Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘They are going to arrest me, Mum.’

‘I won’t let them.’ The words were firm, decisive, allowing (she hoped) no argument.

‘They are going to lock me up. They think I killed Dad, and that other man. And Nan Nan. They think I murdered her too. My Nan Nan!’ His voice rose to a crescendo of pain, as he strove to be heard over the noise approaching from his right.

‘You didn’t kill them, David, did you?’ She shouted back. ‘So they can’t lock you up!’

But the logic of this argument had no impact on David. ‘I won’t let them lock me up. I won’t.’ And he turned round, and slowly raised his arms up high again.

Everything then happened in slow motion, or that was how it seemed to Lawson, rooted to the spot by her car.

Bella was shouting: ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, David!’

The Oxford-bound express was greedily devouring the space that separated it from the bridge.

Holden, Fox, and Maureen were setting off at a run towards the bridge, but doomed never to get there in time.

David’s arms were almost vertical. Against the pale blue sky, Lawson could see his whole body quiver uncertainly in the air.

And then, even above the roar of the oncoming train, Lawson heard Maureen wail in agony. She was shaking her arms. ‘I killed them, David!’ she screamed. ‘I killed the bastards. So the police won’t lock you up.’

David may have heard. He half turned, and for the briefest of moments his eyes locked with Maureen’s. And then his wavering body lost all balance, and Lawson saw him fall forward into the path of the train.

EPILOGUE

They sat either side of a featureless rectangular table – Holden and Fox nearest the door, Maureen Wright and her solicitor (disconcertingly surnamed Constable) opposite. The room itself was featureless too – a door that might briefly, in the 1980s, have seemed modern, a single double-glazed window some six feet from the floor (and so offering only delinquent basketball players a view), and a flooring so inoffensive that Holden, who had been in there often enough, wouldn’t, if asked, have been able to describe its colour, let alone its pattern. They sat on moulded plastic chairs with metal legs, and both Fox and Constable had a sheaf of paperwork on the table in front of them.

Holden had already completed the formalities – pressed the record button, announced the date and time, and listed the persons present – but there was a hiatus of several seconds before she asked her first question.

‘Maureen, yesterday, at a time of intense pressure, you claimed that you killed Paul Greenleaf and your husband Jim Wright.’

‘Yes.’

‘I am now asking you to confirm and clarify that statement.’ She paused. Maureen was looking directly at her, head up. ‘Did you kill Paul Greenleaf?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And did you kill your husband, Jim Wright?’

‘Oh, yes. I most certainly did.’

‘Tell me how you killed Mr Greenleaf.’

This question surprised her. ‘How? You know how.’

‘I need you to tell me.’

‘Why?’

‘In case you’re lying.’

‘Why should I be lying?’

Holden leant forward. ‘You wouldn’t be the first parent who lied to protect a son or daughter.’

Maureen glanced across at her solicitor. He nodded. She turned back and leant forward too, so that her face was barely eighteen inches from Holden’s. ‘I used a piece of garden wire, stretched between two trees. It caught him round the throat. At least I think it did, only it was hard to see clearly, and I wasn’t actually that bothered. What I was bothered about was beating the bastard with a hammer until I was sure he was dead.’ She leant back, and folded her arms. ‘Is that enough detail?’

‘And your husband?’