by Gytha Lodge
Lightman stepped carefully past her where she crouched, and then stopped.
‘There’s blood,’ he said.
Jonah’s working of Niall Reakes began the moment he walked through the door of CID. Assuming a mantle of full-blown officialness, he dispensed with any conversation at all as he took the drugs rep quickly and angrily through to the interview suite. O’Malley was already waiting for them by the door, and Jonah almost felt tempted to laugh at the pitying expression his sergeant gave their suspect.
If Niall had looked anxious on arrival, he was actually shaking by the time Jonah introduced them all for the tape. Jonah gave him nothing but a piercing stare once the introductions were done, and Niall caved within seconds.
‘I need to tell you something,’ he said, putting a hand out to the table as if to steady himself. ‘It isn’t – it’s got nothing to do with the death of that guy, but I know you’re going to think it does.’
‘Would this be about your whereabouts on Friday night?’ Jonah asked, whip-sharp.
‘Yeah.’ Niall swallowed. ‘Yeah, it is. I flew home early from the conference. I told Jessie, my assistant, that my wife was really ill, and she said she’d cover the final night and morning.’
Niall’s accent seemed to have slid a whole step less middle class, making it clear that he spent much of his life acting. Trying to be more than he was. It elicited a surge of sympathy in Jonah.
‘And yet you didn’t go to look after your wife,’ he said.
‘No. I lied.’ There was an ugly-looking sheen to his face, and Jonah focused on that instead of his sympathy. On how distasteful this man was. It made it easier to go on the attack in the short window they had before Niall requested a solicitor. ‘I flew back to meet up with my ex-wife.’
Jonah glanced over at Lightman, and said, ‘I find that difficult to believe.’
‘It’s – true.’ Niall looked desperate. Sick-looking. ‘It isn’t the first time, and Dina can back me up.’
‘You’re telling us you were having an affair?’
‘Not even an affair,’ Niall said, clasping his hands together. They were trembling uncontrollably. ‘Though I – she’s been pushing for one.’
Jonah gave a short laugh. ‘You’re asking us to believe that you lied to your employers and your wife, and then spent a great deal of money flying home early to meet up with your ex-wife, all purely for a platonic chat?’
‘She’s getting me a job,’ he said, just before Jonah had finished. ‘A VP role at Glaxo. A friend of hers there is on the board. She told me about it back in June and I – I really wanted it. It’s where I’ve wanted to work forever.’
‘Why not simply tell your wife about it?’ O’Malley asked. ‘If a perfect job was being offered.’
‘Because … Look, Dina obviously seems like a threat to her,’ Niall said, trying for some sort of boys-together tone and not achieving it. ‘I knew Louise would tell me to stay away from her, which would have meant no job.’
‘So let me understand this,’ Jonah said. ‘You’ve been carrying on what might as well be an affair with a woman who has promised you a job on the basis that, what, you sleep with her after it’s all sorted? Is that it?’
‘No,’ Niall said, his expression pained. He clearly thought this unfair. ‘There’s never been any agreement of any kind. I never would.’
‘How did your marriage to your ex-wife end?’ Jonah asked.
‘I … She left me. For someone else.’ Niall Reakes looked, for some reason, more awkward admitting this than he had at any point so far.
‘Why would she now want you back so desperately that she’s found a way of offering you your dream job?’
‘She misses me. She realised it was a mistake breaking things off the moment I got married to Louise. But … but I love my wife. Very much.’
‘Despite the ease with which you believed she was having an affair,’ Jonah countered. ‘Despite your swift assumption that she is guilty of murder.’
‘I never assumed that!’ Niall said, looking angry. ‘I was effing furious with her because – because all of this is probably going to screw everything up.’ There was a pause, and he said in a more measured voice, ‘I lied to my company, and now I probably don’t have a new job to go to. It’s all been forced out into the open because – because Louise got pissed again.’
Jonah felt overwhelmingly tempted to ask whether Niall thought that might be karma, but instead he asked, ‘Where did you stay on Friday night?’
‘At the Gatwick Hilton.’
‘And you met Dina in your room?’
‘No. In the bar.’
‘Until what time?’
Niall considered for a moment, and then said, ‘A bit after twelve, I guess.’
‘What car do you drive?’
Niall looked wrong-footed. He sounded a little defensive as he said, ‘A Jaguar. An F-TYPE.’
‘That’s a nice sporty car,’ Jonah commented. ‘So you could easily have driven back home by, say, quarter to two. Probably even earlier if you’d floored it.’
‘I didn’t,’ Niall protested.
‘You didn’t arrive back and find your wife in bed with another man?’ Jonah asked. ‘You didn’t decide to do away with him and leave her comatose to wonder if she’d done it? I mean, it would be a pretty effective form of revenge, wouldn’t it?’
There was a silence for several seconds, and then Niall said, ‘I want my solicitor now.’
‘So I’ll call the ex-wife now?’ O’Malley asked, following Jonah back into CID.
‘Yes,’ Jonah said. ‘Though I strongly suspect that he’s made some sort of arrangement with her.’
‘You don’t believe him?’
Jonah glanced at his sergeant. ‘There’s a small chance that it’s true. But looked at rationally, he went to a hell of a lot of trouble just to meet up about a job offer.’
‘Agreed,’ O’Malley said. ‘And I’m interested in why he flew from Zurich. He must have driven for two or three hours to get there. I’m going to look up whether there were other flights he could have taken without the long drive.’
‘Yes,’ Jonah said, trying and failing to picture where the two cities were on a map. ‘That’s probably the weirdest part of it.’ He paused for a moment, thinking of the distinctive murder weapon. ‘It might also be worth checking whether there’s a retailer who sells those knives in Zurich.’
‘I’ll get on it,’ O’Malley answered.
‘The blood tests from Louise Reakes are sitting with the lab, aren’t they?’ Jonah went on, thoughtfully.
‘Yup,’ O’Malley said. ‘Also useless until tomorrow.’
‘Unless we work on the good nature of our colleagues,’ Jonah said. He pulled his phone out and dialled Linda McCullough’s number.
There were traffic noises in the background as she picked up.
‘We’re on site at Asylum Green,’ she said, immediately. ‘And we have blood.’
‘Blood?’ Jonah asked, dumbly.
‘Yes, Sheens. You’ll know it as the red stuff that runs through most people’s veins.’
Jonah half smiled as he replied, ‘I’ll look it up.’
‘There isn’t a lot of it. Did your female show any signs of injury?’ McCullough asked.
‘Nothing she showed us,’ Jonah said, thoughtfully, ‘but she mentioned pain in her back, which we’re going to get photographed.’ He glanced up at O’Malley, who nodded. Presumably that was already being sorted by one of the female PCSOs.
‘We’ve got a few personal belongings bagged up, too,’ McCullough went on. ‘They may or may not have anything to do with an attack.’
‘Thanks,’ Jonah said. ‘How long do you think you’ll be there?’
‘Why do I suspect that this question isn’t about my mental health?’ McCullough asked.
‘I have no idea,’ Jonah countered. ‘But we’ve got a blood test for Rohypnol I badly want back, and a non-functioning lab.’
True to form, McCullo
ugh complained loudly, and then agreed. ‘I’m still waiting for all those pints you owe me, Sheens,’ she added.
‘Just say the word,’ Jonah replied.
The temperature was now just above freezing, and Hanson was suffering. Even with her coat zipped up to her chin and her hands shoved in her pockets, she was shaking with cold.
‘Should have brought another four or five layers,’ she said to Lightman, as the two of them huddled beneath one of the trees on Asylum Green. Or at least as Hanson huddled. Lightman looked as unaffected by everything as usual.
‘Do you want to wait in the car?’ he asked her. ‘There’s no reason for us both to hang around here.’
‘That’s extremely kind,’ Hanson said, meaning it, ‘but my pride would never recover.’
McCullough came over a few minutes later to announce that they were packing up, and Hanson sighed with relief.
‘We’ve got blood and soil samples and we’ve taken cuttings of the grass,’ she said.
‘Can you tell how much there was?’ Hanson asked. ‘Like whether it was a serious injury or just, I don’t know, a nose bleed?’
‘It’s not a lot,’ Linda said. ‘A splash only.’
‘And I suppose we don’t even know if it was connected,’ Hanson went on, more quietly.
‘No, we don’t,’ McCullough said, cheerfully. ‘Welcome to my world.’
Lightman and Hanson walked briskly back to the car after that, and Hanson turned the engine on immediately in the hope that it might warm up. She pulled her bag off over her head and felt her phone buzz as she did so. Pulling it out, she saw a message from Jason. It began with the words, I don’t quite know what to say to you …
She opened it up with an unreal feeling. She read his words, feeling as though she was slipping sideways out of the car as she did.
‘Everything all right?’ Lightman asked from beside her after a moment.
And to Hanson’s absolute humiliation, when she tried to answer, nothing but a ragged sob came out.
O’Malley had both a mobile and landline for Dina Weyman and managed to reach her on the latter. The call was originally answered by a disgruntled-sounding man who was presumably Dina’s husband.
‘Why do you want to talk to her?’ he asked, gracelessly, when O’Malley explained who he was.
‘We want to corroborate a story given by a witness,’ O’Malley told him. ‘We’re told your wife can help.’
There were movements on the other end, and a ferocious-sounding muttered conversation followed by the slam of a door. O’Malley wondered whether he’d called in the middle of some sort of domestic.
Eventually, Dina said, ‘Hello?’ in a voice as cheerful and unconcerned as a child’s.
‘Is that Dina Weyman?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I understand you’re with the police.’ There was a slight sigh to her voice, as if talking to the police was immeasurably boring.
‘Detective Sergeant O’Malley,’ he told her. ‘I want to ask you about Friday night.’
‘What about it?’ The question could have been rude, but she managed to inject just enough lightness into it to save herself.
‘Niall Reakes tells us that you met up with him at a hotel,’ O’Malley said. ‘We just wanted to confirm the details.’
There was a pause, and Dina said, ‘I’m sorry, Niall said I met up with him?’
‘Yes.’ O’Malley found himself sitting up very straight. ‘On Friday night.’
There was another pause, and then Dina said, in a much less light tone, ‘I’m very sorry, but we didn’t end up meeting. Niall asked to see me, and then he stood me up.’
24
Louise
I want to tell you about the one other memory I have, one I’m not even sure is real. But I need to tell you because it scares me every time I think of it.
In my memory, or my dream, because I’m no longer clear on which it was, I remember crying. Lying on my side on what feels like cold ground with my hands in my hair. I’m sobbing and sobbing, and somebody is shushing me.
It’s the thing that makes me panic more than anything else, remembering that gentle hushing noise. It sends blades of fear running through me, and I don’t understand why.
25
Jonah found it hard not to laugh as O’Malley summed up his conversation with Dina Weyman. It was partly a laugh borne out of victory, and partly a reflection of the absurdity of it all.
‘Did it sound like she was expecting us to ask about Niall Reakes?’ Jonah asked, once O’Malley was done with his brief summary.
‘No,’ O’Malley said, ‘but then I got the impression she’d be good on the stage. Very much in control of how she comes across, you know?’
‘So there might have been some kind of an agreement,’ Jonah said, thoughtfully. ‘One she then went back on. OK. Well, we have a new prime suspect. Any news on Niall’s solicitor?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘I’d like to have more to throw at him before going in there, anyway,’ Jonah went on, thinking as he spoke. ‘The guy up the road talked about being subjected to boy racers gunning their engines late on Friday. Niall Reakes drives an F-TYPE. That’s a good audible, racy-sounding engine.’
‘But we didn’t find him on any of the ANPRs,’ O’Malley pointed out.
‘Can we check further afield?’ Jonah asked. ‘He might have gone home by an unexpected route.’
‘I’m pretty sure I’ve got all the routes to Saints Close covered,’ O’Malley said, doubtfully, ‘but I’ll check. We’ve got to check up on those knives, too,’ he added. ‘Which may take a while …’
‘Let’s get Ben on that as soon as he’s back,’ Jonah suggested.
‘Ah, he’ll like that,’ O’Malley agreed, with a grin. ‘A good bit of careful checking.’
Jonah glanced at his watch. It was gone half past five. They needed to make some real progress before heading home for the day. They couldn’t hold Niall Reakes overnight without arresting him, and Jonah wasn’t going to arrest a second suspect without strong evidence.
He felt slightly frustrated, too, that he had no clear picture of how all this might hang together. Louise’s attack might tie in with Alex being stabbed somewhere other than Saints Close. But if Niall Reakes had attacked them, how had they both ended up at the house?
He felt an urge to get out of the station. To do some active investigation. But there was nothing specific for him to follow up on.
The phone on O’Malley’s desk rang, and Jonah was still trying to work out his own next move while O’Malley answered it. He saw his sergeant wince slightly at what was obviously a tirade. Though as Jonah watched, his expression changed from long-suffering to alert.
‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr Derbyshire,’ he said, after a few moments. ‘We’ll get someone out to take a look.’
He hung up and said to Jonah, ‘That was one of the residents of Saints Close. He wants to know when someone’s going to come and clear up all the blood.’
‘The blood?’ Jonah said, blankly.
‘Apparently, now the snow’s melted, you can see pools of it all the way down the road.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
It must have been the tenth time Hanson had said it. Each time she intended for it to be the end of the tears. But they kept on oozing out, as Ben gently persuaded her to swap seats so he could drive, and then pulled the car in at the drive-to Starbucks so he could pick up tea. He let her sit in the passenger seat to try to compose herself while he went to buy it, but nothing had changed by the time he got back. And it was still the same after several scalding mouthfuls of Earl Grey.
‘There’s nothing to be sorry about,’ he told her again. And then he said, ‘You don’t have to tell me anything, but it might genuinely help.’
She would have kept on resisting if everything hadn’t felt so terrible.
She handed Lightman the phone and let him read for himself all the horrendous things Jason now thought about her.
I bumped into your ex, a man I didn’t even know about. A man you were still seeing up until last week …
She tried to swallow down the tears along with another mouthful of tea while he read. It took Lightman a good thirty seconds to finish reading. She wondered if Ben would take it all at face value, too, and it made her feel desolate.
Damian had even woven Ben into his lies, a fact that added its own extra turn of total humiliation.
He told me that you’d been making moves on another colleague too, and bragging about it to your female friends because he was good eye candy. I assume he meant Ben Lightman, and I only hope he realises what he’s letting himself in for.
And the real clincher, of course, was the way Damian’s lies had used truths and then twisted them to make them work against her. That had always been the way it worked with him. Genuine, incontrovertible facts that he grossly, hideously misrepresented.
Jason had been putty in his hands.
I might have questioned it if it hadn’t explained so much. The fact that you claim to be busy so often in the evenings, and to like your own space. The fact that you’ve never introduced me to any friends, or suggested a visit to your home town. It must be exhausting keeping all the lies going, Juliette, and I feel sorry for you.
The sad fact was that Juliette had no real friends in Southampton. And Damian was the prime reason she now avoided going home to Birmingham. But her ex knew exactly how to retell it all.
And if Jason believed it, what was to stop Ben believing the rest of it, too?
But once he’d finished reading, Lightman lowered the phone and said, ‘Jesus. That’s … what a total manipulative bastard.’
She felt such a rush of gratitude that it made the tears worse, not better. But she managed to smile at him, shakily, and say, ‘Oh, he’s a real keeper.’
‘Which one?’ Lightman asked, with a raised eyebrow, and Hanson actually laughed slightly.
‘I can definitely pick ’em, can’t I?’
Ben took a gulp of tea, the phone held loosely in his other hand, and then said, ‘I take it this isn’t the first time Damian’s tried to wreck your life.’