No Cherubs for Melanie (43 page)

Dad and his bloody conscience, thought Samantha, as they drifted back and forth on the cabin's verandah after dinner watching the sun sink into the lake. A rustic verandah swing pulled at their tired limbs. A loon cried with the clarity of a clarinet and they mistook it for the mating howl of a wolf in the twilight.

“That sent shivers up my spine,” said Samantha, as the sound of the sexually sonorous note died away.

“Like this,” he said, running his hand soothingly up and down her back.

“Ummmm… You never did tell me why you hadn't married.”

“You make it sound as though I've missed the boat,” he said, searching deep into her eyes and finding a hint of the aquamarine lake. “Maybe I never met the right person before.”

The message was clear. She touched a finger to his mouth then reached with her lips. “Maybe you have now,” she breathed.

The log fire in the stone fireplace had been lit for them and gave all the light they needed as they teased and toyed with each other, playfully shedding clothes — strip poker without cards.

With only her bra and knickers left on, and the contents already explored, she whispered, “Bathroom,” and slipped out of Bryan's arms.

“Peter,” she called from the bathroom a few seconds later.

“Yeah?”

“You're not going to believe this.”

“What?”

“Could you bring me my bag, please?”

“Why?

“I need something.”

“What?”

“I hate to tell you this…” she began.

“Oh, shit.” He'd got the message. “Good job I didn't take a dose of bear bile then, isn't it,” he called in laughter. He slipped into the bathroom with her bag and they laughed together.

“Ah. Mr Edwards, Sir. Nice of you to come,” said Bliss, his fist plumping his pillow with a soccer hooligan's gusto.

Niceness was neither on Edwards' face nor in his mind. “I hope you didn't expect flowers,” he snarled, his tousled hair and crumpled tie-less shirt giving him a boyish, late-for-school appearance.

Bliss already had flowers, shoved into a vase by a nurse with the artistic bent of a bricklayer. Sarah had delivered them, together with a minimal dose of sympathy, while George nervously swanned about in the corridor, protecting his interests. It was a fairly modest bunch of yellow chrysanthemums, nothing smushy like roses or orchids. It's the thought that counts, he mused, not knowing precisely what thought yellow mums were supposed to convey.

“Just because you've been banged up a bit doesn't mean I've forgotten,” Edwards continued, thrusting his
damaged arm into Bliss's face.

“I can see that,” said Bliss with a satisfied glow. “How's the forehead, by the way?” he added, unnecessarily opening an old wound.

“Cut the pleasantries. What do you want?”

Bliss let him dangle. “How are things down at the station?”

“Same as usual.”

“Chief Inspector Bryan tells me someone broke into my locker while I was away.”

Edwards feigned disinterest, studying the drip in Bliss's arm. “Really. Why are you telling me?” he asked, wondering what would happen if he squashed the bag and pumped a large dose of saline solution straight into Bliss's vein.

“I wonder what they could have been after?” continued Bliss, winding Edwards up.

“How the hell should I know?”

Bliss carried on twisting. “It's not as though I'm on the porn squad. Those blokes are always getting their lockers screwed for dodgy videos.”

Edwards snapped. “I'm sure you didn't drag me here to discuss a missing video, or did someone nick yer Mars bar?”

It was a video Bliss wanted to discuss, although not one that had been in his locker. But that could wait; Edwards could have time to stew over it.

“I thought you might be interested in this,” Bliss said, pulling Margaret's family photograph album out of his bedside drawer.

Edwards flicked through the gruesome faceless photographs dispassionately; they were not his skeletons, they belonged to Bliss. Samantha and Peter Bryan had retrieved the book from Margaret's real house, the one she owned in the name of Melanie Brown. Samantha
had told him about it excitedly, asking, “Why did she call herself Melanie Brown?”

“Easy,” replied Bliss. “She didn't want to be Margaret. Melanie was perfect, Melanie got the attention, Melanie was a favourite. But Margaret wasn't a very nice person and inwardly she knew it.”

“And Brown?” Samantha was still wondering.

“She didn't want to be a Gordonstone after what her father had done, so she took her mother's maiden name.”

A little message board in his brain lit up as he spoke. He could do that; he could change his name. What to, he wondered. Gangly George? Not fucking likely. I'm happy the way I am now, he thought, now that I know the truth.

A nurse with endless legs and a sloppy pin-cushion of golden hair poked her smile around the door, snapping Bliss back to the present. “Everything all right, Mr. Bliss?”

“Fine thanks, Evelyn,” he said, looking past Edwards. She could be the world's worst nurse, but legs like that could keep you alive for weeks, he thought, as she bent to check his chart.

“Did you know that Gordonstone was a pedophile?” he began as soon as Evelyn was out of sight.

Edwards tossed the disgusting book onto the bed with a casual gesture. “How the hell would I know what he did in his spare time? I hardly knew the bloke. If it hadn't been for his wife's suicide, I would never have met him.”

“Is that true?” Bliss asked. His undertone said, “Bloody liar.”

Edwards bit indignantly. “Of course it's true. What's this all about?”

Bliss put the photograph album back in the drawer with a calculated delay and drew out exhibit two:
Margaret's diary, also from her house. He found the relevant page and read. “Melanie's dead. Drowned. — It was her own fault. — I told her to stop but she wouldn't. Dad licked her to death.” Bliss paused, letting the meaning sink in.

“You knew, didn't you?” he said. “You knew that Margaret killed her sister. Not at the time, obviously, not until her mother died. But you did know.”

“You can't prove that.”

“Maybe I can't. Maybe I can. But I say you knew, and that's why you didn't want me to re-open the case. You didn't want me on the Martin Gordonstone murder.”

“Why should I care? You were the copper that screwed that case up. I wasn't even in the same division when Melanie died. It was your neck, not mine. What difference would it make to me?”

“I couldn't figure that out, until I found you'd destroyed the file.”

“What file?”

“Don't give me that crap.”

“How dare you…”

“There's the door. If you don't like what I'm saying…”

Bliss's cockiness was worrisome. “Like I told you before, his wife's death was suicide,” said Edwards, staying close to the big red emergency call button.

“Did you consider murder?”

“Of course I did. But he couldn't have killed her.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“He had a cast-iron alibi.”

“I've blown plenty of cast-iron alibis to smithereens. Some people will say anything for a few hundred quid, you know that. Anyway most alibis have nothing to do with money, it's a question of loyalty. Almost any moth-er'll swear on her life that her kid was —”

“This was different,” Edwards butted in, sticking his nose into Bliss's face in frustration. He wished he knew where Bliss was leading. “Just take it from me. He couldn't have killed her. It was impossible.”

“Not good enough.”

“OK. If you must know, he couldn't have killed her because he was with me at the time.”

This was unexpected. “You?”

“Yeah, me. We were at a lodge meeting.”

Bliss grated his fingernails down Edwards' blackboard. “Do you mean the funny handshake brigade?”

“The Freemasons to you…” he started, then unexpectedly lost steam. He deflated into a chair and buried his head in his hands as Betty-Ann's grotesquely mutilated body swung into his field of vision. His voice dropped to a confessional whisper. “We had a few drinks afterwards and got back to his restaurant about two in the morning.”

“What about before you left?” Bliss asked. “Could he have done it then?”

Edwards looked up. “No. The place was still open. Fifty people having dinner might have noticed a woman dangling from the ceiling.”

“So why not just admit you were together and give the bloke a proper alibi?”

“I had my reputation to think of. I was only a DI at the time; the publicity wouldn't have done me much good. Besides, I thought it would make things easier for Martin if I was the investigating officer. After all, there was no chance of me treating him like a suspect and giving him the third degree. I told him to ring 999 and waited outside in my car until the call went out on the radio. I said I was in the area and would attend, then went back inside until the uniformed lads arrived. There was nothing I could do. She was obviously dead, poor bitch swinging
from the…”His eyes drifted to the ceiling as he looked into the past for an awful second, then he exclaimed defiantly, “Martin didn't do it. Martin could not have done it. There was no way he could have murdered her.”

“I know that.”

“You do? So why the hell are you jerking me around?”

“I know that now, but if you'd told me the truth in the first place then I probably wouldn't be here today.”

“What difference would it have made? She committed suicide whether or not I was there to give him an alibi.”

“Are you certain?”

Edwards' face caught fire. “Yes.”

“What if I said that I know she was murdered?”

“How? The place was all locked up and the alarms were set. I checked it myself. All the staff had alibis, and they all left together.”

“And Margaret?”

Edwards was stumped. Margaret was there, asleep upstairs, he'd woken her with the news himself. He'd put on the sad face, adopted the slightly stooped, apologetic stance, used the hushed undertaker's tone, held her sobbing body, poured brandy down her throat, and said the right things.

“What did Margaret say in her statement?” Bliss continued, realizing that the other man's mind was preoccupied with decade-old visions.

“What was there to put in a statement? I spoke to her — she didn't see or hear a thing. She was asleep upstairs. It's a big place, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“But she did make a statement,” said Bliss.

“She did not.”

“I've got it here,” he continued, taunting Edwards with an old exercise book that he pulled slowly from under his pillow. He started to read.

“The new kitten was just purr-fect the other creatures agreed…”

Edwards was already halfway to the door. “I haven't got time for this. They were right: they said you'd need treatment.”

Edwards had second thoughts about leaving and tried to snatch the book away from Bliss. “Give me that,” he shouted as Bliss whipped it out of reach.

“If you don't listen now, I promise you'll read it in the papers tomorrow,” Bliss said with what appeared to be suicidal indiscretion.

The comment stopped Edwards in his tracks. “You're barmy — you think the press'll be interested in that crap?”

Let's see who's bluffing here. “I'm willing to take the chance. Are you?”

Edwards wouldn't dignify the question with an answer, but nevertheless waited while Bliss started reading again.

“The new kitten was just purr-fect the other creatures agreed.

“‘I adore the feel of her long silky fur,' snorts the old pot-bellied pig, irritated by her own scratchy coarse hair.

“‘I love the way her slender body slinks,' howls the pit-bull, who had never slunk anywhere himself.

“The master was away, somewhere in another galaxy — on another construction job.

“‘Oh my,' barks the pit bull, ‘You're all messy Miss Pussy, come let me preen you.'

“‘That's nice,' purrs the pussy as the pit-bull's rough tongue tickled her fur.'”

Edwards was pacing with the frustrated impotence of a hit and run victim, but Bliss continued.

“A pair of green eyes watches from the trees.

“‘Time for lunch,' grunts Mrs. Piggy.

“The pit-bull bares his teeth and gives a terrifying snarl. ‘Not now, Mrs. Piggy.'

“Never mind. I'll keep it warm,' she squeaks.”

Edwards finally burst, “What the effin' 'ell…”

Bliss closed the book and started to shove it under his pillow. “Press it is then.”

“Oh, for Chrissake get on with it.”

Bliss came close to overstepping the mark. “Should I start at the beginning?”

“‘Time for bed,' sighs Mrs. Piggy,” Bliss continued reading, taking Edwards' warning growl as a no.

“‘Not now,' grunts the pit-bull.

“‘Never mind. — I'll keep it warm,' squeals Mrs. Piggy.

“The pretty little pussycat was nowhere to be found, but green eyes saw her.

“Mrs. Piggy was so angry she ate and ate and ate until her pot-belly was so big she couldn't leave her sty; couldn't see the sky; couldn't see the stars; couldn't see the snake.

“The snake slides out of the shadows and slips silently around Mrs. Piggy's neck.

“‘Oink,' squeals Mrs. Piggy in alarm.

“‘Go to sleep,' hisses the slithery snake.

“‘I'm feeling tired,' snuffles Mrs. Piggy.

“‘Go to sleeeeeeeeeep,' sings the snake.

“And Mrs. Piggy flew away.”

Edwards sank to the chair in relief. “So what the hell were you going on about her statement for?”

“That's it — Margaret's statement in her own handwriting. Her confession to murder.”