by Mark Dawson
“I know what you’re doing,” Allegra said. “And you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Allegra,” Ralph said, “is it true? You were married?”
“Yes, Ralph, it’s true,” she snapped.
“Twice?”
“Yes. Twice.”
“Why didn’t you—”
“Because it has nothing to do with you,” she snapped. “Jesus. It has nothing to do with any of you.”
“I’m your husband. How can you say that?”
Allegra seemed to find a moment of self-awareness amid her anger. She reached out a hand and laid it atop Ralph’s. “I should’ve told you,” she said. “But that was in my past. What happened was painful. I didn’t want to have to talk about it—to bring it up again.”
“But you’re my wife,” he said pleadingly.
The arrogance and conceit that he had shown when Atticus had met him before was gone; he sounded lost and confused, the foundations upon which he had built his life now shaky and unstable. Atticus had wondered if there might have been a better way to confront Allegra so that Ralph might be spared, but had concluded that there wasn’t. He needed Ralph there when he started to crank the wheel, slowly tightening the vice around Allegra and her lies. He wanted pressure on her from all angles.
“That’s right,” Allegra responded. “I am your wife. And, whatever they might say, I love you.”
Mack intervened. “Do you?” she said. “Really?”
“Do I love my husband?” Allegra snapped. “What kind of question is that? Of course I do.”
Allegra stood up and her eyes flashed. Atticus saw anger there, but now there was fear, too. She had stumbled, her leg was in the snare, and the only way to extricate it would be to proceed with caution and care. But that, he could see, was going to be beyond her. He had goaded her, just as he had intended, and now the predatory cunning upon which she had relied for all of her adult life was out of reach. She was caught; all they had to do was prod her a little more, and let her tighten the trap until there was no possibility of escape.
“Sit down, Mrs. Mallender.”
Mack’s voice was firm, weighted with the authority of her rank and the conviction—instilled in her by Atticus and the evidence that he had supplied—that they had penetrated the veil of deceit that Allegra had deployed to such great effect for so long. Allegra sat.
Atticus made to look through his papers even though the facts all came easily to hand. “Ralph,” he said, glancing up at him. He was red-faced. “You met Allegra on a similar website, I believe.”
“Yes,” he said.
“And you, like Mr. Yates and Mr. Wilson, were lonely and seeking someone to share your life with.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Not at all. Your wife contacted you, I believe?”
“Why are you asking him?” Allegra snapped. “You have those emails, too, I presume?”
“We do,” Mack said.
“That’s right,” Ralph said. “I was flattered. I couldn’t understand why she would be interested in someone like me.”
“An eligible bachelor who stood to inherit a small fortune when his parents died?” Mack said, smiling at Allegra. “No, I can’t think why.”
“Don’t listen to them,” Allegra said. “They’re trying to make us doubt one another. I stood by you through all of this. I did that because I love you, Ralph. I always have loved you. I always will.”
“You would’ve been next,” Atticus said.
“What are you talking about?”
Mack took out a sealed evidence bag. She rested it on the table. The bag was clear and, inside, there was a second clear bag that held a greyish white powder.
“What’s that?” Ralph said.
Mack pushed it towards Allegra. “Tell him.”
“I don’t know what it is.”
“Really? We found it in your car.”
“No, you didn’t. I’ve never seen it before.”
“What is it?” Ralph said.
“Thallium,” Mack said. “Used mostly in manufacturing electronic devices. It’s a poison, too, made especially effective because it’s odourless and tasteless. It’s also very difficult to trace in the system. Graham Young used it—the Teacup Poisoner. He killed at least two colleagues by lacing their tea with it. An unpleasant way to go.”
“Good God,” Allegra said. “‘Thallium.’ ‘Teacup Poisoner.’ That’s enough. I’m not standing for another moment of this.” She got to her feet. “I want you to leave.”
Mack and Atticus stayed where they were.
“Ralph!” she said. “Tell them to go.”
Ralph stayed where he was, too. He didn’t speak.
Allegra turned to Lennox, as if in hope that he might say something, but, seeing that he was studiously looking the other way, she slumped down again.
“You were careful before,” Atticus said. “Wilson and Yates were old and in poor health. It’s not beyond the bounds of credibility that they might have died of natural causes. Of course, it would have aroused suspicion if both of them had died so soon after marrying the same woman, but those new identities helped, as did moving to a different country. Making the connection between the two deaths would have been almost impossible. But then you got greedy. I think you thought Ralph had more money than he said. You used up all of his savings, and then you looked at what you might be able to get your hands on in the event that his family died. You took on something a little more challenging. A project.”
Ralph looked as if he was in physical pain.
“Fantasy,” she said. “Honestly—absolute fantasy.”
“Is it?” Atticus said. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“The bodies of your two previous husbands have been exhumed,” Mack said.
“What?”
“Trace amounts of thallium have been found in their systems,” Atticus said. “That’s right, isn’t it, Detective Chief Inspector?”
“That’s what the labs are saying,” Mack said. “It’s not easy to spot, especially if it’s been administered by someone who knows what they’re doing and there’s no reason to look for it… But if there is a reason to look?” She shrugged. “You’d be surprised what you can find.”
“You can’t prove a word of any of this.”
“I got it wrong last time,” Mack said. “I won’t make the same mistake twice.” She stood up. “Allegra Mallender, I’m arresting you for the murder of Rupert Yates. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be used against you in court. Do you understand?”
“Lawyer,” she said, staring coldly at Mack. “I want my lawyer.”
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Ralph looked as if his world had fallen in upon itself.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s happening? Allegra? What are they saying?”
She didn’t look at her husband. Instead, she shared her scorn between Mack and Atticus.
“Ralph’s parents saw through you, didn’t they?” Atticus said. “What did they say? That you were a gold digger?”
“We’ve never made a secret of what his parents thought of me,” Allegra said.
“No, you didn’t,” Atticus said. “But you couldn’t really deny it, either. Other people knew about it—Ralph’s family and the cleaner. They didn’t know how deep it went, but they knew you were bad. I imagine that must have been frustrating for you. You’re used to taking whatever you want, and they were in the way. How dare they. Did it make you angry?”
“Lawyer.”
“You couldn’t murder Ralph’s parents the same way,” Atticus said. “There were two of them, for a start. You had to think of another way to get rid of them. And you decided that you’d need help.”
“Didn’t you hear me? Lawyer.”
Atticus looked over at Mack.
She nodded.
He reached down into his bag, took out an envelope and laid
it on the table. He slid his finger inside and withdrew the contents: a selection of photographs that he had taken to be printed at Snappy Snaps on Catherine Street two days before. He flicked through them, making a show of it, before he dealt them out, spinning them the way a croupier would dispense cards.
They came to a stop on the opposite side of the dining table, close enough for Ralph to look down at them. He frowned, his expression becoming even more confused as his gaze slid from one to the other, left to right and then right to left.
“What is this?”
“That’s your wife,” Atticus said.
“I can see that,” he snapped, but then the anger drained away as quickly as it had arrived. “But what am I looking at?”
He knew.
“You don’t recognise that house?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“There’s no reason why you would.” Atticus turned to Lennox. “Detective Sergeant? Do you recognise it?”
Lennox was frozen, his face pale and bloodless and his hands clutching at one another on the tabletop before him. He was clenching his jaw, and a muscle in his cheek twitched and pulsed, in and out, in and out.
“Lennox?” Mack said.
“Come on,” Lennox said, his voice thin and reedy.
“What’s going on?” Ralph pleaded, his tone suggesting that he knew very well where this was headed, hoping against hope that he had jumped to the wrong conclusion, but knowing that he had not.
Atticus dealt the photographs that he had been holding back. He had relied upon his telephoto lens, zooming in close enough to show Lennox and Allegra embracing at the door, the golden light from inside framing their clinch.
Ralph looked distraught. He held onto Allegra’s hand and nodded across the table at Lennox. “You and… him?”
Allegra turned back to her husband, and, as if at the flick of a switch, the cold stare was replaced by damp-eyed penitence. “I’m sorry, darling. It was a terrible mistake. I was lonely. You were locked up. It meant nothing to me—I promise. I love you. I love you and I always will.”
It was an impressive show. She was an emotional chameleon, able to morph from sour anger to tearful regret, seemingly at will. Another symptom of her personality disorder. Atticus had been fooled, but that had been before; he knew better now. Ralph, though, was still trapped within the ambit of her malign influence.
“What does this have to do with my parents?” he said.
“I’m going to tell you what happened here on Christmas Eve,” Atticus said. “The whole story, not the lies that you heard before. I’ve already established that your wife had a motive for wishing your family dead. Money. Your mother and father had joint wills—if one died, the other inherited the share of the deceased. When that surviving parent died, the property would be shared between the children. Of course, if you were the sole surviving child, you’d inherit all of the estate. A very significant amount of money.”
“No,” he protested. “That says nothing at all.”
Atticus ignored him. “You and your family argued about your relationship with Allegra. They were unhappy—they didn’t trust her and warned you that she was manipulating you. You disagreed. The argument became heated and you left.”
“This was all established at court.”
“As is what follows, but I like to be thorough. I find it helps to have everything laid out before you.”
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Atticus glanced over at Mack and then continued.
“So, Ralph—you came back here, where you saw your father’s body in the kitchen. You called 999 and Detective Sergeant Lennox was the first officer at the scene. I always found that odd. It’s not impossible that he would have been driving nearby and heard the call, but it did seem unlikely.”
“I was in the area,” he said. “I heard it on the radio from dispatch.”
“What were you doing out this way?” Mack asked him.
“I wanted to speak to a suspect in another case.”
“Who?”
“Dylan Eastman,” he said, easily enough for it to have been true or very well-rehearsed.
“And did you speak to him?”
“I did.”
“What time?”
“I can’t remember,” he said.
“I spoke to him. He remembered. It was early evening. He said it was a strange conversation and that nothing came of it. And then I looked at the rosters. You volunteered to work that night, Lennox. You volunteered on Christmas Eve. No one does that.”
Lennox looked ready to protest, but closed his mouth.
“It was a ruse,” Atticus took over, “an excuse for you to be out this way. I thought it was convenient, and it became more of an issue the more I looked into it. You were finished with Freddie by seven or eight—you just stayed out this way and waited for the green light.”
He glanced over at Lennox; the DS just stared back at him, hate radiating from his eyes, yet unable to move, a fly caught in a web as the threads of silk were wound about its body.
Atticus continued. “So, the truth. You were first at the scene because you had never really left. You’d been here all evening. I don’t know exactly when you arrived, but my guess would be after Ralph called Allegra to tell her about the argument. I suspect that she told you that Ralph had left the house and that you should make your way there to put your plan into effect. And you did. I’m not sure how you got inside—Ralph, you said that your father was paranoid about security, but there would be no reason to be wary of a police officer with a warrant card. Allegra had already taken the missing pistols from Hugo’s collection, and she’d given them to the detective sergeant to use. And so you did, Lennox. You shot him.”
“This,” Lennox said derisively, “is why you got fired. Have you been on the weed again?”
“Unfortunately not. Maybe later.” Atticus reached down for a piece of paper. “The killer was very accurate that night. Sixteen shots fired, sixteen hits. That’s impressive. Cameron, so far as we were able to ascertain, had never fired a weapon before. He wouldn’t have been so precise. But you, Lennox—you’re a trained firearms officer. You were on the firearms unit for a year before you switched to CID. The DCI pulled the logs from the range to see if you’d been there recently, and it turns out that you had. Three sessions in the three weeks before the murders. The first for eighteen months. Here.”
Atticus pushed the paper across the table. It was the log from the firing range. Yellow highlighter picked out the three times that Lennox had signed it.
“I want to keep my qualification,” Lennox said. “I need to practice to do that.”
Atticus ignored that—it was an obvious and poor excuse—and turned back to Ralph. “Your father was badly injured. The detective sergeant made his first serious error in not confirming that he was dead, and left him to go and attend to the rest of the family in this room.” He swivelled in his chair and pointed to where the sofa and armchair had been. “He shot your mother and your sister first. I imagine Cameron would have been last.” He pointed to the wall. “He told him to sit there, then shot him at close range. The intention, of course, was to make it appear as if your brother was responsible for the murder of the family before turning the gun on himself. Allegra knew that Cameron had issues with his anger. Out of the four of them, he made the most likely stooge.”
Allegra was sweating now, a light sheen on her forehead that she could not hide. She was an accomplished liar—good enough to have fooled Atticus once—but now she was unable to prevent her body from betraying her. The little cues were spilling out, getting bigger, more and more of them, all out of control.
“I imagine you must have heard movement from the kitchen and realised that Hugo was still alive. You went through, perhaps saw that he was trying to call 999, and tried to shoot him, but the pistol jammed. You bludgeoned him to death instead. You were in the process of ensuring that everything appeared just as you wanted it when you were disturbed by Ralph’s knock at the door. That, Ra
lph, was the problem that your wife and the detective sergeant did not anticipate. You weren’t supposed to be here. You should have been on your way home, miles away by then, but, instead, you showed up just after the murders.”
Lennox cleared his throat, but didn’t speak.
“You panicked, Lennox. Perhaps the person at the door has a key? You have to leave before you can be discovered. Of course, Allegra told you about the way out through the coal hole. Ralph—you told your wife about that and she told me that she knew, one of the very few slips that she made during this whole complicated scheme. Very impressive, but those mistakes are instructive to someone who has the eye to see them. The detective sergeant was always going to go out that way so that it looked like the killer was still inside. He hurries to the cellar and lets himself out, taking care not to alert whoever it is he has heard outside. In his haste, however, he catches his shoulder against a nail that has worked free of the boards that secured the entrance. Mack?”
“I saw it,” she said. “You said that you caught it when you were fixing the fence at home.”
“Probably the best excuse that he could come up with on short notice, but he was unlucky. Lennox—you’re in several of the crime scene photos. I examined them very carefully and saw the tear. I’d seen the nail when I looked around the cellar before, so I went back and checked. It’s at just the right level for a man of your height to snag the right shoulder of a jacket. A small thing, but instructive when added to everything else.”
“Come on, Priest,” Lennox said, finding his voice at last. “A rip on my jacket? You’re accusing me of murder because I ripped my jacket?”
“It’s a little more than that. I found a small piece of material on the floor of the cellar, beneath the nail. We sent it to the lab in Exeter. They confirmed it was polyethylene—the sort used to make forensic suits.”
“There were a dozen men and women in suits that night and the day after,” Lennox protested. “More than a dozen. One of them must’ve caught the nail.”
“None of them reported it in the log as you would’ve expected.”