‘And The Warlaby? Why did you argue about it?’
Aisling shrugged. In the grand scheme of things, this was minor.
‘He wasn’t keen on my working there, not that he ever said why.’
‘And he used to call you from a pay-as-you-go?’
A nod.
‘But we didn’t argue about it that night,’ she said, catching up with Hannah’s meaning. ‘The night he was killed. If he was talking to someone on the phone, it wasn’t me.’
Hannah cocked her head, sceptical.
‘You work at The Warlaby.’ She remembered how on edge Aisling had been when Hannah had run into her there, how she’d tried to blame it on the strange guy outside. ‘He took you to stay at Parade. Both Heppels’ hotels. So you knew then, about him being on the take?’
‘What? No. I mean, he would never have done that. He was a good copper. No way.’
‘Who is Slig? Did you know him? And Roddy Blessop, why was John so obsessed with him? And who was the guy that called me that night on the SIM?’
Aisling shook her head, trying to absorb the bombardment of names and questions. Then she moved closer, wanting to change tack. ‘I’m sorry Hannah, really I am. But you guys hadn’t been happy for years.’
‘Years?’ Hannah stopped, railroaded by a new and awful thought. ‘Was this why you quit, why you stopped working with me?’
Her eyelids fluttered, like Hannah had thrown something at her face.
‘It became a bit much. We worked together, socialised together—’
‘You mean it made it harder for you to sneak around?’
Aisling flinched but then she stood a little taller. Hannah’s dig seemed to have emboldened her.
‘Were you ever happy with John? Truly? I think you wanted to be, I think you liked the idea of him but that’s all it was, an idea. John always said—’
‘Stop.’
Hannah held up her hand, the gesture as much a warning as a capitulation.
Aisling pointed at the amber pendant round Hannah’s neck. ‘That was supposed to be mine. I’d noticed it in a shop window when we were out together, said how much I liked it. He must have gone back to get it for me as a surprise.’
Hannah clutched the stone in case Aisling should try to take it from her, and began to walk away.
‘Please,’ said Aisling, trying to pursue her with the massage table in tow. ‘Can we still be friends?’
But Hannah kept going, barging through the crowds of people, her shopping thudding against her thighs.
‘I was pregnant,’ shouted Aisling, abandoning the table in the street. Free of her cumbersome load, she soon managed to catch up. ‘I lost it, a few weeks after he died.’
Hannah stopped and turned round. The world switched and flipped, like a picture being turned this way and that.
‘The Thursday they installed Jem in your house. It would have been my due date. That’s why I wasn’t around those first few days, why I didn’t come over. It hit me hard.’
Hannah remembered the circles under her eyes, her voice bunged with what she’d thought was hayfever but now realised was probably from crying.
She put down her bags and took off the pendant.
‘Take it.’ She placed the necklace over Aisling’s head. ‘It’s yours.’
‘I’ve been grieving too,’ said Aisling, grabbing hold of the stone. ‘I just haven’t been allowed to show it.’
This time Aisling didn’t try to stop Hannah when she walked away. She reached the end of the high street and strode down the small slope toward home. She’d email Laramie as soon as she got back. Find out when she thought Mickey might be released. Once the DCI was doing better, she’d tell her what she’d learned about John’s connection to the Heppels and ask her advice about what to do next. So what if she impugned his good name? He’d lied to her over and over, he’d been planning to leave her. She owed him nothing.
She hadn’t gone far when the grocery bags split open, dumping their contents onto the pavement.
The following afternoon and London was twenty-seven degrees in the shade. Despite the heat, Hannah was hard at work on a sixtieth birthday cake. It was a berry-almond tart topped with an Escher staircase that went up and down in a continuous loop, and she’d been dreading having to make it ever since she’d agreed the design with the client, a composer from Tufnell Park. Technically complex, the interconnected staircase was such that if she made even the slightest mistake she’d have to scrap the whole thing and start again. In actual fact the cake had turned out to be a lifesaver. The intricate construction demanded all her attention and left no room for the roil of thoughts and images that plagued her.
It was the recalibration she found hardest. Her life as she remembered it had been a fraud. She kept trawling the last few years for moments to reassess on the basis of what she now knew. The Valentine’s night John had to work late, his habit of leaving the room whenever Aisling came round (she’d always thought it was because he found her irritating), the way he’d stopped kissing her on the mouth. She reconsidered it all afresh.
Then there was Aisling.
Hannah had thought her tendency to turn up at the house at all hours a lovable quirk, but now she wondered if she’d actually been showing up for some prearranged tryst only to have Hannah’s presence scupper it at the last minute. The conversations they’d had in the wake of John’s death were also ruined. Hannah had felt so grateful to have a friend who got that she still wanted to talk and think and laugh about her husband. She’d loved the way Aisling had made sure to remind her of the funny things he’d said, how she’d taken such care to sketch out moments from their past. Now though she saw them for what they really were: a way for Aisling to grieve by stealth.
She lifted the final staircase into position and had just finished smoothing the fondant when her phone rang.
Aisling.
It was the fourth time she’d called today.
Jem looked up from his book. The kitchen was stifling, the fan no match for the temperature, and so he was lying on his bed in just his jeans, his upper body sheened with sweat.
‘Someone really wants to talk to you,’ he said as she let it go through to voicemail.
Hannah shrugged, stepped back from the cake and slapped her hands. She’d told Jem nothing of the affair. She could lie to herself and say she’d kept quiet because it was a personal matter, none of his business, but in truth she hadn’t said anything because she was ashamed. In some deep, dark part of her she worried that he and others would think it her fault, that John had strayed because she had been defective in some way. Worse, she feared they’d think her a fool.
She stretched, grabbed a glass of water and wandered over to the French doors. There was a light breeze and every now and again a ripple would fan out across the pond, like someone blowing at a bowl of hot soup.
‘What we need,’ said Hannah, reaching to flip up the locks at the top of each door, ‘is a bit of fresh air.’ She pressed down on the handles and pulled them open. A breeze filled the kitchen, ruffling the pile of papers on the table and sending a pen rolling toward the edge.
‘Nice,’ said Jem, standing up.
For a few moments it was wonderful, but then grit and broken leaves began to blow inside. They swirled around her feet in a dusty ring-a-roses before continuing on their way into the heart of the room.
She closed her eyes, enjoying the flurry against her face. She could smell the Heath, all loam and grass, and hear the splosh of oars, one of her neighbours out in a rowing boat. But the wind was stronger than she’d realised and they were soon hit by a warm gust that sent the contents of the kitchen table flying.
Her glass of water crashed onto the floor and the pile of papers scattered.
She grabbed a dustpan and brush and after sweeping up the worst of it she gathered the paper. In among the mix of bills and fliers she found the photo printouts she’d arranged on the floor that morning for Jem. She scooped them together and was about to put
them back on the table when she stopped. There was something about one of the pictures, a selfie John had taken somewhere up high in the city, that jarred.
Wearing a suit and sunglasses, he’d framed the shot so that his head and shoulders were only a small part of the left-hand corner of the image. He’d wanted to show off his location, which meant he thought it unusual or cool in some way.
She studied the shot in more detail, trying to work out what it was that had caught her eye. He wasn’t up terribly high, four or five floors at most, but his position was such that you could see the city skyline and a row of cranes, dipped like fishing rods. The foreground was less exciting, all blackened brick walls and grimy air conditioning units tacked under windows, the tip of an old ghost sign peeping over the roof of a beige 1970s block. But there was something about these buildings or their architecture that was familiar. She scanned the picture again, her eyes roaming over the slate, glass and metal.
Then she realised.
She scrambled for her phone and brought up the video she’d shot the day she’d gone to look around the alley where John died. Scrolling to the bit where she’d lifted the device in the air to capture the nearby buildings, she hit pause and compared it against the selfie.
It had changed in the months since John had captured it on camera. The beige block had been demolished to reveal the ghost sign in full: the word BOVRIL spelled out in yellow capital letters, the background a faded blue. But it was definitely the same view. There must be a roof terrace or balcony somewhere in between the wall with the sign and the alley. For some reason John had been there and documented the spot where months later he would meet his death.
Aisling continued to call every day.
At first Hannah listened to the long, teary messages she left begging for forgiveness. She hated to admit it but she missed her and found she wanted to hear her voice. Then the messages grew more desperate. Aisling entered into a bizarre dialogue with herself, veering from profuse apology to a bolshy defence of the affair and all her actions since. In the last voicemail Hannah listened as Aisling told her she kept bumping into the guy from the Heath, the dormouse, that she was worried he might be stalking her and could she please call her back because she wasn’t sure what to do. It had felt like bait, as though Aisling were trying to manipulate her into getting back in touch.
Every message that came after that Hannah deleted. Her eyes barely grazed the screen as she swiped left toward the trash.
Now it was Sunday, a week later, and Hannah sat cross-legged on the floor eating breakfast with Jem settled across from her on the other side of the bars. They were both in pyjamas, toast, papers and coffee spread out between them, French doors open, radio on.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, as they swapped magazines. ‘You should meet with your lawyer, ask about appealing your conviction.’
After realising John had taken a picture near the alley where he’d later met his death, she’d gone to his laptop and scrolled through the photostream to see if he’d taken any other shots that might be able to explain what he’d been doing there. There was nothing from that day but as she’d flicked back through the reel she saw more snaps of him on that same roof. He’d been there a total of six times that she could see. But why? Maybe it was another bar or a hotel belonging to the Heppels? She’d looked on a map but she couldn’t figure out which street it was on, never mind which building the roof belonged to.
Jem took a swig of orange juice.
‘Appeal? On what grounds?’
She chose her words carefully.
‘The more I look into it, the more there is to John’s murder than everyone first realised.’
‘So you believe me?’ he said, sitting up straight. ‘That I didn’t do it?’
‘I think there’s reasonable doubt.’ She decided against telling him about the bag of cash for now. It was such a big deal and she needed to be absolutely sure she could trust him. ‘John was involved in some bad stuff. He may have taken bribes, from a gang. The Heppels. I can’t prove anything but there’s a rumour they were involved in his death.’
‘Have you mentioned any of this to John’s partner, the bear?’
‘The bear?’
‘Rupert the Bear, that’s his name isn’t it?’
Hannah smiled.
‘He certainly looks the part,’ he teased.
‘I tried but he wasn’t exactly receptive. He says I shouldn’t believe a word you say.’
Jem was about to reply when the bell went upstairs.
Hannah worried it might be Aisling, here to collar her in person, but when she opened the door she found Rupert, a coffee in each driving-gloved hand, a bag of what looked like his and John’s favourite bacon and fried egg rolls between his teeth. Noting the yellow scarf round his neck, she covered her mouth, hiding her smile.
‘Breakfast?’ he said as best he could without dropping the rolls.
Hannah stood to one side to let him in.
‘Did we have plans?’
He slid past her and down the stairs.
‘Thought I’d surprise you,’ he said, his gnashed teeth making him sound like a bad ventriloquist. ‘Sunday morning treat.’
In the kitchen he deposited his offerings on the table and stopped, taking in the scene on the floor.
Jem got to his feet and brushed the crumbs from his shorts.
‘Looks like you’ve already eaten,’ said Rupert, his eyes lingering on the plates and glasses at either side of the bars. ‘Wouldn’t want to intrude.’
He headed back up to the hall.
‘Rupert, wait,’ said Hannah, running after him. ‘Stay. I wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.’
He stopped at the front door, assessing her pyjamas and the slops of hair that had escaped her braid.
‘What’s going on?’ He was as concerned as he was annoyed, his face flushed.
‘What do you mean?’ Hannah said, though she knew what he was getting at. Following him down to the kitchen, she’d seen the breakfast tableau through his eyes. The scattered papers and plates, the radio station playing in the background. It reminded her of going to the bathroom at a friend’s house and catching a glimpse of the marital bed as she’d crossed the landing. The grub and tangle of the sheets made her feel like she’d seen something she shouldn’t and when she’d gone back downstairs she’d struggled to look her friend in the eye.
‘Are you two friends now?’ he said, not even trying to disguise his hurt. ‘Is that it?’
Hannah moved closer and put her hand on his shoulder.
‘I don’t think he did it, Ru.’
He shook her off, his anger quick and raw, but then he relaxed, soothed by some new thought.
‘He’s messed with your head,’ he said and she could tell this explanation was a comfort. ‘I told you before, you can’t believe a word he says. He’ll say and do anything to get you on side.’
Hannah had planned to hold off telling Rupert what else she’d learned until Mickey was better, but now, desperate to defend herself, the words came tumbling out.
‘John wasn’t the man you thought he was,’ she said, a new grit to her tone. ‘He was on the take. He got in over his head. It cost him his life.’
She thought of the money upstairs. Should she bring it down and show it to him, prove that what she was saying had merit?
‘You’ve lost your mind.’
He reached for the latch.
‘He was having an affair, with Aisling,’ she said before he could open the door. ‘It went on for years.’
‘Aisling? Your Aisling?’
She’d wondered if he’d known, if he’d covered for John in that way partners did, but looking at his face now she realised he’d had no idea.
‘He wasn’t the man we thought he was,’ she said again, gentler this time. ‘I’m struggling to come to terms with that too.’
But Rupert didn’t want to hear it. Leaving the house, he reached the end of the path, turned round and pointed
a gloved finger at the basement kitchen window.
‘He murdered John,’ he said, his words crisp and clear. ‘Never forget it. You’re living with a killer.’
Hannah picked up her insulin prescription from the chemist and set off back home. Her phone had been blissfully silent all day, Aisling seemed finally to have accepted she wanted to be left alone, and so she walked a little slower than usual, relishing this time with her thoughts.
Jem had done as she suggested and put a call in to his lawyer, Missy Cunningham, asking how he might go about appealing his conviction. The lawyer had told him that as it was now more than twenty-eight days since he had first been sentenced he would need to get leave to appeal from the Crown Court, to convince them that the new evidence he was putting forward was compelling and credible. If he didn’t get this then his case would not be heard. He’d asked her to come to see him at the house so they could discuss it further, and arranged a visitation order in her name.
She was at the top of her street when her phone rang. She flinched and, expecting it to be Aisling, went to reject the call. But it wasn’t a number she recognised and so she brought the phone to her ear.
‘Hannah, it’s Jane, Maraschino’s housekeeper.’ She sounded overly bright, like an actress performing in a breakfast cereal commercial. ‘Maraschino asked me to call.’ She paused and Hannah guessed that Maraschino was probably in the room with her, directing the conversation with frowns and nods that Jane was trying to respond to in real time. ‘The person they booked to do the cake for the party next week has pulled out. It’s all very last-minute but she wondered if you might be able to step in? The party is Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday? But that’s four days from now,’ said Hannah, already calculating the baking schedule. There was no way she could come up with and then model that many individualised cupcakes by then. ‘I’d have to go back on my initial pitch. Most of the cakes would be generic with a few hundred personalised ones mixed in.’
‘She said she’ll make it worth your while,’ said Jane slowly, and Hannah imagined Maraschino mouthing the line and then nodding, pleased, when Jane carried it off. Jane paused and when she spoke again her voice was back to normal. ‘Please?’
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