The Playground Murders

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘Hi, Mummy, it’s us all back!’ Milly sounded equally astonished to hear Bella. But for Milly life was one big wonderful surprise.

  The door clicked open. Milly tore up the stairs raucously lah-lahing a tuneless tune. Unlike Jack – or Bella – she was only quiet when asleep. He felt a woolly grip of his fingers. Justin’s mittened hand had sought his. In the boy’s expression, Jack read his own dread of parting.

  Bella was in the hall, a glass of red wine in her hand, her mass of curly black hair tumbling from its pins. Her eyes – Justin’s eyes – were outlined with kohl and eyeshadow. Distantly Jack registered that it was unusual for Bella to wear make-up unless she was working in the artists’ room at the Kew Gardens Herbarium. Milly had disappeared into the flat without kissing him goodbye.

  ‘Mills says you went to the Wormwood Scrubs playground.’ Bella looked at him over the rim of the glass. Her emphasis suggested the prison. Jack disliked that Bella drank in charge of the children. He was of the mind that imbibing alcohol, like drink-driving, clouded judgement and rapid response. He’d once made the mistake of saying this and Bella had retaliated with a list of ‘don’ts’, all of which he did. Her key rule was that the children could not ever meet Stella Darnell. That one he had not contravened. Bella had never forgiven Jack for loving Stella more than her. A fact that Bella had known before he did.

  ‘They loved it,’ Jack said without considering if they had. He had loved it.

  ‘Who’s this stranger Milly spoke to?’ Bella took a sip.

  ‘No one. Someone on a bench.’ Jack felt Justin’s grip tighten. The boy guessed that Milly had inadvertently got Jack in trouble. He didn’t want his children to be mindful of keeping the peace between their parents, a childhood burden Stella had carried which, he suspected, had his mother lived, would have been his too. He beamed reassuringly at his son. ‘Milly and Justin know not to talk to strangers, we’ve discussed it.’

  ‘Don’t discuss it! Don’t let them. Kids were murdered there in 1980, did you know that?’

  ‘No I didn’t. But 1980 is nearly forty years ago. Kids are murdered everywhere.’ Jack saw Bella’s appalled expression. Shit. ‘Not anywhere. Not here. Look, we all had a good time, didn’t we!’ He swung Justin’s hand as if it were a lever that would work a response.

  ‘Yes, we did,’ Justin said on cue.

  ‘Milly needs to go to the toilet and wants you to do it.’ A man came into the hall and encircled Bella with an arm. Short, stocky, thin frameless glasses, cropped grey hair, a green V-neck jumper over a white T-shirt. The black jeans were tight for any man. Certainly one in his fifties.

  ‘Jack. Harry.’ Bella nestled up to the six pack showing through two layers of fabric.

  Harry.

  ‘And you are?’ Jack heard himself sounding like his own father. Cold and unrelenting. Get away from my children.

  Harry and Bella answered in unison.

  ‘I’m Bella’s bloke.’

  ‘Someone I work with.’

  ‘What was that you said about not talking to strangers?’

  ‘Harry’s not a stranger. The kids love him.’ Bella didn’t sound sure of the last bit. Shit.

  ‘Can Daddy come for tea so he can know Harry?’ Justin piped.

  ‘Well…’ Bella had a rictus smile.

  ‘Cool idea, little man!’ Harry flashed a big grin at Jack.

  ‘I was going to say that I decided…’ Bella looked shifty, ‘well, actually, Emily said… and it’s OK… that Stella Darnell can see the kids. Seeing as you’re still together. But…’

  ‘Generous of you.’ Lovely Emily, Bella’s best friend right back to their school days, frequently tempered Bella’s strictures. Bella had named Milly after her. Jack let Bella struggle with the unveiling of her hypocrisy. She’d let their kids meet Harry while Stella was still persona non grata.

  ‘They must not talk to strangers. Will you make Stella Darnell understand that?’

  ‘Stella would understand. Her father was a police officer.’ A stranger was in his children’s home. A stranger got to see Justin and Milly eat and play. Go to the lavatory. The stranger shared a bed with their mother. Children were murdered by their stepfathers.

  His phone beeped. Beverly. ‘I have to go.’ Jack crouched down and held Justin. Jack kissed him. The boy didn’t move. Jack recognized himself with his father for a new term at boarding school. He was both the boy and the man. Thickly, he managed, ‘I love you, Justy. Tell Milly too.’

  Jack took the stairs three at a go, coat flying like his daughter’s cape. Stella could meet his twins. He should feel on top of the world. But all he saw was six-pack Harry having tea with his children.

  After his mother’s death, Jack believed that he could never know a worse pain than her wrenching absence. When he became a father he discovered that he was only on the foothills of the pain it was possible to feel.

  Chapter Twelve

  2019

  Stella picked up her rucksack and came out into reception. Trudy was at her desk. Stella had an idea that she’d already said goodnight to Trudy, but immersed in the Cater case, had lost track of time. Jackie wanted her to speak to Trudy about her long hours. Stella – who also did long hours – kept forgetting. Now was her chance.

  ‘Get off home, Trudy. It’s past seven.’

  ‘I like a clean slate for the morning!’ Trudy punned. She punched holes in a sheet of paper and clipped it in a lever arch file.

  ‘It could wait until tomorrow.’ Stella never left anything until the next day, often working through the night. She did not expect it from her team. Tonight she was leaving ‘early’ because Jack was coming to supper.

  ‘I won’t tell Jackie if you won’t!’ Trudy winked.

  Stella accidentally winked back. She’d drifted into a tacit conspiracy with Trudy. Where Jackie encouraged Stella to eat fresh food, Trudy brought her ready meals, usually shepherd’s pie, Stella’s favourite. Jackie tried to encourage Stella to cultivate interests outside Clean Slate. Trudy encouraged Stella to stay late and arrive early by what Jack said was ‘presenteeism’. Stella disliked secrets, especially ones from Jackie. She colluded with Trudy because it suited her.

  Trudy was good at secrecy. Beyond glowing references (she’d been a ‘first-rate medical secretary, our loss is your gain!’), and despite Beverly’s oblique probing (‘Trudy, help! I have to make a stew for five, bet you’re a fabby cook…’), they knew little about Trudy’s life beyond that she was a widow. From comments she’d made Beverly had decided Trudy was estranged from a child. On team bowling nights, Trudy always got a clutch of strikes, but, never a gossip, offered no chit-chat. She never accepted invitations to Jackie and Graham’s Friday night family supper. A refusal that was extraordinary to Jack who never missed one. Stella said that people’s lives were their business and that all that mattered was that Trudy was as good a PA as Jackie had been. Stella liked that Trudy drew a line between work and social.

  ‘I’ll finish this and get going,’ Trudy reassured her now.

  Stella caught a glimpse of Trudy’s screen. Before she could stop herself, she read out, ‘“My mother is a murderer.” What’s that?’

  ‘The report from this morning’s meeting.’

  ‘What report?’ Stella was dismayed. What happened in the Murder Investigation Room stayed there.

  ‘Bev gave me her notes and a photocopy of your notebook. I’m creating one document that you can all refer to.’ Trudy whipped her hands off the keyboard as if burnt. ‘Was I wrong? God, sorry, Stella! Don’t blame Beverly, it was my idea.’

  ‘It’s a great idea. Just it’s more work for you. Detective work is outside your remit. I always do my own typing for that.’ Stella tugged her collar out from her jacket.

  ‘Your job is to solve the crime. Mine is to make that possible. Actually,’ Trudy swivelled to face Stella, ‘if you don’t mind me saying, Stella, this is a tough one. Daughter trying to prove Daddy didn’t do it. She would say that, wouldn’t she? Earl
y days, but do you have thoughts about who did it, a gut feeling?’

  Stella didn’t generally hold with gut feelings. Like her dad she followed the evidence. But even Terry had had hunches. In fact she did have preliminary thoughts and saw no harm in sharing them with Trudy.

  ‘Christopher Philips confessed to the murder. Even Carrie admits that he disposed of the body. If he didn’t do it then he’s protecting someone. Carrie thinks it’s his wife, her mother, so this isn’t about a woman unable to face that her parent is a murderer.’

  ‘Penelope Philips certainly had motive, she wouldn’t be the first partner to kill her husband’s lover. Even if Christopher Philips didn’t kill Cater, he betrayed Penelope. Maybe he confessed because he feels guilty for betraying her,’ said Trudy.

  ‘A big price to pay for guilt. After all adultery isn’t equivalent to murder.’ Stella wondered vaguely if the late husband had been unfaithful. Or if, an adulterer, he was as good as dead to Trudy. Whatever, as Clean Slate offered its customers, Trudy had come to them as a fresh start.

  ‘Some might disagree.’ Trudy pulled the typed notes off the printer. ‘That said, if Christopher jumped to the conclusion that his wife murdered his mistress he’d have revised it. You and Bev put that Penelope Philips was seen on CCTV in London. She’s in the clear.’

  ‘She could have paid a contract killer.’ Stella played devil’s advocate.

  ‘She was stabbed multiple times. Wouldn’t a hired killer get it right first time?’ Trudy stapled the report. ‘You have this, I’ll email it to the team.’

  Stella knew little about contract killings, but agreed that a professional would do a ‘clean’ kill. The police had said the frenzied attack signified high emotion, suggesting it was personal, but they should rule out nothing.

  ‘Whoever did it wanted someone dead.’ Trudy turned off the printer with a hollow laugh. ‘Those types wouldn’t come cheap. Chris Philips might have skimped and hired an amateur. His house is mortgaged to the hilt and the lease on his antiques shop is about to run out. I’m guessing that his mistress was bleeding him dry. That’s motive.’ She sighed. ‘What a terrible thing to happen in a such sweet little place in the country.’

  ‘I’ve been there.’ Had they not gone to stay in the Cotswolds Stella doubted she’d be with Jack now. She glanced out of the window. ‘It’s going to rain, you should get going.’

  ‘There was something about Carrie that I don’t trust.’

  ‘What?’ Stella had felt something similar, but put it down to Carrie’s accosting her at the crime scene clean-up.

  ‘Hard to say. Reading your very thorough notes, Stella, I feel there’s something she’s not saying.’ Trudy fitted the dust cover over her machine, one of her many innovations that Stella liked. ‘It may be nothing. I’ll sleep on it.’

  At the door, Stella flourished the report. ‘Thank you, Trudy, this will be helpful.’

  ‘It’s what I’m here for.’

  Trudy would never be Jackie, but she was close.

  Out in the street, Stella cogitated on Trudy’s observation. Beverly hadn’t noticed anything. Jack had had to rush off to drive a train, he’d have told her if he had suspected Carrie of withholding information. It was all too common for a client to give an incomplete brief. Some people wanted crimes solved to suit rather than uncomfortable truths uncovered. They were unwilling to give up secrets that cast them or a loved one in an unflattering light.

  Mulling on the case, Stella dodged idling traffic on the green and, attracted by appetizing smells, headed to stalls erected in the centre. Unlike her dad, not being in CID, Stella didn’t have jurisdiction to work on current crimes. She stuck to cold cases. Any murder investigation was clouded by the passage of time, the scene of crime became layered by other events, clues vanished. She never had the golden twenty-four hours in which a murderer stood the most chance of being caught. She had no access to police files. Or did she? Maybe she should have that coffee with Martin Cashman. Bad move. Martin would discourage her – forbid her – to re-examine any murder.

  Stella stopped by a stall selling Italian street food. She got out the report and in the light of her phone scanned Trudy’s perfectly laid out text. Carrie had said, ‘Chief Superintendent Cashman knows perfectly well that she did it.’ Stella had contradicted this. At the crime scene, Cashman had told her that the police had got the right killer. Her contradiction wasn’t in the notes because no one, including herself, had written it down.

  Lured by a garlic aroma Stella did an untypical thing and bought a slice of pizza from the stall. Clutching the warm paper, she looked across the green to Clean Slate’s offices, easy to spot above Sainsbury’s orange sign. The top windows were dark. A light burned in the outer office. Trudy always turned everything off. A break-in.

  Ever since Trudy had foiled a burglary at Stella’s house a year ago, Stella had become hyper-concerned about security. She had believed her house – once Terry’s – impregnable. She was heading back to the road when she guessed the truth. Trudy hadn’t yet left. Whatever Stella said to her, Trudy would not leave until her in-tray was empty.

  Her mind returning to the burglary attempt last November, Stella bit into the succulent slice. She had to gasp in cold air to mitigate burning. Terry’s computer had a bios password (it was several years old) no serious thief would bother with because they’d never crack the code. Stella couldn’t lose the suspicion that the intruder had been after something else.

  Stella considered going up to the office and shooing Trudy home. Except if Trudy had no one waiting for her there it was unfair to make her leave before she was ready.

  Munching on the pizza, Stella felt cheered by her chat with Trudy. She’d tell Jack about Trudy’s suspicion that Carrie Philips was keeping something back. Rachel Cater’s horrendous murder would mean that she and Jack must return to Winchcombe. The village where Jack reckoned that their relationship had begun.

  Chapter Thirteen

  1980

  ‘This what you’re looking for?’

  Sarah expected to see the Man from Abba. Danielle Hindle was by the gap in the fence. She held up something. The charm bracelet.

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah cried. She had known that her brother would be the one in trouble if she’d lost it.

  ‘Come and get it.’ Danielle slipped through the fence into thick bushes.

  Sarah was unsure who frightened her more. The man from Abba or Danielle Hindle. She remembered Robbie’s cry. A lump landing like a sack. Then the quiet like hiding. She had run to the side of the bandstand. She wasn’t invisible like in games at school. The movement gave her away. Danielle was on the top of the slide. Staring at her.

  ‘Come here.’

  Sarah wanted her bracelet so she did as she was told.

  Danielle was in the bushes. Putting the bracelet to her lips she bit on it. Sarah gasped as, with her teeth, Danielle pulled off a charm.

  Best Sister.

  ‘Don’t do that.’ Fear was drowned in fury. Sarah flung herself at the older girl.

  Danielle hit her. Distantly Sarah wondered at the hardness of Danielle’s fist. Like stone. Then everything disappeared.

  *

  Clouds raced across the darkening sky. From the park came the sound of an ice-cream van still plying a steady trade in the run-up to Christmas. The prison loomed on the horizon, the flint towers issuing a dire warning to miscreants. It was trying to snow, random flakes fluttering, but never settling.

  Despite the cold, while it was still light the playground had teemed with children, tearing across the concrete enacting variants of games going back centuries which generally involved an odd one out (Puss in the Corner, Bad Penny, Piggy in the Middle, You’re It). Kids had lurched the rocking boat forwards and upwards, bulleted down the slide and launched skyward on the swings.

  The gates closed at dusk. Now it was quiet and seemingly empty. The two children on the roundabout might be tricks of the dark.

  ‘Nice Doc Ms.’ Lee pushed until
the lumbering roundabout gathered speed and leapt on.

  ‘Thanks.’ Danielle kicked the heels of her new boots against the wood slats as Lee often did. Blackness whizzed by. When she was married to Lee they’d dance at the Palais, skate down the Bayswater rink and snog in the Regal like her mum and dad had. There would be no housework like Nicky had to do. Debating whether to tell Lee this so he’d want to marry her, instead she mined his unexpected compliment. ‘Why do you like them? My boots.’

  Lee played his torch over his own cherry red Doctor Martens. ‘They’re the same as mine.’

  ‘Are they?’ Danielle was overjoyed that he’d noticed. It made up for him not crying for Sarah like Nicky did about Robbie. She’d hoped to snog Lee to make him forget about Sarah.

  ‘They’re for boys,’ Lee decided.

  ‘They’re not!’

  ‘Where’s Nicky?’ Lee hung off the running board like a water skier, his bottom inches from the concrete.

  ‘She’s indoors.’ Sarah being murdered had made Nicola cry more. That morning Nicola lost her writing pencil. Although Owen Jones offered his Zippy pencil (from TV’s Rainbow) she’d gone on crying. She’d stopped when Lee gave her his chewed school pencil.

  ‘Since that mad funeral-thing and… and everything, she’s stayed in.’ Lee flashed the torch about, briefly revealing the witch’s hat, the swings like waiting enemies.

  ‘We could do a funeral for Sarah like we did for Robbie, if you like.’ Danielle should have thought of it sooner. She’d been busy being a detective for Inspector Darnell. This reminded Danielle about the man from Abba. She announced, ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘What of?’ Lee aimed the torch into the darkness, lighting up the slide ten feet away.

  ‘The murderer who murdered Robbie and Sarah.’ Danielle gave an exaggerated shudder.

  ‘Robbie wasn’t murdered,’ Lee said. ‘He fell off the slide and hit his head.’

  ‘Do you like ice skating?’ Danielle shuffled closer to Lee.