The Bad Things (34 page)

‘Have you seen him recently?’

‘Grainger?’

‘Yes. Edward Grainger.’

‘I thought he’d gone to work in Guernsey?’

‘No, he came back here, when his wife fell ill. She died about a year ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’

I’m sure you are, thought Kate. ‘Grainger was murdered yesterday.’

‘Murdered?’

She wasn’t a bad actress. The strip light flickered. A tic appeared in her cheek.

Not a bad actress. But not great.

Kate put her elbows on the table and clasped her hands together. ‘He was fed whisky and pills, then someone put a bag over his head, pumped helium into it, and murdered him.’

‘That’s awful.’ She blinked three times. The light flickered again. A strand of hair came free from her bun.

‘The thing is, Angela, you were caught on a speed camera about three quarters of an hour before he was found. On the road leading away from his house.’

‘A speed camera?’

‘Yes.’

‘On the road leading away from his house?’

‘Yes.’ Kate tried to stay patient.

‘Is that why I’m here? Because I was “caught”, as you say, on a speed camera on a road near his house?’

‘Shortly before he was found, yes. And shortly after he died. And it wasn’t just you in the car. Your daughter was with you.’

‘What?’ Her lip curled. ‘And one fuzzy dark shot from the back showed you all that?’

Kate pulled the speed camera photo out from her bundle of papers and slid it across the table to Angela, who picked it up and studied it.

She put it back down on the table. Her complexion was pasty. Both hands were playing with her scarf, twisting it round and round. ‘So? It doesn’t prove anything.’

‘What were you doing near his house on the day he was murdered?’

‘How do you know he was murdered? Sounded more like he killed himself.’ She looked at Kate defiantly. ‘The cowards, they always find the easy way out. Leave a note saying they couldn’t take any more. Even Martin. Did you know he had a lover?’

Kate closed her eyes briefly and tried to damp down the excitement. The note. Nobody had mentioned a note. And finally, something about the lover.

‘Angela. Tell me about the mistress, lover, whatever you want to call her.’ She was getting close to knowing more about what happened fifteen years ago, she could feel it.

‘Bitch, I call her. If it wasn’t for her Martin would still be alive.’ Angela abandoned her scarf and began to pick the sides of her thumbs. ‘It was that damn diary. I didn’t even know it existed, not until Bea told me about it.’ She laughed. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t get used to calling her Nikki. Just like I couldn’t get used to thinking of her stacking shelves in Tesco’s. “Bea,” I said to her, “can’t you find something a bit more suited to your qualifications?” She trained as a teacher, you know.’

‘Whose diary?’

‘Martin’s.’ She seemed surprised at the question.

‘And it told you about the mistress?’ Kate knew she had to go carefully here; she didn’t want Angela Jessop to clam up.

‘I wonder now if she had something to do with, you know, what happened.’ She looked at Kate, her eyes had gone back into their sockets. ‘Do you think it could?’

‘I don’t know, Angela. Tell me.’

She gave a deep, shuddering sigh. ‘Martin’s lawyer was a friend of the family. He played golf with Jonny Danby.’ A smile twisted one side of her face. ‘Old boys’ club, eh? It was easy enough to keep in touch with Jonny over the years, get a bit close to him. I wanted to keep tabs on the Wood woman in prison. See what was happening to her. Thought it might be useful, and it was. Jonny Danby had been Martin’s lawyer as well as Jackie Wood’s.’ She picked at the skin on the side of her thumbs. ‘He told me about the appeal and that she was most likely going to be freed. He said he didn’t think she would go and live at the other end of the country. It was just a matter of a bit of research to find out that her parents had died and that they’d had a caravan in Sole Bay. That the caravan hadn’t been sold. Good old internet.’ She shrugged. ‘Bea went to Sole Bay and rented a caravan on the same site just after Wood moved in. It was a stroke of luck that it was right next door to Wood’s. Then, when Wood came to the caravan a couple of days later, Bea helped her move in. She told me she had some plan to make Wood pay for what she had done to our family. She never believed her dad was guilty, you see.’ She smiled. The skin on the side of her thumbs was raw.

‘What about you? Did you believe Martin had killed those children?’

Angela Jessop gave a sigh from the depths of her soul. ‘At first I didn’t know what to think. I loved him. Oh, I knew he’d strayed,’ she waved her hand as if dismissing the hurt. ‘After all, he gave that interview to
The Post
. I hated him after he killed himself. But then…then I realized that he would never, ever have hurt those children. Never.’

Kate nodded. ‘So, the diary?’

Another sigh. ‘They got chatting and Wood told Bea all about the diary. Said Martin had even written it in prison, but a policeman had taken it off him. Said Edward Grainger had it. Said it was “explosive”. That was her very word. “Explosive”. Then that woman came along. Alex Devlin.’

Kate thought about the burglary. ‘So Bea went looking for the diary one night, did she?’

‘Well, she could hardly go and ask the bugger could she? So yes, she did. And found it. Could I have some more coffee, please?’

Kate nodded. ‘We’ll take a bit of a break.’ She switched off the tape recorder.

Eve Maitland slipped out of the room, coming back a couple of minutes later with the drink.

‘So,’ said Kate, switching the tape recorder back on and announcing all their names again, ‘Bea found the diary?’

‘You were there, weren’t you?’

‘When?’

‘When they found Harry. You found Harry.’ She grimaced. ‘It must have been…’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know, horrendous.’

‘Yes.’ Kate refused to let the images that haunted her into her head. ‘The diary.’

‘It described everything. The times they met. Where they met. What they did.’ Her expression was filled with disgust. ‘Creeping about. Sex in anonymous hotel rooms to start with, then she found him the flat in Sole Bay. So very convenient.’

Even now, Kate could see the hurt on her face, hear it in her voice. ‘Does it say where Martin buried Millie?’

Angela looked at her, surprise on her face. ‘No, no.’ She shook her head. ‘The diary said nothing about any of that, just about her. And when he got to prison, how he felt he couldn’t betray her, that it wouldn’t have done any good. It would have done me some good, though.’ She looked at Kate, her eyes shining with tears. ‘He did talk about me and the children, too. He still loved us. I can hang on to that.’

‘Who was she?’

‘She?’

‘The mistress?’

‘Didn’t I say? Alex Devlin, that’s who.’

The sides of her thumbs began to bleed.

35

For the first time in what seemed like months the sky was clear and the sun was shining as Alex walked up the path to Sasha’s house. It was time to find out the truth; there was no more hiding. She knew there was nothing to stop Ed from writing his story, putting all his speculation out there. Perhaps it would reopen the case into the twins’ murder, and maybe then they would find out where Millie was buried, but somehow she doubted it. Life didn’t work like that, not in her experience.

She knocked on the door.

Jez opened it. He was pale and looked as though he needed to sleep for a week. ‘Alex.’

‘Is Sasha okay?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Well, you’re not normally here and I thought for a moment—’

‘That she’d been cutting herself again? No more than usual. What do you want?’

Alex was taken aback. ‘I want to see Sash, if that’s okay with you.’

‘Sure.’ He opened the door wider and she tried to push past him to go through to the sitting room.

He grasped her arm and she resisted the urge to shake it off – she was becoming sick of people trying to stop her doing things – and contented herself with a glare. ‘I want to see my sister.’

‘There’s something you should know.’

‘The diary. I do know. Ed Killingback thoroughly enjoyed telling me he had it.’

‘
He
had it?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Because it was stolen from Grainger’s house a few days ago, just before he was killed.’

She laughed. ‘I can’t believe Ed Killingback stole it.’

‘No. Bea Jessop did.’

‘Bea?’

‘Apparently so. I think Angela and Bea are both involved in Grainger’s death. That’s what I heard down the station anyway.’

Alex leaned against the wall. ‘Oh, God. It really is all unravelling, isn’t it?’

‘Hey, Lexie, what are you doing here?’

If Jez looked as though he needed to sleep for a week, Sasha looked as though she needed a month’s worth. Her hair hung lankly across her shoulders; her face, a light shade of grey, was all sharp angles. She held a stained dressing gown closed with one hand, the other was scratching her head, her neck, her arms. Gone was the woman who had seemed to be trying to get it together when she came round to tell her about Jackie Wood. God, how could she tell her about Martin and the diary and all the publicity that was about to blow their lives apart again?

‘You were just going, weren’t you?’ said Jez, still holding on to her arm.

How easy it would be to say yes, to turn away and go out into the sunshine again and carry on with her life, maybe leave town until the papers were in cat litter trays.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to Sasha. It’s important.’ She looked at Jez. She could have imagined it, but she thought she saw him flinch. ‘Something else happened the day the twins disappeared.’

‘C’mon through, Lexie, c’mon through,’ said Sasha, in the sing-song voice Alex knew of old; the voice Sasha used when she was on the edge. She giggled. ‘That sounded a bit like that game show, didn’t it? You know the one…c’mon down. What was it called Jez?’

Jez ran his hands over his head. ‘I have no idea, Sasha.’

‘Oh don’t you? That is disappointing. Anyway, Alex, I want to talk to you too. I want so, so much to talk to you.’

The sitting room was airless and stuffy, as usual. Alex sat down on the sofa and patted the seat next to her. Jez stayed in the doorway, almost as if he were blocking her exit. ‘Come here, Sash,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘If it’s about Martin Jessop then don’t bother. I know all about you and him. Always have done.’ She waved her hands about aimlessly. The dressing gown fell open to reveal a stained nightie.

Alex tried to breathe. She had always tried to protect Sasha. Jez had always tried to protect Sasha. But she had always known.

Sasha sat down and patted Alex’s knee. ‘Always known. I came to see you one day, at your house. Let myself in. I saw him with you. I saw you with him.’ Her face twisted. ‘I saw your lover. You brought Jessop into this family. And do you know what? When I went to see him—’

‘You went to see Martin? Oh my God, when? He never said.’

‘Darling, I can’t remember when, I just
did
. But, do you know what? He didn’t want to know me. Not at all.’

‘What do you mean?’

She started to cry then. ‘He said he found me cheap. Ugly.’ She looked at Jez. ‘Just like you do; you find me cheap and ugly.’

‘I’ve told you over and over, I love you Sasha, I always have.’

She looked at him, horror on her face. ‘Have you?’

‘You know all this, Sasha. You know all this.’ He put his head in his hands.

Alex felt ill. She took hold of Sasha’s hands. ‘Sash?’

‘Mmm?’

‘What really happened the day the babies were taken?’

36

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Sasha had managed to escape to the bathroom for a wee on her own, without curious toddlers wanting to know what she was doing, why she was doing it, why, why, why. Now she wanted to have a shower, again on her own, while Jez was looking after Harry and Millie. She’d hated asking him, knowing the look of impatience tinged with disgust at her sour-smelling body that would appear for nanoseconds on his face. But it would be there.

She looked at herself in the mirror. White, washed-out face, stringy hair, breasts that drooped. That was why she woke up every morning with a heaviness, a blackness in her mood. Lately, she’d thought about running away, escaping her responsibilities.

Maybe, just maybe, today might do the trick, because she was escaping. Getting on the train to Norwich and just wandering around. She’d probably sit in Waterstone’s and have a coffee, read a new book that she might buy. Have lunch somewhere…Frank’s Bar, maybe. That would cheer her up.

Her shoulders slumped. Cheer her up. Some hope when it sometimes took a gargantuan effort even to turn on the shower.

It seemed to take an age to take off her clothes. She stepped into the shower and looked at the taps for one minute. Two. Three minutes. Try to think about the sunshine outside. The fact that she was going to have a day all to herself while Alex looked after her children, and Gus would be there as a playmate. Maybe her sister would take them down to the sea, or to the park, or the library. Yes, that would be good, the library. They loved the books and the stories there. She frowned. But that Jackie Wood was odd. She was sure the librarian kept some of the paintings the children did at story time. And one day she’d followed them home. Oh, she thought Sasha hadn’t seen her, but she had. On second thoughts, perhaps she should tell Alex to give the library a wide berth.

She felt her mood beginning to lift and she straightened her shoulders and turned on the water. Wash it all away. Wash all the rubbish that was in her head away. Rubbish float away on the water.

Half an hour later she was clean, hair dried, and dressed in what she thought of as her going-out clothes. She had quite a few of those, barely worn as her normal uniform was tracksuit bottoms and some sort of sweatshirt, or, on a bad day, her nightie and dressing gown. Today she’d even made the effort and put on a bit of make-up.