Simeon's Bride

by Alison G. Taylor

  ‘We do come across false allegations, you know. And allegations of sexual assault are always the hardest to deal with, because unless there is clearly identifiable forensic evidence, as in a rape, we must rely on testimony from others. Allegations of unspecified sexual assault are very easy to make, but very, very hard to prove or disprove.’

  She stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette, moving the crumpled butt round and round in the ashtray, making patterns in the grey ash. ‘D’you know what I thought as soon as the words were out of your mouth? I thought: this is Chris’s way of making sure Jenny never goes back to that house. Or to her mother!’ McKenna saw tears brimming her eyes. ‘Now d’you understand what I mean about twisted thinking?’

  Raincloud, dark and ponderous, massed over the city, diminishing daylight. ‘Put the light on will you, Jack? Like a cave in here,’ Owen Griffiths said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘We need an order to inspect Mrs Cheney’s bank account. The cheque book found on Jamie very likely belonged to her, but the bank manager’s being obstructive.’

  ‘When are you going to find out who topped the woman? And why couldn’t Jamie’ve killed her and then himself? That would be nice and tidy.’

  ‘I don’t see why he should suddenly decide to do away with himself,’ Jack said. ‘Not after all this time.’

  ‘It could’ve been accidental. Whatever it was, you’re not getting very far, are you? It’s all “might have” and “maybe” and “perhaps” and “if this” and “if that”. Look at things from my point of view, Jack. You’ve got people accusing each other of just about every perversion known to man, and not a shred of hard evidence one way or another to prove any of it. Now you want a court order to go snooping in somebody’s bank account.’

  ‘What would you have us do, sir?’ Jack asked. ‘We can’t make bricks without straw. We’ve got plenty of straw, but it’s all the wrong sort … just blows about’

  ‘Don’t ask me. You and McKenna and that lad Prys are supposed to be the detectives.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be in overall charge, aren’t you? Keeping tabs on things, making sure we don’t waste valuable police time, or upset our sensitive public, or make general arseholes of ourselves!’

  Owen Griffiths stared. ‘McKenna rattled your cage, has he? He’s very good at that … Lifetime of practice, I shouldn’t wonder. You shouldn’t let him get under your skin. A lot of people make that mistake. If you simply ignore some of his remarks, it’s better for everybody. He’s not a particularly happy man.’

  ‘He’s not happy? He makes bloody sure nobody else is, as well!’

  ‘Yes, well that’s as maybe. But I’m quite sure you can take care of yourself. You work well together most of the time, don’t you? We don’t want to let a tiff ruin a good partnership. It’ll blow over, sure as a gale from the west blows itself out.’

  With rare recourse to figurative speech, Jack said, ‘And as soon as one gale blows itself out, there’s another one out at sea ready to give you a battering.’

  ‘Exactly! So you trim your sails, don’t you? Other people’s emotions can take us into stormy waters … very treacherous waters. If you want to spend your days tacking along inshore, nice and quiet and safe, you shouldn’t set sail with them in the first place.’

  Working systematically through the files on the death of Romy Cheney, Dewi discarded all but the strictly relevant, disposing of red herrings as a trawlerman might discard unmarketable fish from the night’s catch, even jettisoning the sleek grey car which had driven in and out of the investigation, making holes in its fabric so the pattern became torn and impossible to decipher. Left only with money and greed to consider, he told the manager of the bank in Leeds that a court order to inspect the account would put the bank and the police to a great deal of inconvenience. ‘And I don’t know, sir,’ he added, ‘but what your head office might not get upset about it, and say why didn’t you just tell us what we want to know without all the palaver.’

  ‘And what do you want to know?’

  ‘How much money is left in the account?’

  ‘One pound thirty seven pence.’

  ‘When was the last withdrawl?’

  ‘Friday last week.’

  ‘How much was taken out?’

  ‘Six hundred pounds.’

  ‘Cash or transfer to another account somewhere?’

  ‘Cash. From a machine.’

  ‘Any savings account in the same name? With you or any other bank?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Which machine was used?’

  ‘Our branch in Bangor.’

  Dewi grinned at his reflection in the computer screen. ‘You’ve been most helpful, sir. I can’t thank you enough. Just one last thing. We need cancelled cheques for handwriting analysis. You wouldn’t want us making a blunder over thinking somebody got at one of your accounts when they shouldn’t. People want to know the banks won’t let any Tom, Dick or Harriet empty an account without checking the money’s going to the rightful person, don’t they? So we’ll expect all the cancelled cheques from the last four years. And statement copies, and records of standing orders. You should be able to get them in the post today. Mark the envelope for Chief Inspector McKenna.’

  ‘We don’t keep cheques that far back. And accounts are databased.’

  ‘Microfiche copies of the cheques will do nicely, sir.’ Dewi heard the man breathing fast and heavy, as if he had run a race. ‘Before you ring off, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’ The man sounded as if he chewed glass.

  ‘You keep individual data files on your customers, don’t you? Personal details as well as account information? So, we’ll have disk copies of everything to give us a nice full picture.’

  Chapter 32

  Jenny, apparently oblivious to her aunt’s drawn and anxious face, the undertones of tension in the small front room of the bungalow, looked relaxed, even happy. Unless, McKenna thought, she was merely doing what Serena said children do, and hiding her feelings.

  ‘Is my father all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ McKenna tried to summon a smile. ‘Yes, he’s quite well.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She tucked her feet underneath her bottom.

  McKenna willed her not to ask about her mother; at least, not for the time being. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m all right. I should be at school, really, but Aunt Serena arranged for me to stay off.’

  Smiling back at the child, McKenna had coldness in the pit of his stomach, knowing he might destroy all she held dear, all that bound her world together. That she might want him to sever those bonds did not occur to him, for he saw himself as a corrosive personality, as destructive as her own mother, bitterness from his soul poisoning whatever it touched. Cloudy daylight filtered through the curtain nets at Serena’s bay window, but the light McKenna saw upon himself was harsh and bright, divested of the holy love apportioned alike to saint and sinner. Sin must be cast out, but he thought one must first recognize the disguises sin wrapped about itself before it might be rejected, and wondered why his church only told of that sinful by any standard, but kept its peace about the other dark things, the gall of loneliness, the tragedy of lost hope, which spread tentacles and squirted acids and wreaked destruction more terrible and profound than any knife or bullet or noose.

  Jenny stared, waiting for him to speak. Serena rose suddenly, saying, ‘I’ll make another drink,’ before picking up the tray and hurrying from the room.

  ‘Have you seen my mother?’ Jenny queried.

  ‘Not since the other day.’

  ‘I wondered if she’d gone away, only I can’t think where she’d go.’

  ‘Why should you think that?’

  ‘She wasn’t there, was she?’

  ‘Wasn’t where?’

  ‘At home, of course.’ Her voice was a little sharp, as if he were stupid. ‘I went there yesterday with Aunty Serena because I wanted to get more clothes and my diary and things. There
was nobody in.’

  McKenna watched her. ‘Did you go into the house?’

  ‘Of course we did. Daddy gave me a key ages ago.’

  ‘Perhaps your mother was shopping at Safeways. They open on Sundays.’

  ‘The house was very cold, so I don’t think the heating had been on at all.’ She uncurled her legs, stretching down to massage the cramped muscles. ‘Anyway, it didn’t matter because I had a key.’

  ‘What time was this, Jenny?’

  She frowned. ‘I’m not sure. Before we saw Daddy. We went there straight from the station.’

  Serena returned with a tray of drinks and sandwiches and cake. ‘What time did we go home yesterday?’ Jenny asked her. ‘I was telling Mr McKenna how Mummy was out.’

  ‘I don’t know, dear.’ Serena put the tray down. ‘One o’clock? Half past? Some time around then.’ Still leaning over the coffee table, she looked at McKenna. ‘You don’t want to talk about Gwen’s to-ings and fro-ings, do you?’ she said.

  ‘No.’ He turned to Jenny. Anxiety began to stretch over her features, distorting their youth and serenity. She turned her gaze to Serena, and saw there the same gravity. ‘What is it?’ she whimpered. ‘What’s happened? Has something happened to Mummy?’

  ‘No,’ McKenna repeated. ‘Nor to your father.’

  ‘Why are you both looking at me like that?’

  Serena put her hand on McKenna’s arm. He was aware of its strength and its softness. ‘Leave this to me,’ she said. Jenny kept her eyes on McKenna’s face, knowing that although Serena might be the messenger, his was the message.

  ‘Mr McKenna’s been told something, Jenny, and he has to ask you about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Why did children always ask ‘why’, McKenna wondered.

  ‘Because you’re the only person who can tell him if it’s true or not,’ Serena said.

  ‘Oh.’ Jenny leaned back. ‘I see,’ she said. Then, looking at McKenna still, she corrected herself. ‘No, I don’t see.’

  McKenna lit a cigarette, then offered one to Serena. She shook her head. ‘Jenny—’ he began. ‘Jenny, I have been told you may have been a victim of abuse.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ The frown returned, drawing two little lines between her eyebrows. ‘What sort of abuse? Somebody cursing me?’

  ‘No.’ McKenna felt himself floundering, while at the back of his mind, a little voice nagged, asking if a girl of this age could be so naive, or was it not more likely she played for time? ‘I was told you may have been subject to sexual abuse.’

  She stared at him blankly. Serena intervened. ‘To put it bluntly, dear, even though I don’t particularly want to, Mr McKenna was told somebody might’ve interfered with you. Touched your private parts. Even tried to have sex with you.’ She reached for a cigarette from McKenna’s open packet. He noticed the long fingers trembling and fumbling. ‘It grieves us both to have to ask you, Jenny, but there’s no choice.’

  Jenny began to shudder: her shoulders, her hands, her whole body shaking and rattling its teeth and bones. She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘No!’ Her voice, a whisper, sussurated around the room, echoing from the sculpted ceiling, down the walls, trembling in the air. ‘NO!’ she screamed. ‘It’s not true!’

  ‘Stop it!’ Serena raised her voice. ‘Stop it this minute!’

  ‘It’s not true!’ Tears flowed down Jenny’s cheeks, as if a river of grief had finally burst its banks. ‘It’s a wicked, wicked lie!’

  McKenna let the cold in his heart have its way with his feelings, shrivelling and withering the tatters of humanity left there. ‘Have you been abused in any way? In the way your aunt suggested, or in any other way? Beaten? Kept hungry or cold? Anything?’

  ‘No!’ The girl looked at him as if he were the most odious creature ever to draw breath. ‘No! No! No!’

  ‘Behave yourself, Jenny!’ Serena warned. ‘Mr McKenna’s got a job to do, and it’s no nicer for him than it is for you. Children are abused. They get raped and beaten and starved, and even killed, and the police have to deal with it. I expect you to help, not hinder.’

  ‘I know, ‘Jenny said. ‘I know what happens to kids. You read about it all the time … we had a girl in school who’d been put in a children’s home because her father raped her.’

  ‘Quite.’ Serena lit the cigarette she had been holding. ‘So you know perfectly well what we’re talking about, and there’s no need for all this performance. Or for being coy.’ She turned to McKenna. ‘There’s no point treating Jenny like a wilting flower. You can only protect people from so much. I’ve always thought Chris was over-protected. Everybody was too nice to him, and look where it’s got us all.’

  ‘If you know what I’m talking about, Jenny,’ McKenna asked, ‘why react so violently? Why pretend you didn’t know?’

  The girl looked from him to her aunt, like a cornered animal. McKenna wondered how long it would be before Serena ate her own last words, and told him to stop the torture. Instead, she said, ‘You may as well tell us, dear. I don’t really think you’ll be telling Mr McKenna anything he doesn’t already know. It has to come from you, though. It’s no good coming from anybody else.’

  Jenny pulled a wad of snow-white tissues from her sleeve, and wiped her face dry, slowly and carefully. ‘Who told you?’ she asked McKenna. ‘Was it my mother?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who told you?’

  ‘Why does it matter who?’ Serena asked. ‘What matters is whether there’s any truth in it.’

  ‘I’ve a right to know!’ The girl’s face pinked. ‘I’ve a right to know who’s saying things like that about me. Have you any idea what people say about girls who get raped? They call them tarts and whores and slags, and I’m not!’

  ‘Nobody’s calling you anything?’ Serena’s voice was firm, even sharp. ‘Will you stop prevaricating, and answer Mr McKenna.’

  McKenna intervened. ‘Your father told me yesterday. He said your mother made allegations about him to Mrs Cheney.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’ Relief smoothed her face, took the harsh edge from her voice.

  ‘All right? How can it be all right? Don’t be ridiculous, child!’ Serena was astounded.

  ‘Mummy told Romy Cheney all sorts of silly lies about Daddy and Mr Prosser.’ She paused, gathering her thoughts. ‘I didn’t understand, but I knew Mummy was saying horrible things about Daddy. ‘Except…’

  ‘Except what?’ McKenna prompted.

  She drew a deep breath. ‘These were sort of more horrible, if you see what I mean. And then …’ Her voice faded away again. McKenna waited, watching Serena, who stared fixedly at the girl. Jenny drew another breath, and McKenna heard it catch in her throat like a sob. ‘Mummy told these lies, then Mrs Cheney got me on my own at the cottage. That’s why I went there. Mummy went upstairs, and Mrs Cheney started pumping me about Daddy and Mr Prosser, and I kept telling her ‘No’ and saying I didn’t understand.’ Silence fell, punctuated by tense and laboured breathing. ‘Mrs Cheney said if I didn’t understand she had to make me. She said Daddy and Mr Prosser could go to prison for ever, and if I didn’t tell her the truth, somebody would come and take me away and lock me up in a children’s home until I did talk. She—’ Jenny broke off, looking up at McKenna, with defiance glittering in her eyes. ‘Mrs Cheney showed me exactly what she was talking about, Mr McKenna. She touched me, asked me if Daddy or Mr Prosser ever did the same. She explained about sex, very clearly. She even showed me a magazine with photographs in it so there couldn’t be any mistake. And all the time, I could hear Mummy wandering about upstairs, walking from room to room and opening and shutting drawers and cupboards. Mrs Cheney told me abusing children was a dreadful thing, and how no man would ever fall in love with me if he couldn’t be sure I hadn’t been raped by Daddy or Mr Prosser. And I hated her because she made me feel so dirty. She had no right to do that, and I’m glad she’s dead because she can’t ever do it to anybody else. And my mother let her. M
y mother let Romy Cheney do that to me, and I’ll never, ever, forgive her for it.’

  McKenna walked into his office to find Owen Griffiths sitting behind the desk.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you, Michael. Where’ve you been?’

  McKenna dropped his briefcase on the desk. ‘In Rhyl.’ His voice was curt.

  ‘Yes, I know you went to Rhyl. What for?’

  ‘To see Jenny Stott and her aunt.’

  ‘I see.’ The superintendent fiddled with a pencil. ‘Am I permitted to know the outcome?’

  ‘Nothing you need concern yourself with.’

  Griffiths stood up, his face whitening. ‘I’ve had it up to here with you and this bloody investigation! Jack Tuttle’s on the point of asking for a transfer because you’ve been using him for a punchbag, and Dewi Prys is going off right, left and centre like a machine gun with its sodding trigger jammed!’

  ‘What’s Dewi done?’

  ‘He’s only gone and put the screws on some high-up bank manager in Leeds, hasn’t he? There was no need. We were asking for a court order!’

  ‘Perhaps he’s as sick of waiting for things to happen as you are,’ McKenna said. ‘I’ll tell him to curb his enthusiasm if I think it necessary.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘What else would you like me to do?’

  ‘Jenny told her father what Romy Cheney and Gwen Stott had cooked up between them the weekend it happened. Stott had the best motive of all for killing the woman,’ McKenna said. ‘In fact, I’d say he’s the only person who did have one.’

  ‘That we know about, sir,’ Dewi said. ‘My money’s on that wife of his, though I can’t understand why nobody’s bumped her off. She’s poison.’

  ‘At least we’ve got grounds for questioning her. You never know what she might let slip. That leaves us with the problem of what to do with her husband. I think we’ll keep him where he is for the time being. He’s less likely to come to harm that way.’

  ‘We’ve still only got people saying things about each other. And people tell lies.’