‘Why didn’t you tell me, darling?’ Pippa said, squeezing her sister’s hand. ‘When Ella was tested – and she doesn’t have it, now does she? – she was called in. They call you in even if the result is negative.’
‘Always? Do they really?’ Heather asked, in a relieved tone.
‘Always. What was the other letter? The one from the Abbey Park Lodge?’
‘So, he still may not have Huntingdon’s?’
‘Yes, yes. But tell me about the letter.’
‘It was the one you handed to me at the flat, from Mrs Drayton, the manageress. Our initials are the same, mine and Harry’s. They’d put “Mr” before my initials, by mistake, so I thought it was for him and I forwarded it on to him in the flat. But it was meant for me. He must have learned from it that I was intending to put his father in there, into a home. I’d never discussed it with the children. I had to be the one to make the decision… I couldn’t involve them in something like that.’
‘I know. I knew you had taken that decision.’
‘How? Who told you?’
‘Ella, last week. Harry told her and she told me, you see. Anyway, you shouldn’t have worried,’ Pippa said, trying to reassure her again. ‘Harry and Ella were together the night when it all happened, you knew that. Remember?’
‘That’s what I thought at first. But after that phone call, I worked out that Ella had spent the evening, and the night, with Vicky, Harry’s girlfriend. That’s what I thought Vicky said.’
‘I don’t know what she said, but maybe you got it wrong.’
‘Maybe I did. I can’t remember her exact words any more. But if it wasn’t Harry, then who was it… God, not Ella – please, please God.’
‘No,’ Pippa said quietly, ‘not Ella, darling. Me.’
‘You?’
Thomas Riddell pushed the door open and advanced quickly towards the sisters, finding them both now sitting bolt upright.
‘You’ll have to leave now, Miss Mitchelson,’ he said, looking at her anxiously and tapping her on the shoulder. ‘You’ll need to go into the other interview room. The Chief and Inspector Manson are both on their way, and they’ll be here in less than a minute.’
Elaine Bell listened dumbfounded to her sergeant.
‘Are you sure?’
‘No, but I am sure that it wasn’t Heather Brodie. And Pippa Mitchelson has no alibi.’
‘OK, but that only gets us so far. Why? Why would she kill her brother-in-law?’
‘Love, I think.’
‘She was in love with the man?’ the DCI interrupted, incredulous.
‘No. Ella. She loves Ella.’
DI Manson came over to join them, shaking his head.
‘She doesn’t want one?’ Elaine Bell asked.
‘No, Ma’am. Says she doesn’t need a solicitor. Wants to get everything over now. Right now.’
‘Alright. Alice, you take the lead this time. I still don’t fully understand what’s been going on, but we can’t wait. Wouldn’t want her to change her mind. But be very, very careful. Do it completely by the book… everything. Nothing must go wrong.’
Once they were all seated inside and the tape was running, Alice began, ‘Miss Mitchelson, would I be right in thinking that you were not with your sister on the Saturday night?’
‘Yes,’ the woman smiled bleakly, tenting her long fingers and pressing their red tips together, ‘you would be right.’
‘But you covered for her?’
‘That’s what she thought, and she was right, of course. I always cover for her. I knew whenever she was going out to meet Colin. She would tell the children that she was going to meet up with me, and obviously I’d tell them the same. I had to, didn’t I?’
‘You always knew when she would be out of the house… when she was with him, anyway?’
‘Shall we speed things up a bit, dear? Mr Riddell kindly collected me, but I would have come here myself. As soon as I’d heard about Heather’s foolish, selfless act I had to, really, didn’t I? So, shall I just tell you everything… would that be in order?’
The DCI and Alice exchanged glances, and then Elaine Bell said, ‘Yes, you do that, please.’
‘Well… where shall I begin?’ the middle-aged spinster asked, shielding her tired eyes with her left hand, then answering her own question. ‘At the beginning, of course. On Friday last Ella told me… she said that Harry had discovered from a letter that their mother was going to put Gavin in a home. She was crying, almost hysterical at the thought. She said she couldn’t bear it. Katy was beside her, she couldn’t understand what was going on, so I put her on my knee as Ella talked and talked. She said that she was going to save her father, put him out of his misery like he wanted, like he kept asking her…’
She stopped speaking, looking into the distance.
‘So?’ The DCI prompted.
‘Sorry. So I said not to worry. But I couldn’t let that happen could I? Ella’s a brave girl, a very unselfish girl, and she would have done it, you see. She has the courage to do it – to kill him. I knew she would…’ her voice tailed off, but she began again, a tear running now down her cheek.
‘I couldn’t let that happen. Ella has everything to live for. She’s young, beautiful. She’s got Katy to look after. Her whole life is in front of her. And, goodness me, Katy needs her mother, doesn’t she? Any child does… And what do I have to lose in comparison? No one needs me, you see. I had so much less to lose. I had to be the one. For Ella… Gavin too, in a way.’
‘So?’ The DCI repeated, mechanically.
‘So I did it… on the Saturday. I knew Heather was going to be out with Colin. I had my key. I waited for Una to go, and then I gave him a cocktail of two of his drugs and waited. While I was waiting, I lost my nerve. I thought perhaps they won’t work, perhaps the ones I chose were not strong enough. I couldn’t wait any longer.’
Once more, she stopped speaking, staring straight ahead at the wall as if she was now alone in the room.
‘You couldn’t wait…’ Elaine Bell prompted.
‘So I cut his throat with a knife.’ She hesitated briefly, shuddering. ‘Blood went everywhere, a shower of blood all over me, all over everything. I wiped myself with my clothes and changed into some of Heather’s things, I only put them back in her bag today. I took some of their possessions from the flat so that you would think it was a robbery or something like that. I dumped my own clothes later.’
‘What did you do with the things you took?’
‘I threw them away by the Dean Bridge. Except the photo, I took it out of its frame… the one of Ella, that was beside his bed. I kept it in my bedroom drawer… but after I heard about Heather today I brought it with me. I can show you it now if you like?’
The DCI nodded, and Pippa Mitchelson opened her handbag, removed an old-fashioned compact, a small hankie and her purse from it, and then a black and white print of her niece playing on the beach. Giving it a final lingering look, she handed it over.
‘It’s one of my favourites. She had such a wide smile, always happy. She was always happy… a carefree child.’
‘Mrs Brodie,’ the DCI began, ‘you’ll have got the news – that Harry’s fine, and that he didn’t do it. Sergeant Rice is talking to him now, then we’ll release him. You’re free to go too, of course. But there is one other thing that I’d like to ask you about.’
‘Yes,’ Heather Brodie said wearily, feeling drained of all life, her head still reeling from her sister’s revelation.
‘I have to ask you,’ the DCI began again, ‘did Thomas Riddell, our Liaison Officer – did he give you details of our investigation? Tell you about the overdose, for example, the type of drugs used, whether supposedly “stolen” stuff had been found, and if so its whereabouts and so on?’