by Mark Dawson
Mack took the stairs to the CID room and made her way across to Lennox’s desk.
“Boss,” he said, “what’s up?”
“What are you doing this afternoon?”
“Nothing that can’t wait—do you need me?”
“I think so.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s about the Mallenders. Well, Allegra specifically.”
“Right. What about her?”
“There’s something that’s never really sat right with me.”
He frowned. “Like what?”
“Like…” She paused. “Look, this has to stay between me and you, okay?”
“Of course, boss. Goes without saying.”
“So, I might have done a little digging around into her background over the course of the last couple of days.”
“Why? The case is over.”
“I don’t know. Intuition. That’s the only way I can describe it. But every time she came in here, I ended up feeling the same way—I just felt that there’s no way she was telling us everything. Didn’t you feel it, too?”
He pursed his lips as he thought. “I know I never trusted her.”
“Exactly.”
“Did you find anything?”
“I did,” she said. “I don’t think she’s who she says she is. The wedding register has her maiden name down as Allegra Cook. Early thirties, originally from the United States. I started looking for her in the databases.”
Lennox nodded for her to go on.
“So, the only Allegra Cook I could find who would’ve been her age today died aged six in 1990. I can’t say for sure, but I’m about ninety-five per cent confident she stole the dead girl’s birth certificate and then built her new identity from there. If I’m right, we’ll be able to charge her for possessing documents—birth certificate, passport, driving licence—for use in connection with fraud. And that’s at the very least.”
He leaned back and shook his head in disbelief. “Bloody hell, boss.”
“Tell me about it. And it got me thinking: why would she do something like that? What does she have to hide? That’s what I want to talk to her about.”
“If she’s been lying about who she is,” Lennox said, “what else could she be lying about?”
“Exactly. We have to bring it up with her. But not here, at least not to start with. You know she and Ralph have already moved into the farmhouse, right?”
“I did,” he said. “Doing it up before they put it on the market.”
She nodded. “I’d rather speak to them there. You know what it’s like—I’ll be able to be a bit more liberal with what I say and how I say it if I do it away from the nick.”
Lennox winked his understanding. “And you’d like me to come?”
“I really would. I was thinking of going over there this afternoon.”
“No problem, boss. I’ll drive us over.”
88
Lennox drove them out to Wilton, and then beneath the railway bridge and out into the countryside beyond. Mack was nervous, and her mood had seemingly spread to infect her sergeant, too. Lennox had asked her how she was intending to play the conversation, but, once Mack had explained, the two of them had settled into a pensive silence that wasn’t really alleviated by the bonhomie of the Spire FM DJ as he linked songs by Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus.
Lennox drove through Great Wishford and then turned onto the track that led into the woods. It was four o’clock now and the gloom of dusk was deepening into darkness, with the tops of the trees fringing the join between land and sky. It had grown colder as the afternoon had progressed, and now snow started to fall. They were thick, fat flakes and, with the ground already icy hard, they started to settle. The snow gathered on the windscreen to be swept off by the wipers.
“Going to be a white Christmas,” Mack observed.
“As long as it’s better than last year, I don’t care. Working on Christmas Day? They don’t pay us enough.”
“Tell me about it,” she said.
Lennox passed the car park and continued into the wood, following the track to the farmhouse. He pulled up behind the gate to the property and they both got out. The temperature had plummeted during their drive, and Mack clapped her arms about her in a vain attempt to generate some warmth. The branches overhead—even denuded of their leaves—were enough to shelter them from the snow, but little flurries of it fell through gaps where the sky was open. Mack looked beyond the gate to the house and saw that the rooms on the ground floor were lit. The curtains had not yet been drawn, and warm light shone out, casting golden oblongs on the white. She saw a silhouette pass through the kitchen, reappearing in the sitting room a moment later.
“Ready?” she asked Lennox.
He nodded. “How’d you want to play it?”
“I’ll ask the questions. Just look ominous.”
“I can do that.”
Mack took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
Her stomach twisted as she waited. They had gamed this out, but there was no way of predicting how it would go for real.
She heard the sound of footsteps and then Allegra Mallender opened the door.
“Hello,” Mack said.
Allegra should have been surprised, but, if she was, she mastered it quickly. “Detective Chief Inspector,” she said, “what do you want?”
“I’ve got a few additional questions,” she said. “Do you mind if we come in?”
“What questions?”
“It’d be much better if we could speak inside.”
She stayed in the doorway, blocking the way. “What if I don’t want to?”
“Please, Mrs. Mallender. I’m trying to make this as easy for you as I can. It would be much more convenient for us both if we could speak here. I don’t want to have to take you to the station tonight, but we can do that if you’d prefer.”
“What? Why would you do that? I don’t understand—the case is finished. Don’t you remember? The case was dropped.”
“I’m hoping this is just a misunderstanding that you’ll be able to clear up. But we really do have to speak about it.”
Ralph was standing behind his wife. Neither of them looked happy to see her, but that was hardly a surprise. The police had turned their lives upside down for the better part of a year.
“Fine,” Allegra said. “Fine. You’d better come in.”
Ralph led them through the house. Mack looked around as they passed through the rooms. The Mallenders had already made good progress. The kitchen units had been freshened with new doors, and the carpet that had been laid through the hall had been torn up to reveal the floorboards beneath. These were in the process of being polished; half of the boards had been sanded, and a buffing machine had been pushed up against the front door in anticipation of finishing the job.
“Excuse the mess,” Ralph said. “We’re in the process of getting the place ready to be sold.”
Allegra glared at her husband, as if annoyed that he had been civil with their tormentors. She was evidently not interested in small talk; she opened the door to the sitting room and indicated that they should go inside.
The room was very different from how Mack remembered it. It had been gloomy before, even when the curtains had been pulled back, with tired furniture, walls that were in need of redecoration, and dirty glass in the windows. More vivid in her memory, of course, had been the three bodies that they had found there: Juliet, Cassandra and Cameron. She remembered the blood that had soaked into the fabric of the armchairs, and the insides of Cameron’s head sprayed out across the walls. She had been back after the bodies had been removed and recalled the swathes of carpet that had been removed and the tincture of red that had stained the boards beneath.
Today, all of that was gone. The room was clean and modern, with a polished oak floor and brand-new furniture. A flat-screen TV had been hung from the wall; there was a sleek dining table and chairs and a Scandinavian sofa and armchair collection. A Christmas tree stoo
d in the bay window, half-dressed; there was a tray of mince pies on the table, and Bing Crosby was singing ‘White Christmas’ on the stereo. It appeared that their visit had interrupted the festivities.
“Sit down,” Allegra said, waving her hand in the direction of the table and chairs.
Mack thanked her. Allegra went over to switch off the music when there came a knocking at the door.
“Who’s that?” Allegra sighed. She glared at Mack. “You don’t have anyone else coming, do you?”
Mack shrugged.
“I’ll get it,” Ralph said.
89
Atticus was waiting on the track that led to Jimmy Robson’s house. He was standing behind the same ancient oak as before, close enough to watch the farmhouse yet shielded from observation by anyone on the track. He saw Mack and Lennox going inside and collected the leather satchel that he had hooked on the branch of the adjacent tree, dusting the snow off it. He made his way back up the track, passed through the gate and walked up to the front door. He knocked and waited.
The door opened.
Ralph Mallender was there.
“Hello, Ralph,” Atticus said.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to come in.”
Ralph frowned. “What?”
“May I?”
Ralph was about to protest, but Atticus forestalled him by stepping inside and closing the door.
“This isn’t a good time,” Ralph said.
“It’s the perfect time.” He took off his jacket and handed it over before Ralph could demur. “Where are they? The sitting room?”
He didn’t wait for a response, making his way along the hallway to the room that he remembered from his last visit. Ralph followed in his wake.
“This really isn’t a good time,” he said. “The police are here.”
“I know,” Atticus said. “I told them to come.”
He stepped into the room. Mack and Lennox were sitting down at a new dining table, and Allegra was standing by the fireplace. Mack looked over at Atticus and gave a shallow nod. Lennox’s face crumpled in confusion and Allegra stiffened.
Her eyes widened. “Atticus,” she said, surprised.
“Hello, Allegra.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought I should come.”
“I’m sorry—I don’t understand. Why? What for?”
“The conversation we’re about to have.”
“No—you’ve lost me.”
“I’ve been digging into what happened here a little more.”
“There’s no need for that. It’s over. They dropped the case. You’ve already done more than enough.”
“I don’t know about that. There were a few things about what happened that I couldn’t stop thinking about. I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t get them out of my head. Ask the detective chief inspector—it’s one of my weaknesses. Once I see a problem, I can’t stop thinking about it until it’s been solved.”
Atticus pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat down. Lennox’s face was blank, almost studiously so. Mack was rubbing her left wrist with the fingers of her right, a gesture that Atticus remembered from before; she did it when she was anxious. The atmosphere in the room was tense.
Allegra looked confused. “I still don’t understand. What things?”
“That’s what we’re here to talk about,” Mack said.
“What?” she fumed. “This is ridiculous. You said that you had questions for me to answer.”
“I do,” she said. “Lots of questions.”
Allegra’s face flushed with anger. “You already put us through an ordeal for something that Ralph didn’t do. He’s been in prison all year, and then the trial… Isn’t that enough? Why can’t you just leave him alone?”
“It’s not about Ralph,” Atticus said calmly.
“Of course it’s about him.”
“It’s about you.”
Allegra stayed where she was and, for a moment, Atticus thought she was going to grab her husband and drag him out of the room. She didn’t. Perhaps it was the tone that Mack had adopted with her—stern and inflexible, a show of her authority—that persuaded Allegra that she had no choice but to hear Atticus out. Perhaps it was the surprise of being ambushed like this, in their own home. Or perhaps it was the shock of an ally—Atticus—now a seeming turncoat, ready to betray her.
She sat down, crossed her arms over her chest and smiled a thin, condescending smile. “You’re working with her now?” she said to Atticus. “With the police?”
“No,” he said. “Not anymore.”
“So?”
“I don’t like being used. And, like I said, I’ve never met a problem I didn’t want to solve. This was a good one.”
“Fine,” she said. “Whatever. We’ve dealt with police incompetence once. Police misconduct. We can deal with it again. Get on with it—say whatever it is you think you have to say and then leave us alone.”
“Thank you,” Atticus said. “I will.”
90
Atticus got up. He took another breath, put the leather satchel on the table—taking a moment, letting Allegra wonder what it might portend—and then unzipped it. He took out the bundle of photocopies that he had been collecting over the course of the last week. He put them on the table.
“We’d better start with the basics,” he said. “Your name isn’t Allegra, is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Sorry,” Atticus said. “Let me qualify that. It is now, but only for the last two years. You were Rachel before that.”
Ralph frowned.
“And you were Catherine before you were Rachel. That’s your birth name—Catherine McCoy. Born on the fifteenth of January 1985 to Nicholas and Laura McCoy in Framingham, Massachusetts.”
“What?” Ralph said.
Atticus shuffled through the papers until he found the copy of Catherine McCoy’s birth certificate. He and Mack had petitioned the Registry of Vital Records office in Dorchester, Massachusetts, for the papers. They had required a court order to do so, eventually receiving the certificate last week. Next, he picked out the bundle of legal documentation that confirmed that Catherine had changed her name by petition; Catherine had become Rachel. He shuffled through the papers again until he found the third document he wanted: the copy of the wedding register that had Allegra Cook marrying Ralph Mallender.
Atticus put all of the papers on the table and flicked them across so that Allegra and Ralph could look at them.
Allegra didn’t take her eyes from Atticus. “My personal history has nothing to do with what happened to Ralph.”
“I think it does. You stole the identity of a dead girl when you became Allegra Cook.”
“That’s a crime,” Mack said. “It’s fraud.”
Allegra should have been surprised by the revelation, or at least put onto the back foot. Atticus watched her reaction carefully and, although she appeared to be shocked, he could see that it was an act. The hand to the mouth and the wide eyes were an approximation of what she suspected her audience would have expected—a psychopath’s reaction—but her eyes showed calculation, not fear. Her body language, too, gave away more than she would have liked. Her eyebrows should have curved upwards, her brow should have wrinkled, and the whites of the eyes should have been more visible as they opened wider. Atticus looked for those small cues, but he didn’t see any of them.
“You’ve been married twice before.”
Atticus glanced over at Ralph; his shock wasn’t manufactured.
“And?” Allegra said.
“And both of those marriages ended in unfortunate circumstances. Your first husband was a man called Richard Wilson. You were nineteen when you met him, I believe. A ceremony in Las Vegas. His wife had died the year before and, since he was lonely and wanted to share his life with someone, he placed a profile on a website that specialises in matching older men who have the good fortune of wealth with younger women. Y
ou saw his profile and contacted him. You met, seemed to get along, and, after what could only be described as a whirlwind romance, you got married after knowing each other for just six months. All very romantic.”
“Allegra?” Ralph said.
Allegra glared hard at Atticus, ignoring her husband.
“The unfortunate Mr. Wilson died two months later. A tragedy, of course. I would offer my sympathy if I didn’t think that it would be wasted on you. Mr. Wilson was a wealthy man, and, since he died intestate, his estate passed to you. Several hundred thousand dollars.”
“That must have helped take the sting away,” Mack suggested.
Allegra glared from Atticus to Mack and back again, but she held her tongue.
Atticus went on. “You changed your name to Rachel McCoy and then you moved to London. You grieved for a month or two before you met the man who would become your second husband. Rupert Yates. Again, you met him online. A different community, this time, but one with the same aims: sugar daddies looking to meet younger, attractive women. DCI Jones went to court for an order that the website’s messages be shared, so she has a record of what you said when you approached him.”
“Rupert Yates,” Mack said, taking over. “Another whirlwind romance. You made contact in January of the year before last. You’d moved into his home by June, and the two of you were married that September. Another well-to-do older man who had lost his wife, looking for someone ‘bubbly’ and ‘fun,’ according to the profile. You said that described you to a tee and he seemed to agree. We’ve been able to access your emails from back then, too.”
“You can’t do that.”
“The court felt that there were grounds,” Mack said. “You’ll be able to complain at trial if you disagree.”
She frowned, the anger draining away a little to be replaced by what looked like panic. “Trial?”
Atticus continued. “Mr. Yates died three months after your marriage. He was hospitalised with serious nausea and died soon after. Awful tragedy, but he was older and not in the best of health, just like Mr. Wilson. These things happen.”