by Ann Troup
Actually, that last was a fair point. Charlie had already puzzled over Rachel’s sudden reappearance. It was as if Frances didn’t know why Rachel had left. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I figured she needed you back to do something about the house, sell it or whatever. I don’t know, but you’re right, it doesn’t make sense.’
‘Do you think she did kill Roy?’
‘No idea – I was in prison at the time, remember? You were there, what do you think?’ It came out with more grit than he had intended.
Rachel turned her head away, and bit her lip.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that to come out the way it did. I meant, what do you remember about when Roy went missing?’ He had a hair trigger where the past was concerned and his manner always ran away with his mouth.
The answer was, not a lot. ‘One day he was there; the next he was gone. After…’ she hesitated ‘…well, after Patsy he kind of lost the plot. I suppose I just figured he’d left. Let’s face it: no one was sorry to see him go. He wasn’t missed. I never questioned it. You know what it was like in that house. No one asked questions – we just made the best of it.’ She turned her head towards him. He’d fallen asleep while she’d been talking. ‘Charlie?’
That was all it had ever taken for him, his head on a pillow for a few minutes. Was that how sleep happened for people with a clear conscience?
Chapter 29
Diana didn’t like Delia Jones. Fact. It had taken just a few seconds for her to form her first impression of the woman, and it hadn’t gone well.
First, Diana didn’t hold with kitsch. Delia’s house was full of it, and she had the distinct impression that it was a front. There was so much junk in the house that every item jostled with the next, clamouring for attention. On first sight, Diana had noticed a hard streak in Delia Jones, which clashed with the way she presented herself, as if the little trinkets and ornaments that cluttered every surface were a distraction from the woman’s real nature. Diana was an excellent judge of character. She had to be. She dealt with difficult people on a daily basis and had honed her ability to sum people up into a fine art.
Delia Jones did not pass muster.
Second, Diana noticed that Delia was instantly wary of her, and didn’t appear to like the fact that Rachel had an ally. She had gushed a little too strenuously about how pleased she was that Rachel had found friends in London.
Third, Delia served cheap tea, made from cheap teabags, in chunky china mugs – anathema to Diana, who would rather drink pond water from a jam jar than tolerate a poor quality teabag. It was an idiosyncratic thing, and she would normally have let it go. But in this instance it sealed her opinion of Delia, who was relegated to the category of all fake fur coat and no knickers.
Given that Diana was a guest in the woman’s house, it did not bode well for her stay. A fact categorically confirmed by Delia’s decision to put her in the peach and green themed bedroom, which sported a very soft and noisy bed, which had been made up with slightly damp nylon sheets. The combination of the colours in the room and the sensation of the bedding against her skin put Diana’s teeth firmly on edge all night. Consequently, she did not sleep well, and was uncharacteristically grumpy in the morning.
Delia’s idea of breakfast was a cup of the abysmal tea and three Benson & Hedges. Amy had helped herself to sliced white toast with margarine, and offered some to Diana, who refused, claiming that she wasn’t a breakfast person though she could have murdered a cup of Earl Grey and a bowl of All Bran. Not that she considered herself a snob, well not much of one; it was just that she felt that it was important to appreciate good-quality food. It was doubly ridiculous to her that a child died of starvation every three seconds somewhere in the world so that the people of the West could eat sliced white fluff spread with copious quantities of axle grease.
‘So, Di, how do you think Rachel will bear up today, when the police start questioning her?’ Delia asked, whilst slowly exhaling a stream of smoke that hung like toxic fog over the table.
‘It’s Diana. I’m hoping she’ll cope well; after all it’s not as if she hasn’t had considerable practice at managing stress,’ she replied with forced politeness, battling the urge to wave her hand like a fan and clear the air.
‘So that’s why you’re here is it, to support her?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I think she needs people in her corner, don’t you?’
Amy was looking from one to the other, a piece of limp toast poised in her hand. Diana surmised that she might have picked up some of the thinly veiled animosity that was prickling the air between herself and Delia.
‘In fact, I think I’d like to get round there and see her as soon as possible. Are you coming, Amy?’
Delia raised an eyebrow and took another puff on her cigarette.
Diana was up, gathering her things, whilst Amy crammed toast into her mouth and tried to catch up. ‘Thank you so much for letting me stay. It was very kind of you,’ Diana said with as much grace as she could manage on an empty stomach.
‘Any time,’ Delia said, stubbing out her cigarette and immediately lighting another one, much to Diana’s disgust.
Amy ran upstairs to collect her bag, leaving Diana waiting impatiently by the door, basic etiquette dictating that she couldn’t leave and wait outside.
Delia pointed her cigarette at her. ‘Just a word of warning, Di – I’ve known Rachel a long time. She has her problems. She doesn’t, well how can I put it, always see things the way they are. I expect it’s to do with her having fits and that. Must do something to your head over time.’
Diana narrowed her eyes and frowned. ‘What exactly are you saying?’
‘Just that things aren’t always as they seem, that’s all,’ Delia said with a shrug, just as Amy came down the stairs.
‘Right, I’m ready,’ Amy said, hauling her bag onto her shoulder and heading for the door. ‘See you later, Gran. Thanks for letting us stay.’
Delia smiled at her granddaughter, but her cold stare was directed straight at Diana.
Diana could only conclude that Delia had spotted something in her, some quality that she didn’t like. Probably the fact that Diana had made no secret of the fact that she wasn’t falling for the sweet old granny act. Delia Jones might be a lot of things, but sweet old granny she wasn’t. Since the moment they had met, each had instinctively been testing the other’s mettle. One thing Diana was sure about was that Delia Jones was not concerned about Rachel’s welfare, and she had more than a vested interest in the outcome of the girl’s return. Diana had met many Delias over the years. They were hard women who had lived hard lives. They were a breed apart and their motivations weren’t always immediately clear.
From what she’d been able to gather, Delia’s history was closely woven with Rachel’s, and that of her family. Amy had told her a lot on the train journey yesterday, but not enough for Diana to have a completely accurate picture of what had led Rachel and her family to this point. Besides, it had been the Delia version. Amy had stressed that Charlie never talked about the past.
According to Amy, her grandmother had been the single stable influence in the dysfunctional Porter family, her loyalty and hard work being the only things that had kept the household functioning at all. Valerie had been a neurotic drunk, Stella a mental case, Frances a prima donna of delusional proportions, and Rachel a poor victim of all their machinations.
Amy explained that her grandmother had agreed to work for Valerie as a favour, an act of support for an old childhood friend who was down on her luck. She had stayed because she was worried what might happen if she left. Charlie had just been sucked into the family as a matter of course and Delia had painted herself as the old family retainer who had been ill paid for her efforts.
Diana didn’t buy it. There was much more to Delia Jones’s involvement with the Porters than could be explained away by a glib memoir recounted to a loyal grandchild.
For instance, why on earth had Delia maintained links with the
family after Charlie’s conviction? Surely, no amount of loyalty to an old friend, or concern for Rachel, could have withstood the betrayal of her own child.
Then there was Charlie. Diana had developed good instincts about dangerous men. She had dealt with the fallout of domestic violence for enough years to spot an arsehole a mile off. Charlie was not a dangerous man, definitely not a killer, though she was reserving judgement on whether or not he was an arsehole.
No, there was something very dark at the centre of this situation. If only for Rachel’s sake, Diana was going to find out what it was.
***
DS Ratcliffe and DC Watson got out of the car and approached the two uniformed officers who stood outside the haberdashery shop that belonged to the Porter family. A strip of crime scene tape fluttered delicately across the open doorway.
The smell of petrol was overwhelming.
‘So?’ Ratcliffe said, holding his hand over his mouth. He never had been able to stand the smell of petrol.
‘Attempted arson attack by the looks of it, sir. Someone poured petrol through the letterbox, but the fire never took hold; it seems there might have been a water leak of some kind recently. Everything that side of the door was too wet to burn, so the fire just fizzled out. Lucky really,’ one of the officers volunteered.
Angie pointed up to a CCTV camera that was aimed directly at the doorway. ‘Anything on that?’
The other officer shook her head. ‘Not even connected, just here for show I’m afraid.’
‘And no one saw anything?’ Angie added.
‘We’re still checking, but nothing so far. You might want to take a look upstairs, in the flat.’
Ratcliffe ducked under the tape and held it up for Angie to follow him. They walked past the fire-scarred door, and practically paddled up the hallway to the stairs, their feet squelching on the sodden carpet. The mingled smell of petrol and damp was nauseating and Ratcliffe anticipated the second coming of his breakfast if it kept up.
The report of the attempted arson attack on the shop had been on his desk first thing that morning, along with a note from Ferris that the body at The Limes had been confirmed to be that of Stella Baxter. It stood to reason that if Stella had set fire to The Limes, she might have had a go at the shop too. What didn’t stack up was the fact that the house fire had taken place during daylight, the shop later. After all, the shop was on the high street, this side door just off it. It was unlikely that a burning door wouldn’t have attracted the attention of at least one member of the public.
The fire brigade hadn’t even been called.
The flames were all out by the time the milk delivery driver had noticed the damage, and had told the manager of the next door Mini Mart, whilst handing him a tray of semi-skimmed. The owner of the Mini Mart was a conscientious man and had reported it to the police immediately. As soon as the operator in the call centre had typed in the details of the incident into her computer, the machine had done its magic and cross-referenced the address with their case.
He’d been meaning to investigate the place anyway; it just pissed him off that incidents kept happening before he’d had a chance to look into things – it made him seem incompetent. He was beginning to think that someone involved with the Porter mess had it in for him.
Wondering what other little surprises were in store for him that day, he led the way upstairs to the flat above the shop, where a couple of SOCOs were already busy about their work, looking like diligent, white-clad gnomes.
At first glance, the sitting room looked like a typical crack house. Filthy, squalid, neglected, vile. But there was no drug paraphernalia. ‘What’s the deal?’ Ratcliffe asked one of the SOCOs.
‘Not much, looks like someone’s been in residence fairly recently. We’ve found traces of food that aren’t too old. Also some women’s clothes.’
‘Stella?’ Angie asked.
Ratcliffe nodded. ‘That would be my guess.’ He stepped carefully across the room and glanced into a rancid kitchen full of mouse droppings and the fetid remains of meals recently eaten, all mixed and mingled with the wrappings the food had come in. It made him want to gag.
Angie had gone towards the bedroom. He heard her gasp. ‘Come and have a look at this,’ she called.
Ratcliffe joined her, and neither of them spoke as they looked around the room.
It had been decorated as a nursery. Lambs and ducklings gambolled across the walls on a pastel-coloured background. A crib, draped with lace and frills, sat in the middle of the room next to a nursing chair. A cobwebbed mobile dangled forlornly from the ceiling. Everything was damp and mouldering, so that the little yellow ducks had a green tinge to their feathers and the lambs already had a smattering of mint sauce. It would have been just sad, a depressing little scene, one to tug at the heartstrings, if it hadn’t been for the dolls.
There were hundreds of dolls. Naked, mutilated dolls. They sat around the walls, all their little china and plastic hands pointing into the room towards the nursing chair. Their little fingers extended, accusing, pleading, beckoning? It was difficult to tell.
Angie shuddered. ‘Look at their eyes.’
Ratcliffe was looking. The room was dim, but he could see well enough to tell that every eye, in every little head, had been poked out. A countless battalion of sightless, sinister little effigies surrounded them. Revulsion rippled across his senses. ‘Jesus!’ It was the only word he could think of and he wasn’t sure if it was a reaction or a plea.
Angie shivered again. ‘Do you think Stella did this, because of the dead baby?’ she asked.
‘God knows. Maybe. It’s ghoulish though.’ That was one word for it, Ratcliffe thought. He could think of others: macabre, grisly, gruesome, morbid, ghastly, the list went on …
‘Shall we get out of here now?’ he said. It was going to be hard enough to shake off this little tableau without having it permanently engraved on his mind.
‘Hold on, there’s something else.’ Angie pulled a small Maglite out of her pocket and aimed the beam at the chest of one of the dolls. Its empty eye sockets looked even more menacing half lit by the thin beam of light.
It was like Playschool meets the Blair Witch, Ratcliffe thought with grim humour. It didn’t help lighten the situation. ‘What have you found?’
‘Something’s been written on the chests.’ She swung the beam around, randomly illuminating the tiny bare torsos.
Ratcliffe squinted. ‘What does it say?’
‘I’m not sure. I think it says Peccavisti. What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means, “You have sinned”. It’s Latin, and a bit melodramatic don’t you think?’ The sudden insertion of Julia Ferris’s dulcet tones into the creepy atmosphere of the room made both of them jump.
‘Sorry, chaps, didn’t mean to startle you,’ she said with a smile. ‘Ooh, this is a macabre little set-up, isn’t it?’ She had gloves on and was suited and booted for the occasion. She picked up one of the dolls and turned it over carefully. As she tilted it, a plaintive little voice wailed from its rosebud mouth, ‘Mama’.
‘Nice touch,’ Julia said, placing it back on the floor in its original position. ‘I take it you got my message. We have a positive ID on our crispy critter. It is Stella Baxter.’
Ratcliffe nodded. ‘Yeah, we think she must have tried to burn this place too.’ Looking around, he wished she had. The scene would be far more palatable as a pile of charred wood and molten plastic.
‘I doubt it.’
Ratcliffe turned to face Julia. ‘Eh?’
‘Stella was dead before the fire started. No smoke in her lungs.’
If the chair in the middle of the room had not been part of a potential crime scene, Ratcliffe would have plopped down into it and held his head in his hands in a fit of despair. Would this never end? ‘How did she die?’
‘It looks like she was strangled. Her hyoid bone was broken. It’s a typical indication of strangulation,’ Julia said casually.
‘Great,
’ Ratcliffe said, gritting his teeth. Now he had to look for another murderer who was also a pyromaniac. Given Frances’s propensity for burning potential evidence he would have pointed the finger at her, but she had been in a cell at the time of the fire. Rachel and Charlie had been in London.
‘Peter Haines?’ Angie suggested, as if she could see his train of thought.
‘Doubt he would have the gumption, but he was pissed off when we arrested his wife. I suppose we have to go and ask some questions though.’ DI Benton was so not going to like this.
Chapter 30
‘I’m surprised your gran didn’t want to come with us today,’ Diana said as she and Amy made their way up Charlie’s drive.
‘Oh, yeah, she said she had a visit planned. Some old friend in hospital she had to go and see. She’ll be round later. Gran wouldn’t miss out on a drama if she can help it.’ Amy laughed, fishing in her pocket for her house key.
‘Hello. It’s me, anybody up yet?’ Amy called from the hallway. The house was still in darkness, the curtains drawn. ‘Probably having a lie-in. He hasn’t had a decent kip in days,’ she said by way of explanation to Diana. ‘He’s getting too old for all this excitement.’ She pulled back the curtains and let the daylight flood in.
Now that the gloom was lifted, Diana was glad to see that Charlie had not inherited his mother’s proclivity for surrounding herself with tacky clutter. His home was clean and modern, not a frill or a flounce in sight. She could breathe easy.
Somewhere up above she heard the creak of floorboards.
***
Amy’s voice had woken both Rachel and Charlie with a start. Charlie was shocked to see that the bedside clock said half past nine. They were both shocked to find that she had been holding his left hand, whilst his right arm had been draped across her chest. He pulled away from her as if her stunned gaze were an electric current.