by Celina Grace
“Wonderful.”
They smiled a complicit goodbye, and Kate left, shutting the door behind her.
Anderton’s club did indeed have rooms for hire, and Kate, sprawled on the bed with him, blissfully entwined, thought it testament to their respective will power that they’d actually managed to have dinner first before making it to bed. They’d already made love once, had a glass of champagne, and were in the preliminary throes of round two when the itch that had been scratching at Kate’s brain for the past few days formed itself into a giant, great, pounding fist. Stunned, she let out a gasp very different to the ones she’d just been making and sat bold upright, dislodging Anderton’s hands.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Kate stared at the ceiling, completely dazed. Then she raised both hands to her forehead and fell backwards onto the pillow, still staring upwards. “It’s completely meaningless,” she said, in an awed tone.
“What?” asked Anderton.
Kate said it again, still looking up at the ceiling. “It’s completely meaningless.”
The light in the room was dim but she could hear the sudden hurt in his voice. “Meaningless? What? Us? This is? What are you talking about?”
She almost laughed and turned to him, clutching his hands. “No, not us. The alibi. It’s completely meaningless now, can’t you see? Oh, God, I can’t believe I’ve only just realised.” She let go of his hands and let out her breath in a giant huff. “How could I have only just seen it?”
“Kate Redman, I’m going to spank you in a minute. What the hell are you going on about?”
This time Kate did laugh, half at herself. Shaking her head, she pulled herself into a sitting position and pulled the sheet over herself. She didn’t want Anderton to be distracted. How could I not have seen it before?
“Listen,” said Kate. “It’s all so simple. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” She could see Anderton start to frown and hurried on. “Listen, I’ll tell you all about it. Just sit there and listen to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The good weather had gone by the next day. As Kate sat in the back of Anderton’s car, on the way to their destination, she could see the clouds massing in the sky, dark-grey and threatening over the distant hills. As they turned off the main road and began their journey down the winding driveway, the once-fresh green of the trees seemed darker and dulled. The bluebells were over. The illusion of various little lakes reflecting the sky was gone for the year, and the fading flower heads were now shrivelled and brown.
It was a silent journey. Kate, sat in the back and, watching the rear of both Olbeck’s and Anderton’s heads, began to feel increasingly sick. She didn’t believe she’d ever felt so subdued at the thought of making an arrest. That awful sense of foreboding that had dogged her for the past few days was growing stronger. I wish we didn’t have to do this. But they did, and that was all there was to it.
They parked the car alongside the one belonging to the late master of the house. Kate got out of the car, along with the two men. Her stomach tightened. It was Anderton who rang the doorbell, the two other officers necessarily having to stand behind him because of the narrow path. Kate glanced at the water either side of her. The waterlilies were all in bloom now, delicate white stars sitting atop the water. She swallowed hard as the door began to open.
Mia Farraday looked puzzled but not alarmed at the sight of them. “Good morning—” she began, but Anderton spoke across her.
“We’d like to talk to you, Mrs Farraday.”
The graveness of his tone must have given her some clue that this was not a social call. She said nothing, but stepped back to allow them in. Passing her, Kate saw she’d grown even thinner in the time that had passed since her husband’s death. Now, Mia was almost frail. Again, Kate’s stomach twisted in a nauseous mix of pity and anxiety.
Mia led them through to the living area at the back. There were no Farraday children to be seen, and Kate was, for a moment, so relieved that she didn’t question their absence. Then she realised that it was actually a Saturday so they wouldn’t have been at school or nursery. She was wondering where they were when Anderton asked the question for her.
“They’re out with Sarah,” said Mia. Her voice was growing thinner with anxiety. Even so, she began to ask if they wanted tea or coffee, and Anderton, again, spoke over her.
“Do you know why we’re here, Mrs Farraday?”
“No,” said Mia, but Kate realised that she must have had an inkling of why, because her face didn’t change very much as Anderton spoke the words of the caution. It went a little whiter at the mention of the word ‘murder’ but that was all.
After Anderton had finished speaking, there was a long and awful silence.
“We’d like you to come with us, Mrs Farraday,” Anderton said eventually, quite kindly. “We can arrange for you to have legal representation, unless you have someone in mind already.”
Mia made a strange, choking noise that Kate, after a moment, identified as a laugh. “No, I don’t have someone in mind already.”
“Well, perhaps you’ll come with us now—” Anderton began but Mia shook her head. Kate could feel Olbeck tense a little beside her, and she braced herself for an escalation of the situation but Mia appeared quite calm.
“I need to sit down for a minute,” she said. “I think I might faint.”
Kate escorted her to one of the sofas. Mia’s arm felt as fragile as a child’s. She was wearing a white T-shirt and Kate could feel the coolness of her skin beneath her fingertips, could see the goose bumps rising on Mia’s forearm. At the same time, there was a weird kind of energy running through Mia, not quite a trembling but something less tangible. Kate helped her sit down and let her go. She resisted the urge to wipe her hand on her jacket as she stepped back.
Mia dropped her head forwards and took a few deep breaths. Kate could hear how uneven her breathing was.
“Are you all right, Mrs Farraday?” Anderton asked. “Would you like medical assistance?”
Again, Mia gave that strange, choked laugh. “Of course I’m not all right.” She breathed in and out a few more times. “But I don’t need a doctor.” She raised her head and fixed her gaze on Anderton. Kate was shocked by the intensity of feeling in her dark eyes. The sense of foreboding screwed a notch tighter.
Mia was speaking again. “I want to know the evidence behind your accusation.”
Anderton paused before replying. “What exactly do you mean, Mrs Farraday?”
“I want to know why you think I’m guilty.”
The officers exchanged glances. Anderton nodded very slightly at Kate, giving her permission, she hoped, to answer.
She spoke as calmly as she could. “Your alibi for the night of the murder of your husband is meaningless, Mrs Farraday.”
Mia looked angry. “What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean, the person who gave you your alibi, Mrs Dorothy Smelton, was suffering from Alzheimer’s. She wasn’t able to give an accurate time for when you left her house, therefore your alibi is – broken. Destroyed.”
Mia half laughed. “That’s it? That’s your evidence?” She rubbed her temples as if they pained her. “Besides, Dorothy’s dead. She died yesterday. So she won’t be able to testify, one way or the other.”
Kate felt a chill. How did Mia know Dorothy had died? Had somebody told her? Or did she know because...?
“Well, that’s interesting,” Anderton said in a deceptively casual tone, which immediately told Kate he’d thought the same thing. “I didn’t realise you’d heard the news about Mrs Smelton already. That was very quick.”
Mia didn’t flush. Her face tightened for a moment, and she looked down at the floor. Kate could see her eyelids flickering minutely and had another fanciful thought about Mia, picturing her brain as a lightbulb, an old-fashioned lightbulb, glowing whiter and whiter as the thoughts rushed through her. Whiter and whiter until it shattered, exploded, burst through overlo
ad.
Mia looked up and Kate saw her gaze flick up to something over Anderton’s shoulder, just for a moment, before she looked away. Then she fixed her gaze once more on Anderton. “I’d like to talk to you. I know – I know you want me to come to the station and I will, but I want to talk here.”
“Mrs Farraday—”
“Please. I’ll tell you everything. Everything you need to know.”
Confession time. Kate had seen it once or twice before, when the weight of guilt suddenly became too much, the peace offered by the act of contrition far outweighing the pain of still keeping the secret. It surprised her though, knowing what she knew about Mia and the lengths the woman had gone to to achieve her aim.
Anderton had perhaps been thinking the same thing. “Very well,” he said, and gestured for the other officers to sit down. They did so, keeping a close eye on Mia, but she sat quite still, calm again now. The strange, invisible energy that Kate had sensed about her seemed to have dissipated. “But I must warn you again, Mrs Farraday, that it may harm your defence if you do not mention something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. I just want you to be quite clear on that.”
“I understand,” said Mia. She looked across at Kate. “It wasn’t just the alibi, was it? That can’t be the only reason.”
Kate didn’t smile. “You lied about what you studied at university, Mrs Farraday. You told me that you’d studied History at Edinburgh. You didn’t. Your subject was Computer Science, and you had a real aptitude for it, according to your professors. You were one of the top students in your class.”
“It’s true,” Mia said. “I’m highly skilled in computing.”
“So I suppose it was child’s play for you to hack into your husband’s account – no, what am I saying? To hack into Melanie Houghton’s account on 4Adults and arrange to meet your husband on the night he was killed?”
Mia stared at Kate. Then she smiled. “You’ve already examined my computer. I don’t believe you found anything suspicious on it.”
“Oh, no, not on that one,” said Kate, gently. “But that wasn’t the one you used, was it Mrs Farraday? Where is your other computer?”
Mia was silent for a long moment. Then she smiled again. “You’re not stupid, either, are you DS Redman?”
“The police, despite what you might think, Mrs Farraday, are not stupid.”
“No.” Mia gave her an appraising stare. “The other computer’s hidden behind one of the walls in my bedroom. There’s a loose panel behind the dressing table. You can find it there.”
“Thank you.”
There was a short silence. Kate saw Mia’s eyes go beyond Anderton’s shoulder once more. What was she looking at? Kate craned her head backwards to try and see but it wasn’t obvious. The clock on the wall, perhaps?
“It’s true,” Mia said. “I killed Simon.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Even though they had been expecting it, the bald statement caused a faint intake of breath from Olbeck and Kate. Anderton sat calmly. “Why was that?” he asked.
Mia looked down at her hands which were placed flat on either of her narrow thighs. “Well, apart from the fact that he was an awful husband, financially and emotionally abusive, and robbed me of having any more children?” She laughed, properly this time, and for the first time, Kate could detect something not quite sane in her tone. The merest flavour of it, underneath the calm demeanour. “Apart from that?” Her laughter died quite suddenly. “No, that probably wouldn’t have been enough. Although...” Suddenly the animation died out of her voice. “Since Mum died, I haven’t – things haven’t been quite right. With me, I mean.” Kate could see her eyelids flickering again, so fast and so faintly it was hard to make out. “He was going to leave me. Leave us, more to the point. He’d fallen in love – God, that makes me laugh, Simon in love, he wasn’t capable of that, but he thought he was – he was infatuated with that awful woman, and he was just going to up and leave us.”
Feeling cruel, but having to ask anyway, Kate said, “But why kill him, Mrs Farraday? Marriages break up all the time.”
Mia gave her a look of scorn. “Because I would have had nothing. Literally nothing. He would have seen me and my children in the street, literally in the gutter, with nothing. Penniless. Homeless. Worse, probably.” She was silent for a moment and then added, “He was like that.”
There was a short silence which Kate opened her mouth to speak before Mia began talking again, in a flat tone that sent another chill down Kate’s spine. “Besides, I hated him. I wanted him to die.”
What was there to say to that? The officers sat, watching her. Mia, for a moment, seemed oblivious to their stares. She looked down at her hands, still flat on her legs, an oddly dancer-like pose.
Then she looked up. “I did it for the children, you see. They’re my life. I’d do anything for them. I had to do it.”
“Mrs—”Anderton began, but Mia was still speaking.
“It was quite funny, actually. I knew he and that ugly bitch were into all that ridiculous stuff, all the leather and chains and so forth.” Her nose wrinkled. “So cringeworthy. Her husband must be so humiliated. Well, he should be. Anyway, it was so easy. I knew what the bitch used to wear when she came to see Simon at the townhouse—”
“How did you know?” asked Anderton.
Mia looked at him, surprised. “Because I watched her.” She said this as though it were obvious. “I used to spy on her, and her stupid husband, all the time. And Simon too. He genuinely thought I didn’t know, or perhaps he did know. He just didn’t care.” She was silent for a moment and then giggled, a sound that tightened Kate’s stomach again. “Sarah thinks I’ve got loads of hobbies because I was always out. But I don’t, really. I just used to go and see what Simon was up to. That’s how I knew he was going to leave me and the children. That’s how I knew what the bitch wore to meet him. She used to be naked under that raincoat, did you know that? Cheap, nasty slut.”
“So you bought the same sort of coat to wear?” asked Kate.
Mia almost looked smug. “Exactly. I set up the meeting, I wore the coat. I knew the police would think it was her.”
“You knew about the tunnel,” said Kate. Now she realised why Mia hadn’t used it to enter the building. She’d wanted to throw suspicion on Melanie Houghton.
“Of course I knew about the tunnel.” Mia flexed the fingers of her hands but didn’t move from her position. “Anyway, it was easy to persuade Simon to be almost tied-up when I arrived.” She giggled again. “I told him to keep the mask on. I said I’d let myself in and he’d have to wait until I’d handcuffed him to the bed properly before I’d take it off. Of course, he agreed. He thought it was Melanie asking him.” She was actually laughing now, a thin, gaspy laugh. “God, he got such a shock when he realised it was me.”
“He realised?” Kate had thought there hadn’t been anything left about this case to shock her but there she realised she was wrong.
Mia was still laughing. “I pulled the mask up, just enough for him to see it was me. I wanted him to know it was me. I wanted him to know that I was onto him. That I’d always been onto him.” The thin laughter died. “I meant to kill him but it was supposed to be quite clinical. I don’t know what happened. I was—”
She didn’t go on. Kate didn’t need her to. She could imagine the years of repression and anger and hurt suddenly exploding in one frenzied attack, the candlestick falling again and again and again. She very nearly shuddered. That was why the crime scene had been so contradictory. The long, carefully laid plan and the sudden violent attack that took the murderer herself by surprise as much as her victim.
Mia was silent for a long time. So long that Kate could feel Anderton stirring beside her, getting ready to speak.
“Mrs Farraday—”
Mia interrupted him. “I should say that I killed Dorothy, too. Dorothy Smelton.” She looked at them a little defiantly, as if she was a naughty s
choolgirl, about to be scolded. The officers said nothing but looked back. Mia went on. “I’m not ashamed of that. I’m not ashamed of killing Simon either, actually. I’m just sorry it had to be so – so messy. But Dorothy – it was what she wanted. She told me.”
Kate could see Anderton, seasoned officer as he was, struggling to make sense of that. “She told you—”
Mia spoke quite coolly. “Dorothy was very ill. She had Alzheimer’s, I’m sure you already know that. I knew it, quite early on. Having been through it all with Mum, I knew very early on. I knew the signs, you see.” She fell silent for a moment, and for the first time, Kate saw tears in her eyes. “Dorothy had seen what I’d gone through with Mum. I remember she said to me once, ‘I don’t want to end up like that, Mia. I want to be put out of my misery before it gets too bad’.”
The officers said nothing. Kate thought what Mia was saying was probably true. Dorothy’s words to her on her first visit to the lady’s house reoccurred, something about it being okay to put animals down but not people. She realised Mia was speaking again.
“I knew Dorothy wouldn’t know what time I actually left her, that night. The night Simon was killed. I told her what to say. I reminded her.” Mia blinked again, rapidly. “She called me yesterday morning, terribly upset. She was paranoid about the police, she thought they were trying to break into her house. I said I’d go over there.” She sighed. “I knew as soon as I saw her that it was – it was time. Time to do what I’d said I’d do.”
“Nothing to do with the fact that she was becoming more and more unreliable,” said Anderton, and this time his tone was not gentle or neutral. “Nothing to do with the fact that she could have betrayed you to the police.”
“No,” said Mia, dully. “It wasn’t like that.”
“So, what happened?”
“I gave her pills. In brandy. She didn’t know anything was happening. She died peacefully.”
There was another long silence. Kate wondered whether Anderton would break it, by insisting Mia Farraday now accompany them to the station. She was sure he was about to, when they were all startled by the sound of the front door opening and then the noise and hubbub of several small children approaching the kitchen. A moment later, Sarah Collins and two of the Farraday children entered the room.