The Widow

Chapter 47

Friday, 14 May 2010

The Detective

DAYS AND THEN WEEKS had ticked by without a decision being made to re-arrest Taylor. The new bosses clearly didn’t want to stumble down the same disastrous path as their predecessors and defended their inaction strenuously.

‘Where’s the evidence to link Taylor with this new CCTV? Or the internet club?’ DCI Wellington had asked after watching the images. ‘We’ve got a partial number plate and the dodgy word of a porn merchant. There’s no further identification of the suspect – apart from your gut feeling, Bob.’

Sparkes had been ready to resign, but he couldn’t abandon Bella.

They were so close. The Forensics team were working on the number plate of the van in the CCTV to try to tease out one more digit or letter, and experts were trying to match phrasing in the emails from TallDarkStranger and BigBear. He almost had his hand on Glen Taylor’s arm.

So when he heard that Glen Taylor was dead, he felt it like a physical blow.

‘Dead?’

An officer he knew from the Met had called as soon as the news came through to the operations room. ‘Thought you’d want to know immediately, Bob. Sorry.’

It was the ‘sorry’ that did it. He hung up and put his head in his hands. They both knew there would be no confession now, no moment of triumph. Bella would never be found.

His head suddenly shot up. Jean. She was free of him now – she could speak out, tell the truth about that day.

Sparkes shouted for Salmond and when she put her head round the door he croaked, ‘Glen Taylor is dead. Knocked over by a bus. We’re going to Greenwich.’

Salmond looked as if she might cry, but checked herself and went into Superwoman mode, organizing and chivvying.

In the car, Sparkes filled in the details for her. She knew as much about the case as he did but he needed to say everything out loud, to walk himself through it all.

‘I always thought that Jean was covering for Glen. She was a decent woman but she was completely dominated by him. They married young – he was the bright one, the one who did well at school and had a good job, and she was his pretty little wife.’

Salmond glanced at her boss. ‘Pretty little wife?’

He had the grace to laugh. ‘What I mean is that Jean was so young when they met, he swept her off her feet with his suit and prospects. She never had a chance to be her own person.’

‘I think my mum was a bit like that,’ Salmond said, indicating to turn off the motorway.

Not you, though, Sparkes thought. He’d met her husband. Nice solid bloke who didn’t try to outshine her or put her down.

‘Sounds like it could be a folie à deux, Sir,’ Salmond said thoughtfully. ‘Like Brady and Hindley, or Fred and Rose West. I looked at their cases for a paper I wrote at college. A couple share a psychosis or a delusion because one is so dominant. They end up believing the same thing – their right to do something, for example. They share a value system that is not accepted by anyone outside their partnership or relationship. Not sure I’m explaining it properly. Sorry.’

Bob Sparkes was silent for a bit, turning the theory over in his head. ‘But if it was a folie à deux, then Jean knew and approved when Glen took Bella.’

‘It’s happened before. Like I said,’ Salmond continued without taking her eyes off the road. ‘Then when you separate the couple, the one who’s been dominated can quite quickly stop sharing the delusion. They kind of come to their senses. Do you see what I mean?’

But Jean Taylor had not let the mask slip when Glen had gone inside. Was it possible that he had kept control of her from behind bars?

‘I wondered about cognitive dissonance or selective amnesia,’ Sparkes ventured, a little nervous about trying out his homework reading in Forensic Psychology. ‘Maybe she was too frightened of losing everything to admit the truth? I read that trauma can make the mind delete things that are too painful or stressful. So she deleted any details that challenged her belief that Glen was innocent.’

‘But can you really do that? Make yourself believe that black is white?’ Salmond asked.

The human mind is a powerful thing, Sparkes thought, but it sounded too trite to say out loud.

‘I’m not an expert, Zara. Just been doing some reading at home. We’d have to talk to someone who’s done the research.’

It was the first time he’d called her Zara and he felt a prickle of embarrassment. Inappropriate, he told himself – he’d always called Ian Matthews by his surname at work. He risked a quick glance at his sergeant. She showed no sign of offence or even of having registered his unprofessional slip.

‘Who would we approach, Sir?’

‘I know an academic who might be able to give us a steer. Dr Fleur Jones helped us before.’

He was grateful that Salmond didn’t react to the name. It hadn’t been Fleur Jones’s fault that everything had gone bad.

‘Why don’t you call her?’ she said. ‘Before we get there. We need to know the best way to approach Jean Taylor.’

Salmond pulled over at the next service station and began to dial.

An hour later, Sparkes walked through the Accident and Emergency department doors.

‘Hello, Jean,’ he said and sat down beside her on an orange moulded-plastic chair. She barely moved to acknowledge him. She looked so pale and her eyes were blackened by grief.

‘Jean,’ he said again and took her hand. He’d never touched her before, beyond guiding her into a police car, but he couldn’t help himself. She looked so vulnerable.

Jean Taylor’s hand was frigid in his hot hands, but he wouldn’t let go. He kept talking, low and urgent, taking his chance.

‘You can tell me now, Jean. You can tell me what Glen did with Bella, where he put her. There’s no need for secrets now. It was Glen’s secret, not yours. You were his victim, Jean. You and Bella.’

The widow turned her head away from him and seemed to shudder.

‘Please tell me, Jean. Let it go now and you’ll have some peace.’

‘I don’t know anything about Bella, Bob,’ she said slowly, as if explaining to a child. Then she slipped her hand out of his grasp and started to cry. No sound, just tears running down off her chin on to her lap.

Sparkes sat on, unable to leave. Jean Taylor stood and walked away towards the Ladies’.

When she came out fifteen minutes later, she was holding a tissue to her mouth. She headed straight for the glass doors of A &E and was gone.

Disappointment paralysed Sparkes. ‘I’ve screwed up our last chance,’ he muttered to Salmond, who was now sitting in Jean’s chair. ‘Royally screwed it up.’

‘She’s in shock, Sir. She doesn’t know which way is up at the moment. Let her settle and think things through. We should go to the house in a couple of days.’

‘Tomorrow, we’ll go tomorrow,’ Sparkes said, rising.

They were at the door twenty-four hours later. Jean Taylor was in black, looking ten years older, and was ready for them.

‘How are you doing, Jean?’ Sparkes asked.

‘Good and bad. Glen’s mum stayed with me last night,’ she answered. ‘Come through.’

Sparkes sat beside her on the sofa, angling himself so he had her full attention, and began a gentler courtship. Zara Salmond and Dr Jones had rethought the situation and both suggested using a bit of flattery as an opener, to make Jean feel important and in charge of her decisions.

‘You’ve been such a rock for Glen, Jean. Always there to support him.’

She blinked at the compliment. ‘I was his wife and he relied on me.’

‘That must’ve been hard for you at times, Jean. A lot of pressure to take on your shoulders.’

‘I was happy to do it. I knew he hadn’t done it,’ she said, the constant repetition of her stock reply leaving it hollow.

DS Salmond got up and started looking round the room. ‘No cards yet?’ she asked.

‘Not expecting any – just the usual hate mail,’ Jean said.

‘Where will you hold the funeral, Jean?’ Sparkes asked.

Glen Taylor’s mother appeared at the door, clearly having been eavesdropping in the hall. ‘At the crematorium. We’re just having a simple, private service to say goodbye, aren’t we, Jean?’

Jean nodded, deep in thought. ‘Do you think the press will come?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think I could bear that.’

Mary Taylor sat on the arm of the sofa beside her daughter-in-law and stroked her hair. ‘We’ll weather it, Jeanie. We have so far. Perhaps they’ll leave you alone now.’

The remark was aimed at the two detectives cluttering up the sitting room as much as the press waiting outside.

‘They’ve been knocking since 8 a.m. I’ve told them Jean is too upset to talk but they keep on coming. I think she should come back with me for a bit, but she wants to stay at home.’

‘Glen is here,’ Jean said, and Sparkes rose to leave.