The Start of Everything (32 page)

“There’s been an accident,” she says. “Ian needs us. We have to get home right away.”

She bends over to retrieve her bag from near her feet. Max asks, “Is it bad, Mum?” Mrs. Bennet stays bent over, and tears drop straight down onto her shoes. Max puts a hand on her back, which bounces from sobs.

I go into the corner and call back the number Keene had dialled me from. Rory Casey answers.

“This is Detective Inspector Frohmann,” I whisper with as little voice as I can get away with. “I need DCI Keene.”

“He’s indisposed.”

Bloody hell
. “Mr. Casey, what is going on over there?” Fire? Carnage? Had someone got their hands on a gun?

He tells me everything. Mr. Bennet hanged. Keene fainted. Paramedics and CSI on the scene. “He
fainted
?” I repeat incredulously.

Mrs. Bennet jumps up, tipping her daughters back. “Fainted?”

I shake my head. “No, no,” I say.
Shit
. “I’m not talking about …” She reaches for my phone. I hang up. “Mrs. Bennet, what Rory Casey told you is true. Your husband did not faint.” I purposely maintain vagueness for the girls’ sake.

“What happened to him?” Max persists. “Did he fall off a ladder?”

And into a noose.

Max will not be put off. “Is he at the hospital, Mum? We should go to see him.”

Mrs. Bennet doesn’t look like she can drive. “I can drive you all home, Mrs. Bennet. Or, if you’re not comfortable with me, I can arrange for someone else to do so.”

“Mum, is it a bleeding thing? Is he bleeding? That can look worse than it really is.”

“Stop it, Max.” Mrs. Bennet clutches her stomach and leans forward.

“She said she’d drive us, Mum. Let’s get home.”

Dru looks at me. “What did he do?”

That is as close as she’s got to admitting my suspicion was true. She knows he’s “done something,” not slipped on a roof or missed a nail with a hammer.

That hammer. I wonder if Dru saw him take it to Grace’s face.

“Your mum will tell you at home,” I say.

“Is he dead?” Dru’s voice is loud.

“Baby …” Mrs. Bennet puts her hands over Dru’s ears and pulls her into her breasts. It’s supposed to be a hug, but has too many angles. Dru’s rigid.

“Is he dead?” Dru looks right at me, from her mother’s chest.

I beg Mrs. Bennet with my eyes.

“He’s gone, baby,” she admits.

Max twitches, then starts to shiver. Ms. Barnes pulls an afghan off the back of the couch and puts it over her shoulders.

Dru wriggles out of her mother’s arms, but Mum’s fingers get
caught in her hair. They tussle over it, Dru pulling back so hard that Mrs. Bennet is left with long strands in her hand. Dru turns around and beats the wall, smacking it with the palms of both hands. Then she switches to her head.

Mrs. Bennet grips Dru’s shoulders. “I know, baby. He loved us so much.”

Dru stills. Her head is stopped against the wall. She rolls from her forehead to turn sideways. “He didn’t love you. You wouldn’t keep your end up, so I had to do it.”

Mrs. Bennet looks honestly baffled. One hand flutters against her neck. “What, baby?”

I say, “Dru, he can’t hurt you anymore.”

Dru covers her face and slides down the wall. Nobody else moves, except for Ms. Barnes’s slight rocking of Max.

The girl who made popcorn taps and pokes her head through. “Ms. Barnes? The shower isn’t …”

Ms. Barnes waves her hands vigorously. The girl backs out, trying to close the door behind her, but it’s stuck.

“This is ridiculous,” says Mrs. Bennet to the whole room, then specifically to Dru: “You never liked him. You just want to hurt me.” She clutches her stomach.

“Did he do it to himself?” Dru asks me.

I look down. It wouldn’t do to override the mother.

“Was it suicide?” Dru demands. “Insurance doesn’t pay if it’s a suicide, does it?”

“Money?” says Mrs. Bennet. “You’re thinking of
money
?”

I remember what Mrs. Bennet had spoken of in the Botanic Garden: how marrying him had allowed her to quit work and care for Max. Money doesn’t just buy things; it can buy time.

“Stop it. You’re heartless. You’re upsetting Max.” Mrs. Bennet sits on Max’s other side and clutches her hand.

“
You
stop it! Stop saying I’m hurting Max when you mean that I’m hurting you!”

“All right! All right! You’re hurting
me
. You hurt
me
, over and over again, you ungrateful—” She stops herself. But we’ve all filled in the blank in our heads.

“Shut up!” Max covers her ears with both hands.

“Max, sweetheart …”

Max cries out, “Please stop shouting. Please stop
talking
. Please, please, please …”

Dru stands and reaches out, but Mrs. Bennet pitches herself between them, to embrace Max. Mrs. Bennet’s rocking bounces Max’s head on her shoulder. The sisters lock eyes, then Max’s close. “Daddy,” she wails.

Dru’s body spasms. I fear she’s having a seizure. Then she stills and looks at me.

“Two years ago, my mum and I had a fight at dinner. She thought my clothes were too tight. He stuck up for me.”

Too tight?
She had on a sweatshirt and baggy jeans.

Dru carries on. “Afterward, Mum went to do the ironing in the bedroom, and I washed the dishes. He stood behind me, and I thought he was going to help with the drying. He reached round and rubbed my chest. ‘I like what you wear,’ he said. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even move. He walked off, and it seemed like it hadn’t really happened. It couldn’t have, could it? You don’t touch someone, and then turn on the football on the telly. I thought I’d misunderstood, or he’d brushed me by accident.

“Everything was mostly normal after that. He said things like that I smelled good, or that I looked nice. He even said them in front of everyone and Mum thought it was normal. So I figured it was. One time I was folding the washing and he picked out my pink knickers and said, ‘Wear these tomorrow.’ I knew that was wrong. But I didn’t think she would believe me.

“That’s why I asked to go away to school.”

Mrs. Bennet cries quietly, her hand cupped over her mouth. The timeline must be coming together for her: when Dru wore clothes that were too tight, then suddenly everything was gappy and oversized; when Dru asked for boarding school.

Dru has a dreamy look. “I thought I’d managed it. I’d got out. I didn’t worry about you.…” She turns to face Max. “When you were home, Mum was always with you. He wouldn’t have a chance.” Max looks uncomprehending. She grew up sheltered. How much does she even know about sex?

“I dodged him at home and packed my bags. But then, on the way
to start here in September, he pulled over, down the lane by the big farm? The one before we get to the river?”

She waits for acknowledgement of the location. Mrs. Bennet and I both give her a nod.

“He pulled in, and said I had to be at least as nice to him as I am to the boys at school. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about. He put my hand down there, and said I had to rub it. I told him no, but …” She shakes her head. “His hand got tight around my wrist, really tight. He said I had to. So I looked out the window, and I did it. I thought I’d hurt him because of the noise he made, and I thought he’d be angry but … There was a mess under the steering wheel. He pulled a box of tissues out of the glove box and made me wipe it up.”

Dru turns to face her mum straight on. It can go either way: Mrs. Bennet can decide to deny it, or to believe it. Mrs. Bennet’s voice squeezes up out of her, an octave too high: “Why didn’t you tell me, baby?” Dru throws herself into her mother’s arms.

“Because if you didn’t believe me you’d hate me! And if you did believe me, we’d end up back to the way things were before. Above that restaurant, and the cockroaches, and rubbish, and Max home alone or in hospital alone.” Mrs. Bennet loosens her hold so she can look at Dru. “I don’t want to go back there,” Dru whimpers.

“Baby, we …” But they might well end up back there, unless Ian Bennet has left substantial savings. Is Deeping House mortgaged? “Oh, baby, that’s why you insisted on
me
driving you here after that …” Reinterpretations of the past two years’ events flash in her eyes.

“Tell us what happened on the snowy day, Dru,” I say. I hate to press her, but she’s likely the only witness.

Her eyes swivel in all directions. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“She doesn’t want to talk about it,” says Mrs. Bennet, stroking Dru’s head.

“He killed Grace Rhys, Mrs. Bennet. Because she found out what he was doing to your daughter.”

Someone upstairs laughs. We all look up. Only Mrs. Bennet doesn’t; she’s fixed on Dru’s face. “Is that true?”

Dru squeezes her eyes shut and burrows into her mum, nodding. The girls upstairs cheer something. Ms. Barnes slips out and back again. We don’t hear anything more from upstairs.

I think hard. It would be kinder to leave them be, let them grieve, and come back to it later with a psychologist and video camera at the station. That is, if she’ll be willing to talk. One case, I got told off for having gone easy at the scene when later the victim refused to speak of it.

Even with Mr. Bennet dead, I won’t be allowed to close the case without proving it. We need her witness statement. I convince myself: There would be no trial; this would be enough. She wouldn’t have to talk about it again.

“We can get this done today, if you want to. We can get this done, and we’ll leave you be.”

Mrs. Bennet is appalled. “No! No, absolutely not.”

But Dru is eager. “I want to, Mum,” she says. “What do I have to do?”

She’s in shock. I’m manipulating her. But it seems better to get it over than to leave her to worry and practise and watch an appointment on the calendar nearing. And maybe change her mind.

“May I record this?” I ask. I carry a mini-recorder in my bag. “If I record it, then we can refer to that, instead of having to ask you again.”

Dru says yes. I need Mrs. Bennet’s assent as well. She’s under the spell of it all for now, but could demand a stop at any time. “… Yes,” she cautiously agrees. I put the machine on the table and press
RECORD
.

“Are you comfortable, Dru?”

She nods.

“I need you to use words. Is that all right?”

She nods again. “Yes,” she adds.

Date, location, names, age:
fifteen
. I ask her to talk about the snowy day. She does so in declarative sentences.

“We were all up early to catch the train into London. Mum was excited. Max had a new wig. It was still dark out. Mum and I had a fight.” She opens her eyes. “Do I have to say what it was about?”

“Only if you want to,” I say.

“Sure, baby,” says Mrs. Bennet. “Say whatever you want.”

“Mum, I don’t even remember!”

Mrs. Bennet’s lip twitches into a brief, wan smile. “I don’t either, baby.”

I prompt Dru to continue.

“It started to snow, and I heard him go outside, so I didn’t. I just stayed in my room.”

“I’m sorry, you’ve got to state who ‘he’ is.”

“Ian Bennet. My mum’s husband.”

Mrs. Bennet’s face crumples up.

“Did you see Grace Rhys?” I ask. “Was she out in the snow?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look.”

“That’s fine.”

I don’t want to lead her, so I just wait. She flails a bit. “Uh … It started to rain? So everyone came back in? I heard him come in. I heard Ian Bennet come back in. I put my iPod on.” She shrugs. “Then a while later he came into my room and he said, uh, he said I had to take my clothes off. I said no, but … I said I would do the thing from the car. Just the thing from the car. But he said, no, I had to take my clothes off. He pulled off my jeans.”

Mrs. Bennet covers her face.

“He, uh, he did it, and—”

“I’m sorry, Dru. I need you to be specific. Do you mean sexual intercourse?”

“Yes.”

If I were building a rape case, every touch would be catalogued. With Mr. Bennet dead, though, I can spare her that. We only need the fact of the rape as motive. “What happened next?”

“He left.”

“He left the apartment?”

“No!” She looks side to side, panicking that I’d taken a wrong turn. “No, my room. He left my room. I stayed in it.” She looks at her sister. Her breathing evens.

“What happened then?” We need to get to Grace, but it has to come from her.

“There was a knock? At the door of the flat?”

“You can hear that from your room? Your door was open?” I need to establish that she could hear things clearly.

“Yes,” she says. “She was telling him off. She knew Mum wasn’t home and she’d heard it.”

“She … who is ‘she’?”

“Grace who worked for the Holsts.”

“Grace Rhys? You’re certain that was her voice?”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly had she heard?”

“When he was … when he was doing it.… he had made some noises.…”

Mrs. Bennet interrupts: “Inspector, is this necessary?”

“Had she heard the rape, Dru?” I compromised. I can’t put words in her mouth, but I can ask a question.

“Yes. Yes, she— She said she knew what he’d done and, and she started to call the police.”

“She made a call?” This is huge.

“No, she didn’t finish the call. Then there was a, a … thudding kind of sound. And it, um, like …” She mimes with her fist four times. “He hit her with the hammer.”

“And you were in your room?”

“Yes.”

“You heard this? You heard the tones from her mobile? You heard the hammer?”

“No, I—I saw it was a hammer when I came out of my room. Yes, I heard her phone.”

“Why did you come out of your room?”

Her mother interrupts. “Please! She came out of her room to help the poor girl. What do you think?”

“Is that why you came out of your room, Dru?”

“Yes. And he had the hammer and she was …”

Mrs. Bennet coos that she doesn’t have to say anything more. But I need her to.

“What state was Grace Rhys in when you saw her?”

“She was dead.”

Already? Or dying?
I’d been told the specific blows she received would likely have left her gurgling and rasping for minutes.