by T. M. Logan
‘Tell you what?’
‘I hit the wrong button on my phone just now, rang your office number by mistake. Imagine my surprise when someone else answered.’ She let that sink in for a moment before delivering the killer blow, her anger pulsing down the phone line. ‘So when were you going to tell me that you lost your bloody job?’
Ah, I thought. That. I sighed and slumped into a stool at the breakfast bar. Gradually, I explained to her the company restructure, the need for cost savings, without mentioning the illegal reference requests that had precipitated my firing.
‘I didn’t want to tell you until I had another role lined up.’
Her normally calm voice hummed with anger. ‘And have you got something else lined up?’
‘Not yet.’
She paused for a moment, and when she came back on the line her voice was softer, more conciliatory. ‘You sound terrible.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, rubbing my cricked neck. ‘Went out with Jason last night for a few drinks.’
Another pause on the line. The sound of her breathing. Voices in the background.
‘What’s going on with you, Ed?’ she said gently. ‘These last few weeks, with the wedding and everything, I feel like I don’t know you anymore. Seems like you’ve totally gone off the deep end.’
‘I’m fine. Just tired.’
‘Ed, I’m going to ask you a question and you need to answer me honestly, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘And it doesn’t matter what the answer is, as long as it’s the truth.’
‘This sounds ominous.’
‘Do you think you might be having some kind of . . . breakdown?’
‘No!’ I sat up straighter. ‘Of course not.’
‘A mid-life crisis?’
‘What? No.’
‘Will you see someone, talk to someone? We could talk to the GP, get you referred.’
I hesitated, feeling what little energy I had left draining away. What was the point in keeping it from her? She might as well know.
‘I’m ahead of you there,’ I said finally.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m seeing someone already,’ I said. ‘Have been for a while.’
And so I told her about Rebecca – Dr Rebecca Barnes – and the therapy sessions in her tastefully decorated office near the station, my phone always switched to silent. About some of the things we discussed: our children and my feelings of helplessness in the face of Abbie’s new relationship. It felt better, being able to tell my wife. I hated lying to Claire but had somehow become adept without even realising it.
She sighed, her voice sounding crackly and distant on the other end of the line.
‘Oh Ed. Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘Didn’t want you to think less of me. Or that I was . . . losing it.’
‘Has any of it been useful?’
The coffee pot hissed on its hotplate on the kitchen counter, and I got up to refill my cup, tucking the phone into my shoulder.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think the most important thing you can do right now is to make up with Abbie,’ Claire said. ‘And Ryan, now they’re married. For Abbie’s sake, for me, for our family, and most of all for you. For your own sanity. Like it or not, he’s a member of the family now.’
‘I understand.’
‘Will you do that? Will you promise?’
It was on the tip of my tongue to lie, to tell her what she wanted to hear. That would be the smart thing to do. A small white lie to keep the peace, that’s all it would take. But I’d had enough of lies.
‘I can’t make that promise,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What?’ She faltered, as if she was hoping this was a joke and the punchline was coming. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘I wish I could, but I can’t. If something happened to Abbie I would never forgive myself, not after—’
‘Nothing is going to happen to Abbie!’ Claire shouted down the line now, her last reserves of patience exhausted. ‘Except she is going to make a nice life for herself with Ryan! As long as you don’t ruin it . . .’
‘I’ve tried, Claire. Honestly I’ve tried to like him, but the more I look, the more little things I find that don’t add up. I can’t stand by and do nothing.’
‘And I can’t watch you ruin her happiness. I’m not going to nod along and agree as if I somehow understand what’s going on. Because I don’t. This is all your doing, your madness! Can’t you see that? Because everyone else can. You’ve been acting this way for so long, patrolling around her so close, that you can’t see how mad it’s all become. You need to stand back and look at it from her point of view.’
‘I’m sorry, Claire—’
But she had already hung up.
41
I had given up on Farmer. He would likely keep on stalling me until I gave up asking, because how could I complain? It was an annoyingly good scam: convince a client to pay for something illegal, so they can’t go to the police when you don’t deliver. My last pay cheque was gone and I thought I could probably squeeze one more mortgage payment out of my savings before things started getting really tight. As far as Ryan went, I was on my own again.
I had lost my daughter’s trust, lost my job, and was on the way to losing my wife.
But I still had a box of Abbie’s stuff in the boot of my car.
I got on the ring road and travelled the five miles to Leslie Road in Beeston, checking number sixteen as I drove slowly past. Curtains open, no sign of life. No car on the driveway. I did a U-turn in a side road and went past it again for good measure, seeing nothing suggesting anyone was home. But it was better to be sure.
I was going to find the smoking gun. The killer fact. I had to. And where else did you go, if you were searching for the truth behind the lie?
It was just like Jason had said: I needed to get a proper look inside Ryan’s house.
I parked around the corner and took out my phone, punched in 141 to block my number from being displayed, and dialled another that was answered after one ring.
‘Good morning, Eden Gillespie International,’ a woman’s voice answered. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Could you put me through to Ryan Wilson, please?’
‘Certainly, sir, may I say who’s calling?’
‘Mr Ripley.’
‘And will he know what it’s concerning?’
‘He will.’
‘Putting you through now, sir.’
There was a pause on the line, then a click.
‘Good morning, Ryan Wilson.’ Smooth, calm, professional.
In his office, three miles away from this little corner of Beeston. I had checked the GPS tracker already, but it was good to be sure.
Sunglasses on, I hung up and got out of my car, hoisted the cardboard box out of the boot and walked purposefully up the street. I still had the key I’d borrowed when we moved the rest of her stuff in.
I pressed the chunky plastic doorbell, just to be sure the house was empty, listening to the electronic chimes sounding in the hallway. Waited. Pressed it again. No movement from inside. I slipped the key into the lock and let myself in. Stood in the small hallway, listening for any sound, the beeping of an alarm about to erupt, the creak of a floorboard or the chirp of a radio.
Silence.
In the L-shaped lounge, I made myself stand still and take note of everything as if I was seeing it with fresh eyes. The house was neat but sparsely furnished, the beige Ikea sofa set in the lounge that looked fresh out of the box, the 60-inch TV in the corner. The big framed picture of rolling moorland over the fireplace. The walls and furnishings all cream and beige and magnolia, no personality at all, as if the place had been decorated as a show home with the intention of causing the least offence possible. All generic, straight out of the catalogue.
All as blank and neutral as Ryan himself.
The floor-to-ceiling bookcase in the corner seemed to b
e the exception. There were tightly packed books on the top few rows, a mixture of classic literature, recent thrillers and business books with titles like If You’re Not First, You’re Last and Extreme Ownership: How US Navy Seals Lead and Win. I had always taken the view that a person’s bookshelves revealed a lot about them and what kind of person they were. But with Ryan’s I didn’t get any kind of vibe. It was a strange mix: who had Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress tucked in next to Ulysses by James Joyce?
I took out a couple of the bestsellers. Mint condition, spines uncreased, the covers smooth and perfect as if they’d just come out of the box at the bookshop. The classics – Jane Eyre, A Tale of Two Cities, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and so on – were the same. Absolutely box fresh, mint condition.
Maybe Ryan just liked to look after his books. Or maybe he hadn’t actually read any of them and they were just here for show. Just part of the subterfuge.
Here is a normal person’s bookshelf in the normal lounge of a normal house.
The DVDs were comedies and courtroom dramas, mostly still with their cellophane wrapping intact.
He’s a busy guy. Maybe he just hasn’t had a chance to watch them yet.
The middle two shelves were given over to a collection of framed photos of different sizes. A picture of a teenage girl in the 1990s, judging by the hair and clothes. An older man, giving a thumbs-up to the camera. A woman in her late teens or early twenties, hands on her hips, wearing a Santa hat in what looked like a pub. A family photo of a young Ryan perhaps seven or eight years old, a young girl, plus mum and dad. An older sister, or a cousin? I could have sworn he’d said he was an only child. Perhaps the sister was no longer around. Young Ryan was the spitting image of his dad but his eyes, even at that young age, were unmistakeable, points of darkness boring into the camera lens. The mother, on the other hand . . .
I caught my breath. The woman in this picture, mid-thirties, tall, slim, long dark hair, straight eyebrows and a little dimple in her chin. A soft half-smile for the camera, a hand on her son’s shoulder, the boy’s own little hand laid protectively over hers. She was pretty. Undeniably pretty.
And undeniably similar to Abbie.
So similar that they could almost have been sisters.
So he’s married a woman who’s the spitting image of his mother. Is that weird?
Yes.
It’s pretty damn weird.
I’m sure you could find that in a psychology textbook somewhere.
I took a picture of it with my phone, a little chill creeping up my spine.
I moved on, past the two framed certificates above the dining table. Into the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers at random, checking the calendar pinned by the window, the letters and Post-it notes stuck to the noticeboard, checking the fridge, under the sink, the bin and the box of empty glass bottles by the back door. Peering through the window into the back garden, a narrow strip of grass between two six-foot fences, a small shed at the far end. Not quite sure what I was looking for.
Jeffrey Dahmer kept severed heads in the freezer.
I opened the freezer. Frozen steaks. Frozen tuna steaks. Frozen vegetables and frozen Quorn fillets – presumably for Abbie. A half-finished tub of Häagen-Dazs ice cream, chocolate chip cookie dough flavour.
Get a grip. It was never going to be that obvious.
I checked my watch. Ten minutes gone already, but I should have hours before Ryan knocked off work even if he did decide to finish a bit early.
At the bottom of the stairs was a picture I had missed before – uniformed cadets arranged in rows for a group picture. The caption below read Royal Military Academy Sandhurst graduating class 2009. I squinted at it to see if I could make out Ryan’s face among the 100 or so newly-minted army officers, but their dark peaked caps were pulled so low to their eyes that it was difficult to tell. Most of the candidates looked the same, which I supposed was partly the point.
I crept upstairs. First, the bathroom. There was a wooden rack by the sink, fabric boxes full of toiletries. His and hers. Ryan’s was fuller, and I had to delve around before I found what I was looking for. A blue comb, with two black hairs stuck to it.
I took a small Ziploc bag from one pocket, tweezers from another, and dropped the hairs into the bag. Sealed it carefully and put it back in my pocket.
The master bedroom was at the front of the house, directly over the lounge.
Here was the most evidence of Abbie’s presence – her clothes in the wardrobe, makeup on the dresser, hair straighteners plugged in, her Kindle in its purple cover on the bedside table. Her smell was here too, the clean fresh scent of her perfume and shampoo. It smelt like her bedroom back home, like—
A noise. Outside.
I stood very still.
Not outside. At the front door.
Inside.
I stood completely still, straining my ears towards the landing, the stairs, the entrance hall.
Silence returned.
I crept to the top of the stairs, listened again, crouching and peering down towards the front door.
A free newspaper lay on the doormat, curled into itself.
Relax. It was just the letterbox.
I straightened, went back into the master bedroom to Ryan’s side of the bed, pulling open the bedside drawer. Passport, spare car key, logbook for his Audi, a few pens, sunglasses, the presentation box for a TAG Heuer wristwatch, empty. Ryan’s wardrobes were similarly disappointing: suits, shirts, jeans and sweatshirts. Nothing concealed beneath piles of jumpers, or on top of the wardrobe.
The smaller of the two bedrooms looked unused except for storage. Empty suitcases in the wardrobe along with a backpack, a black rucksack, a tent and what looked like hiking or climbing gear. Trainers, running shoes and heavy-duty walking boots lined up on the top shelf, all immaculately clean.
The space under the spare bed was completely stuffed with folded blankets, duvets, cardboard boxes and other assorted stuff. I prodded at a rolled-up sleeping bag but it didn’t move. I pulled it out of the way, and the canvas holdall behind it, reaching out for whatever was there. My fingers brushed against something solid and cold. I switched on my phone’s torch and shone it into the gap I had made. A long metal box was tucked between cardboard boxes and a stack of blankets. I found a handle at one end and hauled it out of its hiding place, grunting with the effort.
It looked like something out of Jason Bourne’s closet: a galvanised steel box, perhaps two feet long by a foot wide, six inches deep, a large padlock hanging from a thick clasp. With some effort, I lifted one end off the floor. Whatever was inside was heavy. I shook it instead, but there was no noise. It must be padded or muffled somehow.
What the hell did a person keep in a padlocked steel box hidden under the bed? Documents? Bundles of cash? A gun? Maybe drugs. Maybe stolen goods. Perhaps nothing more sinister than bank statements and payslips. But then why keep them in a locked steel box?
I checked for a key in the bedside drawers but both were completely empty. I was about to try the drawers in the master bedroom for the second time when I heard it again.
A noise from below. Definitely a noise this time. A shuffling. More mail through the letterbox? Or could it be something else this time? Feet on the carpet . . . I strained my ears harder, one hand still on the metal box, the debris from its hiding place spread around me on the floor.
Silence. Thick, deadening silence stretching out for five seconds, ten. It was nothing, it was—
The front door clicked shut.
Someone was downstairs.
42
I froze.
Very slowly, I slid the steel box back under the bed and began to hastily replace the other items that had been packed in around it, shoving them into the small space as best I could. Come on. Get it back in place, all back under the bed. As I gave everything a final shove, there was a metallic clank as the steel box knocked against the bedframe. Come on, come on.
Movement directly below me now
, in the kitchen. Footsteps on the tiled floor. Then softer, moving across the carpet in the lounge.
What if it was a burglar in the house with me? Then what? I had no weapon, no way of defending myself other than my bare hands.
This was ridiculous. It wasn’t a burglar. Was it?
A creak from the stairs.
An estate agent? Was Ryan looking to move to a bigger place now he was married? That would make sense. An estate agent would have a key – but it didn’t explain the need for stealth. I stood up, searching the room for a hiding place. I could lie on the floor, on the far side of the bed? Too exposed. Try the wardrobe? Too noisy.
A soft step on the landing at the top of the stairs.
I crept to the half-open door, sliding behind it. I would be hidden here unless the visitor came fully into the spare room and turned around.
I held myself very still, trying to control my breathing. Slow it down. Slow. The footsteps receded towards the master bedroom and I could hear someone opening and closing drawers.
A mobile started to ring and for a horrifying second I thought it was mine, my hand flinching instinctively towards my pocket before freezing again. I stopped. It was an unfamiliar ringtone. Not my phone.
A man’s voice answered the call, a voice that I knew. A half-whisper, carrying to me across the stillness of the silent house.
‘Danny?’ A pause. ‘I can’t really talk right now.’
It was Ryan.
Shit.
What was he doing here, in the middle of the day? I said a rapid prayer in my head that the call was some kind of work emergency that would summon him away without further ado.
‘I told you,’ Ryan said, ‘not to call me on this number.’
I frowned; this was interesting. Not work, then. And suddenly I was glad I was here to witness my son-in-law’s unguarded self, a candid view rather than the smooth operator he usually presented.