Wrongful Death (43 page)

Finally, he sighed. ‘Can I ask where the hell you’re getting all this information from, particularly when you’re thousands of miles away?’

‘Can’t say at the moment, but I’ve no reason to doubt it’s reliable and true. If I’m right, and I think I am, then politically it is very sensitive stuff.’

‘But you want me to put my job on the line to see if the Lynne family have links back to the likes of Cleopatra and Oedipus,’ Pete said indignantly.

‘Okay, the maternal DNA can wait, it was an impetuous request and I shouldn’t have asked you to take risks like that. You could say you located Samuel Peters’ prints having thought about how he would have needed a visa to come to the UK,’ Anna said, still hoping to win Pete over.

Again there was a pause before Pete continued: ‘I’ll do the fingerprints, but I want copies of the birth certificates and written authority before I do the maternal DNA testing.’

‘Thanks, Pete, I owe you big-time.’

‘Too right you do!’ Pete said, and hung up.

Pulling in to park the car outside the cabin, Blane turned and looked at Anna and gave her a wry smile.

‘What?’ she asked innocently.

‘When you get the bit between your teeth you really go for it, don’t you?’ he remarked.

‘Was I a bit overboard with Pete?’

‘You were asking him to put his job on the line by the sounds of it, and that is an awful lot to ask anyone.’

‘I need the DNA results to solve this case,’ Anna said indignantly.

‘So this Lady Gloria, is she some bigwig back in England?’ he asked, changing tack to keep the peace.

‘Rich, powerful and very influential. She probably has a direct line to the Queen and Prime Minister, she’s that important.’

‘Really, to the Queen and Prime Minister?’ Blane grinned.

‘Figure of speech, but probably true,’ Anna said, and they both laughed.

Chapter Thirty

By the time they sat down to enjoy the barbecued ribs, chicken and side salads, Anna had read the
Gardeners’ World
article and given Don a run-down of the background and both investigations into Josh Reynolds’ death, and played him the tape of her and Dewar’s interview with Gloria Lynne. They sat at the dining table eating their food as Anna showed him a copy of the suicide note, which he took his time to read.

At last, he turned to look at Anna. ‘I have to say that I agree with Dewar: it doesn’t seem the type of note you’d expect someone who’s about to commit suicide to write.’

‘Question is, who did write it?’ Anna wondered, eager for his thoughts.

‘The note does reveal a possible family connection through knowledge of Esme’s death.’ He pointed to the line that read, ‘I have felt very depressed since my mothers death.’

‘Does Donna refer to her husband as Josh or Joshua?’ he continued.

‘Josh, why?’

‘And he regularly used the name Josh himself ?’

‘Yes, all the time.’

Blane pointed to the end of the note and Anna picked up on his thought process.

‘It’s signed “Love Joshua”. I’d say Donna didn’t write it.’

‘Your attention to detail is amazing!’ she exclaimed and kissed him.

‘With the certificates Bill Roberts sent you there is a clear connection between a Gloria Lynne and Samuel Peters,’ Blane observed.

‘Marriage certificates don’t show dates of birth. It’s the same with the parents on a birth certificate – only shows their ages,’ Anna said, with a tinge of frustration.

‘Let’s do a side-by-side comparison of what we have concerning Gloria and Samuel, see what’s recurring,’ he suggested.

‘I love working with you,’ Anna said gratefully.

Blane picked up the Gloria Rediker and Samuel Peters marriage certificate.

‘They married in 1983 when she was eighteen. Samuel is shown as a fisherman aged twenty-four, so age-wise that fits with Samuel’s birth certificate. Gloria’s father is shown as David Rediker deceased, and mother as Mavis Rediker.’

Anna leaned in closer, and pointed out that the witnesses to Gloria and Samuel’s marriage were Esme and Marisha Peters. She picked up the Gloria Peters and Xavier Alleyne marriage certificate. ‘Gloria’s parents are shown as David Rediker and Mavis Rediker, both deceased. It’s got to be the same Gloria that married Samuel Peters, Xavier Alleyne and then Lord Henry Lynne.’

He pointed to the ‘condition’ section of the marriage certificate, which said widow, as Bill Roberts had reported.

‘That’s obviously a lie to enable her to marry this Xavier guy.’

Anna’s laptop pinged: there was an e-mail from Joan with attachments. One was a scanned copy of Josh Reynolds’ birth certificate. In the text, Joan said that this was the only certificate of his she could find and there were no adoption papers. The other attachment, a marriage certificate, showed that Esme and John Reynolds had married in London in December 1985.

Anna read Josh’s birth certificate. It showed Esme Peters as the mother of Joshua Peters, born Jamaica on 5 August 1983, with the father unknown. Blane picked up the copy of Arum Joshua Peters’ birth certificate that Bill Roberts had sent and held it next to the laptop screen. The date and place of registration for the birth were exactly the same for both Arum and Joshua, but the one sent in by Bill Roberts had Arum’s father listed as Samuel Peters, a fisherman, aged twenty-four, and the mother Gloria Peters was shown as eighteen at the time of giving birth, with a maiden name of Rediker.

‘Okay, let me get this straight, Gloria Rediker was eighteen when she married Samuel Peters, then gave birth to Arum six months later,’ he observed.

‘Right, so that means Arum and Joshua have to be the same person. For some reason, Gloria must have given Arum to Samuel’s sister Esme without going through the proper channels,’ Anna said.

Blane followed up on her comment: ‘Then Esme emigrated to England and met John Reynolds, they married and gave Josh his surname.’

‘That means this birth certificate Esme had for Josh is fake,’ Anna realized, resolving to e-mail Joan to get a forensic document examiner to look at it.

‘All this happened thirty years ago. What we don’t know is how it fits with the death of Joshua Reynolds. This is so frustrating,’ Anna said, sitting back in her chair and running her hands through her hair.

Blane suggested they strip the information back to basics, as sometimes when you looked too deep you missed the obvious. ‘Okay, let’s go again. Nineteen eighty-three, Gloria Rediker was pregnant and married Samuel Peters in Port Morant, a small fishing village at the south-eastern tip of the island. A year later, Mavis Rediker dies then Gloria and Samuel are evicted from the house with their son Arum Joshua Peters,’ he said.

Anna looked at her notes. ‘By late eighty-five Esme was in the UK with her son Joshua and married John Reynolds . . .’ She paused before looking up at him. ‘Gloria must have given Arum to Esme just after the eviction,’ she said.

Blane continued: ‘Nineteen eighty-six, Gloria Peters, née Rediker, is pregnant with Donna and marries Xavier Alleyne, a wealthy banana plantation owner in Montego Bay, which is at the western tip of the island. A couple of years later, Gloria and Xavier have a second daughter, Aisa.’

Anna raised her hand, causing Blane to stop.

‘Hang on, Aisa is mixed race, whereas Donna is white, and she told Dewar and Barolli she was adopted.’

‘Well, if Xavier was mixed race as well, then it is feasible to have one white and one mixed race child.’

‘Yeah, but the only reason she would think she was adopted would be because Gloria told her she was.’

Lack of sleep and the warm room were making Blane feel tired; Anna, however, wasn’t flagging in the slightest.

‘I’d say that Gloria dumps Samuel, then has a bigamous marriage to Xavier, rags to riches and four years later he suddenly dies of a heart attack aged thirty-two!’ she pressed on, not noticing that Blane was beginning to lose interest and yawning.

Standing up, she began to pace around the room. ‘Next, Gloria sells the land to property developers, moves to the UK with the two girls and sets up a florist’s shop in Weybridge. There she meets and marries the billionaire Lord Henry Lynne, aged seventy bloody eight!’

‘And did they both live happily ever after?’ Blane asked with apprehension.

‘He lasted eight years, died on holiday in Egypt, no post mortem, no questions asked.’

‘So technically, her marriage to Lord Lynne must be bigamous as well if the one to Samuel was never annulled,’ he added, stifling another yawn.

‘I know there’s no evidence to show she murdered Xavier or Lord Henry, and I’m treading a dangerous path, but I’m convinced that it’s all linked to Josh Reynolds’ death.’

‘I think we should just concentrate on Josh, Samuel and Gloria for now,’ Blane advised.

Anna sighed. She knew he was right but she was becoming more convinced that all the deaths that surrounded Gloria were not just mere coincidence.

She sat down in front of her laptop. As she pressed the keys, Blane leaned back out of her field of vision and stretched his arms, cocking his head to one side to watch her as she concentrated on the screen, the tip of her tongue poked out between her lips. After a couple of minutes she raised her hand and wafted it towards him, to draw his attention.

‘Here, look at this article Joan uncovered where Gloria talks about her past and all the hardships she endured. She never mentions a marriage to Samuel, a son called Arum Joshua, or that Xavier’s money funded the florist’s shop. She clearly lies to protect herself and her image!’ Anna said as she pulled the
Gardeners’ World
magazine out of her laptop bag.

‘I’m not doubting your thoughts, Anna, but we’ve been sorting through this for a long time, a short break might do us good,’ Blane hinted heavily. ‘It always helps me to think more clearly when I come back with fresh eyes.’

She ignored him as she thumbed through the
Gardeners’ World
magazine and put it down on the table. There was a full-page colour spread of Gloria, including a picture of her standing by a gated garden. Hanging on the gate was a triangle with a yellow background and black skull and crossbones: the standard hazard symbol for poison. ‘Danger, Do Not Touch The Plants’ was written in large letters below the warning sign and the article was entitled ‘These Plants May Kill’.

‘Look at this, it’s a very recent article. Joan kept encouraging me to read it but stupidly I put it off, too distracted until now. It’s Gloria Lynne at a recent flower show – the poison garden was her exhibit and won a gold ribbon, the title speaks for itself. She also runs a research charity for medicines that can be obtained from poisonous and other plants,’ Anna said.

‘Holy shit!’ he exclaimed and scanned through the article, which had pictures and names of the plants in English and Latin. deadly nightshade (
Atropa belladonna
), ragwort (
senecio jacobaea
), wolfsbane (
Aconitum
) and henbane (
Hyoscyamus niger
) were just a few amongst a long list.

Anna was impatient for him to finish reading, pacing up and down, completely unable to keep still. He turned over a page to reveal a picture of Gloria standing next to a plant that was the shape of an upturned bell and at least three meters high. Its colours were resplendent, the stalk green speckled with cream on the outside, supporting a single bell-shaped leaf with ribbed sides and a frilled edge, which was a rich crimson.

‘Look at the size of that,’ he breathed, as Anna looked over his shoulder, eager to see what he was talking about.

‘Are you referring to the plant or Gloria?’ she asked acerbically and they both laughed. She was aware of how tense she had become and how much of their time had been dominated by the discussion of her case.

Blane closed the magazine and was about to place it back on the table when he suddenly flicked it open again. ‘Eh! Eh! I should have spotted the connection right away: deadly nightshade, known as
Atropa BellaDONNA
.’ He emphasized the final two syllables of its Latin name.

Anna got his gist and put her hands on his shoulders, squeezing them in excitement as she remembered her visit to Lynne House.

‘Gloria has a big Doberman. Vicious thing, nearly went for Dewar and me. I distinctly remember Gloria shouted, “Atropa, heel!”’

‘It gets better,’ Blane said and flicked over the page. Anna sat down beside him and gripped his arm, listening intently as he continued. ‘This huge plant Gloria’s standing next to is Amorphophallus titanum. It says here that it’s an endangered species that’s very complex to grow.’

‘Gloria has a massive greenhouse – well, more like a botanical garden really – seems she likes to grow plants that can kill. Is the Amorpho-thingy poisonous?’

‘No, but its nickname, because it has a putrid smell, is the corpse tree, and the translation of its name from Latin is “Titan” and, you won’t believe, “ARUM”.’

‘Bloody hell, the first name of her and Samuel’s son!’

‘I would say that Gloria knows exactly how to use atropine for medicinal purposes and as a poison,’ Blane said and deliberately paused for Anna to make the connection.

Anna’s cheeks were red as she gripped her fists. ‘Poison. Gloria Lynne knows exactly what can cure and what can kill!’

‘Hang on, sweetheart, because we need to be able to prove that,’ Blane said quietly, trying to calm her down.

‘We can,’ Anna replied, and then held her hands up in a submissive gesture as if to apologize for becoming so loud. She wasn’t arguing with him, she just needed his support and wanted him to see that there was more deceit and lies behind Gloria Lynne than anyone had realized.

Blane no longer felt tired and stood up, this new information making him feel almost as excited as Anna.

‘Tell me everything you can about Gloria,’ he demanded, pacing the room.

Anna sat with her legs curled up beneath her.

‘Well, I only met her once so I don’t know much beyond what I’ve already told you, and of course what Bill Roberts sent us.’

He gestured in a circle with his hand. ‘Tell me about the day you and Dewar went to her house, what she was like, what she did and said.’