The Playground Murders

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘It says here that Lee was with his wife when he jumped. That’s particularly cruel.’ Stella cupped a hand over her phone to shield it from sunlight. ‘They had no children.’

  ‘Stella!’

  Stella felt a shove on her shoulder. Her rucksack was dragged off. Wheeling around to her assailant she just stopped herself punching an elderly woman.

  ‘Get away!’ Grey permed hair, watery eyes, lips crumpled by false teeth. The woman shoved a fist under Stella’s nose. ‘Go away or I’ll get the police on you.’

  ‘We are here to grieve.’ Jack was at the foot of the grave, eyes shut head bowed.

  ‘Grieve? My eye! You lot put my boy in there, now you can leave him in peace.’

  ‘You’re Lee’s mother!’ Stella shot Jack a look. They should go. Now.

  ‘Lee talked about you so often, I feel I know you!’ Jack glided around the grave. In black coats with pale skin, at a glance, they might be mother and son. ‘Mrs Marshall. I’m so pleased to meet you. I’m Jonathan. Lee and I were buddies!’ Jack was going undercover before her eyes.

  ‘It’s Ferris!’

  ‘Lee never mentioned you.’ Thankfully, Mrs Ferris hadn’t heard. ‘I knew my Lee’s friends. Including that Hindle devil.’

  ‘Everyone calls me Jack. We didn’t go back that far. I’d have liked to have known Lee when we were boys. We had lots in common. We loved our mums, for one thing.’ Jack was wistful.

  Stella was vertiginous with horror. If this went wrong it would go very wrong. It was wrong. Cleaners didn’t have to lie. She fought the urge to get going on the headstone.

  ‘Lee’d be gutted to know she’s sold all his things. Lock stock and barrel.’ Mrs Ferris whispered as if Lee might overhear, ‘Blood money.’

  ‘She?’ Jack dipped his head. Stella noticed that Mrs Ferris had used the same term as Kevin Hood.

  ‘Once Joanne buried my Lee, she was off.’

  ‘She saw it happen.’

  ‘Ah, Jo. Poor Jo!’ Jack looked stricken.

  Jo must be Lee Marshall’s partner, Stella supposed.

  ‘Poor nothing. Witch!’

  ‘Witch. Yes!’ Jack agreed. ‘Witch.’

  ‘She never loved Lee. How could she say those things?’ Mrs Ferris’s energy abruptly sapped, she rested a hand on the headstone as if felled. Stella supposed if Lee was in his forties that made Mrs Ferris about seventy. Grief had scored her face with lines.

  ‘What did she say?’ Mirroring Mrs Ferris, Jack put his hand on the stone. Adept at reading body language, he’d be trying to win the woman’s confidence.

  ‘Jo only goes and tells Lee he ruined her life! Lee should have wed that Nicky Walsh, a lovely girl. I was that upset when she married. She used to come and see us. I heard she’s a grandmother now. Joanne couldn’t fall pregnant. What does she do?’

  ‘What does she do?’ Jack enquired of the headstone.

  ‘He had the pick of girls. I told her, “count yourself lucky!”’ Cathy gazed at her son’s grave.

  Stanley was nosing around the stone. Stella had fancied training him as a cadaver dog, but didn’t want him starting now.

  ‘…try managing on your own with a little boy and a dog. Alan hates dogs. Boys too.’ Mrs Ferris picked at moss on the granite. She murmured, ‘Joanne and me never saw eye to eye.’

  ‘Why was that?’ Jack looked sad. Stella suspected it was real. Jack wanted families to be perfect. Jackie said it was because, until Stella and his children, he’d never had a proper family. Not that they were a family.

  ‘She was out for what she could get from my Lee. Nice home, life of Riley.’ She yanked at groundsel growing behind the stone.

  ‘Where has Lee’s wife gone?’ Stella asked. Was Jo Marshall dead too? Given resources it would help if the suspect list was short. But not too short.

  ‘There.’ Mrs Ferris pointed at the grass.

  ‘Hell?’ Jack was tentative.

  ‘Australia.’

  ‘Do you have an address for her? I ought to send my condolences.’ Jack was talking like an undertaker.

  Mrs Ferris confronted Stella. ‘I didn’t see you at the funeral?’

  ‘No, I…’ Beginning to believe Jack’s scenario, Stella felt guilty.

  ‘We’ve been abroad. We didn’t know that Lee had… passed,’ Jack explained.

  They heard beeping. For a ghastly moment Stella supposed it came from the grave.

  ‘Alan? What’s the matter, luvvy?… See my note.’ Mrs Ferris was on the phone.

  Stella heard yelling on the other end. Alan Ferris. Father of Sarah. Suspect.

  ‘I’ve gone to the grave. What? Sarah’s. No, not Lee! I’m leaving but I’ll have a wait for the bus. Back no later than three o’clock. It’s on the note.’ Cathy Ferris thrust the phone back in her handbag. ‘That was Alan, my husband. He’s got dementia. I can’t leave him long.’ She walked away.

  ‘We’ll give you a lift.’ Jack caught her up.

  ‘Jack…’ Stella stopped. They were detectives, they must capitalize on the turn of events. Were they cleaners, offering to drive the frail woman was only right. She’d get cold queuing for a bus.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  2019

  The first thing Jack saw when Cathy Ferris showed them into the sitting room of her house on Braybrook Street was a shrine to Sarah – candles, cards, photos – nearly forty years on, Sarah was far from forgotten.

  Pigtails. Pearly white teeth. She grinned as if responding to a joke. There was no getting away from the terrible fact. Cathy and Alan Ferris had lost a child to murder. Sarah Ferris looked like the kind of child who was always busy. Keep still, Sarah love, and smile for the nice photographer. Were Sarah alive, she’d be in her forties, kids of her own.

  ‘Are they the bailiffs?’ In a chair by the gas fire, Alan Ferris, a big man, fixed Jack and Stella with a glare in which Jack detected a glint of malice.

  ‘No, Al. We don’t need the bailiffs. They’re friends of… they’re my friends. You read your paper. We’re going in the kitchen so as not to bother you.’

  ‘Where’ve you been? You’ve been out all day.’

  ‘I told you, I was visiting Sarah’s grave. I took her lovely flowers from us. I’ve not been long.’ Mechanical patience. Jack had seen no flowers.

  ‘Who are they?’ Alan Ferris bundled up his newspaper and tossed it on the carpet.

  ‘Nice people.’ She retrieved the paper, refolded it and returned it to him. ‘Listen, Al. Remember Ron’s coming to take you to the library. That’ll be grand, won’t it?’

  Jack had seen homes of people whose relatives had died suddenly, through illness, accident and murder. Stella brought him in to clean for those poleaxed by loss. Some had decorated away reminders of the loved one. Others, like the Ferrises, were dominated by the dead.

  The room was shabby, the old carpet stained, and there was a dent in the plaster of the wall above Alan’s chair. The shrine was the focus of the room. Sarah had been incorporated into her parents’ lives. Always young and full of promise.

  ‘Alan smashed his fist into the wall when the police told us about Sarah.’ Cathy Ferris had seen Jack notice the dent. ‘He broke a finger.’

  The act of a distraught father or a clever murderer? Jack wondered.

  ‘Terrible.’ Alan Ferris still possessed rage. If he lost his temper, Jack wouldn’t like to be on the end of it.

  ‘What’s terrible?’ Alan Ferris poked a finger at the space above his nose as if adjusting the spectacles that lay on a table beside him. When Jack passed them over, Ferris took them without acknowledgement.

  ‘The weather. We’ll make sure you’re wrapped up for when Ron comes.’ Cathy Ferris was adroit at fending off her husband. She beckoned Jack and Stella out of the room.

  The kitchen was a surprise. Modern Shaker-style cupboards, a vinyl flooring patterned like terracotta tiles, it was bright and cheery. Pots of red geraniums lined the window sill. Two ready meals from a catering company which Jack kn
ew was for older people defrosted on a tea towel by the microwave.

  ‘Tea?’ Cathy Ferris grabbed the kettle.

  ‘No thank you.’ Stella wouldn’t want to give Cathy extra work.

  ‘Yes please. Milk no sugar.’ Jack knew that Cathy must keep busy. Stella would be annoyed that he’d claimed to be Lee’s friend. Yet Jack felt close to the man who, little older than himself, had been unable to manage life. Jack could forgive Lee’s method of suicide. He’d change his mind if it transpired that Lee had killed his sister and couldn’t live with the guilt any longer. Why had that idea come into his mind? Was it something that Kevin Hood had said? The man was surely one of very few who had remained loyal to Danielle Hindle.

  The layout of the flat was identical to the upstairs of Stella’s house. They were in what was her study, once her bedroom. A family of four (then three) occupied a space half the size of the house in which Terry lived alone once Suzie took Stella. A different kind of loss that Jack suspected had broken the detective’s heart and shortened his life.

  ‘I’ll get Joanne’s address,’ Cathy said. ‘If Alan comes in, he’ll have forgotten you. Say you’re friends or he’ll think you’re here to steal off of us.’ Steadying herself on the counter, Cathy Ferris feathered her way out of a door. She could have brought them into the kitchen without bothering Alan. She had wanted them to see him.

  ‘Lee looks like Sarah.’ Stella was studying photographs stuck to the side of a combi boiler. Out of the eyeline, it was a secret shrine. Every picture was of Lee. A baby in a high chair, head gleefully tipped back, spoon clutched in a chubby fist. Jack had taken a similar picture of Milly. Lee subverting a school photo with a loose tie and cool stare. The toddler Lee ‘reading’ Woman’s Own in a playpen. Lee tearing towards the camera on a trike. Aged about ten, natty in jeans jacket lounging on a patio chair with Sarah hugging up to him. Lackadaisical brother, adoring sister. The date on the print, 25 November 1980. In a couple of weeks Sarah would be dead. Lee, handsome and tall. Arm in arm with a woman in a bridal gown outside a church. Someone had scrubbed out Joanne’s face with black felt tip.

  ‘She must hate her daughter-in-law,’ he said.

  ‘There were no pictures of Lee in the front room.’

  ‘Cathy Ferris lied to her husband about visiting Sarah’s grave.’

  ‘Maybe she did visit it then came to Lee’s.’

  ‘Why not say?’ Jack said.

  ‘Because Alan would kill me.’ Cathy Ferris was back. ‘He hates Lee. He wanted a virgin bride, but got me and Lee. When Sarah was taken from us Alan blamed Lee. I should never have gone with him.’

  ‘Did you blame Lee?’ Stella didn’t beat around any bushes.

  ‘It was my fault. I shouldn’t have remarried. I just kept hoping that Alan would accept Lee. Especially when he had his own child. But after Sarah came along he was worse. As soon as he could get out, Lee went into the army. He met Joanne in Germany. Her father was a colonel stationed in Berlin. Right from the off, Joanne acted like she was better than us. Well, I suppose in a way she was. She took Lee away.’ She flapped a postcard at Jack. ‘This is where she lives. If you write to her, say I’m keeping up Lee’s grave, that’ll teach her!’

  The sorrowful tone didn’t match the vindictive words.

  Jack took the card. ‘Come Down Under!’ was emblazoned across emblems of Australia: a koala, a kangaroo, shots of Uluru and the Sydney Opera House. On the back in green pen, ‘It’s hot! When you visit, we’ll go to the beach.’ Beneath was a series of characters. The card was signed ‘Jo’, with a kiss inside the ‘o’ and a heart around it. ‘This is a Skype tag. Do you have a postal address for her?’

  ‘She said she’d send it when she’s settled. She never did. She’s living the high life on his money.’ Cathy spoke dreamily. One stage of grief was anger but, Jack wondered, was Cathy Ferris through this and now exhausted, incapable of any emotion?

  ‘Have you talked to Joanne on Skype?’ Stella said.

  ‘I don’t have a computer. It’s not natural to be watched on the phone.’ Cathy poked at one of the ready meals and pulled a face. ‘Lee tried to get me interested in that sort of thing. He said you can find school friends. I hated school! So did Lee.’

  An understatement, Jack thought, considering that Lee’s school friend killed his sister.

  ‘You don’t know where in Australia his widow lives?’ Stella persisted. The postmark was too smudged to read.

  ‘She’s gone. Good riddance.’ In a weary monotone.

  Joanne Marshall had given her mother-in-law a method of contact that doubtless she knew Cathy would never use. Perhaps the antipathy was mutual.

  ‘Do you know where Danielle Hindle is now?’ Stella popped in the question.

  ‘No idea.’ Seemingly unfazed by the sudden change of subject, Cathy answered and changed it back. ‘They sent convicts to Australia. Wouldn’t surprise me if Jo was from that stock.’

  ‘She’s Australian? I thought her father was in the British army?’ Stella asked.

  ‘Her grandfather was from there. His son immigrated to Britain.’

  ‘Does the name Rachel Cater mean anything?’ Jack was sailing close to the wind asking this on the heels of mention of Danielle Hindle.

  ‘Was she a friend of Lee’s?’ Cathy Ferris perked up.

  ‘No.’ Jack felt shame. Lee’s mother was hungry for contact with anyone who’d known her dead son. Her husband wouldn’t let her talk about Lee. Joanne Marshall had gone to Australia to escape her past. There was no one to help Cathy keep the flame alive except two would-be detectives posing as Lee’s friends. Stella was right, being undercover stank.

  ‘Do you and Alan get out at all?’ Stella wasn’t asking as a detective, she’d be concerned for Cathy as the primary carer.

  ‘Alan went out with the church. It gave me a break. It stopped when he took against that woman vicar. He can’t help it, he thinks everyone’s trying to con us. He’s not wrong. Some are.’ She shot an anxious glance at the front room.

  ‘Who is out to get you?’ Stella was gentle.

  ‘Police, the newspapers, neighbours. When your child is murdered it doesn’t stop there. The police treated us like criminals. They took this place apart. Inspector Darnell had his sights on Alan. He was on at Lee to give Alan up. If Alan had done it, Lee would have said so in a blink. He was a good lad. We heard who did it from a lady reporter who came knocking.’ She sucked on her teeth. ‘Your baby is murdered. You don’t matter.’

  ‘The police have to cover all bases. Did you have FLOs… family liaison officers?’ asked the daughter of a police officer.

  ‘Sharon and Mick were sent to spy on us. The L stands for Listening.’ She fussed the geraniums, repositioning the pots. ‘Neighbours said how lovely Sarah was, but it was only to get their faces on the television. They came round with stew. Alan sent them packing. We weren’t charity cases. Those ones meant well. Some did a procession down our street, for bringing back hanging. They’ve gone into their hutches now the cameras have left. I heard that one family bought their council house on Sarah. They gave the News of the World a pack of lies. Most round here cross the road when they see me coming.’ Cathy spoke without ire. She plucked a dead leaf from a geranium. ‘I don’t blame them. Bad luck’s catching. What with Alan…’

  ‘Alan?’ Stella prompted.

  ‘The dementia takes you different ways. He was angry anyway. Jealous. Hated me looking at another man. Not that I did.’ Cathy looked at Jack as if she’d detected the Alan in him. As if he knew that Jack wanted to stuff Bella’s bloke Harry in a box. ‘Before Sarah, Alan followed me to see who I was with.’ Cathy watered the geraniums with a little can, splashing the sill, pausing to prod the soil with a finger. ‘Nowadays he forgets what I say. I write it out, he forgets to read it or forgets he has read it. If we do get out he shouts at people in the street.’

  ‘That must be difficult,’ Stella said.

  ‘Listen, lovey, when your baby is crushed with a br
ick in the playground and your son goes in front of a train, nothing is difficult.’ Cathy Ferris put down the watering can. ‘Last week, down the market, Alan goes and drags a tiny kiddie off of her mum. Yelling she was Sarah. I stopped him getting arrested. He used to know she’s dead. Now he gets muddled.’ She grabbed a fork and stabbed the plastic, then shoved the containers into the microwave and set it going. ‘Alan called Lee selfish for hurting me. Lee never hurt me. He was the best son. Alan never went to his funeral.’

  ‘Is Alan the type to take revenge?’ Stella wiped up pooling water on the sill with a cloth from her emergency cleaning kit and Jack recalled why he loved her. He loved Stella too much. Like Alan Ferris, he’d been tempted to follow Stella to check she wasn’t with Cashman. He had a black heart.

  ‘If Alan found Danielle Hindle, he’d smash her with a brick and stab her in the back with a knife.’

  The microwaved pinged.

  *

  ‘All right, Cathy?’ A woman stopped on the pavement as Jack and Stella were leaving. ‘How’s Al doing? Heard about that ruck down the market.’

  Cathy pulled a face. ‘Glad we seen you, Joy. These are friends of Lee’s asking about Danielle.’

  ‘I didn’t know Lee. Or Danielle,’ Stella hastened to say. Joy Hindle had retained the style of make-up and clothes from photographs of her from thirty-nine years ago.

  ‘Why’s that?’ A shadow passed across Hindle’s face. Then she smiled, ‘Come in. You too, Cath?’

  ‘Better not. He’s in a strop because I went to Lee’s grave. That’s where I found…’ Cathy was talking more to herself as she wandered back inside.

  Stella was surprised that the women, one the mother of the murder victim, the other the mother of the murderer, were on speaking terms.

  ‘We’d love to!’ Jack spoke into Stella’s silence.

  Mrs Hindle showed them into a living room reeking of stale smoke. Unlike the Ferrises’s upstairs flat, the Hindles occupied the entire house. The place was piled with newspapers and magazines, an open Amazon box lay at their feet, plastic bubble packing seemingly everywhere. Two plastic garden chairs faced the television. On a couch a man in his forties watched boxing on a tablet that, Stella guessed, had been in the box.