GIBBS / SELLERS
Detective Constable Chris Gibbs stood on the gravelled driveway on the house side of the turning circle and watched as his skipper, Sam Kombothekra, drove away from Devey House, home of Gareth Upton and, until earlier today, of his wife Marianne too. Gibbs marvelled at how far Sam’s ride could get and still be on the Uptons’ property, inside the grounds of this Grade II listed former rectory; the car was a tiny spot in the distance now, yet still hadn’t got as far as the tall stone gateposts. If Gibbs were to drive the exact same distance from his own home, he’d be closer to work than to where he lived.
He wished he knew what had come up that meant Sam needed to go back to work in such a hurry. All he’d said was, ‘It’s Gareth Upton’s daughter, Marianne’s stepdaughter,’ without adding whether this person was dead, alive, at the nick, or somewhere else. A few more words would have helped, but Sam had allowed no time for Gibbs to press him for further information.
Jemma Stelling was the person he assumed Sam had been referring to. That was the name he’d been given: Gareth Upton’sonly child. Thirty-eight years old, and worked from home three days a week as a part-time bursar for a small private day school. The rest of the family were all here: Gareth himself, seventy years old though he had a full head of hair and looked younger; Gareth’s son-in-law, Patrick Stelling, known as Paddy, also thirty-eight; and Paddy and Jemma’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Lottie.
Not for the first time, Gibbs marvelled at how much you could learn about people from taking their basic details. Paddy Stelling had been either unwilling or unable to define himself without reference to other family members when Gibbs had spoken to him earlier. ‘I’m Jemma’s husband,’ he’d said, before Gibbs had been told who Jemma was. ‘Marianne’s son-in-law, and Gareth’s—’ He’d tried again, looking somewhat numb and stunned in the face of all that was unfolding around him. Then a third attempt: ‘Lottie’s dad.’
He sounded confused as he said all this, as if he were trying to guess at his own identity, rather than clarifying it for Gibbs’s benefit. Gibbs had often thought that being at a victim’s home surrounded by their relatives in the immediate aftermath of a murder was a bit like being one of the few humans left inThe Walking Dead. He and his colleagues were the living, and the surviving family members were the zombies – ghastly grey faces contorted by pain and incomprehension – and you felt sorry for them, of course you did, but you also weren’t allowed to show how much you really didn’t want them anywhere near you. In theory their affliction wasn’t contagious, but you never quite believed that. He’d never voiced these thoughts to anyone, suspecting it was just him and not a general thing.
To be fair, Paddy Stelling didn’t seem distraught in the way that Gareth Upton did. Nor did he appear to be in shock likehis daughter Lottie, whose stunned, staring eyes Gibbs was starting to find unsettling. Stelling seemed more … provisional, somehow, as if he wasn’t sure who or where he wanted to be. Asked what he did for a living, he’d said, ‘Oh, I’m not really anything,’ and then, seeing that more was expected of him, he added, ‘I’m working at a branch of Café Nero at the moment. Not sure how long I’ll be there.’
Gareth Upton had done his best, through his tears, to recite what Gibbs guessed was his usual word-for-word description of himself: ‘A software writer, supposedly retired, in fact busier than I’ve ever been. I’m what’s commonly known as a boffin.’ He’d then wiped his eyes and named several companies he’d worked for and advised in the past. Gibbs hadn’t heard of most of them, but understood both that he was supposed to be impressed and that Upton found it comforting to recite the details of his CV; his wife might have bled out in the grounds of their house after being stabbed multiple times, but no one could take away his illustrious career history.
Imagine work being the thing that makes you feel safest. Gibbs swore under his breath as he realised that would have been true for him before the new superintendent turned up and started messing with something that had been working fine without her.
Speaking of which … where was Waterhouse? Was he ever going to get here?
Gibbs turned to go back inside, then changed his mind. There was something uninviting about Devey House, even aside from the shellshocked atmosphere. Despite its many large windows, it felt shadowy and oppressive. There was too much dark wood, and densely patterned wallpaper everywhere that gave Gibbs an ache behind his eyes: a different pattern in each room.
It wasn’t an attractive building on the outside, either. There were lumpy bits sticking out of its sides, rooms sprouting out in unexpected places. Sellers had said the house was named after the architect, Somebody Devey. Gibbs wondered if he’d been drunk for part of the design and building process, unable to restrain himself.
Instead of going back in, he started to walk across the lawn to where SOCOs in protective suits were clustered around Marianne Upton’s body. The police doctor was still there, a new guy, young enough to be Gibbs’s son. So far, the only thing he’d been able to tell them was that Marianne had been killed with a large knife and probably not one of any particular distinction. It hadn’t been left at the scene.
She wasn’t the first wife Gareth Upton had lost in tragic circumstances. Jemma’s mother, Nancy, had died of ovarian cancer in 1992, when Jemma was seven. Upton had done the most crying Gibbs had seen from him so far as he’d tried to convey these facts, though he’d attempted, unconvincingly, to offer a consolatory voice-over: ‘Thankfully, Marianne came along soon afterwards. She was a wonderful wife to me and mother to Jemma. I felt very lucky.’ Gibbs had wondered if Upton’s second marriage had been one of those in which any and all fond mentions of the first were strictly forbidden.
Lottie Stelling, silent until that point, had quietly corrected her grandfather: ‘Marianne was Mum’s stepmother, not her mother.’
‘Yes, of course, sweetheart.’ Upton had put his arm round her and given her a squeeze, apparently unaware that he’d just been issued with a warning.
As he got closer to the cordoned-off area that contained Marianne’s body, Gibbs spotted something in his peripheral vision and turned to his left. Paddy Stelling was about a hundredyards away, leaning up against the side of the house, eyes closed, head back against the wall. Was he meditating? Thinking hard about something? Maybe he just wanted to get away from everyone else.
He was shivering from the cold, wearing a stripy shirt, nothing warmer over it. Gibbs felt himself shiver too, and pulled the zip of his coat higher so that its padded collar stood up, covering his neck.
Why wasn’t Stelling with Lottie, looking after her, reassuring her that, however frightening and weird life felt now, everything would be okay? Poor kid was only thirteen. You wouldn’t leave your daughter alone in the house with police when something like this had just happened.
Come to think of it, why hadn’t Paddy Stelling and his daughter arrived together? He’d driven here alone, and then Lottie had turned up later, driven to Devey House by—
As he was thinking about her, Gibbs saw her striding across the vast lawn towards him: Suzanne Lacy, Jemma’s best friend since school – which was all very well, but didn’t explain why she’d been the one to bring Lottie here when the girl’s own father had done the exact same drive earlier. And Suzanne had been the one making drinks for Lottie, feeding her from Gareth and Marianne Upton’s fridge, explaining to her that it was fine to forget about homework today, promising to ring school and explain in the morning. Paddy Stelling, meanwhile, had been wandering around acting more like a lost child than a parent: staring into the distance, shaking his head, rubbing his face with his hands as if he had no idea what he was even doing here.
Suzanne jogged the last part of the way, and was out of breath by the time she reached Gibbs. She was short, athletic-looking, with large grey eyes, strawberry blonde hair pulledback into a ponytail and black-framed glasses. Dressed in black Nike leggings, blue and white trainers and a sky-blue hoody, she reminded Gibbs of his secondary school PE teacher, though Suzanne had told him earlier that she worked for an exam board (‘tighter security than Guantanamo, but you could try bribing me if you’ve got school-age children’).
‘Where’s Paddy?’ she said now. ‘Did he ask you?’
Gibbs gestured to his left, where Stelling was now sitting, knees pulled up to his chest, still by the side of the house. ‘Ask me what?’
Suzanne gave a dismissive snort. ‘Taking some him-time. I see. Some more, I should say. You’d have thought thirty-eight years might be enough, but obviously not.’ She sighed. ‘If you talk to him and can be arsed, tell him I’m cooking a proper meal – lasagne with a rocket and mango salad – and it’ll be ready in about an hour. Will Jemma be back by then? Is that why Sam’s gone back to Spilling, to bring her here from the police station? That’s what I sent Paddy to ask you. Clearly he didn’t bother.’
Sam? DS Kombothekra to you, mate.
So Marianne Upton’s stepdaughter was at the nick.Interesting.Gibbs tried not to be annoyed that Suzanne had known before he did.
‘I asked Colin but he didn’t know,’ said Suzanne.
‘If you mean DC Sellers …’
‘Yeah, I do. Isn’t his name Colin?’ she demanded impatiently.
