Page 21 of Worse Than Murder (DCI Matilda Darke Thriller #13)

A s I pull up outside Nature’s Diner, Sally opens the door to the restaurant and comes running down the steps.

‘Matilda, you’ve got a visitor,’ she says.

‘Really? Nobody knows I’m here.’

‘It’s Lynne Pemberton. Alison’s mother.’

‘What does she want with me?’

‘I’ve no idea. I told her you weren’t in, but she said it was urgent. She was pacing up and down out here for ages. It took all my powers of persuasion to get her to come inside. She seems very edgy. The power’s just come back on so I’m going to make her a coffee. Do you want one?’

I look up at the restaurant and see the head of a woman sitting at a table in the window.

‘As if you have to ask.’

We enter the restaurant, and Sally goes over to the coffee machine while I approach Lynne.

From behind, I can see that she seems tense.

Her shoulders are up beneath her ears; her hands, knitted together on the table, are squeezed hard, the knuckles almost white.

Below the table, her left leg is jiggling. This is a nervous woman.

‘I believe you’re waiting for me. Matilda Darke,’ I say as I approach.

Lynne turns and looks me up and down. ‘Oh. You’re Matilda Darke?’

‘Yes.’

‘I expected you to be taller. I don’t know why.’

I pull out the chair opposite and sit down. ‘I expected me to be taller, too. I’m guessing I’m too old for a growth spurt.’

Lynne gives a weak smile as Sally comes over with the coffees on a tray.

‘Here we are,’ she says with all the jollity she usually reserves for paying customers. ‘Can I get you anything else?’

‘No. I’m fine, thank you,’ Lynne says, nervously.

‘And for you?’ Sally turns to me. ‘Oh, sorry, I actually thought I was working then.’ She slaps me playfully on the arm, laughs and walks away.

‘I’ve never been in here before,’ Lynne says, gazing at her surroundings. ‘They’ve done it out nicely.’

‘Yes.’

I take a sip of my coffee. Sally makes it exactly how I like it– black, and with an extra shot. The stronger the better. I can feel the caffeine kicking in with just one sip.

‘You wanted to see me,’ I say when Lynne doesn’t make a move to begin the conversation.

‘I did,’ she says, taking a breath. ‘I believe my daughter, Alison, has been to see you, asking for help.’

‘She has.’

‘I…’ She hesitates. ‘I don’t want you to help her.’

‘Oh?’

‘I never told Alison fully what happened. She was too young at the time, but… I don’t know, maybe I should have explained everything when she got older, but it was never the right time.

Then, when she said she was joining the police, I thought…

I’m not sure what I thought, but I didn’t want it jeopardising her career,’

‘Sorry, Lynne, you’re not making any sense.’

She releases a heavy sigh and composes herself. She picks up her cup of coffee. ‘This is good,’ she smiles, nervously. ‘Me and Iain don’t eat out as much as we used to.’

‘Iain’s your husband?’

‘Yes. Second husband. Are you married?’

‘No. I was. I’m widowed.’

‘I’m sorry.’

I used to feel great pain when I mentioned I was a widow or when I thought of James. Right now, I feel nothing. Is that due to the burgeoning romance with Odell Zimmerman back in Sheffield, or because I feel so numbed by recent events that all my emotions have completely shut down?

‘As you know, I had twin girls before Alison was born,’ Lynne begins.

‘They were almost two when Alison came along. I was hoping for a boy. Jack, my husband, the girls’ father, he wanted another girl.

When the twins were seven and Alison five, they were out playing hide-and-seek.

We lived in a cottage at the time, right on the edge of the village.

There are fields behind it where all the kids used to play.

According to Alison, the girls just disappeared.

She saw them in the back of a car being driven away.

She didn’t think… well, she wouldn’t at only five.

But they were kidnapped. We never saw them again.

‘We took it hard. We were bound to, weren’t we?

But me and Jack dealt with it in different ways.

I had a bit of a breakdown at first. I was a mess.

I sent Alison to live with my sister and her husband.

After a while, I don’t know, I seemed to just throw myself into work.

I was a midwife then. I had to keep busy, you know?

Jack, he went the other way. He was frightened of leaving the house in case we had a phone call or anything saying the girls had been found. ’

She pauses. Her bottom lip is shaking with emotion and her face has paled as she takes herself back to a time that causes her great anguish.

‘This is where things differ from what Alison believes happened.’ Lynne lowers her voice and hitches her chair up to the table, as if worried about being overheard despite there being no-one else in the restaurant.

‘I… we… no, I told Alison that, a few months later, she and her dad were coming back from visiting her grandmother– Jack’s mum– on the day of a storm, that Jack had got into difficulty with the car and he was swept away by the swollen lake. ’

A tear rolls down Lynne’s cheek. She reaches for a napkin and wipes her eye.

‘You don’t have to tell me any of this, Lynne,’ I say, despite itching to know everything.

‘No. I do. I was… well, I wasn’t getting over it– you don’t get over something like that– but I was coming to terms with it.

I was adapting. Jack, he wasn’t. He was trapped in grief.

He’d always suffered with depression. He was a complete contrast to his brother.

Iain, my husband now, is Jack’s brother.

I suppose you think that’s strange, don’t you?

Me marrying my brother-in-law. I don’t know when things developed between us. We just grew closer as time went on.’

‘It’s not strange at all,’ I say. I feel as if she needs to hear that.

Lynne takes a deep breath. ‘Not long after the girls disappeared, something happened. I don’t know what, Iain never told me, but he said he found something in the stables where they worked together, and they had a big argument, and Jack admitted…

I’m sorry,’ she says when the emotion is too much for her to hold in any longer.

She grabs for more napkins and blows her nose.

It’s a while before she composes herself enough to be able to continue.

‘It turned out that Jack had been abusing the twins. Sexually. He told Iain that he’d been watching the three of them that day, in the field, and he just…

he took them. He couldn’t help himself. He said something came over him and he…

I don’t know if he meant to kill them. I don’t know what happened and, to be honest, I don’t want to know. ’

‘Why didn’t he take Alison?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What had he done with the bodies?’

‘I don’t know that either. Iain said that Jack couldn’t remember. He said one minute he was watching them playing in the field, the next he was walking back to the farm. Hours had passed and he had no memory of what had happened.’

I nod. ‘That is something that can happen. Jack’s mind might have shut down in order to protect himself from what he’d done.

I’m not justifying his actions at all, but it’s possible he was trying to fight his urges but couldn’t, and was struggling to admit what he’d done. Did you ever suspect Jack of?—’

‘No. Of course not,’ Lynne interrupts, almost violent in her protest. She has another sip of her coffee, turns, and gazes out of the window for a while.

She releases a heavy sigh before continuing.

‘Iain told Jack to tell me. He said he couldn’t.

Iain gave him twenty-four hours. He said, if he didn’t tell me, then he’d call the police and report him. Brother or no brother.’

‘What happened after twenty-four hours?’

‘He walked out into the lake before Iain had a chance to do anything.’

‘You think he walked out into the lake purposefully?’

‘It’s the only explanation.’

‘There have been sightings of Jack.’

‘I’m aware. I don’t know… I… I really don’t know what to make of all those. He either killed himself or he walked away from his life. I’m only glad he left us,’ she says, swiping away more tears.

‘You said he went to visit his mother that day,’ I say, after giving Lynne time to compose herself.

‘Yes. She lived in the next village. She and his father divorced years earlier. Hardly surprising. I don’t know how she put up with him for as long as she did.

I wasn’t a fan of Granville. He was a bully.

Anyway, when we told her that Jack appeared to have taken his own life, she said that it felt like he was saying goodbye to her when he visited.

She didn’t last much longer after that. She’d always had a weak heart for as long as I’d known her.

We didn’t tell her anything about… about the abuse.

We just said Jack was struggling with the girls being missing and that his depression had returned. ’

I watch Lynne. Her face is a map of worry and confusion. ‘Lynne,’ I begin, my voice quiet, sensitive. ‘Is it possible Jack abused Alison?’

Tears roll down her face. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she eventually says.

‘Alison has never said anything. I’ve kept a close eye on her over the years, looking for signs of repressed memory or…

I’ve read a lot about victims of abuse acting out in different ways to try and make sense of things or to punish themselves; I’ve not seen any of that in Alison. She’s had a relatively normal life.’

‘Did you and Iain ever tell the police about the abuse?’

She shakes her head. ‘I wanted to. I wanted the police to tear the country apart looking for Celia and Jennifer. Many times, I stood outside that station, wanting to go in and tell them everything, but I kept thinking about Alison and what it would do to her if she found out. I didn’t want her growing up with all that hanging over her head, wondering if her father had abused her too and she’d blocked it out.

I thought it was best to leave everything as it was.

Jack had killed himself. It’s not like they could arrest him. ’

‘I can understand that, I really can. Alison is a credit to you. I’ve only met her a couple of times, but she seems like a strong, capable young woman. Who knows what path she would have gone down had she known the truth as a teenager.’

‘I know.’

‘You’ve had a lot to deal with on your own.’

‘Iain has been a big help. He was strong for me, even though you could see he was struggling to understand what his brother had been capable of.’ She pauses as she takes another drink of coffee.

‘You can see why I don’t want you helping Alison.

After all this time, how would she take the news of her father…

’ She stops herself from mentioning the word abuse again.

‘And how would she react to me for keeping it from her in the first place? It’s all a mess, isn’t it? ’

‘Alison isn’t stupid, Lynne. She’s constantly asking herself questions. What if one day she asks herself something that unlocks a memory?’

Lynne shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I think I can take whatever comes, but I’d rather not reveal it myself, if I don’t have to. I’ve left a letter with my solicitor to give to Alison after I’ve died. It explains everything in minute detail. Hopefully, I’ve written it in a way where she won’t hate me.’

‘I’m sure she won’t.’

‘Promise me, you won’t tell her.’

‘I promise.’

‘Thank you.’ Lynne reaches across the table and places her hand on mine. ‘I’ve been reading up about you. You’re a good woman. I knew you’d understand.’

‘Lynne, what can you tell me about…?’ I stop. There’s the sound of a fleet of cars driving at speed into the restaurant car park. I turn to look out of the window and see a police car pull into the car park, followed by a police van with ‘Crime Scene Investigation’ written on the side.

What the hell have I done?