Hilary Bonner - When the Dead Cry Out

Karen sighed. “And so?” she enquired. “Where have you been for the past twenty-eight years?”

“I was adopted,” replied Jennifer in that rather smug voice again.

“You were what?”

“Ricky said that there was no way he could keep us, not after he started telling people that our mother had walked out on him,” she began.

It was strange, Karen thought, how different her voice and her manner became depending on whether she was referring to Marshall as “Daddy” or “Ricky.” She was now, once again, quite grown-up and together.

“Ricky said we were too young to be asked to keep a secret, and he was also terrified of the effect that what had happened might have on us. He thought that the best thing to do was to encourage us to forget it all. Children do have short memory spans. But he thought if we stayed with him we would have to live with it all forever. And I think he knew what the future was going to hold for him, that he would be hounded wherever he went.”

“He found two childless couples who were desperate for children. The sort that don’t ask questions. There are always plenty of those, you know. He agonized about splitting us up. It was more difficult to place the two of us, and he knew there would be publicity sooner or later and we’d be more likely to be spotted and to have to live through it all again, become immersed in it just the way he didn’t want us to be.”

“But that wasn’t the real reason he split us up. No. He wanted us to forget. He wanted us to have new lives. That’s why he never contacted us. And he thought we would always remind each other, wouldn’t be able to help ourselves. He thought that apart, with new caring parents, we’d forget more easily. Maybe even be able to forget altogether. That’s more or less what happened to me. There was always something in the back of my mind, but for many years it was buried inside my head.”

“Jennifer, for a start I don’t think it’s ever been that easy to arrange adoptions in this country...” Karen began.

“Oh, not the way you mean,” interrupted Jennifer. “Not officially. I suppose Dad just gave us away, really. And he fixed everything. I think he even arranged all the papers that were needed like a new birth certificate. You know Dad. He’s always been very resourceful.”

Karen sighed again. Yes, she knew “Dad”. Just a bit. And he was certainly quite resourceful enough to have been able to acquire false birth certificates for his children. Karen concentrated hard on all that she had been told. On the face of it, Jennifer’s story had holes in it you could drive a bus through. There was a great deal that needed to be checked, including the very basic premise that she was indeed Marshall’s daughter — although Karen would somehow have bet a month’s salary that she was. And there were a great deal more questions to be asked, including one that had been festering away in Karen’s brain ever since Jennifer had arrived at the station that morning.

“Look, if all that you say is true, why on earth should your father, if that’s what he is, care about blackening your mother’s name?” she asked.

“Because he loved her, of course,” Jennifer Roth replied swiftly. “He loved her in spite of everything. He didn’t want it known that she’d tried to kill her children. He said he’d rather stand trial himself. That it was the last thing he could do for her. Dad was always like that, you know.” The voice went childlike again. “He loved Mummy very much, only she didn’t seem to understand that. She kept getting at him, accusing him of things he didn’t do. But he just carried on loving her, even after she... after she tried to kill his children. Even after he lost us too, even after he was arrested, he was still loyal to her.”

Karen stared at her. There was no sign at all that Jennifer Roth was being anything other than totally honest and straightforward.

“How do you know all that?” she asked suddenly.

“What do you mean, how do I know?” The now-familiar belligerence shone through yet again. “I know because of all that he’s told me and all that I know he’s done over the years. He did everything out of love. That’s the sort of man my father is.”

Jennifer was positively glowing with pride.

“You have a very high opinion of him, don’t you?”

“Yes, I bloody well do,” Jennifer responded aggressively. “He’s remained the same nice, kind, gentle man right through all this, and I don’t know how he’s done it, to tell the truth.”

“And your sister, Lorraine? Does she share your high opinion of your father?”

Jennifer shrugged her shoulders.

“I’ve no idea,” she said. “I haven’t seen her since Daddy gave us both away, and I have absolutely no idea where she might be.”

“Are you sure she is alive?”

Jennifer hesitated. “I suppose not. But I’m sure she didn’t die along with my mother, if that’s what you mean. Of course I am. And I’m absolutely certain Daddy didn’t kill her.”

“You mentioned something about finding your father again?”

Jennifer Roth nodded. “Yes. I always knew I was adopted, although it turned out it wasn’t a legal thing at all. I suppose it couldn’t be. Not that that made any difference, they were good people, they were good parents. I was brought up in Cheshire, I understand they moved there to start a new life, so that nobody would ask questions about my sudden arrival. We had a lovely home, I had a pony, they sent me to a good school. Looking back I think they were always trying to make things up to me...”

Jennifer’s voice trailed off.

“Were good people?” Karen queried swiftly. “What do you mean by that?”

“They were in their late forties when they took me in. They both died of cancer within a few months of each other about five years ago. They’d kept in touch with Ricky, although I’d not seen him — he thought it was better that way — and I found some letters. Then I tracked him down. I had dreams, you see, I remembered bits of things. I needed somebody to tell me about my past.”

“So what you are saying happened that day in 1975 is not really your own recollection, it’s what Richard Marshall told you happened, isn’t it, Jennifer?”

“No,” Jennifer was emphatic. “It’s not. It’s what I remember. I needed something to jog the memories I’d buried, that was all.”

Karen felt like bursting into tears. She could barely believe what she had heard. She continued to stare at Jennifer Roth. The young woman’s jaw was set at a very determined angle. She seemed disconcertingly sure of herself, and totally sure of the extraordinary story which she was suddenly presenting as fact.

And there was one undeniable fact. If she did indeed prove to be Richard Marshall’s daughter, then there was at least one murder it had always been believed he was guilty of which had never been committed by anyone.

Cooper thought the door to the incident room was going to be torn off its hinges when Karen stormed through, long lanky Tompkins, morose to the point of embalmment, following meekly behind. Cooper had never seen her so angry. And he had a fair idea his behaviour that morning had something to do with it. He also realized that the appearance of Jennifer Roth on the scene was almost certainly what had really upset the detective superintendent. Together with the rest of the team his eyes were riveted on Karen. They all knew that she had just finished interviewing the young woman, and it was pretty darned obvious that the results of the interview had not pleased her at all.

“Right, let’s have some hush, shall we?” she shouted, quite unnecessarily as the incident room had fallen into nervously expectant silence the moment she had entered.