Dying breath, p.16
Dying Breath, page 16
part #5 of DI Kayli Bright Series
“How are you all holding up?”
“Mum’s very tearful today. Dad’s taken her to the loo across the road at the pub. I’m not sure how she’s going to cope when she sees the coffin. I’m dreading seeing it myself. We went to see Jess yesterday at the undertaker’s, and it was extremely tough on all of us. Not sure Mum slept very well last night.”
“It’s a really difficult situation for parents to come to terms with when they lose a child, no matter what age the child is.”
“I think you’re spot-on. No one should outlive their children. That’s all Mum keeps saying, and she’s right, of course. Any news for us?”
“Not yet. We’re having trouble locating the list of people you supplied me with. I don’t suppose any of them are here, are they?”
“Some of them will be, all except Deanne Mitchell. I didn’t see the fun in sending an invite to her.”
“Interesting. Maybe I could ask you to point the ex-boyfriends out to me later, if that’s all right?”
“I’d be happy to. There’s one of them now. Stuart Collins.” She nodded at a man standing alongside a woman dressed in black wearing a large hat and high heels.
“Thanks, that helps. I’ll try and have a word with him after the service. Not sure there’s enough time now. Anyone else?”
Amelia scanned the nearby crowd. Her gaze settled on Wes and Cathy on the far side of the gathering before she continued to scan the rest of the mourners. “I can’t see anyone else. Maybe they couldn’t make it. Not everyone responded to the note I sent them. Ah, here’s Mum and Dad now.”
Kayli turned to see a distraught-looking Mary Watson clinging on to her bewildered husband’s arm. She smiled at them, hoping to put them both at ease a little. “Sorry to meet again under such circumstances. How are you both?”
“‘Surviving’ is the best way to describe it, Inspector. Have you caught the person responsible yet?” Gerald Watson asked, tears welling up in his grey eyes.
“Unfortunately not. We’re still sifting through all the evidence. Hopefully, we’ll be able to put all the pieces together soon.”
“Shouldn’t you be out there instead of hanging around here, in that case?”
“Gerald, please. I don’t want any unpleasantness. Not today,” Mary chastised her husband.
“Dad, be fair. Don’t go blaming the inspector when she’s been kind enough to come here today.”
“I apologise. Please forgive my rudeness, Inspector. I know you’re doing your best.”
“I appreciate how frustrating this must be for you all. Please, I want you to be assured that we’re doing everything we can to find this person. I wanted to take time out to show my respects to your daughter.”
“We appreciate that,” Mary said.
The crowd shuffled back to allow the hearse entry to pull up outside the church. Amelia wrapped her arm around her mother’s shoulders when she started to sob. Gerald stood on the other side of his wife, holding her hand firmly.
The coffin was decked in beautiful wreaths. One said ‘daughter’, another ‘wife’, and the final one ‘mother’.
Tears prickled as the emotions emanated surrounding Kayli. “I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be thinking of you all during the service.”
Amelia smiled. “Thank you,” she said, her voice catching.
Kayli wandered back to Dave and Graeme as the mourners filed into the church. “I think this is going to be tougher than I anticipated.” She dabbed her eyes with a hanky.
“You’re a daft mare at times,” Dave said, elbowing her in the ribs.
“It shows I care, Dave. Have you spotted anything unusual in my absence?”
Both men shook their heads and Dave replied, “Nope, nothing out of the ordinary. Did Amelia give any pointers as to who was here?”
“Yep. I’ve clocked Stuart Collins so far. He’s here with a woman. That’s all she managed to point out before her parents arrived. Let’s take our seats at the back of the church and keep an eye on things from there.”
Wes walked into the church alongside Cathy, deposited her in the front pew next to Amelia and Mary Watson, then left the church again. For an instant, his gaze met Kayli’s. He dipped his head to avoid further eye contact with her. Kayli was appalled by the bruises and split lip he was sporting and recognised how difficult it must have been for a man to disguise such a battering.
Moments later, the organist started playing Elton John’s Candle in the Wind to accompany the pallbearers carrying the coffin into the church. Wes and Gerald were amongst the six men who carried the casket up the aisle to its resting place on the large stone plinth.
The six men then dispersed and took their seats. The service was read by a priest in his sixties, who had a kind face and wore spectacles perched on the end of his nose. A few friends read their eulogies aloud before Wes stood to read his. To Kayli’s ears, his words sounded cheap and insincere, as though they’d been extracted from either a book or downloaded from the internet. He kept his head down as he read, not once taking the time to survey the mourning crowd in front of him. Kayli reprimanded herself for thinking badly of the man. Maybe he was the type who struggled to handle grief. Then a little voice reminded her what the man had been up to in recent months behind his wife’s back. She narrowed her eyes as she focused, trying to use her womanly powers to read what was really going on in his head.
After he’d concluded, Wes returned to his seat next to Cathy, who was in tears. He threw an arm around her neck, and she buried her head in his chest, continuing to sob openly. Once the service had finished, the crowd left the church and followed the priest to the burial plot. Kayli, Dave, and Graeme began the task of casting their eyes over the mourners. Kayli spotted Cordelia Porter standing alongside a tall teenager, presumably her son, Patrick. She wracked her brain, but she was certain she hadn’t seen them inside the church. Cordelia spotted Kayli and smiled. Kayli returned the smile but then shifted her gaze to Patrick. His head was down. Every now and then, he glanced up, mainly to stare in his father’s direction before his head dropped again. Something in the boy’s eyes when he stared at his father was unnerving.
She leaned over and whispered to Dave, “Watch the tall lad at the front.”
“Who is he?”
“Wes’s son. Can you move over there, try and film him?”
Dave nodded and drifted away. “Graeme, can you start filming the mourners as discretely as possible for me?”
“Sure. I’ll step back and do it from behind a tree over there.”
“Perfect. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, so just film everyone.”
Graeme stepped away from her. Kayli kept her gaze on the young man. At one point, she shifted it to Cordelia. Sweat developed on the woman’s top lip, and she wiped it away several times. The woman seemed agitated. What’s going on, Cordelia? What are you giving away?
Kayli decided to move closer to the woman and her son. She placed herself behind Amelia and her parents and watched the proceedings from there. Cordelia seemed panic-stricken and she searched the crowd for Kayli.
Her son looked up at his father with what could only be described as venom in his eyes. The boy matched his mother’s agitation. What the hell is going on here? Is Patrick angry with his father about something? Why show his anger here? Kayli had the feeling that something was about to kick off. She scanned the crowd for Dave and Graeme, regretting her decision to send them off in different directions. She had to get nearer to Cordelia and her son.
The priest drew everyone’s attention and the final people shuffled into position at the graveside. He conducted the burial service then invited the family members to say a few words and throw a handful of dirt on the coffin. Wes encouraged Amelia and her mother and father to go first.
A lump appeared in Kayli’s throat when she listened to them say their farewells, but her gaze remained fixed on Cordelia and her son. His chin was still on his chest, and his hands clenched together in front of him. Cordelia kept looking at her son’s face and even leaned over to whisper in his ear once. He didn’t react in the slightest.
Wes and Cathy approached the graveside together, then each of them picked up a handful of dirt.
Holding a white rose in her hand, Cathy scattered the dirt and let go of the beautiful flower. “I love you, Mum. I’ll miss you every day until we meet again. I’ll never forget you.”
At Cathy’s words, Patrick closed his eyes and shook his head briefly. Kayli wondered if the half-siblings were close.
The last person to bid Jess farewell was Wes. He removed a large handful of dirt from the wooden box, carved out the sign of the cross over his chest, and threw a single-stemmed white lily onto the coffin along with the dirt. “My love, I will never forget the joy you brought into our lives. Thank you for giving me such a beautiful daughter. I hope she turns out to be half the woman you were. I will never love someone as much as I loved you.”
Kayli watched Cordelia’s and Patrick’s reactions. Patrick’s mouth twisted, his hands clasped tighter together, and his head slowly rose to look at his father. His jaw clenched, and his eyes turned into slits. Patrick marched towards his father.
“Patrick, no! Don’t do this,” Cordelia shouted. “Not here, son. Not now.”
Patrick was determined in his actions, and no one was going to stop him. Kayli shot a glance left then right, trying to locate her colleagues. Dave was staring right at her, while Graeme had his phone in position, filming what was emerging. It was clear they both sensed something major was about to kick off, too. Kayli motioned with her head for Dave to move with her. Together, they approached the father and son and the distance between them decreased.
“You did this… You’re guilty of this. Call yourself a father? You disgust me. You deserted me as a boy to create your new family…” Patrick words grew louder, angrier.
Wes looked to Cordelia for help, but after her initial attempt to try to get her son to remain with her, she stayed still as if she’d sprouted roots.
“What are you talking about, boy?” Wes demanded, placing an arm in front of Cathy, who then took a step sideways to hide behind her father’s back.
“She always got your attention…that bitch behind you. The day she was born was the day you lost interest in me, wasn’t it?”
Wes’s gaze scanned the bewildered crowd of mourners. “You’re being ridiculous. I’ve always treated you and Cathy the same.”
A demented laugh escaped Patrick’s mouth. He marched faster towards his father, who was trying to back away from his raging son. Cathy screamed.
“Shut up, bitch, or I’ll kill you like your mother. You’re two of a kind anyway. You’re both better off dead.”
Kayli rushed past Wes and stood between him and his son. Dave grabbed Patrick’s arm, preventing him from reaching his father.
“What do you mean, Patrick?” Kayli asked.
It was as if he didn’t see them when Dave or Kayli planted themselves in his path. “They took everything from me. Mum has struggled to bring me up over the years because you were often too tight to part with your cash. Mum had to go back to work early because you refused to make the maintenance payments. You were keen to produce me. Not so keen on taking care of me financially, though. Not once that bitch came onto the scene.”
“That’s not true, Patrick. I love you. I’ve always done my best to care for you financially.” Wes swallowed noisily.
Kayli knew immediately he was telling lies.
“Mum’s pleaded with you recently to give us money for uni. She’s been saving like mad for years to put me through college on her own because you don’t give a shit. You had your own little tribe to be concerned about. Even though Jess inherited that money, none of it came our way.”
“You’re being ridiculous, son. That wasn’t my money to play with. Jess always treated you well. Are you telling me that you did this? You killed my beautiful wife? Why? Why would you do such a twisted thing?”
Patrick’s fingers contracted and released, and his chest inflated and deflated rapidly as his lip curled and his eyes glistened with anger.
Looking right through him, Kayli could tell his soul was tormented. “Patrick, we’re going to ask you to accompany us to the station now.”
His gaze left his father and slowly fell upon her. “She deserved it. You can’t even comprehend to understand what it was like to be cast aside when that bitch came into the world. All my life, I’ve been treated as a second-class citizen by them. Not once have I ever been invited to their house. My mother has been a father and mother to me all my life because this waste of space didn’t have the balls to go against his new wife’s wishes.”
“That’s not true. My mother always tried to include you in our lives,” Cathy shouted. “Dad, why is he telling all these lies?”
Patrick glared at his father again. “Go on, Dad. Tell her that I’m not lying.”
Wes’s shoulders dipped. “I thought it was for the best. It was my fault you never came to the house. Cathy is right—Jess wanted to do right by you, wanted to include you in our lives. It was me who let you down. I should be the one in that grave, not her. How could you kill her like that? What possessed you to go that far?”
For the first time, Patrick appeared to be taking his father’s words on board. He ran a hand through his spiky hair, his expression changing from anger to confusion in a flash.
“Okay, that’s it. We need to take you down the station now, Patrick.” Kayli leaned around the troubled young man and gestured for Cordelia to join them. “I’ll need you to come with him. He’s a minor and will be treated as such.”
Cordelia walked up to her son and placed an arm around his waist. “Why didn’t you tell me you felt this way, love? What have you done?”
He collapsed into her arms at the magnitude of her words His legs gave way, and he dragged his mother down to the ground with him. She hugged him and rocked him back and forth as tears cascaded down her cheeks.
“Persuade everyone to go now, Dave, will you? Ask Graeme to help.”
“Okay, boss. Have you got your cuffs on you?”
“I have. I don’t think I’ll be needing them, though, do you?”
Dave nodded and went in search of Graeme. They ushered the crowd away from the graveside. Off to her left, she listened to Amelia trying to explain to her confused parents what was going on.
Wes tapped her on the shoulder. “What happens now? He didn’t mean to do it. I’m sure it wasn’t his intention to kill her.”
“That might be the case, but he did. He’ll be placed in custody and will have to go through the system. Why don’t you take Cathy home? It’s been a traumatic day for her.”
He wrapped an arm around his daughter’s shoulder and led her away.
With one eye on Patrick and his mother, who were both sobbing, Kayli stepped towards Amelia and her parents. “I had no idea it would be Patrick. Sorry you and your parents had to deal with this.”
“Did you know something like this would happen here today? Is that why you wanted to come?” Amelia asked, coughing to clear her throat.
“We tend to find some suspects can’t handle the guilt at the graveside. I never expected this. Have you had much contact with Patrick over the years?”
“No. No contact at all with him. I remember seeing him once when he was a toddler, but this is the first time I’ve seen him since then. I’m shocked that he would hate Jess so much.”
“I honestly don’t think he did. He struck out at her because of his father’s failings. He presumed that Jess was behind his father’s absence over the years. He gravely misread the situation and now he’ll be punished for his actions.”
“Will the court be lenient on him, given the circumstances?” Amelia asked, not an ounce of anger showing on her face.
“Would you want them to be?”
“I don’t know. It seems a shame—he has his whole life ahead of him.”
Kayli rubbed the top of Amelia’s arm. “You’re a very compassionate lady.”
Amelia shrugged. “He’s family, sort of.”
“I’ll be in touch.” Kayli returned to where Cordelia and Patrick were hugging each other on the ground, and the priest joined her.
He made the sign of the cross over the pair and said, “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
Cordelia looked up at the priest and smiled. “Thank you, Father.”
The priest gave a brief nod and backed away just as Dave and Graeme joined them.
“Come on, Patrick. Let’s get you up on your feet and in the car,” Dave said, hooking an arm through the young man’s.
Patrick hugged his mother one last time then rose to his feet. Dave and Graeme accompanied him to the car.
Kayli helped Cordelia to her feet. “Are you all right?”
“Not really. I didn’t have a clue. He’s been so wrapped up in himself for years. I’ve read articles about kids coming from broken homes and thought his behaviour was normal. I’ve done my very best for him over the years, but it clearly wasn’t good enough.”
“Please, Cordelia, you mustn’t blame yourself. It takes a lot to turn someone into a killer.”
“Oh God, I’m going to have to live with that stigma for the rest of my life. I should have got him therapy, counselling of some kind. Poor Jess, none of this was her fault. She didn’t deserve to die.”
“I know. It’s too late to start blaming yourself now.”
“Will he go to prison?”
“Yes, not a full prison, but one where young offenders are placed. I’m sorry.”
“Why did he do this? It’s my fault. I should have realised he had a problem and obtained the right help.”
“No one truly knows what goes on in the minds of our nearest and dearest.”
Kayli walked Cordelia back to the car. She sat in the back seat with Patrick while Kayli and Dave sat in the front.
EPILOGUE
The interview proved to be one of the most satisfying and heartbreaking ones Kayli had ever endured. The duty solicitor turned up within ten minutes of Dave making the call. Cordelia was present but said nothing. She appeared to be too stunned to utter a word.
