The Essen Fields sales office had been shut since the bones had been unearthed – not that it had made much difference. Though many people had made the trip to the estate, it hadn’t been to buy houses. The only messages on the answerphone were from journalists asking for a statement from Eric Perlman, messages he swiftly deleted.
‘Go and unlock the show home,’ he said to the sales office manager. ‘We need to get this business back up and running!’ He wasn’t lying. The development was being financed by a series of phased payments from a hard to convince consortium, and any further delay in sales would make them even more jittery than they already were. He’d already had to pay a fortune for new advertising, knocking thousands off the sale prices just to drum up interest in what the local paper had now decided to call his life’s work – the Killing Fields. It couldn’t get much worse, but being a man who liked his glass half full, he figured the only way was up.
Until he heard the scream.
A sound so chilling it drained the colour from his face quicker than fate emptied that glass.
Three current murders and a set of remains, all linked either by marriage, medicine or genetics, had brought the DCI out of his office and into the Essen Fields show home. Poole didn’t know whether to feel honoured or criticised. The fact of the matter was that they were being criticised, from much higher up than the DCI. Estelle Hall’s murder, and there was no doubt that it had been murder, was being dealt with by another team on another patch and Poole’s team were still playing catch-up. Everyone was still reeling from the old man’s murder and busy looking for an unknown woman, with no reliable description, who may or may not have been at the Grange as Maura Lyle had claimed. All they did know was that the DNA from the skin scraped out from underneath Gordon Henderson’s nails matched someone who was related to the bones that had been unearthed on the building site. Now they had another body to deal with, but whether this one was suicide or murder they didn’t know at that point.
They hadn’t cut him down yet, a source of further distress to the woman who had found him, and her boss, Eric Perlman. A man clearly known to the DCI (Poole suspected some masonic connection, but couldn’t swear to it). The DCI was in the sales office, handing out the tissues and topping up the whisky while trying to explain that they weren’t being callous or disrespectful, just doing their jobs. What was it Maura Lyle had said? That was it, that they were Nazis. Poole suppressed a smile – that woman really didn’t like him. Still, he couldn’t suspect her of causing this death directly. She’d been locked up when this one had died – a good job for her, or he might have been pointing fingers. The body that hung stiff and rigid like a grisly chandelier from the banister rail of Perlman’s flagship house was Dr Philip Moss. Which meant they’d have to talk to Miss Lyle again, and she wasn’t going to like that one little bit.
Maura wasn’t a big drinker, but there were times she wished she was – a vat of wine might have gone down well, if she could stand the taste of the stuff. Cheryl’s ancient brandy was still making its presence felt, ghosting about in her stomach like a nauseating oil slick.
Looking around her meagrely stocked kitchen she realised it would have to be coffee, and black at that. She had thrown the last of the milk away before leaving for the Grange. Going to the local shop wasn’t an option. She felt drained, battered and bereft and would rather survive on black coffee and dry cornflakes than face the world at that moment. Bad enough she’d had to phone her manager and explain her absence from work; even worse that she was now required to attend a meeting at HQ rather than turn up the next day and carry on as normal. It was all getting way too much. For a fresh start and a chance to move on, karma sure had kicked her when she was down.
She picked up the card that had been waiting on the hall floor when she’d opened the door. The bloody thing had compounded her mood into something even more unbearable than it had been before. She tore it in half. There was no point in rereading the message before disposing of it; she already knew Sarah was sorry. It was always the “if” that got to her. I’m sorry if what I said/did/created/got involved in hurt you. If. Like there was any doubt. Like there could be an available alternative view that simply required Maura to look at it differently. ‘You slept with my boyfriend, Sarah. What do you mean, if you upset me?’ she said aloud as she slammed her foot on the pedal of the bin.
In Maura’s view, Sarah was a narcissistic little moron and always had been. It was only the fact that they were sisters that had ever clouded her judgement. Such was the conundrum of family loyalty and obligation… The card just served to remind her that, no matter what her own wishes were, Sarah would just do what she damned well liked and continue to insert her presence into Maura’s life.
As she stuffed the white suit into the bin on top of the card, the doorbell rang. The noise startled her. As far as she was aware, no one knew she was there. It was tempting to freeze, pretend there was no one home and hope that whoever it was would just get off her doorstep. The bell rang again, longer this time, a continuous buzz that indicated the caller had no intention of going away. She had a bizarre sense of anxiety, as if she’d been caught in the act of doing something wrong and was about to be pilloried for it. The feeling mutated into anger when she opened the door and saw DS Poole standing there with his finger on the bell. Behind him stood a weary-looking DC Gallan.
‘You have got to be kidding me! What now?’
Poole glanced behind at his colleague in a gesture that suggested he’d known they wouldn’t get a warm reception. ‘May we come in?’
‘You’re going to insist, so there’s no point in me arguing, is there?’ She opened the door wide and ushered them in. Poole walked in with a familiarity she wished he didn’t have, while Gallan followed with an apologetic, conciliatory shuffle on the doormat. As if his pretending to wipe his feet would redeem them both.
She led them into the lounge, a room that was frigid and cold since she’d decimated it during her clear-out. ‘Take a seat and feel free to tell me what I’m supposed to have done now.’
As Poole began to tell her about their most recent discovery at Essen Fields, little bits of her already fragmented heart started to crumble into a layer of silt that felt like it would choke her soul. She could barely believe what she was hearing and sat, her face contorted with confusion, as Poole’s words hit home.
‘So,’ he said, ‘we need to go back over, in detail, what took you to Essen Grange. You mentioned before that Dr Moss had arranged it.’
Maura was still reeling. ‘Have you told his family? Someone should tell his family.’
‘The Detective Inspector will be taking care of that, don’t worry.’
‘As long as you don’t send that Kelsoe woman. No one needs that on the end of such news.’
Poole’s surreptitious glance at Gallan, and the DC’s flushed face, told her that they had indeed sent Kelsoe. The Moss family would have gained more comfort if they’d sent Beelzebub than they would from Kelsoe’s womanly presence. From Maura’s experience, the intrepid female DC would go in there with her evidence bag in one hand and handcuffs in the other, meanwhile radioing for back-up in case the family tried something “funny”. She snorted with laughter at the thought. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. It’s not funny – I’m just all over the place with everything that’s happening. I’m so sorry.’
Gallan smiled at her and passed her a tissue as the tears began to burgeon again. ‘Don’t worry, love, it’s been a traumatic few days. We understand.’
Maura took the tissue. ‘Do you? Or are you going to pull the good cop bad cop routine on me?’
Poole stared at her as if he was in no doubt which role he’d be playing. ‘We just need to establish Dr Moss’s movements and interactions prior to his death.’
She blew her nose. ‘All I can tell you is what I told you before.’
‘That’s all we need. You said before that the agency told you he’d asked for you specifically for the job at the Grange?’
She nodded. ‘They said I’d been asked for by name, I only realised it was him when I turned up there and heard him talking in the kitchen. I just put two and two together and assumed.’
‘And you were told there was a private patient who needed temporary care?’
‘Yes,’ she said through gritted teeth. She had been over this what felt like a million times already.
‘And you didn’t question that? You just accepted the job on spec?’
She felt a flush of embarrassment creep into her cheeks. The more that aspect of things got mentioned, the more she felt a fool for not having grilled the agency for more information. Poole was right – she’d been an idiot to walk into something so blithely. ‘Like I told you, and as you already know, I’d been feeling pretty pissed off. A change of scene seemed like a good idea. They were in a hurry and needed an answer, so I said yes. They seemed relieved. The recruitment manager dropped in the cheque and the address on her way home that night. I assumed I was doing them a favour – you know, stepping in to save the day and all.’ It sounded more stupid each time she had to say it.
‘Why you in particular?’ Gallan asked.
It was a good question and one she’d been pondering herself. ‘The same as I told you before. I supposed it was because he knew me, knew I was only at work part-time, so would be available. He also knew I wasn’t… enjoying being on my own. I assumed he thought he was doing me a favour too.’ It was killing her to admit weakness in front of them, especially in front of Poole. She had already cried and been regarded with sympathetic glances. To her they stung just as much as that regrettable slap she’d delivered to him. Pride and embarrassment were mingling with shock and distress and making her more and more uncomfortable.
‘Tell us again your thoughts on Dr Moss’s connection to Estelle Hall, and why you think it was more than a doctor and patient relationship,’ Poole said.
The flush deepened. She felt as though she was being asked to play amateur sleuth to his great detective just so he could sneer at her and shoot her down in flames. As if they hadn’t tortured her enough with the questions about Gordon’s death. But another man was dead, another man she’d known, and something about Poole’s demeanour had shifted. He seemed worried, and genuinely interested in what she had to say this time. It was a mite easier to speculate when you weren’t being accused of murder.
‘I don’t know. It’s stupid really and I have zero proof – just a hunch. Probably just trying to make sense of a really odd situation. I knew Estelle had power of attorney over Gordon’s affairs. She’d signed the cheque that bounced and I’m sure I remember Cheryl saying something about it, so logic suggested she’d been behind the land sale. I assumed big money had changed hands for that, so when the cheque bounced I speculated that she and Dr Moss might have been in cahoots and trying to do a runner with Gordon’s money. I knew by then that the whole broken-hip scenario was bogus, because you’d told me,’ she said, nodding towards Gallan. ‘When I realised they’d been doping Gordon up, I suppose I convinced myself it made perfect sense. It explained a lot and, believe me, when you spend any time in that house you’ll cling on to anything that makes sense!’
‘It still doesn’t explain why you in particular were chosen to be the nurse,’ Gallan said.
Maura shrugged. It didn’t. ‘I know, and the only thing I can think of is that, because he knew I’d been off sick, that I’d been suffering from depression and was only just phasing myself back in, he thought I’d be needy and desperate. Not many people would do private work like that. Most hate working in people’s homes because you get treated like a servant. I dunno – it’s the only scenario that might fit.’ It stuck in her throat to have to say that to Poole – to admit that the incident between them might have been because she’d been mentally unstable. She guessed he knew that already, but even so, she didn’t want to have to confirm it.
After they’d gone, Maura sat in her hollow home listening to the ticking of the clock and thinking. She’d told Poole about her theory – that Dr Moss and Estelle had been having a relationship and had diddled Gordon out of his money. She’d even suggested that Dr Moss had killed Estelle and then himself in a fit of remorse. She had become a regular Miss Marple with her theories, though even she had to admit some of them were as tenuous as a game of Cluedo.
All Poole had done was raise a single eyebrow in a gesture that might have been curiosity but could equally have been guarded derision. The black coffee she’d made for herself sat on the table in front of her. She sipped it, grimaced and pushed it away. She needed milk. She also needed to return Cheryl’s cardigan. There was a shop in Essen Weir, not far from Cheryl’s house. There was also a shop three hundred yards from Maura’s, but it held less appeal. There would be no answers there, amidst the dusty tins of beans and shrivelled potatoes. The murky business of the Grange was drawing her back and, as weak a link as it was, the cardigan was her only excuse to return.
Connie and Cheryl Nixon lived in a bungalow, one of a small row owned by the council and located on the edge of the village. The bungalows were all pebble dash and privet, and like the Grange seemed out of their time, as if the 1950s had come to roost and never left. The only nods to the present were the posters in a few of the windows: “Stop the Development” and “Save Our Village”.
The Nixon’s home advertised no such objections and sat benign and beige in the middle of the row.
The Connie who opened the door was a different woman to the one who had visited the Grange a few days before. She seemed diminished, lost and not entirely pleased to see Maura. ‘Oh, it’s you. What do you want?’
‘I came to bring this – Cheryl lent it to me earlier.’ She held out the cardigan, which Connie just stared at.
‘She’s not here. I assume she’s still fanny-arsing around at the house.’
Maura was shocked. ‘Have the police questioned her yet, about Gordon?’
‘Questioned both of us. We’ve nothing to tell them. We were home, here, as you well know.’
‘I expect they’re just trying to find out about Miss Hall and Dr Moss.’
‘Pffffft! Asking the wrong people then. Cheryl don’t notice anything that don’t concern her, always been the same. I could tell them a tale or two but it’s old news, nothing to do with what’s happening now.’
Maura had to agree. In the short time she’d known Cheryl, she’d noticed that the woman was quite insular in what she chose to see – even the broken window and exploding light bulb had only been relevant to her in that they had been an inconvenience to her routine. ‘Maybe old news would shed light on what’s happening now. Did you tell the police you had information that might help them?’ she asked, meaning the story about the missing woman and child.
Connie shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘They didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell them. They just wanted to know where we were and if anything unusual had happened recently – like if anyone had visited who didn’t normally. I only know what Cheryl tells me, which isn’t much. Besides, what I don’t know can’t involve me, can it?’
Maura hadn’t driven all the way back to Essen Weir just to bring the cardigan. She wasn’t entirely sure what she had come for – confirmation, she supposed, but she did know it lay in what Connie might know. ‘I’m asking. Will you tell me?’
Connie narrowed her eyes. ‘Why are you so interested? You didn’t want to know the other night.’
‘Yes, well, I hadn’t been arrested on suspicion of murder then, and we were only dealing with one body, not four. I take it you’ve heard about Dr Moss?’
Connie nodded and seemed to weigh the pros and cons of talking for a moment. ‘All right, I’ll tell you what I know, and you can see what you make of it. You’d better come in.’
She led Maura into the bungalow’s compact kitchen, which was festooned with yellow gingham and smelled of boiled cabbage and the ghost of old gravy. The room was immaculately clean yet full of organised clutter – someone was a collector, of novelty spoons, condiment sets and the kind of plates that were sold as limited editions from the back pages of the Sunday supplements. This jolly, colourful kitchen was in stark contrast to Connie’s abrasive manner, as if she’d set all her softness outside herself. Unless the homey efforts were Cheryl’s, which Maura felt might be more likely. Poor Cheryl, buying scraps of comfort to add a bit of colour to her life.
Connie offered Maura a seat on one of the gingham-clad chairs and busied herself making the Nixon trademark weak tea. Once it was made, poured and the first scalding mouthful sipped, she began her story.
‘I never worked there like Cheryl does. Things were different then and that bloody door stood for a lot more than it does now, or did anyway. It was strictly upstairs, downstairs, and even though I never lived there I knew my place and was reminded of it every day. I’d like to say I didn’t care, but I did. It irked me. The only difference between me and them was that they had money and I didn’t. So, I suppose we each had something the other wanted. They didn’t want to do their own dirty work, so they paid me to do it. Only thing is, you never know how dirty the work is going to get.’
Maura listened with patience. She had long known people needed time for their stories to unfold and that, if you insisted on all the action coming first, the important bits, the subtle clues, the things that were the most telling, could get lost in the rush. She gave Connie an encouraging smile, but the fact that the woman’s skinny fingers were trembling wasn’t lost on her.
‘You could tell that the wife – Jane her name was – had married him for the money and the house. Let’s face it, what woman could love a man like Gordon Henderson? Oh, you just knew him as an ornery old man, but he was never much different – he was an awkward, snotty bugger, always caught up in his own concerns and couldn’t have cared less about anyone else. I should know. He never gave a shit about me. He pretended to at one time but even now I think it was just for the pleasure of seeing me make a fool of myself. You see it a lot in families like that: second-born son left to hold the fort while the prodigal goes off like some conquering hero. I never knew much about the brother. Like I told you, he went off to Africa, was a farmer or something – they had land out there and it’s where the money had come from, so I was led to believe. Anyhow, Jane Hall married Gordon Henderson and brought her sister with her as some kind of companion– their father was a missionary apparently, knew the family through the Africa connection. I always got the impression it was some kind of arranged thing – not like the Asians do it, but like some gentleman’s handshake thing. Do you know what I mean?’
Maura thought she did. She’d lost count of the number of older ladies she’d nursed who had lived their lives with mild to moderate depression, often the direct result of being pushed into marriage with unsuitable men chosen by their families. Love had rarely come into it, but status and connections had, and women of that generation had been given few choices, especially those of a more genteel disposition.
Connie continued her story. ‘Well, if I’m honest, she was never the full ticket. A highly strung type, lived on her nerves. It was Estelle, her sister, who ran everything, and she was always a calculating little sod in my mind. Never missed a trick, that one, and she always ruled the roost at the Grange. Still, I was just there to clean up after them, so who was doing what wasn’t really my business – and I supposed they rubbed along all right for the most part. That doctor they found, though, he was around a lot. At least once a week, either seeing to Mrs H and dosing her up, or seeing to the kid.’
‘The kid? Whose kid?’ Maura expressed surprised at this. She’d never noticed anything at the Grange that suggested there had been a child there; except the teddy, of course, which still lay on the back seat of her car. It was the second time Connie had asserted that there had been children at the Grange
Connie looked at her with impatience. ‘Well, I’m just about to tell you, aren’t I? They had a daughter, Barbara. Sickly thing as a baby, never saw the light of day if they could help it. She was a Mongol.’
‘Do you mean she had Down’s Syndrome?’ Maura would have been the first to agree that some aspects of political correctness had gone too far, but the labelling of people with difficulties and disabilities with such pejorative names as Mongol, spastic and so on did offend her sensibilities. Even a woman of Connie’s age should know such terms were divisive and unacceptable, though Maura had a sneaking suspicion that was exactly why she chose to use them.
Connie scowled at her. ‘You know what I mean, and I’m not being offensive. It’s what they were called back then.’
Maura forced a smile. She wanted to hear the rest of Connie’s story but that single word, they, had confirmed her suspicions that, though Connie was clearly a bright and canny woman in many ways, she was also ignorant and bitter. Her story so far was fascinating, but the subtleties of it were even more compelling. She’d been carefully selling herself as the financially disadvantaged yet morally superior innocent bystander. Maura wasn’t quite sure which one of them Connie was trying to convince, but she knew a lie to the self was a powerful shield against reality. She added a “sorry” to the smile to urge the woman’s story along.
Connie considered the apology for a moment, seemed to roll it around in her mind and find an acceptable place for it. With an almost imperceptible nod and a barely conscious “Humph”, she recalibrated her place in the tale and continued, to Maura’s wry amusement.
‘Anyway, as I was saying, the doctor came to see the kid a lot. She used to have violent tempers, screaming fits and all sorts. Between her and her mother it was hell on wheels in that house sometimes. I was bloody glad of that baize door some days, I can tell you. At least I got to turn my back on it. They were the ones who had to hide the shame of it. Gordon couldn’t live with the fact that he’d created something so imperfect, so he turned his back on it too and took his comforts elsewhere.’ She said it with a derisive sneer and seemed to drift off into some kind of bitter memory sequence at the thought of it.
Maura felt the need to give her some encouragement, afraid her censure had driven Connie back on a more guarded and defensive version of events. ‘What happened to Barbara? I had no idea there had ever been a child.’
Connie snorted. ‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? They weren’t exactly proud of her. Not the kind of kid whose photo you put on the mantelpiece, is it? I mean, you don’t show that kind of thing off to people. As for what happened to her, Estelle had her put into a home. They could manage her when she was little, but by the time she got to teenage, well, it was out of hand. She was a big thing and strong by then. She was bloody dangerous – grabbed hold of me once and nearly broke my bloody arm. Had to be locked in her room most of the time. That was the first time they brought someone in to look after things. It didn’t pan out, though. Shortly after was when they had her put away.’
Maura wondered if Connie was aware she was rubbing her forearm at the memory of it. It wasn’t such an unusual story. When she’d done her nurse training, the old hospital had been full of people with learning difficulties who had been “put away” in the sixties, seventies, and even the eighties. Things might have moved on, but not as long ago as most people liked to think. Out of sight was out of mind. There were still hundreds of institutions populated by the relatives people hadn’t wanted and chose not to think about. Still hundreds of mothers grieving for the children they’d been forced to give up. And still people, no doubt, who didn’t want to know or thought it couldn’t happen like that anymore.
‘Well, to be honest, it was probably the best thing for her, being with her own kind and with people who could look after her. But it caused problems. I reckon it was why Mrs H walked out. She packed her bags and just left. I went in one day and she was there, moping about as usual like the ghost of Mrs bloody Rochester, then went in the next and she’d gone. I often wondered if she’d only stayed because of the kid. I mean, you’d never have got the impression she loved the girl, but even so, she was her mother. Had to stand for something, I suppose.’
Maura thought about the way Connie had spoken about Cheryl in front of her and suppressed the urge to raise her eyebrows. It would appear mother love wasn’t the simple thing she’d like to believe it could be. From her own bitter experience, she knew that. Her own mother had hardly been a shining example of the breed. The thought of it caused a pang, like the echo of a chime from her body clock striking half past too late. She’d never know if she’d have been a different, better type of mother now. Single at thirty-eight meant it was unlikely she’d ever have kids. It was a depressing thought.
‘Well, things were pretty quiet for a bit after that. You wouldn’t think old Gordon had even noticed his wife was gone. Not that he’d ever paid much attention to her before, to be honest. But that doctor kept coming – to see him this time, or so he said. Regular as clockwork, twice a week. But I reckon it was Estelle he was coming to see. I always did think there was something between them.’
Maura nodded her agreement – that much seemed obvious now. ‘But he was married?’
Connie snorted. ‘Since when has that made any difference to men? Cheryl’s sperm donor was married. Didn’t stop him stringing me a line and leaving me in the lurch and cleaning up his messes and doing anything I could just to make ends meet. They’re all the bloody same! And I call him the sperm donor because he was never any kind of father, wouldn’t even acknowledge her as his.’
Maura had to consciously choose to believe that wasn’t true for fear she would end up like Connie. Bitter, resentful and living a sad, lonely life only punctuated by the arrival of the next limited-edition souvenir piece of tat. Connie had a point, though: some men did do that. Some even betrayed you with your own sister.
‘Anyway,’ Connie continued, ‘it was all pretty quiet until they got news that his brother had died. Then the wife and kid turned up. I told you about that the other night. I’m still convinced it’s her they found on the building site.’
Maura had gathered that from their previous interaction. She couldn’t call it a conversation because it hadn’t been. ‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? With her in the picture, Gordon Henderson and Estelle would have been out on their ears – the whole lot was hers by rights.’
Maura frowned. ‘Well, that might have given them a motive for not wanting her around, but it doesn’t prove anyone did anything untoward. What makes you think they did?’
Connie leaned forward, close enough that Maura could feel the woman’s warm, pear-drop breath on her skin. ‘Well, they packed me off pretty damned quick. And, believe me, Estelle Hall wasn’t a woman inclined to do her own cleaning. She was a hard-nosed cow, always out for number one. She wasn’t the type to give up easily. So, when I went back to argue the toss, there was no sign of them. Not a trace.’
‘Did you ever ask what happened to them?’
‘Not her I didn’t. She only spoke to me to issue orders. But I asked him – Gordon. He told me they’d never been there, that they’d died in that air crash in Rhodesia with his brother. He told me I didn’t know my own mind! Well, all I can say is, I know what I saw and I know what I heard.’
Maura had to wonder – the image of the spilled suitcase in the cellar sprang to mind, the passport with the brother’s name lying on the floor beside it. ‘Did you ever talk about it with anyone? Tell anyone about your concerns?’
Connie looked away and began to twiddle with the rings clustered on her fingers. A mottled, purple flush had begun to creep across her crepe-paper skin.
‘Connie?’ Maura urged.
‘I did. I told that doctor. Next thing I know, I’m called in to see her ladyship, Estelle, and given a whole lecture on discretion, gossip and the importance of loyalty – cheeky bitch! She told me the woman and child I saw were her cousins from Africa, not Robert Henderson’s family. That I’d made a mistake and had been casting aspersions, and if I wanted to keep my job I needed to respect the confidence of my employers. Well, I needed the money, and who was I to argue?’
‘And that was it? Connie, maybe she was telling the truth and they were her family, not Gordon’s. What makes you so sure she was lying?’
Connie looked towards the ceiling and sighed. ‘I was the one who answered the door to them and I can picture it now: a young woman and a kid. She told me her name. Clodagh Henderson.’
Maura let this soak in for a moment. Her tea had gone stone-cold – not that it mattered because all she could think about was that suitcase in the cellar. ‘You said before that you thought the body they found might be her, yet you didn’t seem this upset then.’
Connie pursed her lips and swallowed. ‘Well, it was just idle gossip then. I wasn’t that serious – but now? Bodies turning up left, right and centre? Well, it makes you think, and what I’m thinking is, what happened to the kid?’
Maura thought about the mouldering teddy and wondered which child it had first belonged to: the tragic Barbara or the mystery boy? Either way, the sight of it had cause Gordon a great deal of distress.
‘What’s more,’ Connie said, the tremor in her voice becoming more pronounced, ‘is that there’s a killer out there, and he’s targeting everyone connected with the Grange. What’s to say I won’t be next? Like any of it had anything to do with me, or our Cheryl. We’re as much victims in this as anyone else and it’s not as if we’ve been given any choices.’ She tacked the last bit on, like an insurance policy.
Maura’s mind was mixing and mingling the things she’d been told and adding a dash of personal experience – she hadn’t forgotten the woman who’d turned up at the Grange the night Gordon was killed. ‘And who’s to say it’s a he?’
Connie shrugged. ‘Got to be a he. Women don’t do that kind of thing. They’re much more cruel, I reckon. There’s women I know who are capable of much worse than murder, women like to make you suffer. Just makes me think, what if it’s the kid grew up and he’s come back to take his revenge? I mean, he might remember me.’
Maura had no idea where Connie was going with her story. So far, her dealings with the woman had led her to believe that Connie Nixon was a self-serving, twisted woman hellbent on muddying the waters just to ensure her own safety. Maura had had enough of her for the time being. It felt like Connie was rewriting history to suit her own ends and painting herself as an innocent bystander. She’d already admitted that she’d turned a blind eye because she’d needed money and security. There was something profoundly unpleasant about Connie Nixon and Maura’s gut told her she was dealing with someone who was first and foremost out for number one. Whatever the real history of the Grange, Connie’s version felt skewed. ‘I think we’re just going to have to let the police do their job, Connie. It’s all we can do. I hope Cheryl’s okay. I don’t like to think of her in that house on her own.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about our Cheryl. She knows when to keep her mouth shut and when to open it – like the three wise monkeys rolled into one, that one!’ It was a cryptic response, but Connie Nixon was a cryptic woman. If it had been anyone else Maura might have asked her what she meant, but instinct told her that Connie wouldn’t tell her much that was worth knowing, or anything at all that didn’t serve Connie Nixon first.
Maura left the house more confused than ever by the malevolent old woman and her tales. Whatever had gone on at the Grange over the years, her instinct was to take everything Connie said with a large handful of salt because a pinch wouldn’t be enough, even if just a single grain of it was the truth.
Poor Connie. Her pigeons are coming home to roost and she doesn’t like it. Not one bit. She’ll get hers, don’t you worry. I’m not happy that they’ve let the nurse go, that was not in my plans. Maybe I made it too complicated, too much wishful thinking. If you want a job doing well, you have to do it yourself – it’s the only way. Her time will come. I’ll make sure of that. But for now it’s time to deal with the curtain-twitching bitch and her daughter. Time to set the cat among those pigeons of hers. Time to make them pay for their part in this.
I can see her now, staring through the window as the nurse is leaving, clutching her cardigan around herself with her skinny fingers. She looks like she thinks a storm is coming, and she’s right. I am.