Close Your Eyes

by Rachel Abbott

  AWFUL news this morning. My boss’s wife is dead. MURDERED, would you believe? I can’t stop crying. I can’t say anything else just yet – too upset – and I don’t want to give away any crucial evidence. The police will want me to share everything I know with them first. I’ll be back with more as soon as I can.

  There were no signs of tears when I saw her, but I know her game. She wants people to beg her for details, and they do just that.

  ‘How awful! What happened?’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Are you okay, Elise?’

  ‘Dish the dirt, Elise – come on! Don’t keep us hanging on!’

  What is wrong with people?

  Elise must have decided to wait for a while – probably because she wanted to build up anticipation – and her next post offers a pathetic and transparent apology.

  I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have posted anything about this dreadful crime, and I only started because I wanted to share the devastating news. I had to stop. I was too upset to go on typing and I’ve had to take something to calm me down – something legal, of course :-)

  Why is she posting smiley faces in the middle of news about a murder?

  Genevieve was a friend of mine on Facebook and I’ve been checking out what some of her other friends have to say. I don’t know this for sure, but I’ve heard she was knifed loads of times – sounds like a frenzy to me. And she was such a lovely person. I’m sorry – I’ll have to stop again for a while.

  I close my eyes and try to control my breathing. Elise couldn’t stand Genevieve – said she was a stuck-up bitch, although she was sugary sweet to her face.

  I know I’m focusing on this trivia to block other thoughts from my mind – those that haunt me every minute of the day. But it doesn’t work. My head is full of images. I’m staring at a knife in my hand. I smell blood, I hear a voice whispering in my ear, ‘You did what you had to do.’

  How did it come to this? How did I become a woman who can’t tell a soul who she is for fear of what might happen?

  Who am I?

  12

  LAKESIDE

  After Mum’s little pep talk in the back seat of our new car, I tried to be less sulky. I wasn’t happy, but something told me I was making things worse for them. It must have been instinct, because I’m sure at ten years old I wasn’t wise enough to work that out for myself.

  Mum told me that Dad had been to look at some houses – we were in Lincolnshire, apparently – and he thought Lakeside would be perfect for us.

  ‘Where’s Lincolnshire? Is it still in England?’

  ‘Yes, of course it is. And it’s got beaches too, so you’ll love it.’

  I’d never been to the seaside. Holidays hadn’t been an option, and for a moment I felt a bit brighter. But it wouldn’t be so much fun playing in the sand and the sea without my friends.

  ‘Are there no nice houses in London?’

  Dad couldn’t turn round because he was driving his new car – very carefully. He called out his answer above the gentle hum of the engine. ‘Houses in London are expensive. If we’d bought somewhere special, we wouldn’t have had much left, so I came here, where we can get a lot more for our money. Wait until you see what we’ve bought, sweetheart. It’s huge! And there’s loads of money left to live on for the rest of our lives.’

  I wanted to ask why we needed such a huge house when we didn’t have any friends to invite, but I kept that thought to myself as we rounded a bend and saw a high wall in front of us, with a rusting gate hanging from one hinge.

  ‘And here we are!’ Dad’s voice was crackling with excitement. ‘We need to do some work on it to bring it up to how it should be, but I thought it would give us something to focus on, now we don’t have to go out to work each day. What do you think?’

  He steered the car through the gateway, and I was struck dumb. The house was enormous, with a winding drive covered in weeds leading up to the front door. On one side I could make out what looked like a lake, and I couldn’t even see the other side of the garden for all the bushes. Later I discovered there was a river there.

  Mum was quiet too, and I saw Dad cast an anxious glance in her direction.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  ‘It seems so much bigger than it did in the picture,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know, but look at it! The brickwork is beautiful, and we have steps up to the front door. It looks like a palace to me. But if you don’t like it…’

  Mum reached across and touched his arm. ‘It’s beautiful, Joel. I agreed with your choice, even though I only saw the photos, and if we don’t like it we can always find somewhere else and sell it. Let’s just enjoy it.’ She stroked his arm and smiled.

  ‘Okay.’ I could tell Dad was worried that his wonderful plan had somehow failed.

  ‘I think it’s brilliant, Dad,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait to explore.’

  He grinned with delight that at least I seemed to be pleased, and I was glad because he was usually so cheerful, and I didn’t want to spoil that.

  He stopped the car in front of the door and pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. ‘Wait until you see inside,’ he said, waving the keys in the air. He jumped out.

  Mum turned and smiled at me before opening her door to follow him. ‘Come on, DeeDee. Let’s see what we make of our new home.’

  Dad pushed open the huge front door. It gave a loud creak, and we stepped slowly inside, almost as if we were afraid to enter. Was this house really ours? It was vast. A palace. A space that even I could see was far too big for three people. I walked round with my mouth hanging open. Our voices echoed in the empty rooms, the ceilings so high that I wouldn’t have been able to touch them even if I stood on Dad’s shoulders. I wandered off down a dark corridor and stepped into a room with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over an untamed, overgrown garden, thick with what I was later told were brambles.

  Suddenly I felt alone, isolated. I couldn’t hear their voices any more, and I hurried back along the corridor, scared that I would be lost forever in this enormous house.

  I was just about to panic when I heard Dad’s voice. I followed the sound. He was talking to Mum, trying to convince her that it wasn’t too big, making noises about a cinema room, a snooker room, a gym and a kitchen to die for. He liked to cook, as did Mum, although they had completely different styles. Dad laced his food with every spice he could afford to buy, while Mum’s meals spoke of her family background of roast dinners and holidays in Italy. I understood why they might enjoy a big kitchen, but why did we need all those other rooms?

  I couldn’t help asking, and Dad crouched down by my side.

  ‘Well, maybe we’ll have to fill the house with more people. What do you say, DeeDee?’

  I didn’t know what he meant, but he turned and winked at Mum, who bent down so her face, pale with the stress of the day, was level with mine.

  ‘We never had enough money for a sister or brother for you, sweetheart. But now we can afford a whole tribe of children.’ She squeezed me, and I saw a look pass between her and Dad. They shared a secret smile, and suddenly everything felt better. ‘We’ve got plenty of time to fill the place.’

  I knew what she meant about time. Mum had me when she was eighteen. She never hid the fact that her parents – whom I’d never met – had thrown her out when she decided to go ahead and have Dad’s baby. Dad wasn’t suitable father material, in their eyes, and I was never sure if it was because of the colour of his skin, which even at the tender age of ten I was aware could cause baffling hostility in some people, or because he had been brought up in care and had no real education.

  A joke that Mum and Dad often shared when one of them said something the other didn’t agree with was, ‘What would they say at the golf club?’ According to Mum, her parents had had to choose between supporting their daughter’s choice of partner or being the butt of derisive remarks at their smart golf club. The golf club won. If she was having the baby, she had to leave.<
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  But now, at just twenty-eight, Mum had lots of time for more children and plenty of money to look after them all.

  ‘You’ll see, DeeDee – the house will soon be full of people. You’ll love it,’ Dad said.

  He was right about one thing. It took a while, but eventually the house was full of people. And I didn’t love it one little bit.

  13

  Tom was standing in the middle of the incident room talking to Keith Sims when Becky and Rob returned. He glanced at Becky’s face and sensed from her frown that things hadn’t gone the way she’d expected at the offices of XO-Tech.

  He nodded to Keith. ‘Let’s get the team together and pool our intel. Give Becky and Rob a chance to grab a coffee, then we’ll chat about what we’ve got – or not got, which is probably more to the point. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  Keith nodded, and Tom moved to a quiet part of the room, pulling out his phone to call Louisa.

  ‘Hi, darling. I just thought I’d check in with you, make sure you and Harry are okay. Sorry I left in the middle of the night, and I’m even sorrier to say that I don’t know when I’ll be back.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said. He could hear the smile in her voice, and he was sure she was looking at Harry. There was a certain tone to her voice when she gazed at him. ‘There’s something you need to know, although I debated whether it would wait until you’re home.’

  Tom felt a flash of alarm at her tone. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t panic – it’s not bad. Well, not bad for us. Lucy’s on her way home, as is Kate.’

  Kate was Tom’s ex-wife, and Lucy their fourteen-year-old daughter. Kate had met a man when she was on a cruise, and promptly decided to marry him and move to Australia, taking a reluctant Lucy with her.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Tom looked behind him to where the team were taking their seats. ‘Actually, can we talk in a while? As long as no one’s hurt and Lucy’s okay, I guess it will wait.’

  ‘She’s fine, Tom. I would have called you if there had been a problem. Lucy’s a bit cross with Kate. She FaceTimed on your home laptop this morning and I answered. I’ll fill you in later. Get back to solving crimes, love. It can wait.’

  Tom could only imagine how Lucy must feel. She’d been at a new school in an unfamiliar country for a matter of months, and now it was all change again. Against Tom’s advice, Kate had sold her house, so it wasn’t clear where she was planning to live. But he pushed all this to the back of his mind and walked over to the meeting table.

  ‘Becky, Rob, any progress since you called?’

  ‘Not a fat lot,’ Becky said with a disgruntled sigh. ‘We got into Martha Porter’s computer – well, a girl with purple hair whose fingers whizzed over the keyboard faster than my eyes could follow got into the computer.’

  ‘What did she find?’

  ‘Almost nothing. Every folder was password-protected. Bao – the techie girl – said that breaking into individual folders was a step up from accessing the computer. We’ve asked Niall Strachan’s business partner, Spencer Johansson, if he could look through the paper files in Martha’s filing cabinet to see if there’s a list of the mobile passwords.’

  Tom thought it highly unlikely that a tech firm would hold extensive paper records, but they could live in hope.

  ‘Given how crucial we believe the password to be, and given that we’ve got bugger all else to go on,’ Becky continued, ‘I explained that we needed to get our own digital forensics team to access the files on Martha’s computer, and Johansson agreed. It’s with them now.’

  Tom nodded. It was the right decision.

  ‘There was one interesting thing. We asked Spencer to look through Martha’s desk, and in the top drawer he found her company mobile. She’d left it behind when she went out, which apparently she’s not supposed to do. Switched off, of course, and no one knows the password.’

  ‘Course they don’t,’ Tom said with a groan. ‘That would be too bloody easy by far. Do we know if Martha Porter had any kind of relationship with Genevieve Strachan? Was she devastated, maybe, when she discovered she was dead?’

  Becky shook her head. ‘Not that we know of. I was starting to get concerned that we were wasting time chasing her for one scrap of information, but now I’m not sure. Why did she disappear, and why is there no record of her address, or anything else for that matter, in the files?’

  Tom turned towards Keith. ‘Have we got anywhere at all with tracking her down?’

  ‘Absolutely nowhere, sir. As far as we’ve discovered, she has no driving licence or passport, not even a National Insurance number. We haven’t committed a lot of resources to this so far – it didn’t seem like a priority – but there are no obvious traces of her.’

  ‘Christ, that’s all we need. An invisible person. How the hell did they pay her wages without her NI number? Becky?’

  ‘Johansson says she invoiced them as a contractor, so she was never on the payroll.’

  ‘Marvellous! But I don’t think we can justify going through her finances just because she’s not in her office and we can’t access her computer. Let’s see what else we’ve got before we make a decision.’

  Rob had been rocking back on his chair, but he now brought the front legs down with a crash. ‘Apparently she knows everything there is to know about that company. What if there’s some kind of corporate crime involved? Perhaps she’d been stealing information about the company, and knowing the police were bound to investigate because of Genevieve’s death, she thought she’d better make a run for it. Or maybe someone’s killed her too.’

  The thought that she might be another victim had occurred to Tom, but from what he’d heard, that made little sense. Martha had come into the office that morning as usual, gone into her room and locked the door, before leaving via the private stairway. They had no reason to believe anything had happened to her. Rob’s other suggestion – that she was involved in something illegal – seemed more plausible.

  ‘We know she left her company mobile, so does that mean she has another one?’

  ‘There’s nothing registered in her name,’ Keith said.

  Somehow that came as no surprise, and Tom was worried they were wasting a lot of time on Martha Porter, who was more than likely irrelevant. She wasn’t a suspect, but her disappearance had to be a concern. He parked the thought for now, keen not to get distracted.

  ‘Let’s make sure we’re informed if she turns up. In the meantime, what – if anything – have we got from the scene-of-crime guys?’

  ‘Dr Osoba is going to give his report later, sir,’ Keith said. ‘They haven’t found much in the way of trace evidence on the victim’s clothes yet. The blood on her husband’s clothes is consistent with his claim that he tried to revive her. No spatter, just smears. They’re still searching the vicinity for whatever she was hit over the head with and, hopefully, the knife. He said if there were any red flags, he’d call you straight away.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll have to wait and see what he has to say. Have they finished in the house yet?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mr Strachan is being escorted back there now from Swinton divisional offices.’

  ‘Good. I’ll go and see him again, have another chat now he’s back on home territory. Rob, can you send me everything you have on the Tyldesley Loopline before I leave, please? We need to know all possible access points. Becky, you’re with me. And wear something sensible on your feet. We’re going for a walk.’

  14

  Tom had opted to let Becky drive. Over the years he had come to enjoy the faint sense of terror he experienced as she approached each corner at speed.

  ‘I think we should have another look at the scene in full daylight and take a walk along the Loopline. It’s closed to the public, and it would be good to get a feel for it and check out the access points before we speak to Mr Strachan.’

  Becky pulled up on the main road just beyond the entrance to the Strachans’ drive, and they set off down the path. It was a sti
cky day, but the passageway acted as a wind tunnel, and a warm breeze blew towards them.

  ‘I bet it’s wicked here in the winter,’ Becky said.

  Tom looked at the high walls of the adjoining gardens. There was nowhere for the air to go, so it was forced to howl along this narrow alley, which was still cordoned off by police tape. It felt slightly uncomfortable to be walking over a spot where only a few hours earlier a dead body had lain.

  At the end of the passage were steep steps down to the Loopline. A police officer stood guard at the bottom; he stepped back to let Tom and Becky onto the wide tarmac path.

  ‘Have you had many people trying to get access?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Quite a few, sir. They’ve all turned back without too much moaning, though. Mainly being nosey, I think.’

  Tom nodded. The officer was no doubt right, although lots of people must use this path regularly. He turned to look up and down the Loopline, the route of the long-dismantled railway, and could understand why it attracted walkers and cyclists. Overhanging trees thick with glossy green leaves cast deep shadows on the ground, and birdsong softened the hum of traffic from the nearby East Lancashire Road. The steps leading down to the track had a narrow groove down one side, presumably to accommodate bicycle wheels.

  Tom pointed to the steps on the opposite side of the path. ‘What’s up there?’ he asked the officer.

  ‘An unmade path through a field, sir. It’s cordoned off too. Dr Osoba’s team have already searched there – at least as far as the fence.’

  Tom nodded his thanks to the officer, walked towards the steps and ran to the top. Ahead, almost obscured by the leaves of an old sycamore tree, was a wooden gate beyond which he could see post-and-wire fencing on either side of the path, presumably to prevent walkers from straying into the adjacent fields.