Our Little Lies: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller with a brilliant twist

by Sue Watson

  I can’t see his face but I know just how it looks: apologetic. He wants them to believe he’s trying to cover for me, for something I might have done. I’m angry, so angry I want to punch and kick him. But I need to be calm. I need to be true to them and true to me – no fake happiness, no faking perfection. Not any more. It’s time for the truth.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Simon ushers DI Cornell and her sidekick into the hall where I introduce myself. We shake hands and Simon suggests we go into the sitting room.

  ‘Can we offer you a drink… tea, coffee?’ he asks.

  I’m relieved when Cornell shakes her head and Faith presumably can’t say yes now her boss has refused. I know who’d have been sent off to provide the officers’ refreshments and I’m determined not to leave him alone with them. God only knows what he’d say about me.

  I’ve now taken a seat opposite them and Simon’s standing in the middle of the room, rather rudely blocking our view of one another.

  ‘You called us, Mrs Wilson – you think you might have been the last person to see her?’ Cornell has to lean round to address me.

  ‘Simon, do you mind?’ I say and gesture for him to move.

  He whips round and, for a split second, he looks like he could kill me. He’s so wound up, I think he’s almost forgot we have ‘guests’. Then he realises we’re not alone and he will have to do as I say – for once.

  ‘Yes… I may have been the last person to see her.’ I wait for Simon to interject, to add that it might be him, that he was there after me. And when he doesn’t, I point this out. ‘Though I think my husband may also have called round… later, I think. Am I right, Simon?’ All three of us turn to look at him and Cornell turns her body round to face him. This has piqued their interest.

  He’s wandering the room, rubbing his hands together like he’s waiting for something. I’ve never seen him like this before – he’s a mess, and I wonder if he killed her, and if he did, would he try and blame me? I don’t doubt it for a minute.

  What are you hiding, Simon?

  ‘So, can we establish your… relationship with the victim, Mr Wilson?’ Cornell’s saying, tapping her pen with those stubby fingers. She’s distracted by Simon’s pacing and looks relieved when he eventually sits down, still rubbing his hands, clearly anxious.

  ‘A colleague…’ is all he says and I just know he’s going to deny he was anything more.

  So, to his horror and increasing embarrassment, I explain everything. I start from the beginning and when I say, ‘I assumed my husband was having an affair – we’ve had problems of this nature before,’ he interjects, keen to establish that I was mistaken on previous occasions.

  ‘My wife is prone to flights of fancy… not her fault, she is mentally ill…’ he starts, but Cornell is too engrossed in my story, which she and Faith are both writing down.

  Cornell’s clearly an old-school ‘copper’, the type you see on TV, hair scraped back, no make-up, no wedding ring. I doubt those bitten nails have ever scratched a man’s back in ecstasy. Funny what goes through your mind when you might be arrested for murder.

  ‘Mr Wilson, I’m taking a statement from your wife – if you would just allow me to continue, I’ll take your statement after this.’

  He isn’t pleased, Simon hates being told what to do, especially by a woman, and he sits with his arms folded, like a sulking child, while I carry on talking, punctuated by the detective’s questions. When it comes to the point where I went to see Caroline, she visibly perks up and leans forward.

  When I finish, I feel purged. I’ve told them everything in a calm and ordered way, no half-truths, no lies. I’ve laid everything before them, and I’m trusting them to find out what happened – and who did it.

  When Simon tells the detectives about his own ‘friendship’ with Caroline, he says that they were ‘close’ and he’s ‘worried my wife may have given you a rather dramatised version of events’. He clearly thinks these women are stupid, which is the problem when you’re a brilliant, but arrogant man – you think no one else can think for themselves. I believe the fact they are women makes him feel he can manipulate them, like he manipulated Caroline and God knows who else. But no-one believes me. I want to scream at them that he’s lying, that I did nothing, but I don’t know. And Simon’s talking and talking, so smooth, so confident, so sure – and I’m not.

  Eventually my worst fears are realised as DI Cornell informs me that I’m being arrested for the murder of Dr Caroline Harker. And, as she cautions me, I am filled with blind panic – how can I convince the police I didn’t do it, when I can’t even convince myself?

  Chapter Thirty

  It’s all so distressing. I’ve had a consultation with a solicitor and I’m now in a police cell with a little serving hatch so I can be looked at and checked on every now and then. I feel like an animal in a zoo. I left home in the clothes I was stood up in, surrendered my phone and keys and I’m now staring at a paper cup of coffee sitting in front of me. It’s lukewarm and going colder by the minute, but I daren’t even sip it because I might vomit. I’m trembling with fear and feel like my skin has been peeled off and I’m exposed, just like the roughly painted brickwork all around me.

  I thought I was better, thought all the trouble was behind me, but do I carry it with me? What did I do?

  I’m surrounded by nothingness, I have no newspaper, nothing to read, and there’s nothing in here I can hurt myself with, which explains the tepid coffee in the paper cup. I don’t know what time it is, how long I’ll be here or what the outcome will be. But all I’m worrying about are my kids. They’ll wake up in a few hours with no mum and though Sophie will be able to comprehend what’s happened, the boys won’t.

  Is their mother a murderer?

  After what feels like hours, there’s a rustling outside the room, a rattle of the door and I’m taken out of the room, along a corridor to another room, where DI Cornell and DS Faith await.

  They are sitting next to each other at a desk facing the door and when I walk in Cornell doesn’t smile, just nods and gestures for me to sit down opposite them. Faith rustles papers on the desk and my solicitor sits down next to me.

  ‘Mrs Wilson.’

  ‘Marianne… please call me Marianne,’ I almost beg. I know how these things can escalate. I was ‘interviewed’ for several hours after Emily’s death and it was one of the worst experiences of my life as they tried to break me down and make me confess to something I hadn’t done. It was only much later after the postmortem that the police started to treat me differently, with more sympathy and respect. But this is not the same; this is a vicious stabbing with a motive. The ‘good’ news, if you can call it that, is that sitting alone in a cell for a few hours enabled me to really search my brain and relive my visit with Caroline, but I can’t recall actually leaving. I remember rain lashing down, mugs of tea, she talked about late-night phone calls, which she and Simon seemed to think I did. But I didn’t… did I? If I’d gone there intending to hurt her or kill her surely I’d have had the presence of mind to cover my tracks or hide the fact that I was there. Christ, I virtually announced myself to the neighbourhood, waving to Mrs Nosy and banging on Caroline’s door. I even called through the letter box like some obsessive, but this doesn’t help, it makes me look guilty, makes me feel guilty. I have to force myself to concentrate on DI Cornell, who’s now telling me that some of the guests from the surprise party have been interviewed and confirmed that there was an accusation made by me about Caroline Harker.

  ‘So… you had an altercation with the victim, Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t do anything. I just got a bit… too much at the party. I thought she was having an affair with my husband. Well, she was.’

  ‘So, you had a good reason to want Dr Harker out of the picture?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t want her dead… I mean, I may have… felt… Look, I was upset. I thought Simon and her might try to take the kids…’ I stop. I’m not doing m
yself any favours and Cornell is positively glowing at the prospect of charging and arresting within the hour. ‘I may have been worried, desperate even – but I would never hurt anyone… And anyway, the last time I saw her we kind of made friends.’

  ‘Really? Well, while you’ve been filing your nails enjoying the room service at Her Majesty’s pleasure here, DS Faith has managed to do a bit of digging.’ Obviously some police humour, which I don’t appreciate. ‘And, according to our records,’ the other detective hands her the notes which she reads from, ‘eighteen months ago you assaulted a barmaid.’ At this she looks up and stares at me. ‘Yet you say you’d never hurt anyone?’

  ‘I didn’t assault her, I poured a glass of beer over her. I didn’t hurt her.’

  ‘Define hurt. She wasn’t too happy about it – had to have six months off work with the trauma.’

  ‘Yes, well I’m sorry about that, but I heard she’d had six months off before that too – probably because she’d been taking time off “sick” to be with my husband,’ I spit, then immediately regret this – sounding like a bunny-boiling wife will not help me here.

  Cornell just carries on, like I’m an irritating noise in the background.

  ‘On Friday night you publicly accused a woman of sleeping with your husband – you say yourself you were worried about her plans to get custody of your kids. Forensics have been all over Dr Harker’s cottage. Now we’re just waiting on the DNA results. Do you think we’ll find yours?’

  ‘Yes… of course. I mean, I was there. I was in the kitchen, I drank tea, I touched a mug, knocked on the door… I don’t know.’ I’m starting to panic, and that never ends well.

  Cornell doesn’t react. ‘There’s a bag belonging to you at the scene… green velvet with sea stuff all over it. Your husband has identified it as one you made…’

  ‘Yes, I took it as a gift for her. I wanted to make peace.’

  ‘Nothing says I’m sorry like a green bag with sea urchins all over it.’

  DS Faith smirks, but I look down, rolling the now empty paper cup between my fingers.

  DI Cornell stares at the papers in front of her, presumably forensic results and titbits from DS Faith’s research haul. ‘So, to summarise the story so far, you had a hissy fit because you thought your hubby was having a hot blonde from the office…’

  ‘Theatre. A colleague in theatre. He’s a surgeon.’

  ‘Whatever, a hot blonde in the office is the same the world over – and I can vouch for that from experience. Anyway… in a nutshell, you have this party, invite her over, accuse her of being pregnant with your husband’s child, she storms off and the following day you go round to see her.’ She stops abruptly and looks up from her notes, glasses on the end of her nose. ‘You can probably see where I’m going with this?’

  I don’t answer, just glare at the table and try not to cry.

  ‘And…’ She goes back to the notes. ‘There are witnesses from your… what did you call it, a surprise party?’

  I nod, feeling very silly. I must look so pathetic – the scorned wife. The housewife’s ultimate revenge, a fucking surprise party. What was I thinking?

  ‘And a day later,’ Cornell continues, ‘Dr Harker is found stabbed to death in her own home, the home you admit you visited only hours before. You can see my dilemma here, Mrs Wilson?’ She leans forward, tapping her pen on the desk. ‘I’m not saying it was you, but it’s not looking good…’

  I am in a TV drama, aren’t I? This isn’t real. I want to be home drinking camomile tea and making the children’s packed lunches for tomorrow. I don’t want to be here being accused and patronised.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Cornell is looking down at a piece of paper, about to spring something on me no doubt.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask anxiously.

  ‘And just when I thought things were getting boring. We now have a Mrs Jennifer Moreton saying you threatened to kill Dr Harker…’

  Jen? What the fuck has any of this got to do with her?

  ‘No… oh, you’ve got this wrong. She knew I didn’t mean it. I… it was an expression I used. I said I could kill Dr Harker for what she’d done… I didn’t mean I could kill her.’

  ‘Oh, so you don’t mean what you say?’

  I didn’t. Did I?

  ‘No, I mean yes… you’ve taken this literally, that it isn’t how I meant it… Jen knew I didn’t mean it. You’d know if you’d been there…’

  ‘Well I wasn’t, was I?’

  ‘Look, what I’m saying is Jen can be a bit of a drama queen. She may have exaggerated, taken it out of context….’ I’m now deeply regretted discussing it with Jen – I just hope to God I didn’t say anything else without thinking. I know she wouldn’t say this with malice; she probably doesn’t realise the implications and is just running her mouth. It’s what Jen does. Too swept up in the drama of the moment to realise what harm she’s causing. ‘She obviously got the wrong end of the stick. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not capable of… anything like that, but I suppose she doesn’t really know me that well…’

  ‘Really? At the moment, she’s looking after your kids so I hope we’re not adding stranger danger to the list of potential problems with this case.’

  I’m part of a ‘case’. I’m involved in murder whether I like it or not.

  Did I do it?

  ‘Why is she looking after my kids?’

  ‘She was the person your husband called.’

  ‘I hope they’re okay.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because she’ll probably get her nanny to take them to school while she goes off on a bloody spa day!’

  ‘So,’ DI Cornell continues, bored with my middle-class childcare concerns, ‘to get back to the situation in hand… you’ve got form, a motive, there’s probable forensic evidence, a nosy neighbour who witnessed you arriving at Dr Harker’s cottage and another witness, a good friend no less, who’s telling us you said you wanted to kill the victim. So what am I to think?’

  I don’t know what to say, but I know I’m not the only one who should be a suspect here.

  ‘What about the emails between Caroline and my husband? He deleted them, but surely you can find them?’

  DI Cornell doesn’t look up, just continues to study the papers in front of her. ‘All his and your devices will be checked,’ she says absently.

  That isn’t going to play well for my defence – I must have googled Caroline Harker at least a thousand times on my phone, not to mention my constant lurking on all her social media.

  ‘Simon once told me how you could kill someone swiftly. Because he’s a surgeon he’d know exactly where the jugular was…’ I press.

  At this, the junior detective pipes up, ‘Mmm, the perpetrator didn’t seem to have a clue where it was.’

  ‘Well, perhaps it was a double bluff?’ I offer.

  ‘The victim bled out for a while before she died. It didn’t present like a premeditated attack. Whoever killed Dr Harker did it instinctively – it wasn’t clean, it was done in a frenzy.’ DS Faith takes a moment and looks at me before repeating, ‘A jealous frenzy.’

  I look away. This is too much, I can’t handle it, but before I have chance to regroup Cornell hits me with something else.

  ‘Do you recognise this, Mrs Wilson?’ She’s now proffering a photograph of the velvet bag I gave to Caroline. I don’t understand why they’re so interested in the bag; it was a gift – why don’t they just get it and move on?

  ‘Yes… that’s the bag I made, the one I took to give to her as a gift.’ I look closely. The strap from the shoulder bag has been broken. It’s thick twisted silk, very strong – I use it for my handbags so you can carry quite heavy stuff, like a tablet, phone, bag of make-up… and I’m surprised it’s snapped. ‘What’s happened to it?’

  ‘You tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Fibres from the bag have been found on Dr Harker’s neck, and we’re waiting on forensics but it looks li
ke she was probably wearing it when her assailant attacked her. The strap was probably pulled across her neck. They got into a struggle, the strap was broken – before the victim was stabbed with the bread knife.’

  ‘Amateur,’ Faith’s saying, and shaking her head in despair at the calibre of murderers these days.

  What can I say? I have no idea what happened. I don’t think I had anything to do with this, but innocent people have been convicted of murder before. I wouldn’t be the first.

  My solicitor asks if he can ‘have a word with his client’.

  The detectives leave and I reassure him I know nothing about the strap of the bag being used to try and strangle Caroline Harker.

  ‘When will I be able to go?’ I ask. I’m worried about the children.

  According to my solicitor, they can keep me here for twenty-four hours. After that if they haven’t charged me but still think I’m ‘of interest’, they can apply for extensions to keep me longer.

  ‘The maximum time they can detain you is ninety-six hours, by which time they have to either charge you or let you go,’ he adds.

  During this conversation, I keep bursting into tears – my main concern is the children, and I try and comfort myself that at least Jen’s there. She may not be mother of the year but at least she’s familiar to them. The boys are used to her collecting them from the French tutor when we take it in turns and they’ve stayed over at hers once for Oliver’s birthday sleepover. As for poor Sophie, she’ll be so worried. Simon won’t try and reassure her; he’ll probably convince her I’m ill and that I did it. But this is only the beginning. What if I’m guilty? What if I end up spending the rest of my life in prison? I’ll never see my kids again; Simon wouldn’t allow them to visit. No birthday parties, no wonderful watershed moments. I won’t be at their graduations, their weddings… I’ll never meet my grandchildren… I start to cry again.

  Richard attempts to reassure me, but I’m tired, confused and wondering if I’ve had my last few hours as a free woman, but I don’t have long to think about this because Cornell and Faith are back, I’m cautioned again and the interview is resumed.