‘Well, the thing is, we’ve just found his body,’ DI Wenn said, watching her very carefully as he delivered this news. ‘Buried in the back garden, of all things. Is this a surprise to you, Miss McKenna?’
Deeley fumbled desperately for the right words. She was nowhere near finding them when the office door burst open, and Maxie appeared, looking like the wrath of God in human form. Wearing a pale stone belted raincoat, her blonde hair pulled back off her face, her make-up perfect, she projected such an imperious air of command that both policemen jumped to their feet at her appearance.
‘What on earth is going on?’ she demanded. ‘Deeley, what have you done? Honestly, I leave you with Alice for a couple of days – I thought at least you could manage to look after a baby without too much trouble—’
‘Mrs Stangroom,’ DI Wenn interjected, ‘this isn’t about your baby, or Miss McKenna’s care of her. I’m Detective Inspector Wenn, of the Greater Leeds police force, and this is Detective Constable Davis. Would you mind taking a seat so we can discuss why we’re here?’
Maxie didn’t take off her raincoat; she didn’t even unbutton it, clearly indicating that she did not intend to be detained for long. She stalked across the office. Deeley jumped up from the desk chair, looking around her for another; not finding one, she stood awkwardly as Maxie sank into the leather chair, swivelled it to face the policemen, and snapped, ‘Well, what is it? I haven’t got all day, you know!’
‘It’s about a body, Mrs Stangroom,’ DI Wenn said, and Deeley saw he was watching Maxie closely, trying to read her reaction. ‘The body of a gentleman called Bill Duncan, with whom you and your sisters lived for a while when you were younger. It’s just been found in the back garden of the house in which you lived with Mr Duncan.’
Maxie’s eyebrows shot up, but otherwise she betrayed nothing. Deeley, watching Maxie anxiously, was hugely relieved by her sister’s poise.
Thank God Maxie’s here, she thought devoutly. Maxie will know what to say. She’ll make everything all right.
‘I don’t understand,’ Maxie said after a moment. ‘That was so long ago. I was, what, seventeen or so when we moved out of there? Deeley, you must have been . . .’
‘Nine,’ Deeley chimed in, feeling she should say something.
‘Exactly!’ Maxie looked back at DI Wenn. ‘Almost twenty years ago!’
‘Not quite,’ the DC mumbled, but Maxie ignored him.
‘How many people must have lived in that house since then?’ she demanded. ‘Are you interviewing all of them? What a colossal waste of time!’
‘Oh, we can narrow it down reasonably accurately,’ DI Wenn said, making Deeley’s heart sink as fast as it had risen at her sister’s defiant words. ‘Mr Duncan’s disappearance was recorded at the time. His brother reported it to the police. Mr Duncan was an upstanding citizen, Mrs Stangroom, very respectable – bills paid on time, steady job, good pension plan, all the bells and whistles. Not the sort of bloke to go disappearing from one day to the next. You must have felt that too, you and your sisters. Must have been quite a shock to you all.’
He looked from Maxie to Deeley, his expression inquiring. Deeley started to say something, then bit her tongue as Maxie leaned forward.
‘DI – Wenn, is it?’ she said coldly. ‘It’s no secret that my sisters and I had a troubled childhood. We have never tried to conceal it. But that doesn’t mean that I will stand by and see our humble origins dragged through the dirt for the benefit of the tabloid newspapers. My husband is the junior minister for the Department of External Affairs. It would look very bad to the party if they felt this were simply an attempt to smear him by the opposition.’
DI Wenn’s eyes flickered; Deeley could see that Maxie’s words had hit home.
‘Mrs Stangroom, please,’ he said, shifting in his chair. ‘I’m only doing my job. You and your two sisters were living with Mr Duncan at the date he was reported missing. Now his body’s turned up and our forensic guys say that they think he went into the ground more or less at the time he disappeared. Which puts the three of you on the spot, as it were. I’d be neglecting my duty if I didn’t ask you these questions.’
‘If anything leaks to the press, my husband will have you sacked,’ Maxie said levelly. ‘Do we understand each other?’ She glanced at DC Davis, who looked petrified. ‘And that includes you,’ she added nastily.
‘Mrs Stangroom!’ DI Wenn raised both his hands in the universal gesture with which a man tries to calm down an angry woman. ‘Please, let’s not get ahead of ourselves! Can I just ask you some questions about you and your sisters’ knowledge of the timeline around Mr Tennyson’s disappearance?’
Maxie stared at him narrowly. ‘Under what circumstances was his body discovered?’ she asked. ‘It seems very odd that it should just have been – what? – in that back garden, for all this time? Wouldn’t people have seen a grave, or something?’
Oh, very good, Maxie! Deeley thought approvingly. She was resting her hands on the desk for support, her palms beginning to dampen the wood; but that was OK. Anyone would be nervous under these circumstances. And Maxie’s such a good liar. She’ll get us all out of this.
Rattled now, DI Wenn made the mistake of answering.
‘It was buried under an old wall, Mrs Stangroom. Sort of in the roots of a tree. Very well concealed.’
Maxie pounced on this immediately. ‘So how was it found?’ she demanded.
‘Mrs Stangroom, I’m not at liberty to—’
‘Please,’ Maxie said with such acid in her voice that even Deeley flinched; DC Davis actually flattened himself against the back of his chair, looking terrified. ‘My husband is just promoted to junior minister . . .’
God, Deeley couldn’t help noticing, Maxie loves saying those words!
‘. . . and bang on cue, some body’s unearthed in a house my sisters and I used to live in? The timing is very suspicious, Detective Inspector! I want to know how this body was found! Otherwise I, my husband and the party will assume that this is some kind of opposition conspiracy to start a scandal!’
She had DI Wenn on the run now; he couldn’t meet her eyes. Instead, he glanced nervously at his sidekick, who was no help at all, before eventually stammering, ‘Look, Mrs Stangroom, I really can’t—’
‘It will look much better if I hear it from you,’ Maxie said crisply, ‘than if my husband has to demand answers from your chief constable.’
DI Wenn sagged visibly. He sighed, long and hard.
Poor man, Deeley thought, almost sympathetically. He should have known better than to say no to Maxie.
‘We apprehended several individuals in the process of digging up Mr Duncan’s body last night,’ Wenn said reluctantly. ‘They were under the command, as it were, of Linda O’Keeffe, who is well known to all of us in the local police force.’
Maxie didn’t react to the mention of the name, but Deeley held onto the desk hard to stop trembling. That was the name of the woman she’d met outside Bill’s house: Linda O’Keeffe. She’d seen her before, when she was little; she had vague memories of her mother in the pub with her, heard her name mentioned as someone you never crossed if you knew what was good for you.
Oh God, if Maxie finds out I went back to Riseholme and bumped into Linda O’Keeffe, she’ll kill me! Deeley thought frantically. Because I have the awful feeling that’s what started all of this . . .
‘When arrested, Mrs O’Keeffe denied that she had anything to do with the death of Mr Duncan,’ DI Wenn was continuing. ‘She told us that she was looking for something that she believed Mr Duncan to have in his possession when he disappeared in 1993.’ He stared hard at both Maxie and Deeley in turn. ‘Something that he was actually keeping for your mother, who was in prison at the time.’
‘What?’ Deeley couldn’t help blurting out, her eyes wide. ‘Bill was keeping something for Mum? He never said anything about that!’
Maxie shrugged her shoulders dismissively. ‘Why should he say anything to us?’ she said.
‘I never wanted to know what our mother was up to,’ she added, directing this at the policemen across the desk. ‘It was never good. Believe me, we all got away from her messes as soon as we could and never looked back.’
‘I do understand that, Mrs Stangroom,’ DI Wenn said swiftly. ‘And we’re very sympathetic to your position. But these are questions I have to ask. Mrs O’Keeffe has told us that your mother had an old canvas bag containing about thirty grand in cash which she gave to Mr Duncan to keep for her. Mrs O’Keeffe’s story is that this was, in fact, her money – Mrs O’Keeffe’s – given to your mother by her to store with Mr Duncan, who was considered trustworthy. Mr Duncan was keeping the money for your mother and Mrs O’Keeffe as they were both going to prison, having been convicted of receiving stolen goods in the same court case.’
He looked down briefly at his notes.
‘When Mrs O’Keeffe came out of prison, according to her, she immediately contacted Mr Duncan, or tried to. On finding out that he was missing, she assumed that he had run away with the money, and did her best to track him down, to no avail.’
He looked from one to the other of the sisters, gauging their reaction.
‘Description of the bag, Davis?’ he said to the constable.
‘Green fabric, white plastic handles, white straps running around the sides, in poor condition,’ DC Davis read from his notes.
‘Ring any bells, ladies?’ DI Wenn asked. ‘See any bag like that in Mr Duncan’s house?’
Deeley was gaping, completely taken aback. Thirty grand! She’d had no awareness of any of this. She looked at Maxie, whose eyebrows had risen, but whose smooth, Botoxed face was relatively unaffected.
‘No, Bill never said a word about that to us,’ Maxie said, shaking her head. ‘But hold on . . .’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘This money – even if it existed, it was obviously obtained illegally. How do you know she’s telling the truth – about the money, about everything? How do you know that she didn’t kill him herself? She might have been digging up the body to move it, because she thought someone suspected it was there, and just concocted this whole story when you caught her at it.’
Brilliant, Maxie! Deeley thought, shooting a swift glance of congratulation at her sister for her quick wits. But her surge of confidence was short-lived.
‘Because Mrs O’Keeffe was a guest of Her Majesty at the time Mr Duncan disappeared,’ DI Wenn said dryly. ‘Together with several of her known associates. Of whom, naturally, your mother was one. Neither she – nor your mother – could have been involved in killing Mr Duncan or concealing his body.’
Maxie’s face was expressionless as she processed this information.
‘She thinks you and your sisters had something to do with this,’ DI Wenn continued. ‘She informed us that she met Miss McKenna in Thompson Road a few weeks ago, standing outside number 42.’
Deeley’s breath caught in her throat: the look Maxie shot her was terrifying. And now everyone was staring at her, waiting for an explanation.
‘I’ve been away from the country for years,’ Deeley managed. ‘Living in LA. I got nostalgic when I came back here, that’s all – seeing my sisters again, remembering old times. I had the impulse to go up to Riseholme and see it again.’
She swayed a little.
‘Can I sit down?’ she asked, and DC Davis instantly got up to offer her his chair, moving it round the desk so she could sit next to Maxie.
‘Thank you,’ she said, collapsing into it. ‘This has been an awful shock.’
‘It’s perfectly normal for my sister to go back and revisit somewhere that was a childhood home,’ Maxie said, reaching over to pat Deeley’s hand in a show of sympathy that was all for the police’s benefit. ‘Nothing odd in that at all.’
‘Mrs O’Keeffe told us that Miss McKenna was staring fixedly at the tree and the crumbling wall in the garden for some minutes,’ DI Wenn said, leaning forward and staring hard at both sisters. ‘Enough to make her extremely suspicious. According to her, that was what gave Mrs O’Keeffe the idea to wait till the occupants of number 42 were away for the weekend, and enter the back garden to dig up the wall.’
‘Oh, please,’ Maxie said again; she sounded casual, dismissive, but her nails were digging into Deeley’s hand now. ‘My sister stared at a wall? That’s what you’re accusing her of? While someone who’s been in prison is caught digging up a body – which might, for all you know, have died of natural causes! I don’t know why you even bothered us with this!’
‘There was a dent in the skull,’ DC Davis, now standing behind his superior, piped up. ‘The victim’s neck was broken. He didn’t die of natural causes.’
Maxie’s nails were leaving deep, painful dents in Deeley’s palm now. Memories of that awful night came flooding back: Devon wielding the vase, smashing Bill over the head; Devon and Maxie dragging his body out into the garden. Tears welled up in Deeley’s eyes. The next thing she knew, she was sobbing, great gusty sobs of fear and panic.
‘Look at what you’ve done!’ Maxie snapped immediately, taking full advantage of the situation, scooting over to wrap her arm round Deeley’s shoulders. ‘Can you not understand how upsetting this is for us? We’re not like those people! We made something of our lives! We got away from all that!’
DI Wenn tried to say something, but Maxie was in full flood.
‘My poor sister!’ she stormed. ‘She was just a baby at the time! I remember Linda O’Keeffe – she was a drug dealer, the scum of the earth. And a madam too, I wouldn’t be surprised. The way she looked at me and my sisters was downright nasty.’
Both DC Davis and DI Wenn flinched at this; Maxie had obviously hit the nail on the head with her speculations about Linda O’Keeffe.
‘Some convicted criminal’s caught red-handed digging up a body,’ Maxie went on furiously, ‘and points the finger at me and my sisters, because she’s jealous of us! And you fell for that? It’s so obvious! She’s seen me and Devon on the television, and she’s jumped at the chance to try to drag us down! And all the evidence she has is some allegedly missing money that no one can even prove existed, and the fact that my sister went back to visit a home that had some childhood memories for her. This is ludicrous!’
Deeley’s sobs were abating as she heard Maxie make mincemeat of the police; Maxie was fighting the McKenna sisters’ battles, as always. It was the most reassuring thing in the world. She took the tissue Maxie was handing her and wiped her eyes, sitting back in the chair, drawing deep breaths.
‘We will need to take statements from all of you,’ DI Wenn finally said in a smaller voice. ‘You were living in the house at the time Mr Duncan disappeared. I’m afraid that’s unavoidable.’
‘We thought he’d abandoned us,’ Maxie said, as if rehearsing the statement she would give. ‘It was very frightening for all of us. And this news, after all these years, has been a total shock. You’ll have to give us some time. Our sister Devon is in Italy at the moment, and will have to make her arrangements to return to London. And of course,’ she levelled an icy dark gaze at DI Wenn, ‘we will be accompanied by our solicitor.’
‘That’s not necessary . . .’ DI Wenn began, but trailed off immediately as Maxie stood up.
‘I will be the judge of what’s necessary,’ she said in biting tones, ‘since you insist on dragging my sisters and myself into a matter that has nothing to do with us. If you leave me your contact details, I will have my solicitor contact you in due course.’
DI Wenn reached humbly for a card as Maxie said, tightening the belt of her raincoat, ‘And now I will have to ask you to leave. I’ve wasted much too much time on this. I had an appointment to see Sir Tristram Cavendish, the chief whip of the party, for which I am now very late. I don’t imagine he’ll be best pleased when I explain the reason for my delay.’
Wenn and Davis couldn’t leave fast enough; they practically tripped over their own feet getting out of the study. Maxie stood like a statue behind the desk until she heard the front door close, an
d saw them getting into their waiting car down the street. Then she rounded on Deeley like all three of the furies in one.
‘You little idiot!’ she yelled. ‘You went back to Riseholme! You stupid little idiot! Did you say anything to that bitch Linda O’Keeffe about Bill? Anything at all?’
‘No! I promise, Maxie! I didn’t!’
Deeley felt nine years old all over again, looking up at her sister, whose cheeks were bright with livid spots of fury.
‘I can’t believe you did that!’ Maxie fumed, striding up and down the office on her high red patent leather heels. ‘Ugh! Well, one thing at a time. I’ll deal with you later. Right now, you ring Dev and tell her she needs to get back here immediately and not to speak a word to anyone until she sees me, understood? Anyone. I’ll ring the solicitor myself and explain the situation – by which I mean, give them the official story. After my appointment.’ She looked at her watch. ‘My God, I have to run!’
She swivelled to point a menacing finger at Deeley.
‘You, keep your mouth shut, OK? And don’t leave the house. You can take Alice into the garden, but that’s it. Don’t answer the door – journalists might get hold of the story and come round for a quote. Get Lucia to answer it and tell them no one’s home. If you need anything, Lucia goes out to get it. You do not leave this house for any reason at all.’
Deeley nodded obediently as her sister dragged her phone out of her bag and tapped in some numbers.
‘Hopefully Sir Tristram will understand,’ she muttered as she dialled, walking towards the office door. Over her shoulder at Deeley, she snapped, ‘Do everything I said and not a thing more!’ as she whisked out of the room.
Alice, woken up by her adoptive mother’s yelling, started to whimper in her stroller. Deeley was almost relieved; having Alice to look after, to comfort and play with, would distract her from her own guilt and fear at what she’d brought down on her sisters’ heads. Maxie had slammed the front door and was running down the steps and Deeley watched her through the office window. A gust of wind caught Maxie’s raincoat and blew it open. For a dizzying moment, Deeley actually thought that, underneath it, Maxie was wearing some sort of PVC miniskirt: white, with a red trim. Almost like a nurse’s outfit. A naughty nurse. As if she were going to a costume party, not an appointment with the chief whip.
Bad Sisters Page 34