“I think my mother was murdered,” she’d announced on arrival. She had eyed Murray with a determined air, as though he might be about to disagree. Murray had felt a rush of adrenaline. A murder. Who was duty DI today? Oh . . . Detective Inspector Robinson. That was going to rankle, reporting to a whippersnapper with fluff on his upper lip and five minutes in the job. But then Anna Johnson had explained that her mother had been dead a year and that in fact a coroner had already ruled on the death and pronounced it to be suicide. That was the point at which Murray had opened the door at the side of the front desk and invited Mrs. Johnson in. He suspected they were going to be some time. A dog trotted obediently at her feet, seemingly unfazed by its surroundings.
Now Anna Johnson twisted awkwardly behind her and took a handful of paper from inside the pram. As she did, her T-shirt rode up to reveal an inch of soft stomach, and Murray coughed hard and stared fiercely at the floor, wondering how long it took to feed a baby.
“Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death.” She spoke loudly, with a force Murray guessed was an attempt to override emotion. It made her voice strangely dispassionate, and at odds with her troubled eyes. “This came in the post.” She thrust the bundle of paper at Murray.
“I’ll get some gloves.”
“Fingerprints! I didn’t think . . . will I have destroyed all the evidence?”
“Let’s see what we’ve got first, Mrs. Johnson, shall we?”
“It’s Ms., actually. But Anna is fine.”
“Anna. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Murray returned to his seat and stretched the latex over his hands, in a gesture so familiar it was comforting. Putting down a large plastic evidence bag on the table between them, he laid out the pieces of paper. It was a card, crudely ripped into four.
“It didn’t come like that. My uncle . . .” Anna hesitated. “I think he was upset.”
“Your mother’s brother?”
“Father’s. Billy Johnson. Johnson’s Cars on the corner of Main Street?”
“That’s your uncle’s place?” Murray had bought his Volvo from there. He tried to remember the man who had sold it to him; pictured a smartly dressed fellow with hair carefully coiffured over a bald patch.
“It was my granddad’s. Dad and Uncle Billy learned the trade with him, but they went off to work in London. That’s where my parents met. When Granddad fell ill Dad and Billy went back to help him; then they took over the business when he retired.”
“And now the business belongs to your uncle?”
“Yes. Well, and me, I suppose. Although that’s a mixed blessing.”
Murray waited.
“Trade’s not great at the moment.” She shrugged, careful not to disturb the baby in her arms. Murray made a mental note to return to the detail of who had inherited what from Anna’s parents. For now, he wanted to examine the card.
He separated the pieces of card from the sections of envelope and laid them out together. He noted the celebratory image on the front of the card; the cruel juxtaposition with the anonymous message inside.
Suicide? Think again.
“Do you have any idea who might have sent this?”
Anna shook her head.
“How widely known is your address?”
“I’ve lived in the same house all my life. Eastbourne’s a small place; I’m not hard to find.” She switched the baby expertly from one side to the other. Murray examined the card again, until he concluded it was safe to look up. “After Dad died, we got a lot of post. Lots of sympathy cards, lots of people remembering cars he’d sold them over the years.” Anna’s face hardened. “A few weren’t so nice.”
“In what way?”
“Someone sent a letter saying Dad would burn in hell for taking his own life; another one just said Good riddance. All anonymous, of course.”
“That must have been incredibly upsetting for you and your mother.”
Anna shrugged again, but it was unconvincing. “Crackpots. People pissed off because of cars that didn’t work out.” She caught the look on Murray’s face. “Dad never sold a lemon. Sometimes you get a dud, that’s all. People want someone to blame.”
“Did you keep these letters? We could compare them to this one. See if it’s from someone holding a grudge.”
“They went straight in the bin. Mum died six months later and . . .” She looked at Murray, her train of thought abandoned in favor of something more pressing. “I came to see if you’d reopen the investigation into my parents’ deaths.”
“Is there anything else that makes you suspect they were murdered?”
“What more do you want?” She gestured to the card, lying in pieces between them.
Evidence, Murray thought. He took a sip of his tea to buy himself time. If he passed this to DI Robinson now, it would be dismissed by the end of the day. CID were up to their necks in live investigations; it would take more than one anonymous note and a funny feeling to make them reopen a cold case.
“Please, Mr. Mackenzie. I need to know for certain.” The control that Anna Johnson had shown all the time they’d been talking was starting to crack. “I never believed my parents would kill themselves. They were full of life. Full of ambition. They had big plans for the business.” The baby had finished feeding. Anna propped it on her knee, one outstretched hand beneath its chin, the other rubbing circles on its back.
“Your mother worked there, too?”
“She did the books and front of house.”
“Quite the family business.” Murray was heartened to hear there were still a few of them about.
Anna nodded. “When Mum was pregnant with me, she and Dad moved to Eastbourne to be closer to Dad’s parents. Granddad wasn’t doing too good, and it wasn’t long before Dad and Billy were running the show. Mum, too.” The baby was tired now, its eyes rolling in their sockets like drunks in the cells on a Saturday night. “And when she wasn’t working, she was raising money for her animal charity, or out campaigning.”
“Campaigning for what?”
Anna gave a short laugh. Her eyes glistened. “Anything. Amnesty International, women’s rights. Even bus services—although I don’t think she ever took a bus in her life. When she got behind something, she made things happen.”
“She sounds like a wonderful woman,” Murray said softly.
“There was a story on the news once. Years ago. I was at home with my parents, and it was on in the background. Some young lad who’d driven a moped off Beachy Head. They’d recovered the moped but not his body, and they showed his mum on the television, crying because she couldn’t even give him a proper burial.” The baby strained uncomfortably and Anna shifted position and patted it on the back. “We talked about it. I remember Mum watching with her hands over her mouth, and Dad being angry with the boy for putting his parents through it.” She tailed off, pausing her rhythmic patting to stare intently at Murray. “They saw what that boy did to his mother, and they would never, ever have done it to me.”
Tears welled in the corners of Anna’s eyes, finding the lines of her narrow nose and running in tandem toward her chin. Murray held out his handkerchief, and she took it gratefully, pressing it against her face as though brute force alone could hold back the tears.
Murray sat very still. There was much he could have said about the impact of suicide attempts, but he suspected it wouldn’t help Anna. He wondered if she’d been given the right support all those months ago. “You should have received a leaflet from the officers who dealt with your parents’ deaths. There are charities that support people bereaved by suicide. Groups you can go to; people you can see on a one-to-one basis.”
Some people found shared experiences a lifeline. They thrived in group therapy sessions, walking out stronger and better equipped to deal with their emotions. A problem shared . . .
But suicide support groups didn’t help everyone.
They hadn’t helped Murray.
“I saw a grief counselor.”
“Did it help?”
“I had a baby with him.” Anna Johnson gave a half sob, half laugh. Murray found himself laughing with her.
“Well, that does sound quite helpful.”
The tears had slowed. Anna’s smile was weak, but steady. “Please, Mr. Mackenzie. My parents didn’t commit suicide. They were murdered.” She pointed at the torn-up card. “And this proves it.”
It didn’t prove it. It didn’t prove anything.
But it did ask a question. And Murray had never been one to ignore an unanswered question. Perhaps he could take a look himself. Pull out the original files, read through the coroner’s reports. And when—if—there was something to investigate, he could hand over the package. He had the skills, after all. Thirty years in the job, and the best part of that on CID. You didn’t hand in your knowledge along with your warrant card.
He looked at Anna Johnson. Tired and emotional, but determined, too. If Murray didn’t help her, who would? She wasn’t the type to give up.
“I’ll request the files this afternoon.”
Murray had the skills, and he had the time. Lots and lots of time.
CHAPTER
SIX
You’re not allowed to go back. It upsets people. If there was a manual, that would be the first rule—Never go back—swiftly followed by rule number two: Never let yourself be seen.
You have to move on.
But it’s hard to move on when you’re a nonperson; when you’ve left behind the life you knew and haven’t yet begun a fresh one. When you’re stuck in no-man’s-land between this life and the next. When you’re dead.
I followed the rules.
I disappeared into this half-life, lonely and bored.
I miss my old life. I miss our house: the garden, the kitchen, the coffee machine you bought on a whim. And, vacuous though it sounds, I miss manicures and six-weekly highlights. I miss my clothes; my beautiful walk-in wardrobe of pressed suits and carefully folded cashmere. I wonder what Anna’s done with them all—if she’s wearing them.
I miss Anna.
I miss our daughter.
I spent her last year of school filled with dread for her first one at college. I was afraid of the emptiness I knew she’d leave; the influence she’d never know she had on us both. I was afraid of being lonely. Of being alone.
People used to say she was the spit of me, and we’d turn to each other and laugh, not seeing it. We were so different. I loved parties; Anna hated them. I loved to shop; my daughter was thrifty, making do and mending. We had the same mousy hair—I never did understand why she wouldn’t go blonde—and the same build, with a tendency to plumpness that bothered me more than it did her. I wear my new lightness well, I think, although I confess I mourn the compliments of friends.
The journey down takes longer than I anticipated, but my tiredness dissipates the second I set foot on familiar ground. Like a prisoner on parole I drink in my surroundings, marveling at how so much has changed for me, yet so much has stayed the same. The same trees, still bereft of leaves; a scene so identical to the one I left, it is as though I’ve stepped away for only a moment. The same busy streets and bad-tempered bus drivers. I catch sight of Ron Dyer, Anna’s old head teacher, and shrink back into the shadows. I needn’t have bothered—he stares right through me. People see what they want to see, don’t they?
I walk slowly along quiet streets, reveling in the illicit freedom I’ve seized for myself. Every action has a consequence; I haven’t broken these rules lightly. If I’m caught, I risk losing my next life, languishing instead in purgatory. A prison of my own making. But the buzz of being back is hard to ignore. My senses are tingling after so long away, and as I turn into the next street I feel a racing in my chest.
Nearly home. Home. I catch myself. Remind myself it’s Anna’s home now. I expect she’s made changes. She always loved the bedroom at the back, with the pretty sprigs of blue on the wallpaper, but I suppose it’s silly to imagine her there now. She’ll have taken over our bedroom.
For a second my defenses slide and I remember the day we went to see Oak View together. The previous owners, an elderly couple, had updated the electrics and connected the house to the main gas and waste lines, replacing the costly oil tank and the unpleasant septic tank still buried in the garden. Your father had already made an offer. All that was left for us to do was to breathe life into the place; to uncover the original doors and fireplaces and free the windows long since painted shut.
I slow my pace. Now that I’m here, I’m nervous. I focus on the two things I need to do: stop Anna going to the police and ensure that any evidence points to suicide, not murder.
But how?
A couple, walking arm in arm, turn into the street ahead of me. I step into a doorway, wait until they’ve passed, and use the time to calm myself. I need to make Anna understand the danger she’ll be in if she starts to question what she thinks she knows. How can I do that yet stay invisible? I imagine a cartoon ghost, rattling chains and wailing in the dead of night. Ridiculous. Impossible. Yet how else do I get a message to her?
* * *
• • •
I’m here. Outside our—Anna’s—house. I retreat to the opposite side of the street, and when even that feels too close I move into the gated park in the middle of the square, watching through the prickly branches of a holly bush. What if she isn’t home? I could hardly have called in advance to check. What if the risks I’ve taken to come down were all in vain? I could lose everything. Again.
A noise along the street makes me retreat farther behind the holly. I peer through the gloom onto the street. A woman, walking with a pram. She’s on the phone, walking slowly. Distracted. I keep watching the house, scanning each window for signs of activity.
The pram’s wheels make a rhythmic sound on the wet sidewalk. I remember pushing Anna around the forecourt at Johnson’s, between the cars, waiting for sleep to envelop her. We were just kids ourselves, barely scraping by on what your dad saw fit to pay us. The pram was a secondhand monstrosity, with a bouncing chassis that jerked Anna awake if we went over bumps. Nothing like the sleek modern affair this woman has.
She pauses by the house, and I tut, impatient for her to move on, in case I miss some movement beyond the open curtains. But she doesn’t walk by. And now I see that she isn’t alone. She has a dog with her, trotting in the shadows beside her. I feel a sharpness in my chest.
Is it . . . ?
The pram wheels crunch over gravel as she pushes it through the gates and to the front door. The stained-glass panel in the front door glows a soft red from the light in the hall.
It is.
The woman’s call ends and she slips her phone into a pocket. She takes out a key, and as she does so she pushes back her hood and I see mousy hair beneath the light above the door, and soft features above a mouth that was always quick to smile, only it isn’t smiling now, and there’s a pounding in my head, because it is her.
It’s Anna.
And a baby.
Our daughter has a baby.
She turns around to pull the pram up the steps into the hall, and for a second she looks out into the park and it feels as though she’s looking right at me. Tears glint on her cheeks. She shivers, pulls the baby into the safety of the hall, and closes the door.
Anna has a baby.
I have a grandchild.
And even though I know no one could have told me—that nothing cuts communication channels like a death certificate—I feel a rush of anger that this momentous transition from mother to grandmother has taken place without my knowing.
Anna has a baby.
This changes everything. It will change Anna. Motherhood will make her question everything she thought she knew; it will make her examine her li
fe, her relationships.
My death. Yours.
Having a baby makes Anna vulnerable. She has something now she loves more than anything else in the world. And when someone knows that, they can use it against you.
Don’t look for answers, Anna. You won’t like what you find.
If she goes to the police she’ll put herself, and her baby, in danger.
She’ll set something in motion that can’t be stopped.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
ANNA
I’ve been home for half an hour when the doorbell rings. Laura pulls me into a hug.
“Mark called me. He didn’t want you on your own when you were upset.” She gives me another squeeze, then gently pulls away and looks at me, assessing the damage. Guilt seeps through me. I shouldn’t have left that message for Mark—there’s nothing he could have done and now he’ll be worrying all afternoon, distracted from his course and from the drive home.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look it. Can we go inside? It’s bloody freezing out here.” There’s nothing to Laura—she’s tiny and skinny, with long blonde hair and a baby face that means she’s still asked for ID to buy booze, despite being over thirty.
I call Rita, who is standing on the driveway, barking at nothing.
“What’s up with her?”
“Invisible squirrels. She’s been like this all day. Rita!” Reluctantly the dog comes inside, and I can shut the door. I realize Laura’s in jeans, instead of the awful brown and orange uniform of the bank she started at a month ago. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“It didn’t pan out.” She shrugs off my concern. “It’s fine, honestly. I wasn’t enjoying it. Shall I put the kettle on?”
Let Me Lie Page 4