Lie Beside Me

by Gytha Lodge

  Saints Close was back to its quiet state, free of ambulances, squad cars and forensic vehicles. In fact, it was quieter than it had been before the flashing blues had arrived. Many of the other cars were now missing. Louise’s neighbours had presumably gone to spend their Saturday afternoons in pilgrimages to the shops or kids’ sports clubs.

  Hanson pulled up outside number eleven. There was little to show what had happened here aside from the craze of footprints and trampled snow left by so many crime scene investigators.

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ Louise said, and started to lever herself out of the car hurriedly. As she stood, her eyes went to her front gate, and she faltered.

  Hanson could well guess what she was imagining. The dead man lying on the grass. Perhaps the screens that had been set up, and the white overalls moving around it all.

  Hanson undid her seat belt. ‘I’ll walk to the door with you. It can’t be easy, after …’ She gave a shrug.

  Louise paused for a moment, and then said, ‘Thank you.’

  Hanson climbed out onto the pavement. She let Louise through the gate first, and then, as she followed, moved to block any view of where Alex Plaskitt had been lying a few short hours ago.

  Louise kept her gaze fixed ahead, and unlocked the front door hurriedly. As she pulled the keys back out, she fumbled them and dropped them onto the doorstep with a noisy jangle.

  ‘Do you need anything?’ Hanson asked, as she picked them up and moved to step into the house. ‘Tea? Company?’

  ‘I’m … I’m fine,’ Louise said, her face pallid and sick-looking. And then she suddenly lunged forwards, dropping her bag and running for the stairs.

  Hanson heard her climb to the first floor and trip. She instinctively stepped forwards to help, but Louise seemed to have recovered and rushed further into the house. ‘Louise?’ she called.

  The sounds of Louise vomiting were loud enough that Hanson could hear them from the foot of the stairs. Hanson hesitated for a moment, and then went to the kitchen and pulled open the cupboards until she’d found a pint glass. She ran the tap cold, filled it, and then quietly moved upstairs.

  There were still isolated noises of retching going on, but it sounded as though there was little coming up now. Hanson followed the sounds into a large double bedroom at the front of the house, where she had a view through into an en suite. She could just see Louise’s feet, soft and grey in her boots where they rested on the tiles. She was clearly kneeling over the toilet.

  The human side of Hanson was both sympathetic and hesitant. She wasn’t entirely sure Louise would want a police officer intruding while she was being ill, but she wanted to offer help in case it was needed.

  And then there was the copper in her, which was alert to everything else. It was taking in the details of how Louise lived, from the perfectly made-up bed to the spotless surfaces. From the severe Scandinavian colours to the obvious high quality of everything she was looking at.

  It was the copper in her that picked up on the one small imperfection. The tiniest spot of dark red on a pale grey carpet, just under the edge of the large double bed.

  Hanson paused momentarily between one step and the next. Her mind went through the options. It might be nail varnish. Coffee. Some flaw in the carpet.

  But Hanson had learned enough of Louise to doubt it. She was clearly obsessive about tidiness and order, and it seemed impossible that she would have let a mark spoil that carpet.

  Hanson could see more of Louise now. She was facing almost entirely away from Hanson, slumped on her arms, which were folded across the toilet seat. The picture of misery.

  Hanson was only too happy to use that misery to her advantage. She moved over to the bed, and then crouched. Close up, the spot on the carpet was rusty red, and Hanson felt a shiver run through her. It looked very much like dried blood.

  She ran her eyes along the bottom edge of the bed, which was a pale grey velvet. And then, glancing towards the bathroom again, she put a hand out to a point just above the stain on the carpet and lifted the very edge of the sheet.

  It took one glance to tell her everything she needed to know, and she felt dizzy as she tucked it in again and got back to her feet.

  She took another two steps towards the bathroom, and Louise turned, her eyes bloodshot and her expression stricken.

  ‘Have some of this,’ Hanson said, gently, and handed her the water.

  She stayed with Louise for ten more minutes, helping her to her feet and back down to the kitchen, where she made her another cup of tea without milk and talked cheerfully about how much better Louise would feel after a nap on the sofa.

  And then she climbed back into the car and called the chief as she manoeuvred back onto the main road.

  ‘We need a search warrant,’ she told him. ‘As quickly as you can.’

  14

  Louise

  There are a few events that I look back on now and see as turning points for us. The crossroads that sent us down this crappy path. There was a darkness to realising how much money you owed, and how easily you had lied to me. It made me more willing to believe that you’d lied about other things, too. But it wasn’t what did for us. There were still signs of hope afterwards.

  One of those was your reaction the first time I slipped up and got really drunk again with April. I hadn’t meant for it to happen, but I’d had a mortifying experience at rehearsals with the Mother Pluckers. Helen, whose smiling viciousness I’d already experienced in the past, had asked me why I looked so tired.

  ‘You aren’t pregnant at last, are you?’ she’d said in a low voice, while we were getting set up.

  ‘No,’ I told her, blushing. ‘No. I’m pretty sure not. We’ve not had any accidents …’

  I saw the way her eyes narrowed. The next bit was said much more loudly. ‘But I thought you said you were trying? Has something changed? Niall got cold feet?’

  It was clear that the others had all heard. Their conversations tailed off into silence.

  I’ve never felt so mortified. I had no reply, because that was what had happened. I could feel myself going scarlet until kind-hearted Lyn joked that Niall was sensible. That she’d just spent a morning with a vomiting toddler and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

  Things then moved on, but for the whole rehearsal I felt their gazes on me. The one non-mother of the group, who perhaps had only been allowed in because they all thought I’d have kids soon.

  I pretty much launched myself at the wine when April and I met up. She soothed me and told me they were all pathetic, but none of it helped. The only thing that made me feel all right was sitting back and letting Drunk Louise take over until late, late into the night.

  I remember how you looked at me the following morning, with none of the anger I was expecting. You seemed concerned for me. Caring.

  ‘Do you think you should go and see someone?’ you asked, having come to sit on the bed next to me.

  It knocked me back, that suggestion. Even then, I didn’t really think of alcohol as a problem. If anything, it seemed like a solution I was no longer allowed to take.

  I shuffled up in the bed until I was sitting, trying to turn this into a conversation between equals.

  ‘I hardly drink at all now,’ I told you. And it was true. Even when I was with you, I’d cut down. I wanted so badly to prove to you that I had everything under control. That I could be a fantastic mother. ‘I go days and days. I drink less than you most of the time, too. I’m really all right. I just didn’t eat enough last night, that’s all.’

  I saw your reaction. Your expression changed, to something between exasperation and desolation. You nodded and gave a strange half-smile. Then you rubbed my shoulder and got up. It looked like I’d damaged you somehow, and thinking of the hurt I might be inflicting did more to wake me up than anything else.

  I went out a few days later. It was the Sunday afternoon after the big concert, when the Pluckers had agreed to meet for lunch. I’d promised myself that I’d only ha
ve a couple of glasses. But somewhere along the line, beaten down by more snide remarks from Helen, I’d had a few more, and let Drunk Louise take the reins again. I have a hazy memory of being hilarious, and of the nicer Pluckers telling me how great I was.

  But then I remember it being six p.m., and it being me, the other Louise, who was at the helm. I remember that my hand was firmly round a glass of Pinot Noir, and I had no idea how it had happened. It was like I’d been pinched awake again.

  It was your heartbroken expression that I thought of just then, Niall. I suddenly saw the wine as the cause of it, and I put it down. I took a breath, and then I went to the bar for water and a few packets of crisps.

  For three hours I drank nothing but water and juice. I ordered myself a plate of pasta, and I sat and waited for sobriety to return. I felt strangely proud of myself. And determined to turn this all round.

  At nine I smiled at all of them and said I was going home for crap TV and cuddles with my husband. I left imagining you telling me how well I’d done. I ached to hear you say it.

  I let myself in at nine fifteen, and felt an immediate dip as I realised that the house was empty. I was pretty sure you’d said you were at home, and it puzzled me. But then I doubted myself and sent you a message. I asked you what you were up to. That was all.

  I got myself another glass of water and put my coat and handbag away, and while I was doing that you messaged back cheerfully to say you were on the sofa watching Game of Thrones and accidentally falling asleep.

  And, you know, I think that was the first time I’d ever known you to outright lie to me. I mean, there was the money thing, it was true, but you’d never actually told me that you were solvent. You’d just let me assume. And you hadn’t hidden what Dina had said to you, either, even if you hadn’t been quite open about how you felt.

  But now here you were, telling me a stark untruth. And, in this case, I was certain it was for a really, really bad reason.

  I desperately wanted to know where you were, but I had no way of knowing without alerting you to the fact that I was home. And for some reason that was the scariest thing of all.

  So I did a crazy thing instead. I went back out there, in another rip-off cab ride, and I started stalking your favourite bars and restaurants. At first I told myself I’d just check a couple. I figured you might be at La Mejican or the Pitcher and Piano. When you weren’t there, I thought of a few more. And a few more.

  I was out there for three hours, and when I finally gave up because the blisters on my heels were too bad for me to walk any further, it was after midnight. You still hadn’t messaged me to tell me you were going to bed. You’d only sent a query at eleven, asking if I was still having fun, which I replied to with a thumbs up, because I had to reply somehow.

  I was so sure you were still out there by the time I gave up. I was certain you were meeting up with someone. Cheating on me. I cried all the way home in the cab.

  The house was still empty when I got in, and I couldn’t face being in the sitting room or in bed when you returned. I just couldn’t. So I went to the music room and huddled on the sofa in the dark.

  You actually didn’t get back that long after I did. An hour at most. But it felt like years had passed. I’d been unable to sit still.

  I heard you arrive home, then make yourself tea before you went up to bed. I had all my things with me, so there was no reason for you to know I was there. I listened, hardly breathing, to the sounds of running water. You showered for a long while. Were you washing off traces of whichever woman you’d been with, Niall? Is that what you were doing?

  I stayed where I was that night, unable to face curling up next to you. So when you woke me, you thought I’d stumbled in and slept right there on the music-room sofa.

  The fact that you were angry with me about it was the unfairest part. You gave me a cold look when you woke me and asked if I wanted breakfast, as if I’d been the one who’d done wrong.

  God, I wanted to throw it in your face. But I was too scared to find out that we were over. Isn’t that pathetic?

  So I said nothing when you got at me. I didn’t apologise. I didn’t argue. I ate the breakfast you gave me and said nothing at all, and I think something in that eventually got to you, didn’t it? Because after I’d gone to shower and got myself dressed and told you I was going out, you suddenly turned to me and wrapped me in a hug and apologised. You said that you loved me and it was concern that made you act like an arsehole sometimes.

  Later on, you saw the blisters on my heels and bandaged them up. You kissed me gently and told me you’d fix me up somehow.

  I guess you remember that bit, and how we had two weeks after that which felt like the old us. Two weeks where we were fine. Happy. The best of friends who told each other everything (except not quite everything).

  But it was all false. I was sure that your good behaviour was nothing but guilt. I wanted desperately to look at your communications but was too frightened, and so, as a coping strategy, I became increasingly obsessed with tidiness and order. I would sometimes catch you watching me clean, an expression on your face like you wondered what on earth you were doing with me.

  And, as the two of us fell apart, the other me returned, too. It was just one night at first. A single night off while I let myself enjoy Drunk Louise taking over.

  But the thing I’ve now learned about her is that it’s never just one night. Once Drunk Louise has me again, she doesn’t like to let go.

  15

  Damian punched the steering wheel again, letting fury seep into him. Revelling in the rage.

  Everything about his relationship with Juliette had made him feel worse about himself. He could see that now. That was why he’d needed to spend so much to feel better. And it was why he’d been messaging other women.

  Juliette was poison. That was what it came down to. Her apparent sympathy for him had quickly been revealed as cold judgement. Every decision he’d made had been resisted, bloody-mindedly. And she’d belittled him in public, too, by flirting with other men.

  The trouble with that kind of poison was that it was addictive. It wasn’t his fault he’d been unable to get her out of his system. Two girlfriends had already walked out on him for still trying to contact her, and earlier today a girl he’d only been on three dates with had told him she didn’t feel comfortable about his attitude to his ex.

  He’d told her to go fuck herself and climbed into the car. It was inevitable that he’d ended up driving towards Southampton and that bitch Juliette.

  He’d made the trip several times recently. He’d been trying to work out whether Juliette was shagging someone. She’d changed phones, so he could no longer check her messages using the apps he’d installed on the old one. He had to be there in person to find out.

  She’d definitely stayed away overnight multiple times in the last few months. His immediate assumption had been that she’d got together with the perfume-model cop she worked with. But having followed him home, he’d seen no sign of Juliette visiting.

  It was only today that he’d put everything together and realised that the moody-looking bloke she’d sometimes walked to the pub with was now her boyfriend. It had sent a strange, sick electricity through him watching her turn to give him a peck on the lips in the station car park.

  God, she was a bitch. She’d clearly never cared about him at all.

  What she needed to learn was that she couldn’t do whatever she felt like and get away with it. He was going to get even.

  And the thought made him smile.

  Louise Reakes’s arrest ended up being quite a public event. The forensic team arrived at a little after five thirty, just as the sun was setting. Numerous families were at home, and others were able to gawp on their way out for the evening. Jonah had been aware of at least ten people stopping to watch as the squad car and scientific support van had pulled up behind him.

  It had taken an hour and twenty-five minutes to procure a warrant for the search of the
house. Which was, in fact, terrifically fast, while also feeling infuriatingly slow.

  He was profoundly grateful that Hanson had acted so carefully. She must have been tempted to arrest Louise Reakes. She could have used it as a justification for searching the house immediately. The power to search on arrest was a grey area that had certainly been exploited that way in the past. But whole cases had sometimes collapsed in the courts as a result. A good barrister could argue that such searches had not been carried out legally, and some judges were inclined to agree.

  Hanson had played it perfectly, however. She’d requested the search, and been calm and collected giving her evidence to the magistrate via video link. She hadn’t even mentioned the blood. Instead she had explained that Louise had previously lied about her whereabouts that night. She had then expressed concern over Louise’s reaction on arriving back at the house. Vomiting, she felt, was likely to have been the result of guilt or anxiety.

  The magistrate had agreed.

  Hanson had asked to be there while the search took place, and Jonah had been more than happy to bring her along. If they ended up making an arrest, he wanted Hanson to have the satisfaction of doing it.

  It was hard not to feel a little sorry for Louise as they converged on her front door, however. Her neighbours were unlikely to forget this particular scene. Though at least the front of the house was fairly well screened. Louise herself wouldn’t be on full display.

  Jonah knocked loudly, reverting to the loud rapping they’d been taught when he’d first become a constable. Knocking that was too loud to ignore. Too loud for ‘I didn’t hear you’. The kind of knock used only by policemen or bailiffs.

  Louise’s eyes were very wide as she opened the door. She said nothing as Jonah showed her the warrant and told her that they had the right to search the property. She did no more than nod, and then move slowly aside.