Killer Women
Wensley Clarkson
Contents
Title Page
Twin Obsession
In Cold Blood
A Sense of Love
The Greenhouse Gallows
The Seaside Killers
The Children Slept On
Rivals in Love
Deadly Revenge
Emotions
Killing Daddy
Fifth Time Lucky
Death Wish: The Mother Who Struck Back
Copyright
It was hardly a grand affair – as weddings go. But then Graham and Gillian Philpott would not have wanted it any other way really.
As they walked out of the quiet suburban registry office into the autumn sunlight, they felt a sense of relief that they had finally done it.
After all, they knew each other pretty well, having lived together for five years. Hardly a sin, but for most of that time, bank manager Graham had pretended to be married to avoid the bigoted gossip that their neighbours loved to indulge in.
It just would not do for a 45 year-old, recently divorced father-of-three to be setting up home with the pretty 21 year-old clerk from his branch of a major high-street bank.
For Mungo Park Way, near Orpington, in Kent, was one of those sort of places. Lots of net curtains and perfectly mowed lawns. A veneer of respectability hiding a multitude of sins.
Graham Philpott’s house was a classic example of early 1970s architecture. Functional, practical and entirely lacking in style. But then it did have a built in garage – and that was very important in Mungo Park Way.
Now Graham and Gillian had got married at last. With two failed marriages behind him, Graham wanted to start afresh. Gillian made him feel so much younger.
For her part, she’d put her spotless past on the line to marry a man more than twice her age. Not surprisingly, her parents did not entirely approve of the match.
Her father, retired special branch police detective Leslie Smoothy, was philosophical. ‘They seem happy,’ he observed dryly. Gillian was old enough to make up her own mind whom she should marry.
In her stunning off-the-shoulder wedding dress complete with lace veil, she really looked the part as they left the ceremony to a cheery send-off from a handful of friends and relatives.
She was an attractive woman in a chiselled sort of way, possessing one of those faces with sharp features that people either love or hate. There was no middle-of-the-road reaction about Gillian.
At work, she was always immaculately dressed and bubbled enthusiasm wherever she went. Her gregarious behaviour certainly caught the eye of her colleague Graham. Balding and nearly always wearing the same style of grey flannel suit in the office, he looked the archetypal bank manager.
Within a few months of Gillian joining the bank, they had become a definite couple. Soon, they were openly holding hands and kissing and cuddling as they travelled to and from the City by commuter train each day. No-one objected so long as it did not interfere with their work – and Graham made sure of that.
Now – five years later – she had actually persuaded him to marry her. They had learned to live together. To accept each other’s habits. To enjoy each other’s company. They were probably much better prepared than most other couples. The marriage meant something really special to them despite having been live-in lovers for so long. They wanted the ceremony to be an occasion to remember. A time of great happiness.
So when Gillian’s sister Janet turned up at their house just a few days before the wedding in tears, it pained them both to see her in such distress. It was only natural that they should offer her a shoulder to cry on.
Janet had just finished a particularly turbulent love affair and her life seemed in tatters. She did the only natural thing – and turned to her twin sister for comfort.
They were not absolutely identical. But the facial resemblances were startling similar. The nose, the eyes, the mouth, the shape of the face. If you met the sister you did not know in the street, you would be sure you had seen her before.
They did not dress identically because they abhorred the habitual obligation that so many twins seem under. They were individuals and they wanted to be treated as such.
If anything, being twin sisters had made Gillian and Janet more determined to succeed on their own. Throughout their childhood, they had suffered the pressure of always being expected to perform like circus clowns. People tried to make one person out of two. It was so infuriating they promised each other they would never treat their own children that way.
It was no surprise, then, that they went their own separate ways. Even so, despite the distance they kept from each other, Janet still managed to have exactly the same job as her sister, for the same bank – but at a different branch.
Perhaps that was why the guests at the wedding that day were not the least bit shocked to see Janet sitting with her sister and brand new husband in the back of their chauffeur-driven limousine as it drove off to London Airport.
Earlier, Gillian had been relieved when her husband had put up no resistance to her suggestion that Janet should accompany them on their honeymoon to beautiful Bali. It wouldn’t mar the holiday. In fact, she thought, it would be quite nice to have some female company. Graham could be awfully staid at times. And Bali sounded like such a wonderful place. Situated just south of Indonesia and west of Java, it really promised to be the trip of a lifetime.
Graham Philpott had been bemused by his wife’s suggestion at first. Slightly irritated that the romantic holiday was going to be with someone else. But, when she had explained the anguish her sister was going through, he thought it would be heartless to object. In any case, Janet was going to return to London after two weeks – to leave them with a full week to themselves.
As they sat together chatting on the flight to paradise, Graham studied Janet more closely. They really were identical twins in more ways than he had at first realised. Talking to Janet was just like talking to a more sophisticated version of Gillian. She seemed less hard-faced. More demure. More ladylike in the way she dressed and behaved. He examined all the features of her body. It was her eyes that struck him most. They were so inviting. She would look at him in such a way that he felt as if she were reading his mind.
Janet possessed something her sister lacked. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was. But he thought he might like to find out.
Graham and Gillian had the honeymoon suite. It was a sumptuous place. Servants at your beck and call. Food, drink, sunshine, even massages on tap.
At night the two newly weds walked barefoot along the endless palm-fringed beaches, golden sand scrunching beneath their feet.
Bali has been called ‘The Morning of the World’. An enchanting island, it is without doubt, one of the most magical places on earth. Scattered between the trees are tiny villages where craftsmen build countless temples in honour of their gods. Every night, after the sun goes down, traditional Balinese dancing takes place. The perfect place to relax. The perfect place for a honeymoon.
There was so much for the newly-weds to do.
Then there was Janet. She was always around. Laughing. Joking. Playing a hostess-type role to the two lovers. Whenever she felt in the way, she