The Wrong Mother (48 page)

They pulled up outside Corn Mill House. In the heat’s haze, the house and garden seemed still and remote, like an apparition more than a real physical presence. Bretherick isn’t here, thought Charlie, feeling the emptiness all around her.

Simon rang the doorbell, then smashed a side window when he got no answer. There were a few frantic minutes of running, up and down the stairs, opening every door, looking underneath and behind every piece of furniture. And of course the bathrooms: Charlie noticed that Simon left it to her to check both of them.

They did not find Mark Bretherick. They found nothing but silence and rooms full of air that felt unnaturally cool, given the temperature outside.

 

‘What do you reckon that line means?’ Sellers asked Gibbs, looking at the long, thin strip of red tape that bisected the floor area. They’d got a key to the premises of Spilling Magnetic Refrigeration from Hans, Mark Bretherick’s second-in-command, an earnest, stick-thin German whose baggy corduroy trousers and enormous white trainers looked as if they weighed more than he did.

‘Some kind of health and safety shit,’ said Gibbs, stepping over the red line.

‘Careful,’ said Sellers. ‘Something might explode.’

‘We can’t just look in the office and leave it at that. He might be in here somewhere.’

Sellers sighed and followed him. He’d been rubbish at science at school, had been slightly afraid of it and hated all the trappings—Bunsen burners, goggles, pipettes. He had no desire to leave the beige-carpeted, potted-plant-studded haven of the office and venture into the workshop, with its metallic smell, harsh spotlights and dusty concrete floor.

‘He isn’t here, though, is he?’ Sellers complained, looking around at what was. Six large silver cylinders were lined up against one wall: were these the fridges Mark Bretherick made? They looked very different from Sellers’ idea of a fridge; perhaps they were units for storing . . . oh, who the fuck knew what they were?

Wooden shelves covered another wall, on which were piled coils of wire, cables, drills, something that looked like a large steel snake, something else that looked like a television remote control, a machine that resembled a cash register. It had to have some more confusing scientific purpose, one Sellers wouldn’t be able to fathom if he examined it for a million years. His eyes were drawn to a small machine with a part attached to it that might rotate, or looked as if it might. Part of a magnetic refrigeration unit? Does rotation cause coldness?

On a cork notice board, several sheets of paper were held in place by drawing pins with round, red heads. Sellers tried to read one that was headed ‘SMR Experimental Insert’, but was quickly deterred by words he’d never heard of: flange, brazing, goniometer, dewar, baffles. Baffled—now there was a word Sellers understood. He thought about doing an OU degree.

‘Bretherick’s not here,’ he said. ‘Let’s ring Stepford and head back.’

‘Wait,’ said Gibbs. He nodded at the silver cylinders. ‘We need to check those, and the wooden crates next to them; anything big enough to fit a body in.’

‘Oh, come on! Hey hasn’t killed Bretherick. Why would he?’

Gibbs shrugged. ‘He enjoys killing people? He’s clocked up four so far. Would have been five if Sally Thorning hadn’t fought back.’

‘Bretherick’s not here,’ said Sellers. ‘I can feel it.’

‘So where is he? Why hasn’t he been in touch? He’d want to keep tabs on our progress. There’s no way he’d go off somewhere and switch off his mobile. I don’t buy it.’

‘I do,’ said Sellers. ‘First we accuse his wife of murder, then him. Then we say, “Oh, sorry, mate, we fucked up. You’re in the clear, so’s your missus. Pity she’s dead.” I’m not surprised he wants nothing to do with us.’

Gibbs dragged a chair from the office through to the workshop. Sellers watched as he moved it and himself patiently along the line of large silver vats, looking inside each one. ‘Well? What’s in them?’

‘Long, transparent tubes, looks like. With little—’

‘Not Mark Bretherick, then? He’s all we’re looking for.’

One by one, Gibbs threw open the doors of the seven large wooden packing crates. ‘Empty,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

‘I’ll just ring Stepford and . . .’ Sellers fiddled with his mobile phone. ‘Can’t get a signal.’

‘Use a phone in there.’

Sellers headed back to the office area and Gibbs followed, carrying the chair in front of him. He’d almost reached the red line, about to cross to safety, when he heard Sellers shout, ‘Watch out, there’s—’ It was too late. Gibbs was on the floor clutching his shin, trying to swallow the loud, undignified noises he wanted to make. Next to his face was a cylinder of solid metal with a rounded edge, about twenty inches across and four inches high. It was sticking out of a hole in the floor. He’d tripped and banged his shin on the cold, hard metal.

‘Are you okay? Let’s have a look.’

Gibbs wasn’t going to roll up his trouser leg and let Sellers inspect his wound like an old woman. ‘I’m okay,’ he said, though the pain felt as if it was ripping through his whole body.

Sellers grinned. ‘Shouldn’t have crossed the red line.’ He swore under his breath. ‘This phone’s not working either.’

‘You’ll get a signal outside.’

‘Chris? None of the phones in this office are working. All the wires have been cut.’ Sellers waved a length of white cable in the air.

‘He was here.’ Gibbs tried to stand.

‘Those wooden crates . . .’

‘They were empty.’

‘Do you reckon they’re for the silver barrel-things to go in? You know, to be delivered?’

‘Maybe. Why?’

‘There’s seven of them, but only six barrels.’

Sellers and Gibbs stared at one another.

‘What did I trip over? What fucked up my leg?’

‘Looked like the lid of my cocktail shaker at home, but bigger.’

‘A lid?’

Gibbs hobbled after Sellers as he ran towards it. Sellers pointed to the far wall. ‘Look at those monsters. The only opening’s at the top. They’d need a way of lowering them, wouldn’t they, to insert whatever needs to go inside—the plastic tube, or whatever? The hole this thing’s in must have some kind of platform underneath it, so they can raise and lower the vats. Give us a hand, I can’t get this to budge.’ He was trying to loosen the round metal cap that had felled Gibbs.

Together the two detectives tried to twist it. Nothing. ‘Try the other way,’ said Gibbs. ‘Look, it’s . . .’

They pushed in the opposite direction and the lid came loose. It was heavy; it took both of them to lift it. Both hoped they would find the seventh silver cylinder empty.

They saw dark hair, and blood, and heard breathing.
Breathing.
Bretherick was alive.

‘Mark? Mark, it’s DC Colin Sellers. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. We’ll have you out of here in no time. Mark, can you speak? Can you look up?’

The hair moved. Sellers saw a patch of forehead, streaked with blood. Gibbs had gone outside to phone for help.

‘That’s good. Talk to me, Mark. Stay awake and talk to me. Say anything.’

Bretherick’s voice was a scratchy whisper. ‘Leave me,’ he said, and then something that sounded like ‘peace’. Sellers heard a choking sound, and saw the head beneath him drop down.

 

 

‘You helped us.’ Simon faced Jonathan Hey across the table. ‘Everything you told me—that Geraldine didn’t kill herself and Lucy, that the same person who killed Geraldine and Lucy killed Encarna and Amy—why did you tell me all that?’

‘I hate it when things are wrong,’ said Hey. ‘I can’t stand for anything . . . not to be right. I wanted to be helpful.’ He wouldn’t meet Simon’s eyes, or Charlie’s. Yesterday he had been hysterical. Today his face was blank.

‘You mean you wanted us to find out the truth?’

‘No. Not that.’ A pause. ‘I was the person who knew everything you wanted and needed to know. You needed me. So I told you a small part of what I knew. And then I panicked, that I’d told you too much and you’d realise. So I tried to mislead you . . . and made things worse, all wrong again.’ Hey shook his head. ‘I liked you, Simon. If it counts for anything, I still do.’

‘You don’t know me.’
Nobody does—nobody ever has—so what makes you so special?
‘When we found Encarna and Amy, you must have known it was only a matter of time. But you still lied, as if you believed you might get away with it—Harry Martineau, Angel Oliva. And when I told you we needed you here at the nick—’

‘You laid a trap for me,’ said Hey. ‘You could have arrested me without the pantomime if you’d wanted. It didn’t occur to me that you’d be so indirect about it.’ His mouth wobbled. ‘You think I’ve let you down. I’m sorry. I truly wanted to help, Simon. I never wanted to be your bad guy.’

Charlie cleared her throat. It broke the tension in the air.

Simon felt freer to speak. ‘You can still help,’ he told Hey. ‘Why did you kill them—Encarna and Amy, Geraldine and Lucy?’

Silence. As if the question had not been asked.

‘All right, how about starting with some smaller points,’ Simon suggested. ‘Did you follow Sally Thorning to Seddon Hall last year?’

Hey nodded. ‘After what happened . . . to my wife and daughter, I was in a state. I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t work, couldn’t think. I ended up at the train station.’

‘After killing Encarna and Amy and burying their bodies in the garden at Corn Mill House, you were in a state,’ said Simon. ‘So you went to the train station. Were you planning to leave the country? Leave your job in Cambridge and start from scratch?’

‘I only got my chair at Cambridge in January of this year. Before that I taught at Rawndesley.’

‘At the university?’

‘I suppose so. Now that I’ve experienced Cambridge, I think it’s stretching it a bit to call Rawndesley a
university
, but . . . yes, that’s where I taught.’ He paused, seeming to think through what he was about to say. ‘I don’t know why I went to the station. I had no plan. I saw Sally there . . .’ He flinched. ‘I’ve messed things up with Sally.’

‘You noticed Sally immediately, because she looked like Geraldine,’ said Simon. ‘And you liked Geraldine.’

‘We liked each other. Nothing happened between us. Nothing ever would have, even after . . . even when I was on my own and lonely and maybe a bit . . . careless about breaking up other people’s families.’

An understatement if ever Simon had heard one.

Hey seemed unaware of what he’d said. He also seemed content to talk, as long as nobody brought up the four murders he’d committed. ‘Geraldine would never have left Mark or had an affair. I once said to her, “Mark would never need to know.” She said, “
I’d
know.” She’d have hated herself.’

Charlie leaned forward in her chair. ‘But you knew she had feelings for you. If circumstances had been different . . .’

‘Yes,’ said Hey without hesitation. ‘If circumstances had been different, Geraldine would have married me.’

Simon was unconvinced. Hey might have mistaken a diplomatic knock-back for a fated but forbidden love.

‘So Sally Thorning was just a fling at first,’ said Charlie. ‘She looked like Geraldine, but she wasn’t the real thing. You still hoped Geraldine would see sense and leave Mark for you.’

‘Don’t belittle Sally.’ Hey sounded injured. ‘She saved my sanity. I thought . . . seeing her at the station like that, it was as if someone or something was trying to tell me everything would be okay. Sally was wearing a T-shirt from Silsford Castle’s owl sanctuary. I’d been there with Geraldine, on the school trip . . .’ A sharp look came into his eyes. ‘Sally was the one. Not Geraldine. I realised too late. Geraldine was too perfect, too good. I had to hide so many things from her. All the time I wasted pursuing her when it should have been Sally. Sally’s like me. I could be my real self with her.’

Simon was itching to bring up the four murders again. He restrained himself. This way was better; at least Hey was talking.

‘You followed Sally to Seddon Hall,’ said Charlie. ‘Booked a room, introduced yourself—’

‘And spent the week with her. Yes. You know all this.’

‘Spent the week having sex with her?’

‘Among other things, yes.’

Simon and Charlie exchanged a look. Sally Thorning had told them repeatedly that she and Hey had talked in the hotel bar a few times, nothing more. If anyone asked Simon, he’d tell them he believed her. She was sane, Hey wasn’t. It was her word against his.

‘Sally was easy to get into bed,’ said Hey. ‘Geraldine . . . I had no chance with her. That’s what distracted me, made me believe Geraldine was the one I ought to fight for, when all the time Sally was there, available. But I’d had her already, you see. And, like an ignorant Neanderthal, I undervalued her because of it. Until Geraldine was gone.’

‘Jonathan, I want to ask you about the photographs,’ said Simon. ‘At Corn Mill House there were framed photographs of Lucy and Geraldine taken at the owl sanctuary. Inside the frames were photos of Encarna and Amy taken in the same spot. Can you tell us anything about that?’

Hey looked curious. Mildly. ‘You found them at Corn Mill House? They weren’t there when . . .’

When you drugged Geraldine and Lucy and killed them.
‘No, they were at Mark Bretherick’s office when Geraldine and Lucy were murdered.’

Hey closed his eyes. ‘I looked all over the house for those pictures.’

‘Tell us,’ said Charlie.

‘It was one of those stupid embarrassing things. They happen to me often. I persuaded Encarna we ought to go on the owl sanctuary trip. Parents were invited too. We were always so busy. I thought it would be nice to take a day off work, to be with Amy for once.’ He shook his head. ‘Encarna kept threatening to demand a day’s school fees back, because she and I were looking after Amy on a day when we’d paid the school to do it. The trip was a disaster.’