The Wrong Mother

by Sophie Hannah

  Gibbs thanked her.

  ‘Is there… any news?’

  ‘No.’ He didn’t want to be the one to tell her that another of her pupils had been murdered. Nor did he want to talk, knowing what he was withholding; guilt made him more brusque than usual and eventually Barbara Fitzgerald gave up.

  Feeling unsettled, ashamed of his cowardice, Gibbs navigated his way back to Yahoo Mail. He entered his ID and password, and was waiting for his inbox to appear when he realised his mistake. Barbara Fitzgerald didn’t know his Yahoo address; she would have sent the list of names to his work e-mail, the address from which he’d e-mailed her earlier. Dick-brain. He was about to log out of his Yahoo account when he saw that he had a new message. From Amy Oliva. No amount of blinking made it disappear.

  Gibbs double-clicked on the envelope icon. The message had been sent from a Hotmail address, but a different one: amysbackfromspain@hotmail.com. It was only three words long, three ordinary words that worried Gibbs more than an overt threat would have. He got up and left the room, not bothering to sign out of his account.

  Meeting room one for a team briefing? What was wrong with the CID room? Charlie had always found it perfectly adequate. She broke into a run as she turned the corner. By the time she got there she was out of breath. She knocked and opened the door. Sam Kombothekra, Simon, Sellers and Professor Keith Harbard sat in silence on comfortable blue leather chairs that looked as if they belonged in the executive row of a multi-screen cinema. Harbard was eating a muffin, dropping crumbs on the carpet around his feet.

  Inspector Proust stood in the corner of the room by the water cooler with a mobile phone pressed to his ear, talking too loudly about a DVD player that was ‘too complicated’. Had he phoned a shop on the other side of the world to complain?

  ‘What’s going on?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘We’re waiting for Gibbs,’ said Sam.

  The Snowman interrupted his phone call to say, ‘Round him up, will you, Sergeant?’

  Charlie realised he was addressing her. Bloody cheek. ‘I can’t stay, sir. I need one of you to come with me. I think I’ve got something that’s going to help you.’ She didn’t dare ask for Simon. Not in front of everyone.

  ‘Off you go, Waterhouse,’ said Proust. Charlie could have kissed him. ‘Don’t let it take too long, Sergeant.’

  ‘I feel like the kid whose mother turns up two hours early to collect him from the party,’ said Simon, following Charlie down the corridor.

  She smiled at him over her shoulder. ‘Did your mother do that?’

  No reply.

  ‘She did, didn’t she?’

  ‘What’s this about, anyway?’

  ‘By the time I’ve explained…’

  They marched the rest of the way in silence. Charlie stopped outside interview room three and Simon walked into her. She grinned determinedly as he leaped back, alarmed by the unexpected physical contact.

  She opened the door. A broad-shouldered woman with short spiky dyed hair and a pained expression on her face sat behind the table. She was wearing black tracksuit bottoms with pink stripes down the legs, pink lace-up pumps and a tight pale pink polo-necked jumper that clung to the rolls of flesh around her middle. ‘This is Pam Senior,’ Charlie told Simon. ‘Miss Senior, this is Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse. I’d like you to tell him what you’ve just told me.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘But… I can’t sit here all day, I’m self-employed. I’m a childminder. I thought you’d have told him already.’

  When Charlie didn’t respond, Pam Senior sighed and started to talk. A woman she didn’t know had turned up on her doorstep last night, she said. Late: eleven o’clock. She’d introduced herself as Esther Taylor and said she was the best friend of a woman whose children Pam sometimes looked after-Sally Thorning. She’d demanded to know what Pam had done to Sally, and tried to force her way into Pam’s house.

  ‘She called me a liar, accused me of all sorts-pushing Sally under a bus, but I didn’t, I swear! Sally must have told her I did, though, and now she reckons Sally’s disappeared and I must know something about it. She was threatening to go to the police. ’ Pam’s nostrils flared. She sniffed several times. ‘So I thought I’d better come here first and tell you I’ve done nothing, absolutely nothing. What she’s saying’s slander, and that’s illegal, isn’t it?’

  ‘Under a bus?’ said Simon. ‘Are you sure that was what she said? Where do you think she got that from?’

  ‘Sally did have an accident with a bus, in Rawndesley a few days ago. I was there, I saw it. Well, I didn’t see it happen, but I saw a group of people all gathered round, so I went and looked, and it was Sally. I tried to help her, offered to take her to hospital to get checked out, but she wasn’t having any of it. She accused me of pushing her and shouted at me in front of everyone.’ Pam’s face reddened as she remembered the incident. ‘We’d had a bit of a row before, because of a mix-up over childcare arrangements, and I’ll admit I was furious with her, but… what sort of person does she think I am, that I’d do that?’

  ‘So you didn’t push her?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘And you didn’t see if anyone else pushed her?’

  ‘No. I told you. I’ve been upset about it all week. I was just starting to feel better-Sally left a message saying she was sorry, and I thought it was all over-and then this Esther Taylor woman turns up. She tried to barge into my house. Look.’ Pam held out her hand so that Simon could see it shaking. ‘I’m a wreck.’

  ‘Tell him the rest,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I managed to keep her out, slammed the door on her.’ Pam touched her throat. ‘She started yelling outside about Mark Bretherick, asking if he was the one who… who wanted Sally dead. I can hardly bear to say it, it’s so awful. I read the local paper every night, so I recognised the name. That was what freaked me out the most.’ She pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of her tracksuit trousers; it had the initials PS embroidered on it. It had been ironed, Charlie noticed, and folded into a neat square.

  ‘Do you know Mark Bretherick?’ asked Simon.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Did you know Geraldine or Lucy Bretherick?’

  ‘No, but I know how they died, and I don’t want anything to do with it!’

  An odd way to phrase it, thought Charlie. ‘But, according to you, you haven’t got anything to do with it,’ she said. ‘You don’t know the Bretherick family. You’ve never known them.’

  ‘Well, obviously this Esther Taylor knows something about them, or Sally does, and I don’t want anything to do with any of them. I don’t want to be attacked in the middle of the night when I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong!’

  ‘All right,’ said Charlie. ‘Try to calm down.’

  ‘What did Esther Taylor look like?’ Simon asked.

  ‘About my height. Short, blonde hair. Glasses. A bit like the blonde one out of When Harry Met Sally, but uglier and with glasses.’

  ‘She didn’t look anything like Geraldine Bretherick? Do you know what Geraldine Bretherick looked like? Have you seen her photograph in the paper?’

  Pam nodded. ‘No, this woman looked nothing like her.’

  Charlie watched Simon watching Pam. What was he waiting for? She’d answered his question.

  ‘Actually…’ Pam’s hanky was taut in her lap, her left and right hands waging a subtle tug of war. ‘Oh, my God. Sally looks like Mrs Bretherick. I didn’t think of it until you just said… Why did you ask me that? What’s going on?’

  ‘I need Sally’s address and telephone number and as much detail about her as you can give me,’ said Simon. As Pam spoke, he frowned and nodded, committing her words to memory. Charlie made notes. Simon looked surprised only when Pam mentioned that Sally Thorning’s husband, Nick, was a radiographer at Culver Valley General Hospital. Once he’d got all the information he could out of her, he left the room.

  Charlie followe
d him, closing the door on Pam’s questions and demands. She was expecting to have to chase after Simon, but she found him standing motionless outside the interview room. ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘I think I saw When Harry Met Sally. She said, “the blonde one out of When Harry Met Sally”. Which is Sally, obviously, because Harry’s the man.’

  ‘I’ve seen it too. After a hopeless start, they get married and live happily ever after,’ said Charlie pointedly.

  ‘You’re called Charlie. Charlie can also be a man’s name.’

  ‘Simon, what the fuck…?’

  ‘I know where I’ve seen the name Harry Martineau.’

  ‘The man who lives in the Olivas’ old house?’

  ‘No. He doesn’t exist. That’s why no one’s heard of Angel Oliva at Culver Valley General, the hospital where Nick Thorning works.’

  ‘I’m completely, utterly lost,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Jones is the name. Jones: the most ordinary name in the world.’

  ‘Simon, you’re beginning to frighten me. Who’s Jones? The killer? The man Sally Thorning met in the hotel?’

  ‘No. Come on, we’ve got to get back to the briefing.’

  ‘I’ve got my own work to do! I can’t just leave Pam…’

  Simon strode down the corridor. Charlie found herself running after him. As always, she wanted something from him that he was not making readily available. It wasn’t her case, it was nothing to do with her, but she needed to know what he meant.

  They hadn’t got far when they saw Norman Grace from HTCU hurrying towards them. ‘I was on my way to find you,’ he said to Simon.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘You were wrong…’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘… but you were also right.’

  ‘ Norman, I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘The name’s Jones,’ said Norman, and Charlie’s skin turned cold.

  ‘I know.’ Simon broke into a run.

  Not so much as a thank you. Charlie shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Norman. ‘He’s got a bee in his bonnet.’

  ‘Can you tell him I’m hanging on to the Bretherick hard disk for the time being? There’s more, but it’ll take me a while to get it into a presentable state.’

  Charlie nodded, and was moving away when Norman touched her arm. ‘How are you, Charlie?’

  ‘Fine, as long as no one asks me how I am,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘You don’t really want that. You don’t want people not to care.’

  Charlie ran down the corridor, hoping she hadn’t missed anything, wondering if Norman was right. Would she prefer everyone to forget about last year? To treat her exactly as they had before?

  She found Simon round a corner, on his mobile phone. He was telling somebody that he needed them to come to Spilling, saying that as soon as possible would be great. He gave the address of the nick. Charlie had never heard him sound so eager or grateful. Jealousy wasn’t an issue; it was obvious he was speaking to a man. Simon never sounded so unguarded when he spoke to women.

  ‘Who was that?’ she said once they were on the move again.

  ‘Jonathan Hey.’

  ‘The Cambridge don? But… Simon, you can’t just invite your own expert to the party without checking with Sam first. What about Keith Harbard?’

  ‘Harbard knows nothing.’

  When he was in this sort of mood, Charlie knew there was no point contradicting him. If he thought Hey was that much better than Harbard, he was probably right. It wouldn’t stop Proust from taking one look at the second sociology professor to land at his feet and despatching him back to Cambridge without refreshments or an explanation.

  Poor Jonathan Hey. What a fool, saying yes to Simon Waterhouse.

  ‘“Change it back”?’ Proust surveyed Gibbs from across the room. ‘Is that supposed to mean something to us? Change what back? Change it back to what?’

  ‘The password,’ said Gibbs. ‘It must be. To get into Amy’s Hotmail I had to change it. Whoever set up the account must have tried to get in using the old password and failed.’

  ‘And worked out that you changed it? How would he have known?’ said Kombothekra.

  ‘Intelligent guess. I sent a message to Amy’s Hotmail address, so he knew I knew about it. He wants us to see how clever he is. Look at the new e-mail address he created, not more than a few minutes after I broke into his old one: amysbackfromspain@hotmail.com. He’s trying to be witty.’

  ‘Or she,’ said Keith Harbard. ‘Gibbs is right about the wit; to me that suggests a woman.’

  ‘Have you never read Oscar Wilde, Professor?’ Proust enquired.

  ‘He’s not that clever,’ said Sellers. It sounded as if he might have been talking about Harbard; Gibbs suppressed a smile. ‘ “Change it back.” How can we? We don’t know what the old password was.’

  ‘He knows that,’ said Gibbs impatiently. ‘It’s a threat, isn’t it? He knows he’s giving us an impossible order.’

  Harbard nodded. ‘It’s part of the game. Either it’s a guarantee of punishment with a bit of psychological torture thrown in-she appears to be giving you a chance but it’s not a real one because you can’t possibly know her original password-or she’s inviting you to think about what the password might have been. Maybe it was her name.’

  ‘That’s a point,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Thanks, Keith. I’ll get on to Hotmail.’

  ‘In the meantime, reply to the message,’ said Harbard. ‘She’ll be flattered. Tell her you can’t think of a way forward, that you need her help with the task she’s assigned you.’

  ‘Psychological expertise as well as sociological,’ muttered Proust. ‘Buy one, get one free. Unlike you, Professor, I don’t care about our perpetrator’s inner demons or what makes him tick. Give me his name, tell me where I can find him and I’ll be happy. Let’s concentrate on information, not speculation. We’ve identified the two skeletons-that’s a good start.’

  ‘Harry Martineau and Angel Oliva have become top priority,’ Kombothekra told him. ‘Nobody at Culver Valley General Hospital can remember a heart surgeon called Angel Oliva, and their records suggest he never worked there. So either Martineau was lying or Oliva lied to Martineau.’

  ‘We’re still checking,’ said Sellers, ‘but it looks as if no child or teacher at St Swithun’s knows a William Markes. Cordy O’Hara’s new ride’s called Miles Parry.’

  ‘The nanny.’ Kombothekra nodded at Sellers.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve spoken to Amy Oliva’s former nanny. The number in the anonymous letter was the right one. She didn’t get back to us sooner because she’s in Corsica on her honeymoon, back tomorrow evening. But even before she told me that I recognised her voice on the phone.’ Sellers tried not to sound proud of his own achievement.

  ‘Have you knobbed her?’ asked Gibbs. Behind his hand, so only Sellers could hear, he began to whisper, ‘All right, love, wipe yourself, your taxi’s here…’

  ‘ Corsica?’ said Proust. ‘Why does that sound familiar?’

  ‘Her name’s Michelle Jones,’ Sellers told him. ‘I knew her voice from interviewing her after Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick’s bodies were found. She was in Corsica then too-I interviewed her on the phone. She was Michelle Greenwood before she got married.’

  ‘The Brethericks’ babysitter,’ said Proust. ‘The one who selfishly arranged a holiday with her boyfriend for the May half-term last year.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Kombothekra. ‘She was also Amy Oliva’s part-time nanny, so that’s another connection between the two families.’

  ‘Unfortunately, when I spoke to Michelle I didn’t know we were going to draw a blank at Culver Valley General, so I didn’t ask about Mr Oliva,’ said Sellers. ‘I’ve left another message for her.’

  ‘What about this bank where Mrs Oliva worked?’ Proust asked.

  ‘I’m going today,’ said Kombothekra. ‘I’m hoping someone there can tell me about Patrick.’

  ‘A
sk about William Markes too,’ said the Snowman. ‘And Angel Oliva. Why not? Let’s brandish all our names wherever we go and see what we get.’ Proust would be going nowhere apart from back to his office. Saying ‘we’ instead of ‘you’ was his concession to the idea of the team.

  ‘I spoke to the Brethericks’ postman this morning,’ said Kombothekra. ‘He says he saw someone in the garden of Corn Mill House last spring, and he remembers it was while the Brethericks were in Florida because Geraldine had told him they were going away. He went to try and get a closer look, but by the time he got to the part of the garden where he’d seen the person, he or she had gone. Postie had the rest of his round to do, so he didn’t look much beyond that spot. When the Brethericks got back, he told Geraldine he’d seen someone. She looked a bit puzzled, but said that whoever it was hadn’t done any harm-there’d been no break-in. But here’s the really interesting part. I asked him if he’d noticed anything else, anything at all that was unusual while the Brethericks were in Florida. At first he said no, but when I urged him to think hard, he did remember something: a red Alfa Romeo parked at the bottom of the lane outside Corn Mill House’s gate. He said the car was there on at least three occasions while the Brethericks were away.’

  ‘Bright, is he, this postman?’ said Gibbs. ‘Didn’t he make the connection between the car and the man he’d seen?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Kombothekra. ‘On the day he saw the killer, the car wasn’t there.’

  ‘Maybe our man decided to walk that day.’

  ‘Person,’ Harbard reminded them all. ‘Remember, the evidence points to a woman.’

  Gibbs scowled at him. He’d made his point, why did he have to keep making it? What evidence was he talking about? Gibbs knew a man’s crime when he saw one.

  ‘So Encarna and Amy Oliva were murdered and buried while the Brethericks were in Florida,’ Proust concluded.

  ‘They were buried then,’ said Kombothekra. ‘We don’t know when they were killed, but it was after Friday the nineteenth of May last year. That was Amy’s last day at school and Encarna’s last day at work. Neither of them said a word about leaving to schoolmates or colleagues. The sudden move to Spain, with no notice, was a surprise to everyone.’ Kombothekra raised his eyebrows.