Tell Me I'm Wrong

by Adam Croft

  ‘We haven’t swabbed you for DNA yet, Chris,’ she says.

  ‘Well do it then. Go on. Take it now.’ I hope this bravado will go my way. What if they took my DNA and did find it on Riley? We stood and chatted for a good ten or fifteen seconds. That’s a lot of time for a hair to fall out. Did I touch him? Put a reassuring hand on his shoulder? I don’t know. I can’t recall.

  ‘We’ve already placed you at the scene of the crime, Chris.’

  ‘No, you’ve placed me near the scene of the crime. And you have a witness to say that Riley Markham was very much alive at that point.’

  ‘And do you have a witness to say that you didn’t go back afterwards? Unless you can prove you were elsewhere, Chris, it’s really not looking very good for you.’

  I look down at my hands and realise I’ve been digging my fingernails into the backs of them. I take a deep breath.

  I need to tell them the truth.

  38

  Megan

  I couldn’t stay in the house. I just couldn’t. All of a sudden it no longer felt like home. I felt vulnerable, scared, alone. The police wanted to take a statement from me to find out what had happened before they got to the house, and I told them I’d rather do it at the station. At that point in time I just wanted to be away from the house.

  I didn’t tell them about the knife. I didn’t see the point. After they knocked, the police called through the letterbox so we knew it was them. Chris went and opened the door, and I put the knife back where it belonged. I told them he’d come into the kitchen, so I had to try and hide the phone. That’s why I’d gone quiet. I didn’t say that to protect anyone — it’s mostly the truth — but I thought it was best to leave out the bit about me brandishing a knife on my own husband.

  I told them everything about my suspicions regarding Chris. I even mentioned the cap, although for some reason I told them I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it or not. Everything is so clouded and hazy in my mind, I don’t know what I’ve been imagining and what’s real. It’s all a huge mixture of confusion, as if my brain can’t handle the sheer magnitude of recent events. They seemed very understanding, but then again I suppose they have to, don’t they?

  Once they’d finished taking my statement, they ushered us through to another room, which had some children’s play things in it. Most of it was designed for slightly older kids, but Evie had great fun putting half the toys in her mouth and throwing the others across the room. A young female officer accompanied us, and took a real shine to Evie. All I could think of was the fact that we’d dragged her out of bed in the middle of the night and that she had already missed two naps. Finally, though, she nods off and I put her down on a folded blanket in the corner of the room.

  The young officer — Georgia, her name is — and I have a good chat. She tells me all about her nieces and nephews — she’s the youngest of four, and her elder siblings all have children — and we share funny stories about what kids and babies do. It’s mostly me just nodding and smiling and giving her looks that say I know exactly what you’re talking about, and it’s at that point that I realise I’ve been a far more distant mother than I’d ever intended. If anything good is going to come out of this, maybe it’s that I will have realised what’s important in life.

  After a while, Georgia looks at me.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, Megan, but you’re taking this very well. I don’t know what I would do if I was in your situation.’

  ‘I don’t have much choice,’ I say. ‘Plus I suppose it’s something I’ve kind of come to terms with already. If I’m truthful, I think I’ve had my suspicions for a while.’

  She smiles. ‘Anyway. Best to steer onto other topics of conversation.’

  She’s got a good point. I’ve already given my official statement, so off-the-record discussions are probably less than ideal.

  We spend most of the day in that room. Until I know what’s happening with Chris, I can’t go anywhere. It’s not that I’m not allowed, because I am, but I just feel so in limbo.

  It’s eight o’clock in the evening before the door opens and the older female detective walks in.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ she asks.

  ‘Bored shitless, but feeling safer at least,’ I tell her.

  She smiles through one corner of her mouth. ‘We’ve spoken to your husband at great length. We’ve gone over all the detail and compared everything with intelligence we have from elsewhere, and the decision has been made not to charge him.’

  In a split second, my entire world falls apart.

  ‘What do you mean not charge him?’

  ‘We’ve decided not to charge Chris with the murders of Riley Markham and Kai Bolton. He’s free to leave.’

  ‘But… I don’t understand. Why?’

  ‘Evidence has come to light which shows your husband was elsewhere at the times of the murders. There’s no evidence that leads us to believe he was involved.’

  ‘What? I don’t get it.’ My head is spinning at a million miles an hour. ‘He was meant to be fishing. But there wasn’t anyone else there. What evidence is there?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to speak to your husband about that, Mrs Miller. I’m not at liberty to dilvuge the content of statements made during an active homicide investigation.’

  I sit back down, before I fall over. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Collecting his things from the custody sergeant. There’s a bit of paperwork to do, but after that he’ll be free to leave.’

  ‘What, to go home?’

  She looks at Georgia, then back at me. ‘No, he asked if he could call his mum and step-dad to pick him up. I think he’s going back to theirs.’

  ‘And where do I go?’

  ‘That’s entirely up to you. Home, I presume.’

  I need time to digest this. I need time to take it all in. Surely there’s been some sort of mistake. How can he be completely innocent? What evidence is there that he was elsewhere? None of it makes any sense. And now he’s not even coming home. He’s going to his mum and step-dad’s house — something he would never do. He can’t stand George, and he’s never forgiven his mum for getting together with him so soon after his dad died.

  ‘So what now?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s not really a lot we can do,’ she says. ‘As far as we’re concerned, your husband has committed no crime. Between you and me, though, I think it would be a good idea for the both of you to sit down and have a talk.’

  I thank her, gather our things together and let Georgia lead us towards the exit.

  39

  Megan

  Chris has stayed away from home plenty of times in the past. There’ve been school trips, stag dos, all sorts of things. But the house has never felt as empty as it did last night. It wasn’t just my husband that was missing; it was my marriage, my family, my hopes and dreams.

  Everything we’ve worked so hard for has been irrevocably ruined. Will I ever be able to look Chris in the eye again? He’ll never be able to forgive me, and I’ll never be able to fully trust him. Sometimes the police make mistakes. This could be a huge one. What if he did kill Riley and Kai? What if he’s going to kill again?

  Whatever happened, whatever happens now, I have to come to terms with the fact that our marriage is over. Whether he actually did it or not is almost irrelevant in that sense. How many wives get to call the police and report their husband as a child murderer and expect their marriage to carry on as normal afterwards?

  Word of Chris’s arrest has already got round the village, too. Regardless of whether he’s released, charged or proclaimed innocent by the bloody Pope, some people will always assume he’s guilty. He’ll never work again. Not as a primary school teacher, anyway, that’s for sure. Somehow, it’s managed to stay out of the papers. I don’t know how long that’ll last for, but at least the backlash should only be local, if it happens at all. The British press have a dreadful reputation for splashing huge articles about suspected kill
ers being arrested, only for them to be subsequently proved innocent and released, with their lives left in tatters thanks to the gutter press’s appetite for salacious gossip. It wouldn’t be fair for Chris to go through that, and I hope it doesn’t happen.

  Around nine-thirty, the doorbell rings. I look out of an upstairs window, to see if I recognise a car. I don’t want to open the door to anyone I don’t know. The car parked on the driveway is vaguely familiar. It’s not one I’ve seen many times before, but it’s distinctive, and I know immediately whose it is.

  I go downstairs and open the front door, and James steps inside. My sister’s husband always looks so happy, so confident, but right now he looks downtrodden.

  ‘Sorry. Didn’t want to hang around out there in case there were photographers,’ he says.

  ‘That’s alright. What’s up?’

  He shuffles his feet. ‘I heard about Chris. Thought we should have a cuppa.’

  I nod and take him through to the kitchen. It’s been years since either Lauren or James have been round to our house. I’m surprised he even remembered the address.

  I make the tea and we sit down at the kitchen table.

  ‘Who told you?’ I ask him. ‘About Chris, I mean.’

  He takes a deep breath, then exhales just as deeply. ‘We had the police turn up on our doorstep yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘At yours?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, when I answered the door all they’d say is “it’s to do with an investigation”. Turns out they wanted to speak to Lauren.’

  I close my eyes and try to make sense of this. ‘Why on earth would they want to speak to Lauren?’

  ‘That’s what I thought. But they wouldn’t speak to her in front of me without her permission. She said she wanted to speak to them on her own first. So I went outside. When they were gone, I came back in and she’d clearly been crying. Her make-up was all over the place and she looked haunted.’

  James stops speaking, and I give him a few seconds to get himself straight. He doesn’t talk, though, and I have to probe him further.

  ‘What was it? What did they want?’

  ‘That’s what I asked her. At first I thought something had happened to someone, but she told me it wasn’t that. It took her ages to even start to tell me. But then she told me everything,’ he says, exhaling heavily. I think I can see tears in his eyes.

  ‘About what?’ I ask.

  ‘They told her they’d arrested Chris and were looking at charging him with those little boys’ murders. Then they said Chris had given them an alibi, which they needed to verify.’

  ‘What alibi?’

  ‘He told them he’d been with Lauren both times.’

  I shake my head and dig my fingernails into the back of my hands. ‘Sorry. I don’t get it. What do you mean he’d been with Lauren?’

  James looks up at the ceiling, clearly trying to hold back the tears. He says the same sentence again, but slower this time. ‘He’d been with Lauren both times. They were together. Both times. Having sex.’

  I feel an explosion in the pit of my stomach. ‘He said that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Lauren told them that was a lie, surely?’ I ask, knowing exactly what James is going to say next but hoping against hope that he doesn’t.

  He shakes his head. ‘No. She told them the truth. He was telling the truth.’

  All of a sudden, I feel as if all life has been knocked from me. I struggle to catch my breath, and my legs feel so wobbly I think I’m going to fall off my chair.

  ‘She told me the whole story, Megan. And he needs to tell you, too. It’s not fair that it comes from me. You need to hear it from him. For your own sake.’

  I look at James. He looks just as broken as I do. And in that moment, I wonder how much worse things can possibly get.

  40

  Megan

  Not long after James left, I texted Chris.

  Come home now. We need to talk.

  All credit to him, he did. He must have known by now that I would know. The police will have been to see Lauren, and Lauren would have had to tell James. And one of them would have told me. He wouldn’t have been released without Lauren telling the police everything and backing up his alibi. He would have known that his secret would be out, but at least it meant he wouldn’t be charged with the murders of Riley Markham and Kai Bolton.

  I arranged for Mum to come and pick Evie up between James leaving and Chris arriving. I didn’t tell her why — just that I needed time to myself after everything that had happened in the past few days. Thankfully, she didn’t argue with that.

  When I finally hear his key in the lock, my heart begins to hammer in my chest. Weirdly, my first thought is that I’ll have to get the locks changed. I have no idea how I’d do that or what it would cost, but there’s no way I can have Chris letting himself back in whenever he feels like it.

  I hear him kicking off his shoes and walking through to the kitchen, where I’m waiting, sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of tea.

  ‘Milk, two sugars,’ I say to him. He nods and sits down.

  We sit in silence for almost a minute before I speak.

  ‘Come on, Chris. You’re not stupid. You know what this is all about. Man up and tell me yourself.’

  He looks like a broken man, but I can’t say I’m sympathetic. This is all his doing. All of it. It’s his secrets and lies that have caused this.

  He takes a deep breath, and speaks as he stares into his mug.

  ‘On the day Riley died, I did go fishing. I was only there for a couple of hours, though, and then I headed back towards the village. We’d arranged that Lauren would pick me up from the car park at half three.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘Why do you think,’ he replies, more as a statement than a question. ‘On my way to the car, I saw Riley. He was walking past the stream towards his house. I was going to ask him if he wanted me to make sure he got back safely, but I was already a few minutes late. So I didn’t. Jesus Christ, I’ve replayed that moment in my head a million times over. Why didn’t I just walk him home? It was a couple of minutes away, if that. Lauren could have waited. But all I could think about was getting my fucking leg over. And because of that, he died. That’s why I wanted to see his parents. I felt guilty. Worse than guilty. I felt responsible. But I couldn’t do it. I just sat in the car outside their house, looking at their front door. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go in. I was so fucking weak I couldn’t even bring myself to do that.’

  There are tears rolling down Chris’s face as he speaks, but I don’t feel even an ounce of sympathy for the man who was once my husband.

  ‘Was that the only time?’ I ask him, knowing damn well what the answer is going to be.

  He shakes his head. ‘No. I was with her when Kai died, too.’

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘No, I hadn’t seen him since school finished.’

  I nod. Now that Chris is beginning to open up, I can finally see what’s the truth and what’s a lie.

  ‘How many times?’

  He runs his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. It got to the point where it was three or four times a week. James was working away, you were… Well, we haven’t been as close since Evie was born.’

  ‘That’s your excuse?’

  ‘No. It’s my reason. There’s a difference.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  He sighs. ‘All sorts of places. Never at either of the houses though,’ he says, looking at me, as if this makes it all fine. ‘There’s an old industrial unit just off the bypass. Used to be an auction storage warehouse, but it’s been closed a couple of years. There’s nothing else around there, but it’s got a few parking bays. She used to park up, and we… Well. You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know. You’re going to need to tell me.’

  He swallows. ‘We had sex.’

  ‘Thre
e or four times a week?’

  He nods.

  ‘When you told me you were going fishing?’

  ‘I was going fishing. We just sort of tied the two in together.’

  ‘Oh how romantic,’ I say, starting to find my confidence. ‘Tell me. How the hell did it even start? We haven’t spoken to Lauren in years.’

  ‘She texted me one day. She got my number from your mum, apparently. She said she wanted to put everything behind her and bring the family back together again. We met up. I went round to the house one day after school and said I’d tried to put out some feelers, but you weren’t having any of it. Every time her name came up your face looked like you’d been poisoned.’

  ‘You went round after school?’

  ‘I told you I had a couple of late meetings. I didn’t technically lie. But nothing happened. Never in the house. And anyway, James was there. And your mum.’

  ‘Mum was there?’ I say, my breath catching in my throat. Was she in on it as well?

  ‘Yeah. She’s always wanted you two to get back together. She doesn’t know about any of this, by the way. Jesus Christ, she’d castrate me if she found out. We had a chat about it, and I said it was probably best to leave it for now because Evie was still young and we had lots going on. I didn’t want you getting upset. But me and Lauren carried on seeing each other.’

  ‘Seeing each other,’ I say, with a heavy emphasis on the first word.