Those People

by Louise Candlish

  “No, Tess and Finn have taken them all to the high street to distract them while the police are here. Can you go and find them? Make sure Libs and Charlie don’t hear any upsetting details?”

  “Of course.”

  Naomi blew her nose, blinked damp eyelids. “I keep thinking, this could have been any one of us.”

  “I know,” Ralph said, grimly. Was she thinking yet what he already was? What a tragedy it was that innocent, undeserving Amy had been crushed by the scaffolding and not guilty-as-sin, deserving-of-the-absolute-worst Darren Booth. What a shame it was not him in the morgue, their neighborhood enemy eliminated by his own hand.

  Not appropriate to voice, obviously. And not appropriate even to think that since Booth was now in hospital, unable to work, then there was less chance than ever of that bloody RV being moved from Ralph’s parking space.

  * * *

  —

  Sunday dawned bright and cheerful, oblivious to the fatal wounds of its predecessor, and in the time it took Ralph to grind the beans for his first coffee, the kids were in the garden with their cousins filming a video reconstruction of the accident on Libby’s phone.

  “No, you lie on your front and I’ll turn you over!”

  “But I don’t want to be the dead one. I’m not a girl!”

  “Isla can be dead, then. You be the one who phones for the ambulance. Quick, do it. She’s literally just been flattened!”

  “Is this in good taste, guys?” Ralph asked, and the way the four looked at him made him wonder if they’d ever heard of the concept. So much for protecting them from events: Charlie, his own scare at Booth’s hands forgotten, was indecently bloodthirsty; Libby, enjoying rare interaction with the younger ones as their creative overlord, was ailment-free. The dogs swarmed, nosing the “victim.”

  Ralph took refuge in caffeine and read the first report of the accident to appear online:

  WOMAN CRUSHED IN SCAFFOLDING COLLAPSE

  A woman has died after being crushed by falling scaffolding at a residential property in Lowland Gardens, South London, the Metropolitan Police have said. The victim was standing beneath the scaffolding at the front door of the house when the structure collapsed on top of her. Firefighters and paramedics freed the buried woman and fought to revive her at the scene, but her injuries were found to have been fatal.

  “Health and Safety Executive inspectors have attended the site and we are making ongoing inquiries in conjunction with them to investigate the circumstances of the incident,” a police spokesman confirmed. “We are unable to comment further at this time.”

  Ralph wondered when Naomi was coming home. In the end, she’d stayed at Sissy’s overnight with her guests, Sissy having been with Pete at his flat. Heartbroken though Ralph was for Sissy, he wasn’t altogether comfortable with his wife being in the house with two sets of complete strangers. He supposed if Sissy found it a safe enough arrangement, then Naomi would be fine. She’d been up early; there was a message from her on the residents’ Facebook page posted at seven thirty a.m.:

  IMPORTANT NOTICE: Play Out Sunday is canceled August 12th following an accident. Police still need access to the upper part of the road.

  He phoned her mobile. “Breakfast service done and dusted?”

  “Yes, I only had to make coffee and warm up some pastries. They’ve just left.” She spoke in the same somber tones as yesterday. “It was surreal, Ralph. I mean, I didn’t say anything about Amy, but what must they have thought? OK, the ambulances had gone by the time they arrived, but they still saw the police and all the debris. One of them asked me if there’d been a gas explosion and they got all anxious about that.”

  “Not exactly what you imagine when you book a B and B room,” Ralph said.

  Naomi sighed with rare weariness. “I’m honestly not sure Sissy’s business is going to survive much longer. Before, she was opposite a repairs garage, but now she’s opposite a crime scene. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

  “I should bloody well hope so—and he’s the criminal. Have you spoken to Sissy this morning?”

  “Yes, just now. She’s still at Pete’s, with Amy’s parents, dealing with everything. The death certificate, the police. They have to open an inquest when the death is like this—you know, sudden, unnatural. Then they can issue a burial order. It sounds complicated. I can’t imagine coping with that on top of the horror of losing her.”

  Leaving the kids with Tess, Ralph and Finn took the dogs out, detouring past number 1, where the police cordon remained in place. Yesterday afternoon and well into the evening, the place had been swarming with personnel, including officers from the Health and Safety Exec, who’d removed pieces of scaffolding and taken photos and video of the scene. Meanwhile, uniformed police had called house to house, looking for witnesses, noting local opinion (Ralph hadn’t pulled any punches there, oh no). But now the site was quiet, a solitary police guard the only official still present. Looking at him—he was expressionless, resistant of eye contact—Ralph had the most dizzying sensation of disbelief: six months ago—three months ago—they couldn’t have conceived that they’d be standing here in August discussing a death on the street. They’d been so content, so harmonious.

  “Well, that’s one way to get the bastard to turn the music down,” he said to Finn. “Put him in hospital. Heard anything about how he is? Naomi said it wasn’t life-threatening.”

  “That’s right,” Finn said glumly. “They kept him in overnight, apparently. Ant heard one of the police say that last night. Jodie came back to pick up some things, but they’re not allowed to move back in for a few days. Staying with mates. Health and Safety have already reported to the police, Ant says.”

  “Really? That was quick.”

  “I know. Then again, it must have been pretty obvious what happened. The scaffolding was unsafe. With a bit of luck, Booth’ll go straight from the hospital to a prison cell.”

  “If there’s any justice,” Ralph agreed.

  * * *

  —

  When he left for work on Monday morning, there was a car double-parked near the corner with its hazards on, and, even though his BMW was parked in the other direction, he turned right for a closer look. In the driver’s seat, a man Ralph didn’t recognize sat with his eyes on his phone. Police? Press? It was impossible to tell.

  There was a different guard today, this one standing at the end of the drive, and friendly enough to nod hello.

  Ralph did the same. “I was wondering, where’s the officer who came to our door on Saturday? I wanted to ask him how you’re getting on. PC Harold or something.”

  “He won’t be here again. The case has been passed to CID now.”

  Ralph knew his police TV dramas well enough to know this meant the real business was now under way: they were going after a prosecution, just as he and Finn had speculated. “I’m assuming they’ve arrested the owner by now? He wasn’t that badly hurt, I heard. I told your PC they should get on with it.”

  “Did you.” The officer, stripping the words of any suggestion of a question, looked at Ralph differently then, though Ralph couldn’t tell if it was with greater interest or less. He’d taken Ralph for a concerned neighbor, perhaps, easily moved on, not a man of action.

  Well, he was concerned, concerned that Booth should be put behind bars.

  As he was about to leave, a figure emerged from the house, startling Ralph, who hadn’t realized there was anyone else on site. She was a short, curly-haired woman, mid-thirties, in black trousers and a gray blazer, her eyewear on trend a couple of seasons ago. She called out to the man in the car—Jason, did he have a minute?—ignoring Ralph, who disliked being made to feel invisible on his own street. But he was running late for a meeting and he couldn’t spare the time for a charm offensive.

  Heading for his car, however, he felt the unmistakable heat of their gaze on his back. Not invisible, aft
er all.

  CHAPTER

  15

  TESS

  I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole house caves in next. No one really knows what he’s been doing in there. He’s been operating completely off-grid.

  It’s a disgrace, a complete disgrace.

  MRS. TESSA MORGAN, 5 LOWLAND WAY, HOUSE-TO-HOUSE INQUIRIES BY THE METROPOLITAN POLICE, AUGUST 11, 2018

  Five days later

  “Close the gate,” Tess instructed Isla and Dex, “and try to be quiet while I speak to poor Sissy.”

  If she spoke to her. As far as Tess was aware, no one, including Naomi, had been able to break Sissy’s defenses since Amy’s death, though they knew she had been back in residence since Sunday evening. Each day, deliveries of flowers were left on her doorstep, only to have vanished by morning; Tess sincerely hoped this was because Sissy had gathered them in the privacy of the night and not because thieves had taken them.

  As she rang the bell, she glanced across at number 1. The removal of the scaffolding had served to unveil the half measures Booth had taken with the exterior of his house: plaster chipped off here and there; one of the upper windows removed and boarded up; a length of tarpaulin over a section of the roof. If he were jailed, would any of it ever get finished?

  For goodness’ sake, when were the police going to let them know what was going on? They’d all phoned and been fobbed off—again, even Naomi!—and so far, the only news in relation to the investigation was that Em had been asked to “reconsider travel plans” and stay in town.

  “It was a polite request rather than an order,” she’d told Tess.

  There was no answer to Sissy’s bell, so Tess pushed open the letter slot and put her mouth to the narrow gap: “Sissy! Sissy, it’s Tess again!”

  As well as calling at her door twice daily, she’d taken to texting little messages, pictures of the cygnets, anything to keep her connected to her community (the cygnets were almost full-size now, but still gray-feathered, not yet ready to leave their parents).

  “Sissy? Are you OK in there?” She turned her head to put her ear to the gap and caught the distant sound of sobbing.

  “She’s too sad,” Isla said, at Tess’s side, and Tess’s heart caught at the simplicity of it.

  “Can we go on our adventure now?” Dex asked from the path, as if he thought he’d been patient long enough. When she’d sat him down to explain Amy’s death, he’d been unmoved. Amy was not a real person to him.

  Tess let the flap fall back. It was then, as she straightened and reached to take Dex’s hand, that she heard it. Above the low churn of traffic on Portsmouth Avenue and the whine of a weed trimmer from the Boulters’ garden: the melodic sound of whistling. The hairs on her arms stood on end as she followed the sound to its source: Darren Booth, standing on his drive. Where had he appeared from? He’d not been there when she’d glanced across two minutes ago.

  It was the first time she’d seen him since the accident, and he appeared to be moving quite normally, the only signs of injury a sling for his left arm and a bruise on his left cheekbone. He was inspecting one of the cars, wiping off the dust with his free hand, and whistling.

  Whistling! The prerogative of the carefree if ever there was one! A reckless courage took possession of her and, telling the kids to wait by Sissy’s gate, she stalked across the road, calling out to Booth in a sharp, menacing voice she hardly recognized as her own: “Are you allowed on the premises? Isn’t this still a crime scene?”

  There was no reply, of course; in any case, the absence of the guard and the removal of tape gave her her answer. Booth only stared at her, his demeanor sullenly undiminished. Unrepentant.

  “You can look at me how you like,” Tess snapped, “but it doesn’t change the fact that you killed that girl. What you did was no different from cold-blooded murder.”

  He took a step from behind the car to face her. The sling containing his bandaged arm was dirty, his fingers gray. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, love.”

  “Don’t call me ‘love’! You can’t be stupid enough not to know I hate you. We all do!”

  His mouth fell open and, to her astonishment, he laughed. Not bitterly or dismissively, but freely, with gusto, as if she’d said something brilliantly absurd. As if a life had not been lost less than a week ago in this very place.

  Loathsome behavior. Sickening. And with Sissy sobbing in the house across the road.

  “Screw you,” she said under her breath, and recrossed the road to retrieve Isla and Dex. She’d promised them a day out, and that was what she’d give them. “Come on, guys, let’s get in the car. We’re going somewhere you’ve never been before!”

  Ralph had messaged the WhatsApp group that CID had taken over from the uniformed officers who’d conducted initial inquiries, so she Googled the address—in a larger police station a few miles south—and plugged it into the satnav. Twenty minutes later, pacified with Kit Kats, Isla and Dex sat on scuffed royal blue chairs and watched the door for criminals in handcuffs as their mother approached the staff at the inquiries counter.

  “I’m a neighbor of Sissy Watkins, a relative of Amy’s . . .” She faltered, realizing she didn’t know Amy’s surname. “The woman who died at 1 Lowland Way last Saturday. I need to tell you that someone is at the house right now. They’re contaminating the crime scene!”

  The person summoned to deal with her looked about eighteen. Had his voice even broken? “There’s no need to be concerned, Mrs. Morgan. The residents have just been cleared to return to the house.”

  “Already?” Tess was astounded. “So if you’ve got all the evidence you need, why haven’t you arrested the only suspect?”

  “Whom do you mean by ‘the only suspect’?” the man-child asked.

  “Darren Booth, of course! He’s the one I’ve seen back at the house. Who else could I possibly be talking about? The Scarlet Pimpernel?”

  With exaggerated patience, the junior explained that the detectives working on the case were presently out of the office. “Do you have a personal involvement in the case, Mrs. Morgan?”

  “I’ve just told you, I’m a friend and neighbor of the victim’s boyfriend’s mother.” Which suddenly sounded like a flimsy, even fabricated, connection, as if she could be here only out of prurience. “Isn’t there anything new you can tell me?”

  But the conversation was only ever going to end one way: “I’m sure you understand that we can’t share the details of our investigation.”

  “You didn’t say good-bye,” Dex reproached her mournfully.

  “That’s not good manners,” Isla agreed.

  “I didn’t say good-bye because they wouldn’t help me,” Tess said, feeling more childish than her children. How was she to explain this to them if she couldn’t understand it herself?

  But how quickly stormy skies could clear! As they returned to the car, parked in a street behind the station, her eye was caught by a figure remarkably like Darren Booth in her wing mirror. He was being ushered out of the back of an unmarked car, his plainclothes escorts steering him into the building through a back gate, exactly the way it happened on TV. His face was impassive, mouth shut tight.

  They must have collected him—apprehended him—from the house minutes after Tess left. Had the young officer known that? He could have thrown her a bone, stopped her ranting on as she had.

  You’re not whistling now, she thought.

  * * *

  —

  “He’s been arrested,” she reported to Naomi, as soon as her sister-in-law arrived home from work. Tess was euphoric, though unsure how many more mood swings she could experience in a day without being sick. “I saw it with my own eyes. He’s out of hospital and he’s at the police station on Milkwood Lane.”

  “Are you sure?” Naomi asked. “Did they put handcuffs on him?”

  There was no mistaki
ng the level of distrust that remained on Naomi’s part when it came to Tess’s interpretation of police procedure. The memory of Charlie’s accident had, if anything, intensified in importance since Amy’s death, as if it had been some sort of dress rehearsal. Though their row the night of the theater trip had of course paled into insignificance next to the horror of what came after, contact had been far less frequent, updates exchanged between the men, not the women. Naomi had, without any explanation, engaged a local dog walker to take Kit and Cleo out on workdays; Tess didn’t know if the change was intended to lighten her load or punish her.

  “I didn’t see any handcuffs,” she admitted, “but his arm is in a sling, so maybe they don’t use cuffs when someone has an injury? But he was being escorted by two people who looked like they knew their way around a police station. Detectives, I think. And they didn’t use the main entrance.”

  “That does sound like progress,” Naomi said. “Jodie’s back in the house—did you know? Sara Boulter just told me. She arrived earlier this afternoon, but I haven’t seen her.”

  “She must have followed him to the station—if she’s even allowed to see him. They’ll have charged him by now; he’ll be in a cell.”

  “Right place for him,” Naomi agreed, satisfied.

  “Should we tell Sissy?” Tess asked. “I tried her again this morning, but she wouldn’t come to the door.” Tess paused. Naomi was closer to Sissy than she was, but it felt like a betrayal to mention the sobbing. “I’m not suggesting we break in, but I do keep a spare key for her. . . .”