by Anita Waller
‘Were the pre-mortem ones enough to subdue her?’ A voice from the back of the room carried above the hubbub of so many bodies.
‘Not on their own,’ Marsden responded. ‘Good question, whoever that was. There was blunt force trauma to her head. We think that subdued her enough for the butchery to take place. But let’s be clear on this, the pre-death stuff would not have killed her. The stab wound to the heart, pre-planned we believe, was the kill wound. She would have died within seconds. The killer then continued, just for the hell of it. Further thoughts?’
‘It was a woman.’
‘Who said that?’
‘Me, boss.’ Dave Irwin held up his hand.
‘I’m inclined to agree, Dave, but let’s not rule out the possibility it could be a man. I simply think that a man would have used more force when she was hit on the head, and I think there wouldn’t have been quite so many repeated stabbings before and after death if it had been a man. This person actually took their time, almost as if it didn’t matter whether they were caught or not. It was all about the act, not getting away with it.’
Marsden looked around the room. ‘We need to clear this up fast. I want the neighbours interviewing, and I want every second of their time accounting for. That row of six cottages is interlinked by one huge attic space. It seems they work on a trust system, and they don’t venture into each other’s loft area, but is it possible somebody did? Did Judy upset somebody on that little road? Her next door neighbour thought she heard Judy shouting at what she presumed was a cat or a dog, telling it to go away, and that was at approximately seven o’clock. She was found around three hours later, so what happened in that period? Did anybody see anything? Any stranger? Anybody who wasn’t a stranger? I’m going to interview the next door neighbour, but I’m bringing her in here. Dave is in charge, he’ll allocate your jobs. Go – bring me back a murderer, team.’
They all smiled and headed back towards their desks. Tessa returned to the tiny office she sometimes felt she lived in, and pulled the copy of the will towards her. She’d glanced through it very quickly before the briefing, recognising its importance; was it important to the investigation or important to Keeley Roy?
Marsden studied it carefully, letting every word register. The writer, Thomas Edward Carpenter, had known he hadn’t long to live. He stated in the will that he did not wish his wife, Judith Carpenter, to have sight of the will prior to his death. He left the house he shared with his wife, and wholly owned by him, for her use until her death. After that it would revert to his only child, his son, Henry Roy. In addition, the house in which Keeley and Henry Roy lived, and which was wholly owned by him, was to be transferred to Keeley Roy. All rents paid by her since the start date of her tenancy were to be refunded in total.
He left a sum of £10,000 to his aunt, Alice Small, along with ownership of one of the remaining two houses which he owned outright, and £50,000 to Keeley Roy. A substantial trust fund had been put on one side for when Henry reached twenty-one, plus shared ownership with Keeley Roy of house number four, and all rental income for the foreseeable future.
Tessa read through the details twice. Tom Carpenter had been a very wealthy man, and yet Judy had tried to work a con to get more. Wasn’t she aware of his wealth? Did she know he owned four houses? The will was dated five days before Tom’s death. Had the neighbours called in to see him at his request, and then been asked to sign the will?
There were clearly many more answers to be found, and Marsden made a list of the questions, so that nothing was missed.
Marsden took Hannah Granger with her to talk to the neighbours. Keeley Roy didn’t appear to be in, but this didn’t concern Tessa. She wanted to bring her into the station.
Philip Jones, the first of the signatories of the will, was at home at number five. He led them through to the back garden, where his wife was hanging out washing. She obligingly went in and made glasses of lemonade for everyone. Philip explained that he had received a text from Tom Carpenter, asking if he could call into see him. He obliged, knowing that Tom didn’t have much longer left.
Tom had asked him to sign the will, but Philip said he had no idea what was in it. He said they chatted for a short while, but then Tom began to fall asleep, so Philip came home. He never saw Tom alive again.
Marsden and Hannah finished their drinks, thanked husband and wife for their hospitality, then went to number three to speak to Eric Davies, the man who had been second to sign his name on the document.
His story was marginally different. He too had responded to a text from Tom, and he too had signed the will form, noticing that Philip had already signed it.
But then Tom had explained he didn’t want his wife having anything to do with it, and he had asked Eric to hide it under the mattress on the small double bed in the second bedroom.
‘He said he was leaving instructions for it to be found after his funeral, and neither Philip nor I were to worry about it, the form needed our dated signatures on it. I thought no more about it until you turned up,’ Eric finished.
‘Was he of sound mind?’ Marsden asked.
‘Definitely,’ Eric said. ‘He was in some pain, and Judy brought him some pain relief in while I was there. He was a good man, one everybody got on with, always supported anything that was happening in the area. He owned four of these six houses, you know. Not mine, and not Philip’s; we bought them from him some years ago, but he owns the rest. I suppose that will is going to clarify who owns them now. I never spoke to him again. He was asleep almost before I was out of his room. I did wonder how strong the tablets were that Judith had given to him, they worked very quickly.’
‘Thank you for your help,’ Marsden said, and she and Hannah left to head back to the station. Tessa had a lot of thinking to do, all of it centring around the will. It seemed he had fathered a child with his neighbour, and no one had known. He had hidden the will, but obviously had expected it to surface pretty quickly. He would not have left his lover and son without funds, but why had the will never been found?
It was a valid will, and it could be brought into force. Keeley Roy would be a very wealthy woman… unless she had been the one to kill Judy Carpenter.
Marsden’s headache, initially just a niggle, was escalating into migraine proportions, and she swallowed a couple of painkillers. She knew something had gone seriously wrong with Tom’s plans; he had meant that will to be found. She needed to know when Tom had slipped into a coma-state, making it impossible for him to tell anyone about its location. She thought about Philip and Eric’s words; both of them had said that Tom was drifting into sleep. Had he never woken up fully again? Maybe Keeley Roy would be able to shed some light on that little query.
Roy needed to be brought into the station, and very soon.
Chapter 24
Keeley had only been home two minutes after dropping Henry off at school, when the police car arrived. She was in the middle of loading the washing machine. The bang on the door startled her into dropping the little plastic top full of laundry detergent. She grabbed a tea towel, threw it on top of the spreading puddle, and headed down the hall.
Five minutes later, she was in the back of the patrol car wondering what was going on, and if she would be back for three to reclaim her son. Shell-shocked, scared, she sat trembling, not knowing what was happening to her.
‘Is it okay if I call you Keeley?’ Marsden spoke softly. She could introduce harshness as and when it was necessary.
Keeley nodded miserably. She couldn’t believe loving someone could get her in this mess, and if this woman wanted to call her Genghis Khan she could, as long as she could go home to Henry afterwards.
‘Right, Keeley. I need to ask you some questions, so please speak clearly for the tape, won’t you.’
‘Yes,’ muttered Keeley, then more clearly, ‘yes!’
‘Let’s begin with you getting to know Mr Carpenter.’
‘I met him almost as soon as I moved in next door. He helped me carry
some boxes in that I had taken down in my car from my old flat, a couple of days before the removal men came to move my furniture. He was really nice. I didn’t meet his wife Judy until about a month later. She never introduced herself to me, not like he had. Tom.’
There was a bleakness about Keeley’s expression and Marsden tried to dismiss it from her thoughts.
‘About six months after I moved in. Nobody knew, nobody ever saw us as a couple. We could pass between the two houses via the loft, and we just waited for Judy to go out so we could be together. Tom worked from home, so was always there, and I worked nights in a care home. At least I did until I found out I was pregnant.’
Keeley paused. This was so much more difficult than she could ever have imagined. She had kept this love bottled inside her for so long, and now she was being forced to talk about it as though it was nothing.
‘Please go on, Keeley.’
‘I told Tom I was pregnant and he was over the moon. I had made up my mind to have an abortion; we had so much to lose by keeping the baby. Tom wouldn’t hear of it. He said it would be the child he had always wanted, but thought he would never have. We agree not to rock the boat by moving in together because he feared for Judy’s state of mind; her control over Tom, the household, everything, was well-known on our little road. He said he could live with being next door to his child, if I could handle the situation as well.’
Again she paused, but Marsden said nothing.
‘I don’t think for one minute that Judy suspected anything, not the affair, not the unplanned pregnancy, nothing. She was away for two weeks staying with her sister… Roberta?… when I went into labour, and Tom was able to take me into hospital and be there for the birth. It cemented everything between us, and he promised we would be together properly one day.’
‘Did you believe him?’
Keeley smiled, deep into her thoughts. ‘No. I knew he would never leave her, but it was lovely to talk about the time when he would, even if it would never happen. He began to be ill with niggling little things when Henry was about two, and at first the doctor said it was stress. Then he said Tom needed more exercise, so he got out and walked more, but nothing improved his general health. He took co-codamols because they helped the pain better than paracetamols, then finally the doctor sent him for tests.’
Keeley looked up at Marsden. ‘Could I have some water, please? This is very hard.’
‘Would you like a break?’
She shook her head. ‘No thanks. I want to go home.’
Hannah went to get a drink, bringing both a coffee and a water back for Keeley.
Marsden waited until Keeley had helped herself to the water, and then said, ‘The diagnosis was cancer?’
Keeley swallowed. ‘It was. By the time they had completed the tests and all the consultations it was too late. It had spread into his bones, his liver – everywhere it could go, it had gone. They initially tried to say he would have about six months, but it was obvious it was too advanced for that. Our last three or four weeks we communicated by text. I saw Judy go out one day and was going to risk going through the loft to see him, but the Macmillan nurse arrived, so I couldn’t.’
‘Have you saved his texts?’
‘Of course. I’ve screenshot them as well, just in case I lose the phone, or it breaks. My photos are all stored separately.’
‘May I see?’
Keeley hesitated, then dipped into her bag and took out her Samsung. ‘The screen has a crack on it, but the phone still works. Funds don’t run to new phones now.’
Marsden looked at her, wondering if she was being genuine, or… no, she was genuine, she felt.
She scrolled to messages, and clicked on Tom. It actually said Tom xxx. She read through the texts, aware that Keeley felt uncomfortable having them scrutinised. The last two or three were very short on Tom’s part. It was obvious from the half words that he was struggling to concentrate. The final one simply said will.
Marsden stared at it with her mouth open. ‘There’s no response to the last one, Keeley?’ It suddenly became clear why the will had never been found. He’d not managed to tell anyone about it.
‘No, it didn’t make sense. I thought he must have been going to ask me something, and then either couldn’t remember what it was, or he physically wasn’t capable of writing the rest of the message. He was very ill, and very near the end. Judy, when she came around to tell me he was gone, said he’d been in a coma for the last three days.’
‘And Judy hadn’t seen any of these texts?’
‘He was careful to delete everything, but maybe just that last one would have still been on the phone. It wasn’t much of a message, and she couldn’t have read anything into it, but she was really quite nasty when she came to tell me he’d gone. I would give anything to know what he wanted me to do for him, but that’s not going to happen is it? In my moments when I’m really down, I like to think he was going to say, “Will you come around and sit with me?”, but of course it wouldn’t have been that.’
Keeley’s head dropped and she sat quietly for a moment, before picking up the coffee cup.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I don’t seem to be able to get over it, and talking to you about it certainly hasn’t helped. But, you know, Judy means nothing to me. I neither like her nor dislike her. If I had ever been tempted to bump her off, it would have been long before this. She’s obviously managed to upset somebody, and that doesn’t surprise me, but I have very little interaction with her now. I loved her husband, not her.’
Marsden stood, feeling subdued and chastened. In all her years of interviewing suspects, she had never felt emotionally involved. It was a job. Today that job felt shitty.
‘Thank you for being honest, Keeley. If you can bear our coffee, please finish your drink and PC Granger will take you home. I’ll be coming out to see you in a couple of days, but I’ll ring first to check you will be in.’
Marsden guessed that news of a will would filter through via Eric Davies and Philip Jones, but they needed to process the information at the station before she could officially inform the beneficiaries. And it wasn’t only Keeley who was benefitting from this extraordinary man, a man who Marsden believed had tried to tell Keeley where his will had been hidden. Will.
Hannah Granger sat opposite her boss and waited for instructions.
‘Keeley didn’t speak on the journey?’
‘No, she didn’t say anything, other than thank you when she got out of the car. No protestation of innocence, nothing. It was almost as if she didn’t care. I think we’ve well and truly drained her today.’
Marsden nodded. ‘Know what you mean. It’s how I felt when I came out of that room. I didn’t have to ask her anything really. She was so open, just told her story in a take it or leave it fashion, and I believed her. Still do, after thinking about it for an hour. It must be awful to find your soulmate and then lose them. And he was only forty.’
‘So what happens next?’
‘We go to see his birth mother and his Aunt Alice. Those interviews are probably going to be a bit emotional as well. Still, it all beats gunning down Leon Rowe, I suppose.’
Hannah stood. ‘Maybe.’ She grinned as she left the tiny office.
Chapter 25
Kat fastened Martha into the car and walked over to Mouse’s Range Rover. ‘Right, I’ll see you in a bit. Thank you for giving me time out. I’m looking forward to seeing Alice, I wanted her to see Martha in the little jacket before she grows out of it.’
‘Enjoy your day off,’ Mouse said. She was relieved that Kat was looking so much better, and definitely not so tired. ‘We’ll be in the office all day if you need anything.’
Driving along Derbyshire’s winding roads, Kat eventually arrived at the pretty cottage belonging to Alice Small. Bradwell wasn’t a large village, but managed to be well known for the famous Bradwell’s ice cream. She vowed to pick some up before she headed back home.
She felt a little disappointed and disgrun
tled when she realised there was no response to her knock on the door. She placed Martha on the floor in her car seat, and sat on the doorstep, wondering what to do next. Should she wait in the hope that Alice turned up, or head back to the office and see what the real workers in the company were doing?
She heard pounding footsteps and Alice appeared around the corner, dressed in jogging bottoms and a strappy top.
‘Alice!’ Kat jumped up and stared in amazement at the wiry pensioner. ‘Should you be doing that?’
Alice laughed. ‘Of course. I have to keep myself fit, I’m not ready to go to meet my maker just yet, you know.’
Kat’s surprise was written all over her face. ‘Do you do this a lot?’
‘Every day. It’s also a way of checking that friends dotted around the village are okay. They all give me a shout out as I pass. One or two occasionally join me, but not today, I was on my own. Have you come to show me this beautiful baby?’
‘I have indeed.’
Alice bent and picked up the car seat, to have a closer look. ‘You really are a little corker,’ she said, and Martha obliged with a wave of her hand.
A key hanging around Alice’s neck was used to enter the cottage, and Alice carried the car seat and baby through to her lounge. Kat was amazed by the fitness of the woman; she normally only saw her at church, and wearing either a skirt or a dress. It took twenty years off her to see her in fitness clothes.
Alice did a couple of stretches to unwind her muscles, then headed for the kitchen to make them a drink.
‘Cold drinks okay?’ she called. ‘Or do you want tea?’
‘Water will be fine,’ Kat said, looking around the room at all the pretty antiques Alice had collected. She turned as the older woman entered carrying a tray.