The Wrong Mother

4

8/7/07

‘There’s been a development.’ Sam Kombothekra addressed the whole team but his eyes kept swerving back to Simon. ‘I’ve just taken a call from a Sue Slater, a legal secretary for a firm of solicitors in Rawndesley that specialises in family law. Two weeks before Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick’s bodies were found, Mrs Slater took a call from a Geraldine Bretherick, who gave her name and asked to be put through to a lawyer. Mrs Slater didn’t think anything of it until she heard the name on the news. It was an unusual name so it stuck in her mind.’

‘Kombothekra’s an unusual name,’ said Inspector Giles Proust. ‘There must be thousands of Brethericks.’ The sergeant laughed nervously and Proust looked gratified.

‘Apparently Mrs Bretherick asked to speak to “somebody who deals with divorces, custody cases, that sort of thing”-that’s a word-for-word quote. When Mrs Slater asked her if she needed to engage a lawyer’s services herself, she seemed to lose her nerve. She said it didn’t matter and put the phone down. Mrs Slater said she nearly didn’t ring in, but in the end she thought she ought to, just in case it turned out to be important.’

‘Very public-spirited of her.’ The Snowman leaned against the wall of the CID room, passing his mobile phone from one hand to the other. Every few seconds he glanced at its screen. His wife Lizzie was away all week on a cookery course. Proust had allowed her to go-it was the first time in thirty years that she’d left the marital home for more than one night, he’d told Simon-on the condition that she ‘kept in touch’. ‘I’m sure she will, sir,’ Simon had said, resisting the urge to add, ‘I believe they have telephones in Harrogate.’ Lizzie had left yesterday morning, since when the Snowman had been keeping in touch with a frequency that amounted to surveillance. He’d phoned Lizzie five times yesterday and three times today. And those were only the calls Simon had witnessed, calls with no purpose other than to track Lizzie’s movements, as far as Simon could make out. ‘She’s in her hotel room,’ Proust would mutter darkly every so often, or, ‘She’s in a shop buying a sweatshirt. Apparently it’s chilly there.’ Because Proust was Proust, the responding words ‘We don’t give a shit’ went unspoken.

To the left of the inspector’s bald head was a large rectangular whiteboard on to which Geraldine Bretherick’s suicide note had been transcribed. Below it, also in black marker pen, someone had copied out the letter that had been posted in PC Robbie Meakin’s box at Spilling Post Office: ‘Please forward this to whoever is investigating the deaths of Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick. It’s possible that the man shown on the news last night who is meant to be Mark Bretherick is not Mark Bretherick. You need to look into it and make sure he’s who he says he is. Sorry I can’t say more.’

Proust had been cagey about how this note had made its way to his desk from Spilling Post Office. Simon didn’t doubt for a second that Charlie had passed it on. Which meant she’d chosen to go to Proust instead of him. So how come Simon hated the whole world at the moment apart from her?

‘Well, Sergeant?’ Proust asked Kombothekra. ‘Is Mrs Slater’s contribution important?’

‘It is, sir. At least, I believe it is. It’s possible Geraldine Bretherick wanted to leave Mark Bretherick and phoned this law firm-Ellingham Sandler-for that reason. Because she wanted to find out, before she initiated anything, what her chances were of getting custody of Lucy.’

‘Would she have wanted custody?’ asked Proust. ‘On the basis of the laptop diary, I’d say not.’

‘She talks about her friend Cordy leaving her husband and letting him keep their daughter,’ said Chris Gibbs, rubbing his thick gold wedding ring with the fingers of his right hand. ‘Might there be a connection there?’ Gibbs had got married a little over a year ago. Ever since, he had turned up at work each day with a strange gloss on his thick dark hair, and wearing clothes that smelled, in Simon’s opinion, like those colourful plastic devices you sometimes saw in toilet bowls, designed to replace foul smells with aggressive floral ones that were even more offensive.

‘You mean Geraldine might have been phoning on Cordy’s behalf?’ said Colin Sellers, scratching one of his bushy sideburns. If he didn’t watch out, they’d take over his entire face. Simon thought of the dark green plant that clung to the walls of Corn Mill House.

‘Was it you who spoke to Mrs O’Hara, Waterhouse?’

Simon inclined his head in Proust’s direction. Since Kombothekra had taken over from Charlie, Simon had made a point of saying as little as possible in team meetings. No one had noticed; it was a protest with no audience, specially designed for minimum effect.

‘Speak to her, again. Find out if she changed her mind about letting her husband keep the daughter to appease her guilt and asked Geraldine Bretherick to phone a lawyer for her.’

Simon allowed his scorn to show on his face. Cordy O’Hara wasn’t timid or inert. She’d have phoned a lawyer herself.

‘I didn’t mean that, sir,’ said Gibbs. ‘Geraldine was envious of Mrs O’Hara being able to get shot of her daughter-she said so in the diary, explicitly. Maybe it inspired her to try the same thing.’

‘That’d be a bit extreme, wouldn’t it?’ said Sellers. Seeing the rest of the team’s expressions, he held up his hands. ‘I know, I know.’

All eyes fixed on the enlarged photographs of the crime scenes that took up a quarter of a wall: the matching high-sided white bathtubs with gold claw feet, the clear water in one bath and the livid red water of the other, the curled tendrils of wet hair that formed a corona around each face like the black rays of a dead sun. Simon couldn’t bring himself to look at the two faces. Especially the eyes.

‘I should probably say…’ Kombothekra glanced down at his notes. ‘Custody-it’s not called that any more. Mrs Slater told me lawyers talk about residency these days, and primary carers. The family courts look at everything from the child’s point of view.’

‘That would seem to be a foolish way to proceed,’ said Proust.

‘It’s not about one of the parents winning and one losing. It’s about what’s in the child’s best interests. Whenever possible they try to come up with some sort of joint residency arrangement.’

‘Sergeant, fascinating as this insight into our nation’s social and legal history may be-’

‘I’ll get to the point, sir,’ said Kombothekra, his Adam’s apple working frantically as it always did when he was the focus of negative attention. ‘It’s just a hypothesis, but… Geraldine Bretherick hadn’t worked since her daughter was born. She didn’t have any savings; her husband brought in all the money. Money equals power, and women who stay at home with young children day in day out often lose confidence.’

‘That’s true, sir,’ Sellers chipped in. ‘Stacey’s always banging on about it. Now she’s persuaded me she needs to learn French, and I’m forking out for a two-hour lesson every week. She’s talking about signing up at the sixth form college to do an AS level. I can’t see how it’ll make her more confident, unless she’s planning to move to France, but…’ He shrugged.

‘Mid-life crisis,’ Gibbs diagnosed.

Simon dug his nails into his palm, sickened by the deliberate stupidity. If Stacey Sellers was lacking in confidence, chances were it had nothing to do with not speaking another language and everything to do with Sellers’ years-long affair with Suki Kitson, a much younger woman who made her living singing in restaurants, hotel bars and, occasionally, on cruise ships. If Sellers wanted to save money, he should trying packing Suki in and seeing what happened. Maybe Stacey would decide she could live without learning French after all.

‘A lot of stay-at-home mums start to feel that the outside world is no longer their domain, if you like-’ Kombothekra went on.

‘I don’t like.’ Proust lurched forward, shaking out his arms, as if suddenly aware that he’d been still for too long. He aimed his mobile phone at Kombothekra. ‘If I’d wanted a commentary on societal norms I’d have phoned Émile Durkheim. A Frenchman, Sellers, so no doubt your wife knows all about him. It’s bad enough that we’ve had that self-promoting idiot Harbard foisted on us without you turning into a sociologist as well, Sergeant. Stick to the facts and get to the point.’

None of the team had enjoyed working with Professor Keith Harbard, but Superintendent Barrow had insisted; CID needed to be seen to be bringing in outside expertise. Familicide, as some newspapers and television commentators had called it, was too sensitive and newsworthy a crime to be dealt with in the usual way. Particularly when the killer was a woman, a mother. ‘We need all the whistles and bells on this one,’ the superintendent had said. What they’d got was a fat, balding academic who bandied about the phrase ‘family annihilation’, especially when there were cameras pointed at him, and mentioned the titles of books and articles he’d written to anyone who would listen; who blatantly thought he was the mutt’s nuts, as Sellers had so aptly put it.

‘Despite what the computer diary says, most mothers aren’t willing to give up their children when it comes down to it,’ said Kombothekra. ‘And if Geraldine killed Lucy and herself-which we believe she did-that suggests she needed her daughter with her even in death. Yes, she might fleetingly have envied Cordy O’Hara, but that doesn’t mean she’d honestly have wanted to abandon Lucy. If she had, she could have done it at any time. What was stopping her?’

Leaving no pause for anyone to answer, he went on, ‘Mark Bretherick is a rich, successful man. Wealth and success equals power. It’s possible Geraldine feared she wouldn’t stand a chance of winning a court case against him.’ Kombothekra smiled anxiously at Simon, who looked away quickly. He didn’t want to be mistaken for an ally. He wished Sellers and Gibbs would invite Kombothekra to the pub now and again. That’d take the pressure off Simon, take away the feeling that he ought to be doing something he wasn’t. Sellers and Gibbs had no excuse; their unwelcoming attitude had nothing to do with Charlie. They disliked Kombothekra’s politeness. Behind his back Simon had heard them refer to him as ‘Stepford’. Sellers and Gibbs were only capable of civilised behaviour on occasions such as today’s briefing, when they feared being impaled on the Snowman’s icicle-sharp sarcasm.

‘Remember the story of King Solomon, Sergeant?’ said Proust. ‘The real mother chose to let the other woman keep the child rather than chop it in half.’ When the inspector realised that three-quarters of the team was staring at him, mystified, he changed the subject. ‘This business about women and their depleted confidence is nonsense! My wife didn’t work for years when our children were small, and I’ve never known a more confident woman. I was the breadwinner, yes, but Lizzie behaved as if every penny of it had arrived as a result of her hard work, not mine. I regularly came home at dawn after a series of scuffles with the most unprepossessing specimens our community had to offer, only to be told that my shift couldn’t possibly have been as gruelling as hers. As for the power she wields in our family, it’s frightening.’ The inspector glanced at his phone. ‘All this twaddle about women losing confidence. Would that it were true.’ His eyes met Simon’s. Simon knew they were thinking the same thing: would Proust have said what he’d just said quite so explicitly if Charlie had still been the skipper?

Simon couldn’t stand much more of this. ‘ “You”, not “we”,’ he said to Kombothekra. ‘You believe Geraldine Bretherick killed Lucy and then herself. I don’t.’

‘It was only a matter of time…’ Proust muttered.

‘Come on,’ said Sellers. ‘Who else could have done it? There was no break-in.’

‘Someone Geraldine let in, obviously. Several sets of fingerprints were found in the house that we haven’t identified.’

‘That’s standard. You know it is. They could be anyone’s-someone who came to measure for new curtains, anyone.’

‘Who else would have a motive to kill both of them, mother and daughter, apart from Mark Bretherick?’ asked Gibbs. ‘And he’s in the clear.’

Kombothekra nodded. ‘We know Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick died on either the first or second of August, probably the first, and we’ve got fifteen scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico who’ve told us Mark Bretherick was there from July the twenty-eighth until August the third. He’s alibi-d up to the hilt, Simon, and there are no other suspects.’ Kombothekra smiled, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

‘There’s one,’ said Simon. ‘One we haven’t managed to find yet. William Markes.’

‘Not that again, Waterhouse.’ Proust slapped the wall. ‘And don’t think you can sneak that “yet” past me. “Yet”-as if you might still find him. Every conceivable corner of Geraldine Bretherick’s life has been turned inside out, and there’s no William Markes.’

‘I don’t think we should give up looking for him.’

‘It’s not a question of giving up, Simon. We’ve run out of places to look. None of Geraldine’s friends or family have heard of him. We’ve tried the Garcia Lorca Institute where she used to work…’

‘Maybe there’s a Williamo Marco on the books.’ Gibbs chuckled.

‘… and they couldn’t help us either,’ Kombothekra told Simon. ‘We’ve eliminated every William Markes on the electoral register-’

‘Maybe one of them was lying,’ said Simon. ‘It’d be easy, if no one knew he had any connection with Geraldine except the two of them.’

‘Waterhouse, what are you suggesting we do?’ Proust’s voice was slow and clear.

‘Go back over all the William Markeses. Investigate them as thoroughly as we’ve investigated Mark Bretherick. And I’d extend that to anyone called William Marx spelled M-a-r-x as well. And M-a-r-k-s, without the e.’

‘Excellent idea,’ said the Snowman, frost coating his every word. ‘Let’s not leave out Gibbs’ Williamo Marco-though it would be Guillermo, surely. And what about men called William Markham or Markey, just to be on the safe side?’

‘We can’t do it, Simon,’ Kombothekra blurted out; Proust’s verbal torture methods made the sergeant jumpy, Simon noticed. ‘We haven’t got the time or resources.’

‘Money has a way of turning up when the people who matter think something’s important,’ said Simon, trying to beat down the anger that was stewing inside him. ‘Markham, Markey-yes. Mark-my-fucking-words, Marks & Spencer, whatever his fucking name is, the man who was probably going to ruin Geraldine Bretherick’s life.’ Simon took a deep breath through clenched teeth. ‘We keep going until we find him.’

Proust’s advance was a perfect straight line. He got as close as he could, then stared up at the underside of Simon’s chin. Simon kept his eyes fixed on the board opposite him. The Snowman’s bald head was a shiny pink blur on the edge of his vision. ‘So you’re allowing the possibility that Mrs Bretherick got the name wrong,’ the inspector said in a voice that was almost a whisper.

‘She described him as “a man called William Markes”,’ said Simon. ‘As I’ve said repeatedly, I take that to mean she didn’t know him very well, if at all. She might have got his name wrong.’

‘I agree,’ said Proust, swinging round to inspect Simon’s stubble from the other side. ‘So where shall we start? Shall we first eliminate the Peter Parkers, or should we start with all the Cyril Billingtons we can get our hands on?’

‘Those names aren’t even vaguely similar-’ Simon began.

‘So a woman can be wrong about a name, and it’s up to Detective Constable Waterhouse-the all-seeing, all-knowing-to decide exactly how wrong she can be!’ Proust bellowed. Gob-bets of his saliva struck Simon’s cheek. Kombothekra, Sellers and Gibbs froze in awkward postures. Sellers’ hand, which had been on its way down now that he’d finished fiddling with his sideburn for the time being, stuck out in mid-air. The three detectives looked as if they needed to be sprayed with antifreeze. Once again, the Snowman had justified his nickname.

‘Listen to me and listen carefully, Detective Constable.’ Proust jabbed Simon’s neck with his index finger. That was a first. Verbal abuse Simon was used to; the prodding was new. ‘Peter Parker is my mechanic and Billington’s my uncle. Decent law-abiding citizens both. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you why we’re not going to start snouting around in their private affairs on the off-chance that Mrs Bretherick might have been mistaken when she typed the name William Markes. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Sir.’

‘Splendid.’

‘What about the note from Spilling Post Office?’ Simon challenged the inspector’s retreating back. ‘The note that someone passed on to you. Mark Bretherick might not be Mark Bretherick. Are we going to investigate that?’

‘Gone are the days, Waterhouse, when the police were able to dismiss attention-starved cranks as the fruit-bats that they inevitably turn out to be. Your sergeant will be giving this new information his full attention, won’t you, Sergeant?’

A few seconds before Kombothekra found his voice. ‘I’ve already made a start. So far it looks as if Bretherick’s who he says he is.’

‘Waterhouse probably believes his real name is William Markes. ’ Proust snarled. ‘Eh, Waterhouse?’

‘No, sir.’ Simon was thinking about the cards, the two ten-year-wedding-anniversary cards on the mantelpiece at Corn Mill House. He could picture them clearly. Both were large, A3 size. One had curved edges, swirly silver writing-‘For my darling husband, on our anniversary’-above a picture of a yellow flower. The other was pink and padded, with the number 10 and a bouquet of roses on the front. The roses were tied with a pink bow. Simon had memorised what was written inside the cards. Why? So that he could discuss it with Sellers and Gibbs, see what they thought? Proust? They’d laugh him all the way out of the building, any of them would. Even well-meaning Sam Kombothekra.

No, he didn’t think Mark Bretherick was William Markes, not necessarily. But those cards…

‘If it were up to me, we’d have someone watching Spilling Post Office,’ he said. ‘Whoever wrote that note’s got more to say. He or she might write another longer letter in the next few days. If we can get hold of that person, we’ll have a lead and possibly a suspect.’

‘I’d like to put you on a lead, Waterhouse,’ was Proust’s response.

‘Simon, we’ve got a suicide note’-Kombothekra pointed to the whiteboard-‘and a diary that makes it clear Geraldine Bretherick was depressed.’

‘A diary that was found on a computer.’ Simon sounded like a truculent child even to himself. ‘No hard copy, no notebook version. Who types their diary straight on to a computer? And why are there only nine entries, all from last year? Not even nine recent, consecutive days-nine random days from April and May 2006. Why? Can anyone tell me?’

‘Waterhouse, you’re embarrassing yourself.’ Proust belched, then looked at Sam Kombothekra as if he expected to be chastised for his lack of etiquette.

‘I’ve got a copy of this article for each of you.’ Kombothekra picked up the bundle of paper that had been on the table next to him since the beginning of the briefing. It was as if Simon wasn’t there, had never spoken. Why had he bothered? ‘It’s Professor Harbard’s latest publication,’ said Kombothekra.

‘We already know what that ego-maniac thinks,’ Proust snapped. ‘That Geraldine Bretherick was responsible for both deaths. I stand by what I said at the time: he knows no more than we do. He knows less than we do. He wants this death to be a family annihilation-a thoroughly repugnant phrase which he probably invented-because then he gets to air his nonsense predictions on national television: within five years every mother in the country will be driving herself and her offspring off the nearest cliff or some such guff!’

‘He’s studied many murder-suicide cases similar to this one, sir,’ said Kombothekra, his tone as benign as if the Snowman had just offered him a toasted teacake. Kombothekra felt sorry for Professor Harbard; he’d as good as admitted it to Simon during one of their awkward, mainly silent drives to Corn Mill House. ‘It can’t be easy for the man, can it?’ he’d said. ‘He’s called in by the super, as an expert, then finds himself in the middle of us lot, being treated like an intruder and a cretin.’ Simon had wondered if Kombothekra was talking about himself, his own experience.

To Simon, Harbard had seemed as thick-skinned as a cactus. He was a bad listener. When other people spoke, he nodded impatiently, licking his lips every few seconds and murmuring, ‘Yes, yes, okay, yes,’ revving up for his next turn under the spotlight. The only time he’d listened attentively was when Superintendent Barrow had popped in to give the team a pep-talk, reminding them of Professor Harbard’s eminence in his field, how lucky they were that he’d offered his services.

‘I’ve underlined the paragraph that I think constitutes new information,’ said Kombothekra, putting a copy of the stapled article into Simon’s hands and taking the opportunity to bestow another smile upon him. ‘At any rate, I can’t remember Professor Harbard telling us this in person. In paragraph six he says that family annihilation is not a crime that can be attributed to social exclusion or poverty. Most commonly it occurs among the affluent upper-middle classes. Harbard argues that this is because of the need to keep up appearances, to present an image of perfect family life, happiness, success. In the higher socio-economic echelons, image matters more…’

‘Please don’t talk to me about echelons, Sergeant,’ said Proust.

‘… people want to be the envy of their friends, so they put on a front. And sometimes, when the more complicated and painful reality of life intrudes-’

‘That’s crap,’ Simon interrupted him. ‘So because the Brethericks were upper-middle class and had money, that means Geraldine’s a murderer and a suicide?’

Proust glared at Kombothekra, rolled up his copy of Professor Harbard’s article and launched it at the bin in the corner of the room. It missed.

‘What about the GHB?’ Simon wondered if he could make some headway as the lesser of two evils now that the Snowman was angry with Kombothekra. ‘Why did Geraldine Bretherick take it herself? Where did she get it?’

‘Internet,’ Gibbs suggested. ‘It’s not hard to get hold of. As for why, GHB’s fast replacing Rohypnol as the most popular date-rape drug in the country.’

‘Would a woman like Geraldine Bretherick, given everything we know about her, buy illegal drugs on the Internet?’ said Simon. ‘This is a woman who runs the Parents and Friends Committee at her daughter’s school, whose kitchen bookcase is full of books called Fish Dishes to Make Your Child’s Brain Grow and shit like that.’ Unwillingly, he looked at Kombothekra. ‘Have we heard back from HTCU yet about the computer?’ The high-tech crime unit was referred to as ‘Hitcoo’ by everyone in CID apart from Proust.

The sergeant shook his head. ‘I’ve been chasing and chasing. No one can tell me why it’s taking so long.’

‘I bet they’ll find no GHB was ordered from Geraldine Bretherick’s laptop. And I didn’t mean why GHB instead of Rohypnol, I meant why any drug? Okay, in Lucy’s case I can understand it-she wanted Lucy to pass out so that all she’d have to do was push her under the water. So that Lucy wouldn’t feel any pain. But why take it herself? Think of how much she had to do and do efficiently: kill her daughter, write a suicide note, turn on her computer and open that diary file, leave it on the screen so that we’d find it when we arrived, kill herself-wouldn’t she want a clear head?’

‘Slashing your wrists hurts,’ said Sellers. ‘Maybe she wanted to dull her own pain. There was more GHB in Lucy’s urine than in her mother’s, a lot more. It looks as if Geraldine only took a bit, to take the edge off her fear, probably-make everything a bit hazy around the edges. And that’s exactly what happens, that’s what a small dose of GHB does.’

‘We know that but how did she?’ Simon fired back at him. ‘What, did she type “date-rape drugs” into Google and take it from there? I can’t see it. How would she know how much to take?’

‘There’s no point speculating,’ said Proust briskly. ‘The computer chaps will tell us what Geraldine Bretherick did and didn’t do with her laptop.’

‘We also need them to tell us when that diary file was first opened,’ said Simon. ‘If it was created on the day she died, for example. In which case the dates at the top of the entries are fake.’

‘All this we shall find out in due course.’ Proust picked up his empty ‘World’s Greatest Grandad’ mug, dropped his mobile phone into it and glanced towards his office. He’d had enough. ‘What about Mr Bretherick’s missing suit, Sergeant?’

‘That’s my action,’ Sellers told him. ‘Lucky me-all the dry-cleaners within a thirty-mile radius of Corn Mill House.’

‘Charity shops as well,’ Kombothekra reminded him. ‘My wife sometimes takes my clothes and gives them to charity without telling me.’

‘Mine used to, until I made my displeasure known,’ said Proust. ‘Perfectly good jumpers she used to give away.’

‘And if we find out the suit wasn’t given to any dry-cleaner or charity shop? What then?’ asked Simon.

Proust sighed. ‘Then we’ll have an unsolved mystery of a missing suit. I hope you can hear how Secret Seven that sounds. The evidence will still point to Geraldine Bretherick being responsible for her own death and her daughter’s. I don’t like it any more than you do, but there’s not a lot I can do. We’re only following up the Oswald Mosley suit angle because it’s important to Mr Bretherick. Sorry if that leaves you feeling let down, Waterhouse.’ Proust took his empty mug and phone and headed for the small cubicle in the corner of the room, three sides of which were glass from waist height upwards. It looked like the lifts you sometimes saw on the outsides of buildings. The inspector went in, slamming the door behind him.

To avoid the sympathy in Kombothekra’s eyes, Simon turned to the whiteboard. He knew the wording of the Brethericks’ ten-year-anniversary cards by heart, but not Geraldine’s suicide note. There was something insubstantial about it, too slippery for his mind to latch on to. He read it again:

I’m so sorry. The last thing I want to do is cause any hurt or upset to anyone. I think it’s better if I don’t go into a long, detailed explanation-I don’t want to lie, and I don’t want to make things any worse. Please forgive me. I know it must seem as if I’m being dreadfully selfish, but I have to think about what’s best for Lucy. I’m really, truly sorry. Geraldine.

Superimposed over Geraldine’s words in Simon’s mind were the words of her friend, Cordy O’Hara: Geraldine was always planning, arranging, whipping out her diary. I saw her less than a week before she died and she was trying to persuade me and Oonagh to go to EuroDisney with her and Lucy next half-term.

Simon turned his back on Kombothekra, Sellers and Gibbs and headed for the Snowman’s cubicle. He hadn’t finished with him yet.

Proust looked up and smiled when Simon appeared in his office, as if he’d invited him. ‘Tell me something, Waterhouse,’ he said. ‘What do you make of DS Kombothekra? How are you finding working with him?’

‘He’s a good colleague. Fine.’

‘He’s replaced Sergeant Zailer and you can hardly bring yourself to look at him.’ Proust trumped Simon’s lie with the truth. ‘Kombothekra’s a good skipper.’

‘I know.’

‘Things change. You have to adjust.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You have to adjust,’ Proust repeated solemnly, examining his fingernails.

‘Have you ever heard of anyone writing their diary straight on to a computer? The file wasn’t even password-protected.’

‘Have you ever heard of anyone putting Tabasco sauce on spaghetti bolognese?’ Proust countered amicably.

‘No.’

‘My son-in-law does it.’

What could Simon say to that? ‘Really?’

‘I’m not trying to encourage you to take an interest in my son-in-law’s eating habits, Waterhouse. I’m making the point that whether you’ve heard of something or not heard of it is irrelevant.’

‘I know, sir, but-’

‘We’re living in the technological age. People do all sorts of things on their computers.’

Simon lowered himself into the only free chair. ‘People who kill themselves leave suicide notes. Or sometimes they don’t,’ he said. ‘They don’t leave suicide notes and diary entries to ram the point home. It’s overkill.’

‘I think you’ve hit upon the perfect word there, Waterhouse, to describe Geraldine Bretherick’s actions: overkill.’

‘The note and the diary are… they’re different voices,’ said Simon, frustrated. ‘The person who wrote the note doesn’t want to hurt anyone, wants to be forgiven. The diary-writer doesn’t care who gets hurt. We know the note’s Geraldine’s handwriting. I say that means she definitely didn’t write the nine diary entries.’

‘If you mention William Markes, Waterhouse…’

‘The voice in the diary is analytical, trying to understand and describe the experience of day-to-day misery as accurately as possible. Whereas the note-it’s just one platitude after another, the feeble voice of a feeble mind.’

Proust stroked his chin for a while. ‘So why didn’t that occur to your man William Markes?’ he asked eventually. ‘He’s faking Geraldine Bretherick’s diary-why didn’t he take the trouble to get the tone right? Is he also feeble-minded?’

‘Tone of voice is a subtle thing,’ said Simon. ‘Some people wouldn’t notice.’ Like Kombothekra. And Sellers and Gibbs. ‘There’s no mention of suicide in the suicide note, sir. Or of killing Lucy. And it’s not addressed to anyone. Wouldn’t she have written, “Dear Mark”?’

‘Don’t be dense, Waterhouse. How many times have you been called out to a body swinging from a beam? When I was a PC it used to happen every now and then. Some poor blighter who couldn’t take it any more. I’ve read my fair share of suicide notes and I’ve yet to read one that says, “I’m sorry I’m about to slit my wrists, please forgive me for committing suicide.” People tend to skirt round the gruesome details. They talk metaphorically about what they’re doing. As for “Dear Mark”-come on!’

‘What?’

‘She wrote the note to the world she was leaving behind, not only her husband. Her mother, her friends… Writing “Dear Mark” would have made it too hard, too specific-she’d have had to picture him alone, bereft…’ Proust frowned, waiting for Simon’s response. ‘Besides, there’s something you haven’t thought of: if William Markes was the killer, why would he allow us to find his name on the computer, plain as day? He wouldn’t.’

He’s trying to convince me.

‘I don’t understand you, Waterhouse. Why did you change your mind?’

‘Sir, I’ve never believed that Geraldine Bretherick-’

‘One minute Charlie Zailer’s the last person you’re interested in, the next you’re staring after her with your tongue hanging out every time she passes you in the corridor. What changed?’

Simon stared at the grey ribbed carpet, resenting the ambush. ‘Why did Geraldine Bretherick slit her wrists?’ he said stubbornly. ‘She had the GHB she’d bought. On the Internet. She’d given Lucy enough to make her pass out, so that she could drown her in a bath full of water without any fuss. Why not do the same when it came to killing herself?’

‘What if she botched it?’ said the Snowman. ‘Miscalculated, and woke up a few hours later-wet, naked and groggy-to a distraught husband and a dead daughter? I think you’d agree that Geraldine Bretherick’s wrists were slashed by someone whose intention was unambiguous. They cut downwards, not across. What do we say?’

‘But-’

‘No, Waterhouse. What do we say? Alliterate for me.’

‘Across for attention, down for death,’ Simon recited, feeling like the biggest idiot in the world. As he spoke, Proust pretended to be a conductor, waving an imaginary stick with one hand. Twat.

Simon was about to leave when he realised what the Snowman had said: ‘they’, not ‘she’. ‘You agree with me,’ he said, feeling light-headed. ‘You also don’t think she did it, but you don’t want to say so in case you turn out to be wrong. You don’t want things to get sticky between you and your shiny new sergeant. And you don’t need to take that risk’-he leaned on the desk-‘because you’ve got me. I’m a convenient mouthpiece.’

‘Convenient? You?’ Proust laughed, flicking through the papers on his desk. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong man, Waterhouse. ’

Simon thought back over the previous hour: his own sullenness. His swearing, which had gone unremarked upon. He thought about the amount of time he’d been allowed in which to air his allegedly foolish theories, and about Colin Sellers traipsing round every dry-cleaner’s within a thirty-mile radius of Corn Mill House…

‘You agree with me,’ he said again with more certainty. ‘And you know me: the more you heap on the mockery, the more you let them all talk shit out there, the harder I’ll try to prove you all wrong. Or rather, to prove you right. How’ve I been doing so far?’

‘Waterhouse, you know I never swear, don’t you?’

Simon nodded.

‘Waterhouse, get the fuck out of my office.’