SECRET CRIMES a gripping crime thriller full of suspense (16 page)

‘And what did you tell your mother?’

‘I didn’t need to tell her anything. She always knew what I felt. She knew I needed a break from both of them.’ He paused. ‘She visited me in New York a couple of times, but Dad doesn’t know that.’

‘This is a difficult question, Peter. If you’d prefer not to answer it, I’ll understand. Okay?’ She waited for his nod of agreement. ‘Your father told us that your mother had numerous affairs and that was the cause of their split. Was that your understanding also?’

Peter thought for a long while, and his answer was slow and hesitant. ‘The fact that she had a couple of affairs didn’t surprise me. They really were like chalk and cheese. Is that the right expression?’

Sophie nodded.

‘She loved people. She loved parties, dancing. Dad is nothing like that, so it led to friction. It’s no surprise that she looked for those things somewhere else. I expect he felt betrayed, though he was always tight-lipped about it, particularly when I was a teenager. He thought I should be protected. I guess I just wanted Mum to be happy. And she wasn’t, she really wasn’t. But if he used the word numerous that was his bitterness coming out. It makes her sound as if she was completely flighty. He really did love her you see, especially when I was young. When it all started going wrong I think he was angry for a while, but then accepted that separation was the best option. After they divorced he met Françoise and she’s very different to Mum. They seem to be devoted to each other. Maybe that comes with maturity. The thing is, I saw the vulnerable side of Mum. Maybe no one else ever did. She had this party-girl facade, I know. I saw it. But she was really thoughtful and caring towards me. When the two of us were together it was just the best thing, you know? I had a good relationship with Dad, but it wasn’t the same.’ He shook his head slowly.

‘There is this other thing, Peter.’

He looked her in the eye. ‘What other thing?’

‘We have some evidence that recently she was involved in group sex activities. I’m sorry if this is a shock to you, and I wish I didn’t have to mention it, but it will come out in court when we catch the killer and put him on trial. You may as well know now rather than finding out then.’

He was silent for almost a minute. ‘I expect she was looking for something, something to fill the emptiness. Cheap thrills, Chief Inspector. That’s all it was. I guess she got herself hooked on those thrills.’

‘We found a photo on your mum’s laptop that shows her in a wedding dress. It could have been taken just a couple of years ago. The dress was cream. Does it ring a bell?’

‘No! How bizarre. When she married Dad she wore white.’ Peter looked astounded.

‘You don’t think she could have married again some time, in secret? Much more recently?’

‘If she did, then it would destroy everything I thought about our relationship. To get married and not invite me? That would be so hurtful.’ He shook his head. ‘I think she went on an exotic cruise two and a half years ago. I got several postcards from places in the Caribbean.’ He paused. ‘The trouble was, she was very mercurial. She had a habit of doing things on the spur of the moment, then regretting them later.’

‘So you’re not saying the idea is totally ridiculous?’

He bit his lip. ‘No. It’s conceivable, even if I hate the thought of her having done it.’

‘You’ve shown the most astonishing maturity and understanding, Peter. What do you do for a living?’

‘I took a degree in Psychology and Human Behaviour. I’m a clinical psychotherapist. Quite apt, given the circumstances, don’t you think?’ He sighed. ‘I think I may need some therapy myself now. I’ve lost the single most important person in my life. And I don’t know how to cope with it.’

Chapter 14: Family Contrasts

Thursday afternoon

Two sets of families, each come to identify the body of a loved one. It was interesting to observe the contrast between them. Soon after the Shakespeares left Dorchester, Pamela Derek arrived with her two sons, Andy and Kenny. Sophie and Marsh had returned to the pathology department and were waiting in reception when Jen Allbright arrived with the family. The two boys, both in their late teens, were quiet and damp-eyed and, despite her earlier protestations, Pamela was sobbing. Sophie was glad that the two Shakespeare men had departed a good while earlier: a meeting of the two families could have been catastrophic, given the tragic circumstances. She sent Marsh on ahead to double-check that the two bodies had been correctly exchanged.

All three family members entered the viewing room, with Andy, the elder son, at the front. Barry Marsh lowered the sheet covering the corpse’s head and the young man sighed, then nodded.

‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘That’s Dad.’

He turned and put his arms around his mother and his younger brother.

The small group went to the hospital café for some tea.

‘Were you close to your father, Andy?’ Marsh asked.

‘Suppose we were, sort of a bit. But Kenny saw him more than me, didn’t you Kenny?’

The younger teenager nodded. He looked utterly miserable. He had red, swollen eyes and a streaming nose. Sophie reached across the table and put her hand on his.

‘It’s alright to show your feelings, Kenny. It’s a mistake to think that you have to keep them hidden from other people, particularly from Sergeant Marsh and me. Our job means that we’ve seen far too much tragic loss. The worse thing is when people bottle it up and hide it away, thinking that’s the right thing to do. You loved your Dad and you feel as if a huge chunk of you has gone missing now that he’s dead. It’s not wrong to feel devastated by that.’ She waited. ‘You’re frightened of a future without him, aren’t you?’

‘Sort of. I dunno what to think. Not now. Everything’s gone wrong. I feel wrong. I just want him back.’

‘Of course, Kenny. We’re human beings and that’s what we feel when someone we love is taken from us.’ She paused. ‘Kenny, Sergeant Marsh has a few questions for you, and for Andy as well. I’m going to stay here with your mother while he takes you outside. The fresh air will probably do you good.’ Pamela looked as if she was about to protest. ‘We have to, Pamela. I have to get to the bottom of this awful crime. I need to know the facts, and they rarely come from any one person, however honest he or she is trying to be. We pick up snippets from talking to everyone. If we’re lucky, we can begin to get a picture of the real situation. Andy will be with Kenny, and Barry will be careful.’

Pamela slumped in her chair.

* * *

Marsh and the boys walked out to a grassy area just outside the café windows. There they stood, watching some birds pecking at the damp turf.

‘How are you feeling about all this, Andy?’ Barry asked. ‘You’re older, but you probably feel the pressure just as much as Kenny. You might not want to show it, though.’

‘Yeah. It’s been like that ever since Dad left. I felt hassled after that, as if I was in charge or summat. I never asked for it. Just got landed with it. I worried about both of ’em. And Kenny. I worried about him. But I didn’t have no one to talk to. It’s like now. It’s fine for Kenny to cry, but I can’t, cos I’m the eldest.’ His voice was choked.

‘What do you remember about your parents’ breakup?’ Barry asked.

‘I felt sick about it.’ Andy’s voice was little more than a whisper. ‘What was wrong with them? Why couldn’t they patch things up? I was sick every morning before I went to school. And I had to put on this pretend show so my mates didn’t know. Stay tough. And all the time I wanted to crawl away and die. I would have done if it hadn’t been for Kenny. He needed me. Mum was useless for a long time. She drank. We saw Dad most weekends and it was like a different world. He still gave us money. He lived in a flat, and he was like he always had been, and I could pretend we were back to normal. But then we’d go home on Sunday and see the state Mum was in.’

‘And this was about two years ago?’

Andy nodded. ‘It took her months to get over it. She still isn’t, really. But she’s cut back on drinking, and it’s tidier at home.’

‘Do you know why they split up?’

‘It was another woman. That one who’s dead. It was the first time we’ve seen Mum laugh, I mean a proper laugh. When she found out that that woman was dead.
That Sheldon bitch
was how she referred to her.’

‘Did you ever meet her?’

The young man nodded. ‘She came into Dad’s flat a couple of times when we were there.’

‘What did you think of her?’

The younger son suddenly broke in. ‘Fucking bitch. She stole our Dad. She deserved what she got. Serves her right.’

Marsh put his hand on Kenny’s shoulder. ‘I can understand how you feel, Kenny. It was her that changed everything, wasn’t it?’

Kenny nodded miserably.

‘I liked her,’ Andy said quietly. ‘And that made it all worse. She talked to me about her son. She knew how I felt. And she was pretty, even though she was older than our mum. And there was something about her. I didn’t know what it was then, but I do now.’

‘What?’ Barry asked.

‘She was kind of sexy. Dad was obsessed with her. I can see it now.’

* * *

It was a cold, bright afternoon, with the sun already beginning to dip in the sky. Jimmy Melsom and Rae Gregson set out for Portsmouth in order to look more thoroughly at Paul Derek’s flat. Marsh had tried to find out more about the two boys’ weekend stays with their father. Then he phoned through to the incident room with instructions for the two detective constables. They parked behind the block of flats and walked towards the entrance.

‘How could he afford it?’ asked Melsom. ‘The divorce wasn’t amicable. The wife kept the house and he probably had to pay for the boys’ upkeep. He couldn’t have been earning that much, surely? So how did he manage to buy this?’

‘Barry found out that his parents left him some money,’ Rae replied. ‘Pamela kept the house. She has to fund the last few years of the mortgage, but the monthly payments aren’t that much by today’s standards. They bought it twenty years ago. He only needed a small mortgage to buy this place. Pamela took the split badly, but he made sure she and the boys were alright by transferring the house title over to the three of them. That’s according to what Barry told me on the phone. He said that Derek wasn’t a complete rogue.’

They took the lift to the first floor of the four storey block and made their way along a short corridor.

‘The boss made a quick visit yesterday while I was left at his workplace, but she only had a few minutes because of the post-mortem. A local forensic team is supposed to meet us here.’

They slid into their nylon overalls, opened the door and entered a small hallway. The layout of the flat was fairly standard: a kitchen-diner, a lounge, two bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms had an en-suite shower room.

‘Not bad,’ Melsom said. ‘It’s got everything you’d need.’

‘The view isn’t much, though,’ Rae replied, looking through the window. ‘The front windows look out over the car park, and the others across that strip of grass to the next block of flats.’

‘You’re too picky. It’d be fine for me. I suppose the boys slept in the second bedroom when they were here. Shall we start? I’ll take the kitchen and lounge and you do the bedrooms? Okay?’

They set to work. Some of the furniture was worn and faded, although everything was clean and tidy. Rae started in the main bedroom. She began with the cupboards. Work clothes, a few suits, jackets and trousers, were separated from more informal clothes. A tie rack was fitted to the inside of the wardrobe door, holding some brightly-coloured ties in different colours. These contrasted with the black and grey of the trousers and suits. His boxers were all patterned, in reds and bright blues. Most of his shirts were coloured. Rae went through the contents of the bedside table. Tissues, spiced massage oils, condoms. There were a couple of erotic paperbacks with storylines about group sex. Rae took them out and sealed them in a bag. The bottom drawer contained several items of lingerie. The size suggested they might be Sarah’s. There was a nightdress in soft gold; a bra, panty and suspender belt set, all in deep red; several pairs of sheer, black stockings; a black and purple corset. Rae carefully removed these and sealed them into evidence bags. The en suite contained the usual: shaving gear, soap, shower gels and shampoos. Two towels hung from the rail.

She moved to the smaller second bedroom. There, the twin beds took up most of the available space. The cupboard was largely empty, containing a few items that obviously belonged to the boys. There was nothing else of interest, so she walked through to the lounge to see how Jimmy was getting on.

Fairly normal stuff, really,’ he said. ‘Maybe a few unusual books on the shelf, but apart from that it’s pretty standard.’

Rae looked at the bookshelves.

‘What do you mean by unusual, Jimmy?’

‘Dickens and stuff. That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?’

Rae snorted. ‘Jimmy, most people think that having a few books by Dickens and Jane Austen is a sign of good taste. Either that or the homeowner’s put them there to impress people.’

‘Whatever. Doesn’t impress me.’

‘What have you got on your bookshelves then? Top Gear annuals? Football book of the year?’ She walked across to the DVD collection. ‘Have you looked through these, Jimmy?’

‘Yeah, but nothing caught my eye.’

Rae noticed that several cases stuck out and she removed them to see what lay behind. She found a case behind them. ‘Not even Fun With Your Boyfriend?’

‘Why that one?’ Jimmy said in a bored voice as he moved about the room.

‘Jimmy, you really are a young innocent. It’s a very unusual sex film. I’m not going to embarrass myself by describing it to you. But we should take it, and we’ll have to go through these films again in case there are others you’ve missed. Remember what the boss said. Anything out of the ordinary that can help her build a picture of the man and his life.’

Between them, the two detectives pulled out another two half-hidden DVDs with a sex theme.

‘How did you miss them, Jimmy?’

He shrugged and looked glum. ‘I just didn’t spot the fact that some were hidden behind. I looked at the titles on the spines and none of them mentioned sex, as far as I could see. Should we watch a bit from a couple of them, just to check you’re right?’

‘No, no, no. Absolutely not. If you think I want to be caught watching sex films with you when the forensic team arrives, you’ve got another think coming. These won’t be soft, romantic sex films either. Five minutes of these and you’d want to run a mile.’

‘Bit of an expert, aren’t you? For a woman, I mean?’

‘Please don’t turn it back on me like that, Jimmy. I know my stuff, but from my job. Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Jen said there was something odd about you, something a bit weird. Is that what she meant? And how did she know?’

‘She doesn’t know anything about me. Look, Jimmy, just forget it. The boss and Barry know everything about me, and they still took me on, so they must have been happy with me, mustn’t they? Just trust their judgement, will you?’

To Rae’s relief the forensic team arrived. Shaking slightly she finished bagging up the films and told them what they wanted analysed and fingerprinted. She and Melsom then started on the long job of interviewing the neighbours.