by Louise Voss
Mr Martindale died a few months later. Heart attack. I never did find out what happened to his corgi. I still think about that dog occasionally. I should have offered to take it in. It was a nice dog, like he was a nice man.
When I was well enough, I moved out of London, to a tiny thatched holiday cottage in Minstead, for no other reason than it was a small village where nobody knew me. I didn’t leave the house for weeks.
Several months later I sold my London place, for tens of thousands less than the market value. I lied to the band, telling them I’d had enough of fame and had emigrated to New Zealand to start a new life.
Iain McKinnon was the only one who knew about the attack – the police had arrested and interviewed him about his threats that night. He had a solid alibi though – a woman in the pub he’d picked up and taken home that night after I refused his offer. He was released, after being sworn to secrecy. It behoved him to keep quiet about it, because he and I both knew he’d get the sack if it came out he’d tried to blackmail me.
The police never managed to track down my abductor, despite many hours of interviews, trying to ascertain who might hate me enough to orchestrate such an attack. They liaised with their Kansas City counterparts, who went to interview an apparently very indignant Professor Samantha Applebaum in her office at the University of Kansas. She hotly and vociferously denied ever writing a letter demanding hush money from Big World Records in exchange for keeping her secrets about me safe, and had no idea who else even knew about our relationship, apart from Pete and the boys in the band.
‘Preposterous!’ was, reportedly, her reaction, and the police believed her. The letter had a UK postmark on it, and Samantha had been teaching in Kansas at the time it was sent. ‘After all,’ she pointed out, ‘if I wanted to make money in a sordid way, I’d have sold my story to the British tabloids instead, wouldn’t I? I have a good job and, more importantly, a good reputation. I would never risk that.’
Part of me hoped that this might prompt her to try and get in contact with me, perhaps apologise for her desertion – but only a small part. I was in too much of a state to care about that anymore.
The detectives went over and over every detail of the attack, but in the end all they could conclude was that my assailant was a mentally ill person with an imaginary grudge – a spurned fan, perhaps. Possibly Green-Paint Guy, but there was nothing to link them, apart from a similar build. None of us had a clue who might have written that letter, if it wasn’t Samantha. I half suspected Iain himself. Perhaps he had somehow managed to uncover Samantha’s name and the details of our love affair – perhaps one of the band had let it slip in conversation, but I very much doubted it. They weren’t the sort for idle gossip, and they didn’t like The Pointless I much either.
I had trauma counselling, and we managed to keep it out of the papers. It wasn’t that difficult in the end, because of the police’s failure to catch the perpetrator. They made appeals, of course, for witnesses to the ‘serious kidnap and torture of an unnamed female victim’, but nobody apart from my rescuer had seen anything; not the man’s van, not his arrival or departure from my house, nor his escape over Clapham Common. CCTV picked up the van in a couple of places en route, and detectives were able to confirm that it had been stolen from a scrapyard in Falmouth three days earlier, but that was about as far as they got. CID left the case open and, off the record, admitted to me that it had probably been a ‘random nutter’.
Finally, a few months after I moved to Minstead, I plucked up the courage to do something I wished I’d done years before: I got hold of Pete’s phone number. I rang our old next-door neighbour in Salisbury, who confirmed that Pete had moved to London and that she had a number for him.
Another week later, I dialled it, my heart pounding in my chest, the fresh scar on my hand throbbing.
‘Hello?’
I started crying at the sound of his voice. ‘Pete, it’s me … I’m so, so sorry, for everything. I’ve been a selfish bitch. Please forgive me?’
‘Of course,’ was all he said, a tremor in his own voice. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Mez.’
42
Present Day
Gemma
Mavis put on his reading glasses with a frown and an air of reluctance that implied he resented having to wear them. As if either of us cared, thought Gemma, suppressing an eye roll. He cleared his throat.
‘I’ve been looking again at the details of your previous attack, back in 1995. Obviously it was a very long time ago, but we can’t rule out the possibility that whoever’s behind it has been out of the country, or in jail for another crime, in the intervening years. I see from the transcripts that you had a conversation on the night of the attack with somebody from your record company, an Iain McKinnon, who tried to blackmail you into having sex with him, in exchange for keeping some personal information to himself; and that a third party, a woman named Samantha Applebaum, had tried to extort money out of the record company, threatening to go to the papers with the same information: i.e., that you’d had a sexual relationship with her.’
Meredith turned to Gemma. ‘Iain’s the guy we were talking about earlier. Sleazebag who did that interview for TMZ and let slip where I worked. He’s a nightmare. But I’m sure it’s not him. He had an alibi for the night of my attack – that night, after I turned him down, he apparently went home with some girl he picked up in the pub.’
‘But if your attacker has been trying to track you down for years, that interview could have given him the clues they needed,’ Gemma said.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Meredith miserably.
‘And both McKinnon and the woman denied the blackmail attempts,’ Mavis said. ‘Who else knew about your relationship with Samantha Appelbaum at that time?’
Meredith thought back. ‘Not many people. I was so young. At first I was embarrassed to tell anyone – I told my best friends from school that I was moving to London, but not who with. The boys in the band were the only ones who knew, unless someone was stalking me and found out that way. We – I – did have a stalker, but that was a lot later. You know about the green paint thing, but there were loads of other things too: hate mail and death threats and so on.’
‘Did you not go to the police then?’ Mavis sounded incredulous.
Meredith glared at him. ‘Yeah. They didn’t get anywhere, not even after the paint incident.’
‘And you’re sure it couldn’t have been a friend of one of the other band members – someone hanging round with you back in the day, who you pissed off somehow?’
Meredith thought back. ‘We were living in a squat for a few years when we started out. I guess there were people coming and going, but I honestly don’t think I ever upset anyone to that extent. Samantha was the only one who ended up having an issue with me, but she wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble, especially not once she was back in the States. She could be a right diva, but she would never kill anyone, or have wanted me to suffer like that, I’m absolutely sure. I can’t believe that any of it was anything to do with her.’
43
Pete
Even though the commission had to be shipped to the client by the end of the week and he still had several inches of mother-of-pearl blossom and branches to inlay and lacquer, Pete found himself locking up the workshop at two in the afternoon and wandering back to the barge. He was completely unable to concentrate after Meredith had rung him to tell him the results of the post-mortems, and that she’d come clean to the police about her and Ralph. He wondered how she was getting on at the station. They’d want to speak to him at some point too, he supposed. Would he be in trouble as well? He found that he didn’t really care, not as long as he and Meredith were safe. The police would protect them … wouldn’t they?
He stopped at the shop to buy a six-pack of beers from the local microbrewery, and the bottles chattered glassily in their cardboard compartments, banging against his leg as he walked home through the village, taking the shortcut through the back lan
es to the marina. There had been heavy rainfall the night before and the lanes smelled of summer, of blooming roses and turned earth, dandelion and fresh spears of grass, a scent that usually made the sap of his spirits rise with joy – but today he took no pleasure from it. This feeling of being constantly close to tears was a new and unfamiliar one. He reached the steps and looked down at Andrea’s boat, still cordoned off with police tape. The sight made him want to howl.
He descended the steps and climbed heavily aboard Bruton Bee, which rocked to accommodate his weight. The river was swollen and angry after the rain, streaming under him, its watery scowl personifying his mood.
He put the beers down on the deck to fiddle with the new and very stiff padlock and hasp he’d attached to the door a few days ago. The previous rusty little hasp had been half hanging off and any intruder wishing to come aboard could have dispensed with it in one sharp twist. Since the post-mortem results, he didn’t want to be next. There were two shiny new bolts affixed to the inside, too.
He had more bolts still in their packaging, intended for Meredith’s front and back doors. He was far more worried about her than himself – although at least that cop was with her for a few days. That knowledge did help. It looked very much like someone was trying to get at Meredith – or maybe even frame her for the two murders. Who, and why now? His thoughts drifted back to the attack on her all those years ago. It was a subject he tried to avoid in the already-overcrowded chambers of his mind. There was no space for it; no benefit to imagining the horrors she had endured in that Luton van.
However, he had no choice. The guy had never been caught.
The stiff padlock refused to allow the key to turn, and Pete kicked at the door in frustration and rage. ‘Open, you bastard,’ he growled at it.
Still, at least its solid stiffness meant he’d be safe. If he couldn’t get in, nobody else could already be in there, lying in wait for him.
He wiggled the key until the lock clicked open, thinking again that he would insist Meredith came to stay for the foreseeable. That policewoman couldn’t be there for long, surely – didn’t she have a home of her own to go to? And besides, it was his job to protect his sister, not some teenage cop. He had no idea of Gemma’s age; late twenties, presumably, but with the braces she looked about thirteen. The pair of them would be no match for a determined assailant.
Assassin.
Pete decided to go back to ‘assailant’. It was a less terrifying word.
He took the bag of beers and the padlock inside, bolting the door shut behind him, and had uncapped the first bottle on the edge of the kitchen counter before he’d even kicked off his trainers and dropped his backpack to the floor.
It tasted like nectar, its cold hoppy fizz immediately calming his nerves. He chugged the first and immediately started on the second. Flopping onto the sofa and putting his socked feet on the coffee table, he pressed Meredith’s name in his phone’s favourite contacts list – which, he noticed, only contained her number and Andrea’s; he pushed down the stab of pain that this observation induced.
‘Hi, Mez, are you OK?’ he said as soon as she answered.
‘Hi, Pete. Yup. Back from the police station. They’re not pressing charges, thank God. I just got a telling-off. I decided to go into work for a few hours. Gemma’s still with me.’
‘Anybody … unusual in the shop?’
‘Nope. I was dreading paparazzi and shit, but nothing out of the ordinary. What about you? Are you at the workshop?’
He took another gulp of the beer. ‘Nah. Couldn’t concentrate. Locked up and came home. I’m going to drink a six-pack, watch shit TV and get an early night. How long is Gemma going to be with you?’
‘A day or two more, she thinks. Then her boss will make her go back.’
‘I think you should come and stay with me after that.’
He heard her sigh. ‘Pete, thanks, but I don’t want to. I’m safe in the cottage, I’m sure. I mean, I’ve got my own twenty-four/seven security; how many people have that in their house?’
Pete snorted. ‘What, that ancient tubby guy we met – the one who wheezes when he walks? I’m not sure that he counts as a crack security team. If someone came to your door, and he – what’s his name?’
‘There’s two main ones. That was Leonard, on nights. George is the daytime one.’
‘Leonard, then. He could be miles away in the house if something happened in your cottage! I’ve bought you a couple more bolts, I’ll come and put them on tomorrow.’
‘Oh Pete. Thanks. But please stop worrying; there’s really no point. When Gemma goes, I’ll come and stay for a few days if it makes you feel better, but I can’t live on your boat. It’s far too small, and we’d drive each other crazy. Anyway listen, I have to go, a coach party’s just come in.’
Pete heard an increased humming in the background, the chatter of voices in an unfamiliar language. ‘OK, sis. Love you. I’ll call you later.’
‘OK. Love you too.’
By 9.00 p.m. there were six empty beer bottles lined neatly up on the rug next to the coffee table. Pete couldn’t be bothered to move them into the recycling box, but even in his inebriated state, didn’t like the sight of them scattered haphazardly. He’d only got up to pee and make himself a toasted sandwich. He was now lying back on the sofa, contemplating the bottle of Glenfiddich on a shelf in the galley.
When he closed his eyes he saw the empty spaces where the shiny mother-of-pearl trees were meant to go on the unfinished chest. They were nagging at him – but not enough to make him want to sober up and get back to work. The trees could wait. Drinking and doing nothing couldn’t.
Darkness seemed to have fallen fast on the river, unless he’d nodded off for a while. He must have done, because his heart was hammering, and he recalled a dream in which he’d seen Meredith darting between creamy-white branches, vanishing into the velvety blackness, leaving just a pearlescent glimmer behind her.
But next time he opened his eyes, all his possessions could only be seen in silhouette, crowding him silently. He pulled out his phone and checked the time – just after 10.00 p.m. He thought about calling Meredith again, but then felt overcome with sleepiness and texted her instead:
Going to bed now. Knackered and full of beer. Talk in the morning. Love ya.
Leaving the bottles where they were, he did at least get up and check that both bolts were firmly shot across before filling a pint glass with water and staggering into bed, via a final visit to the loo to clean his teeth and have a last pee. He was asleep within minutes of tearing off his clothes and flopping down on the mattress.
A knocking sound awoke him some hours later; like knuckles on glass, persistent and loud. It was still pitch-dark, but something felt wrong; something more than just his dry mouth and slight biliousness. Who the hell was rapping on his window? The boat was rocking, far more than the gentle bobbing it made when moored. He sat up, ignoring the dizziness, and pulled back the curtain covering the porthole in his berth. Usually, his view would have been of the marina’s stone walls, faintly orange-tinted from the light thrown by the street lamp in the car park above.
But there was no light visible. Shapes of trees loomed in monochrome, and as Pete’s hearing sharpened into wakefulness, he heard the slap of water against Bruton Bee’s sides. The moon came out from behind a cloud and suddenly light refracted off the water; not the enclosed sides of the marina, but open water.
He was drifting, mid-river. Shit!
At first he couldn’t think how this could be. There was a strong offshore wind blowing an ebb tide that night, but that couldn’t have disturbed the lines, unless they’d been tampered with. The lines had been secure when he’d boarded that afternoon – he always checked them, bow and stern, ever since some teenagers had untied him a couple of years ago. Fortunately he’d spotted them then, snickering and riding away on their bikes, another dare completed, and he’d started the engine, swearing loudly as he steered Bruton Bee back to her mooring.<
br />
The bedside clock’s red digital letters showed it was 3.30 a.m. Unlikely to be kids, then. But what had that knocking sound been?
Pete pulled on the shorts and T-shirt he’d only discarded a few hours before and stuck his feet into flip-flops, before racing the length of the boat back towards the engine room, to see if he could tell how far he’d drifted and if the ropes had been cut or untied. He was so familiar with the riverbank scenery that if it was anywhere less than a few miles, he’d probably be able to tell where he was from the shapes of the trees and the curve of the moonlit path. He shot back the two bolts on the door to the deck, focussing only on grabbing the tiller and getting his bearings.
A blast of cool night river-weed-scented air blew into his face as he pushed open the door, the moonlight showing him the unwelcome sight that he really was drifting mid-river, carried fast on the ebb tide, apparently several miles from the marina.
Swearing volubly, he was just clambering out when a hand clamped something over his nose and mouth, something that smelled weirdly like a vodka cocktail, only synthetic and super sickly, as if shovelfuls of sweetener had been added to the alcohol.
Out of the blue, into the black.
He didn’t see it coming at all, nor whose hand it was. His knees buckled and he stumbled backwards, down the two steps into the saloon. The smash of his skull as it bounced off the barge’s worn parquet floor was the last thing he remembered.
44
Meredith
The morning after her police interview Meredith awoke, confused and sweaty, from a horrible dream about Samantha.