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‘And I’m glad I did,’ Celia said, pushing out her chin as though she was sixteen again. ‘I’ve lived a happy, normal life. I have beautiful children, and I’ll never regret the decision I made.’
Kim wondered if Celia had forgotten what had happened in the last hour of her life. Her beautiful children had murdered at least three people.
Sadness washed over Megan’s face as she shook her head. ‘If that’s your truth, Ceecee, I’m not going to try and change your mind.’
Megan turned towards Kim. ‘I’m ready, Inspector, for whatever needs to happen next.’
Bryant appeared back in the room and nodded. They were on their way.
She stood.
‘Megan Shaw, Celia Gardner, I am arresting you both for the murder of Erin Thatcher. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you both understand?’
Both women nodded.
Kim looked at them both individually, even though they could barely look at each other.
Megan had used her guilt from the terrible crime she’d committed to do good things. She had counselled and advised hundreds of confused teenagers and young adults. Stephanie had been given the courage to accept herself and maybe find love by this woman.
Celia had been in love, deeply in love, enough to murder her own mother for threatening that love and had then totally rebelled against her own feelings and desires.
How many lives had been lost or ruined? What had been the cost of being forced to end a relationship because it didn’t fit with convention? What could have been saved if they’d been allowed to stay together?
She sighed heavily. She couldn’t remember a time when cautioning any suspect had brought her a level of sadness worse than what she was feeling now.
EIGHTY-ONE
Stacey knocked the door to Beth Denton’s home. She had no idea if she felt better or worse about telling the woman they thought her husband was dead or in love with someone else. And quite frankly she wasn’t sure how the reaction would compare either.
Beth opened the door on the second knock and made little effort to hide her frustration.
‘Really, officer, back so soon?’
‘May I come in?’ Stacey asked, ignoring the woman’s irritation. She was soon going to be feeling a whole lot worse.
Before entering, she nodded to the driver of the squad car that she’d be just a few minutes.
Stacey followed Beth to the kitchen, where she resumed rinsing dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. She scrubbed particularly hard at a tomato-based stain on a casserole dish, and Stacey had to wonder if she was visualising her face at the bottom of the bowl.
‘Beth, can you sit down?’
She stilled. ‘Have you found him?’
‘That’s what I want to discuss.’
She waited until the woman was seated. This was her last task at the end of a very long day before being able to go home to Devon’s home-made special chow mein. It was her absolute favourite, but with the news she was having to deliver to Beth, she could wait just a little bit longer.
‘So?’ Beth said, pulling in her chair. ‘Just spit it out.’
‘We believe Gabriel may have been harmed by one of his clients,’ Stacey said, doing exactly what she’d asked.
‘Harmed?’
‘The clients he worked for last week run a clinic that carries out questionable treatment on gay people. Someone there tried to tell the world what was going on by smuggling out a letter with your husband.’
‘But you have the letter,’ she said.
‘We believe they think he read it and so knew what they were doing.’ Stacey took a breath. ‘People from that clinic have this evening been arrested for murder.’
