‘What would you have done to Dinah and Nonie Lendrim on Friday 3 December, if you hadn’t been interrupted?’ he asked. Sometimes, if you changed the subject quickly, you could surprise an answer out of a supect. Not this time.
Back to Sharon Lendrim’s murder. ‘What you can’t have known until you read about her death in the papers was that Sharon went out that night, until late – to the Four Fountains, of all places. If you’d arrived a bit earlier, you might have bumped into her, winding down after her night out or getting ready for bed. You were lucky. Less so when you tried the same again. We’ve got CCTV footage of your car on its way to Amber’s house in the early hours of Thursday morning, on your way to start your second fire. Good footage, from several different cameras. You pulled over at least once, to reply to Amber’s email about Little Orchard using your iPhone.’
‘We’ve been over the evidence,’ Jo’s solicitor said in a bored voice.
‘But not the motive,’ said Simon. ‘It’s the motive – all the motives – that I’m most interested in. Amber thinks you torched her house as a warning,’ he told Jo. ‘She’d seen you on Wednesday 1 December, told you about being questioned in connection with Kat Allen’s death. She’d asked your husband about Little Orchard, told him she and Luke wanted to book it again. How could your setting fire to her house several hours after those two conversations took place be anything other than a warning? That’s the way Amber saw it, understandably. She was wrong, though. It wasn’t a warning, it was revenge. Rage, jealousy, whatever you want to call it.’
Jo’s eyelids fluttered closed.
‘You had a bad shock that Wednesday. Amber told you something you didn’t know, something you’d never have guessed. It made you hate her, made you think about her, Luke, Dinah and Nonie living happily ever after together: the perfect family, a family you created by murdering Sharon. Unnecessarily, as it turned out.’
‘What do you mean, unnecessarily?’ the solicitor asked.
Simon decided it was time to talk to the only person who was demonstrably listening. ‘Amber thought Jo was jealous of her ending up with Sharon’s girls, and she was right. Jo was the one who’d taken the risk and killed Sharon because she thought she had no choice, and Amber, who’d done nothing to deserve anything, was the one who’d ended up with Dinah and Nonie. Jo might not have wanted them herself – she had children of her own – but that didn’t stop her resenting Amber for getting a perk she hadn’t earned. Let me tell you something about the monster you’re here to represent today: nothing makes her evil heart bubble over with envy like a perfect family.’
‘Please.’ The solicitor recoiled as if Simon had said something distasteful. ‘There’s no need for hyperbole.’
‘I’ll call her your client, then,’ said Simon. ‘The way she sees it, Amber’s winning and she’s losing. Not because Amber has anything she doesn’t have. The opposite: Amber doesn’t have, and will never have, what your client has and wishes she didn’t.’
He could see the lawyer still didn’t understand, and struggled to keep his impatience in check. It wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t met Jo Utting until yesterday, hadn’t heard the whole story yet and couldn’t be expected to fill in the blanks. ‘Jo and Amber share a father-in-law,’ he said. ‘Quentin. Physically, there’s nothing wrong with him; practically and psychologically, he’s as dependent as a small child. He couldn’t manage on his own after his wife Pam died. Jo and Neil took him in and have suffered ever since. I’ve met this man. Trust me, you wouldn’t want him living with you.’
‘I wouldn’t want any man living with me,’ said the solicitor, looking Simon up and down. He got the message: especially not you.
‘On Wednesday 1 December, Amber told Jo she was a saint for putting up with Quentin,’ he said. ‘Jo said she’d had no choice but to welcome him into her home, that Amber would have done the same if she’d had to. Amber made it clear that wasn’t true: under no circumstances would she have had Quentin under her roof, even if he couldn’t cope on his own, even if she hadn’t already had Dinah and Nonie to look after. She wouldn’t be prepared to sacrifice her own quality of life in the name of family duty. That’s what she told Jo, and she meant it. Jo could see she meant it. That’s why she tried to burn Amber’s house down, with Amber, Luke and the girls in it.’
‘So?’ the solicitor asked. Trying to sound bored, unwilling to admit she was curious. She sounded like Charlie.
‘Jo and Amber had never discussed Amber’s willingness to provide a home for Quentin before,’ Simon said. ‘There’d been no need. Amber and Luke were busy dealing with their new family arrangements and Dinah and Nonie’s grief. It didn’t occur to anybody that they might take Quentin on as well. Jo and Neil offered. Their family life was more stable, it was the obvious solution. Their house is small, but the boys were happy to share a room when Jo explained to them that sacrifices had to be made for Grandpa’s sake. They could have sold their large second home in Surrey – Neil suggested it, he told me yesterday – but Jo didn’t want a bigger house. It was important to her to be seen to have no space, and to be seen to be carrying the full burden of looking after Quentin.’
Simon turned to Jo, whose demeanour hadn’t changed. Her eyes were still closed. ‘Funny thing is, I don’t know if I’d have worked it out without your son’s help,’ he said to her. ‘William’s been helpful in unexpected ways as well all the obvious ones. He remembers his last half term, going to the Corn Exchange building in Spilling, to the flat of a lady you needed to speak to. He remembers being parked in the lounge with Barney. You turned the telly on for them, closed the door so that the noise wouldn’t disturb you and the lady while you were talking.’
Simon paused to compose himself. He wanted to yell at her, What kind of mother takes her two kids with her to kill someone? It would achieve nothing; Jo wouldn’t react, and her solicitor would lose all respect for him. Simon knew the answer: the kind of killer who took her sons with her and put them in the room next door while she killed was the cleverest kind. Sabina was the only person who knew Jo wasn’t on Amber’s course the day Kat Allen was murdered; even Neil didn’t know. He would have disapproved. If Jo wanted to break the law to help Amber, that was her look-out, but Neil would have thought it wrong of her to offer and then palm the risk off on Sabina. Jo knew Sabina was likely to hear that there had been a murder in Spilling that day. She knew Sabina wouldn’t for a minute suspect her. Not only because the people we know personally and like and trust are never the bad guys, but because Jo had been with William and Barney – a bit of much-needed quality time away from a too-busy house, away from Quentin, alone with her children. Simon could almost hear Jo explaining it to Sabina: You’ll be so much better at pretending to be Amber than I would. You’re braver than I am. I’d panic and give the game away. The opposite of the truth.
‘We showed William a photo of Kat Allen,’ he told Jo. ‘He identified her as the lady you went to see, said she was pleased and surprised when you turned up unannounced. He’s also told us that you, he and Barney met Kat a month earlier – by chance, in town. What did Kat say to you? ‘‘We must stop meeting like this’’? Did she mention that the last time the two of you had met, you’d been in Pulham Market hiring a fireman costume? William remembers her telling you that she’d applied for a new job – at Barney’s school. That was the spur, wasn’t it? That was the day you decided Kat had to be punished: for knowing too much, getting too close.’
Jo made a barely audible noise. She might have been clearing her throat. Or else Simon imagined it.
‘Back to Kat’s murder, your visit to her flat,’ he said. ‘William and Barney watched TV in the lounge until they got bored of whatever was on. That’s when they noticed the notepad and pen on the table, and had the idea of playing a game Dinah and Nonie had told them about, one that involved dividing their classmates into three categories: Kind, Cruel and Kind of Cruel. Didn’t get very far, did they? Suddenly, you were calling out to them that it was time to le
ave. William tore the sheet of paper off the notepad, folded it up and stuffed it in his pocket, to be continued at home later. Except he never got round to it. When you came into the room, you were shaking. You had blood and what your eldest son described as “stuff” on your clothes, and the game didn’t seem important any more. The boys forgot all about it.’
Jo’s wardrobes had been emptied, their contents taken away for analysis. With luck, some forensic material would have survived the washing machine, but it wouldn’t matter if not. DNA found in Kat’s flat after her murder matched the sample taken from Jo three days ago. That together with William’s statement would be enough to send her to prison for a long time. Simon was unwilling to feel merciful towards her for a number of reasons; chief among these was his conviction that Kat Allen had suspected nothing. She’d said nothing to her boyfriend or any of her friends about a possible connection between a woman who used to have a second home near her parents’ house and a murder in Rawndesley in 2008; as far as Simon could tell, Kat hadn’t registered Sharon Lendrim’s death.
‘You told William and Barney that you and the lady had had a fight and she’d hit you – you’d had a nosebleed. You made them promise not to tell Neil or Sabina, who would only worry. The boys could see you were upset, and they were frightened. You reassured them that everything would be fine as long as the three of you forgot all about it as quickly as you could. Barney did. He’s younger. He remembers some of it: the blood on your clothes, mainly. The invented nosebleed. William’s older – he remembers a bit more. He asked you where the lady was when the three of you left. Why didn’t she come to the door to say goodbye? Thanks to William, we also know that the reason he and Barney were with you that day was because Sabina had to go on a course. Doesn’t take a genius to work out which course. Sabina denied impersonating Amber at first, then admitted it when it was pointed out to her how easy it would be to disprove her claim that she was at home on 2 November, having a day off while you took the boys out. Any number of DriveTech course participants might have identified her.’
Simon could have kicked himself for not working it out sooner. Sabina, who had adopted a Cockney accent when she’d met him and recited a typical ‘suspect-to-detective’ line, thinking it was hilarious; Sabina, who was at Jo’s beck and call. Jo wouldn’t have got a kick out of pretending to be Amber by playing the part of the course rebel and spouting outrageous opinions of the sort she believed Amber might hold. Sabina would. And did. Unable to reproduce Amber’s Culver Valley lilt, she ditched her Italian accent in favour of an upper-class English one.
‘I asked you why you didn’t tell Amber about the speech you gave on the course, undermining the ethos of safe driving, do you remember? You had to think quickly. Why had Sabina missed out this detail, when she was supposed to have told you everything so that you could tell Amber what was meant to have happened to her that day? For what it’s worth, the explanation you came up with was the right one: Sabina tried to get as much fun out of a mind-numbingly boring experience as she could, but it didn’t occur to her that anything she might have said was important enough to relay to you. She told you what everyone else had said and done. Her mucking about and being provocative to entertain herself wasn’t important enough to be worth mentioning. You must have been furious when you realised she’d failed to give you vital information and you’d nearly been caught out as a result. It’s your God-given right to know everything, isn’t it? Even when you reveal nothing.’
‘You’re the one intent on telling her everything,’ the solicitor pointed out.
‘She’s hearing nothing she doesn’t already know,’ Simon said. ‘Do you know how Sabina describes you?’ he asked Jo. ‘Her best friend. We’ve told her what you’ve done. She doesn’t believe it. She trusts you, she says. You would never murder anyone. You didn’t trust her, though, did you? She had no idea you owned a second home until we told her. Like Amber, she believed Little Orchard was a rental place you and Neil hired for Christmas 2003. Why wouldn’t she?’
Simon was determined to keep asking, anything that came into his head. If he stopped, there would be nothing for Jo to answer if she changed her mind about talking. It was always easier to respond to a question than to volunteer information unprompted. He wanted her to tell him he was right. He didn’t care when it happened as long as it happened.
‘You don’t even trust your own husband. You didn’t tell him why he had to disappear in the middle of the night, why he had to pretend not to own first a house in Pulham Market and then a house in Surrey. You hardly ever go to Little Orchard, only when Sabina goes back to Italy. Even then, you need an excuse for the rest of the family, somewhere else you can pretend to be. Neil used to suggest selling. You’d never let that happen, but you couldn’t tell him why, could you? Easier to attack him, burst into tears, leave the room. He doesn’t bother any more. You know what he said to me? “I think it’s important to Jo to know she’s got a bolt-hole.” That’s not the word I’d use. Trouble is, there isn’t a word for a house you think of as home but don’t live in and hardly ever visit.’
Simon stood, walked round the table and Jo’s chair, so that he was standing behind her. How would she feel if she could hear him but not see him? Would it change anything?
‘I know what you did and I can prove it,’ he said. ‘I’ve got your DNA in Kat’s flat, William’s statement, a statement from the woman at the costume shop in Pulham Market, Sharon’s house key in your jewellery box. How did you feel when Amber told you the police suspected Terry Bond? Did you get the key out and look at it, touch it? Wonder what was true and what wasn’t? Hard to separate memory and stories, isn’t it? Even harder when you’ve got three categories to contend with: memories, stories and lies. When you want to feel powerful, but not guilty. Hard. Think of the relief of telling the truth. Think about being able to live in the house that feels like home.’
Jo’s head jerked back, then lolled forward.
‘You think all I can prove are the facts, but you’re wrong,’ Simon went on, encouraged to get a reaction from her, even one he couldn’t interpret. ‘I can prove motive too. There’s someone waiting outside ready to tell us all about why you did what you did. You don’t think it’s possible. You’re so busy lying, you don’t stop to wonder if you’re being lied to. It doesn’t occur to you that anyone might disagree with you when you’re so right about everything, tell you what you want to hear just to get you off their back.’
‘Can you please explain what you mean more clearly?’ the solicitor said irritably.
‘You chose a hypnotherapist for Amber. Or, rather, you thought you did. Amber seemed to think the one with the best address, in Great Holling, was probably the best. Instead of wondering if there was any rational basis for her assumption, you panicked. Amber always gets the best, doesn’t she? Undeservingly. She’s got Dinah and Nonie. You didn’t want to her have the best hypnotherapist, so you chose one for her, the one whose address sounded least desirable. Amber pretended to agree, then went home and booked an appointment with Ginny Saxon, her original preference. You also booked to see Ginny. Having steered Amber in the opposite direction, you decided to claim her first choice for yourself. You’d never thought about hypnosis until Amber mentioned it, but if it could help with insomnia . . .’
Jo started to moan and slam her back against the back of the chair. Simon repositioned himself between her and the table so that he could see her face. The keening grew louder, its pitch changing as she let her mouth fall open. What was she doing with her eyes?
‘What’s she doing?’ The solicitor sounded more disgusted than alarmed.
Simon raised his voice so that Jo would hear him over the noise she was making. ‘Ginny’s outside,’ he said. ‘If you talk to me, I won’t need to bring her in.’
‘What’s wrong with her? Why can’t she hold her head up?’
‘She can. She’s choosing not to.’
‘Why the hell would she . . . ?’
‘She’
s pretending to be her mentally handicapped sister,’ said Simon.
‘How well do you know him?’ Ginny Saxon asked Charlie, eyeing the closed door of the interview room.
‘Better than anyone else does,’ said Charlie. ‘Not as well as most wives know their husbands.’
‘Simon Waterhouse is your husband?’ Ginny’s voice had changed; this was her wooden-hut-in-the-back-garden tone. Professional Ginny.
‘If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be your escort for the day. I’d be getting on with my own work.’
‘You’d be trying to help that man, perhaps – the one you described in your email.’
Charlie could have done without the smug, knowing tone. She looked away. ‘Him and others like him,’ she said.
‘Find the time, and make another appointment to see me,’ said Ginny.
No. I’m fine. And you cost too much.
‘I can help you. Both of you.’
‘You could have helped Simon sooner by telling him the truth about Jo Utting.’
‘He didn’t ask me sooner. When he did, I told him what he wanted to know, after I’d talked it through with my supervisor. Simon needs to learn to be more straightforward. He can’t expect me to volunteer confidential information about a patient without knowing the full context. Why didn’t he tell me Jo Utting was a suspect in a murder case?’
‘Two murder cases,’ Charlie corrected her.
‘Instead, he has Amber Hewerdine leave her car outside my house, hoping I’ll respond to his cryptic visual prompt by feeling guilty.’
‘You already felt guilty.’ Charlie hated it when she found herself quoting Simon. ‘That’s why you made sure to spell out your concerns about Jo’s behaviour in great detail, why you lost your cool with Amber and kicked her out. Your overreaction made no sense unless you were hiding something.’
‘Or unless I’m human,’ Ginny said. ‘Simon Waterhouse doesn’t know everything. Though I’ve clearly entered a dimension in which everyone assumes he does.’
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