by Gytha Lodge
I looked at the date and location on it and felt a slight tremor of unease. It had been taken last summer, in Southampton. And I remembered being in a club like this. With April. And how I’d gone to find her with a couple of drinks and been absolutely positive that you were standing next to her when I caught sight of her.
I was so sure it was you. You, who were supposed to be in Birmingham but were for some reason in the same club we were, talking to April.
You were out of sight by the time I made it over, and when I handed April her drink and said, ‘Was that Niall?’ she gave me a strange look.
‘Niall? No.’ She glanced around, considering. ‘I guess he looked slightly like him. Which makes me feel weird for flirting with him.’ She laughed and took a long sip of her drink. ‘But definitely not your husband. Jesus, can you imagine what he’d say if he saw us here?’
I remember my certainty that I’d recognised you evaporating, chased away by relief that you hadn’t caught me out drinking. And I suppose, after that, the drink did a good job of making me doubt it had ever happened.
But it did happen, Niall. I’ve saved the photo that proved it. You were there, with Dina. And April … lied about it.
It left me feeling like you’ve poisoned everything, that realisation. I couldn’t even trust my best friend, could I? She hid your affair from me, when I thought she’d always been honest. Particularly about Dina and all of her bullshit. Particularly about that.
I felt lost, and furious. And desperate to call you up and yell at you. There was so much I wanted to say, but my pride wouldn’t let me even think of it. I’d told you to get out, and I was going to stand by that if it killed me.
But then the idea of writing to you came to me, and it seemed like the answer. I could pour all of it out on paper, and then decide whether to send it to you, or burn it. So for an hour, that’s what I did. Right up until now.
I expected it to be cathartic, but I feel as angry and as empty at the end of it as I did at the start. Perhaps because you haven’t read it, and may never do so. Perhaps because what I really want is answers.
You’ve explained nothing. And although part of that might be my fault, because in my seething sense of betrayal I shut you down, you should have tried. You should have bloody tried. After five years, I think I deserve it, Niall.
27
Hanson was now certain that the car was following her. The little three-car procession had turned down too many side roads for there to be any doubt about it. They were all weaving whatever complex route Niall Reakes had decided was the quickest. Hanson had been keeping well back on the almost deserted streets.
The car behind, however, had done no such thing. It had stayed close on her tail, as if willing her to notice it, and that had started to make Hanson angry.
Half a mile from Saints Close, she signalled left and pulled suddenly into a single parking space, forcing them to go past. She was confident that she could keep track of the Reakeses from here, even with a car in between.
She turned her head to watch the vehicle, expecting to see the sleek black form of the BMW. But the silhouette was all wrong. This was a smaller, older car. A Vauxhall Corsa, she thought. Or something like it. And it didn’t slow down as it passed, either. It accelerated.
Hanson let out a long breath, and moved back out onto the road. Sometimes coincidences happened, she thought. It looked as though this had been one of them. A car that just happened to be making its way along the same route.
She could just see the lights of the two cars up ahead as they turned into Saints Close. And that made her feel slightly doubtful again. Was it really likely that both drivers happened to live on one tiny close?
She slowed down as she pulled onto Saints Close. She could see the bright red illumination thrown by Niall Reakes’s Jaguar, which he’d pulled up half on the pavement outside number eleven. Further up the road, there were headlights in the act of manoeuvring. The Corsa must have driven past.
Hanson pulled in a little way from the house, close enough to give her a good view, and switched off her headlights. She watched as the Corsa completed its turn and pulled up against the kerb. Its lights died at the same time the Jaguar’s did.
Niall and Louise emerged from their car, and Hanson tried to pay attention to their manner with each other while half her attention was still on the Corsa. Nobody got out of that second car, and the lights remained off while the couple moved silently to the door.
From what she could see of them, things were not rosy between Louise and Niall Reakes. By the time she lost sight of them past the trees, they had neither looked at nor spoken to each other.
And then, finally, it occurred to her that she’d got that car wrong: that it had been following them, and not her, from the moment they’d left the station.
Jojo messaged at eight twenty-five to ask whether Jonah would like takeaway at his house, and his response was the largest thumbs up he could get his phone to send. His team had stake-out duty covered, with a couple of Heerden’s uniforms covering the graveyard shift.
That left Jonah free to see his girlfriend, which inevitably made him feel guilty, but was sometimes how things went. He messaged to say he’d be there in twenty minutes, and then sent Hanson a quick text to tell her he was heading home but would have his mobile on at all times.
O’Malley had already left, and Lightman was filling a thermos to take with him. Jonah was waving to him when Hanson messaged back to say that there was another car there, and that the driver appeared to be watching the house. She asked if he wanted her to go and talk to them.
Jonah sighed, and messaged back quickly to tell her to stay where she was.
‘Do we know anyone involved with Alex Plaskitt or the Reakeses who drives a Corsa?’ Jonah asked Lightman, as he returned from the kitchen.
‘O’Malley might know,’ Ben said, picking up his coat. ‘Or I can look it up. Why?’
‘Juliette’s got another car parked up on Saints Row watching the house.’
‘Tell her I’ll be there in fifteen,’ he said, transferring his keys to his coat pocket. ‘We can go and see who it is once I’m there.’
‘It should really be me,’ Jonah argued.
‘Well, you’re currently the only one of us with a girlfriend waiting, so I think you should leave it be. You can pay me back once I’ve sorted my love life out.’
‘Thanks, Ben,’ Jonah said, with relief. He doubted Jojo would give him a hard time if he cancelled on her, but letting her down again would have made him feel crap. ‘Keep me posted on what happens.’
‘Will do.’
Hanson was fixated on the other car. The Corsa was perhaps twenty feet from her, its lights out, but without doubt still occupied. She could just make out a dark shape behind the wheel, an ominously still, unsettling unknown.
Ben had messaged her to say that he was on his way too, and asked as an afterthought whether her psycho ex drove a Corsa. She’d grinned at that.
He wouldn’t be seen dead in anything less than a Merc.
Ben’s reply had been a thumbs up, and then a comment about her amazing taste in men. And although she didn’t feel she needed him to be here to watch out for her, she was glad that he was on his way.
The first sign she had of any movement from the Reakes house was the sudden bright red illumination of the Jaguar’s tail lights. It was followed afterwards by the throaty growl of the engine, and the car began to manoeuvre. Niall must have left the house while she’d been focused on the other car. Was he alone?
Hanson picked up her phone and called Ben.
‘We’ve got movement,’ she told him. ‘The Jaguar again.’
‘I’m just about to turn into the close,’ Ben answered, his voice a little distant over his car’s Bluetooth.
‘You might want to hold off and tail him,’ Hanson said.
‘Are you definitely OK there with the mystery driver?’ he asked.
‘I’ve got my baton and my stab vest,’ she said,
only half joking. ‘I should be fine.’
The Jaguar had finished its turn out onto the road, and as it came level with Hanson she was granted a clear view of the driver. It was Niall Reakes, and he was alone.
‘Looks like you’ve just got Niall,’ she told Ben. ‘Which means Louise is still in the house, with our mystery driver still at large. I’d definitely better stay put.’
‘OK,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll let you know where he goes. Keep me posted on events there.’
Louise had thought that she needed music. At every other low point in her life she had played. When her mother had died. When her father had suddenly flipped from neurotic overprotection and moved to the other side of the world, as if determined never to see his daughter again. Louise had got through it all with music.
As the door had finally closed behind Niall, she’d made her way to the music room and gone to her chair. She’d drawn her harp towards her and leaned its reassuring weight onto her shoulder. Her hands had found their positions for the start of the Donizetti.
And then she’d thought once again of the first time she’d played for Niall, and she faltered. She found herself replaying conversations with him. And, seamlessly, those thoughts turned into words she might have exchanged with Alex Plaskitt. Whole conversations she might have had with him, at the bar of Blue Underground.
Minutes later, she was still sitting where she had been, a heavy feeling in her chest, and her hands equally heavy on her lap. The only music she could hear in her head was the pounding beat of a dance track, drumming its way into her memory two days later.
She felt hopeless as she returned the harp to its place and left the room. How could she deal with this if she couldn’t play?
She found herself in the kitchen, switching on the kettle. There were a few crumbs on the top of the stove, and she went to find a cloth. And then she saw that some of them had ended up around the kettle itself, and behind the bread bin. Niall had always had an expressive way of cutting bread, one that littered the kitchen with detritus.
She started to move things onto the table so the surfaces were clear enough to wipe properly, and, once she started, it became difficult to stop. She took out sprays and gloves and cloths, and began to clean away every trace of dirt. She moved from the surfaces to the floor to the fridge. The oven. The utility room.
Her thoughts narrowed themselves down to finding the next imperfection and removing it. And, in spite of half hating herself for it, she began to feel comforted at last.
Hanson was now very much on edge. With the Jaguar gone, she felt as though something else had to happen. She’d expected the other driver to either follow, or move again. But the car remained motionless. A full hour passed, and then most of another.
The lack of action was excruciating, not just because her car was now freezing cold. She was at the point of going to see who was in the bloody Corsa when there was movement at last. The driver’s door opened, flooding the interior with blue-white light, and a figure stepped out. One who was huddled in a scarf, hat and high-necked coat, and was frustratingly hard to make out. She couldn’t even guess their gender.
Hanson picked up her phone and started to take photographs, willing them to turn towards her. The figure made its way over to number eleven, and Hanson climbed out of her car as quietly as she could to follow. Her breath fogged in the freezing air as she trod carefully along the pavement. She paused at the end of the drive, in sight of the Reakeses’ front door.
The figure was now on the doorstep, and she could hear the bell chiming from here. She could also see Louise Reakes’s face clearly as she opened the door.
‘You know who I am,’ Hanson heard.
28
You know who I am.
Five words that fed into all the mass of uncertainty and fear Louise had been feeling, and sent her heart rate into overdrive. She didn’t want to know what he had to say, this crumpled man on her doorstep. She didn’t want to know anything more about the awful things she’d done.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I need to go to bed. Please …’
And she started trying to close the door, but he was pushing against it.
‘I spoke to you,’ he said. ‘I spoke to you. Don’t you remember?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’
But that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
‘I need to talk to you,’ the man said, and then suddenly he was crying in an awful, ugly way. She was revolted by him. Repulsed. And yet she also felt for him. She’d cried a lot over the last two days, and she didn’t want him to feel as bad as she’d felt.
And then she realised who he must be, and she stopped trying to push the door closed. ‘You’re Alex’s – Alex’s husband.’
He nodded, and Louise let out a long breath. As hard as it was going to be, she knew that she owed him a conversation. She opened the door and let him walk inside.
‘He’s still there,’ Hanson told the DCI. ‘I saw her making tea while he stood there, and now they’re in the sitting room, where we spoke to her yesterday. Unfortunately, the curtains are shut, so there’s not a lot I can see.’
‘Did they seem to know each other?’ Sheens asked.
‘I was supposing so,’ Hanson said. ‘But they spoke for a minute and then he walked in. So I suppose it could have been an introduction.’
‘And you think he was following you from the station?’ Jonah said.
‘Yeah, I do. So he might not previously have known where she lived.’
There was a brief silence from the other end of the line. She could almost hear the DCI thinking.
‘If you can get the car close enough and a window down, I’d like you to listen out for any raised voices. Beyond that, if he leaves, stay with Louise. It looks like her husband is checking into a hotel, so I’ve sent a couple of uniforms to take over. Ben is coming back your way. He can go after Issa if needed.’
‘Roger that.’
Hanson started the engine and began to manoeuvre her car, not relishing the idea of sitting with her window down in sub-zero temperatures. But she relished even less the idea of missing something important, and so she pulled the car up, and dragged her stab vest and a jumper from the back seat.
Issa took the tea from her, his hand closing round the hot mug instead of the handle without any apparent reaction. He seemed to be too distracted to feel it. His eyes were darting everywhere around the room. They took in the furniture. The paintings. The photos of her and Niall. His scrutiny made her feel exposed.
She settled herself on the sofa, experiencing the same sense of unreality that had gripped her in the police station and then again in the car on the way home. How could she be sitting in front of a dead man’s husband?
‘I wish I could tell you more about that night,’ she said, quietly. ‘I know you must want to know.’
His eyes focused on her, slowly. ‘Did you meet him at the bar?’ he asked. ‘Or was it before that?’
Louise shook her head. ‘I didn’t know him. I only remember speaking to him briefly. I can’t remember anything else at all.’
‘Do you remember talking to me?’ he asked.
She shook her head again. ‘Were you there?’
‘On the phone,’ he said, and she detected anger in his voice. ‘You must remember. I tried to call him, and you answered instead.’
Louise could feel her forehead creasing with anxiety. It threatened to bring back the headache that had only recently abated after two whole days.
‘I don’t remember that,’ she said, and then, suddenly badly needing to know, ‘What did I say?’
Alex’s husband’s mouth pursed in distaste. ‘Nothing that can help me. That it was Alex’s phone, but he was tied up right now. And then he got it off you and apologised. You sounded drunk. He did, too.’
Louise felt a swelling of shame. She could imagine Drunk Louise doing that. Drunk Louise always wanted to have fun, no matter who it hurt.
‘I’m so sor
ry,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I was myself on Friday. I was … upset. And I got really drunk.’
But Alex’s husband seemed not to be listening to her. He was looking at her belongings again, his brow wrinkling in what looked like frustration. Perhaps confusion.
‘I expected you to be … richer,’ he said.
Louise almost laughed. ‘Richer?’
‘That’s what he liked,’ he said, his gaze flicking to her and then away. ‘The rich country girls. The ones his dad would have loved.’
‘Look,’ Louise said, feeling an increasing sense of unease, ‘I don’t know … I don’t think that’s what happened. I don’t think he was chasing me.’
But then she listened to herself and thought of the man who had pursued her in her dream. Of the pain in her back and the dirt in her mouth. And she felt ill.
‘Any kids?’ he asked.
And Louise shook her head, and said, ‘No,’ wondering why he would ask that. ‘Sorry, I … what’s your name?’
‘Issa,’ he said, his voice quiet. Slightly child-like. And then he suddenly asked, ‘What is it you have?’
‘I don’t … understand,’ Louise said. He was staring at her as though she had personally betrayed him and it made her feel that she must have done it somehow. Must have been a traitor.
Alex’s husband continued, his voice low with hatred. ‘What is it you have that made him want to risk everything? Just so he could fuck you?’
‘I don’t … I don’t have anything.’
Issa surged to his feet, and, as he stood over her, she felt a return of her earlier fear. There was something not right about the way he was looking at her, and the heavy mug in his hand became a possible weapon.
‘Whatever you tempted him with, it destroyed everything.’
Louise flinched away from him, and then said, her voice as firm as she could make it, ‘I think you need to leave.’
It was ten forty by the time Ben arrived back at Saints Close. Once Issa had left the house and she’d seen Louise Reakes moving around in her kitchen, Hanson had closed the car window again. But it was still freezing in the little Nissan and she was beyond grateful to see that Lightman had brought fast food and hot coffee with him.