The Playground Murders

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘You can’t sleep up here.’ Stella sounded feeble to herself

  ‘Oh. What do you suggest? I join the wee bairns in your lounge?’ Inexplicably speaking with a Scottish accent, Danielle shuffled to a sitting position against Stella’s box of dolls. Back to her BBC voice: ‘When Terry arranged to see me in the playground he said he had to go to catch a murderer. He wouldn’t let me help. I was annoyed. I reminded him he’d retired. He was on the scrap heap. Go home, do the garden. He was panting and hot as if he’d done a marathon. I doubt he could have run for a bus. Of course he was dying.’ She closed the report and snatched off her glasses. Seems the detective’s daughter and her train driver solved Terry’s case. He was telling the truth. He was about to go after a murderer. He should have asked me.’ She gave Stella an icy glance.

  ‘Dad always told the truth.’ Stella had left her phone in her bedroom. ‘You are not allowed to return to the area where you murdered those children. We’re three miles from the playground. If the police knew you were here, they’d rearrest you.’

  ‘How could they know?’ Hindle cleaned her glasses on the edge of the sleeping bag. ‘Going to snitch, are you? Coppers’ nark! Terry said you were a goody two-shoes.’ She slipped the report into the box. Stella resisted snatching it from her. Cleaning had made her strong and agile, but it would be beyond stupid to take on Hindle up here. Anywhere. Terry had taught her to be good. If he’d called her ‘goody two-shoes’ he’d meant that nicely.

  ‘Be quiet until the children have gone. They’re being fetched at seven. Then I’ll decide what to do with you,’ she told Hindle.

  ‘You’ll decide what to do with me?’ The laugh was devoid of humour.

  Stella knew that nothing was up to her. Her task – the challenge of her life – was to keep Jack’s two children safe from a woman who had brutally murdered two children.

  ‘Stella?’ Hindle called softly.

  ‘Yes?’ Stella was closing the hatch.

  ‘Thank you for letting me stay.’

  ‘It’s…’ ‘OK’ stuck in her throat.

  ‘I’m so happy to be in Terry’s house.’

  *

  Stella did not sleep. She’d kept her door ajar although it exposed her to a ruthless killer. She’d sat on the bed, a triptych of agony reflected in the mirrored wardrobe doors, her senses sharp for sounds from the attic and from the living room. Once, when Hindle had gone to the bathroom, Stella grabbed her hairbrush and crept onto the landing. Hindle had pulled the chain and emerging she’d nodded to Stella (who supposed herself hidden) and returned to the attic. Her eyes screwed up in a grimace, Stella had dreaded that rushing water in the pipe would rouse the children. There was silence. Twice Stella sneaked out of her bedroom onto the landing to lock Hindle in then call the police. Twice she changed her mind. How would she even begin to explain?

  Sometime towards dawn, Stella’s head nodded and she slipped into sleep. She dreamed that she was cleaning an overflowing toilet at a crime scene. No matter what she did, the effluence rose, threatening to engulf her.

  *

  The bells of St Peter’s church struck six. A breeze ruffled the blossom of cherry trees facing Rose Gardens North like an unseasonable snowfall. A middle-aged man wheeled a bike out of a house midway along the cul-de-sac. He ducked under the strap of his bag and cycled away along Black Lion Lane. Laser rays of sunlight banished vestiges of grey dawn, glancing off the white paintwork of Stella’s Peugeot Partner van. They made jewels of quartz shards in the paving. The dawn chorus had competition. From Stella’s house at the end of the terrace came the hum of a machine.

  At five o clock Stella, her neck even stiffer than last night, her head aching, had heard noises in the kitchen. She found Milly feeding Stanley mounds of dog food. ‘We got it from the fridge with a chair,’ Justin assured her. Milly explained, ‘Stanley says he hasn’t eaten for a very long time.’ Getting the hint, Stella offered them the Weetabix she kept in for their dad. Milly had informed Stella she only ate mooselli. Stella had informed Milly that there was only Weetabix. Observing Justin tucking into his, Milly had one biscuit and after experimentally nibbling at it with her spoon, wolfed down a bowlful and asked for seconds.

  After breakfast, Milly announced it would be extra special to poo in the bucket. Stella would normally have been grateful at Justin’s insistence that they use the toilet. She weighed up the lesser of two evils: that Justin’s sense of propriety was offended; or that the children discovered Hindle. Despite her dream, the toilet won. She and Milly paced outside the bathroom while Justin pooed. When it was her turn, Milly demanded Stella come too and give her lavatory paper. Stella, alert for sounds in her study or above them which young and inquisitive ears would catch, doled out long strips from the roll before Milly was ready and got upbraided for ‘not doing it like Mummy’.

  Washed, dressed and fed, trailing their stuffed animals, Justin asked Stella what was happening next. Stella explained that Daddy was coming at seven. An hour and a quarter was a lifetime in which to divert two lively tots from a child-killer. Stella had settled on a walk with Stanley when Milly insisted that what she wanted most in all the world was to drive the big orange car. Stella had been puzzled. Only a nanosecond. She too was very keen to try out her new portable sanitizer. Bright orange and temporarily parked by the back door.

  Milly quickly mastered the machine. She ignored Stella’s weak attempt to supervise, and deep cleaned the kitchen.

  Milly then steered the sanitizer into the living room where Justin, yellow Marigolds reaching to his armpits, was polishing the woodwork. He guided a beeswaxed cloth along the grain of the wood. He recited Stella’s motto, ‘a little cream goes a long way,’ to the bear propped on the settee beside a giraffe beaker ‘for when Portus Teddy got thirsty’.

  ‘There are no clues left,’ Milly declared.

  ‘Germs,’ Stella corrected her.

  ‘Clues.’ Milly was stern. ‘We’re detectives. Daddy says you have to find clues stain by stain!’

  Hearing her own motto spouted with conviction from the mouth of a nearly three-year-old, Stella felt a flood of happiness. ‘Maybe let me help?’ She plugged in the sanitizer.

  ‘I do it on my self!’ On principle, Milly disagreed with everything that Stella said.

  Justin was a reserved little boy. Like his father he made landscapes of minutiae: flower beds, a corner of the landing, his bit of their bedroom. Unlike Jack, he had a loud and boisterous twin sister. Justin appreciated that Milly carved a path for him. She followed his stories peopled with a huge cast of characters. Milly had taught her brother to ride a scooter (with four wheels) and work their clock radio after they were meant to be in the Land of Nod. Justin was a perfectionist like his mother. Like Stella. He must polish upstairs.

  *

  When they’d gone up to poo Stella had said a room by the lavatory was ‘Out of Bounds’. If Milly hadn’t been wanting to show Stella pooing she would have made them go in. Justin had never heard ‘Out of Bounds’. He pictured Peter Rabbit. He knew about not touching things. They had to keep away from Mummy’s desk with her drawing things. Justin supposed that beyond the door was a drawing board and sharp knives that they were especially not to touch. He could polish everything else. Couldn’t he…

  From the sitting room came the hum of the orange car. Milly was laughing. Justin felt pleased. Since Mummy’s friend Harry had come, Milly didn’t laugh much.

  He planted Portus Teddy inside the neck of his jumper and turned the handle of ‘Out of Bounds’.

  ‘You’re not allowed in here.’ A lady swung around from the computer.

  ‘I’m here to polish for Stella,’ Justin faltered.

  ‘Go away or you’ll be in trouble. More to the point, so will I.’

  As good at judging nuance as Jack, the boy gleaned that the lady shouldn’t be in Out of Bounds either. Counterintuitively, this made him bold. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘No one!’

  ‘You can’t be no one.’
Justin hesitated. Perhaps you could.

  ‘Nose out!’

  ‘Will I die?’ Justin was solemn.

  ‘We’ll all die,’ the woman snapped. ‘Leave. Now.’

  ‘Will you be all right all by yourself?’ Justin bobbed Portus Teddy at her.

  The woman smiled and Justin saw all her teeth.

  ‘I’m always all right.’

  *

  Please can you take J and M into the office? I’ll come there. Sorry! xxx

  Stella was annoyed by Jack’s text. They could have left the house earlier.

  Minutes later, the house spick and span, she rounded up the twins. She struggled with the child seats which Jack had left with her (meaning that he’d known he wouldn’t be back?), and mastering the clips, strapped them in. Stanley rode shotgun on Stella’s cleaning equipment bag.

  Milly struck up a song with Mr Sssnake. The verses were a jumble of words, but Stella got the chorus, ‘Clean so deep, scrub-a-dub-dub.’ As they sped along the Great West Road, she and Justin joined in.

  The drama of the last hours ebbed. Stella made a plan. She’d leave the children with Trudy and return to the house. She’d drive Danielle back to the Cotswolds and then she would tell Jack that she couldn’t work the case. Stella never ever wanted to see Hindle again.

  ‘Clean so deep…’ She’d got through the children’s visit without them meeting one of the UK’s most notorious child-killers. The danger was over.

  ‘Clean so deep, scrub-a-dub-dub!’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  2019

  Barley Cottage was a large house on the river in Walton-on-Thames, it bore no resemblance to the little house in Braybrook Street where Nicola Walsh had grown up. Set behind railings, steps led to a faux Georgian porch. Verges were dotted with primroses and narcissi, bright yellow in the sunshine. Spring was in the air.

  Jack was making it up to Stella. Instead of fetching the children from her house, he had arranged to meet Nicola, older sister of Robbie Walsh.

  Beverly had emailed him a fact sheet. Nicola’s husband was a commercial lawyer called Dominic. Nicola had one daughter and two grandsons. She didn’t work. Her father, Robert, had died in 1998. Beverly hadn’t tracked down Gillian. Jack hoped that the Walshes had found some peace in their later years.

  Jack had been serious that Nicola might prefer seeing Stella. At nine in the morning, he was banking on Dominic being at work; he imagined the husband would send him packing.

  Unlike Cathy Ferris, trauma hadn’t marked Nicola, physically at least. Expensive make-up, facials and hair-dos plus, Jack guessed, shots of botox had kept the years at bay. Forty-eight going on twenty-eight. In a crimson embroidered jacket glinting with gold threads and mustard-coloured trousers, Nicola looked smart for a chat with some bloke about the girl who’d murdered her brother. Maybe she always looked like that.

  Jack flipped up the lanyard he used on cleaning shifts for Stella. Clean Slate Operative. The title could suggest a detective.

  ‘Jack Harmon. As my colleague Beverly said on the phone yesterday, I’m investigating your brother’s death.’

  ‘Come in.’ Ignoring his ID, Nicola floated down a carpeted hallway to the back of the house.

  Jack’s first impression was of clutter and discordant noise. Children’s toys, dolls, an abacus, balls, bricks, a wooden tractor like the one Bella’s mother had given Justin. Two boys struggled for possession of a battery-operated keyboard, the source of the clamour.

  ‘Clear up this mess, Crispin,’ Nicola told the older boy just as he got the keyboard off his brother who, bursting into tears, ran from the room. Nicola appeared not to notice. Crispin set about flinging toys into a travelling trunk like the one Jack’s father had passed to him for boarding school. Jack’s heart squeezed. Crispin could be Robbie Walsh.

  ‘Tea, coffee. Something stronger?’ Nicola led them to the end of the room and waved for Jack to join her on a sofa with the high sides and back roped together, a design Jack had never understood. It wasn’t like you ever undid the ropes. French doors ahead and to his right were open onto a wraparound deck. Beyond, a lawn sloped to a private mooring on the Thames. It should have been idyllic, but it gave Jack the creeps.

  Opting for nothing, Jack suspected that Nicola would have kept him company with the ‘something stronger’.

  ‘You want to know about Robbie.’ Her dreamy smile revealed the work of a top-notch dentist.

  Steeped in the fairy tales that he read to the twins on access nights, Jack saw Nicola was the princess in the tower. Her long tresses up in a French knot would come in handy were she minded to flee her waterside heaven for real life.

  ‘Don’t do that, Crispin,’ Nicola said without looking.

  With a sheepish grin, ‘Robbie Reincarnated’ stopped stripping the wheels off the tractor. His little brother was back. He sat, his expression disconsolate, beside a life-size Chinese woman who was bearing what looked like a sponge cake but must be a votive offering. Everything in the room was larger than life: a model dog, vast dining chairs that might have been carved straight out of a gnarled tree. Nicola and Dominic had flapped plastic in one of those emporiums selling items the size of a bus that, imported from faraway lands, gave a home an instant air of the exotic. There were three chess boards laid out on the table in the room. It reminded Jack of the clocks in the Dali jigsaw. The room could be an art installation that expressed how families never talk.

  ‘I won’t trouble you for long.’ Nor would he. Jack felt rotten for troubling Nicola at all. This could be why Stella had baled out. She hated the undercover thing.

  ‘It was a long time ago?’ Nicola sounded unsure of this.

  ‘Are you in touch with anyone from those days?’

  ‘My mother is in a home. She asks if Robbie is coming. She’s got dementia. Everyone does these days.’ Nicola sighed as if dementia was an annoying fad.

  ‘What about the kids you hung out with?’

  ‘“Hung out with.”’ Nicola repeated the phrase as if trying it for size. ‘Kevin Hood arranged our mortgage years ago. Not seen him since. We’ve paid it off. Dominic rated him.’ As if this was the point of Jack’s question.

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘No.’ She gazed out at the river. A willow tree at the bottom of the garden added to the perfect scene. ‘Lee and I met. On a train the Spring before last Spring. Said we’d keep in touch. We didn’t.’ She picked up a stray ball from the carpet and began kneading it.

  Nicola had not pulled off a murder. She was having trouble forming sentences. Mentally, Jack deleted her from the suspect list. ‘Lee Marshall killed himself soon after you saw him.’ That was a bit mean, but he needed to wake her up and clicking his fingers was rude.

  ‘The shit!’ Nicola hurled the ball at the Osborn and Little wallpaper. It bounced away; putting up a hand, Crispin did a fielder’s catch. Cool.

  ‘Lee killed his sister and never had the guts to admit it!’ Nicola shouted. Jack had woken her up.

  ‘Wait! What? You’re saying Lee killed Sarah?’

  ‘He didn’t look after her properly. Especially after… after.’ She subsided into her chair.

  ‘You told the police that when you ran away from Derek Parsley, the man from Abba, Lee was holding your hand?’

  ‘There was a killer on the loose. Lee should have stayed,’ she said.

  ‘Why would you think there was a killer on the loose?’ Jack probed. ‘The police believed that your brother fell off the slide. It wasn’t until Sarah was murdered that they investigated Robbie’s death. I’m looking into whether Danielle Hindle pushed Robbie off the slide. Hindle’s never admitted she killed Sarah Ferris, and certainly not your brother.’

  ‘Danni hated that Lee loved me.’ Nicola rubbed her palm as if at a stigmata. ‘She was my best friend. She pushed Robbie off the slide and forced Sarah to keep it secret.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Jack tried to contain his excitement. ‘There were no witnesses. Kevin Hood found Robbie. I thi
nk they suspected him for a while.’

  ‘Sarah saw it happen.’ Nicola went out onto the terrace.

  ‘Did she tell you this?’ Jack went after her. The garden was geometrically neat, beds of palm-like plants, their spiky leaves casting cut-out shadows on the lawn. A willow tree shaded a nook beside the river. ‘Are you saying that Sarah witnessed Robbie’s death?’

  ‘Lee didn’t believe her. If he had, Robbie and Sarah would be alive today.’ Nicola’s fingers dug at her palm.

  Jack resisted pointing out that Robbie would still be dead. ‘Lee told you this on the bus?’

  ‘The top deck was empty. Some man goes and sits next to me. “All right, Nick?” I recognized Lee immediately. I could have died. Lee started going on about how I was the love of his life and we should have stayed together. I put a stop to that. Dominic would divorce me. That’s when Lee told me about Sarah. I said to his wife he was in a state. Going on about how he should have believed Sarah and how the police sided with that bitch. I remembered Danni boasting she was sending them clues and working at the police station. She was a liar. I told his wife, Lee got like the whole world was against him.’ Nicola glanced at an expensive watch. ‘Is that the time?’

  ‘Nine thirty. Yes.’

  ‘I think I will have something. All this talk of Lee. Sure that you won’t join me?’

  ‘It’s too early for me.’ Jack regretted the judgemental response.

  ‘For me too.’ Deflated, Nicola sat down on one of the patio chairs and leaned over the balustrade. ‘I’m sorry that Lee’s dead.’

  Jack pictured Lee and Nicola, shadows of the children they had been, raking the ashes of a poisoned past. Danielle Hindle’s crimes had shattered their lives. Lee had jumped in front of a train. In front of his wife too. Nicola was likely dependant on drink, drugs too, going by the drifting manner.

  ‘Did you tell the police what Lee said?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Nicola rose from the chair and returned to the room. She picked up a toy car that Crispin had missed and handed it to the little boy by the Chinese figure. ‘Play with that, darling.’