Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

They never got any further in the conversation. The doorbell rang. Lawson went to answer it, and found Holden, Fox, and Wilson outside.

‘We’re just having a cup of tea,’ she said.

‘I need to ask Mrs Wright some more questions,’ Holden said softly.

In reality, nearly ten minutes elapsed before Holden started asking her questions. That was because she needed to go to the loo. She had wanted to at David’s flat, but what with it being small and with Fox and Wilson hanging around, it had all felt a bit too public. Maureen offered her a choice – the one by the front door or the main bathroom up the stairs. Holden opted for upstairs.

When she came down, the four others were sitting in the living room. More tea had been made, and a full cup sat in front of the one free chair. Holden sat down and took a sip.

Fox passed David’s diary to her. She picked it up and looked at it, and then at Maureen. ‘This is David’s diary.’ It was a statement, but she said it as if it was a question.

Maureen nodded. ‘I know.’

‘You’ve seen it before.’

‘Seen it, yes. But I’ve not looked inside. Diaries are private,’ she added reproachfully. ‘David didn’t let people read what was inside.’

Holden frowned, the implications of Maureen’s tone apparently lost on her. She opened the diary at random near the beginning, and showed it to Maureen. It was a week from the beginning of March. ‘There’s nothing very private here. Look! Merely what he was planning to do. Go to work, watch the football, come to you to for a meal. Look here, for example, on the Sunday. “Roast lunch at Mum’s”.’

‘So why are you showing me it?’ There was more than a tinge of aggression now.

Holden pulled the diary back to herself, turned to somewhere near the back, and pushed it in front of Maureen again. ‘Last week was a bit different though. Busier for a start.’ She paused, letting Maureen take a look. ‘But it’s the entry for Saturday that intrigues me. Not the football game, but the rest of it. Here.’ And she pressed her finger down on the page. “Mother’s flat”!’ she read, as if Maureen was an illiterate 5-year-old. ‘What do you make of that?’

Maureen studied the page for several seconds. ‘I don’t know,’ she said firmly. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘He didn’t come and see you on Saturday night, did he?’

‘No.’ She spoke the word reluctantly, wishing it wasn’t the truth.

‘And you don’t have a flat, do you?’

‘No,’ she repeated, even more reluctantly.

‘So, Maureen, who is Mother?’

‘I’m his mother!’ She bristled, a hen protecting its chicks. ‘You know I’m his mother.’

Holden stabbed the diary with her forefinger, and when she spoke, tact and diplomacy had been tossed out the window. ‘So what is this all about?’

‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.’

‘David’s adopted, isn’t he? I remember that’s what your husband said. Vickie is your own child, but David was adopted.’

‘Jesus!’ Maureen stared at the woman who was tormenting her. ‘What the hell difference does that make?’ she hissed. ‘They’re both my children. Equally! And they always will be. You wouldn’t understand that, though. You don’t look the type to have children. You wouldn’t know what it was like to care for them for all those years, through the good times and the bad, the sleepless nights, being hauled into school because someone’s complained. Or to see your son heartbroken because some creep with a Hitler complex has thrown him out of his beloved Boy Scouts.’ She dribbled to a halt.

‘I think this refers to David’s birth mother,’ Holden said quietly, as if the torrent of abuse had been directed at someone else altogether. ‘He calls you “Mum” in the diary, always. This here is “Mother”, and she appears to live in a flat. Do you know who she is?’

Maureen said nothing for some time. She was having to think quickly – whether it was best to tell the truth, or to lie, or maybe a bit of both. ‘Sorry,’ she said eventually, and sat down again. ‘That was over the top.’ And now, for the first time, she looked Holden in the eye. ‘I did know something had happened. I knew something had changed for David. I could tell by his behaviour. But on my life, I didn’t know he had met up with his birth mother. But if he has, then that would explain an awful lot.’

Holden nodded, more thoroughly than she intended, for she too was having to think quickly. ‘It wasn’t just a diary we found at David’s flat,’ she said. ‘My sergeant found something else too. A number of drawings. Portraits of people.’

‘Those would be David’s,’ Maureen replied quickly. ‘He’s good at drawing.’ The pride she took in her son, adopted though he was, was obvious.

Holden gestured to Fox, who passed over a sheet of A5 paper. ‘Do you recognize this person?’

Maureen looked at it for several seconds before she spoke. ‘It looks like the auxiliary from Sunnymede. Bella. She was very good to David’s gran.’

‘We thought it looked like Bella too.’