The Cradle in the Grave (49 page)

‘Precisely.' Angus rewards me with a smile. ‘The more wrongly accused innocent women Laurie Nattrass pulls out of his hat, so-called victims of Duffy's alleged desire to ruin lives, the more likely at least some of them are to be guilty. I have no trouble believing in a miscarriage of justice, or that a doctor can get it wrong. But to expect people to believe in an endless string of miscarriage-of-justice victims, in a doctor who gets it wrong every single time . . .'

‘And I was supposed to work that out, from those lists you sent me?'

‘Hines' Theorem of Probability, I call it: one woman accused of murder by Judith Duffy might be guilty or innocent. A hundred women accused of murder by Judith Duffy must be guilty
and
innocent.
Lots
of them are likely to be guilty, just as lots of them are likely to be innocent.'

‘And you wanted to make sure I knew this, because Laurie didn't seem to,' I say quietly. ‘He seemed to think
all
the women Duffy accused of child murder had to be innocent. He couldn't see that there must be guilty ones too, hiding among the blameless.'

‘He couldn't see the trees for the wood,' says Ray, nodding.

The doorbell rings.

‘Do you want me to get it?' she asks.

‘No, I'll go. Whoever it is, I'll get rid of them.' I force myself to smile and say, ‘Stay put, I'll be back in a second.'

In the hall, I panic and freeze halfway to the door, unable to take the next step. Judith Duffy opened her front door and someone shot her, a man with shaved hair.

The letterbox opens and I see brown eyes, part of a nose. ‘Fliss?' I recognise the voice: it's Laurie's zippy-trousered brother. Hugo. Why did he ring the bell? It's his house, for God's sake.

I open the door. ‘What do you want?' Without authorisation from my brain, my hand starts performing a winding-up gesture:
come on, get on with it
.

‘I wanted to apologise for the way I—'

‘Never mind about that,' I say, lowering my voice. ‘I need you to do something for me.' I pull him inside and into the room nearest to the door, the music room. I point at the piano stool and he sits down obediently. ‘Wait here,' I whisper. ‘Just sit, don't do anything apart from sitting. In silence. Turn your mobile off, and pretend you're not here. Don't play the piano, not even one note. Not even “Chopsticks”.'

‘I can't play “Chopsticks”.'

‘Really?' I thought everyone could play ‘Chopsticks'.

‘I can, however, just sit and do nothing apart from sitting. That's a talent of mine that's often been remarked upon by those close to me.'

‘Good,' I say. ‘Wait here, and don't leave. Promise you won't leave.'

‘I promise. Do you mind if I ask—?'

‘Yes.'

‘But what—?'

‘I might need you to drive me somewhere,' I tell him.

‘Where's your car?' he asks, also in a whisper.

‘Still in the Rolls-Royce showroom, waiting for me to win the lottery or find a rich husband. Now sit quietly until I come back.' I turn to go back to the den.

‘Fliss?'

‘I've got to go. What?'

‘How about me as the rich husband?'

I flinch. ‘Don't be stupid. I've had sex with your brother.'

‘Would that be a problem for you?'

‘I don't know why you're using the conditional tense,' I hiss at him. ‘It
is
a problem for me, a huge one.'

‘It's a huge problem for me too,' says Hugo Nattrass, beaming like an idiot. ‘Do you think that counts as us having quite a lot in common?'

Simon passed his phone back to Charlie. ‘I don't suppose you're going to tell me who that was or what they said,' she predicted.

‘When I'm ready.' He was having one of his workouts, as Charlie liked to call them. Unlike other people's workouts, they didn't involve treadmills or rowing machines; they involved nothing but Simon and his brain. Anyone who tried to join the party was quickly shown how irrelevant they were.

‘That's the third secret call you've taken since we set off. Are there going to be more?'

No answer.

‘It's a safety issue apart from anything else,' said Charlie tetchily. ‘If you weren't so keen to keep me in the dark, you could put your phone on speaker-phone and drive with both hands.'

‘Just because you've got a can of Diet Coke and you're fat, doesn't mean you're on a diet,' said Simon, as they turned into Bengeo Street.

‘Oh, not this again!' Charlie banged her head on the passenger window.

‘You've got an umbrella with you, and it's raining. Doesn't necessarily mean you've got an umbrella with you
because
it's raining.'

‘Meaning?'

Simon parked outside Stella White's house. ‘Dillon White told Gibbs he saw the man with the umbrella in Helen Yardley's lounge. At first we didn't take it seriously, because it didn't rain on Monday, nor had rain been forecast, and Stella White, our only other witness, saw no umbrella. She also said there was no way her son could have seen the man in the Yardleys' lounge that morning. Subsequently, we find out Dillon saw the man on a previous occasion – in Helen's lounge, where he, Dillon, was too. So were Stella, Helen and Paul Yardley, and another man and woman Dillon couldn't name. That day it
was
raining, and rain from the man's umbrella was dripping on the carpet.' A long pause. Then Simon said, ‘Anything you want to ask me?'

‘Yes,' said Charlie. ‘Will you please tell me what it is you think you know?'

‘You don't want to ask me if the Yardleys have a hall?'

‘Not especially.'

‘Well, you ought to. They
do
have a hall, with a woodlaminate floor. Leading through to the lounge. Why would you take a sopping wet umbrella into a carpeted lounge? Why not leave it in the hall, especially if the hall isn't carpeted?'

‘Because you're inconsiderate?' Charlie suggested. ‘Busy thinking about other things?'

‘What if you're not inconsiderate?' said Simon. ‘What if you're thoughtful enough to make up an entertaining story for a little boy, about space travel and magic? And yet you deliberately take your umbrella into the lounge and let it drip on the carpet. Why would you do that?'

‘Is the umbrella a crucial prop in the magic story?'

Simon shook his head. He had the nerve to look disappointed that she hadn't worked it out yet. Had he forgotten it wasn't her case? She wasn't supposed to be in a car with him on the way to Bengeo Street; she was supposed to be getting on with her own work.

‘Dillon said the other man who was there, the one who wasn't Paul Yardley or Magic Umbrella man – he had an umbrella too, but it wasn't magic so he left it outside.' Simon took his eyes off the road and looked at Charlie. ‘When Stella told Gibbs that last Monday was a sunny, bright day, Dillon said, “It wasn't bright. There wasn't enough sun to make it bright.” That's what he'd heard the man say – he was parroting word for word.'

‘He didn't mean last Monday,' said Charlie. ‘He was talking about the “beyond” day a long time ago, when it was raining and presumably overcast.'

‘When
there wasn't enough sun to make it bright
,' Simon emphasised.

‘Tell me in the next five seconds, or I'll tell your mother that you're involved in a conspiracy to lie to her about the honeymoon,' Charlie threatened.

‘In a way, the man was right about the magic. The umbrella had at least one special power: to create light. That's what it was: a photographer's light umbrella, black on the outside, shiny silver stuff on the inside. It belonged to Angus Hines. He's Pictures Desk Editor at
London on Sunday
now, but he wasn't always. He used to be a photographer, worked for various papers, including one that featured an article about two extraordinary women – Helen Yardley and Stella White.'

‘So the other man and woman Dillon mentioned . . .'

‘I'm guessing a reporter from the paper and a make-up person,' said Simon.

‘How often do we see those things at press conferences, where's there's never
any
natural light, let alone enough?' said Charlie, cross that she hadn't guessed. How many photographers' light umbrellas had illuminated her unhappy face in 2006, when all the papers had wanted pictures of the disgraced detective, and the Chief Constable had told her she had to agree if she wanted to keep her job?

‘Angus Hines had no choice but to drip rain on the Yardleys' lounge carpet,' said Simon. ‘It was the most photogenic room in the house, and he wanted to take his photos in it. When Stella White gave me a list of everyone she remembered meeting at Helen Yardley's house, of course Hines' name wasn't on it. Stella's been photographed for the papers hundreds of times – the marathon runner determined to defeat cancer. She's not going to remember the names of individual photographers, is she? When I asked her about Dillon seeing the man with the magic umbrella, she didn't make the connection with a light umbrella because I'd already told her it was raining that day – in asking the question, I gave her the reason for the umbrella to be there, so she didn't bother thinking beyond that.'

‘But . . . Helen Yardley was part of JIPAC,' said Charlie, frowning. ‘She lobbied for Ray Hines' release, didn't she? She must have known who Angus was when he turned up at her house, and if Stella White was there with her . . .'

‘Helen behaved as if she didn't know Hines from Adam, greeted him as you would a stranger,' said Simon. ‘The first of the three phone calls I've just taken was Sam. He's spoken to Paul Yardley. Yardley remembers the “beyond” day only too well. Angus Hines is one of the bad guys as far as Yardley's concerned – he didn't stand by his wife the way Yardley stood by Helen, the way Glen Jaggard stood by Sarah. When a reporter turned up at the Yardleys' house with Angus Hines in tow to take the photos, Yardley expected his wife to kick up a stink and throw him out.' ‘She didn't?' Charlie guessed.

‘According to Yardley, Helen didn't want to give Hines the satisfaction of knowing he'd riled her. Yardley could tell she hated having Hines in the house, but she shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”' Simon chewed his bottom lip. ‘As if she'd never met him before. And he went along with the pretence.'

‘Which is why Hines made no impression whatsoever on Stella White,' Charlie reasoned aloud. ‘Because Helen treated him as if he were any old press photographer.'

‘Exactly.' Simon nodded.

‘And then, last Monday, he turned up at her house a second time, and Dillon White caught a glimpse of him and recognised him from the “beyond” day,' Charlie spelled out what she assumed was Simon's hypothesis. ‘He stayed all day and ended up shooting Helen dead. Hang on, didn't you tell me Angus Hines had an alibi?'

Simon smiled. ‘He does, or rather, he did: a man called Carl Chappell who said he was drinking with Hines at the Retreat pub in Bethnal Green last Monday between 3 and 7 p.m. When Sellers showed us that article from the
Sun
about Warren Gruff, Bethnal Green rang a bell. Gruff lives there, his ex-girlfriend Joanne Bew murdered his son Brandon there . . . but I couldn't think where else I'd come across Bethnal Green recently. Then I remembered: Angus Hines' alibi. Before we set off, I asked Sam to probe a bit further. Didn't take him long to find out that Brandon Bew was murdered in a flat above a pub in Bethnal Green that used to be the Dog and Partridge, that's now called the Retreat . . .'

‘Unbelievable,' Charlie muttered.

‘. . . and that Carl Chappell testified for the prosecution at Joanne Bew's first trial, claimed he witnessed her smothering Brandon. Sam spoke to Chappell – Angus Hines had given him Chappell's mobile number when he'd offered up Chappell as his alibi. Chappell was drunk enough and stupid enough, when Sam leaned on his story about being with Hines last Monday, to boast about how lucky he was with money, said Angus Hines had paid him a grand in cash for the false alibi. He also said that someone else – a man he'd seen on telly a few times, a man he described as big and fair-haired with a big neck – had paid him two grand not to testify at Joanne's retrial, to say he hadn't seen anything the night Brandon died – he'd been too drunk.'

‘Laurie Nattrass?' Charlie wondered out loud. Who else could it be?

‘Yeah. Nattrass.' Simon sounded angry. ‘Mr Justice-For-All. He must have wanted Joanne Bew to be acquitted second time because he knew it'd look bad for Duffy – yet another innocent woman she'd testified against. And Chappell wasn't the only person Nattrass bribed – he also paid off Warren Gruff, to stop Gruff breaking Chappell's arms and legs when Chappell said he wouldn't testify against Joanne.'

‘How the hell do you know that?' Charlie asked.

‘Second phone call was Gibbs,' said Simon. ‘Gruff's confessed to attacking Jaggard and killing Duffy. He's in custody, and talking – up to a point, at least. I thought the Brain – Angus Hines, that is – I thought he had some kind of hold over Gruff, but from what Gibbs says, it's more a case of misguided loyalty. Gruff thought Hines was the only person who truly understood him – Hines had lost two children, he'd lost one. Hines had been vilified in the press by Nattrass and various other commentators for saying he believed his wife was guilty, but he stuck to his guns. Gruff looks up to him. Which is why he killed Duffy – the woman who did her best to bring his son's killer to justice – even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, because it was part of Hines' great plan. Gruff admired Duffy, but Hines is his hero. He would have done whatever Hines told him – his role was to be the helper. That photograph Sellers showed us of Gruff, on the computer? It was taken by Angus Hines for the
Daily Express
, after Joanne Bew's retrial, when Gruff was briefly newsworthy again. That was how Hines and Gruff met. Hines might have had some genuine sympathy for Gruff, who knows? Either way, he certainly knew how to manipulate him.'