‘No. Jackie wouldn’t have worried too much about that being made public. It was the missing money that was the subject of the blackmail. Gabby realized she’d got all she could expect out of Gus, and she knew Jackie wouldn’t want him to be charged with fraud and sent to prison.’
‘Tell me what happened,’ Prue said.
‘Jackie had no transport. Evan’s car was in for a service and he was using hers. So she borrowed Gus Lynch’s car. She had the keys-he’d given her a spare set so she could get into the flat. She met Gabby at the bus stop and they walked over the hill towards the Holly Tree. It was foggy that day if you remember. They were very close to the road but no one could see them.’
‘But they never reached the restaurant.’
‘No,’ Ramsay said. ‘ They never reached the restaurant. Gabby was taunting Jackie about the affair-she was there of course at the party at Barton Hill when it all began. Then she began to talk about the missing money. Gus had told Jackie that there had been administrative irregularities at the Centre and he had come under pressure from Amelia Wood to sort them out, but she didn’t know the extent of his fraud. It must have come as a terrible shock. Gabby was threatening to expose him and all Jackie’s dreams of escaping Hallowgate would be ruined. Gabby was walking over the hill ahead of her, full of herself, full of the information she had, mocking Jackie for making a fool of herself with a thief. Jackie lost control. She went up behind her and strangled her with her scarf. She says it wasn’t premeditated and I believe her.’
‘Why didn’t she leave the body there, on the hill?’
‘She panicked,’ Ramsay said. ‘Someone was coming. The fog was very thick, but she could hear voices coming over the hill. She pulled Gabby back to the car. It wasn’t far and she was terrified. She lifted Gabby back into the boot. Gabby was tiny, wasn’t she? There was nothing to her. Then she realized that Gabby’s bag was still on the hill. She flung it over the wall into the nearest garden.’
‘So that was a coincidence,’ Prue said. ‘ She didn’t mean to implicate Amelia.’
‘It was a coincidence,’ Ramsay said. ‘The only one.’
‘Then she returned the car to the Grace Darling Centre,’ Prue said. ‘She must have been mad. Why did she do that if she was trying to protect Gus?’
‘She didn’t know what else to do,’ Ramsay said. ‘She wasn’t thinking rationally and she couldn’t face moving the body again. And she was Evan Powell’s wife. She had a naïve and rather pathetic belief in the English justice system. She didn’t think it possible that an innocent man would be found guilty of murder. She cleaned the car as thoroughly as she could and returned it to the Grace Darling in mid-afternoon when it was quiet. No one saw her. I suppose if Gus Lynch was ever found guilty she would have come forward.’
‘So it was all a dreadful muddle,’ Prue said, ‘ and not planned logically at all. Did she tell Gus Lynch what she’d done?’
Ramsay shook his head. ‘ She went to his flat later that evening but she didn’t tell him. She didn’t want him involved. She thought she was being terribly brave to cope with it by herself. She’s really infatuated with him and saw it as a sort of romantic sacrifice.’
‘Didn’t he ask her if she’d taken his car? He must have known she had access to his keys.’
Ramsay shook his head. ‘Apparently not. He made some joke about it-a policeman’s wife as a murder suspect-but he thought she was just weak and silly. It never occurred to him that she would be capable of taking his car without telling him.’
‘Where did Amelia Wood come into it? Did she see Jackie in Martin’s Dene on the day Gabby died?’
Ramsay shook his head. ‘No, it was nothing like that. Jackie knew that Gus had applied for a job out of the area. It was her great hope. She thought she could escape Evan and the tedium of Barton Hill and start a more glamorous life with Gus. John would be leaving home anyway and wouldn’t need her any more. On the day after Gabby’s death Gus had a phone call from his agent, pressing him to sign the contract and make the move public. But the night before he’d had a visit from Amelia Wood. She’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to lose him from the Grace Darling without a fight. If he persisted with his intention to move she’d make his theft public, and who would want him then? Lynch didn’t know what to do. He told me that he went out into Hallowgate to meet Mrs Wood from court, intending to plead with her again to release him. But just as he was about to approach her she was called back by the usher. He went home without speaking to her.’ Ramsay paused. ‘He was depressed. He phoned Jackie Powell for comfort, sympathy. He got rather more than that.’
‘She went out and killed her!’
Ramsay nodded. ‘Again, I don’t think it was terribly well thought out. Gus Lynch had told her where Amelia Wood lived and that she was on her way home. She parked in the same place as she had the day before and walked over the hill to the back of the Woods’ house. She intended to go in and confront Amelia Wood but while she was waiting there, trying to make up her mind what to do, the woman came out with the dog. By that time Jackie Powell was under tremendous stress and in her unbalanced state she saw it as a sign, an answer to her prayers. She followed Amelia into the dene and killed her in just the same way as she’d strangled Gabriella. The dog barked and there must have been a struggle, but there was no one on the hill to hear.
He paused and poured himself another drink. ‘She left the body where it was. It was dark and there was no one on the hill to disturb her this time. She walked back to her car. Nobody saw her.’ He paused again. ‘Then she drove on to the supermarket and did the week’s shopping. I can’t imagine the state she was in. She needed to explain her absence from the house, I suppose. When she got back to Barton Hill her son was there, and her husband decided they should go out for dinner at the Holly Tree. She must have been frantic, having to go back to Martin’s Dene, knowing Mrs Wood’s body was still on the hill. Even I could tell she was unhappy but it never occurred to me then that she might be involved. She was just Evan Powell’s wife.’
‘Perhaps that was the problem all along,’ Prue said. ‘She wanted to be more than a policeman’s wife. I can understand that.’
‘But you wouldn’t have committed murder.’
‘No,’ Prue said. ‘I wouldn’t have committed murder.’ She paused. ‘Did Lynch suspect what she’d done?’
‘I don’t think so for a moment. He wouldn’t have the imagination. Wouldn’t consider his little woman capable of it. All he could think about was himself. And if he had suspected I think he’d have come to the police. He’d not want to be implicated in murder.’
She looked at him over her glass. ‘You never thought it was me, did you? Or Anna?’
He shook his head sadly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I never thought it was you.’ He realized that wasn’t quite true and at the beginning of a murder investigation he suspected everyone. He wasn’t a good judge of character, especially of women, and he couldn ‘t afford to trust his instincts.
‘Look’ he said. ‘You’ll be tired. None of us slept much last night. I’ll go now and let you go to bed.’
‘Should you drive?’ she asked. ‘After all that booze? Aren’t you over the limit?’
‘I think I can risk it,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said softly, grinning so he saw her as a schoolgirl again. ‘We can’t have you breaking the law. Perhaps you should stay.’
Ann Cleeves
Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s VERA and BBC One’s SHETLAND. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over one million copies worldwide.