‘No. I’m at Mark Bretherick’s house in Spilling.’
‘Right. Of course. Why would you be in Cambridge?’
‘We’ve found two more bodies on the property-an adult woman and a child.’
‘What? Are you sure?’ Hey tutted. ‘Sorry, that’s an idiotic question. What I mean is, you’re saying two more people have died at the Bretherick house since Geraldine Bretherick and her daughter?’
‘No, these bodies have been here at least a year,’ Simon told him. ‘This is highly confidential, by the way.’
‘Of course.’
‘No, really. I shouldn’t be telling you any of it.’
‘So why are you?’ asked Hey. ‘Sorry, I’m not being rude, I just-’
‘I want to know what you think. My sergeant, when we dug up the bodies, said “Family annihilation mark two”, and I just wondered-’
‘Dug up?’ Hey’s voice was squeaky with incredulity.
‘Yeah. They were buried in the garden. Under a smooth, green lawn-not quite so smooth any more.’
‘That’s terrible. What a horrible thing to find. Are you okay?’
‘Obviously they didn’t die naturally. No clothing on the bones, so either they were murdered naked or stripped postmortem. ’
‘Simon, I’m not a cop.’ Hey sounded apologetic. ‘This is way off my territory.’
‘Is it?’ This was the part that held the most interest for Simon. ‘Nothing’s been confirmed, but we think the remains we’ve found might be a classmate of Lucy Bretherick’s and her mother.’ He spelled it out. ‘Another mother and daughter, killed in the same place-or at least bodies found in almost the same place…’
‘Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick’s bodies were found in two bathtubs, weren’t they?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So they were also nude.’
It was a good point. Simon wasn’t sure what it meant, but it was another connection between the first pair of bodies and the second.
‘I suppose there’s no reason to think the poor souls you’ve found today were also killed in the bath and then… Simon, I can’t quite believe I’m taking part in this conversation. What help can I possibly be to you now?’
‘What do you mean “now”?’
‘Well, now that familicide’s ruled out.’
‘Is it, though? That’s why I rang you.’
‘I never thought it likely, from what I’d read and from what Keith told me, that Geraldine Bretherick had killed herself and her daughter. Now that you’ve discovered the bodies of another woman and child, I’d say it’s virtually certain the Bretherick deaths weren’t a familicide committed by Geraldine Bretherick.’
‘So, what, then? What do you think happened?’
‘I’ve absolutely no idea. Surely… well, isn’t it likely that the same person killed all four victims?’
‘I think so. Yes.’
‘You said a classmate of Lucy Bretherick’s; was it a boy or a girl?’
‘We think a girl, but it’s to be confirmed.’
‘Well, if it does turn out to be a girl, that would make it ninety per cent certain that your killer’s a man.’
‘Why?’ asked Simon.
‘Because he’s going round killing women and girls. Mothers and daughters.’
‘Couldn’t a woman be doing that?’
Hey let out a hollow laugh. ‘Like the perpetrators of familicide, serial murderers are almost always men.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘What?’ Hey sounded worried.
‘Serial. It’s a word we avoid if at all possible.’ Simon closed his eyes. Kombothekra was expecting to find the body of Amy Oliva’s father; now Jonathan Hey was suggesting that they might at any moment uncover the remains of another mother and daughter. Simon wasn’t sure his mind could accommodate that possibility.
‘Also… I mean, would a woman be able, physically, to dig up enough earth to bury two bodies?’ asked Hey.
‘A strong one might,’ said Simon. ‘If you’re right, though, and one man is responsible for all four deaths, what if that one man is Mark Bretherick? Then the murder of Geraldine and Lucy could still be viewed as a familicide.’ Hearing himself say this convinced Simon it had to be wrong. He believed, increasingly, in Mark Bretherick’s innocence.
‘You told me he had an alibi,’ said Hey. ‘But, leaving that aside… No. What sociologists mean when they talk about familicide is a very specific crime, the crime we discussed at length when you came here, to Cambridge. Male family annihilators kill only their wives, children and, sometimes, themselves.’
‘Restrained of them,’ Simon murmured.
‘They don’t kill school friends, mothers of school friends.’ Hey sighed. ‘I don’t mean to put a spanner in your works, but none of the details fit. I mean, sometimes you get men who snap and go on a short, localised killing spree. They open fire in a shop, or restaurant-a public place. They kill strangers, and then they go back home and kill their families and themselves, but it all happens within a time frame of twenty-four hours, seventy-two at most. If the two bodies you found today have really been there over a year… I’m sorry, but that doesn’t fit with anything I know or have ever come across. Men who commit familicide don’t kill two strangers first, then wait a year, then kill their nearest and dearest. They just don’t.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Okay.’
‘Simon? Any opinion I give you, you’ve got to take with a barrelful of salt, right? I’m not a psychologist or a detective.’
‘Just tell me what you think. You’re an intelligent person-those are in short supply.’
‘Unless Mark Bretherick’s alibi turns out to be false, I don’t think he killed anybody,’ said Hey. ‘Whoever killed the first mother and daughter must have killed the second. If I were a police officer, and this were my case, I’d start from that assumption.’
Simon thanked him and promised to drop in next time he was in Cambridge. Hey spoke as if Simon was bound to find himself strolling past Whewell College at least once a week. Simon wondered if it was a version of what he thought of as London syndrome: the way people who lived in London always assumed you would go to them rather than them come to you. He had a mate from university who did it all the time. ‘We haven’t met up for ages,’ he’d say. ‘When are you next going to be in London?’ As if there were no trains out.
After saying goodbye to Hey, Simon went in search of Kombothekra. Tim Cook and his two assistants were busy attending to the bones. Simon stepped around the cordoned-off area, asking himself if it was safe to assume that, if Bretherick wasn’t the murderer, then he had to be of great interest to the murderer, perhaps the object of the murderer’s obsession. Why else would he kill Bretherick’s family and bury two people on his land?
Kombothekra was in the kitchen, sitting at a large, wooden table with his arms stretched out in front of him.
‘Are you okay?’ Simon asked.
‘I’ve been better. I thought I ought to tell Proust where we’re up to.’
‘What did he say?’
Kombothekra’s expression said it all. ‘It shouldn’t be as bad, but it’s worse,’ he said quietly.
‘What?’
‘Finding a child’s skeleton. It oughtn’t to be as hard as… well, say, Lucy Bretherick. I mean, that got to me, but this…’ He shook his head. ‘Seeing a skeleton, the inside of a person. It makes you focus on what should be there but isn’t. Skeletons look so… vulnerable.’
‘I know.’
‘Lucy Bretherick was dead, but she was still recognisable as a child.’
Simon nodded. ‘Sam…’
‘What?’
‘It could be two different killers. It could.’ Even an expert like Jonathan Hey could be wrong. ‘What if Mark Bretherick killed Amy and Encarna Oliva and that’s why Geraldine and Lucy were murdered-in retaliation?’
‘By Amy’s father?’ Kombothekra’s mouth twisted. ‘I wouldn’t let Proust hear you say that. Speculation’s out. Finding out for certain what happened before close of business today is in.’