by Ann Troup
‘You want to come in for a drink, boss?’ Angie asked, undoing her seat belt.
He glanced at his watch. It had been a long day, and the wife would complain that he was late again. ‘Sure, why not? But don’t call me boss.’
‘OK, guv,’ she said with a grin.
He laughed. She could be quite funny when she wasn’t being overzealous.
Inside she offered him a beer, deftly cracking off the cap on the side of the sink. He was impressed. ‘Party trick?’
She shook her head. ‘Nah, lost the bottle opener. Cheers,’ she said raising her bottle to her mouth and taking a good long slug.
Ratcliffe grinned and followed suit. ‘So, here we are, drinking beer, in your kitchen.’ He was sure he shouldn’t be. He should have been going home to Maria and at least attempting to be a decent husband. But if he was honest, Angie was better company and Maria would have made him drink the beer from a glass.
Angie shrugged. ‘Can drink it in the lounge if you want. I have chairs.’
He followed her through and perched himself on the edge of a large leather sofa. ‘Nice place.’
‘Thanks. Is it me, or have we just had a bloody strange day?’
‘Oddest I’ve never known. Mind if I recap? You can correct me if I’m wrong.’
‘Fire away, guv, fire away.’
‘OK, let me see if I’ve got this right. The mother was barking, lost the plot. The father is a drunk, a waste of space. Frances is a spoilt bitch, Stella is the Cinderella character. Right?’
Angie nodded and handed him another beer.
‘Porter had been interfering with Stella for years and the mother turns a blind eye to it. There has been one pregnancy when Stella was thirteen, which explains our dead baby. Ferris says stillborn; Stella says smothered at birth by Valerie. The clothes he was found in were the clothes intended for Valerie’s child, the one she miscarried. When Stella is sixteen, there’s another baby: Rachel. Stella leaves school, ends up working in the shop behind the scenes so no one knows she’s pregnant, and the mother – sorry, stepmother – takes the kid on and passes her off as her own. Have I got this right?’
‘That’s the way I heard it boss,’ Angie said with a shudder.
‘Right, so, Valerie’s had enough of the old man’s shenanigans when she finds out he’s having a go at Frances, so she boots him out and pretends he’s dead. But Stella looks out for him, gives him money, takes him food, lets him live in the flat above the shop until he takes to the streets. By the way, we have some explaining to do to DI Benton about the fact we missed the flat above the shop. She is not going to like that one bit.’
‘Fuck Benton – we did our best. What I don’t get is how Stella could look after the guy when he’d done that to her – her own father for Christ’s sake. Makes me want to vomit!’ Angie said with another shudder. She had seen the man in the psychiatric unit: a filthy old drunk. In her private and unprofessional opinion, he should be shot and she’d said as much to Ratcliffe more than once that day.
‘I know, I know, difficult to stomach. The only thing I can think of is that he was the only one left out of her old life. Let’s face it – she is one seriously fucked up individual. Whatever the truth, we aren’t going to get a conviction out of this, so she’ll be going to Broadmoor.’
‘Well at least we know what happened to the baby, poor little sod. I don’t know about you but I don’t believe that Valerie smothered him. I think Ferris is right. Besides, if Valerie wanted a boy, she would have kept him and smothered Rachel, right? And why did she keep Rachel?’
Ratcliffe pulled a face. ‘Don’t suppose we’ll ever know. Besides it’s all semantics really. Even if Stella is telling the truth, there isn’t anyone to bring to book.’
‘What about Roy Baxter? Do you buy her version of events there?’ Angie wanted to know.
Ratcliffe rubbed his forehead and exhaled slowly. ‘Don’t know, but she’s still the prime suspect even though she insists it wasn’t her. I kind of want to believe her though,’ he said, looking at Angie for affirmation of his instincts.
Angie scoffed. ‘What? You want to believe all that about him having a fling with Charlie Jones’s wife and planning to leave, and her being relieved. I mean, come on, she claims that Valerie practically sold her to Baxter with the promise of money he soon found out didn’t exist! I can accept it was a loveless marriage and all, but her story isn’t exactly an alibi; in fact it’s more of a motive than anything else.’
‘I think she genuinely believed that he left her. She hated him all right, and I can’t say I blame her. But, if she is a killer, why not kill Valerie? She made her life more of a misery than Baxter ever did.’
Angie threw herself back in the chair, defeated. ‘I don’t know, guv. I can’t make head or tail of any of it. It’s the weirdest story I’ve ever heard. That’s a fact.’
‘You’re not wrong there, kid. Got any more of that beer going?’
‘Yeah, but you’re driving aren’t you?’
He gave her a sly grin. ‘Thought I might commandeer your sofa tonight?’
Angie shook her head and fetched him another drink. ‘No wonder your wife doesn’t bloody understand you!’
***
Stella contemplated the meal the custody sergeant had just deposited in front of her. A shrivelled beef burger, some congealed beans and a scoop of mashed potato, all served unceremoniously on a paper plate. He handed her a plastic knife and fork and she thanked him. Though it was possibly the most unappetising food she had ever been faced with, she ate it anyway. Better to force it down than stay hungry. She had a morbid fear of hunger. Withdrawing food had been one of Valerie’s favourite punishments.
After she had eaten, and placed the plastic cutlery neatly on top of the plate on the shelf near the cell door, she lay on the hard bunk, rolling up the blanket to make a pillow. They had taken her shoes, her coat and her belt. Anything that she might have used to hurt herself with. Curling herself into a tight, foetal ball, she went back over what she had told the police that day.
She had told them the truth. Of course, they were shocked about her relationship with her father. Nevertheless, she loved him – despite all his faults, she loved him. And he loved her. Though now he didn’t even know who she was. Was it so wrong to seek comfort in the people one loved? By the looks on their faces it was. She had always known that other people wouldn’t understand. Her father had told her that. They would impose wrongness on it, he’d said. He was right – they had.
Valerie had never prevented it, but she must have known. Wasn’t it her jealousy of it that had driven her to do the things she did? It must have been or she would never have taken the babies the way she had.
The first one had been a shock. She had known that something was happening to her body. She was getting fat, which was hard in a house where food was a bargaining chip. No one had noticed, not until the pains had started and she had thought she was going to die. Valerie had made Frances hold a rag in her mouth to stop her screaming during the birth and there had been a lot of pain, and a lot of blood.
She had never seen the baby. It had never cried and neither had she. She didn’t even know it was a boy until she had read the paper. She had cried then. Had whispered it into her father’s ear the next time she saw him, but he had just stared at her, his eyes blank.
Rachel had been different. She had known then what was happening, had hidden it too, but had known what was making her belly swell. Valerie had noticed more quickly that time, had pulled her out of school, had fed her and made her rest, and then taken the baby for her own, stealing her away in the night and keeping her for herself. They were such hazy memories now. She often wondered if any of it had happened at all.
Her father had not been pleased. He had turned away from her and wouldn’t look at her. He just drank. He wouldn’t speak to anyone, only Frances. Stella had hated Frances even more for that. She hadn’t been allowed to touch the baby and she wasn’t allowed to see her fat
her. Then Valerie threw him out because she had found him in Frances’s room.
He had stayed in the flat for a while, taking her money, eating the food she took for him, drinking the brandy she left by the door. But he didn’t love her any more. Wouldn’t even look at her. Valerie had found out about the flat and had made him leave. He’d lived on the streets then, but she’d still looked after him. Until he disappeared. It had taken her years to find out where he’d gone, but she’d gone to him as soon as she’d found out.
They hadn’t believed her about Roy – she knew that for sure. They still thought that she’d killed him. It wasn’t true, though she had thought about it a few times. Valerie had made her marry him because he’d thought they had money. Valerie had thought vice versa. She was easily taken in by a well-cut suit and a flash car, but that was all there was to Roy. Just a car, some clothes, and a temper.
He had been a builder, had taken Charlie Jones on as his little acolyte, enjoying the role of teacher and mentor, enjoying the fact that he could seduce Charlie’s girlfriend with practised ease. Patsy hadn’t been the first, and she wasn’t the only one either. Even Frances had chased after him like a lovesick puppy, giving Stella snide glances as she flirted with him. She’d flirted with Charlie too. It hadn’t bothered Stella, as long as they all left her alone.
She had stood in court and given evidence against Charlie Jones, not just because it was the right thing to do – she had seen him kneeling by Patsy’s body holding the knife after all. No, it hadn’t been just that, she had been angry too. Roy had been planning to leave with Patsy and she had wanted that, wanted to be free of him, and in killing Patsy, Charlie had robbed her of that freedom. It was only fair that she played her part in robbing him of his. Only fair. Life was as fair as you made it, Valerie had always said.
When Roy disappeared a few months later, she had felt nothing but relief. She had never questioned his leaving. In the weeks after Patsy’s death, he had been a mess, showing a depth of grief that had surprised her. She hadn’t realised he was capable of love – or the kind of cruelty the loss of it had brought out in him.
When he had gone the space he’d occupied in their lives had closed subtly and succinctly. It was as if he had never existed. No one talked about him, and no one grieved his absence. Not even Frances, who had been his biggest fan.
Life had consisted of the shop, of home, of Rachel, of keeping her father alive, of tolerating Valerie, of avoiding Frances whenever possible, of being civil to Frances’s pompous fiancé Peter, and being rude to Rachel’s nasty little boyfriend. Then Lila had died, Valerie had smelled money, and Rachel had run away. It had broken her heart when she found out that Rachel had married Charlie Jones and that she would never see her again.
It was only a few years ago that she had found out what Valerie had done to drive Rachel away. Valerie had been particularly unpleasant to deal with. Her health was failing and she was eaten up with bitterness. She would goad, push and poke at Stella at every opportunity. The best strategy with Valerie was never to bite, never to acknowledge the sting of her words.
Stella had tried to walk away that day, but Valerie liked to win and had played her trump card, spewing out the lie she had told that had sent Rachel away. Then she had laughed in Stella’s face. She could see Valerie now in her mind’s eye, cackling like a witch, head thrown back, showing her rotten yellow teeth, pointing her skinny crooked finger and crowing.
It had felt like a piece of elastic had snapped in her brain, a sharp, painful twang that had released her from the quiet reason she had always known. Something unfamiliar and liberating had sent her across the room towards that hideous gaping hole of a mouth. It had forced her to pick up a cushion and press it with all her might against the source of that torturous noise. She had kept it there until the skinny arms had stopped clawing at her and had sagged to the old woman’s sides. Only then did she take the cushion away so that she could spit in the face that had caused her so much misery.
Valerie hadn’t died, but she’d had a stroke. Her face had collapsed in a horror mask of shock and disbelief. Stella had watched dispassionately as her tormentor had fought to get out of the chair, her face creasing with confusion as her body and her voice refused to do her bidding. When she was sure that Valerie wasn’t going to regain her speech, Stella had called an ambulance. It was a day later, she thought. She couldn’t be sure. She had spent such a long time watching. She hadn’t told the police about the cushion or the lie, just that Valerie had a stroke and that she had closed the shop to care for her.
And care for her she had, in that mouldering old house. Just the two of them – Valerie silent at last with just her own thoughts for company, Stella at peace with her world though it was decaying around her ears. It was surprising how little money two people could survive on, especially when Valerie ate so little. Just porridge, twice a day, every day. Cheap and nutritious, at least that had been what Valerie had told Stella when she’d fed it to her as a child. If you economised on one person, the other could have more. Stella had whatever she wanted, and ate it in front of Valerie. She had learned a lot from Valerie over the years. Everything she knew about looking after those less fortunate than herself had come from her stepmother’s example.
Valerie had died all on her own. Another stroke. And Stella had been free for a little while. She had walked out of the house the day of the funeral, after Frances and Peter had left. She knew there would be trouble as soon as Peter found out there would be no inheritance, not then anyway. There had been no reason to stay. So, she had gone to the flat and sought out her father to tell him the good news.
Then her face had been in the newspaper. She had read the article and come to the quiet conclusion that there was no peace for the wicked. After all, hadn’t her whole life been just such a cliché?
***
Ratcliffe lay on Angie’s sofa, zipped uncomfortably into a too-warm sleeping bag and wearing just his underpants. He had phoned Maria and left a message telling her he would not be home that night. She was used to it, so used to it she didn’t even bother to stay home and wait for him any more. God knows where she was when he’d rung, probably at some Pilates class or at her book group.
After the day he’d had, even Angie’s sofa had more appeal than a night in front of the TV with a microwave meal and his own company. Even when Maria did come home she would just shake her head at him over the mess he’d made, then take herself off up to bed in the spare room where she would spend the night banging on the wall to interrupt his snoring.
He didn’t know why he stayed really, or why she did for that matter. He guessed that neither of them had anywhere better to be, either that or it didn’t occur to them to look. He didn’t want to think about Maria any more; he always felt so guilty when he did. He turned his thoughts back to the case.
When he thought about the Porter clan he figured he ought to count himself lucky. His lacklustre marriage was a walk in the park compared to that melting pot of iniquity. The story that Stella had told beggared belief and left him in a difficult situation. She had accused her father of incest, but the man was old and sick, hardly able to withstand arrest let alone trial.
Besides, though she had made the claim she didn’t see it as the real crime of her past. In Stella’s mind, Valerie had been the real abuser. The whole business left a sour taste in Ratcliffe’s mouth and for the first time since he had worked for her he had to concur that his boss’s instincts about this case had been good – DI Benton had steered well clear of it.
However, Stella still hadn’t confessed to the murder of her husband. They couldn’t legitimately hold her much longer without charging her, so either way, confession or not, he would have to charge her the next day. He glanced up at the clock, and saw that it was already the next day.
Chapter 18
Amy sat on the steps of the building where her mother lived, aware that the woman in the café was sending surreptitious glances at her from across the road. In less t
han twenty-four hours, everything that Amy had ever been certain of had turned on its head, and she didn’t know what to do.
The door behind her clicked open and a small, elderly woman made her way down the steps towing an excitable little dog. She gave Amy a disproving glance as she passed.
‘Come along, Miffy, we shall go for our walk in the park, where there are benches for people to sit on,’ the woman said loudly as she made off down the road, her raised chin showing an indignant profile.
Amy glanced backwards and noticed that the door was still easing shut. Without thinking she hurtled up the steps and caught it a fraction of a second before it closed. Without looking behind her, she slipped quietly into the building and found herself in a large hallway. The house was immensely quiet after the busy rush of the London street and now that she was inside she was undecided about her next move.
She walked along the silent passageway, noting the number of the first door. Her mother’s flat must be upstairs. Like a thief she made her way up the stairs, expecting that at any moment someone would leap out and start yelling at her. But the hushed house presented no unpleasant surprises. Except for the dried blood on the landing floor, smeared and dirty from many feet.
The door to her mother’s flat stood ajar. A thin strip of crime scene tape had been stuck across the doorframe as if it would actually keep anyone out. Checking once more to be sure that some silent, stealthy witness wasn’t observing her, Amy ducked under the tape and walked into the flat. Opposite the front door was a kitchen, the floor of which was thickly covered in trampled, congealing blood.
She stared at it for a long time, unable to establish the name of any emotion she could attach to the scene. The blood looked so incongruous, juxtaposed as it was against a backdrop of faded 1950s domesticity. All china and chintz, it looked like a murder scene set from a ropey Agatha Christie film. It occurred to her that a pool of blood on the floor would never look congruent, no matter what the setting.