The Darkness Around Her

by The Darkness Around Her (retail) (epub)

  When the New Testament was passed to him, he considered it for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure if he dared to hold it, before he swore the oath: he would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  Dan looked down at his notes, aware of the tension. When he looked up again, he was poised and ready. ‘Mr Box, did you kill Lizzie Barnsley?’

  Peter nodded and swallowed. His voice trembled when he said, ‘I did, and I’m truly sorry.’

  There were audible gasps from the public gallery. Someone shouted, ‘bastard’, before the judge held up his hand to warn everyone to stay quiet.

  Once the noise died down, Peter straightened himself. ‘I can’t begin to describe how sorry I am, and I know that is no comfort to her family. I made Lizzie’s family wait to find out what happened to her and I should have said something at the beginning, but I was scared, and confused. I kept it from you as well, Mr Grant.’

  ‘Please tell the court the whole truth now. What did you do to Lizzie?’

  He looked along the public gallery before pointing to Francesca, who was making notes. ‘Like the prosecutor said, I held her under the water until she drowned.’

  There were more noises from the gallery, angry chatter and the shuffle of people in their seats.

  The judge raised his hand. ‘I warn the people in the public gallery that this is not a theatre but a court of law. If you want to remain, stay quiet.’

  Dan let it die down before he asked, ‘Why?’

  Peter looked down and took a few more deep breaths. ‘I don’t know. I meant to protect her but it all went wrong. I just lost it.’

  ‘It?’

  ‘Control. It was as if everything caved in on me.’

  Dan allowed the words to settle before he continued. ‘Mr Box, how can protecting Lizzie end up with you killing her?’

  He looked up and his eyes were angry. ‘Because there was something even worse waiting for her.’

  ‘What was waiting for her?’

  ‘Not what, but who. Sean Martin, he was waiting.’

  Dan paused to allow Sean’s name to fill the silence, no one was making a noise now. He tried to keep the tremble from his own voice as he held out his hands and said, ‘Please explain.’

  ‘I’d been watching him.’

  ‘Sean Martin?’

  ‘Yes, I’d been tracking him, because he was on his boat. It can only go slow, four miles an hour – he sticks to the speed limit on the canal – and I’d been waiting by the dock where he keeps his boat. I go there all the time, just to watch.’

  Dan held up his hand. He didn’t want Peter going too far ahead. ‘You can explain your motives later. For now, it’s about what you were doing. How long had you been watching him that New Year’s Eve?’

  ‘About three hours. I had no plans for New Year’s Eve, so I decided to check up on him. I knew he was on his boat because I could see the smoke from the heater and there was a light on inside. Why would he be there if he wasn’t about to go somewhere? So I waited, and I was right. The boat pulled out at around eleven thirty, and I knew I’d be able to follow him because the boat cruises so slowly. I tracked him.’

  ‘On the towpath?’

  ‘No. I couldn’t get close or else he’d see me, but I was able to jog along the nearby streets.’

  ‘And which way was he heading?’

  ‘Into Highford. I had to get further ahead but I didn’t want to be where poor Rosie died. I go there all the time, just to remember her, and I sit and think how it could have all been different. It’s so dark at night and it feels like the past is talking to me. I sit in the shadows and wish for it to be peaceful again. For me to be at peace. It’s so lovely down there, the water so calm.’

  The judge intervened. ‘This is about why you killed someone, not a sales talk for a canal trip. What’s the relevance?’

  ‘Because it’s ruined,’ Peter said, his voice rising. ‘Because of what happened before. Because of what happened to Rosie. It’s tranquil by the canal, but for me, in here,’ he said as he slapped a hand against his chest. ‘It never stops, never at peace, because of Rosie, because of Claire, and the women before and after them. And it was going to happen to Lizzie.’ His fingers jabbed at the edge of the witness box. ‘I ended up down there because I was following him, Sean Martin. I knew it was going to happen again and I had to stop it. That’s when I heard her. Lizzie. I heard her heels, so loud, and Sean’s boat was getting closer and closer.’

  Peter looked up at the ceiling as he took a few more breaths and blinked away some tears.

  ‘Sean turned off the lights on his boat. He must have heard her too. That’s when I knew it was going to happen. He was going to kill her, but it wouldn’t be quick. I had to stop her, to save her.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Dan said. His voice was quiet but the silent tension in the courtroom carried his words forward.

  ‘I ran at her, to warn her, to pull her away from the towpath, because up here’ – he hit the side of his head with his fist – ‘up here I knew that she wouldn’t listen to me if I approached her and tried to talk to her, because it was dark and she’d be frightened. She was already upset, I could hear her crying, so I thought I’d surprise her and pull her away.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that frighten her even more?’

  ‘That didn’t matter. All that counted was getting her away from the path, because if I shouted and she ran, she’d run into him. His boat was waiting further along, with the light off. If I made her run, it would be like I was pushing her towards him and who’d believe that I wasn’t a part of it? And these thoughts are all going really quickly through my head, like ping, ping, so fast that I couldn’t make sense of them. I was panicking, worried about her, trying to stop what was going to happen, but I got it wrong because I ran at her. I was going to pull her away from the towpath, get her back to the road, make her run to the street. The police might speak to me about it if they caught me, but so what? I’d have saved her life at the same time.’

  ‘But she died, Mr Box.’

  ‘She did, because she was stronger than I expected. I frightened her and she fought me. Her shoes came off and she hit me with one, right in the head, and it was like someone had flicked a switch in here,’ and he thumped his temple again. ‘I had to stop her, I couldn’t let her get away, to him, to Sean Martin. I just lost it, and we fought until she ended up in the water.’

  ‘Explain what happened next.’

  ‘I can’t!’ He slammed both hands on the witness box. ‘I can’t explain it, because it was wrong, but all that had built up inside me about Sean Martin came bursting out. It wasn’t about helping her anymore but about not letting Sean Martin have her, because whatever I did to her wouldn’t be as bad as what Sean Martin would do to her.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Peter’s hands gripped the edge of the witness box. ‘I held her under the water, and she struggled. I held her tighter, felt her fight for air, but I wasn’t going to let go. I held her under the water until she stopped moving. And it sounds wrong and horrible, but I felt like I’d won, because I’d robbed him of her. I’d kept Lizzie Barnsley away from Sean Martin.’

  Dan knew that the course the questioning was about to take would change everything. Once more, he thought of Pat. Wherever Pat was, Dan was doing it for him.

  ‘Mr Box,’ Dan said, ‘why was it important to keep Lizzie away from Sean Martin?’

  ‘Because he’d killed before. I watched him do it, and I couldn’t let it happen again.’

  Fifty-four

  Bill had been watching for a while before he saw how to get into the marina. The man who’d been painting his boat had decided he was done for the day. As he left the marina, he pressed a large button mounted on a post and the gate swung open.

  Bill waited for the man to leave in his car before going into the garden centre. He bought a hoe and then drove his car to the marina gate, using it to conceal what he was doing.

  The hoe had a long
handle, light and metallic, and he was able to push it through one of the gaps in the mesh fence. The button was in reach, bulbous, like an emergency button. It was hard to get the aim right, as the end of the handle swayed in the air, but after a few misses Bill was able to give the button a hard strike. The gate clicked and then swung open.

  Bill took one last look around before he went in, but no one was watching him.

  There were more than thirty boats secured here, all different sizes and colours. Some long and narrow, others much wider, all in rows alongside concrete jetties that stretched into the basin of the marina. Bill didn’t know which boat was Sean’s, but at least he had the name: Somewhere Quiet.

  He found the boat moored further away. It was smarter than some, freshly painted, although the rubber edging on the hull was worn and faded.

  He looked around, wary of being caught, but there was no one around.

  The boat dipped in the water as Bill climbed aboard. The way in was through a door at one end, small and wooden, with a glass pane. He tapped on it. It wasn’t double-glazed. As he peered through, he could see that it had one of those locks that could be opened from the inside without a key.

  He should step away, breaking in was wrong, but he was desperate for the truth and Jayne had made it sound like the boat was key. He was entitled to see it. He’d done all that work. He’d solved this when no one else believed him.

  He was still holding the hoe. Taking off his coat to muffle the sound, he wrapped it round one end and hit the glass hard. It went in with a thump, along with the shattered broken glass. He used the hoe to smash the remaining shards before reaching in and unlocking the door.

  He took the two steps down into the boat and stopped. It was partly because the daylight had disappeared – thick curtains were drawn across each window – but there was also a strong smell of bleach. If Sean had cleaned the place this thoroughly, perhaps he’d already destroyed any forensic traces of whoever had been killed in here. Bill didn’t know how forensics worked, or whether bleach would remove traces, but the thought made him stall. Was he ruining the scene? He’d read about these things, how CSI teams are so careful not to contaminate anything.

  He closed his eyes. The need to know was stronger than any thoughts about the collection of evidence, and he’d been trying to get the police to act ever since Tom had been killed. Had they been interested in him? Had they hell.

  What has happened in here? he thought, as he looked along the boat. Women had gone missing. Had they been held captive in the boat and then murdered? If they had, they would need restraining in some way. Restraints left marks. Restraints had to be kept somewhere and would have DNA embedded in them.

  As he looked around, there didn’t seem to be many ways to restrain someone. No iron pillars or metal rings hammered into the walls. He’d imagined something darker, more akin to a dungeon than a leisure cruiser. There was a small kitchen area and a couple of wooden chairs, the kitchen surface just a veneer top sitting on a chrome pole. There were two armchairs in front of a television further along, with the bedroom at the other end of a short narrow corridor.

  He looked in the cupboards, but there was just the usual collection of pots, pans and plates. The drawers were filled with boating safety certificates, insurance documents and magazines.

  There was one last drawer that looked more interesting. It contained a camcorder, one of the old-style ones that used tapes. There were also some blank hi8 tapes still in their plastic wrapping. And some that’d obviously been used already.

  He opened the tall cupboard next to it, and just behind a mop and bucket there was a camera tripod.

  Then he saw something else behind the tripod.

  It was a roll of thick black polythene.

  He pulled it out and looked at the edge. It had been used, judging by the uneven edge. He shivered as he wondered what it had been used for? To protect the furniture from whatever Sean did in here? Or to wrap up the bodies before disposal?

  He had to look in the bedroom. He didn’t like the way it could trap him, at the end of the boat, the route to it tight and claustrophobic, but he needed to know what he would find in there.

  His heart was beating fast as he stepped into the narrow corridor.

  The bedroom was mundane. A double bed occupied virtually all the space, although there were some overhead cupboards and a slim wardrobe.

  He was about to check one of the cupboards when he heard a click, like a door closing.

  Bill didn’t move. If someone was there, he didn’t want to be the first one to reveal himself. Then he remembered the broken glass. It might just be the police, alerted by a neighbour who had heard a noise.

  The silence was broken only by his own quick breaths.

  He crept along the corridor, trying not to give himself away, so he could turn around and hide somewhere until whoever was in there left. He might have misheard though, his nerves playing tricks on him.

  The main part of the cabin slowly appeared. There was no one there.

  Bill relaxed for a moment, and then yelped in shock as someone stepped in front of him. A woman.

  ‘I’m Trudy. Are you looking for something?’

  Fifty-five

  The judge didn’t react when the public gallery erupted, as spellbound as everyone else by Peter’s evidence.

  Dan let the noise subside. He glanced to the press benches and saw that the reporters were typing furiously. Just what he wanted.

  He turned back to Peter. ‘How did you get to know Sean Martin?’

  ‘I was young, nearly twenty, and I was going out with a girl, Emily. She was a couple of years younger than me, and she was so sweet, so nice. Her older sister was going out with Sean.’

  ‘That would be Trudy Martin, Sean’s second wife?’

  ‘Yes, Trudy Williams she was called then,’ and the light bounce in his voice disappeared. ‘She was so different from Emily, who was bubbly and outgoing. Trudy came across as quieter, but there was something deeper going on.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘She was headstrong, independent, wanted to live a wilder life, felt Highford was holding her back, that it was too small for her. She used to argue with her parents all the time, until the arguments became too much and she left home. That was probably why she was attracted to Sean, because he made out like he was different from everyone else. Too big for the town, if you know what I mean. He had a canal boat painted up like an old gypsy caravan. Back then, Sean lived on the water, but it was all image, the rebellious free spirit and all that, because he spent most nights at Trudy’s house. Emily loved her older sister, idolised her, so we were at Trudy’s house most weekends. It was fun at first, excitement, but when I look back now, Sean wasn’t nice.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He drank too much, and he insulted Trudy all the time, sitting in his chair with his bottle of vodka, calling her useless or weak. He hit her too, because occasionally I saw her with a black eye. I never found out the reason.’

  ‘Did she say why she put up with it?’

  ‘The same reason we all put up with his abuse and temper,’ Peter said. ‘He was charismatic and dominating. I see now that he was a loud drunk who thought he was better than everyone else, but it was easy to get swept along. We’d talk politics late into the night. Or, rather, he did, lecturing us because he thought he knew more than anyone else and had insights no one else had. I was much younger than him, ten years or so, and he was like the big brother I never had. And it was sexy, sort of.’

  ‘What do you mean, sexy?’

  ‘We had nowhere else to go to be together, Emily and me, because we were both still living at home and our parents were always in. Trudy and Sean were very… you know, all over each other. Sometimes we got so drunk that it got out of hand.’

  ‘Sexually?’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t mean too extreme, but Sean always wanted to take it to the next level. One night we all got so drunk that we ended up having sex
in the same room. Not with the lights on, but Sean was with Trudy in the chair and I was with Emily on the sofa, and we just got carried away. That was when it started, looking back.’

  ‘When what started?’

  ‘When it all changed between Sean and me, and Trudy. One night Emily and I, we were, you know, getting carried away, and I looked up because I heard a laugh. We’d got carried away because Sean and Trudy had, and it seemed like it was all right, but when I looked up, I could see them, watching. Just faint shadows but I could see them staring, like we were putting on a show for them.’

  ‘Why did that change things?’

  ‘Because Sean tried to join in, but Trudy was having none of it, nor was Emily. He shuffled over, half-naked himself, and started to run his hands along Emily’s leg.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know who shouted first, me or Emily or Trudy, but it all kicked off. Emily was trying to cover herself up and Trudy was hitting her, pulling at her, Sean trying to push her back.’

  ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘Emily and I got dressed and left. Trudy was still shouting, Emily was crying, but Sean was sitting in his chair, rolling a joint, like he’d just enjoyed the best show ever. We didn’t see each other for a while, but Emily and Trudy were sisters and close, and eventually we drifted back together. Trudy said how sorry she was, and how sorry Sean was, and that it was just one of those silly nights when booze had made it go wrong.’

  ‘Your friendship resumed?’

  ‘For a while, yes, but Sean couldn’t help himself. It was the same all over again. Too much booze, and Sean was joking and messing about with Emily, grabbing at her, and I could tell she didn’t like it, but I was too drunk to stop him.’

  ‘How do you mean, “grabbing at her”?’

  ‘Trying it on, his arms round her, trying to kiss the back of her neck. Emily was struggling, crying, but it just made him worse. His hands were on her breasts, like, holding them, and then he was trying to put his hand down her trousers.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Peter swallowed. ‘I encouraged him, I suppose. I laughed along, told her not to be so boring.’