* * *
A glossy green Aga dominated the kitchen, providing warmth and comfort from the cold outside. She crashed about pulling out cups, milk and sugar, and a Victoria sponge on an old willow pattern plate. Erika and Peterson sat awkwardly at a small wooden table covered in old copies of the Radio Times, a car radio with wires hanging out of the back, and a bowl of blackening bananas. Two scrawny cats were asleep in the middle, and Erika could see one had a huge tick on the top of its head.
Rosemary came over with milk and sugar. She picked up the first cat; tossed it onto the floor where it landed shocked on its four paws. She picked up the second greying cat with the tick and in a swift movement twisted it out. She let the cat drop to the floor and held the tick up to the light of the window between her knuckles.
‘There, you see, you have to get it out with all the head intact.’ She held it toward Peterson, it’s black hair-fine legs wriggling and he turned away looking queasy.
Rosemary moved away to the sink and dropped it down the plughole, activating the garbage disposal with a roar. Erika noted she didn’t wash her hands as she poured them tea.
‘So. Dead girl at the bottom of the quarry… Bad business… Very bad,’ she said taking a slurp of her tea. A little dribbled down her chin and she wiped it with the back of her sleeve.
‘We asked you about the house by the quarry a few days ago,’ started Peterson.
‘Yes. I was there, I remember.’
‘You said that a man squatted in the house… Bob Jennings. Why didn’t you mention that he was your brother?’ asked Erika.
‘You never asked!’ she replied bluntly.
‘We’re asking now. And we’d like all the information. The quarry is now a murder scene, and your brother was living beside it,’ said Erika. Rosemary took another gulp of her tea and looked a little chastised. ‘How long did your brother live in the house?’
‘Years, I don’t know eleven years… As I said the poor bugger was only a few months off being able to claim squatters rights. And then he died.’
‘When?’ asked Erika.
Rosemary sat back in her chair and thought for a moment, ‘it would have been 1981 until 1991…’
‘And when did he die?’
‘He passed away in the autumn of 199o.’
‘Can you be more exact?’ asked Erika.
‘I suppose so, hang on…’ she got up and went through to another room where they could hear drawers opening and papers rustling.
‘The quarry was searched three months after Jessica went missing, so that would have been November 1990,’ said Peterson.
‘Ah I have it here,’ said Rosemary coming back through to the kitchen with a piece of yellowing paper. She slid it across the table and they saw it was a death certificate.
‘This says he passed away on 28th November 1990,’ said Erika reading. She scanned down the document. ‘Cause of death was by hanging.’ She looked up at Rosemary, adding, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘My brother was a lost soul. One of those people who slipped through the cracks of society.’
‘What was wrong with him?’
‘We never had a complete diagnosis. He was my older brother and back then, you just sat at the back of the class as a troublemaker, there were no child psychologists. The only job he held down was a gardener for the council… I tried to have him here with me, but he would sleepwalk, or disappear leaving the door open. That was back when my husband was alive, and our daughter was small. We couldn’t have him here. He’d go missing for weeks on end and then he’d appear at the door. I’d feed him, give him money. He went to prison twice for thieving, silly stuff. He’d see something bright and shiny in a shop, fall in love with it, and slip it in his pocket. No malice.’
‘I’m sorry to have to ask this, but was he ever a suspect in the disappearance of Jessica Collins?’
At this suggestion, her manner changed completely.
‘How dare you! My brother was many things, but a child killer? No. Never. He didn’t have it in him and even if he did, he could never have masterminded something like that!’
‘I’m sorry to have to ask. Did the police ever talk to him?’
‘Well, I don’t know, maybe. Shouldn’t you be the ones telling me that?’
‘As I say, I’m sorry to have to ask this…’
‘There was an exhaustive investigation! And you’re asking me twenty-six years later?’
‘Mrs Hooley, we are asking questions, nothing more. And to be honest, we’re not sure why you were so evasive when we spoke to you on the common?’
‘Evasive? How was I evasive? You asked me a question, about who lived in the house by the quarry and I told you that it was Bob Jennings… Why do we all have to act in society like we’re at a bloody confessional? I didn’t lie to you, I merely answered your question.’
‘But you must have heard that it was the scene of a murder?’
‘And my brother has been dead for many years. You must forgive me… What do you call it these days, a senior moment!’
‘Do you have a key to the cottage by the quarry?’
‘No. He was a squatter. I doubt he had one.’
‘What did you do with your brother’s personal effects?’
‘He had virtually no possessions. I gave what he had to the local charity shops. There was a silver St Christopher necklace and it was buried with him.’
‘Did you think he was suicidal?’
Rosemary took a breath and her face sagged a little.
‘No. It just wasn’t in his nature, and as far hanging, he had a wild phobia for things being around his neck. As a child he refused to wear a tie or button his shirt. It was one of the reasons he was uneducated. He was expelled from every school. The St Christopher I mentioned, he wore on his wrist. So for him to fashion a noose and then hang himself…’ Her eyes became misty and she grappled for a tissue in her sleeve. Now I think you’ve taken up more than enough of my time and my hospitality…’
* * *
It was dark and the temperature had dropped when Erika and Peterson came out of the gate. They could see Rosemary through the double aspect window, beside the pile of vegetation in the garden which was now ablaze. In her hand she a can of what looked like petrol. The road lit up orange.