Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

attack me? Ingrid?’
    There was a silence. The tapes whirred gently. Somewhere outside a phone rang. The solicitor cleared his throat. Geraldine leaned forward and spoke gently.
    ‘You didn’t mean to kill me, did you? So why did you attack me? You know you could have killed me. Why did you do it?’
    Ingrid didn’t answer.
    ‘Tell me about your uncle,’ Geraldine gently. ‘Tell me all about it.’

     
    ‘He had to be stopped!’ Ingrid suddenly cried out, raising bloodshot eyes and staring wildly round the room, as though looking for someone. ‘I had to do it.’
    She half rose to her feet and the solicitor leaned towards her and muttered under his breath.
    ‘What did he do, Emily? Tell me about your uncle.’
    Ingrid stared at the solicitor for a second, trembling, and he drew back as though unnerved by her expression. She turned back to Geraldine.

     
    ‘It was all his fault,’ she muttered.
    ‘You went to live with your uncle after your mother died, didn’t you? Linda’s husband, William.’
    ‘Yes.’
    It was barely a whisper now, she spoke so softly. Her eyes never left Geraldine’s face.
    ‘Tell me about Uncle William. Did he hurt you?’
    Ingrid nodded again. Tears streamed silently down her pale cheeks.
    ‘What happened with your uncle, Ingrid? What did he do?’
    Ingrid was sobbing too violently now to speak. Dropping her face in her hands, she cried without restraint.
    ‘What happened with your uncle?’ Geraldine resumed after a few moments, when Ingrid’s crying fit had died away.
    ‘I had to stop him, I had to stop him.’
    Her voice was muffled, her hands still over her face.
    ‘Stop what?’
    ‘He came into my room every night and I didn’t want to – I didn’t want to – it hurt so –’

     
    Geraldine sat back in her chair.
    ‘So you stopped him.’
    Ingrid looked up.
    ‘I tried to get away but he followed me downstairs. I wanted to leave by the back door, run away from there and never return. But he found me, hiding in the shed. He grabbed me by the arm. I was screaming. He pushed me down on the floor. There was a hammer. I reached for it and I hit him and hit him – I just wanted it to stop –’
    Her eyes were streaming again. Wiping them on the backs of her hands she looked slowly round the room. Her eyes rested on the solicitor, thin and balding, moved past Sam, and came to rest on Geraldine.
    ‘I stopped him all right,’ she said, and her thin lips curved into a smile.

     
    ‘How did you stop him? What did you do? Tell me what you did, Ingrid.’
    ‘I hit him on the head.’
    ‘And what happened then? Did he fall? Or what?’
    ‘I heard his skull crunch and then he fell backwards. He was moaning and making a disgusting wheezing noise. His hands kept groping in the air, pulling at me. He wouldn’t stop, so I hit him, again and again, until he was dead.’
    ‘Where did you hit him?’
    ‘I hit him where it hurt.’ She grinned. ‘Right in the balls.’
    ‘What about the others, Patrick Henshaw, George Corless, Maurice Bradford and John Birch, why did you kill them? What had they done to you?’

     
    Ingrid gazed earnestly at Geraldine, staring straight at her, dry-eyed for the first time. She spoke clearly now.
    ‘I had no choice. I had to stop them.’
    ‘Stop them?’
    ‘They shouldn’t have done it.’ Her voice rose hysterically again. ‘They shouldn’t have touched me. They shouldn’t have done it, they shouldn’t have done it. I had to stop them.’
    She leaned forward suddenly, her thin arms encircling her chest, her head down, as she rocked on her chair, moaning.

     
    ‘You stopped him, and then you let your aunt take the blame. You let her go to prison for twenty years for something she hadn’t done,’ Geraldine said. ‘Your aunt, who had taken you in, given you a home when your mother died.’
    Ingrid dropped her arms and sat bolt upright.
    ‘She deserved it.’
    ‘Why?’
    Geraldine leaned forward.
    ‘Why, Ingrid? I want to understand. What had your aunt done to deserve going to prison for twenty years?’
    ‘She knew what he was doing. I was only twelve when it started. She knew it was going on and she did nothing to help me.’
    Her expression was bitter now, her eyes hard.
    ‘She should have protected me, but she didn’t even try to stop him.’
    ‘How could you be sure your aunt knew what was going on?’
    ‘Because she used to watch. She watched everything, right to the end.’

CHAPTER 71
     
    G eraldine was