Dead Man's Gift and Other Stories

by Simon Kernick

  Marla closed the front door of her two-bed Chelsea flat behind her (bought for £350k ten years ago, now worth a nice, round million) and strode down the street towards where her Boxster convertible was parked in a residents’ bay opposite the coffee house. As she passed the newsagent’s, she forced herself to glance at the paper stand outside.

  It had been more than three weeks since Danny Corridge’s face had first appeared on the front pages staring out angrily at the world, and plenty of other front pages covering different stories had appeared since. Even so, it still scared Marla to look at the papers in case there’d been some new revelation about the case in the intervening period. Or, of course, in case he’d come back seeking revenge. The other day she thought she’d seen him walking on the other side of the King’s Road, watching her. Instinctively she’d turned away from his gaze and when she’d looked back, he’d disappeared. She knew she was being paranoid. She hadn’t seen the guy in twenty years and she’d barely glanced at the photo in the papers. As her father used to say (at least behind closed doors), they all look the same anyway. It could have been any middle-aged black man staring at her. Jesus, men stared at her all the time.

  As she got in the car, she looked at the note with map attached that had been posted to her by Charlie a week and a half ago, inviting her to his island – his bloody island, for Christ’s sake – in some godforsaken part of Wales. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to see any of them again – not now – but it was clear from the tone of the note that failure to turn up was not a viable option. She read it again, concentrating on the last sentence. ‘It’s in all our self-interests to be there, because if we don’t present a united front, we are finished.’

  Suitably dramatic language from one of Parliament’s most flamboyant speakers, but unfortunately also very true.

  She started the car and pulled away.

  Under normal circumstances there was no way Luke Jacobs would kick a hot twenty-nine-year-old out of bed at eleven-thirty in the morning, especially while she was going down on him, but these were anything but normal circumstances.

  This one was called Claire, and Luke had met her a couple of weeks earlier on Tinder. On her profile, she’d said she was only looking for men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, which was some way south of forty-two, but Luke prided himself on not looking his age, which was why he pretended to be thirty-six whenever he met a new girl. They’d slept together on the second date, and last night had been the third. Luke had cooked her chilli con carne, plied her with mid-priced red wine and taken her to bed. He had the day off today, and she wasn’t starting work until 5 p.m., so they’d slept late, eaten breakfast in bed and carried on from the previous night.

  As a general rule, Luke loved his life. He had a relatively easy job in software sales that paid a decent salary but didn’t require long hours. He rented a nice one-bed flat in Balham, had a good social life and got laid frequently. He’d never quite understood the whole concept of marriage. Why settle with one woman when you could have many and stay as free as a bird? It was the same with kids. Luke loved kids – he really did – but he didn’t want his own. They drained your money, your time and, worst of all, your sex drive. Luke had seen some of his male friends reduced to husks of their former selves by the demands of their new families.

  No, adulthood had been a real breeze for Luke Jacobs.

  Until now.

  ‘I’m sorry, babes, I’ve got to go,’ he said reluctantly, carefully extricating himself from Claire’s mouth and silently cursing that arsehole Charlie Williams for making him traipse all the way to Wales for the weekend. He’d never liked Charlie that much at uni, and liked him even less now that he kept seeing him on TV the whole time, looking full of himself. He also didn’t like the way Charlie was organizing this whole thing, like he was the one who had to be in charge. Acting all cloak-and-dagger with his instructions: no contacting each other by phone or email; all correspondence on paper, with no copies, and burn everything as soon as it’s memorized. He’d even insisted that everyone drive themselves to Wales and not take public transport, because it was essential no one on the outside knew they were meeting. Luke half wanted to turn up on the train just to piss Charlie off, but he was sensible enough to know there was no point. Charlie might have been an arsehole but he was a cunning one and, right now, like it or not, they needed him.

  Claire gave him a vaguely irritated look as he stepped off the bed. ‘Don’t you like me or something?’

  ‘Course I do,’ he said, suppressing a sigh as he pulled on his shirt, ‘but you know I’ve got to go. I have a stag weekend and I need to be at Waterloo Station for twelve-thirty, otherwise I’m going to miss the train.’ He’d already told her the lie twice, but clearly it wasn’t getting through.

  She started to say something else but Luke was no longer listening. He was thinking about the phone call he’d received yesterday from a DCI Johnson. Apparently, the police had already called round twice at Luke’s place, missing him both times, and were very keen to have – in Johnson’s words – a chat about Rachel Skinner. ‘You’re the first of the group I’ve approached,’ he explained. ‘I thought you might be able to shed some light on things.’ The implication was obvious. Luke was being given a chance to cooperate. If he said something now, it might help him further down the line.

  He’d been caught off-guard by the call, even though he’d been preparing for it ever since they’d released Danny Corridge. A big part of him had wanted to spill his guts on the spot and blame the others, but in the end he’d kept his options open and made an appointment to go to the police station on Monday, by which time he’d have had plenty of time to work out how to play things.

  Luke knew he was involved in a very high-stakes game. How he played his hand over the next seventy-two hours would determine whether he continued to live a charmed, hassle-free life, or whether he spent a significant portion of the rest of it in prison.

  Louise Turner dreaded seeing any of her former group again. She’d not kept in touch with any of them, which was hardly surprising under the circumstances, and she’d spent the past twenty years asking herself what she’d actually seen in any of them in the first place. They’d been a pretty narcissistic bunch – all just after a good time, and not really interested in each other, let alone anyone else.

  Louise had changed immeasurably since then. After twelve successful years as a family lawyer, she’d had two children with her long-term partner, Ian, and become a full-time mum, setting up home in a village just outside St Albans. She loved her new life. Her younger son, Finn, was still in pre-school and, at three, he was undoubtedly a handful, but she felt blessed to be able to spend so much time with him. Nor did she miss the London rat race. Ian still had to commute into the city every day, leaving the house at six-thirty and often not getting home before eight, and Louise longed for the day they could afford for him to take a position more locally. All in all, though, they were a pretty happy family leading a pretty happy life.

  And then, twenty-seven days ago, the authorities had released Danny Corridge from prison after twenty-one years behind bars, with an official pardon, apologizing profusely for the terrible miscarriage of justice he’d suffered. And now, as the saying went, all bets were off. Corridge was officially innocent of the murder of Rachel Skinner, which meant two things. First, someone else was guilty, and so the police had no option but to reopen the case and start digging for the truth. Second, Corridge was likely to be a very angry man. Louise remembered from the trial that he had connections to some pretty nasty types, and frankly the prospect of him on the loose, looking for the people whose evidence had helped put him down, terrified her. She even thought she’d seen him driving past their house a couple of days ago. It might just have been paranoia, but it definitely looked like the man who’d been all over the news these past few weeks. The thing was, it wasn’t herself she was worrying about. It was the kids. If anything happened to her, they’d be torn apart.r />
  Her mum was walking up to the front door and, as they caught sight of each other, Louise grinned and picked up Finn so he could wave to her. Her mum was a huge help with the boys. They seemed to give her a purpose, now her dad was gone.

  ‘So, are you ready for your weekend away, love?’ asked her mum as Louise let her in. ‘You need it. You never get away. It’s just a pity Ian’s not going with you.’ She took Finn from Louise and began bouncing him up and down. Finn cooed delightedly.

  ‘It’s a university reunion, Mum. He’d just be bored.’

  In truth, Louise wished she was taking Ian with her. She desperately needed his input on the whole situation, but of course she couldn’t say a word to him about any of it. It was her secret. No one else could, or would, ever know about it, not even the man she considered her soulmate. Thankfully he believed the reunion story too, which made things a lot easier.

  ‘Freddie’s got after-school club tonight, so he needs picking up at five, and Ian’s said he’s going to be back about seven.’

  Her mum laughed. ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to be just fine. Aren’t we, Finn? Now go and have fun with your old friends.’

  The Costa Coffee on Paddington Station’s concourse was busy as Crispin Neill sat drinking his skinny latte and picking at a limp-looking salad, pondering on how his life had come to this: eating crap food alone while waiting for a train to take him into a past he’d hoped he’d left behind long, long ago. He didn’t even have a car to arrive in, as Charlie requested. It was all such a far cry from his youth. Crispin was a dreamer. He’d always wanted to be a writer and at school he’d been told by a succession of teachers that he had a rare talent for story-telling, and when he’d gone to university he’d been filled with hope and ambition. Even after the incident, he’d still been optimistic that he could put events behind him and move on – maybe even use it as a kind of grim inspiration.

  But life has a habit of never going the way it’s meant to. There’s no logic to it, Crispin thought bitterly. He’d lost the girl he’d thought of as his true love and had never replaced her; and though he’d managed to get stuff published in magazines, no publisher had taken the three books he’d written. All that sweat and effort, and it had come to nothing. In total, he’d earned a paltry £1,335 from writing – less than sixty quid a year, when he dared to make the calculations – and now, at forty-two, he was a drifter with no real home, back living with his mum after a five-year stint in Perpignan, where he’d scraped a living waiting tables and painting houses, planning but never quite managing to write that fourth novel that was finally going to bring him success. He couldn’t stay at his mum’s much longer. It was a living hell listening to her wonder constantly why he couldn’t just get a proper job like everyone else. Luckily he had a friend who’d agreed to hire him as a manager of his bar in Ko Samui, so he was flying out there next week, the plan being to leave the UK for ever. He’d considered not turning up at Charlie’s place this weekend. After all, the best way to deal with this new development with Danny Corridge was for them all just to keep their mouths shut and carry on as before, which would be a hell of a lot easier for Crispin, as he was going to be six thousand miles away.

  In the end, though, he’d decided it would be better to find out what Charlie had to say. Anything was better than spending another weekend at home with his mother, and he had to admit that he was intrigued at the idea of seeing Karen again. He wondered what she looked like now and whether he’d still have any residual feelings for her. It had been twenty years since they’d last seen each other and he remembered that final goodbye – the passion, the rage, the terrible frustration. Nothing had ever been quite the same again.

  He shook his head, trying to banish the memory, and drained his coffee.

  Which was the moment two men in suits sat down opposite him, wearing cold smiles.

  Crispin’s first thought was that they were police officers, but there was something not quite right about them. Somehow they looked too cocky.

  ‘Hello, Crispin,’ said the older of the two in a cold, Estuary accent. ‘We need to have a word.’

  1

  So there we were in the dining room of Charlie’s island retreat – a suitably imposing structure with impressive views towards the wild Welsh coastline. Five friends who’d parted company all those years ago, hoping that we’d never see each other again.

  But in the end, of course, we should have known. The past was always going to come back to haunt us.

  It had been strange seeing them again after all those years. Even stranger that none of us had really changed that much, either to look at or in our mannerisms. Marla still looked unbelievably hot for a woman in her forties. She still had that thick, jet-black hair that was naturally curly but which she’d always straightened religiously, and the most alluring brown eyes I think I’ve ever seen. Weirdly, she’d always looked at me as competition, which, I think, was why we’d never got on that well, but I could never work out why. I’m not being self-critical, but looks-wise she’d always been way out of my league.

  Then there was Luke – still the big, bluff and handsome rugby player, his naturally blond hair unsullied with grey, as if the stress of what had happened had never affected him; and Louise, far more serious and distant than I remembered, dressed conservatively, with her ash-blonde hair tied back in a severe bun – and trying to make the effort to be friendly but not quite managing to hide her distaste at being here. Then there was me – poor, gaunt Karen – torn up with worry and forever tarnished by tragedy, but doing my level best to hide it. And Charlie, still just being Charlie.

  He was standing at the head of the table now – every inch the big politician – as if he was at the dispatch box about to make one of his impassioned speeches. He was still handsome in a soft, boyish way, but the fat that he’d been staving off since uni looked like it was in danger of winning the war. He looked out of shape and pale, but that wasn’t really surprising. Of all of us, I suppose he was the one with the most to lose.

  ‘Well, we can’t wait all night for Crispin, so it’s best we get started,’ he said. ‘Thank you all for coming. I appreciate it.’

  ‘We didn’t really have a lot of choice, did we?’ said Marla, flicking back her lustrous black hair just to make sure everyone noticed it. There was a vague irritation in her voice that I remembered had often been there, as if the whole world was an inconvenience to her.

  ‘No,’ said Charlie pointedly. ‘None of us had much choice. We’ve got to sort this whole thing out now, once and for all.’

  I’d been the last of the five of us to arrive and, in the two hours since, we’d all tried our best to avoid each other, and when we had been forced to socialize, it had been awkward small talk, with everyone deliberately avoiding the subject at hand as if it was something toxic – which, of course, it was.

  Charlie had tried to make everyone feel at ease, pouring drinks, asking what we’d all been up to, even though I’m sure he knew every detail, and generally acting as if this was some real uni reunion and not a clandestine meeting. Needless to say, it hadn’t worked. The atmosphere was tense and a little unpleasant, as we threw sideways distrustful looks at each other – as much combatants as old friends – and I was glad to finally get down to business.

  Charlie took a theatrically loud breath and began talking. ‘So, the background. Danny Corridge was released just over three weeks ago with a full pardon. He’s always protested his innocence of the murder of Rachel Skinner, but then, to quote Christine Keeler, ‘He would say that, wouldn’t he?’ Anyway, here are the facts: Corridge had a long criminal record before Rachel’s murder. He had convictions for robbery with violence; GBH; assault on a police officer; and crucially, he’d also been charged with rape.’

  ‘He was acquitted, though, wasn’t he?’ said Louise, her tone as severe as her hair, sounding just like the lawyer she was.

  ‘Yes, but on a technicality. Either way, this man was, and probably still is, a very bad eg
g. At the time of her murder, Rachel was Corridge’s ex-girlfriend. She’d finished with him two weeks earlier and he wouldn’t accept it. He turned up at the house Rachel shared with Karen and me, tried to knock down the door and was subsequently arrested for harassment, during which time he put one of the arresting officers in hospital.

  ‘Danny Corridge was also the last the person to see Rachel alive. He admitted inviting her round to his flat, and a witness saw her turn up there. After that, as far as the world’s concerned, she was never seen again.’ He paused. ‘Rachel was reported missing the following night by Karen and me, after she failed to return home, by which time we hadn’t seen her for well over twenty-four hours. The next morning, before he was questioned by police, Corridge reported his car stolen. It was discovered abandoned on a country lane later that day and, although there were signs it had been hotwired and driven without keys, a forensic examination found traces of Rachel’s blood inside the boot. Three days later, a dog walker discovered her body in a shallow grave in woodland less than three miles away. She had major injuries consistent with being beaten with a blunt instrument, and traces of Corridge’s semen were found inside her. Corridge – a man well used to police interrogations – vehemently protested his innocence. He claimed that he and Rachel had had consensual sex and that he’d dropped her off around ten p.m. at 23 Worsley Court, where you guys’ – he motioned to Luke, Marla and Louise – ‘and Crispin lived, claiming she was attending a gathering there with friends. There were six of us in the house that night – the six who’ll be here this weekend – and as we told the police afterwards, Rachel never arrived that night. No one else came forward to back up Corridge’s story that they’d left his flat together and driven to Worsley Court, and so the police concluded that he was lying and he was charged with Rachel’s murder.’