by CJ Hannon
‘Did that make you angry?’ Smithes asks.
Kathy shakes her head. ‘Disappointed, naturally. Confused. He didn’t want to see me anymore. It didn’t make any sense.’
She can almost hear the cogs in Bill’s brain turning. Now here is a motive. Kathy is right, they would have found out.
‘Let’s return to the night of his death,’ Smithes says, ‘now we understand the context… were you hoping for a reconciliation?’
‘Pathetic, aren’t I? I sent him a message earlier in the day telling him I’d be in our place. I went there and waited for him to come.’
‘You need to help us out a bit here, Kathy,’ Astrid jumps in. ‘Where did you meet? Martin’s Office?’
‘God, no! Way too risky. Melody had no idea about us, we’d never have risked that. We were so careful. Martin even had a tracker on Melody’s car so he knew when she was heading back from a call-out.’
You devious bastard, she thinks.
‘He’d thought it all through,’ Kathy glows with admiration. ‘He rented us a little bolt hole. Paid in cash.’
‘Where?’ Smithes asks.
‘Above the practice in a single bed flat.’
Astrid recalls one of the apartments was supposedly empty. And the mystery key. She desperately wants to ask, but sits on it. Best to keep on track with the timeline.
‘So, you went up to the flat and waited for him?’
‘Yes. I had a nap. I was so tired.’
‘How long for?’
‘When I woke it must have been gone half seven. I went home to spend the evening with my flatmate.’
Astrid doesn’t voice it, but this feels brittle. ‘Did you hear anything below? Any sounds?’
‘I was asleep,’ Kathy says. ‘But when I left, Martin’s light was on in his office.’
Smithes asks, ‘Why not just go in and see him, Ms Spellerman?’
‘It was one of our rules. Everything happened in the flat.’
‘Ms Spellerman. You lied to us about your alibi, why should we believe a word you’re saying now?’
‘Detectives, I will remind you that my client is being extremely co-operative and is in a fragile state of health. We won’t tolerate any bullying behaviour.’
Smithes fixes Barber with a stare. ‘That was not bullying behaviour, merely a statement of fact. Why should we believe you, Kathy? There’s something else you’re not telling us, isn’t there?’
‘No… I… I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Counsel requests a comfort break.’
Astrid whispers in Smithes’ ear, ‘Let’s have a break.’ She gives him a knowing look.
‘Granted. Interview suspended at eleven fourteen a.m.’
52
One month prior to the death
of Martin Kitteridge
Melody spits bile into the toilet bowl, wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Palms the button and the sick swirls down, like a retracted accusation.
‘Holy shit, you’re unfit,’ Ally barely disguises her amusement.
Even in the changing rooms, the faint sound of instructions being barked over music reaches them. ‘Am not. You could have stayed, you know.’
‘And miss the entertainment? Only ten minutes left anyway.’
‘Despite that, it was better than Zumba.’ Melody takes off her sweaty sports bra, undoes her ponytail and slides the band over her wrist and stumbles into a shower cubicle. Cranked fully to blue, blissfully powerful jets lance her skin with water so cold it could be glacial meltwater.
Ally is showering in the cubicle next to her, shampoo foam flooding underneath the partition. ‘Left, right, jab and kick!’
‘Be saying that in my sleep tonight.’ Melody wonders if she’ll ever be able to lift her arms above her head again.
Home. Martin’s cooked dinner, the table laid, a chicken breast with some sort of cream sauce on it, chips and peas. No candle – thank God, she’s too tired for romance.
‘How was… what was it she dragged you to? Boxercise?’
‘She didn’t drag me, exactly.’ She slumps into her chair, pours out a generous glass of Verdejo. She’s earned it. She’s ravenous and saws into her meat, prongs a chip, dips it all in the pool of sauce. He’s overdone the chicken a little. ‘I am hungry.’
Martin raises a glass of beer. ‘Enjoy.’
She gobbles down the meal, sets down her cutlery neatly together, the plate bare.
‘The couch calls. I’m in the mood for something that’s borderline unwatchable and bed. You?’
‘Let’s talk.’
She’s too tired. Has he no radar for these things? Another part of her chastises herself. After all, he made an effort with dinner, even though she could deduct points for the frozen chips and peas, not to mention the chicken. What was it with him? He could competently conduct thoracic keyhole surgery in a mammal, yet timing how long to cook a breast of chicken was beyond his ken.
‘Come on, Moody.’
She leans back, cradling her glass in her palm. ‘Fine.’
‘I’m afraid it’s on your favourite topic.’
‘What else?’
Martin looks up, like he’s choosing his words carefully. ‘Do you think it’s worth us getting a second opinion?’
She stares into the wine, and longs to swim in its pleasing grass colour, something akin to the White Lead shades by Little Green; a blend between Mid and Deep.
‘I’ve come to terms with it now, Martin. We’re fine as we are. The two of us.’
‘A second opinion,’ Martin repeats, ‘is just sensible.’
‘The doctor was pretty unequivocal.’
‘Pretty unequivocal? The modifier “pretty” meaning quite in this instance, just doesn’t ring true for such an absolutist term.’
‘I’m tired,’ she says sleepily. ‘Didn’t realise I had to do battle with the bloody Oxford dictionary.’
‘Which doctor did you say it was again? Mr Pretty Unequivocal?’
A sip of wine, seconds she squanders. ‘A consultant… I can’t forget his name now. Remember, I mean.’
‘If you can’t even remember his name, how–’
‘Her name.’ She jumps on it, something to latch on to, to go on the offensive with. ‘Why would you assume it’s a man, automatically? Are you a misogynist, Martin?’
He gives her an ugly smile, ‘Let’s stay on topic, shall we? What is there to lose in seeking a second opinion?’
‘Time,’ she says, petulantly.
‘An hour, tops. Come on. Your boxercise class was shorter than that.’
‘More disappointment. Why get our hopes up again? Can’t we just be content with what we have?’
‘No!’ He hits the table with his fist. The cutlery and plates jump. ‘This shouldn’t be some great revelation to you, Moody! I told you I wanted a family.’
‘I…’ the force of his anger shocks her.
‘Or is it that you don’t want to?’
‘Both,’ she manages, he’s taking advantage of her tiredness to trap her. The world spins a moment, she rests her hand on the table.
‘Have you been deceiving me, Moody?’
Where was this coming from? She pushes her chair back, wipes her mouth with a napkin. ‘I can’t, OK? I threw up after the class. She absolutely beasted us, that sadist. I’m going to bed.’
He gives her a hard look, nods. ‘Of course. Let’s put this off. Again.’
‘Let’s.’ She places her napkin down.
‘Oh, before I forget, I took a call for you today.’
Her muscles ache so much she’s not sure she can even push herself up to stand. How humiliating. ‘Oh? Who from?’
‘Some medical company, a survey. She’ll try you again tomorrow about five. Ring any bells?’
Sluggish, can’t think. ‘Medical company? A survey? Spam probably.’
‘You look stressed, Moody.’ He pushes back h
is chair and positions himself behind her. Hands on her shoulders, strength concealed in the circular movements of his fingers and thumbs. ‘You’re so tense.’
‘Come on, you know I don’t like…’
‘Being touched?’
‘Massages.’ She leans, trying to make out the label on the bottle of wine, but the light’s too bad. ‘What percentage is this?’
‘Enough.’
Her arm lifts up, involuntarily. Like she’s a puppet being controlled by a string master ‘What are you doing?’
Martin’s grip is firm, hurts, he rolls up the sleeves to the armpit. ‘You lying bitch!’
‘What the–? Martin, get off!’ Her wine glass tumbles, rolls in an arc and smashes on the floor.
‘The medical company was the parent company of Implanon, Moody. I googled it!’
She realises, then. Her breath is too short. ‘You’ve drugged me?’ She can’t diagnose her symptoms, a muscle relaxant, almost certainly, but something else too.
He runs a thumb over the little bump, squints at the tiny scar. ‘Now, why would someone who is allegedly incapable of conceiving bother with a birth control implant?’
She tries to move her arm but it doesn’t move, there’s no power there. ‘Martin, I–’
‘But that’s odd, right? Because you’ve still being having your period. Only what do I find at the back of your wardrobe?’ He produces her box of Tampax and joke shop blood. ‘You devious manipulative bitch!’ he spits through gritted teeth. ‘I agree with you on one thing. No need for a second opinion. I think we’ve found the root cause of our problems, darling.’
Her eyelids are heavy, the ceiling spotlights melt, converge, and split apart like supernovas.
‘It’s a simple procedure, I’ve looked it up on their website. Piece of piss actually. Hold steady. No anaesthetic handy, I’m afraid.’ He holds up a serrated table knife, the metal catching the ceiling light a moment. ‘This will probably work, you think?’
She tips back on the chair. There’s the ceiling, the crunch of glass as he steps on her fallen wine glass. It grinds as his weight shifts. Martin leans, a shadow with curly black hair like a clown in silhouette.
‘No… don’t…’ Flexing her fingers, toes. It’s all she has.
Her arm is trapped by Martin’s knee, squashing the top of her bicep, pressing the muscle into her upper humerus. His elbow jerks back and forth in a sawing motion.
Pain, hot, fiery pain. She can’t scream, just gasps.
Gritted teeth, sprays of saliva. ‘Bitch. Lying bitch!’
She closes her eyes, grinds her teeth through the pain. The sawing stops, the knife tingles onto the floor. The pain remains, so hot it’s like someone is holding a lighter on her skin.
She opens her eyes. He’s bent over her arm, fingers slicked with blood, her blood, invading, dislodging.
‘Got it, honey, it’s out now. You can relax, you’re fertile now!’
He stands. A surge of blood rushes out, pulsing out of the mess of her wound. Martin tips the wine bottle sloppily over the bleeding entry point. A sting of cold. Her wine mixes with the bright red blood into a morbid rosé. He lazily ties a bandage into a loose tourniquet.
‘You can sort yourself out later. Raise your arm up above your head at least, Moody, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Can’t,’ she gasps.
‘Of course. Allow me.’ The confusion of desire and hatred in him frightens her to the very innards of her being.
No. He won’t cave in. Not ever. Neither will she.
He stands, watching her, breathing loudly through his nose, then nods. ‘No time like the present.’
He yanks down her joggers, pants, parts her legs and stares.
‘Beautiful. Like the folds of a rose.’
Hot tears run down her cheeks. It’s not for what is happening…it’s the how. The utter helplessness, robbed completely of her power, her will, to not even be able to bite, to kick and slap him.
The clink of a belt buckle. He’s touching himself now, pulling with rapid tugs, eyes closed. ‘Come on, come on,’ he says to himself. He grabs her mouth. ‘Say that you deserve this’
She won’t give him it.
‘Say that you fucking deserve this, Moody! You are mine!’
Her eyes speak for her with an iron will her body cannot match. No.
Martin lets out a sob, lowers his weight onto her and the air presses out from her lungs. He enters, crying, trembling, tears roll and land on her cheek. But he’s not hard.
He tries a few angry thrusts punctured by sobs, but it doesn’t get him going. Her cold disdain rushes to meet him. He looks away, bunches his eyes up.
‘This isn’t over, Moody!’ Stringy mucus in his mouth. Raw eyes. He yanks up his trousers and stumbles away. ‘It isn’t over!’
Is he coming back? She lies. Listens. Can’t tell. Some cocktail of shock and defiance rolls around her body, while her arm throbs an angry beat.
How long until she can move again?
Time.
Time to think. To plan.
Martin’s right.
It is not over.
53
Astrid
‘You want one?’ Smithes fishes in his pocket for change.
‘Please.’
Smithes feeds coins into the coffee machine. Astrid contemplates the evidence bag she holds, containing the mystery key. ‘Tenner says it’s the one to their lovers’ nest.’
Smithes stabs a button with a finger. ‘I’m not taking that bet. She’s on the hook, let’s reel her in.’
Back in the interview room. Astrid presents the key to Kathy.
‘Looks the same.’ Kathy takes out a set of keys, and wriggles one from the ring.
‘May I?’ Astrid holds it up to the light, overlays it with the mystery key. ‘Identical.’
Smithes nods to the door. She ducks out and instructs Collins and Hussain to get a forensics team together to go through the apartment.
When she returns, Kathy is reading one of the sheets of e-mails they'd recovered.
‘Can you confirm that you wrote these emails to Martin Kitteridge?’ Smithes says.
Kathy Spellerman drains of colour. ‘No comment.’
‘We’ve traced them to your IP address, Kathy,’ Astrid says gently.
Spellerman nods twice, tears suddenly welling in her eyes.
‘Could you confirm for the video and audio please?’
‘Yes,’ she gasps.
Astrid tugs a tissue from the box, hands it over.
‘And this snake symbol?’ Smithes points at the circled snake emoji on every page.
The lawyer waves her on to answer. ‘It was Martin’s pet name for me.’
‘A snake?’ Astrid can’t help but exclaim.
‘Cobra. He said I had sexy curves… God, it sounds so stupid now.’ She bunches the tissue in her fist, holds it to her nose.
‘How much do you know about snakes, Kathy?’
‘Nothing, really.’
Astrid places more photographs in front of Kathy. The first, the newspaper clipping of her with Martin Kitteridge handling the snakes from the Argus article.
‘But that was just a little thing for school, years ago!’
‘And this?’ Astrid places a photograph taken from Kathy’s Facebook account showing the tattoo of a recently minted cobra, red raw around the edges.
‘Two years ago! It’s just a tattoo.’
‘This is all highly circumstantial,’ the lawyer says. ‘None of this would hold any water in court.’
‘Okay, then let’s firm things up, shall we? Do you recognise this man?’ Smithes places a headshot of Olaf Gudmundson in front of her.
‘Never seen him before in my life.’
‘Interesting. Because he knows you, Ms Spellerman. He claims you bought a venomous cobra snake off him in November.’
‘He must be mixing me up with somebody else…’
‘Was that when you started planning all this, Kathy? Late November, after your abortion?’
‘Don’t answer that.’ Barber, the lawyer is scribbling a note.
‘But… this is utter crap!’ Kathy says.
‘Your prints were found on the whisky bottle that was spiked with sedative found in Martin’s bloodstream.’
‘Don’t a–’
‘But I’ve told them already. I only picked it up to look at the label to see what sort of brand he liked!’
Astrid can barely breathe. With each word, Spellerman incriminates herself further.
Smithes must sense it too, because he says, ‘Martin treated you terribly. Anyone would behave out of character, when treated like that.’
She joins the attack. Softly, softly be damned. ‘You must see how this all looks, Kathy? Martin ends your affair; makes you have an abortion. Martin, this man you loved, called you a cobra in bed, your little secret name for one another. You’re not a bad person, you just wanted to get him back for what he did to you, didn’t you, Kathy?’
Tears roll down Kathy’s cheeks. ‘No… I… loved him.’
‘She’s already said she didn’t do it. Unless you have any real questions, I think we best leave it there, Detectives,’ Barber says, a little wild-eyed.
‘Then let me just say this.’ Smithes stands and Astrid’s heart is beating out of its chest, knowing what’s coming. ‘Katherine Spellerman, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Martin Kitteridge. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Astrid snaps on her gloves. She looks up at the Edwardian house, at the coveralled people moving about in the top window. All along, it had been just there. There is just a stain where the Kitteridge sign used to be. Now a For Lease sign is tied with wire to the front gate.
She follows Smithes around to the side entrance, and up the stairs.
Pete Wade from forensics squeezes past them down the stairs, nodding to them.
‘Pete,’ they both say.
‘So, this was where they met,’ Bill says when they reach the top.