Rush of Blood (31 page)

‘You look tired,’ she said.

‘Yeah, overnight flight. Jet lag’s a killer, right?’

The woman did not react to the unfortunate choice of words, though the man next to him shifted slightly in his chair. Gardner
looked down, a little embarrassed, doodled something in the corner of his notebook.

‘Police don’t fly business class then?’

‘You kidding?’

Four days after her arrest for the murder of her husband, Gardner was finally sitting down opposite Sue Dunning. Next to him
sat Detective Inspector Steven Barstow of the Met Homicide Command, a bluff Scotsman who was leading the investigation into
Edward Dunning’s murder. As Sue Dunning was being interviewed primarily as a witness and not in direct connection to the murder
for which she was now on remand in Holloway prison, she had dispensed with legal representation. As far as her own offence
went, she had thus far seemed content with the solicitor appointed on the night of her arrest. Happy enough to do whatever
she was told, or advised.

‘Thanks for agreeing to talk to me,’ Gardner said.

‘Nothing to thank me for. But I do want to help …’

‘Shall we get this started?’ Barstow said.

They were gathered in an interview room at Holloway station. A remand prisoner was only allowed out between the hours of 9.00
a.m. and 5.00 p.m., so as a matter of course interviews were conducted at the nearest available station. Not that it made
a great deal of difference.

One interview room was very much the same as another.

In jeans and a plain T-shirt, with her hair scraped back, Sue Dunning was not what Gardner had expected. She was smaller than
he had imagined, slighter. She did not look like the sort who would do well in prison. She looked like a victim. Despite what
she had done, Gardner supposed that, given everything they had discovered about Edward Dunning since his death, that’s exactly
what she was.

‘We’re now as certain as we can be that your husband was responsible for the murders of Samantha Gold here in the UK and Amber-Marie
Wilson in Florida,’ Gardner said.

Sue Dunning nodded slowly, swallowed hard.

‘Obviously you’d got no reason to think otherwise, bearing in mind everything he told you. You’re aware that they found the
location of Samantha Gold’s school programmed into the GPS in his car and I know you’ve already been informed that the remains
of a young girl were discovered in woods just outside Sevenoaks.’

‘It was her.’ Not a question.

‘Yeah, it was her. She was still … identifiable.’ Gardner had spoken to the officer leading the hunt for Samantha Gold. There
had been a lot more left of her than there had been of Amber-Marie Wilson. ‘What you don’t know is that they got a provisional
DNA result back late yesterday and samples taken from the burial site are a match for your husband.’

‘Late husband,’ Sue said.

It was a simple statement of fact. If there was any malice there, it was well disguised and it struck Gardner more as a reminder
to herself than anything else. An explanation as to why she was sitting where she
was and not at home watching daytime TV or marking homework assignments.

‘So … we’re trying to piece together what happened in Sarasota when you were there and I was kind of hoping you might be able
to fill in some of the gaps.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Well, we think he took Amber-Marie during the hour or so you were at the Westfield Mall and kept her in the trunk of the
car for the rest of the day.’

‘But that would mean the body was there when he came to pick me up.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Wouldn’t there have been a … smell?’

‘Not straight away, no.’

‘What if I’d seen it?’

‘I’m betting he put your shopping bags in the trunk.’

Sue thought about it. ‘I suppose he
must
have. I mean otherwise …’

‘I’m not sure he thought it through real carefully, you know? Sometimes these are spur-of-the-moment things.’

Sue looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been thinking back and trying to remember the way he looked at that girl … if it
was any
different
. All the lies he’d been telling me about his work, the covering up. He wasn’t particularly … impulsive.’

Gardner nodded, like he was considering it. ‘I’m not trying to be funny, but you know, bearing everything in mind, maybe you
didn’t know him as well as you thought you did.’

‘We were together twenty-five years,’ she said, simply.

‘Well, whether putting her in the trunk was part of the plan or not, he got away with it and then it was just a question of
getting rid of the body.’

‘It had to be during the night,’ she said. ‘We put our suitcases in the car the next morning.’

‘We can’t be sure of the time, but we think he drove down to the
fishing dock at Turtle Beach, took one of the kayaks that’s moored up there.’

Sue opened her mouth and closed it again, looked down at the table.

‘What?’

‘We went kayaking there last year.’ She managed a half-smile. ‘I saw a manatee.’

‘Right,’ Gardner said, pleased. ‘So he knew the place … knew where to find a kayak. Maybe he put the body
in
the kayak or laid her across it or something, we’ll probably never know. It’s no more than a fifteen-minute paddle from there
to where we found her in the mangroves. Then he wedged her in under the roots there, paddled back and left the kayak where
he’d found it. Whole thing could have taken him less than an hour. Maybe he had a change of clothes—’

Sue had been shaking her head and rubbing her hands together for the last few seconds before she cut him off. ‘How though?
How on earth was he gone for an hour in the middle of the night? Why didn’t I wake up when he left? Or when he came back?’

Gardner raised his arms. It was just another thing he would probably never know. ‘Are you a heavy sleeper?’

‘Well, I’m not a
light
sleeper.’

‘Had you been drinking?’

‘A little,’ she said. ‘It was the last night, so …’

‘Fact is, he got away with it,’ Gardner said. ‘Same as the trunk thing. And you know what, there’s no point beating yourself
up about it, because even if you had woken up, he could just have said he was going for a walk or he’d been for a walk. He
couldn’t sleep or whatever.’

Sue looked at him. ‘I don’t think that’s going to be particularly easy.’

‘What?’

‘Not … “beating myself up”.’

‘Yeah, it’s easy to say, right?’

‘He told the police he was with me at the shopping mall and I went along with it. That first day when she went missing.’ She
was still
rubbing at her hands, one laid flat on the table and the other pressing down as though trying to wear it away. ‘If I hadn’t,
Samantha Gold might still be alive, that’s right, isn’t it?’

Gardner was aware of Barstow looking at him. ‘There’s no way of knowing that.’

‘I
lied
for him.’

‘I know,’ Gardner said. ‘I wanted to ask about that …’

‘He said it was because of the rape. He said he couldn’t tell them he was on his own driving around, because if they thought
he was any sort of a suspect they’d dig around and find out about what had happened with that woman six years ago and then
… you know.’

‘He’d be even more of a suspect.’

‘He said I had to back him up.’

‘Did he threaten you?’

She shook her head, sadly. ‘I wish I could tell you that he did, but it wasn’t really like that. Not like … the other night.
It was more like he was begging me.’ She looked at him again, licked dry lips. ‘That’s something else I’ve been thinking about.
One of many things. The rape …’

Gardner glanced at Barstow. ‘I spoke with Jenny Quinlan, who I believe you know?’ He waited. A small nod. ‘She interviewed
Annette Bailey and she’s fairly convinced that your husband did rape her.’

She did not look surprised. A little extra tonnage to a weight that was already unbearable. ‘Right. Of course he did.’

‘Something … interesting, though.’ Gardner hesitated, embarrassed once again by his choice of word. Clumsy, considering what
he had to tell her, though he could not imagine it would make this woman feel any worse than she already did. ‘Miss Bailey
told her that Ed asked her to dress up as a schoolgirl.’

Sue Dunning looked genuinely shocked for the first time, shaken out of a dark torpor. She lowered her head. She said, ‘Oh
God.’

‘Sorry,’ Gardner said. He asked himself what the hell he was apologising for. Why this in particular?

Sorry that your late husband, the rapist and double child-killer, had a bit of a thing for gymslips and training bras
.

‘It’s all about children, isn’t it?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘What he did,’ Sue said. ‘It’s all about our child. About Emma.’

Gardner felt a little uncomfortable. ‘I’m not a shrink, Mrs Dunning.’

‘I should have known. He was always so weird about Emma, refusing to discuss it, like he was trying to pretend we’d never
had a daughter. Now, of course, I’m asking myself if Ed ever … when Emma was alive, you know?’ She shook her head, firm with
herself. ‘No, not that. Whatever else has happened, I can’t go
there
…’

Nobody spoke for a while, until eventually Barstow said, ‘We should probably wrap it up, unless there’s anything else?’

Gardner said he was about done, but when he looked back at Sue she was staring at him, as if she’d suddenly seen something
in his face. ‘Do you think I
knew?
’ When Gardner did not respond immediately she carried on, producing a smile that looked almost painful. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve
already had a few comments from women in prison. It’s obvious what they think from what they’ve said they plan to do to me
when they get a chance. I know that’s what most people will think. It’s what I’d probably think.
The wife always knows
.’

‘I think you’re in hell,’ Gardner said, quietly. ‘And it’s not your fault.’

For the first time, Sue Dunning looked as though she might weep. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

Gardner started to gather his papers.

‘Do you talk to her mother? Amber-Marie’s, I mean.’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Please say I’m sorry, if you remember. I’d really like her to know that.’

Gardner assured her that he would pass the message on.

Twenty minutes later, Gardner and Barstow stood at the rear entrance to the station, watching the blue metal gates slide back
and the van carrying Sue Dunning back to prison disappearing through them.

‘So how do you think it’s going to go?’ Gardner asked.

Barstow sniffed, reaching into his jacket for cigarettes. ‘Noises the CPS are making … the provocation, the self-defence angle,
I think they might decide to go for manslaughter as best chance of a conviction.’

Gardner was still having a little difficulty with the Scottish accent. He had lost the odd word, but got the gist of it. ‘That’s
good news,’ he said.

The DI nodded as he lit his cigarette. ‘Bloody right it is, pal, and between you and me I don’t think there’s too many round
here are going to be trying awfully hard, if you know what I mean.’

Gardner looked at him.

‘Like you said in there, she’s in hell. Can’t see what good prison’s going to do on top of that, can you? Ten years dodging
bull-dykes with home-made blades.’

‘I guess not,’ Gardner said.

‘Especially not when she’s done the world a favour.’

Patti Lee Wilson topped up her glass, sat down and, for the third time in the last thirty minutes, picked up the phone. This
time, after emptying half the glass in one, she dialled. She waited for the connection to be made; a few more seconds during
which she had to fight the urge to hang up.

The woman who answered sounded sleepy, a little worried.

‘Is this Sonia Gold?’

‘Who’s this?’

Patti heard a man’s voice, muffled. ‘Who the hell’s that?’

‘I’m Amber-Marie’s mother,’ Patti said. ‘Amber-Marie Wilson?’

There was a pause, then the woman said, ‘I know who you are.’

‘God, did I wake you? I wanted to call earlier, but I was a little nervous, you know?’

‘It’s fine,’ the woman said. ‘We’re in bed a bit earlier than normal, that’s all. The trial starts tomorrow, so …’

‘Yeah, that’s why I called. To wish you luck, kind of thing. Does that sound strange?’

‘Not really. Well, perhaps a bit.’

‘Maybe I should be wishing
her
luck,’ Patti said. ‘You want her to get off, right?’

Another pause. ‘I don’t know what I want.’

Patti swung her feet up on to the couch. ‘I know, it’s messed up.’

‘I mean, yes … I think so. There’s still a little part of me though that wonders if she … you understand.’

‘No way,’ Patti said. ‘I talked with the detective who questioned her over there. He’s a pretty good friend of mine, actually.
He looked into her eyes, you know?’

‘There’s a part of me that hates her, if that makes sense.’

‘Sure.’

‘I want it to be
him
.’ The woman’s voice was still quiet, but the passion was clear enough. ‘I wanted to see his face when he got put away. When
he got to really understand what he’d done … what he’d taken from us. From you, too.’

‘I near enough jumped for joy when I got the call saying the fucker was dead, pardon my language.’

The woman laughed a little. She told Patti that she’d said a lot worse.

Patti said, ‘If we’d caught up with him over here, he’d be getting the needle and I’d be sitting right there in the front
row, laughing my ass off.’

‘Would you?’ the woman asked. ‘Honestly?’

It took Patti a while, the rest of the glass, before she said, ‘No, I guess not.’

‘It won’t bring our girls back, will it?’

Patti heard the man’s voice again, could not make out what was being said. ‘Listen, I should probably let you get some sleep.’

‘It was kind of you to ring.’

‘I wasn’t sure if I should.’

‘Did you not think about coming over yourself?’

‘Money’s kind of a problem right now,’ Patti said. ‘Maybe I should’ve saved up though. Be worth it just to shake her hand.’

‘Well, anyway …’

‘Listen … I guess I really called just to say hang in there, OK? I know it’s been a while already since your little girl passed,
but I’ve got a bit of a head start on you and I wanted you to know that it gets easier. Not
easy
, nothing like that, but it’s more like an ache, you know, instead of just something … raw. It’ll get easier, honey. I promise.’

She heard the woman suck in a breath.

‘God, I hope so …’

‘And you know what else? That bastard didn’t take her from you, not really. Not all of her, he didn’t. Not the very best part.’

Then Patti sat, cradling an empty glass and listening to a woman three thousand miles away, whom she had never met, starting
to cry.