Lie Beside Me

by Gytha Lodge

  ‘Your ex was called Juliette?’ Jason asked, as the two pints arrived in front of him.

  ‘Yeah,’ the guy said, glancing at him and then away. ‘I’d worry she might come in here, but this isn’t Juliette’s kind of place.’

  ‘What kind of an officer is she?’ Jason asked, lifting one of the drinks with a hand that felt cold. ‘Uniform?’

  ‘No, a detective,’ the guy said. ‘She came here to become one.’

  Jason took a long, steadying breath in through his nose, and then said, ‘Let me buy you a drink. What was your name?’

  ‘Damian,’ the strapping bloke said, looking a little taken aback. ‘You really don’t have to …’

  Jason cut across him, with a very determined smile. ‘I’d like to hear more about your ex, if that’s OK with you.’

  20

  Louise

  I owe you something of an apology, Niall. In all of this, I haven’t been quite honest about a few things. Though it’s not that I’ve actively lied, really. It’s more that I’ve failed to tell you significant details.

  I don’t even know why I care what you think any more, but for some reason it’s still hard to admit a few things to you. Perhaps because it’s hard to admit them to myself. It could be that. But I’m starting to realise that the only way I’m going to feel better is to blast every secret out of the water, and leave the truth standing bare. Probably dripping onto our spotless fucking carpets.

  So, the first untruth by omission. It’s a longstanding one, and I know that you’re going to hate it.

  You were not the first man I kissed at Hannah’s wedding. More than that, I almost ended up going home with someone else entirely.

  I told you that April’s Italian friend had flirted with me. I don’t remember anything he said to me. Or much else about him. Just that he was tall, attractive, and didn’t really sound all that Italian.

  And, in fact, I don’t really know how it happened. One minute I was talking to the bride, and the next I was in a corridor, pressed up against a wall while this handsome man slid his tongue into my mouth and his hand round my back.

  I’d never done anything like that before. I’ve already told you how hard I used to find it to attract attention. Alpha men, in particular, used to look straight past me. So it was extraordinary to me. Wonderful. I was a willing participant as he drew me into an empty bathroom and locked the door behind us.

  A more experienced, more self-possessed woman might have taken it further. There might be another reality where I am that person, and where you and I never got together because I decided pushy Italian men were my thing. Maybe it’s an inverted reality, where Drunk Louise is the real person and Sober Me is the snivelling creature who only comes out after I forget to drink enough.

  But that isn’t how it was. As he pinned me against the counter and started to lift my dress, Sober Louise made a comeback. I suddenly felt like it was too much. Too fast. Like I shouldn’t be doing this with a man I didn’t know, and particularly not with one who was so very much in control.

  I went from desire to panic. I found myself fighting to be free of him. He was asking me what was wrong, and then someone started banging on the door. They must have seen us go in there.

  We separated and straightened our clothes. When my almost-lover opened the door, he pretended I was ill. That he’d had to look after me. The middle-aged man outside looked like he didn’t believe a word of it. I was almost grateful that he was there, though. It meant I could hurry away from the hot Italian without looking at him. It meant I could pretend not to have been frightened.

  So when I came to find the two of you outside, you and April, I wasn’t walking out fresh from a nice conversation with Hannah. I was doing it with the taste of that man still on my tongue, and with a feeling between relief and regret that I’d run from him.

  Does that make you re-evaluate everything about us, Niall? Does it make you look back and ask how you’d been so blind?

  I really hope it does, darling, because I’m beginning to want nothing more than to hurt you.

  21

  The magistrates agreed to their request for a custody extension early on Sunday morning, which meant it was now up to the team to build enough evidence for a prosecution within a total of ninety-six hours. Jonah shut himself away in his office on his return from the court, equipped with supplies of coffee and three caramel digestives from O’Malley’s rapidly diminishing supplies.

  Sundays were often a frustrating grind of a day, when businesses were closed to enquiries, Intelligence staff were largely at home, and labs did not process results. The unique value of being at CID on such a deadbeat day was that it allowed him downtime to reflect.

  In this case, he had a strange collection of hard facts and large questions. The fact of Alex dying at the Reakes house, compared with the question of how and why. The fact of Louise Reakes moving the body outside, placed alongside uncertainty as to exactly what she had been covering up, and for whom.

  He spent a while looking at a map of the area between Louise Reakes’s house and Blue Underground. Then he pulled out the printed photo of the knife from his paperwork. After a few minutes looking at it, he rose and asked his team to make their way into one of the meeting rooms.

  He got his laptop set up and connected to the data projector, and then settled himself on the edge of the central table while the team trooped in. He waited until Hanson had closed the door behind them all before he said, ‘There seem to be three things all this hangs on, at the moment.’

  He clicked on a Google Maps tab on his laptop, bringing up the London Road area. He zoomed out and manoeuvred it until they had Louise Reakes’s street visible to the top right.

  ‘The first,’ he went on, ‘is how – and why – Alex Plaskitt ended up at eleven Saints Close. What happened on the way could tell us everything we need to know about how he died. Was there someone else who made their way to the house with Louise and Alex? Did Louise wait somewhere for him? Did he stumble after her in confusion? There might have been an altercation on the way. They also might have been seen together at some point, though we’ve not had anything useful back from our appeals to the public.’

  He paused for a moment, letting the three of them finish writing all of that down, and then went on, ‘Related to that is point two: whether we believe that Louise Reakes suffered a total blackout, or whether she’s hiding a crime. We probably want to approach both of these questions in the same way.’ He highlighted the bottom of London Road with the laser pointer. ‘We still haven’t had CCTV back from the Wetherspoons to the south of London Road, or the kebab shop further north. I want to prioritise getting footage from those two places, and anywhere else between the nightclub and Louise’s house. Either or both of Louise and Alex might have gone south to pick up a cab from the taxi rank on the corner of Cumberland Place. Alternatively, they might have gone north, and then either continued up London Road or headed east along Bellevue.’

  ‘If they did cut through Bellevue, they probably would have gone up Onslow Road afterwards,’ Hanson said. ‘There are loads of places along there that’ll have CCTV. I’ll get on it. I can chase up the other ones, too.’

  ‘Thanks, Juliette. The third thing,’ he went on, ‘is the knife.’ He brought up an image of it on the screen, and then glanced at Lightman. ‘Do we have any updates from the makers, before I go on?’

  ‘I’ve left messages with Steel and Silver,’ Lightman said. ‘Emails, voicemails and web contact form. No reply as yet. Head office is in Newcastle, so hopefully they’ll get back to us before we end up having to visit.’

  ‘OK, thanks,’ Jonah replied. ‘So, my thinking. That knife isn’t something you’d happen to have with you. It’s a weapon, and it was presumably being carried for a reason.’

  O’Malley gave him a speculative look. ‘Criminal involvement?’

  ‘Of one sort or another, possibly,’ Jonah replied. ‘If Louise Reakes is telling the truth, and had never seen the knife be
fore, it could be Alex’s. But if he brought it out with him, that implies premeditation. Do we think Alex Plaskitt went out that night with the intention of threatening, raping or hurting a young woman?’

  There was a momentary silence, and Hanson said, ‘If he had predatory intentions, why didn’t he leave with her? She was drunk enough. Do we even know she was still in sight once he’d left?’

  Jonah gave a wry smile. ‘You think the predatory male idea doesn’t fit?’

  ‘Not really,’ Hanson replied. ‘And to be honest, no kind of violence seems to fit with what we know of his character. It’s hard to even imagine him fighting to defend someone. I mean … I’ve seen him throw a strop on camera at his own uselessness, but I just don’t see him attacking Louise.’

  ‘There’s also the high quality and high price tag of the knife to consider,’ Jonah added. ‘Those features point to something.’

  ‘Someone who owns it because they get a kick out of it,’ O’Malley said, immediately. ‘They enjoy using it.’

  ‘Or at least someone who enjoys the idea of using it,’ Lightman offered. ‘A gang member might own a weapon like that to up his power to intimidate.’

  Jonah nodded again. The city’s gang culture was depressingly strong, and it was generally an angle they considered in most cases.

  ‘Can we match any of that up with any of our suspects?’ Jonah asked.

  There was a long silence, and Jonah knew they were mulling over Louise Reakes, Step Conti, Niall Reakes and Issa Benhawy with the same lack of conviction that he was. None of them seemed likely to be criminals of any kind.

  ‘What about April Dumont?’ Lightman asked, thoughtfully.

  ‘As a gang member?’ O’Malley asked. ‘I mean … maybe, but I’d doubt it.’ He paused, and then went on, ‘She is awfully protective of her friend, though. She might have thought Alex was threatening her.’

  ‘But then,’ Hanson replied, ‘if she killed him to protect her, why would she leave Louise to deal with the body?’

  ‘Fair point,’ O’Malley said, with a shrug. ‘But it would make sense of Louise trying to cover it all up.’

  ‘So,’ Jonah said, ‘that basically leaves us needing to know a lot more about our group of involved people. But it also means we should keep the possibility of an unknown attacker in mind. If Alex Plaskitt really was stabbed by someone with a fetish for knives, it could have happened while Louise Reakes was unconscious. She might only have left the door unlocked and suffered the consequences.’

  Jonah could feel his team’s reaction to this idea. Or at least O’Malley and Hanson’s reaction. It would be a huge blow if Louise turned out to be uninvolved when they’d worked hard both to bring her in and to win as much custody time as possible.

  ‘Ben,’ he went on, ‘I’d like you to see Step Conti and April Dumont again. I want to know what sort of a person Step is. And I’d like you to press April on whether she really left with another man.’

  ‘Sure,’ Lightman agreed.

  ‘Domnall,’ he added, ‘I want you back on those traffic cameras. Make sure we have licence plates for Niall Reakes, Step Conti and April Dumont. Does Louise Reakes have her own car?’

  ‘I’ll check it out,’ O’Malley replied.

  ‘OK. Let’s go to it.’

  ‘So we’re not viewing Louise Reakes as prime suspect?’ Hanson queried, as she got to her feet.

  ‘I feel we should be viewing her as the first option of many,’ Jonah said. He gave her a slightly wicked smile. ‘Business as usual.’

  Hanson went to pick up her coat, keys and phone, relieved to be getting out of the station again. The sun was out in force today, and yesterday’s snow was almost gone. It was bright and pretty out there, even if it was still freezing, and she wanted to be out in it.

  She checked her phone before putting it away. She had an eBay notification on a jacket she’d bid on, but no messages. Nothing from Jason.

  And actually, now that she thought of it, she hadn’t heard anything from him last night. She hadn’t genuinely expected him to come round after the rugby. He generally got stuck into the beers and ended up going for a late-night curry. He was too considerate to roll in drunk only to pass out on her bed. But it was a little odd that he hadn’t messaged her to say so. Or to check in this morning.

  She took a moment to send him a quick greeting, asking how he was doing. She might be too busy to reply until later if he did get back in touch, but she’d like to know that he was alive and well.

  She grabbed the big square wool scarf that she’d looped over the back of her chair, and nodded to Lightman, who was putting down the phone without having spoken. She felt a need to keep the amicable conversation going. To keep things friendly with him.

  ‘No response from April Dumont?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Lightman agreed. ‘And nothing from Step Conti, either. Though I’ve got stuff to be getting on with until one of them replies. The company that sells those knives finally emailed. Apparently one of the managers should be in from two.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’ Hanson asked, winding the scarf round her neck.

  ‘I suppose if they have orders in, they can probably ship them with a courier,’ Lightman said, with a shrug. ‘I’m guessing it’s a pretty small enterprise.’

  ‘I hope they keep proper records.’

  ‘Yeah, I was thinking the same.’ Lightman gave a very short sigh. ‘It’s so rare to have a weapon that might be traceable. It’d be supremely shit if it came to nothing.’

  ‘Supremely,’ Hanson agreed, and left the building feeling a little better about everything for some reason.

  After some time spent banging on the door, Hanson had at last been shown into the cluttered office at the kebab shop and let loose on its old desktop computer. The hard drive had all the shop’s CCTV footage, broken down into three-hour chunks.

  She sat on the battered foam of the chair and loaded up the file from twelve a.m., wondering what sort of view they were going to get. The answer was, unfortunately, not a great one. The camera was placed at the door, and pointed downwards fairly steeply to catch the faces of everyone coming in. The view of the pavement was limited to a distance of about twenty feet along, and to the near side of London Road. Anyone walking on the other side wouldn’t be caught at all.

  She scrolled through to one thirteen and then hit play. To her relief, Louise Reakes entered the frame after two minutes. Hanson noted the time down and added a comment that Louise looked as drunk as she had on the nightclub footage. She had the unmistakable straight-legged gait of someone who was having trouble balancing, and in the few seconds of footage they had she veered sharply from left to right.

  Hanson wondered if Louise might have been so out of it that she could have gone too far in defending herself. Though whether she could have been coordinated enough in that state to take a knife off someone and stab them was less clear.

  Hanson started the video again, guessing that Alex wouldn’t be far behind Louise. He’d been less drunk. He was probably walking in straight lines.

  And there he was, coming onto the screen seventeen seconds after her. Hanson immediately froze the clip, and wrote the time down with a suddenly accelerated pulse. On the still she had, he was moving aside to let someone out of the kebab-shop door, but his gaze was fixed down the street. As if he was looking at Louise.

  Hanson breathed out, and then pressed play. Alex began to move again, and then unexpectedly faltered. His hand went to his pocket.

  Hanson found herself fixated. Were they about to see the knife, and end all speculation over whose it had been?

  His hand emerged, but it was holding something smaller. Something concealed easily by his palm. Hanson refroze the image, trying to tell what it was, but it wasn’t clear enough. It was definitely too small to be his phone.

  Frustrated, she pressed the play button once again. She watched as Alex turned, and then, in a move she really hadn’t expected, walked into the kebab shop. He disappeared fro
m view, and as time ticked onwards, the truth dawned on her. Alex had been looking to see if he had his bank card. He’d gone to buy himself food.

  Seven minutes later, Alex emerged clutching an open kebab in a wrapper. Although Louise Reakes wasn’t in sight at this point, it was clear she would be long gone by now. Alex and Louise hadn’t met up outside the club, and it didn’t look like he could possibly have followed her.

  So how, Hanson thought, had he ended up dying in her bed?

  Patrick Moorcroft made it to Southampton Central just after midday. He was wearing a different but equally expensive-looking suit-and-watch combination, and to Jonah’s thanks for coming in he responded with a terse, ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’

  Louise’s expression was more resigned today, though Jonah suspected that part of that was tiredness. Few people slept well during their first night in the cells.

  With the preamble done and Lightman ready next to him, Jonah began the interview.

  ‘In your account of Friday night, you insisted that you remembered nothing from the later part of the evening.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Louise said, her voice lifeless.

  ‘Louise,’ Jonah said in a low, urgent voice. ‘I want to be clear on this. We aren’t interested in condemning you for your behaviour. We want to know what resulted in the death of a young man. Whatever happened, it is vital that you tell us the truth.’

  ‘I have,’ she said, her eyes gleaming slightly.

  ‘My client has expressed no wish to alter her statement,’ Patrick Moorcroft said. ‘She has also explained her lack of memory to you.’

  ‘Understood,’ Jonah said, without looking away from Louise. ‘But there may be confused, hazy memories that you haven’t told us about. Perhaps things that make no sense to you.’

  Jonah saw, clearly, the way Louise reacted. It was the expression of someone who has been seen through.

  ‘I don’t think I …’ Louise shook her head. ‘There’s only been a dream. And … and a few …’