Truth Dare kill

NINETEEN

Willow Road was empty of police, grey Rileys and passers-by. It was now or never. A down-at-heel character like me couldn’t hang around for very long before someone started phoning the police. I had no idea if she was home. All I could do was try a frontal assault.

I walked determinedly from my cover among the trees, along the street and straight up her front path. I stood on her top step, knocked and waited. A voice called out from within.

“Who is it?”

“Police, madam. Just a quick word, if you please.” I tried to hide my Scots accent; it came out more Welsh than English, but it seemed to work. I listened to her heels on the tiled floor and turned my back on her just as the door opened.

“Yes, officer?”

I turned swiftly and before she could call out I pushed past her, slammed the door and slapped my hand over her mouth.

“Promise me you won’t scream and I won’t hurt you. Nod if you agree.” I felt her head tilt twice. I let her mouth go, but my grip slipped to her throat.

“Now, Liza. We’re going into the kitchen and we’re going to chat about you and Tony Caldwell. OK?” She nodded again. I pushed her through in front of me. I made her sit in a chair and dragged a stool over beside her. Fear had paralysed her; she gripped the arms of the chair as if she’d fall off. Her legs were twisted round each other. Her eyes said I was about to stab her to death. Which I guess was exactly what she thought if she believed Caldwell.

“I just want some information. I told you, I’m not going to hurt you.”

She found a voice. A shrill one. “The same way you didn’t hurt all those poor women! What you did to them!”

“Liza, I’m not going to be able to convince you one way or the other about that.

All I want is to find out the truth. I need some answers. No matter how unwelcome.”

She looked completely unconvinced. “What do you want?”

“What’s Tony Caldwell’s relationship to you?”

She studied me for a while, like I was a bug under a microscope. “He’s my brother.”

“Why don’t you look like each other?” Seeing her like this, close up, was to confirm the complete lack of family resemblance.

A strange look came over her face, as though she was holding back a sneer. I suddenly caught the likeness. “We’re only half related. We had the same mother but different fathers.”

Of course. “But why does he use the name Caldwell? Was that your father’s name?”

She nodded. “He was brought up by my dad. Here in this house. His real father wouldn’t let him use his name.”

Always half answers. One question leading to another. But before I could ask it, she exploded.

“What does this matter? Why are you doing this? What’s the point?”

“Same as before, Liza. When I first came here. I’m trying to get to the truth about me and a missing period in my life.”

“You know the truth! You killed that poor girl in France and all these other girls. And now you’re going to kill me!”

An illogical response struck me. “The London girls were prostitutes. Why – if I was the killer – would I bother with you?”

“You’re sick, you know that. That’s what you are.” She was crying and angry at the same time. I thought she might throw herself on me. “Tony was right!”

I let her sobs continue until her chest steadied. Her face settled and then changed. Terror was replaced with cunning.

“Why don’t you give yourself up before you hurt anyone else. The doctors will look after you. You won’t hang. They’ll help.”

“Look, if I’m mad you might as well humour me, right? So let me ask you about Tony and Kate Graveney.”

She looked wary suddenly. “What?”

“Are they married?”

“Of course not! Why on earth…?”

“It’s in his file. His army records. She’s next of kin. Mrs Catriona Caldwell.”

Her face melted. I don’t think I’d ever seen a look so despairing.

“Oh Tony, Tony,” she said to herself. She looked up at me. “They’re not married.”

“Then why did he falsify his records? What’s going on, Liza?”

She was shaking her head. “What does it matter? Why should you care?”

“Because you need all the pieces to finish a jigsaw.” The next question would take me a long way. “Who was Tony’s father?”

She snorted and shook her head. I was getting fed up with her stonewalling. The police could reappear any time. I had to force the pace. I got up, fast. I moved behind her and dragged her back into her seat. I pulled out the knife I’d nicked from the kirk and pressed it into her neck. The blade was dull but the point pricked her skin.

“Don’t move,” I warned her. Her skin was roughened where her collar rubbed. She smelt of talcum powder. She was trembling like a hare among hounds. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like me. Which was a good sign, right? “No more games, Liza. I want answers. Are we clear?” I felt a bastard, but I had to do this. I had to know.

She was sobbing quietly. “Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me. Please don’t.”

Her shoulders were shaking so much I pulled the knife back in case I cut her by accident.

“What’s the problem, Liza? It’s a simple question. Who was Tony’s real father?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She dissolved again.

“Tell me!” I hissed in her ear. The more she hedged, the more important it seemed. I pressed the blade down.

“Philip Graveney, Sir Philip bloody Graveney. There! Are you satisfied now?”

I walked round in front of her trying to gather my scattered wits. “So he’s a half-brother to you and to Kate? A bit confusing, I agree. But what’s wrong with that, for god’s sake?”

She gave me a look that suggested I was stupid to even ask that question. I pressed on. I never minded asking the obvious questions. I suddenly missed my police notepad; this scene had exactly that sort of feeling.

“What’s wrong with that, Liza?”

She sniffed and dried her eyes with a handkerchief. “You know. I don’t want to say it.”

I thought of the pair of them so comfortable together in the Chelsea library.

“They’re lovers too, aren’t they?”

She didn’t reply.

“Aren’t they?”

Her face twisted from fear to anger. “And they will go to hell and damnation!”

“I expect so. I don’t know all the rules on incest, but this doesn’t look good.”

She gave me a pitying look but said nothing.

“When did it start?”

She shrugged. “He was just a boy. My dad – Tony’s step-dad – worked at the Graveney’s. So did my mum. We all lived in the servant quarters there. We’d play in the kitchen. Tony was three years younger than me. Always wanting to see what the master and mistress were doing. Fascinated by the big house and the rooms we used to sneak into when the master and mistress were away. And I suppose he was jealous.”

Liza seemed to be unloosening, almost as though she wanted to get it off her chest. “Did you see much of Kate?”

“Catriona. Oh, yes. Little madam. Had Tony round her little finger even though she was a year younger than him. We used to play together. They didn’t mind that when we were little. But it stopped when Tony began showing an interest in her.

She was a pretty little thing. And knew it. You can’t blame him!”

“I’m not.”

“He used to tell me how he loved her and how he’d take her away some day and marry her. Poor Tony.”

“Did you know?”

“Of course not! Not then. Not till Tony did.”

“When did he find out?”

She thought for a bit. “He was thirteen, going on fourteen. I was seventeen when my dad died. Cancer. He said on his death bed that Tony needed to know. Mother told us after.”

I kept my voice soft. “How did you both take it?”

“I wasn’t surprised. There was always something different about the way Dad treated Tony…”

She stalled.

“Like what?”

She took a deep shuddering sigh. “He used to beat him. For the slightest thing.

I thought it was because he was the boy, and boys needed more discipline. It wasn’t, was it?”

“How did Tony take it? When he found out?”

“Bad. Very bad. He howled for days. Wouldn’t eat. Called Mum a whore and dad a dirty liar. We had to send him away for a bit till he calmed down.”

“Where?”

“Mum said a place in the country. I never really wanted to know.”

“How long?”

“About six months or so. When he came back he was quieter, lots quieter. And he’d changed – not that the others saw it – I did.”

“How?”

“Deceitful. Got up to things around the house. Made mischief, but never got caught. He gave Mum a hard time though. Couldn’t forgive her.”

“When did Kate find out? I mean about Tony and her father?”

For the first time since I forced my way in to her home, Liza Caldwell smiled.

“Why, Mr McRae, you’re not as clever as I thought.”

I sat stunned. “No one’s told her?”

“Who? Her own father died a few years after mine. Left us this place in his will. Conscience money. My mother died without telling anyone in the big house.

Only Tony and I know.”

“And why haven’t you told her? For god’s sake, woman, you let her commit a cardinal sin!”

“Is it? Why is it, Mr McRae? Tony was denied his birthright, now he’s getting it. Sort of. He’s my brother.”

“But he’s Kate’s brother too!”

“Only half.”

“Dear god. So this is why you wanted to make me think he was dead? Why you played along with them?”

“Can you blame us?”

Us? What was Kate’s motivation if she didn’t know? But in a way I couldn’t blame Liza, or even – in a moment of rare generosity of spirit – Tony. The scandal would have destroyed everyone. I was the loser so far. And so was Kate Graveney – if she ever got to learn about it.

Before I could ask her more – like who used the boudoir upstairs – I became dimly aware of the very familiar sound of a police bell. So familiar that I didn’t immediately pick up on the notion that it was coming this way. The Flying Squad. For me. I heard tyres squeal outside. I jumped past Liza and into the kitchen, bashed open the back door and nearly took a nose-dive down the steps into the garden. I raced over the grass and through the canes holding up last year’s dead plants.

Before the first cries followed me I was over the high wall at the back and in the back garden of the house in the next street. I looked wildly about, but couldn’t see a gap. Then I did, but it was a dozen houses away. I began hauling myself over walls and crashing through privets until I found a gap of daylight.

Along the way I lost my hat. I wrenched it from the hedge, sprinted for the side of the house and was through and into the street, fleck and shrubbery flying from me like a runaway horse at Aintree.

Way behind me I could hear the clanging start up as the chase began again. A car was heading towards me. I leaped out and flagged it down. It screeched to a halt. The woman driver rolled down her window.

“You idiot! I could have killed you!”

I wrenched open the door and pulled her out. The engine was still running and I whacked the car in gear, leaving the poor woman shrieking and wailing in the middle of the road. I had about a minute to get round the corner and into the High Street. I flung the wheel round and round and took corners in a screech of rubber. I broke on to the High Street and abandoned the car by the roadside.

I turned my collar down, removed the dents and debris from my hat, and began walking slowly and calmly to the underground entrance. Police were checking faces at the station; I did an about turn and walked back down the road. A bus was stopping up ahead. I ran after it as it began chugging away, leapt and caught the bar. The conductor grabbed my arm.

“Only just, mate! Only just!”

I managed to pant out, “Where are you going?”

“Cor, mate! You nearly kills yoursel’ an’ you don’t know where you’re going?

Marble Arch, mate, that’s where. An’ that’ll be threepence, if you don’t mind.”

I didn’t mind. I didn’t care. So long as I had some breathing space to get my thoughts straight and plan my next moves. One way or another I was going to get some answers.