‘Mummy,’ whispered Millie, ‘the cups are dirty. There’s black bits in there.’
Sasha giggled. ‘Bit of dirt won’t hurt you, Millie. Look, Mummy’s drinking hers.’
‘Don’t like it,’ said Harry.
‘For God’s sake, Harry, just drink it will you.’ Honestly, she was trying to make the day fun. Have some fun with the twins. Better fun than they’d had with Alex. Couldn’t they see that?
Harry’s lip wobbled.
‘C’mon Harry,’ said Millie. ‘Look I’m drinkin’.’ And she took a sip from the beaker.
A big, fat tear rolled down Harry’s cheek. ‘Don’t want to.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake stop whining, Harry.’
Her harsh voice made Harry cry properly, with Millie watching him, shuffling from foot to foot.
Sasha glared at the twins. ‘So bloody ungrateful,’ she muttered, folding her arms across her body.
Now what?
She jerked her head up. ‘Let’s go and watch the sun on the water. We might even see it go down. What do you think?’
Millie nodded, the expression on her face doubtful. Harry didn’t say anything, just carried on sucking his thumb. Then: ‘I’m tired, Mummy. Harry’s tired.’
Another shovelful of guilt filled the space in Sasha’s chest. ‘I know, but we’ll remember this for the rest of our lives.’ She scooped him up into her arms, picked up her bag, and strode out of the hut, with Millie following behind.
The sun was beginning to bleed into the sky. They’d walked a long way along the beach. In the distance she could see the fisherman packing up his bag. The couple with the dogs had already left, and she watched as the family shovelled sand onto their barbecue, the faint smell of charcoal mingling with the sea air and the salt. The three of them sat down on the shingle bank. Sasha watched as the waves rushed in and then pulled out. Rushed in, pulled out. The gentle sucking of the stones, the occasional cry from a gull up above. The twins were playing; trying to dig a channel in the sand between the shingle. Sasha hugged her legs and put her chin on her knees.
She wanted to run.
How could one day on her own in Norwich make any difference? She just wasn’t a good wife, and Jez was bound to leave her one day for someone more vibrant, capable, likeable. And what would she and the twins do then? What would their lives be like then?
And she would never be able to protect her children from the bad things that were inevitably going to happen to them.
The sea carried on its hypnotic push and pull.
The beach was empty now, the light fading fast. The sea was flat calm. The sky washed down into the horizon. It was peaceful.
Inviting.
Sasha knew what to do.
She lifted Harry into her arms and took Millie’s hand. ‘Come on darlings. Swim time.’
‘But Mummy, I’m tired,’ said Millie.
‘So am I, sweetheart.’
She led her daughter forward until the grey sea lapped around their ankles.
‘It’s cold, Mummy,’ Millie started to cry.
‘It won’t be cold for long, I promise. Now hush, sweetheart. Just do what Mummy does, come on. And let’s sing.’
She gripped Millie’s hand harder, singing about her favourite things, and walked further into the sea, pulling her daughter behind her with a strength she didn’t know she had.
Both children were crying now as she pushed on further and deeper.
She felt a current drag her under. She opened her eyes and saw Millie beneath her. There was no noise. Even the constant chatter in her head was quiet. She still had Harry in her arms.
37
Jez ran through the dunes and onto the beach, heart pumping. breath coming in shallow gasps. She had to be here.
The light had almost gone and he could scarcely see anything – even the moon had taken against him by staying behind clouds. He’d brought a torch with him from the car and he shone it along the shoreline.
There she was, sitting with the sea lapping around her.
He ran, and slithered down beside her.
She was holding Harry in her arms. He was wet and blue and dead.
Sasha turned to him. ‘I couldn’t do it, Jez.’
‘Where’s Millie?’
She smiled. ‘Gone to be a mermaid,’ she said.
38
NOW
Alex hadn’t realized Sasha had a clock. She could hear its loud tick-tock cut sonorously through the silence in the airless room. Sasha hadn’t moved throughout Jez’s account. Jez was looking straight ahead, not looking anywhere or at anyone; his voice was unemotional.
‘So,’ said Alex, feeling unnaturally calm, ‘what happened then?’
She remembered, on that day, she’d said goodbye to Martin, cleared up some of the mess the children had made, and looked at her watch, thinking Sasha should have been home an hour or so before, but was hoping she’d been having a good time. Then she looked into the carrycot where Gus was sleeping. It was getting too small for him; she would have to—
That was when she realized something was missing. Any sound from the children. Nothing. She walked quickly outside, trying to breathe normally.
The gate was shut, but the twins were nowhere to be seen. A terrible tide of fear was rising up inside her – she couldn’t think straight, didn’t know what to do. The light was beginning to go.
She hesitated, heart hammering, looking back at the house. Once Gus was asleep, it took an earthquake to wake him. Without stopping to think any more, she ran up the road, round the corner. Back down the road again, into the next one. No sign. Back to the house where she stabbed Martin’s number into her phone. Could he have heard them as he left? Must have. No answer. No fucking answer.
Jez. She phoned Jez, who’d just finished his shift. He told her not to worry, that Sasha had probably picked them up and taken them home.
‘Without telling me?’ she’d screamed at him.
‘You know what Sasha’s like,’ he said. ‘Let me check. I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.’
But she had worried. The whole time. And the worry deepened when she found two carrier bags shoved in the hedge, one containing a pair of red shoes.
‘What happened then,’ said Jez, ‘was a nightmare.’
He told Alex when he had found Sasha and Harry he had taken them both home by cover of darkness and had dressed his little boy in his favourite Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas. He cried for Millie, lost in the sea, and knew the currents would carry her body far, far away from the shore.
‘Then I sat down to think. But I couldn’t think straight. My stomach was churning; I was sick, crying, a mess. I had lost my children and was about to lose my wife. But I couldn’t lose them all, that’s what I felt; I didn’t want to lose them all. I was mad with grief. I loved them. I loved Sasha. Do you understand?’
Alex shook her head. ‘No. Sasha needed help.’
‘She would never have got help. Not then. She’d have been put away for years, you know that. She’d have been seen as a monster.’
‘But you were happy to let Jackie Wood be seen as a monster?’
‘She wasn’t my wife,’ he shouted, making Alex jump. ‘See, you don’t understand, and if you don’t, how would anyone else?’ He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He opened them again. ‘And she was creepy enough. Always hanging around the children – not just Harry and Millie either. Hiding their paintings away. Following Sasha to the playground because she wanted to see the children on the swings. Always on her own. I didn’t think they’d arrest her as well. That was just a bonus.
‘She was just lonely, that’s all.’
‘She was plain weird.’
‘And why Martin?’
‘Sasha told me how Martin had tried to seduce her while he was having an affair with her sister, with you.’ He shouted at her.
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Alex. ‘He loved me, he said so.’ She didn’t want Jez to take that away from her.
&n
bsp; ‘Not according to Sasha. No one tries it on with my wife and gets away with it. And he was stopping you from looking after the children properly that day. You were in bed with him when Sasha turned up, weren’t you? You might as well admit it.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. The guilt was roaring in her ears. ‘So you should blame me.’
‘Oh, I do,’ he replied bitterly. ‘But you’re Sasha’s sister and she loves you. Martin was a piece of dirt. I mean, didn’t he even realize the children weren’t in the garden when he left you?’
‘He went out the back way.’ Guilt, shame; all cascading over her.
‘So he wouldn’t be seen.’ His face was twisted in anger, then it relaxed. ‘Anyway, things spiralled and soon I was in too deep. There was no way back. And I found a sort of peace. I suppose I had buried my grief as far down as it would go.’ He shivered. ‘Now you know it all, Alex, what will you do?’
She looked at Jez, his face ravaged by loss and guilt, at Sasha who was quietly humming to herself while picking at the scabs on her arms. She vaguely recognized the tune as something from The Sound of Music. She felt strangely calm.
‘You framed an innocent man, Jez, and then you had him killed. You framed an innocent woman and she spent some of the best years of her life in prison. You know what I’m going to do. I think this has gone on for too many years, don’t you?’
39
She’d had to get out of the station, so had grabbed her coat and walked down into the town to her favourite tea shop, where she was drinking a pot of the tea she favoured when she needed to think – Assam with a pinch of lapsang souchong. That it was her favourite was a secret between her and the tea shop owner. She didn’t want to appear posh in front of her colleagues.
‘Can I join you?’ Glithro stood in front of her.
‘It’s a free country,’ Kate said, then immediately regretted her churlishness.
Glithro nodded at the china teapot and the porcelain cup. ‘Do you always drink tea?’
‘No. I like coffee too.’
Glithro made a movement with his hand as if he were batting away a fly. ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant, do you ever drink? Alcohol? You know, beer, wine, cocktails?’
Kate narrowed her eyes. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Might be interesting to see you let go.’
‘Then the answer is no.’ God, why did he always make her feel as though she was some sort of uptight virgin?
He smiled wolfishly. ‘Just wondering.’
‘Well don’t. So what’s happening?’
‘We’ve arrested Nikki and Angela Jessop and have got a warrant to search both Nikki’s caravan and Angela’s house.’
‘Bea, her name’s Bea.’
Glithro smiled. ‘It might well be, but I can’t get used to calling her that.’
‘I can see why Bea killed Grainger, but why Wood?’
‘It was always said she’d had a relationship with Jessop, maybe she thought that had been part of the reason he’d been found guilty and been taken away from her. Maybe she threatened Wood and lost her temper. Maybe we’ll never know.’
‘I don’t like that.’
Glithro grinned. ‘What? The never knowing? It happens.’
Kate sighed. ‘Where does that leave us, Glithro?’
The waitress turned up with a huge slice of passion fruit cake that Kate had ordered.
‘I’ll have one of those, too, please,’ said Glithro.
‘Too much sugar is not good for your heart at your age, Glithro.’
He looked at her. ‘I’ll manage. Don’t you worry about me. And in answer to your question, let’s wait for the DNA results. They might show us something.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Tea smells interesting.’
‘Thought you wanted alcohol?’
‘Not in the middle of the afternoon. And I was only asking if you ever drank, that was all. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I’m not.’ She tried to smile and hoped it was working. ‘Would you like a pot? Of tea?’
‘No. Far too posh for me.’ He grinned. Then his expression became serious. ‘Anyway, About those results – what’s the betting there’ll be a match for the DNA we found in Jackie Wood’s caravan?’
‘Bea’s DNA will probably be in there, won’t it? She had at least one conversation with her.’
‘Bathroom?’
‘That might be more of a result.’
‘But Alex Devlin, Glithro. Jessop’s mistress? There’s something odd about all this.’
‘Look, you had a hunch that the murder of Wood had something to do with what happened years ago, and I think you were right. I’m coming down on the side of revenge, pure and simple. I mean, imagine what it must have been like for Angela Jessop all these years, having to live with the fact her husband was a murderer. Imagine how twisted the children must have become. The son buggered off abroad, didn’t he, leaving the daughter – Bea, Nikki, whatever you like to call her – to bear the brunt of the mother’s disappointment with life.’
‘Disappointment?’ Kate cut a piece of her cake with the edge of her fork. ‘That’s a bit of an understatement, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yeah, probably.’ The waitress brought his cake and set it down in front of him. ‘Thanks, love,’ he said.
‘Love?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘She’s not your “love”.’
‘Oh, get over yourself, Todd.’ He grinned as he got stuck into the cake. ‘And you’re not going to change me now anyway. What about Alex Devlin? Could she have killed Wood?’
Kate shook her head thoughtfully. ‘My gut reaction – and before you say anything, I believe a lot in gut reaction – was that she was genuinely shaken up at the scene. I saw her, remember? But I suppose anything’s possible. Though—’
Glithro lifted an eyebrow. ‘Though?’
‘When I spoke to Alex Devlin she said something about Jackie Wood being stabbed “with a bloody kitchen knife”. How did she know that?’
‘I’d say that, either she did kill her, or she got rid of the weapon, for some reason or other.’
‘Correct.’
‘Okay. So why not our Alex as the mistress?’
‘I never said that, Glithro,’ she said irritably. ‘I said I found it odd. I suppose what I’m thinking is; what was it about Alex Devlin that made Jez Clements and Grainger go to such lengths – ,’ she pointed her fork at him, ‘– lengths, I might add, that got two people murdered – to cover it up?’
‘Perhaps we’ll know that soon. I’ve sent DC Maitland and DC Evans to pick up Devlin and Clements, as you wanted.’
‘Thanks.’
They ate their cake companionably for a few minutes.
‘How’s life generally?’ asked Glithro.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Forgive me for saying, but you do seem a bit distracted, and I know things haven’t been easy at home.’
‘Oh, you know, do you?’
‘You sort of said as much last time we ate.’
She put down her fork carefully because if she didn’t she would stab the interfering bugger with it. ‘Well. My husband found out that the reason I wasn’t getting pregnant was because I was still on the pill and not because there was something wrong with one of us, so he smashed up a beautiful crib he had made for our baby and walked out and I don’t know where he’s gone. Curiosity satisfied now, Glithro?’ She kept her hand steady as she picked up the fork again.
‘Okay. So what are you going to do?’
It would not be a good idea to show too much weakness in front of a colleague. Not a good idea at all. Bad enough she spilled her guts in what was colloquially known as a moment of madness. She looked up at the ceiling, opening her eyes as wide as she could. Always guaranteed to stop tears. Then she looked directly at Glithro. ‘How many times have you been divorced?’ She kept her voice hard.
He inclined his head. ‘Point taken. Not the best person to give advice.�
��
‘No.’
‘And thank you for not stabbing me with the fork.’
‘I was tempted, Glithro.’
He gave her a smile that was not appropriate.
‘So, since you asked, I’m going to find out where’s he’s gone and try and talk him round. There will be a way through this.’
‘I see.’
The old-fashioned bell on the tea-shop door rang again.
‘Thought I might find you in here, Ma’am.’ Rogers appeared at the table.
‘Sit down, why don’t you,’ she said, wearily. ‘Let’s have a tea-party. What is it?’
Rogers sat, looking longingly at the cake. ‘All those doughnuts I’ve shared, Ma’am—’
Kate found herself laughing in spite of herself. ‘All right, all right.’ She signalled to the waitress. ‘More cake, please.’
‘So, Rogers, what brings you here?’
‘Well, Ma’am. I have good news and bad news and pretty bad news.’
‘Let’s have the bad news first.’
‘Firstly, Jez Clements’s alibi checks out with the McSweeney woman. Nice house too.’
‘Right.’ Why did she want him to be guilty of the murder?
And secondly, the tests have come back and there was no DNA on Jackie Wood’s body or clothes. No fibres, hair, anything that could lead us to the killer.
‘Bugger’
‘But the good news is we have a match for the DNA found in the dried spittle on Grainger’s chin.’
‘And?’ asked Kate. ‘Don’t keep us in suspense.’
‘Angela Jessop.’
‘Bingo,’ said Glithro.
Kate thought he looked so pleased he was about to rub his hands together with glee.
‘Enough excitement, Detective Inspector Glithro. We’ve got them for Grainger’s murder but not for Wood’s. I’m not convinced about Bea Jessop. We will, however, bring her in for questioning, but we’ll also review the evidence, cast the net wider.’
The Bad Things Page 29