Murder Unearthed

by Anita Waller

  Marnie Harrison remained sitting, holding her husband’s hand, expressionless. Tessa guessed she was on some sort of antidepressant, prescribed to get her through the horrific few days around her daughter’s death.

  Tessa opened the buff file and removed the email copy that had given her the DNA results. ‘Then if you won’t speak voluntarily about the issue, Mr Harrison, I have to ask you if Orla told you about her pregnancy and asked you for help.’

  His face hardened. ‘Neither of us knew. It came as a complete shock when you told us about it. You know it did.’ He let go of Marnie’s hand, put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

  Okay, Tessa thought, play it like that, Mr Innocent. Let’s see how you react in a second.

  ‘Mr Harrison, I have the results of your DNA test, plus the results of the foetal DNA, and they are a match. You are the father of your stepdaughter’s baby.’

  Marnie Harrison’s head moved slightly to look at her husband. His face was devoid of colour, and her hand came up with some swiftness, hitting him hard across the cheek.

  ‘Bastard,’ she growled. ‘Absolute bastard.’

  Antidepressants no longer working then, Tessa conceded to herself.

  Nadine moved across to separate husband and wife, and still Andy hadn’t said anything.

  ‘Didn’t you realise when we swabbed you for DNA that this would be the end result?’

  His face was still blank and she wondered if this was the last thing he had expected to hear, or if he was a superb actor.

  ‘Andy?’ Her gentler tone seemed to bring him out of his trance.

  ‘Once,’ he said. ‘Only once. I didn’t think for one minute…’

  Tears were flowing down Marnie’s face, and Nadine helped her to stand and took her to the dining table at the far end of the room. Marnie sat, and sank her head onto her arms on the table. Nadine left to get her some water.

  Tessa stared at Andy. ‘Talk me through it, Mr Harrison.’

  He moaned, almost a growl. ‘It was months ago, or at least I thought it was. That’s why it didn’t occur to me I could be the father. Marnie went to the theatre in Sheffield with a friend and they stayed over, rather than driving back here, made a bit of a holiday of it. I was sitting watching television in here and Orla came in with a towel around her. She said she’d had a shower.’

  He paused, his mind going back to that time. Tessa waited.

  ‘She handed me a brush and asked me to detangle her wet hair. She sat on the floor in front of me. I thought nothing of it. I’ve always done it. I finished, handed her the hairbrush and she stood, but she left the towel on the floor. I bent to pick it up, trying not to look at her. As I handed it to her, she leaned forward to kiss me.’

  He dropped his head and stared at the floor. It occurred to Tessa that he was probably sitting in exactly the same spot as he was on that night.

  ‘Go on,’ she encouraged him.

  He shrugged. ‘She was beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. And leaning over me, naked, pushing me down onto the settee. She said she needed to be taught how to make love, and she trusted me.’

  There was a moan from Marnie and she rose from her chair. Nadine put a hand on her shoulder and eased her back down.

  Tessa continued. ‘So you had sex with her?’

  He nodded. ‘I did, to my utter shame.’

  ‘Where? In her bed? Your bed?’ Tessa was relentless. She could see Hannah taking notes out of the corner of her eye and hoped she wasn’t missing anything.

  ‘No, here. On the settee.’

  The noise that came from Marnie’s throat was akin to someone being strangled.

  ‘Why, Andy? Why did she need to be taught?’ Tessa felt breathless, as if she was on the verge of something.

  ‘She said there was somebody at church who she was interested in, and she thought they would be going all the way, as she put it, before much longer. She didn’t say who it was, and I was in no fit state to ask her. The next day I texted Marnie, who was still in Sheffield, to say I had to go to a three-day conference. I booked myself into the Hilton in Manchester for the time I needed to come to terms with what had happened.’

  ‘What happened when you came home?’

  ‘Nothing. She acted as normal, never mentioned it again, and I tried to put it behind me.’

  ‘And this person at church?’

  ‘I know nothing of who he is. You said she was at the very beginning of a relationship with Paul Carr, but he doesn’t go to church so it couldn’t have been him.’

  ‘Didn’t it occur to you that you should maybe have used protection?’

  ‘No. I had a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl coming onto me, totally naked. You reckon I had time to think about contraception?’

  ‘Okay,’ Tessa said. ‘I’m taking you back to the station now. We need a statement. You will be kept overnight, but I can see Marnie needs time away from you anyway.’ She put away the file, and five minutes later he was in the back of the car, the two policewomen in the front.

  Marnie was left with Nadine; unable to stop the tears, unable to forgive him.

  Doris waited outside her home with Ewan until his taxi arrived. He gave her a swift kiss on the cheek, and climbed into the rear seat. ‘Call you tomorrow,’ he said, and the taxi departed.

  She stood for a moment watching as its tail lights disappeared, then turned and hurried indoors, suddenly feeling the cold. She locked the door behind her, then put another log in the wood burner, hoping it hadn’t burned down too low, before heading for the kitchen.

  She cradled a cup of hot chocolate and wandered into the lounge. Thinking back over her night out gave her a great deal of pleasure; he had been wonderful company, knowledgeable, funny, and he didn’t once mention his quest for his son. Doris appreciated that. It hadn’t been a night out to discuss work, it had been a night out for enjoyment.

  Picking up her book, Doris settled down for half an hour of reading time, but even Daphne du Maurier couldn’t keep Doris’s mind off the man with the beautiful white hair and Mediterranean sea-blue eyes. In the end she gave in, slipped her bookmark back into the book, and simply sat and stared into the flames.

  From the depths of her bag her phone pinged, and she ferreted around in the bottom to find it.

  Thank you for tonight, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. x

  Staring at the phone didn’t help the rush of pink to her face, and she touched her cheek with her hand. This was silly, she was nearly seventy and grinning inanely because she’d had a text from a man. She answered the text and put down the phone, then picked it up again.

  Should she ring Mouse? Check how she was? Doris put the phone beside her once more. Best not ring her granddaughter, there would only be a spate of questions.

  The phone rang. She glanced at the screen. Kat. Doris was tempted to ignore it, but knew Kat would keep trying until she got an answer.

  ‘Hi, Kat.’

  ‘Nan, it’s me.’

  ‘I know. It said so on my screen.’

  ‘Oh… sorry, I’m functioning with my mummy head on at the moment so my brain’s in meltdown. I have a child over my left shoulder.’

  Doris sat up. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘It’s fine. She’s a bit crabby with this cold. I rang to tell you not to ring Mouse, she went to bed about nine with half a pharmacy inside her, because she says she’s coming into work tomorrow. I think it’s kill or cure for her tonight,’ she laughed.

  ‘Okay, thank you. I was wondering whether to ring or not. I’m glad I didn’t. See you tomorrow?’

  ‘Er… one second. You’ve not said how your evening went.’

  ‘It was good.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘It is as far as you and Mouse are concerned.’ Doris’s laughter echoed in Kat’s ear.

  ‘Oh. It’s only because we love you, you know.’

  ‘Kat, I’m seventy…’

  ‘Sixty-nine…’

  ‘Okay, sixty-ni
ne, and I know my way around this life. Stop worrying about me. I’m not going to do a Henry and Clara and elope to Peak Forest. I’ve been out for one drink with him. Well, maybe three.’

  ‘Who’s Henry and Clara?’

  ‘The lovers who were killed on Winnats Pass. In the 1760s, I believe. They were eloping to Peak Forest because her father wouldn’t let her marry Henry. Five miners killed them. Remember?’

  ‘Aha! Vaguely. Can you still marry without permission at Peak Forest then?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘So it’s no good Mouse and I withholding permission for you to marry him?’

  ‘No good at all. I’m over eighteen.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll take that as a good enough reason. But you’ve enjoyed your night out?’

  ‘It’s been lovely. He’s a really nice man. Go and get that baby in bed. I’m safe and I’m home, and my hot chocolate is turning into cold chocolate.’

  Kat laughed, they said goodnight and Doris disconnected at her end.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Andy Harrison felt devastated. How could his whole life have been demolished in four months? That evening when Orla had given herself to him seemed almost a fantasy, not something he’d ever thought about, prior to that night. She was a child, Marnie’s child.

  Pregnant with his child.

  He had been taken from the cell and placed in an interview room. He felt sick. It was obvious they would assume he had murdered Orla, but he hadn’t even been in bloody Castleton, for fuck’s sake, he’d been in Manchester.

  His chin dropped almost to his chest as he thought of what everything would mean. He would lose Marnie, for sure, and he wasn’t convinced he could bear that. She was the woman he had waited for, ever since his divorce from Catherine.

  And work? What would it mean for his job? At the very least he would be suspended, pending completion of the investigation. And it would forever be a pall hanging over him, no matter who was convicted of Orla’s murder.

  Because he knew the paternity of the baby would be a factor at the trial.

  He looked up as the door opened.

  Tessa Marsden did the tape requirements, then opened her file. She didn’t believe for one minute this man was directly guilty of the murder of his stepdaughter; his alibi was solid to the point of cast-iron rigidity. It didn’t mean he was innocent.

  ‘Tell me about your friends, Andy.’

  ‘What?’ The question clearly took him by surprise.

  ‘Your friends. The people you and Marnie go out with, ring up when you’ve got a problem.’

  He looked even more puzzled. ‘We don’t really have any. We rarely go out, and if we do, it’s the two of us. We used to take Orla, but that dropped off when she turned sixteen. She preferred to stay in and read…’ His voice shook. ‘I’m sorry, it’s hard to come to terms with.’

  ‘No friends at all?’ Tessa was persistent.

  ‘No. I have friends at work, obviously, but they’re colleagues rather than friends. We go out once a year with them to the Christmas meal, but neither of us seem to need anybody else.’ And then the shutters fell. ‘You think I paid somebody to kill her? My God, DI Marsden, I wouldn’t have your job for the world. What a nasty evil mind you must have to live with every minute of your life.’

  ‘There are a lot of nasty evil people in this world that have made it like that,’ Tessa answered, keeping her voice flat.

  ‘Well,’ Andy’s voice was grating, ‘it might surprise you to know that I tend not to mix with killers, not in my private life, my work life, or any other life. Check my mobile, my phone at home… check my bloody extension at work, you’ll find I’m the most boring person on this planet.’

  ‘We’re already in the process of checking them, Mr Harrison.’ Hannah stepped in with the remark.

  He turned to glare at her. ‘Then good luck with that, Hannah. I rarely phone anyone other than my wife. It won’t take you long to do that job – not as long as it’s taking you to find Orla’s killer, anyhow.’

  Marsden turned over a sheet of paper. ‘Let’s move on. The night when you had sex with Orla… let’s go through it one more time.’

  ‘Why? Does it turn you on?’

  ‘No, Mr Harrison. It sickens me. But hey ho, it’s my job. Begin at the beginning, please.’

  Harrison sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘I was sitting on the settee – no, I wasn’t, to be truthful I was lying on the settee – reading my book.’

  ‘Last night you said you were watching television, sitting watching television.’

  ‘And I was. I had the television on, but was reading at the same time. And I was lying down, prior to Orla coming in, wrapped in a towel. Then I sat up because she asked if I would brush her hair to get out the knots. She sat on the floor, between my knees, and I worked on her hair for about five or six minutes. I handed her the brush, and she stood. The towel remained on the floor. I remember edging forward to pick up the towel, but she leaned towards me and kissed me.’

  He paused and shook his head. ‘But none of this makes sense. Did she die because I made her pregnant? That can’t be the reason, surely. She said nothing to me, nothing to Marnie. Maybe it didn’t occur to her the baby was mine. Maybe this chap at church she told me about thinks he’s the father, and she thought the same. What if he’s a married man? That would be a motive, a pretty hefty one, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Leave the detection to us, Mr Harrison. Continue with your story. When you’ve finished, Hannah will type your statement for your signature, so don’t miss anything out. You will be given the opportunity to amend it before you sign it, of course.’

  Harrison stared at her. She was so cold, so unfeeling… ‘As I said, she kissed me. I was still sitting down, and as she kissed me, she pushed me backwards and I was then lying down, my feet still on the floor. In between kisses she told me she needed to learn how to make love, how much she trusted and loved me, and she had chosen me to teach her. I know this sounds stupid coming from a forty-something man, but I was in a right state. I didn’t know how to handle the situation, and I knew deep inside that if I tried to stop what she was doing I would have to touch her, to put my hands on her naked body, and I would be lost. So she pulled down the zip on my jeans.’

  He lowered his head, then raised a hand to his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, that was the undoing of me, and she knew it. She ended up underneath me, and I was the one who took her virginity. I’m not proud of it.’

  ‘And how did she behave around you after that?’

  ‘She went back to being exactly the same as she had been before that night. She knew there was no romantic connection between us, I was somebody she had calculatedly used so that she wasn’t a complete novice when she went with this man, and it got her virginity out of the way at the same time.’

  I made sure I was never alone with her, but I genuinely don’t think it would have made any difference at all. She needed that first time so that she knew what was happening to her body. It affected me so much more. I started working later, so Marnie started to get a bit iffy about that, and I stopped taking Orla anywhere. Marnie used her little car if Orla wanted to go out. Everything changed in my head, yet it didn’t seem to in Orla’s head.’

  ‘And you’re absolutely sure you don’t know who the man is at church?’

  ‘No. She never said a word. And of course Marnie knew nothing about him either. She wasn’t the one Orla spoke to about him, was she.’ There was bitterness in his tone of voice. ‘I was singled out for that honour.’

  ‘When we told you Orla had been found, what did you think?’

  ‘Initially?’ That she had slipped into the river. The rain was torrential. Even when you said she had died before going into the water, it never dawned on me it had any connection to that night. Even when you said she had been pregnant, I assumed it was the chap at church. I couldn’t tell you that, because of how I knew about him, but I guessed eventually you would track him down. It never occurred to me for a
minute it would be me you tracked down as being the father.’

  Tessa closed her file. ‘Mr Harrison, you can go home once you’ve signed your statement. If you think of anything in the meantime that can lead us to this man who Orla spoke about, please contact us immediately. I’ll leave you in this room until Hannah gets back to you, and I’ll have coffee sent in. Thank you for your cooperation. Will you be going home?’

  His short bark of laughter said it all. ‘I have no idea, DI Marsden. If I can’t stay there, I’ll let you know where I am.’

  Mouse walked into the shop, followed closely by Doris.

  ‘Morning, you two,’ Kat beamed. ‘You feeling better, Mouse?’

  ‘Much better, although I’m still growling like a lion. If I nod off, leave me. I’ll wake up eventually.’

  ‘So what’s the plan? I need a couple of hours to wind up the paperwork for that forensics course, then if you need me to input data or anything, I’m your man. Woman.’ Kat sounded too bubbly, and both Doris and Mouse stared at her.

  ‘What’s going on? It’s only nine and you’re bouncing. You don’t even talk until ten. How much coffee have you had?’

  ‘It’s the champagne from last night, probably.’

  ‘Champagne? You drink cheap rosé, or, at a push, even cheaper white. Carl got a promotion?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Two promotions? Good Lord, is this on the back of the work he’s done for Pam Bird?’ Mouse asked. Mentioning Pam’s name brought memories back to all of them of the investigation into finding Pam earlier in the year, and the recovery of some of the money that had been stolen from her.

  ‘That’s the first part, yes. He’s been promoted to DI. The second promotion is to husband-in-waiting.’

  There was a silence in the room while Doris and Mouse processed her words.

  Mouse spoke first. ‘You mean…?’

  Kat held out her left hand. The solitaire diamond was a sparkle of fire, casting shards around the beautiful stone. ‘I had no idea,’ she said. ‘I knew the DI was a strong possibility, and he gave me that news first. Then he produced this, and asked me to marry him.’