Fatal Legacy (37 page)

Sally was taken back to the Hall by her solicitor, who insisted on calling her doctor. As soon as he had gone, she rang the surgery to cancel the visit and poured herself a drink. She was calm again now but needed to think. Inspector Blite had postponed the identity parade for a further twenty-four hours, and she had decided that under no circumstances would she subject herself to it. His casual reference to being locked up had shattered her confidence, and memories of her brother and sister shut away in that stinking room crowded her mind. With a shudder she realised that if James FitzGerald ever realised that the police were already building a case against her, he might simply send them the pictures anyway and abandon the idea of blackmail as too risky. Either way, Alex had been adamant when she’d spoken to him that they should resist paying him one penny. He hadn’t gone so far as to tell Sally how to deal with FitzGerald, but the hint had been there in his unfinished sentences.

She knew that he was hoping she would find a way of handling this, but without him ever having to know the details, just like her father had once done. He had coached her, reprimanded her and praised her, and she had always been a fast learner. Alex was kinder; he didn’t beat her and he knew that she wasn’t as fearless as she pretended to be, but nevertheless, he had his expectations. It was clear to her now that James FitzGerald would have to go; precisely how she wasn’t sure, but an idea would come to her. And she had to avoid the police, particularly Fenwick. Inspector Blite was persistent but he was simply a bully and she knew how to deal with him. Provided she could avoid his identity parade he wouldn’t be a problem.
Fenwick was a different matter. He was clever and he didn’t trust her. His absence from the interview today didn’t fool her; he would be plotting somewhere.

Sally dropped her forehead on to the palm of her hand and started rocking slowly, forwards and back. Then she balled her fist and beat out a rhythm on her temple, softly at first, then harder and harder. The walls of the kitchen billowed in and out and her head whirled. She needed another drink. Both Irene and Shirley had handed in their notice, and apart from a momentary spurt of anger, she didn’t care. Let them, stupid bitches! There were more where they came from, and in the meantime she could live with the dust and a few cobwebs. The first gin and tonic went down quickly, the second a little more slowly. She was just trying to decide whether or not to have a third when the phone rang. She lunged for it, tripped, spilt her drink and dropped her glass. She let it lie on the carpet and dragged her eyes away from the spreading damp patch long enough to find and raise the handset.

‘Alex!’ Her voice was breathy, almost panicking.

‘No, this is DCI Fenwick, Mrs Wainwright-Smith.’

Her
bête noire.
How she hated this man. It was as if her fear of him had somehow conjured him up. ‘Yes, Chief Inspector?’

‘I wanted to let you know that when you come in again later today, I will be interviewing you afterwards about Amanda Bennett’s death.’

Sally felt the tonic rush up into the back of her throat. For a moment all thought and all cunning left her. She sensed defeat, and the idea of it was momentarily so compelling that she sank down exhausted, already beaten, into a chair. Then the thought of prison filled her and she rallied. He was trying to bait her, and it wouldn’t work.

‘I’ve told you before, I don’t know her. Please stop pestering me.’

‘Of course, I wouldn’t dream of doing that, but given that we now have a witness who will testify to your having known her, I thought it was only fair to warn you.’

How could he? They were all dead, she had made sure of that. It was a bluff and one she was prepared to call.

‘I’m very busy, Chief Inspector, and also a little bored of
your games. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I’ve spoken to a member of the police team who made the arrests ten years ago, Sally. He remembers you well.’

‘I wasn’t there.’

There was a heavy pause, and she could hear the interference on his mobile phone. He was trying to weigh up whether she had made an admission or not. Sally started beating her head with her fist again. This wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right. What had she ever done to make this man hound her like this?

‘I have nothing to say.’ She needed time now more than anything else. He was the enemy and she needed to think how to handle him. She spoke abruptly, ‘I have to go,’ and replaced the receiver before he could reply.

She glanced at her watch; it was nearly two thirty. She needed to get away, and to do that she needed money. The small Swiss bank into which she had transferred the cash she and Alex had inherited would be shut by now. She poured herself another gin and tonic and gulped it down in one.

Her mind was racing, and the gin surging through her blood gave her a heady sense of euphoria one moment and absolute depression the next. She had to think, but her mind whirled. She needed to get away, from Fenwick, from FitzGerald, from England! If she could only reach Brighton she would be able to use the boat. It was only seventeen foot long, but they’d crossed the Channel in it before, and she could sail single-handed if need be.

Sally found her handbag and her prescription for
antidepressants
. She wasn’t meant to take more than three a day, and she’d already had two. She poured herself another gin, with less tonic this time, and swallowed another pill. For long seconds she simply rested her head back against a soft cushion, her eyes shut. An incredible weariness closed around her, but if she gave in to sleep, all would be lost.

She needed to think. There was money in her old savings account, squirrelled away over the past twelve years, starting with the ten thousand pounds she had stolen from Glass. To that had been added various legacies from dying old men and every spare penny of her earnings as a prostitute in Brighton. There was over sixty-five thousand pounds in her account now,
including the proceeds from the sale of the house she had inherited in Wittering. She knew the bank branch’s number off by heart. It was in Brighton, and she’d been a customer from the time she had arrived there. She was put through to the manager.

‘I need to make a cash withdrawal, immediately.’

‘For how much?’

‘The whole balance, in cash.’

‘That would normally take at least three days to arrange.’

‘I don’t have three days!’ Wild thoughts cascaded through her mind as she improvised. ‘Look, you don’t understand, my father’s been taken seriously ill in Africa and they won’t treat him unless I can pay them in cash. I’m flying there tomorrow and I need the money!’

‘I’m so sorry, please calm down. We could wire the money; give us the details of the hospital’s bank there, and I’ll arrange it as soon as I have your instructions in writing.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Sally didn’t have to fake the sound of tears in her voice. ‘They want cash. I have to take cash.’

‘Could you hold?’

Sally waited, listening to the automatic phone system play ‘Greensleeves’ and gradually calming down. When the manager returned, full of apologies for keeping her waiting whilst he’d contacted his regional office, she had an alternative proposal ready.

‘I can visit the branch in person tomorrow and bring a letter of authorisation with me.’

‘Normally we require three days’ notice.’

‘I know, but this is an emergency.’

The manager had already agreed with his regional boss that he could make the cash available. Sally had been saving consistently in modest amounts for over ten years, and nothing in her profile was suspicious. If he hurried he would have just enough time to order the exceptional cash she would need.

‘Very well, Miss Price. Are you sure you’ll be safe carrying such a large amount of cash around?’

‘Oh yes. I’ll be safe.’

Sally leant back in her chair with a deep sigh. In twenty-four hours she would have enough money to escape. Now all she had to do was consider how to avoid Fenwick and deal with
FitzGerald before she left. She needed to find a way of distracting Fenwick so that she could sort out FitzGerald and travel to Brighton to collect her money. All she had to do now was work out how.

‘Chief Inspector? It’s Claire Keating.’ Fenwick had called the psychiatrist from his car, eager to hear her assessment of Sally. ‘I haven’t finished writing my report yet, but your message said it was urgent.’

Fenwick pulled over into a lay-by so that he could concentrate on the call. He explained to her that they now had a confirmed link between Sally and Arthur Fish and Amanda Bennett. He had already called Blite to tell him to arrest Sally based on this latest evidence, notwithstanding the lack of an identity parade. If the ACC hadn’t been so lily-livered he would already have done so with complete confidence, irrespective of who she was. He hoped that the inspector was already on his way to the Hall.

‘A connection doesn’t prove guilt, Claire, but if we can charge her we’ll be able to work on her whilst she’s in custody. I need some input from you so that I know how to handle the questioning.’

‘She is a very complex character, Andrew. In the course of two hours I saw evidence of several different personality disorders, as well as witnessing a full-scale panic attack just before she left.’

‘She seemed perfectly all right when I spoke to her just now.’

‘Did she? That’s interesting. She was disturbed enough for Inspector Blite to postpone his identity parade again.’

‘She was being manipulative, I’m sure of it.’

‘Well, that’s consistent with my preliminary diagnosis. She exhibits clearly defined symptoms from a number of Cluster B personality disorders; those are the abnormal types of people who have an overly dramatic and emotional personality and who can seem extremely selfish, lacking in self-control and manipulative.

‘Sally has very shallow and rapidly changing emotions; she uses sex as a tool for control or reward and is utterly
self-centred
. At the same time she displays a need to be the centre of
attention – that’s a classic diagnosis of histrionic personality disorder, but I think her condition goes way beyond that. You and your team have described severe psychotic episodes, extreme reactions to stress and a tendency towards violence that suggests she could also have characteristics of an antisocial personality. She’s capable of holding a deep grudge, she trusts virtually no one, she’s amoral, has no sense of remorse and scant regard for the truth. Her attack on Donald Glass shows that she can be spontaneously aggressive, and I sense – but I don’t know – that she could be capable of reckless and impulsive behaviour.’

‘If she’s fickle, shallow and unstable, why has her
relationship
with her husband lasted so long?’

‘They’ve been together less than six months, but even so, that’s longer than many relationships last for someone with a severely histrionic personality. Typically she would want to manipulate and control him whilst looking to him for
reassurance
and adulation. If he’s smart enough to make her think she’s in charge, then their relationship would achieve some sort of balance. But I think his control over her may run deeper than that. She has a curious dependency on him that isn’t associated with any Cluster B disorders. I think it must have its roots in her childhood abuse. Her father dominated her totally and destroyed any chance she ever had of natural development. She was forced to be sexually active at such a young age that her childhood stopped. Somewhere inside her is a child still desperate for approval and guidance.’

‘Could that personality co-exist with the other disorders?’

‘I think it does.’

‘Is she dangerous?’

‘Yes. She doesn’t respect normal social conventions and her capacity for aggression and lack of remorse make her potentially very dangerous indeed, particularly when she perceives she’s being threatened. That would prompt highly erratic and violent behaviour against the supposed attacker.’

‘Sufficient to kill them?’

‘I’d need more time with her before confirming that formally, but off the record, yes, she’s quite capable of murder.’

Sally paced the great hall as she ran through her plan again. She only needed to stay out of police custody for twenty-four hours, then she would be able to collect her personal savings and take the boat across the Channel. Within days she would disappear in the vastness of continental Europe, with enough money to hide until she had established a new identity and could start life over again.

She had re-created herself before, but her ambition then had been limited by adolescence. Now she knew how to live and behave like a millionairess and she could set her sights accordingly. Even if Alex stayed in England for a while, there were bound to be suitable single men holidaying somewhere, and she would be able to trap a few before her money ran out. To her surprise, the thought didn’t warm her as completely as it once would have done, and she realised with a rare sense of fear that she was becoming dependent on Alex.

She brushed the unwelcome thought away and concentrated on what she would have to do to remain free for one more day. Her immediate problem was Fenwick; he simply wouldn’t leave her alone, and he had to be dealt with. She had to work out a way to distract him for long enough to deal with FitzGerald and make her escape, yet he seemed untouchable. There was no obvious way to reach him. She stared fixedly at the table in front of her as she tried to concentrate. The local newspaper was still lying there from the week before, a thin rag, full of car wrecks, burglaries and school competitions. A sudden memory returned to her, and she scrambled for the paper, smoothing its wrinkled pages back into some semblance of order. She had seen his name in here, somewhere. Where was it?

Sally flicked through the pages until she found the
photograph
with its caption that had somehow lodged in her subconscious. It showed a group of five children proudly holding their recorders, and there in the middle was a pretty dark-haired girl with enormous eyes, gazing confidently at the photographer. The caption beneath the photograph identified her as Bess Fenwick, seven, from Harlden Primary. She had to be the Chief Inspector’s daughter. It was common knowledge that he had children, and his was such an unusual name.