by Alison Bruce
Marks leant closer to the screen.
Goodhew’s demeanour had changed; he seemed cold, every movement measured, his conversation terse and his exit from the room equally abrupt. Jackie Moran stared at the back of the door for several seconds after it closed, then she placed the two sheets of A4 side by side and perfectly symmetrically in the centre of the desk. She sat so still that it looked like the shot had been freeze-framed.
Marks continued to watch her until he heard his own door open. At first glance he thought Goodhew was enraged; his jaw was set, his eyes bright and unusually intense. Goodhew looked at the paused footage of Richard Moran and then stared at Marks.
Marks sensed he was being challenged, then he understood. Goodhew was angry but, more than that, he was brooding with intense determination. He had seen the way to the end of this investigation and he felt compelled to follow it through. The challenge now was not to put the brakes on Goodhew, but to give him the keys and let him drive.
Marks reached forward and tweaked the two sheets of paper out of Goodhew’s hand. ‘Are these what you just gave Jackie Moran?’
‘Yes, look.’ Goodhew pointed to the dates.
Marks studied both pages, his gaze pacing around each image, then flicking back and forth between the two. He noticed the closeness of the dates almost at once; the subsequent deduction came more slowly.
Then it dawned on him. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said thougthfully. ‘And how do you suggest we proceed from here?’
FIFTY-THREE
There was no room for compassion now. Any that Goodhew had felt, or might have felt in a less heated moment, had been displaced by his rising fury. He threw open the door. She was standing at the window and turned to look at him.
She was just as good at eye contact, but now he wondered how he’d ever found her attractive.
‘I know who killed Lorna Spence.’ He left it as a blank statement of fact. No futher discussion. Neither was he going to be drawn into any prolonged gazing. He sat on one of the two chairs and motioned for her to sit on the other.
‘I’m fine standing,’ she said.
‘Suit yourself, just don’t expect to intimidate me with any of that “I’m higher than you” body-language crap.’
She pulled the chair back. ‘It’s no big deal, I can sit down if it bothers you that much.’
‘What do you know about murderers who kill in teams?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Teams can include pairs.’
‘Like I said, nothing.’
So many thoughts were raging through his head that it would have been easy to open his mouth and release a disjointed battery of accusations. In fact, the words which came were as dispassionate and steel-edged as any he’d ever spoken.
‘Team killers follow common patterns. They are strongly attracted to one another, sometimes even related, and one is dominant, making decisions and controlling their partner. The submissive one feels guilt and fear and the dominant one’s temperament may include aggressive outbursts. The dominant one decides what they do next. Does any of this sound familiar?’
‘Frankly, no.’
‘That’s the best thing about killing teams,’ Goodhew said. ‘Mostly it’s the submissive one that controls the final outcome – like now. It seems illogical, since you’d think it was the dominant one that steered it all the way, but no, sooner or later, when they’ve had enough, the weaker partner will take drastic steps in order to escape.’
Jackie Moran opened her eyes. The papers were still laid out on the desk, and she was still in the interview room. On the face of it, nothing had changed, but for the first time she could see the world, or more specifically, her world, for what it was.
In front of her was proof of a lie. It was proof that it wasn’t the first lie she’d been told, and proof of the many other lies that had rained down on her ever since. Here was conclusive evidence, the gas and canary test whose verdict found all of her relationships to be tiny, featherless corpses.
She recalled one of Goodhew’s questions: imagine you could have the freedom to do whatever you wanted with the rest of your life, what would you do?
It was no longer a stupid question; in fact, it was the only little bird that still hopped and sang. Its voice was clear and insistent. All she had to do was open the cage.
She knocked on the door until he came to see what she wanted. He held it a few inches ajar and spoke through the gap. ‘What?’
‘I know what I was afraid of,’ she said.
His eyes were at their most vivid, concentrating on her, looking for subtext. He said nothing and the space between her and Goodhew became hot and airless, slowing the seconds and constricting her chest.
She drew a deep breath and spoke first, ‘Finding out it was all lies, and then facing up to it.’
‘And?’
‘I’ve no choice now.’
He gave a half nod and she saw his expression soften. ‘What do you want to do?’ he asked her.
She looked beyond him to the interview room along the corridor. ‘Go in there.’
‘One to one?’
‘No, along with you.’
Goodhew opened the interview room door and let Jackie walk through first. Part of her wanted to hang back and make him take the first step, but the rest of her knew this was the right way to do it.
‘Jackie has been cleared of any involvement,’ he announced, ‘and she wants to talk to you. I said you’d already expressed the desire to help her in any way possible.’
Jackie picked up a chair and placed it directly across from her sister. She sat down and took her time to study Alice, whose expressions were always hard to read and, in the end, Jackie categorized this one as an attempt at indifference. But she could also see that Alice was trying much too hard.
Goodhew had moved his own chair three or four feet back from the table. This was the only time he had seen them together, and Jackie considered it from his point of view. There was certainly a family resemblance, but Alice was taller and wiry, more self-assured, and they both knew she was the smarter of the two. Jackie stared at her big sister, and could still feel the lingering residue of childhood awe. She hoped Goodhew wouldn’t intervene, and also hoped he wouldn’t need to.
Jackie wanted to broach the first question, but her thoughts wouldn’t crystallize into an opening line. She hesitated too long and finally Alice spoke, looking only at Jackie. ‘What are you are doing?’
‘I need some answers.’
‘What answers?’ Alice frowned, the skin between her eyebrows drawing into two deep vertical creases.
‘Ones that will make everything add up.’ Jackie heard the defensive note in her voice, and knew she needed to stop and regroup.
‘What are you talking about?’ Alice persisted. So far she’d been the only one who’d ever asked any questions.
Jackie let Alice’s words hang in the air until it was clear that she had no intention of answering.
Goodhew watched her, steady and calm. He was the true strength in this room now, not Alice.
And when Jackie spoke, it was with all the authority that she’d been hoping her voice could find. ‘You have manipulated me and you have all but ruined my life. I came to you for help and you dismissed everything I said, and I thought it was all because you truly believed I had killed David. Then later, when Emma disappeared, I thought you were blindly protecting Richard. You are such a liar.’
Alice said nothing, and Jackie continued.
‘My God, you really don’t get it. I see through you now, and you can’t fob me off. When Colin Willis attacked me, I came to you to warn you. You have completely betrayed me.’
Alice looked away, but Jackie jumped to her feet and forced herself back into her sister’s line of sight.
‘I need to know what I ever did to you, Alice. Why do you hate me so much? Why let me be the one that my whole family has believed is a killer? Why, Alice? I thought we were close once? Don’t I deserve the truth from you? Don’t
I deserve to know why I’ve spent my whole life being terrified?’
A cold smile touched Alice’s lips. ‘No, you don’t.’
Jackie settled back into her seat. Did Alice really think she had anything to negotiate with? ‘Remember how it was me who comforted you each time you miscarried . . .’ She saw her sister’s surprise. ‘That’s right, Alice, how many times? Four? Five?’
Alice was quick to answer, her voice hushed. ‘Five.’
Jackie heard her own voice change. ‘All we want is our own baby, Jackie.’ She had repeated the words she’d heard her sister say so many times over the years, but a cruel and sarcastic note distorted her impression. ‘But you had him and you let Richard kill him. You never cried about that on my shoulder, did you?’
‘Jackie!’ Alice snapped out the name, expecting it to produce instant silence.
‘Alice!’ Jackie mimicked. ‘My mum was photographed the week before he was born, and she was as thin as a rake. David was your baby, then Richard killed him and you let him get away with it. You never gave a shit.’
‘Jackie, I’m warning you.’
‘No, Alice, you have nothing more to threaten me with. Everyone lied to me. I was the only one who thought that David was my brother. It wasn’t post-natal depression that my mother was suffering, it was the burden of covering up your pregnancy and your affair with Richard. You weren’t even her children, yet she was still trying to protect you. And Alex was protecting you both too.
‘But me, I’ve been cheated out of my whole family. Because of you, my own parents thought I’d smothered the baby.’
Something changed in Alice, less than a muscle move, an invisible nuance that made Jackie suddenly react. ‘What’s funny?’
Alice shook her head. ‘You really are laughable. Do you honestly think Alex would have grieved over a child that wasn’t his? Alex was creeping into my room regularly and your precious mother was too busy drinking herself stupid to notice.’
‘But you and Richard . . .’ Icy shock flushed Jackie’s veins, flooded her brain, orphaned her thoughts and left them staggering in numb circles.
‘Alex always knew you never killed David. Did you really think I chose to have a relationship with my own brother? I only turned to Richard because of Alex.’
Jackie heard herself make a sound, half gasp, half cry. But no words came.
‘Come on, Jackie, we both know we are the products of a disturbed home.’ Alice reached forward and stroked Jackie’s hand. ‘No point shaking your head like that. Your mother died and I had Richard, leaving our father with no one. You weren’t special, Jackie, you were just there. It was inevitable that Alex would want sex with you, too. He never loved Richard, but he always loved his girls. You deluded yourself into thinking he felt something for you, and in return you loved him in that first-big-romance way of yours. You were never enough for him, though. Never. He saw other women, like Victoria, and all he had to do then was make sure you stayed quiet. That’s why he kept his journals, that’s why he pretended you had killed David, and Joanne Reed. They were a means of potentially discrediting you.’
Jackie’s voice was barely audible. ‘No, he loved me.’
Alice leant closer. ‘No, he didn’t. He was perverted and corrupting. He abused you and you have twisted it around in your head into something it never was. It suited him to have you all to himself. It was also convenient for him to make you the scapegoat for David.’
The shock seemed to leave Jackie as quickly as it arrived. She knew that Goodhew was still in her corner, ever patient, never judging. He saw her as more than just a string of sordid revelations. She would come to terms with those later.
Right now all that mattered was Alice and the verbal grenades she was hurling at her. Jackie levelled her stare at her sister, then took her best shot. ‘But not for Joanne Reed.’
Alice stumbled, tried to rewind the conversation, but couldn’t quite make sense of Jackie’s comment. ‘What do you mean?’
Jackie spelt it out, her voice quiet but dogged. ‘If Alex knew I’d never killed David, then he never believed I killed Joanne Reed either. He would not have kept up that pretence just for Richard. You said yourself Dad never loved him, so even as an adult Richard could never step out of line. Richard had nothing to negotiate with, but you had everything.’
‘No,’ said Alice quietly.
‘Why not? Surely you’re not really saying it was Richard who killed Joanne Reed?’
Alice began to shake her head, then stopped.
Jackie seized the moment. ‘Now you’re stuck, aren’t you? It’s you or him, Alice. I went to the races at Newmarket, and that’s when Richard met Emma. You weren’t there because you’d just had another miscarriage. Then, a few days later, I saw Richard and Emma having sex up at Old Mile Farm. When she disappeared, I thought Richard was behind it. And I warned you about him, but I thought you just wouldn’t listen. You killed Emma, then told me to keep my distance so you could play me and Richard off against each other. You made him think I’d killed Joanne Reed, knowing that I would stay away and convince him that I’d done it.
‘Then what about Lorna Spence? You introduced her to Richard because you wanted them together. Lorna told me how you encouraged her to get pregnant, and you told me last summer that you’d lost hope of having a successful pregnancy. It must really have knotted you up, hearing them at it in the next bedroom. Would you have killed her once she’d had the child? She never wanted one though, did she? When I told you about Colin Willis, you realized that Lorna wanted both of us out of the way to get to Richard, and then it turned into a classic battle of two women chasing one man. Or did Richard kill her because he found out she was sleeping around?
‘And what was Victoria? Just an impulse kill by Richard, or an opportunity to tie up your loose ends?’ Jackie stopped abruptly and sat back in her seat. ‘It’s you or him now, so just tell the truth.’
Alice ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth and narrowed her eyes. It was a look that Jackie recognized from as far back as she could remember: it preceded one of her sister’s most calculated game plays, and appeared just as she contemplated making any key move. In this instance, there was only one move available.
‘OK,’ she sighed, ‘it was Richard, he killed them all.’
Jackie smiled. ‘Jealous, was he?’
‘Irrationally jealous. I tried to reason with him, but he’s not well.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Neither do I,’ Goodhew said, then added, ‘Just wait,’ with no further explanation.
Five minutes passed and Jackie was beginning to wonder whether something had gone awry. Then the door opened, and a female officer stepped through, accompanied by Richard. ‘I want to speak to Jackie,’ he said, seemingly oblivious to everyone else there, even Alice.
Jackie nodded. ‘OK.’
‘You’re wrong about Alice.’
Jackie blinked. ‘How?’
‘She didn’t make me think you’d killed Joanne because she told me she’d done it herself. I killed David all those years ago to give us a fresh start, but it left me in an impossible situation. From then on, we were in it together. I did realize she had killed Lorna, it was only Victoria’s murder that I knew nothing about. I’ve agreed to make a confession, but I just wanted to tell you first.’
He was many things she despised, and so many things Jackie recognized in herself. And some that were both. He left the interview room and Goodhew ushered her out too. At the last second, she turned back to find Alice white-faced and staring after them.
Goodhew spoke. ‘We can’t just let you leave, you’ll be facing charges for—’
‘Colin Willis, I understand. I want it all out in the open now.’
Goodhew stopped Jackie in the hallway. ‘Will you be all right?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Jackie thought there ought to be something deeper she could add, something more profound. But the only words that flashed through her mind were too forward and
inappropriate to utter. In the end she shook his hand, and all she said was, ‘Thank you.’
Marks studied the TV, having just finished watching the tapes of Richard and Alice Moran for a second time. Finally, he turned his attention back to Goodhew. ‘That was impressive,’ he said.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘And that’s the sort of inspired chaos I’m missing when I don’t keep you fully occupied?’
‘Possibly, sir.’
‘Heaven help us with you in the department.’
‘I don’t have to stay.’
‘Yes you do, even if keeping you here turns out to be the only reckless thing I do before I retire. But here’s the deal: I keep you challenged, you keep me informed. Anything else is on your own head. I will never cover up for you. Understand?’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Never.’
‘I know.’
‘Right. I expect you’ve heard they’ve started a search at Old Mile Farm.’
Goodhew nodded and imagined the forensics team swinging into action, taking measurements and planning their assault on that mountain of manure. The tactic would be a slow and thorough sift through the site, but it wasn’t an occasion to use the term ‘fingertip search’. ‘Can I go along?’ he asked.
Marks shook his head. ‘Not this time. It could take days and your paperwork needs you. I’ll let you know as soon as anything turns up there. If it ever does.’
‘It will.’
FIFTY-FOUR
It was now two days since Alice and Richard Moran had been formally charged. It was early afternoon and Goodhew had a call to make. The receiver was ready in his hand, but he hesitated and looked across Parker’s Piece from his quiet corner on the third floor.
Ratty had finally come in and made a statement. It contained nothing new, but involved supplying him with three hot drinks and a plate of sandwiches. Goodhew sat and watched Ratty walk away, back into his life of sleeping rough.
Just beyond Ratty’s departing figure, Mel was returning from lunch; the two passed within feet of one another. While Mel continued to choose dangerous relationships, he wondered whether her life was much safer than Ratty’s. He hoped so, but he also knew that caring about someone wasn’t enough to keep them safe; after all, there was nothing Martin Reed could have done to save his daughter.