Archie Danbury was lying on the floor. His chest was pitted with shotgun pellets, and his head was a mushy mixture of blood, bone and brains.
‘Is that gun loaded, Ethel?’ Beresford asked, as he felt his heart beat furiously against his ribcage.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Danbury replied, in a distant voice.
‘And would it be all right if I took it off you?’
‘No!’ Ethel said – much more harshly, more determinedly.
‘If you won’t give it to me, will you at least put it down? It doesn’t look safe where it is.’
‘It’s safe enough. I was brought up on a farm. I started shooting as soon as I was big enough to hold a gun. I was a crack shot, and I still am – it’s something you never forget.’
‘Did Archie know you were good with guns?’ Beresford asked.
‘No, I knew he wouldn’t like it, so I pretended that they frightened me,’ Ethel said. She sighed. ‘I let him think he was God. That was my first mistake – and I’ve made so many since.’
He should try and disarm her, Beresford thought, but he knew that he’d never make it – knew that, before he was halfway across the room, she’d have swung the shotgun into position, cocked it, and let him have it with both barrels.
‘Would you like to talk?’ he suggested.
‘About what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Beresford said – groping his way as he went. ‘About your husband, perhaps?’
‘He was a terrible man,’ Ethel said. ‘A cruel man. I accidentally singed one of his shirts once – and he did this.’
She held up her arms, and Beresford could see the imprint of an iron clearly burned into her skin.
‘Why did he do it?’ Ethel asked. ‘And why did I let him do it? Can you explain that to me?’
So that was why he was there, Beresford thought – to explain her life to her, to make some sense of the terrible situation she found herself in.
He felt as if he were drowning in a sea of his own inadequacy, and knew that if he didn’t learn to swim soon, there was a good chance that neither of them would walk out of this living room alive.
‘I can’t explain it,’ he admitted. ‘All I do know is that you’re not alone. There are thousands – perhaps millions – of women who have found themselves in your situation, and have reacted just like you have.’
‘I used to think it must be my fault. If I hadn’t singed his shirt, he wouldn’t have burned my arm. If I hadn’t …’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Beresford said softly. ‘It was never your fault.’
‘I feel so guilty – so ashamed,’ Ethel said.
She was crying now, but she still had a firm grip on the shotgun.
‘You shouldn’t feel guilty,’ Beresford said, glancing down at Archie Danbury’s body.
‘Not about Archie!’ Ethel said.
There was a sudden anger in her voice, and it was directed against him, Beresford realised. And the reason she was angry was that he had failed her – she had expected him to understand, and it was obvious that he hadn’t.
‘So what do you feel guilty about?’ he asked – doing his best not to look at the shotgun, fighting back thoughts of what it would be like to have dozens of small burning craters in his chest.
‘I feel guilty about her!’ Ethel said.
‘Her?’
‘I should have left Archie when William was a little boy. Either that, or I should have done then what I’ve finally done today. But I didn’t. I stayed, and I suffered. And William saw it happening. William grew up believing that was how life was – how life should be.’
He’d got it now, he thought – he was tuned into her wavelength.
‘You’re talking about Jane, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Of course I’m talking about Jane. She was such a sweet girl – such an earnest girl. All she ever wanted out of life was a happy family. She reminded me so much of myself, when I was young. I should have warned her that my son was a monster, but that’s not an admission any mother wants to make. So, instead, I lied to myself. I forced myself to believe that Jane would change William for the better. But deep inside me, I knew that would never happen – because he’s fashioned from the same poisoned tree that his father was.’ The tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her finger seemed – to Beresford, at least – to be tightening on the trigger of the shotgun. ‘And because I said nothing to her, Jane – lovely, sweet Jane – is dead! And it’s all my fault!’ She wiped a tear from her eye. ‘I want you to leave now.’
She had decided to end it all, Beresford realised, but she knew that he could be across the room, disarming her, before she’d had time to turn the gun on herself – and that was why she wanted him to go.
‘I’m staying right here,’ he said.
‘Go, while you still have the chance,’ she begged him.
He thought of his mother. She had had Alzheimer’s disease. He had looked after her for years – had tried so hard to fix her – but it had been a battle which had been lost from the start, and, by the end, he had been left with the feeling that all his efforts had been wasted. Yet here was a woman – about the same age as his mother had been when she got ill – who he could help.
The problem was that she didn’t want to be helped – she wanted to die, and saw him as standing in her way.
There had to be something he could do or say to ease the situation, he told himself.
There simply had to be.
But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t think of anything.
Paniatowski stood behind the police barricade, staring at the front of the house in the old terraced street.
‘He’s going to die in there,’ she told herself.
She could already picture him lying on the floor – his body punctured by dozens of pellets, his life’s blood slowly oozing away.
She had remembered everything they had been to each other over the years, and though William Danbury claimed that people were only devastated because they allowed themselves to be devastated, she knew that Colin’s death would leave a deep hole in her soul.
What right had he to take a risk like this? And how bloody stupid did you have to be – how bloody irresponsible – to walk into that kind of situation without a bullet-proof vest?
Didn’t he know that there were people out here in the street who cared for him?
But that was the way Colin was, she thought – stubborn, foolish, kind and brave – and if he hadn’t been like that, she probably wouldn’t have loved him quite so much.
Any second now, Ethel would raise the shotgun and fire both barrels at him, Beresford thought. She didn’t want to do it, but she had her own pain to deal with, and she couldn’t deal with it while he was still around.
‘Go,’ she begged him.
‘There’s something you should know,’ Beresford said. ‘We don’t think William was the person who killed Jane.’
‘You don’t think …’
‘I wasn’t going to tell you at first, because the investigation’s still ongoing, and we’re not allowed to rule anyone out, but William says he was with his mistress when Jane died – and it’s looking like he was telling the truth.’
‘You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?’ Ethel Danbury asked. ‘I trust you, you know. You’re the only person in the world I do trust any longer, and I couldn’t bear it if you were lying to me.’
‘I’m not lying,’ Beresford said.
‘Then who did kill Jane?’
‘We don’t know, but whoever it was, it has nothing to do with anything you’ve ever said or done.’
‘Oh God,’ Ethel said.
‘I’m going to come across to where you’re sitting, and take the gun off you,’ Beresford said. ‘I can do that, can’t I?’
‘Yes,’ Ethel replied, suddenly weary, suddenly weighed down by the exhaustion brought on by forty years of misery and desperation.
Beresford crossed the room, took the shotgun off her, broke it open and removed the shells.
‘They’re going to lock me up for a long time – perhaps forever – aren’t they?’ Ethel asked. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘You won’t get a long sentence,’ Beresford told her. ‘Perhaps you won’t go to jail at all. A great deal will depend on what you tell them.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Was it you who loaded the shotgun?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you load the shotgun?’
‘To protect myself against Archie.’
‘And you needed to protect yourself, because you thought he was going to kill you.’
‘No, not kill me, hurt me – and I’m so very, very tired of being hurt.’
‘You thought he was going to kill you,’ Beresford repeated. ‘He said when he went out that he was going to kill you when he got back. Promise me that when you’re asked, that’s what you’ll say. Do it for me.’
Ethel nodded. ‘All right.’
‘What happened next?’
‘He came in – he was drunk. I could see he was going to hurt me. I told him not to come any closer, and when he did, I shot him.’
‘Good,’ Beresford said. ‘Then what happened?’
‘He was thrown backwards. He was lying on the floor, and he wasn’t moving. I wanted to make sure he was dead. I reloaded, and shot the next two barrels into his head.’
‘I don’t think you’re remembering it properly,’ Beresford said. ‘What actually happened was that he went down, but then started to get up again. You were in fear for your life. You couldn’t get out of the room, because he was blocking the doorway. In a panic, you reloaded and fired blindly. It was just by chance that you hit his head. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then tell me now exactly what you’ll be telling the people who question you later.’
‘Before he went out, Archie said he would kill me when he got back,’ Ethel said. ‘I loaded the gun. When I saw he was going to kill me, I fired it. He started to get up from where he’d fallen. I knew he’d kill me if he could. I reloaded the gun and fired again.’
It wasn’t a great story, Beresford thought, and under serious interrogation it would fall apart almost immediately. But he was hoping that she would never be subjected to serious interrogation once the investigating officers had seen the iron branded on her arm – that they would believe her story not because it was a credible one, but because they wanted to believe it.
‘It’s time to go outside,’ he said. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Will you stay with me?’ she asked.
‘For as long as I’m allowed to,’ he promised.
He helped her to her feet. She was as light as a feather. She was crying again, and he was surprised to discover that he was too.
The snipers were still in position, the armed officers crouched behind the cars still had their pistols drawn, but when Beresford opened the door of the Danbury house and stepped outside carrying Ethel Danbury in his arms, it was plain to everyone on the scene that none of that was necessary.
Beresford looked around him, and saw an ambulance parked by the police barricade. No one tried to stop him as he walked over to it, and it was only when he had handed Ethel over to the paramedics that he even became aware that Chief Superintendent Briscoe must have been just behind him all the way.
‘You disobeyed my orders,’ Briscoe said angrily. ‘I specifically told you that you could not go into that house unless you were wearing a bullet-proof vest.’
‘I know, sir,’ Beresford said. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘I’m seriously considering hauling you up before a disciplinary board,’ Briscoe told him.
Which would be a shitty thing to happen to his career, Beresford thought, but he had just saved a life, and he was finding it almost impossible to care about disciplinary boards at that moment.
‘You’re well within your rights to do that, sir, and you’ll get no complaints from me,’ he said.
Briscoe looked into his eyes. ‘I’m never going to be able to make you regret what you’ve just done, am I?’ he asked.
‘No, sir, you’re not,’ Beresford told him.
Briscoe shrugged. ‘In that case, I suppose I might as well recommend you for a commendation.’
Then he turned and was gone, only to be replaced, a second later, by Paniatowski, who looked about as furious as Beresford could ever remember seeing her.
‘You stupid, stupid bastard!’ she screamed at him.
‘Listen, Monika …’ Beresford began.
Paniatowski slapped him hard across the face, and when he made no attempt to evade her, she slapped him again.
And then she flung her arms around him, and hugged him as tightly as she could.
It was as she was walking back to her car that Paniatowski noticed that Chief Inspector Barrington’s vehicle was parked next to it, and that Barrington himself was pacing up and down like a man who had a lot on his mind.
There was no reason for Barrington to be there, Paniatowski thought, no reason at all.
Unless …
‘It wasn’t Melanie Danbury who was buried in the woods,’ Barrington said, as she drew level with him.
‘Then who is it?’
‘We don’t know. We’ve really no idea. But it’s the wrong blood group, and anyway, the poor little mite that Alfie Clayton found had already been dead for at least a day longer than Melanie has been missing.’
Well, shit!
‘So what do we do now?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘I’ve called a press conference for five o’clock,’ Barrington told her. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d be there.’
‘Of course,’ Paniatowski agreed.
Most of the press conferences held by the Whitebridge police – even the ones dealing with murders – were only attended by the local hacks, because, when all was said and done, crimes committed in a backwater like Whitebridge were only really interesting to those people who lived in and around that backwater.
A missing child was another matter entirely. A missing child was of national – and perhaps even international – interest, and the press room that day was packed with both hot-shot reporters from London and camera crews from all the major channels.
Barrington, about to make his opening remarks, looked out across the sea of sensation seekers spread out before him, and cleared his throat.
‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Chief Inspector Clive Barrington and this is my colleague, DCI Monika Paniatowski,’ he said. ‘I wish to make a statement, and then I will be willing to answer a few questions.’ He cleared his throat for a second. ‘The child whose body was recovered this morning was not Melanie Danbury, though she was of roughly the same age. A medical examination has already been conducted on this child, and foul play is not suspected.’
‘She was buried in the woods!’ someone called out. ‘If she wasn’t murdered, why was she buried in the woods?’
‘Burial in an unauthorised location is an illegal act in itself, but it has been clearly established that the girl died from natural causes,’ Barrington said. ‘However, we are eager to talk to the parents of the dead child, and would ask them to contact us. We would also appeal to the general public to ring us if they have noticed that any small girls, who they have been accustomed to seeing round and about, have been notable by their absence for the last few days. Thank you for your attention. I will now take questions.’
‘What about Melanie Danbury?’ someone asked.
‘The search for Melanie will, of course, continue.’
‘What do you mean – continue?’ asked a male reporter from the Daily Dispatch.
‘I mean exactly what I say.’
‘But you haven’t been searching for Melanie, have you? Not since you found that other little girl?’
‘That is not true, we have never stopped looking,’ Barrington said shakily.
‘Oh really?’ the reporter asked sceptically. ‘Isn’t it normal to bring in the h
elicopters on the second day of a search for a missing child?’
‘That is sometimes the case, yes,’
Paniatowski groaned inwardly. That was the worst possible way to have answered the question, she thought, because when the reporter asked his follow-up question – and he would ask it – it would reveal just how evasive Barrington had been trying to be.
‘Had you planned to bring in helicopters for the second day of this search?’ the reporter asked.
Barrington hesitated for a second, then said, ‘Yes.’
‘So what happened to them?’
‘We … er … we cancelled them.’
‘You cancelled the helicopters,’ the reporter ploughed on relentlessly. ‘That would be to save money, wouldn’t it? And what about the volunteers? They weren’t costing you anything at all – but you didn’t use them, either. You just assumed – with no justification at all, as it turns out – that you’d found Melanie, and you simply gave up the search!’
Barrington was visibly shaking, and any moment now he was going to break down and beg forgiveness, first from the reporters and then from the world in general, Paniatowski thought.
She stood up. ‘I’m glad you raised the issue of the volunteers,’ she said. ‘As a matter of fact, there were no volunteers today. And why was that?’
She paused, to give one of the assembled journalists the opportunity to provide her with an answer.
None of them did.
None of them was even looking at her.
‘There were no volunteers because they all thought that Melanie had been found,’ she continued. ‘And why did they think that? Was it because we – the Mid Lancs police – told them she’d been found?’
She paused for a second time. All the reporters were either pretending to take notes or examining their hands.
‘No, we didn’t tell them. What happened was that one of you people learned from a contact he had in Whitebridge General that a girl’s body had been found. Now what that reporter should have done was ring us, and if he’d done that, we’d have told him that no positive identification had been made, and it would be better if the story didn’t go out. That would have been the responsible thing to do. Instead, it was broadcast, and the volunteers heard it. So don’t go blaming the police because the search was scaled back today – blame one of your own!’
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