The Deadly Truth

by Valerie Keogh

  She couldn’t shake off the lethargy to find the words to reply, to thank him for being with her, for looking out for her. Maybe there were no words. Without waiting for him to leave the room, she pulled back the duvet and climbed into bed.

  The painkillers must have been strong. Within a very short time, the pain had eased and she slipped into a deep sleep.

  It wasn’t pain or even the light that shone through the open curtains that woke her. It was the sense of despair that made her completely alert within seconds, the events of the previous day cascading around her, all of it so unbelievable that if it weren’t for the discomfort in her hand, she’d have thought that maybe it had been a dream, or a nightmare. She’d no idea of the time or how long she’d been asleep. The house was quiet. Perhaps she was alone.

  Her mouth was dry and her head thumping. She needed a drink. Throwing back the duvet, she sat on the edge of the bed until her head stopped swimming. The painkillers sat on the bedside table, she guessed they’d been responsible for her deep sleep. Her hand ached but she had a vague idea that she’d agreed to DI Elliot coming around to take a statement and wanted to have her wits about her. After everything she’d been through, she could handle an ache.

  The T-shirt she wore was heavy cotton and far preferable to wear than the bloodstained clothes that were strewn on the floor. She opened the bedroom door and listened, her head tilting slightly as she heard the faint murmur of voices. Edging down the stairway, she stopped when the voices were a little clearer but she was still unable to hear what they said or identify the voices. Both were male, it was a fair bet it was Quinn and Elliot.

  There being no point lurking on the stairs, she took the last few steps down to the hallway. Old, probably original Victorian tiles covered the floor. They were cold under her bare feet, reminding her of that terrifying moment when she’d stepped into the bath. Caitlin’s murderous screams seemed to echo in her ears and it was a few minutes before Melanie had the strength to move.

  An ornate coat stand stood inside the front door. She recognised Elliot’s rather tatty brown raincoat. The only other garment hanging from it was a brown man’s jacket. No female’s coat, no children’s clutter. It looked as if Quinn might live alone.

  The voices were coming from a room at the end of the hall. She hesitated outside, then with the bravery that comes with having known terror, she grabbed hold of the handle and pushed the door open. She held onto it as conversation died and the two men turned and jumped to their feet. ‘Hi.’ It was all she could manage.

  The room wasn’t large and it was cluttered, every surface covered with paraphernalia. The kitchen, which had probably started its life as a galley-kitchen, lay along one wall. Most of the rest of the room was occupied by the overlarge table where the men had been seated.

  ‘Sit down,’ Quinn said, pulling out a chair. ‘I’ll make fresh coffee.’

  ‘Thank you, coffee is just what I need.’ Melanie slid onto the chair, pulling the T-shirt down over her knees. Looking up, she caught DI Elliot’s sympathetic gaze and gave him a slight smile.

  ‘How’s the hand?’

  She lifted her bandaged hand and twisted it back and forward. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, ignoring the twinge as she rested it on the table in front of her. ‘I can’t complain, I’m here to tell you my tale, there was a time yesterday when I didn’t think I would be.’

  Elliot’s face was sombre as he jerked his head towards Quinn. ‘You can thank Liam.’

  Raising her eyebrow in surprise, she looked over to where he was filling a cafetière. ‘It sounds like we all have a tale to tell.’ She waited until coffee was in front of her, took a sip and sighed. ‘Right,’ she said firmly. ‘You first.’

  Elliot smiled. ‘Simple, really. After I left you in the pub, I headed back to the station. To my surprise, Liam was waiting for me.’

  ‘I was worried.’ Quinn took over the story. ‘Someone was telling you lies about me so you wouldn’t trust me. Now why would someone do that? I decided it was worth speaking to Sam to see if he knew what was going on. Luckily for me,’ he said, throwing her a sharp glance, ‘I had a strong alibi for the morning Eric Thomas was killed.’

  She looked from one to the other. ‘I still don’t understand; how did you know it was Caitlin?’

  Quinn smiled. ‘I remembered you’d said, Thanks to Caitlin, you knew all about me. When I told Sam that…’

  ‘What you didn’t know, Melanie,’ Elliot explained, ‘is that DI Ballantyne has been the focus of an investigation by police standards and the IOPC. The Independent Office for Police Conduct,’ he clarified, seeing Melanie’s blank look. ‘I don’t know all the details but suffice to say they were closing in on her. When Liam said Caitlin had told you about him, I checked, and as you know, everything she’d told you was a lie.’

  ‘She fooled me completely.’ Melanie’s voice was heavy with despair and a crippling sadness.

  Elliot frowned. ‘She fooled a lot of people.’ His expression was grim. ‘If you hadn’t told me about Wethersham and those emails, I probably wouldn’t have been able to put it together. She’d lied about Liam, it had to be for a good reason and it rang a warning bell. The investigating officer on Eric’s murder kept me in the loop so I found out that he’d been killed in the same way as Hugo, a single lethal stab wound. We had a long conversation, both of us did some digging, and quickly found out that the only thing the two men had in common… the only common denominator… was you.’ He gave a quick smile. ‘I didn’t see you as a murderer, but Ballantyne had lied for a reason and through you, she was also connected to both men. It was tenuous’ – he shook his head – ‘but something felt wrong about it all.’

  Melanie sipped her coffee pensively. ‘How did you know she was in my apartment?’

  ‘I decided to have a chat with her and contacted her office. Nobody had seen her so I rang her mobile. She made a mistake taking her work phone with her. When she didn’t answer, I had them trace it. As soon as we realised where she was, when you weren’t answering your mobile or landline, that warning bell sounded even louder.’

  ‘She told me my landline was off the hook and fixed it, she was obviously taking it off,’ Melanie said with a shake of her head. ‘She threw my mobile across the room and it came apart.’ Melanie met Quinn’s eyes with a hint of apology. ‘I was still blaming you, you know, but when she asked if you were responsible for the emails as well, she gave herself away. I’d never told her about them, you see.’ She guessed by the knowledge in his eyes that Elliot had filled him in on her history. ‘He told you?’ she asked, jerking her head towards the detective. She waited for Quinn’s nod before putting her coffee down. ‘Good, it’ll make my part of the story easier to tell.’

  She told them as much as she could recall, from the moment Caitlin had arrived at her door to when they’d come bursting into the bathroom. ‘Five months I’ve known her and I never suspected a thing.’ She sat back and stared at her bandaged hand, remembering the knife that had been impaled in it so callously. ‘What kind of an idiot does that make me? What does it say about my judgement?’

  ‘She fooled a lot of people,’ Elliot said. ‘For goodness’ sake, she made it to detective inspector without anyone being any the wiser. I gather from the IOPC that concerns were only raised a few months ago but their investigation has uncovered irregularities going back years.’

  ‘She was very clever,’ Quinn said.

  ‘Luckily for me, so were you,’ Melanie said, looking from one to the other. ‘That was very clever, what you did.’

  ‘We were down the street from your house trying to plan what to do when the estate agent turned up.’ Elliot grinned. ‘We couldn’t believe our luck. When we explained the situation to him, he was more than happy to give us one of his business cards and leave it to us.’

  ‘Then it was a case of trying to decide what to write,’ Quinn said. ‘It had to be something short and simple but a message you would understand and act on.’

&nb
sp; Melanie remembered turning the card over and over between her fingers. It was a few seconds before she’d realised there was something written on the reverse. Police. 5 minutes. Bathroom. ‘When I saw it first, in my confusion, I thought you were going to come through the bathroom in five minutes,’ she said with a half-hearted smile. ‘It was a few more seconds before I realised you wanted me to go in there.’

  ‘We wanted you out of the way, desperation can drive people to do wicked things,’ Elliot said. ‘We were afraid, if we stormed the place, she would kill you before we could stop her. After all, we were pretty sure she’d already killed two people, so she’d nothing to lose.’

  ‘That was why she stabbed me,’ Melanie said. ‘She wanted me to realise that she wouldn’t hesitate to hurt me if I tried anything.’

  ‘But you were still brave enough to move when you had the chance and to get that bathroom door shut.’ Quinn’s voice was full of admiration, his grey eyes warm. ‘She’d almost got through the door when we arrived.’

  ‘I saw the wood splinter and hoped you’d get there on time.’

  There was an uneasy silence as all three considered how close it had been. Without a word, Quinn stood and moved back to the kitchen. Neither Elliot nor Melanie spoke while Quinn refilled the kettle, took bread from the fridge and made several slices of toast.

  Minutes later, a plate of hot buttered toast was put in the middle of the table and fresh coffee poured into each mug.

  Melanie thought she’d never tasted anything as good and licked the dripping butter from her fingers before reaching for a second slice.

  ‘It was odd,’ Elliot said, wiping toast crumbs from the front of his shirt. ‘Once she realised she was caught, all the fight seemed to go out of her and she couldn’t confess to everything she’d done fast enough.’

  Melanie, about to take a bite from her second slice, froze with her mouth open and the toast suspended. ‘She confessed?’

  Nodding, he reached for his coffee, gulping some down before he continued. ‘It was as if we’d lanced a boil, everything came spewing out, things we didn’t know about, things I’m pretty sure the IOPC didn’t know about.’ He reached for another slice of toast, but before he took a bite, he added, ‘She asked to see you, Melanie.’

  32

  Of course, Melanie had to go. She wanted to confront the monster, now she’d seen it without its mask.

  ‘I’ll need to call in home first,’ she said, pulling at the fabric of the T-shirt. ‘I’m not going to see her like this.’

  ‘I’ll make a few calls to arrange things,’ Elliot said. ‘We can drop by your place on the way.’

  The silence following his departure was tense, heavy. Her eyes were fixed on her bandaged hand, her thoughts on what Caitlin might say. She raised her eyes to find Quinn regarding her with a slight smile.

  ‘You know all about me now, don’t you? About all the pain I caused,’ she said quietly. She watched him nod and pressed her lips together. ‘I was young–’

  ‘You were a child,’ he interrupted her. ‘Merely a child, you didn’t deserve to suffer so badly for doing childish things.’

  Strangely, for all the hours she’d spent with counsellors, nobody had ever put it so simply. Inside, the tight coils relaxed, just a little. ‘I’m not a child now and I was blaming you, accusing you–’

  He held a hand up, stopping her. ‘Caitlin Ballantyne fooled everyone. You thought you could trust her because she’d spent the last few months making you believe you could. She used your past to manipulate you, then she lied to you.’ Reaching out, he put a finger under Melanie’s chin and lifted it. ‘You might think it was all about you, and what happened when you were a child, but that doesn’t account for the backhanders she took long before she met you, or for the way she used information she stole from you to make herself a tidy sum of money. She is a bad ’un, Melanie.’

  It was still too hard to separate the friend she thought she’d known from the woman who would murder and cheat. So hard to understand… to believe… that the friendship was part of her manipulative plan to get revenge. She needed to know how much of what Caitlin had done was her fault. It was all very well for Quinn to tell her none of it was, but that niggling guilt, that desperate memory of those awful words she had whispered that had destroyed Matthew, they wouldn’t go away. If Caitlin told her that his death had been responsible for the wrong path she’d taken, Melanie didn’t think she’d be able to cope.

  Elliot returned, pulling on his coat. ‘We need to get moving. I’ve arranged for you to speak to her in an hour.’

  Melanie looked at him, appalled. An hour? ‘That doesn’t give me much time. I really need to have a shower.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time,’ he said, holding the door open. ‘Less time for thinking and worrying too.’

  On that count, he was right. Both men went into the apartment with her. She didn’t have time to survey the damage. Someone, she noticed, had wiped away the drips of blood from the hall floor and the bathroom. She was relieved and ridiculously grateful not to see that evidence of her nightmare.

  Leaving the two men in the living room, she chose what to wear and hurried into the bathroom. The door didn’t lock, it barely shut. With her foot, she moved a rubbish bin in front of it. That would have to suffice. It was awkward with her bandaged hand and impossible to scrub herself the way she desperately wanted to. The shower gel proved impossible to open with one hand, it slipped and landed with a bang on the shower tray. She kicked it to one side and picked up her shampoo. Easier to open, she squirted it all over and washed.

  Conscious of the time constraints, she rinsed the suds off, switched off the shower and stepped out. It took longer than usual to dress, her hand proving to be not only cumbersome but awkward. The fine-knit jumper she’d chosen was loose-fitting but the material kept snagging on the dressing and it was also surprisingly difficult to do up the zip on her trousers with one hand. She towel-dried her hair. It would have been nice to have worn it in her customary chignon, but there was no point in attempting such impossibilities. Instead, she brushed it back and left it loose.

  ‘Okay, I’m good to go,’ she said, stepping into the living room.

  Two sets of eyes swept over her, both assessing, one warmly admiring. ‘You managed despite your hand,’ Quinn said. ‘You look much better.’

  She smiled. She’d looked like death; anything would have been an improvement.

  There was little conversation on the way to the police station. She sat in the passenger seat, her eyes fixed on the road as Elliot negotiated the traffic, taking roads she’d never been on before and getting them there, to her surprise, with ten minutes to spare.

  Inside, she and Quinn followed him blindly down corridors and through doorways until finally they reached their destination. ‘She’s insisting that she sees you alone,’ Elliot said, with a grim expression on his usually genial face. ‘I don’t know if you’re happy with that?’

  Melanie wasn’t happy being there, full stop, but she needed to be if she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life haunted by unanswered questions. ‘I’m assuming she won’t have a knife,’ she said, with an attempt at humour that raised an eyebrow rather than a smile. ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ she said, impatient to get on with it, to get it over with.

  ‘We will be watching and listening.’ He opened the door and pointed to the mirror on the wall. ‘It’s two-way.’

  Like on the TV, she thought. Her life had turned into a damn TV programme. Apart from the mirror, the only furniture in the room was a table bolted to the floor, and two flimsy plastic chairs. She took the one on the far side of the table, the chair creaking as she sat.

  ‘You’ll be okay,’ Quinn said, giving her a reassuring smile.

  When the door shut after them, Melanie immediately wanted to call them back as fear slithered down her spine. She wished she’d sat in the other chair. Here, she was facing the mirror, they’d be able to see every nervous tic, every bead of swe
at that pinged. Her mouth was suddenly dust dry. When the door opened, she felt her heart race but it wasn’t Caitlin.

  ‘I thought you might want some water,’ Quinn said, putting a plastic beaker on the table in front of her.

  Her lower lip trembled, her hand seeking the beaker, bringing it to her lips and taking a long gulp. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice choking.

  ‘We’re only through there,’ he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. ‘If we see anything amiss, we’ll come straight in, okay?’

  She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.

  Her hand was beginning to ache. It served to remind her exactly what kind of a woman Caitlin was and strengthened her backbone when the door opened for the second time and two uniformed constables escorted Caitlin into the room.

  Melanie thought she’d struggle with separating the friend she thought she’d had from the monster who’d wanted to kill her but when she looked across the table, she barely recognised the woman sitting there. Caitlin had always appeared so vital, she’d held herself with an almost military bearing, upright and poised. And there was a certain something that drew your eye to her. The woman who slouched opposite with dull eyes and a lax, loose-lipped mouth wasn’t the woman she’d known.

  Melanie dropped her eyes to her bandaged hand and bit her lip. But then, the woman she’d known hadn’t existed.

  There was silence broken only by Caitlin’s heavy breathing.

  Melanie wanted to sit it out; to not be the one who gave in and said the first word, but after ten minutes of silence she burst out, ‘Why, Caitlin?’

  A petty smile of satisfaction appeared, but it faded quickly and once more Caitlin looked dull and vacant. ‘You know why, Anne Edwards.’

  The words, an eerie similarity to an email Caitlin had sent her, made Melanie shiver. ‘Because of Matthew Thomas,’ she said, half-expecting the vicious reaction she got the last time she’d said his name but this time there was no response at all. When several minutes passed without another word, she stood up. ‘I came because you asked for me, but I’ve no intention of waiting here while you decide to speak.’