Jennifer gathered what was left of her failing courage, and, alone now in the street, knocked on the door. The family friend answered, face tight with hostility.
‘Can’t you leave them alone?’ she snapped.
Jennifer swiftly explained that she was not a reporter seeking a story.
She gave her name and, then, haltingly, added: ‘Tell them I married Mark Piddle.’
Almost at once, Irene Nichols’ father came to the door. He was dark with anger.
‘You’ve got a bloody cheek comin’ yer,’ he said. ‘Wife of that murdering bastard.’
Jennifer did not explain that she was his ex-wife.
She homed in on the last chilling words.
‘Why do you say that, Mr Nichols?’ she asked mildly. She could see the hatred in his eyes.
‘Because ’e did for her, and I’ll never ’ear different,’ the man said.
‘The police are sure it was Bill Turpin.’
‘Yeah,’ said Irene’s father. ‘It wouldn’t be Sir Marcus bloody butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-’is-mouth Piddell, MP, would it?’
He looked at her through narrowed eyes. He hated her too. And he had the right.
‘I remember you, you little bitch. In ’is bed before my Irene was cold in ’er heathen grave.’
His voice rose to a hysterical scream.
‘Get off my property,’ he shouted.
Involuntarily she stepped backwards. He moved forwards and spat in her face. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before, not in all her years of professional intrusion into other people’s lives. She just stood there, unable to move.
‘Bugger off,’ he said. ‘And you tell ’im, that evil bastard, I hope he rots in hell.’
The friend came through the door and hustled Mr Nichols away. Jennifer wiped the saliva from her face with the back of her hand. She deserved that, she thought. Guilty, by default, of the most extraordinary self-deception.
Oh Marcus, Marcus. She stumbled back up the garden path to the Porsche parked in the road outside and climbed in. There was a box of paper hankies in the glove compartment. She gave her face a more careful clean-up, gunned the motor and drove back to her mother’s, severely shaken, but more determined than ever to get to the bottom of the whole dreadful business.
Seventeen
In London Marcus was anxiously keeping in touch with the news coming out of Pelham Bay. When he heard on late-night radio that a body had been found in Bill Turpin’s garden, he knew he needed help. Things could so easily get out of hand now.
He reached for the telephone and dialled a number. After two rings he was connected to an answering machine. His message was the only one he ever left. Two words. ‘Call me.’ He knew that the machine was checked every hour, day and night. Now all he had to do was wait. He had once enlisted the help of a friend at British Telecom to get the number traced. Then it had turned out to be a bedsit in London’s Clapham — completely empty except for the answerphone. The room was rented and the telephone line listed in the name of a North London motor car tyre company. Their address turned out to be merely an accommodation address.
Since then the contact number he was given, sent to him anonymously by post, had changed many times, usually around every six months. On one more occasion he had traced it back — this time to an empty room in Hammersmith listed in the name of a property company. Once again the company had only an accommodation address.
Fortunately that night he had not long to wait for the return call. It came just twelve minutes after he had left his message. He picked up the receiver quickly and it was with relief that he recognised the familiar sound of the caller he was hoping for. The voice was high-pitched and metallic. Computerised. It came to him through a piece of equipment known as a ‘squawk box’, which distorted it and made it unidentifiable. He flicked a switch on the phone. There was no security problem. There would be no Marcus-gate tapes. His phone could be scrambled, and by state-of-the-art equipment, naturally. Desperately gathering the wits that had never yet let him down, he explained swiftly and concisely what had happened. The voice at the other end listened carefully and gave him the most difficult advice of all to follow. Do nothing. Let them come to you. Wait for developments.
He replaced the receiver in its cradle, went to bed, and tried to sleep. It was a waste of time.
In the morning he knew he must stick to his usual routine and do what he had been told — nothing. But he so badly wanted to find out exactly what was going on in North Devon. He considered getting in touch with his own local paper editors there, to ensure both that they passed on information concerning the body to him straight away, and that he could control the papers’ interpretation of the story.
Several times he picked up a telephone to do just that. But Marcus’s brain continued to work smoothly even under the greatest stress. He knew that would only raise questions which at the moment did not exist and would be a mistake — certainly before the body was formally identified. He knew the advice he had been given was correct. All he could do was wait until that identification was made — and wait he must.
It was the police who told him the body of Irene Nichols had been found — and they gave him the news before it was released to the press.
‘You’re not strictly family, of course, sir, but we thought you’d like to know,’ said a voice on the telephone. A London policeman. He was glad of that. He would rather deal with someone anonymous than people from the West Country who might know him.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ Marcus said haltingly. ‘I suppose I had suspected from the moment I knew there was a body ... But it’s always a shock.
‘Can I do anything to help?’
‘Yes sir, you can,’ came the reply. ‘We’ll need to take a full statement from you.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Marcus responded. He had expected that — none the less he did not relish the prospect. And he was quite relieved when he was asked if he would be available for interview straightaway — at least it would get the ordeal over with.
When Jennifer reached 16 Seaview Road after her traumatic confrontation with Irene Nichols’s father, she went straight to the drinks cabinet in the front room and poured herself a stiff Scotch. Her mother heard the front door slam and followed her silently into the room.
‘I didn’t think you drank whisky,’ she said.
‘I don’t,’ replied Jennifer.
Mrs Stone shrugged. ‘There’s Clovelly herrings for tea,’ she said.
‘I’m not hungry.’
Jennifer knew she was trembling. She tried hard to appear normal, but she certainly couldn’t face eating anything. Herrings were about the last thing she could force down. The very thought made her feel sick.
‘You’re always hungry,’ persisted her mother. ‘And you like herrings.’
‘I think I’ve got an upset tummy,’ she lied.
Or maybe it wasn’t a lie any more. She wasn’t quite sure.
‘Well, put that bottle away then,’ said her mother unsympathetically, as Jennifer poured a second stiff measure into a tumbler.
Jennifer switched on the television and watched the news. The talk with the grief-stricken Mr and Mrs Nichols made the local and the national bulletins. It was harrowing stuff. And there was a few seconds’ snatched footage of Johnny Cooke going into the Penny Parade. He looked neither to left nor right, ignoring the questions thrown at him by the gathered media.
Mr and Mrs Nichols had said nothing publicly about their suspicions. Their views had been checked out by the police twenty-five years earlier and summarily dismissed. They were resigned to not being listened to properly — and they were just relieved now to have their daughter’s remains returned to them. Like Johnny Cooke they did not want to relive it all.