Blood-Tied

by Wendy Percival

  As they approached the ward, Esme stopped the chair and came around in front of the old lady. She crouched down. ‘Ready?’ she whispered.

  Polly attempted a brave smile, her rheumy eyes only giving the slightest hint of the foreboding she felt about the task ahead of her. Esme squeezed her hand. ‘If she kicks you out,’ she said with a wink. ‘I’ll still come and visit you.’

  Esme’s flippant remark seemed to bolster the old lady and her smile widened.

  ‘We’re a bit in the same boat, you and I, aren’t we, Esme?’ she said, as Esme wheeled her along the last leg of the corridor.

  After delivering Polly, Esme made her excuses and wandered off to the day room. As she passed the lift the doors opened and a familiar figure stepped out.

  ‘Inspector Barry,’ called Esme. ‘What are you doing here? She can’t remember anything, you know?’

  ‘So I understand. It’s not uncommon with head injuries. No, it wasn’t about her attack, exactly. Her daughter said she’d mentioned a man trying to speak to her earlier that day, but she didn’t understand what he was talking about. She might remember that.’

  Esme hadn’t realised that Gemma had passed that on. Gemma had changed her attitude towards the police since Elizabeth had regained consciousness. No doubt partly because of her gratitude for her rescue from Leonard Nicholson’s clutches. She had also been magnanimous about Esme’s investigations, which had led to her unfortunate experience. Esme was grateful for that but saddened, and not a little frustrated, that the situation might not have arisen at all if Gemma hadn’t at first been so hostile towards Esme’s enquiries into Elizabeth’s past. It was pointless to fret about it now. Both of them had survived their ordeals. What it had taught either of them it was, perhaps, too soon to tell.

  ‘This man,’ said Esme, guessing the inspector’s line of thinking. ‘Are you suggesting that Leonard Nicholson approached her before?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Esme bit her lip, as something occurred to her. ‘Inspector, I’m not sure if Gemma’s explained everything to you, but Elizabeth didn’t know the whole story about her true parentage. As none of us did until this all blew up.’

  ‘Go on,’ said the inspector, eying her carefully.

  ‘If it was Leonard Nicholson who approached her and was asking about Catherine Monkleigh, the name would mean nothing to her and she would have told him so.’

  ‘Which he might have taken for deliberate non-co-operation.’

  ‘Perhaps he attacked her out of frustration, thinking she was stonewalling him?’

  ‘It’s possible. Patience isn’t one of his strong points. It would certainly give him a motive.’

  ‘One other thing,’ continued Esme. ‘I said that Elizabeth didn’t know everything. She still doesn’t. She’s still getting to grips with the attack. We’ve only told her so much for now.’

  The inspector picked up on her message. ‘And you don’t want me marching in with my size tens asking about things which will confuse her?’

  Esme tipped her head to one side, appealing to him. ‘If you could give it a day or two. While she takes it all in.’

  Inspector Barry looked at her as if mulling over her request. ‘I’ll look in tomorrow,’ he decided.

  It was the best she could hope for in the circumstances. He was obviously keen to tie up the loose ends.

  ‘I saw the papers,’ said Esme. ‘You’ve charged him with murder.’ She shuddered at the thought of the body at the bottom of the ventilation shaft. ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Ex-girlfriend. Parents are devastated. He’d seemed such a gentleman, they said.’ Esme thought of Mary’s comments along the same lines.

  She shook her head. ‘Poor girl. What happened?’ The inspector didn’t reply. ‘Sorry, you’re probably not meant to be talking to me about it. Sub judice and all that.’

  He smiled. ‘To be honest, we’re not sure what happened. Her best friend seemed to think the girl was planning to finish with him. Whether it’s true and whether it’s relevant we don’t know at this stage.’

  Esme thought back to Leonard’s rage in the tunnel. ‘He didn’t have a good word to say about the women in his life, from the way he was ranting on at me.’ She looked up at the policeman with concern. ‘His whole theme was “the bitches”. My guess is he meant his mother, his nannies, Catherine, me…he saw us as the cause of his ruined life.’

  The inspector folded his arms. ‘So if his girlfriend had told him she was leaving, he wouldn’t take it calmly.’

  Esme gave a small laugh at the understatement. ‘Not from what I saw.’ Esme felt a cold chill as she recalled his frenzied behaviour. She turned away. ‘I think I need a cup of tea.’

  Inspector Barry strode ahead of her to the drinks machine in the day room.

  ‘You may have a point about Nicholson,’ he said as he pressed the relevant buttons. ‘He seemed to get his kicks from terrorising women when he was involved in those bogus burglaries.’

  ‘Lucy told me. She read the newspaper reports.’

  ‘They always chose their targets when the woman would be alone.’ He handed Esme a polystyrene cup full of strong tea. She took it from him and sat down on the edge of a chair.

  ‘They were the mothers of his friends, weren’t they?’ The policeman nodded. He sat down opposite her. ‘Perhaps he was taking it out on his own mother, because she had left him,’ Esme added.

  ‘I thought she died?’ said the inspector.

  ‘She did. I was talking figuratively. From a bereaved child’s perspective. Then after that he was such a nightmare child that no nanny would stay more than a few months so the pattern of mother figures abandoning him kept repeating itself. His girlfriend telling him she was leaving followed the same pattern. He couldn’t cope.’

  ‘You could feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such a ruthless bastard, couldn’t you?’ said the inspector sardonically. He stood up. ‘No doubt, it’ll all come out in the psychiatric report. Are you OK, Mrs Quentin?’

  Esme looked up and smiled. ‘Yes. Thank you, Inspector. I’ll be fine. Thanks for the tea.’

  The inspector nodded, saying he would call back the following day to speak to Elizabeth, and made for the lift.

  Esme wandered over to the window and looked down into the grounds of the hospital. The inspector must encounter the consequences of damage done to people, or dysfunctional relationships every day, manifested in the crimes that he had to handle. She wondered why it didn’t get to him. Perhaps it did. Another occupational hazard for a police officer, along with assuming everyone had something to hide.

  She sipped her tea and thought about Mary. Polly had chosen not to involve the police even though Esme was concerned that Mary might try to use her knowledge again. She was equally fearful that Polly’s blackmailer would escape justice. But what about Polly’s offence, the abduction of a child?

  Esme reflected that, ironically, both women had been guilty of crimes which, in their different ways, had resulted in self-inflicted punishment. Polly had spent her life in a continual state of fear of exposure following an impulsive decision as a naïve young woman. By contrast, Mary had wasted a huge portion of her life eaten up, almost to the point of destruction, by the anger with and hatred of the person she saw as the cause of her son’s death. Her suffering was the realisation of that fact. Esme had seen it in her face when she returned to the kitchen after Will had confessed his own secret.

  Esme realised with some alarm that Mary’s circumstances mirrored her own. Hadn’t she been in a similar destructive spiral? It had taken years of isolation and withdrawal after she lost Tim, before Lucy had been able to persuade her to let go of her anger and rebuild her life. She would be forever grateful that Lucy had never given up on her.

  Below her an ambulance arrived at the entrance to the Accident and Emergency department. Esme had a birds-eye view o
f the A & E staff, milling around as though on wheels, manoeuvring the patient out of the vehicle and into the building. What effect would that patient’s accident or illness have on his life and the people around him? What decisions would be made and what would be the consequences?

  Esme’s thoughts turned again to Polly. It was exactly as Polly had said that she and Esme were in the same boat. They both had emotional claims on Elizabeth but were not her true family. Soon Elizabeth would find out about Mary and Will. And the young lad, Billy. What would she make of him? Esme was amused by the thought. They might be connected by birth but they were such different people. In the bigger picture, what did that really mean?

  She glanced at her watch. Time enough for stories to have been told and truths revealed. She turned away from the window. She wouldn’t make the mistake of the past and withdraw. Not this time. She might have experienced a shift in perspective, but Elizabeth was still the same person and so was she. If they had been related, would it have changed anything? How could it? They would be different people. The question wouldn’t arise.

  She dropped the empty cup into the wastepaper bin and headed out of the day room. It was time to join the family, blood-tied or otherwise.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to my readers Emily Percival, Diane Owen and Caren Denton for their time and positive feedback, to Margaret James for her sound advice, and to friends and family for their continuous encouragement. Also thanks to Heather Chaddock, Andy Barrett and Andy Szczelkun for allowing me to pick their brains on various technical matters.

  Finally, special thanks and love go to my husband Brian, for his constant and enthusiastic support which has made the writing of this novel so enjoyable.

  About the Author

  Wendy Percival was born in the West Midlands and grew up in rural Worcestershire. After training as a primary school teacher she moved to North Devon for her first teaching post, and remained in teaching for 20 years.

  An impulse buy of Writing Magazine prompted her to begin writing seriously. She won Writing Magazine’s Summer Ghost Story competition in 2002 and had a short story published in The People’s Friend before focusing on full length fiction.

  The time honoured ‘box of old documents in the attic’ stirred her interest in genealogy. While researching her Shropshire roots Wendy realised how little most people know of their family history and this became the inspiration for Blood-Tied.

  Wendy continues to be intrigued by genealogy, its mysteries and family secrets. Her discovery of an Australian death certificate, dated 1868, the final year of convict transportation, inspired the novel she is currently writing.

  An enthusiast for old buildings both in the UK and abroad, she has visited historic sites across the world from Angkor Wat to Machu Picchu.

  Wendy lives in a Devon thatched cottage beside a 13th century church with her husband and a particularly talkative cat.

  Read more about the author at www.wendypercival.co.uk

  Copyright Notice

  First published in 2008 by Robert Hale Ltd

  Second edition (revised) published in 2013 by SilverWood Books, Bristol, BS1 4HJ

  www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk

  Copyright © Wendy Percival 2013

  The right of Wendy Percival to be identified as the author of this work

  has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

  without prior permission of the copyright holder.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-78132-158-4 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-78132-159-1 (ebook)