Just What Kind of Mother Are You? (30 page)

Joanne shifts in her seat.

She’d begged McAleese for this opportunity, for this interview. She needs to get something out of him. But they’ve been at this for more than twenty minutes now, and Merv the Perv isn’t talking.

Joanne decides to break from the questions and just sit. She could do with running another tissue under her armpits, beneath the underwired section of her bra. It won’t be long before the sweat seeps through her shirt. The room is painfully hot.

Mervyn’s smirking at her.

‘What?’ he says, in reaction to her silence. ‘Are we going to have a staring competition now, Detective? Have you run out of things to ask me?’

‘Your wife made a statement alleging you took photographs of adolescent girls, Mervyn. You don’t want to answer my questions, I can understand that. You think you’re just going to land yourself in more trouble by talking, so I can see you want to keep quiet. I’d most likely do the same in your shoes.’

‘My wife is delusional.’

‘Seemed pretty together to me. She came across as a sensible, clear-headed type of woman.’

He scoffs. ‘No comment.’

‘Though I have to say, I wouldn’t have automatically put the two of you together.’

He raises his eyebrows at Joanne.

‘You’re an odd pairing,’ she explains.

‘If you say so,’ he replies.

‘How did you meet?’

‘No comment.’

‘What about your daughter? How old is she, eleven?’

‘Twelve.’

‘Only a year away from your favourite age, Mervyn. Where are you hiding Lucinda?’

He leans forward in his seat and fixes her with a chilling stare. ‘I did not take those girls. I am a father. I am a husband. I am not a paedophile, as you are suggesting. You have no evidence, Detective, to prove I am involved in any of this, and if you’re hoping for some kind of weepy confession from me, then you will be waiting for a very long time. I’ve told you. I did not do it.’

‘What does the name Charles Lafferty mean to you?’

He shrugs. ‘Never met him.’

‘I think you have.’

Mervyn rolls his eyes.

‘It’s a name you use, isn’t it, Mervyn?’

‘You’re ridiculous.’

‘It’s an alias you use when you’re pretending to be someone else.’

‘Why would I want to be someone else?’

‘Perhaps you’re embarrassed of who you are,’ Joanne replies.

Mervyn laughs contemptuously. ‘I am not at all embarrassed
by
who I am, Detective,’ he says, correcting her grammar. ‘Perhaps you mean yourself. Maybe it’s
you
who’s embarrassed by who
you
are.’ He pauses and gives her the once-over. ‘Not married, are you?’

Joanne meets his stare. She doesn’t answer.

‘And why is that?’ he asks.

‘Good men are thin on the ground, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Perhaps it’s more a case of butch women getting left on the shelf.’

Joanne leans towards him. In a low voice, she says, ‘We know it’s you, Mervyn. We’ve got DNA.’

He doesn’t speak, but she sees his expression quaver, just fleetingly.

She continues, ‘Why don’t you help yourself and tell us why it is you do what you do. It can help your defence. If you keep on saying “No comment”, we’ve got nowhere to go. No one’s going to sympathize with a guy like you who won’t admit to what he’s done. Especially not inside. You start telling me what drives you, we might be required to get a psychiatric evaluation. I’ve heard they can be really useful when the time for sentencing comes around.’

‘What DNA?’ he asks.

‘Oh, Mervyn. I can’t go telling you all my secrets, can I?’

‘You’re bluffing.’

‘I’m not allowed to bluff.’

He sits back in his chair. Takes one breath in and sighs it out heavily.

‘I don’t believe you,’ he says.

‘I’m not lying, Mervyn. We can place you with one of the victims. And now that we’ve got you here, I expect a line-up will be next on the agenda. There’s always a good chance one of them will pick you once they set eyes on you.’

Mervyn looks to his solicitor. Joanne watches. The solicitor’s face is impassive. He drops his gaze and shakes his head to the side.

‘No comment,’ Mervyn says firmly.

Joanne moves her hand across the desk as if she’s reaching out to him. ‘Mervyn,’ she says softly, almost sadly, ‘we’ve got the dog. That dog you used to lure away your last victim? We found him. And guess what? He turned out to be a lovely old bundle of evidence.’

Joanne runs her hands under the cold-water tap and rinses her face. Her cheeks are flushed crimson and her shirt is sticking to her. She grabs some paper towel from the dispenser and wets it before wiping it over the skin of her back and midriff. Nearly there, she tells herself. Almost there.

McAleese, who’d been watching on a monitor next to the interview room, authorized the break. Mervyn had requested some time alone with his solicitor and McAleese granted it. He had a hunch that Mervyn would return to questioning singing a different tune, but Joanne wasn’t so sure. She got the impression Mervyn would keep this charade up till the death. He was a born liar. Joanne reckons she’s never met one quite so brilliant before. As if he himself believes every word to come out of his mouth. He’d be one of those people you hear about who can throw a polygraph.

The team regroups in the briefing room before Joanne and McAleese make their way down to the cells to collect Mervyn for round two.

The duty sergeant opens the door and the first thing Joanne sees are the pinstripes. And Mervyn’s bare torso. His ashen face stares at her as he hangs by his shirt from the iron bars of the cell window.

Joanne runs forward.

He’s already turning blue when she grabs him – grabs him around the hips, lifts his weight up in her arms.

‘Fuck,’ she hears someone say, but she’s not sure who, because she has everything focused on keeping this bastard up as high as she can.

Joanne’s not going to let him die. She has Molly Rigg’s desolate face in her head as she summons strength in her arms. She won’t let him die.

His weight has pulled the knot taut. The body is jerking as McAleese hacks through the cotton, trying to free him. Joanne feels another set of arms around Mervyn Peterson’s girth, halving her load.

Then his body bends at the waist as the shirt is cut from the steel bar.

His upper half flops forward and Joanne staggers, along with the duty sergeant, to lower Peterson to the floor without dropping him. ‘Get an ambulance,’ McAleese shouts to a figure in the doorway.

Joanne kneels down and puts her fingers to his neck. ‘Weak pulse, we need to get this off.’ The remaining shirtsleeve is continuing to cut into his throat. It too has been pulled taut with the weight of him. Joanne tries to slip her fingers underneath, but she can manage only one.

‘Jesus!’ says McAleese. ‘We’re going to lose the cunt. Joanne, breathe some air into him.’

She fires a look at McAleese, hesitates, then does as she’s asked. There’s no time to get the resuscitation shield. All the while, McAleese is cutting at the shirt with the blade of his Swiss Army knife.

Joanne feels sick to her stomach as she holds Peterson’s nose and covers his lips over with hers. He tastes of coffee. Sweet. The images from the memory card his wife brought in are coming thick and fast.

Breathe in. Blow out. Naked girls’ bodies. Breathe in. Blow out.

Christ, she could stick her fingers to the back of his eye sockets and drag out his fucking brain rather than do this.

Breathe in. Blow out.

Breathe in.

McAleese has cut through the cotton and tells Joanne to stop. Says Peterson’s colour is returning.

‘Let’s see if the fucker can breathe,’ McAleese says, and they watch as his chest begins to rise.

Seconds later, his eyelids flicker.

McAleese shoots Joanne a look to keep on her guard lest this wacko goes for her.

McAleese says, ‘Thought we’d lost you for a second there, Peterson.’

Mervyn’s eyes open wide. He’s disorientated. Perhaps he thinks this is heaven, Joanne thinks fleetingly.

‘Can’t let you go popping off like that when you’ve raped three little girls, now, can we?’ McAleese says.

Mervyn looks at them, confused. ‘Three?’ he asks.

41

I
’
M STANDING ON
the doorstep of a picture-postcard cottage on the outskirts of Grasmere village, thinking about puppies. Why do so many people choose a puppy rather than an adult dog? Why, when they are so ill-equipped to deal with them?

I’ve rung the doorbell, but the front curtains are drawn. There’s no movement from inside. The Doberman must be round the back. If it was in there I’d have heard it barking by now.

Puppies are hard work. They crap, they chew, they cost money. The adult dogs we rehome come neutered, vaccinated and chipped. That’s around a hundred and sixty quid saved right there. But everyone wants a puppy. Because
how do you know you’re not taking on someone else’s problem dog?

They fail to realize that it is they who will be producing another problem dog.

I glance around me while I wait. The cottage is one in a run of four. They are nicely set; far enough back from the road. It’s a good spot. Clematis is growing around each door, brown and ugly right now but I imagine it looks lovely in the summer. There’s no activity at the other cottages save for an electrician’s Transit parked in front of the house next door. Each has that tidy soullessness of a holiday home.

I ring again and a figure appears behind the frosted glass. The door swings open and, instinctively, I take a step back, because
the sight before me is rather alarming. It’s around 1.15 p.m. and the woman I’m looking at is wearing a dressing gown. Her yellow hair is everywhere, and she has lipstick smeared across her cheek, almost all the way to her left ear. I’d put her at mid-forties. Attractive, but haggard.

‘I’ve come to collect the dog. The Doberman?’

‘Come in.’

There’s no hallway; we’re straight into the living room. ‘Have you been burgled?’ I ask, because there is stuff strewn everywhere.

‘What?’ she says, giving the room a brief scan. ‘Oh, no … I’ve just not had time to tidy up.’

There’s an ashtray piled high with fag ends on the floor next to the sofa. Grey stains on the carpet nearby, where she’s kicked it over a few times. The coffee table is covered with discarded clothes, mugs, paper documents, wine bottles, DVDs, underwear.

Loose Women
is on the TV, but it’s been muted. I think she may have been asleep on the sofa when I knocked, because there’s a duvet hanging half on, half off.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ she says, shifting some clothes off the other sofa so I can sit down. ‘I’ve had a bit of a bad week.’

‘Is the dog outside?’

‘In the shed.’

‘I’ll need some details before I can take him … her?’

‘Him. Diesel,’ she replies.

‘Is he your dog to give away?’ I ask.

‘No he’s my husband’s … shortly to be ex-husband.’

I give her a weak smile.

‘I’ll need your husband’s consent, then,’ I say, and she drops her head back against the sofa as if it’s going to be a problem.

I decide to fill out what I can for now and worry about that
part later. She tells me her name is Mel Frain. Her husband’s name is Dominic.

‘Has the dog been neutered?’

‘No.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Eighteen months. He was good at first, then he got to tearing up the house, so recently we’ve had to keep him out there.’ She motions with her hand towards the back of the house.

‘Any health problems?’

‘No. Listen,’ she says standing up, her dressing gown gaping open, ‘I need a drink, you want one?’

‘Tea, please.’

‘I meant a proper drink. I’m having wine.’

‘Bit early for me.’

‘Okay. Well, excuse me, will you, while I get myself one.’

She goes out, I hear the fridge opening and she returns with a supersized bottle of Pinot Grigio and two glasses with lipstick marks around the rims, fingerprints on the stems.

‘Brought you a glass in case you change your mind. I’ve got no tea.’ She bends forwards to pour. Distracted, I see she has a pair of fake boobs that are strangely buoyant even though she’s without a bra, and I wonder if she’s one of those poor women who unwittingly got the industrial-grade silicon implants. She’ll probably need to have them whipped out after Christmas.

Mel Frain takes a huge gulp of wine, sighs and sits back. ‘Sorry about that. I’m finding it hard to get through the day at the moment.’

I nod, not really wanting the adultery story that’s clearly heading my way.

‘I came home last week,’ she says without emotion. ‘Found my husband in bed … with my dad.’

‘Oh dear,’ I say. ‘What did you do?’

‘Threw up.’

‘Understandable.’

She nods.

‘So where are they now?’ I ask.

‘Fucked off to Sitges on the Costa Dorada for Christmas.’

‘What about your mum?’

‘She’s pretending it’s not happened.’

I blow out my breath in a whistle.

‘Sorry I can’t keep the dog,’ she says, ‘but I work all day. And he needs walking, and I haven’t got the energy – the state of things as they are.’

‘We’ll find him a good home,’ I reply, thinking there’s no use in trying to contact her husband to authorize Diesel’s removal. ‘Okay,’ I say, handing her the form. ‘Just sign at the bottom there and I’ll go and meet him.’

We get Diesel into the cage in the back of my car. His nails could do with a trim but other than that he’s in good health. Handsome-looking dog with a lovely shiny coat. I’ve got high hopes.

As I’m shutting the boot, the electrician’s van in front pulls away and I see another car is now parked further along outside the other cottage next door. I turn to Mel Frain. She’s crying a little after saying goodbye to Diesel.

‘See that car?’ I say. ‘Have you seen it here before?’

‘Comes and goes,’ she replies. ‘It’s a holiday home. I think that’s the owner’s car.’

‘When did you last see it?’

‘Couple o’ days ago, maybe.’

There’s that itch again, the one at the back of my brain. Difference is, now I can reach it.