‘It’s about something you talked to your mum about. Something a bit sensitive…’

  Ben flung open the back door and ran in, shutting an excited Belle out in the yard. In his hand, he held a very dusty black, leather motorbike glove.

  ‘Look,’ he said, waving it out in front of him. ‘It’s Dad’s missing glove. It was here all the time.’

  Constance ran forward. ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘Belle found it. Well, she went straight to it, dug it up from underneath the fence. She must have buried it, in the first place. Will it help Dad, do you think?’

  ‘That depends whose DNA is on it, I suppose. I know one person it will definitely help though.’

  ‘But it’s been under the ground?’

  ‘You can’t get rid of DNA that easily,’ Constance said. ‘Whoever handled the glove last, their DNA will still be there. I read a report on it recently. We’d better find something to put it in. I’ll call Inspector Dawson right now.’

  Constance was disturbed by a light rap on the front window. She spun around to see a woman’s face pressed up against the pane. At first her features were distorted. Then, as she pulled back, Constance could see who it was. She opened the door and Nicki tumbled in, her chest heaving up and down. Seeing her audience, she stopped short, her eyes wide with surprise.

  ‘Did you want me?’ Constance asked.

  ‘No…I…I thought… It doesn’t matter. It can wait.’ She might have left, if Ellis hadn’t called to her from the top of the stairs.

  ‘Hello Nicki,’ he said. ‘Looking for me?’

  Nicki stood with her back to the door, her eyes flicking across Ellis’ face.

  ‘You two know each other?’ Laura challenged.

  ‘We used to,’ Nicki said, ‘before Ellis’ tastes moved to even younger women.’

  Ellis took a step into the room.

  ‘Ellis. Who is this? I don’t understand,’ Laura said, her face crumpling.

  ‘It’s no one important. Just an old acquaintance of mine.’

  And then the pieces fell into place for Constance.

  ‘This is the older man you told your mother about, isn’t it?’ Constance asked Laura, gently. ‘But you didn’t tell her his name.’

  Ben stared from his sister to his uncle and then back again.

  ‘What? You’re not serious. You and Ellis?’ Ben said. ‘How could you do that? He’s our uncle.’

  ‘He’s only mum’s stepbrother,’ Laura snapped.

  ‘Did you tell Mum? Laura, did you tell Mum?’ Ben was backing away, still gripping the glove in his hand.

  ‘I told her I was seeing someone older than me. She got all pissed off, so I didn’t tell her the rest.’

  ‘But you did, didn’t you, Ellis?’ Constance drew the two youngsters behind her. ‘So, what happened? You had an argument about it, Rosie got angry, so you hit her.’

  Ellis laughed. ‘You have a wonderful imagination,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got it completely wrong. I don’t hurt women.’ Then he turned to Nicki. ‘Look what you’ve done. They all think I’m some kind of monster. Why are you here?’ he said.

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ she said. ‘You ignored my calls, my messages. I just wanted to talk.’

  Laura had backed away from Ellis and was standing shoulder to shoulder with Ben.

  ‘Haven’t you done enough damage to this family?’ Ellis said. ‘You want to know who she is? She’s the one who made Rosie’s life miserable, not me. She paid you, twice; forty thousand pounds. That should have been enough. But you had to have more.’

  ‘I only did it because you were ignoring me. I just wanted you to get in touch.’

  ‘Ellis? Who is she?’ Laura asked.

  ‘He never told you about me? I’m the one he followed to Hong Kong, the one he promised to love forever, and I was stupid enough to believe him. But it was just a smokescreen. He was only interested in what I could do for him.’ Nicki pointed to her cheek. ‘I got this because of him.’

  ‘No!’ Laura shouted. ‘Ellis loves me! You love me, don’t you? We’re going to get married.’

  ‘Dad told Mum you were a wanker,’ Ben said, ‘and I thought he was being unfair. Turns out he was right all along.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Ellis held his arms up in the air for quiet. ‘This is all getting quite out of hand. Nicki, this isn’t the time or the place. Go home and we’ll talk another time. I promise I’ll call you, this afternoon. Laura, I do love you and we can work through this. I’m sorry you never got to tell your mum about us. I know she would have understood and been happy for us. And Ben, I’m disappointed in you. I know you love your dad and I know he and I don’t see eye to eye all the time, but I love you and Laura and I loved my big sister, the TV star, and I would never, ever hurt her.’

  Everyone was silent for a moment, digesting Ellis’ words. Constance was wondering if she really had got things wrong again.

  ‘You knew about the blackmail, though?’ she said.

  Ellis shrugged. ‘Only after Rosie had paid up the second time. She told me about it, when we met up some months back. There didn’t seem any point telling her I suspected Nicki – not once it was all done – but I told Rosie to let me know if it happened again. I said I would sort it out for her. Then Rosie called me up, the day she died, told me she’d had another request for money, asked me what she should do. I said I’d come over. I didn’t want to tell her about Nicki over the phone. It was going to be pretty hard to explain that my crazy, jealous ex was blackmailing her to get back at me. But I didn’t get here in time.’

  Ellis sat down and lowered his head, and a tear streaked his cheek.

  ‘I had a call from a client, wanted some new rugs, and I had to source them from China. It took me hours. By the time I was finished, it was already on the news. Rosie was dead.’

  Nicki laughed quietly to herself. ‘Very good,’ she said. ‘Recreate yourself as a loving brother and uncle; a protector. You told me about Debbie’s transition, about how sensitive your sister was and you knew I would use it. You were just happy if it kept me off your back.’

  ‘You are a very sad person,’ Ellis said. ‘And I feel sorry for you, but I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  Nicki frowned, then she reached a hand up to her cheek. Then she sighed. ‘I don’t know why I’ve waited so long for you,’ she said. She turned to go. She placed one hand against the door and then spun around again and spoke to Laura. ‘He’ll use you and then he’ll leave you,’ she said. ‘But then, what’s new?’

  She exited the house, leaving the door open behind her. As she descended the steps, a police car approached at high speed, pulling up right outside. Its occupants leaped out and ran towards her. Nicki looked at them, spoke to them briefly and then climbed into the police car with them. As the car pulled away, she gave a last lingering look through the window.

  * * *

  Constance called Judith.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  ‘Dawson’s stopped the trial,’ Judith said. ‘He says Greg found out who blackmailed Rosie. He wants to pause things while they investigate further. Bridget’s thinking about it. No doubt she’s phoning a friend to decide what to do. I called you, but you didn’t pick up. Where are you?’

  ‘At Rosie’s. Listen, it was Nicki Smith who blackmailed Rosie, but she didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Nicki Smith? OK, if you say so. But then who did kill Rosie?’

  Constance looked around the room and her eyes alighted on Ben and the glove, then on Belle, then on Laura, who was staring at Ellis and steadfastly refusing his advances.

  ‘I think I know,’ she said. ‘Meet me at Regents Park underground station. See if you can persuade Dawson to come along too.’

  47

  Jason was seated on his favourite chair when Rochelle ushered Constance, Judith and Chief Inspector Dawson in.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ But he wasn’t smiling.

  Judith led the way and the two women sat down on the sofa. Dawson remained standing, by the window.

  ‘The trial’s been stopped,’ Constance said.

  ‘I heard on the news,’ he replied.

  ‘We know it was you,’ Judith said.

  Jason’s eyes flitted across to the door, checking it was closed; closed doors, secrets kept secret, but not for much longer. He didn’t reply.

  ‘Rosie confided in you about the blackmail, didn’t she? The Rapunzel recording. She wasn’t going to tell Debbie or her kids. She told you instead, her “second husband”.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jason said.

  ‘Why don’t you tell us how it happened, from your perspective?’

  Jason gave a deep sigh and looked up at his portrait again before speaking. Constance and Judith exchanged glances. Constance switched her phone to ‘record’ and placed it on the table in front of her.

  ‘Rosie came to me in 2017 and showed me the Rapunzel video. She was distraught. Said this was betrayal, a second time, by Debbie. Debbie had promised to go quietly, leave West Ham, not talk to the press and Rosie had agreed to a quickie divorce. Rosie’d managed to get through all of that, without it impacting her negatively. We’d managed it remarkably well. Then, like I say, this video suddenly appeared.’

  ‘Did you know who it was from?’

  ‘We had some IT people, trusted people, check it out, but it came from some internet café, untraceable. I had a few ideas, but the money the blackmailer wanted was well within Rosie’s budget and we could spend that much on experts trying to find out. I was surprised it was so little, actually. I advised her to pay.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘She did. She worried it would get out anyway. But it didn’t. It seemed well and truly buried and we went back to normal.’

  ‘Then another demand came?’

  ‘A few months later. This time Rosie didn’t want to pay. She’d got over the initial shock, she was prepared to let it go public, said she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life with the shadow of Debbie hanging over her, said she despised blackmailers, that it was such a cowardly crime, preying on people’s insecurities and fears. She wanted to go to the police. I told her that if she did, there would be a trial of the blackmailer and the video would be shown.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I said I thought it would be very damaging for her…’

  ‘For your show, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. It wasn’t the video itself. You’ll appreciate that it has a certain…charm about it. I just knew what it would lead to – much more interest in Debbie and her…lifestyle. That was the last thing Rosie needed – for Debbie to be back in vogue. I knew it would cause us real problems with the show. The producers would have to pretend it was fine, but they’d hate it.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I paid. Rosie kept refusing, so I paid and then I told her. She fussed for a while and then she accepted it was in her best interests – insisted on reimbursing me.’

  ‘So why did you kill her?’ Judith’s blunt question shocked Constance, but Jason hardly blinked.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said, looking across at Dawson, whose gaze remained fixed on a spot above Jason’s head.

  ‘Really? You never told us you went out with her the night before she died…’

  ‘I explained that.’

  ‘You tried to put us off the scent with stuff about Laura and Nicki Smith…’

  ‘I was trying to help with your enquiries.’

  ‘You lied about the day of the murder. Inspector Dawson checked with St Columba’s school. You slipped away early afternoon, claiming you had a cold. And you said you were so upset to hear the news of Rosie’s death that you were confined to your room. Instead, Ben tells me you were over at Rosie’s house, offering him the prospect of future work.’

  ‘So, I kept quiet about a few things. That doesn’t mean…’

  The door opened and Rochelle stepped inside. She stood there, staring at Jason, her eyes hard, her mouth quivering with tension. Jason’s face turned pale, then it began to crumple, then his own lips began to shake.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Rosie and I went out that night, like I said. She invited me. She told me she was leaving the show. She’d been offered a Sat night chat show of her own – the first woman. She said she would get her evenings back; she was so excited. I tried to talk her out of it. She didn’t realise how difficult the producers could be. I knew they’d promise things and not deliver. They’d never give her editorial control like they said. I’d always shielded her from it, with the breakfast show. I’d done all the negotiating, kept the show on the road. By the end of the evening, she was having doubts, I could tell. I dropped her home and she agreed not to sign up to the new job without talking to me again.’

  ‘And that happened the next day?’

  ‘We did the show in the morning. It was a really great one, you’ve seen it repeated so many times, since her death. Fabulous feedback, big viewing figures. Rosie went home without saying anything else, but there were always people around. Then she called me at lunchtime, said she’d listened to me, but she still wanted to take the new job. I begged her to wait, at least until I could come and speak to her again, and she agreed.’

  ‘You didn’t believe any of that, did you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? Rosie relied on me. She knew I was much more experienced where these things were concerned.’

  ‘You’d got it wrong about the blackmail, though, hadn’t you?’

  ‘No…I…’

  ‘Paying up didn’t stop it. Maybe you should have listened to Rosie for once. Sounds more to me like she wanted to get rid of you that evening and the best way was to pretend she agreed with you.’

  Jason frowned and then his voice collapsed.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I had persuaded her.’

  ‘Next day she felt the same. The show had had its day. Even with Rosie, the figures were falling. She could see that; you couldn’t. She was being kind to you, but she always intended to take the Saturday night show. Who wouldn’t?’

  ‘You went over there, didn’t you? To Rosie’s.’ Constance stepped in.

  ‘I was at the prize-giving, like I told you, but I got bored, feigned a cold. I headed over to Rosie’s house. When I arrived, she was angry. Danny had just been over and they’d argued about stuff, so she was already wound up and she said she was behind with her mail. She asked me to leave. I told her she had to stay with the show. This time she laughed. She said I had held her back, all these years. Me! I created her! There would have been no Rosie Harper without me!’

  ‘You told her that?’

  ‘I did. I reminded her that I got her her first role, that I’d pressed for her pay to be increased, at risk to my own, that I’d saved her when Danny left her. I was the one she cried to, every night for at least a week, and I managed it, kept it low key. Do you know, at one stage she even talked about having him on the show, can you imagine? That…freak! With his Rapunzel hair and his puffed-out chest. Said it would be hard for her, but she thought it would make great TV and that maybe she owed him something, after all. I advised her against all of that. And I even paid off her blackmailer.’

  ‘Let me guess. She didn’t see it the same way?’

  ‘Ingratitude. She said I had been wrong about everything, that she never should have listened to me. That she appreciated the Blue Peter role, but that was it, and she’d paid me back ten times over by staying so long.’

  ‘So you killed her?’ Judith said, for the third time.

  ‘I want a lawyer,’ Jason looked at Dawson.

  Dawson blinked heavily. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  Rochelle let out a sob and covered her mouth with her hands.

  ‘Wasn’t that a bit of an over-reaction?’ Judith said.

  Jason turned his attention to Judith again.

  ‘Rosie wasn’t easy to work with, did you know that? Everyone thought she was this sunny, easy-going person. She was opinionated and stubborn and she overvalued her own contribution,’ Jason said.

  ‘You were in good company, then.’

  ‘I am a professional, with forty years in the business. I was a child star. I’ve been living and breathing TV from my first spoken word. She would never have got anywhere without me. I have contacts everywhere.’

  ‘You threatened her, didn’t you?’ This time it was Constance who spoke.

  ‘Threatened is too strong. I explained to her that, if she didn’t stay with the show, I would tell her new producers about Rapunzel and the blackmail.’

  ‘Which was your idea in the first place.’

  ‘So what? Can you imagine what the papers would say if it came out that she had paid off a blackmailer? And why? Because of that pathetic video.’

  ‘That’s why you did it, isn’t it? That’s why you advised her to pay up in 2017 – not to help her, to make sure she was forever in your debt.’

  ‘She didn’t like what you said, I imagine?’ Judith took control again.

  ‘She pushed me, quite hard, lay her hands on me. I fell back onto the sofa.’ Jason waited for Rochelle’s response. She was sobbing quietly into her hands.

  ‘Then she laughed,’ Jason said. ‘Said I looked ridiculous. Said I was ridiculous. Said she hated everything about me; my clothes, my hair, my speaking voice. She said she hated the way I said “good morning” on the show, the way I introduced the guests, the way I crossed my legs, the way I laughed. She said she’d always hated me, that she’d felt sorry for me at first, but then it became hate. She said she bitterly regretted choosing me over Danny, that she had been wrong, that she felt he had real integrity, him, her, “Rapunzel”. That I was the false, fake, phoney.’

  ‘You just wanted to stop her talking?’

  ‘I did. I wanted her to stop all that vile stuff coming out of her mouth. Then I saw it glinting there, on the mantelpiece – the trophy. I remember when she won it. We were all there. Of course, we already knew she had won, but we had to act surprised. Her first big award, the first of many. I picked it up. She turned towards the back of the house. The dog was in the garden, scratching at the door. She stood up to let the dog in and I hit her. It made this popping sound, like when you crack an egg on the side of a bowl. It felt like that too, a fragile exterior giving way to allow the liquid interior to flow out. She turned and raised her hands, but she was still smiling, like it was all one big joke, like I was the joke. So, I lifted the trophy high above my head and I brought it down on Rosie Harper’s ingratitude-filled skull, with all my might.’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38