Page 64 of Worse Than Murder (DCI Matilda Darke Thriller #13)

L ynne Pemberton is walking down the middle of Dower Lane, but she has no idea where she is. Her mind is blank. How did she get here? Where is she going?

‘Mum?’

Alison had woken up and popped to the toilet.

On her way back to bed, something caught her eye out of the window.

She peeled back the curtain and saw the bright orange in the distance coming from Nature’s Diner.

She had run out of the house to go and see if she could help in any way, when she spotted her mother in the middle of the quiet road.

Lynne doesn’t react. It’s as if she hasn’t heard her daughter or even seen her, despite the fact she’s standing right next to her.

‘Mum. Mum, what’s wrong? What are you doing?’

Lynne continues to walk slowly, almost zombie-like.

‘Mum, you’re scaring me. What’s happened?’

Lynne stops and turns to her as if seeing her for the first time. ‘Alison?’ Her voice is quiet.

‘Mum, what are you doing out so late? You’re shivering. What’s going on?’

‘I saw your dad.’

Alison recoils. ‘What?’

‘Your dad. I saw him. He looked almost the same as he did thirty years ago.’

‘Mum, you’re not making any sense. Why don’t you come inside?’

‘I don’t know what to believe anymore, Alison. We killed him. We killed your dad. Yet, he’s still there. He looked straight at me.’

‘Mum, what do you mean, you killed him? You can’t have killed him.’ Alison grabs her mother, pulls her into a hug and coaxes her towards the cottage.

‘I killed your dad, Alison. I killed him. And he’s come back for me.’

* * *

I drive the Porsche at speed through the dark streets of High Chapel.

There’s no other traffic around. I saw Lynne Pemberton run away from the restaurant and into the woods.

She turned back and watched as the flames took hold.

Yet, from the look in her eyes, even from a distance, I could tell she wasn’t in full control of what she was doing.

It was then when everything seemed to fall into place.

Lynne and Iain recently celebrated their wedding anniversary and had gone to their favourite restaurant in Kendal, a good forty minutes’ drive away, yet they had never been to Nature’s Diner.

Why? Clearly the answer is because they don’t want to be in the same building as a body they placed in the cellar thirty years ago when the building was derelict.

But there are other things, too. When I saw Lynne alone at the edge of the lake, she told me to go home, to leave High Chapel.

I thought it was a threat, but now I see it was a warning.

Lynne told me to leave before more damage could be done. Damage by whom? Lynne, herself? Iain?

Lynne and Iain had been in love when they were teenagers.

He couldn’t have children, and she yearned for them.

She dumped him for his brother. How would that have made him feel?

Angry? Bitter? Disappointed? Enraged? Murderous?

He’d had to sit back and watch as Lynne and Jack created a perfect happy family unit while he remained at home with his father working on a farm that was haemorrhaging money.

Yes, their affair had been rekindled, but it wasn’t enough.

Iain didn’t want to sleep with Lynne when the opportunity arose behind Jack’s back; he wanted something more.

He wanted the oldest motive for murder: revenge.

I swing the car around the corner and slam on the brakes when I see Alison and Lynne standing in the middle of the road.

* * *

At the restaurant, two paramedics run towards Tania who is struggling to put Claire into the recovery position and keep her warm.

They push her to one side and take over.

They check Claire’s airways and put a mask over her nose and mouth.

There is nothing more for Tania to do. She runs around to the front of the restaurant, not taking her eyes from the burning building.

She sees Matilda’s friend, Adele, being placed on a stretcher and then into the back of an ambulance and the Meagan family receiving treatment with red blankets around their shoulders.

‘What’s happened? Are you all okay?’ she asks.

‘We’re fine.’

‘Claire Daniels has been attacked. The paramedics are with her now. Did you see anything?’

‘We were asleep. We didn’t know anything until the alarm woke us up,’ Sally says.

‘Matilda woke me up,’ Philip adds.

Tania looks around her. ‘Where is Matilda? Is she…?’

‘She said something about going to see the Pembertons.’

‘What? Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘No,’ Philip says. ‘But judging by the look on her face, I think it’s something big.’

‘Jesus. I should go over there. If you see the police, tell them where I’ve gone.’ Tania backs away and skirts around the fire engines to return to her Punto. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’m about to do something completely stupid?’ she asks herself.

* * *

‘What’s going on?’ I ask, getting out of the car.

‘I don’t know,’ Alison says, wiping away her tears. ‘Mum said she saw Dad, but then she said she killed him, too. It’s like she’s in a trance or something. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Let’s get her inside.’

Together, we both walk Lynne into Alison’s cottage, into the living room, and sit her down on the sofa. Alison grabs a blanket from the back of the sofa and wraps it around her mum’s shoulders. She’s still shaking.

‘Lynne, it’s Matilda, can you hear me?’ My voice is calm despite the rage I can feel coursing through my veins.

Lynne could have killed an entire family tonight.

Actions have consequences, and I’ll not forget the look of horror on Carl’s face as he lowered himself out of the window for as long as I live.

Lynne nods.

‘I think I know what’s going on, but you’re going to have to tell me yourself. I saw you, just now, running away from Nature’s Diner. You set it on fire, didn’t you?’

‘What?’ Alison exclaims. ‘No. She wouldn’t. She?—’

I silence her by raising my hand.

‘Lynne, you went down into the cellar, didn’t you? You saw the body behind the wall. You saw Jack.’

She nods. ‘I don’t know what I expected,’ she begins.

Her voice is barely above a whisper. ‘After thirty years, I thought I’d be looking at a skeleton.

I saw… I saw an actual body. He still had his hair.

He was wearing his clothes. He was in the same position I’d left him in. How? How is that possible?’

‘He was mummified. There was no air. You basically sealed him in a tomb.’

‘Wait,’ Alison says. ‘Mum didn’t kill my dad. She… didn’t. She couldn’t.’

‘It was Iain who told you to set fire to the body, wasn’t it?’ I ask. ‘It was Iain who told you that Jack had abused the twins and killed them. He said you should kill him to stop him abusing Alison. What happened? Did he kill Jack and tell you to help him hide the body?’

She nods.

‘No,’ Alison cries out, grabbing her mother’s hand. ‘I don’t believe a word of this.’

‘Everyone has said your mum changed after Celia and Jennifer disappeared and when your father supposedly walked out into the lake. It’s understandable, but the change wasn’t through grief. It was manufactured.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Do you ever go out with your mum, just the two of you?’

Alison frowns. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Answer me truthfully.’

It’s a while before she speaks. ‘No.’

‘Why not? What about mother and daughter shopping trips? Nights out for a drink in the local pub, or to the cinema?’

‘I… I don’t… we…’

‘Does she ever come over here to the cottage for a coffee and a chat?’

‘No. I always go over to the stables.’

‘Why?’

‘What?’

‘Why doesn’t she come here on her own?’

‘I… she’s… she’s busy with the paddocks and everything.’

‘But you’re not, though, are you?’ I ask, turning back to Lynne. ‘You’re at home, alone for most of the day. You spend your time cleaning the house, making meals for Iain, making sure his clothes are washed and ironed and everything is perfect in the house for him.’

Tears are streaming down Lynne’s face, but it’s devoid of emotion. She can’t speak. She nods.

‘Why did you give up being a midwife?’

She shakes her head.

‘Tell me, Lynne. Why did you give up your dream job?’

She opens her mouth to speak but a torrent of tears is released. ‘Iain made me,’ she cries.

‘Oh God, Mum, what are you saying?’

‘When you were young, Alison, just after Celia and Jennifer were taken, you were sent to stay with your aunt and uncle for a while. Your aunt is your mum’s sister. Tell me, do they ever visit each other?’

Alison shakes her head slowly as reality begins to dawn.

‘Why not?’ I ask Lynne.

Lynne wipes her tears with the blanket. ‘Iain says I don’t need them. He says I only need him.’

I turn to Alison. ‘For the past thirty years, your mother has been living in a coercive relationship. Iain has manufactured her entire life. He forced her to give up her work. He forced her to work on the paddocks when he needed her to, and he forced her to keep the house perfect for him. Whenever she goes out, he’s with her. Always. I’m right, aren’t I?’

Lynne nods. She turns to her daughter. ‘I’m so sorry, Alison.’

‘Why? Why didn’t I see it?’ Alison asks.

‘Because you were too close. Because it happened so gradually and after such a massive tragedy over such a long period of time, that nobody noticed.’

‘But… why? Why would he do that? He loves Mum.’

‘He doesn’t. There’s a very fine line between love and hate.

They’re both extreme emotions and it doesn’t take much for someone to switch between the two.

I believe Iain did love your mum, years ago, when they were first together.

But then Iain told Lynne that he couldn’t have children.

And all Lynne wanted was to be a mother.

She dumped him for Jack, and he had to sit back and watch as they fell in love, got married, and had a family.

A family that Iain believes should have been his. ’

I allow a silence to descend. Alison is in shock as she looks back over the past thirty years and tries to fit all the pieces together. Lynne looks as if life has been drained from her.

‘Iain hated Jack, didn’t he, Lynne?’ I ask.

She nods.

‘Jack suffered with depression. It wasn’t talked about as much in the nineties as it is now, and men certainly didn’t talk about their feelings back then, especially sons of farmers, who are real proper masculine men.

I’m guessing Jack will have told his father he felt sad at times, and I assume someone like Granville will have laughed and told him to pick himself up, stop being soft and be a man.

’ Lynne is nodding through all of this. ‘And that made Jack feel worse. His depression, untreated, deepened and he isolated himself, took himself off to bed for days on end. That fuelled Iain’s hatred even more.

He was wondering what Jack had to be depressed about when he had a wife and kids, something he craved more than anything. ’

‘I didn’t…’ Lynne can hardly get her words out. She’s shaking. She can’t control her tears. ‘I didn’t want to… sleep with Iain…’

‘Oh my God!’ Alison cries. She increases her hold on her mother.

‘It was New Year,’ she continues. ‘Jack was in bed. He had been, on and off, for most of Christmas. The girls were all in bed asleep. I was in the living room on my own. Ten o’clock on New Year’s Eve, Iain came over with a bottle of sherry.

I don’t even like sherry. He kept filling my glass.

I didn’t know what was happening until it was too late to stop him. ’

‘And after that he forced you to keep sleeping with him or he’d tell Jack. And you went along with it, because you knew how fragile Jack was.’

She nods.

‘Mum, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t see… I didn’t notice…’ Alison is crying into her mother’s shoulder.

‘Can I come in?’

We all look up to see Tania in the doorway.

‘That Porsche is going to get stolen the way you’ve left it in the middle of the road,’ she says, coming fully into the living room. ‘I’ve just come from the restaurant. It’s practically destroyed. Claire Daniels has been attacked. What’s going on?’ she asks, looking at everyone in turn.

‘Claire?’ Is she all right?’ Alison asks, her eyes wide in disbelief.

Tania shakes her head. ‘She’s unconscious. Paramedics have taken her to hospital.’

‘Who attacked her?’ Alison asks.

‘Iain,’ Lynne says quietly. ‘We were walking through the woods to the restaurant. We saw the police car parked around the back. He said he’d take care of it while I went into the cellar and set it on fire.

’ She talks with the expressionless tone of someone detached from the situation.

‘I just went along with it. He said we needed to destroy the evidence. I didn’t even question him.

All those sightings over the years. I needed to confirm that we’d really put him there, that he really was dead. ’

‘Lynne, where is Iain now?’ I ask her.

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Back home, I suppose.’

I jump to my feet.

‘Where are you going?’ Alison asks.

‘To get answers to the questions I still have, and to put an end to thirty years of torment.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ she says.

‘No. You need to stay with your mum.’

‘No. I need to hear the answers for myself. I’m struggling to believe a single word of this. I need to hear it from him.’

I take Tania to one side while Alison settles her mother. ‘Will you stay with Lynne?’

‘Of course. But what’s going on?’

‘I’ll explain it all to you later. Give us half an hour and then phone Gill Forsyth. Tell her to come to the stables.’

‘Why? What are you going to do?’

‘Iain has been lying and manipulating for thirty years. He’s a master at it. He’s not going to admit to anything we put to him. Looking at Lynne, I doubt she’s going to be in any fit state to testify against him. I need to force him into doing something that he can be arrested for.’

‘What?’

‘Killing me.’