Fatal Legacy (31 page)

Fenwick parked his car with practised economy in the prison visitors’ car park. Visiting hours were over and it was almost empty. He noticed the security cameras and was glad. It was the sort of spot that invited petty crime and hooliganism despite the barriers.

He had asked Nightingale to come with him, leaving Cooper behind at Division to track down more people who had known Sally. Now that they knew who she was, he was hopeful of finally filling the gaps in her history. It was one of the reasons he was here.

‘Sir?’

‘Hmm, what?’

‘Shall we go in, sir?’

‘Yes. Come on.’

They hurried across the waterlogged tarmac, both huddled inside waterproof coats. May was proving an unseasonably cold, storm-tossed month. In the car park, stunted trees had been whipped bare of new leaves, and there was a hint of frost in the evening air.

Their warrant cards were checked carefully, but they were still searched before being let through the electronically controlled iron gates, which clanged shut behind them before an identical pair, fifteen feet ahead, clicked open. The prison guard beyond directed them to a private interview room at the end of a silent white corridor. Nightingale was already finding it claustrophobic. What must it feel like to be locked up in here for life? The smell was institutional, stale, with a trace of chemicals that didn’t conceal the taint of hundreds of bodies held in close confinement. It gave her a
headache, and she longed for the interview to be over.

Frank Bates was shown into the room, with a guard close behind. The prisoner stared intently at Nightingale without blinking. Fenwick turned to the guard.

‘It’s all right, please leave.’

‘I have instructions to stay, sir, for your own safety. It’s the regulations.’ He pointed to a sign on the wall. ‘Unless you sign a disclaimer, sir.’ He passed over a pre-printed form, which Fenwick signed without a second thought. Nightingale tried not to let her nervousness show.

‘Ridiculous what these privatised firms insist on now,’ Fenwick muttered as he handed the form back.

When the guard had left, Fenwick turned to study Bates, who for his part kept his eyes firmly on the woman police constable. Fenwick considered him for a long moment, then spoke with a quiet authority that made the prisoner blink for the first time.

‘Constable, go and stand by the door, please. You can take notes from there. Mr Bates, eyes front, now. Thank you. We’re here to talk about your daughter, Sally. When did you last see her?’

‘You got any cigarettes?’

Fenwick removed two unopened packets from his jacket pocket and placed them firmly on his side of the table that separated him from the prisoner. Bates was a big man, muscles slack now from lack of exercise and his jowls heavier than they would have been eighteen years ago, but still there was a sense of power about him and a latent menace that showed in his pale blue eyes. He regarded Fenwick with dislike. It was obvious that he resented the policeman’s power over him, symbolised by his control of the cigarettes.

Fenwick could see him weighing up whether to pick up a packet or not. If he reached over and Fenwick moved them away, he would lose face. If he was allowed to hold on to them, Fenwick’s power in turn would be diminished. Fenwick was curious to see what the prisoner would do, but after a while he grew bored of the game and replaced the cigarettes in his jacket. Bates’ eyes darkened and his shoulders tensed.

‘They’re yours when you’ve talked and not before, and there
are some phone cards as well if you tell us everything we need to know.’

Bates nodded imperceptibly.

‘Haven’t seen her since I came in here – eighteen years ago.’ He had a deep voice that matched his big frame.

‘Do you know what’s happened to her in that time?’

The pale eyes moved sideways to Nightingale by the door and back to Fenwick. He knew something, and he was trying to calculate its value.

‘What’s the little bitch been up to now, then?’

‘What had she been up to before?’

‘Enough. She was always trouble, that one.’

Fenwick waited for Bates to continue, making it clear that he wouldn’t be volunteering anything more.

‘I’ve heard a bit from church visitors, now and then. Said she married well. No surprises there; she was bound to, cunning little—’

‘Who visits you from the church?’

‘Mrs O’Brien, First Presbyterian on Charlotte Road. She’s visited for twelve years now. Brings me stuff and tells me the news. She’s the one that’s spoken most about Sally. No one else does, not now.’

Fenwick tossed over one of the packets of cigarettes, and a few seconds later a box of matches. Bates lit one straight away, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs and half closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he was smiling.

‘She’s a sly one, is Sally. When she was put in care she had everyone dancing attendance on her: the doctors and
psychologists
, the care workers and Social Services. They were so eager to remove the “scars” – I think that’s what they called them. My lawyer told me all about it, Miss Llewelyn. She thought I’d be concerned.’ He let out a short, coughing laugh and shook his head in wonder at the stupidity of some people. ‘They didn’t need to worry about her. No, sir. She was a survivor, was our little Sally. They never asked
that,
did they? How she survived when the others … Well, they never asked.’

‘But I’m asking now. How
did
she survive?’

Bates looked at Fenwick and then at his opened packet of cigarettes, obviously calculating.

‘She was useful. Had a way about her. She could lift things and no one’d notice, and she listened in at church so I’d know when people were away for the weekend, say, or on holiday. I’d know when to go round. She was a clever little thing.’

‘She helped you steal?’

‘That and more. Pretty little thing, was our Sally. Eight years old, perfect as a picture. There were a few old gents in the church that took a fancy to her. All innocent, of course – that is, until she got to know them. I had to coach her at first, a few home lessons like, but she soon got the hang of it, quite enjoyed it really. So did they, until I showed up …’

‘So you were a blackmailer as well as a thief and a murderer?’

Bates’ chair scraped back against the concrete floor as he stood up, ready to lunge at Fenwick where he sat calmly less than three feet away.

‘Sit down. Let’s not pretend you’re actually going to do anything to me. You may be in for life, but there’s always the chance of parole. And your privileges – pity to lose those. One word from me and they’d be gone, and you know it.’

Nightingale stared in horrified fascination at the vein that pulsed in Bates’ huge forehead above his bulging eyes. She could see the tension in his legs, ready to leap forward, his hands already curled into fists, but Fenwick just stared at him coolly, apparently unmoved.

Eventually Bates sat down, unable to meet the policeman’s eyes.

‘So you weren’t surprised that Sally survived going into care? How long was she in a home?’

‘You’d need to check with Mrs O’Brien – one, two years, perhaps. She was fostered soon after.’

‘Do you know anything about her foster family?’

‘
Families.
She had four or five before she was sixteen. Don’t know what happened to her next, but I heard she got a scholarship to college or some such. Then nothing until last year, when Mrs O’Brien told me she was back in the area.’

‘And you’ve not seen her in all that time?’ Fenwick reflected that it was unlikely that Sally had wanted to see her father again, but he needed to be sure.

Bates looked at him, eyes heavy with irony but without a trace of grief or even regret.

‘No, nor would I want to. She’s on her own now.’

It was said with an air of finality. Fenwick slid the second packet of cigarettes over and signalled to Nightingale to summon the guard.

‘What about the phone cards?’

‘Not for that little story, Bates. I’ll see what Mrs O’Brien has to say. If it’s interesting enough, I’ll give them to her to bring in to you.’

The prisoner was led out to be escorted back to his cell. Nightingale heard a heavy door open and clang shut and let out a huge sigh. She hadn’t even been aware that she was holding her breath. Fenwick stood up slowly and stared at the chair Bates had been sitting in moments before.

‘I have never been able to understand what it is in a man that turns casual cruelty to evil. He abused and prostituted his daughter, and starved her brother and baby sister to death. Yet there he sat, the same as you and me. He gets up each morning, washes, shaves, and dresses. What does he think about when he looks at himself in the mirror? Does he have any
comprehension
of the awfulness of what he’s done, of what he is? Does he care? What is it that makes a man so?’

‘You said it, sir; he’s evil.’

‘But
why
?’

‘Why not, sir? Evil is as real as good, perhaps even more so as it doesn’t require self-control. It thrives on licentiousness and brings immediate rewards. Why should we be surprised to discover it so often lying behind the crimes we have to face?’

The bitter anger of her words shocked Fenwick and he looked at her in amazement. The hard fury in her eyes as she stared at the empty chair worried him. Whatever had happened to convince her of the reality of evil? And what would that belief do to her as she grew older? Of one thing he was sure: it was a very dangerous conviction to find in a police officer. It would encourage a belief in justice as a means as well as an end, and excuse any route to retribution. He would have to watch her, carefully. He encouraged her out into the gloomy car park.

‘So how much do I owe you?’

‘Twenty-five quid for the parts, Dad.’

‘But what about your labour?’ Cooper was already grateful that his son had given up his Saturday afternoon to fix his ageing Rover and had no intention of taking further advantage of the lad.

‘No, forget it. I wasn’t doing anything, and it’s useful to work on older engines like this. We don’t see many in the workshop any more. You really should—’

‘Buy Mum a new one. I know, but she’s settled into this one. You know how she gets. Here’s forty quid … No, go on, take it, you’re still doing me a favour.’

It tickled him to see Lee working so well. He’d really found his niche in their local garage, and the owner had nothing but praise for his son, which warmed Cooper’s heart.

‘I’ve got a question for you. What do you know of Donald Glass, runs D and G Motors on the A24?’ Cooper had come across a mention of Glass in the Social Services file they now had on Sally Bates, and had recognised the name of the
self-made
businessman.

Lee screwed up his face into a sneer.

‘Not much. We get a few of his exes into the garage – customers and girlfriends. They’re full of complaints about Don. He’s a bit of a cheapskate and his work leaves something to be desired. Why?’

‘His name’s cropped up, that’s all. He’s not done anything wrong that we know of, but he knew someone who might’ve done.’

Cooper thought of Nightingale’s detailed research into Sally’s
background thanks to her meetings with Mrs O’Brien. The children’s home, her social workers, her many foster homes, and then, at age sixteen, her decision to live with Donald Glass before moving on again, they didn’t yet know where or to whom. The foster families had all remembered Sally as a difficult child who was inclined to level accusations of sexual assault if she didn’t get her own way. Social Services had finally given up maintaining her file shortly after she had moved in with Glass, and Fenwick expected Cooper to close the missing link as quickly as possible. So far, there was no hint in Sally’s past of any criminal violence, but Fenwick had asked for a full search against the county’s records just in case. He was still convinced she was capable of murder. Cooper was becoming worried at his preoccupation and wanted to close the file on Sally as quickly as possible. An interview with Glass would help him do that. He came out of his reverie to hear his son still talking to him. ‘Well if you need to see him, come down to the Bird in Hand tonight, he’s always there on a Wednesday.’

‘You going, then? I might join you.’

‘Yup! I can stand a round now, can’t I!’

Donald Glass stood with his back to the large inglenook fireplace, pint jug held at a precarious angle down by his thigh. He had a beer belly, and a nasty scar that ran from his receding hairline down his cheek to the start of a double chin. He looked
considerably
older than his thirty-seven years. He was holding court, Cooper decided; that was the only way to describe it. Together with a group of four cronies, he blocked the heat from the large blaze and left fellow drinkers shivering in draughty corners.

Having taken a good look at Glass, Cooper decided he’d choose another moment to question him about Sally. He’d have a quick drink with the lad and his mates, just to be sociable, and leave. Lee, though, had other ideas.

‘Don!’ he called out cheerily, cutting across the fireside group’s chatter and oblivious to their glares. ‘Got a moment for my dad? He’d like a word.’

‘Got a problem with his motor you can’t fix, huh? Always happy to share my expert advice, but not here, and not in my own time.’

Lee grinned; he had no time for Don Glass and couldn’t care less about his opinion.

‘No, he’s a copper. Wants a word with you.’

Gee, thanks, thought Cooper as he squared his shoulders, picked up his pint and made his way over to the now hostile group around Don.

‘Evening,’ he said in a quiet conversational tone. He didn’t look like a policeman at first glance. Portly, perspiring and wearing his customary tweed jacket, he could have been mistaken for a beef farmer looking to share a moan about the latest auction prices. But there was something about his eyes, a hint of authority that made people look twice once he was up close. That was exactly what Donald Glass did now. A smart remark died on his lips, though he still didn’t have any patience with a man who’d invade his pub and disturb his private life.

‘Urgent, is it? Can’t it wait till tomorrow?’

‘I’m here, so are you, and you’d be helping us if we could talk now.’

‘What about?’ There was a tension about Glass that told Cooper, an old hand at understanding human nature –
particularly
criminal nature – that he probably had something to worry about.

‘I’d rather have a word in private …’

Glass shook his head, and Cooper knew that this time he was heading towards a smart remark, so he forestalled him.

‘It’s about Sally Bates.’

Glass blanched and automatically stroked his long facial scar. Then he grinned, an expression full of malice.

‘Well, well. There’s a name from the past. You’ve taken your time to catch up with her. If I can help put that little bitch away … Come on. Over there, they’re just leaving, we can grab their table.’

Cooper and Glass settled themselves either side of a worn beer barrel that was masquerading as a table and took a moment to size each other up. Cooper pulled out his notebook; this was official business. After a brief nod, Glass started talking without preamble.

‘She gave me this,’ he pointed to the long, angry scar on his face, ‘and it was lucky that I moved fast or it would’ve been my
neck. I threw her out and never saw her again.’

‘When was this?’

‘Over ten years ago. What’s she done, then, the murderous little bitch? Topped someone properly this time?’

Cooper ignored the question, but his stomach clenched as he realised the relevance of Glass’s words.

‘How long did she live with you?’

‘Nine months, during which she thieved nearly ten thousand quid off me – there’s always a fair bit of cash in my business. That’s what the fight was about. I caught her red-handed one day.’

‘Why didn’t you report all this to the police?’

Glass looked away, out of the window, studying a car as it backed into a narrow space between a Mercedes and a Ford. Cooper waited patiently for an answer to his question, although he suspected it was going to be a lie.

‘She cleared off. Money was already gone, and she would only have accused me of worse. There was no point dragging you lot in, and anyway, I thought she wouldn’t dare come back. Looks like I misjudged her. Must be a big prize that’s drawn her here again. Even a cat has only nine lives, and I reckon she must be about out of hers.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, her father nearly killed her, didn’t he, for a start.’

‘She
told
you about her childhood?’ Cooper was amazed.

‘That she’d been abused? Sure, that was all part of the
turn-on
about Sally: poor little innocent kid – she looked young for sixteen – with a wicked sex drive she couldn’t control and the need for some sort of father figure. And I don’t mind admitting that I fell for it, hook, line and sinker.’

‘So that’s one life. Where did the other eight go?’

‘The children’s homes and the foster families – she went through a stack of them. It was enough to make you weep, the treatment she’d had, and she played the part brilliantly. God,’ he stroked the long scar absently, ‘but she was the hottest bit of skirt I’ve ever had.’

Cooper had only just returned home from his brief trip to the pub when DS Gould called him from the station.

‘Bob, sorry to call you at home, but I thought you’d want to know that Blitey has had a break. He’s found someone who reckons they saw Graham Wainwright with a woman on the morning he died. I’ve called the DCI and he’s on his way in now, if you want to join us.’

Cooper was in the incident room with Gould, Blite and Nightingale within half an hour, but Fenwick had called to say he would be on his way as soon as he had found a baby-sitter. He arrived ten minutes later, apologetic and in an incipient bad mood.

‘I’m sorry, the children’s nanny went off for a day’s holiday this morning and her replacement doesn’t start until tomorrow, so I had to find a baby-sitter at short notice.’ He turned to Blite. ‘Tell me what you have, Inspector.’

‘I went to interview Shirley Kennedy, one of the part-time helpers at Wainwright Hall. For some reason we hadn’t
interviewed
her before – I think we missed it because of the search of the Hall.’

Fenwick nodded at Blite to continue, hiding his concern. Graham had been murdered nearly a week ago. This was sloppy. These things sometimes happened, but not on his cases.

‘She has a brother, Nigel. He’s seventeen and a bit simple. They live with their parents in a cottage on the edge of the estate. Nigel spends most of his time in the woods and scrub near the river. He’s got a thing about water birds, apparently.’

Now he had Fenwick’s full attention.

‘On the morning Graham Wainwright died, Nigel was down by the river as usual and he saw a couple under the beech tree. It was hard to get him to talk. He’s got a mental age of about nine or ten, and what he saw had confused and frightened him.’ He pulled out his notebook.

‘He says:
I saw a man and a woman. They were … sort of arguing together. They were making a lot of noise. I didn’t do nothing, honest. I didn’t want to look but they were so noisy. I was in a tree. They didn’t see me but I saw them. They stopped shouting and the man gets up but then the lady drags him back. I was scared. I ran away but I fell in the river.’

‘Can he identify them?’

‘I showed him pictures of everybody, all the dinner guests
and Graham Wainwright. He picked out Sally Wainwright-Smith without hesitation, called her his “princess” and said he’d seen her before, but he was confused over the man. Seems he didn’t really look at his face. He thinks it was Graham but he couldn’t be sure.’

‘Probably not good enough for court, but more than enough to confirm what we’ve suspected all along. Sally has been lying about the morning Graham died.’

‘There’s something else as well. Shirley was up at the Hall on the Thursday. Normally she’s not allowed to touch any of the leftovers. However, that night she said that Alexander was so tired he started to fall asleep at the dinner table, didn’t even finish his main course and left more than half of a decent bottle of claret. Normally it would be recorked for the next day, but “the missus”, as she calls Sally, insisted she take it home with her, said it would spoil.

‘It really shocked Shirley because she says Sally’s usually so mean, but that didn’t stop her taking it home. Her dad had some as soon as she got in, two glasses while he watched the snooker. She said he was asleep within twenty minutes. They could barely get him to bed and he woke at noon the next day with a terrible headache.’

‘So Wainwright-Smith might have been drugged?’

‘We’ll know soon enough, sir. Shirley’s dad makes his own wine and he’d kept the bottle to use later. Hadn’t even washed it. Forensic have already sent it to toxicology.’

‘Well done, Inspector.’ It still wasn’t conclusive proof of Sally’s guilt, and everything they had so far was circumstantial. Still, it would be enough to try to shock her into a confession, and this time he would have Blite drag her down to the station. Not tonight, though. They needed to find an identification officer to arrange an identity parade, and that would take time. She wasn’t a flight risk, so it would wait until morning.

He looked at the expectant faces of the four officers at the heart of his team. They were starting to believe in his theory now, and he could tell that they were hungry to find clear proof of Sally’s guilt beyond the circumstantial information they had collected so far.

‘Tomorrow morning, nice and early, you are going to bring
Sally in for questioning. Take a couple of uniformed officers and confront her with this witness statement.’

Blite nodded enthusiastically. He knew that she was unlikely to break, even with this latest news, but hard interviewing was a particular skill of his, and he relished the idea of practice.

‘In the meantime, I want you all to think hard about how she could be linked to the deaths of Fish and Amanda Bennett. We still have no idea. Work every single connection you can think of.’

‘Perhaps the Fish and Bennett cases aren’t connected, sir.’ Cooper voiced his thoughts cautiously, very aware that Fenwick didn’t agree with him and that Blite was hanging on every word. But his boss encouraged him to continue.

‘Well, sir, we suspect that Wainwright is a cover company for a money-laundering operation. When their MD dies, Alexander takes over. Suppose Fish threatens him with going to the police? He had a fortune in his safe, and who knows, he might even have been blackmailing Alexander’s uncle before him.’

Fenwick didn’t argue, but he didn’t look convinced either.

‘It’s a possibility, Sergeant, I’ll give you that.’

‘But you don’t agree.’

‘Not really. I doubt very much that someone connected with the Wainwright operations would risk a murder being associated with the company so soon after Alan’s death, no matter how difficult Arthur had become.’

He clapped Cooper on the back and decided to send the team home. The next day was going to be crucial to break the case, and he wanted them as fresh as possible. Overnight he was going to think hard about whether he had enough evidence to obtain a warrant for Sally’s arrest. With any other suspect he would have been confident of the Superintendent’s backing, but with this one he felt he needed more. Once they had the identification in the bag, not even the ACC would dare to object. He didn’t notice that Nightingale merely walked as far as the coffee machine. By the time she returned to the incident room and had logged on to their master database, he was well on his way home to relieve his baby-sitter.