Authors: Ricki Thomas
“Griffin Hall.”
She glanced shyly into Rick’s eyes, her world falling apart rapidly, pleading at him for an answer. His heart shone out to her and he whispered under his breath. “Stick with the story we went through, you’ll be fine, babe.” Slowly she walked to the door, head down with dread, admitting the detectives before shutting it behind them.
They sat across from each other at the breakfast bar, and the atmosphere was strangely informal. Krein nodded consent to Claudia, realising she would get far more from the woman than he would, a perk of already knowing her. “Hope, we understand you booked into a hotel in Cambridge earlier this afternoon: The Cambridge Garden House Hotel.”
Hope nodded. “What’s that got to do with Griffin?”
She offered no elaboration. “Was there a reason for going?” This time Hope refused to answer, her stubborn heels digging down in defiance. “Were you aware that Griffin Hall was also a guest at the hotel?”
Her face paled, jaw dropping, and she stuttered her reply. “No.” Rick watched her delicate features, animated and beautiful, and he was in awe of her acting skills.
Claudia shifted, unsure if the lie was a good or a bad idea, confused to who she wanted justice for: the paedophile’s victim or the victim’s victim. “Do you know of an Eva Brunel?”
Hope shrugged, she was playing games. “Yes, I know her well.”
Krein and Claudia caught each other’s eye, neither expecting the answer. “Right! Okay! Do you mind me asking how you know her?”
“No problem. I am her. Black wig, glasses, different make up and clothes. I even fooled Rick, and we spend every night together!”
Now both officers were flummoxed, the idea had never occurred to either, and Claudia began to redden with shame at having been fooled so easily. She could feel her superior’s stare boring into her, sensing her credibility slip away, unaware that he was also beating himself up for not having considered the scenario. It was all she could manage. “Why?”
Hope’s jaw tensed, her eyes watering at the frustrated memory. “You said it was his word against mine, and after twenty five years you know as well as I do he’d never get done for it.”
“No, you’re probably right, but it could possibly have had him listed on the sex-offenders register.” Claudia was leaning towards Hope, ignorant to Krein between them, who diplomatically leaned back, the conversation only included two people.
Hope waved her hands, dismissive, and irked. “Bollocks! Clean living rector with docile little wifey! Me, controversial writer and dreamer, with hard hitting finger pointing studies that name and shame. Plus the memory of the abuse raised, equally controversially, by regression! No case, Claudia, no case.”
Claudia knew the words were the unfortunate truth. “So Eva was another child, you found it easy to relate her abuse because it mirrored your own. You invented her as another witness, and transformed yourself into her for my benefit.” How idiotic did she feel!
“It was easy. Thing was, suddenly I figured I could get some revenge on Griffin, pay him back for the years he stole of my life. It was just some fun at first. I wrote to him, well, Eva did, said she’d read about the investigation and she wanted him to know she was totally on his side.” Somehow Krein and Claudia had swapped places, neither could even remember how or when, and the two women were alone in the room, oblivious to Rick biting at his nails and Krein leaning heavily on his hand, soaking up every word into his extensive memory.
Hope strolled across the room, opening cupboard after cupboard, finally finding a glass and filling it to the brim with chilled fifty pound a bottle Peter Michael ‘Belle Cote’ Chardonnay as if it had come from the bargain bin. She took a large sip and returned to the cocoon she shared with the policewoman. “I didn’t expect a response, so I was stunned when the hotel whose stationary I’d used while I was staying there forwarded his reply. I realised I could have some real fun, get some perverse pleasure by leading him on, if you like!”
The only person in the room who noticed Dawn creeping in, on tiptoes, in her socks, was her brother, and he knew her presence could only strengthen and enhance Hope, and confirm her story, if necessary. He knew they were close. She mouthed to him. ‘Are you okay?’ A brief nod relaxing her, she crouched by the wall, an eavesdropper.
“We exchanged a few letters, and he was obviously becoming emotionally attached to Eva. Well, backtracking a bit, I needed to see Griffin as he is now, not how I remembered him. I don’t know why it was important to me, it just was. I intended just to stay in the background, not say a word, but when I saw him I was rooted to the spot. Seeing him there, the self-righteous liar, I felt sick. I could feel the bile rising, the thought that the smarmy man who was standing in front of me, pretending to be virtuous and moralistic, had shoved his cock inside my mouth, inside me, and I was just a tiny child. I vomited over him, it was disgusting, but it was my body’s response to seeing the bastard I abhorred.
Anyway, getting back to Eva, seeing him in the church meant he’d seen my face, and then I’d stupidly gone to the rectory and created a scene, humiliating Griffin by telling his parishioners the truth, humiliating his wife, simply because her weak and timid persona irritated me.”
Although the question could have been accusatory, the tone of Claudia’s delivery was blameless. “You do know Dorothy Hall is dead, don’t you?”
Hope’s head bobbed down, the glossy mahogany curls tumbling to frame her cheeks. “I didn’t think he’d do it! I said if he killed her he could have Eva. I was bored of the game, I thought he’d say ‘oh, sorry love, can’t do that one, see ya!’ But suddenly he’d done it, he’d actually gone and done it. That’s when things got above my head, Eva was due to meet up with him, and he was going to try and seduce her.”
“You could have just left it there, not met and not written any more.” This was the first time Krein had been a part of the conversation, he felt compelled having seen the mountainous body in mottled death, knowing the sick rapes that had tormented her in her death.
Hope sighed, taking the empty tumbler back to the fridge for a refill. “It was like an obsession, I didn’t want to go but I did, too. Maybe it was about finding closure, or something, I don’t know.”
Claudia was instantly irked, the time-wasting she’d been subject to, the deceit, being taken for a fool. “Hope, with that third witness making a statement…”
Rick’s hand shot up, finger raised. “That was me! I didn’t know what was going on at the time, but now it all makes sense. Nice one, babe!”
Disheartened, Claudia’s shoulders sagged as realisation trickled over her. “Three witnesses, all one person. You wouldn’t have been able to cope with the identity changes when the case came to court. You knew we weren’t going to be able to convict him, so you plotted your revenge in another way.”
“It wasn’t as cut and dried as that, there were other circumstances that were concerning me. I was worried about Penny, she was putting on weight fast. Obviously we know why now, but we didn’t then. I was terrified about the pains I’d been getting in my arm, that crushing vice thing in my chest…”
Rick’s hand covered Hope’s to comfort her. “What’s that about, babe, you never told me you were getting pains!”
“I did tell you to see a doctor!” Dawn instantly realised her mistake as three sets of eyes locked onto her, shocked by her presence.
“What the hell are you doing here! First Claudia, then you, this is getting bizarre.” Hope was incredulous once more.
Rick jumped in, suspiciously quick. “It was me, I phoned her, well, on the way back after you’d gone on the helicopter. I was scared about the baby situation and I wanted her with me for moral support.” Dawn eyed him, a new and strengthening bond with his deceit, and she knew that he would only lie if there were danger in the truth. The hairs on her arm stood high, goose-bumps chilling as a deep and sinister fear spread over her. He gave her a silencing warning with his expression, and she discreetly nodded her assent.
Krein and Claudia both dismissed the lie, knowing from their conversation with Dawn exactly why she’d driven the long distance so suddenly, and they both tried to imagine why he was shielding Hope from his earlier panic. Was she still unstable? Dangerous?
Naïve, Hope was content with the explanation, and she smiled. “Getting back to what happened, well, the last straw was discovering my fiancé had slept with my daughter last year, when she was twelve, I hasten to add.” Dawn cringed, and Rick dropped his head onto his hands, shamed. “I went mad inside, I was furious, and disgusted, they’d both known all the time I’d been with him and neither was willing to tell me until the other day. I didn’t tell him I knew, just told him we were going away together, on our own, at the weekend, to celebrate our engagement. He bought it. I was going to use him to help me get revenge on Griffin.”
Krein couldn’t hold back the smile, they were finally about to hear what had happened to the paedophilic Reverend Hall, the circumstances that had led to his overdose.
“When we got to the hotel I needed Rick to go to sleep so I could change into Eva Brunel, and the best way I could think of was raunchy sex and a glass of brandy, he can’t hold his alcohol very well.” Rick shot her a wounded look. “Well, the plan worked and he went to sleep, so I got changed and went to the room I’d booked for Griffin under a false name, I’d picked room sixty nine for the irony.
Once I got there he kept trying to paw me about, feel me up, and his trousers never stopped bulging. Obviously I had no intention of letting him anywhere near me, so I talked my way out, promising him the hottest sex he would ever have, but later. I’d brought chains, handcuffs, standard bondage crap, and he made no effort to stop me putting them on him after he’d stripped naked. I had him trapped, just where I wanted him, and now I could go and collect Rick to help me.”
Krein held up a hand to halt the flow. “Help you do what?” He was answered by the singeing glare from the stark blue eyes, a demand for silence, patience, and he felt like an admonished child.
“Before we left to go back to Griffin’s room I changed into a sexy schoolgirl outfit, another touch of irony, I’ve got a pretty sarcastic sense of humour. I think that must have been when Rick called Dawn for help.”
Rick recoiled, stunned she’d known he was lying all along. “Why do you think he called Dawn for help, when he’s already told you he called from the police car later? Just out of interest.” Claudia was more daring than Krein was with Hope, but somehow her interruption didn’t anger the woman at all, and he bristled at the slight.
“Because I’d told him I knew about him screwing my child, and that I was getting my revenge on him, I guess he was scared, especially when he tried to run off and found the door locked.” The memory brought a wide grin to her face, and Rick lowered his eyebrows, annoyed at the un-necessary affront.
Hope began to describe the indecent uniform she had worn to titillate both men, and Dawn began to reflect on the times she’d had with Hope, the angry days, sad days, efficient days, and one thread had pulled through from the early days to the present: sex. She realised that Hope, at this point anyway, used flirtation and a promise of sexual favours to get whatever she wanted. She was sassy, and she made everyone, male or female, want to have sex with her, and as a result they were in her power.
Casting her mind back she could see that Hope had flirted with her discreetly from the very first session. She’d seen her brother besotted, a lovesick fool, by Hope’s clever manipulation. At Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve she’d worn excessively provocative clothes, regardless of knowing she was going to meet a paedophilic rapist. And now Dawn was witnessing the two detectives being drawn to her, the coy expression, flickers of eye contact whilst describing the suggestive outfit that mocked her abuse, trapping them unwittingly in her web.
For the second time during the lengthy narration Dawn was overcome by a sense of foreboding. Something, and she had no idea what, which made the irrational fear unbearable, was going to happen. Hope was prepared and she was now hunting her prey, lulling it into security before she went for the jugular. She signalled, trying to catch her brother’s attention, but he was as enthralled with Hope and her description as the detectives were. Dawn wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave her brother.
“He had no idea I wasn’t Eva, and no idea I was in the uniform because I’d blindfolded him before I left. We came in, me and Rick, and we started to tease him, took his mask off so he could see it wasn’t Eva, that it was me, and we put a ball gag in his mouth so he couldn’t shout for help.”
Krein’s radio crackled and he jumped, engrossed in the tale. He took the radio to a corner of the room while Claudia looked on, and Rick willed Hope to glance his way, somehow get through to her that it was imperative she didn’t reveal the whole vengeful truth, a truth that would be life-changing to them both if Griffin Hall died. Krein re-joined the circle. “Griffin Hall was pronounced dead ten minutes ago, he had multiple organ failure. Toxicology are screening his blood now to assess which drugs led to his death. Hope, if you had anything to do with this you know you’ll be looking at a prison term.”
Suddenly straightened, indignant, Hope taunted Krein. “Rubbish! That guy screwed me, and probably many other girls against our will when we were children. He murdered his wife, he was the lowest of the low.”
“I realise there are mitigating circumstances, but all the same…”
The animal rawness shocked everybody in the room, Hope growled, low and threatening, a challenging warning. “I’m not going to any prison. Talavera is the one and only prison I will ever set foot in.”
Krein and Claudia’s eyes met, puzzled, and an invisible grey mist settled through the room, a dark atmosphere, thick and cloying. Dawn hugged herself, a chill running through her. Rick had seen Hope’s dangerous anger before, but Dawn knew the background, the ingrained hurt that made it so easy for her to erase her emotions at will, and this time she was under pressure, not the comfort of a counselling room. She might lose control, and the person most in danger right now was Rick, after all, he’d just become a father to Hope’s child’s baby. Dawn had no doubt that she would be teeming with bitterness, regardless of how close they seemed at the moment.