The Wrong Mother Read online

  A garden like the Brethericks’ would have terrified him. It had too many components; you couldn’t look out of one window and see all of it. Steep terraces crammed full of trees, bushes and plants surrounded the house on all sides. Many were in flower, but the colours, instead of looking vibrant, appeared sad and reckless, swamped by too much straggly green. A blanket of something dark and clingy climbed up the walls, blocking some of the windows on the ground floor and blurring the boundary between garden and house.

  The terraces led down to a large rectangular lawn at the back, which was the only tidy part of the garden. Below the lawn was a ramshackle orchard that looked as if no one had set foot in it for years, and beyond that a stream and an overgrown paddock. At the side of the house stood a double greenhouse that was full of what looked to Simon like tangled, hairy green limbs and troughs full of murky water. Ropes of foliage pressed against the glass like snakes pushing to escape. In the wide driveway at the side of the house were two free-standing stone buildings that appeared to have no use. Each was probably big enough to house a family of three. One had a dusty, long-since-defunct toilet with a cracked black seat in one corner. The other, a young bobby at the scene had told Simon, used to be a coal store. Simon didn’t know how anyone could bear to have two buildings on their land that did nothing, were nothing. Waste, excess, neglect: all these things disgusted him.

  Between the two outbuildings, a flight of stone steps led up to a garage, the access to which was from Castle Park Lane. If you climbed to the top of the steps and looked down, you might think Corn Mill House had fallen off the road and landed upright in a hammock of untamed greenery. The house itself had a black-tiled hipped roof but the rest of it was grey. Not solid grey, like the filing cabinets in the CID room, but a washed-out ethereal grey like a damp, misty sky. In certain lights it was more of a sickly beige. It gave the house a spectral look. No two windows were in alignment; all were odd shapes and rattled in the wind. Each one was divided into smaller panes by strips of black lead. The enormous living room and the not-much-smaller entrance hall were wood-panelled on all sides, which made for a dark and sombre look.

  There were no window sills, which was disconcerting: the glass was set into the stone of the walls. Simon thought it made the place feel like a dungeon. Still, he had to admit that he hadn’t come here in the best of circumstances; he’d been called in after the balloon had gone up at the nick, had arrived knowing he’d find a dead mother and daughter. He supposed it wasn’t the house’s fault.

  Mark Bretherick was the director of a company called Spilling Magnetic Refrigeration that made cooling units for low-temperature physicists. Not that Simon had a clue what that entailed. When Sam had explained it to the team at the first briefing, Simon had pictured a huddle of shivering scientists in thin white coats, their teeth chattering. Mark had conceived and built up the company himself and now had a staff of seven working for him. Very different, Simon imagined, from being given your purpose and instructions by someone who was paid more than you. Am I jealous of Bretherick? he wondered. If I am, I’m sicker in the head than I’ve ever been.

  ‘You think he did it, don’t you?’ said Sam Kombothekra, parking on the concrete courtyard in front of Corn Mill House. Twenty cars could have parked there. Simon hated men who cared about impressing people. Was Mark Bretherick in that category or did he need parking for that number of cars? Did he feel he deserved more than the average man? Than, say, Simon?

  ‘No,’ he told Kombothekra. Don’t invent stupid opinions and ascribe them to me. ‘We know he didn’t do it.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Kombothekra sounded relieved. ‘We’ve been over him with a microscope: his movements, his finances-he didn’t get a professional in to do the job. Or if he did, he didn’t pay them. He’s in the clear, unless something new turns up.’

  ‘Which it won’t.’

  A man called William Markes is very probably going to ruin my life. That’s what Geraldine Bretherick had written in her diary. Typed, rather. The diary had been found on the laptop computer that lived on an antique table in a corner of the lounge-Geraldine’s computer. Mark had his own, in his home office upstairs. Before she had given up her job to look after Lucy, Geraldine had worked in IT, so clearly computers were her thing, but even so… what sort of woman types her personal diary on to a laptop?

  Kombothekra was watching him keenly, waiting for more, so Simon added, ‘William Markes did it. He murdered them. Whoever he is.’

  Kombothekra sighed. ‘Colin and Chris looked into that and got nowhere.’ Simon turned away to hide his distaste. The first time Kombothekra had referred to Sellers and Gibbs as ‘Colin and Chris’, Simon hadn’t known who he was talking about. ‘Unless and until we find a William Markes who knew Geraldine Bretherick-’

  ‘He didn’t know her,’ said Simon impatiently. ‘She didn’t know him. Otherwise she wouldn’t have said “a man called William Markes”. She’d just have said “William Markes”, or “William”.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Think of all the other names she mentioned, people she knew well: Lucy, Mark, Michelle. Cordy. Not “a woman called Cordelia O’Hara”.’ Simon had spent two hours yesterday talking to Mrs O’Hara, who had insisted he too call her Cordy. She’d been adamant that Geraldine Bretherick had killed nobody. Simon had told her she needed to speak in person to Kombothekra. He’d doubted his own ability to convey to his sergeant, in Cordy O’Hara’s absence, how persuasive her account of Geraldine Bretherick as someone who would commit neither murder nor suicide had been. It was far more perceptive and detailed than the usual ‘I can’t believe it-she seemed so normal’ that all detectives were familiar with.

  But either Mrs O’Hara hadn’t bothered to seek out Kombothekra and repeat her insights to him, or else she had failed to make any impact on his certainty that Geraldine was responsible for both deaths. Simon had noticed that Kombothekra’s softly spoken politeness cloaked a stubborn streak that would not have achieved its goals nearly so often were it more overt.

  ‘Michelle Greenwood wasn’t someone Geraldine Bretherick knew well.’ Kombothekra sounded apologetic about contradicting Simon. ‘She babysat for Lucy from time to time, that was all. And, yes, she referred to her husband and daughter in the diary as “Lucy” and “Mark”, but what about “my terminally cheerful mother”?’

  ‘There’s a clear difference between inventing your own private, comic labels for friends and family and saying “a man called William Markes”. Don’t tell me you can’t see it. Would you ever describe the Snowman as “a man called Giles Proust”? In a diary that no one else was meant to read?’ Come to think of it, Simon had never heard Kombothekra refer to Inspector Proust as ‘the Snowman’. Whereas Simon, Sellers and Gibbs often forgot that it wasn’t his real and only name.

  ‘Okay, good point.’ Kombothekra nodded encouragingly. ‘So, where does that take us? Let’s say William Markes was someone Geraldine didn’t know. But she knew of him…’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘… so how could someone she doesn’t know and has never met be in a position to ruin her life?’

  Simon resented having to answer. ‘I’m a disabled, gay, Jewish communist living in Germany in the late 1930s,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ve never met Adolf Hitler, and I don’t know him personally…’

  ‘Okay,’ Kombothekra conceded. ‘So something she’d heard about this William Markes person made her think he might ruin her life. But we can’t find him. We can’t find a William Markes-even with the surname spelled in all its possible variations-who had any connection with Geraldine Bretherick whatsoever.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist,’ said Simon as they got out of the car. Mark Bretherick stood in the porch, watching them with wide, stunned eyes. He had flung open the front door while they were still undoing their seat belts. The same had happened yesterday. Had he been waiting in the hall, peering through the leaded stained glass? Simon wondered. Walking round his enormous house,
searching every room for his missing wife and daughter, who were as alive in his mind as they’d ever been? He was wearing the same pale blue shirt and black corduroy trousers he had worn since he’d found Geraldine and Lucy’s bodies. The shirt had tide-marks under the arms, dried sweat.

  Bretherick stepped outside, on to the drive, then immediately reversed the action, retreating back into his porch as if he’d suddenly noticed the distance between his visitors and himself and didn’t have the energy.

  ‘She wrote a suicide note.’ Kombothekra’s quiet voice followed Simon towards the house. ‘Her husband and her mother said there was no doubt the handwriting was hers, and our subsequent checks proved them right.’ Another thing Kombothekra did all the time: hit you with his best point, the one he’d been saving up, at a moment when he knew you wouldn’t be able to reply.

  Simon was already extending a hand to Mark Bretherick, who seemed thinner even than yesterday. His bony hand closed around Simon’s and held it in a rigid grip, as if he wanted to test the bones inside.

  ‘DC Waterhouse. Sergeant. Thank you for coming.’

  ‘It’s no problem,’ said Simon. ‘How are you bearing up?’

  ‘I don’t think I am.’ Bretherick stood aside to let them in. ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing, if anything.’ He sounded angry; it wasn’t the bewildered voice Simon had grown used to. Bretherick had found a fluency; each word was no longer a struggle.

  ‘Are you sure this is the best place for you to be? Alone?’ asked Kombothekra. He never gave up. Bretherick didn’t answer. He’d been adamant that he wanted to return home as soon as the forensic team had finished at Corn Mill House, and he’d refused the police’s repeated attempts to assign him a family liaison officer.

  ‘My parents will be here later, and Geraldine’s mum,’ said Bretherick. ‘Go through to the lounge. Can I get you a drink? I’ve managed to work out where the kitchen is. That’s what happens when you spend more time in your own home than half an hour at the beginning of the day and an hour at the end of it. Pity I was never here while my wife and daughter were still alive.’

  Simon decided he’d leave that one for Kombothekra to respond to, and the sergeant was already saying all the right things: ‘What happened wasn’t your fault, Mark. Nobody is responsible for another person’s suicide.’

  ‘I’m responsible for believing your stories instead of thinking for myself.’ Mark Bretherick laughed bitterly. He remained standing as Simon and Kombothekra sat down at either end of a long sofa that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a French palace. ‘Suicide. That’s it then, is it? You’ve decided.’

  ‘The inquest won’t be heard until all the relevant evidence has been collated,’ said Kombothekra, ‘but, yes, at the moment we’re treating your wife’s death as suicide.’

  On one wall of the lounge, twenty-odd framed drawings and paintings hung from the wood panelling. Lucy Bretherick’s art-works. Simon looked again at the smiling faces, the suns, the houses. Often the figures were holding hands, sometimes in rows of three. In some the words ‘mummy’, ‘daddy’ and ‘me’ were floating nearby, in mid-air. If these pictures were anything to go by, Lucy had been a normal, happy child from a normal, happy family. How had Cordy O’Hara put it? Geraldine wasn’t just content, she was radiantly happy. And I don’t mean in a stupid, naïve way. She was realistic and down-to-earth about her life-she took the piss out of herself all the time. And Mark-God, she could be hilarious about him! But she loved her life-even silly little everyday things made her excited: new shoes, new bubble bath, anything. She was like a kid in that respect. She was one of those rare people who enjoyed every minute of every day.

  Witnesses, especially ones close to the victim, could be unreliable, but still… Kombothekra needed to hear what Simon had heard. Cordy O’Hara’s words felt more real to him than the words in Geraldine Bretherick’s suicide note.

  The Brethericks had celebrated their ten-year wedding anniversary three weeks before Geraldine and Lucy had died. Simon noticed that the anniversary cards were still on the mantelpiece. Or back on the mantelpiece, rather, since the scene-of-crime and forensic teams had presumably moved them at some stage. If Simon had still been working with Charlie, he’d have talked to her about the anniversary cards, about what was written in them. Pointless to talk to Kombothekra about it.

  ‘One of my suits is missing,’ Bretherick said, folding his arms, waiting for a response. He sounded defiant, as if he expected to be contradicted. ‘It’s an Ozwald Boateng one, brown, double-breasted. It’s disappeared.’

  ‘When did you last see it? When did you notice it was gone?’ Simon asked.

  ‘This morning. I don’t know what made me look, but… I don’t wear it very often. Hardly ever. So I don’t know how long it’s not been there.’

  ‘Mark, I don’t understand,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Are you implying that this missing suit has some bearing on what happened to Geraldine and Lucy?’

  ‘I’m more than implying it. What if someone killed them, got blood on his clothes and needed something to wear to leave the house?’

  Simon had been thinking the same thing. Kombothekra disagreed; his oh-so-sensitive tone made that apparent, to Simon at least. ‘Mark, I understand that the idea of Geraldine committing suicide is extremely distressing for you-’

  ‘Not just suicide-murder. The murder of our daughter. Don’t bother trying to be tactful, Sergeant. It’s not as if I’m going to forget that Lucy’s dead if you don’t say it out loud.’ Bretherick’s body sagged. He put his arms around his head, as if to protect it from blows, and began to cry silently, rocking back and forth. ‘Lucy…’ he said.

  Kombothekra walked over to him and patted him on the back. ‘Mark, why don’t you sit down?’

  ‘No! How do you explain it, Sergeant? Why would my suit have disappeared, apart from the reason I’ve given you? It’s gone. I’ve searched the whole house.’ Bretherick swivelled round to face Simon. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Where did the suit normally live? In the wardrobe in your bedroom?’

  Bretherick nodded.

  ‘And you definitely haven’t removed it? Left it in a hotel or at a friend’s house?’ Simon suggested.

  ‘It was in my wardrobe,’ Bretherick insisted angrily. ‘I didn’t lose it, imagine it or donate it to charity.’ He wiped his wet face with his shirt sleeve.

  ‘Might Geraldine have taken it to the dry-cleaner’s before… say, last week?’ Kombothekra asked.

  ‘No. She only took clothes to the cleaner’s when I asked her to. When I ordered her to, because I’m too busy and important to make sure my own clothes are clean. Sad, isn’t it? Well, they’re not clean any more.’ Bretherick raised his arms to reveal new damp patches on his shirt, superimposed over the dry sweat stains. ‘You might well wonder why I’m so upset.’ He addressed the coving on the ceiling. ‘I hardly ever saw my wife and daughter. Often they were there but I didn’t look at them-I looked at the newspaper or the television, or my BlackBerry. If they hadn’t died, would I ever have spent time with them, enough time? Probably not. So, if I look at it that way, I’m not really going to be missing much, am I? Now that they’re dead.’

  ‘You spent every Saturday and Sunday with them,’ said Kombothekra patiently.

  ‘When I wasn’t at a conference. I never dressed Lucy, you know. Not once, in the whole six years of her life. I never bought her a single item of clothing-not one pair of shoes, not one coat. Geraldine did all that…’

  ‘You bought her clothes, Mark,’ said Kombothekra. ‘You worked hard to support your family. Geraldine was able to give up work thanks to you.’

  ‘I thought she wanted to! She said she did, and I thought she was happy. Staying at home, looking after Lucy and the house, having lunch with the other mums from school… Not that I knew any of their names. Cordy O’Hara: I know that name now, I know a lot about my wife now that I’ve read that diary.’

  ‘Which dry-cleaner’s did Geraldine use?’ Simon ask
ed.

  A hard, flat laugh from Bretherick. ‘How should I know? Was I ever with her during the day?’

  ‘Did she tend to shop in Spilling or in Rawndesley?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His expression was despondent. He kept failing new tests, ones he hadn’t anticipated. ‘Both, I think.’ He sank into a chair, began to mutter to himself, barely audible. ‘Monsters. Lucy was scared of monsters. I remember Geraldine wittering on about night lights, vaguely-I could hardly be bothered to listen. I thought, You sort it out, don’t bother me with it, I’m too busy thinking about work and making money. You sort it out-that was my answer to everything.’

  ‘That’s not what the diary says,’ Simon pointed out. ‘According to what Geraldine wrote, you were concerned enough to persuade her to let Lucy sleep with her door open.’

  Bretherick sneered. ‘Believe me, I didn’t give my daughter’s fear of monsters a second thought-I thought it was a phase.’

  ‘Children go through so many, it’s natural to forget about them once they’ve passed.’ Kombothekra had a seven-year-old and a four-year-old, both boys. He carried photos of them in his wallet, in the same compartment as his money. The pictures fell out whenever he pulled out a note; Simon often found himself having to scoop them up off the floor.

  ‘Geraldine didn’t write that diary, Sergeant. I know that now.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Simon watched Kombothekra’s eyes widen: a satisfying sight.

  ‘The man who wrote it knew enough about her life to make it convincing. I’ve got to hand it to him-he knew more about Geraldine and Lucy’s lives than I did.’