‘How did the police lie?’ Stella would take on a case that detectives – her dad – had not solved. Jack knew she’d draw the line at any suggestion of a police cover-up.
‘That Cater woman was going to tell my mum that Daddy was leaving her. The cow!’ Carrie was like a fizzing fuse wire.
‘How did the police lie?’ Stella persisted.
‘They’re only interested in targets.’ Carrie took another biscuit although she hadn’t eaten the first one.
‘Why couldn’t your father tell your mother he was leaving?’ Logical and unassuming, Stella believed that what will be, will be. When Cashman had dumped her to return to his wife Stella had accepted it. Yet Jack suspected she’d minded. He felt for Rachel Cater that Philips had dragged his heels ending his marriage. Feeling powerless, she’d taken matters into her own hands and gone to tell his wife. A decision that proved fatal. Jack had many times imagined telling Cashman where to go. Get a grip. Stella hadn’t seen the man for months. As if she could read his thoughts, he caught Stella looking at him. Their gaze locked. Jack felt a stir of desire and grabbed a biscuit. When he looked again Stella was frowning at her notebook, a faint flush reddening her cheeks. Sometimes they were entirely in accord.
‘He’d never leave my mother. Daddy wanted to end it with Cater. She went nuts, he had to fight her off and he stabbed her in self-defence. The police didn’t believe him.’
‘Are you saying that he did kill Rachel Cater?’
‘I’m not saying anything.’ Carrie tipped back in her chair, a sulky teenager. Perhaps catching what she had said, ‘He didn’t murder her. He’s not like that.’
‘You’re saying that Rachel Cater came armed with the knife?’ Terry had taught Stella to interject. Don’t let a subject tell a story their way. Surprise them into admission.
‘Where else did she get it?’ Cater shrugged.
‘Did she plan to kill your mother?’ Jack thought that one thing you could find in most houses was a knife.
‘Yes, of course. Obviously.’
‘Why obviously?’ asked Jack.
‘It just is.’ The sulky teen again.
‘Your mother was seen on CCTV in London. How did Rachel Cater gain entry to the house?’ Mindful of safety, Stella would be nervous of the chair-tipping. If it gave way Carrie would whack her head on the window sill.
‘She’ll have gone through Daddy’s private possessions, found his key and sneaked in to confront my mother. Then the real killer called. Cater opened the door. She pretended she was Mrs Philips and got herself murdered.’ Carrie flew forward on the chair. ‘Aren’t you listening, the point is my father wasn’t there!’
‘Rachel Cater was your father’s secretary – she had a legitimate reason to have his key.’ Stella continued writing in her notebook. ‘My PA has mine. Isn’t it an incredible coincidence that your father’s mistress was there at the same time as the murderer?’
‘Call it what you like.’ Carrie told the conference phone as if there were unseen listeners. The police didn’t care that she seduced him!’
‘It’s not an offence to have a relationship with a colleague.’ Jack tried not to look at Stella. ‘Painful if there are others involved, of course.’
‘They were taking a risk. Clients, and other staff could think it unprofessional,’ Stella said. ‘But sometimes it’s unavoidable.’
Stella didn’t catch his eye this time, but he felt her awareness of him as if her fingers were brushing his skin, unzipping him…
Jack’s reverie broke. Did Stella think their own relationship was unprofessional? Was six months a cooling-off point? Was she dropping him a hint that they should cool it?
‘Dad would never have left me.’ Carrie stated fact.
‘Leave you?’ Jack barked. ‘It was your mother who was betrayed.’
‘None of this is the point. Which is,’ Carrie banged the table, ‘Daddy wasn’t there!’
‘Why did he say he was there?’ Stella didn’t try to temper the woman’s temper.
‘Just find out who killed Cater and get my dad out of prison.’ Carrie shook her head as if they were all idiots and she was wasting her time.
Jack felt a wash of disappointment. He loved working with Stella, he wanted this case to be ‘real’ so that they could be a team in more ways than one. When Stella had told him about her encounter with Carrie Philips at the crime scene clean-up, he’d hoped that it wasn’t simply that the woman couldn’t accept that her father had committed the worst of crimes. He wanted it to be a miscarriage of justice. Fair enough to believe your father incapable of murder. Stella would have trouble thinking Terry could murder. Jack, on the other hand, had spent several years convinced that his father had killed his mother, so couldn’t empathize. He swallowed hard. At nearly three, Milly was gifted with rapier perception, would she ever doubt him as he had doubted his father?
‘He disposed of the body. Why go to lengths to cover up a murder that he didn’t do? Was he protecting someone? Your mother, for instance?’ Stella trod where angels feared to go.
‘Why would he?’ Carrie snarled. ‘No. Lucky for her – she’s always had luck – she has an alibi.’
‘Did anyone see Rachel arrive at the house? Did she come there alone or with your father perhaps?’ Stella didn’t kowtow to clients.
‘There were no witnesses. Cater’s prints were on the finger plate, meaning she let herself in.’
‘When did they find the body?’ Jack wanted to hear how Carrie told it.
‘Some three months later. Rachel Cater’s watch smashed against the wall of the shaft. It gave the date and time of the murder. The thirteenth of May at four-thirty.’ She murmured, ‘Daddy was careful not to hurt her.’
Bully for Daddy, Jack thought.
‘Did anyone know Cater and your father were involved?’ he asked.
‘No. She put fake meetings in his diary. Dentist, a visit to assess an antique. Bitch!’ Carrie exclaimed as if this was news to her. ‘Cater told Carol and Ian – they work there and are really nice – that Dad was training her up. Liar! She was after him from the start.’
‘How do you know?’ Stella probed.
‘It’s obvious. She was on the shelf, desperate to have babies. It came out in court. Daddy was a sitting duck!’
‘The police said that your father forgot to take out the phone battery. It was how they found the body,’ Beverly said.
‘Isn’t that proof?’ Carrie was triumphant. ‘If he’d wanted to murder her, he’d have made sure they didn’t find her.’
No one pointed out that Chris Philips had gone to enormous lengths to hide Rachel Cater’s body. But for one slip it was likely that Rachel Cater would never have been found.
‘She bought disposable phones – burners, criminals call them – so that they could call each other. How sick is that?’
‘Are you sure that your mother didn’t know about Rachel Cater?’ Stella asked the question forming in Jack’s mind.
‘Neither of us knew until she told us. It was a blinking bombshell!’
Belatedly – Jack had been pondering on when he’d last heard the word ‘blinking’ – he queried, ‘“She”? You mean “he”, your father?’
‘No, my mother… yes, he that’s what I meant.’ She tutted as if cross with herself. ‘Cater accidentally on purpose rang her cousin on the secret phone. She said that it was a friend’s phone, but her cousin had taken down the number. When she remembered this, she gave it to the police. They traced it to where it was when in powered down. In our garage.’
Carrie didn’t look pleased by this. She appeared oblivious to the fact that Rachel Cater had been brutally murdered by someone, if not Christopher Philips. While it would be shocking to discover that her father had betrayed her mother and had quite possibly killed his mistress, still Carrie might have had some compassion for the victim. Had Carrie murdered Rachel Cater in blind jealousy? Had Christopher accidentally put himself in pole position as prime suspect? Why court discovery
by hiring Clean Slate? If Carrie depended on them failing, she hadn’t bargained on Jack’s photographic memory and Stella’s bloodhound nose.
‘When they found the corpse, the police arrested my parents.’
‘Why was your mother arrested? Unless the pathologist was wrong about the time of death, she had an alibi,’ Beverly chipped in.
‘Alibis can be faked.’ Carrie didn’t expand.
‘Miss Philips, would you like more tea?’ Beverly nodded at the empty mug.
‘No thanks.’ Carrie smiled. The smile didn’t reach her eyes, yet Jack judged it genuine. She looked wary, as if of danger. Carrie was at the end of her tether. Whatever she was hiding – Jack was convinced there was something – Clean Slate was her last resort. He leaned forward, intending to indicate that Carrie’s last resort was a good one.
‘What I’ve said is what Dad said at his trial. But I think this is what happened.’ Carrie took a third Bourbon, this time holding it like a conch that gave her the floor. ‘Dad found Cater dead and yes, he was protecting someone. My mother! He thinks that prison would kill Mum. He perjured himself.’ She nibbled the biscuit, not chewing, but seeming to compress it against the roof of her mouth with her tongue. ‘My mother hasn’t visited Dad since he was put in there. She’s got police protection, would you believe? Dad is innocent!’ She chomped the rest of the Bourbon and smacked off crumbs. Job done.
‘Your father hid a murder victim and hampered the police search. That’s not legal.’ Stella spoke without judgement.
The wary look again.
Jack asked, ‘Could someone at the auctioneer’s have discovered their relationship? Perhaps Carol or Ian were jealous of Rachel for being your father’s favourite?’
‘It wasn’t a relationship. He planned to end it. He doesn’t have favourites. Only me.’ Carrie took another biscuit, hoarding it with the other two. A sign that she lacked love? ‘Officer Cashman told me that no one else had motive. Once the Gloucestershire police found her in the shaft they stopped looking.’
‘Cashman!’ Jack uttered in a spray of biscuit crumbs. ‘Why was he involved?’
‘Because of my… it was nothing to do with him.’ Carrie Philips subsided with a huff.
Jack stared at his cooling coffee. If they took the case Stella would see Cashman. Lucie May had warned Jack that ‘Cashback’s wife had dumped him.’ (Lucie had names for everyone.) ‘Be on your toes, Jackanory, he’ll want to warm his cockles at Stella’s fire.’
‘Why do you think your mother killed Rachel Cater?’ Stella didn’t pick up the mention of Cashman. Why not?
‘She was in London.’ Beverly pressed the point home.
‘My mother is the jealous type. Never get on the wrong side of her. Chief Superintendent Cashman knows perfectly well that she did it.’ Carrie didn’t answer the question.
‘He doesn’t know.’ Stella laid down her pen.
Jack drank cold coffee. There was only one way Stella knew what Cashman thought. She had talked to him.
Chapter Nine
1980
‘I didn’t do nothing. I love those kids.’
‘You love them so much you were skulking in their playground after dark. Why were you there, Derek?’ Cashman asked.
‘This is a mistake,’ said Derek Parsley. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘We’ve got witnesses say you were there, Derek,’ Cashman said.
‘It’s not fair.’ Parsley, who Terry and Cashman did think looked like Benny from Abba, if he’d lost all his money and was homeless, pulled at the paper one-piece they’d given him after taking away his bloodstained clothes for analysis. A waft of sweat hit Terry’s nostrils. No one had put the man through a shower.
‘What’s not fair, Derek? That the kids wouldn’t play your games?’ Terry rubbed clammy palms on his thighs. This was his first big case. A game changer. A child was dead. If he messed up he’d be back in uniform. The press, with Lucie first at the trough, would devour him.
It was two days since the murder. Last night, they’d picked up Parsley (the nursery rhyme surname was a sick joke), wandering in the park in blood-soaked clothes. He had nothing to change into. Terry saw the case snapping shut. But then Parsley went silent on them. At least now, along with the dawn chorus, he was talking. Whining.
‘I wouldn’t hurt them.’ Parsley dashed at his eyes. ‘They’re my friends.’
Cashman exploded. ‘Friends? They’re babies. You’re a thirty-four-year-old tosser who waves his todger at shop windows! Now it seems you’ve cranked up your act.’
Bull’s eye. Parsley clocked that they knew about the Leeds indecent exposure charge. Calmly, because with Cashman going off on one, he’d better be the good cop, Terry said, ‘Derek, tell us why you killed little Sarah.’
‘What are you, some kind of weirdo freak?’ Cashman lunged at Parsley.
Terry grabbed the back of Cashman’s belt and hauled him down into his chair. If Parsley clammed up again, he could walk. Parsley hadn’t wanted a solicitor even though Terry had urged him to get one. They hadn’t got the blood results back, but Parsley and Ferris shared the common group ‘O’ so despite the blood on his shirt and trousers, the chain of evidence was flimsy. A wily defence barrister could cross off the blood as his client getting messy while he tried to revive the girl. Some detectives might go with it, but Terry wanted a confession.
‘I tried to help her,’ Parsley said.
‘Help her? What with?’ Terry nudged.
‘I found her bracelet. I put it back on for her. It’s not fair.’ Parsley lapsed into his mantra.
‘You mean you nicked it off of her?’ Cashman had got control of himself.
‘Where was the bracelet, Derek?’ Terry cajoled.
‘By the swing. I put it back on her.’ He shook. ‘She didn’t ever know, did she?’
‘You found Sarah alone in the playground. She was upset because she’d lost the bracelet her daddy gave her and she knew that he’d be cross. You expected a reward, didn’t you? Naturally you did.’ Terry craned closer, ignoring the stink. ‘Sarah was six, Derek. Thing is, she was too young to know about evil. She thought you were nice, didn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ Parsley agreed. ‘She was nice too.’
‘Yes. She was. Her family thought so. Her mum’s heartbroken. Her dad blames her big brother.’ Propped on elbows, chin on his fists, Terry did regretful, eyebrows up, mouth turned down. ‘You finding her bracelet turned you into Father Christmas come early, especially for Sarah. She made you feel ten feet tall! Then she announces she’s going home to show her daddy and it all goes pear-shaped.’
‘Let’s be real, Derek, why would that little angel want a smelly old bloke for a friend?’ Cashman clenched his jaw. His wife Karen had just had a baby girl, he was fit to kill Parsley. ‘Sarah had Jason and Kevin lapping up her every word. A brother looking out for her and a daddy she loved best in the world. She didn’t need you. Did you unzip yourself and scare her?’
Parsley squirmed. Terry followed through, ‘Sarah spoilt the game. It wasn’t fair, like you say. After what you’d done she chucked your kindness in your face. You taught her a lesson.’
‘No.’ Derek Parsley waved a hand in front of himself as if clearing a cobweb.
‘You crushed her neck with a brick. Then to be on the safe side, you strangled her.’ Terry batted his coffee beaker. It was by accident, but he let it roll off the end of the table, sending a trail of coffee over the worn wood and splashing over the lino.
‘I didn’t do nothing,’ Parsley protested. ‘Sarah was my friend. I hid the brick so she couldn’t be hurt any more.’
‘Sarah’s blood was on your shirt,’ Terry said.
‘She wasn’t your friend,’ Cashman said. ‘You hid the brick so that it wouldn’t be linked to you. You pressed it down on her neck. Hard. Like this.’ He mimed the action. ‘She never stood a chance. Sarah trusted you and you killed her in cold blood.’
‘No!’ Parsley clutched at his paper overalls, his eyes
darting, tongue licking his lips. It seemed to Terry that the blokes who did stuff to kids were always hopeless scrawny specimens. Terry couldn’t help feeling sympathy for this man who deserved no sympathy at all.
‘Why a brick, Derek? Did you hate her that much?’ Terry caught himself clutching at his own shirt like Parsley. He too could do with a wash. ‘You put all your weight into it. She never had a chance.’
‘She was all upset that her bracelet was stolen.’ Parsley scratched his head in apparent bewilderment. ‘I never saw no brick.’
Parsley was signing himself into prison.
If it was possible, it was the brick that had got to Terry the most. A knife was more personal than a gun, but still a stabbing involved minimal contact with the victim. Strangling was intimate. The brick spelled intimacy and hatred. Pure and unadulterated. The killer had straddled Sarah. Pressed down on her throat, crushing her. Terry flicked his head as he heard cartilage snap and crunch.
The door opened. Sian from reception.
‘Not now!’
Sian blanched. Terry was known for his permanent good mood. Parsley was getting to him too.
‘Derek, you’re not a kid, you know right from wrong. Have a think about what happened. When we come back, we want the truth, OK?’ He paused the interview. Terry had a feel for interviews, Parsley was talking, they’d crack it before close of play.
‘Sorry,’ he told Sian when they were in the corridor. ‘That was totally uncalled for.’
‘Already forgotten, sir.’ Sian wasn’t alone in being prepared to forgive Terry Darnell anything. ‘There’s a girl asking for you.’
‘A girl?’ Terry’s heart leapt. Stella never came to his work. ‘It’s my daughter.’
‘It’s not Stella, sir.’ Most staff in the station had seen Stella grow up. They’d minded and fussed her, given her pens and paper to draw pictures if Terry was out on a job. He’d find her hunched over a desk in the back office. She only used one corner of the sheet. Terry had kept all Stella’s artistic efforts.
‘…she says you’re her assistant.’ Sian was straight-faced.
‘My assistant?’
The Playground Murders Page 7