The Playground Murders

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘I’m fine…’ he’d heard her say.

  Nursing his hand, Jack jumped off the climbing frame and went over to the swings. Ghost swings in the ethereal light. He’d pushed Milly here. In another lifetime. He sat on one and set it going. Despite his coat, Jack shivered. Like Orpheus, he was condemned.

  The roundabout appeared to be moving. Pushed by ghost children. Jack’s anger receded. He loved Stella. Her expression when he’d brought the children was not reluctance to care for Justin and Milly, she’d been trapped. He hadn’t given her a chance to refuse.

  It was Stella who had made the first move six months ago. Jackie and Beverly had both had a go at him.

  ‘Ask her out. Invite her for a meal,’ Jackie had urged.

  ‘She hates eating in restaurants.’

  ‘Get a takeaway. Tell her you love her.’ Bev all loved up herself said it was easy.

  Jack was bedevilled by what he knew would be Stella’s response.

  ‘I see you as a friend. Almost a brother. I don’t mix work with pleasure. We are a team, let’s leave it there.’

  ‘I still have feelings for Martin Cashman.’

  Tortured by this exchange, it paralysed him. Months went by. Jack said nothing. Nor did Stella, which proved him right.

  Until the day she had stopped him in the hall of a house in Chiswick they were cleaning for a sale. She had pulled him to her and kissed him. Long and more passionate than he could ever had dreamed of.

  ‘I love you, Jack.’

  As he remembered her words now, Jack was furious with himself. Tonight he had ruined everything. He had taken her love and trampled it to nothing.

  Jack wasn’t aware of leaving the playground. Stella had kept Danielle Hindle out of sight. She’d protected his children. More than that, she’d found a way to entertain, to delight them. Stella had given them something of herself. Justin disobeyed her about the study because he’d wanted to give Stella something back. Justin had understood that cleaning mattered to her. Justin’s father was a bloody fool.

  Jack flagged a taxi on the Ducane Road and gave the woman his destination. Home. The cab chugged past the hospital where Stella had been born. Stella didn’t have scalpels in her office. That was Bella, the children’s mother, who left them out, despite his insisting she lock them in a drawer.

  Stella had lived amidst shouting and animosity when her parents’ marriage was disintegrating. She still shrank from loud voices and confrontation. Tonight he’d shouted unforgivable things. Stella had done her best for his children and he had flayed her.

  The taxi dropped Jack by the statue called The Leaning Woman beside the Great West Road. He passed the subway entrance. The mouth of a cave. He crept through the cherry trees to Stella’s house and took up a position behind a bush. Light through her bedroom blind told him she was awake. Of course she was. Jack fought back tears. He was more than a fool. He was a shit.

  A woman stepped into the lamplight yards from him. She went to Stella’s door.

  Two faint taps.

  The door opened. Jack had no difficulty recognizing Stella’s late-night caller. Stella checked the street before she ushered Danielle Hindle inside.

  Jack smashed through the trees. At The Leaning Woman, he stopped.

  There was only one place he could go.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  2019

  Stella’s van wasn’t outside her house. Trudy knew that sometimes Stella parked at a distance to mislead unwanted callers. Beverly had let slip that once Stella had had an ex who stalked her. That, and the fact that when she wasn’t deep cleaning she was hunting down murderers, made Stella careful.

  Trudy knocked. There was no light, but that meant nothing. If Trudy didn’t want people to know she was in she kept lights off at the front. She peeped through the letter box. She was met with a warm draught of air. A black cloth was draped over the aperture to prevent anyone looking through the flap. Sensible. And annoying. Trudy knocked again. Hastily she looked behind her for a neighbourhood-watching busybody. The trouble with those people was they missed anything that mattered.

  Ever since Stella had found out who Penelope Philips really was, Trudy had known Stella was in danger. She let herself into Stella’s hallway. The file of letters to be signed – given the late hour an absurd passport to entry – was under her arm. She’d needed an excuse. Stella hated to be fussed. Trudy couldn’t tell her the real reason for her visit.

  She called out. She had no wish to catch Stella unawares.

  Dread mounted when Trudy found each room empty. She texted Stella. Already knowing she wouldn’t get a reply.

  It wasn’t always a satisfaction to be right.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  2019

  ‘Sit there. Don’t move,’ Lucie barked. ‘I’m doing this for Stella. Any silly buggers and I’m calling the police. Capiche?’

  Lounging on the settee in Lucie May’s Murder Room, Danielle Hindle covered a yawn with her hand.

  ‘Yes?’ Lucie zoomed in on Hindle. ‘As you know from the last time you and I had a chat, I’m onto you.’

  Lucie had met Danielle Hindle. Stella should have known.

  ‘She didn’t tell you!’ Hindle spotted Stella’s surprise. ‘Our trusty crime reporter kidnapped me in the playground when I was little. She put me all over the News of the World. She tried to convince Terry that I did it.’

  ‘The promise of fame flushed you like a toilet. You boasted about the brick and the charm bracelet.’ Lucie was a match for Danielle Hindle. You spilled your own beans.’

  ‘I don’t have to do what you say.’ Hindle pouted.

  ‘Actually, Madam Death, you do. You’re breaking the terms of your licence. I’ve got a gigabyte-size file about you.’ Lucie jerked a thumb at the iBook on her desk. ‘I press “send” and the next episode in your toxic life will be syndicated around the world in the time it took you to murder an innocent child.’

  Stella was sure that if Hindle were to try anything the police would be Lucie’s last resort. Stella hoped that, smart though she was, Danielle Hindle wouldn’t guess this.

  ‘Is that a yes?’ Hands on hips, carrot crudité between her lips like a Churchillian cigar, Lucie glared at Hindle.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Hindle got out her lip balm.

  ‘Why are you here?’ In trademark black woolly jumper (a legacy – the only legacy, Lucie would grouse – of an ex-husband), cerise leggings and silver Converse high tops, Lucie didn’t look scary, but Stella knew better. She hugged Stanley close.

  ‘She made me.’ Danielle nodded at Stella.

  Stella’s decision to bring a notorious child murderer to the house of a tabloid reporter had been counterintuitive. Lucie had loved Terry. Perhaps for that reason she’d helped Stella and Jack on past cases. Ruthless though Lucie was, Stella had learnt that she could rely on her. Now there was no one else. Stella had split up with Jack (he would never forgive her catastrophic mistake). Jackie was away. She’d considered Trudy, but it would be beyond unfair to ask her. And Trudy would insist that Stella call the police. She’d done that when she’d discovered a break-in at Stella’s house soon after she’d started working for Clean Slate. The right thing to do, but then it had given Martin Cashman a reason to come round and do a security audit. Right now, the police – Cashman in particular – would be no help. In her situation Stella had decided that Terry would go to Lucie.

  ‘Don’t get clever, lady, why did you sneak into Stella’s van?’ Lucie crunched on the carrot. She hurled the sprout in the general direction of her waste bin and missed.

  ‘She told me that my daughter wants to kill me.’ Danielle applied her lip salve.

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘Carrie thinks that Chris only had an affair because I told him about those dead kids.’ She did a kiss and shut the tin. ‘She is right. Chris wanted a shoulder to cry on and Cater saw her chance.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was Carrie,’ Stella said. ‘I warned you that Rac
hel Cater may have been killed by mistake and that very likely you were the intended target.’

  ‘I don’t have any enemies.’ Hindle opened the lip salve tin again and repeated the application process. Stella hoped it was a sign of nerves. ‘Who else would it be?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Lucie took the tin off Hindle and tossed it at the bin. Bull’s eye. ‘Dude, the whole nation wants you six feet under.’

  ‘Jack and I think that Rachel Cater’s murder is linked to the playground murders in 1980. On the face of it the relatives and friends of Robbie and Sarah have alibis. Maxine said something that suggests she knows where her sister lives, but she was in her salon most of the afternoon. We don’t think either Joy or Jason Hindle know. This is our list.’ Stella passed Lucie her notebook.

  ‘If Max had told them, Jason would have come asking for money. My mum would have slain me alive!’ Hindle was gruff. ‘It’s unfair.’

  ‘Unfair. Give me strength!’ Lucie snapped. She looked at Stella. ‘Where’s Jacko?’

  ‘He’s… er… busy.’

  ‘Busy-schmizzy,’ Lucie snorted. ‘He needs to get himself here pronto. What is he, a part time ’tec?’

  ‘Poldark has dumped Stella because she had me for a sleepover.’ Although she didn’t have the salve, Danielle Hindle dabbed at her lips.

  ‘What did I just say?’ Lucie was concentrating on Stella’s notes. ‘Why have you crossed off Nicola Walsh? She’s hot for it. That monster there wrecked her life. Have you talked to her?’

  ‘She’s on uppers and downers and enough voddy to sink a ship unless she’s being wrung out at the Priory. Nicky couldn’t harm a bluebottle, let alone some bitch like Cater,’ Hindle said.

  ‘How do you know?’ Lucie demanded.

  ‘I read the papers.’ Hindle shrugged. ‘“The Fate of the Playground Kids Who Lived.” Wasn’t that you?’

  ‘No,’ Lucie snapped and Stella guessed Lucie thought it should have been her story.

  ‘Jack talked to Nicola. He doubted her capable,’ Stella said.

  ‘Lor lummy! Nothing would stop me hacking my worst enemy into pocket-size pieces.’ Lucie returned to Stella’s notebook. ‘Jason and Joy Hindle. My guess is you can dump them. They don’t have her brain.’ She curled her lip at Hindle. ‘Kevin Hood. He’s the only one with a circumstantial link to both cases. He was in the kiddy gang and he goes to Winchcombe to do odd-jobs for his mum-in-law. Bit of a wuss, I thought.’

  ‘Have you met him?’ Lucie seemed right on the case. Bleakly, Stella knew this was just as well. She no longer had Jack.

  ‘Leave Kevin alone,’ Hindle exploded. ‘He’s done nothing.’

  ‘Touchy!’ Lucie contemplated a new carrot. ‘What does Kev know that you don’t want us knowing? Does he come round and do odd-jobs for you too?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him since he was a boy. No way would he want to kill me.’ Hindle subsided into sulky silence.

  ‘Stell, why don’t you and Jack have a crack at Hood? Pretend you’re buying a house and want a loan.’

  ‘We did that,’ Stella said.

  ‘Go again. Push him to admit that he and the Evil One here are still playmates.’

  ‘Don’t you listen? They’ve split up.’ Hindle smirked. ‘Ask me, she’s better off without him. He’s hunting out a babysitter for his kids. Stella has a life of her own.’

  ‘I’m warning you!’ Lucie waggled a finger. To Stella, ‘I give Jackanory an hour before he’s round at yours, sheepish and contrite.’

  Stella’s phone buzzed with a text. Saved. Trudy had a bug and wouldn’t be in work tomorrow. Trudy had never been off sick. Stella’s already low spirits went subterranean.

  ‘There is always the unlikely and impossible.’ Lucie cackled. ‘That the police got it right and your hubby murdered his mistress. But life, and death, is a cliché. Believe me, I’ve seen blokes carted off from the courthouse for doing the bleedin’ obvious.’

  ‘Bev’s applied to get a visit with Christopher Philips approved,’ Stella comforted herself. She still had Bev.

  ‘They turned me down!’ Lucie flared.

  ‘Don’t you dare go there!’ Danielle Hindle was on her feet.

  ‘Stella can do what she likes. Sit down.’ Lucie’s tone could have cut through metal. When Hindle was back on the settee, Lucie began ripping strips off a reel of drafting tape and lining them along the edge of her desk. ‘Here’s how to play it, Stell.’

  Usually Stella would be irritated at Lucie taking over, but not tonight. She watched as Lucie stuck newspaper photos on her Murder Wall. Danielle Hindle the girl. Chris Philips’ arrest. The smiling faces of the murdered children. The Philipses’ Winchcombe house.

  ‘If Christopher Philips is protecting someone, smoke him out.’

  ‘It ain’t me.’ Hindle had got the lip balm out of the bin.

  ‘Carrie broke my photographer’s camera when Mr Daddy was sent down. If you’re gagging to replace it, don’t be shy.’ Lucie slapped up one of Carrie outside the Old Bailey addressing a cluster of microphones.

  ‘Shame she stopped there.’ Hindle glowered.

  Stella fixed on a carpet stain. Without Jack, the only reason she wanted to go into a prison was to clean the cells.

  ‘Eddie Hindle’s dead, Alan Ferris is brain-dead.’ Lucie dotted Stella’s suspect list with her carrot. ‘Lee Marshall’s topped himself and his wife was in Sydney when the girl was stabbed. Suppose you’ve considered that Marshall came back from Oz on a false ID?’

  ‘I’ve talked to her.’ During the Skype chat, Jack had put his arm around her. ‘Jo Marshall fled there to escape her past. She was angrier with Cathy Ferris for leaving Lee to mind Sarah that day than with Danielle, er… you.’ Stella nodded at Hindle.

  ‘My name is Penny Philips.’ Hindle tapped her tooth.

  ‘Child-Killer does it for me.’ Getting up again, Lucie added the dead children’s mothers Cathy Ferris and Gill Walsh to her gallery. Their faces were shadowed with grief. Lucie annotated the photos with Post-It notes on which were crosses and noughts, presumably denoting her own suspect list. ‘I agree with Stella. This is not about Cater.’ Lucie jabbed the girlhood picture of Hindle. ‘It’s about you, ducky. It always has been. Your husband restored antiques, that takes care. He’s not the sort for a crazed attack.’

  ‘You’re really saying the killer thought I was Cater?’ Hindle appeared intrigued.

  ‘Someone mistook you for a thirty-year-old, good going. That hasn’t happened to me since last week.’ Lucie ran the top of her hand under her chin. ‘Stella’s on the nose, as per; you are in danger. Don’t get me wrong. I’d leave you outside the house like an old armchair for collection. But you’re more use to us alive than on a pathologist’s slab.’

  It was all Stella could do not to go, ‘Ner!’

  ‘Stella keeps an open mind, like Terry. Mine’s airtight. Here’s what went down. When you told Carrie that you were the Devil Child you smashed her world. Carrie killed Daddy’s mistress and she’ll kill you.’

  Hindle slow hand-clapped. ‘Time to hang up your suspenders and retire, old woman. Carrie hates violence. A mother knows her daughter. I know that Carrie didn’t murder Rachel Cater.’

  ‘Who is this?’ Lucie put up an enlarged image of the CCTV. Hindle in a scarf and winter coat on Dalgarno Gardens. ‘Someone got all dressed in warm clothes for a Spring day. Or was it they didn’t want to be spotted on candid camera?’

  ‘It’s me.’ Danielle returned to her lip balm. ‘Keep up, old woman. These two already established that.’

  ‘How dare you be rude to Lucie?’ Stella stormed. Her head filled with a rushing sound as if she was behind a waterfall.

  Lucie put out a hand to steady Stella. ‘See that spot of white? Now, in this image I’ve blown it up. Voila.’

  Stella narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s a watch.’

  ‘Take a look at Madam Death’s watch,’ Lucie said. ‘My! What a fancy jewelled Swiss chronometer you’re wearing, Red Riding Hood.’


  ‘You can’t tell what kind of watch it is from the picture,’ Danielle Hindle snarled.

  Stella spoke as she got it. ‘But you can tell which wrist it’s on. The watch is on the left. Yours is on the right.’

  ‘Stella by name, Stellar by nature,’ Lucie cried. ‘Let’s go again, Danielle. Who is that woman?’

  ‘My name is Penelope.’ Philips kissed the air. ‘I swap my watch to the other wrist when I’m somewhere I shouldn’t be. It fools the likes of her who hound me.’

  ‘You didn’t fool me.’ Lucie’s eyes gleamed. ‘You’re using your left hand to smear that stuff on yourself. I’d guess you’re nifty with a knife in that hand too.’

  ‘No comment.’

  There was a knock on the door. Stanley bolted from the room. They heard the irregular thump-thump of his hind legs taking the stairs together after his front paws.

  Stella found him launching himself at the letter box. His piteous mews signified a friend. She opened the door.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Jack saw Stella.

  ‘I’ve come to see Lucie.’ Stella gripped the banister. ‘About the case.’ Jack would think Lucie the last person they should consult.

  ‘You two kiss and make-up, we’ve got a job on.’ Lucie glided out of her Murder Room.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Stella asked Jack as they reached the landing.

  ‘Danielle Hindle’s at your house.’

  ‘No she’s not.’

  ‘Don’t lie, Stella!’ Jack’s face contorted. ‘I saw her.’

  ‘She’s here.’ Stella pushed the door to the Murder Room wide.

  ‘Hey, it’s Ross Poldark.’ Danielle Hindle waved her lip balm. ‘Come and play Murder in the Dark.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  2019

  Clean Slate was like the old days. Trudy was apparently off sick so she wasn’t in the office. Suzie was at her desk. Bev had gone to get biscuits. Only Jackie was missing.

  Jack had hoped to talk to Stella after leaving Lucie’s last night, but she’d driven off. At least they were speaking, albeit politely. Lucie was minding Danielle Hindle which, given Lucie’s attitude to her, was on a par with prison.