‘No.’
Althea Potter looked up, and adjusted her glasses. ‘Unless I am mistaken, Inspector, this is all only circumstantial evidence.’
Holden turned to her right. ‘We have another piece of evidence, don’t we, Sergeant? Two in fact.’
Fox leant forward again. This time it was his turn to speak. ‘We found this photograph in your book. You remember the book, don’t you? Unless, by Carol Shields. With all those funny chapter titles. Well, the photograph was inside it, at the beginning of the chapter titled “Forthwith”.’
Fox laid two more polythene bags on the table, one containing a paperback copy of the book, and the other a small photograph. Bella ignored the book, and picked up the photograph. Its faded colour betrayed its age. A small child, maybe six months old, sat on the floor. It was looking slightly to the side, directly perhaps at someone trying to catch and keep its attention while the photographer focused.
‘Who is that?’ Holden asked quietly.
‘David.’ There was no delay in the answer. ‘I want to keep it,’ she said firmly.
‘It’s evidence, I’m afraid, but I’ll see if I can have a copy made.’
‘It’s mine. You can have a copy. I want the original.’
‘It’s only yours because you stole it.’
For the first
time in the interview, a look of uncertainty crept into Bella’s eyes. Holden saw it, and pressed on. ‘You stole it from Nanette Wright. This was her photo. Maureen has confirmed it.’
‘You can’t believe that murdering bitch.’
‘Vickie has confirmed it too.’
There was a silence. It was almost over. They had reached the end game. Holden sensed it. Even Fox could feel it.
Bella picked up the plastic cup of water that was sitting in front of her, and drank it all. ‘That woman was a miserable cow. She was always complaining. I shouldn’t have called Maureen a bitch. Maureen is OK. It was Nanette who was the bitch. Maureen, David, Vickie, even that miserable arse Jim visited her regularly, took her out every Sunday, and she wasn’t the least bit grateful. She was particularly unpleasant about David. Used to call him a stupid spastic. Not to his face, of course. But that’s how she described him to me. Anyway, one time after I’d had to clean her up after she’d messed her bed, she grabbed my arm, and said she wanted to show me something. So she showed me this photo of David as a baby. Of course, I recognized it. It was the only photo I ever remember us taking of him. It was my child.’ Bella stopped talking, and sank her face into her hands. Holden waited. Outside, from down the corridor, there came the sound of laughter, that soared and dived like an out-of-control submachine gun. Holden thought she recognized DC Rachman, and vowed to strangle him later.
Inside the room, a huge sob erupted from somewhere deep within Bella, causing her trim figure to heave and shudder. Then she looked up and rubbed at her eyes. ‘Imagine! David, the big gawky guy who came to visit her, was my son. Christ that was a shock. Not that I told her. Not that I had a chance to tell her, because she then started to spout off about how David wasn’t really her grandson. “He’s adopted,” she said. “You can see he’s not our flesh and blood. He’s not like Vickie. But what can you expect? His mother was a slut. A drug-addled slut. Tell me, Bella,” she said, looking straight into my eyes, “what sort of chance does a boy have when his mother feeds him cat food off the floor?”’
Bella picked up the plastic cup in front of her, realized it was empty, and crumpled it in her fist, before tossing it onto the floor.
‘So I decided to do two things. To teach the vicious old cow a lesson, and somehow to make it up to David. To get to know him. To show him that I wasn’t bad. To get him to understand that I’d been through a rough time then, but that now I was OK. I wanted to be his mother. Do you understand?’
‘So you put morphine in her whisky flask?’
‘It seemed like a good way to do it.’
‘And how did you get the morphine?’
‘From my flat.’ Holden made a face, indicating that this was hardly an answer. ‘It wasn’t difficult. I often used to nick the odd pill or capsule. In case it came in useful. Occasionally, I’d give them to friends.’
‘But stuff like morphine is under lock and key and carefully monitored.’
Bella gave a snort of derision. ‘Sleight of hand! I’d help hand the drugs out sometimes. Fran or someone else would hand them to me, and I’d administer them, but if she gave me two, it was easy enough to slip one into my pocket and give the patient only one. They were so dopey they didn’t notice. Anyway, my next shift I brought some in, and when I was tidying her bed and stuff, I opened some of the capsules into her flask. To be honest, I didn’t think it would kill her. But it was a very nice surprise when it did.’
‘Even though it put David in the frame?’
‘That was unfortunate.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I hadn’t realized that he was the one he who filled the flask for her at home.’
‘So, just for the record, you admit that you wilfully murdered Nanette Wright?’
Ms Potter stretched her hand across her client, motioning her to silence. ‘Please don’t try and put words into the mouth of my client, Inspector. What she actually said was that she wanted to teach the vicious old cow a lesson. I am fairly sure those were her words. She has also stated that she did not believe that the dosage of morphine she put in the hip flask would kill Nanette. That is all she is going to say for now.’
‘I merely wanted to establish—’