The Dead Dog Day

by Jackie Kabler

  Cora nodded. That picture in the Mirror, the one she’d been teased so mercilessly about by the boys.

  Justin was still talking. ‘… then, well, I still wasn’t a hundred per cent sure, but he looked so like the person I’d seen. And I thought, what if it really is him, and Cora’s dating a murderer! And I was so scared, scared for you. Which is why I sent that tweet.’

  ‘The one – the one warning me to be careful? And not trust anyone? But Justin, that was so vague! I thought you were threatening me! Why didn’t you just tell me what you’d seen, what you were thinking? You made me so scared, do you realise that? So scared, so many times! That night, when I saw the private detective outside my house, on his phone – I suppose he was texting you to tell you Benjamin was inside with me – and then you immediately sent me another warning tweet? I was terrified!’

  Justin sighed heavily. ‘Oh, Cora, I’m just so, so sorry. I don’t know. I wasn’t positive, and I thought that if I made such an enormous accusation, and I was wrong, that someone like him wouldn’t hesitate to sue me to hell and back, and then you’d hate me even more than you did already, and … so that’s why I hired the detective, to follow you, make sure you were safe. I told him that if he saw anything, any hint at all that Boland might hurt you, to go to the police. I couldn’t bear it, Cora, if anything had happened to you …’

  He sank his face into his hands. Cora stared at him for a moment, then reached out and stroked his head briefly.

  ‘Fair enough, I suppose. But there are still so many questions, Justin. Why didn’t you just go to the police there and then, when you saw Jeanette being pulled out of the window and …’ – she couldn’t bring herself to say ‘Benjamin’ – ‘… saw whoever it was getting away, on The Dead Dog Day?’

  Justin sat up straight again. Cora noticed with a shock that his eyes were bright with unshed tears.

  ‘Pardon? What day?’

  ‘It’s what we call it. The day Jeanette died. Because there was a dog, which died too … oh, never mind. Go on. Why didn’t you go to the police?’

  ‘Because I’m a moron. I wasn’t thinking straight. I panicked – I stood there for a minute, two minutes, I’m not sure, trying to process what had just happened in front of my eyes. I could hear her moaning, and I know I should have gone to her, tried to see if I could save her, but I was in shock, I think. And then there were footsteps, and I saw the security guard coming round the corner, and – I don’t know, I suppose I thought that as I was the one standing there, just feet from the body, that I might somehow be blamed. So I hid, behind a skip that was sitting there, until he’d gone running off to get help, and then I ran too. I ran away, Cora. Like a coward. It’s something that will haunt me for ever, believe me.’

  ‘And then, when you realised you’d been captured on CCTV? Why not come forward then, allow them to eliminate you from the enquiry?’

  ‘I saw it online. Yes, it was me, but it could have been anyone, Cora. My face was never seen, just that coat you’d bought me, which I’d never worn before so I knew nobody else would recognise me from it. I gave it away to a charity shop in Madrid, though, just in case.’

  He had the good grace to look shamefaced as Cora glared at him, then continued.

  ‘I just thought, how can I come forward now? How can I explain running away from the scene of a murder? It would have looked so suspicious. So I just didn’t come forward. Sorry, Cora.’

  Cora rubbed her sore ankle, head still buzzing.

  ‘OK, so if you’re right – why? Why on earth would Benjamin kill Jeanette? He barely knows her. In fact, I think he only met her once or twice, when she was trying to get him to work on the show. It makes no sense. What possible motive could he have for wanting her dead?’

  A little bubble of hope suddenly rose inside her. Justin had this wrong, he must have. It couldn’t have been Benjamin. Everyone has a doppelgänger, right? It must have been someone who just looked like Benjamin. Then the bubbles of hope burst as she realised Justin was shaking his head sadly and pulling a sheaf of papers out of his duffel bag that had been slung on the chair opposite.

  He sat back down. ‘I thought that too. It was one of the reasons I thought I might be wrong about him, at first. So, as I was at a bit of a loose end out here with not a lot to occupy my time, I did some digging. And – well, take a look. This is what I found.’

  He handed the pile of papers to Cora.

  ‘Read it, Cora. Because, in there, is the reason why I believe Benjamin Boland killed Jeanette.’

  54

  Twenty minutes later, Cora finally put the pile of papers aside, tears running down her cheeks. Was there really a motive in what she’d just read, a motive for murder? There was now, she knew, a tragic link between Benjamin and Jeanette, but if that link was a motive for murder, it was a motive of the most twisted and pointless kind.

  Justin sat quietly opposite her, watching her intently. She returned his gaze with brimming eyes, and they sat there for a moment, motionless. Then Justin broke the silence.

  ‘So. What do you think? It’s only been in the past few days that I finally got all the documentation together, Cora. As far as I can see, it’s pretty damning. But you’re the journalist …’

  Cora shrugged. She tried to speak, but her throat was so thick with tears she could only squeak unintelligibly. She coughed and tried again.

  ‘He told me about it, you know. The plane crash. The one that killed his parents, when he was just a little boy. It ruined his childhood, he ended up in boarding schools and with foster families, it was so hard for him. It broke my heart when he told me, Justin. But – he never mentioned, never said …’

  Her voice shook and she picked up the newspaper article again, the one that revealed the terrible link between Benjamin and Jeanette.

  ‘FOUR KILLED IN BERKSHIRE AIR CRASH’, screamed the headline. And then the detail, stark in black and white on the photocopied page that Justin had ordered from the archives of the Leader newspaper. It was so long ago that nothing had been available online – he’d certainly done his research, Cora thought, as she re-read the chilling words.

  ‘Four people died today when a light aircraft crashed shortly after take-off at Green Lytham Airfield near Maidenhead. James Boland, 36, and his 35-year-old wife Miriam were passengers in the private aircraft which was en route to Scotland. The two crew, pilot Christian Kendrick and his co-pilot Guy Ferill, were also killed when the aeroplane burst into flames on impact. Mr and Mrs Boland leave a seven-year-old son, who was being cared for by a neighbour at their London home at the time of the accident. Mr Kendrick, who was 40, is survived by his wife Helen and their 14-year-old daughter. Mr Ferill, who was unmarried, is mourned by his parents and three sisters. Accident investigators are trying to establish the cause of the crash.’

  Christian Kendrick. Jeanette’s father? Jeanette’s father, flying the plane that killed Benjamin’s parents. Christian. Chris. Jeanette’s last word. Was that what she was trying to say, that she’d been attacked because of Chris, her father? But would she call him Chris, and not Dad or something?

  And then, another article, dated a few months later.

  ‘ALCOHOL TO BLAME FOR FATAL PLANE CRASH?’

  Cora scanned it again, the letters blurring in front of her eyes.

  ‘A post-mortem examination revealed significant levels of blood alcohol in the bodies of both Mr Kendrick and Mr Ferill. Investigators believe the two men were drinking together at Ferill’s home the night before the tragedy …’

  Cora wiped her eyes. ‘So yes, it sounds as if Jeanette’s father and his friend, the co-pilot, were at fault. But they all died, together, Benjamin’s parents and Jeanette’s dad. Two children, devastated. Surely that would bring them together, not lead one of them to murder the other years later?’

  ‘I know, it doesn’t really make sense. Revenge maybe, revenge on her family for what they did to his? The question is, why now? It’s just that the combination of that, and – well, the f
act that I’m so sure it was him I saw doing the deed – it doesn’t leave that much room for doubt, does it?’

  He leaned back in his seat and rubbed his nose again.

  ‘I even got the private detective to break into Benjamin’s flat a while ago, you know, to see if he could find any link between him and Jeanette, just in case it was by some miracle a different Benjamin Boland who looked a bit similar. He broke into yours first – well, not broke in, I sent him my key, hoping you hadn’t changed the locks, and told him where the key drawer was. I figured you’d have a key to Benjamin’s flat by then, so he borrowed it, you’d written ‘Benj’ on the keytag so it wasn’t difficult …’

  Justin noticed the furious look on Cora’s face and stopped talking.

  ‘I knew somebody had been in there. I knew it!’ she hissed. ‘Did he break in twice then, to put the keys back?’

  He nodded guiltily and Cora glared at him. ‘He did it all in one day. But it was worth it, Cora – there was something in Benjamin’s place, a photo, of his parents, in a box in the wardrobe. The detective bloke took a shot of it on his phone and emailed it to me, and it was the same people as in the newspaper article, so I knew then. I just needed to wait to get all the archive newspaper stuff together, which took a while. I don’t know what else to say, Cora. I’m just so sorry. So sorry about everything.’

  Cora shrugged, suddenly too weary to think about it all any more. She looked at the old Victorian clock ticking away quietly on the sideboard. It was nearly 3 a.m.

  ‘I need to sleep, Justin. We both need to sleep. And then tomorrow – well, later today really – I think we should go home. Go to the police, tell them everything. Then they can decide what to do. It’s not up to you, or to us. OK?’

  ‘OK. I’ll help you upstairs. I’ll get online now, book us some flights, and then sleep down here, on the sofa, alright?’

  Cora nodded, struggling to get to her feet and wincing as the pain shot up her leg from her damaged ankle. Suddenly, all she could think about was Adam. Adam would sort this out. She felt a desperate urge to call him, but she ignored it. This needed to be done in person. Even with all the pain, shock and exhaustion the night had brought, she realised the thought of Adam was a comfort to her. He would fix this, he would find out the truth. And she drifted into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of green eyes watching over her.

  55

  Wednesday 11th April

  Benjamin Boland was pacing. His head hurt, and he hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours since Cora had driven off leaving him in the pouring rain on the Embankment, but he couldn’t rest. Pacing, pacing, up and down the long hallway of his apartment, through the living area, feet tapping on the polished wood, and then back again. Pacing, pacing.

  Tomorrow, that was all he could think about. Tomorrow, he’d sort this mess out, and then he could get on with his life. His life, which despite all the trappings of success, had always been such a mess really, ever since that awful day …

  He felt a surge of rage, his fists clenching so hard that his nails dug painfully into his palms. The Kendricks had paid now, they had lost two people they loved, just like he had. So there was just one more person, somebody else who needed to be dealt with now, before he could move on, move on to his glittering future, be normal, be happy. It wasn’t fair that he had to do this, not to her. But he knew it would never be over unless he did it, did what needed to be done to finish it.

  He’d been planning to do it tomorrow. He slowed to a stop, and slumped down onto the sofa, shutting his eyes. He imagined her face, the expression on it, the look in those beautiful eyes when she realised what was about to happen to her. He didn’t like to think about that, but it was the only way. It had to be done. Suddenly, a surge of energy shot through him. Why wait? He leapt to his feet. Tonight. He’d do it tonight. As long as she was at home. If not, he’d go back tomorrow, and every day until it was done. And then he’d be free, free from his past, and ready to move on. As he moved swiftly through the apartment, gathering his new balaclava and gloves, and the spare key to her flat, Benjamin Boland was smiling.

  56

  DCI Adam Bradberry stared at the pale, exhausted looking pair on the other side of his desk. His head was reeling from the deluge of information they’d just imparted, and delighted though he’d been to see Cora suddenly appear at the police station reception desk, he couldn’t quite suppress his irritation about the fact that she’d been withholding information from him for quite some time.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Adam. I should have told you about knowing it was Justin on the CCTV,’ she was saying now. ‘But I just knew there’d be a valid explanation, and …’

  ‘Alright, alright.’ His tone was sharp, and she visibly winced. He instantly felt guilty, knowing that only part of his annoyance was due to the fact that she’d potentially hampered the investigation. He was, he acknowledged, feeling unaccountably jealous that she’d done so in order to protect her ex-boyfriend.

  ‘Look, let’s move on.’ His voice was softer now, and he was rewarded with a ghost of a smile. Bloody hell, she was gorgeous, even with the bruise on her forehead, those dark circles under her eyes, and the pain that was contained within them. He had a sudden urge to wrap her in his arms, but busied himself with shuffling through the copious notes he’d spent the past hour scribbling down as Cora and Justin had told their remarkable story.

  ‘Th … thank you. So much.’

  He met her gaze, ignoring the boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend, he reminded himself. And presumably Benjamin Boland was an ex too, now, if all this was true. Quite a cheery thought. He looked down again for a moment, trying to drag his mind away from Cora’s love life and back to the matter in hand. He cleared his throat.

  ‘I’ll need full, proper statements from you both in due course, but that can wait. Cora, you look terrible. Go home. We’ll take it from here. I’ll keep you posted. And as for you, Mr Dendy – I’d advise you to go home too. And next time you witness a murder, maybe come forward, instead of fleeing the country?’

  Justin was doing a good impression of somebody who was extremely interested in the faded and stained blue carpet of the interview room. He raised his eyes sheepishly to those of the policeman.

  ‘I will. Sorry.’

  Adam shook his head and waved a hand dismissively. They all stood up, Cora a little gingerly although her ankle was feeling much less painful this evening. She reached across the desk and touched Adam’s hand.

  ‘Call me, as soon as you can, please?’

  He nodded. ‘I will. Get some sleep.’ He smiled, and she smiled back. Justin looked curiously from one to the other, but said nothing.

  When they’d gone, Adam returned to the murder investigation room and started barking orders. First, they needed to get Benjamin Boland in for questioning. This story seemed completely surreal, but Dendy seemed pretty sure about what he’d seen. And as for this link between Boland and Kendrick … Adam thumped his forehead in frustration.

  Of course, the TV star hadn’t even been on the police’s radar as a potential suspect, and so even though it had been known that Kendrick’s father was a pilot and had died many years ago in an accident, that was simply a bit of interesting background with no possible connection to her murder. And even the long-dead father’s name – Christian, so probably Chris for short – simply hadn’t seemed relevant. One of the team had pointed it out, but the brief discussion which followed had ended in one detective joking that maybe Jeanette was calling the name out in her dying seconds because she could see her father waiting for her at the gates of heaven – or hell. And that had been it.

  Adam sighed and rummaged through the case files on his desk until he found the full set of crime scene pictures. He flipped through them. There it was: that antique print on the wall of the murdered woman’s office. A print of an old aircraft. He compared it with the photo on the old newspaper article Justin had handed over. The same plane. She must have loved her father very much, to have that on her wall so ma
ny years later.

  A thought struck him, and he went through the files again, this time looking for a phone number. He reached for the phone on the desk and tapped the numbers in. Clancy Carter answered within a few rings.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ms Carter. Sorry to bother you, DCI Adam Bradberry here. A slightly random question for you …’

  Five minutes later, he put the receiver down, his hunch confirmed. It seemed that Jeanette Kendrick had not known that the people who died alongside her father that dreadful day had been Benjamin Boland’s parents, certainly according to Clancy, who had been deeply shocked by the news. Yes, Jeanette had known that a young couple had also been killed, and their surname, and even that they’d had a child, but the connection to the handsome TV presenter had never been made. Benjamin had never talked about it in any of the many TV and magazine interviews he’d done since his rise to fame, Clancy had said – she’d read several times that his parents were both dead, but no further details had ever been given, and with Benjamin seemingly reluctant to discuss it, no interviewer had ever pursued the matter.