Wink Murder

by Ali Knight

  ‘You OK back there, Mr Forman?’ It’s Samuels.

  ‘I’ve been looking through paperwork.’ John walks slowly down the corridor to meet him and I hear the squeak of the filing cabinet.

  ‘You were gone a while, I thought I’d better check on you.’ His voice is hard and I can imagine him standing with his head bowed, worried about the low beams inflicting a painful knock.

  ‘I’ve got something I’m trying to work through and I think it could be important.’ He’s delaying, giving me precious seconds that I don’t know how to use. Samuels grunts, a noise that conveys scepticism, and I hear his shoes scraping on wood as I survey the room looking, searching for something, anything . . .

  ‘This place is a sight to see.’ Samuels steps down into the corridor, unimpressed by the lure of the boho life. I imagine his eyes travelling with distaste over the curtained bedrooms, sniffing the unavoidable damp, his lip curling at the dribbly shower.

  ‘Forwood TV used this as the accounts overflow before we moved into the new offices. We took the bedrooms out and it was all open plan . . .’ John’s babbling and my panic is taking hold. I drop to the floor, clawing at nothing. It’s nearly all over . . . My finger hooks round the handle of the trapdoor to the bilge. ‘They loved working here, they used to tell me. It was the summer though, winters are harder. The cold just seeps in. There’s quite an array of wildlife back here.’

  ‘What’s through there?’

  ‘That’s the kitchen and living room. I’ll get the rest of the files and come back to the house.’

  It’s not worked. The sound of a herd of elephants bears down on my grave. I’m laid out like a corpse under the floorboards, my bag on my chest, the padlock from the front door digging into my ribs as cold water laps at my shoulder blades.

  ‘Can’t see the attraction myself,’ Samuels mutters, swivelling near the sink. ‘You have to be a midget to live in here.’ John doesn’t answer, I hear him shuffling papers near the table. ‘Places like this give me the creeps, to be honest.’

  ‘I can tell you don’t holiday on the Norfolk Broads,’ John says as Samuels walks round the room before returning and standing right over me. Through the thin gap in the planking I can see his arm reach out for something and I see the straps of Jessie’s bike helmet swinging in my narrow field of vision.

  ‘Where do you think she’s gone, Mr Forman?’

  I can’t breathe as his heavy tread pushes the planking lower on to me. ‘I don’t know, Ben,’ John says quietly. ‘But if she’s got a reason to run, then it’ll be a good reason. If she thinks she’s right she’s very determined, but if she knows she’s right, I doubt much can stop her.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’re the person to talk about limits, Mr Forman.’ John doesn’t rise to this, I imagine him standing still and absorbing Samuels’s cheap jibes.

  ‘Maybe so. But I doubt she’s going to give up until she understands the truth.’ Samuels makes a scoffing noise. ‘She didn’t kill them.’ Samuels interrupts him by putting the helmet down with a clatter. ‘Why are you so sure she did?’

  ‘That much motive, that much evidence, DNA evidence! Come on! She killed Melody in a fit of jealousy and tried to make it look like Gerry, and she killed Lex because she was mad as hell at his gloating about the affair and because he could have killed her in that car crash . . . And now she’s on the run! The innocent don’t run. It’s a done deal.’

  ‘You may think so, but you haven’t convinced me. I happen to know that Raiph Spencer is at the Natural History Museum tomorrow for one of his charity gigs,’ John shuffles the papers for effect. ‘I’ve got some questions that’ll wipe away the feel-good glow.’

  Samuels pauses and he may be yawning. ‘There’s a sweepstake running at the office as to what time she’ll be caught. I’ve got a quid on four o’clock this morning.’

  Their steps recede and I dare to breathe again but I stop abruptly as I’m plunged back into complete darkness as the light is switched off. I hear the door locking. The only thing that keeps me from screaming is John’s message to me. I hold on to it as tightly as if it’s a hook around which my hand is grasped for dear life as the icy, filthy water laps at the back of my neck.

  I make myself mentally count images of slapping Paul a thousand times before I push up the door and gasp my way out of my mounting claustrophobia. Max’s and Marcus’s mess meant Samuels couldn’t see the teacup I’d used or the camera, still winking quietly away on the shelf. In a little burst of triumph at my near escape I turn full on to camera. ‘This is Kate Forman, signing off for now. It’s four o’clock in the morning and Samuels has lost his bet.’

  I turn off the camera and put the media card and the laptop in my bag. I need to sharpen up, I can’t make mistakes like that again. I don’t know whether John will tell Paul I’m here, so in a great hurry I peel off my sodden clothes and stuff them in the bilge and ransack Marcus’s wardrobe for something to wear. I look like an overgrown schoolboy in a brown T-shirt, jeans, sweatshirt and a battered leather jacket. My best finds are an Oakland A’s baseball cap I can tuck my hair into and a Swiss Army Knife. I take Jessie’s bike helmet, which so very nearly gave me away, and strap it on.

  I nervously peer from the portholes, surprised no one’s running across the garden. Fifteen minutes after Samuels and John walked back up the garden, I clamber out on to the rowboat and am across the water in a couple of minutes. I’d rather run through deserted streets back to the bike than try to climb over the fence by the bridge, cut hands now hampering my progress. Before I disappear into the alleyway I look back at my house, territory of my greatest domestic triumphs, my happiest moments, my former life. I am suddenly so angry that I’ve been cast out here in the cold and dark while he sleeps in comfort near our children that I pull out the penknife and start hacking at the weeds on the bank, my jealousy and feelings of betrayal making me temporarily insane. I sever the rope that attaches the boat to the Marie Rose in a final act of pointless destruction before sinking back on my bum in tears. Paul’s bedroom curtains are closed now, the light off. Are you sleeping soundly, my love? Enjoy. It might be the last time you do.

  41

  I cycle through deserted streets to south London and arrive at a small terraced house with a broken street light outside. I drop the media card through Livvy’s letter box and scrawl a few words on a scrap of paper from my bag. ‘Use this in the way you know best. Kate.’ It feels like a small-scale insurrection against the army lining up to defeat me. I cycle away before anyone decides to wake early. My tiredness is now overwhelming and I slump down in an abandoned garage for a couple of hours before the cold and an unsettling dream of a purple pump winding round Paul’s leg wakes me with a start. As dawn breaks I open the laptop and read the news headlines. My face competes with Lex’s for top billing. It’s as if we’re in a warped beauty contest; the photo is the police mugshot they took when my eye was still bruised. I look like a jealous, homicidal maniac.

  Copycat killer strikes again. I click the link for the full story.

  Top TV executive Lex Wood was found murdered at his luxury London flat last night in what police believe is the second in a series of ‘copycat’ killings . . .

  I skip forward through the paragraphs.

  Police are keen to re-interview Kate Forman, wife of Wood’s business partner, Paul Forman, after an anonymous 999 tip-off regarding Woods’ murder is thought to have been made by Kate Forman. She was released from police custody only yesterday after being questioned about the murder of Melody Graham, whose killing bears remarkable similarities to that of Wood. Graham, aged 26, was a researcher on Inside-Out, a controversial Forwood programme about murderer Gerry Bonacorsi, who was recently released from jail after serving a life sentence.

  The decision by Detective Inspector Anne-Marie O’Shea to release Kate Forman is now looking highly controversial as information comes to light that Wood and Forman were involved in a car crash in north-west London last Wednesday, in which Wood was d
riving. Several witnesses recall that Forman slapped Wood and, although injured, ran from the scene, refusing medical attention. A police spokesperson urged the public not to approach Forman, who had not returned home last night and was last seen at an artists’ studio in Hackney, east London.

  Paul Forman said last night, ‘I am desperately worried about my wife and urge her to contact me . . .’

  The king of crime TV: ‘Lex Wood obituary.’

  When life imitates art: ‘The public are right to ask hard questions of the Met in the light of this latest gaffe in a high-profile murder inquiry . . .’

  Forwood looking: ‘The small company that punched above its weight in a new TV world . . .’

  When the past won’t let you go: ‘Gerry Bonacorsi’s life in the media storm.’

  I turn off the computer, partly because I fear the battery expiring but mainly because I can’t look at any of it any more.

  By nine my hunger is eating its way through my bones, and I have to get some food. I leave the garage, cycle back towards the river and cut through an industrial estate where I find a catering van and risk buying two bacon butties and a giant tea from a skinny teenager who doesn’t even make eye contact with me. I shove two Twixes and a can of Fanta in my pockets for later. A sugar rush will do me no harm. All my years of middle-class assimilation, of trying so hard to be something I’m not, are being stripped away. I stop in a cold, empty Battersea Park and slump on an isolated bench, the spiky branches of bare trees swaying overhead. I munch through the second bacon butty and an image of my mother fuelling Lynda and me for our walk to school wafts up with the smell of fat; mum’s angry little jabs with the plastic spatula at the sizzling meat as if she thought even the streaky bacon was out to thwart what little happiness she had.

  I open the computer and click on Crime Time’s website. I feel a rush of gratitude for Livvy: the entire front page is given over to highlighting my video. ‘Fugitive Kate claims: Raiph Spencer is copycat killer. Click here for exclusive and sensational revelations.’ I duly click and the tape that I filmed in the narrowboat is broadcast in its entirety, including John’s theory about the financial motive and my hiding under the floorboards when Samuels arrived. I try to play the video again but it won’t load. Then I notice that there have been twenty-two thousand views of it.

  I finish off the butty and drink the tea, and refresh the computer page. Google news shows that two blogs are now covering my allegations, caveating everything heavily with ‘claims wanted fugitive Kate Forman’. I refresh again and get the first mainstream media headline from the Daily Mail: Bungling cop misses ‘copycat strangler’. I skim-read the following: ‘A sensational video sent to TV’s Crime Time and posted on the internet this morning shows Kate Forman, wanted by the police in connection with the murders of TV researcher Melody Graham and executive Lex Wood, hiding beneath the floorboards of a narrowboat as a policeman fails to notice she’s just beneath his feet. The video, made by Forman, contains lurid claims that the head of one of Britain’s biggest media companies murdered Graham and Wood for financial gain. Libel lawyers gasped at the ramifications of this accusation, now in the public domain . . .’

  I click back to Crime Time. The viewing figures for the video have jumped to more than thirty thousand.

  I turn the computer off, fearing for the batteries again. Elation thrills me. The tide, which for so long has been pulling me out, is finally working with me. Livvy has taken a risk, an incredible risk, in posting my video. Raiph’s lawyers could shut the whole site down in hours, but the message is out there. I need the momentum to build in order to save myself. It’s time to confront Raiph, and John left me the message as to his whereabouts.

  With renewed determination I point my wheels towards South Kensington. I stick to side roads but after a while I relax as I’m sure no one will recognise me in these sex-altering clothes. On Marcus these same garments move with the fluidity of the young and rangy, creating an attractive artsy whole; on my dumpier frame they rumple and pool to conjure up a sweaty, poor man. And however avant-garde and uninterested in fashion Marcus might be, he’d never be seen dead in this helmet – a triumph of safety over style and a badge of middle-aged paranoia that renders me invisible. So I grind my way north unnoticed, my insteps pushing down on the pedals.

  My burst of belief in my changing fortunes is short-lived. I pull up outside the Natural History Museum and swear under my breath. Never has a children’s charity event attracted such interest: there’s a crowd nearly a hundred strong outside the main entrance, press and photographers mainly but also hangers-on and passers-by, craning to see what all the fuss is about. TV cameras and presenters are setting up on the lawn. It’s as if Hollywood royalty is inside, rather than a sixty-five-year-old businessman with a nasty secret that I’ve brought to light. I see the tops of two bouncers’ heads, keeping the unwanted out. A police car cruises past and I cycle slowly away. Raiph’s still in there, but my way is barred. I cut east through some side streets and spot a church in a garden square. I need help and my help has run out. I’m becoming desperate. I connect up the separated bits in my phone and call Eloide. I get her breathy answerphone message and hang up. I crouch down by a tree and get out the computer, find her office number near Regent Street, and dial. The receptionist trills that Eloide’s in a meeting. No, I don’t want to leave a message. Ten minutes later I call again – she’s still busy. My frustration mounts. This could be my last day of freedom for a very long time. I track down a florist’s local to her office and order a bouquet to be delivered to Eloide, with a hefty electronic tip for doing it right away. A young woman with poor English reads back my message: ‘I need your help. Holy Trinity Brompton, KF.’

  I pull open the heavy door to the church and crouch down behind a large pillar to one side away from the entrance. As I hoped I have the place to myself. I type ‘Kate Forman video’ into Google and get seventeen thousand entries. What started less than two hours ago as one post on a website has become an internet sensation. The mainstream media have joined the fray and we all have our fifteen minutes of fame.

  Raiph Spencer ‘appalled’ by accusations

  Crime Time defends video – Livvy is quoted at length, her mood defiant and ebullient – ‘Claims made in this video by our employee Kate Forman are simply too important to ignore. This type of personal, heartfelt video evidence is what Crime Time is all about. We say, if these claims aren’t true – then sue. And another thing. The police can bleat about this video being material relevant to a murder inquiry but it was made by our employee, for us. So hands off until you get a court order.’

  Libel laws tested – again: ‘A series of allegations of murder in a home-made video posted on a crime website have challenged England’s libel laws . . .’

  CPTV shares dive as panic spreads

  CPTV: A personal tragedy for Raiph Spencer

  ‘Serial Mom’ makes a mockery of the Met

  It’s so much bigger, nastier and interconnected than I had imagined. I may have started the ball rolling but now neither I nor anyone else can stop it. If Raiph isn’t being questioned by police already, he soon will be. John may well face serious charges for not telling Samuels I was just a floorboard away from him. Half an hour drags past, my window of opportunity to challenge Raiph closing. The church door opens and closes on various people, but none of them are who I want to see. Finally I hear the door opening and the harsh clack of stilettos on stone. She’s here. I peek round the column. She’s alone.

  ‘Hello?’ Eloide calls out tentatively and moves uncertainly into the church. She’s trying to adjust to the gloom after the sunlight outside. ‘Hello?’ She’s louder this time. No one else appears so I move down a row of pews to the central aisle. She notices and comes towards me and a moment later we are sat side by side in the empty church, staring at the altar. ‘You’re the talk of the town.’ She whispers in deference to the place we are in.

  ‘I’m not enjoying it.’ I whisper back.

&
nbsp; She smooths her skirt over her bony knees. ‘That video is quite something. You took a risk contacting me. How did you know I wouldn’t go to the police?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You took your revenge on Paul, I see.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The video. His infidelity. The whole world knows now.’ Shame travels across my cheeks. My children will find out. I should have thought of my children. What I said in the middle of the night in a fit of pique and rage will be forever there in cyberspace for my children to discover as they grow up. It should have stayed private. I should have kept control. I should have tried much harder to keep control. Eloide drops her head to one side, staring ahead. ‘Public protestations are powerful things. I got married in church.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Those vows, in front of everyone, the tears, I really meant them.’ She pauses and turns to me, her face flinty. ‘Give me one good reason why I should help you.’ Her voice is loud and hard in the echoey space.

  ‘I need to find out the truth if it’s the last thing I do. For my children, for Paul, for myself . . .’ I trail off. ‘To find out if the past – if all this – was just a lie, or a horrible game at my expense.’ We sit silently for a moment, staring ahead at the altar where we both once stood, the same man at our sides, the vows of forever enunciated for all our friends and family to hear. ‘Eloide, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I caused you pain years ago and I’m sorry that I reacted that way in your kitchen.’

  ‘Don’t, you don’t have to.’

  ‘No, I do. I guess I was jealous—’

  ‘Of me? You can’t be serious! I’m a fucked-up mental head who puts her sliced-up arms around famous waists for a living.’

  ‘Talking of which, is Raiph still at the museum?’