The Stranger You Know (Maeve Kerrigan Novels)

by Jane Casey

  “You’re going to need some cuffs.”

  He looked surprised. “What? Why?”

  I didn’t answer, hurrying to catch up with Derwent. He headed out of the main doors, his jaw set, and I knew better than to try to slow him down. We were halfway down the street before he stopped.

  “What do you think?”

  “Of him?” I shook my head. “Guilty as sin.”

  “Then why would he hand himself in?”

  “He’s playing games. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what the rules are, but there’s definitely something he’s hoping to achieve. He wants to rescue Shane, doesn’t he?”

  “So he said.” Derwent rubbed a hand over his face. “Shit. And you really think he’s our killer?”

  “I have no reason to think anything else.”

  “Do you think he killed Angela?”

  “Very likely.”

  Derwent winced, as if the very idea hurt. “So how are we going to prove it?”

  “I’m going to go back and talk to the witness.”

  “Fat Stu?”

  “One and the same. He was so sure it was you he saw. What if it was Vinny? You were very alike. You still are.”

  “I’m better-looking,” Derwent said automatically. “I’ll come with you to speak to Stu.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I’d like to see him again.”

  I shook my head. “He’ll never talk if you’re there. Besides, it’s too late to go and see him tonight.”

  “Come on, Kerrigan. We work well together. We’re a team. Let me come with you.”

  “Give it a rest. I’ve got in enough trouble, thanks, because you want to be involved in my interviews.”

  “You’re not going to get anywhere without me. You need me.”

  “I really don’t,” I said, and started to walk away. Derwent hobbled after me.

  “Kerrigan, wait.”

  I picked up speed instead, leaving him behind.

  “This isn’t fair,” he yelled after me. “Taking advantage of my disability. I’m not going to forget this.”

  I didn’t stop. I did slow down, though, but just so I could walk backward for a couple of paces. I wanted to enjoy the look on his face as I waved good-bye.

  FRIDAY

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The following morning I headed off to see Stuart Sinclair. I had gone back to the office to check my desk the night before and got waylaid by a request from the officer investigating my bunch of flowers, asking for a full statement about previous incidences of harassment. When it came to Chris Swain I could have written a book about all that he’d done and threatened to do to me, and the harm he’d promised to those I loved, but I just gave her the edited highlights. Kev Cox had agreed to take charge of the evidence I’d collected. I met him at the flat so he could pick it up. He was, as ever, unfailingly cheerful, even when handed a bag full of suppurating meat. It would have been a low priority for the forensics lab but he promised me he’d get it looked at sooner rather than later.

  “I can’t go home until I know if it’s Swain,” I’d said to Kev, then wondered why I was in such a hurry to get back to the flat. It was cold, lonely and smelled a lot like work now that I’d had my very own bit of decomposing flesh in my home.

  I had decided against going back to Derwent’s flat to collect the stuff I’d left there; I’d had more than enough of him for one day. I packed a new bag and took a train out to Guildford, where Liv and Joanne were waiting to look after me and no one talked about work. Joanne found some arnica for my bruised neck, which made Liv snort, especially since she’d already slipped me some codeine. They were easy company. I laughed a lot. While the two of them were in the kitchen, squabbling over the recipe for the pasta sauce Joanne was making, I let myself think about Vinny Naylor, wondering if he was still being interviewed or if they would have stopped for the night.

  “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop.” Liv dropped down on the sofa beside me. “You look grim.”

  “That’s just my face.”

  “I think not.” She took my wine glass off the coffee table and handed it to me. “Have a drink and forget about it, whatever it was.”

  I clinked glasses with her and sipped the heavyweight Shiraz Joanne had opened, and I almost succeeded in forgetting, as instructed. Almost. At least, once the wine kicked in, I didn’t care so much anymore.

  So it was the next day, in the company of a vile hangover that I retraced my journey to West Norwood and found Stuart Sinclair’s house. I rang the doorbell and listened, resigned, to the ear-splitting screech from inside that told me Oliver was up and about, and in fine voice.

  It wasn’t Stuart who opened the door but his wife. She frowned at me, not quite recognizing me, and she looked different, too—jeans and a sweatshirt rather than the formal suit she’d worn the last time I’d seen her. Oliver was perched on her hip, wiping his nose on her shoulder. Her day for childcare, I thought, and smiled.

  “Sorry to bother you. I came to talk to Stuart a couple of days ago. I don’t know if you remember…”

  As she placed me, it was as if a steel shutter had slid down behind her eyes. The smile disappeared and she started to close the door. “Not interested, thank you. I said so at the time.”

  “Wait.” I held up my ID. “I’m a police officer.”

  She stopped, looking from my warrant card to me. “Seriously?”

  “Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan. I’m investigating a series of murders and I wanted to talk to Mr. Sinclair again. Is he in?”

  “Stuart?”

  “I just need some information from him,” I said quickly. “I’m not here to arrest him or anything like that. Do you know where he is?”

  Her expression was blank. “No idea. At his flat, probably.”

  “His…”

  “His flat,” she repeated. “Where he lives.” You moron, I heard in her tone.

  I was too confused to be suspicious. “This is going to sound like a really stupid question, but doesn’t Stuart live here?”

  “Here? No. What gave you that idea?”

  Well, actually, he did. Or I thought he had. Maybe I’d got it wrong. Maybe they were separated. “Do you mind me asking what your relationship is with Mr. Sinclair?”

  “He’s a friend.” She blushed. “A friend of a friend, really.”

  “He’s not your husband. Or your ex. He’s not Oliver’s dad.”

  “No. God, you don’t have a clue, do you?”

  “I must have misunderstood.” I must have been meant to misunderstand. In my mind, the pieces of the puzzle started to rearrange themselves to form a new picture, and I wondered how I could possibly have missed the way he had held the boy who was supposed to be his son. I wondered how I could possibly have thought he cared for him at all. And I wondered why anyone would lie to that extent, unless they had something to hide.

  “Do you know him well?”

  “Fairly. I don’t know. Quite well. He’s a friend.” She hefted Oliver, who had started to slip. “Look, what’s this about?”

  “If you don’t mind, I think it might be better if I came in so we can have a proper talk.”

  “I don’t really have time. I’m going out in five minutes.”

  “Not unless it’s urgent.” I put my foot across the threshold to stop her from closing the door. “I’m sorry, but this is important.”

  She had gone pale. “Is he in trouble? Has he done something?”

  “I’d just like to ask you a few questions about him.”

  “I left him with my baby. Are you saying he’s dangerous? Could he have harmed him?” Her voice was rising as she spoke, raw-edged with hysteria.

  “I really doubt it,” I said. I stepped inside the door and closed it. “Please, try to calm down.” Good advice for me too. My heart was thumping.

  She was holding Oliver so tightly her fingernails were digging into him and he started to sob. “It’s all right, shh baby, shh baby,” sh
e crooned, rocking him from side to side, but her eyes were wide and dark with terror.

  “There’s no suggestion he’s ever harmed a child in any way. Please, don’t worry.”

  She closed her eyes tightly, trying to calm herself. “Okay. Okay, I want to hear what you have to say. Of course I don’t have to go out. Let me just send my friend a message.”

  “Not Stuart,” I said sharply.

  “No.”

  “Don’t mention it’s about him. Make some other excuse.”

  She nodded, still struggling for composure. Oliver wriggled and shouted, trying to break free.

  I went into the kitchen and started to make mugs of tea. She sat down at the table and wrote a quick text, staring at me once she’d finished. Oliver wriggled off her knee and pounced on a toy snake that was on the floor.

  “I don’t know your name, I’m afraid.” Not Mrs. Sinclair, anyway.

  “Jenny Coppard.”

  “Jenny, how long have you known Stuart?”

  “Um.” She pulled her jumper down over her hands, thinking. “A few months. Maybe six months.”

  “How did you get to know him?”

  “Through a friend. She got talking to him one day in a café and they had a lot in common. Too much, she said, because she really fancied him but she’s married. She introduced us. I think she thought we might get together.” Jenny rolled her eyes. “I get a lot of that.”

  “Are you a single mum?”

  “Yeah. By choice. I split up with my husband just before Oliver was born.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “He was cheating on me. It’s tougher to be lied to all the time and taken for granted. What’s Stuart done?”

  “Maybe nothing.” I poured boiling water over the tea bags and went looking for milk. “But he definitely gave me the impression he lived here and Oliver was his child. He called you his wife.”

  “I don’t believe it.” She was red now, blushing. Flattered, in spite of her worries.

  “Do you know where he lives? The address, I mean?”

  She nodded, grabbed a flier for a pizza delivery place that was on the table and scrawled the address on it from memory. “Larchfield Mews. It’s about five minutes’ walk from here. I don’t know the postcode.”

  “Don’t worry.” I took it from her and put it away carefully, as if it was the Holy Grail and not junk mail. “So you’re just friends.”

  “Yes.” The blush was back.

  “Has he ever said anything to you that made you think he was romantically interested in you?”

  “All the time. But he’s like that. Flirty.”

  “Has it ever gone beyond flirting?”

  “He kissed me a week ago. We were playing around—I was trying to eat an ice cream and he said he wanted a bit and I wouldn’t let him have any and—well, he kissed me. And then he apologized. And I said it was all right, and he said that was good because he wasn’t really sorry. You know.”

  I did know. It was the sort of thing that a lonely woman with a small, demanding child would find charming. “But nothing else happened.”

  “No. I mean, there hasn’t been an opportunity. And I didn’t know if I should make the next move.” She shrugged.

  “When you left Oliver with him, was that Stuart’s idea?”

  “Yes. Well, I had a job interview. That wasn’t anything to do with him. But my mum couldn’t look after Oliver because she had a hospital appointment, and there isn’t really anyone else.”

  “So that was the first time.”

  “The only time.” She was back to looking anguished. “I put him down for a nap and then I went out. I left him.”

  “Jenny, I was here for most of the time he was alone with Oliver. Oliver was in bed when I arrived and he got up just before you came back. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  She put a hand to her head. “Oh, thank God.”

  I wasn’t going to tell her what I suspected. If he really was the Gentleman Killer, she’d find out soon enough. “What else can you tell me about him? Has he been living in West Norwood for long?”

  “No. He came back from Japan about a year ago. He was an English teacher there for a long time but he got tired of it. It was somewhere rural and he said the fun of it wore off after the first five years but he stayed because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. I think he was there for seven years in all.”

  “What does he do now?”

  “He teaches English as a foreign language in a college in Croydon.”

  And he had the income from renting out the family home, I happened to know. He’d be doing all right for money.

  “Does he live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “No. Not as far as I know,” she added, sounding disillusioned. She didn’t have much luck with finding trustworthy men, all things considered.

  I pressed her for any more information that she could give me, but there was nothing else useful. As we sipped tea and Oliver played, Jenny unwound enough to give me a fairly good idea of how hard she had fallen for Stuart, and how good he was at making himself indispensable. He’d never been violent to anyone as far as she knew. The idea shocked her. He’d helped people who needed it, buying groceries for frail neighbors, mowing Jenny’s lawn when it was overgrown. He was an all-round good guy, or pretended to be one. The more we talked, the more she forgot why I was there, and the more she spoke warmly of him. He was funny, and charming, and good at DIY.

  “The perfect man,” she said wistfully. “I thought, anyway.”

  “He’s clearly very good at getting people to trust him.” People, or maybe women. He presented himself as someone you could trust. Someone to like. Someone to let in when he knocked on your door.

  I had liked him, I remembered, and felt slightly sick.

  When I’d finished my tea and when Jenny was starting to repeat the same stories about Stuart I thanked her for her time and help, asked her not to mention that I’d been around, and left. I took a stroll down to Larchfield Mews, a charmless apartment building behind a small parade of shops, not far from the A road that cut through the area. You probably couldn’t see it from his flat, but you could definitely hear it. His flat was on the top floor, on the left, and I glanced up at the windows casually. No sign of life. The building had a small car park underneath it. A gate prevented me from getting into the premises to have a closer look, but I was sure one of the cars would belong to Stuart, and I was equally sure it would be worth a once-over.

  But I had no idea how I was going to persuade anyone to believe me. I was convinced that Stuart Sinclair was the Gentleman Killer, but that was based on the most tenuous of details. He had lied to me about where he lived and pretended to be a married father of one when he was nothing of the sort. That was strange, but not evidence of a murderous mind. He looked pleasant; he sounded plausible. His connection with Angela Poole was obvious, but his movements on the night of her death were a mystery. All I knew was that he had lied to me about what he’d seen and heard, and even then I wasn’t sure if it was a lie or a genuine mistake. He couldn’t have seen Derwent but he might have seen Vinny. By all accounts he had been a strange, withdrawn, unattractive teenager who’d become a handsome and outgoing adult. Nothing about that was screaming “killer” and yet everything was. And I knew that everyone thought Vinny was a cold-blooded killer—I had thought that myself—and Shane’s behavior was outwardly a lot more suspicious than Stuart’s, but I still knew. I knew.

  And I’d prove it if it killed me, I thought, not having the least idea that it might actually do just that.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Back in the office, I got on the phone to the Japanese embassy and pestered them until they put me through to someone who could look up Stuart Sinclair’s visa applications. The records showed he had settled in a place called Takayama in Gifu Prefecture and had a steady job teaching in a local high school. Based on what Jenny had said a
bout when he returned to the UK, it looked as if he had left in the middle of the school year, a long time before his visa was due to expire. It was getting on for midday in London and Japan was nine hours ahead, so I didn’t even bother trying to get in touch with the school. I put in a request for a Japanese-speaking translator and spent some time hunting around on the Internet for background information on Takayama and, more importantly, the telephone number for the local police. There was a chance that they would speak English, but since my Japanese was nonexistent and this was important, I wanted to understand everything they said. I didn’t know how long it would take—hours, probably—but I told myself to be patient and it sort of worked.

  He had found a beautiful spot, a tourist destination in the mountains with old buildings and pretty countryside nearby. It was snowy in winter and hot in summer and it looked like a picture-perfect place to live. I couldn’t imagine spending seven years there, but I was a city girl and I’d never done a lot of traveling. Freezing summer holidays in Donegal were no preparation for the exotic, even if they did make you hardy as a mountain sheep.

  Maitland stopped on his way past. “Booking a trip?”

  “Following something up,” I said. “Any luck with Vinny?”

  “Nope.”

  “Shane?”

  “Nope.”

  “Have either of them been charged yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Keep me informed, won’t you?”

  “Yep,” he said, grinning, then relented. “They’ve moved them to Charing Cross nick so they’re not such a long way off. Godley’s determined to persuade one or other of them to talk. He thinks one did it and the other knows about it, so it’s just a matter of waiting until the innocent one cracks. And they haven’t reached the custody time limit on either of them yet, luckily enough.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I’d have thought we’d have got somewhere by now. And we’ve still got nothing on the forensics, from either of them.” He shrugged. “We’re a long way from taking anything to the CPS, put it that way.”