A Question of Despair (31 page)

‘You can't—'

‘I've not finished, Harries.' She took a sip of water. ‘Someone on my team—'

‘When you say “someone” . . . ?' There was quiet fury in his delivery.

‘You were in on Tom Lowe's interview yesterday. You're the only detective who knew what went on in that room. Within a couple of hours, I had your
sleeping partner
on the phone asking for confirmation he was facing charges.'

‘Now, hold on a minute.'

‘No. You hold on.' Shouting now. It was rare for her even to raise her voice. ‘The information wasn't just privileged, it's not true.'

‘What?'

‘Tom Lowe no more killed those children than I did.'

‘But he confessed.'

‘Get real, Harries. We'd have to have beaten him up to
stop
him confessing.'

‘Why?'

She thought of the photographs, the video, the killer's notes. She pictured Karen Lowe in her untidy council flat, Deborah Lowe in her pristine house. She imagined Walter Clarke dreaming of his bricks and mortar. She saw Tom Lowe sitting alone in a police cell. And she prayed she'd got it right.

‘It's what I'm about to ask. And I want you in on the interview.' Rising, she gathered a few files and her mobile. ‘Don't get your hopes up, Harries. I'll still be putting in an official complaint. And believe me, if it's upheld by an internal inquiry, you'll be out.'

‘Go ahead, ma'am. I've not broken your trust and I've never given away a confidence.'

‘That's right. You got a good price for them, didn't you?'

Sarah watched Tom Lowe closely as he was brought into IR1. Strictly speaking, it was the first interview. Yesterday's session had consisted of Lowe talking while Sarah and Harries listened. The pattern wouldn't be repeated. She regarded this meeting as crucial: convinced Lowe was lying, now, however long it took she wanted the truth. He'd had a night to consider the consequences of his confession, more than twelve solitary hours to contemplate its impact on the rest of his life. She hoped it was enough.

‘Are you charging me now?' He spoke before he sat down.

‘Take a seat, Mr Lowe. We need to go over a few points.' Her approach was perfunctory and belied the importance she placed on the exchanges to come. She nodded at Harries who went through the rigmarole with tapes. She ran through the spiel herself, then: ‘Tell us again what happened the day Evie was abducted.'

‘Please, inspector. It's so painful for me.' Fresh out of sympathy, she gave him silence which he eventually broke. ‘I saw the pushchair outside the shop.'

‘Which shop?'

‘I don't know . . . some newsagent's.'

‘Describe the pushchair.'

‘For God's sake, what does it matter?'

‘It matters a lot, Mr Lowe.'

‘I can't remember.'

She let it go for the moment. ‘What happened next?'

‘It was a spur of the moment thing. An aberration. I never meant to take her, certainly not to harm her. It's all so hazy now.'

‘What was she wearing?'

‘I don't remember.'

‘Don't or can't?'

‘Don't.' He shouted.

‘I don't believe you, Mr Lowe.'

He misunderstood, maybe deliberately. ‘OK. I think it was one of those Babygro things. And a hat.'

‘Colours?'

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘What the hell does it matter? She'd dead . . . I killed her. I killed them both. What more do you need?'

‘The truth.'

He punched the table with the side of a fist. Harries jumped. She didn't react, continued staring into Tom Lowe's eyes, willing him to drop the lies.

‘Why did you send the photographs?' The sudden change of tack didn't faze the guy.

‘To hurt . . . to cause pain . . . I . . . don't . . . know . . . now.'

No, I bet you don't.
‘And the notes?'

‘To point you in the wrong direction.'

‘Why implicate the mother?'

‘It's usually the mother in cases like this, isn't it?' His laugh was brittle. The irony unwitting?

‘It can be.' She paused, ostensibly to jot words on a pad. Ultra casual, she added, ‘And the items you left in my apartment?'

What appeared genuine confusion flickered across his face. ‘I don't . . . I'm not sure now . . .'

She frowned. It was clearly news to him. Was it possible someone else was responsible for the touching little scene in her hallway? She cocked an eyebrow? ‘You were saying?'

‘No comment.'

Keeping quiet was probably safer if he hadn't a clue where she was coming from. And on balance, she didn't think he had.
So who was the intruder?
She put it on the back burner for the moment.

‘Why did you leave a note and a lock of hair on a reporter's windscreen?'

‘No comment.' Either it was down to the killer or Lowe had been blackmailed into planting the material.

‘OK, Mr Lowe. I'm charging you with wasting police time. Time I'd rather spend catching the babies' killer.'

‘Bitch.'

Harries tried intervening but Lowe was faster. In the split second, Sarah realized what he intended, she turned her head. Lowe's fist hit the side of her face. A bruised cheek was preferable and less painful than a broken nose.

‘Are you OK, boss?'

Harries belatedly had Lowe in a headlock.

‘Absolutely fine.'

‘I'll take him down, shall I?'

‘No, we haven't finished. We've not
really
started, have we, Mr Lowe?'

FORTY-EIGHT

S
arah took up the questioning as if there'd been no interruption. Her face felt flushed, the cheek throbbed. She clenched her hands together to conceal the tremor.

‘Why did you abduct Evie, Mr Lowe?'

‘I'm so sorry, inspector. I shouldn't have hit you.' His voice was full of remorse. It was no answer.

‘Why did you abduct Evie?'

He sighed, slumped back in the chair. ‘I don't really know . . . It seems so senseless now . . . I think I just wanted to hurt Karen . . . I'd loved her so much, but she wouldn't let me anywhere near her . . . I guess I thought it would . . .'

‘You're lying.'

‘It's the truth.'

‘You didn't take Evie. You didn't kill Charlotte. You're not a violent man.'

‘I hit you, didn't I?'

‘If punching me was meant to prove you have a violent nature, I could have told you it wouldn't and saved us both a lot of pain. You hit out because I was about to reveal the killer's identity, and you didn't want to hear it.'

She paused, gave him an opening to refute the suggestion. Harries' gaze was on her. Tom Lowe stared at the floor, slowly shaking his head.

‘You wouldn't harm a child. You certainly wouldn't hurt Evie.' Something in her voice made Lowe look up to meet her gaze. ‘Not when she was your own child.'

The truth hurt. He covered his ears with his hands. ‘Enough. Stop this.'

‘It's a bit late to stop now, Mr Lowe. You confessed to two murders you didn't commit. Just so you could protect Karen and your own precious reputation.'

‘You're wrong . . . so wrong, inspector.'

‘Karen panicked and called you, didn't she? Did she tell you we were going to arrest her? You had to help her, didn't you? You had to look after Karen. She's your first child.' Another pause. ‘And the mother of your second.'

Harries masked what could have been a gasp. Even to Sarah's ears her words sounded melodramatic. The moment on stage when the curtain falls on a hushed audience. But Tom Lowe had a different script, a role in another production.

‘You're right, inspector. I lied to protect Karen. She is the mother of my child.' He paused. ‘But Karen's not my daughter. And she didn't kill Evie.'

Lowe's admission was like a second slap in a face still smarting from the first. Sarah had been convinced her interpretation was correct. The Lowe's wedding picture in the newspaper archives had been the catalyst. She'd registered immediately the likeness between the young Tom Lowe and the murdered baby. She'd failed to see there was no similarity between Lowe and Karen. With hindsight no resemblance at all.

‘Your wedding picture shows Deborah was pregnant, already carrying Karen.'

‘It might show she was pregnant. It doesn't show who the father was.' Lowe sounded tired, sick and tired. ‘Deborah told me I was the father and we had to get married. I wasn't just going to walk away. Christ, I was proud of fathering a child. Can you imagine?' The laugh was bitter this time.

‘For years I treated Karen as my daughter. Why not? I'd no reason to doubt it. I even grew to love Deborah, a little. The marriage might have lasted if she hadn't lost more babies. It changed her, it was destroying her, I can see that now. She clung to Karen like a limpet, but the more she smothered her, the more Karen pulled away. Naturally, the kid turned to me.

‘In Deborah's eyes, of course, it was anything but natural. I assumed her jealousy was because our daughter loved me more.' He shook his head. ‘It was because she saw her daughter getting close to a man who wasn't her father.' His eyes glistened. Sarah balled her fists under the table. ‘I found out when Karen was fifteen. I stayed in touch after I left. I still loved her as a daughter. Then.

‘We hid it from Deborah, of course. Didn't meet that often. I came down for Karen's birthday. Deborah was supposed to be out. I dropped Karen at the house. Her mother was in. She ran at me with a knife. I thought she was going to kill me. Maybe she thought the truth would hurt more.'

She'd screamed at him in the street, Lowe told them.
Fuck off, pervert. She's under-age.
Neighbours had come out to watch the action. Deborah standing there, ranting, features distorted like some mad woman.
She's a bastard. Her father fucked off. Now you can fuck off – or I'll set the cops on you.

Lowe was weeping openly now. ‘I didn't believe it at first, but the more I thought the more sense it made. Her insane jealousy had been driven by guilt. Our lives had been built on a lie. She assumed I was as bad as her.' He traced an eyebrow with a finger. ‘Maybe she was right.

‘Once I realized Karen wasn't my own flesh and blood, I thought I wouldn't want to see her again. I was wrong. I wanted to see her more.'
But not as a daughter.
‘We grew . . . closer. I love Karen and I think she feels the same.'

‘Meaning?' Sarah thought she knew, wanted to hear his explanation.

‘She was aware the relationship would hurt Deborah. Maybe it was partly revenge, paying her mother back for a miserable childhood.'

‘And maybe Deborah took her revenge too.' Sarah said. ‘Only it was more than a pound of flesh, wasn't it, Mr Lowe?'

He didn't speak, maybe couldn't.

‘She took your daughter, didn't she? Your wife abducted Evie – the baby she couldn't have. And then made damn sure no one else would have her.' He was sobbing. Sarah felt only disgust. Lowe hadn't killed anyone but if he hadn't acted the spineless coward the deaths might have been prevented. ‘Isn't that what happened, Mr Lowe?'

‘I don't know.' He dropped his head in his hands. ‘I honestly don't know.'

Sarah did. Proving it was a different matter.

‘How did you know he was Evie's father, boss?'

Sarah and Harries were taking a short break in the canteen. She sipped black coffee in the hope its bitterness would get rid of the foul taste left by the Tom Lowe interview. Just for a while, she also needed to surround herself with ordinary people; wanted to hear easy banter and believe basic decency was still the norm. But like the bad taste in her mouth, the fury and disgust were still with her. She was aware the bruise darkening her cheek was attracting sidelong glances but no one made eye contact. Maybe it was the vibes she was giving off. Doubtless the wisecracks would come when she was out of earshot.

‘Did you hear, boss. I asked . . . ?'

She flapped an impatient hand. ‘The real question's why I failed to work out he wasn't Karen's father.' She was still beating herself up about that.

‘Is it a failure? You were nearly there.'

‘Nearly isn't good enough. I should have made the connection earlier.' The impatience faded. She felt a quiet sadness, a resigned acceptance that the realization had come too late. ‘It was obvious from the start the Lowes were never going to make the cover of
Hello
magazine. But I didn't see the depth of Deborah Lowe's despair. If I'd registered how disturbed she is Harriet might not have died.'

Harries was ripping chunks from a polystyrene cup, piling them on the table. ‘Why did she do that, boss? Take a baby she'd never seen from a family she'd never heard of?'

‘I imagine because there was no link. So we'd put the deaths down to a random killer.'

‘She's sick.'

‘That's what the lawyers will say.' Assuming it got to court. ‘She's one smart woman, Harries. Where's our evidence? She's not left a shred.'

‘Yeah, but Tom Lowe—'

‘Isn't going to stand up in court and admit fathering a child by a girl he thought for years was his daughter. Everything he's done is to protect his pathetic reputation. He'll deny everything, she'll deny everything and as it stands we can't prove a thing.'