Killing a Stranger (27 page)

This changed so much, Alec thought. This and the fact that there had been two people running away.

‘W
e've got a lead on your brick,' he was told when he got back to the police station.

‘Oh?' The desk sergeant sounded amused, he noted.

‘I hear you paid our Mr Scott a visit.'

‘Might have done. Why?'

‘Because it looks as though you got the wrong Scott.'

Alec laughed. ‘So which Scott should I have harassed?'

‘You should have tried his missis.'

‘You're kidding me.'

‘I am surely not. Your little DNA crack got her worried. She came down the nick and confessed everything.'

Alec roared with laughter, glad of a lighter note in what was becoming a very grim day. ‘Revenge for the assault on poor Jamie, I suppose.'

‘Not a bit of it. She'd decided, apparently, that Jamie Scott and Clara Beresford must already be having an affair and that the coffee throwing lark was designed to throw her off the track. So, she thought, a brick through the window might slow things down a little.'

‘How did she figure that one?' Alec decided he never would understand women.

‘Who knows. You looking for logic?' He leaned over the counter and whispered, ‘Unless, of course you want to go looking for the whys and wherefores of this one too.'

Alec flicked at his ear. ‘Get out of it,' he said. ‘Thorough job, that's me.'

He left the guffaws of the desk sergeant behind knowing he'd be the butt of that particular joke for weeks to come and went to phone Ernst Hensel.

‘I need to talk to Jennifer,' he said. ‘Ernst, I'm going to have her brought in. I'm sorry, but she's now a material witness.'

‘To what? Alec, what is this?'

‘To the murder of your son,' Alec said softly. ‘Ernst, I'm sorry, but everything now points that way.'

Briefly, he outlined the new evidence they had.

‘But, this proves nothing,' Ernst protested. ‘Much of it is hearsay.'

‘Much of it was written down,' Alec said softly. ‘By Jennifer herself.'

‘She thought that boy was her friend. I thought you were mine.'

‘Ernst, you and Clara, you said you wanted the truth, no matter what it cost.'

‘And then I asked you to let things lie. I told you we had suffered enough.'

‘I couldn't do that,' Alec said. ‘It had gone too far.'

Ernst was silent for a moment and then he asked, ‘Has this not cost us enough already? Must this go on? I will fight for her, Inspector Friedman. I will convince everyone that this is a lie. That the boy is lying. That your witness is mistaken. That this is not so.'

‘And what happened to your truth at any price?' Alec asked him wearily.

‘Sometimes,' Ernst told him coldly, ‘the price of truth is just too high.'

I didn't know it was his when she gave it to me. I just needed something sharp to cut a bit of string and she had it in her pocket. Keep it, she said. It's just an old thing. Just an old thing and sometimes it caught in my pocket because the blade was too short and stuck out wrong. I'd pull it out and it would be open. Later I saw the initials carved on the wood and I wanted to give it back. That night, I just wanted to give it back. To get a fair hearing, to have him tell the truth.

All of that.

Then we saw her standing there and I don't know who was more shocked and I think it was then we figured we'd been suckered and I tried to give him back the knife. His knife.

‘H
e lied to me, everyone lies to me. Uncle Adam said he'd delete the pictures and Rob said he loved me and now Patrick, pretending to be my friend and lying to me.'

Interview room three was the cleanest and most comfortable. Her mother close by, still and silent and too tightly controlled, and Ernst, careful not to catch Alec's eye, sat in the corner with the female officer assigned to the interview. Alec had recorded their presence on tape and begun to ask Jennifer what had happened that night.

So far he'd got nowhere. Jennifer was like a stuck record, totally obsessed with her role as victim. She had a point, Alec supposed, from her perspective, they had all lied.

‘Jennifer. Did you lead your uncle to believe Rob Beresford fathered your baby?'

She shrugged. ‘I never said so.'

‘But you never told him otherwise? And did you also lead Rob to believe that Adam had seduced you, had a sexual relationship that led to the pregnancy?'

She shrugged again. ‘They all lied,' she said again. ‘All bloody lied.'

‘Jennifer. I can understand that you're upset. You must be very angry, feel let down in a big way, but you have to take some responsibility too. Two men are dead, Jennifer.'

‘Not because of her!' Ernst shouted. ‘Not because of her.'

Alec turned pitying eyes on the old man. He had slumped forward in his chair and seemed on the point of utter collapse. ‘For the benefit of the tape,' he said, ‘Mr Hensel just shouted out. I am arranging for Mr Hensel to be brought some water.'

‘Jennifer,' he went on, ‘did you follow your uncle on the night he died?'

She was staring at her grandfather. ‘Grandad? Grandad I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for any of this.'

‘I know, my love, I know.' Ernst took the proffered water though he did not drink. He seemed to rally a little. ‘And now, my love, we have come this far and there have, as you rightly say, been far too many lies. For me, Jennifer, tell the truth. Let us all know.'

Jennifer bit her lower lip so hard Alec thought she'd make it bleed. She turned wet eyes upon him and then began to speak, not stopping until she was through.

‘I didn't know for sure he was going to see Rob, but I had this feeling and Rob had been behaving so funny with me, like he didn't like or trust me any more. And I really loved him, you know. I really do. Uncle Adam hadn't been the same since that night with the photos. It was like he didn't want to know me any more and I was scared he'd tell. I felt bad. Felt sick and when I found out I was pregnant, I just wanted him to tell me it would be all right, but he was just like everyone else. Wanting to know who it was, why had I been so stupid. Rob … I never told him it was Rob, but he saw me with him one day and he jumped to the conclusion that … that Rob was the one. And I let him. I let him think that Rob was a secret boyfriend and that his parents would go mad at him if they knew. And there was Rob, pushing me to tell my dad about him and saying he wanted to get a DNA test done to find out once and for all and that if he got the money, he and me, we could have one done and that would prove if we were brother and sister.

‘He didn't have much money. He wanted to know if I could get any. I said I'd try. I asked Uncle Adam to lend me some but he wanted to know why. I said I'd tell everyone about the photos if he didn't and he got mad then. I … I guessed he hadn't deleted them.' She lifted her tear-soaked gaze once more to Alec's face. ‘He enjoyed taking them that night. I know he did. He kept saying that I was an adult now and that I was beautiful and I liked it. I'm so sorry Mum, but that's the truth.

‘I let Rob think that I'd got something going with Adam. It turned him on, kind of. I think they both liked it and at first it was like a game. I felt so ugly and frumpy and stupid and it was nice, getting the attention. Having them feel sorry for me. But then it got serious.'

‘When did you give Rob the knife?'

She shrugged. ‘I don't remember. One day, his lace broke on his trainers. He had a bit of string in his pocket and nothing to cut it with. I had Uncle Adam's knife. It had fallen out of his pocket one day when he came round and I'd kept it, stuffed it in my bag and more or less forgotten it was there. I liked to carry it though. It made me feel safer if I was out on my own. That night. He'd come round and I followed him.'

‘The night he died?'

‘Yeah. He didn't see me. Then I saw Rob come up the road and I knew I'd guessed right. They started to argue, about me, and as they argued I … I began to realize they'd find out the truth about me. That I'd let them think …'

‘And the knife. Did you see the knife?'

She nodded. ‘Suddenly he had the knife in his hand and was reaching out towards Uncle Adam.'

‘Reaching out?'

She nodded.

‘Miss Ryan is nodding. Jennifer, what happened next?'

‘They were struggling. I didn't see. Then Uncle Adam was on the floor, kneeling on the floor and I screamed and they both looked at me.

‘And then I ran away. I ran away.'

Ernst leaned forward, face buried in his hands. Beth stared at her child, her face ashen and eyes wide, disbelieving.

‘He might not have died,' she whispered. ‘If you'd called for help, he might not have died.'

That was a step too far. ‘Mrs Ryan,' Alec said. ‘The medics have agreed that even had they been on scene when it happened it would still have been beyond them.'

‘But she could have tried.' Beth got to her feet. She swayed, emotion unbalancing her. ‘I'm sorry,' she said, and stalked, stiff backed, from the room.

‘Mum …' The child's cry. Alec wanted to reach across the table and tell her it would be all right.

The price of truth, he thought. Maybe Ernst was right and the price sometimes was too high.

T
here was something about the sea, Clara thought, that soothed the nerves. Maybe it was the susurration of waves dragging at pebbles or the slow churn of the waves, low, predictable and yet never quite the same.

‘So, a little girl,' she said.

‘Yes, a lovely child. She has her mother's eyes. A few weeks early, but healthy enough.'

Clara nodded. ‘I'm glad for you,' she said. ‘I really am.'

Time didn't heal, she thought, but it numbed the pain, just a little, though not always in a good way. It was more the numbness you felt if you'd put your hand into this turbulent North Sea water and kept it there until it chilled. March now and the world was moving on.

‘How are things,' she asked. ‘With Jennifer and her mother?'

‘I hope for a thaw,' Ernst said. ‘The baby may bring one, who knows. She is hard to resist.'

‘And you and Jennifer?'

Ernst sighed. ‘I think,' he said, ‘it will always be like this. A wound that heals almost too fast on the surface. The skin looks unbroken, but beneath, blood flows and the flesh is raw. From time to time I feel I must prod and poke at it just to see if the pain is still as sharp. It is, but I hope, in time, the skin will thicken and the wound will drain and dry. And you, will your wound heal and dry?'

‘No,' Clara said. ‘I wish you well and I will let the skin grow, as you say, enough to hope that Jennifer grows and thrives and becomes a loving mother, but no, my wound won't drain and dry. Not for a long time. Perhaps not forever.'

‘You are a brave woman, Clara Beresford.'

‘No, I'm a broken one.'

Ernst nodded and she took his arm, walked slowly along the sea strand, letting the wind and the sea bring a moment's peace to a troubled mind.