Those People

by Louise Candlish

  “I don’t know,” Em said.

  He tried to ignore the last-ditch desperation that had seized him, and yet, he had to ask: “Are we . . . are we all right, though?”

  “Oh, Ant.” Her expression was a blend of pity and determination. The pity was for him, the determination for her and perhaps for Sam too. They were inseparable, mother and son, as once husband and wife had been. “How can I say for sure we are? How can you? The best I can say is I hope so. I hope so.”

  He’d never heard the word “hope” sound so hopeless.

  “We’ll see you for the hospital appointment,” she reminded him. “We’ll be back next week for that.”

  Yes, he’d see them again at the hospital and for any subsequent consultations. He’d talk to Em then, think of a way to rebuild the family Booth had destroyed.

  Ironically, it was only when they hugged that he truly felt it, her withdrawal from him. He felt the ghosts of all the bodies left in Booth’s wake, not just Amy’s, but the ones still living too.

  CHAPTER

  35

  SISSY

  She presented herself at the police station in sound mind—or as sound as it had been since she’d caused the death of her son’s lover and delivered herself to the twin tyrants of guilt and Em Kendall.

  “Say nothing,” Em had instructed her the day Booth’s body was found. “If we all say nothing, we’ll shut it down.”

  “Whatever I say, I won’t implicate you in any way,” Sissy told her. “You have my word.”

  Which was not quite the same as saying nothing. Instead, with the news that his death had been caused by gas from an unlit hob, her brain had seized on an opportunity. A punishment fit for her crime, a karmic solution to her wickedness. A selling of her soul at a price she was confident she could bear.

  “I’ve come to confess to killing someone,” she said to the front-counter staff. Not a dramatic announcement like a time waster might make, but not an uncommon one either, judging by the lack of alarm with which it was received.

  She was taken to a room that was not like the interview rooms she’d seen on TV, but simply a private space, a small conference room, perhaps, glazed on two sides. She was allowed to choose her seat—she opted to sit with her back to the strip-lit honeycomb of police workers visible through the glass—and offered a hot drink. There was a wait for the detectives to become available; she couldn’t have said how much time passed before DC Forrester arrived, but the growl in her stomach told her she’d missed a meal.

  The detective had, of course, her regulation blue book and black Biro with her. The date was already at the top of the page, with Sissy’s initials. “Ms. Watkins, you’ve come here to tell us—”

  “That I did it,” Sissy interrupted. “I turned on the gas at number 1.”

  DC Forrester’s eyes widened only very slightly, as if the surprise were minuscule. “That’s quite a revelation. How did you enter the premises?”

  “I had a key.”

  “And how did you come by this key?”

  “Booth gave me a spare, right at the beginning, before we all fell out.” A lie, but just about plausible. Jodie would dispute it, of course.

  “So you had a key and you let yourself in. Through which door?”

  “The front door.”

  “What time?”

  “It was about two in the morning.” Almost exactly the same time of night she’d committed her crime against Amy four weeks earlier. “He’d passed out on the sofa, so he didn’t see me.”

  “Which gas ring did you turn on?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “There are several rings on the hob. Which one was it?”

  “The front one.”

  “Left or right?”

  Sissy swallowed. “Right.”

  During this exchange, the detective’s expression was analytical, almost scholarly, with a pause after each of Sissy’s answers as if waiting for a simultaneous translation to catch up. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Sissy said, truthfully.

  “I see. Well, I know it’s been a very upsetting few weeks for you, so tell me how you feel. Help me imagine what was going through your mind that night.”

  Sissy looked at her, unexpectedly keen to oblige, the words ready to be spoken. “Imagine a girl you love, someone who’s as good as family, is taken from you. You are sinking and sinking down a narrow pipe, you can just about breathe, but anytime you try to move, you only slip further down. You come home and your front door won’t open because the chain is on. Someone has broken in and he’s still in there as you’re rattling the door and phoning for help. It’s him. Then every night after that you can’t sleep because the slightest noise makes you think it’s him. You have your eyes closed and you imagine opening them and he’ll be standing there, standing over you, deciding whether to kill you.”

  DC Forrester seemed mesmerized by this speech. She rotated her shoulders, forward, then backward, as if to release herself from its spell. “That sounds very frightening.”

  “It was frightening. I wanted to stop it. I couldn’t take any more.”

  The detective looked worried. “I’m not sure I understand completely, though. You were selling your house. You had planned a way out. You only needed to wait a few more months and you’d be free of him, so why would you put yourself at risk by invading his house? You must have known there was a very good chance he’d wake and defend himself.”

  “I didn’t care,” Sissy said; then, to clarify: “I didn’t care about me.”

  DC Forrester pressed her lips into a tight line. “Why do I feel you’re not being honest with me today, Sissy?”

  Sissy gave her a pleading look. “I am being honest. That’s why I’m here. To put an end to the uncertainty, to let everyone else go back to normal.”

  “That’s very honorable.” But there was a new edge of impatience to DC Forrester’s compassion and she stood suddenly, knocking her hip against the table. “Think back to that night, Sissy, minute by minute. Then we’ll go over it again. Take as long as you need. I’ll get us another cup of tea.”

  Sissy’s chin dropped. She didn’t want to think back, but the detective was leaving the room, closing the door, a therapist allowing her client to collect herself after a treatment. Or before one.

  * * *

  —

  First, there was that unfamiliarity you felt in the dead of night, as if the street did not belong to you. As if being unseen meant not existing.

  She remembered dropping the keys on the drive and her sudden spinning at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. Her scream, primal in the quiet of the night, and then Ant in front of her, his face urgent with concern.

  “What are you doing, Sissy? What has Em asked you to do?”

  Sissy faced him in the gloom, trying to steady herself. “I wasn’t going to do it. I was just going to pretend I’d done it.”

  “Done what?”

  As if ridding herself of a snake squeezing her chest, she told him Em’s plan. Somehow, with her phrasing, her whispers amplified by the cold silence, it sounded less ridiculous, less juvenile. It sounded like malice aforethought.

  “Where the hell did she get the keys?” Ant asked. His breath was thick and labored; thanks to his cold, he must have been breathing through his mouth.

  “She says she found them on the day of Amy’s death.”

  “Give them to me and go back. If she gives you a hard time, tell her I forced you to hand them over.”

  He’d snatched them from her then with some force, to make it easier for her. “Go back.”

  She obeyed. Her ears boomed as she crossed, her footsteps inaudible. It was too much to expect that Em had retired to bed; she was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, her face in the half-light devilish, unforgiving.

  �
��Why are you back so soon?” she hissed. “Where did Ant go?”

  “He followed me,” Sissy said. “I had to come back.”

  “Why?”

  “How could I do it when he was right there, blocking my way?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Em cried, “why did you say you’d do it when you weren’t going to? I’ll go myself.”

  “Ant’s got the keys,” Sissy admitted.

  “You gave them to him?” Em’s fury was causing a tremor in her shoulders. “This is not what we agreed!”

  Sissy watched her tear out of the door. She thought about chasing after her but remembered Sam. She was alone with him in the house; she had to stay. Neither Ant nor Em had keys to Sissy’s house, so she left the door on the latch before retreating to her room (the irony of leaving the house unsecured, given they were nominally here to help her feel more secure, was the least of her concerns). She felt weak and worthless for landing Ant with the job of talking Em down from her ill-conceived mission, but he was her husband. He might succeed where Sissy had failed.

  Except they did not return together. She thought they did, at first: she heard the front door open and close, footsteps on the carpeted stair, the neighboring bedroom door easing open and shut, and she allowed herself to sleep. Then, sometime later, she woke to the same sequence: the front door opening and closing. On the carpeted stair footsteps, this set so careful she scarcely caught them. The guest room door easing open. A baby’s whimper, an adult’s murmur.

  She had no doubt that Ant had lost to Em. He’d given up the keys and come back alone. Em had gone ahead with her plan and planted the burning cigarette. Unable now to sleep, Sissy kept vigil at the front window. The moment she saw smoke, she’d phone 999.

  But there was no smoke, only, hours later, the gently rising light over the rooftops.

  After breakfast, when Tess had arrived with her extraordinary news, Sissy could only guess that Em had adapted her crime with shocking success. All day, she’d looked at her and thought, What did you do?

  Em had at least had the wherewithal to declare the thing a miraculous coincidence. “I can’t believe he’s dead,” she said, kept saying, and even when left alone with Sissy, she had kept up this version of events, Method acting so powerful that it seemed to Sissy she believed it herself. Her only reference to what had passed in the late hours was when she coached Sissy on her subsequent handling of any police inquiries. “We all went to bed at the same time. No one left the house again. Unless someone insists they saw you and then you say you were getting Sam’s toy giraffe for me. But only then.”

  “All right,” Sissy said.

  What did you do? she thought.

  * * *

  —

  DC Forrester was back in the room with fresh cups of tea, picking up the interview with ease, a dropped stitch retrieved.

  “Tell me the truth, Sissy, yes or no: Did you go into number 1 that night?”

  “No,” Sissy whispered.

  “Why would you claim you entered number 1 and committed a crime you did not?”

  Sissy did not answer.

  “Were you protecting someone else?” How coaxing the detective’s tone was now, almost sweet. “Did you see or hear Em Kendall go out that night?”

  “No,” Sissy said. But, to her consternation, emotion was overtaking caution, her voice gaining a frantic new energy. “You have to understand she’s been driven mad by this situation. She’s got a baby who can’t sleep, who she’s desperately worried about. If she’s done anything wrong, she doesn’t deserve to be punished. I . . . I’m older.”

  I have reason to atone.

  The detective put her mug to her lips, her expression accommodating, even kind. But she was thinking, no doubt, how frustrating it was to explain to witnesses that culpability was not transferable. You couldn’t take the blame for the guilty party because your remaining years were fewer than theirs—or worth less. “Sissy, were you aware of any of your neighbors searching the Internet for information about deaths caused by domestic gas leaks?”

  “No,” Sissy said. “Definitely not.” Surely Em had not searched online on one of her own devices?

  She had gone, once more, to stay with her parents, Ant had reported, failing to conceal how dejected he was. But now Sissy wondered if Em might in fact have taken Sam and run. Run from the police. And that maybe Ant had intuited this.

  She understood that she had made a terrible mistake coming here and speaking as she had. No only had she implicated the very person she’d hoped to keep from harm, but she’s also placed herself in peril. If DC Forrester had enough evidence to charge Em, then Em would have no choice but to try to make a deal, to offer something in return. A plea bargain. She’d deleted the clip of Sissy and the scaffolding from her phone, but not from her memory.

  “The reason I had to keep you waiting earlier was we were viewing the results of Mr. Booth’s postmortem,” DC Forrester said, with a sudden, almost airy change of direction. She paused, as if deciding how much intelligence to gift Sissy in return for the little she’d confided. “We’ve already let his next of kin know, so I think I can now tell you as well that his death wasn’t caused by the effects of gas.”

  Sissy, feeling her heart catch and her throat close, could only gape.

  “He died of a condition called sudden unexplained death alcohol in misuse.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Sissy said. She’d never heard of it.

  “I’ll let you look it up at home,” DC Forrester said, “but as I understand it, the heart suffers an electrical fault that causes it to lose rhythm, which is triggered by long-term binge drinking. It’s only recently been named. SUDAM, it’s known as, in case you want to let your WhatsApp group know.”

  Their gazes met. How did she know about that? A lucky guess? More likely an educated one.

  “Of course, this doesn’t mean we aren’t continuing to pursue the person who turned on the gas and tried to kill Mr. Booth.”

  Sissy felt her pulse quicken. “You mean, it could still be seen as attempted murder?”

  DC Forrester nodded. “You look exhausted. Let me see if someone’s free to take you home.” Then, as she got to her feet: “And just to put your mind at rest, Sissy, the investigation you’re most concerned about is still very much top of our agenda.”

  Sissy stared at her, not following.

  “Amy,” DC Forrester said delicately.

  Sissy rose, her heart a withered fruit in her chest. “Amy. Of course.”

  CHAPTER

  36

  TESS

  They were a little late for school, which meant they missed out on their customary detour through the park. The rigors of the school day were new to Dex, not least the necessity of getting dressed for it. (Though he was returned to her with his jumper on inside out or with one of his socks bearing another child’s name tag, it was not encouraged that pupils arrived in this condition.)

  Tess checked on the cygnets on her way home, instead. There were still five, which in this precarious life was quite an achievement. She wondered who would leave first—their family or hers? If only departure were as easy for humans, just a few practice flights on the water and then one day the real thing. Liftoff. You spied your new home from on high, made your descent and trusted in a happy integration.

  They wouldn’t make their own getaway quite yet, but wait until it was clearer what Jodie intended doing with number 1. She was still in contact with the police—Tess had seen DC Forrester visit her only yesterday—but everyone agreed that the removal of the cars was an excellent sign. Realistically, they would let Dex finish a full year at Lowland Primary, before moving the following summer and managing Isla’s senior school applications from their new address, which would need a decent commuter link to London Bridge, the nearest mainline station to Ralph’s business and Finn’s new office.


  Her gaze came to rest on a woman with a double buggy, a third child spraying the water with grain. She checked her Fitbit—still half an hour before school pickup—and strode over.

  “Hello. I hope you don’t mind my asking, but are you Becky Wallace? The one who found the dead cygnet?”

  Briefly stricken, the woman recovered quickly. “I didn’t know what to do. I had a box in the bottom of the buggy and I put it there. I didn’t want them to . . .” Who she meant by “them” and what she feared their doing were left unsaid.

  Tess smiled. “I’m glad you did. If it had been left for long, the rats and crows would have got to it. It was brave of you, though. You could have been attacked by the parent swans. Are these three yours?”

  “Sean is. I just mind the twins.”

  “My boy’s about your age,” Tess told Sean. “He’s just started school this term. When do you start? Next year?”

  “No,” the boy said, regarding Tess with deep suspicion.

  “Yes,” his mum corrected him.

  “Then you should meet Dex and he can tell you all about it. Have you heard of Play Out Sunday on Lowland Way? It’s when we close the road and everyone can play in the street. We took a break over the summer, but we’re starting up again this Sunday. You should come along.” Tess returned her attention to Becky. “Would you like a quick coffee from the hut, my treat? We could ask the girls if they’d put up a permanent notice with the Swan Rescue number?”

  She felt like Naomi, sweeping the woman along with an irresistible stream of offers and ideas, but the little boy was her counterweight, unseduced, whining at his mum to take him directly to the zip wire, and she stood uncertainly between them.

  “Or maybe some other time,” Tess said with an easy air. In her pocket, her phone buzzed and she checked the screen: a new WhatsApp message from Sissy. I spoke to the police yesterday. . . .