Chapter 45 Imogen
Imogen
I stare at Annette, pristine in her tweed and pearls, and I try and imagine her and Rosemary dragging Bobby out to their car and digging a grave on a lonely hillside. They would have been much younger and fitter back then, of course, but still, I can’t picture it.
She wrings her hands, regret on her face. ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘No. I’m glad you did.’
‘Will you … will you tell the police? Rosemary and I … we would be prosecuted.’
‘Of course I won’t tell the police,’ I reassure her. ‘Why do you think Dorothea wanted me to know this?’
She shakes her head, causing one of her silky icy-blonde strands to come free and dangle by her ear. She tucks it away. ‘I think she was just unburdening herself. I’m not sure … and I don’t mean any offence to you … but I think this sculpture was more for herself.’
‘Then why would she leave me the co-ordinates?’
‘Maybe she thought you could sell it, use the money. I don’t know.’ She coughs discreetly into her hand. ‘Do you mind if we get out of here? The damp isn’t doing wonders for my chest.’
We’re both sombre as we walk out of the bunker and I lock it up behind me. Solly is waiting for me patiently at the top, his head resting on his paws.
‘So you don’t think Dorothea was killed because of this sculpture?’ I say as we make our way back through the woods.
‘I don’t see why she would have been.’
‘Then who do you think killed her? And why?’
She rubs her hands up and down her arms. The day has turned chilly and a fine mist hangs over the roof of the villa.
‘It could have been Gabe. To do with money. Or it could have been random. A burglary gone wrong. Although, now with Maisie … Rosemary is also worried someone is trying to pick us all off.’
I lower my voice. ‘Did Maisie know about Bobby?’
‘It happened before we met her. But, yes, eventually we had to tell her.’
‘Did Bobby have any family? Someone who knows what you did and is looking for revenge, perhaps?’
‘He had a sister, I think. Older than him. But I can’t imagine she’d come out of the woodwork now, after all these years.’
I offer to make Annette a drink, but she says she needs to leave.
I walk with her to her car – a beautiful oyster-pink Lotus that I know Josh would love.
Just as she’s about to get in she turns to me.
‘Other people’s secrets are a burden.’ She looks about her as though worried she’s being watched and her whole demeanour changes to one of paranoia.
Then she grabs my hands in her gloved ones.
‘If anything were to happen to me, know this, Imogen. We believed we were doing the right thing. All of us. All we ever wanted to do was help women who couldn’t stand up for themselves.
I’m not saying we were always right, there are so many things I regret, but our hearts were in the right place. ’
Before I can ask her what she means, she gets in her car and backs out of the driveway as though being chased by demons.
After Annette has gone I call DI Shirley.
I need to be honest with her about the sculpture.
I believed I was doing the right thing in keeping it from her, but now others could be in danger.
I feel a strange discombobulation at the thought that the Dorothea I knew was also the same person who killed her own husband.
I think of Rachel, or Alison. Would I bury a body for them?
And then I think of my mum. What if she had been the one to kill my dad because she’d snapped after years of abuse?
Would I have protected her? I like to think so.
‘I’ll be there around four p.m.,’ DI Shirley says after I’ve explained everything to her, leaving out the part about the murder and cover-up, of course.
‘I need to see this sculpture for myself. And, I have to warn you, Imogen, you could be in trouble for withholding this information, considering it could be evidence in a murder investigation.’ Her voice is stern and my stomach flips with worry.
‘I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize … not at first.’
‘You had the prime opportunity to tell me that day I let you and Dennis out of the bunker,’ she admonishes, making me squirm.
‘I don’t know what you were thinking, quite frankly, keeping something like this to yourself, hiding it from me like that.
I’ll see you later.’ She ends the call and I stare at my phone, my heart sinking, wondering what I’ve got myself into.
I recall the fear on Annette’s face when she left earlier.
I think of my boss, Chris, and my job that still hangs in the balance. I’d been so sure I was going to write a piece about Dorothea after her killer had been caught. But how can I now when there is so much I’d have to leave out, to protect her and her friends?And her killer might never be caught.
I make myself a late lunch, heating up the last of the casserole Josh made at the weekend, and then I take Solly for his afternoon walk to clear my head.
The wind picks up as I head over the fields with Solly.
I let him off his lead and he runs in front of me, his ears back, his tongue hanging out.
I’m the only one here and I feel a sudden kick of apprehension and the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.
I pull my duffel coat further around my body.
It’s nearly June but the weather has turned colder.
‘Hello, Imogen.’
I jump and spin around to see Dennis standing behind me with Cady by his side. I didn’t even hear him approach.
‘Dennis!’ I laugh in relief. ‘You scared me. I haven’t seen you for a while. Have you been visiting your daughter?’
‘Sorry. Yes, I got back last night. You looked lost in thought. Are you still trying to figure out Dorothea’s sculpture?’
He bends down to let Cady off her lead and she bounds towards Solly and they run off together. We fall in step behind them.
‘Have you told anyone about it?’ I ask, thinking of Gabe.
‘I’ve kept schtum.’ He mimics his lips being sealed.
I tell him about showing it to Annette. ‘Did Dorothea ever tell you she was once married?’
‘Yes, of course. We were very close. She told me about her father. About Bobby and how much she had once loved him.’
She must have trusted Dennis more than I thought.
‘Did she ever tell you Bobby was abusive?’
‘Um … no, she didn’t.’ I sense his shock. So she hadn’t told him about the abuse. Dorothea had kept that secret right up until she died. Maybe they weren’t as close as Dennis is trying to make out.
‘How long ago did you first meet her? Did you say ten years ago?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ He whistles for Cady and she comes scooting over with Solly. He pats them both, gives them a biscuit and then they charge off again. He sighs again. ‘I always thought there was something so fundamentally sad about Dorothea.’
‘In what way?’
‘It just seemed ingrained in her, you know? Her childhood wasn’t good by all accounts. A violent father who ruled the roost and then, obviously, all the stuff with Bobby leaving her. She was a broken bird …’
A broken bird. I’ve heard that before.
‘No, she wasn’t,’ I find myself saying. ‘She was a strong, capable woman, Dennis. She was a badass.’
He laughs. ‘Okay then.’
‘No, really. The stuff she did.’
‘I know what she did,’ he says mildly with a fond smile.
No, you don’t, I think but I keep quiet. She helped Mum and me. She didn’t rush into another relationship or another marriage. She was strong. I don’t buy the ‘broken bird’ crap. It smacks of a man trying to put her down.
We walk back down the lane together and as we pass Dennis’s house he invites me in for a cup of tea.
I’ve still got an hour or so before DI Shirley comes over so I accept.
As he’s making tea and I’m perched on his sofa with the dogs at my feet, he says, ‘Thank you for your help last week when you thought my attacker was back. Did Harry tell you about the misunderstanding?’ He hands me a mug that feels heavy and thick-rimmed after Dorothea’s fine bone china.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking it. ‘Yes, he did. I got the feeling that there was more to it, but Harry kind of clammed up.’
Dennis takes a seat on the other end of the leather sofa and crosses his legs. ‘It was a shame I was out. I missed it all.’
We chat a bit more, about his daughter and grandchildren and the dogs. But as we talk something is niggling away at me and I can’t work out what it is.
‘Actually, Dennis …’ I lean forward to place my mug on the side table. ‘Do you mind if I use your loo?’
He looks up. ‘Um … sure. It’s upstairs, the first door on the right.’
‘Thanks so much.’ I leave the room. As I pass the bookshelf in the hallway, I notice again the books on contemporary artists.
Why so many when he professes to have no interest in art?
I then head up the stairs. The house has that air of an older man living alone: musty and old-fashioned with no feminine touches.
The walls are painted a pale green and the carpet is brown, which reminds me of the chocolate limes my dad used to eat when I was a kid.
Dennis said he’s lived here ten years but it looks as though the place hasn’t been decorated in a long time.
When I reach the top of the stairs I head straight past the loo and tiptoe down the long corridor.
Like Dorothea’s villa, Dennis’s house has high ceilings and Georgian sash windows but it’s not as grand.
I poke my nose around the second door I come to and see it’s a spare bedroom.
The next room is Dennis’s bedroom, sparsely furnished with the bed neatly made.
I pop my head around every door I pass until I come to a small room at the end of the corridor.
I don’t even know what I’m looking for, I’m just following my instincts really.
I push the door open. It’s Dennis’s study and, by the looks of it, he’s currently working on something.
He has notepads and Post-it Notes littered all over his desk.
I remember him telling me he was a retired history teacher.
And then, in a pile on his desk I notice the same proof copy of A Woman in Turmoil?
as Harry gave me. I pick it up and then exhale in surprise.
There are four more of them stacked underneath.
Why does Dennis have so many proof copies?
Unless …
Author copies.
Broken bird. That’s why it was so familiar when Dennis said it. He’d written it in this unauthorized biography enough times.
‘Ah,’ says a voice from behind me and I freeze. ‘I see you’ve discovered my secret.’