Chapter 73

‘Stace, are you sure about this?' Kim asked as Bryant pulled up at the address they'd been given by the constable.

‘I know, boss, but that's where she lives. I'm telling you there's something weird here. I've read those blogs five times now, and every time Judith tells the story of her childhood, it all gets a little bit worse.'

‘You think she's embellishing?'

‘I dunno what it is, but I'm just not getting any raw emotion from her words. Unless she's able to recount the horror from a purely factual and objective viewpoint without any sentiment, then there's definitely something off.'

‘Okay, Stace, we'll let you know,' Kim said before ending the call. Kim hadn't been able to shift the feeling that something wasn't right with Judith, and Stacey's instinct about the blogs had cemented the unease. The fact that she had links to two of the daughters warranted further investigation, and where better to start than hearing from her drunk and abusive mother?

The semi-detached home on the edge of Brockmoor didn't look like the dwelling of a barely functioning alcoholic who had been in and out of prison for a quarter of a century. They'd interviewed many alcoholic ex-cons over the years and very few of them lived like this.

‘Could've got clean, guv,' Bryant offered as they approached the front door.

Yeah, wouldn't that be a convenient little detail for Judith to leave out of her monologues?Kim thought.

The door was opened by a slender woman in her early fifties. She wore a kitchen apron covered with pictures of baked beans. The smell of something delicious had followed her to the door.

‘Mrs Pugh?' Kim asked, taking a good sniff. There was no obvious smell of alcohol.

‘Close enough. Who's asking?'

Kim produced her ID.

‘Oh, good Lord, what's happened?'

‘Nothing,' Kim reassured quickly. ‘May I just check that Judith Palmer is your daughter?'

A sigh. ‘Would you like to come in?'

Kim nodded, taking the invitation as an affirmative answer to her question.

‘Is she okay?' the woman asked, heading along a short hallway.

‘Alive and well the last time we spoke to her,' Kim said, following her to the kitchen and the epicentre of the delicious aroma.

‘Excuse me,' she said, opening the chest-high oven. ‘Kids with lactose problems. I'm trying new recipes.'

Kim had already noted an assortment of kids' toys and wondered if she operated a day care facility. To Kim's knowledge, Judith was an only child. If her mother was taking in kids, she really had cleaned up her act.

‘Mrs Pugh, we're?—'

‘It's not Mrs. It's my maiden name actually, but please call me Ellie.'

‘Okay, Ellie, I'm not gonna lie. We're a bit confused.'

‘Of course you are. As is every other police officer that comes here. I don't usually get CID, but there you go. Have at it,' she said, taking a pack of paperwork from a drawer. She reached for her phone and passed that to Kim as well.

Kim glanced at her partner to see if she had missed a vital part of the conversation. His expression said she had not.

‘I'm sorry; I don't understand.'

‘What's she accused me of this time? Last time it was abusive text messages; the time before that was threatening emails. Time before that it was?—'

‘Sorry,' Kim interrupted. ‘We are talking about your daughter, Judith?'

Ellie Pugh nodded before seeming to realise they honestly had no clue what she was talking about.

‘Oh dear, it's your first time,' she said, taking a seat.

They followed suit.

‘I assume you've read her blogs.'

‘We know of them,' Kim said. They hadn't read them all, but Stacey had given them a detailed summary, along with her opinion that something didn't seem right. Looked like the constable had called it right.

‘So, you know her account of her childhood?'

Kim nodded as Ellie opened the document folder.

‘This is her birth certificate, and this is the photo of me bringing her home two days later. Neither of us were addicted to alcohol, and her father took the photo.

‘These are her school pictures from the age of five up to fifteen. She was never placed in care, and I haven't spent one minute in prison. I've lived in this house for twenty-seven years.'

Kim was actually looking at the house deeds. ‘You keep all this close by?'

‘Saves me searching around to prove my story every time you guys come to call.'

‘So Judith is a liar?'

‘My daughter is a fantasist.'

Kim sat back and waited for her to continue.

‘Judith makes things up in her own head and then ends up believing them. She honestly doesn't feel she's lying and now truly believes that the history she's invented is actually the truth. Luckily, I always have the proof she's lying, and then she becomes the victim of some huge conspiracy theory.'

‘So there's no truth to any of her accusations?' Kim asked.

‘None, although it doesn't make this continued torture any less painful.'

Kim let out a puff of breath as she sat back in her chair. Her mind was truly blown.

‘It's a lot to get your head round. I suppose I'm not easily shocked any more. I've been dealing with this a long time.'

‘When did it start?' Kim asked.

‘She was around seven. She didn't take well to having a sister, Laurie. When she came to the hospital, she sat in silence and wouldn't look at the baby. I thought it would pass, but it didn't. She would scream at me to take it back. One time when Laurie was just a few months old, we went to the park, the three of us. When we got back, I left Laurie in her pushchair while she slept.

‘I came out from the kitchen to check on her and the pushchair was gone. I won't bore you with the details of my panic, but it transpired that Judith had wheeled her to the end of the road and left her there.'

So, Judith had had trouble sharing, Kim thought. Not uncommon in second siblings. Not so strange.

‘I found disturbing pictures she'd drawn, and in every one there was a dead baby.'

‘Did you take her for help?' Kim asked, noting they were definitely heading in the direction of strange.

‘Of course. I was told that she'd grow out of it. That it was an adjustment at having to share my attention. I tried to believe the experts, but then one day I got a call from the school, saying Judith had spoken to one of the teachers and that as a consequence of that conversation, child services had been called.'

Ellie paused before continuing.

‘Judith had bruises on her arms. She told the teacher it was where I'd grabbed her while smacking her. Obviously, I was horrified, but luckily, I knew where the bruises had come from. My friend had to sign an affidavit that her daughter had the same bruises from a bungee trampoline during a trip to the park a few days earlier.'

‘What would have happened if you hadn't been able to prove it?' Kim asked.

‘Who knows. I started keeping a journal of every activity, every accusation. I'm sorry but I'm not going to elaborate further. It's too painful.'

‘Sexual abuse too?' Kim asked.

Ellie's face contorted in pain before nodding. They had now moved from strange to incredibly disturbed.

‘Judith sought emancipation the day she turned sixteen, and I didn't fight it. Maybe I should have done, but by then she was like a stranger to me. It's easy to look back and wonder if I could have done more, but at that point I couldn't even allow myself to be in the same room as her without someone else present. I needed a witness to be around my own daughter. I lived in fear of the next accusation.'

Kim couldn't even imagine it. She suspected that legal emancipation was probably the best for all concerned.

‘Was that when she changed her name?' Kim asked.

‘No, Inspector, I changed mine. Pugh is my maiden name, but once she started writing those blogs…'

‘And your other daughter – has she been affected?'

‘You'll know from the blogs that in Judith's world, her sister doesn't even exist. Still, Laurie changed her name by marriage two years ago, and my grandson obviously has his father's name too.'

The smile that hovered at her lips at the mention of her grandson indicated that she still had family members who brought joy to her life.

She gave her bottom lip a good chew before she spoke again. ‘Is she okay though? Is there anything she needs?' Obviously, a small pebble of hope existed inside her.

Kim thought of the hate and aggression that had emanated from Judith every time she'd mentioned her mother.

‘No, I think she's perfectly fine as she is.' Kim hesitated before asking the next question. ‘I'm sorry to ask this, but in your opinion, is Judith capable of murder?'

The woman instinctively began to shake her head, perhaps thinking of the child Judith had been before her sister had been born.

Then she shrugged as tears filled her eyes. ‘You know, I honestly couldn't tell you any more. I really don't know the woman she is now.'

‘Thank you for your honesty,' Kim said, not feeling at all reassured about the role Judith was playing in advising young women about their relationships with their mothers. Every event she'd used had been a lie, and yet her influence over vulnerable young women had been impressive.

‘Is there anything else I can help with?' Ellie asked.

‘No. We appreciate the time you've given us,' Kim said, rising from her seat as her phone began to ring.

She nodded at Bryant to say their goodbyes as she headed for the door.

‘Go ahead, Stace.'

‘It's Katie's mom, boss.'

It took a second for Kim to remember they were no longer talking about Sheryl Hawne, their first victim.

‘What about her?'

‘She's here, boss, and she wants to see her daughter's body.'