Rowan lay on the back seat, her mind slowly closing down as she realised that her escape had failed and she would never get another chance. This time, she somehow knew that the men wouldn’t be satisfied with keeping her locked in a room, this time they would kill her and her father would never know what had happened to her. Tears leaked from her eyes, her soul shrivelling in fear of what was to come.
‘You knew what you were getting into, it’s too late to start whingeing now, so just get back to the house and—’
‘Just quit with the lecture, give me the cash and then I can vanish, otherwise I am well and truly fucked.’
‘You are well and truly fucked if you don’t get moving,’ Williams warned in a low voice. Acton sighed heavily before sliding the gear lever into drive and moving forward. Williams glanced into the back seat, he could see the girl, her hands over her head, her wet hair dripping onto the leather seats.
Facing front, he wiped the rain from his eyes. ‘Just remember, if you play your cards right, you’ll take over from Rae, basically, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
Acton kept his eyes locked on the private road as the car crawled along at a snail’s pace. He tried to think when he had first got the notion to try and stitch Rae up and realised that until Williams came into his life, he had been content to keep doing exactly as Rae said. Yes, Jimmy could be a pain in the arse, always screaming and bawling, but overall the money had been good and the work easy. Yet somehow, he had allowed Williams to drip feed poisonous words into his ear, by the time he had finished Acton had been convinced that he should be running the town not Jimmy bloody Rae. Only now he was starting to see another scenario, one in which Rae spent the rest of his life hunting down the man who had betrayed him. The fact Acton had never thought things through properly now slammed home like a wrecking ball. As soon as Tam had died he should have left town but Williams had kept him just where he wanted him – with the promise of more cash and more power to come.
The car jolted down a pothole and Acton blinked in surprise as his mind was dragged back to the present.
‘Come on, you tosser, get your foot down,’ Williams mumbled.
Acton swallowed the fear and pressed his right foot down on the gas, his heart thudding, fear crawling over him, consuming him completely.
85
Polly Hardy opened the door, her face registering surprise when she saw Marnie standing, drenched, under the front porch.
‘Sergeant Hammond!’ she said, pulling the fluffy bathrobe tight around her body but affording her little protection against the howling wind.
‘I’m sorry to call in the middle of the night but I need a word.’
‘Is it about John?’ she asked, stepping back.
Marnie thought of John Hall and realised that she was clueless about his death. Stepping over the threshold, she waited for Polly to close the door before replying.
‘I’m sorry but John Hall has been murdered.’
Polly stepped back, her face visceral with shock and sadness. ‘Murdered?’ she whispered.
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘What about Rowan, please tell me she’s OK?’ Polly’s hands fluttered into the air, her face flush with panic.
‘Look, is there somewhere we could talk?’ Marnie asked, noticing her shoes had left two small puddles of water on the tiled floor.
Polly looked at the floor before nodding. ‘Of course, I’m sorry,’ she headed down a long, oak-panelled hallway and into a kitchen bathed in mellow light.
As soon as the door opened, Marnie could feel the heat being pumped out by the Aga in the corner.
‘You look frozen, can I get you a drink – tea, coffee perhaps?’
Marnie almost sighed as the heat enveloped her like a warm comforting embrace. ‘No thank you, I just need to ask you a few questions.’
Polly pulled out a couple of chairs from a pine kitchen table.
Marnie unzipped her jacket and sat down. ‘This isn’t easy, Mrs Hardy, but—’
‘Please, call me Polly,’ she said with a nervous smile as she sat in the other chair.
Marnie placed her hands flat on the table. ‘Have you ever heard of a man named Jimmy Rae?’
‘I don’t think so, has he something to do with poor John?’
Marnie thought about Rae denying any knowledge of Hall or his daughter, even when the knife sliced off a chunk of his ear.
She shivered at the memory. ‘To be honest, I don’t think so. But you see we questioned him earlier this evening and he mentioned your husband.’
Polly Hardy stiffened in surprise. ‘Carl?’
‘There’s no easy way to say this but he we think Rae was involved in the death of your husband.’
Instantly, Polly was on her feet, her face torn apart with shock. ‘What are you talking about, he slipped and fell down the steps, he—?’
‘Was pushed, he didn’t fall,’ Marnie interrupted.
‘But—’
‘Rae admitted to having your husband killed.’
‘But why?’ Polly gasped.
‘That’s what we need to find out,’ Marnie replied.
Polly Hardy took a step back, her eyes alight with fear. ‘I don’t understand, the police went through everything and they said it was an accident.’
‘I’m afraid that wasn’t the case, according to Rae he was under instruction to make it look that way.’
Polly grabbed the back of the chair, her knuckles white as she held on, her legs weak and unsteady. ‘Instructed? By who?’ she whispered.
‘Rae claimed not to have a name, all he would admit to is that she was known as The Woman.’
Polly Hardy staggered back, taking the chair with her, the distress writ large on her pale face. Marnie watched as Polly righted herself, ‘“The Woman?”’ Polly hissed.
The urge to rise from the chair ate away at Marnie but she stayed put, her hands gripping the corner of the table. She saw recognition bloom in Hardy’s eyes. ‘You’ve heard of her, haven’t you?’ Marnie asked, hardly daring to hope.
Polly blinked, her teeth chewing at her bottom lip until they drew blood. ‘I’m sorry, it’s nothing,’ she replied in a shaking voice.
Easing forwards, Marnie leaned her elbows on the table. ‘Do you have any idea why someone would pay to have your husband killed?’
Polly’s eyes darted around the room, the tears welling up. ‘Carl was a good man, he had no enemies, he spent his life caring for sick children, he saved lives!’ her voice rose in disbelief at what she was hearing.
Marnie thought for a moment, the woman continued to sway, the chair still held in a death-like grip.
‘What about your daughter?’ Marnie asked.
Polly Hardy stopped swaying and the tears spilled over. ‘How do you know about Beth?’ she asked, wiping the tears away with the sleeve of her robe.
‘I spoke to a colleague who looked into the death of your husband and she mentioned that you had an estranged daughter.’
Moving around to the front of the chair Polly sat down with a thump, her hands pulling at the robe in agitation. ‘I haven’t seen Beth in years,’ she replied sadly.
‘Do you mind me asking why?’
Polly sniffed back the tears. ‘She was something of a rebel I’m afraid. She was always the same and by the time she reached her mid-teens she went off the rails completely.’
‘What was she rebelling against?’ Marnie asked, her eyes never leaving the woman’s face.
‘Carl mainly,’ she admitted, her hands still twisting at the robe.
‘Her father?’
Polly shook her head. ‘He wasn’t her biological father but he always treated her as if she were his own.’
Sliding a strand of hair behind her right ear, Marnie watched more tears slide down Polly’s face. ‘So, Beth rebelled against her stepfather?’
Polly looked up and smiled sadly. ‘I bet you hear this kind of thing all the time,’ she said. ‘But Carl loved her, in some ways I think he trie
d too hard to be what Beth wanted.’
‘You told her that your husband wasn’t her father then?’
‘We thought long and hard about what to do but in the end, we decided she had a right to know. Looking back, it’s when the problems really started, you know what children can be like and as soon as Beth knew then she started to rebel. Every time Carl would try to get her to calm down she would hurl abuse, claiming that he wasn’t her father so he had no say in what she did with her life.’
Marnie felt for the woman, after all it was a common enough occurrence but when you were living in the thick of it, then it could become a nightmare of giant proportions.
‘Carl was never heavy-handed, he worked with children on a daily basis, but Beth would never listen. She seemed to go out of her way to make all our lives as difficult as possible.’
For the first time, Marnie heard a hint of annoyance in the woman’s voice, a hint of anger.
‘I take it she started to mix with the wrong sort of people?’ Marnie asked, although from the look on Polly’s face she already knew the answer.
‘She did it to spite us, to spite Carl,’ she spat out the words. ‘She knew what he did for a living, knew he was well respected so she tried to ruin his reputation just because she thought it would be fun!’
Marnie felt something inside her mind shift as she watched the sudden vitriol appear on Polly’s face.
‘How did she try to do that?’
Polly looked up and stared at Marnie in surprise as if she had forgotten she was even in the room. ‘Look, it’s not important, what I want to know, need to know, is why someone killed my husband?’
Marnie held her gaze and then she edged forward slightly. ‘It’s important to me, so tell me what your daughter did?’
For the briefest of moments, anger flared behind the tears and Polly looked at Marnie with a hardness that seemed out of place with the middle-aged woman in the fluffy bathrobe.
‘When she was sixteen she accused Carl of going into her bedroom and abusing her. She had times, dates, everything, but I knew she was lying because on at least four of the occasions she said I was out but I wasn’t, I was here all the time.’
‘Did the police get involved?’
Polly lowered her head again, her short hair shone in the overhead lights. ‘Yes, but in the end Beth admitted that it was all a pack of lies.’
‘She actually said that?’ Marnie asked in surprise.
‘Oh, she dragged it out, really made us suffer, Carl was suspended from work and he was on the verge of losing his job when she admitted it had all been nothing but vicious lies.’
Marnie eased back in the chair and folded her arms, the rain continued to batter the kitchen window. ‘What happened?’
Polly snapped her head up, the anger still hovering in her eyes. ‘All charges were dropped, shortly after we moved here to Kirkhead.’
‘For a fresh start?’ Marnie asked.
Polly nodded. ‘Beth started to have therapy and for a while it seemed as if she had calmed down, but then she met this man and she soon went back to her old ways.’
‘I take it she moved out to be with him?’
‘By this time Carl was afraid to say anything in case she made up more sick stories. I tried to get her to see sense but she wouldn’t listen, she never listened to either of us really.’
The sadness was back in Polly’s eyes, sadness for the lost years and for a daughter that she no longer saw.
‘When your husband died, did you try to contact her?’
‘I tried, though to be honest I didn’t know where to start, you see after she left we lost contact and the years went by and then Carl died and I had no last-known address or contact number.’
Marnie looked around the huge kitchen, everything gleamed, every appliance looked to be new and expensive. She thought of the size of the house and front garden, the place reeked of money and yet Polly had made only a token gesture to find her daughter after her husband died.
‘I suppose you think I’m heartless not doing more to find her?’ Polly asked, as if she had somehow picked up on Marnie’s thought process.
‘That was your choice.’
Polly sighed again. ‘You don’t know what she was like, she could have ruined my marriage, Carl’s career, yet she never showed any remorse, never apologised for the things she did, and to be honest, life was easier without her in it.’
Marnie tried to steady her emotions, one minute she felt sorry for the woman with tears trickling from her eyes but the next instance she looked like a cold-hearted bitch who was interested only in herself and her place in the world.
‘Is that why you worked at the hostel, to try and ease your conscience?’ Marnie asked.
Suddenly, the hardness was back in Polly’s eyes. ‘I don’t need to ease my conscience, Beth had a good life, a comfortable home and parents who loved her – unlike most of the girls in the hostel who never had the luxury of living like this.’
Marnie thought about what she was saying and to an extent Polly was right, though Marnie had seen enough domestics to know that even people from the middle classes could kick off with the best of them given the right situation.
‘I work there on a voluntary basis because I don’t want to sit in this house all day doing nothing, so I try to give something back to those who need it,’ she explained with a scowl fixed on her face.
‘When I mentioned “the woman” earlier you seemed a little taken aback,’ Marnie said.
Polly waved a dismissive hand in the air. ‘It was just something that Carl used to say and it threw me for a moment, that’s all.’
Marnie felt the confusion clouding her thoughts. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow?’
Polly adjusted the robe so it covered her knees. ‘Carl sat on the board of a couple of charities, one of them was for children and women. In fact, she oversees the hostel that I work in along with about three other places.’
‘Who does?’ Marnie asked.
‘Clarisse Wold but Carl always referred to her as “the woman”,’ Polly replied.
‘Do you have any idea why?’
Producing a piece of tissue from the pocket of the robe she dabbed at her eyes. ‘I asked him once and he said she was something of a cold fish and those who knew her just used the phrase “the woman”, he said everyone knew instantly who you meant when you said that.’
Marnie felt the gears straining in her head, closing her eyes she tried to sort out the confusion that swarmed around her mind, but all she could see was a mash of images mingling together in a distressing tableau. Hamer with his face caved in, Emma Winstanley with tears rolling from her stunned eyes, the image shifted to Tam Whitlow’s body parts crammed into a bag and tossed through Rae’s front window. The images increased in speed, flying through her mind with dizzying speed, Collier sprawled on the bedroom floor with his head three feet away. Jimmy Rae bellowing as his ear fell to the floor and then gasping in shock as Conway plunged the blade through his skull, his eyes springing wide in disbelief as he died.
Then she pictured the faceless Carl Hardy, a consultant who treated children and yet his stepdaughter had accused him of abuse and then retracted her story, leaving Hardy to try and pick up the pieces of his life with Polly.
Marnie paused for a moment, what would make a girl go to such lengths to try and get back at a man who, according to Polly, had treated her like his own.
Finally, she tried to picture the woman named Wold, she had known Carl Hardy served on the same board of charities, the same charity that John Hall had worked for, then Hall had been murdered and Rowan taken.
Marnie opened her eyes to find Polly looking at her closely.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked.
‘Do you have any pictures of Clarisse Wold?’
Polly Hardy nodded.
86
Rowan tried to dig her heels into the gravel of the driveway as the man dragged her towards the front door.
‘Keep moving, you
little bitch!’ Acton snarled, his hand tightening on her wrist.
Williams strode off, leaving him to struggle on his own, he dragged in a lungful of wet air and, head bent against the driving rain, pulled again, finally managing to get her to the front door.
He could see Williams standing in the hallway, flapping his coat in an effort to shake the droplets of water away.
The hatred he felt towards the man gave him the strength to thrust the girl into the house, Rowan stumbled forward and almost fell to her knees, throwing a last look over her shoulder as the door slammed shut. The two men stood looking at her, wearing matching scowls of anger.
‘These shoes cost me two hundred quid and now they’re ruined,’ Williams moaned as he slipped the torch into his pocket.
Rowan shivered, the cold eked into her bones, her hair dripped down onto her sweatshirt, the sleeves hanging three inches over the ends of her freezing fingers, the bottom dripping water onto the ancient parquet flooring.
‘Right, let’s get her upstairs then the woman can sort it,’ Williams moved forward.
Acton hesitated as if reluctant to move further into the gloomy house.
Williams paused to look over his shoulder, his face fixed in a frown of aggravation. ‘Problem?’ he asked.
‘Look, just give me the cash, I don’t need to be here, you don’t need me for this.’
Williams jabbed out a finger. ‘I’ve already told you, you’ll get fuck-all else until she says so.’
Rowan tried to concentrate on the words but her mind, frozen with fear, left no room for rational thought.
Acton licked his lips in apprehension and then he nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, yeah OK, just make it quick though?’
Williams mouth twisted in a savage grin. ‘I’ll let you tell her to get a move on. Now shift your arse,’ he barked.
Acton shot forwards and Rowan quivered in fear, he grabbed her arm and led her along the hallway. Reaching the stairs, she started to cry as Williams thudded his way up.
‘Get moving,’ Acton demanded, pushing her forwards.
Heart slamming, tears streaming from her eyes, Rowan was left with no alternative but to obey the command. Each footstep took a giant effort as her legs shook with tension. Rowan looked up the stairs just in time to see the man in front turn left and vanish from sight. She tried to think, tried to fathom a plan of escape but her mind and body were locked in the moment, there was no escape to be made, she had tried and failed and now all that was left was to die.
Cut The Threads: A Serial Killer Thriller That Will Keep You Hooked (DS Marnie Hammond Book 2) Page 28