Free The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah

present these two monstrous deaths as dramatically as possible.
    Simon decided to wait. He wouldn’t go into either of those rooms again unless he was compelled to.
    ‘My mother-in-law, Geraldine’s mum . . . she’s asking to read the diary,’ said Bretherick. ‘I don’t want her to. I haven’t told her how bad it is. It’ll destroy her. Unlike me, she’d believe Geraldine wrote those things because the police believe it.’ His voice was full of scorn. ‘What should I say? What normally happens in cases like this?’
    There are no other cases like this, thought Simon. He hadn’t seen any, at any rate. He’d seen a lot of stabbings outside night-clubs, but not mothers and daughters dead in matching white bathtubs with funny curled-over tops and gold claw feet . . . as if the bath might suddenly run towards him, disgorge its contents over him . . .
    ‘That’s a tough decision to make.’ Kombothekra was patting Bretherick again. ‘There’s no right answer. You have to do whatever you think is best for you, and for Geraldine’s mother.’
    ‘In that case I won’t show it to her,’ said Bretherick. ‘I won’t upset her unnecessarily because I know Geraldine didn’t write it. William Markes wrote it. Whoever he is.’
     
    ‘I knew it was trouble,’ said Phyllis Kent. ‘At that first meeting, I told the superintendent. I turned round and said to him, “This’ll be nothing but trouble.” Not for him, not for you lot, so you won’t care. Trouble for me. And I was right, wasn’t I?’
    Charlie Zailer allowed the manager of Spilling Post Office to finish her tirade. They stood side by side looking at a photograph of a grinning PC Robbie Meakin. The picture was attached to a small red postbox on the wall, to the right of the post office counter area, and advertised Meakin as one of Spilling’s community policing team. ‘Culver Valley Police—working to build safer communities.’ The slogan, in large bold capitals, looked slightly threatening, Charlie thought. There was a phone number for Meakin beneath the photograph, and an appeal for members of the public to contact him about any topic that might concern them.
    ‘I turned round and said to the superintendent, “Why does it have to be red? Our postbox outside is red, for proper letters. People’ll confuse it.” And they have. They turn round and say to me all the time, “I think I posted my letter in the wrong box.” Course, it’s too late by then. Your lot have been in and taken everything, and their correspondence has gone missing.’
    ‘If anything comes to us by mistake, I’m sure we do our best to send it on,’ said Charlie. What sort of idiot would fail to notice the large police logo on the box, the obvious differences between this and a normal postbox? ‘I’ll speak to PC Meakin and the rest of the team and check that—’
    ‘There was a lady came in this morning,’ Phyllis went on. ‘She was in a right state. She’d posted a letter in there to her boyfriend and it never got to him. I turned round and said to her, “It’s not my fault, love. Ask the police about it.” But I’m the one who gets the aggro. And why won’t the superintendent come in here and talk to me about it? Why’s he sent you instead? Is he too embarrassed? Realised what a bad idea it was? It’s all very well you turning round and saying to me . . .’
    On and on it went. Charlie yawned without opening her mouth, wondering how Phyllis Kent managed to be both in front of and behind everyone she spoke to: ‘I turned round and said, he turned round and said, you turned round and said . . .’ There was an identical police postbox in the post office at Silsford, and, as far as Charlie knew, there had been no complaints about that one. The market research she’d commissioned last year had proved unequivocally that people wanted as much community policing as possible, as visible and accessible as possible.
    Charlie suspected Phyllis Kent savoured