No Hiding Place: An edge of your seat mystery/thriller. (DI Sally Parker thrillers Book 2) (26 page)

Sally smiled and nodded. “I’ll
be in touch soon.”

She walked outside, stood on
the doorstep, and sucked in a lungful of fresh air before she made
her way over to the car. Sally had a feeling the journey back to
the station was going to be filled with venomous remarks from
Yvette, who would be more than likely keen to blame the others,
rather than accept full responsibility for her despicable
actions.

The following morning, Sally
turned up at the station in a buoyant mood, her arms laden with
copious notes which she’d jotted down overnight in preparation for
the interview of Yvette Whiting that would take place first
thing.

“Morning, all. Fine morning!”
she announced, joyfully pushing through the doors to the incident
room.

“Let’s hope that mood of yours
doesn’t end up getting squished by Whiting. She’s had a rough
night, apparently,” Jack warned.

“Good. Couldn’t happen to a
nicer person. Do you know if the solicitor has arrived yet,
Jack?”

“I’ll check.”

“You do that. I’m going to ring
the pathologist, let him know. Also, I want to see if he’s carried
out the post on Kathy yet.” Sally marched into her office and
placed the call.

Simon answered after two
rings.

“Simon, I have great news for
you.”

“Ditto. You first,” he
replied.

“No, I insist, after you.”

“Well, you were right. Kathy
was around four weeks pregnant, give or take a few days. Now, it’s
your turn to share.”

“We’ve got someone sitting in
the cell for the murder of both women.”

“Excellent news. Did we help
you find the suspect at all?”

“Sort of. I’m relying on you to
come up with the goods in the next day or two. I’ve got the
suspect’s clothes, and I’ve asked forensics to pick up the
suspect’s car. It has been repaired since Gemma’s death took place,
so I’m hoping it’s not too late.”

“If there’s evidence to be
found, we’ll find it. May I ask who the suspect in question is,
Inspector?”

“The mother-in-law of both
women.”

“What? Why on earth…?”

“Exactly. I’ve yet to question
her thoroughly—I’m about to do that now. My initial understanding
is that she was afraid of losing her five-year-old grandchild.”

“Holy crap! So she killed the
women and the unborn children out of
jealousy
?”

“So it would appear. I’ll buy
you a drink later this week and go over the details.” Sally shook
her head.
Why the hell did I say that?

Simon chortled. “Wow, you must
be excited if you’re inviting me out on a date.”

“Umm… on that note, I better
crack on. Talk soon.”

She could hear him laughing as
she hung up. Her cheeks warmed as Jack appeared in the doorway of
the office.

“Everything all right?” he
asked.

Sally nodded. “Fine. Has the
solicitor arrived?”

“Yes, indeedy!”

She slipped out of her chair
and picked up her notes. “Let’s get this show on the road then and
see what kind of reception we get from the dear lady today.”

A female PC brought the
furious-looking suspect and her female solicitor into the room a
few moments later. Jack started the tape and declared the relevant
details.

“Right, Yvette, you seem a
reasonable lady. Why don’t you reiterate what you told me yesterday
about the deaths of your two daughters-in-law? Why don’t you tell
me why and how Gemma Whiting died on the eighteenth of September,
2015?”

Yvette Whiting inhaled and
exhaled a few breaths, her gaze glued to her interlocked fingers.
“She was going to leave. I had to stop her.”

“Leave? Leave your son?” Sally
asked in a hushed voice, matching the suspect’s.

“Yes. She’d been planning it
for months. I found a letter lying on the kitchen table.”

“What letter? Who was it from?”
Sally asked.

“Her new employer—in London. I
couldn’t let her take Samantha away. The thought of not seeing her
every day tore me apart. I had to step in and do something before
it was too late.”

“So you followed her home that
evening?”

“Yes. She drove into town with
her friends. I saw her in the garden,
flirting
with that
man. How could she do that when she had a loving husband waiting
for her at home?”

“So you thought you’d punish
her. Is that it?” Sally asked incredulously.

“I suppose so. I was determined
to prevent her running off with my granddaughter. She’s my
only
grandchild. That counts for something, right?” Yvette
glanced up at Sally as if seeking some kind of approval.

Sally shook her head. “No, that
fact is far from being a justification, Yvette, and deep down, you
know that. This is all about what is going on in your heart and
your head. You’ve killed two innocent women because they dared to
do something that didn’t meet with your approval.”

The woman sighed heavily. “I
know I was wrong. But unless you know what it feels like to love a
grandchild unconditionally, I’ll ask you not to judge me,
Inspector.”

“I don’t have to be a
grandmother to know that excuse is hogwash. Why don’t you tell me
what occurred that evening back in September?”

“As I followed Gemma home, my
blood was boiling after I saw her with him. For all I knew, she had
made arrangements to meet up with this man once she’d moved to
London.”

“If that was true, then that
would have been Gemma’s business, surely?”

“She was cheating on my
son—that made it
my
business,” Yvette snapped back.

“Actually, she
wasn’t
.
Gemma and Taylor Hew met for the first time that evening. Which
means you killed your daughter-in-law just because she chatted with
a total stranger.”

Yvette’s mouth dropped
open.

“So, you followed her home,
then what?” Sally asked sharply.

Yvette looked sideways at her
solicitor, who was frantically making notes, then Yvette’s gaze
dropped to her hands again. “I realised we were getting closer to
her home. Something took hold of me, forced me to ram her car. I
never expected her to end up in a hedge.”

“Okay, I can believe that. What
I can’t understand is what happened next. Why don’t you fill us
in?”

“You have to understand the
rage was bubbling inside of me. I went to the back of the car and
took out the tyre wrench, or whatever it’s called. She had no idea
it was me. I beat her with the bar. I was shocked by the first
blow, the impact it made. I couldn’t stop myself hitting her.
Samantha’s face drifted into my mind. I got angrier and angrier,
believing that I would never see my darling granddaughter again
and…”

“You killed your own
granddaughter’s precious mother. Go on,
say
it.”

“Yes. I killed her. I regretted
it afterwards, once I saw the devastation it had caused to the
family.”

“Yet you repeated the crime
only a few months later. This time, the victim was your son’s
second wife. In the process of that murder, you put him in the
spotlight for both crimes. What kind of mother does that,
Yvette?”

Her head tilted upwards, and
she glared at Sally. Through clenched teeth, she said, “A
desperate
one, Inspector.”

“Go on then, tell us why and
how Kathy Whiting felt the wrath of your anger.”

“I overheard her telling
someone on the phone that she intended going part-time at work. I
assumed that meant my time with Samantha would be limited in the
future. I couldn’t let that happen. The rage descended again. I
shooed Samantha upstairs to play with her dolls and went out to the
car to collect the tyre wrench again. It worked the first time.
There was no reason for the outcome to be any different this
time.”

“What a callous woman you are.
Not once thinking about how damaging your actions would be to the
one you say you love most in this world. Samantha will be
traumatised for life because of what you have stolen from her. How
could you kill Kathy with your granddaughter upstairs in the same
house?”

Tears trickled from Yvette’s
eyes. Sally suspected they were tears of sympathy for her own
selfish sake and not for the two victims, whose lives she had ended
so recklessly. “For a split second, I forgot she was even
there.”

“Really? You expect me to
believe that when you’ve just told me you parcelled the girl off to
her room a few seconds before?”

She shrugged. “That’s how it
happened. I’m telling you the truth in the hope it will ease my
guilt, Inspector.”

“Nice to see you showing some
kind of remorse at last, Yvette. Tell me this; did you know that
both women were pregnant?”

“I had an idea. If you’ve ever
been through a pregnancy, you get a nose for these things.”

Sally was appalled by the
woman’s admission. “And that fact didn’t prevent you from
reconsidering your
murderous
actions.”

Yvette flinched when Sally
emphasised the word
murderous
. “No. I keep telling you, you
would need to put yourself in my shoes to understand the anguish I
was riddled with.”

“I doubt I’d ever be driven to
the lengths of
killing
someone. Let alone
four
people. Because that is what this amounts to, Yvette. You’ve robbed
this world, and your family, of four
innocent
lives.”

Yvette’s head dropped swiftly
onto her chest as the magnitude of what she had done finally sank
in. She could try to justify her actions all she liked, but the
truth was there for all to see: her craziness had ripped her own
family apart.

“What I don’t understand is
your willingness to apportion the blame on others. You had no
compunction in trying to frame either of your sons. Boy, you must
really hate them.”

Her head snapped back up. Anger
shone in her eyes. “I
love
my sons. How dare you infer that?
Even after Colin did what he did to Gemma.”

“What did he do, Yvette?” Sally
asked, intrigued.

“They didn’t have an affair.
That is what he told you, isn’t it? Don’t make him out to be a
blameless party here. It’s Colin’s fault that Gemma was leaving.
I’m sure it was.”

“What did he do?” Sally
repeated with a sigh.

“He
raped
her. That
child wasn’t conceived out of
love
.”

“What? Does Mark know about
this?”

“No. We kept it a secret
between ourselves. Colin being the father wouldn’t have come out at
all if he hadn’t shown up at the house that day and opened his big
mouth to Mark. I should have revealed to Mark then that I was aware
that Colin had raped Gemma. My son was delusional. Colin loved
Gemma so much, but she did all she could to escape his
advances.”

“How did you know about the
rape? Did Colin admit it to you?”

“No. I was in the utility room
on the day of the barbecue. No one knew I was there. I overheard
Gemma warning Colin that she would tell Mark about the incident if
he didn’t stop harassing her.”

“Why? Why didn’t you intervene?
Why didn’t you tackle Colin about the assault?”

Yvette shrugged. “Because I had
my own agenda to deal with, I suppose. During the argument, I
discovered Gemma’s intentions to leave Mark. She rubbed Colin’s
nose in it, told him that because of his actions she could no
longer be a wife to her husband in the bedroom.”

“And what did Colin say to
that?”

“He acted like an excited
puppy, thought that Gemma meant she was going to leave Mark for
him.”

“Wow, your family truly have a
way of twisting the truth to suit their needs, don’t they? That’s
bloody priceless.”

Yvette shrugged. “I was hoping
you would come down heavily on Colin, arrest him for Gemma’s death,
but you didn’t.” Yvette sneered again.

Jack nudged his knee against
Sally’s under the table, urging her to retaliate, “Oh, I get it—now
it’s our fault for not arresting the wrong person. You really are a
perverse, nasty woman. Everyone is to blame but you, eh?”

“I’ve showed Samantha real
love. She would’ve wanted for nothing had she come to live with
me.”

“You had no right to kill those
women just so the access channels to your granddaughter remained
open to you.”

“In your opinion,
Inspector.”

Sally exhaled a large breath.
“And the unborn children meant nothing to you, either? Is that what
you’re telling me?”

“No one could replace Samantha.
She’s an absolute treasure, the sweetest girl ever to walk the
earth, and that is down to
me
. All the care and love I’ve
shown her since the day she was born.”

Sally had heard enough. She
could no longer bear to be in the same room as the loathsome woman.
“We’re going round and round in circles here. Yvette Whiting, I am
placing you under arrest for the murder of Gemma Whiting and Kathy
Whiting…” Sally left the room after completing the arrest
announcement under the glare of Yvette, who said nothing further in
her defence.

The team met up at the pub they
usually frequented to celebrate the conclusion of a case.

“Here’s to our success,” Jack
announced, raising his pint. The others chinked their glasses
against his.

Sally smiled weakly. Her mind
was full of regrets for the innocent people whose lives had been
affected—not only by a screwed-up grandmother, but also by her
delusional son.

She doubted very much if Mark
would ever fall in love with another woman, even though his mother
would spend the rest of her life behind bars. He would always be
wracked with guilt for what his own mother and brother had put the
women he loved through. Mrs. Whiting’s husband was at present
recuperating in the hospital after suffering a heart attack,
brought on by Sally revealing the truth about his wife. The poor
man had had no idea the lengths that his wife’s obsession with
their granddaughter had gone to.