Lie Beside Me

by Gytha Lodge

  ‘And there wasn’t any brawling involving Alex at any time?’ O’Malley asked.

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ Charlie said, with a laugh. ‘Just some bitching about being ignored in the queue.’ Joanne reappeared from the archway carrying a coffee in a tall glass. ‘Jo, was it you or Mark who had the big guy being a bit of a twat to you?’

  Joanne glanced up from her focus on the glass. ‘Mark, I think.’

  Charlie turned back to them with a shrug. ‘Like I said, not major.’

  ‘But he was quite drunk?’ O’Malley pressed.

  ‘Yeah, fairly.’

  ‘Did you see him talking to anyone else? Particularly late in the evening?’

  Charlie gave an uncertain look. ‘I’m really not sure. I mean … I think he was chatting to a girl for a while, but I’m not …’ He turned towards the bar, where Joanne was back to stacking shelves in the fridge. ‘Do you remember him chatting to someone, Joanne? I feel like it might have been that brunette who was all over the place.’

  She glanced up, and then paused to think. ‘I think that might be right. In the queue, and then for a bit afterwards.’

  Charlie frowned and turned to them. ‘There was a girl who kept falling off her chair, or into people. She was absolutely shit-faced, and I was quite worried about her but she did take herself off home in the end. It’s not … this isn’t about her, is it?’

  ‘We don’t really know,’ Jonah admitted. ‘All we do know is that Alex Plaskitt ended up dead.’

  ‘Him?’ Charlie looked shocked. ‘I figured this must be about something he’d done.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. So if there’s anything more you can remember …’ Jonah suggested, gently.

  Charlie looked at Alex’s photo again, and then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. But I can ask the others if he had any arguments.’ He shivered. ‘Fucking hell. How did he end up dead?’

  ‘It looks like he was attacked,’ O’Malley told him. ‘We’ll know more soon.’

  ‘Could you give an estimate of what time he left?’ Jonah added.

  ‘Not really …’ Charlie pulled a slightly helpless face. ‘You don’t really clock-watch when it’s busy, and people drift around. He could have headed downstairs and been here until closing, and I probably wouldn’t have seen him.’

  ‘You mentioned CCTV on the phone …’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve got one by the door. The data files go to my computer. I’ll be heading home in an hour, so I can pick it up. It’s a bit erratic, to be honest, but if there’s anything at all, I’ll send it over.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Jonah said. ‘That would be appreciated.’

  As he and O’Malley climbed into the car, his sergeant said, ‘I sort of see everyone’s point, about Alex not being an obvious victim.’

  ‘Yes, though he could have been incapacitated by drink,’ Jonah commented. ‘Or –’

  ‘Taken by surprise,’ O’Malley said, nodding. ‘Yeah. Which implies an attack that came from an unexpected quarter.’

  ‘Are you thinking of the apparently shit-faced brunette?’ Jonah asked him.

  ‘They wouldn’t be the first to pull off a sting,’ O’Malley said. ‘There was a couple I helped arrest when I was a DC who had a whole routine worked out. They’d go to a bar, she would be all over some guy, apparently very drunk, and then at some point she’d either slip his wallet out or lead him outside, where the boyfriend would act drunk and aggressive and extort money.’ O’Malley shrugged. ‘Could be something there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jonah said, thoughtfully. ‘An extortion gone wrong is possible. But then anything is possible at this stage.’

  He just hoped that there was some working CCTV somewhere between the club and Saints Close. Something to explain how Alex Plaskitt had ended up dead in a suburban garden.

  8

  Louise

  The fear began to kick in long before you noticed anything. At least, long before you started to question me about what Drunk Louise had got up to. Before your reaction to me changed.

  We’d had eight increasingly happy months. Dina had receded into the background a little. Your work was going well, and so was mine. I’d finally succeeded in joining the Mother Pluckers after two of the members put me forwards to audition, and although a couple of others were patronising as hell towards me about not being a parent, it was generally a kind and talented bunch that I liked spending time with.

  Then came the anniversary of the day you’d married Dina. Which was also the night we found out that Dina was now engaged to her new man.

  I’d watched you descend into a foul mood the day before, already steeped in resurging resentment at how quickly Dina had left you. I’d started to understand, by then, that what other people thought of you was more important than you claimed. It was the real reason for the expensive clothes and the flashy car. In the way you liked to mention the specifics of the eye-wateringly pricy wine you bought.

  It had taken me a while to really put my finger on it, though. I suppose the constant effort to hide my own insecurities made me blind to yours. Perhaps I’d seen you acting up a little around your posher friends. Suddenly booking tickets to the opera just before we met up with Patrick, and then talking at length about it. Insisting we had to have monkfish parcels and tuna carpaccio when he came for dinner.

  But it didn’t really hit home until the time you brought the wrong credit card to dinner and then couldn’t pay at the end of the meal. I’d never seen you humiliated before, and I’d never have guessed that you could sink into seething self-laceration as bad as mine. My breezy statement that I was delighted to pay my way for once did nothing to lift you out of it.

  I began to reinterpret what had happened with Dina, and to see it as a massive blow to your sense of self-worth. I tried to reassure myself that you felt nothing for her now. But it didn’t really convince me that I was safe, and I woke up on the morning of your anniversary with the heaviest of depressions hanging over me.

  Your morose silence that day did nothing to lift it. You didn’t tell me about the engagement. You barely put a whole sentence together all day.

  April clocked that something was up when we spoke on the phone that afternoon, and despite feeling profoundly humiliated by it all, I told her what was going on.

  She responded with a frustrated sigh. ‘He needs to let it go, and realise she’s just a waste of space.’ Being April, she then moved straight on to, ‘Let’s go out. You and me. Let him sit and wallow and miss you, and we’ll have some fun. Forget all about it.’

  It seemed like the perfect plan. Instead of sitting around and being the stressed-out girlfriend, I was going to get dressed up and have girl time. Laugh about it all, and maybe flirt harmlessly with a waiter or two.

  You were happy enough for me to go. From your slumped position at the kitchen table you managed to stir up a small smile as I kissed you goodbye.

  ‘I’ll see Drunk Louise later,’ you said. Do you remember that? You found it cute, still, that whole Drunk Me, Sober Me thing.

  I gave you a grin I didn’t really feel. ‘You’d better have water and Nutella ready.’

  The night out started out all right. April was her usual hilarious self, and it made everything feel better. But then she showed me Dina’s engagement announcement on Facebook, and asked me what I thought.

  It was a nauseatingly perfect picture, one that had, in all probability, been filtered to within an inch of its life. Dina was cuddled up to her handsome, clean-cut new man, her left hand displayed on his chest, with a frankly ridiculous diamond on the fourth finger.

  ‘Look at the background,’ April said. ‘That’s Florence. They’ve been back almost a week. She’s saved it up just for today.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ I felt, for some reason, more sickened than I had on my birthday. It felt so calculated. Evidence of such a long game, and one I was certain I would lose.

  I knew, right then, that I was going to get drunk. So drunk that I had no recollection of anything, an
d felt nothing. Drunk Louise would handle the night from here on in.

  It must have been late on when I suddenly snapped back into myself. I guess I’d had a gap in the drinking, and sobered up just enough to surface.

  And it was the worst awakening. I found myself pressed up against a man I didn’t recognise, with his hands moving up the back of my thighs towards my backside and his face close to mine.

  It took me a second to retreat. And then, when he came with me instead of letting go, another few seconds to push at him.

  ‘Hey!’ I could hear him say, over the music. ‘What the fuck?’

  And then I was screaming at him and lashing out, my hands connecting with his upper arms and chest. I was telling him to get off. To let go. And, eventually, he did, with an angry shove that sent me reeling backwards.

  For a moment I thought about hurting him. I had a crazy, off-beat idea that I could smash a glass over his head. But it ran through me in an instant and vanished, leaving me shaking.

  I had no idea where I was going. It was sheer good luck that I stumbled on April, who was chatting to a couple of guys in the queue for the bar. I was so worried she would think badly of me for wanting to go home, but she responded with concern. She gathered me up and took me to get my handbag and coat, then climbed into a taxi with me. She waited, patiently, for half the ride without saying anything. By that time I’d got myself together enough to tell her what had happened.

  ‘I must have led him on,’ I told her, tears starting to work their way out. ‘I must have made it happen.’

  ‘I don’t think you can assume that,’ April said, gently. ‘There are a lot of assholes out there. And even if you did … Well, I don’t think anyone could blame you.’ She put a hand out to my arm and rubbed it.

  ‘But I feel like … like a shitty cheat.’

  I regretted saying it immediately. I’d been with April while she’d kissed other men, and while her second marriage fell apart as a result. Now on to her third, and only one year in, she was just as willing to be unfaithful.

  ‘Sorry. I’m being a twat,’ I said.

  ‘You’re just being a human being who’s had a rough time,’ she argued. ‘There’s only room for one twat around here, and that’s going to be me.’

  I felt a little better about it all after that, but then fell back into awful guilt the moment I walked through the front door and found you half asleep on the sofa.

  ‘Hey, Lou-Lou,’ you said, sitting up and taking my hand. You drew me to sit next to you, your eyes and body drowsy. I was shaking hard now, from the alcohol withdrawal and the guilt of it all. ‘Come here.’

  Wrapped up in your hug, I felt even more profoundly stupid for having risked this. Us. All of it.

  But it was you who apologised.

  ‘I’m so sorry for being an idiot,’ you murmured into the top of my head. ‘It really, honestly isn’t that I miss Dina. It’s that I – I feel stupid for having ever thought she was a good person. She’s just announced that she’s engaged. Today. And she knows what bloody day it is. I’m sure she does. It’s all designed to hurt, and I … I just feel like such a dickhead for falling for her.’ You sighed, and I loved being able to feel the movement of your chest underneath me. There was something soft and all-encompassing in it. ‘And the last thing I should have done was get grumpy with you. You’re so different to her. So wonderful. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too,’ I said, and I didn’t tell you that the tears that oozed out onto your shirt were nothing to do with Dina, and all to do with a man in a nightclub.

  9

  Hanson was trying to get a response from YouTube about two of Alex Plaskitt’s most persistent trolls when Jason appeared in CID. He gave a resigned shrug that very clearly asked why they were spending their Saturdays here. She shook her head wryly in return, but found herself smiling.

  Jason winked at her as he settled himself at his desk, and then gestured with his hands to make the letter T, before holding up five fingers. Hanson gave him a thumbs up. Tea in five minutes, and an opportunity to tell him about the murder enquiry, sounded good to her. He was always great to talk policing with. He loved his job as much as she did hers.

  Her phone buzzed a few minutes later. The DCI messaging to say that Alex Plaskitt’s sister was free to talk this afternoon. He suggested that she and Ben should head over there.

  The idea made her stomach drop slightly. The address was up near Winchester, a good forty-five minutes away. She wasn’t sure she felt equal to three quarters of an hour in a car with Ben Lightman just now.

  She glanced across at Ben, who seemed to be very much involved with something. She’d leave it a little while, she thought. They could go after she’d had a cuppa and a chat with Jason.

  She put her phone back on the desk, and found that there was an email waiting from one of the YouTube technical team. He’d come back with another email address for another part of the company, and then added that, while they might be able to help, anonymous accounts could be very difficult to trace.

  Hanson sighed and briefly replied to say she was aware of that, and then thanked him for his help. She’d been to a talk just before Christmas on how digital footprints were making the detection of criminals easier and easier. She wondered when that might actually start to influence her day-to-day work for the better.

  Lightman finished his phone call to the duty sergeant and typed up his findings in the database. After that, he rang the DCI back to confirm that they could rule out any involvement from the aggressive drunk at the nightclub.

  ‘He was picked up before one and kept in until seven this morning,’ Lightman confirmed.

  ‘Thanks,’ Sheens said. ‘Are you and Juliette on the road to Phoebe Plaskitt’s?’

  He glanced over at Hanson, who gave him a thumbs up.

  ‘About to leave, I think.’

  ‘I’d particularly like to know what she thinks of Alex’s husband,’ the DCI told him. ‘Any issues between them. How she thinks they were doing.’

  ‘Sure,’ Lightman agreed.

  He hung up, and decided he could do with a coffee before their journey. He was about to suggest making one when Hanson rose, gave him a vague smile, and headed towards the kitchen. He glanced across at Jason Walker’s empty desk, and nodded to himself. He’d wait a few minutes.

  Jason was already waiting in the kitchen with two mugs of fully made tea on the counter. He was leaning against a cupboard, one arm folded over his stomach and his phone out.

  It was a note of disappointment that he’d already made the tea. Hanson hadn’t yet had the heart to tell him that she liked it brewed for about twice as long as he ever gave it.

  ‘How goes?’ she asked, touching his shoulder lightly.

  ‘Not too bad.’ He smiled and squeezed her hand, putting his phone back into his pocket. The two of them had their office-level displays of affection worked out precisely. It was all about brief, non-intimate touching. ‘I’ve been looking for more of this stolen sound gear on eBay,’ he went on. ‘You’d be amazed how many of the exact model of amp are for sale on there.’

  ‘I thought you’d already found all of them?’ Hanson asked, picking up the slightly less anaemic of the two mugs of tea.

  Jason had spent some weeks digging into a network of housebreakers. It had taken time. The group had been extremely careful, and they had sold their stolen items carefully. They’d listed them individually, through numerous different eBay and Gumtree accounts.

  ‘I thought so too,’ Jason said. ‘But the audio theft at the uni and all those bikes at the sports centre weren’t sold on any of the accounts we’ve identified.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a bugger.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Jason gave a brief shrug. ‘I’ll get there. Even if it means no arrests today.’ He straightened up and picked up his mug of tea. ‘How about you? Murder?’

  ‘Yup.’ She gulped some of the weak brew. ‘Stabbing.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  �
�Slow so far.’ She shrugged. ‘Not a lot of people hanging around residential areas in the early hours of the morning.’

  She suddenly found herself thinking of Damian sitting in his car outside her house, watching her through the kitchen window, and she could feel a cold sweat sweeping over her. She tried to take another sip of tea, but the mug banged into her teeth, painfully.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Jason asked, reaching out to squeeze her arm. She glanced at him, seeing his concern. It occurred to her that she really could just tell him about all of this. Share it.

  She couldn’t even explain why she’d resisted telling him in the first place. She justified it to herself that it was to avoid overshadowing their relationship. Though she knew it was more complicated than that, and tied up with shame for what she’d put up with. And the more she’d put off actually telling him, the harder it had become, until it seemed like a huge thing that she was hiding from him.

  She teetered on the edge of just telling him everything, but it seemed the wrong time and place. So she put the tea down, quickly, and tried to smile.

  ‘Just a young guy,’ she said, ‘dying like that … He seemed really nice, from his YouTube account. Murders are shit, aren’t they?’

  Visiting a suspect. That was all Hanson needed to think about. Not about the forty-five-minute journey to Winchester with Ben Lightman. Not about the awkwardness, or her confusion over their lost friendship. And definitely, definitely not about the night before she’d started seeing Jason, when she and Ben had gone to a bar. When he’d seemed for a very intense moment like he might tell her what was going on under the unruffled facade, and then had suddenly shut her out and left.

  The first five minutes of the drive went past in absolute silence. There was nobody on a par with Ben for keeping quiet. In contrast, Hanson felt an increasing sense of pressure to say something.

  She sighed without meaning to, and then tried to turn it into a yawn. And then, barely a minute later and with her gaze firmly fixed out of the window, she said, ‘I meant to ask about … your dad. Ages ago. I’m sorry for being rubbish.’