Till We Meet Again

  She said it was quite possible his camper was still parked up in the village, but even if she had seen it, which she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have meant much to her either way, as it was always breaking down. As for him not returning to get the money owed to him for a job, she said he had always been a bit vague about money.

  ‘Right, let’s move on, to two years ago, 1993,’ Roy said crisply. ‘The disappearance of Reuben Moreland and Zoë Fremantle, from the house in Wales.’

  ‘How can I help it if they’ve disappeared?’ Susan asked incredulously. ‘I was only one of twelve people living there.’

  ‘Do the names Roger Watkins and Heather Blythe mean anything to you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Susan said. ‘They both lived at the house while I was there.’

  ‘Neither of them lives at Hill House now, but they’ve both made statements concerning Reuben and Zoë,’ Roy said. ‘They said that the couple left to sell goods at a craft fair in North Wales in early April. While they were gone you left.’

  ‘That’s right, I did,’ she said.

  ‘But Watkins claims he saw you over a week later in Emlyn Carlisle.’

  ‘He’s mistaken. I was in Bristol by then.’

  ‘Was he mistaken in saying that Reuben had treated you very badly, bringing Zoë home with him and sharing what was once your bed with her?’

  ‘No, that’s true. That’s why I left, I didn’t like it.’

  ‘You didn’t take the room in Belle Vue, Clifton until April 28th, some two weeks after you left Hill House. I have seen a dated copy of the tenancy agreement you signed. So where were you for the two weeks before that?’

  ‘In Bristol,’ she insisted.

  ‘Where in Bristol?’

  She hesitated. ‘I can’t remember the address, a bed and breakfast place. I was looking for a flat during that time.’

  ‘You weren’t, Susan,’ he said, leaning towards her. ‘You were camping up in the woods near Hill House. Weren’t you?’

  Steven hadn’t been perturbed by any of the questions and suggestions put to his client up till then. In fact he couldn’t really understand why the police wanted to question her again, for they didn’t appear to have any new evidence which would positively link her with the disappearance of these people. But the suggestion that she was camping near the house jolted him.

  ‘That’s completely ridiculous,’ Susan said indignantly.

  ‘You don’t have to answer any further questions,’ Steven reminded her.

  ‘It’s okay. I’ve got nothing to hide,’ she replied, and she half smiled at him as if the line of questioning wasn’t worrying her in any way. ‘What on earth would I want to camp out in the woods for?’

  ‘Revenge?’ Roy suggested, raising an eyebrow. ‘We have been up to those woods, the camping equipment is still there, a little the worse for wear after two years.’

  ‘I have never had any camping equipment,’ she scoffed. ‘If you found stuff there it’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was your camping equipment, but it came from Hill House, it has been identified.’

  ‘Why blame me?’ she asked, wide-eyed, looking around at Steven as if for support. ‘Anyone in that house could have taken it there. Reuben could have taken it there himself. He was always vanishing, he liked camping, anyone who ever lived in that house would tell you that.’

  ‘The last time Reuben and Zoë were seen by anyone in Hill House was as they made their way towards that wood for a picnic,’ Roy said. ‘But they left the house with nothing but a small basket and a rug.’

  ‘Well, there you go,’ she said triumphantly. ‘He’d taken the stuff up there before. He probably stayed up there for a while, then they went off abroad or something.’

  ‘He couldn’t leave the country without his passport,’ Roy said with a faint smirk. ‘We found that at Hill House. He left his van there too, and he hasn’t touched his bank account either since then.’

  ‘Then ask the others where he is,’ she snapped. ‘If they saw him walking off with just a rug, and he didn’t come back, why didn’t they report him missing?’

  ‘They had their reasons,’ Roy replied. ‘Benefit fraud, for one. You see, when he didn’t come back they had nothing to live on. So they signed on and claimed housing benefit. They could hardly report their landlord missing when they were supposed to be handing over thirty quid a week each to him. Could they?’

  Susan laughed, surprising Steven. ‘I think that’s all a bit cock-eyed. You’ve just given a perfect reason for any one of them, or all of them, to want him out of the way. But not me. I didn’t claim benefits I wasn’t entitled to. When I left that house I left for good. I couldn’t care less about what went on there.’

  Steven agreed with her. He wondered what on earth Roy was playing at, and what he knew but wasn’t saying. For he had to have something better than this.

  ‘The glen in the woods was Reuben’s “special place”, wasn’t it?’ Roy continued. ‘He took you there for love-making, didn’t he?’

  Susan looked blank as if she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  ‘I know he did,’ Roy continued. ‘He took all his women there. Heather, Megan and many others. But he told you all you were the only one, and at the time you believed it.’

  Steven looked at Susan. For the first time in the interview she did look a little rattled. But she folded her arms across her chest and didn’t reply.

  ‘You might as well tell the truth now and get it over with,’ Roy said, not unkindly, but with a faint trace of fatigue. ‘You took that camping equipment up to the wood, piece by piece. You left Hill House when Reuben and Zoë were away, but you didn’t come to Bristol. You camped out, knowing that Reuben would turn up with Zoë before long. You were seething with anger at being replaced by a younger woman and the humiliation he’d put you through. You intended to exact your revenge.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Susan said, angry red spots appearing on her cheeks. ‘I was hurt that he’d treated me badly, but I was tired of all those dead-beats anyway and wanted a new start.’

  ‘But your new start didn’t work out, did it?’ he said. ‘Living in one room, working as an office cleaner! Hardly a step up.’

  ‘Coming back to Bristol with all its reminders of Annabel was a mistake,’ she snapped at him. ‘As it turned out, I should have gone somewhere else. I floundered because I was depressed.’

  Roy used his favourite tactic, silence. He just looked at her and didn’t say another word.

  He didn’t think she had killed Liam. The man was sensitive, he probably felt bad about being unable to commit to Susan and he’d moved away because he didn’t want people constantly reminding him of her.

  But Roy was convinced she’d killed Reuben and Zoë. While he was interviewing Megan over in Wales, she’d told him how Reuben always took his new women to the glen, and she led him and two other police officers up to it. That was where they found the missing camping equipment which both Roger and Heather had independently mentioned previously.

  While it was quite true that anyone could have taken the camping stuff there, even Reuben himself, the fact that it was left there was extremely suspicious. Everything about the glen made it an ideal spot for a murder – its remoteness, the way it overlooked Hill House. The sound of gunshot wouldn’t be noticed, and a body could lie undisturbed for years, falling leaves and creeping undergrowth hiding it ever more securely.

  It might have been a freezing-cold winter’s day when Roy saw the glen, but he could imagine how beautiful it was in spring and summer, and how sacred it would be to anyone who had been taken there for love-making. He could well imagine, too, Susan’s fury and jealousy when she was replaced by the young and beautiful Zoë. He thought it was well within her capabilities to plan their murder in advance. Only one unusual talent was required for this kind of murder, and that was patience.

  Susan couldn’t have known exactly when Reuben would return, or how long it would take
him afterwards to bring Zoë there. She might have had to wait weeks. But patience was Susan’s most notable virtue. It had been evident in everything he’d learned about her, right from when she was a young girl. She was someone who could wait for the right moment to get her revenge. Just as she had waited before shooting the people at the surgery. That was what made her so chilling.

  He looked at her now, and noted how her pale greenish-blue eyes held that same distant look he’d observed when he arrested her for the shooting, and later when he questioned her at the police station. Roy thought that she had been able to remove herself mentally then from the reality of what she’d done, and she was doing it again now.

  Yet there were faint signs of agitation at his silence. She was clenching and unclenching her fingers, from time to time she pushed her hair back behind her ears, and her lips looked dry. Lying didn’t come easily to her, but she did have the patience to sit it out.

  He decided it was time to break his silence. ‘I believe it was guilt that made you depressed,’ he said, leaning nearer to her across the table. ‘I would say that you imagined by killing Reuben and Zoë you could wipe the slate clean and start all over again. But it wasn’t that simple. Was it?’

  He paused again, leaning back in his chair for a moment or two but fixing her with his eyes.

  ‘It couldn’t be, Susan. Could it?’ he insisted. ‘You were back where it all started. Reuben had persuaded you to leave your nice home, he’d sold all your belongings. The wonderful new life he said he’d take you to had turned sour. He’d rejected you in favour of a much younger woman. You were reminded of all that every single day you lived in the grim room in Belle Vue. Isn’t it true that you were so full of anger you had to turn it on someone? And who better than Doctor Wetherall and his receptionist who you felt were responsible for Annabel’s death?’

  ‘They deserved to die,’ she shouted at him, her eyes flashing. ‘They let my baby die, it serves them right.’

  ‘And Liam, did he deserve to die for not wanting to settle down with you? Did Reuben deserve it for conning you. Zoë for humiliating you?’

  ‘What do you know about anything?’ She suddenly shot out of her chair on to her feet, her face flushed with anger. ‘You can’t begin to understand what it was like for me when Annabel died. She was my whole life, everything in the world to me. And but for those two arrogant, stupid people who wouldn’t even get an ambulance for her, she might be alive today.’

  ‘Sit down, Susan,’ he said firmly, looking right at her. ‘I do know what losing a child is like. It’s the worst thing that can happen to anyone. But killing someone else doesn’t put it right.’

  Roy’s remark wasn’t intended to be an admission he’d lost a child too, but he thought maybe she felt he was just being patronizing, for she took a step backwards and glowered at him.

  ‘Sit down, Susan,’ he repeated, a little concerned by the fury in her eyes. All her earlier calm was gone, she looked poised to spring at him.

  ‘I don’t want to sit down,’ she hissed at him. ‘Are you so stupid that you think you can soften me up with something as cheap as that? You must be, you’re trying to blame me for killing three people who just happen to have disappeared, without one shred of evidence. You’re so stupid you can’t even work out for yourself why Beth won’t go to bed with you. Can you? Well, I’ll put you out of your misery on that score. It’s because she was gang-raped.’

  Steven leapt from his chair. ‘That’s enough, Susan,’ he said, catching hold of her arm. ‘This interview is about you, not about Beth.’

  ‘You make me sick too,’ she said, turning to him, throwing off his hand and grabbing hold of the lapels of his jacket. ‘You pretend you’re so bloody sympathetic but you don’t give a toss about me. I expect you’ve got the hots for Beth too.’

  Roy got up to intervene. For a small woman Susan was surprisingly strong and it took some effort to get her back on to her seat. ‘That’s enough,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ll terminate this interview now and continue when you are calmer.’

  Roy made the report into the tape-recorder that the interview was suspended at twelve-thirty, and Susan was led out of the room by Sergeant Bloom, leaving Steven and Roy alone.

  ‘Whew!’ Roy said, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead.

  Steven could see he was very shaken, all the colour had gone from his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said simply. ‘You shouldn’t have had to hear that.’

  Roy passed one hand over his face wearily. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘I haven’t got the hots for Beth, we’re just friends,’ Steven said, feeling suddenly queasy because he felt he ought to have seen Susan’s outburst coming and deflected it. ‘As for the other matter, well, I’m sick that she came out with it. Beth’s been trying to pluck up courage to tell you herself. She’ll be horrified that you had to hear it that way.’

  ‘How come you know?’ Roy said, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘That’s not easy to explain, and I don’t know that I ought to say anything more,’ Steven said.

  ‘Spoken just like a bloody lawyer,’ Roy said sarcastically.

  Steven sighed. ‘It’s nothing like you might imagine. Beth and I hardly knew one another until Susan was arrested. When Beth discovered it was her old friend, it kind of cracked her armour. I just happened to be the person who was there, and in talking over the case, long-buried things came to light. I can’t discuss it with you, Beth wouldn’t want me to. She’d want to tell you about it herself.’

  ‘Why did she tell Susan about her and me?’ Roy asked, a look of pain in his eyes.

  It was only then that Steven saw for himself the depths of the policeman’s feelings for Beth. Up till then he’d only seen the man in his professional role, fair-minded, but shrewd and hard-headed. It had crossed his mind more than once that Detective Inspector Longhurst wanted Beth more for her position than herself. This had worried him a great deal, as from what he knew of Beth now, he didn’t think she could handle any further heartache. But only a man in love could look so wounded that other people had been privy to Beth’s past, while he knew nothing.

  ‘She wouldn’t have said anything more than that you were a friend,’ Steven said gently. ‘Remember, she’s been visiting Susan as her friend, not as her lawyer. Susan was just making a vicious stab in the dark. She hoped to throw you.’

  ‘She succeeded,’ Roy said dolefully. He rested his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands.

  ‘Don’t let her rattle you,’ Steven said firmly. ‘Get her back and carry on with the interview.’

  Roy looked at his watch and frowned. ‘It’s lunch-time,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave her to calm down and go on up to the pub for a sandwich.’

  The pub on the corner of the main road was very quiet, the only customers were a few workmen having a drink and a handful of old men from the village. Steven felt a little inhibited by Sergeant Bloom’s presence, for he guessed the man must be pondering over Susan’s outburst. But it wasn’t Steven’s place to remind the man he must forget what he’d heard.

  Once they were seated with sandwiches and coffee, Roy appeared to be entirely composed, and talked in general about the investigation in Wales, and about the statements he’d taken from Megan, Heather and Roger. This was all information which would come to Steven in due course anyway, but it was heartening to him that Roy wasn’t withholding it out of spite.

  He told Steven that both Heather Blythe and Roger Watkins said much the same things in their statements, and there was no collusion because they’d had no contact with each other since leaving Hill House.

  They and everyone else at Hill House had assumed Reuben and Zoë had gone camping when the equipment was found to be missing. When Reuben didn’t return within a few days for his van, they decided the couple must have gone abroad. But without leadership the house soon became a shambles. Heather was the next to leave after Megan, and Roger reported that her place, and those of the other original residents, wer
e gradually taken by travellers who turned up and stayed. Roger Watkins hung on for about a year, and it was during that time he found Reuben’s passport and realized that without it he couldn’t have gone abroad.

  Roger had expressed some concern for Reuben in his statement, thinking the man might have got into trouble through drug-dealing. But with the benefit fraud hanging over him, he didn’t feel able to report him missing.

  Roger’s insistence that he saw Susan in Emlyn Carlisle appeared to be valid, in as much as he gave a description of a floral dress she was wearing, and it matched one the police had found in Susan’s suitcase. There wasn’t any forensic evidence as yet that Susan took the camping equipment to the woods, and Roy doubted there would be after all this time.

  Steven felt he ought to feel triumphant that there was absolutely no real evidence that Susan had killed the couple, or indeed even any proof that the pair of them were dead. Yet faced with Roy’s conviction that their bodies were up in the wood beyond Hill House, Steven found himself disturbed rather than pleased.

  ‘I needed a word with you before the police come back,’ Steven said as Susan was brought into the interview room. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.

  ‘I’m sorry I told Longhurst that about Beth,’ she blurted out. ‘I could have cut my tongue out afterwards. I was just angry with him and wanted to hurt him. But it’s only Beth who will be hurt, isn’t it?’

  Steven was very surprised she could only think of Beth when she was in such a tight spot herself.

  ‘Well, it’s done now, you can’t take it back,’ he replied.

  ‘She’ll be very angry with me,’ Susan said, her eyes cast down. ‘If only I hadn’t come back to Bristol. We’d never have met again and I wouldn’t be messing up her life.’

  Steven shrugged. ‘Beth doesn’t feel you’ve done that.’

  He wished he could tell her that appearing in Beth’s life again had perhaps been the very best thing that could have happened to her. Daily, Beth was opening up more and more. She was an entirely different person now to the stern, defensive woman who arrived at Tarbuck, Stone and Aldridge some eighteen months ago.