CHAPTER 56
I freeze. ‘Annette? What are you doing here? How did you get in?’
Solly is spread-eagled under the table. Some guard dog.
‘Why don’t you sit down, Imogen. I think we need to talk.’
A burst of anger mixed with fear.
‘How did you get in?’ I ask again.
‘I have my ways, Imogen.’
She must have damaged the keypad on the side gate, or got her grandson to do it.
Did she smash a window to get inside the house?
Why didn’t she trigger the cameras and the alarm system?
She probably did, but I wouldn’t know, because Josh never gave me access to the app.
Maybe I had to press something to switch on the alarm.
I realize I relied too much on Josh to sort it all out for me.
I should have insisted he showed me how to do it.
‘Please sit,’ she says, more sternly now, ignoring me. ‘Warren said you wanted to see me. He rang, and luckily I was already in the area, so I came straight over.’
‘And thought to let yourself in.’
‘Well, it was raining and I didn’t want to sit in my car and wait. I’m not getting any younger. Here, I’ve made you a cup of tea.’
I think of Aiden’s claims that Annette visited Maisie the day she was poisoned. ‘No, thanks. I know you poisoned Maisie.’
I’m still standing at the exit to the kitchen.
I mentally plan my escape if needed. Solly, who can sense something is amiss, is now sat up, his ears forward as though on alert for my command.
Has Annette asked Warren to come here? Is she just keeping me talking until he turns up to do her dirty work?
‘Maisie was becoming a problem,’ she says calmly as though she’s talking about the weather, not murdering her long-term friend. ‘I had to keep her quiet. She was saying all sorts.’
‘But why? Everyone would have dismissed anything she said, wouldn’t they? She had dementia.’
‘I couldn’t take that risk. Maisie knows where the bodies are buried, so to speak.
I knew poisoning her hot chocolate would do the trick.
Easy to do. Just a squirt of my hay fever meds in her drink.
Aiden’s told the police, of course, but I’ve denied it and there is no proof I was ever at their house that day.
And isn’t it always the husband? Are you going to sit down?
’ She looks so prim, sitting there with ankles crossed in her tweed suit and the pearls at her neck.
‘Did you kill my mum? And Dorothea?’
She sighs and pats her hair. She’s still wearing her leather driving gloves.
Her handbag is open by her feet, and I notice a bottle of eyedrops nestled next to her purse.
I remember reading a case about a man who poisoned his wife with her own hay fever medication as some brands of eyedrops contain tetrahydrozoline, which can cause death if too much is ingested.
‘Your mother’s death was an accident. Nobody wanted to hurt her. We were all very fond of Ruth.’
A jolt of dread shoots through me. ‘Please, Annette. Please tell me what happened.’
‘Please sit down, Imogen, you’re making me nervous.’
I slump into the nearest chair.
‘I was cross with your mother for going back to that man. I thought she’d been very disrespectful to Dorothea, to all of us who had escaped abusive relationships.
But she was willing to give your imbecile of a father another chance.
And then, at the Halloween party he came charging in, effing and blinding as usual, trying to get her to leave with him.
We threw him out. But not long after, she left too.
I followed her. I was furious with her, but I also wanted to make sure she was okay.
I found her on the towpath, she told me what had happened, how they’d rowed, and how he’d tried to get her in the car.
I said then that she should come back with me and stay at Rosemary’s or move into Dorothea’s.
Or mine. She was welcome to stay at mine.
You have to believe me when I say I was desperate to save her from your father.
But she refused. Said that he was different – she was deluded, of course, he wasn’t different.
His behaviour that night proved that. But she wouldn’t listen, and I tried. I tried to make her listen.’
My stomach flips. ‘What did you do?’
‘I got angry with her. I didn’t mean to. Things became heated and I tried to pull her back along the towpath, in the direction of Rosemary’s house. She wrenched free, stumbled backwards and fell, hitting her head. It was an accident.’
‘Then why didn’t you explain that to the police?’
‘Because I was scared, Imogen. I didn’t want to go to prison.’
‘So you thought you’d set up my dad instead?’
‘I had his mask in my pocket. He dropped it as he left the party. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision and he was a bad man. An abuser. We all felt it was the right thing to do to put the blame on him. He needed punishing, one way or the other.’
I stare at her open-mouthed.
‘Oh, don’t look so shocked. Don’t worry, your precious Dorothea tried to convince me to go to the police and tell the truth. But she owed me, you see. She owed me for Bobby. Her hands were tied.’
Annette had robbed me and Alison of both of our parents. The realization is guttural and painful, and I experience a stabbing sensation in my chest.
‘And the others? Rosemary and Maisie?’
‘They found out later. It was Dot I told first. Dot who helped me.’ It’s obvious to me that Annette Baker-Hume doesn’t do anything unless there is something in it for her.
‘Why did you help Dorothea cover up Bobby’s death? What was in it for you?’
She blanches. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I was being a good friend. We kept each other’s secrets.’
Annette sips her tea and then carefully places the cup back in its matching saucer.
‘I think you killed Dorothea, Annette. You killed Maisie to stop her talking. You – or rather your grandson …’
She stiffens at the mention of her grandson.
‘… pushed her down the stairs and set fire to her work.’
‘I didn’t mean to push her downstairs.’
‘What, like you didn’t mean to kill my mother?’
She gives me a withering look. ‘You’re making it all sound premeditated, and it wasn’t like that at all.
Dorothea had become … strange in the months before she died.
Paranoid. Untrustworthy. She pulled away from me, and I didn’t know why.
When I read in the newspaper that she had come up with this magpie collection and hinted at secrets, then I had to see for myself.
I couldn’t risk her exposing all our secrets, could I? ’
‘You mean your secrets?’
She doesn’t say anything.
‘And then, what? You pushed her?’
‘I didn’t realize she was in the house. She told Rosemary, who told me, that she was going away for a few days.
It was an instinctive thing, an involuntary reaction at finding her there.
She … she didn’t even know it was me …’ To my surprise, her eyes tear up.
‘I was only supposed to destroy her sculptures and the letter …’
‘What letter?’
‘She’d been writing a letter to you, Imogen. It had sat unfinished in her studio. But it read very much like a confession. I think she was planning to give it to her solicitor to give to you in the event of her death. The sculpture was added insurance, apparently.’
So that’s how she knew there was a sculpture.
‘I caught your grandson going through her box files. I’m assuming you put him up to it? Why would you drag your grandson into all this?’
She looks visibly annoyed at this. ‘I’ve not dragged Warren into anything.
He’s very protective. It was his idea …’ She stops herself.
‘This isn’t about Warren. It’s about Dorothea and her not being able to keep to her word.
She didn’t say in the letter to you where the sculpture was.
Since her death Warren has kindly been helping me find something, anything, that might say where she’d hidden it.
She never once told me about the bunker.
’ She smiles enigmatically. ‘It seems Dorothea liked to keep secrets of her own.’
‘But Warren found out about the bunker, didn’t he? He was the one who locked me and Dennis in that day.’
‘He didn’t realize the sculpture was in there at first. He’s not the brightest spark, unfortunately. It was only when he told me about it that I guessed. But that bunker is impossible to access without a key.’
‘How did Dorothea end up with Bobby’s lighter?’
She fidgets. ‘She said she found it in the woods but I think she was lying about that. I think she must have kept it after his death.’
‘Why did Warren take it out of the box?’
‘He liked the look of it.’ She rolls her eyes.
‘When I realized what he’d done I told him to put it back.
But he must have dropped it when he was looking for the bunker.
He should never have taken it in the first place.
Warren had been watching the house for me after you and your boyfriend moved in. ’
‘You got Warren to do your dirty work for you? Your own grandson?’
‘Oh, he didn’t do anything illegal. It wasn’t like he was the one to push Dorothea.’
‘No, that was all you.’
She crosses her arms. ‘I loved Dorothea. And hurting her was a last resort.’
‘Who attacked Dennis? Was that Warren too?’
She doesn’t say anything.
I remember Dennis’s grey face, the slip of paper bearing the word VINDICTA.
‘Or was it Rosemary? Afterwards, Dennis found a note with the Latin word for revenge written on it, and Rosemary once taught Latin.’ I picture the man with the tawny ponytail who answered the door when I visited Rosemary’s house.
‘Or was it that man who lives with her, Peter Bryce? I know he’s got a previous conviction for assault when he was a teenager. ’
When she remains quiet, I add, ‘Let’s say I’m right about Rosemary’s lodger … did she hurt Dennis because you’d asked her to?’
‘I think we should keep Rosemary out of all this. Dennis deserved what he got. He was a user. He used Dorothea and then wrote a book about her.’
‘So you knew he was the one writing the biography?’
‘I worked it out. Yes.’
‘I bet that terrified you, didn’t it? Were you worried Dorothea would let slip something to him about what you did to my mum?’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘I don’t think I am. Rosemary isn’t really away, is she, Annette? I think you’ve silenced her too.’
She scoffs. ‘What an imagination you have. As if I’d hurt Rosemary.’
‘Why? You thought nothing of hurting Dorothea and Maisie. They were your friends and you killed them to keep your nasty little secrets.’ I shift from foot to foot.
‘I don’t think it was an accident at all, what you did to my mum.
You wanted to control her, and you didn’t like it that she didn’t listen to you.
You didn’t give a shit about my mum. You didn’t even bother coming to her funeral.
’ My heart pounds in anger. I scrape my chair back and get up. ‘I’m calling the police.’
Her laugh reverberates around the kitchen.
‘Oh, Imogen. It will be your word against mine and who do you think the police will believe? A grubby journalist and the daughter of a convicted killer, or a fine, upstanding member of the community renowned for her charity work?’ She stands up and dusts down her skirt.
‘I felt like I owed you the truth about your mother. And about Dorothea. But leave it now. You can’t prove any of it, and Rosemary will back me up and give me an alibi if I need it. ’
‘The police know about the sculpture, Annette. It’s no longer secret.’
She rocks on her heels slightly and I realize this has unnerved her.
‘I think that sculpture doesn’t just hold clues. I think there’s evidence hidden there somewhere that could implicate you in my mother’s death.’ It’s a guess but by her stunned expression I can tell I’m on to something.
She recovers herself. ‘Well, the police haven’t figured it out yet, have they? And I’ll make sure Warren destroys the sculpture. If you would just kindly give me the key?’
‘I don’t think so.’
She takes a step towards me, her eyes hardening as I hear the sound of footsteps in the hall outside the kitchen. And I realize that her intention was never to let me go.