She rubbed her eyes. The note, torn out of a lined jotter, was from Mel. She had taken in a parcel for her and promised to try her again later.
But why would Damian kill Chris? The voice in her head had a ready answer: Chris must have been having an affair with Louisa. Damian didn’t want her but didn’t want anyone else to have her so he killed three birds – burdens – with one frenzied knife attack.
But it was four; the dog died too. And how could a father leave a scene of slaughter when there was every likelihood one of his children would find it the next morning? She rocked harder. A man so deranged had no sentiment for animals or children. But his actions weren’t those of an out-of-control maniac; he was cunning too. He’d made the hue and cry which had led the police to Sascha. How long had he been planning his crime?
What did he mean about her not knowing Gary? Did he know something or was he making up nonsense to get her into bed? There was one way to find out.
***
She marched upstairs to the computer desk and opened the top drawer. Pens, rulers, hole punch. Second drawer: spare paper. Third: phone charger, scrap paper. It was Gary’s room more than hers but there was nothing personal here, no diary, no secrets. She went to their room.
A hollow feeling of grief gaped in her chest as she opened his drawers and parted his Tshirts, socks, and pants. Her hand touched something hard: a mobile phone. But it wasn’t the one he used; that had been in his pocket when … The police gave it back to her with his wallet and wedding ring. She kept those things next to her bed. She swallowed a sigh and switched on the phone. Was it the one he’d told her he lost? It was dead but she took the charger from the computer desk and plugged it in. The battery charge symbol pulsed but it was too weak to interrogate.
She made a coffee and told herself to calm down. It didn’t mean it was the same phone. Or maybe he’d found it again and felt too embarrassed to tell her. She re-ran the circumstances of its disappearance in her mind. Gary had it on his way to work and by lunchtime he’d bought a new one. She’d thought it odd at the time. And there was the phone call he didn’t answer that morning, from Steve C. If the insurance salesman’s number was in the phone, she’d know it was the one Gary said he’d lost.
But the phone told her nothing. She knew the pin code: their wedding date reversed – they used it for everything, but there was no call history and no saved numbers. It was either a new phone or Gary had wiped the memory. Gary’s memory – she thought of the scornful way Damian had said that. What the hell had been going on?
Steve? The thought that had been nagging since speaking to Maria came into focus. Was the person Maria mentioned the same Steve that tried to phone Gary? If he was an exneighbour, it made sense for Gary to have his number stored. So why lie and say the call was from a salesman?
***
The doorbell rang and she went downstairs, expecting to see Mel with the parcel. She opened the door but found Damian. She tried to slam it, but he forced his way in.
Heart hammering, she backed into the hall with her hands frantically searching her pockets but she’d left her mobile in the car. Had he come for her? Like the others? Was it him? Her fingers touched the car key and gripped the fob. Could she stab him in the eye and get past him? He didn’t come towards her but he was still blocking the doorway. She would have to advance on him.
“Get lost,” she shouted. Bravery was a skinny piece of metal in her trembling hand.
“I want to talk to you.” He stepped towards her.
Her hand flew at his face but she dropped the key.
He frowned, picked it up and offered it back to her. “You need to know something about Gary.”
Fiona
I’d been awake most of the night, rewinding, reliving the conversation in my head.
My darling shepherd, so attentive these days, let me ring Mum and Dad again. It was completely against protocol; he put his job on the line.
They had asked me so many questions. Where was I staying? What were my French colleagues like? When would I get leave? I had my answers ready, for their sakes, to protect them. My biggest news perched on the edge of my tongue but I reeled it in.
There was a sob in Dad’s voice when we said goodbye. I think it had been there for most of the call. He sounded weak and strained. I wanted to cry too but Shep was standing beside me, so I stayed strong. I was sure he would let me ring again. I closed my eyes wondering how soon I could ask. My news wouldn’t wait forever. I drifted off into a peaceful dream of the future.
Shep shook me awake, gripping my shoulders hard. He was fully dressed.
“The call’s been traced. The Syndicate is closing in.”
“How?” I was alert, fear pumping my heart.
“We have to leave.”
I reached for my clothes.
“There’s no time.”
“I’m in pyjamas. I just …”
His face grew pained. He looked helpless. “I can’t put you at more risk by letting you pack.”
“Let me get my photos.”
“Nothing.”
“But …”
“We have to go now, please.”
I stepped into my trainers. “I’ll get my coat.”
“Hurry.” He opened the door and leant against it. His face was wretched. I’d caused this with my selfish moping, on and on until he offered me the call. I should have let him do his job.
I lifted my jacket from my pile of clothes – two pairs of jeans, a skirt, jumpers, T-shirts, and knickers that no longer smelled quite clean; it was hard to wash them in the tiny sink. A big sigh rolled through me. Of all the things I’d left behind, why did I care about a few clothes?
“We’ll get new stuff. Come on,” he said.
There’d been times when the Syndicate catching up with me would have been a release. But not now when we had so much to look forward to … A new fear gripped me. What if they reassigned him? But we had to stay together. I vowed never to ask for anything again. I grabbed my coat and went after him.
44
“Have you ever been to Club Viva?” Damian asked. He reached out for the coffee which Helen offered, and held her eye.
She calculated how many strides it would take her to get from the sofa to the front door. She gripped her own coffee, ready to launch it in his face if he moved.
“I’m not going to any nightclub,” she said, but the name rang a bell.
“I’m not asking you on a date. I got that message loud and clear.” He put a protective hand over his lap. “Club Viva is in the old part of the city. If I’d known what would happen I’d never have gone near the place.”
He put the mug to his lips and jumped. The drink was still hot. “I’ve had affairs, you know that, but I haven’t broken the law: no relationships with sixth formers.”
He gave a wistful smile as if recalling missed opportunities. Helen poured milk in her coffee and watched the black swirl to beige. What kind of sordid confession was he leading up to?
He fixed her with his brown eyes. “It’s important you understand how events spiralled. I’m the only one left who can present any kind of defence. I owe them that much.”
“‘Them’?”
“Did you know Chris and Gary arrived here at the same time? Four years ago I appointed Chris as the head of art and Gary became number two in the languages department. But that’s not the only thing they had in common.”
She poured more milk in her coffee. She didn’t want to hear any similarities Damian drew between Gary, and Chris Mowar.
“Chris had been here on his own for a year when he announced he’d got married and installed Mel in number 7. Later you appeared on the scene as Gary’s wife. It’s a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Helen gripped her cup. The heat stung her fingertips.
“There are a couple of differences, of course. You and Gary had been married for a while before you joined him, whereas Chris shipped Mel out straight after their wedding. Apparently they had a small r
egistry office do with a couple of witnesses. Louisa put on a wedding breakfast for them as soon as she heard. I expect yours was a big church and family wedding. Am I right?”
“I thought you were talking about nightclubs,” she said. No way was she telling him that they got married in Jamaica with two hotel staff as witnesses. Would he ever get to the point?
“Another difference is that Chris and Mel had known each other for a couple of years before they were married whereas, I hope you don’t mind me saying, you two had a whirlwind romance.”
“What’s that got do with anything?” Helen took an angry gulp of coffee.
“Nothing, not yet anyway. You’ll see the connection later. Let’s go back to Chris. You must have noticed that aura he had about him.”
Aura of creepiness, magnetically repellent. Helen coughed into her mug.
Damian smoothed his sleeve. “Some women find me attractive but I had nothing on him.”
What was she supposed to say? She wouldn’t have hopped into bed with either of them.
“He got random women to reveal things about themselves that they’d never disclosed to anyone else. Their fears, phobias, and ambitions. How do I know this? I heard him in school. Age was no barrier to him – a girl in Year 9 or a thirty-something teacher’s wife, it made no difference to him.”
His face coloured. One particular thirty-something wife must have been Louisa. But it was the Year 9 girls that concerned Helen more.
“And you let him teach in your school?”
“He assured me his motives weren’t sexual. I found out about the nightclubs when Steve told me.” He paused to look at her. “You asked about Steve. As well as being my next-door neighbour, he was my head of science before Jerome. A salt of the earth type; what he lacked in teaching ability he made up for in crowd control. Anyone who can keep a lid on the Year 10 bottom set deserves a job. He was married to a German woman. Louisa took Beate under her wing and included her in her various social activities.”
His eyes were steady. Was he telling the truth? He couldn’t get away quick enough when she’d mentioned Steve before. Had he taken time to concoct a story? She wanted to ask for Steve’s surname, but doubted he’d tell her the truth.
“Steve overheard Chris talking to a couple of lower sixth girls about going to Club Viva,” Damian said. “He came to me concerned and wanted me to challenge Chris. I know you’ll criticize me for it but I was more interested in finding out how the hell Chris Mowar did it.”
Helen glared at him. Criticize? Utterly condemn more like. Was this irresponsible creep really a head teacher?
“I persuaded Steve that we should go to Club Viva, catch Chris there with the students and confront him. We roped Gary into driving us and told Louisa and Beate it was a teachers’ night out.
“The nightclub music was bollock-throbbing loud and we couldn’t see two feet through the gloom, but we found Chris with a gaggle of German girls in a quiet area at the back. Except for their four-inch heels, you’d have thought it was a group of children in an audience with Santa Claus. The girls were hanging on his every word. When he saw us, he said something to the girls and they moved away, throwing us filthy looks and making it clear we’d ruined their evening. He was angry too and accused us of interrupting his research interview.
“I demanded he show me his research methods in action.”
Damian picked up his coffee and settled back in Gary’s chair, at home in his narrative. Helen again mentally rehearsed the sprint from her armchair to the hall. Whatever he was building up to was bound to be sleazy. What then?
He put his mug down. “I pointed at a smart waitress who was collecting empty glasses from the tables. I told Chris to interview her.
“He shook his head and said it wouldn’t work. The woman was too busy. The subject had to be in the mood. He said his research was about female dependency and the woman didn’t look the dependent type.
“Gary pointed out a girl walking past our table. She was young, skinny and had pokerstraight blond hair like a lot of German girls. We watched until she disappeared into the toilets. Chris said she was a loner because in-crowd girls go to the ladies in packs.
“‘She might be the pack leader,’ Gary said, his eyes glued to the toilet door.
“‘You saw the way she hunched her shoulders. What does that tell you?’ Chris said.
“‘Self-conscious, weak, vulnerable,’ Gary said.”
Helen shuddered. It was obscene to hear Gary through this mouthpiece. He wouldn’t have said those words.
“When the girl emerged from the ladies, I told Chris to bring her over so we could observe his so-called interview technique. He refused at first but I reminded him I could land him in a heap of trouble if he couldn’t prove to me his interest in the other girls had been innocent.
“She seemed startled when he approached her but as he talked to her, she loosened her folded arms and lifted her head to look him in the eye.
“He led her back to our table. It was like watching a duckling waddling after its mummy. When she saw us, she was shy again, head down, arms wrapped around herself. Chris reassured her we were good guys. She’d known him thirty seconds longer than she’d known us but she took his word for it and gave us a nervous smile. Steve offered to buy her a drink. She said she wanted a beer.
“Gary asked her name and gave her all ours. She pulled a face and said she never remembered names especially English ones. I can hardly blame her as I can’t remember her name – Angelica, Petra, who knows? We all laughed about it and she relaxed. I nodded at Chris to get on with his research. I have to give him his due because that’s what he did.”
Damian paused to raise his coffee mug. It seemed to be a toast to the dead film-maker. Helen didn’t raise hers.
“He would ask her a question and, depending on how she answered, he would know what to say next to draw more information out of her. Through her broken English and with Gary’s help at translating, we learnt that she wanted to go to university after she’d finished sixth form, but she’d be the first person in her family to go on into higher education. She was worried how her working-class parents would react. She didn’t think they had the strongest marriage.”
He looked at her. “Do you see what I mean, Helen? In five minutes Chris knew about her family set-up, her education, and her fears for the future. The guy was a genius and kept on probing. I bought us another round of beers and later someone – Gary, I think – got us on vodkas. He stayed on light beer because he was driving. We found out about her childhood, her school friends, her first boyfriend …”
The doubt grew in Helen. Gary would never have plied a schoolgirl with vodka. It was all a ludicrous preamble before Damian admitted his fling with this German girl.
“It got late and Chris, feeling that he’d gleaned all he wanted from the girl, switched off the charm, shouting across her to talk to the rest of us. She tried to re-engage him in conversation but he shrugged her off. He could be a cold bastard when he wanted. We felt sorry for her. Steve said he’d call her a taxi and went out to the car park to get a mobile signal. She went with him. She was pretty unsteady on her feet. Gary got up too and said she could wait for the taxi in his car as it was too cold to hang about outside.” Damian hesitated. “Do you want me to go on?”
She swirled the dregs in her mug, the milky taste still strong in her mouth. She thought about walking to the door and holding it open, giving him no option but to leave. But curiosity got the better of her and she decided to hear him out to the punchline.
“Chris and I got talking to two women at the bar. We lost track of time, but it was ages before the others came back. When they did, Steve was white as a sheet. Gary was dabbing a scratch on his face, and he made it clear that if we didn’t leave immediately we’d have to make our own way home.
“No one spoke in the car. I thought Gary and Steve must have had a fight.”
She scrutinized his face. His cheeks were flushed and his nose was verging o
n mauve. He said he’d stopped drinking. That would have been his first lie of the day. They’d been mounting up since then. She hadn’t even met Steve but Gary never fought with anyone. Gary was everyone’s friend. Her best friend. She swallowed but couldn’t shift the ache in her chest.
“When we went back to work on Monday, Gary and Steve avoided each other. One would leave the staffroom whenever the other walked in. After about two weeks, Steve came to me in an agitated state. He showed me the front page of the Tageblatt. There was a photograph of the German girl from Club Viva. They’d blocked her eyes out – like the German press always do – but there was no mistaking her. Steve’s wife had translated the article. The girl had been found dead, having slit her wrists. Neither her family nor her friends could explain why she might have taken her own life.”
Something prickled across Helen’s neck. She needed the story to end. She provided her own summary. “So you think she was so humiliated by Chris that she killed herself?”
“Don’t be naive, Helen. Do I have to spell it out?”
Helen’s jaw tightened. “I’ve heard enough.”
“Let me finish. I feel partly responsible. If I hadn’t taken Gary to that nightclub—”
She stood up. “Enough.”
Damian stayed in the chair. “As Steve described it, she came on to Gary while the three of them were in his car waiting for her taxi. She was pretty drunk. Any chap would have reacted. Steve left them to it and had a couple of cigarettes in the car park. He saw her climb out of the car and run away. It was too dark to see much but he heard her crying. He opened the car door on Gary to find him dishevelled, with his face bleeding.”
The word “dishevelled” thundered in her ears. She shook her head to dislodge it from her vision of Gary. “You’re lying. I don’t believe it.”
“Steve believed it. That’s why he made his wife translate the local newspaper every day. He expected to read that the police were investigating a sexual assault outside a city nightclub. Instead he read about a schoolgirl suicide.”
The Perfect Neighbours Page 20