Kennedy 02 - A Darker Side (22 page)
As soon as she ended the call to Babs, Jill tried Max’s mobile. It rang out, but he wasn’t answering. She had no idea where they were having that celebratory meal, and she couldn’t ring every restaurant in the area.
She carried her phone upstairs and dressed in jeans and a thick sweater. She’d give Max ten more minutes and, if she hadn’t managed to reach him, she’d drive over to his house and wait for them to return.
This was frightening her. Where the hell was he? It was unlike him not to answer his phone.
Five minutes later, she locked up her cottage, jumped in her car and headed for his place. On the way, she called his number again, but he still wasn’t answering.
What if something had happened to him? A sharp pain, somewhere between her chest and her stomach, told her how she would feel, how she
did
feel about him. She loved him. Always had, she supposed. He’d hurt her, but try as she might, she couldn’t master the art of not loving him . . .
Her driving was as erratic as her heartbeat and when she tried to turn the corner into his road, she found it blocked by fire crews and police cars. What the?
She jumped out of her car and managed to catch snippets from the crowd gathered at the corner. The whole road had been evacuated. Someone even mentioned a bomb.
As Jill ran towards the crowd, she saw that the cloud of smoke was billowing out of Max’s house.
She soon had Ben in her arms and Harry standing close. Kate looked on the point of collapse.
‘Just as we turned the corner,’ Harry was telling Jill breathlessly, ‘there was a huge bang. It was like a bomb going off.’
‘It must have been a gas leak,’ Kate said, her voice all highs and lows.
‘Sure to have been,’ Jill said, but she was sure of no such thing. ‘Thank God you were all out!’
‘What will happen?’ Ben whispered, one hand tight on Fly’s lead and the other just as tight on Jill’s arm.
‘You’ll have to stay with me tonight,’ she told him. ‘You might end up sleeping on the floor, but there’s plenty of room. It’ll be fun!’
She saw Max talking to a group. From the way he was waving his arms around, he looked to be issuing orders.
‘I need to see your dad,’ she told the boys. She patted Kate’s arm. ‘You all right, Kate?’
‘Fine,’ Kate replied, but it was obvious that she was far from all right.
‘Here.’ Jill handed DS Forrest a bunch of keys. ‘Drive them all back to my place. Kate can take my car if necessary.’ She nodded up the road. ‘It’s parked back at the corner. And don’t, whatever you do, let them out of your sight.’
‘Oh, I won’t do that,’ he promised her.
Kate seemed glad to be told what to do and she was soon giving instructions to the boys. Jill watched as DS Forrest, alert as ever as he spoke into his radio, led them away.
Then she pushed her way through the crowd of police and firemen to get to Max.
He broke away when he saw and walked over to her.
‘What in hell’s name happened, Max?’
‘It might have been a gas leak,’ he said, and despite the calm, measured tone, she knew he was taut with rage. He was a master at keeping his emotions tightly in check, but, right now, he looked as if he was a breath away from committing murder.
‘It wasn’t a gas leak, was it?’ Her teeth were chattering as she tried to get the words out. ‘I’ve sent Kate and the boys back to my place. DS Forrest is with them. But we need to find Donna Lord, Max.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a long story, but I think no, I’m
sure
she’s our killer. She’s Josie Hayden’s daughter!’
For a moment, he was completely still. Apart from the fury blazing in his eyes, nothing registered in his expression. Nothing.
Then, he swung into action. He went to speak to a couple of officers and, as he came back to join Jill, she heard him say, ‘. . . and organize some fucking back-up!’
He grabbed Jill’s arm. ‘We’ll drive out to her place and, on the way, you can tell me what you’ve found out.’
As they strode up the road to Max’s car, his hand was still biting into her arm. When they were inside, he fired the engine, slammed the car into gear and, with difficulty, manoeuvred around the police cars.
‘Right,’ he said when they were finally out on the main road. ‘Tell all.’
Jill told him of her conversation with Babs, and of the photo she’d been sent.
‘There’s no doubt that Donna Lord or Hope is Josie’s daughter,’ she told him, concentrating on stopping her teeth from chattering. ‘As to whether she’s our killer well, there’s no doubt in my mind, but we don’t have any proof.’
‘We’ll get proof,’ he said grimly.
‘We need to handle her with care,’ Jill pointed out. ‘She’s sick, Max. She needs help. And our first priority has to be finding Jason Keane and James Murphy.’
‘I know that.’ He gave her a brief sideways look as they sped along Harrington’s main street. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she answered, ‘but I do know that we need to tread very carefully indeed.’
All Max wanted was Jill and his kids next to him. They were all safe, and he kept reminding himself of that, but it had been a close call. If it hadn’t been for Kate’s insistence on seeing her friend and then stopping to shop, they would have been in the house. They would most likely have been dead.
Max thanked whatever guardian angel had looked out for them today.
Donna Lord’s car was parked outside her house and he slowed to a stop behind it.
‘Let’s see what she has to say for herself,’ he said, striving for calm.
Her house was a traditional terraced building with nothing to set it apart from the others in the street. The door was painted a deep blue and Max rang the bell. Just as he was about to ring it again, the door opened and there she was.
‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favourite detective.’
Surprise had registered in those attractive eyes of hers. Why? Because he was alive?
‘And the psychologist,’ she added. ‘I am honoured.’
‘Can we come inside?’ Max asked. ‘We’d like a word.’
She hesitated briefly and Max noticed that her eyes were dangerously bright.
‘Of course,’ she said.
They were shown into a large sitting room and offered seats. They both remained standing.
‘To what do I owe this – pleasure?’ Donna asked lightly.
‘We need your help,’ Jill told her, and Max suspected he was the only one to hear the catch in her voice. ‘We need to find Jason and James and we think you can help us.’
Donna Lord shook her head. ‘I wish I could but . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve told you all I know. And I can only spare you a minute or so because I’m on my way out.’
‘Donna, listen,’ Jill said gently. ‘We’ve been talking to your parents – your foster parents.’ She paused, letting her comments sink in. ‘We know about the car accident, Donna. Or should I call you Hope?’
‘What?’ She looked to Max, eyes glittering more brightly than ever. ‘What’s she talking about?’
‘I’m talking about the car crash, Hope,’ Jill said, her voice soft and almost hypnotic.
Max wanted to grab Donna Lord by the throat and drag answers from her by force but, for now, he was prepared to go along with Jill.
‘The car crash that killed your adoptive parents,’ Jill went on, ‘was truly awful, wasn’t it? You were only five years old and you had to watch your mother die. You were trapped in your seat, crying for your mother, watching her die.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Donna Lord cried. ‘It’s all nonsense – I don’t understand.’
‘Your friend drowned too, didn’t he? His name was Denzil. You must have missed ’
With lightning speed, Donna lunged forward. She’d pulled a knife from the back pocket of her jeans and it was heading straight for Jill’s throat.
Thankfully, Max was quicker and managed to knock her to the ground.
‘While you were grieving for him,’ Jill continued as if nothing had happened, ‘you discovered that your mother your real mother had given you up for adoption, didn’t you? How did you feel, Hope? Abandoned? But Josie didn’t abandon you willingly. She loved you.’
As Max was calling for back-up, Donna swung her head round and spat in his face.
‘Now that’s no way to treat your favourite detective,’ he ground out, tempted to punch that lovely face of hers.
Four officers burst through the door.
‘Get her cuffed,’ he shouted at them, ‘and then I want this place ripped apart.’
‘Tell us, Hope,’ Jill said, bending to speak to her as two officers managed to put handcuffs on her. ‘Tell us what you’ve done with Jason and James.’
‘They need to learn,’ Donna said, twisting and kicking as an officer lifted her to her feet. ‘They have to learn that Mummy doesn’t come. I had to learn. They have to. They can cry all they like but Mummy won’t come. She never will.’
‘We’ll make sure you get the help you need,’ Jill persisted. ‘Just tell us where the boys are. Please!’
‘Go to hell!’
‘Why did you kill Josie? Why couldn’t you ’
‘She left her own child. She abandoned me. Not the others, oh no. She didn’t leave that little shit Martin Hayden. He was golden bollocks. Not that bitch, Sarah Hayden, either. No. I was the one she abandoned. Me!’
‘She was fourteen,’ Jill said. ‘She had no choice. She didn’t give you up willingly. She was raped. Her life was just as terrible as yours.’
Donna Lord was kicking at an officer, spitting out obscenities with every breath, and insisting that boys had to learn. She’d had to learn, Martin Hayden had had to learn and now James Murphy and Jason Keane had to learn.
Then she was suddenly still.
‘Where’s Harry Trentham?’ she demanded.
Max was in the process of smashing a door, one that he suspected led to a cellar, but he stopped and turned round.
‘At home, I imagine,’ he told her.
Two officers smashed the door for him and, sure enough, there were steps down to a cellar.
‘That’s where I left him,’ he continued, walking towards her. ‘Why? What’s the sudden interest in Harry?’
She burst into hysterical, manic laughter and, just as Max was about to hit her with all the force he could muster, an officer called out, ‘We need an ambulance down here!’
Amazed that she had overslept, Jill leapt out of bed, pulled back her curtains and almost clapped her hands in childlike delight as the snow-covered landscape was revealed.
If only this had arrived yesterday, she would have relieved the bookie of a couple of hundred quid. She’d checked at midnight, but there hadn’t been so much as a hint of a flake. Now, they had a good couple of inches. Sadly, snow on Boxing Day didn’t qualify as a white Christmas.
It was an amazing sight nevertheless. The hills were majestic in their regal white mantle. In her garden, a robin was hopping from shrub to shrub, his red breast the only splash of colour against snow that was unspoilt except for one neat, straight line of cat’s paw prints.
There wasn’t a sound; the world was muffled by its snowy blanket.
‘Oh, my’ Jill chuckled. So much for her beautiful, unspoilt snow.
Someone had let out the dogs. Holly ambled through it as if it were an everyday occurrence. Fly, however, was racing around at breakneck pace and trying to shovel it up with his nose.
Harry and Ben followed and Jill watched as they began to build a snowman.
It had been a joy to have the boys at the cottage. The invitation had been made on an impulse, to get them away from their burning home and to reassure Ben that all would be well, but Jill had assumed it would only be for one night. She’d thought Max would argue that her cottage was far too small for so many humans plus assorted pets. He hadn’t. Quite the reverse in fact. He’d seized on her invitation.
It had been fine, though. She’d found it strange, to say the least, having Max in her cottage, but he’d left for his office early each morning and hadn’t returned until late. Jill hadn’t seen much of him.
She’d enjoyed having time with the boys, though.
Her back door banged shut again and then Max was in the garden. Jill inched back from the window to watch him.
He was making snowballs and throwing them for Fly. The dog leapt into the air to catch them, and then, as they disintegrated around him, raced around the garden hunting for them.
Max looked more relaxed today. She knew it would be a long time before he stopped thinking about what could have been, but he was finally beginning to relax.
Christmas Day had been OK. It had passed in a hectic blur of present opening, cooking, eating and drinking. Kate, who was staying with friends for the time being, had spent most of the day with them and Jill had been on the phone to her parents a lot. She’d been tempted to allay their worries about her spending Christmas alone by telling them that Max and the boys were with her but, thankfully, she’d resisted. She would never hear the last of it!
So yesterday had been fine and, this morning, they were all going to Gerald and Emma Murphy’s house for drinks.
James and Jason had been found unconscious and severely dehydrated in Donna Lord’s cellar. Both boys had several fractures, but James had been allowed out of hospital on Christmas Eve and Jason, also destined to make a full recovery, was expected home at the beginning of next week.
Christmas could have been a very different affair for Kelton Bridge but, as it was, the village was quietly giving thanks. It had seemed to Jill that every single resident had turned up at the church for the Christmas Eve service. Even Sarah Hayden had been there.
‘After Christmas,’ she’d told Jill, ‘I’m moving to Burnley. With Martin and Mum gone, there’s no point me staying at the farm. I’m going to share a flat with a friend.’
Jill had wished her well. Christmas at Lower Crags Farm would be a sad, painful affair, but she hoped the new year would bring brighter futures for them all.
Jill dragged her attention away from the garden and began hunting through her wardrobe for something suitable to wear.
An hour later, the four of them set off for the Murphys’ house. Jill guessed that the crisp snow would soon turn to grey slush but now it crunched satisfactorily underfoot. The boys went on ahead, their heads bent as they discussed whatever it is brothers discuss.
‘You OK, Max?’
He looked at her and smiled. ‘Yes, I’m OK. You?’
‘I’m good,’ she told him.
They’d had an enjoyable Christmas together and, when life settled down again, perhaps well, who knew what the future would bring?
‘I hope Donna Lord gets the treatment she needs,’ she murmured.
‘What she needs is banging up for the rest of her days,’ Max retorted. ‘What she’ll get is the best set of shrinks the taxpayer can afford.’
Max had little sympathy for her plight. Correction. He had no sympathy whatsoever. Jill supposed that as his son’s life had been threatened, his house deemed uninhabitable for the moment and his life and that of his family almost wiped out, he had good reason.
‘She was five years old, Max.’
‘But people get over things. They have to.’
‘Usually they do, yes. But no five-year-old spends hours trapped in her car seat watching her mother die and then gets over it without one hell of a lot of love and care.’
‘Christ, Jill, if everyone who’d suffered some sort of tragedy went on a killing spree, we’d be knee-deep in corpses!’ He sighed. ‘The five-year-old died in that car accident. As for the thirty-year-old, I only hope to God I never have to lay eyes on her again!’
‘It’s over,’ Jill said quietly. ‘Let’s just enjoy the day and be grateful that we can.’
She sensed some of the tension leave him.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ he said suddenly. ‘Your dad called earlier with a dead cert for you. It was’
‘Whoa! Hang on a minute.’ She stopped so abruptly that she almost slipped on the snow. ‘What do you mean, my dad called? You answered my phone?’
He’d put out a hand to steady her. ‘I could hardly ignore it, could I?’
‘Why the hell not?’ she demanded, shaking herself free. ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
‘Your mum sounds well, doesn’t she?’
Jill walked on. ‘This is your idea of a joke, isn’t it? You’re just winding me up. You didn’t speak to my mother at all.’
Max shrugged in his helpless little boy way, and she knew damn well he had.
‘So how,’ she demanded through gritted teeth, ‘did you explain the reason for them hearing your dulcet tones?’
‘I explained about my place having an argument with a bomb, said you must have forgotten to tell them we were staying’
‘You know damn well I hadn’t forgotten!’
‘And then said that I’d left you in bed to have a lie-in while’
‘What?’
‘You’re screeching, Jill.’
‘Bloody hell, Max!’
‘I couldn’t lie, could I? Not to your parents of all people.’
‘Max.’ Jill took a deep breath and silently counted to ten. ‘You didn’t have to lie. You didn’t have to answer the damn phone in the first place but, having done that, you certainly didn’t have to say that you’d left me having a lie-in. What sort of crap’s that? For Christ’s sake, they’ll assume . . .’
‘What?’ His expression was pure innocence. ‘You reckon they’ll think we’re sleeping together? Well, I shouldn’t worry about that. They’ve always struck me as broadminded individuals. They see it all on River View.’
Jill was speechless.
‘I said you’d call them later,’ he went on. ‘Your dad planned to stay at home to watch the racing this afternoon but your mum was off to the sales.’
‘To buy what?’ Jill demanded on a near-hysterical laugh. ‘A new hat? A box of confetti? Wedding invitations? Bloody hell!’
They were at the entrance to the Murphys’ drive.
‘I can’t believe you spoke to them. I can’t believe you could let them think that we were . . . that I was . . .’ They were walking up the drive to the Murphys’ house. ‘The sooner the work on your house is finished, the better I’ll like it,’ she finished.
‘Ah. Did I tell you there was going to be a bit of a delay with that?’
‘What?’
‘You’re screeching again, Jill!’
The Murphys’ front door swung open. From inside came a babble of voices interrupted by the popping of a champagne cork and a burst of laughter.
‘Harry, Ben!’ Emma greeted them. ‘Run inside and find James. Jill, Max, lovely to see you both. Thank you so much for coming!’
‘Thank you for inviting us,’ Jill responded, giving Emma a hug.
As they crossed the threshold, Jill managed to keep her warm smile in place while muttering to Max, ‘I’ll deal with you later.’
‘Promises, promises . . .’