False Accusations: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide... (Willowgrove Village Mystery Book 1) Read online

  FALSE ACCUSATIONS

  Willowgrove Mysteries

  Book One

  Cora Harrison

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  NOTE TO THE READER

  Chapter 1

  Flora Morgan had just dragged Piper away from tearing up the pine floorboards of her kitchen when the phone went.

  ‘I’m sorry. Could you repeat that,’ she said after a minute, holding the phone in one hand while she hung onto nine stone of muscular young dog with the other.

  ‘Held a pillow over her mother’s face. Smothered her to death. Young girl. Got her at the station.’ The police always started with the crime. The wrong way around, Flora thought as she released the collar and allowed the German Shepherd to get back to his salvage work. The floor was ruined anyway, and this sounded serious.

  ‘She’s admitted it,’ continued the voice.

  The dog had now retrieved the last possible trace of the fried egg from between the floorboards and had started on a piece of sausage from on top of a chair. Simon, she could hear, had just slammed the front door with enough force to crack the glass. Piper gave one glance in that direction and then put his paws on the table, just to check for any more breakfast remainders. Flora turned her back on him. This was more important. She stayed very still, listening to the gruesome details, nodding silently from time to time. Long years as a headteacher taught you to listen, even if you could do nothing else.

  ‘And she seemed a bit strange when we questioned her; learning difficulties that’s what they call it these days, isn’t it?’ The sergeant was getting into his stride, glad to pass on some of the responsibility. The police, she thought sympathetically, were understandably out of their depth with a lot of these poor youngsters. Cases more for medical or social workers than for law enforcers was often her silent opinion.

  ‘So we thought that we’d better send for you,’ he continued with a note of relief coming into his voice. ‘Handy having you so near, too. Bit of luck, that. We’ve got a list of, well, of “appropriate adults”.’ The term embarrassed him slightly. Flora could hear that, even down the crackling line. Not surprising, really, poor man, that he should feel uneasy. He was used to having lawyers called in, but this strange breed of ‘designated appropriate adult’ was something new. The term had slightly embarrassed her, also, when she had first embarked upon the training, soon after her retirement from her post of headteacher in a large town school, but she was used to it now. There was a long line of young adults, with intellectual disabilities of one kind or the other, who had found themselves at one of the police stations at the local town and somehow it was satisfying to be a voice for them, to speak up for them. They were mostly grateful in a self-conscious sort of way. Easier to deal with other people’s children than your own. The thought was not a new one, but it had lingered with her through the last two decades.

  But murder. Well, she had not encountered that before.

  ‘What is the girl’s name?’ she asked.

  He didn’t hesitate. ‘Rosie,’ he said. ‘Sort of suits her, if you know what I mean.’

  Flora knew what he meant and her heart gave one frightened thud. It couldn’t be.

  But it was.

  ‘Rosie Trevor,’ he added and this time he did check his notes. She heard a rustle of paper. ‘Mrs Amanda Trevor,’ he read out. ‘That’s the name of the victim, the girl’s mother.’

  ‘What happened?’ She heard her own voice sound almost unnaturally unruffled. All those years of concealing her feelings, of listening quietly to tales of child abuse, incest and violence, of pretending that a badly concussed child, pouring blood, had just had a little fall, all those years of taking immediate action while displaying an exemplary calm: her skills had not deserted her. Mechanically, she pulled a notebook from her handbag, made a note of the two names and waited for the rest of the details.

  ‘The girl killed her, smothered her with a pillow,’ he repeated in a casual fashion. He sounded as though his mouth were clenched over a yawn. He had been on duty since early this morning, she supposed. And the police station was probably boiling hot; even out here in the countryside this summer of 1991 was proving even hotter than the summers of the 1980s. ‘Admitted it,’ he repeated. ‘No problem about that. Told everything.’

  ‘I’ll be along straight away,’ she said quietly. It was tempting to hand over to someone else, but she knew she could not do that. Above all others, she must be the one who could deal with Rosie. She would be the only one to understand the girl properly.

  Flora put the phone down. Checked the mirror. Respectable. Dark green linen shirt-waist dress. Pale green leather belt. Hair newly cut into a neat bob. She would look the part of a responsible adult. She had meant to go out into Brocklehurst this morning, in any case.

  Piper came over and put his head on her feet. There was not a crumb left on the table now and he knew his master had gone out without him. He seemed a bit subdued and, forgivingly, she bent down and pulled a crisply-folded ear between her finger and thumb. Not his fault, poor old fellow, she thought. Simon was supposed to have taken the dog for a long walk to use up some of his energy. The dog’s energy. Simon had none!

  What was wrong with the boy these days? He had seemed to take the death of his father in a very normal way, although the speed with which he had stopped mentioning John might have been a warning sign. And then had come the trouble in school and then the disastrous examination results. And then a year of total inertia. An only and late child to a happy marriage. Had she spoiled him?

  Something had to be done. He had been at an all-night party, but that was nothing new. He was missing from the house at least five nights in the week. This hot weather, these long summer nights; sometimes it seemed as if all of the youth of the neighbouring towns came to party in Willowgrove Village. This could not go on, this turning the night into day and the day into night. She had let him sleep in until eleven in the morning, but then insisted he got up.

  I should have left him in bed, she thought.

  Well, there was nothing for it. The dog would have to go into his kennel in the old stables. At least he would be safe there and the house would be safe from his destructive instincts. She hated to do it to Piper who, despite all of his faults, was an affectionate fellow. She knew that he would cry once the car drove out of the gate. Still she had to go to town. She could have done without shopping for a new dress. But she couldn’t let Rosie down.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to see her now.’ There was a sharp ring of a bell in the corridor outside. Sergeant Dawkins
must have pressed a button under his foot, thought Flora, and wished he had given her some more details, some more time to absorb the unlikely. He was an abrupt man with a hard eye and a slightly bullying tone of voice. She would like to have conferred over the case a little longer before seeing the girl; to have found out a little more. But he was not really prepared to discuss any details with her, seemed to regard her as an unnecessary complication in the life of a busy man.

  But Rosie — kill her own mother! It just didn’t seem a possibility. Automatically, she checked her handbag for the small packet of tissues which she kept there. Rosie, poor thing, would be in floods of tears, of course.

  Rosie was always in tears. During her first few terms in the local village school fourteen years ago there had seldom been a dinner-time without a knock on the headteacher’s office door and a weeping Rosie ushered in by a group of solicitous eleven-year-old girls. She may not have been as academically gifted as the other children, but she had an overdose of sensitivity. A word, a look, a smile at the wrong time all were enough to cause those beautiful big blue eyes to well up and the heart-rending sobs to begin.

  ‘I think you should leave her alone,’ Flora had said eventually, trying to ignore the look of reproach from the group of would-be Mother Teresas. ‘She needs to toughen up a little, not to get so upset about small things.’

  But she never did. And the school of village children all became used to her and handled her as if she were a piece of Dresden china.

  Even a week ago, when Flora had met her wandering aimlessly around the village, Rosie had tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘Mrs Morgan, Jenny had a party last night for her eighteenth birthday and I didn’t have a party last year when I was eighteen. It’s not fair.’ Rosie was always quick to unload her troubles.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll have a really big party when you are twenty-one.’ It was an automatic reaction to console her, inviting her in, going hastily to the cupboard for some cake and a fizzy drink, something that she stocked up on in the hope that it would distract Simon from his mother’s store of left-over Christmas whisky. It was hard on the girl, Flora Morgan thought, feeling very compassionate. Now that she, herself, didn’t work, she realised how aimless life could be for a girl who was not capable of doing any work. Jenny, one year younger, had a job and a flat in Brocklehurst; the Trevor home was about half a mile outside the village, very isolated. Mrs Trevor had taken a position at the car taxation office in a nearby town once Rosie was accepted by the secondary school there. She had seemed fearsomely efficient when Flora had gone in to licence her car and rather scornful as Flora fumbled through her untidy handbag for pen, chequebook, logbook and insurance document. No doubt Mrs Trevor was happier to have such a field for her talents of organisation and intimidation. She had doubtless done her best for Rosie, bullied speech therapists, educational psychologists, local authorities, kept her in full-time education until she was eighteen. She had even enrolled her for a shorthand and typing course, and then, when that had not worked, persuaded Tesco to give her a job for a week or two — that didn’t last! Rosie muddled things, declared she was tired, wept because others could work quicker than she could.

  But Rosie wasn’t weeping now.

  She came into that little, urine-smelling room in the police station shyly, hesitantly, but her eyes were bright with excitement and her face was slightly pink. The middle-aged woman police officer helped her in as carefully as if she were nurse to an invalid and put her sitting in a chair. Rosie turned and hugged the woman enthusiastically, bestowing on her one of the lavish smiles with which she made her way through a world that she sensed as being somewhat out of her focus. And then she turned back to Flora.

  ‘Mrs Morgan! You’re looking very pretty!’ She breathed the words softly in the way that only Rosie could; smiling with pleasure at the sight of a known figure, and then said, confidingly, to the police officer: ‘Mrs Morgan’s the kindest teacher I ever had.’ Probably something that she said to all teachers, but it was extraordinary that she had the self-possession to engage in her usual efforts to get all on her side.

  Flora found herself looking at the girl’s composure incredulously. There was something here that she could not understand at all. She had expected to see Rosie shattered; hysterical; distraught; clinging to a known adult; trusting to a teacher to solve her terrible predicament. During the last few minutes, Flora had been dreading this, not knowing how she would cope inwardly, though by now she knew that, outwardly, she would maintain a brisk, unsentimental façade. After all, she had coped with the troubles of other people’s children well enough over the last thirty years, coped with their needs and then passed them, many times with a sigh of relief, on to secondary school. But Rosie, she thought, had always been a bit special and had stayed child-like and vulnerable through the teen years.

  ‘Mrs Morgan, just a moment, the solicitor is here and would like to meet you.’ Sergeant Dawkins put his head around the door.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute, Rosie. Wait for me here.’ Flora got to her feet and followed him out. Indignation was boiling up inside of her. There was some terrible mistake somewhere. This girl was not capable of acting a part, of concealing her feelings; there was not a trace of guilt about her. The police must have tricked a confession from her. Easy to do. The Rosie she had known would stammer out apologies if she even saw a book thrown carelessly on the floor.

  There was a man in a dark business suit sitting in Sergeant Dawkins’ office. His hair was grey and he looked to be in his early sixties — about her own age, thought Flora, as he rose politely to greet her. Nearing retirement. He had a sensitive, friendly mouth and she warmed to him, as she shook him by the hand. Not many men of his age would be bothered with legal aid cases, she thought. These were usually for an impecunious young solicitor, intent upon paying the rent while hoping for a few rich, litigious clients in the near future.

  ‘This is the lawyer that the state has appointed to act for Rosie Trevor. Mr Bradley: Mrs Morgan. His office is across the road from the police station so I asked him to come in to meet you.’

  Obviously he had already told Mr Bradley who she was and why she was here. No doubt these solicitors were used to ‘designated appropriate adults’ or ‘responsible adults’ popping up in police stations to support the unfortunate adolescents with learning or behavioural difficulties who lacked a family to sustain them. He didn’t look surprised or puzzled as he shook her by the hand.

  ‘Mr Bradley hasn’t met Miss Trevor yet,’ continued Sergeant Dawkins. ‘I’ve just outlined what has happened so far and then I thought you might give him a few tips about how to handle the girl.’ He cleared his throat in a slightly embarrassed way. ‘It appears that there are certain problems here.’

  Flora nodded in agreement, moving her eyes from the solicitor to Sergeant Dawkins and now warily assessing the police officer. A man who was very sure of himself, not too intelligent himself, she guessed, but organised and business-like. She would, she told herself, have to proceed with caution; he was not the sort of man who would be willing to acknowledge that he had made a mistake. He had a stubborn set to his mouth and a tough look around the eyes. Not an easy job, she reminded herself. This end of the town was known for drugs and crime; the original conventional south coast town full of retired people taking their small dogs for walks and where the very occasional teenager indulged in the odd bit of petty pilfering had expanded drastically twenty years ago with a large council estate and a London overspill block of flats. The watery trails of vomit, and shards of broken glass, the boarded-up pub windows every Sunday morning told the story and so did the ghost-pale, hooded youngsters begging on the crowded streets.

  ‘I understand that the young lady has made a full confession.’ The solicitor had a fatherly touch to him. Flora liked the look of him and smiled encouragingly across the room. She would, she thought, be able to engage his sympathy for Rosie very easily. One look at the soft blonde curls, the translucent com
plexion, the willowy figure, one hint of tears from the large blue eyes and he would be her willing slave.

  ‘You were there when she made the confession.’ She made the enquiry of Mr Bradley in her most innocent manner, while still keeping an eye on the policeman who had seated himself behind his desk. Sergeant Dawkins, she realised, was too disciplined a person to heave an audible sigh, but she saw his chest rise and then fall. He took a pencil from the neat tray in front of him and rolled it rapidly between his index fingers and his thumbs. Flora felt a tinge of sympathy for him. She used to do the same thing with Blu Tack herself. More satisfying she thought — beneath the shelter of the desk you could stretch it out, remould it, twist it into a shape and then pull it out again. It was a great diffuser of tension and annoyance.

  ‘As I was saying,’ the sergeant spoke quietly and with commendable patience, ‘Mr Bradley has not yet met Rosie.’

  Flora gave him a bewildered look. ‘So you were happy to interview her without the presence of her solicitor.’

  ‘No doubt she was cautioned.’ Mr Bradley interjected a peacekeeping note.

  ‘And, of course, you could see that she has problems; what is believed to be a form of autism.’ Flora allowed the sentence to drop and then sat back. Educational psychologists tended to vary in opinions about Rosie’s condition. One particular man had seen her so often and seemed to write such reams when he was there in the school, occupying her office for at least an hour after Rosie had skipped happily back to the classroom, that Flora suspected he was using the girl as a basis for a thesis. Autism, however, seemed to be the general consensus of opinion and as it was a fairly wide diagnosis it had served, though no practical help seemed to have been forthcoming.

  The word ‘autism’, however, was enough for the solicitor who leaned forward with an air of interest. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

  ‘I wish you could have got hold of me before you questioned her.’ Flora spoke the words with a diffident and an apologetic air, but the sergeant was not impressed.