‘A Mrs Diana Hope-Bruce. Her own baby had died, sadly, and she’s confessed to abducting your son on the terrace of the Palace Hotel. It happened much as you thought, oddly enough; she saw a group of older hotel guests during the fire, a woman among them holding a baby, ran up to them and convinced them the boy was her nephew, so they handed him over.’
‘Where is he now?’ Hudson had sat down at his desk in the middle of the showroom, breathing heavily. ‘Have you found him?’
‘Yes, we have, but this is where it gets a bit tricky, I’m afraid. His name now is Jos Hope-Bruce.’
‘Not Jos who was seeing Freya?’
‘I’m afraid so, Sir.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘She’s going to love that.’
‘Do you know how they met?’
‘I’m sorry,’ replied Hudson, ‘you’ll have to give me a minute.’ He was wiping the tears from his cheeks with his shirtsleeves.
‘Take your time,’ said Dixon.
‘All this time, I knew he was alive, I just knew it. And now I find out I’ve known him for a year without even knowing he was my son.’ He frowned. ‘I should have felt something, surely? There should have been some connection, some father and son thing. Freya clearly felt something for him, although there’ll have been nothing sisterly about that. Does she know?’
‘We told Jos this morning, so I’m guessing he’s told her by now,’ replied Dixon.
‘I ought to go and find her. She’ll be in bits.’
‘A few questions before you do. How long has Freya known him?’
‘They met at Richard Huish, so that’ll be four years ago. She was with someone else back then, so they only got together a year or so ago, and it only lasted a couple of months, I think.’
‘And they’d never met before that?’
‘No. Freya was nearing the end of her second year of sixth form when Jos started, and she left four years ago. He wasn’t there that long before his father died – a year maybe – so he left to go and work at the cider farm. Then Freya met him again at a pub in Taunton about a year ago, as I say. They were both free agents then and decided to give it a go. I’m not sure it was too serious.’ He caught himself, taking a sharp intake of breath. ‘God, I hope it wasn’t, for both their sakes.’
‘Did we check his alibis?’ asked Dixon. He was sitting in his Land Rover, watching Hudson hastily covering the outside hot tub.
‘They checked out,’ replied Louise. ‘The Rotary dinner, and his wife confirmed the other dates, although she was out for Geoffrey Pannell’s murder. She went to a Pilates class and he was at home alone with the kids.’
‘How old are they?’
‘Five and seven. Neighbours didn’t see him leave, if that’s what you’re thinking, and he was able to confirm what he watched on the telly; even had an invoice for one of the Mission Impossible films. I can’t remember which one, but we’ve got a statement.’
‘What about his mobile phone?’
‘Never left the house.’
Dixon wasn’t entirely sure why he even bothered asking that last question. Anyone with half a brain who was up to no good would leave their phone at home, surely? There was enough true crime on the telly these days. ‘Anyone with a Netflix subscription is a bloody forensics expert,’ as the chap from High Tech was so fond of saying.
‘What about calls?’
‘Nothing you wouldn’t expect to see – Freya, his wife, stuff like that.’
‘Well, somebody’s killing these old people.’ He turned the key; much harder and it would’ve snapped off in the ignition.
The drive back to Express Park was endured in silence, Dixon taking the opportunity to admire the view across the Levels towards the Sedgemoor battlefield as he drove along the A39 – until the vision of a blood-soaked scythe popped into his head.
‘Everybody’s still out and about,’ said Jane, when they appeared in the incident room. She had been populating the whiteboards with photographs from Facebook.
‘We’re still waiting for Jos and Freya’s call records,’ said Mark. ‘I’ve got Diana Hope-Bruce’s, but there’s nothing there.’
‘What does she drive?’
‘An Audi, and the dashcam’s gone to High Tech,’ replied Jane. ‘We got a charging decision from the Crown Prosecution Service. Manslaughter, child abduction, and there’s a new offence of concealment of a body. We’re going to charge her in a bit, if you want to be there?’
‘You can handle it.’
‘We’ll be keeping her here until Monday morning, when she goes to court.’
Been there, done that.
Every now and again the memory flashed into his mind; rarely lingering these days, thankfully.
‘Where’s Sarah?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Mark. ‘She went out about half an hour ago and I’ve not seen her since.’ He shrugged. ‘I tried ringing her, but there’s no reply.’
‘And she didn’t say where she was going?’
‘There’s something else you need to know,’ said Jane, ominously. ‘We had a call from the halfway house and there’s no sign of Sean Rodwell, apparently. He went out last night to get a takeaway and hasn’t been seen since. It puts him in breach of his licence conditions, so the local lot in Weston are keeping an eye out for him.’
