“You have an alibi?”
“What a dreadful term. But yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
“That could make all the difference,” I said. “A solid alibi. Like mine—I was seen by a dozen people walking up the path that morning, walking toward where Anna already lay.” “Dozen people” was another slight exaggeration, but I felt it might make him unbend a bit to hear my impeccable bona fides. “I might not feel obliged to tell all I know, you see, if I were certain you couldn’t possibly be involved.” Here I sort of convulsed into some more Jane Marple twinkle.
I may have overdone it a bit. He studied me, never taking his eyes from my face. My gaze roamed about the room, that bastion of privilege. The dark paneling, the gold-leaf frames holding historic faces I didn’t recognize, and scenes of historic wars—ditto. I was affecting a wait-all-day nonchalance I didn’t feel. This was one dangerous guy and I was playing a treacherous game. I didn’t think he’d snuff me out or anything, pull a gun out of the bottom drawer and let me have it. That would really screw up his chances for re-election. But he might tamper with my ability to stay in the UK. I was legally married to a British citizen but I had the fleeting thought Colin might drum up drug or terrorism charges or something else undesirable that could get me deported if not thrown in jail first. God only knew what kind of connections someone like this had.
But I was here to play the game and play it I would. I really did want to know exactly where he was at the time Anna was killed, and when. Once he told me, I’d go away.
“It’s none of your business,” he said.
“I know that,” I replied, waiting as the seconds passed.
“Cow,” he muttered, almost under his breath.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Anna. She was nothing but a jumped-up, overreaching cow. I was supposed to give up everything”—and here, he swept his arm out to encompass the tables with the inlaid designs, the sofa cushions embroidered by the tiny fingers of Chinese orphans, the window dressings that made the whole place look like the setting for a regency play—“for some woman from Cardiff with ambitions high above her station?”
“Bristol,” I corrected automatically. His sweep did not, I noticed, include the photo of the washed-out wife and the two pasty-faced children.
Ambitions high above her station? Ambition summed up Anna, all right, overreaching and all the rest of it, including cow, but what century were we living in? This was rich, anyway, coming from a man who had run for office on a platform that played up his vague and likely imaginary working-class roots. It was another case for Sigmund Freud, but right now I had to get what I wanted from him before he went into a full-tilt panic.
“Alibi?” I repeated mildly, like a gentle suggestion.
“I was visiting a school,” he said, biting off each syllable. Temper, temper. “As it happens.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “I didn’t know schools opened that early around here. It explains so much, though. Bright little buggers, aren’t they? Quoting Shakespeare while they’re practically still in nappies.”
“I wanted to be there when it opened.”
I didn’t have to ask what school. Or even what time. This was public information, verifiable. Just like the royals, these guys had a schedule, and their every move was documented so the taxpayers could see how their money was being spent.
“Wonderful,” I said. “That’s all I need to know then! I won’t trouble you further.”
“Good. See that you don’t.”
I got up to leave and when I reached the door, I turned around.
“One more question,” I said. Now I was Columbo. “Did you drive yourself? To the school?”
From the look on his face it was clear he had, which meant he had no witnesses to his every movement. He said no more, just continued to glower. If anything, he turned a brighter shade of red.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, I have to be off.”
“Sit down,” he said.
“Sorry. No.”
And I left, closing the door quietly behind.
Well, that was future invitations to fundraisers for Colin Livingstone, MP, stuffed, which was fine with me. I fairly danced down the corridors of power on my way to Westminster Underground.
For Colin Livingstone, MP, had no real alibi. I was a little surprised someone at his level did not have a car and driver at his disposal, but he would surely have said so if that were the case. I decided to treat myself to lunch at a nearby bistro while I did a little research on the school where Colin claimed to have been. I pulled up his public diary for the day on my mobile, and it was all there: he had been scheduled to appear at St. Hildegarde’s School for Girls and cut the ribbon on their new gymnasium at nine thirty that morning. As an alibi it was crap. The school was about ten miles away from Weycombe, no distance at all, so his being there did nothing to prove his innocence. It was a straight shot up the motorway for most of the way, and even the curvy bits of road at either end wouldn’t add that much to his time. I made a mental note to drive out there and see for myself, maybe even talk with the headmistress if I could get near her, but Colin had had acres of time to do away with Anna and not be noticeably late for his ribbon-cutting duties. He was the perfect suspect—if it turned out I needed one.
I did another search and saw the school opened at eight thirty. So “I wanted to be there when it opened” didn’t add up. What did he do for an hour? Hang upside down on the jungle gym? It was a crazy lie to tell, in fact. The kind of lie a habitual liar might throw out there, never thinking anyone would check up.
The only questions that remained for me were when, how—and whether—to let Sergeant Milo know.
27
I needed to go about this investigation systematically, and—above all—quietly. I could no longer write whatever I was thinking in a notebook Will might stumble upon any day. I’d already started jotting only the sketchiest of notes, leaving things out, in case he did find it. What I needed was the freedom to write the truth and nothing but.
That truth was bubbling up more and more, becoming by some weird process material for a novel. My purple notebook was filling up, but not with my usual venting. It was becoming a whole new thing with a life of its own. Base metal turning to gold. Alchemy. I was writing a novel now, without even trying. It was intoxicating. I only needed to change a few names and, here and there, rearrange the order in which things happened.
I had a large collection of paper notebooks, too large—not even Joyce Carol Oates could fill all those pages. They sat taking up space in a desk drawer, nagging reminders of the novel not written: leather-bound notebooks, and ones handmade from cotton rag paper. Cheap spiral-bound notebooks and exercise books. All sizes from A2 to A8 in every color. I’d spent untold hours in the WHSmith on the Cornmarket in Oxford, near the New Theatre, when I was supposed to be revising.
But now it only made sense to write on my MacBook rather than leaving bits of paper scattered around like bullet casings. Will had zero interest in what I got up to, but why take chances? I spent half a day scanning in the pages I’d written in recent months and saved them in an encrypted file labeled “Recipes” on my computer. I shredded or burned the actual notebook pages in the fireplace (that hurt, but it had to be done). And then I began to use the computer as a diary. Password protected, of course.
The day I returned from talking with Colin I got to work in earnest, organizing random thoughts and insights and character sketches, and wondering: Was everyone living in Weycombe at it? Having it off as I sat staring at my CV, trying to turn my time at the BBC into something romantic and dashing, myself into someone innovative and imaginative, eating my way through bags of Cheetos I bought from an online UK deli?
Now I sat trying to think as the police would think. To make it all into a story I could package and sell one day.
Opening a new document titled Sus
pects, I wrote:
Colin Livingstone, MP, the married manMotive: His involvement with Anna is an embarrassment as he climbs the ladder.
Alfie, the husbandMotive: Obvious
Jason, the delinquent sonMotive: I don’t think people like Jason need a motive, they’re just plain crazy, but it’s probably something to do with inheritance or insurance.
Racy MacyMotive: Jealous rage. Had Barry been romantically involved with Anna?
Financially?
Had they quarreled further over Alfie?
Heather CartwrightMotive: None. As tempting as it is to throw her to the wolves, it’s hard to see a motive. Maybe Anna had stolen one of her recipes. Nah, this one just doesn’t fly.
Elizabeth FortescueMotive: Religious mania?
Milo the copHe was the first on the scene for a reason. Others arrive and he inserts himself into the investigation.
A gang-related killing was always possible, if highly unlikely. I didn’t know enough about gangs to speculate.
The last item with Milo struck me as genius, but the devil to prove. Agatha Christie could have pulled it off, but reality, I was finding, was different from the preposterous connections and magic tricks Agatha could pull off. In real life, anyone attempting one of her crimes would be caught within minutes, as they still stood holding a knife dripping with blood.
So for Milo to be involved, I would have to dream up some ancient connection between him and Anna, and although it was true Anna had done half the men in town, the chances she would have singled out a lowly policeman for her favors seemed a stretch. Unless she was trying to get out of a parking ticket. It was more of a stretch that he would kill her over it. He wasn’t married—no ring, anyway—and he didn’t seem like the type given to jealous rages. (Although, from my experience, you can never tell about that. Still waters.)
He was certainly handsome, in a footballer sort of way, and people who know the system know how to corrupt the system. So I kept him on the list. I thought I might need a cast of characters to keep everyone straight. I opened a new file called “Cast” and started the list. I’d rename most of them before publication, of course, with a search and replace.
What stones, I asked myself, had I left unturned? What remained for me to learn? I wished more than ever to be a fly on the wall of the police station, to be able to get to Milo’s desk and read the reports, see who their suspects were, who they’d been talking to, what their working theories were.
I worked for an hour before turning on the evening news. The TV newscaster was someone I knew from the old days at the BBC. She looked about eighteen although I knew she was closer to thirty. She also looked like she was going to a party after the broadcast, all silky dress and statement necklaces and chandelier earrings, despite the early hour. Someone, I told myself, nibbling the edge of a Ryvita Multi-grain, should tell her never to wear a big necklace like that with chandelier earrings. If they got tangled together with the mic, they could make an unholy racket while you were on the air. Learn from my experience already.
I sat through the whole broadcast and not a word was said about Anna. It seemed as if the investigation was already losing steam as the national focus shifted to the immigration and Euro crises. I turned off the set and, looking around, noticed a stack of newspapers had started collecting.
Nothing new in there, not even locally reported gibberish penned by Garvin. I turned to the engagements column, always my favorite light reading. There was an especially rich crop at that time of year, to allow lots of planning time for June weddings. Today we had an accomplished retail professional, possibly Heather’s cousin, who had landed her man approximately three years after the birth of their son, who appeared with the happy couple in the engagement photo. How much the world had changed. I thought I might begin keeping a scrapbook of these things. No reason, just that the great messy sprawl of how people live their lives was fascinating. Happiness so often was in the form of another human being, even though women especially should know better. Not a job, or a stellar career, but some funny-looking IT professional who happened to stop your heart each time you saw him.
I was beset by a memory, a surge of yearning that made me reach out a hand as if I could pierce time and pull that moment back in from the past: a group of us in Oxford, piling out the stage door after a late Improv performance, the light from inside spilling out onto the alley, the night cool and all of us laughing with giddy relief at the end of what we knew had been a spectacular show—no script, and so much to go wrong, but it had gone off without a hitch. By that point, after so many performances, we could almost read each other’s thoughts, anticipate the next bit of nonsense. It was the last time I had known camaraderie like that, a sense of belonging to anyone or anything. In fact, I couldn’t recall having that exact same feeling since. Love for Will, excitement over the wedding, the new house, the kitchen fittings, all of that. But this was a distilled whiskey shot of joy, chased by a heady sense that all that had come before had been surging toward that moment, and all that came after would be a slow slide down. We were strong and alive and we could feel, taste, touch, and see, and that was all that mattered or ever would matter.
The theater attracts all sorts, mostly misfits, but it mainly attracts people who like living in their imaginations because they like what they see in there. It’s not cold and ugly inside the imagination. Or if it is, there’s nothing in there that can harm you.
They were my tribe. And once you find your tribe, you are home.
Will was so late coming in that night I kept thinking it might be the night he would vanish completely. I guessed he’d stayed late at work and then gone to the Bull again—I could smell the beer, an odor I’d come to hate—but I no longer cared. By that point I much preferred my time alone. I also feared where conversation might take us. Some things were best left unexplored.
I suspected he came home only to shower and change—it certainly was not a haven for meals or conversation or, God knows, for sex. With a few notable exceptions, we had been living like brother and sister for a long while.
Jason stopped by about nine to return my casserole dish. Somehow I was not surprised to see him: I hadn’t seriously believed he’d do a runner. I offered him a drink, and he ended up staying a while, talking about Anna. I remember he said he was sorry she was gone, and wished he’d been nicer to her while he had the chance. The usual stuff people say in these circumstances, sentiments I didn’t believe would last coming from him. He left with a mumbled, graceless “thanks” and without meeting my eye.
When Will returned, I was reading a Garvin article in the Chronic about a poisoning that had occurred in a nearby town. The speculation was that the man killed had crossed some Kremlin types you wouldn’t want to mess with. The article went on to say that lots of people are poisoned every year, especially the elderly, with nobody the wiser. That I believed.
Garvin stated in a sidebar that at least five popes in history had been poisoned. Arsenic, a byproduct of copper smelting, was a popular choice in Italy. The best way to deal with anyone who bothered you in the days before forensic labs was to have them over for dinner.
But this Kremlin-style murder had been caused by a rare plant toxin called gelsemium, found in Asia. They call it heartbreak grass over there.
In England we are short on heartbreak grass but not on divorce, and arsenic, harder to come by, is easy to detect. At least Alfie could take comfort in the knowledge that someone had done the job for him. I wasn’t sure he saw it that way.
Who would credit this wayward love for Anna? Despite the betrayals, despite the lies, she had a hold on him. Some people are born with that ability. They’re usually sociopaths. Sometimes … sometimes I even wondered at Alfie’s mysterious illness, if Anna weren’t behind it somehow. A modern-day Lucretia Borgia.
Reminded of something that had been nagging at me, I powered up the laptop again, looking up t
he Chinese lantern plant—called Japanese lantern in the US. My mother had hated them because they grew like kudzu. The poison garden at Alnwick Garden in Northumberland had a specimen in its collection. According to Wikipedia, it was a member of the nightshade family, and the unripe berries and leaves were poisonous. “Highly toxic and possibly fatal.” Symptoms of poisoning included headache, stomachache, vomiting, diarrhea, and breathing problems.
Heather was, I trusted, using ripened fruit to make her jam, so it should be okay. Still, I reminded myself to get rid of that jar she’d given me. Weeks before I had thrown away mushrooms she had gathered and made into a chutney, for the same reason. She might know what she was doing but why take chances?
28
Milo paid me an unexpected visit the next day. I was putting away a few things in the garage when, through the row of small windows running across the top of the garage door, I saw him emerge from his car across the road. A BMW this time. He was flying solo. I wasn’t sure if Attwater had let him off his lead or if he was doing some extra-credit sleuthing. I thought cops always worked in teams but really, that’s telly knowledge. They do what they can get away with, as we know.
He wore an off-the-rack suit that might have come from Marks and Sparks. Where he’d found the tie I couldn’t guess, but I remember it had shiny orange stripes on a brown background. He and DCI Attwater, despite the age difference, surely were meant for each other.
I was warming to him. He had an easy manner that was only partially for show with the public. Most men are paranoid about women, because most men know that at heart they are shits. Will is the exception. His belief in his lovability was total. Milo was a lot less complicated.
“Shouldn’t you be in uniform?” I asked, inwardly shielding my eyes from the glare of that tie as I ushered him inside.
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