Then She Vanishes(12)

6




Jess


BRISTOL AND SOMERSET HERALD


Friday, 16 March 2012





FAMILY DEVASTED BY SEASIDE SHOOTINGS


by Jessica Fox

The family of a mother and son who were shot dead in the sleepy seaside town of Tilby are shocked and saddened by their ‘senseless’ deaths.

Deirdre and Clive Wilson were killed in their own home just a week ago today.

Lisa Wilson, 29, Deirdre’s granddaughter, described her grandmother as a fun-loving, bubbly lady, who was fit and active and loved to ballroom dance.

Deirdre, who had been a widow for over twenty years, had only moved to the cottage where she died a month previously.

‘My gran loved the sea so decided to save up so that she could buy the cottage. She was so happy to finally put down roots in Tilby,’ Lisa said. ‘Gran had admired the area for a long time and, in the short time she was there, she threw herself into the local community, joining the Women’s Institute and volunteering at the church café. My uncle Clive had his own place in Bristol, but they were close so he often stayed with her. I don’t think Gran liked living alone. They were just two normal, kind people. Gran loved dogs. She used to breed those beautiful Chow Chows that look like teddy bears. It’s tragic to think all her planning and saving came to nothing. She only got to live in that house for a month. Why would someone want to kill an old lady who never hurt a fly?’

Police are waiting to question local woman Heather Underwood, 32, in connection with their deaths. She is currently in a coma in hospital after trying to take her own life.

Lisa’s father, Norman, 56, added, ‘My brother Clive was a gentle soul. He lived a quiet life with my mum. He’d had a few financial difficulties over the years, a few businesses that went bust. I regret to say I didn’t see them that much over the years after me and my family moved to Reading, although we kept in touch by phone. But I can’t understand why somebody would want to shoot him or my mother. I’ve never heard of this Heather Underwood. And, as far as I’m aware, my mum and brother had never met her. For her to break into their home and shoot them … well, it beggars belief. The family want answers.’

Lisa and Norman Wilson aren’t the only ones who seem baffled by this senseless killing. The police are also perplexed and can find no motive …



I stop typing and read what I’ve written so far. It’s not tying together in the way I want it to. I need to convey who these people were and ask why anyone would want to hurt them. Maybe I should take out the bit about the police being perplexed. It might make them look ineffectual, even though when I spoke to DCI Ruthgow on the phone earlier that was exactly how he’d sounded. He more or less admitted they have no motive, no reason why Heather would shoot those two people. Just evidence: the shotgun she used to try to kill herself was the same one used to kill Deirdre and Clive, then the fingerprints, the type and size of the cartridges used and other forensic results they must have at their disposal, which I can’t report at this time. If Heather wakes up, will she plead temporary insanity? Did she do it because she was depressed? Had she, momentarily, lost a sense of reality? They are all things I’d love to ask Margot, but since she practically shut the door in my face on Monday I haven’t tried to speak to her again, though it’s only a matter of time before Ted sends me back.

And I refuse to give up on Margot until I get her story.

I re-read the article. I need to think of how to end it before filing it ready for the deadline tomorrow. It will be in the newspaper on Friday and I can’t write anything that Margot might read and disapprove of. Not if I want to get her on-side.

I flip through my notes. I’d spoken to Lisa and Norman Wilson this morning and they were very forthcoming on the phone. Lisa had cried, her voice sounding thick beneath her tears, as she described her grandmother. I look again at the photos she emailed. There’s a lovely one of Deirdre sitting in a garden at the end of last summer, a puppy on her lap. Its fluffy teddy-bear face makes me think it must be one of the Chow Chows Lisa described. Deirdre is wearing a straw hat and is smiling, surrounded by peach roses. She looks younger than her age, her eyes clear and blue, her white hair bobbed to her shoulders, her face plump and rosy-cheeked. She appears happy, contented. She looks like a lovely, kind, devoted grandmother. I wonder how she’d felt when Heather had burst into her home carrying a gun. Had Clive been shot first? Or her? The police didn’t say. I try to imagine her fear and shudder, feeling nauseous.

I scroll down to the next photo. Clive. It looks like it was taken in a pub. He’s sitting with a pint in front of him, grinning. His blurry eyes give away that he’s had a few. He looks his age: the whites of his eyes are bloodshot and, even though the photo is only of his top half, I can see that he’s stocky. He’s wearing a football shirt in grey and maroon – West Ham? Rory would know – and a gold chain around his neck. The hand holding the glass has a fat sovereign ring on the middle finger.

Who were Clive and Deirdre Wilson?

I sense Ted watching me. I look up and meet his eyes through the glass of his office – I say office, it’s more of a cubicle. He’s on the phone and is leaning back in his chair. Who is he talking to? Is it about me?

Stop being paranoid, Jess. I turn back to my computer. He’s probably talking to Jared, our slimy editor at the Herald, who thankfully works at HQ. When he comes here – luckily for us, only very occasionally – he stands too close to me and Ellie, our trainee reporter, and addresses us by our names too many times for it to be natural. Apart from Ted, the office is quiet today. Seth is at his computer slowly going through images. Ellie is out on a story with Jack. Sue sits around the corner so I never see her unless I go to the loo or am heading out, although I can hear her on the phone – her voice is unusually loud – more often than not chatting to her sister about her ‘good-for-nothing’ husband.