Kind of Cruel (55 page)

‘Let’s talk to her about it, shall we?’ said Ginny.

Charlie hung back, hearing the animal-like noises that came from the interview room when Simon opened the door. He didn’t close it once he and Ginny were inside; he expected Charlie to follow them. She thought about the piles of work waiting for her in her office, decided they would have to wait a bit longer. Simon needed her here whether she wanted to be here or not; things weren’t going according to plan. Was that the answer to his question:
where does it get her that ‘No comment’ wouldn’t?
Every detective was used to hearing ‘No comment’ and knew how to handle it. Was Jo Utting pretending to be her disabled sister to intimidate Simon, throw him off course?

Charlie didn’t see Jo at first when she walked in. Simon and Ginny, in front of her, were blocking her view. When they moved, she saw a black woman in a trouser suit sitting next to a disabled white woman with shoulder-length curly blonde hair and a line of drool snaking from her open mouth down to her chin. Her eyes looked vacant; her body twisted in the chair. Even knowing it was an act, Charlie found herself doubting it.

Ginny sat down opposite Jo and leaned forward across the table as if she was keen to get close to her. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You remember me, don’t you? I’m Ginny Saxon. You came to my clinic.’

Jo moaned and flung out her right arm. Charlie stood beside Simon, in front of the door. She was aware of the tension in his body, perhaps more so than he was.

‘I’m not here to help the police, even though I’ve had to tell them what we talked about,’ Ginny said to Jo. ‘I’m here to help you. I don’t think this is a sensible idea, pretending to be something and someone you’re not. I don’t think it’s good for you.’

‘What about when she needs to use the bathroom?’ the solicitor asked. ‘What happens then?’

‘I understand that you’re tired of looking after people,’ Ginny went on calmly. ‘I understand that you want to be looked after, and you can be. I’ll help you. So will other people. But not like this. If you keep up this pretence, it won’t be you that’s taken care of. It’ll be the person you’re pretending to be, who doesn’t exist. What about the real Jo? Doesn’t she deserve some care and attention, after all these years of caring for others? If you hide her, she can’t get what she needs. Jo? I’m saying “her”, but I’m talking about you. No one knows how it feels to be you, do they? Why don’t you tell DC Waterhouse what you told me?’

‘This isn’t going to work,’ Simon murmured. No one but Charlie heard him; the noise Jo was making shielded his words.

‘When you came to see me, you were angry.’ Ginny raised her voice. ‘Where’s that anger now? Don’t put it into sounds, put it into words. Tell us about it.’

‘Or go back to saying “No comment”,’ Jo’s solicitor snapped at her. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself and wasting my time.’ She looked over at Simon. ‘You’re all wasting my time.’

‘How long do you think you can keep this up, Jo?’ Ginny’s firm unaggressive voice neutralised the lawyer’s impatience. ‘It’s an impressive performance, but it’s not sustainable. Nothing about the life you’ve been living was sustainable, and that’s why you’ve ended up here, because you ran away from the truth instead of facing it. Jo? Why don’t you tell DC Waterhouse what your mother said to you on your sixteenth birthday? Listen to me, Jo. I’m worried you’ll make yourself ill if you . . .’

It was impossible for Ginny to compete with the noises Jo was making: pitiful moans punctuated by high-pitched yelping noises. No words, but a sense of words having been distorted and reassembled inside out. Charlie shivered. What made Ginny so sure Jo couldn’t keep this up? How could she
not
maintain her act? It was unimaginable that she might at any moment wipe her mouth, straighten her contorted face and say, ‘No comment’.

Ginny had abandoned her post and was heading for the door, gesturing to Simon that they needed to talk outside. Charlie was first out of the room, planning how to avoid going back in. Jo Utting’s peculiar brand of insanity was the least attractive she’d encountered in her career so far.

‘You’ve got a problem,’ Ginny told Simon. ‘A big one.’

‘We’ve got three closed cases,’ he countered. ‘She’s confessed.’

‘And she’ll spend the rest of her days in an institution. She won’t hurt anyone else. That’s what matters. But if you’re hoping for a criminal trial . . .’

‘Don’t give me that unfit-to-stand-trial crap! You said it yourself: she can’t keep this up.’

‘I said that when I thought it was an act,’ said Ginny. ‘Or, rather, when I hoped that it might be.’

‘What, you think it’s for real?’ Simon yelled at her. ‘Bullshit! People don’t just become mentally retarded when it suits them.’

‘No, but they do have breakdowns. Post-breakdown, almost anything can happen. I’m not denying Jo’s particular response is unusual . . .’

‘No. I’m not listening to this shit. No!’ Simon slammed his fist against the wall. ‘You heard her brief! Even she’s not falling for it.’

‘Jo’s spent her whole life seeing Kirsty everywhere, even when she’s tried not to look,’ Ginny said sadly. ‘Hearing Kirsty even when she was determined not to listen. She’s watched her mother devote her whole life to Kirsty and known that even the whole of Hilary’s life wasn’t going to be enough. Whose life was next in line to be sacrificed, once Hilary was gone? Do you know how that feels – somebody so dependent, who takes everything and gives nothing? It’s like carrying that person inside you. Your constant awareness of them means you’re never fully yourself. Imagine that scenario, then add the stress of facing a life sentence for murder, being separated from your children . . .’

‘You feel sorry for her,’ said Charlie. By which she meant that, listening to Ginny, anyone might feel sorry for Jo. And Charlie didn’t want to.

‘I feel sorry for everybody involved,’ Ginny answered diplomatically. ‘It’s not an act, Simon. I’m sorry, but you need to go back in there and insist that that lawyer gets her client some proper psychiatric help.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Simon. He wasn’t looking at Ginny. He wasn’t looking at anyone. ‘I’m going back in there. Alone.’

He disappeared into the interview room, slamming the door behind him.

Ginny turned on Charlie. ‘He’s going to terrorise her. I’m powerless here. You have to do something.’

‘What did Hilary say to Jo on her sixteenth birthday?’ Charlie asked. She’d thought Simon had told her everything, but apparently not. And Ginny didn’t understand that she wasn’t alone in being unable to stop Simon from doing what he was about to do; his special power was to render everyone around him powerless when it suited him.

‘She made Jo promise to look after Kirsty, when she couldn’t any more – something no parent should ask of a sixteen-year-old child. In a way, Hilary’s responsible for all the murders and attempted murders that have taken place.’

Charlie wasn’t having that. ‘It might be different in your profession, but around these parts we have clear guidelines about responsibility for murder. The person who commits the murder is the one we blame.’

‘Jo was a good girl. Of course she said yes. Hilary had instilled in her from an early age the value of family: more important than Jo herself, that’s the message she got from her mother after Kirsty was born. As an individual, Jo didn’t matter any more. Rationally, she knew she ought to matter – her life, the one she’d built for herself, the one she wasn’t ever able to enjoy because of the duty hanging over her head. That’s why she came to me. She wanted me to help her believe what she knew to be true. I think what she wanted was the courage to say, publicly, what Amber said to her without any guilt at all, though of course Amber hadn’t yet said it at the point when Jo came to see me: no one has a duty to ruin their own life for the sake of someone else.’ Ginny shrugged. ‘Maybe I could have helped Jo to believe it, maybe not. We therapists call it dehypnosis. When a child’s been brainwashed by a strong-minded parent to believe something that isn’t true, you can’t always undo the effects.’

‘Does the same apply to police who’ve been brainwashed into thinking murderers should be punished?’ Charlie asked.

‘Jo told me she loved Kirsty. Nothing I said could persuade her to admit she hated her. Even to her husband, she couldn’t admit that the prospect of becoming Kirsty’s primary carer after Hilary died was unbearable. Yet she freely admitted she couldn’t stand to touch Kirsty or be close to her. She couldn’t be seen by Hilary to be singling Kirsty out for special avoidance, so she reinvented herself as a non-tactile person. Even her husband believed it. She broke her own rule only for her children, only when she thought no one was looking.’

‘Strange kind of avoidance, having her mum and Kirsty round every day,’ said Charlie. ‘Inviting them to stay, cooking meals for them . . .’

‘That was her cover,’ Ginny said. ‘Yes, Hilary and Kirsty were there all the time, lost in the crowd of ageing father-in-law, kids, brother, husband, sister and brother-in-law, nanny who’s paid a fortune to do next to nothing. I think Sabina was Jo’s last resort. If all her other plans failed, maybe Sabina could be persuaded to be Kirsty’s main carer after Hilary died. Jo’s certainly paid her enough over the years, for almost no work. That has to be why she’s kept her on.’ Ginny frowned. ‘When I say “persuaded”, I don’t mean literally,’ she qualified. ‘As Amber so perceptively said, Sabina’s job title might be nanny, but her role in that house has always been to attend to
Jo’s
needs, having first deciphered them by osmosis, with nothing ever being stated explicitly. At the moment, with Hilary still alive, Jo’s main need is for Sabina to keep Quentin entertained. Jo won’t ever have asked Sabina to do this. She finds it impossible to articulate her own needs, that’s her whole problem.’

‘That and being a conscienceless murderer,’ Charlie quipped irritably.

‘Assuming Sabina had proved amenable – which we can’t be certain of, and personally I think it’s unlikely she would have been for long – Jo would have taken full credit for looking after her beloved sister. Nobody would have felt able to point out that in fact Sabina was the one doing all the hard and intimate physical work, or that Jo was never seen to go near her sister.’

‘How much of this did Jo tell you and how much are you making up?’ Charlie asked. Simon had led her to believe that Jo’s determination not to be saddled with responsibility for Kirsty was a known fact, but everything Ginny was saying sounded alarmingly speculative.

‘She told me more than enough.’

‘So having Kirsty in her house every day was good PR for Jo?’

Ginny nodded. ‘Exactly. She could hide in the kitchen, defended by a mountain of cooking implements, knowing Hilary was there to provide the hands-on care Kirsty needed, and Hilary wouldn’t suspect a thing. She
didn’t
suspect a thing. No one did. Everyone thought Jo’s house was full to bursting because there was nothing she wanted more than to look after everybody. Jo made sure to convince all those close to her of her devotion to Kirsty. If anyone failed to treat Kirsty as an equal, they got it in the neck from Jo, the loyal sister. Jo sacrificed her home and day-to-day life to her elaborate pretence. In her heart, the second homes she kept secret from her mother and was rarely able to visit – in Pulham Market, in Surrey – those were her real homes. She made an exception and invited everybody to Little Orchard once, for the sake of being seen to perform a grand gesture: hiring a mansion for the family to spend Christmas in. What better way to visit the home she loved but could hardly ever get to? What better way to cement her image as family goddess who loves everyone so much that she can’t bear the idea of them not all being together for Christmas? Plus, she wanted Hilary to change her will in Ritchie’s favour – pretending to have enough spare cash to hire an enormous mansion probably struck her as a convenient symbol of her and Neil’s lack of need, in contrast to Ritchie’s obvious neediness.’

‘The symbolism didn’t work on Hilary, evidently,’ Charlie pointed out.

‘No. Hilary said no, and Jo couldn’t handle it. Still, she didn’t consider being honest with her family about her wants and needs. Instead, she suffered a minor breakdown and decided to disappear with her husband and children. After a day and two nights on the run, she must have recovered sufficiently to realise it wasn’t practical. She returned to her life, pretending nothing had happened.’

‘Then what?’ Charlie asked. ‘Waited five years, then planned and committed a murder, then another one two years later?’

‘Sounds extraordinary, doesn’t it?’ said Ginny. ‘Unless you’re Jo, and then it makes perfect sense. She didn’t lay a finger on Kirsty. She knew how irredeemable that would make her in the eyes of her mother, and she had other options to explore first. Hilary’s message throughout Jo’s childhood was clear: taking care of Kirsty was all that mattered. Everything and everyone else was expendable. If Jo herself didn’t matter, why should Sharon Lendrim and Katharine Allen’s lives be worth anything? Why shouldn’t Jo take the risk of committing two murders? She’d never heard her mother say that
she
mustn’t end up in an institution: a prison, a psychiatric facility. Kirsty’s the one who must always be kept at home, wrapped in the love of her family for as long as that family has breath in its body.’

Charlie stared at the closed door of the interview room. This part of the nick was new, well soundproofed. No way of knowing what was going on inside.