by Anita Waller
Doris looked at Kat. ‘Something that will help Alice?’
‘Strictly speaking, no. But I don’t see anything that tells us why. What motive did she have? Nobody kills somebody just because they can. Do they? Surely there has to be some sort of reason for it. Alice didn’t particularly like Judy, but that was because she was a rubbish wife to Tom. And Tom died some time ago, so why kill Judy now? I tell you, I’m floored by this.’
‘Think Tessa will ring us?’ Mouse asked. ‘She used us as a sounding board this morning, so I’d like to know what’s happening.’
‘Why didn’t Alice tell us she used to live at number four, do you think?’ Kat mused. ‘You know what, in my head it’s starting to look as though she could have done it. She’s fit, she’s healthy – she runs miles, not just a few yards. But I still can’t see why. We’ll have to hope Tessa can work this one out so she can tell us.’
The group of police searching their way through fields between Hope and Bradwell were recalled. It seemed that the hammer used to hit and knock-out Judy Carpenter and the knife used to pierce her heart had been found. In a shed. In the back garden of a pretty cottage in Bradwell.
And that was almost the end of that Thursday.
36
With Alice charged, Tessa felt she could finally breathe again. The confession had been full and explicit, and it seemed that Judy had been bad-mouthing Tom for some considerable time, until Alice could take no more. It was Judy wanting the tiny silver cross and chain that had been the worst insult in Alice’s eyes. No way would she allow that to happen, Tom had given it to her.
This was followed by Judy telling her she was planning to fleece Pam Bird of her wealth, and it was really the final straw when she discovered Judy’s sister Grace was as involved as she was. Judy had to die.
The terminal diagnosis spurred her on to kill sooner rather than later, and the act itself had been exactly as calculated by Tessa Marsden.
The letter had been found in the drawer of the sideboard at the cottage, and addressed to DI Marsden. She hadn’t read it yet; she felt exhausted and emotionally drained. This woman might be a cold and calculating merciless killer, but what the hell, she liked her. Included with the letter was a small blue jewellery box that held a tiny silver cross and chain. She guessed that when she read the letter it would explain where the child’s necklace had to go.
Tessa had sent Hannah home. The young officer had held it together while they listened to the story told by Alice, but it was clear when they left the interview room that Hannah needed time out. Tessa stood at the one-way window looking into the room, and watched as Alice visibly slumped. Marsden saw a young policewoman enter the room, carrying a glass of water and two tablets for Alice, and cursed aloud. Why hadn’t she thought to ask if Alice needed anything? She was probably in considerable pain and needed her medication.
She would make sure it was her who took Alice to hospital. For security reasons she would take Hannah along as well, but she doubted there would be any attempt at escape.
The officer handed her the two tablets, then the glass of water. She turned before leaving the room and asked a question of Alice, presumably wanting to know if she needed anything else. Alice smiled at her and shook her head.
Her hand went to her mouth and she took a sip of the water, then sank back in her chair and relaxed, obviously waiting for the medication to kick in and give her some relief from the pain.
Tessa walked up to her own office, and as she entered the briefing room, there was prolonged clapping and shouts of ‘well done, boss’. She tried to smile, to acknowledge the congratulations. In her own tiny office she wiped away a tear.
What a fucking mess.
She picked up her phone and spoke to the custody sergeant. ‘I want Alice Small in her cell with extra blankets and a proper pillow within the next five minutes. She is seriously ill, and she may need to sleep as she has just taken morphine. Is it already done?’
‘It is, ma’am,’ he said, and within two minutes it was.
Marsden didn’t want to go home. The house held no comfort for her, and she needed solace that night. She considered ringing Kat, but knew she would have to go through everything again; the next day was soon enough for that.
She called in to the Star and Garter for a carvery meal, loaded up her plate, and ate only the carrots. Then she finally went home, played a Johnny Mathis CD and opened a bottle of very expensive malt.
She fell asleep before she’d taken one sip; it was almost as if her guardian angel was watching over her, preventing her getting blind drunk no matter whether she wanted to or not.
Alice stared at the four walls of the tiny cell. They had brought her a pillow, a second mattress to place on top of the existing one and two or three blankets. She somehow knew Tessa Marsden had organised these extras. She asked the young lady who had delivered the blankets if she could have a glass of water, and two minutes later a bottle and a plastic beaker arrived, along with two slices of toast.
Alice wondered how Tessa and young Hannah were feeling; they had clearly been disturbed as she had told her story, and she took a minute to offer up a prayer for them. God would help them.
She rested her head on the pillow, but couldn’t sleep. The pain was bad because she hadn’t taken the tablets brought to her earlier. The skirt she had chosen to wear had pockets, and she had dropped the two hefty painkillers in there. She offered up an extra prayer for God to help her get through the next couple of hours.
He did.
Eventually the little window in the door opened and two eyes peered in. ‘Are you okay, Alice? Do you need any more medication?’
‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘I need two more of my morphine. They will see me through to tomorrow morning as long as you don’t wake me. Is that okay?’
‘I’ll get them now, sweetheart,’ PC Vincent said, and he disappeared. Two minutes later he returned with two tablets. Whatever she wants, she gets, DI Marsden had said, and he wasn’t about to go against her. He opened the door and walked across to Alice. He handed her a couple of biscuits on a plastic plate. ‘Don’t take tablets like this on an empty stomach,’ he said. ‘It’s lights out in fifteen minutes, and we’ve not put you near anybody else, so you try to sleep. Shout out if you need me during the night. My name’s Stuart, Stuart Vincent.’
Alice smiled gratefully at him. ‘Thank you so much. You’ve been very kind.’
He went out and locked the door, then stood for a moment. Sweet old girl, he thought, pity she’s done what she’s done.
Alice ate the biscuits, then placed the two tablets he had just brought her on the plate. She added the two from her pocket, then undid the back fastening on her bra. She slid the straps down her arms, and pulled the entire bra out down the front of her top.
On the inside of the bra she had made a tiny pocket. In it were ten tablets wrapped carefully in clingfilm so that they laid flat. The bra had been ready for a week, and she was grateful that she had been allowed the shower earlier, so that she could wear it. She pulled out the thread closing up the top of the pocket and took out the tablets, tipping them onto the plate to join the other four.
She slid the plate under her pillow; she didn’t want anyone to have sight of them.
The next few minutes she gave to her God.
The lights went out, but darkness didn’t descend. There was still a glow coming from the corridor that never had its lights switched off.
She topped up her glass with the rest of the water, and took the tablets. When all fourteen had gone, she laid her head back on the pillow, and waited. The pain went quickly. She knew no more.
Stuart did his rounds at just before four, thankful they didn’t have any drunks in; it had proved to be a remarkably quiet night. His shift finished at five and he was ready for his own bed. He reached Alice’s cell, and opened the small window in the door. She was still lying with her back to him, as she had been every time he had checked the cells.
In fact, he t
hought, she hasn’t moved at all.
He felt a surge of panic wash over him. He unlocked the door and entered the room. The smell of faeces hit him, and he groaned. He crossed to her and shook her. Stuart felt for a pulse and then shouted for help. He had known as soon as the smell had hit him; bowels and bladder usually voided after death.
Help came quickly but it was several hours too late.
Tessa took the call around quarter past four. She slowly disconnected and sat on the edge of her bed, her head hanging down.
She pictured Alice as she had seen her coming home before they arrested her, jogging up the lane leading to her cottage. Alive, eyes bright, and in control. Too much in control? Or was the cancer more advanced than even Alice had known?
The answers would be there after the forensic examination, and as this was a death in custody, the post-mortem would be prioritised.
Marsden showered quickly, then headed downstairs to make a slice of toast. The carrots hadn’t been very filling, and she needed something to get her through the day. She filled a travel cup with coffee, and headed for the station.
There was a strange air about the place, obvious from the second she walked through the double doors.
‘Is Stuart Vincent still here?’ she asked, and was told he was in the canteen, having a coffee. Having a fucking coffee? She fumed inwardly, but then saw him as she opened the canteen doors. He looked broken. His back was to her, and she watched him for a moment. His head was down and the coffee cup was pushed to the other side of the table, balanced precariously. Obviously, someone had told him to go get a coffee, it would make him feel better, and just as obviously it wasn’t happening.
‘Stuart,’ she said quietly.
He turned himself around to look at her. ‘Ma’am. I’m sorry…’
She held up a hand. ‘Stop. Did you do your job? Did you check on her every two hours?’
‘Yes, ma’am, I did. She said the tablets would make her sleep and that’s what she needed. It was only when I did my last round for the night that I realised she hadn’t moved at all, and then when I opened the cell door, the smell…’
‘Has she been moved?’
‘No, ma’am. They’re taking photographs of everything, as you can imagine. Deaths in custody and all that.’
‘So go through what happened from when she went into the cell.’ Marsden opened her notebook.
‘She was issued with a pillow, an extra mattress and three extra blankets. She asked for a glass of water and was provided with a litre of bottled water and a beaker. We also did her a couple of slices of toast, which she ate. I checked on her later and she was fine, but she said she needed two of her morphine tablets. I took her a couple of biscuits as well, because I didn’t like her having such powerful drugs on an empty stomach. I told her lights out in fifteen minutes, and that was it until I did my checks. One at midnight, one at two-ish, and then my round at four when…’
‘You found her. She was terminally ill, you know. Don’t beat yourself up about it. She hadn’t much longer left. I know there’ll be an enquiry, but you’ve done nothing wrong. Is your shift over now?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Then get off home. People will want to talk to you when you come back on tonight, but try to sleep in the meantime.’
She headed for her own office, knowing Stuart Vincent would never forget this shift. She also knew she would never forget either. And now she had to ring Hannah.
37
Friday dawned sunny. After working through half her wardrobe, Kat decided to wear a dress. She had no intentions of revealing the truth about where she was going at lunchtime, and she knew that wearing a dress would be more in keeping when she told Doris and Mouse she had a meeting at church.
‘You look stunning,’ Mouse remarked. ‘You seeing some dishy bishop or something?’
‘Bishops don’t usually come with the tag line dishy,’ Kat laughed. ‘No, the sun was out so I thought I’d put a dress on.’
Mouse obviously wasn’t convinced but refrained from further comment.
Kat was fastening Martha into the car when they heard the phone ring. Doris was already in the passenger seat of the Range Rover, with Mouse walking towards the driving seat. Mouse waved her hand in a “shall I, shan’t I” sort of movement, and then made a dash for the front door, to reach it before it stopped.
By the time she had unlocked the door and cancelled the alarm, it had gone to answerphone, and she heard Tessa’s voice.
Snatching up the receiver, Mouse said, ‘Hi, it’s me. We were just heading out to the office.’
‘I need to talk to you. We got Alice’s full confession last night, but by the time I left the station it was getting late, so didn’t bother you. We also found both weapons she used in her garden shed, and a full written confession in her sideboard.’
‘Oh…’ Mouse didn’t want to speak, but felt something in acknowledgement was called for.
‘That’s not the end. We had to bring her medication with us – she is eighty, and I assumed it was stuff like statins that the doctors seem to feel everybody over the age of fifty should take, but as we were bringing her in, she asked about a hospital appointment, scheduled for this morning. I asked her if it could be postponed and she said no, so I said we would make sure she attended. When I asked which hospital it was, she said Weston Park.’
Mouse felt her breath catch in her throat. ‘Shit…’
‘I think that was our reaction too. I asked her where the cancer was, and she said lungs and liver, I think, then said it was at the stage when brain tumours form and that was the endstage. I tell you, the way we treated her then wasn’t by the rule book.’
Doris appeared in the doorway and mouthed, ‘Everything okay?’ to her granddaughter, who shook her head and mouthed back, ‘Tessa.’
‘So are you taking her to hospital?’
‘No, that’s what I’m ringing to tell you. She died during the night. The whole station seems to be in meltdown, I feel like the big bad guy because I brought an eighty-year-old woman in to die, but honestly, Beth, I had no reason at all to suspect she was ill. When we went to pick her up, she wasn’t there. She arrived a couple of minutes after us, and she jogged up that lane like a twenty-year-old.’
Mouse leaned against the wall and slid down. She felt tears prick her eyes, and Doris took the phone from her.
‘Tessa? It’s Doris. Beth’s on the floor. What’s happened?’ She listened while Marsden explained it all again. Doris wanted to join Beth on the floor.
She sighed. ‘If only she had died at home. One day, one goddamn day. And we had no idea she was even ill! What happens now?’
‘There will be a post-mortem because it’s a death in custody, even if it is natural causes, and then her relatives will be able to organise her funeral.’
‘I’m not sure she has any apart from little Henry,’ Doris said. ‘I’ll pass this news on to Kat, and I’m so sorry to hear it. I liked Alice, despite what she’s done. Thank you for letting us know.’
She put down the receiver, and helped Mouse get up from the floor. She looked stunned. ‘How can that have happened,’ she said. ‘When you die from cancer, you’re in a hospice, or at home surrounded by nursing staff and your family, you’re helped at the end. What happened with Alice? She dies in a cell, even though she was still able to continue her running. Something’s wrong, I know it is.’
‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s go to work. I’m sure Tessa will tell us when there’s something we might want to know.’
Kat was devastated. They dropped Martha off with Enid and Victor, then drove into the centre of the village and parked the car. Kat hardly spoke, her mind running riot with what ifs, and she disappeared into her own room. She needed to be on her own.
Slowly she allowed the quietness of her office to heal her, and deep down she recognised that if Alice was that close to dying, the cancer must have been sending radiating waves of pain out constantly.
Finally, Ka
t stood and went to look out of her window. The view wasn’t spectacular but it was green: bushes, trees, grass. She asked for the peace of the Lord to be with Alice, and stood for a few moments longer.
In reception, Doris and Mouse were speaking in quiet voices. All three came together and hugged each other. It was enough.
Five minutes before the witching hour of one o’clock, Kat left the office for her “meeting” at the church. She walked towards the Village Green café and saw Carl, already there waiting for her.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I heard the news about Mrs Small, and wondered if you would still come. Marsden told me she was a friend of yours through church as well as this case. Are you okay?’
‘Half and half,’ Kat said. ‘She had terminal cancer, and half of me says it’s maybe better that she went peacefully even if it was in a prison cell, but the other half of me says I liked her a lot and I’ll miss her. She made a beautiful baby jacket and hat for my little one, and I’ll always treasure it.’
Carl reached out and grasped her hand. ‘Do you want to go inside or stay out here?’
‘Inside, please. My colleagues don’t know I’m seeing you, they think I’m at a church meeting. I’d rather they didn’t see me. I couldn’t stand the jokes, not today.’
He nodded. ‘Good. I’ve asked them to keep the table for two in the far corner. If necessary we can get underneath it and hide.’ His eyes crinkled as he smiled down at her.
She couldn’t remember having such an enjoyable time for many months. Carl was a fascinating, informative man, who made her laugh. She needed to laugh.
He told her about his job, the intricacies of proving fraud, and he spoke of Pam, saying what a lovely lady she was. She was slowly recovering from the overdose situation and Grace Earle had been charged with fraud. That in itself had caused Pam to feel much happier; with Grace locked up until her trial following her refusal to say where she had stashed the money, Pam no longer felt threatened. Charges for attempted murder were bound to follow.