Hushabye (17 page)

She rang the doorbell once, waited five minutes, and then rang again. Nobody was home. What a waste of a journey... She was just turning to go back down the steps to her car when the door opened, slowly and hesitantly. Brigadier D’Arcy-Warner stood on the threshold, blinking and peering at her rather like a mole peering out of a burrow.

Kate got out her warrant card.

“Is your daughter in, Mr D’Arcy-Warner?” As she said it, she was suddenly conscious that she’d used the wrong title. “My apologies, um, Brigadier. Is Rebecca in?”

“Rebecca?” said the Brigadier in a puzzled tone.

“Yes, your daughter. Is she here?”

“No,” said the Brigadier, after a long moment. He pulled the door open a bit wider. “Do come in, my dear. I’ll make you a cup of tea. Do you like tea?”

“Oh no, that’s…” Kate realised he’d turned away, leaving the door open. She hesitated for a second and then followed him into the hallway.

The Brigadier plodded slowly across the black and white tiles towards a door at the far end of the hall. As Kate hesitated, he turned back.

“Come here, my dear.”

Kate walked across the acres of tiling until she was level with him. He stood, peering at her in the dimness.

“Are you a friend of Rebecca’s?”

“I’m a police officer, sir. Is Rebecca here?”

The Brigadier’s bushy eyebrows went up. “A policeman, eh? Have you come about the burglary?”

“I’m sorry?”

The Brigadier indicated another door on the right of the corridor. “There’s been a burglary,” he said. “In the study. Have you come about that?”

Kate hesitated for a second.

“Could you show me, sir?”

The Brigadier led her to a small, wood-panelled study. A desk stood by a window, with drawers akimbo and papers scattered over the surface and drifted onto the floor.

“It’s here,” said the Brigadier. He regarded the mess for a moment. “I think it was a burglary. It may have been me. I get in a mess sometimes.”

Kate sighed inwardly.

“Sir, can you be more specific? Has there actually been a burglary?”

“No,” said the Brigadier, sadly. Another mass of paper slipped from the desk to the floor. “It must have been when I was looking for something. It’s hard to remember things, sometimes. You’ll know that, when you get to my age.”

“Yes,” said Kate, remembering what Rebecca had said.
He has dementia
. Did he really, though, or was he just old and forgetful? Would he remember whether his daughter had been with him on the night of Gemma’s death? Was it even worth asking?
Perhaps I’ll be like that when I’m his age and then I’ll be happy not to remember everything.

She opened her mouth to ask the question, but the Brigadier had already started walking towards the door.

“You stay here, my dear,” he said. “I’ll bring you your tea. I can do that.”

Kate began a sentence and then thought better of it. Was he even able to find the kitchen? Where were the live-in carers, the home-helps that Rebecca had mentioned on their first visit? She saw no point in hanging around waiting for the Brigadier to remember how to boil a kettle, but she decided to wait for a moment. He closed the door of the study behind him, leaving Kate in the room.

She stood for a moment and then went to the chair by the desk, moving a mass of papers from the seat to the floor. What a mess. She looked out of the window at a little flowerbed and a slice of lawn. What must it have been like to grow up here? She sat back against the chair, allowing her eyes to drift from the window to the surface of the desk, from the open drawers to the piles of paper on the floor. Then she froze.

There was the logo, the blue and orange logo. The curled, embryonic shape. The logo she’d seen last night, on the paper from the adoption agency. There it was, on a letter on the floor, peeking out from underneath a pile of other letters. Kate leant down, her heart thumping. She knew she hadn’t been mistaken, but peering closer confirmed it. It was the same logo. It was a letter from the same adoption agency. She twitched at it and saw the salutation,
Dear Ms. D’Arcy-Warner
...

“Here you go, my dear,” said the Brigadier, crashing open the door. Kate jumped and sat upright. He came into the room, balancing a cup on a saucer.

“Tea for you,” he said proudly. Kate took it, barely able to mutter her thanks. It was stone cold.

*

“Olbeck, it’s me. I need you to get onto the Wenlove Agency. It’s an adoption agency, Wenlove Agency, W-E-N-L-O-V-E. Talk to the MD, ask about Rebecca D’Arcy-Warner. It’s urgent.”

“What the hell? What’s happened?”

“Just talk to them. Actually don’t, just get me the number. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, and I need to talk to them.”

Twenty minutes was pushing it, but Kate put her foot down. Damn the speed limits. She wished Olbeck was here, driving, so she could have time to think. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? She remembered Rebecca sitting opposite her, very upright, clasping her ringless fingers together.
I’m not very maternal, I’m afraid
. Had
she
had a child adopted? Kate slid to a stop at a red light, cursing the delay. Should she pull over and call the agency, right now? No, she needed to be in the office.
Come on, come on
.  The light changed and she shot forward.

Back at the office, she appraised Olbeck of the situation.

“But how did you know it was the Wenlove’s logo?” he asked.

Kate had been dreading this bit.

“I just know,” she said, praying he wouldn’t ask for more details. “I can’t go into it now but I know it, I know it was the logo of a private adoption agency. Just take it from me.”

Olbeck nodded.

“Theo pulled up the info. Managing Director is a Graham Winterdown. He pulled the old ‘that’s highly confidential card’ when I spoke to him, until I told him it was a double murder enquiry.”

“So he knows we’re coming?”

“He does. Come on, I’m driving.”

Chapter Nineteen

Graham Winterdown was a small, neat man, with a fussy beard and smooth, long-fingered hands. Kate disliked him on sight. Walking through the reception area, she was transported back twelve years, when she’d come here once before to sign the papers. To sign over her boy. She clenched her fists and then consciously forced herself to relax them. She’d made two visits here, one for the paper signing and one more, to meet the prospective parents. The people who would be raising her child. Kate caught her breath in a gasp of pain and then stopped, struck by something that had just occurred to her. The adoptive parents... the woman’s face... her train of thought was derailed as they were ushered into the managing director’s office.

“This is very irregular,” said Winterdown disapprovingly as they sat down in chairs opposite his desk. “I appreciate that you need the information but I’m very worried about the security of our clients’ details.”

“Any information will be safe with us,” said Kate. She took in the luxurious fittings of his office: the mahogany desk, the crystal carafe of water perched on top. On the far wall was a large, black and white photograph of a smiling baby dressed in a pair of striped dungarees.

“What was it you wanted to know?” asked Winterdown after offering refreshments and having them refused.

Olbeck had explained the purpose of their visit during his telephone call.  He repeated as much to Winterdown.

“Ah, yes.” Winterdown extracted a file from the drawer of his desk. “I just wanted to be sure that I had the facts right, as it were.”

Kate longed to arrest him for being a smug, sanctimonious git.

“You’ve been in correspondence with Rebecca D’Arcy-Warner,” she said, sharply. “We need to know why.”

Winterdown raised his eyebrows at her tone but didn’t comment. He offered the file in his hand to her.

“We did indeed have some correspondence with a Ms D’Arcy-Warner,” he said, as Kate took the file. “All of the paperwork relating to the lady is in that file. She applied to us to become an adoptive parent two years ago now.”

“And did she become one? An adoptive parent?”

“She did not.”

Olbeck and Kate exchanged glances.

“Why not?” said Olbeck.

Winterdown moved a pen into alignment with the edge of his desk.

“There are many reasons someone wouldn’t make a suitable adoptive parent,” he said, after a moment. “We have very stringent criteria before people are approved to adopt. It’s all in the best interests of the children.”

“Of course,” said Kate. “But can you be more specific? Why was Rebecca turned down? Or did she change her mind?”

“No, she didn’t change her mind.”

“So you turned her down?”

“We did.” He clearly realised he was expected to elaborate. “There were certain…pointers, shall we say, that led us to believe that she was not entirely a – stable person. Not suitable for adopting a child.”

“She had a history of mental illness?”

Winterdown looked shocked.

“My goodness me, no, nothing like that. Under interview though, she made several comments that in the light of day seemed inappropriate in an adoptive parent. Anyone who wants to adopt must realise that the whole thing
must
proceed with regard to what’s best for the child. Not what’s best for themselves.”

“She was eager to adopt, though?”

“Very much so.”

Kate was riffling through the papers in the file.

“We must take these, Mr Winterdown.” Had he overseen her son’s adoption? “How long have you worked here?”

“I’m sorry?”

“How long have you been Managing Director here?”

His eyebrows went up again.

“For the last – let me see – six years? Yes, I think it must be six years.”

Olbeck was giving her an odd look. She closed the file.

“We’ll take this, Mr Winterdown. I’ll give you a receipt for it, and you can be assured that we’ll be very careful with it.”

“You all right?” said Olbeck when they were back in the car.

Kate nodded, brushing at her eyes. She sniffed.

“Still got that cold, I see,” he said, in a neutral tone.

They drove for a moment in silence.

“We need to get a warrant to search her house,” said Kate. “The mansion and Rebecca’s own house.”

“Do we have the grounds?”

“I think so. For a start, she’s lied to us. You heard her tell us she wasn’t maternal yourself. She said children weren’t in her game plan, or something like that. And yet, two years ago, she’s trying to adopt a child.”

“Perhaps that’s why she told us that. You know, she gets turned down for adoption and decides that she isn’t ever going to be a parent and pretends that’s been her plan all along. Protesting too much, you know.”

“It’s still a lie.”

“I know,” said Olbeck, indicating to turn off the main road. “I just don’t know if it’s enough.”

“I never did check her alibi for the night of Gemma’s death. We need to question her.”

“I know. Let’s go there now.”

He pulled the car over and called the station, asking Theo for her home address and punching it into the sat nav.

While this was happening, Kate was thinking hard. There was something nagging at her, something that was important. Something to do with Gemma. What was it? She scrolled back through her memories, thinking back to the last time she was at Gemma’s house. Oh yes, there it was. She opened her mouth to tell Olbeck and shut it again.
Tell him and you’ll have to tell him why you know what you do
... Kate battled with herself.
Tell Olbeck and you’ll have to tell him everything
. Could she bear for anyone else to know? Anderton knowing was bad enough. But it was important. Kate knew it was important. She made up her mind.

“There’s something else,” she said, reluctantly, as the car began moving again.

Olbeck glanced over at her.

“Yes?”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “There’s a photograph of Rebecca D’Arcy-Warner at Gemma Phillips’ house. In that weird photo album full of photos of Nick Fullman.”

“Yes?” said Olbeck, clearly expecting more.

“It’s of the three of them together. I’m not sure where it was taken. Rebecca has this look on her face, a very intense expression. It bothered me because I knew I’d seen that exact type of look before, but I couldn’t remember where.”

“Right,” said Olbeck. “And?”

Kate knew she was dragging this out because she didn’t want to tell him.
Come on, get a grip
. She took another deep breath. She was trembling.

“When I was seventeen,” she began. For a moment, her voice failed. “When I was seventeen, I had a baby adopted.”

There it was, the bald statement. Olbeck said nothing but he gave a little whistle of surprise.

“Okay,” he said, eventually. They were both looking straight ahead, Olbeck out of necessity, Kate because she didn’t want to look at him. She swallowed.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Olbeck. “That must have been really hard.”

Kate tried to say “it was.” For a moment, the tears threatened to overcome her. She swallowed again and again.

“It was,” she said, when she could trust her voice. “But I’m telling you this for a reason, I don’t want to go into too much detail. But the look on Rebecca’s face in the picture, it’s the same look as the one on the face of the adoptive parents that I met. The woman – the mother – when – when I had my son adopted. She looked just like that. ”

There was a moment’s silence.

“You’re sure?” said Olbeck. He glanced over at her. “I’m really sorry about that, Kate.”

“S’okay,” said Kate, in a watery voice. She concentrated on breathing in and out. “I am sure, though. I couldn’t forget it. The look on her face – the woman’s – when she saw the picture of my son.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Believe me, it’s the same look.”

“I believe you. I can’t see it helping us much though. I mean, a look is not evidence.”

“I know that,” snapped Kate, taking emotional refuge in anger. “It’s another reason why we have to interview her now, today.”