A Nice Place to Die (28 page)

‘What were you doing in the house?' Rachel asked.

Kevin shrugged. ‘What do you think?' he asked. ‘It was Christmas, I was short of cash.'

‘Weren't you staying there to hide out from the police?' Rachel said sweetly. ‘I must say we would never've thought of looking for you there, not after the things you said about Alice.'

‘OK,' Kevin said, ‘I moved in on her. She didn't get the choice. I didn't even have to rough her up. The kid ran errands for me.'

‘So let's get this straight,' Rachel said, ‘you want to plead guilty to killing the vicar if we record Alice Bates as an accidental death and do you instead for attempted burglary? Is that right?'

‘Yup,' Kevin said.

‘And we forget about incidentals like demanding money with menaces and false imprisonment and kidnap and—'

‘Yup,' Kevin said.

‘But why?' Rachel asked. ‘Why would you give up without a fight? If you plead not guilty there's a chance you'll get off. The jury might not believe the evidence against you in Alice's murder. Your brief could cast doubt on our witnesses, you know. The jury might not be convinced. They might think your neighbours in Forester Close held a grudge against you.'

‘Whose side are you on?' Kevin said. ‘I've told you what I want to do. Can't we get this over with?'

Rachel nodded; Jack got up and went to bring the solicitor back into the interview room.

Rachel sat facing Kevin across the table.

‘Why?' she said.

Kevin met her eyes. ‘What's the point?' he said. ‘I'm going down one way or another. That kid had a thing for me; she thinks I'm something special. She's the only person who's ever thought that.'

He smiled, but not at Rachel; it was the thought of Nicky Byrne did that.

‘Those witnesses of yours,' he said, ‘they've come forward because they think they're protecting her, isn't that right? They think I'll blame the kid to get off killing the old woman, right?'

‘Well you just did that,' Rachel said.

‘That's before you mentioned the vicar,' Kevin said. ‘OK, if I've got to go down for that, I don't want to take the kid with me on the other thing – the old lady. That kid thinks a lot of me, you know? She told me once I may do bad things but only for good reasons. What the fuck does that mean?'

Rachel said nothing.

Kevin Miller ran his hands through his dark hair and went on, ‘I'm a father myself. OK, my kid's not going to have much of a chance, not with the mother she's got, but that Byrne kid might be all right. I don't want her forced to be in court to listen to that lesbian freak who's the best hope she's got giving evidence against me. I don't want a trial.'

Rachel said, ‘Why?'

Kevin grinned at her. ‘Like she said some old fart said, I want to do one good thing before I die, OK?' he said. ‘It's that kid, she thinks I'm some sort of hero and I don't want to disappoint her.'

Suddenly Rachel understood why Nicky Byrne and all those nameless girls in Weston-super-Mare might find something to attract them in Kevin Miller.

‘What old fart said that?' she said.

‘Who cares, I'm saying it, me, Kevin Alan Miller, murderer in the first degree. OK?'

He hesitated, then asked her, ‘Did you ever read a book called
Crime and Punishment
?'

Rachel was startled. ‘Dostoevsky? Where did you hear about that?' she said.

‘The kid read it. It meant a lot to her.'

Rachel remembered one day in Forester Close when Helen Byrne, almost in tears, was wailing on about Nicky not being a normal kid. One of the reasons she gave, as far as Rachel could recall, was because the child read
Crime and Punishment
.

‘It's a great classic, but I'd have thought Nicky's much too young to understand it,' she said.

‘She got it into her head I was like the hero in it,' he said. ‘She said I was the future, whatever that means. Maybe I'll get it out of the library,' he said. ‘It sounds like my kind of book.'

Rachel was going to laugh, but then she didn't.

Jack came back into the room.

‘Your brief will be back in a minute,' he said. ‘She went to get a coffee.'

He produced a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit one. He inhaled slowly and deeply. Then he handed it to Kevin.

‘Here,' he said, ‘and take the pack. I've given up. I don't want to start again.'

‘We're charging Kevin with Tim Baker's murder,' Rachel said. ‘He'll plead guilty. I'm satisfied now that Alice Bates's death was accidental.'

‘I'd have put money on it,' Jack said. ‘But what changed your mind?'

‘Cheers,' Kevin said, picking up the pack of cigarettes and putting them in his pocket.

THIRTY-FIVE

D
etective Chief Inspector Rachel Moody was in her office sorting through a bundle of house particulars from estate agents when Jack Reid brought her a second cup of coffee.

Sergeant Reid did not usually take on the responsibility for keeping the DCI topped up with the caffeine which as a rule helped to put her in a good mood first thing in the morning.

But today he wanted to ask her a favour.

His wife, Sandy, had been particularly grumpy as he'd got ready to go to work that morning. She didn't say goodbye, but stomped off upstairs and turned on the vacuum cleaner. When he'd asked his teenage daughter, Kate, what he'd done to offend her mother, Kate told him that today was his wedding anniversary and he'd forgotten it and that was why.

From upstairs, Sandy had shouted to Kate, ‘Tell your father to leave a cheque for the oil bill before he goes out.'

‘Oh, my God, how am I going to get out of this?' he asked his daughter.

Kate laughed. ‘I'll tell her you haven't forgotten but you're picking up something to bring home as a special surprise tonight,' she said. ‘But it's going to have to be something special if you're going to get away with it.'

‘But what can I get her that I wouldn't have got yesterday?' Reid said. ‘She'll know I didn't remember.'

‘Take next week off and get tickets to Paris or somewhere romantic,' Kate said. ‘That would be special.'

‘I can't afford to go gallivanting off to Paris for a week at a moment's notice,' Reid protested.

‘Dad, you can't afford not to,' Kate told him.

But Sergeant Reid wasn't a detective for nothing. He suspected conspiracy.

‘Did your mother put you up to this?' he asked.

Kate laughed again. ‘Of course not,' she said, ‘she only said that if you forgot your anniversary this year, that's what it would take for her to ever speak to you again.'

So Jack, who well knew the value of a wife who for years had been prepared to put up, without protest, with the demands of the job he loved, wanted to put his boss in a particularly good mood before suddenly asking to take a week off with almost no notice at all.

When he brought Rachel the second coffee, she gave him a funny look and said, ‘What are you after, Sergeant Reid?'

‘I was wondering if we've got much on today, that's all,' he said.

She was making him nervous, and as he put the coffee down on her desk, he accidentally tipped the cup and spilled the steaming liquid across some of the house particulars.

‘Damn,' he said, trying to mop up the coffee with his handkerchief.

Rachel produced a box of tissues from a drawer of the desk and cleared up the mess in a moment.

‘No harm done,' she said.

Reid did not know what to do with his now soaked and stained handkerchief. Surreptitiously he dropped it into her wastepaper basket, which was already half full of more rejected house particulars.

‘Are you thinking of moving?' he said, trying to make conversation. It didn't seem quite the right moment to ask for a week off, but he didn't want to turn tail and have to come back to try again later.

Rachel Moody shuffled the estate agents' lists so that they made a fan shape on the desktop.

‘It's my particular way of dealing with a mid-life crisis,' she said. ‘I've decided it's high time I began to plan for a singleton future, and get myself some sort of private life outside work. Buying my own home in a nice friendly suburb where I can put down roots seems a good place to start.'

Reid was disconcerted by this. The DCI had never talked to him in such personal terms before and he was flattered as well as embarrassed.

‘Trouble is,' Rachel Moody said, ‘I can't find anything I like the sound of. They keep sending me details of cottages with roses round the porch, but that's not what I want. I'm not retiring, for God's sake, I'm investing for my future, that's all.'

Reid picked up a typed page at random. ‘What about this?' he asked, and read aloud: ‘“Three-bedroomed modern property in quiet tree-lined cul-de-sac on architect-designed housing estate on outskirts of picturesque traditional country village. Close to all amenities, ideal for commuting”.'

He handed Rachel Moody the first page of the particulars. At the top of the page was a coloured photograph of a modern executive home with a small front garden where magnolia was in full bloom and clematis montana rampaged over the front wall.

DCI Moody glanced at the picture, then looked more closely. ‘It looks familiar,' she said.

‘Well, it's stock housing estate design, I suppose,' Reid said. ‘That doesn't mean those houses aren't a good investment.' He turned over the page and checked the price at the end of the particulars.

‘Wow,' he said, ‘if this is right, it's bloody good value for the money.'

He tipped the paper so that Rachel could see the figure printed at the bottom of the page.

‘There must be something wrong with it,' she said. ‘The local authority must be going to build a waste disposal site over the road, or put a dual carriageway in the next street. It can't be right.'

Reid put the particulars back on his boss's desk. ‘I can check that on the Internet if you're interested,' he said.

‘Where is it, anyway?' Rachel Moody said.

Reid picked up the paper again.

‘Well?' Rachel prompted him when he said nothing.

‘I don't think you're going to like this,' he said. ‘You do know it. We both do. It's in Catcombe Mead.'

Rachel Moody stared at him. ‘Don't tell me,' she said. ‘It's Three Forester Close, isn't it? The house where Alice Bates died?'

Reid put the paper back on the desk. ‘They call it
Mon Repos
now,' he said. ‘But yes, it is. It's Three Homicide Close.'

Rachel picked up the cup of coffee and drank it in silence. Then she said, ‘Well, thank you, Sergeant, but I don't think I'll be asking for a viewing. There's not much an estate agent could tell me about that house that I don't know already. I wonder if the younger Miller boy – wasn't his name Nate? – has turned into another Kevin?'

‘Of course, I knew there was something I meant to tell you, Boss. Kevin's up on a charge of GBH for stabbing his cell-mate in prison. Nearly killed him, apparently. Life's going to mean life now, I'd say.'

‘I suppose an estate agent could use that as part of the sales pitch,' Rachel said, ‘but I think I'll pass.' She added, ‘Poor Kevin, he wasn't all bad, you know. He never had a chance, though.'

Reid remembered the first of the many visits he and Rachel Moody had made to Forester Close, way back last winter when they were investigating the death of the vicar from Old Catcombe. He'd said something about it being a nice place to live and she'd sounded almost frightened when she said it was spooky. She'd actually said it was spooky, as though it was going to be haunted some day. And he remembered now that at the time he hadn't dismissed what she said as the whimsicality of a woman of a certain age, he'd known what she meant. And then later, when he'd learned that a witch had been burned there four or five hundred years before, he'd told himself he'd better be careful in future how he mocked talk of women's intuition, because maybe there was something in it after all.

So he didn't even try to tell Rachel Moody that Three Forester Close was the investment opportunity of a lifetime. He understood how she felt. ‘Well,' he said, ‘it's not the only house for sale, is it?'

‘You know,' she said, ‘I'm not sure I am cut out for suburban life. I'd forgotten what it was like, how all those people we talked to seemed to be frightened of their own shadows. I mean, can you see me living in a place like that?'

‘Well, in the circumstances . . .' Reid said.

‘No,' Rachel Moody said, ‘it was more than that; it was part of the way of life. All those awful things happened and it was as though those people weren't surprised, they'd been expecting the worst but at the same time they couldn't believe any of it was real, as though it was just something they'd seen on television, so they didn't think there was anything they could do to change it.'

‘That's part of the normal way of life for most of us now,' Reid said, and thought of his teenaged daughter Kate. One of the reasons he was glad his work made it hard to spend much time at home was because he was frightened enough himself of the future Kate was going to face without having to confront his wife being worried about her too, and neither of them with a word of real comfort for the other about it.

‘Boss?' he started to say.

‘Yes, Sergeant,' DCI Moody said. ‘And yes, you can have next week off to take your wife to Paris. As long as you don't bring me any more coffee.'