Wink Murder

by Ali Knight

  ‘Let’s give him a bit of space,’ O’Shea says, casting her grey eyes at the bookshelf searcher. ‘Can we go to the kitchen?’ We move through to the back of the house, Ben following. ‘There’s the issue of you withholding information from a police inquiry,’ she begins as she stares out of the window at the garden. ‘We could charge you for that, but I’m not sure it’s really in the public interest, what with the kids and all.’ She’s trying to be friendly and she’s not doing a bad job. I look at her directing the team in my house, she’s younger than about half of them. I find myself wondering how many balls she had to break to get to be pulling up a chair opposite the main subject of all this industry. ‘We’ll be dredging the canal.’

  I’m stunned. ‘Why on earth do you need to do that?’

  ‘The murder weapon hasn’t been found. If I’d killed her, that’s where I’d hide it.’ I don’t reply as she runs a hand across a kitchen drawer. ‘Are any of your kitchen knives missing?’

  ‘No. And I’m the kind of woman who would notice.’

  She flashes me a look of respect for my household management and I’d take a bet that her cutlery holder doesn’t harbour crumbs either. ‘Is this the only lock on your door?’ She pulls at the old-fashioned key. ‘That’ll invalidate your insurance.’

  I shrug. ‘It’s terraces all along here. You’d have to swim the canal to get in from the back.’ I shudder. ‘No one in their right minds is going to do that.’

  ‘Exactly my point.’ She’s scanning my kitchen windows, unimpressed by their rickety locks and, in one case, no lock at all. She works in a world where believing in the logical won’t save or protect you from the meanness and violence of people. ‘They’d be mad, you don’t want one of them in here with your kids—’

  ‘I get it! Nobody in this street has been burgled from the back in at least twenty years. Have you got a cigarette?’

  She purses her lips. ‘Gave up five years ago.’ She takes pity on me. ‘Ben, give Mrs Forman a cigarette, would you?’

  ‘Course.’ He pulls out the bits and pieces and I find holding the packet comforting. She stares at me. I’m being subjected to the gut test. I wonder how many have failed this examination over the years.

  ‘How did you get that?’ She gestures at my black eye.

  ‘Lex crashed his car with me in it,’ I say.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Two nights ago. He was pretty pissed off.’

  O’Shea snaps at Samuels, ‘Do we know about this?’ He shakes his head, frowning. ‘He was angry with you? Why?’

  ‘He thought he was being set up for Melody’s murder.’

  ‘Who was setting him up?’

  ‘Paul, John, me, all of us. He was raving and probably drunk.’

  ‘Do you think he was set up?’

  I take a deep drag. ‘Lex is spoilt. When things don’t go his way he blames other people.’

  ‘Why did Paul kill Melody?’

  ‘I don’t know that he did kill her. I never said that he killed her! I just don’t get the story about a dog . . . I don’t know what to believe any more, who I can trust . . .’ I bite a hangnail, worry flooding my body with the cigarette smoke. Again Lex’s words from our mad car trip come back to me: ‘Innocent people are charged all the time’. God forbid if I’m wrong.

  They are both staring at me. ‘Was your husband having an affair?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Hazard a guess. Other people think they were.’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Has he been unfaithful in the past?’

  ‘Not with me.’ One of O’Shea’s eyebrows rises at the corners. ‘He was married before.’ I look at the floor. ‘There was a crossover with me.’

  O’Shea pauses and I sense Samuels is enjoying my discomfort. ‘This is a lovely house, Kate. You have an enviable lifestyle. Are there money problems, financial troubles, that you know of?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I see bank statements, we have a joint account, that sort of thing.’

  ‘What happened to make you change your story, Kate?’

  I look out at the thriving garden, bursting into life as spring marches on. I can just see the red roof of Ava’s Wendy house. ‘Have you ever heard of the “halo effect”?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a term sociologists use. If someone is particularly physically attractive, we wrongly assume that all their other traits are just as attractive. We think they’re more principled than normal-looking people, better company, more honest. Their unusually heightened beauty makes us blind to their flaws. I guess famous people, actors or models, produce this reaction in people.’ I see a pair of Paul’s socks on the worktop, one is still puffed into the shape of his foot. Even my husband’s feet are beautiful. ‘I could no longer judge for myself. I want someone else to confirm or deny.’

  ‘So you’re saying that Paul’s done it and most people would think that he hasn’t?’

  ‘I’m saying I don’t know. I just want to know the truth. That’s all I want.’

  ‘But why did you change your mind now?’

  I grind the cigarette into a plate littered with crusts. ‘Lex and I don’t often see eye to eye, but that night I took pity on him. If he didn’t do it . . . Because I can’t look my children in the face if I have doubts, and because . . . because . . .’

  ‘What, Mrs Forman?’

  I was about to say I was scared for my life but I realise how that will play. I’ve said enough. ‘Nothing.’ O’Shea holds a folder against her chest the way one holds a small baby and I wonder if her career is her child. ‘What happens now?’

  ‘This lot will be here most of the day. You may have to sign for some items to be taken away.’ She stands.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to interview Mr Paul Forman.’ Samuels accompanies her out to the car, leaving me alone in the kitchen. A door bangs and the vibration sends one of Paul’s socks noiselessly to the tiles where it’s immediately trampled on by a policeman coming in from the garden.

  30

  I’m hoping that two packets of Wotsits munched on the way home from school, Love Hearts and Wine Gums at the front door, the comics in front of the video, takeaway fish and chips followed by chocolate cake and computer games will be enough to buy my children’s peace of mind. The teachers said they’d been fine but I watch them carefully as they sit in the living room, hunched in front of Disney as a trail of crumbs and sugar dusting settles into the carpet fibres.

  After they’ve gone to bed I settle down with whatever’s left: some Wine Gums and cold chips, a beer and a new packet of B&H – as my life disintegrates my pre-child self re-emerges; I’ve become the smoker and drinker of my twenties again. I sit at the computer with the memory stick full of documents from Melody’s house. The Find option and Paul’s name returns eight hundred and seventy-one results. ‘Graham’ and ‘Melody’ return pages of expenses claims, tax issues, several contracts and the NDAs she signed to discuss Crime Time. It’s all very dull. Lex’s name brings up fifty-five files, some are programme outlines and there’s a detailed file on how the public voting on Crime Time would work in practice. This is the most interesting thing I’ve found so far, Lex’s creative juices are flowing, it’s clear he really gets the concept and his ideas about the public’s engagement are spot on; he’s convinced it’ll be a hit and boasts that they can sell it in many territories. I find myself smiling; he may be flawed but there’s no denying his brilliance – he really is the king of reality TV. The word ‘Forwood’ is hopeless, it throws up four hundred documents. I need to narrow my search, and so I try ‘Px’, a sign-off that Paul sometimes uses. Eighteen documents are returned. I skim through several before I come to an email exchange from Paul to Melody revealing how excited Forwood is about the idea for Crime Time and a gushing reply.

  In the next email there’s a change of tone.

  Dear M,

&nb
sp; I’m sorry if you feel the meeting was difficult. L is very passionate about this space and has some trenchant views. I hope we can come to an agreement at the next meeting that keeps all parties happy.

  Px

  The next file is from Melody’s personal email account mg26@hotmail.com to Paul.

  Dear P,

  I’m very upset about this. I can’t believe he’s asking if I’m serious, when he knows full well that I am. Yes, I’m junior, but I have a right to take my time and get legal advice on my position. I don’t want to be bullied.

  Mx.

  This is followed by a threat of sorts. From mg26@ hotmail.com.

  L might not like it but I have the right to take the idea elsewhere. I’ve said many times that I just want a fair price and a fair deal for this programme. His competitive pressures are of no interest to me, as you can imagine.

  Mx.

  Paul has replied with,

  You are of course entitled to try and sell your idea anywhere you see fit. I still believe that we are the best company to turn this into saleable, watchable, successful television and I hope we can convince you of that. If not, I wish you well in the future.

  Px

  The next email is disturbing.

  Dear P,

  I phoned you three times tonight but put the phone down. I thought it was better to put the following into words and let you digest it, rather than coming at it cold on the phone. When I went for that toilet break I stood outside the door and heard what L was saying about me. I was disgusted but was too angry and upset to bring it up in the meeting. I thought I might say things I later regretted, so I bit my tongue – unlike him, of course. Firstly, I don’t have to sign his contract if I don’t want to. I know that’s my right and what he was saying effectively amounted to bullying. I don’t care if time is running out, that’s not my problem.

  ‘The other things he was saying about us . . . well, what can I say? I was embarrassed and angry, for you and for me. He’s saying right in front of John that I’ve ‘got it bad for you’. Is this meant to imply he thinks I’m acting like a lovesick fool? And then to claim at the end that he thinks I’ll sue you or him for sexual harassment if I don’t get my own way is slander. That’s why I left the meeting without resolving or agreeing on anything, however much he riled me. The bottom line is I can’t work with him, which means, to my great, great regret, I can’t work with you.

  Mx.

  I try to imagine for a moment what it must have been like to have been in this meeting; a young woman with a smart idea trying to be noticed by the TV predators but not eaten by them. She did a better job than I would have done. Here is evidence of how derogatory Lex was about her ambition and her talents, of how widely suspected her crush on Paul was. The only thing I don’t know is if it was reciprocated.

  This email exchange gives more than a hint of the nightmare Lex is to work for, particularly if you’re a woman with youth and looks on your side. Lex is flawed but Lex is smart; did he later wonder if he’d gone too far, had met his match this time? ‘Never come between a man and the millions he stands to make.’ Melody probably had grounds for a sexual-harassment charge if she wanted to go down that route. She may well have had other evidence that shows this even more clearly. Combined with earlier ‘bimbo eruptions’ that Lex has weathered over the years that’s motive enough for investors to label Lex a ‘bad leaver’. That’s why he wanted to get the stuff from her house, to see how offended she really was, but he couldn’t go himself because it might have looked suspicious, and Astrid, his satellite dish, couldn’t even tune into her boss’s desperation. Melody was the one standing between Lex and his fortune and he knew it. Is that why he met her late on the night she was killed? Was he begging or planning?

  I pick up the phone and dial his number. I want to hear him swear and rail as I pin him down but I get the frustrating ‘the mobile you are calling is currently unavailable, please try again later’. Oh, I’ll try, you’re not going to stop me now.

  I bite my nails and log on to the laptop, pulling up lexwoodisinnocent.com. There have been a hundred thousand visitors since Wednesday. There are photos of him with various celebrities and on the disabled ramp at the police station. Either Lex or someone he’s hired has linked to the press reports on him and there are a lot. He was always the master of self-promotion and viral marketing and the thing he knows best how to market is himself. ‘Take a bet against if you think I’m guilty’ is emblazoned across the top of the site. OK, Lex, I’m sending you a message. I pledge a hundred pounds that you’re up to your neck in it. I get an automatic reply message in my email inbox.

  Thank you for caring about the murder of Melody Graham. By contributing to this website, you are helping keep the pressure on the police to solve this murder and keeping the case in the public eye. I didn’t kill her, and it’s more important than ever that the police keep up the hunt to find out who did.

  There’s a news feed running across the top of my screen and my eye catches on Forwood TV. The news that Paul’s been arrested is out and two minutes later the phone calls start. I can’t avoid Paul’s mum, hysterical and defiant. It takes me fifteen minutes of hard persuasion to put her off coming to stay and ‘help’. I think I’d rather be in jail with Paul than have her hovering, digging at my child-rearing. ‘Oh, I’m not aware of this channel’ or ‘I suppose the children have no need for wellingtons in town.’ She’s followed by my mum, finally in a situation that can showcase her dull fatalism. ‘You could always move back home near me when it comes to that,’ she says hopefully. Gee thanks, the best offer I ever had. I channel-hop distractedly as we talk, and pause when I get to Gerry in a rerun of Inside-Out, at this moment doing press-ups in his cell with his shirt off. The TV’s on mute, so I count Gerry doing twenty-five press-ups as my mum prattles on. The muscles in his back bulge beneath his skin as he moves. He stands as my mum rings off and smiles at the camera high up on the wall before firing an imaginary arrow from a bow, straight at me.

  31

  The weekend crawled past as we waited to hear any news about Paul. He wasn’t released; his twenty-four hours in custody extended to thirty-six, and then to longer after the flourish of a magistrate’s pen. But life must go on: the children have to go to school; and I have to go to work. I peek out of the side of Ava’s curtains at the street below. Two cameramen and Declan Moore are leaning against the front wall. I remember Josh’s sobs from the other day and resolve never to put him through that again.

  ‘Can we go this way every day, Mummy?’ Ava asks, squealing as the boat rocks. We’re getting out via the garden, the canal and the alleyway on the other side. I woke Marcus up by banging on the side of the Marie Rose and asking for a lift. He kindly offered to row us across the ten metres of water. I grip the sides till my knuckles are white. We pick up book bags and lunch boxes and I hug Marcus, happy that I put one over on the lot waiting in the cold outside the front door.

  ‘Are you around this evening? We might need to come back this way.’

  ‘One of us will probably be here. I’ll come across for you, then you don’t have to pull the boat along the rope, you’ve got the kids and everything. We won’t be able to do it for long though, we’re off on holiday, a late ski trip to Austria.’

  I allow myself the pleasing picture of Max and Marcus slicing through powder as I stare down at the black canal. ‘Marcus, I’m afraid the police will be out here tomorrow, probably with divers. They’re going to search the canal. I’m sorry if they are a nuisance.’

  He smiles with teeth that would make Tom Cruise fret about his dental work as he helps us on to the bank. ‘Maybe we can chat about equipment, I love diving. I’ll keep an eye on them.’

  ‘Thanks for being so understanding.’

  He does something surprising – he reaches out and gives me a hug. The spontaneous kindness brings tears to my eyes. I cling on for a long time, feeling a chest harder than my husband’s beneath Marcus’s fleece. When we part my children’s fa
ces are like owls’.

  As we pass through the school gate I sense the whispers. I see heads pressed together and hands held in front of mouths. People I don’t know look at me and then gaze into the middle distance. I guess this is what notoriety feels like. We are officially a family in trouble. Sarah puts an arm round me as she says hello to the kids. ‘I’m taking you after school, aren’t I?’ Everyone nods. She leans close to my ear, doing the best whispering of the morning. ‘Are the press at your house?’

  ‘Yes. Marcus rowed us over the canal.’

  ‘Oh, well done. Just remember, it won’t last long, Kate. I once worked for an MP arrested for bribery. For three days there were thirty people outside his office and his home, then puff, they were gone. You wouldn’t even remember his name if I told it to you now.’

  ‘I’m not sure that makes me feel any better.’

  She hugs me close. ‘Sorry, but it was the best I could do.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll come round to get them after work.’

  ‘OK.’ By the time I get out of the playground I’ve switched into work mode and am moving with a new purpose through the obstacle course of buggies, toddlers, scooters and yakking mothers when I feel a hand clasp my arm. It’s Eloide. I flick her away as if she’s a spider clambering up my coat.

  ‘I knew this would be the only way to catch you and my guess is you won’t make a scene here.’ She links her arm through mine as she smiles indulgently at a boy who knocks into her knee. She’s right, losing one’s cool at school just isn’t done, particularly if you’re a mother who is in trouble, so we march along together, a parody of old mates.