Guilty Waters

by Priscilla Masters

  When charged with a serious offence people react in different ways. Some people bluster, others vigorously deny it. Some admit their crime – too quickly in the eyes of their barristers – as though once confessed they were relieved of their secret burden of guilt.

  Will was of the startled, rabbit-caught-in-car-headlights variety. He blinked and looked bemused, confused even. Startled and uncomprehending. ‘But,’ he said, shaking his head. It was the nearest he would ever get to a denial.

  Joanna had decided to confront him with her version of events.

  ‘You got friendly with the two French girls, Annabelle and Dorothée,’ she said.

  Will stared, his blue eyes so guileless Joanna wondered how he could look so innocent and yet be so guilty.

  Will smiled at her. It was friendly and open. ‘That’s right,’ he said. He could have been admitting to serving them with a ninety-nine.

  ‘When did you meet them?’

  ‘Not long after they arrived,’ he said. ‘I like to go walking and was out on the moors one day when I found one of them letterboxes. It said they were in Rudyard and to look them up.’ He suddenly sounded aggrieved. ‘They shouldn’t have led me on. They shouldn’t have done that. They made me think they wanted me. Wanted me,’ he repeated. ‘It isn’t fair what they did.’

  An interesting perspective that attempted rape and murder is fair whereas flirting is not, Joanna mused.

  ‘You know you have the right to a lawyer?’

  ‘I don’t need no lawyer,’ Will said disdainfully. ‘Why would I want a lawyer?’

  Joanna lifted her eyebrows at Mike, who gave her a lopsided grin and an is-this-guy-for-real scowl simultaneously. ‘We need you to explain more, Will,’ she said. ‘Did they know you? Had they met you before?’

  ‘Yeah. I knew they were staying at Barker’s – we’d chatted when they came to the café or bought an ice cream. We’d got along all right. When I saw the picture in the letterbox I knew who they were even if they didn’t know me.’

  Joanna gave Mike another look and shrugged.

  Will continued his protestations. ‘They was leadin’ me on. They were all right when they were gettin’ a free trip on the boat. And when I tried to …’ That was when words failed him. ‘When I …’ He simply couldn’t find the right phrases. ‘They started …’

  ‘You tried to have sex with Dorothée, didn’t you?’

  Will leaned forward. ‘They weren’t taking me seriously. It was just to stop her laughing at me, you see.’

  It was an explanation – of sorts. ‘Then I hit her. And then.’ He cleared his throat with an explosive cough. ‘The other one. She was screamin’ and all sorts. She jumped overboard.’ A look of disdain fleeted across his face. ‘It were obvious she couldn’t swim but her friend shouted at her to get help.’

  ‘The other one,’ Joanna said coldly, ‘was called Annabelle Bellange.’

  Give her the dignity of her name. ‘The girl you tried to have sex with and, failing that, hit with the oar, was called Dorothée Caron.’

  How many killers, she wondered, know the names of their victims? Not all – not until or unless they come to court. Then they know and remember those names all right.

  ‘Nothing but a pair of cockteasers,’ Will said contemptuously. Then something happened to him and his attitude changed. ‘Will my mum have to know?’

  Mike and Joanna exchanged another incredulous look. People were so unpredictable and this one more than most.

  ‘What’ll happen to her now?’ he asked. ‘Who’ll look after her?’

  Surely the question he should be asking was, What will happen to me now?

  Korpanski’s gaze said it all. What will happen to your mum? That, my lad, is the least of your worries.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was eleven o’clock when she finally arrived home. Will Murdoch had been charged and she had had the pleasure of telling her new chief superintendent that he had confessed to the murder of Dorothée Caron but had insisted that Annabelle Bellange had dived out of the boat and drowned and he ‘wasn’t going to swing for that one too’.

  No one had pointed out that the last hanging in the United Kingdom had been in 1964.

  When asked if he had tried to save her for the first time, his angelic features had coloured.

  Oh no, Joanna had thought. You couldn’t and wouldn’t have been able to save her because you were too busy murdering her best friend.

  When she had finished questioning Will she had the difficult job of speaking to the Bellanges and Renée Caron. The three of them had looked stunned that such a thing could happen and Joanna knew that as her vision of Rudyard Lake had been spoiled for ever, so had their vision of ‘Merry England’ – not only the country but the poet, too, had been tainted for their entire lives. As gently as she could she had explained the circumstances of their daughters’ deaths and the British legal process of charging, remand and the judiciary system. She’d added that a life sentence was mandatory for murder and that they would be pushing that he serve no less than twenty-five years. This had made all three of them look weary. Not grieved, simply exhausted. Another young life ruined.

  At the same time, Joanna had advised them to be prepared for a manslaughter charge as there had been no obvious premeditation for murder. And then she’d had to explain that there might be a plea that the balance of his mind was unsound and that the lawyers may well make much of the fact that William Murdoch was his mother’s sole carer. That had meant, in turn, that he’d had limited, if any, opportunities to socialize with his peers. He was isolated, frustrated and dangerously clueless when it came to girls.

  ‘Tell me,’ Madame Bellange said, tears in her eyes now, as though her iron self-control had exploded. ‘Would it have made any difference if we had disbelieved the text message?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or raised the alarm that they were missing sooner?’

  ‘No.’

  She’d left them then, talking in French. King had gone home for the night.

  She let herself into the cottage, weary but exultant. Matthew greeted her at the doorway and without a word gave her a hug. ‘Well done,’ he said, leading her into the sitting room and handing her a glass of wine. ‘Well done. Thank God you’ve found out who did it.’

  She gave a watery smile. ‘We still have to get him behind bars, Matt.’

  He patted her arm. ‘True. But I have good vibes about the months ahead,’ he said, brushing her mouth with his fingers. ‘Good vibes. This is the beginning. I suppose he’ll say he has a personality disorder.’

  She dropped on to the sofa. ‘Now that’s an interesting observation,’ she said. ‘Hannah Beardmore, bless her, rang Andrea Newton at social services about Will Murdoch’s mother as she was going to be left all alone. Do you know what she said?’

  Matthew shrugged and she took a deep draft of wine before answering her own question. ‘She said that she’d always wondered who was the vulnerable adult and who was the carer, so that tells you something. She said she thought it would do Mrs Murdoch good to be on her own and not mollycoddled by her son. Then she said she’d always thought there was something a bit strange about Will.’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said.

  ‘And what about Eloise?’ she asked, aware that there seemed to be no cloud handing over Matthew tonight.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said, his voice still bright.

  She stared at him, bemused. ‘But I thought …’

  ‘I had a word with her,’ he said happily. ‘She was just anxious about the exams.’ He laughed. ‘You know what a perfectionist she is.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I know. So all that anxiety?’

  ‘She’s promised to behave herself in future. But I meant what I said. We must keep an eye on her.’

  Three months later

  They had a date for the court case. Murdoch was in a remand centre and yes, his brief was banging on about responsibilities to his mother and his balance of mind
, but Joanna felt little sympathy.

  Her period came late, heavier than usual and accompanied by stomach cramps that seemed worse than the norm. Bugger, she thought. Double bugger. And then, riding on the shoulders of the angry double bugger, rode fear. Matthew had married her because he wanted a legitimate child. Correction. Not a legitimate child. A legal son who’d bear the name Levin of which he was so proud. His forebears, such as his great-grandfather Jakob, had travelled from Russia in the late-nineteenth century to escape the progroms against Jews. Her one accidental and unplanned pregnancy three years ago had resulted in a spontaneous miscarriage. What if she couldn’t keep her side of the bargain? She felt sick. What then?

  One of the long-standing bones of contention in his and Jane’s marriage had been her refusal to have another child. Eloise had been a ‘mistake’, she’d said, and following on from that she had no intention of going through ‘all that’ again. And yet Jane had managed to give her next husband twin sons, an event that had hurt Matthew more than he could ever say. She had seen the lines of pain wash over his features like waves on the lake. And she knew she had to do this for him whatever her own personal prejudices.

  So creeping in now was fear. Having not wanted a child she had never ever considered this scenario – that she might not actually be able to bear one.

  And what then, Piercy? What then?