there to have it out with her and lost control.’
‘Jesus.’
‘What?’
‘Why the hell didn’t you let the police know?’ Chamberlain said.
‘I didn’t know any of this until Ray had been arrested, did I? I didn’t know it was him.’ Sandra was reaching for the bottle again. ‘All those women were already dead by then, so I kept my mouth shut. It wouldn’t have brought any of them back, would it?’
‘When did you find out?’
‘He wrote to me from prison,’ Sandra said. ‘Just the once. Wanted me to know why he’d killed Fran.’ There was hatred suddenly, glittering in the woman’s eyes. ‘Wanted my forgiveness, if you can believe that.’
Seven, Chamberlain thought. Seven women had been murdered because Frances Walsh had kept Garvey’s child a secret from him. It made the notion of a changed personality sound even more ridiculous than it had before. ‘So, why did he keep on killing?’ she asked. ‘After your sister?’
Sandra lifted the bottle on to her lap and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Christ knows. Maybe something had snapped. I don’t know how that mental stuff works. Maybe he was trying to hide the real reason he’d killed Fran… if not knowing about his son was the reason. Maybe he just did it once and liked it. Doesn’t really matter now, does it?’ Chamberlain was finding the woman’s calm, water-under-the-bridge attitude hard to stomach, but she couldn’t, with her hand on her heart, say that it mattered at all. ‘So, you took Simon? After Frances had been murdered?’
‘It was either me or Social Services, so what was I supposed to do? I mean, things had never really got back to normal between me and Fran, all that ancient history with her and Ray. But she never deserved what that bastard did to her. And Simon was family, so I didn’t even have to think about it.’
‘What did you tell Simon about his father?’
‘Same as Fran had told him: his dad had died when he was very little, vague stuff about how he’d been an engineer. But what’s strange is that he never really asked. Had enough on his plate with what had happened to his mum, I suppose, and he went through quite a tough time at school.’ She blinked slowly, remembering. ‘He got angry with her a bit later on, angry with everyone. But that happens to people sometimes, doesn’t it?’ She poured the last of the wine into her glass. ‘When they lose someone.’
Chamberlain waited for Sandra Phipps to continue, watching the woman’s chest rise and fall, listening to its soft wheeze and the gentle bubbling of the fish tank. She started slightly when a mobile phone began to ring, a loud and ludicrously cheery samba.
Sandra leaned across to a small table and snatched up her phone. She stared at the screen for a moment or two and then switched it off. ‘The old man,’ she said. ‘Probably just ringing for a natter. I’ll call him back.’
‘You were saying about-’
‘Look, I just wanted things to be as normal for the kid as possible, OK? Last thing I wanted was for him to know who his dad was or what he’d done. I didn’t want him feeling like a freak.’
Chamberlain fought to keep her reaction from her face. ‘When did you last see him?’
‘He left when he was seventeen,’ Sandra said. ‘Ten years ago, that would be.’ She thought for a second or two. ‘Yeah, ten. It was pretty sudden, you know, he just told me he wanted to get his own place. I think he just wanted to strike out on his own, find his feet. Understandable.’ She nodded towards the door. ‘She’ll be off soon enough.’
‘Did you hear from him?’
‘Once or twice. Just to let me know he was all right. He wasn’t though, was he? The police told me he was living like a tramp when he died.’ She took a drink, closed her eyes as it went down. ‘I’ve been feeling guilty about that ever since I heard what happened.’
‘So, why now?’ Chamberlain asked. ‘You’ve kept all this to yourself for fifteen years.’
Sandra shrugged. ‘Truth doesn’t really matter any more, does it? Not now Simon’s dead.’
For want of anything better to say, Chamberlain shook her head. Said, ‘I suppose not.’
Chamberlain knew very well that Simon Walsh was not dead, but how could she possibly tell this woman? I know your nephew is not the man they hauled out of that canal with a shattered skull and a face like a squashed cantaloupe. I know because Simon is the one who killed him. Who has killed a great many more…
As far as good news/bad news routines went, it was right up there with the best.
Sandra cleared her throat, sat forward in her chair. The wine she had drunk could be heard in her voice, which was suddenly brighter, louder. ‘You said you wanted to talk to me about Ray Garvey,’ she said. ‘When you got here. You never said why.’
‘Didn’t I?’ Chamberlain stood up. That was a conversation for someone else to suffer, someone who still possessed a warrant card. Now she just needed to get out of Sandra Phipps’ house as quickly as possible.
She needed to call Tom Thorne.
Detective Sergeant Rob Gibbons glanced up from his book, as he dutifully did each time he turned a page, looked briefly at each of the three security monitors on the desk in front of him, then went happily back to reading.
To losing himself, and loving it.
The job he did, the stupid, shitty people he had to deal with day in day out, what else was he going to read but fantasy? The likes of that loser Thorne could take the piss all they wanted – dragons and hobbits, my arse – but to Gibbons’ way of thinking, the outlandish worlds created in fantasy novels, in the best ones anyway, made a lot more sense than the piss-poor one he lived in. They were pretty much the most popular books in prison libraries too, certainly the ones that got nicked most often, and you didn’t need to be a genius to figure out why. Fantasy, along with the true-crime stuff, obviously.
As a habit, reading was a damn sight safer than gambling, Gibbons knew that much, and he knew Brian Spibey had a problem. Hours on end trying to take a few quid off a pair like Dowd and Fowler, how sad was that? He’d been up there since lunchtime, for Christ’s sake. Gibbons was happy enough alone with his book, but they still had a job to do, and he was starting to think he’d need to have a quiet word. Either with Spibey or, if he felt like being a real arsehole about it, with someone higher up. That was always a big step, but-
He heard a shout from upstairs and dropped his book; looked up in time to see a shadow cross the screen on one of the monitors, the camera at the end of the first-floor corridor.
He picked up his radio. ‘Brian, you on the way down?’
A hiss of static.
‘Brian? Fuck!’
It hadn’t looked like Spibey…
He got up and moved quickly around the desk, his shoes squeaking, stupidly loud as he walked across the lobby. Nobody would come down without Spibey’s say-so, would they? They were supposed to stay in their rooms with the doors locked. Had the silly bugger lost it completely and got pissed with them?
He turned on to the stairwell, then stopped and staggered back, the radio slipping from his fingers and clattering on to the marble floor. ‘Jesus!’ He stared up at the man walking slowly down the stairs towards him. The lost look in his eyes and the blood soaking the front of his shirt. ‘What happened? Jesus…’
‘He just went mental. I think you need to call someone.’
Gibbons could only nod and swallow, unable to move for those few seconds it took the man to descend the final few steps. Gawping at the blood and the look on the man’s face. Seeing far too late the kitchen knife that had slipped from beneath a sleeve into Anthony Garvey’s hand.
‘Slow down, Carol.’
Thorne had only just finished talking to Phil Hendricks when the call came through. He had been joking with Dave Holland, describing some of the pathologist’s escapades in Sweden. Now, hearing something in Thorne’s voice, Holland hovered near his desk and listened, mouthed, ‘What?’
Thorne shook his head.
‘Are you listening to me, Tom?’ Chamberlain sounded annoyed, out of breath.
‘’Course I am, but you’re not-’
‘Ray Garvey’s son is Simon Walsh.’
