused. ‘You think that I’ve secretly harboured a life-long resentment at being paired with Diane. Maybe you think that when I finally realised Daniel wasn’t my son, I exploded with jealousy. Like a volcano simmering for years – decades even – before erupting with fatal consequences. You think I murdered her because of jealousy.’ He was grinning at her now. ‘The thing is, all this is ancient history. First of all, I’ve suspected for a long time that John was Daniel’s father. Secondly, Diane never cheated on me. Daniel was conceived while she and John were still a couple. And thirdly, I split up with her almost ten years ago. So your theory really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.’
‘Then what about Annabel?’ asked Bridget. ‘Might she have deduced that Daniel was really John’s son?’
‘I’m sure she has. In fact, I suspect that she’s known it just as long as I have. Remember that she witnessed the onset of Huntington’s disease first-hand with John. If anyone could spot the same symptoms in Daniel, it’s surely her. But Annabel always treated Daniel as if he were her own child. Perhaps it was because she knew he was John’s. Perhaps because she and John didn’t have any children of their own.’
‘But it seems like Annabel drew the short straw with this partner swap arrangement. She could have married you, but instead she ended up with John who died from a terrible wasting disease.’
Ian shook his head. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree. Annabel was devoted to John. You should have seen the way she cared for him when he was dying. She nursed him tenderly right until the very end.’
Bridget stared glumly across the desk. She had come here convinced that she had finally uncovered the dark secret that lay at the heart of this mystery. Now that secret had been brought out into the light and held up for scrutiny, yet once again her hopes of solving the case had been dashed.
‘If anyone has grounds for complaint,’ said Ian, ‘it’s Louise. I’ve treated her badly.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Bridget. ‘How is Louise involved in this?’
Ian looked ashamed. ‘I said before that one of the reasons I left Diane was that I wanted to have more children.’
Bridget nodded. ‘Daniel mentioned it too.’
‘Did he? Okay. Well, when I married Louise, I really hoped – we both hoped – to start a family of our own. But it wasn’t meant to be.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘We tried several rounds of fertility treatment, but none of it came to anything. In the end we gave up. It was all too upsetting for Louise. Believing that Daniel was my son, she blamed herself for her failure to conceive.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I should have been honest with her.’
‘Well, perhaps it’s time to set the record straight,’ said Bridget. ‘Have you considered getting a paternity test?’
‘It’s crossed my mind. But sometimes we prefer not to know the truth. Isn’t that so?’
‘Maybe,’ said Bridget, ‘but Daniel has a right to know who his biological father is, especially given the possible implications for his health.’
Ian nodded his head slowly. ‘You’re right, Inspector. You’re absolutely right. It’s time for me to have some difficult conversations. I’ve put this off for far too long.’
33
Bridget left the hospital deep in thought. She had gone there believing Ian Dunn to be a murderer, but on her way out he had shaken her hand and thanked her. Her intervention had been the catalyst he needed to start talking openly about what had happened, and to begin to repair the damage that had been done so many years ago.
Good news, but where did that leave Bridget? She turned over the facts of the case as she walked back to the Mini.
She remained convinced that whoever had killed Diane had possessed a set of keys to her house. Who could that be? The most obvious candidate was still Daniel Dunn. Daniel had freely admitted to having a set of keys to the house, and perhaps that made him less likely to be the true killer. But on the other hand, Daniel was a highly intelligent individual, who must have known that owning up to the fact would help to deflect suspicion away from him. The fact that he had no alibi for the night of the murder, and that he knew his way around the house and garden, including the gate at the back of the property, definitely counted against him. Plus, as the sole beneficiary of Diane’s will, he was the only member of the family with an obvious motive to want her dead. A multi-million-pound motive.
Who else had a key? The only other person Bridget knew for certain was Annabel. But if Ian Dunn could be believed, Annabel had no feelings of jealousy towards her sister, and from what Bridget had observed, Annabel had been very fond of Diane. The regular messages and meetings that Ffion had uncovered on Diane’s phone confirmed that. Annabel didn’t benefit at all from Diane’s death, and besides, the set of keys she owned had gone missing. Had someone taken them?
A family member seemed the most obvious candidate for the theft. Daniel already had his own keys. Might Ian Dunn have taken them in order to kill his ex-wife? As Harry had remarked, as a hospital consultant, Ian would have easy access to a hypodermic syringe and the toxins that had been used to stop Diane’s heart. If so, he was a very cool customer, having just sat through a tough interview with Bridget. He had an alibi for the time of the murder, but it wasn’t watertight. Perhaps he could have driven back to Oxford from the party he had been attending in time to kill Diane. But the timings didn’t allow much room for that possibility.
Another obvious candidate was Professor Mansour Ali Al-Mutairi, Dean of the Blavatnik School. He had openly confessed to the personal animosity between himself and Diane and their bitter professional rivalry. Their political views were diametrically opposed, and it was quite possible that the publication of her book had been the last straw. Bridget knew that when someone believed that their cause was just, they were capable of anything, even murder. The professor had described to Bridget the cold-blooded execution of his father by Iraqi soldiers. When political convictions were forged through bitter personal experience, the resulting fervour could become toxic. But how could the professor have got hold of Diane’s key? Perhaps he had simply taken them from her office one day and had a copy made. It was as good an explanation as any.
Michael Dearlove, the journalist, had been Diane’s secret lover. If he had been in the habit of staying with Diane when he was visiting Oxford, then it was possible that she had given him his own keys so he could let himself into the house unseen. He had been at the meeting at the White Horse until an hour or so before the murder. That gave him plenty of time to have stopped off at Diane’s house, slipped inside, given her that fatal injection, and then driven home to his wife in London. But what was the motive? Bridget didn’t know of one.
Also at that meeting was Grant Sadler, the disgraced literary agent. Of all the people involved in this case, Grant was the least trustworthy. He had lied repeatedly to Bridget, and only under intense questioning had he finally admitted to sending the death threat. Bridget only had his word for it that Diane was a knowing participant in a publicity stunt. It was just as likely that Grant had made the threat in all seriousness, and then proceeded to carry it out. He had a very strong financial motive, and plenty of opportunity, having lied about h
is alibi. But how had he managed to obtain the keys to Diane’s house? That couldn’t be explained.
Then there was Jennifer Eagleston, the publisher, always greedy for more money. Cynical, grasping, willing to hold secret meetings and break contractual obligations if it meant she could get what she wanted. She too had no alibi, having left the White Horse at the same time as Michael and Grant. Nobody had witnessed her return to her hotel. She could just as easily have walked to Diane’s house instead. But, as with Grant Sadler, there was the question of the keys. How might Jennifer have got her hands on them?
There was always the possibility that Bridget had allowed herself to become fixated on the matter of the keys. If MI5 or someone working for the Saudi intelligence agency had carried out the murder, they might simply have picked the locks and entered the property without the need for a key. But then why bother to break the glass in the back door? Bridget’s head was beginning to spin with all the unknowns.
One thing she knew for sure – just as Ian Dunn could no longer postpone his difficult conversations about Daniel’s paternity, Bridget couldn’t continue to avoid Vanessa. It was time for her to face a tricky discussion of her own. She returned to her car and set off in the direction of North Oxford.
*
On arriving in Charlbury Road, Bridget was pleased to find Vanessa’s Range Rover parked on the drive outside her house. She was by no means looking forward to seeing her sister, but it would be easier to do it face-to-face rather than over the phone. She strongly suspected that this would be a very one-sided conversation. Vanessa would do most of the talking, and it would be Bridget’s job to listen attentively and take her sister’s concerns seriously.
She rang the bell and waited. After a full minute there was still no answer. But with spring in full blossom and summer on its way, perhaps Vanessa was outside. She was a keen gardener and at the height of the season her herbaceous borders rivalled anything that the Royal Horticultural Society might produce.