by Alison Bruce
Marks himself opened the door from the inside before Goodhew was even close. ‘She agreed to the search then?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ve requested to see everything that’s available on David Moran’s death. Richard and Alice Moran are already on their way. We’re picking them up together, because we don’t want to raise his suspicions until he’s interviewed on his own. I’m going to keep out of the way, let him think it’s all low-key, then I’ll join you at the appropriate moment.’
‘I’m going to interview him?’
‘Why not? Your interview with his sister made very good TV.’
For the nine-to-fivers in the city of Cambridge, the day had only just begun. Schools were ringing their bells for morning break and the traffic had settled down after the rush hour. Goodhew glanced out of the nearest window and saw heavy clouds were heading in their direction; he guessed that meant another wet twenty-four hours. Already he wished the day was over. He was fuzzy with tiredness and had spent the first few hours of the morning reviving his brain with a succession of cups of coffee. He’d reused each polystyrene cup until it cracked, but even so was about to ditch the third of the morning. He took his latest half-drunk cup along with him to Interview Room 3, where Alice and Richard Moran sat side by side.
Alice was looking slightly tidier than immaculate. Whereas on previous occasions her appearance had been A-grade faultless, today she deserved an added star for extra endeavour. Richard, on the other hand, had crumpled even further, and now looked as though he were the shorter of the two. The combined effect gave the impression that they shared the same reserves of energy and emotional strength and just passed them back and forth by osmosis.
As Marks held up the journal, Richard’s gaze did a skittish jig from one person to the next, whereas Alice just said, ‘Oh.’
‘Do you know what this item is?’ Marks asked.
Richard nodded and Alice said, ‘Yes, of course. My father kept journals for as long as we can remember: the burgundy ones were for work and the dark-blue ones were about our . . .’ She took a breath, ‘our family.’
‘I see, and why didn’t you tell us that one of them was missing?’
‘I didn’t know.’ She turned to Richard. ‘Did you, Richard?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘They were packed away with the rest of his possessions.’ He looked down into his hands. ‘Jackie’s here, isn’t she?’
‘She’s been making a statement. But this diary was found at Victoria Nugent’s house.’
‘Is Jackie under arrest?’ Richard asked. Alice was watching him closely, but didn’t seem unhappy that he’d decided to do the talking.
‘Not yet,’ Goodhew replied. ‘Tell me about your half-brother, David.’
Richard’s gaze then met his sister’s, and from his imploring expression Goodhew guessed it was some kind of SOS.
It was Alice who replied, ‘Because of what my father wrote?’
‘I can’t comment.’
She scowled. ‘Well, it wouldn’t have come from anywhere else. David was the youngest of us – I think I told you that before – and he died. He was a small baby, but not ever ill, as far as I can remember. Our stepmother had put him down for an afternoon nap and she found him dead a couple of hours later – a cot death, the doctors said.’ She looked towards her brother. ‘Except our father couldn’t accept that, could he?’
Richard shook his head and picked up the story, the handover seamless. ‘Our stepmother wasn’t a healthy woman, she suffered from severe post-natal depression after Jackie was born, and by the time David arrived, she’d started drinking heavily too.’
‘And your father blamed her?’
‘No, no, he felt he needed to protect her. You see, he thought Jackie had killed David because she was jealous of him. But she was only six at the time and he felt that she wouldn’t have understood what she’d done. If she’d been taken away, our stepmother would have been devastated, Jackie was all she had.’
‘Apart from you two?’
Richard shrugged. ‘She was only our stepmother. In any case, who would hand over their six-year-old child, even in that situation? She probably would have been institutionalized, and for what purpose? I can quite understand why our father kept quiet.’
Alice took over again. ‘But that’s when he started keeping his notes on Jackie. He told us much later that he wanted to be sure he had a record of her behaviour in case she showed signs of doing something like that again.’
‘And you all knew about this?’
‘We knew he made all these notes, but we had no idea of the contents,’ Alice said. ‘He kept it entirely to himself until near his own death, and it was only then that he told us what he had suspected.’
‘And you both thought it best to keep that secret from this investigation?’
‘Our father wanted it kept in the family.’
‘Even if there was another murder?’
Alice stiffened. ‘You misunderstand us. We think our father’s suspicions were wrong. He was a complex and intelligent man, but not infallible. He was devastated when David died and, for some reason that we’ll never know, he directed the blame on to our sister. He was obsessed with his notes, but why would we connect those to Lorna’s murder?’
Goodhew ignored the question. ‘In his notes he also mentions Joanne Reed. Did you both know her?’
Alice shook her head, but Richard nodded, and Goodhew found the sight of them responding independently of one another slightly startling.
‘I met her,’ Richard said, ‘through Jackie. I saw her twice, or maybe three times, I don’t remember now for sure. Dad knew, only because I’d told him, and after she disappeared he asked me about her and Jackie, and what they’d done together.’
Goodhew spoke without realizing he’d planned to, and his voice sounded sharp. ‘What did he mean by that?’
‘How do I know? Joanne was uncomfortable about Jackie hanging round at the stables, and Dad asked me if I’d seen Joanne the weekend she disappeared.’ Goodhew studied Richard closely, though he didn’t seem to enjoy the attention, and quickly added, ‘But I hadn’t, I swear.’
‘Then why not tell us all of this before?’
‘We told you, we promised our father that we’d look after her.’ There was an audible trembling in his voice.
‘Yes, and Alice has just told me that you both considered your father’s suspicions unfounded. Do you share that opinion with her or not?’
Richard wavered, then replied, ‘Yes.’
Perhaps he realized that it was the wrong answer, or maybe he’d been distracted by an unexpected thought but, as Goodhew waited, Richard simply stared at him, his eyes unnaturally focused on the bridge of Goodhew’s nose. When he spoke again, his voice was low and ponderous, as though he was articulating unfamiliar thoughts. ‘But now I think about it, my life was perfect until she arrived.’
‘DC Goodhew?’ It was Alice who’d cut in, sounding calmer than ever, thus supporting Goodhew’s theory of osmosis. ‘What can we do to help Jackie?’
His initial response to Alice’s interruption was relief; her simple question had redirected her brother into a calmer state, possibly saving them all from another emotional eruption.
Then Goodhew rethought his strategy and decided to move Alice to another room.
By the time he returned, PC Wilkes was waiting for him in the corridor again.
‘This is becoming a habit,’ she announced, and handed him a single sheet of paper. ‘That’s all we’ve come up with so far. I’ve got a mate in the County Records Office and she scanned it for me. Lucky we got anything at all, I guess.’
The copy was pale and Goodhew had to turn it to the light before he saw it was the death certificate for David Joseph Moran. He glanced at the dates: born in August, just after Goodhew’s first birthday, and dead before Goodhew’s second. The verdict: ‘natural causes’.
It was the mention of the County Records Office, housed on the site of
the former jail, which reminded Goodhew – that, and the word justice . . .
He had left Richard Moran alone for, what he hoped was, enough time to make him wonder whether he’d been abandoned. He folded the copy of baby David’s death certificate in half and returned to the interview room with it tucked in his inside pocket. He sat back down, this time pulling his chair much closer.
‘We were talking about Joanne Reed. Where did you actually meet her?’
Richard slid one hand under each thigh, which reminded Goodhew of school teachers yelling, ‘If you can’t keep your hands still, sit on them,’ but he’d never seen anyone over the age of about eight actually doing so. ‘Newmarket . . .’ Richard began, falteringly, then started the sentence again more clearly. ‘Newmarket races. Dad and I went to watch the racing, and Jackie was there with some other girls, and one of them was Joanne Reed.’
‘Who else was there?’
‘Just Dad and myself.’
‘Not Alice?’
‘No, she didn’t feel well that day.’
‘How can you still remember this after ten years?’
‘I just do.’
‘And you saw Joanne again after that?’
‘No, not really.’ It was obvious to Goodhew that Richard was lying.
‘But you liked her?’
‘From what little I saw of her, yes.’
‘Did you want to see her again?’
‘I thought it might happen, but nothing was ever arranged.’
‘Did you ask her?’
He hesitated, then, ‘No.’
Goodhew paused.
Richard took a deep breath. ‘I asked her that day if she’d like to come racing again and she said yes, but it wasn’t a specific invite. I gave her my number, and she called the following week and we met for a drink.’
‘Where?’
‘The Eagle, Cambridge.’
‘Then what?’
Richard pulled the sort of awkward expression that Goodhew guessed was supposed to convey a mix of discretion and candour.
Goodhew decided to fill in the gap. ‘So you went somewhere private?’
Richard nodded.
‘For sex?’ Goodhew waited for another nod, then continued. ‘If you were already in Cambridge, why go to Old Mile Farm? Why not just go home?’
‘I took her out to the stables on the pretext of seeing the horses, in the hope that things would progress once we were there.’
‘I see. So you didn’t meet there for sex just because your father wouldn’t let you bring any women home?’
Richard hesitated. ‘Well, there was that too,’ he admitted.
‘We now know of two women with whom you’ve had a sexual relationship; one is dead and the other has been missing for a decade. Doesn’t make you catch of the week, does it?’ Richard looked away, and Goodhew changed direction. ‘A few minutes ago, the word “justice” came up, and it made me recall that conversation we had earlier in the week.’
Richard looked curious, but said nothing.
‘You told me that you thought it was important to see justice done, and that it’s also seen to be done. You said that’s what you wanted for Lorna.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did you mean Lorna as the innocent victim, or Lorna as the condemned?’
Richard leant back in his chair and crossed his legs. ‘Now you’ve lost me.’
‘Her death was carefully orchestrated. She’d had plenty of experience controlling other people, but she went too far with you. You weren’t going to let her walk away; you needed to punish her. There was a risk you’d be caught, but it had to be out in the open like that, otherwise it wouldn’t have felt like she’d been given a public execution.’
‘And what was her unforgivable crime, exactly?’ Richard said, sitting up straight again. There wasn’t much more fidgeting he could do without breaking into a sweat but, there again, he looked pretty close to breaking into a sweat in any case. Goodhew could see he wasn’t scared, though. The nervousness was just the bubbling by-product of a rage that was nearing boiling point. Richard Moran still had the lid on it, but it was rattling loudly.
‘Perhaps she found out you killed Joanne Reed. Was she trying to blackmail you?’
‘I never killed Joanne.’
‘Come on, you admit you have a problem with jealousy. And a temper, too. What happens when you lose control? Did Joanne end up like Victoria, with her skull caved in? You didn’t have a chance to hide Victoria. And we’re looking for Joanne’s body right now.’
The first visible bead of sweat appeared at Richard’s hairline. It reminded Goodhew of condensation running down the inside of a saucepan. The man wiped it away, and Goodhew kept pushing. ‘She’s buried at the farm, isn’t she, Richard?’
‘Don’t.’ Richard hissed.
Goodhew smirked. ‘Don’t what?’ he said coolly.
‘Don’t.’ Richard said it like it was a threat, but Goodhew remained unmoved, refusing to let it grow beyond the impotent, orphaned word it really was. Without warning, Richard pushed his chair back, the metal feet squealing in protest. ‘Don’t try to trick me.’ He pointed his finger at Goodhew, prodding the air as if to emphasize a point he was about to make, but the words would not come. Then he realized his hand was shaking and he dropped it back into his lap, clasping it with the other hand to keep it still. ‘You don’t know anything. You’re just playing games.’
‘No, you’re wrong. Your sister’s making a statement even as we speak.’
The colour drained from Richard’s face and he slumped backwards. ‘You’re lying. She wouldn’t do that to me.’
‘Why not?’ As far as Goodhew was concerned, Jackie Moran should have made one years ago. Goodhew stood up and reached into his pocket. He held the baby’s death certificate close to Richard’s face. ‘Jackie says it was you who killed David.’
Richard gasped and his expression altered, travelling from disbelief to dismay, with a brief but unmissable stop-off at did-anyone-notice? ‘I see,’ he said, trying for finality, desperate to make them the last two words of the interview.
For Goodhew it was more than illuminating. He’d accidentally tripped the switch that activated the floodlights, and Richard Moran was the only one basking in the glare.
FIFTY-ONE
The first revelation had been so blinding that Goodhew was almost too dazzled to see the second.
Marks was already out in the corridor, but talking urgently on his mobile. He made the ‘one minute’ sign and turned away so he could concentrate. Goodhew didn’t want to wait: this was the wrong moment for him to slow down, the right moment to barge into the room at the other end of the corridor. It was as if Marks could sense his impatience, because he turned back briefly and repeated the gesture.
OK, OK, Goodhew thought. He leant back against the wall, then slid down it until he was squatting. He refolded the death certificate and fanned his face, then unfolded it and held it like a wobble board, rippling it up and down, hoping the noise would irritate Marks enough to make him hang up.
It didn’t.
The only person’s attention it succeeded in grabbing was his own. He stopped agitating it as the significance of baby David’s date of birth suddenly hit home.
‘Shit,’ Goodhew muttered, and rushed away from his boss towards the nearest photocopier. It took three attempts before key details on the next-generation copy were clear enough to read.
He grabbed his mobile and rang Mel’s extension. ‘Have you left your desk in the last half-hour?’
‘No.’
‘Marks told me he sent someone out to Old Mile Farm – have you any idea who?’
‘Kincaide and Charles.’
‘Thanks.’
Goodhew rang DC Charles, hurrying towards his own desk even as he spoke. ‘Are you there yet? Good. One of the loose boxes has a press clipping pinned on the wall – could you photograph it with your phone and text it over? Make sure the picture and the date are both clear.’
His fatigue had fled, replaced by renewed vigour and clarity. He still had only a single purpose, but now at least he knew where his efforts were converging. He booted up his PC, plugged a USB cable into his mobile, and waited for the double-beep that announced each new message.
It arrived without a hitch. He enlarged the image and sent it straight to the laser printer. It was still warm when he slapped it on to the desk in the interview room in front of Jackie Moran.
‘That’s the newspaper clipping from your stable.’ It wasn’t a question and she didn’t have to nod. He followed it with the photocopy. ‘And that is David’s death certificate. If I can put the two of them together and see it, so will any jury.’
She opened her mouth to speak, but Goodhew held up his hand. ‘Enough, because this very minute I’m not listening, especially to people who think I buy every lie and half-truth that’s thrown at me.’
He almost left the room without saying any more, but turned back just before reaching for the door handle. ‘Think about it before I get back. I am getting this close,’ he held the tips of his thumb and forefinger a millimetre apart, ‘and this investigation is finishing today.’
FIFTY-TWO
Fifteen minutes earlier, Marks had been in the viewing room next door, sitting in front of a PC. The individual CCTV screens were on an adjacent desk, but Marks was watching via his monitor, where the various real-time images were running in separate windows on his desktop.
Alice Moran leaning forward with her elbows on the table.
Richard Moran leaning back with his hands cupping his neck.
Jackie Moran staring into the camera.
Marks had a fourth window open: a paused image of Goodhew’s earlier interview alone with Richard. Marks had played it twice before he began seeing what had rattled Goodhew, and he would have replayed it again but, before he had a chance, his young DC reappeared in Jackie Moran’s room, this time shoving a couple of photocopies in front of her.