Those People

by Louise Candlish

  “Not that I’ve seen,” Em said.

  “They could have paid someone who does, I suppose.”

  “Or it could have been kids,” Em suggested, “and they dumped it at random?”

  “Kids? Why? Wouldn’t they just run off, leave it where it fell? No, this was someone who wanted to upset me.” It was dismaying that Em didn’t support her theory unconditionally. “There’s a Swan Rescue notice up by the pond appealing for witnesses and we’ve suggested they access local CCTV footage from that night, but I don’t think there are any cameras between here and the park. I wish I’d had a security camera above my door,” she added. “Then I’d know for sure.” After Sissy’s break-in, Ralph and Naomi had installed a video entryphone system, but Tess was loath to spend funds they didn’t have on a property they might soon be leaving.

  There was a silence—or what passed for silence these days, with the permanent background noise of Booth’s cars and tools and music. Em appeared to be grappling with a private dilemma, before finally speaking in an odd, blurting way: “Look, I just want you to know I’ve deleted it.”

  “Deleted what?” Tess prompted. She was finding her friend especially skittish today.

  Em averted her gaze. “The footage on our security app that showed you walking up number 1’s drive on the night of August the tenth.”

  Tess froze. “What?”

  “Just after twelve thirty, I think it was, a few minutes before she came back from her cigarette run. But like I say, I got rid of it.”

  “What security app?” Tess demanded.

  At last, Em met her eye. “You know we set up a surveillance thing on an old iPhone? That’s how Ant got the shot of them taking cash for one of the cars.”

  “Oh yes, I remember. I thought that was a one-off?”

  “No, Ant had it in the front bedroom window the whole time. It was a motion-activated thing, went on until the battery died. We checked again recently, just in case we could help the police with anything. Anyway, I just wanted you to know.”

  Tess took her time in responding to this. “Help the police with anything . . .” There was a trace of something in Em’s manner as she uttered this phrase that Tess didn’t care for: a demonstration of power, a suggestion that this was not a self-contained piece of information, but a gesture that warranted reciprocation. Otherwise, why bring it up at all? Why not just delete anything that might be regarded as exposing a friend in a less than innocent light and keep what she’d seen to herself?

  Were Em and Ant still recording their neighbors’ movements? Or was Tess being paranoid, allowing her imagination to invent motives that didn’t exist? She took a breath, made a decision. “Well, thank you, I really appreciate that, but it doesn’t matter anyway because the police already know I was in the street that night. So I’m a person of interest with or without your mystery footage.”

  “Oh!” Em looked astonished. Whatever she’d expected Tess to say, it was not that.

  “Yes.” Tess chuckled. “Somewhere in a police incident room, there’s a picture of me pinned to a board with notes next to it saying, ‘Overprotective mum’ and ‘Animal rights nutter.’” It struck her that things were not going to be able to be the same between Em and her after this and she was sorry for that. Thank God for her rapprochement with Naomi. To be out of sorts with two female allies at the same time was unthinkable.

  “So, who else did you see on your secret app?” she asked. “Who else have you deleted?”

  “No one,” Em said. “Forget it.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  SISSY

  DC Shah was “eager” to update her, his message promised, which was possibly the polar opposite of how she felt about being updated.

  “Are you aware that one of your recent B and B clients has a criminal conviction, Mrs. Watkins?”

  “Ms.,” Sissy said. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “There’s no vetting process?”

  “Not by me personally. They’re all registered members of the website, but I imagine the terms and conditions for hosts will include one about it being at your own risk. Who is it, if I’m allowed to ask?”

  “Graham Reddy. He booked for one night on August the second.”

  “I remember him.” Thank God she was having one of her clear-thinking days and could decide, right away, that she should not complicate the issue with denials. “He was the chap from Solihull, I think. Yes, he was very nice.”

  “So you got chatting, did you?”

  “We did. Just small talk.” Sissy paused. “Why? You’re not thinking he had something to do with the break-in, are you? I think that’s very unlikely. If he’d wanted to take something, he could have done it while he was here.”

  “Actually, I’m wondering if he said anything to you about the scaffolding at number 1. It may have caught his eye.”

  “Why?”

  “Until a few years ago, he worked for Bettany Construction, a building firm in Birmingham. He’d be qualified to comment on any safety issues.”

  “Oh.” Though Sissy felt a convulsion deep inside her, her voice remained steady: “Not that I remember. I mean, guests do often remark on the building work, but it’s not the image I want to stick in their minds, not if they’re going to come back.”

  “Did Mr. Reddy come back?”

  “No. What was it for, his conviction?”

  “Theft. Graham and another man had taken a consignment of boilers from a construction site and tried to sell them on.”

  Presumably this was what had ended his career with the building firm, Sissy thought.

  “Did he and Booth meet, that you were aware of?” DC Shah persisted.

  “Not in my presence, though obviously I don’t know what happens after people leave the house.” She stopped, a sudden smack of grief robbing her of her voice. “I’m sorry. Look, I very much doubt that this man will be able to shed any light on an event that occurred over a week after he stayed on the street for one night.”

  “Do you know if any of your other B and B customers have made contact with Booth?”

  “No.” Sissy pressed the heel of her hand into her eye socket and watched stars dance; she had a headache coming. “And neither will any in the future, since the business has collapsed—thanks to him.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” DC Shah said.

  “Are you?” More sad than angry, Sissy longed for the call to be over. “Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”

  * * *

  —

  The end came sooner than expected, in typically impersonal form:

  Dear Property Owner,

  We are writing to advise you that booking for your property has been suspended and your membership of CitytoSuburb temporarily revoked following your failure to meet the required minimum approval rating. Any outstanding bookings must be honored, but be advised that we will be writing to those customers affected to inform them of the change in status for this property and to give them the option of canceling without penalty.

  A scan of recent reviews confirmed the Booth household’s role in her fatal plunge in popularity:

  Dreadful couple across the road gave us dirty looks as we left. Felt quite intimidated. (Two window boxes.)

  Steer clear! I heard someone was killed in the house opposite! (One window box.)

  Wasn’t Amy’s death enough? Why did they need to take her livelihood from her?

  Well, she would ask them.

  Outside, summer’s end was evident in the temperature, the scent, the slide of the sun, and even this felt treacherous. She didn’t want the season to turn its back on Amy’s death. It was too soon, her young life of too high a value.

  She came to a halt in front of number 1. As if coming out to greet her, Jodie emerged suddenly from the side of the house, dressed in gray leggings and a denim jacket,
with a pull-along suitcase. She yelled good-bye to Darren over the drone of a power tool, then fell silent at the sight of Sissy on the sidewalk in front of her.

  “You’re going on holiday?” Sissy asked, incredulous. First a riotous party, now a holiday: life certainly went on for this pair.

  “Yeah,” Jodie said, catching the condemnation and hurling it back. “Going to the Bahamas, ain’t I?

  Sissy had the urge to shove her into the dirt, suitcase and all. “Well, when you’re in the Bahamas, spare a thought for the woman crushed to death on these premises. Or have you already forgotten that? I think you probably have, judging by your party last weekend.”

  Jodie dragged her bag on, using her foot to correct it when it snagged on pieces of rubble. Reaching the sidewalk, she drew up alongside Sissy and faced her with a strangely sympathetic expression. “Look, Mrs. Watkins, I know you’ve had a tough time, but that don’t give you the right to come over and start abusing us, all right?”

  “Abusing you?” Sissy couldn’t contain her emotions—she could feel them bursting from her. “Jean would be appalled by your behavior—do you know that? Absolutely appalled. You can’t have cared much about her either to conduct yourselves in this way!”

  Jodie stared hard at her, face coloring, before rolling off toward Portsmouth Avenue. “I think you should maybe go and see your doctor, yeah?” she called over her shoulder.

  Sissy stood rooted to the spot, breathing heavily, until she realized she was being observed from the doorway of number 3. “Oh, Ant. Hello.”

  He came to join her, tactfully avoiding reference to the altercation. “She’s going to stay with her sister in Margate,” he said.

  Sissy could tell he was undecided about whether he should share more. “And . . . ?”

  “Her niece has just had a baby.”

  There it was. She was surprised Ant was on good enough terms with the enemy to have discussed this. Guessing her thoughts, he explained, “Em overheard her talking on the phone. She’s away for the whole week, helping, though given her talent for making my own child’s life a misery, it’s hard to imagine how helpful she’ll be.”

  It was unbearable, the idea that this horrible woman was about to enjoy a few days cooing over a newborn, enjoying her expanding family.

  She must have cried out without knowing, because Ant was looking at her with concern.

  “They’ve destroyed my business,” she blurted. “I’m going to have to sell up.”

  “Oh, Sissy, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

  Faced with his kindness, she felt the floodgates open. “I can’t go on living near them anyway. It’s not just the noise and the mess or even their vendetta against us. It’s how inhuman they are. Amy died in front of them and they feel nothing. Nothing.”

  “I know,” Ant said. “Are you really . . . ?”

  “Putting my house on the market?” Sissy finished for him. “Yes.”

  * * *

  —

  The estate agent (“negotiator”) arrived the next morning. She was a pleasant, respectful woman, her manner finely pitched to inspire trust. And she didn’t keep her distance the way most people did, as if grief were body odor, the result of self-neglect.

  “The good news is, I’m confident we can sell,” she said, “and fairly quickly too. This is a beautiful house.”

  “What’s the bad news?” Sissy said.

  “With the stagnant market and all the activity across the street, we would need to price realistically. Nothing too ambitious.” She suggested listing number 2 Lowland Way at three hundred thousand pounds less than Sissy might have expected pre-Booth.

  “Fine,” Sissy said.

  “A lot of people are downsizing from properties like this,” the agent added, and Sissy rolled the word on her tongue in silence. “Downsizing.” That was what she was doing as a person too, wasn’t it? She’d downsized her identity to the point of no longer wishing to be herself. No longer wishing to be.

  She wondered, impassively, where she would go. She couldn’t impose on Pete. Following a period of compassionate leave, he’d been assigned a London-based client and had established a pared-down work/sleep routine that would not benefit from the addition of Sissy and her grief. What would he say about her plan to sell? If the two of them had been less vociferous in her claim to the family home, she’d have moved straight after the divorce—that was the truth of it. She’d never have known Darren Booth and Amy would have had no reason to return to the street. The house was tainted with a guilt of its own.

  After the agent left, she went upstairs to lie down, as she frequently did now during the day, dropping on top of the unmade bedding, careless of discomfort. Today, she bypassed her preferred room at the back for the master bedroom, the room she’d come to know as the place her self-torture was at its most punishing. She’d curl up or stretch out, remembering what it had meant to her over the years, all of it behind her now, irretrievable for all eternity. It had been her marital bedroom, where a newborn Pete had been fed and cuddled. Later, where he’d come scampering in with his Christmas stocking. Where she’d slept alone after Colin moved first into the spare room and then into the bedroom of his new partner in Blackheath.

  Where she’d tumbled into bed with Graham, who might or might not yet know he had caught the eye of the police.

  Were they really planning to interview him on the strength of a coincidence that he had once worked in the construction industry? Surely his vanload of stolen boilers showed nothing more than that a historic mistake had been duly punished. It was a leap from that to attempted murder. She hoped he would be able to prove easily that he was nowhere near Lowland Way on the night of August 10.

  Of course, if she told the police about a particular portion of her conversation with him the night he’d stayed, they would have him in their interview room as fast as his legs could carry him.

  He’d been at the window, staring across at number 1. Darren and Jodie had finished their cigarettes and closed the bedroom window, but the light continued to cast a glow over the scaffolding structure, bringing a brutal beauty to it. “I could always mess him up a bit for you,” he said, his tone so easy she mistook it for joking.

  “Don’t be silly.” Then: “What do people mean when they say that? Beat him up?”

  “Could mean that, yeah. Could mean a few things. The things you want to do but can’t risk.”

  Why? she thought. Did he mean for payment? Fairly sure now that he was at least half-serious, she made light of the offer. “Would I have to do the same with your enemies, like in Strangers on a Train?”

  “Huh?”

  “The book? The Hitchcock film? You kill my nemesis and I kill yours?”

  “Let’s not get carried away,” he said, smirking. “I just mean, you know, petty stuff. I know this guy’s type. I know what would piss him off.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance, I could fiddle around a bit with his scaffolding. Yeah, that could work. The scaffolding gives way, he breaks his leg and is out of action for a bit, gives you a breather.” The thought caught and he developed the scenario for her: “Maybe worse—maybe he has a spinal injury. That sort of accident happens all the time on construction sites.”

  Sissy didn’t know whether to gasp in horror or in glee. “Then he has to sell up to pay for his highly specialized medical care,” she said gamely.

  Graham was grinning now. “Has to learn how to walk again. How to talk.”

  “Vigilante justice.” Sissy thought briefly of Ralph and Finn Morgan.

  “Exactly,” Graham said. “Don’t tell me you’re not tempted.”

  He turned, his face close to hers, and the look that passed between them was unexpectedly pure, something close to faith. Permission, perhaps.

  * * *

  —

  Only when the doorb
ell went did she emerge from the bedroom, something unknowable causing her to respond, which she rarely did if she wasn’t expecting her caller. She hoped it would be Naomi, with her brisk, generous humanity, but she remembered it was a weekday and Naomi would be at work.

  It was peculiar, but when she opened the door she didn’t recognize Em Kendall immediately. Still half-asleep from her nap, she thought at first the woman might be a reporter, for there was a flicker of wildness in her eyes, a glimpse of hunter. Then, as Em’s mouth opened to speak, she became herself, albeit a nervier version than Sissy knew.

  “Hi, Sissy.”

  “Hello,” Sissy said, but that was all, because it was no longer second nature for her to invite a neighbor in. These days, unless ambushed as she’d been that evening when they’d all come in for drinks, she conducted polite exchanges on the doorstep, waiting for the other person to give up and go. She was glad she’d specified that no FOR SALE sign should go up; it would attract visits from all the neighbors. More questions, more concern.

  “So, how’re you holding up?” Em asked.

  “Not good,” Sissy said candidly.

  “Ant told me about selling up.”

  “Yes.” Funny how Sissy had not the same instinct to confide in Em that she did in Ant. It hardly mattered; he told his wife everything anyway. That was what married people did.

  If Colin was here with her now, would it be easier to survive?

  The answer, as heartbreaking as any other revelation these last weeks, was yes. Even the newly unmasked criminal Graham would be moral support.

  “I’m sorry,” Em said. “I really am.”

  Her voice had something unexpected in it. People spoke so soothingly to Sissy these days, their hearts bleeding on their sleeves, but Em’s words carried a note of self-pity that overrode that. “Are you all right?” she said, curious. “Where’s Sam?”