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The Shape of Lies: New from the queen of psychological thrillers

Page 21

by Rachel Abbott

‘It’s in the car park of an apartment block in central Manchester.’

  ‘What were you doing at that apartment block last night?’

  ‘I sometimes visit a friend there. She doesn’t have a car, so we registered mine against her parking bay so I can come and go whenever I need to.’

  Becky could feel her irritation rising. How long was this going to go on for?

  ‘Your friend’s name?’

  ‘Saskia Peterson. You can check – she has an apartment there.’

  Becky nodded. ‘We know that, or at least we know that someone using the name Saskia Peterson has an apartment there. But last night you told DC Maltby that you are Saskia Peterson. Not only that, the concierge confirmed it.’

  Becky watched as Anna bit the corner of her bottom lip and shook her head as if embarrassed.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. The thing is, Saskia isn’t well, so she’s given me her keycard so I can get in and out. The concierge made an assumption, and it’s always seemed easier to run with it.’

  ‘So Ms Peterson will confirm this, will she?’

  Anna’s eyes opened wide. ‘Of course she will.’ She paused as if remembering something. ‘Well, she will when she gets back. She’s been feeling a bit better and I managed to persuade her to go and stay with some friends in Scotland. She was leaving first thing. Before you ask, I don’t have the details of where she’s staying.’

  ‘No, but no doubt you have her mobile number.’

  Anna nodded enthusiastically. ‘Of course. I’ll write it down for you, although I suspect reception up there isn’t great.’

  As Anna scribbled some numbers on a Post-it note, Becky marvelled at her ability to conceal her feelings while wondering at the same time how she expected them to believe she had memorised a friend’s mobile number. Everyone stored them in their phones these days so they never had to worry about remembering anything.

  ‘Why the wig?’ Lynsey asked, alluding to the blonde hair of the woman she had met last night. ‘And all the make-up? You were all glammed up. Why was that?’

  Anna looked up from the note. ‘Was I looking glam? That’s very kind of you. I sometimes like to be blonde – makes a change. Here’s the number, and if I hear from Saskia I’ll ask her to get in touch.’

  Anna stood up as if this was their signal to leave, but Becky and Lynsey stayed in their seats. For the first time Becky saw a moment of doubt flash in the other woman’s eyes. Anna slowly lowered herself back into her chair.

  ‘Why did your husband say you were at home all night?’

  Becky got the impression that Anna had anticipated their first questions but not necessarily this one.

  ‘He was asleep when I got back. He probably thought I’d only been out for an hour, so it wasn’t worth mentioning.’

  Becky resisted the temptation to groan. Did Anna expect them to believe that?

  ‘Really? You didn’t tell him that when you went to visit your friend you couldn’t get to your car because it was at a crime scene? Did you know that someone was killed there last night – the second murder in a car park in a matter of days?’

  Anna had gone very still, the smile no longer on her face.

  ‘Who was the victim?’

  ‘A man by the name of Roger Jagger. Did you know him, Mrs Franklyn?’

  She shook her head, but her eyes wouldn’t meet Becky’s and Anna’s skin had lost its colour under the thin layer of subtly applied make-up.

  ‘No. Should I?’

  ‘You tell me. We’ve been looking into all the people who have any connection with these crimes, and it seems you went to Manchester University. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, but only for a year.’

  ‘Both Cameron Edmunds and Roger Jagger were students there at the same time.’

  Anna attempted at a laugh. ‘I could hardly be expected to have known every student in a university of that size.’

  ‘Of course not, although these two did have quite a reputation. So, to be clear, until today you had heard of neither Roger Jagger nor Cameron Edmunds? Is that correct?’

  Anna appeared to be thinking.

  ‘Look, I can’t say for certain of course, but I don’t think so. The names don’t ring any bells.’

  Becky knew they were getting nowhere. They had nothing other than the fact that this woman had an apartment under another name in the building where Jagger was brutally murdered. It was hard to imagine that she was the killer, and without anything to link her to either of the victims, there was little more they could ask.

  But there was no doubt in Becky’s mind that Anna Franklyn was lying about more than her name.

  49

  I didn’t think the two detectives would ever leave, but finally they have gone. More than anything, I want to drop my head onto folded arms and sob, but I can’t let Jennie know their visit upset me, and I push my shaking hands below my desk in case she glances through the window.

  For a moment I had been tempted to tell them everything – admit to every mistake I’ve made – but I seem to be programmed to play the game to its conclusion – to showdown.

  I thought they must have discovered my connection to Cameron. But I was wrong. They were here because my car was in the car park where Jagger was killed.

  Jagger! I don’t know how well I hid my reaction when they told me about his body being found, and I can’t thrust from my mind those last few minutes as he pinned me against the pillar. Will they know about that? Is there CCTV? I had been there with him – arguing – in the very spot where he was killed.

  I’m shocked at his death, but even more shocked at how I feel. I remember the steel of his grip as he held me while two of his thugs attacked Scott, the fear I felt when I found him waiting for me outside school to tell me they had put Dominic in hospital, the horror of him coming into school to threaten me, the chilling way he would appear at the entrance to an alley to demand money. I thought of him every day, wondering when he was going to turn up, what he was going to do to me, to my family, if I failed to make a payment. It should be a massive relief that he’s dead. It is a massive relief, and yet there was a predictability about it all. I knew what I needed to do and I felt in control of the situation. But maybe Cameron will find another minder now, and I won’t see him coming.

  Many people will be happy to know Jagger is dead, but I have to ask myself, Did Scott do this? The timing cannot be a coincidence, so if Scott is behind the murders, will he come for me next or will it be enough to expose me for who I am, or who I was?

  Perhaps if I told the police the truth I could ask for protection against Scott and beg them to keep my relationship with Cameron and Jagger a secret. Then Dominic need never know that I have been playing poker to repay a debt and lying to him for all this time. But I know how this works. I can imagine them saying, ‘We cannot promise to keep confidential the information you give us if it in any way impacts on the investigation.’ And of course it will. I will be investigated because of my relationship – if you can call it that – with Cameron, and I may have been the last person to see Jagger alive. There is no way I will be able to hide everything I’ve done – who I am – from either the school or from Dominic. However vigorously I insist that I did it all to protect my family, everything will be exposed in all its ugliness.

  My head is bursting with doubts about my choices and questions about the decisions I’ve made – I simply don’t know what to do – but for the moment I need to paste a smile on my face, because Jen is hovering at the window. I give her a wide smile, and she comes in.

  ‘Everything okay?’ she asks.

  I give a slightly theatrical sigh. ‘For me, yes. But not for some poor soul who was apparently killed last night. Another car park death. I don’t know if it was on the news this morning. I didn’t get a chance to listen.’

  Jen looks shocked. ‘Good God. It’s getting dangerous to go anywhere these days. But what did that have to do with you?’

  ‘I went to visit a friend and parked in h
er car park. That’s where the man was killed.’

  She looks horrified for a moment, and then puzzled. ‘I thought you said your car was blocked in the gym car park?’

  Shit!

  ‘Did I? I left my car in her car park while I went to the gym. It’s not too far away and it seemed easier than moving it. Maybe I confused you.’

  Her brow is still puckered, but I can see her relax slightly.

  ‘So why did they want to talk to you?’

  ‘My car’s still there. They wanted to know if I saw anything.’

  ‘Blimey. That’s going to keep them busy if they’re interviewing everyone who used the car park,’ Jennie says with a laugh. But she has a point.

  ‘I think there’s a camera at the entrance, and they know what time people came and went. They said I arrived about half an hour before the body was found, so they thought I might have seen something. Anyway, it’s done now. Let’s hope they catch whoever it was.’

  I shuffle some papers on my desk and jiggle my mouse around to bring my screen to life.

  ‘Before we go through what’s on today, would you mind making me a cup of coffee, Jen? Sorry to ask. I should be making you one really, but I’ve got a heap of emails to respond to, and thanks to everything going pear-shaped this morning I’m running behind.’

  Jennie gives me a cheerful smile, as I knew she would. I answered her questions, and she trusts me to tell the truth. After all, one of the school values that I bang on about to staff and pupils is honesty. Maybe they would have a better understanding of the importance of the truth if I admitted how one dark lie had caused such untold havoc in my life.

  50

  Cameron Edmunds’ wife hadn’t been far wrong when she said she thought Jagger might live in a cave. It was actually a cottage, which could have been quite beautiful if the woods surrounding it hadn’t been allowed to encroach on the garden and shroud the building in darkness. The walls and paintwork were stained with green mould through lack of light, and the windows were thick with years of grime. There were old net curtains at the windows, grey with age. There was a dead feel to the place.

  No vehicle was parked on the weed-covered drive, but that made sense as they had found Jagger’s car in central Manchester.

  As Tom and Keith got out of the car, the silence struck both of them. The trees masked the sound of nearby roads and Tom would have expected birdsong. And yet there was none. Both men closed their car doors quietly and walked softly up the path to the front door, looking around almost as if they were expecting someone or something to appear from the dense undergrowth.

  ‘We don’t know if he lived alone or not,’ Tom reminded Keith, ‘and we don’t have a search warrant, so we can’t barge straight in. It doesn’t look much like a family home, but you and I have both seen infinitely worse.’

  Keith nodded, apparently unwilling to cut through the silence with his own voice.

  They approached a once-white front door. Tom nodded at Keith to knock, stood back and gazed at the windows. He would have expected lights to be on, given the gloom created by the trees, but he couldn’t tell as beyond the tatty curtains were what appeared to be wooden shutters.

  He heard a dull thud from inside the cottage.

  ‘Keith, there’s someone in there. Knock again.’

  No one came to the door. Tom pointed to the letterbox, and Keith bent down and put his mouth close to it, pushing the flap open with his fingers.

  ‘Greater Manchester Police. Can you open the door, please?’

  Silence.

  ‘Can you see anything?’

  ‘No, sir. It’s blocked on the other side.’

  Keith was still holding the flap open, and Tom could have sworn he heard a creak inside, as if someone was creeping downstairs.

  He signalled to Keith to stand aside.

  ‘My name is Detective Chief Inspector Douglas. We need you to open this door, or we are going to have to force entry.’

  There was a definite scuffling sound, but it was moving away from the door.

  Tom stood back. Could they get around the house to check for another way in – or out? Thick bushes abutted the house on either side, so even if there was a door at the back, they couldn’t get to it.

  ‘We’re going to have to kick the door in.’

  He looked at the shocked face of his sergeant.

  ‘Look, whoever killed Roger Jagger could be here now, in his house. It’s a reasonable assumption if someone’s in there and they won’t let us in. Especially as we can’t get round the back to make sure they don’t get away.’ It was a risk, but Tom would take the flak if it came to it. He’d done worse.

  Keith was about five inches shorter than Tom, who at over six feet probably carried at least two or three stone more in weight than his lean, narrow-shouldered colleague.

  ‘Stand back,’ Tom said.

  Keith held out an arm. ‘No sir, it’s fine. Leave it to me.’

  Tom tried not to look surprised and said nothing, hoping he wasn’t going to have to step in and take over if Keith failed. To his amazement, Keith leaped at the door, one leg bent, and then extended it as his foot made contact. The door burst open.

  Tom stared at his sergeant.

  ‘Kickboxing,’ Keith said, straightening his jacket.

  There was no time to applaud, however, and Tom merely muttered, ‘Well done,’ as they strode into the house.

  Immediately they felt the draught from two doors being open at the same time.

  ‘Bollocks,’ Tom shouted. ‘Back door!’

  Both men set off at a run towards an open doorway. They had no time to take in the kitchen as they sped through and out of the gaping door at the back.

  They both stood still for a second, getting their bearings and looking about to see if they could spot movement or identify a place for someone to hide.

  ‘There!’ shouted Keith, lifting a hand to point. A man had broken cover and was heading deeper into the trees.

  Keith was off like a shot, surprising Tom once again, but the man they were chasing seemed younger than either of them, and although Tom had been quite a runner in his time, he could see the man was getting away from him.

  Keith had disappeared, but Tom ran on.

  Suddenly the man stopped and grabbed the trunk of a sapling barely strong enough to hold him upright, and it took a few seconds for Tom to realise that Keith was barring his way. He must have cut back through the woods and round to the track, surprising Tom for the second time that day.

  The man had his back to Tom, but he had no doubt who this was. He spun round, his eyes black with fury. ‘Why the fuck are you chasing me?’

  ‘Why the fuck did you run?’ Tom responded, instantly understanding Dawn Edmunds’ antipathy towards this man. ‘Cameron Edmunds, I presume?’

  The man stared at Tom without acknowledging the question. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Douglas, Greater Manchester Police. So I ask again, why did you run?’

  Tom was rewarded with a cold hard stare. ‘When two men appear at the door claiming to be police, I would have to be more than a little naive to take them at their word.’

  Tom was tempted to say that most people would never doubt it, but he let that lie.

  ‘We need to go back to the house. I want to talk to you.’

  Edmunds blew out a long breath and, without another glance in Tom’s direction, set off back towards the cottage. He marched into the kitchen, closely followed by the two detectives. As they had run through, Tom hadn’t taken in their surroundings. But in stark contrast to the outside, the inside of the house was immaculate. Every surface of the kitchen was either white or stainless steel, and the only things out of place were a dirty glass, a plate covered in crumbs and a mug of half-drunk coffee sitting by the sink, presumably waiting for someone other than Cameron to wash them. It appeared Jagger was the tidy one.

  Cameron had recovered his air of confidence. He turned to Tom and put his head on one si
de as if to say, ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you that Roger Jagger is dead. He was killed last night in the car park of an apartment block in central Manchester.’

  Edmunds looked puzzled, as if he had heard something that couldn’t possibly be true. He shook his head slowly. ‘Jagger’s dead? Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Cameron said nothing, his eyes unfocused as if settling on some distant image in his mind.

  He’s a cold bastard, Tom thought. By all accounts Jagger was Edmunds’ greatest friend, but other than looking slightly pensive, there was no sign that the news had distressed him.

  ‘What was Mr Jagger doing in Manchester last night? I’m sure you know, and it would help us to catch his killer if you would cooperate.’

  Edmunds gave Tom an icy stare and said nothing.

  ‘Why are you hiding here?’ Tom asked.

  He was rewarded with an irritated grunt. ‘Because someone was murdered in my car, so I assumed that whoever killed him was after me. I wanted to find the shit who did it before he – or she – found me.’

  ‘Who are we talking about?’ Tom asked. ‘Who do you think was after you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Whatever Tom thought of Edmunds, and despite his suspicions that the man’s life was far from clean, there was one thing the police were obliged to do.

  ‘We need to keep you safe until we understand who might want you dead and who killed Jagger. It may or may not be the same person, but it’s best if we take you home and make sure you’re not seen.’

  Cameron gave a derisive snort. ‘Dawn will be disappointed. I suggest you don’t tell her until we get there. She can’t keep her mouth shut about anything, as you’ve probably gathered.’

  Tom scratched his head. ‘Regardless of that, your home is probably the best place for you. We can protect you there, and you have good security systems. Plus, we need your cooperation. We obtained a warrant to search your property when you were missing. There’s a safe in your office—’ Cameron’s head jerked towards Tom, two lines etched between his brows ‘—and when we couldn’t find the combination we left it alone. I have two choices now. I can, if I wish, get another search warrant, and this time we will force your safe open. Alternatively, you can open it yourself.’

 

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