‘Absolutely nothing,’ Dervla replied, ‘but there’s no other option. Not for that bastard to get what’s coming to him.’
If I had any questions about Dervla’s sincerity – and by this stage there really wasn’t much room for doubt – they were removed entirely. The only thing I could do was play for time. ‘At least tell me what all this is about,’ I said.
Dervla laid the gun on the table, pulled a moulded plastic chair from a stack, and carried it over. She sat down and crossed her legs.
‘Tell me what you already know about Mum.’
In no position to argue, I began at the beginning. ‘We became friendly when she came to work at Frank’s club. One day she didn’t turn up for her shift and I didn’t see her again. I got a postcard from Glasgow a couple of months later, but it didn’t have a return address. That’s it.’
‘Did you know about her and Frank?’
‘I had my suspicions.’
‘What about him giving her to some bent cop to rape?’
‘I didn’t find out about that that until a few days ago. Frank had no idea things would turn out the way they did.’
‘DON’T FUCKING LIE TO ME!’ Dervla’s voice reverberated around the room. ‘Frank knew exactly what Cartwright was like,’ she continued at marginally lowered volume. ‘All he cared about was staying out of prison.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘And that makes it okay?’
Dervla’s chin was flecked with spittle and her muscles rigid with rage. I tried to find some wriggle room against the ties. No chance.
‘Thirty years ago I woke up next to my mother’s corpse,’ she said. ‘That’s not the kind of thing you forget, no matter how many shrinks you see.’
I recalled the painting that had won the McClellan Prize. A girl about Hester’s age lying on grimy sheets next to a young woman with her eyes closed. Along with everyone else, I’d assumed the woman was asleep. Now I knew better.
‘There’s still time to call this off,’ I said. ‘Your life doesn’t have to be over.’
‘Except that I’d spend it in a secure unit pumped full of drugs while Frank Parr would be outside enjoying his money and playing with his grandchildren.’
Wherever we were going, it wasn’t in the right direction.
‘I still don’t understand how you found out about all this,’ I said, in a bid to return to a relatively neutral topic.
‘Mum kept a diary from the age of twelve until a week before she died,’ Dervla said. ‘It’s all in there.’
‘How did you get hold of it?’
‘I found out what had happened to my birth mother when I was in my mid-twenties. That meant I also knew who my natural grandmother was. Mary was living in sheltered accommodation by then. When I visited, she said I should forget about the past and concentrate on the future.’
‘You don’t think she had a point?’
Dervla ignored my question. ‘Last year I was the sole beneficiary in Mary’s will. Mostly it was just photographs and a few books. But in a separate box were my mother’s diaries.’
‘That’s how you found out about what had happened to April in Soho?’
She nodded. ‘The consequences I had more personal experience of.’
As long as we were still talking, Hester was still breathing. ‘What was the situation with you and Harry?’ I asked.
Dervla winced, as though I’d hit a dental nerve.
‘After Mary died, I did some research into Frank. Harry was the apple of his eye, and I became intrigued.’
‘Did you always intend to . . .’
‘It was certainly in the back of my mind, but when we met it was clear there was something between us. I was the one who insisted we kept our relationship secret. Harry was all for coming out and telling Frank. Obviously I couldn’t let that happen. Not until I’d decided how to punish him.’
‘What went wrong?’
‘We used the place in Matcham because I couldn’t risk letting the press see us together. It pissed Harry off and one weekend I decided to come clean.’
‘And she reacted badly?’
Dervla exhaled heavily. Her breath condensed in the cold air of the studio.
‘From the way she spoke about Frank, you’d have thought she hated him more than I did. But when I told her who I was, she totally lost it. I tried to calm her down but she wanted to tell him and I couldn’t let that happen . . .’
‘So you killed her and made it look like a sex crime?’
The tear that slalomed down Dervla’s cheek gave me a glimmer of hope. If she felt remorse about Harry, there was a chance I could change her mind about Hester.
And then my curiosity fucked everything up.
‘What about Anna Jennings?’ I couldn’t resist asking.
‘That bitch deserved everything she got.’ Dervla drew the back of her hand across her face. ‘She was doing loads of digging about Frank to discredit his bid for the Post and found out a bit too much about his affair with Mum.’
‘How?’
‘She contacted his ex-wife to find out why they’d broken up and whether she had any dirt on him. She hated Frank’s guts and was more than pleased to tell her all about it. And to be fair to the woman, she only knew that Frank had been seeing one of the waitresses, not that he’d had her raped and mutilated. Jennings connected a piece that had appeared in the paper and followed it up. She was bloody diligent, I’ll give her that.’
I recalled the clipping I’d found in Anna’s filing cabinet. The reporter had probably run April’s name as a matter of routine and started to make some connections and then some more connections. As Odeerie often says, everything’s there if you’re determined enough and you know where to look. With Lord Kirkleys’ resources behind her, Anna Jennings had hit the jackpot. Much good it had done her.
‘How did she find out who adopted you?’ I asked.
‘We didn’t get into that, but I assume by paying someone to hack the records. Dad was working in the oil business then. He was based in Aberdeen. When his contract finished, we moved down south.’
‘Why did Anna contact you?’
‘Allegedly to give me a chance to comment. You know the way red-tops operate. And the more sensational the story, the more shit would stick to Frank.’
‘When was this?’
‘D’you remember the auction at Assassins?’ I nodded. ‘That’s when she called me. I told her to meet me on a slipway at Greenwich. Silly cow thought that was incredibly exciting. Made her feel like a real reporter.’
‘And that was where you . . .’
Dervla nodded.
‘Killing Harry is enough to punish Frank.’ I said. ‘He’ll spend the rest of his life mourning her.’
‘Are you serious? He didn’t even pull out of the Post bid until a couple of days ago. Harry’s death hardly broke his fucking stride pattern.’
I glanced at Frank. Had his been the reaction of a man who did his grieving in private, or was something twisted in his emotional DNA? All I could detect in his single open eye was a man calculating his options.
Unfortunately the only option left was me.