The Bad Things (37 page)

Authors: Mary-Jane Riley

BOOK: The Bad Things

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Rogers took an envelope out of his pocket. ‘The Artist wanted me to give you these.’

Kate took the envelope and opened it. Inside were two tickets to an art exhibition. Cherry’s art exhibition. She groaned. ‘Bloody hell. Now I’m going to have to make polite comments about twenty-five bad paintings instead of just the one.’

Glithro laughed.

‘And you can stop laughing, Glithro,’ she said. ‘There are two tickets here.’

She was glad to see the smile wiped off his face.

ONE WEEK LATER

A shaft of late afternoon light through the high window lifted the gloom of the crematorium chapel as Kate walked out. There had only been two other mourners there: Alex Devlin and a man of about sixty in a smart black coat.

The service had been short and perfunctory. Just one bunch of flowers from Alex Devlin, lying on top of the coffin. No one to give a eulogy, no sense of occasion as the coffin creaked its way behind the curtains, and no grieving family to mark Jackie Wood’s passing.

Kate went up to Alex, who was just shaking the hand of the man in the black coat. They hadn’t had much contact since that surreal day in the café when the mystery of Edward Grainger’s death had finally been solved and she had turned up, whey-faced, talking about her sister and Jez Clements and how there’d been a terrible miscarriage of justice. Kate knew how much courage it had taken for Alex to face up to the truth – she’d been doing a bit of that recently herself.

‘It was good of you to come, Joseph,’ Kate heard her say. The man nodded, put his hat back on his head, and left.

She touched Alex lightly on the back. ‘Hallo. Not much of a turnout for Jackie, is it?’ She could see her breath in the air. Although the seemingly relentless rain had stopped earlier, it was still cold, even for the time of year.

Alex turned and looked at her, a small smile on her face. ‘No. But I felt I ought to come, after everything. You know.’

Kate did know. ‘And that man, I presume was the penfriend?’

‘You knew about him?’

‘Oh yes, we had to find out about all of Jackie’s acquaintances as well as her family.’

Alex smiled ruefully. ‘Funny, isn’t it? Jackie told me she had a boyfriend and I thought it was going to be a big thing, a big reveal, you know? But no, just a penfriend.’

‘Yes, you wouldn’t think they still existed, would you? But apparently they belonged to a penfriend club before emails became the only way of communicating. Seems he wrote to her in prison, as well.’

‘He seemed nice, and he came all the way from Preston.’

They stood in silence for a few moments.

‘And how’s Sasha?’

Alex shrugged. ‘Oh, you know. Getting the help she needs anyway, but I’m not sure a court case will be good for her.’

‘They might find her unfit to plead, or the CPS won’t prosecute her because she was suffering from delayed postnatal depression at the time the children died,’ said Kate, gently, seeing the tears behind her eyes.

‘I guess. It’s just so hard. I tried to do my best for her, over the years, you know, but all the time I was making things worse. If only I’d known then how bad she was.’

‘They both hid it from you very well, didn’t they? You can’t blame yourself for that.’

Alex shook her head. ‘No. I should have known. But I’m just going to have to live with that, aren’t I?’

Kate made her voice hard. ‘What Jez did was wrong. And selfish. He was only seeing it from his point of view, and not even from Sasha’s.’

Alex shook her head. ‘No, no, he loved her so much he couldn’t bear to see her going to prison for what she’d done. I mean, there was plenty of that going on fifteen years ago, wasn’t there? People going to prison for killing their children and then it turned out to be cot death, all that sort of thing. But by the time that was found out they’d been inside too long; they couldn’t cope. Or had lost their family. I suppose it’s better these days.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I thought that, after all this was over, I might go away somewhere, you know, with Gus; make a new start. If I can tear him away from the new girlfriend, which doesn’t seem very possible. I mean, I can freelance from anywhere these days, it shouldn’t be hard. If I don’t get sent down for perverting the course of justice or something.’

‘I think after all this time, you’re more likely to get a suspended sentence, particularly if you’ve got a good lawyer.’

Alex looked up at the sky. ‘And thanks for getting the diary.’

‘Ah, well, that’s evidence, isn’t it.’ Kate smiled. ‘It was rather good watching Killingback seethe, very satisfactory. But there’s nothing he can do, not at the moment anyway.’ She hesitated. ‘How about you, Alex? Now you know what really happened, are you feeling, I don’t know—’

‘Less guilty?’ Alex shrugged. ‘Possibly, maybe. I don’t know. Like I said, I should have noticed what was happening to Sasha, but I was so caught up in my sordid affair with Martin that I was blind. And two innocent people died.’

‘Hey, Martin loved you, you know. It’s all there, in the diary.’

‘Maybe. I don’t know if that’s enough.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’d better be getting back otherwise Gus might start to get worried. He’s getting ready for his skiing trip and I think his mate Jack will be at our house. They’ll both be wanting food – that I do know.’

‘He’s a good boy, Gus. Even I can see that.’

‘Even you?’ asked Alex.

‘It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell it to you one day. Just one more thing…Malone…are you still seeing him?’

‘Not at the moment.’

Kate sensed she didn’t want to say any more. ‘He’s a slippery customer, that’s for sure.’ She paused. ‘We never did find the knife, you know.’

‘The knife?’

Alex’s innocent look didn’t quite work, thought Kate. ‘From the scene of Jackie’s murder. It’s still an open case, and one day we will find the killer.’

Alex nodded. ‘I hope you do,’ she said. ‘It’s the least she deserves.’

‘No wake for Jackie, then,’ said Kate, smiling.

‘Didn’t seem appropriate somehow. Besides, there was only you, me and Joseph. That would have been a lot of dog-eared sandwiches and vol-au-vents to eat.’

‘Here,’ said Kate, rooting around in her bag and coming up with a business card. ‘In case you ever need me. If you have anything more to say. Perhaps you’ll remember something about the knife.’

Alex stuffed it in her coat and held out her hand. ‘It was good to see you again.’

Kate shook the offered hand. ‘And you.’

Alex Devlin cut a lonely figure as she strode down the crematorium path, thought Kate, and she wondered what the journalist had ahead of her with her broken family. Hopefully, her son could be her solace so she wouldn’t be alone. She looked up at the sky. The low sun and custard-looking skies spoke of snow in the air. Then she turned round. ‘I know you’re there. You can come out now,’ she said.

Malone stepped out from behind a line of trees near the door of the crematorium. ‘How did you know?’ A wry smile lit up his face and his eyes twinkled at her. Lord love us, twinkled. What was she like?

‘For an undercover policeman you don’t stay very undercover.’

‘Ex. I really am done with that now. She didn’t see me though, did she?’

Kate shook her head. ‘No. Too busy thinking about Jackie and talking to the friend.’

‘Friend?’

‘The only other mourner; the guy in the nicely cut coat.’

‘Ah.’

‘What happened to you two?’

‘Happened?’

‘You were as thick as thieves when I first saw you outside Jackie Wood’s caravan.’

He shrugged. ‘Yes, well…’ His voice trailed off.

‘Ended badly, did it?’

‘Maybe a man like me isn’t supposed to fall in love.’

Kate looked at him. ‘Maybe you’re right, Malone. And she’s had enough heartbreak in her life, she doesn’t need any more from you.’

‘I thought…’ He sighed. ‘Doesn’t matter. Thanks for not giving me away. It was nice to see her, just one last time anyway.’

He left, walking down the same path trodden by Alex minutes earlier.

Another lonely figure.

Alex was glad of her warm coat as she made her way home along the beach, watching the waves come in and go out and wondering if Millie’s body would ever be washed up. Perhaps it had been, on some far distant shore and was lying in a morgue somewhere, unclaimed. They would soon know though, if that were the case, then they could bury her next to Harry.

Home and family, that’s all that mattered really. Not even work so much, although, to see Gus’s face when she told him he could go skiing and damn the expense had made revamping the article about Jackie Wood worth it. The only trouble was, her editor Liz had been on her case, wanting the story about Jez and Sasha from her point of view. Maybe she would write it one day, but it would be on her terms and no one else’s.

She trudged up the beach and found a bench to sit on.
In Memory of Elsa Who I Loved For 50 Years
went the inscription on its back. Lucky Elsa. She took out her phone and stared at it for a few minutes. Gillian. The other woman. Were they really getting divorced? How could she believe anything Malone said? And if he was lying, did Gillian deserve to know about his duplicity? It would be so easy just to key in the numbers that were burned on her memory, and Gillian’s life could come crashing down. Perhaps she ought to know she was living a lie. But could she do that? Was it so important for her to know the truth? Perhaps she did know and just didn’t want to see it. Her finger hovered over the keypad.

She put the phone back in her pocket.

THEN

It was dark and it was cold but her little torch led the way along the roads between the caravans at Harbour’s End. A weak light shone from behind the thin curtain hanging at the window of the caravan. She knew it was the right one. Following Alex this morning had been the right thing to do. Call it a hunch, an instinct, but somehow she’d known Alex was going to see the woman. The killer. The way she had buried herself in her coat, looked around, hurried away. Alex had a secret, and she thought she knew what it was.

And she was right.

Creeping forward, she kept to the shadows not wanting some busybody to see her.

She pressed herself against the side of a caravan as a man went by, whistling to his dog who stopped to piss up against a car.

Almost there.

The knife was snug in her pocket.

She hated Jackie Wood. She was to blame for everything that had happened in her life, everything she had lost, everything she had done. The only thing that had kept her going these last fifteen years was the thought of her inside. Banged up. Suffering.

She wanted her to suffer, like she had wanted everyone to suffer.

She climbed the steps and with one gloved hand knocked softly on the door.

The stupid bitch opened it.

Jackie Wood peered at her. ‘I know you,’ she said.

Sasha pushed her inside
.

Acknowledgements

For her support, advice and belief in me, many, many thanks to my agent, Teresa Chris. Also thanks to Sarah Hodgson and all at HarperCollins for their wisdom and enthusiasm.

Thanks also to Susan Rae for the loan of her BBC Radio 4 name and for all her support, and to Julia Champion, who’s lived up to her name since we first worked together on radio, and to the Swaffer family and Sue Welfare for just being there.

To Bernardine Coverley: wish you could be here now, you would be so proud for me.

A special mention for Melanie McCarthy who has been at my side for more years than I care to remember, and a big thank you to Sarah Bower and Jenny Knight for their friendship and encouragement. And, above all, thanks and love to my husband, Kim, and children Edward, Peter and Esme. I couldn’t have done it without you.

About the Author

Mary-Jane Riley spent many years as a BBC journalist and talk show broadcaster, covering some of the darker stories of the last decade, including the Suffolk prostitute murders, the Cambridgeshire serial killer Joanna Dennehy and Operation Endeavour, the police operation to trap illegal gangmasters in the Fens. She has had short stories published in women’s magazines, including
Bella
,
Women’s Weekly
and
That’s Life
. Mary-Jane Riley is married with three children and lives in rural Suffolk.
The Bad Things
is her first novel.