by Anita Waller
‘We did, Carl. You want one? Hannah, pop back down and get one for Carl, will you? Milk, no sugar, if I remember correctly.’
‘Good memory, boss. It must be nine months since we last worked together. The Leon Rowe case, wasn’t it. His accounts needed a bit of checking, if I’m remembering correctly.’
She laughed. ‘A bit of checking is about right. He goes off to Canada tomorrow, his parents have requested his body. His wife agreed, she just wants him out of her life for good.’
‘Seems you’ve picked up another one that needs some financial checks put in place. I’ve had a chat with Mrs Bird, she seems quite knowledgeable.’
Tessa ran her hand through her hair. ‘I need to tell you that she’s quite ill. She has ME. It’s one of these illnesses where to look at her you wouldn’t think anything was wrong, but it’s a chronic pain illness, and some days she can’t even get out of bed. Be aware of that in all your dealings with her. Plus she has the added problem of having been overdosed on her pain medication, I think for some time, so she could be a bit non-functioning.’
‘She sounded clear enough to me. It seems that the business her husband thought was the big one that would see them secure for the rest of their lives is on the failing/dead stop route now, and money has been siphoned from the accounts over a lengthy period of time, probably since Mr Bird died. I’m meeting her at her home in the morning, nine o’clock, and we’re heading off to the bank. She seemed really grateful that I offered to drive, but in view of what you’ve told me about her health, that makes sense. She’s spoken to their accountant, and he’s said he raised concerns in an email to her about ten months ago, saying that BirD wasn’t performing as well as it had been doing six months earlier. It seems that he received an email back from Mrs Bird, which she knows nothing about, saying that it was going to be sold on because of the poor performance. You have a devious suspect downstairs, DI Marsden.’
‘I certainly do, Carl. I’ll need a full report as soon as possible, after you’ve driven Mrs Bird back home.’
Hannah returned holding his coffee. ‘There was a queue!’ she said, sounding quite put about. ‘Don’t these people want to go home?’
‘Do you?’ Tessa smiled.
‘Not on your life, not till we know where we stand with Grace Earle. Do you believe she’s not seen her sisters for years?’
Marsden frowned. ‘Not sure. She certainly didn’t react in any way when I said Judy was dead, but it just seems too much of a coincidence that Judy is looking for Pam Bird, and Grace is working for the same woman. I’m really thinking that Judy told Grace about her plans, because let’s not forget she knew who Tom’s birth mother was before Tom died. Grace was already working for the Bird couple at that time, and I suspect Judy knew that. I think they were in cahoots from the beginning, and if that is the case, then I’m looking at Grace as a potential suspect for Judy’s murder.’
‘Sounds complicated.’ Carl laughed. ‘I think you need to write everything down, force your brain out of first gear and see what happens. Sometimes, when you’re reading things on reports on the computer, you miss bits. If you’ve actually written it down, it might become clearer.’
Marsden reached around her computer to some paperwork on her desk, and waved it at him. ‘Done,’ she said, ‘and in this instance, you’re wrong. Nothing looked any clearer.’
It was quiet in the Rowe household. Doris was reading, Kat was working on her sermon, delighted to be back in the saddle at church, and Mouse was on the computer, putting in names and seeing what came up.
When her mobile rang she answered it quickly, not wanting it to wake Martha.
‘Hi, Beth. Tessa Marsden. I just thought I’d fill you in, out of courtesy. It seems that your ferreting around really paid off. Grace Earle has admitted to being the sister of Judy and Bobby, but insists she hasn’t seen them for years. She says she walked away from the family when they disapproved of her boyfriend, and she hasn’t seen any of them since. However, that’s not all we’re finding out. Quite apart from keeping Mrs Bird heavily sedated so that she has no clue what day it is, let alone how her businesses are performing, she’s been cleverly siphoning off money from one of the companies and putting it somewhere else. We suspect that somewhere else is a healthy bank account with her name on it.’
‘Oh no! That’s awful for Pam. How is she?’
‘Not too bad. She hid the sleeping tablets that Grace tried to give her this morning, and she’s a bit groggy but not as bad as she usually is. She’ll have to discuss things with her doctor though, I think, you can’t just stop taking such strong medication, it has to be reduced gradually.’
‘Were they working together, Judy and Grace? Playing the long game to get everything?’ Mouse’s thoughts were spiralling, and she rubbed her forehead. ‘Grace siphons off from the companies, Judy becomes Pam’s best friend who inherits the personal fortune because she’s the daughter-in-law, and while they’re waiting for all this to happen, they’re slowly killing the woman who is going to provide all these riches.’
‘That’s my take on it. Anyway, we have Grace Earle in the cells certainly until tomorrow morning. She rang her solicitor, but luckily for us the woman couldn’t come tonight, she was already with another client. Apparently Earle really showed off when they locked her in the cell. Tomorrow a DS from our fraud squad is taking Pam to the bank for discussions and to try to find out roughly how much has gone, and hopefully where it’s landed, then he’ll report back to me. I just wanted to thank you, or thank Connection anyway, for your help with this.’
‘You think Grace is connected to Judy’s death? With Pam permanently asleep, as she pretty much was, Grace could easily have done it and made it back to Buxton before she was missed.’
‘That’s the part I’m going to be concentrating on. The financial side I can safely leave to Carl. I want the collar for the murder.’
30
Saturday morning dawned with bright sunshine, and the three of them, along with Martha in her pushchair, decided to head down to the Village Green café for breakfast. They had a leisurely stroll down that turned into a bit of a gallop as the rain came down in torrents.
They were laughing as they pushed open the door, rain dripping off their noses, their clothes spectacularly wet.
Lisa handed them a towel to dry their faces and arms along with the menu, and they eventually sat themselves in a corner so that the sleeping baby in the pushchair was out of the way.
‘Full breakfasts?’ Lisa asked, and they all said yes, each one of them wanting their eggs done differently.
‘Kat Silvers, you were always awkward,’ Lisa laughed. ‘One poached, one scrambled for you then.’
She finished taking the rest of their orders, and Doris looked over the top of her glasses at Kat. ‘Kat Silvers?’
‘Means nothing,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve known Lisa since we were in the infants together, back in the days when I was Kat Silvers. And let’s face it, I was Kat Silvers for a much longer time than I’ve been Kat Rowe. However, as we’ve kind of brought this up, I’ve been thinking things through about the name change.’
Doris and Mouse leaned forward onto the table.
‘If I call Martha anything but Rowe, it’s denying her a true heritage. She is Leon’s child, Leon Rowe. She has grandparents called Rowe, but, and here’s the biggy, I don’t want to be a different name to my daughter. Therefore I have decided my name will remain as Rowe, and Martha will grow up knowing who she is, who her mummy is, who all of her grandparents are, and who her daddy was. I’ll obviously have to cushion things until she’s old enough to know the truth, but I’m sticking with Rowe.’
‘Good,’ Doris said. ‘Have you told your mum and dad?’
‘I have. I told them when I collected Martha last night. I think they’re pleased I’ve actually reached a final decision, and on Monday I’m going to make an appointment to register her birth, then we’ll see about having a christening.’
‘And a par
ty?’ Mouse asked, pouring cups of tea for them.
‘And a party,’ Kat said.
The breakfasts arrived, and they watched the rain getting heavier. ‘Okay,’ Mouse said, waving a piece of sausage around on a fork, ‘we’re not going to be going anywhere until this lot has slowed down a bit, so let’s talk. Does anybody else share this feeling that Marsden seems to be pursuing, that Grace Earle is a murderer?’
Doris and Kat shook their heads, their mouths too full of food to speak. Mouse pushed the sausage into her mouth, chewed silently for a moment, and then said, ‘Neither do I.’
‘Why not?’ Doris asked, putting down her knife and fork for a moment to look at her granddaughter. ‘Are you basing that on facts or feelings?’
‘Feelings, I suppose, I just don’t see her like that. A fraudster, yes. I can well believe she’s helped herself to a lot of the family fortune, but it’s the wrong sort of murder. I can see her planning and succeeding in killing Pam, because it’s a non-violent murder, and I genuinely feel that might have been on the cards, but stabbing somebody? That takes some strength, some bottle. She actually comes across as quite middle-class – and I’m not saying middle-class people don’t commit murders – but to me it was almost as if she couldn’t lower herself to stab somebody. Any murder she committed would be… middle-class.’
Kat almost choked on her scrambled egg. ‘Mouse Walters, I love you,’ she finally managed to say. ‘You have a way of putting things into perspective that is quite unique.’
‘Crazy, I call it,’ Doris muttered, and returned to enjoying her breakfast.
But Mouse couldn’t let it go. ‘I know you both understand what I mean. And I genuinely think our local friendly DI has got it wrong.’
‘Just as a matter of interest, Mouse,’ her nan said, ‘who do you think has killed Judy?’
‘I don’t know yet. But I will.’ She picked up her cup of tea and sipped it. ‘This is hot.’
‘It’s made with boiling water.’
‘Kat Rowe, don’t get clever with me. I’m going to stop talking and start thinking. And eat the rest of my sausage.’
Doris and Kat found it difficult to eat anything, as they tried to hold back the laughter. Mouse was still so easy to wind up, and yet they both knew they fully agreed with her.
The rain didn’t stop, and by the time they arrived home they were once again soaked, but definitely no longer hungry.
All three of them sat around the kitchen table, laptops open. Kat was polishing her sermon, and she knew her excitement at recommencing her deacon work at the church had to be bouncing off her. She missed her quiet time, the time when she just sat on a pew and let the silence, the peace, the tranquillity surround and infiltrate her soul. It hadn’t happened in a while, but the next day it would. She changed a couple of words, and then sent it to the printer.
‘You finished?’ Doris asked.
‘I have. It’s been quite difficult. I’ve felt as though I had to be careful of everything I put into it. Danny’s wife will be there, I’m presuming, and I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is.’
‘You seriously think she will be there?’ There was concern in Mouse’s voice. ‘You need the two of us to be there?’
Kat smiled. ‘I’ll be fine, honestly. And I do think Bibi will come to the service. She attends every week. If she doesn’t, I’m not sure how I’ll deal with it. And Mum and Dad will both be there. They’re going to have Martha while I take the service. I’m going to introduce her to the congregation, that should diffuse any bad feelings, I hope.’
She went to the printer to collect her printouts. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she repeated, but the other two recognised desperation when they heard it.
Carl Heaton escorted Pam Bird through her front door, then closed it gently behind him.
‘Let me hang up your coat,’ he said. ‘It will soon dry.’ It hadn’t been raining when they went into the bank, but it was monsoon-like when they emerged some time later. It had been a fraught hour and a half, but the outcome had been that Grace Earle, the trusted personal assistant made signatory on the accounts by Pam herself, had defrauded Pam’s business of at least quarter of a million pounds.
He made sure she was seated on the sofa, and then went to make her the cup of tea he had promised her while travelling back to her home.
‘Do you need any medication with this drink?’ he asked, placing the tray carefully on the coffee table.
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I took some this morning, and my consultant is coming to see me this afternoon to discuss how we deal with regulating my tablets to get me on the right dose again. Apparently, I can’t just go back to what it used to be before that woman began to overdose me because I will have severe withdrawal symptoms – and trust me, Carl, I don’t need any extra pain.’
How the other half lives, he thought, a consultant doing a house call to his patient on a Saturday afternoon. And a bank manager working on a Saturday morning for one highly prized customer.
‘Then I’ll have a cuppa with you, and head back to the station. DI Marsden will be wanting to know the outcome of this morning’s meeting before she interviews Grace Earle again.’
‘She’s not been interviewed? Is that normal?’
‘Perfectly normal. DI Marsden doesn’t have all the facts yet. She’ll want them at her fingertips when she’s interviewing this particular suspect. And I’ll let you into a little secret, making a suspect wait for interview tips them over the edge, and they say all sorts of stuff through nerves. But I’ve not told you that, have I.’
‘Definitely not, young man,’ she smiled. She had a beautiful smile, now she was awake enough to perform the action.
He finished his drink, poured her a second one, and left her organising a locksmith to come and change every lock on the property… Just in case, she had said. He could see the fear in her eyes.
Carl spoke to Marsden at length on the drive back to the station, gave her all the information he currently had on the situation and promised a full written report by the time he left for home.
Marsden opened the questioning by asking where Grace was on the morning of Judy’s murder, and Marsden carefully specified day, date and window of time.
Grace turned to Elena Taylor, her solicitor. ‘I have to answer that?’
‘Yes. Just answer the questions. No elaborating.’
Grace faced Marsden once again. ‘I was at home with Pam. She will confirm that.’
‘Then there we have our first problem, Mrs Earle,’ Marsden said. She glanced down at her notes, but it was only for effect. ‘You see, Mrs Bird was packed so full of drugs she hasn’t a clue about your whereabouts at that time, so is there anyone else who can verify your presence in the house?’
‘No, of course not. But why are you asking me? You think I killed Judy? My own sister?’
‘A sister you walked away from a long time ago, and, according to you, you hadn’t seen for many years. So please answer my question. Is there anybody at all who can say for definite that they saw you in that house at that time?’
Grace Earle visibly crumpled. ‘No,’ she whispered.
‘Please speak louder for the tape, Mrs Earle.’
‘No, damn you, no.’
‘Then let’s move on for the moment. We’ll come back to those potential charges later.’
‘Charges? Charges for what?’
Elena Taylor leaned across and touched her client’s hand. ‘Calm down, Grace, please. We’ll sort this.’
‘Oh good.’ Grace Earle’s voice was loaded with sarcasm.
‘Let’s move on to the next item, Mrs Earle,’ Marsden interrupted, aware of the panic bubbling out of her suspect.
‘Next item? I thought I was here because you accused me of giving Pam a couple of tablets too many! What next fucking item?’ All pretence of the ladylike exterior was evaporating in front of Tessa and Hannah’s eyes.
Hannah could hardly believe what she was seeing. She was watc
hing her boss, who she had the greatest of admiration for, demolish a suspect without faltering in any way.
She had seen lots of interviews in these rooms, and learned something new from each one. This one was a masterclass in how to crucify a person in three easy stages.
Grace Earle was collapsing, it was obvious. And yet Grace didn’t appear to know it was happening; she thought Elena Taylor was going to point a magic wand at Marsden, whisper ‘Alarte Ascendare’, and Marsden would become a projectile disappearing at speed through the roof.
Hannah waited, hardly daring to breathe; she wanted to see where Marsden would take this next.
Marsden gave a slight cough, showing that she had heard the profanity and didn’t like it. In reality, the same word left her own mouth several times a day, and, as a policewoman, it was simply a part of the job. She didn’t want Grace Earle to realise that.
‘Mrs Earle, there appears to be a large amount of money missing from the accounts of BirD. Perhaps you can shed some light on where it is?’
Saturday came to a close with several more, and different, words of profanity.
31
‘It seems that when she’d managed to siphon off half a million she was going to disappear.’ Marsden gave a short bark of laughter. ‘It only took one night in the cells to convince her she had to confess. But that’s only to the money, and she’s not told us where it is yet. I still half like her for Judy Carpenter’s murder, but unless it was just a simple falling out of thieves, I can’t see a motive.’
‘We had a talk about it yesterday,’ Mouse said. ‘It was something to do while we were being held prisoner in the Village Green. It was pouring with rain. None of us could see Grace as a killer, not as a violent killer anyway, and there had to be some power behind that vicious stabbing. I can see Grace doing what you seem to have stopped her doing, and that’s slowly killing Pam Bird with her own medication, but I don’t see her as an angry killer, and there was anger in that room when we walked in and found Judy.’ Mouse gave a shudder as she had a momentary flashback.