by Anne Cassidy
Rose followed them until they got to a black car.
‘You get in the back,’ Greg said, hooking his thumb at Rose.
Rose got in, stifling a response. It was as if she was the one being questioned, not the other way round. Susie turned her face to Rose between the two front seats. Greg stared straight ahead.
‘Greg and me can’t have kids. I told you that last week. That’s why things went bad between us and I ended up having the affair with Stuart. But that’s in the past . . .’
Greg’s hand reached across to Susie.
‘I found out I was pregnant and I ended it with Stuart and I stupidly told him about the baby. He was adamant that we should stay together. He became really angry. That’s why Greg and him had a fight here in the car park. I told him I was going to have the baby and that Greg and me would bring it up as our own but he didn’t want that. He said he would take me to court and try to get joint custody. It was a mess!’
Susie was agitated. Her voice was cracking.
‘Don’t, Suse . . .’
‘You tell her then! You know more about it than me!’
Greg turned round. He didn’t make eye contact with Rose but looked down at the side of his seat, rubbing the fabric.
‘I told him to keep away from Susie. I told him he could go to court if he liked – the baby would still be with us. Then, on the Wednesday, he rang me at work and said he wanted to meet up Cullercoats. He said he wanted to sort it all once and for all. I got there early and I waited in the car and then, like I said to you before, I got angry. I got out and walked around trying to calm down. Then I see him arguing with this guy further up the cliff path. The guy walks off and then Johnson follows him. I wait. I’m about to give up, go back to my car, when he comes back. I can tell he’s riled up by the row he’s already had and he’s drunk. His dog’s running around like it’s some game. He comes straight at me and he says, The world would be a better place if you were out of it! And he grabs hold of my arm and starts to pull me towards the cliff edge. All the while he’s mumbling about Some people don’t deserve to live! It was ridiculous. I shook him off and he looked at me like he’d actually been serious about throwing me off the cliff. I just laughed at him and he made this dismissive gesture. He threw one hand up to wave me off as if I was nothing. It must have unbalanced him and he stumbled backwards and I walked away. I didn’t think it was enough for him to fall over. I had no idea how close to the cliff edge he was. No idea.’
‘You weren’t even sure he’d fallen off,’ Susie said.
‘At first I thought he’d just stumbled and I walked off but then I remembered he was drunk and I didn’t want him to lie out in the cold all night so I went back and looked for him. His dog was still there but he wasn’t. Anywhere. That was when I realised that he must have gone over. I called out, two, three times. Honestly, I called out but there was no answer and I just panicked.’
‘I was all for ringing the police, the ambulance, the coastguard but . . .’
‘I told her not to. I said I was sure he was dead. I don’t know those cliffs that well, especially not in the dark, but I thought the fall would have killed him.’
‘But you went back there later,’ Rose said to Susie.
‘I wanted to be sure that there was nothing we could do. I found Poppy. She was just sitting a few metres away from the cliff path so I went and looked over. I called out again and again but there was no answer. I didn’t see him.’
‘You could have rung the emergency services.’
‘Who would have believed me?’ Greg said. ‘I’d had a fight with the guy just over a week before. She’s carrying his baby. Who would have believed me? I thought he was dead.’
It was hot in the car. Rose got out and stood by the side of it. Susie got out. Greg stayed in the driver’s seat.
‘I wanted to call an ambulance. That’s why I went back. If there’d been any sign of life I’d have called the emergency services.’
‘You didn’t, though.’
‘And I regret it. What are you going to do?’
Rose stretched her arms out. She was stiff and uncomfortable. Why should it be up to her to do anything? Why couldn’t people clear up their own mess?
‘You left the dog there. All night in the bitter cold.’
‘I did think of taking the dog back with me but . . .’
‘It would have mucked up your story. So you waited till the morning, until your neighbour told you about it then you went and picked up the dog.’
‘Are you going to tell the police?’
‘I’m not going to do anything. You and your husband are going to go to the police and make a new statement and tell the truth. This way you both look like decent people who made bad decisions.’
‘We’ll be prosecuted.’
‘Maybe. Stuart’s coming out of the hospital on New Year’s Eve. So far he says he doesn’t remember anything. That might be true. I don’t know. The other possibility is that he knows and he’s just not saying anything, he’s keeping the information back to use in the future. If you go to the police you get it all out in the open now. You’ve got a baby on the way. It’s up to you.’
Rose walked off. She didn’t look behind. In her head she heard Stuart’s words to Greg Tyler – The world would be a better place if you were out of it. She remembered the letter he’d written to his solicitor, part of his Last Will and Testament. I alone am guilty of the murder of Simon Lister. Joshua’s uncle had a dark side.
But then so did his father.
And her mother.
TWENTY-FIVE
Rose took a long slow walk back to the house.
She was trying to take in what Greg and Susie Tyler had told her.
It was an odd thing to do, to run away when someone was hurt. Human nature was to try and help. How could Greg simply turn his back? He could have at least phoned for an ambulance or the coastguard. If Stuart was dead the difficult situation was suddenly resolved for him. Susie and he would be able to bring up the new baby without any interference if Stuart wasn’t around. Had that gone through Greg’s mind?
Susie had gone back to the cliff later, though.
Had she been overcome with guilt?
Rose realised she had taken a different route. She was at a crossroads which she didn’t recognise. Had she unconsciously avoided retracing her steps through Primrose Crescent?
She saw a sign for the Seafront and followed it.
Later she stood at the kitchen table and looked at what was in front of her. The grey steel box was empty and all of Stuart Johnson’s papers relating to the Butterfly Murder were laid out on the surface. The notebook was at one end with Stuart’s narrative of the abduction and murder of Judy Greaves. Also in the books were articles about the murder spaced over a year from June 2002 until September 2003 when Simon Lister was acquitted of the murder. Beside it was the pile of loose newspaper clippings that referred to the murder of Simon Lister on 23rd August 2004. Next to that was the letter from Brendan telling him that he wouldn’t be able to help him but that he could come up for a visit on the weekend of 23rd and 24th August 2004. Stuart’s confessional letter to his solicitor had been put back into the envelope containing his Last Will and Testament.
This was everything they had about the Butterfly Murder.
In the remaining space was Rose’s laptop. Skeggsie’s was on the work surface behind her.
Now she had found out that the house in which Judy Greaves’s body had been discovered was called Beaufort House – the same name as the company that owned the silver SUV, the car that was driven by the woman with the white-blonde hair. The car that Rose had thought was following them. The driver’s name was Margaret Spicer and she was one of the company directors – and she was currently staying at the Royal Hotel.
Stuart Johnson had been deeply involved in this case and had tried to persuade his brother to help. Rose sat down at the table and clicked on the saved file for Beaufort Holdings. She looked through the pa
ges again and saw the name Margaret Spicer, Company Director.
Rose opened up a fresh Google search. She typed in Margaret Spicer. Some irrelevant articles came up about an actress called Margaret Spicer and a writer of historical fiction. Rose scrolled down. There were some mentions of Beaufort Holdings, mainly the pages she had already looked at. She opened a new search. She put the words Margaret Spicer and Butterfly Murder in together.
Pages of articles came up about the Butterfly Murder but none appeared to be linked with the name Margaret Spicer. She typed in Margaret Spicer Simon Lister. More pages came up with the words Simon Lister highlighted.
She sat back. Was there any point to this? Wasn’t it just coincidental that the company was called Beaufort Holdings?
She opened up another search. She put Primrose Crescent Margaret Spicer. At the top of the list was an article from the local paper, the Whitley Chronicle. She sat up, excited. The words Margaret Spicer and Primrose were in bold. She double-clicked on the link. The newspaper article came up. She looked at the date – 15th June 2006. It was exactly four years after Judy Greaves’s body was found. The headline was muted, none of the splash of the Butterfly Murder press that there had been earlier. There was also a photograph of a group of three women holding small posies of flowers rather like plain clothes bridesmaids.
Memorial Park Opens for Judy
Primrose Crescent was the setting for the opening of a pretty park for local children to play in. The park, funded by the local authority, was built to commemorate ten-year-old Judy Greaves whose body was found in a nearby house in 2002. Judy’s family asked for this to be a quiet and dignified affair. Local people attended and the park was officially opened by Judy’s mother, Joanne Greaves, her sister Barbara Greaves and Margaret Spicer, the first police officer to discover Judy’s body.
The article ended there. Rose stopped reading. She sat back. Margaret Spicer had been the first police officer to attend the body in the room full of butterflies. Rose looked at the photograph. It was tiny. Underneath it the caption read Joanne Greaves (centre) stands with her daughter, Barbara, and WPC Spicer. Rose could just about make out the likeness of Barbara Greaves, the girl who had visited her the day before. The other two faces were blurred. The woman on the right was Margaret Spicer.
Was it the same Margaret Spicer? The woman with the white-blonde hair?
Why hadn’t her name been in any of the general press stories about the death? But Rose knew the answer to this. She was a WPC, a uniformed officer, anonymous, someone who just did their job. These people were never named in the papers. She’s named here because she’s been part of the healing process, the construction and opening of the children’s park.
Was it Margaret Spicer of Beaufort Holdings?
She stared at the photograph. She couldn’t stop the thought that Skeggsie could have enlarged the picture. She opened up her email and clicked on Eddie’s address.
Eddie, are you online now? I need some help with one of Skeggsie’s programmes. If you ring me I’d be so grateful.
She added her mobile number and waited. She noticed that it was almost three o’clock and Joshua was still out. He’d been gone most of the day. What would he say if he came in and saw the table covered with all this stuff?
Her mobile rang. She answered it.
‘Hi, Rose. Eddie,’ he said in a clipped voice.
‘Eddie, thank you for calling me. I need a huge favour. It’s something that Skeggsie used to do.’
‘Yep. Fire away.’
‘You sure you’re not too busy? Or with family or something?’
‘Rose. Tell me. Get to the point!’
Rose flinched at his tone but kept going.
‘Skeggsie had a programme for enlarging photos, almost down to pixels. He said he used to use it for analysing brushstrokes in paintings.’
‘Yep. Know it.’
‘I have a small photograph of three women from a newspaper article. I’d like to enlarge one of the faces.’
‘Yep. Can do. Email the links to me and I’ll check it.’
‘Will you have to go to the flat? To Skeggsie’s computer?’
‘Rose. This is the age of the internet. Skeggsie passed the programme on to me. Send me the link and I’ll get back to you ASAP.’
The line went dead. Rose wrote the email and put the link to the newspaper article. She told Eddie she wanted the face on the right enlarged. She pressed Send. Then she pulled Skeggsie’s laptop over. Her body felt tight and stiff, her shoulders rounded in concentration.
What was she thinking? That Margaret Spicer of Beaufort Holdings had been a WPC at one time and that she had been on duty when the body of Judy Greaves was discovered by an estate agent? That she now ran a security company and owned the silver SUV that had been following them?
She thought back to the times she had seen the car. It had been parked in the street, the woman and her dog sitting in it. Three times she’d seen it and then she’d looked for the registration number in Joshua’s book. She found the number there, from the time when they stopped at the services. She’d also seen it in the car park of the Royal Hotel.
Something occurred to her. She had asked Skeggsie to find out who the car belonged to. Rose knew that whatever Skeggsie had done to find this out would be illegal – some kind of hacking programme that he had devised, probably into the database at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority.
She opened up the emails that Eddie had sent about the car registration number. He had had to use Skeggsie’s computer because Skeggsie had kept the programme he’d devised to himself. She opened Skeggsie’s email and clicked on Eddie’s file. She read the words in his email.
Once I’ve input the data I’ll leave it to search. I’ll take your word for it that it’s not traceable (at least not to me!). I trust you.
As soon as Rose asked Skeggsie to find out who owned the car she never saw it in the street again. Not once. Could it be that be the owners of the car somehow knew that someone was trying to find out about them? She shook her head. It wasn’t possible? Was it? Could it be that the hacking was traced? By the DVLA? Or in some other way?
Had someone monitored Skeggsie’s illegal search on his computer? Had someone known what Skeggsie was doing and how?
She sent another email to Eddie.
You’ll think this is a stupid question but is it possible for someone’s computer activity to be monitored? Like a phone tap but on a computer? How would it be done? Rose
A few moments later she got a reply.
Yep! Absolutely possible. It can be done by cloning. There’s software that means that someone can find passwords and replicate what’s happening on someone else’s computer. It’s illegal obviously :-( Will have your picture done in a few mins :-)
The silver SUV stopped watching them just after Skeggsie set up his computer to search for the car’s owner. Rose knew that the car was registered to Beaufort Holdings. Why would a company like that want to clone someone’s computer? How would they know about Skeggsie or what he was doing? Who would know that Skeggsie had such a lot of hardware? Someone who had been in the flat at some point?
The name James Munroe came into her head. He had been with Skeggsie at the flat in Camden weeks before, waiting for her and Joshua to return so that he could tell them an untrue story about what had happened to their parents.
James Munroe.
Her phone rang. It startled her.
‘It’s Eddie. I’ve enlarged your photo.’
‘Thanks!’
‘Any news on the funeral?’
‘Funeral?’
She understood immediately what he meant. Skeggsie’s funeral.
‘No, no news. We’ll let you know.’
He rang off and Rose sat very still for a second. Had she actually forgotten Skeggsie’s death amid her excitement and research? After a few moments she blew through her teeth and clicked on Eddie’s attachment. The face from the newspaper photograph was clearer if a little blurre
d.
Was this the woman with the white-blonde hair?
She couldn’t be sure.
And yet the face in the picture seemed familiar to her.
She’d seen it recently.
She’d been looking at photographs in the last couple of days and she was sure she had seen this woman. She stood up feeling excited. She went out of the kitchen and upstairs to the box room. On the floor beside her bed was the photo album that Anna had bought for her. She took it downstairs and placed it by her laptop. She looked at the photo on the screen and then she opened the photo album and turned to the pictures of her mother and her friends. Right at the end she found the photograph she wanted – her mother sitting round a restaurant table with four other women. To her right a dark-haired woman was smiling at the camera.
That woman was Margaret Spicer.
TWENTY-SIX
The front door opened and shut.
‘Rose!’ Joshua called out.
Rose was sitting in front of the mess of papers on the kitchen table. She was staring at Margaret Spicer’s face in the photo alongside her mother. Margaret had the faintest smile on her lips and was holding up a wine glass. The WPC who discovered Judy Greaves’s body was a friend of her mother’s.
Joshua came into the kitchen and looked quizzically at the things on the table. She closed the photo album and the laptop.
‘Sorry I’ve been out so long but there’ve been developments.’
He took his coat off and draped it over the back of the chair. She saw him focusing on his uncle’s papers and the steel box. She wondered how she was going to explain it all to him.
‘I would have rung,’ he said, ‘but everything was moving quickly. What’s going on here?’
‘Did you speak to the Polish man?’
‘Yeah, but that’s not where the developments have come from,’ he said, speaking excitedly. ‘Greg Tyler walked into the police station an hour ago and gave a new statement to say that he and my uncle did meet up on the cliff and had a tussle. He saw him go over the side and panicked and ran. Then it turns out that his wife, Susie, went there later just in case there were signs of life.’