Too Good to Be True

15 The Conclusion

Inspectors Anderson and Perez sat in the lounge bar of the Stonebridge Hotel. It was late and there were no other drinkers. It occurred to Perez that if the bar was always this empty, the owners were making very little money from the place. But perhaps it was busier in the summer. Then there would be tourists in the village and the bar would be full of talk and laughter.

‘I don’t understand why the Kerr woman killed Anna Blackwell.’ Anderson was staring into his beer. ‘You can’t blame us for missing that one, Jimmy.’

‘She was worried about losing the farm,’ Perez said. ‘Sandy’s wage was all that was keeping the place going. Gail knew that Anna was full of life and ideas. She must have known that the teacher would want to move on after a while. Gail and Grace wouldn’t have been able to stay at the farm without Sandy’s wage to support them.’

‘It doesn’t seem much of a motive.’ Anderson looked up from his glass. ‘And wasn’t Sandy going to move out anyway? I thought he was engaged.’

‘But to a local girl,’ Perez said. ‘Someone Gail knew and liked. Someone who’d probably be happy to move into the farm in the end, and who’d be able to help Gail carry out all the plans John had for the place. Anna was the sort of girl who would have had plans of her own.’

‘All the same…’Anderson wasn’t convinced.

‘You have to realise that Gail couldn’t see things clearly. She’d married later than most people and thought she’d found her soulmate. She and John and Grace were the family she’d dreamed of. Then John died.’

To Perez this sounded so like the story of him and his wife Fran and their Cassie that he struggled to keep control. He worried that he might break down. As Gail had done when Anderson arrested her.

‘After realising it must have been Gail who drove towards me in the Land Rover today,’ Perez went on, ‘I wondered if she’d killed her husband in the same way. If he’d had an affair and Gail had killed him out of revenge. But I believe that was just a tragic accident. She loved the bones of him.’

I thought Gail was being so strong, he thought, and all the time grief was eating her away inside. The idea that Sandy might leave her too and she might have to sell the farm that held so many happy memories was enough to tip her over the edge.

‘Talk me through it, Jimmy,’ Anderson said. ‘Tell me what really happened to Anna Blackwell.’

‘The whole thing was planned in advance,’ Perez said. ‘Gail asked Lucy to the farm for a sleepover and suggested that the two women might meet up on the same night. Gail said that Sandy could babysit so she’d be happy to go to Anna’s house. The note that I found was Anna’s reply. She probably sent it home in Grace’s schoolbag.’

‘How did Gail know that Sandy and Anna were having a fling?’ Anderson took a long drink of beer.

‘Sandy told her that he planned to break off his engagement. He explained that he’d fallen for Anna.’ Perez paused and went on to describe how Anna had been killed. ‘On the night of the 10th, Gail left the girls with Sandy and drove into Stonebridge. I think she parked round the corner from the teacher’s house because Anna’s neighbour didn’t see or hear a car.’

Perez imagined the scene. Anna had prepared the house. She might not have felt well enough for a full spring clean, but she’d bought flowers to cheer the place up, and she’d put wine in the fridge to chill. She’d have pictured a friendly chat with the woman who might one day become her sister-in-law.

‘Gail would only have had one glass of wine,’ he said. ‘She’d have explained that she couldn’t drink because she was driving. At one point she went upstairs and crushed the pills she found in Anna’s bedroom into a powder. Everyone in the village knew Anna was taking antidepressants.

‘That was when Gail made her big mistake. The note from Anna was in her pocket and it dropped out on the dressing table. Without the note we would never have been able to prove what had happened.’

Jimmy Perez paused for breath and looked at Anderson, who was listening intently.

‘Gail went back downstairs,’ he continued. ‘Anna would have been quite tipsy at that point. She wasn’t used to drinking. It wouldn’t have been hard for Gail to tip the crushed pills into her wine without Anna noticing. They must have dissolved very quickly. She waited until Anna fell into a deep sleep, then she went into the kitchen, washed out her own glass and put it away. I’m sure you’ll find traces of the drug in the unwashed glass.’

‘Then she drove home,’ Anderson said, ‘as if nothing had happened.’

Perez nodded. ‘The next morning she took Lucy back and seemed as shocked as everyone else that Anna was dead.’

The inspector sipped his beer. ‘Freda, one of the other teachers, had already started the rumours about Anna and Tom. Freda hated the fact that she’d been replaced by a younger woman. Gail spread the gossip so that if you did decide that Anna had been murdered, no one would suspect that she was involved in the killing.’

‘But her brother did suspect,’ Anderson said.

‘He was the only person who knew how badly Gail had been affected by her husband’s death. And he knew how passionate she was about the farm. Sandy heard that I was asking questions and he came to the hotel to talk to me. But he couldn’t quite do it. He couldn’t quite bring himself to accuse his sister of murder.’

Anderson emptied his glass. ‘I suppose I should thank you for clearing the case up for me, Jimmy.’

‘I’m sorry if you felt I was treading on your toes.’

‘Aye well.’ Anderson grinned. ‘Just don’t think of coming to meddle on my patch again. Or I might come up to Shetland to work on one of your cases.’

‘You’d be very welcome, Robbie. Any time.’ Perez smiled back.

‘Are you joking? Ferries and small planes make me feel sick before I step onto them. You’re quite safe, Jimmy. I’ll leave you on your islands in peace.’