Chapter 20
SIMON
‘So you’re saying me and Jemma could be done for conspiracy to commit murder and … whatever the other thing was you said?’
‘Soliciting to murder. Yes,’ said Simon.
‘Even though we never did anything?’
Tom Tulloch looked as alarmed as he deserved to be, Simon thought. The two of them were at Tulloch’s brother’s house in Little Holling, in a grim sitting room with a gas fire turned up too high and windows that looked as if no one had opened them for years.
The brother, Lucas, had gone out and left them to it.
‘That’s right.’ Simon wished he’d brought a handkerchief to mop up the beads of sweat forming on his brow. ‘You made a plan together, to kill someone. Legally, I’m afraid that counts as doing something.’
‘But Jemma changed her mind, right? You said she came clean. So what’s the problem?’
‘One problem is that Marianne Upton ended up dead, murdered in the very particular way that your and Jemma’s plan specified, so … Put yourself in the shoes of a jury – all twenty-four of them.’
‘Only twelve on a jury, mate. Dunno what films you’ve been watching.’
‘Twelve people. Twenty-four shoes,’ Simon said.
‘Oh, right. Fair.’ Tulloch put down the beer he’d been holding and grabbed his long, wiry beard with both hands as if it were an instrument he was about to play. ‘You said the Domino’s driver told your sergeant I was here when I said I was, yeah? On Monday?’
‘He did. That doesn’t change the fact that you were involved in making a murder plan that came to fruition.
’ How much, Simon wondered, would that driver have wanted in exchange for lying?
Probably not a lot. And if Tulloch hadn’t done it, then who?
According to Sam, they were all on the couldn’t-have-done-it list: Jemma and her husband and daughter, Marianne’s husband, Oliver Mayo, Jemma’s best friend Suzanne Lacy …
Tulloch said, ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you: I’d already decided I wasn’t going to do it – for other reasons, nothing to do with it being a crime.’
‘Yeah. Wouldn’t want to let a trivial detail like that stop you,’ said Simon.
‘I’d started to think it wasn’t worth it.
I don’t mean financially – the money was generous, but I stopped believing it’d get our friendship back to where it had been.
I’m not sure Jemma’s a very forgiving person, and Paddy’s neither here nor there.
She makes all the decisions. And I mean, I’d passed the test, hadn’t I?
’ Tulloch sounded almost offended. ‘Said I’d do it, ready to put my neck on the line.
But there was still nothing said about whether I ought to move in with them for a bit, just while I got myself sorted.
No one told me I wouldn’t have to live in this dive any more. ’
‘So if Jemma had given you the green light, you’d have told her you’d changed your mind?’ Simon asked. ‘Even though she’d already paid you part of the money? That’s what you told DS Kombothekra, right?’
‘Dunno. I don’t think she’d have made me give it back,’ Tulloch mused. ‘She’s loaded, Jemma. The kind of loaded that means you don’t really keep track of money – where it’s gone, if it’s coming back.’
‘Must be nice to live like that,’ said Simon.
Tulloch snorted. ‘Why’d you think I was so keen to move back in with them? It’s nice having rich friends, that’s for sure. All kinds of perks. Don’t know why Paddy bothers with the crappy bar jobs. He could live off Jemma for ever if he wanted to.’
‘Any idea who might have killed Marianne?’ Simon asked. Disappointingly, his instincts were telling him the amoral gnome in front of him wasn’t the stabber he was looking for.
‘Jemma’s the only person I know who wanted her dead,’ said Tulloch. ‘Look, if I help you out, can you make this conspiracy to murder thing go away?’
Simon couldn’t, but didn’t say so. ‘How can you help me out?’
‘Wait there.’
Tulloch left the room, not shutting the door behind him.
Immediately, the heat was less intense as cooler air from the hall entered the room.
Simon took the opportunity to reach over and turn off the gas fire.
A whirring whine came from above his head.
A printer? Was the gnome printing something out upstairs?
After a few minutes, Tulloch returned with some papers he’d rolled into a tube shape.
Simon nearly retched when Tulloch tossed them into his lap and he saw they were being held in place by a black elastic hair bobble that still had quite a lot of hair attached to it: dyed red, dark brown at the root.
‘Take them out of that … thing,’ he said, pushing them off his knees and onto the carpet. ‘What are they, anyway?’
‘Lots of diary entries, written by Jemma – though I’ve got my theories about the typed ones, as you’ll see if you read the emails I’ve printed out for you.
’ Tulloch’s stubby fingers pulled at the hairband.
‘The handwritten ones with the messy edges are from Jemma’s 2006 diary, and the rest, the typed ones, are from between July just gone and about two weeks ago.
Meant to be from a diary file on Jemma’s laptop.
Marianne sent me them as attachments. They’re all dated. ’
‘Marianne emailed them to you?’ Simon straightened in his chair. ‘How did she get your contact details?’
‘She’d been in Jemma’s laptop, hadn’t she? Snooping around.’
‘When did this happen? When did she first contact you?’
‘Can’t remember,’ said Tulloch. ‘Everything’s dated though. You just need to read it all yourself.’
‘Oh, I will,’ Simon assured him. ‘I want to hear it from you too, though. In your own words.’
Tulloch sighed at the imposition. ‘Marianne got in touch, asked if we could meet. I was shitting it: thought she must have found out what Jemma had asked me to do, you know? Well, I knew she had,’cause she told me.
Said if I told Jemma she’d contacted me, I’d regret it for the rest of my very short life. ’
‘Death threat?’ said Simon.
Tulloch nodded. ‘Sounded like she meant it too. So I kept my mouth shut, went to meet her, and afterwards she sent me those.’ He nodded down at the papers.
‘All the diary bits are on the same theme: how much Jemma hates Marianne. They’re really bitter and horrible. Reading them did make me wonder …’
‘If you’d picked the wrong side?’
‘Kind of, yeah,’ said Tulloch. ‘I mean, obviously Marianne only sent me the worst bits, given what she wanted me to do.’
‘Which was?’
‘Kill Jemma.’ This was said matter-of-factly.
‘She knew about Jemma’s plan – found the diary file on her laptop and read the whole thing.
Told me she’d suspected for ages that something wasn’t right, so she’d got into Jemma’s computer and had a bit of a shufti.
Didn’t like what she found, so offered to pay me twice as much. ’
‘To kill Jemma?’ Simon thought it was worth checking.
Tulloch nodded.
‘When and where was this meeting?’
‘Early September, in London. She invited me to lunch. Restaurant called Gymkhana in Mayfair. She paid, obviously. Way beyond my means. Paid for my train and taxis too. Crazy woman made me eat goat brains.’ Tulloch chuckled.
‘Side dish: goat brains, I kid you not – haha, pun intended. She promised me I’d love it if I could get past my squeamishness, and she was right. Delicious.’ He patted his belly.
Simon felt nauseous.
‘You know, I think that’s how I knew Jemma wasn’t really serious about going through with it.
’ Tulloch tilted his head to one side and his beard moved with it like a solid piece of wire sculpture.
‘I sat there listening to Marianne, thinking, “This is someone who really wants her enemy taken out.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer at first. I had to get a bit firm with her or she’d never have left me alone.
I’ll be honest with you: I’ve not slept nearly as well since, but I will now.
Now I know she’s dead,’ Tulloch clarified, apparently unaware of what he’d revealed.
‘And you still didn’t tell Jemma,’ Simon said pointedly. ‘You didn’t warn her or go to the police?’
‘No way.’ Tulloch reached over and turned the gas fire back on. ‘Like I said, I wasn’t keen on the prospect of killing anyone. I didn’t want Jemma deciding we’d better strike first, before Marianne had a chance – which I was pretty sure Marianne wouldn’t do, by the way.’
Spoken like a seasoned analyst of criminogenic risk factors, thought Simon.
‘She’d have known if anything happened to Jemma, I’d be in a position to tell the police everything. No way she’d take the chance.’
‘She could have paid a third party to remove the problem of both you and Jemma,’ Simon suggested.
‘Could have, I guess.’ Tulloch scratched the side of his face. ‘I never thought of that possibility.’ Helpfully, he reminded Simon once again that what he’d lacked in opportunity, he made up for in motive. ‘Luckily, I don’t have to worry about it now, do I?’ he said. ‘Now Marianne’s dead, I mean.’
Simon pulled over as soon as he’d turned a corner and was sure he couldn’t be seen from the too-hot lounge he’d just escaped from.
He picked up the papers from the passenger seat next to him and started to leaf through them.
As promised by Tulloch, there were handwritten diary entries and typed ones.
His eye landed on an email from Marianne, which seemed as good a place as any to start.
From: Marianne.Upton1955@
To: TomJBTulloch@
12 September 2023
Dear Tom,
In the hope that it might persuade you, I’d like you to read the attached extract, dated 7 July this year, from the diary I found on Jemma’s laptop computer, which I only went searching for once I’d decided that she and her privacy deserved as little respect as she has shown for me and mine.
I told you when we met about her approaches to Norman Pelphrey and others.
In this diary entry, she refers to that unsavoury episode as if she were the victim of it and I the evil, entrapping monster.
I hope you’ll be able to see that, given what she has done already and her grotesque plan to eliminate me, this mealy-mouthed offering is the writing of a manipulative, narcissistic snake.
You cannot imagine how painful it is for me to write those words about my own daughter.
I beg you, Tom – think about everything I’ve told you.
Read again, more than once if you have to, the diary pages I’ve posted to you from 2006.
Also read the entries I emailed you yesterday (they’re not dull, I promise.
They include Jemma’s plan to murder me, using you as a weapon).
Read it all, and try to imagine even a fraction of the misery I’ve experienced.
I think you’ll change your mind. I profoundly hope that you will.
Warmest best wishes,
Marianne
Simon turned to the piece of paper beneath: another email from Marianne to Tom, sent after he’d failed to reply to her first.
From: Marianne.Upton1955@
To: TomJBTulloch@
13 September 2023
Well? If ￡10,000 isn’t enough to tempt you, I’m willing to double it. ￡20,000. That’s my final offer.
M x
Tulloch had taken eight days to reply to this one. Simon wondered if that was because he’d been too tempted by the money to shut down the possibility with a swift ‘No’. He’d said no eventually, however, and deprived himself of twenty thousand pounds by doing so:
From: TomJBTulloch@
To: Marianne.Upton1955@
21 September 2023
Dear Marianne,
Jemma’s not your daughter, she’s your stepdaughter.
Please don’t write to me again. I’ve said no already and I won’t change my mind.
You must think I’m stupid. Jemma obviously didn’t write this diary entry you say you found on her laptop.
The dates are written differently for a start.
In all of them, the month comes first, in capitals, then we have the day – just the number – then a comma and then the year.
In the handwritten diary pages from 2006, the dates are in a different format: first the number of the day with ‘st’ or ‘nd’ after it (as in 1st, 2nd, etc.), then the month and year with no commas anywhere.
Also, in the handwritten ones from 2006, the first line of each entry is indented, but in the typed 2023 ones, everything is left-justified.
Then there’s the fact that no one writes a diary on their computer.
It just doesn’t happen. And Ollie’s name is spelled wrong in the laptop diary.
Remember, I’ve known Jemma since school.
I dug out a couple of emails from her from 2005 where’s she’s raving about her amazing new boyfriend: Ollie with an ‘ie’.
Did she forget how to spell his name between then and this year?
Unlikely. We both know how important he was to her.
It’s pathetic, frankly, that you’d stoop so low as to impersonate her and write all this weird shit just to try and make her seem scarier than she is and manipulate me into doing your bidding.
She hasn’t been in touch with me for weeks, anyway, and I predict she won’t be. Even if she did get in touch, I’d steer clear. This whole thing’s too messy and complicated for me, so I’m out, and I won’t be replying to any more emails from you.
Cheers.
Tom
Simon moved the email to the back of the pile.
He needed to see this famous diary on Jemma Stelling’s laptop with his own eyes.
She’d been keeping one – that wasn’t in doubt.
Since July, wasn’t it? So Tulloch was wrong to say that no one writes a diary on their computer, but were these printed pages Simon was looking at now genuine extracts from that diary, or fakes created by Marianne?
There was only one way to find out.