Lie Beside Me

by Gytha Lodge

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said, as he climbed into the passenger seat and passed it to her. ‘This might be the best thing you’ve ever done.’

  Ben smiled, lifting his coffee to his mouth. And then he paused and said, ‘There was that thing a few months ago where I took a knife off a psychotic woman …’

  Hanson took a large bite of cheeseburger and swallowed it before she replied. ‘Nope. This is much better.’

  ‘Well, that’s good to know. For future reference.’ He chewed for a few moments. ‘What did you think of Issa, when you met him?’

  ‘By the time we turned up on Saturday morning, I’m pretty sure he hadn’t slept at all,’ Hanson said, considering. ‘And I don’t think his mental state has improved with news of Alex’s death. I’m not sure I’d trust him to be rational right now.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m not sure sitting in a freezing car outside someone’s house for hours is rational behaviour,’ Ben said. ‘Not if somebody isn’t making you do it, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Hanson said, and then sighed. ‘I really want to know what they were talking about. Half of me thinks there’s some kind of conspiracy going on between them, and the other half thinks Louise Reakes might actually be in danger.’

  From his position on the sofa, with Jojo’s legs wrapped round his and her head resting on his shoulder, Jonah felt a momentary resurgence of guilt. Ben and Juliette would be sitting in a cold car right now.

  He stretched out to grab his phone, dislodging Jojo slightly, and she gave a quiet growl of protest.

  ‘I was comfortable, Sheens.’

  ‘Last message of the night, I promise,’ he said, getting hold of the phone and typing out ‘All OK?’ to Hanson.

  ‘Last message unless something kicks off,’ Jojo countered, as he sent it.

  ‘Er, well, I was sort of hoping something else might kick off here …’

  Jojo shifted around until she was lying directly on top of him. She gave him a narrow-eyed look, her mouth twisting in humour.

  ‘That can probably be arranged,’ she said, and ran a hand down his chest until she found the waistband of his trousers.

  Louise couldn’t stop shaking. She felt so angry with every man on the planet. With Issa for his horrible, piercingly painful remarks. With that bloody DCI for not believing her, and not finding out what had really happened, either. With Niall, for fucking everything.

  And it was only now that the truth of her situation really hit home. That she was never going to feel safe. Even if she somehow avoided jail, Issa would still be out there, thinking she’d done it. Possibly trying to get revenge. And what if it hadn’t been Alex who attacked her? What if it was someone else, who was still out there, faceless and awful?

  She put a hand into her hair and squeezed it until it hurt. She felt as though she’d worked herself into a place she couldn’t get out of. She should have told Issa about the rape, or attempted rape, or whatever it had been. God, and she should have got them to test her earlier.

  After the awfulness of that truth came another one. It came more slowly, in a cold creeping sensation down her spine.

  They thought it was her. Not her husband, who she was now sure had lied to hide an affair with his ex. He’d probably admitted it all to the police. They might even have brought Dina in to back him up, a thought that only made her feel more sick.

  So they didn’t suspect Niall any more. They thought it was her, the woman who had slept next to a dead man and then tried to hide it. Of course they thought that.

  Which meant they weren’t looking for whoever had attacked her. They weren’t even looking.

  The early part of the night had passed uneventfully for Hanson and Lightman, hunched in the freezing-cold car. The two of them had spent much of it in companionable silence, though they’d played a few pointless word games, too.

  They had spoken only briefly about Damian, after Ben had suddenly commented, in a voice full of humour, that this must be how her ex-boyfriend felt half the time.

  ‘Just imagine how many hours he must have spent sitting waiting in his car, just for a few seconds of making you feel uncomfortable.’ He’d shaken his head. ‘The man seriously needs to get a life.’

  Laughing at Damian had been a very good thing. As soon as she started thinking about him as a sad individual, she felt enormously better.

  It was only at twenty to twelve that they’d seen a taxi draw up slowly outside number eleven. Louise had emerged a minute later, her hair twisted up into a bun and her dress and leggings exchanged for jeans and high heels. With a sigh, Hanson had asked, ‘Any wagers on where she’s going?’

  29

  Louise

  I didn’t think I’d be writing any more, at least not yet. But more has happened. I made it happen. I suddenly found myself unable to sit alone and let this all just build and build beyond my control.

  With the awful realisation that nobody was looking for whoever had attacked me, I felt like I needed to do something. With no other obvious paths open to me, I tracked Alex Plaskitt down online and discovered a treasure trove. A YouTube channel full of fitness videos.

  I found myself watching video after video, watching obsessively for signs of his character. What I hadn’t really been prepared for was the reality of him. For how much of a punch to the gut it would be to see him alive, and animated, and likeable. He seemed less and less like a predator and more and more like a victim whose death I had helped to cause.

  And as I watched, a suspicion that’s been creeping up on me for the last two days crystallised into certainty.

  What I finally faced up to was that I did spend time with Alex Plaskitt that night. Every time I denied having met him, I was lying, and I think some part of me knew it. She knew it.

  I don’t think I just talked to him. I think I flirted, and I think it was entirely deliberate. Not just something that Drunk Louise wanted to do, something all of me wanted to do.

  At some point on Friday night I sat beside him at the bar. I have a fleeting memory of imagining I was Dina. I remember consciously imitating what April had told me. I remember putting my hand on his arm as I laughed at something he’d said.

  But that was all I could remember. Everything else was still a yawning void, and it was driving me to agitation. I couldn’t calm myself, even with more cleaning. I felt certain that I’d done something awful.

  I knew I needed to know what I’d said to him. Whether I’d agreed to meet up with him at our house. I needed to know how much of this shit I’d brought on myself.

  It was a momentous thing, leaving here alone, just before midnight, with a destination in mind that intimidated the hell out of me. But I did it. I had to.

  You know what the worst part of it was? That I had to do it basically sober, because I needed to remember everything. I couldn’t leave it all up to Drunk Louise and go along for the ride. I had a one-and-a-half-strength gin and tonic while I waited for my cab, and I walked up to the door of Blue Underground feeling basically myself.

  I almost got turned back right then. The bouncer asked for my ID, and I looked all through my handbag without being able to find it. I came dangerously close to crying. Why had I been IDed tonight, of all nights? It only happened once in a while, when I somehow gave off the effect of being a teenager instead of an adult.

  ‘I didn’t think to bring it,’ I told him, with a note of desperation. ‘I’m thirty-three.’

  The bouncer sighed, and after another, more careful inspection of me, waved me into the club. I gave him a smile and hurried past.

  The inside of Blue Underground looked vastly different in reality to every memory I had. A combination of it being only quarter full tonight, and Sober Louise now being the one to see it. The clientele were different, too. Most of them looked like students or postgrads. Lots of them were non-English. And the music was more poppy. Less club.

  I didn’t really care about the music or about anyone else who was in there, though. I was looking at the staff, searching f
or someone I recognised.

  It didn’t take me long. A guy of probably twenty, down at the far end of the bar from me, one with curling hair and an eyebrow piercing, turned to give a customer his drink. He’d been there on Friday. I knew he had. I’d spoken to him.

  It turns out that it’s surprisingly easy to get served quickly by a particular person when you don’t care what anyone thinks of you. I shoved my way in and got his attention with a smile and a lift of my credit card. He came straight over, overlooking three or four people who’d been there first.

  ‘Kronenbourg, please,’ I said, choosing something that would keep him standing still in front of me while he poured. As he flipped a glass up and into place under the tap, I added, in a voice that sounded strangled to my ears, ‘And I need some help. I was in here on Friday. Do you remember?’

  The guy glanced at me, and then I saw something change in his expression. He looked uncomfortable. Worried.

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘I was with a loud, blonde American woman,’ I went on, trying to pretend I was confident Drunk Louise instead of myself, ‘with lots of tattoos. And after I left, something terrible happened. The police must have been here asking questions. They were here, weren’t they?’

  The barman glanced around, and then gave a slow nod. He’d almost finished pouring the drink.

  ‘Sorry, that should have been two Kronenbourgs,’ I said.

  I could see from his face that he didn’t like that. He stayed still while someone squeezed in next to me, and then he grabbed another glass with bad grace.

  ‘Please just tell me what I was doing,’ I begged him. ‘I need to know. I was so drunk, I don’t really remember.’ I swallowed, feeling a flickering, sick beat to my heart. I was so afraid of what he was going to say. ‘Was I talking with a guy? A … tall, athletic sort of guy?’

  The barman started to pour the second pint and gave a slight sigh. I could see it from the way his body moved, even though I couldn’t hear it over the music.

  ‘Yes,’ he said in the end. ‘You were sitting just along there with him.’

  ‘Over there?’

  He nodded to the end of the bar that was furthest from the door. There were a few stools down at that end, but nobody serving.

  ‘Was I … flirting?’

  The guy shrugged. ‘I’d say so. But … you didn’t go home with him or anything. He was a bit pissed off that you left in a hurry.’

  I felt another twist of my heart. ‘He was? Did he say anything?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But you notice this stuff, you know.’ He looked towards a barmaid working further down. ‘Look, you need to pay, and I need to get on with work. You didn’t do anything while you were here that might have … I heard about what happened, but I can’t help. I’m sorry.’

  And then he was placing my two unwanted beers on the bar and holding his hand out for my card. And no matter what I asked, he said nothing more.

  30

  ‘So what do we make of her?’ the DCI asked, as Hanson wrapped up her brief report on their stake-out. It was eight forty-five in the morning. Sheens had just returned from his early caseload meeting and, with the weekend done, CID was busy once again, though their team was down on numbers. O’Malley was on stake-out at the Reakes house, and Lightman had been sent to see April Dumont again.

  ‘Of Louise?’ she asked. ‘It’s hard to say. Ben couldn’t catch much of her conversation in the club, but if she really was doing her own investigating, it strongly implies that she’s been telling the truth about not remembering anything.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Sheens said. ‘Though whether she was involved in Alex’s death is still, frustratingly, up in the air.’

  ‘I want to look more at the knife,’ Hanson told him. ‘Surely that’s still our firmest piece of evidence. If I can link it to any one of our suspects, we’ll know who to press.’

  ‘I think you may be right,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘See if you can work out what Ben’s done on that so far.’

  Hanson found Ben’s work to be as meticulously logged as she’d been anticipating. It took her no time at all to continue what he’d started, and she quickly immersed herself in cross-checking delivery addresses with their suspects. It was perfect work to avoid thinking about anything. Lots of facts and attention to detail.

  It took her a while to notice someone loitering next to her desk. And when she looked up, she tried not to grimace. She’d momentarily forgotten that Jason would be here today.

  But she was prepared for this even so. She’d decided how to play it.

  She gave him a bright smile and said, ‘How can I help, sir?’

  Jason visibly flinched at the deliberate use of rank. ‘Juliette, could we – could we please talk?’

  Hanson glanced at her screen. ‘I’ve got quite a lot to do.’

  ‘So have I,’ Jason said, with slight frustration, ‘but it’s going to get done a lot more quickly if we can clear this up. I can’t think like this.’

  Hanson was sorely tempted to ask whose fault it was that he couldn’t concentrate. But this was still Jason, the man she’d cared about up until yesterday. The man she’d spent a great deal of time with. Even if there had been little passion in their relationship, she’d at least felt she could trust him. It was hard not to want him to think well of her on some level.

  ‘All right,’ she said, standing. ‘I may as well do a coffee run.’

  She left a note on Lightman’s desk, picked up her coat, and walked out just ahead of him. She didn’t volunteer anything. She might be willing to talk, but there was no way she was going to kick things off. It was up to Jason to say his piece, or apologise, or whatever it was he wanted to do.

  They were crossing the car park before he said, ‘So. Your ex. Damian.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My ex.’ She stressed the word slightly, but that was all she was giving him.

  ‘When did you stop seeing him?’

  ‘Several months before I moved here. Would you like to know why I stopped seeing him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because he was an abusive narcissist,’ she said, with as little emotion as she could. ‘The humiliating thing is how long it took me to see it.’

  There was a pause, and then Jason asked, ‘Abusive how?’

  Hanson let out a sigh. ‘In every possible way. As soon as he’d moved in with me, he stopped paying rent. He claimed he was having a temporary money problem thanks to a previous girlfriend who’d run up bills in his name. Then he borrowed off me on top of that. Thousands in total. I had to borrow off my mum to cover it and he kept claiming he had a bonus coming up at work that would sort it out, only it never came.’

  Jason said nothing, but he nodded when she glanced at him.

  ‘He tried to tell me what to wear. He told me my clothes made me look like a whore. He also accused me of being a whore because I’d once told him, when he asked me, that I’d tried an open relationship.’ She took a breath. ‘He resented every good thing that happened in my life and tried to undermine it. Roughly every two days he would say something so unbelievably nasty to me that I cried. As it progressed, I increasingly ended up screaming at him in rage, too. But in the end, he always broke me down. Anger turning into misery.’

  They came to a stop at the pedestrian lights, and Jason pressed the button. Hanson looked away from him before she went on.

  ‘And then he would apologise. He would tell me he was trying to get help. That he had trauma, and it got the better of him sometimes. It should have been clearer earlier on that he apologised because he’d got exactly what he wanted, which was to know how much he could hurt me. He got his kick out of breaking me down, and then he needed to reel me back in to stop me actually leaving. So it was all “my trauma, my trauma, poor me”.’ Hanson gave a small snort of laughter. The lights changed, and they started to cross. ‘The irony being that he dealt out trauma like nobody else. Oh, and he cheated on me with multiple women, which I damn well knew bu
t couldn’t prove because he deleted every message between them. One of them was a good friend of mine and I lost her because of it.’

  ‘When you say he deleted his messages …’ Jason said, carefully.

  ‘I saw him delete them in front of me,’ Hanson snapped, knowing what he meant. Asking her if she’d been checking up on him all the time, as he’d probably told Jason that she had. ‘If I asked to see any messages he got angry and told me I should trust him, whereas my own messages were continually hacked. He sometimes got my phone and said terrible things to my friends, while they thought it was me. I caught him a few times and I can only imagine what he said that I didn’t see. That he deleted.’

  ‘How long were you with him?’ Jason asked.

  ‘A year and a half.’

  ‘Why did you stay with him?’ The question was asked with such disbelief that Hanson almost laughed.

  ‘Do you really need me to tell you how abuse works?’ she asked him. ‘How they turn on the full force of their charm every time they apologise, and make you feel like it’s all right now? How when you do break up with them, they find ways of making you feel guilty? They point out all this stuff they are doing “for you”. The therapy sessions that, coincidentally, you are paying for. Do I need to tell you how you defend their behaviour to all your concerned friends and family so many times that you become complicit in it?’

  ‘But you’re smart,’ he argued, stopping, and turning towards her. ‘Surely you could see through him.’

  ‘Like you did?’ Hanson asked.

  There was a very long silence, as Jason looked into the distance somewhere. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just … I didn’t see any reason not to believe him, when he said it.’

  ‘Except for four months of getting to know me better than anyone else,’ she said, quietly, and turned to continue walking.