by Adam Croft
My thoughts run away with me, and before I know it we’re boarding the Eurotunnel. A man in a hi-vis vest waves me forward, further and further, until I’m fairly certain the nose of my car is already in the backseat of the one in front. A few feet further forward and he signals for me to stop.
Some other drivers get out of their cars. A couple of families congregate around one car and start chatting. I presume they’re all travelling together in the two cars. The two dads stand laughing and joking. They’re looking forward to their booze cruise, I can tell. One of them seems to be about five and a half feet tall at best, with a pot belly and milk-bottle glasses that make his eyes appear to bulge like a frog’s. If I couldn’t see his children right now, I’d imagine they were the sort of kids who’d be dressed in matching clothes. Thankfully, they’re not. A couple of the kids start to tag each other and dart around behind their parents to avoid being tagged back. The others just look completely bored.
At any other time, I’d be really fucked off at the kids running around, worried that they might dent or scratch my car. Kids just don’t care about anything. They have no concept of being careful. Right now, though, I’ve got other things on my mind. I’m not going to lie – there’s a big part of me that’s trying to suppress a lot of bubbling rage and anger that could quite easily be directed at these little shits, but I’m keeping a lid on it. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.
It feels utterly bizarre, seeing these two families – complete strangers to me – going on holiday together; everything carrying on as normal, as my wife lies dead in a bathtub in Herne Bay. A huge part of me wants to scream at them about their lack of respect, but then I realise how ridiculous that sounds. It feels like everyone should know. Why don’t they?
This feeling, like all of the others, comes and goes quickly, to be replaced by another equally strong emotion. Every time it does so, it makes me feel sick. I don’t handle adrenaline well at the best of times, but this is something else altogether. I know my brain is struggling to cope. Whose brain can possibly be wired up to deal with such a set of circumstances?
Well, Jess’s, it seems.
She’s sat in the passenger seat, quietly playing a game of solitaire on her phone. I don’t know whether to be seriously impressed or scared by her complete lack of emotion. Oddly, I think it’s exactly what I need right now. Without her, I think I would have flipped out and started smashing stuff up. I’m still not entirely sure how I’m coping, but then again I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on, either. It’s all happened so quickly, so unexpectedly. And I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen next. All I know is that we need to keep moving and that Jessica’s scary calmness could actually prove to be what keeps my head above water. For the time being, anyway.
‘Shit,’ I say, suddenly snapping back to reality. ‘Why the fuck didn’t I grab the phones?’
‘What phones?’ Jess asks.
‘My mobile. From the hotel room. And Lisa’s.’
‘Why would you want to grab Lisa’s?’
I pause for a moment. ‘Don’t know. No reason.’
‘Bullshit,’ she says, looking at me. ‘What’s on the phone?’
I take a deep breath. ‘A text sent from my phone asking Lisa to come up to my room. But I didn’t send it,’ I add, quickly. ‘I promise.’
She nods, but I can’t tell if that means she’s accepted my explanation or that she doesn’t believe me. ‘You wouldn’t want your own phone, either. They’d use it to track you.’
I nod, silently.
After a few minutes, there’s an announcement over the tannoy in the carriage (which I barely hear, my brain tuning it out) and the shuttle starts to pull away. It’s at that point I know there’s no going back.
12
Thirty-five minutes later, the doors of the carriage open and we’re led out into northern France. Our passports aren’t checked at this end, and it strikes me that we’re now free to go wherever we want. By road, we can reach almost anywhere: Russia, South Africa, China, India. How far can we get before the manhunt begins?
I look at the clock in my car: 9.20 p.m., UK time, 10.20 p.m. here in France. We’ve got at least twelve hours. I don’t know if I could drive for the next twelve hours solid, but I damn well want to try. I want to get as far away from England as possible. I reckon we could be in Austria, the Czech Republic or Poland by then. Or even Italy. A drive through the Swiss Alps, around Lake Como and down into Milan. It sounds like I’m trying to take a luxury holiday off the back of finding my wife murdered and realising I’ve been framed, but the human brain does strange things in situations like this.
Jessica directs me onto the motorway and in the direction of Dunkirk. That name evokes all sorts of thoughts for British people, and at the moment I’m trying to summon up my own Dunkirk spirit. I know that I need to find out who killed Lisa, why, and what reason they have for trying to frame me for it. Only by proving that I wasn’t involved will I be able to clear my name and live peacefully – wherever that might be. I also know that it’s going to be an almost impossible task, especially once the manhunt begins tomorrow morning. Saying that, though, I need to get as far away from the UK as I possibly can, and I can only do that while no-one is looking for me.
We’ve been on the motorways for something approaching two hours when Jessica tells me to come off. We end up on a long country road, vast fields to either side of us. It’s pitch black and my headlights do next to nothing, even on the main beam. I’ve got about 170 miles left in the tank, but Jessica assures me we’re nearly there. She made a call once we’d got onto the motorway from Calais, speaking in garbled French to what sounded like a man on the other end. I don’t speak French, so couldn’t understand a word. I presume this is the person we’re going to see. I didn’t dare ask. A large part of me didn’t want to know.
We pass through the villages of Orsinval, Villereau and, later, Locquignol, then off up a narrow country lane and past a couple of impressive-looking houses before pulling over onto a gravel lay-by next to a farmhouse. It seems as though it’s all on one level. Like a bungalow, almost. I suppose the French would call it a chalet. It looks a bit big for a chalet, though. A chateau? No, too grand. I’ll stick with farmhouse.
Next to the gravel road is a small grassy area, with a chicken-wire fence running alongside the road, a low wrought-iron gate at one end and a walled courtyard with low wooden gates at the other. There’s a dainty little mailbox just outside the wooden gates and some sort of vine trails across the chicken-wire fence. It looks very French, and my first thought is that it’s a shame I’m not getting to see it during the day with the sun shining.
‘What’s this?’ I ask, noticing that Jessica’s not moving.
‘It’s somewhere I never thought I’d come back to,’ she says, staring straight out through the windscreen in front of her.
‘Bad memories?’
She pauses for a moment. ‘Yes and no.’
I don’t feel I can ask anything more. Whatever the memories are, they’re clearly affecting her or distressing her in some way. For a second, I realise that I’ve become more concerned about her than I have about the fact that my wife’s lying dead in a bathtub in Herne Bay. Never mind the fact that I’m going to become Britain’s most wanted man in just a few hours’ time. Down here in France, all that seems to have been left a million miles and a hundred years away.
Before I can say anything else, she opens the car door and gets out, walking purposefully across the gravel road and pushing open the wooden gate. I follow her.
We make our way under a wooden archway, again covered with vines, and I stop as Jessica knocks on the heavy wooden door, which has been painted an odd shade of turquoise. A few seconds later, I hear the latch unlocking on the door and it swings open, revealing a man who I can only describe as very French. His greying hair is swept back, and he has an Albert Einstein moustache. He holds out his arms and embraces Jessica, with a kiss on each cheek. All he’s missing
is a stripy T-shirt and a string of onions. I can see immediately that there’s some sort of untold story between these two. The man steps aside and lets us in.
‘Dan, this is Claude.’
Claude just looks at me. Almost as if he expects me to know who he is, or perhaps he’s waiting to judge my body language before deciding how to engage with me. He seems cautious but friendly.
‘Very nice to meet you, Dan,’ he says in heavily accented English. ‘Please, come through.’
He leads us into his living room, which has beautiful exposed brickwork and beams. It has an airy, open-plan feel. Yet again, I feel incredibly guilty at just how detached I feel about the whole Lisa situation. I wonder if my brain has shut down my emotions and gone into survival mode. They say traumatic experiences can do that – it’s a way of the brain protecting itself. Fleeing so quickly has given me some space, both physically and mentally, to be able to try and process what’s happened – and why. I feel safer, as though I’m a long way away from whoever’s decided to do this to me. I don’t have anyone particular in mind, though people always want revenge for something. But to commit murder in such cold blood and set the scene to look as though I did it?
I can only assume that I’m being set up. If someone just wanted to kill Lisa, why not do it in East Grinstead? Why not cut the brakes on her car or burn the house down? Why lure her seventy miles away to the hotel I’m staying in and make it look as if I killed her? The amount of planning that must have gone into it: getting her there, waiting until I was out of the room, somehow getting her upstairs . . . The only possible conclusion is that someone’s looking to ruin my life as well as end Lisa’s.
I still can’t get my head around that one. Lisa didn’t have enemies. She didn’t need to be the victim in all this. She was always bubbly, lively, true to herself. I can’t understand why someone would want her dead. Nor can I understand why or how that text got onto Lisa’s phone from my number.
Claude pours a bottle of red wine into three large glasses and passes one to me and one to Jessica.
‘Just water, please,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to drive.’
Claude smiles and looks at me. ‘You do not need to drive. Tonight, you can stay here. Tomorrow morning, we will see again.’
Jessica senses I’m about to protest. ‘You’ve just driven all the way from England. It’s late. And it’s been a busy day,’ she says, as if I’ve just had a stressful day at work or had to redecorate the bathroom. I wonder how much she’s told Claude. Presumably not much, judging by how comfortable he seems. He heads into the kitchen to put the empty wine bottle away.
‘Jess, we need to keep moving.’
‘Why?’ she says, almost before I’ve finished my sentence. ‘Who’s going to be coming here to look for us?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t even know who this guy is,’ I reply, lowering my voice but knowing damn well Claude can hear me and understand every word.
‘I’ve told you who he is. And no-one’s going to be looking for us until late tomorrow morning at the earliest. And they aren’t going to be looking here.’ She offers no more information and just takes a large gulp of wine. The fruity tang wafts under my nose from my glass and I raise it, taking a small mouthful myself. It feels so good.
‘You want something to eat?’ Claude says, returning from the kitchen. I go to say no, but my stomach disagrees and decides to tell me how hungry it is. Fortunately for Claude, he’s French and has already returned to the kitchen and started clattering about in cupboards before even waiting for an answer. Of course they want something to eat; they’re guests.
I look at Jessica and she looks back at me. Neither of us says a word, but, in that moment, so much is spoken.
13
Over the next hour or so, I feel the bizarre mix of adrenaline and tiredness starting to subside and a deep sense of panic begins to set in.
Jessica and Claude have been talking in French for most of the meal, which has got me wondering what they’re saying. Claude clearly speaks perfect English, so why would they choose to speak in a language they know I can’t understand? I know exactly why: because they don’t want me to understand.
Everything’s happened so fast. My wife’s dead, I’ve been framed for her murder and I’m sitting in a farmhouse in France eating dinner with essentially two complete strangers. Why am I even here? What possible reason could Jessica have for wanting to help me? She’s a runner – I get that. She’s probably run away a hundred times before, and she’s clearly had issues in her past. But she barely knows me. Why would she trust me so implicitly, especially after what happened to Lisa? I’m not sure I even trust myself. And how does she know Lisa’s even dead? She didn’t ask for any proof, didn’t want to see the body. How do I even know she was dead? At the time I was certain, but could I ever be completely sure? Time will tell, I suppose. I’m comforted by the tiny possibility that Lisa isn’t dead at all, Europe’s police won’t be out looking for me tomorrow morning and I can return home having just had a rather impetuous but nice trip to France.
Except I know that isn’t going to happen.
I’m broken out of my reverie by something odd. I’ve been pretending to pay attention to Claude and Jessica the whole time, my eyes casting over in their direction regularly, watching them and looking as though I was present. But now I’m caught by the look on Claude’s face.
I think back to that indescribable but perfectly clear vibe I was getting from Jessica out in the car, that she knew she had to come here – felt it was her duty to do so – but really didn’t want to. If this was the place – if Claude was the person who could help us – why would she have such reservations about coming here? Something doesn’t quite seem right about that. And that look he’s giving her right now as she tucks into the last few spoonfuls of her stew is starting to creep me out. It’s almost as if I’m not even here.
A thought occurs to me. She’s calm and collected because she’s in control. She’s always in control. That’s who she is. But how long has she been in control? That’s the thought that worries me. Has she been able to prepare for this? Was she involved earlier than I thought? Was she somehow responsible for what happened to Lisa? I shake the thought from my head. I’ve known Jess mere days and she’s never met Lisa. It’s not as if she’s fallen for me and wanted me for herself – she’s told me often enough she’s not the commitment type. It just doesn’t add up.
As Jessica finishes her stew, Claude raises one side of his mouth into a half-smile, leans across to pick up her bowl and takes it out into the kitchen.
‘Are you alright?’ I ask her.
‘Fine.’
I give it a second or two. ‘What was that all about?’
‘What?’
‘The talking in French for the past hour. And those weird looks he was giving you.’
‘What weird looks?’
I struggle to tell whether she’s as innocent and naive as she makes out, but I somehow doubt it.
‘Nothing. I just . . . It seemed a bit odd, that’s all.’
Claude comes back in from the kitchen. ‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘I have to go and see to Baiard.’
Jessica seems to know what this means. I haven’t got a clue. She waits until he’s walked out through the back door from the kitchen until she explains.
‘It’s his horse. He’s got a stable down at the back of the house.’
‘A stable? Jesus.’
‘Trust me,’ she says. ‘That’s nothing.’
There’s a few seconds of silence before I speak again.
‘So how do you know Claude?’
She takes a deep breath. ‘He was a friend of the family,’ she says through a sigh.
‘Was?’
‘They had a bit of a falling out,’ she replies, her eyes blinking a few times as she says it.
I nod. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Jess, and I’m not being funny, but I need to know who this guy is. I’m in the biggest shit I’ve ever been in in my l
ife, my wife’s lying dead in my hotel room back in England and you’ve dragged me down to a farmhouse in France with Poirot here. I don’t know who he is, I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what the fuck’s going on.’ My voice cracks as I speak, the panic starting to break through the protective buffer my brain had created for me.
‘Claude’s a good man. He protected me. He cares for me. I feel safe with him. And you don’t need to know who I am.’
‘I do, Jess. Believe me, I do. I don’t even know who I am right now, so I need some sort of security. Some constant.’
‘You have security,’ she says quietly but confidently. ‘You can trust Claude.’
‘So you tell me, but how do I know I can trust you?’
‘What do you mean?’ she replies, looking at me for the first time since dinner, her eyes narrowed.
‘I met you only a few days ago, Jess. I know every fucking inch of your body but not a single thing about you. I don’t know what’s happened, I don’t know who killed Lisa, but all I know is someone did. Now I’m down here with two people I don’t know, who are trying to convince me they’re looking after me, but why would they? Why would you? You don’t know me, either. You don’t know I didn’t kill Lisa.’
‘I do know,’ she says, looking me in the eye. ‘Trust me, I know a bad person when I see one, Dan.’
‘But you don’t know for sure. You can’t ever know for sure if you weren’t there. This is weird. Fucking weird. Don’t you see that? Why wasn’t your reaction to call the police and tell them you were my alibi? Or to at least come upstairs and see for yourself what had happened?’
She lets out an ironic laugh and whispers forcefully, ‘You think I wanted to see your wife’s dead body? Seriously?’