The Unquiet Dead (38 page)

‘For pity’s sake, it isn’t even noon.’

Charlotte ignored her mother. ‘Things go missing – I don’t care if you believe me or not – little items of no monetary value. A photo of me disappeared for a whole year, then suddenly, there it was, back in the same place. What spirit would take those things if it weren’t Nancy?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past you to hide these things yourself, Charlotte.’

‘So you concede that things do go missing?’

‘Witness, Detective, the selective hearing. We’ve had more weirdoes with crystals pass through this house than Stonehenge. The other day I caught her with a ouija board trying to talk to my husband. Our priest was furious. He said you invite the devil in when you play with his toys.’

For once Jessie agreed with Mrs Scott-Somers.

‘Let’s keep to the matter at hand. Can you assure me, Detective, that Nancy hasn’t been taken in by a religious cult?’

‘Until we find her, I cannot completely rule that out, but sects tend to appropriate their “disciples”
money, and we’ve found no evidence of that yet.’

‘I was beginning to think the Moonies had her.’

‘No, Mrs Scott-Somers, it appears your daughter stays away of her own free will.’

Mrs Scott-Somers’ eyes narrowed imperceptibly. ‘So how do we get the money back?’

‘You can’t,’ said Jessie. ‘We’re checking every single recipient, in case of fraud, but so far the charities that received the most substantial donations are legitimate.’

‘That money was intended for Nancy.’

‘Perhaps she didn’t want it. Money is a burden, like her angelic looks – surely you can understand why she would have given it away?’

Mrs Scott-Somers looked confused.

‘For the same reason she put on weight,’ explained Jessie.

Mrs Scott-Somers was still perplexed. So Jessie spelt it out: ‘If you were snatched off the street because you were pretty, blonde and rich, what wouldn’t you want to be any more?’

Charlotte stared at her own reflection in one of the mirrors that adorned the walls of the breakfast room. ‘Pretty, blonde and rich,’ she said quietly.

‘I took her to every decent dietician in Europe. They informed me my daughter had an eating disorder: binge-eating. I told her it would kill her if she went on, but nothing worked.’

‘She didn’t want it to work,’ said Jessie.

‘Why? It wasn’t Nancy’s fault she was kidnapped,’ said Mrs Scott-Somers angrily.

‘I wonder if anyone told her that.’

‘Of course we did. We all knew whose fault it was – Malcolm Hoare’s. And that bloody nanny, for letting it happen. Then she reappears and does it all over again in court.’ There was so much bitterness in Mrs Scott-Somers’ voice, so much anger. Had she known all along that she was a cuckold? Was she aware that her marriage, her lifestyle, her very existence had only continued as it had because of her daughter’s kidnapping? Was she in the unenviable position of having to feel grateful towards Malcolm Hoare?

‘We loved her,’ said Charlotte, turning away from the mirror.

‘You would like the one person who ruined everything.’

‘At least she cared.’

‘She was
paid
to care, Charlotte.’

‘You’re wrong, Mother. She did care and you know it, that’s why you never let any of the other nannies stay longer than a month.’

‘If you loved her so much, why did you run away from her and cause all this trouble?’

There were a few seconds of silence as Mrs Scott-Somers’ words sunk in.

‘I knew you blamed me.’

‘Charlotte didn’t run away,’ interrupted Jessie.

‘Yes she did,’ said Mrs Scott-Somers, no hint of conciliation in her voice.

‘No, her crime was that she’d run away before. When she arrived home and said the nanny had
lost them, all you heard was “run-away”.’ Like Jonny Romano, she had cried wolf too many times. ‘Charlotte wasn’t to blame.’

‘I should have stayed with her,’ said Charlotte.

‘Malcolm Hoare was a huge man, there was nothing you could have done.’

‘I could have protected her.’

Jessie wanted to reach out to her. ‘It’s not your fault. You were only nine years old.’

‘I didn’t stop him. I didn’t shout for help. I could’ve got Clemy out of the phone-box.’

Mrs Scott-Somers hurled herself out of the plush sofa. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. Your father hated the way you lied.’

Charlotte continued to stare at Jessie. ‘Everyone loved Nancy, do you see?’

Jessie nodded. She saw. If Nancy went away, maybe someone would take a little notice of Charlotte. But it wasn’t to be. Nancy came back and even more attention was lavished upon her.

‘It didn’t matter what I did, I could never compare to my sister. Even when she was fat and ugly, and I was the pretty one, it was always Nancy. I started to punish her for it. I made her wet her bed, I told her Malcolm was waiting down the corridor.’

‘You always were a hideous child!’

Charlotte turned to her mother. ‘Can’t imagine who I take after.’

‘I’m glad your father isn’t alive to hear this.’

‘I’m pretty certain he’s glad he isn’t alive either.
We weren’t enough for him, Mother. All he wanted was Nancy back. But he never got her back, did he? DI Driver is right: she was never the same. Didn’t matter how good you looked or how many business trips you went on with him, or how many A-grades I got, we couldn’t make him happy, because Nancy wasn’t happy.’

Jessie looked to Mrs Scott-Somers to correct her daughter; that wasn’t why Mr Scott-Somers had withdrawn from his family, and it wasn’t why he couldn’t be reached. Mr Scott-Somers had made his own pact with the devil and his name was Tobias Charles Edmonds. The lawyer who enabled Malcolm Hoare to walk free. He destroyed both his children, ruined his wife, broke the heart of the woman he’d loved and probably believed he’d killed their unborn child. He had much more to mourn than Charlotte could possibly imagine.

‘The very last time she came back, she said she was coming home, that it was all over and she was going to be fine again. She said she was sorry about everything she’d put
me
through.’ Charlotte shook her head in disbelief. ‘I didn’t believe her. She’d been back before and said the same things. I told her we didn’t want her. I told her she was an embarrassment, that we didn’t love her and we never talked about her. I told her that, as far as we were concerned, she
was
dead.’ Charlotte looked pleadingly at Jessie. ‘You have to understand, I wanted to tell her to stay, I wanted to tell
her I missed her, but I couldn’t. She’d left before, she’d leave again. I couldn’t take that chance, so I made her go.’

‘When was this?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘I think you can,’ pressed Jessie.

‘Why didn’t you tell me? When were all these times she came back? Why didn’t you come and get us?’

A weariness filled Charlotte’s voice. ‘You weren’t here. You never were.’

‘It’s very important you remember when this last time was,’ said Jessie.

‘Yes. When was it?’ demanded her mother.

‘I told you, I can’t remember.’

‘You can help me find her,’ said Jessie.

‘I’m not helping you find her. You want to prosecute her for Malcolm’s murder. Don’t, for fuck’s sake, pretend that you give a shit. Nancy didn’t kill him, she would never have gone to a swimming pool – she was fat! You think she’d take her clothes off in public? She couldn’t at home! She’s got nothing to do with this!’

‘I’m sorry, but I think she has.’

‘You don’t understand, do you? What everyone saw in my sister was real. She was an angel. I should know. I did everything in my power to hurt her, and she never, ever did anything back. She couldn’t kill a man. She wouldn’t.’

Charlotte was the third, and least likely, person to vouch for Nancy’s innocence.

There was a sharp rap on the door and Terence entered, carrying a tray. He knew his mistress well. On the tray was a large jug of Bloody Mary and one glass.

The SOCOs encircled the small plot of land. Jessie glanced down at the neat row of beds. A mixture of Mediterranean vegetables were being painstakingly grown in grey, wet London under sheets of corrugated plastic. They had been there a long time. Thick green algae grew along each trough. Mr Romano’s description was out on the wire as a man possibly armed and highly dangerous, both to himself and others. Burrows handed Jessie the approved court order, she signed it and handed it back. The first spade went into the tilled earth.

‘What happened at the Scott-Somers’ place?’ he asked.

‘Some time after Christmas 1987 Nancy told her sister she was coming home, but now Charlotte is claiming she cannot remember the date. Which is highly unlikely – Nancy has only been home three times in nearly twenty years.’

‘Why do you think she is lying?’ asked Niaz.

Because, thought Jessie, after a lifetime of not
doing so, Charlotte was trying to protect her sister. ‘She feels guilty. And she shouldn’t, none of this was her fault. So, we have two avenues. First: the charities. Somewhere in that long list is a clue; it’s who Nancy is now and who she was back then. They’ve changed over the years, there must be a pattern, something. It’s a puzzle for which you, Niaz, have the perfect brain.’

Niaz bowed slightly. ‘I was certainly very speedy on the Rubik’s cube.’

‘Burrows, you go back to the council. Her name doesn’t appear on any of the council lists, so she wasn’t there as a qualified instructor because she’d need to have given proof of her identity. Maybe her sister was right and she didn’t go to the baths to swim, maybe she went for another reason. Start looking at the casual workers, cleaners, assistant carers, volunteers – the sort of people who could stay in the shadows if they wanted.’ Jessie heard the roots of a young tomato plant snap as it was pulled from its resting place. ‘The sort of people who wouldn’t be noticed if they went missing.’

The first bone they found was part of a finger. The dig stopped and Sally Grimes was called in. The next bone was a portion of the tibia, the shin-bone. There was not a morsel of flesh on it. According to the pathologist, not only had it been in the ground for over ten years, it had been sawn down to size by a domestic handsaw, the type sold in any DIY store.

‘Take samples of the soil,’ said Jessie, as several sections of a rib were uncovered. ‘There should still be traces of blood.’

Sally turned a bone over in her hand. ‘I’m not so sure,’ she said.

‘I’m not suggesting he killed her here. He probably did that in the flat and brought her down bit by bit in compost bags. When bodies decompose in the soil, don’t they leave a trace element of deposits?’

‘If there’s flesh on the bones they do.’

Jessie frowned at the pathologist. ‘Why wouldn’t there have been flesh on the bone?’

‘That’s your job, but my guess is that these bones were clean when they got here. The depth of discolouration means the soil was attacking the calcium very quickly. No wonder he had good tomatoes.’

‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Not as disgusting as what he did to get the bones clean.’

‘Which is?’

‘I’m not sure you’re going to believe this.’

Jessie swallowed nervously. These were the nightmares of the future.

A SOCO passed Sally another handful of Mrs Romano’s remains. All about the same size: four inches in length. She examined each one in turn. ‘Every segment of bone is showing signs of heat stress.’

Jessie waited.

‘I think he cut up his wife into manageable bits and cooked her.’

She left a note and a fridge full of food. I haven’t seen her since
. Jessie recalled the recently destroyed refrigerator in Romano’s kitchen.
Everything I’ve eaten since has tasted bad. Except my tomatoes. They remind me of her
. A chilling image moved across Jessie’s mind. Romano, sitting in the kitchen, forcing forkfuls of gristle into his mouth.

‘I think Mr Romano ate his wife.’

Jessie responded to Sally’s look of disbelief.

‘Hear me out. His wife found out what he’d done. He didn’t want to go back to being vilified, the scummy man in the porn shop. They had a fight. A domestic row is hardly going to raise eyebrows in that neighbourhood. He would have had to do something with the body.’

‘Maybe, but what makes you think he ate her?’

‘Intuition,’ said Jessie.

‘Can’t prove intuition.’

Jessie smiled wryly to herself. ‘I know.’

‘Well, I’ll keep an eye out for teeth marks, but I can’t promise anything,’ said Sally.

Black humour. Whisky. P. J. Dean. Gnomes. Whatever got you through the day. Or night.

‘By the way, what had he done that was worth murdering his wife for?’ asked the pathologist.

He drowned. It was an accident
. ‘Killed their son.’

‘Dr Grimes,’ a voice called, ‘I think we’ve found the skull.’

‘Do you want to come?’ said Sally.

‘No, you go.’