‘Oh, please tell.’
‘Well, the family had all gone to London on holiday, to stop with Samuel’s relatives; Patrick would only have been about five. And there was an auction on in town that Patrick’s mother had read about. Anyway, whatever it was they’d gone there for, what they ended up buying was the painting. You see Patrick had been walking around the hall with them viewing the lots, when he’d seen the picture and was captivated, couldn’t take his eyes off it, he said. So they bought it for him, and he said that when his mother made the winning bid and the hammer came down that he turned and hugged her. In fact, that might be one of the few times I caught him remembering her kindly.’
‘And unkindly?’
‘As I say, for the most part his family were a closed book: who knows what pain he felt there. But when our own marriage broke down: when he began to get controlling, and his anger really showed, then he would bring up his parents to punish me, saying, “My father always told me you couldn’t trust women, they let you down, aren’t loyal, and then they run out on you.”’
‘Maisie, you don’t have to go through this,’ began Janice, but the woman clearly needed the release,
‘He’d say, “My mother abandoned us, and now you’re abandoning me.”
‘”I’m not abandoning you, Patrick.” I’d say. “You’re pushing me away, you’re making my life unbearable.”’
‘What would cause his anger, Maisie?’ asked Cori.
‘Almost anything by the end. He used to get these wild fantasies when I went out, that I was having an affair, that I was leaving him. And heaven forbid if I ever met any male friends. In the end I was scared to leave the house for how he’d be when I returned.’
‘You never met his father, Samuel?’
‘No, he died when Patrick was Seventeen. I think he was older than Stella, had fought in the War: the North Atlantic, Patrick told me. He had a book of great campaigns with markers for the pages his father’s ships appeared on.’
‘Sounds like he was proud of his dad.’
‘God, he idolised him.’
‘And how did you think of him?’
‘He always sounded a bully. God knows how he explained it to Patrick, but one day the boy woke up and his mother had been sent out of her own home.’
‘We see it a lot after a painful separation,’ added Janice. ‘One parent can demonise the other, make them sound worse than they were to justify their own actions.’
‘And the end of your time in the house?’ asked Cori?
‘The last time… the last time he simply lost control, slipped into some kind of wild state, called me every name under the sun in front of the children before just bursting into tears in front of me, screaming, “Get out, all of you, just get out!” I wouldn’t let my kids in with him again after that: I took them out the door that minute, and he’s never asked to see them again.’
‘But why?’
‘I think he honestly thought they’d grow up to “betray” him: just like his mother did, like I did; or so be thinks.’
Even as Cori wondered how much turmoil one family could bear, there was a fly buzzing in her ear; and then she found it and swatted it,
‘You said “children” back there?’
‘Yes, Peter and Esther. Peter’s my eldest. I’m sorry, you didn’t know?’
Cori tilted her head back, as if to ask: and are there any other relatives Patrick didn’t tell us he had?
Maisie continued, ‘Of course you wouldn’t know, he’s not here at the moment. I’m afraid he never really settled anywhere after we moved; he’s with the Navy Cadets now, somewhere on the Channel. It’s the best thing for him, the active life. It helps him get things out of his system.’
It didn’t help his father or grandfather, thought Cori.
‘And is he still in touch with you, with Esther?’
‘Yes, he calls us often. I fact he was the first one Esther called that evening, she told me, asking if he knew who Stella was.’
‘And did he?’
‘No, that’s why she came running to find me.’
‘And what time did she call him?’
‘Oh, earlier, before she caught the coach.’
‘Before she went back to the Cedars on the night?’
‘I… really don’t know.’
Janice gave Cori a warning look, both knowing this was no place for such an interrogation, but she only had one question left and couldn’t leave without knowing the answer,
‘Maisie, is Peter still in touch with Patrick?’
‘Not that I know of.’
Cori struggled for the right words, ‘But is it possible that in such a situation as this, after hearing his sister so upset, he might call his father directly to ask for answers where Esther might be wary of doing so?’
‘It’s possible. He’s headstrong is my Peter, but honest with it. Don’t tar him with his family’s brush. He may be a Mars, but not all their men are devils.’
‘He kept his father’s name?’
‘As I say, he was never really a part of Esther and I’s project to start a new life: he was already keen to do his own thing. I think he feels the burden of his family’s history as much as anyone… Love! How long have you been standing there? You shouldn’t be listening to this.’
The women all turned to see Esther in the hallway, easily in earshot.
‘There’s something I need to tell you, Sergeant. It’s important.’
Janice, duty-bound, intervened; but like her mother Esther would not be held back,
‘Sergeant, when I went back that evening, there was someone else there.’
Cori wanted to speak, but the girl continued before she could get a word out,
‘You need to know this, to catch him. After I read the letter I knew I had to go back to Stella to ask her: ask her how she had been Mrs Mars, how she had bought the painting. I couldn’t ask anyone else, I had to ask her. So I went back. It was dark by then, I’d spent hours thinking about what to do.’
Maisie rushed up to Esther and held her, smoothing her hair as she did so,
‘You don’t have to say any of this now.’
‘No, Mum. I want to. The stairway was empty — I think everyone was watching TV — so I went up, and walked along to her door, but…’
‘Yes?’ asked Cori, curiosity getting the better of her.
‘Well, I’d never been there at night and it scared me, those plants at the end of the corridor, their shadows. And… there was someone in them, in the shadow, standing there… I couldn’t go any nearer. I didn’t go to her room, I turned around and ran off. I left her there; I left her there to be killed.’
Maisie clutched her daughter hard as she dissolved into tears; Cori intoning,
‘I must find the Inspector, I must relay this to him.’
Janice darted up close to the Sergeant, a fellow professional issuing their opinion in compassionate whispers,
‘The state Esther was in that night we can’t say what she saw. That statement we just heard wouldn’t stand in court.’
Cori placed a hand on Janice’s shoulder, ‘I sincerely hope she doesn’t have to be within a hundred miles of the place.’
‘Have you ever heard a story like it, Sergeant? And I don’t think either mother or daughter have begun to fully accept what this all leads to.’
These were Janice’s last words to Cori, and stayed with her as she left the Social Services building, Cori remembering that Ludmila Mars had been coming to that same realisation as Maisie the night before, the realisation of their having married a man who could strangle his own mother to death.
