Almost everyone else seemed to be there, though: Bren and Brock, McCulloch and Savage, Winnie Wellington and Abigail Lavender, and from the far end of the room came the sound of music played by Elizabeth Grant together with George Murray, tilting his one good ear to his keyboard.
The noise level was rising steadily. Everyone seemed so happy, Kathy thought, catching a glimpse of Andrea waving her hand to make a point to Brock. He was subtly different since Suzanne had come back,she realised,more open and expansive,and she was glad. She, too, had reason to feel content, since her promotion to inspector had finally been confirmed.She knew that Brock had forced the issue, taking advantage of the hiatus after the business in North Wales to get it through.So,like him,she had come to Cockpit Lane a sergeant and left an inspector. But then, history had done a lot of repeating and echoing over the past weeks, and her pleasure in the evening was spoilt by the uneasy suspicion-no, more than that, a haunting certainty-that it wasn’t finished with them yet.
Teddy Vexx’s dying words had never left her. She had repeated them over and over in her mind, trying to squeeze every trace of meaning out of them. What had he really meant? That he still didn’t get it? Or that she didn’t? Neither seemed to make sense. And who was the ‘bitch’ he’d referred to in his Belmondo moment? She’d assumed it was herself, yet she vividly recalled the look of surprise in his eyes when he’d then focused on her. But how rational was a human brain in terminal shock? How much meaning could one expect to find in those last whispers really, especially by her-traumatised, according to the staff counsellor, by feelings of guilt towards her victim?
The more she’d worried at it, the more convinced she’d become that things were not right. That was the phrase that kept forming in her mind: things weren’t right. She’d tried to talk it through with Brock, and he had been enormously patient and supportive, but she could sense his underlying conviction that it was she that wasn’t quite right. ‘It’s a terrible thing to kill someone, Kathy,’ he’d said, very gently, ‘even when it’s unavoidable and necessary, as it was in this case. I know, I understand.You must go through the process. Let them help you.’
She’d become obsessed by Vexx’s dying words, she realised that, and accepted that this might be a coping mechanism, concentrating on one little detail to avoid thinking about the big fact that she’d shot and killed a man. But obsession brought other things to the surface: she’d be driving along, noticing the mess in her car, when some thought would strike her and she would have to pull in to the kerb to pester someone over the phone. Or she would wake up in the middle of the night with a forensic image vivid in her mind, and phone Sundeep at his home over breakfast for an explanation. If it had been anyone else, he said, he’d have created merry hell, spoiling his boiled egg like a Bombay telemarketer, but for her he was happy to oblige. Afterwards, he would phone Brock to say he was worried about her.
And this party was more than a welcome home to Michael Grant, she realised. It was also the end of the story, the end of Dee-Ann and Dana’s story. She felt suddenly unbearably hot and breathless,and turned towards the shopfront facing out to the Lane. A small boy was standing outside, face pressed so close to the glass that his spectacles were tipped up on his nose. For a moment they stared at each other. Then, as she made towards the door, Adam jumped away and began to run, leaving the marks of his nose and hands on the window. He had been the snowball, she thought, that started an avalanche. If he hadn’t made his mad expedition across the railway line, none of this might have happened. As she watched him scampering away she imagined herself returning,like Brock,in twenty-four years’ time, and wondered what he would have become. Another Michael Grant? Or the next Spider Roach?
‘You look sad.’
Kathy turned to find George standing at her side.
‘I’m sad about what happened to you, George,’ she said.
He shrugged.‘I’ll be all right.Anyway,you took care of Teddy Vexx.’
‘Yes.’ She looked away.
‘You should feel good about that. I wanted to tell you what I saw that night the girls died, but I couldn’t. Nobody’s that brave or stupid, leastwise, I’m not.’
‘What did you see?’
‘About one o’clock, I was coming back to Winnie’s after practising with the group. I saw his Peugeot standing outside the school and I wondered what it was doing there.’
‘Ah.’
‘You’re mad at me, yeah?’
‘No.What else did you see?’
‘Mm?’ George looked at his feet.
‘The other car.’
He shrugged, keeping mum.
Kathy said,‘It’s all right,George.I’d worked it out.’It was why they had been unable to connect Ivor Roach to the crime scene. They’d been looking for the wrong car on the CCTV footage.
‘I’d better get back to do our next number,’ George said.
‘Sure.’ Kathy watched him shuffle back into the crowd, then retrieved her coat from the pegs behind the door and left.
She pulled her car in at the gates and spoke into the intercom.
Magdalen answered.
‘What do you want?’
‘Is your mother with you, Magdalen?’ Adonia was on bail, Kathy knew, while the CPS negotiated with the family lawyers (no longer Martin Connell, of course) over questions of murder and voluntary manslaughter.
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to see you both, if I may.’
‘Mum can’t speak to anyone without her lawyers present.’
‘I appreciate that, but this isn’t about Ivor’s death. I’m on leave at the moment, not on duty. There’s something I need to clear up for my own peace of mind. I know it’s an imposition, but it shouldn’t take long.’
There was silence, and Kathy was on the point of turning away, but then at last the gates clicked and swung open. She drove to the house and saw Magdalen waiting at the front door. The young woman looked fragile and weightless as she led her silently into the living room, where her mother sat beneath the chandelier. Even before they spoke Kathy saw a marked difference in them both. Adonia sat upright, pale but alert and determined, and all signs of her earlier assault, the bruises and bandages, were gone. Her daughter, on the other hand, seemed utterly exhausted and diminished by what they’d been through.
Adonia spoke first,her voice firm.‘I don’t think we should be talking to you. We’re both very tired. I think you should come back another day.’
For the second time, Kathy almost left. She really did want to leave, and she felt an awful hollowness in the pit of her stomach, not unlike that she had felt lying on the floor of the cottage,
training the pistol on Teddy Vexx.
‘Well?’
‘I’m sorry. This is a terrible time for both of you. But I have to ask you this.’
Again she hesitated,and again Adonia said impatiently,‘Well?’
‘When your car was stolen, Mrs Roach, you told me that your pendant was also taken, and you later found it on the floor of the car. Is that right?’
Adonia looked astonished by the question. The mention of the pendant threw her for a moment.‘Yes.Why?’
‘Where exactly did you find it?’
‘I can’t remember.What is this?’
‘You see,’ Kathy went on, ‘we checked with the people who examined your car when it was recovered. They said they searched it very thoroughly. It would be impossible for them to have missed something like that.’
Adonia stared at her,then said,‘No,you’re right of course.It was Ivor who returned it to me. He told me to say I’d found it in the car, but I don’t need to lie for him any more.’ Then she added,‘You said you’re no longer on duty. Is it because you killed that man?’
‘Yes.’
‘So we’re both the same,you and I.Why are you asking these questions?’
Kathy hesitated,gazing helplessly at one woman,then the other. ‘I’m sorry. I have to know.You see we couldn’t connect Ivor to Teddy Vexx or Cockpit Lane that night. That was because we were checking the wrong phone records, looking for the wrong car. It wasn’t Ivor that got the pendant back, was it, Magdalen? It was you.’