Charlotte felt herself calming, just a little. The policewoman sounded genuinely concerned and reassuring.
‘But there’s so much I want to know...’
The detective inspector smiled slightly. ‘There’s so much I want to know too,’ she said. ‘And some of it you may be able to help me with. But not now. I have to see your mother first.’
Charlotte could feel the tears pricking at the back of her eyes. She didn’t want to break down in front of these people. She was still a Lange after all.
‘Will you... will you give mother my love?’ she asked in a more normal tone of voice.
‘Of course I will.’ The detective inspector sounded gentler than ever now.
‘And will you give her this?’
Charlotte held out the framed picture she had so carefully carried with her, glancing down at it as she did so. It was a photograph of the entire family, taken in the garden of Chalmpton Village Farm on the day of the christening of Charlotte’s baby son, Alex. Even Josh was there. And they all looked so happy. The perfect family.
The DCI took the picture from her. ‘Of course,’ she said again.
Charlotte raised her eyes and stepped back. She just wanted to get out of the place now. Her legs carried her automatically through the big double doors and on to the pavement outside, but she was not even aware that she was walking.
Somehow she found her way to her car and there was something comforting about the mechanical familiarity of starting the engine, changing gear and threading her way through the city traffic.
It was not until she reached the M5 and turned west towards the home which had always previously given her so much joy that she began to cry. Trying desperately to concentrate through the tears she could no longer control, Charlotte began to realise how much she had been relying on this visit.
Her mother refusing to see her was the final blow. Constance had never before turned away from any of her children. And Charlotte realised that she had all along been harbouring the belief that once she had seen her mother everything would start to be all right again, that Constance would take her into her arms and tell her it was all a dreadful mistake. Constance had always been there for reassurance after all. And her daughter had even somewhat fancifully imagined herself leading a fight to clear her mother’s good name.
It was not yet four o’clock but already almost dark. The traffic was heavy, people rushing home to be with their families for Christmas Day, Charlotte assumed, for the kind of celebrations the Lange family certainly would not be enjoying that year. She peered through the gloom, not sure if it were the glare of the headlights or her own tears which were blinding her. She knew that for safety’s sake she should find somewhere to stop and to try to gather her composure — the remains of her family did not need another tragedy — but she was in too much of a hurry. If she couldn’t hold her mother close then at least she could go back to the sanctuary of her cottage and seek what comfort she could from her husband and little son.
Peter Mellor was quite right, of course. Charlotte had been resolutely refusing to face up to grim reality. She felt certain still that her mother would never be able to look her daughter in the eye and lie to her. And so Constance’s denial of her daughter led to all kinds of ominous interpretations. For the first time, Charlotte began to accept that it might all be true — that her mother really could be a murderer, and a lot more besides.
Constance heard, without interest and indeed with some irritation, the sound of the lock in her cell door being turned yet again. She was sitting on her bed and did not stand when Rose Piper, accompanied by a young detective constable, and, yet again, the solicitor she had no interest in, walked into the grim little room.
Then, just for a moment, her feelings got the better of her. The extraordinary calm which had quite genuinely been with her ever since she had decided to confess, momentarily departed.
‘I wish you’d all leave me alone. I’ve told you that I did it, all of it, I just want to be locked up, and the key thrown away, that’s what I deserve,’ she shouted at Rose in an outburst of raw emotion.
It was the first time she had felt anything, really, since she had decided to confess. She hadn’t been sure if she was even capable of feelings any more.
The Detective Chief Inspector listened patiently, as if trying to understand Constance, which Constance thought was a pretty impossible task as she didn’t entirely understand herself.
‘You’ll get your wish soon enough, unless you show some inclination to help yourself,’ said the DCI.
Constance could not quite work this Rose Piper out. The younger woman disconcerted her, made her not quite so sure of herself. She couldn’t imagine why a senior police officer should have any sympathy or concern for her, not after all that she had told Rose Piper of what she had done, and yet each time she talked to the inspector she was aware of a certain empathy.
The detective constable certainly did not seem likely to confuse the issue with a display of sensitivity. He was already setting up a tape recorder.
‘We have some more questions for you, Mrs Lange,’ he said, as if her little outburst had never happened.
When Rose Piper spoke again, her words were unexpected.
‘Your daughter sends her love.’
Constance was taken by surprise. She struggled not to react.
‘Why wouldn’t you see her?’
Constance shrugged. ‘There was no point. I have nothing to say to her.’
‘You have a younger daughter too, only seventeen. She still needs you. Charlotte wants to help you. Why don’t you let her visit at least once?’
‘No,’ responded Constance, and only she knew how deeply the denial hurt. ‘They will both be better off if they never have anything to do with me again. I can only give them pain now. They will forget me, in time. I don’t want them near me. Never again.’
‘You don’t want this then.’
The policewoman held out Constance’s favourite framed photograph of her family which she had always kept by her bedside at Chalmpton Farm.
There is a limit to denial. Constance could not stop herself taking the picture. She hugged it close to her, unable to let go of it, reluctant to look at it. Suddenly she felt as if it were her own flesh into which that vicious butcher’s knife had been plunged.
Nineteen
Rose had never before seen Constance Lange display any emotion at all. She hoped that perhaps the other woman might be a little more vulnerable for once. She studied Constance carefully, unsure of what she wanted from her, but still convinced somehow that what she had so far was not entirely satisfactory.
There was no relevant DNA evidence. The killer of Marty Morris and Colin Parker, forensic had confirmed, had worn gloves and had, in any case, barely touched his or her victims, so adroitly had the crimes been carried out. Rose was sure it would prove to be the same with Wayne Thompson when she finally received the full forensic report on him in about a week’s time.
‘I want the gloves that you used, Constance,’ she said.
Constance, as if with a huge effort of will, put the family photograph down on the bed beside her, and almost leaned away from it, as if rejecting even that.
‘I threw the gloves in the sea with the boots and the knife,’ she said.
About all that the SOCOs had found worth mentioning at any of the crime scenes were the footprints in the mud at the Crescent Hotel where Marty Morris had been killed and by the side of the Feeder where Wayne Thompson died.
Both were indeed from the same Timberland boots, an immensely popular and widely available brand, and size ten was a common enough size. Without Constance’s help Rose did not think it would even be possible to ascertain where they had been bought. And predictably, Constance was not helping.