“What kind of sick joke is this? If the police ever questioned Gary about something like that, it would have got out. You can’t keep secrets here.”
“I think she was too humiliated to report the attack and, after a few days of keeping her secret, couldn’t cope with the shame.”
“Steve must have made it up,” Helen said. “You said yourself you thought he and Gary had a falling out. He must have tried to frame Gary.”
Damian shook his head. “Steve begged me to recommend him for a move to another school so that he wouldn’t be around if the police made the link. Rather than tell the police what he’d witnessed and land Gary in trouble, he chose to flee the country. I got him a job at an army school in Cyprus.”
Her whole body shook. All kinds of thoughts raced – protests, ideas, fears. She grabbed one, an explanation, and said: “He probably fancied a change of scene and came up with this cock and bull story to make you release him from his contract.”
He shook his head again. “Because he needed Beate to translate the newspapers, he had to tell her what happened. She gave him an ultimatum: tell the truth or I’m leaving. Steve chose to protect Gary. The day after the newspaper article appeared, she took the kids and went to her parents in Bavaria. She never came back.”
Helen didn’t care about Steve or the bust-up with his wife. It had nothing to do with her. Smoke and mirrors. “If Gary had done something like this, I would have known. I’d have sensed a change in him, seen guilt in his behaviour.”
“With respect, Helen, you hardly saw him in those days apart from the odd long weekend. What did you really know about him?”
“How dare …?”
“Besides, you did see a change in him. Wasn’t it about then that he proposed to you?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Gary, the confirmed bachelor, proposes marriage to a woman he’s known for all of three months. I’d say that was a seismic change, wouldn’t you? Did you ever wonder if he really loved you?”
His neck was red like a turkey’s wattle. He wasn’t the affable neighbour with a wandering eye; he was a twisted liar. She raged over him: “Get out of my house.”
He went into the hall. “I’ll come back when you’ve had time to take it in,” he said in a voice meant to pacify her. It enraged her more.
“Never come near me again.” She was about to close the door on him when Zanders and Simons drew up in front of the house.
“When’s the trial?” Damian asked as Zanders got out of the car. “I want a ringside seat when that bastard gets sent down for life.”
Zanders shook his head and told him Sascha Jakobsen had been released. “A new witness. Someone saw him scaling the fence into the swimming pool.”
“That’s complete bollocks. He must have paid them to say that,” Damian shouted.
Grim-faced, they ignored him and walked towards Helen.
Even before Zanders spoke, she knew. His eyes, his head, his body, everything was level, emotionless, detached.
In a flat voice, he told her she was under arrest for murder.
PART THREE
45
Saturday, 18 December
“Try to calm down. It won’t help your case to overreact,” Karola tells her, suited and professional. She’s Frau Barton now, dog breeder reverting to trained lawyer to brief her client in the interview room.
Helen slams the table. “The police can’t arrest the first person on the scene and call it case closed.”
Karola picks up her papers. Her chapped knuckles are the only clue to her spaniel-walking other life. “The police interviewed everyone who attended Louisa’s swim club party. They know about the argument.”
“Christ, I can’t even have a row without one of the bystanders becoming my defence lawyer. Did the police interview you too?”
“They talked to Geoff and me last week before you became an official suspect. But they aren’t basing their case on that one incident; I can still represent you. Neighbours say there was long-term animosity between you and Louisa, and they claim you were aggressive towards Chris Mowar.”
“They said that?”
Karola shuffles her paperwork. Is she even listening?
Helen clamps down her anger and keeps her voice steady. “What motive would I have for killing Gary? I never touched … I didn’t get his blood on me.” She rubs her temples, trying to banish the vision of his lifeless body slumped over the dining table, the back of his shirt wet and red.
“Raised voices were heard from one of your upstairs rooms a couple of hours before the murders,” Karola says. There’s no pity in her eyes. “Are you sure no one saw you go over to Number Ten? They could confirm the time.”
Helen wonders whose side this woman is on – hers, the police’s, or the school Stepfords’. “It was snowing a blizzard so no one else was outside.” She sits back on the hard interview chair. Even her own lawyer wants to interrogate her. Isn’t it enough for Zanders and Simons to poke holes in everything she says?
“I’ll come back later, Mrs Taylor.”
Helen watches her pack up her briefcase. She’d be more reassured if she still called her Helen.
46
Sunday, 19 December
Helen curls up on the bed, feeling shivery. She craves the coarse duvet that smelled of industrial washing powder but the guard took it away hours ago when he brought in her breakfast.
She wraps her arms around herself, gripping her shins and forcing her folded legs against her chin. She’s still trembling from Karola’s latest visit. Why the cross-examination about Sascha?
Did it have anything to do with Zanders placing the see-through evidence bag in front of her? Do you recognize this, Mrs Taylor? She admitted it looked like one of her green teardrop earrings. Had he found it at Louisa’s house two weeks after the murders? Would it have been in her best interests to lie to Zanders? She hasn’t worn the pair since one of them disappeared in July. She tries to conjure up the mess and disarray of her ransacked bedroom instead of the gruesome chaos of Number Ten. But she can’t stop herself from fast-forwarding. Toby’s snapped cello fingerboard, Louisa’s crimson collar, Chris’s gaping crewneck sweater. Images vie for her attention. Neck and Neck.
She stands up and imagines the guard at the custody desk peering at her on the CCTV screen. She wants to pee but isn’t desperate enough yet to crouch on the toilet in the corner. She’s used it only once in the early morning. No doubt the cell camera has infra-red but she convinced herself the guard couldn’t see her in the dark. She didn’t sleep at all. Time became endless without her watch, which the custody sergeant confiscated. They took her wedding ring too. She almost cried at how easily it slipped over her knuckle.
Her head aches with thirst. She’s avoided the drinks they’ve brought into the cell, to keep her bladder empty and because German herbal tea stinks like rotting undergrowth. She walks to the breakfast tray which still hasn’t been taken away. The white roll and slice of liver sausage lie untouched alongside the cup of now cold, pungent liquid.
A sense of defiance takes her. Why should she starve herself? She breaks off a chunk of the dry roll and pushes it into her mouth. It’s hard and scrapes her throat. She washes it down with a swig of tea. Before the foul taste can take hold, she shoves in another mouthful of bread.
She chews on the meat and she thinks about how bogus Damian’s story is. And yet. She feels a sharp pain as a piece of sausage gets stuck. She thumps her chest and drinks the last few dregs from her cup. The pain eases but leaves a scratching sensation in her gullet. And yet.
She falls back on the bed, winded at where her thoughts are going. She can’t suspect Gary of rape. She won’t. And is Louisa, the unquiet ghost, still spinning her web of control? Why else would the surviving neighbours see Helen as a mass murderer?
Club Viva. She tries not to think of where she first heard the name, but she knows it was in Louisa’s cellar. The men playing pool, Gary looking worried, Chris ass
uring him Club Viva was in the past.
Had Louisa known about Club Viva too? It would explain why Gary was quick to defend her, afraid that if Helen pushed her too far she’d blurt out the story. But many a time she and Louisa drove each other to the limit. If Louisa had a story that would have shocked Helen, she’d have told it months ago.
Mel is too low in the pecking order to know, but Chris had some kind of hold over Damian. It could have been over Gary too. Why would Gary associate with Chris, the arrogant creep, and Damian, the raging philanderer, unless there was a secret bond between them? A bond of silence? No, she knew Gary; there would have been signs.
The countless times she found him gaming in the spare room. But that must have been her fault. He was unhappy that she hadn’t settled down in Germany. That was bad enough, but that was all it was, wasn’t it?
A whirlwind romance. What panicked him into marriage? He proposed about the time Damian claims the girl committed suicide.
She makes it to the toilet in time to throw up the undigested sausage. Her eyes stream with tears – the first since she ran into Manfred Scholz outside Number Ten.
She hears the door bolts deactivate and Karola’s voice is back.
“Good news; the police are letting you go.”
Helen stays over the toilet and spits up bile.
47
“How did you find me?” Sascha asks. His eyes are tiny, black beads that skitter over her shoulder to the foyer.
Helen surges inside. She expected his flat to be grubby and untidy but the hall is uncluttered, stale tobacco tang neutralized by air-freshener. There’s a painting of the Madonna and Child on the wall. It makes her falter. His walls, his territory. Roman Catholic.
“My mother is a believer,” he says, catching her gaze. “I have no god.” His mouth is set thin and pale. She trembles; she shouldn’t have come.
“How did you get this address?” He sounds uncertain and it makes her determined again.
“What’s it like to be on the receiving end?” she says. She steps towards him and his eyes dart to her hands. “Does it make you feel stalked and hounded? I hope so.” She puts her hands in her pockets.
“You know what I said to the police?” There’s a tremor in his voice.
“You told them we were together at the closed-down pool for an affair. What kind of fantasy is going on in your head? I’ve been released from custody on the strength of a lie that insults my husband’s memory.”
“You didn’t kill. Louisa Howard irritated you but that is all.”
“Isn’t that for the police to decide? I thought Louisa was controlling, but wherever I turn it’s you standing in the way.”
Sascha rubs his hand through his hair. She moves closer, making him look at her. “And now you’ve convinced the police I was unfaithful to my husband.”
“When the police see a possibility, they want to prove it. I stopped that happening to you.” He smiles at her, apparently pleased with his argument.
It’s all that she can do not to punch his face. She presses on with what she came to ask.
“How long have you and Manfred Scholz been friends?”
“Scholz?”
“He gave you your alibi. My lawyer told me. He’s the witness who came forward to say he saw you climbing over the pool fence. And now he’s corroborated the one you gave me.”
Sascha’s face colours as if she’s hit a nerve.
“And Scholz says he saw you dropping me off in Dickensweg less than ten minutes before I ran out screaming from Number Ten. No time for either of us to barricade bedroom doors and commit four murders.” She starts a slow hand clap, moves it closer, towards his face. He pulls his head back but she keeps coming. “What makes Manfred Scholz so ready to lie? And how did the police find my earring in the Freibad grounds? The last time I saw that earring was before the burglaries in July. How about I tell Zanders that?”
His body sinks and he drops his gaze. “The police already know. It’s not true but they have evidence. A little blood and a thumbprint.”
She pauses for a moment, processing what he’s telling her. An exploding wave of anger crashes through her. “So it was you? I never believed it, but I should have listened to Louisa. We all should have listened. They’d be alive if we had.”
He backs away until he reaches the wall, his head below the Virgin Mary. “I’m no burglar.”
“You’re so much more than that,” she yells.
“It …” he fidgets, tucking that stupid hair strand behind his ear.
She brings her hands up. To clap again or to slap him? She doesn’t know but he grabs them. Her wrists collide and burn. She sucks in saliva and launches it at his face. Her spit speckles his upper lip. He flicks his head towards her and she braces herself for a headbutt.
But he presses his mouth over hers. She breathes in nicotine and tries to cough. The spit rubs from his lip to hers. She tries to pull away but he spins her round and presses her against the wall. Her hands are crushed, prayer-like, between them. She shakes her head, shakes it with rage and disgust and fear.
His hand threads through her hair and clamps her still. Her gums hurt from his pressure. Their teeth grate and her jaws open in pain. Their tongues touch and something else ripples through her. Her legs buckle. He finds her zip and she shrugs out of her coat. Her palms are pressed against his chest. He’s shaking and urgent. He doesn’t smell of cigarettes anymore; it’s a scent of heat and Gary when … Gary.
She struggles but can’t move. She forms “No” but it’s not there through kiss and tongue.
He grips her shoulders. Her head catches the picture frame. He kisses her throat.
“Stop,” she shouts.
His hand moves back behind her head, forcing her mouth on his.
She’s alive. There’s been no human touch since …
They are kissing now, her tongue as eager as his. His hand is on her throat, pressing up under her chin. Thunder through her ears; his pressure is choking her. Her eyes are open but all she sees are bubbles of light that burst to dark. She can’t feel her lips.
Sascha lets go of her head and the movement is enough to break the connection. She snaps her face to the side.
“No!” she chokes.
The pressure on her throat is gone. Her vision returns.
He’s staring at the picture above her head, The Holy Mother.
He shrinks off her. “Oh Gott, I’m sorry. I swear I wouldn’t …” he says. “I swear it on Mareike’s grave.”
The winter air bites Helen’s tender neck as she sprints to her car. She puts her coat back on but it’s soiled like everything else she’s wearing.
48
Tuesday, 21 December
Helen grasps the armrest as the taxi driver accelerates around a hairpin bend. The football key ring on his rear-view mirror flies trapeze-high. One half of her brain screams slow down, the other half wills him faster. They agreed on €80 from the airport in Larnaca but the final fare to Episkopi depends on the time it takes. If he slows, she’s bankrupt. If he speeds up, she’s dead.
There are hills on one side, haggard and flaky. Every so often houses and olive trees poke up through the rocky plains on the other. The only structures with plan and order are the shrines by the roadside. Orthodox thanksgiving or in memory of those that didn’t make it? Her head bangs into the passenger window as the driver jumps another bend. She lolls onto the seatbelt but it’s slack against her breastbone, no spring left in the coil.
She had a terrible night, consumed by disjointed snatches of Damian’s story. Did she, at some level, believe him? Why else would she have let Sascha kiss her, put his hands on her throat? By 2 a.m. she convinced herself she’d never sleep again unless she put her doubts about Gary to rest. She had to know the truth even if it meant finding out her marriage had been a sham and her husband had been a predator.
But how could she disprove Damian’s version of events? Four men met a girl in a nightclub two years ago. Three of th
e protagonists were dead, one was long gone and one blamed Gary. If only she could find an independent witness.
She sat up in bed: Steve, the one that got away. According to Damian, he left to shake off the guilt by association with Gary. But what if Damian was lying, would Steve tell her the truth? A Google search for army schools in Cyprus led her to St Joseph’s School. If it’s the right school, she’ll find him there.
***
There are ninety minutes of jolt and lurch before the cab sweeps up a steep, modern road to the front of St Joseph’s School. Apart from the sea view and the scattered palm trees, she could be looking at Niers International. Whitewashed concrete walls, pillars propping up a porch, brown front entrance. Architects must have come up with a one size fits all for international schools.
A hard-looking woman with pocked skin sits behind a window in the foyer. She has blond hair but the peroxide is a vain attempt to hide the years. She ignores Helen, when she approaches, and only looks up to answer the ringing telephone. Her responses are monosyllabic, and she ends the call without putting it through to anyone.
“I’m here to see Steve Chadwick,” Helen says. Any chink of nervousness and this receptionist will demolish her. She silently thanks Birgit, Damian’s school secretary, for being the woman’s polar opposite. Birgit gave her Steve’s surname when Helen phoned her this morning. She didn’t even ask her what she wanted it for, which was just as well; how could Helen have explained she was on a crazy trip to Cyprus to prove her dead husband wasn’t a monster who preyed on schoolgirls?
The St Joseph’s receptionist says: “He’s teaching.”
Helen asks if a message can be sent to him.
“Are you a parent? There are proper channels to go through.”
Now what? Hang around the school gate until home time? She doesn’t know what Steve Chadwick looks like, and she’s got to do this now. She thinks herself back into her role as head of PE, produces her passport and pushes it towards the woman.
The Perfect Neighbours Page 21