Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(84)

“I don’t know,” she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I always try to look at this objectively, but . . .” She started to cry. “Peter is Jake’s father, and all this fucked-up stuff, it’s part of Jake. I get so scared when I think about it. Jake is just a kid who wants a normal life, but is he going to get that?”

Tristan stacked up the pieces of broken cup and placed them on Gary’s desk, then took Kate’s hand.

“I was looking online, at serial killers in particular. Do you know how many of them have children who have turned out to be normal? Charles Manson apparently has a son who lives a very quiet life with his girlfriend and child. The daughter of the Happy Face Killer is now a motivational speaker who helps the children of serial murderers . . . I wouldn’t be surprised if Enid Conway spouted a load of bollocks that she thought would sell books.”

“No one knows how their kid is going to turn out, do they?” said Kate.

“Exactly,” said Tristan. “When I got done by the police for breaking that car window, my mum freaked out and thought I was destined for a life of crime, and look at me now. I’m working at Ashdean University, and I’m not cleaning the toilets. I work for you, and that’s something to be really proud of.”

Kate looked into Tristan’s kind brown eyes, and she felt so pleased she had taken a chance on him at the job interview. He was fast becoming like a second son to her.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling and squeezing his hand. Gary came back in with a cloth. He stopped in the doorway.

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” he said.

“No, no, I asked the question,” said Kate, wiping her face and composing himself. Gary grabbed a box of tissues, and she took one and blew her nose. He cleared up the mess and sat back down.

“Do you want to carry on?” asked Tristan to Kate.

“Yes, this is about more than just me,” said Kate. She wiped her nose and then looked up at Gary.

“Did you know that Peter told most of his colleagues in the police that his mother was mentally ill and had been committed to the hospital?”

“I’d heard that. Enid said it was lies . . .”

“Peter told me and my colleagues on three occasions.”

“Enid never mentioned that. She loved Peter fiercely, and I think it went beyond a mother’s love,” said Gary. “She talked about dressing for him, during the trial. To keep his spirits up. You must remember some of the stuff she wore to court: short skirts and stockings, suspenders. She would sit there, showing him a bit of leg. A flash of lace . . . I remember we used to joke about it in the press gallery.”

Kate felt sick but was determined to continue.

“Did she talk about her relationship with Peter when he was growing up?” she asked.

“She talked about the holiday they took to Devon, but it seemed pretty normal, apart from the run-in with the farmer’s wife, when Enid stole a chicken. She did talk a lot about the two years Peter spent living and working in Manchester as a police officer, when Enid was back in London. She said she missed him like crazy. At the time she was working at a bookie’s in Whitechapel, and she only got every other weekend off. They would alternate visits to each other. One weekend, when she came to Manchester, they’d been drinking in the pub, and they went back to Peter’s flat. He showed her a new camera he’d bought, and he started to take some photos of her. She said things got a bit silly, and she started posing for him, for a laugh, but then he asked her to change into another outfit, and he carried on taking photos of her as she got changed, and it turned into him taking photos of her naked.”

“Bloody hell, his own mother?” said Tristan.

Gary nodded. “Enid framed it that they were having a laugh, and then he got naked so she could take photos of him, and then she said, ‘One thing led to another . . .’ That’s the words she used, but then she backtracked very quickly and told me I couldn’t put it in the book.”

“She said this in an interview with you, for the book?” asked Kate.

“Yes. It was after she’d had a couple of drinks in the lounge at the Grand.”

“Why didn’t you put it in the book?” asked Tristan.

“She had the final say, and when I told my editor, she was disgusted. She said the publisher didn’t want that kind of speculation about the relationship between Enid and Peter. It wasn’t that kind of book.” Kate and Tristan sat back for a moment and took it in. Kate wasn’t shocked, just horrified to hear it.

“Have you got any other material you could share, any other photos from Enid that didn’t make it into the book?” she asked.

“Yes. There were a lot—ones of Peter as a baby, his early years in the force in Manchester.”

“Could we take a look?”

“Sure. Let me see,” said Gary, getting up and scanning the crammed bookshelves. He found a shoebox and pulled it down. He took off the lid and put the box on the small coffee table. “I had all the photos copied.”

Kate started to sift through the old holiday photos, pictures of Peter as a baby.

“I take it she didn’t give you any of her dodgy photos? If what she said was even true?” asked Tristan, picking up the blurred photo of sixteen-year-old Enid cradling baby Peter outside the unmarried mothers’ home.