The Wrong Mother

by Sophie Hannah

‘Were the Olivers significant to Geraldine, do you know?’

  Bretherick answered with a question. ‘How come you know all this, about the photographs? Have you found the woman who stole them?’ He leaned forward. ‘If you know who she is, you’ve got to tell me.’

  ‘Mark, what sort of thing did you and Geraldine used to talk about?’ Kombothekra asked. ‘You know-of an evening, after dinner.’

  Simon made up his mind to draw the sergeant’s attention to the wedding anniversary cards, the oh-so-courteous messages inside them.

  ‘I don’t know! Everything. What a stupid question. My work, Lucy… Aren’t you married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No,’ said Simon quickly. He didn’t want to have to sit there worrying he would be asked the same question. Better to get it over with.

  Bretherick stared at him. ‘Well, then you’ll never know how it feels when someone murders your wife.’ Simon thought that this was stretching the concept of looking on the bright side beyond its capacity.

  ‘I know the name of every single one of my sons’ friends, and their parents,’ said Kombothekra.

  ‘Bully for you,’ said Bretherick. ‘Do you know how to build, from scratch, a cryogen-free nitrogen-recycling cooling unit that every laboratory in the world will need to buy? That will make your fortune?’

  ‘No,’ said Kombothekra.

  ‘And I do.’ Bretherick shrugged. ‘We all have our strengths and weaknesses, Sergeant.’

  Simon was starting to feel inadequate; it didn’t take much. He said, ‘Your mother-in-law says there are things in Geraldine’s diary that are factually incorrect. Jean didn’t buy Geraldine a mug with The Big Sleep on it, for example. Geraldine didn’t fly into a rage, smash the mug, accuse her mother of being insensitive to her sleep-deprived state.’

  Bretherick nodded. ‘Geraldine didn’t write that diary. Whoever killed her wrote it.’

  ‘Yet you only became sure of this once you’d heard what Jean had to say. Isn’t that right?’ Bretherick had asked why he was a suspect; Simon hoped it was becoming clearer. ‘You read that diary long before Jean did-several times, I assume?’

  ‘Over and over. I can recite much of it from memory, my new party trick. What a popular guest I’ll be.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say straight away, “This didn’t happen, this isn’t true, my wife can’t have written this”?’

  Simon watched uncomfortably as Bretherick’s face lost its colour. ‘Don’t turn that on me! You all told me Geraldine had killed herself and Lucy. You kept telling me. No, the diary didn’t sound like Geraldine-it sounded nothing like her-but you said it was her diary.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the feelings and attitudes she expressed, things you might have assumed she’d withheld from you,’ said Simon. ‘I’m talking about facts: the smashing of the mug, the things that simply didn’t happen.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about a mug! How was I supposed to know if it happened or not? That diary’s full of… distortions and lies. I told you it was all wrong. I told you someone else must have written it. I don’t recognise Geraldine’s voice, or her thoughts or her description of our lives. That business about God being called Gart? I never heard Geraldine or Lucy say that, not once.’

  There was a tap on the lounge window, one of the search team from outside. Kombothekra, who had been leaning against the glass, turned, obscuring Simon’s view of the garden. Simon watched the sergeant’s back, its stiff stillness, and listened to the absence of background noise. No voices any more, no sound of shovels cutting into earth. His heart started to thump.

  ‘What?’ Bretherick saw the look on Kombothekra’s face. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘You tell me, Mark,’ said Kombothekra. ‘What have we found?’ He nodded at Simon and raised two fingers almost imperceptibly, the barrel of an imaginary gun. Either Simon had lost his ability to read signals or else two bodies had been found beneath Mark Bretherick’s rectangular lawn.

  What no nod could tell him-for Kombothekra couldn’t possibly know at this stage-was whether these were the bodies of Amy Oliver and her mother. And now there was a new question that had leaped to the top of Simon’s list. More than anything, he wanted to find out the name of the anonymous letter-writer.

  How did she know so much, and how the fuck was he going to find her?

  ‘Amy Oliver,’ said Colin Sellers, looking over Chris Gibbs’ shoulder at the photograph of a gangly, sharp-eyed young girl in school uniform sitting on a wall. Until today, neither detective had been in a school office since his teenage years, and neither felt entirely comfortable. Gibbs had been loathed by his teachers, and Sellers, though amiable and popular, had been berated daily for chatting to his friends when he should have been working.

  ‘Not a happy girl,’ Gibbs muttered.

  ‘Shit.’ Sellers lowered his voice so that Barbara Fitzgerald and Jenny Naismith, the headmistress and secretary of St Swithun’s Montessori Primary School, wouldn’t hear him. He didn’t want to offend them, and imagined that because they worked with children they would be quick to take offence.

  Sellers didn’t fancy either of them. Mrs Fitzgerald was old, had waist-length grey hair and wore glasses that were too large for her face. Jenny Naismith was in the right age bracket and had a pretty face and good skin, but looked too neat and meticulous. Bound to be a ball-breaker.

  On the plus side, both women were efficient. They had produced the two photographs and confirmed the identities of their subjects within seconds of Sellers’ and Gibbs’ arrival. Now Mrs Fitzgerald was hunting in a filing cabinet for a list of all the people who went on the school trip to Silsford Castle ’s owl sanctuary last year. Sellers couldn’t imagine why she’d kept it this long. ‘We keep everything,’ Jenny Naismith had said proudly.

  ‘Shit what?’ Gibbs asked.

  ‘Nothing. For a minute I thought the name Amy Oliver rang a bell.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Don’t get excited.’ Sellers laughed away his embarrassment. ‘It’s Jamie Oliver I was thinking of. That’s why it sounded familiar.’

  ‘I hate that twat,’ said Gibbs. ‘Every ad break, he’s there telling me what to eat: “Try putting some butter on your bread. Try having some chips with your sausage.”’ Gibbs attempted a cockney accent. ‘As if he invented it!’

  ‘The spelling is different.’ Barbara Fitzgerald abandoned the filing cabinet. ‘Amy’s name is O-L-I-V-A. Oliva. Spanish.’

  Gibbs checked his notebook. ‘So that’s why her mother’s called…’ He couldn’t read his own writing. ‘Cantona?’ He was aware of Sellers beside him, trying not to laugh. Too late, he realised what he’d said.

  ‘Encarna.’ Barbara Fitzgerald didn’t laugh, corrected him matter-of-factly, as if it were an easy mistake to make. ‘It’s an abbreviation of Encarnación. Which is Spanish for “Incarnation”. Many Spaniards have religious names. I told you, Amy moved to Spain.’

  ‘Mrs Fitzgerald’s got the most amazing memory,’ said Jenny Naismith. ‘She knows every detail about every child at this school.’

  Gibbs altered the spelling of Amy’s surname. Evidently that was something the anonymous letter-writer didn’t know; had she never seen it written down? Esther Taylor: that was the name of the woman who had turned up at St Swithun’s with the two photographs. Or at least the name she had given Jenny Naismith. Taylor was a common name, but Esther was more unusual, and if she looked like Geraldine Bretherick… well, it shouldn’t be too hard to track her down.

  ‘This list isn’t leaping out at me,’ Mrs Fitzgerald said apologetically. ‘I’ll have a proper look later, and I’ll bring it into the police station as soon as we track it down.’ She folded her thick, tanned arms. ‘Actually, I went on that trip myself, and I’m pretty sure I could jot down most of the names for you now. Would you like me to?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Sellers.

  ‘You didn’t notice who took those two photographs, by any chance?’ Gibbs asked. ‘Or anyo
ne taking photos of Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick?’

  Barbara Fitzgerald shook her head. ‘Everyone was snapping away, as they always do on school trips.’ This was the first time the name Bretherick had been mentioned. The headmistress seemed unflustered by its appearance in the conversation. Jenny Naismith was still ransacking the filing cabinet. Sellers couldn’t see her face.

  ‘What can you tell us about Encarna Oliva?’ he asked.

  ‘She worked for a bank in London.’

  ‘Do you know which one?’

  ‘Yes. Leyland Carver. Thanks to Encarna, they sponsor our Spring Fair every year.’

  ‘Do you have the family’s contact details in Spain?’

  ‘I don’t think we were ever given a snail-mail address,’ said Mrs Fitzgerald, ‘but we did get an e-mail shortly after Amy left St Swithun’s, telling us all about her new home in Nerja.’

  ‘Nerja.’ Sellers wrote it down. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve still-’

  ‘No, but I do remember the e-mail address.’ Mrs Fitzgerald beamed. ‘It was amysgonetospain@hotmail.com. No apostrophe. My secretary and I had a long discussion about it. Not Jenny-my previous secretary, Sheila. The missing apostrophe annoyed me. Sheila said she’d never seen an e-mail address with an apostrophe in it, and I said that if one couldn’t use apostrophes in Hotmail addresses, then why not avoid the problem altogether by coming up with an address that doesn’t require an apostrophe?’

  ‘Is there a computer here that I can use?’ asked Gibbs. Jenny Naismith nodded and led him to her desk. ‘Worth a try,’ he said to Sellers.

  ‘What about Amy’s old address?’ Sellers asked the headmistress. ‘The people who live there now might have a forwarding address for the Olivas.’

  ‘They might,’ Mrs Fitzgerald agreed. ‘Good idea. I can root that out for you, certainly.’

  Sellers was relieved that she didn’t know it by heart. He’d been starting to wonder if she had special powers.

  When the head turned to face him again, armed with a sheet of A4 paper, she had a more reserved expression on her face. ‘Is Amy… all right?’

  Sellers was about to say something reassuring when Gibbs said, ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’ He didn’t look up from the keyboard.

  ‘We have to work on the assumption that she’s fine unless we find out that she isn’t. Which hopefully we won’t.’ Sellers smiled.

  ‘Will you let me know the very second there’s any news?’ asked Mrs Fitzgerald.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I liked Amy. I worried about her too. She was extremely bright, very passionate, very creative, but like many sensitive, creative children, she tended to overreact. Hysterically, sometimes. I think she did it to make life more interesting, actually. As an adult, I’m sure she’ll be one of those women who creates drama wherever she goes. She once said to me, “Mrs Fitzgerald, my life’s like a story, isn’t it, and I’m the main person in the story.” I said, “Yes, I suppose so, Amy,” and she said, “That means I can make up what happens.” ’

  ‘Number 2, Belcher Close, Spilling,’ Jenny Naismith read from the piece of paper in her boss’s hand. ‘Amy’s old address.’

  ‘Do you want to look at our A-Z or have you got sat nav?’

  Sellers covered his mouth with his hand to hide a grin. Barbara Fitzgerald had pronounced it as if it were the name of an Eastern deity: his venerable holiness, Sat Nav. ‘We’ll find it,’ he said.

  Was a trip to Spain likely to fall into his lap? Why couldn’t it be France? He could take Stace; she could practise her French-there was no doubt she needed the practice. Sellers had done French O level, got a B, and he reckoned Stace was the sort of person who’d never be able to learn a language. She just didn’t get it. She was rubbish. If he could have taken her to France, it might have helped. Maybe Spanish was easier. Maybe he could persuade her to switch. Better still, he could take Suki to Spain…

  Barbara Fitzgerald handed Sellers a list of names. He counted them. Twenty-seven. Great. Would Kombothekra want him to collect twenty-seven accounts of a visit to an owl sanctuary in the hope that someone would remember who took which photographs? That’d be fun. Sellers was halfway out of the school office when he remembered he’d left Gibbs behind. He turned, doubled back on himself.

  Jenny Naismith was walking up and down behind her desk, too polite to ask when she might once again have the use of her computer. Gibbs had stopped typing and was staring at his Yahoo inbox, blowing spit bubbles. ‘Are you ready?’ Sellers asked him. How to be charming and graceful, by Christopher Gibbs. ‘You’re not waiting for Amy Oliva to reply, are you? She’ll be at school.’

  ‘So? That’s all schools do these days, isn’t it? Buy kids computers to play with?’

  ‘In this country, sadly, things are going in that direction,’ said Barbara Fitzgerald from the doorway. ‘If you’re talking about the state sector, that is. In Spain, I’m not sure. But, you know, there’s no point sitting there and waiting.’ She smiled fondly at Gibbs; Sellers found himself feeling quite impressed. ‘Forget about it for the time being and try again later.’

  Gibbs grunted, abandoned the keyboard and mouse.

  As he and Sellers walked back to the car, Sellers said, ‘Wise words indeed, mate. Is that what Debbie says when you can’t get it up? Forget about it for the time being and try again later.’

  ‘Not a problem I have.’ Gibbs sounded bored. ‘Right, what now?’

  ‘Better check in with Kombothekra.’ Sellers pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  ‘Is he Asian?’ Gibbs asked. ‘Stepford?’

  ‘Of course not, pillock. He’s half Greek, half upper-crust English.’

  ‘Greek? He looks Asian.’

  ‘Sarge, it’s me.’ Sellers gave Gibbs a look that Barbara Fitzgerald would no doubt have thought too discouraging, bad for morale. ‘The photos are of Amy Oliva and her mother, confirmed. That’s Oliva spelled O-L-I-V-A. They were brought in by a woman who called herself Esther Taylor… sorry? What?’

  ‘What?’ Gibbs mouthed, when the silent nodding had gone on for too long.

  ‘All right, Sarge. Will do.’

  ‘What, for fuck’s sake?’

  Sellers rubbed the screen of his mobile phone with his thumb. He thought about the helium balloons his children were given at parties and in restaurants. They tried so hard to clutch on to the strings, but they could never maintain their grip and eventually the balloons drifted up and out of reach. There was nothing you could do but watch as they escaped at speed. That was how Sellers was starting to feel about this case.

  Double or nothing. He would have preferred nothing.

  ‘Corn Mill House, in the garden,’ he said. ‘They’ve found two more bodies. One’s a child.’

  ‘Boy or girl?’ asked Simon, aware that this question was normally asked in happier circumstances. He, Kombothekra and Tim Cook, the pathologist, stood by the door to the greenhouse, away from the rest of the men. Kombothekra hadn’t worked with Cook before. Simon had, many times. He, Sellers and Gibbs knew him as Cookie and sometimes drank with him in the Brown Cow, but Simon was embarrassed to make this obvious to Kombothekra; he hated the nickname anyway, regarded it as unsuitable for a grown man.

  ‘Not sure.’ Cook was at least five years younger than Simon, tall and thin with dark, spiky hair. Simon knew that he had a girlfriend who was fifty-two, that they’d met at a local badminton club. Cook could be unbelievably boring on the subject of badminton, but would say little, even when urged by Sellers and Gibbs-especially then-about his older partner.

  Simon couldn’t believe the age gap didn’t bother Cook. He, Simon, could never have a relationship with anyone twenty years older than himself. Or twenty years younger, for that matter. Or with anyone. He pushed away the unwelcome thought. Half the time he prayed Charlie would change her mind, the other half he was grateful she’d had the good sense to turn him down. ‘ “Not sure”?’ he said impatiently. ‘That’s the sort of expert opinion I coul
d have come up with myself.’

  ‘It’s a girl.’ Sam Kombothekra sighed heavily. ‘Amy Oliva. And the woman’s her mother, Encarna Oliva.’ He turned, glanced at the makeshift grave behind him, then turned back. ‘It’s got to be them. Family annihilation mark two. Keeping the media at bay’s going to be a nightmare.’

  ‘We know nothing,’ Simon pointed out. Sometimes he heard a phrase that he knew would be impossible to dislodge from his mind. Family annihilation mark two. ‘Whoever they are, this can’t be a family annihilation.’ He resented having to use Professor Harbard’s crass definition. ‘Mrs Oliva can’t have buried her own body, can she? Laid a lawn over herself? Or are you saying her husband killed them? Mr Oliva? What’s his first name?’

  Kombothekra shrugged. ‘Whatever his name is, his body’s buried somewhere nearby, and our men are going to find it any second now. Mark Bretherick killed all three Olivas, and he also killed Geraldine and Lucy.’

  Simon wished Proust were here to give Kombothekra the slating he deserved. ‘What the fuck? I know we can’t avoid charging him, but… Do you really think he’s a killer? I thought you liked him.’

  ‘Why?’ Kombothekra snapped. ‘Because I was polite to him?’

  ‘I think he’s a killer,’ Cook chipped in. ‘Four bodies have turned up on his property in less than a fortnight.’ Neither Simon nor Kombothekra bothered to reply. Simon was thinking about the shock and fury on Bretherick’s face as he was helped into the police car that would by now have delivered him to the custody suite at the nick. Kombothekra stared at his feet, mumbled something Simon couldn’t decipher. ‘Anyway, have I said anything about the adult skeleton being a woman’s?’ The pathologist returned to his area of expertise, reminded the other two men that they needed his input.

  ‘You haven’t said anything, period.’ Simon glared at him.

  Kombothekra looked up. ‘You’re saying the adult skeleton is a man’s? Then it’s Amy’s father.’

  ‘No. Actually, it is a woman.’ The revelation got no response. Tim Cook looked embarrassed, then disappointed. ‘It’s easy to identify an adult female pelvic structure. But a young child…’