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That poor, poor woman. She has no idea what’s coming her way. Fran fits Paul’s criteria perfectly. It’s as if she has been tailor-made for him. History is repeating itself, I’m certain of it.
CHAPTER 36
WALTER CLARK, NEIGHBOUR
I was still in the bathroom when Connie came to pick up Oscar for his morning walk, but I’m downstairs in the kitchen pouring us tea when they return. I open the biscuits she likes and she makes her way to the window and stares out across the garden at the dovecote. White paint is flaking from the roof and the pole it’s attached to is rusty. Like me, it’s seen better days.
‘Do birds ever nest in there?’ she asks.
‘Not in as long as I can remember. The odd squirrel, maybe. I asked Paul to sand it down and repaint it, but he never got round to it.’Oh bollocks, I think.Why did I bring him up? But unlike the other times I’ve spoken about him, today she isn’t triggered. Instead, her gaze wanders further into the distance. ‘You can see the roof of Mum’s house from here.’
Passing it every day must be torturous. ‘Come, sit down,’ I suggest and she obliges. I place my hand gently on her forearm.
Connie hasn’t been the same since her mum died, and who can blame her? She’s like a pot of hot water on a hob, constantlysimmering but ready to boil over at the slightest provocation – namely the mention of Paul’s name. She’s convinced he has something to do with Gwen’s death but I can’t help thinking she’s clutching at straws. If she has someone to blame then maybe it will make sense to her. And perhaps – although I’ll never tell her this – it might help ease her guilt for not being here when it happened.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Paul is an innocent party in all this. I mean, who in their right mind marries an older woman with dementia? Someone who wants her money, if you ask me. But do I think Paul killed her for it? No. At least I hope not, because if it turns out he did, a lot of us around here will question just how well we can trust our own judgement.
I already feel terrible for dismissing Connie’s concerns when she confided in me months ago that she didn’t like the way Paul and Gwen were behaving around one another. I told her that a bit of attention wasn’t going to do Gwen any harm. Shows what I know, doesn’t it? I suspect Connie harbours a little resentment towards me although she has never said as much.
She looks at me, then down to the table, and back at me again. ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘Okay.’
‘I ... I don’t think Gwen was the first.’
‘She wasn’t the first what, sweetheart?’
‘She wasn’t the first woman Paul killed. I think she was the fourth.’
Wow. Okay, well, I wasn’t expecting that. I sit up straight and she explains how she recently spent time volunteering at the charity that matched Gwen and Paul, and how she discovered other women on their books who Paul helped. They too later died.
‘But that’s what we oldies do. We die. Our batteries run out, then we’re reduced to our knick-knacks in a car boot sale.’
‘You don’t all marry Paul first,’ she counters. ‘Of the twenty or so names listed, he wed four of them, including Gwen.’
Connie reveals how each of them passed: two as a result of accidents and one poor old girl who died from hypothermia. ‘And now I think he’s getting ready to do it again,’ she continues. ‘He has a new victim lined up. I saw her myself.’
She explains how she went all Jessica Fletcher and staked out the woman’s house until she appeared with Paul. I’m seeing a whole new side to her this morning.
‘And you’re absolutely sure of all this?’ I ask.
‘As sure as I can be.’
‘Then why has no one cottoned on before and told the police?’
‘I think it’s because he spaces them apart. One victim lived in Leicestershire, another in Berkshire. Gwen is obviously in Buckinghamshire, and now Fran Brown is in Northamptonshire. If the coroners at their inquests rule no foul play, there are no dots to join.’
I shake my head, but it’s no longer because I don’t believe her. The truth is almost too shocking to contemplate. ‘But he seemed like such a lovely lad.’
‘Remember the Hunter family in Stewskbury?’ she asks. It’s a surname none of us in this county will ever forget. ‘Forty kids died before the truth came out. Nobody thought someone like that was capable of such evil.’
I shudder. ‘This is awful, just awful.’
‘So you believe me? Because you didn’t before, when I told you I didn’t trust him.’
‘I was wrong and I’m sorry,’ I concede. ‘But you admitted it yourself, you had no evidence he was up to no good, just a hunch. What would you have thought if you were me?’
She doesn’t reply, which I take to mean she understands where I’m coming from.
