“The tide’s high. There’s nothing there. I can’t see him.”
Coastal Rescue was in the water within minutes, but it was already too late. There was no sign of Tom Johnson.
Murray took a steadying breath. He wondered how Ralph Metcalfe, the coroner, coped with hearing stories about the dead, day in, day out. He wondered whether he got used to it or whether he went home and sank into a bottle of something to numb the senses.
Officers had scoured the area where Mrs. Brent-Taylor had described seeing Tom go over the edge. They had found his wallet and his mobile phone, the screen still showing the frantic messages from his wife.
Where are you?
Don’t do this.
We need you . . .
Police had broken the news to Caroline Johnson in the kitchen of her home, where she had been surrounded by family. A photocopied pocket notebook entry from PC Woodward listed the names, occupations, and contact details of the friends and family who had gathered to support Caroline.
William (Billy) Johnson. Director at Johnson’s Cars. Brother-in-law.
Robert Drake. Consultant surgeon, Royal Sussex. Neighbor.
Laura Barnes. Receptionist at Hard as Nails. Goddaughter.
Anna Johnson’s details—Regional Coordinator for Save the Children. Daughter—had been recorded on a later page, suggesting she had arrived after PC Woodward had taken the initial roll call.
In the days following Tom Johnson’s death, numerous inquiries had been carried out as CID officers had put together a file for the coroner. The content of Tom’s smartphone had been extracted, including Web searches made in the early hours of 18 May for: Beachy Head suicide location and tide times Beachy Head. Murray noted that high tide had occurred at 10:04 A.M., Diane Brent-Taylor’s call coming in less than a minute later. The water would have been around six meters deep at that point. Easily deep enough to swallow a man weighed down with rocks, the undertow dragging him out past the tide line. If his body was ever recovered, what would be left of him, nineteen months on? Would there be anything to say whether Tom Johnson was alone on the edge of the cliffs that morning?
The witness, Diane Brent-Taylor, hadn’t seen anyone with Tom. She’d refused to give a statement or to attend an inquest. After several telephone conversations, during which Diane had been evasive to the point of obstruction, the police call handler had finally established that Diane had been on Beachy Head with a married man with whom she had been having an affair. The clandestine couple had been as anxious to keep their rendezvous a secret as the police were to take a statement, and nothing could persuade Diane to commit her name to paper.
The timeline in Murray’s notebook was complete. The investigation into Tom Johnson’s death had been concluded within a fortnight, the file submitted, and the CID officers assigned to other jobs. There had been a delay of several months while permission had been obtained to hold an inquest without a body, but as far as the investigation was concerned, the job was done. Suicide. Tragic, but not suspicious. End of story.
Except was it?
There were several CDs in the box file of CCTV footage seized during the immediate fear for Tom Johnson’s welfare. They didn’t appear to have been viewed, and Murray imagined the case had already reached its sad conclusion before the officers had had a chance to look at the hours of footage they potentially contained. Could the disks hold evidence of a crime so well hidden it was never even identified as one?
The brand-new Audi, taken by Tom from Johnson’s Cars on the day he disappeared, had been given a cursory search, but with everything pointing toward suicide, not murder, no budget was allocated for forensic testing. Like the CCTV, though, evidence had been secured, and Murray wondered if there was any point in submitting the swabs and stray hairs seized from the car.
But what would that prove? There was no suspect with whom to compare evidence seized, and the car was a forecourt special; who knew how many test-drives it had hosted?
More pertinently, how would Murray get a submission signed off when he wasn’t even supposed to be dealing with the job? So far nothing Murray had found suggested anything was amiss in the coroner’s verdict of suicide.
Perhaps Caroline Johnson’s file would yield more interest.
The police response to Anna Johnson’s 999 call had been swift and extensive. The family’s address was already flagged, and this time there was no question of grading Caroline Johnson as anything other than a high-risk vulnerable MISPER.
“My father’s death hit her hard,” Anna Johnson’s statement read. “I had started working from home so I could keep an eye on her—I was really worried. She didn’t eat, she was jumpy every time the phone rang, and some days she wouldn’t even get out of bed.”
So far, so normal, Murray thought. Grief hit everyone in a different way, and bereavement by suicide carried an extra burden. Guilt—however misplaced—weighed heavy on the soul.
On 21 December Caroline Johnson had told her daughter she needed some air.
“She’d been distracted all day,” Anna had said. “I kept catching her looking at me, and twice she told me she loved me. She was behaving oddly, but I put it down to the fact that we were both dreading our first Christmas without Dad.”
At lunchtime Caroline went to get milk.
“She took the car. I should have realized straightaway something was wrong—we always get milk from the shop at the end of the road. It’s quicker to walk. As soon as I noticed the car had gone, I knew something awful was going to happen.”
The police were called at three P.M. A response officer who knew the family’s history, and with too many Beachy Head jobs under his belt to be optimistic, had phoned the chaplaincy office. For years the charity had offered crisis intervention, proactive patrols, and search teams, all aimed at reducing Beachy Head’s annual death toll. An eager chaplain had confirmed that, yes, he had indeed seen a woman matching that description, but that the officer could rest easy; she hadn’t jumped.
Murray put down Anna Johnson’s statement and found the entry on the call log where the update from the attending officer, PC 956 Gray, had been posted:
Chaplain states he had a long conversation on edge of cliff with an IC1 female in her fifties. Subject was in a distressed state and carrying rucksack filled with stones. Subject stated her name was Caroline and that she had recently lost her husband to suicide.
The chaplain had talked Caroline back from the edge.
“I waited while she took the stones out of her rucksack,” his statement read. “We walked back to the car park. I told her God was always ready to listen. To forgive. That nothing was so bad God wouldn’t help us through it.”
Murray admired those whose faith gave them such immense peace of mind. He wished he felt that depth of belief when he went into a church, but there were too many terrible things in the world for him to accept that they were all part of God’s grand plan.
Had even the chaplain’s faith been shaken by what happened next? Had he sent up a prayer to help him come to terms with it?
Caroline’s photo had been circulated, additional patrols sent to Beachy Head. Coast guard rescue worked in conjunction with the police, with the chaplaincy, as they were so often required to do. Volunteers and salaried officers working side by side. Different backgrounds, different training, but the same aim. To find Caroline Johnson alive.
Caroline’s phone had been identified as being at or near Beachy Head, and just after five P.M., her handbag and mobile phone were found by a dog walker on the edge of the cliff. The tide had been at its highest at 4:33 P.M. that day.
A BMW, parked in the car park at Beachy Head with the keys in the ignition, was quickly traced back to Johnson’s Cars, where Billy Johnson confirmed that the description given by the chaplain matched that of his sister-in-law, Caroline Johnson, a fellow director of Johnson’s Cars, and the recent widow of Billy’s brother,
Tom Johnson.
With the exception of the suicide texts—Caroline had sent none—it was a carbon copy of Tom Johnson’s suicide, seven months previous. How must Anna have felt, to answer the door to another policeman with his hat in his hands? To sit in the kitchen with the same friends and family gathered around? Another investigation, another funeral, another inquest.
Murray put down the file and let out a slow sigh. How many times had Sarah tried to take her own life?
Too many to count.
The first had come a few weeks into their relationship, when Murray had gone to play squash with a colleague instead of seeing Sarah. He had returned home to find seven messages on his answerphone, each more desperate than the one before.
Murray had panicked that time. And the next. Sometimes there were months between attempts; on other occasions Sarah would try several times a day to end her life. It would be these times that would prompt another stay at Highfield.
Gradually he had learned that what Sarah needed was for him to be calm. To be there. Not judging, not panicking. And so he would come home and hold her, and if she didn’t need to go to the hospital—as, more often than not, she didn’t—Murray would bathe her arms and gently wrap gauze across the cuts, and reassure her he wasn’t going anywhere. And only when Sarah was in bed—the lines on her forehead smoothed out by sleep—would Murray put his head in his hands and weep.
Murray rubbed his face. Focus. This job was supposed to fill some time. Distract him from thinking about Sarah, not send him down memory lanes he wished he’d never traveled.
He looked at his notebook, now filled with his neat handwriting. Nothing seemed out of place. So why would someone question Caroline’s death? To stir up trouble? To upset Anna?
Suicide? Think again.
Something transpired that day that wasn’t in the police file. Something the investigating officers hadn’t seen. It happened. Not often, but it happened. Sloppy detectives, or simply busy ones. Prioritizing other cases; filing the dead ends when perhaps—just perhaps—there were more questions to ask. More answers to find.
Murray picked up the final sheaf of paperwork: miscellaneous documents in no apparent order—a photograph of Caroline Johnson, a copy of the contact list from her phone, and a copy of Tom Johnson’s life insurance policy.
Murray looked at the latter. And looked again.
Tom Johnson had been worth a considerable amount of money.
Murray hadn’t seen Anna’s house, but he knew the street—a quiet, sought-after avenue with its own gated park—and properties there didn’t come cheap. Murray assumed the house would have been jointly owned by the Johnsons and would since have passed to their daughter, as would, he imagined, the payout from Tom’s hefty life insurance policy. And that was before you factored in the family business, of which Anna now had joint control.
Whichever way you looked at it, Anna Johnson was an extremely wealthy woman.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
ANNA
I fumble with my phone, finding recent calls and pressing Mark’s number as I tiptoe into the hall toward the stairs, Ella in my arms. I silently beseech her not to make a sound.
And then three things happen.
The crunch of gravel beneath feet becomes the solid tap of shoes on steps.
The tinny ringing of Mark’s phone at my ear is mirrored by a louder version coming from outside the house.
And the front door opens.
When Mark walks into the house, his ringing mobile still in his hand, he finds me standing in the hall, wild-eyed and high from the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
“You rang, m’lady?” He grins and taps his phone to end the call.
Slowly, I lower my own mobile from my ear, my heart rate refusing to accept that the danger has passed. I laugh awkwardly, relief making me as light-headed as fear did a moment ago.
“I heard someone walking around outside. I thought they wanted to get in.”
“Someone did. Me.” Mark comes forward to kiss me, Ella sandwiched between us. He drops a kiss on our daughter’s forehead, then takes her from my arms.
“You were creeping about. Why didn’t you come straight in?” My irritated tone is unfair, a by-product of the panic slowly dissipating through my bloodstream.
Mark tilts his head to one side and surveys me with more patience than my shortness merits. “I was putting the bins out. It’s collection day tomorrow.” He addresses Ella in a singsong voice. “Isn’t it? Yes, it is!”
I squeeze my eyes closed for a beat. The dragging noise that might have been a ladder. The thud of the door to the trash can shed. Noises so familiar I should have known instantly what they were. I follow Mark into the sitting room, where he turns on the lights and settles Ella in her beanbag chair.
“Where’s Laura?”
“I sent her home.”
“She said she’d stay! I’d have come back earlier—”
“I don’t need a babysitter. I’m fine.”
“Are you?” He takes each of my hands in his and holds my arms wide. I wriggle away from his inspection.
“Yes. No. Not really.”
“So where’s this card?”
“The police have got it.” I show him the same photos I showed Laura and watch him zoom in on the writing. He reads aloud.
“Suicide? Think again.”
“You see? My mother was murdered.”
“That’s not what it says, though.”
“But that’s the implication, isn’t it?”
Mark looks at me thoughtfully. “Alternatively, it was an accident.”
“An accident?” My incredulity is clear. “Why not just say that, then? Why the sinister message? The tacky card?”
Mark sits down with a long sigh that I think—I hope—is less about me and more about having spent the day in a stuffy classroom. “Perhaps someone’s trying to point the finger. Negligence rather than a deliberate act. Who’s responsible for maintaining the cliff edges?”
I say nothing, and when he continues, his voice is softer.
“You see what I mean, though; it’s ambiguous.”
“I suppose it is. Except Mum left her handbag and phone on the edge of the cliff, which would be a weird thing to happen accidentally as you fell . . .”
“Unless she’d put them down first. So she didn’t drop them. She was looking over the edge, or trying to rescue a bird, and the edge crumbled, and—”
I sit down heavily next to Mark. “Do you really think it was an accident?”
He twists around so we’re facing each other. When he speaks, it’s gentle, and he keeps his eyes trained on mine. “No, sweetheart. I think your mum was desperately unhappy after your dad died. I think she was more unwell than anyone could have known. And”—he pauses, making sure I’m listening—“I think she took her own life.”
Nothing he’s saying is new to me, yet my heart drops back into my stomach and I realize how much I wanted his alternative narrative to be true. How ready I am to grab on to a lifeline that hasn’t even been thrown.
“All I’m saying is that everything’s open to interpretation. Including this card.” He puts my phone facedown on the coffee table, the photos obscured. “Whoever sent it wants to mess with your head. They’re sick. They want a reaction. Don’t give it to them.”
“The man at the police station put it in an evidence bag. He said they’d check for fingerprints.” They’re taking it seriously, I want to add.
“Did you see a detective?”
“No, just the man who works on the front desk. He was a detective for most of his service, and when he retired he came back as a civilian.”
“That’s dedication.”
“It is, isn’t it? Imagine loving your job so much you don’t want to leave it. Even after you’ve retired.”
; “Or you’re so institutionalized you can’t imagine doing anything else?” Mark yawns, his hand too late to catch it. From the front, his teeth are a perfect pearly white, but from this angle I can see the amalgam fillings in his upper molars.
“Oh. I hadn’t looked at it that way.” I think of Murray Mackenzie with his careful concern and insightful comments, and whatever the reason, I’m glad he’s still working for the police. “Anyway, he was lovely.”
“Good. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is put it out of your mind.” He scoots to the corner of the sofa, his legs stretched out, and raises one arm in invitation. I slide into our well-worn position, snuggled under his left arm with his chin resting lightly on the top of my head. He smells of cold air and something I can’t quite pinpoint . . .
“Have you been smoking?” I’m curious, that’s all, but even I can hear the judgment that lies beneath the surface of my words.
“A couple of drags, after we finished. Sorry, do I stink?”
“No, I . . . I just didn’t know you smoked.” Imagine not knowing your partner smokes . . . But I’ve never seen him with a cigarette. Never even heard him mention it.
“I quit years ago. Hypnotherapy. It’s what made me go into counseling, actually. Have I not told you this story? Anyway, every few months I light one, have a few drags, then stub it out. It reminds me I’m the one in control.” He grins. “There’s logic to it, I promise. And don’t worry—I would never do it around Ella.”
I settle back into him. I tell myself it’s exciting that we’re still discovering things about each other—what we have in common; what sets us apart—but right now mystery isn’t what I need in my life. I wish Mark and I knew each other inside out. That we’d been childhood sweethearts. I wish he’d known me before Mum and Dad died. I was a different person then. Curious. Amused. Amusing. Mark doesn’t know that Anna. He knows bereaved Anna; pregnant Anna; Anna the mother. Sometimes, when Laura or Billy is around, I’ll lose myself in a time before Mum and Dad died, and I’ll feel like the old me again. It doesn’t happen often enough.
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