by Gytha Lodge
O’Malley had stocked up well on breakfast materials. He liked to complain bitterly about stake-out duty whenever it cropped up, but he generally used it as an excuse to treat himself to unhealthy food. As a result, he almost looked forward to it.
Today’s haul had come courtesy of the Greggs in the petrol station, which had the good sense to be open from seven. He’d arrived at Saints Close just before his clocking-on time equipped with everything he needed for a long stint. The blinds and curtains in the Reakes house were still drawn.
Having eaten one sausage roll and a chocolate croissant, it was clear that he was going to have to vacuum the car later on. But it had been well and truly worth it.
There was still no sign of movement by nine. O’Malley guessed that musicians weren’t required to be up all that early. He was quite happy with that situation, as it meant he got to drink coffee and mull pleasantly on his upcoming holiday to Morocco. He was holding out for that week of sunshine.
The daydreaming was rudely interrupted at ten past nine by the arrival of a metallic blue Corsa. So Issa was back. O’Malley wondered what his business was, and whether it was by arrangement.
Issa parked right outside number eleven, seemingly unaware of O’Malley’s Astra perched on the kerbside opposite. He climbed out with the look of a man on a mission and strode up to the door.
O’Malley watched him ring on the bell, and then, after a minute, ring on it again. After that, when there was no sign of life, he started to move round the side of the house, peering into the windows. O’Malley was on the verge of going to intercept him when Issa turned and walked back to his car. Instead of driving away, however, he let himself in and then sat in the driver’s seat, his head turned towards the house.
‘Who does he think he is?’ O’Malley muttered to himself. ‘A fecking copper?’
Louise was barely functioning today. Another night of terrible sleep and ceaseless worry seemed to have finished off her ability to perform even the simplest of tasks efficiently.
She’d thought she’d be exhausted enough to sleep. But it hadn’t come, and she’d found herself, at three, switching on her laptop and returning to Alex Plaskitt’s YouTube channel.
The urge came out of an equal blend of guilt and determination to know more. Here was a man whose death she might have caused, but also one who might have pinned her down and raped her. She needed to work him out, and this was all she had.
She’d eventually dozed off some time after five, only to dream of Alex. In her dreams, she had tried to save him, and then realised that he was a predator who was doing nothing more than tricking her. And later, at some confused point, she was pregnant with his child and about to marry him.
She woke again at eight feeling as though she’d been scoured out by emotion. She was so tired of being haunted. By Alex in the fullness of life, and then by his lifeless form. By memories of the club. Of attack.
And now, this morning, by Alex’s husband, who had returned to lay siege to her.
She’d watched him from the upstairs hall window as he’d walked towards the house. She was glad of the muslin she’d hung there, despite Niall’s complaint that it was as bad as a net curtain. She was able to see him without being seen, to watch him, with her heart in her throat, as he got tired of ringing on the bell and began to move round to the side gate.
What was she supposed to do if he tried to get in? Call the police? Call Niall?
But she couldn’t call Niall. She could never call Niall again. And she felt as though the police wouldn’t believe her. Why would they believe a suspect? They thought she was a killer.
Issa had eventually retreated again, and she felt a sag in her shoulders as he went back to his car. He climbed in, but the car stayed where it was. She couldn’t see him from up here, but she felt certain that he was watching the house.
And then, of course, the obvious answer came to her. She could call the one person who always took her side.
Except, she thought, with a sudden drop in her stomach. Except that April had lied to her, and she needed to know why.
The walk back to the station had felt painfully long. Hanson had to hold herself aloof for all of it, and even ten minutes of it had been draining.
Jason had asked her, while they’d stood waiting for the coffee to be made, whether things could be all right between them. Whether she could look past the things he’d said in that message. She supposed that meant that he believed her. A small victory.
But she’d said no.
‘How can I be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t trust me?’ she’d asked. ‘How would I feel confident and comfortable knowing how easily he talked you round? What if he came back more persuasively?’ He shook his head, but she went on, ‘And all of those little frustrations he played on. That you don’t like it when I go back home after seeing you. That I don’t message often enough. That I still want to do Friday pub trips with my own team. They’d all still be there, and what Damian has done is to make it blindingly obvious that I don’t make you happy.’
Jason had had no answer, and she’d felt a heavy certainty as she had turned to begin walking back. He’d come to walk next to her, his own tray of coffee the match of hers, and the silence had lasted all the way to the station.
It was only when they reached the bottom of the stairs to CID that he suddenly seemed to wake up.
‘Juliette,’ he said, and his voice had been so … so sad that she’d felt she had to look at him. ‘I know you think this was all based on lack of trust, or dissatisfaction with you, but it wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t. I was taken in by him, and I know you were, too. Can you not understand that he can be as charming to a man as he can be to a woman?’
He gave her a long, beseeching look, and it was deeply uncomfortable because she knew that he was, on some level, right. And yet other people hadn’t fallen for it. The DCI hadn’t. Ben hadn’t. They’d known her for less than a month, as a new colleague, when Damian had first tried to twist their view of her. And they’d dismissed it out of hand.
Jason took a step towards her suddenly, bringing his beseeching gaze that little bit closer.
‘Just take a while to think about it. Please. I don’t want to lose you. I probably haven’t made it clear enough how much I care about you. Or how much it hurt when I thought all this shit was true.’ He squeezed her free hand, briefly. ‘I’m sorry for being so stupid, but that’s all it is. Stupidity.’
As he let go of her hand, Hanson felt as though her defences were being burrowed under. And it made her feel a sick, dizzy sense of déjà vu. This was what Damian had done to her, over and over.
She’d never thought of Jason as being anything like him. How had he managed to poison this so completely?
‘Of course I’ll think about it,’ she said, as he gave her a questioning look. ‘I’ve always cared about you too. But I need to work now.’
She entered CID ahead of him, and although she held the door for him, she didn’t walk alongside him as she returned to her desk.
Lightman returned to the flat on Admirals Quay and parked up in the underground car park of April Dumont’s building. The rigmarole with being allowed up in the lift was repeated with a new concierge, and he was deposited once again on the top floor.
April emerged into the hallway, dressed in a loose white top over a very visible black bra, and distressed silver and black leggings with biker boots. She looked unashamedly out of place in the ultra-sleek apartment.
‘Dan’s at work,’ April told him, as she sprawled on one of the sofas.
‘Right,’ Lightman said. ‘Dan is …?’
‘My husband,’ April said, and then laughed at the surprise on his face. ‘Oh, you thought I was footloose and fancy free? No. Some marriages run better on a little spice, if you want the truth.’
Lightman nodded and decided not to write this down at present.
‘You want a drink or something?’ April asked, with a slow smile.
‘I’m fine, thanks
,’ he said. ‘I need to ask you a few things about Friday night.’
‘I want to ask some things first,’ April said, sitting up. ‘Why did you arrest Louise? She isn’t the kind of person to hurt anyone.’
‘I can understand your worry,’ Lightman said, nodding. ‘There were various circumstances around the finding of the body that are of some concern. But we are investigating –’
‘I know Louise,’ April said, cutting across him. ‘She’s not going to go home with some man she’s never met. That is not her MO. Not her MO at all.’
‘You’re saying that Louise … had nothing to do with anyone at the club?’
‘Damn right I am,’ April said. ‘She was drunk and hurting and the most I saw her do was talk to a couple guys nicely.’
‘Could you tell us who you went home with?’ Lightman asked.
April gave a short laugh. ‘Not really, honey. Except his name was Adam, I don’t have much.’
‘You went back to his house?’
‘Yeah, I did. It was just a little fun. Dan and I’ve been having troubles. Like some others.’
‘Do you have an address for the house?’
‘Hell no,’ April said. ‘I got a cab there with him, and I made him call me a cab after, too.’ She shrugged. ‘It was somewhere this side of town is all I know. Kind of a nice place.’
Lightman gave a vague smile, thinking that this meant no provable alibi for the time of Alex Plaskitt’s death. And regardless of what Niall Reakes was hiding, April Dumont was still a suspect.
Lightman watched her for a moment, and then said, ‘I’m a little confused, if I have to be honest, about your behaviour.’ He let her turn round and face him before he went on. ‘You clearly feel protective towards Louise. And yet you apparently left her while she was extremely drunk.’ He tipped his head slightly to one side. ‘It seems out of character that you simply abandoned her.’
April’s expression dropped. She looked deeply uncomfortable, and slightly angry. ‘I didn’t just abandon her. I was – I was drunker than I should have been. I’d been there for her, helping her, you know.’ She looked at him with eyes that were slightly reflective, even in that bright light. ‘I got her water and I hugged her when she looked like she might cry. And I tried to help look for her drivers’ licence for a good twenty minutes. I did all the things a good friend does, up until I got too drunk and forgot I was supposed to be looking after her.’
Lightman studied her for a moment. ‘She lost her driving licence? In the club?’
‘Yeah,’ April said. ‘She not tell you? She’d had it out ready, because she looks awful young when she’s dressed up, and then later she realised she didn’t have it any more.’
‘And did you ever find it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ April said, shaking her head. ‘No, it stayed lost.’
‘OK,’ Lightman said, writing that down. He wondered, briefly, whether Alex Plaskitt had found it.
‘So tell me what motivated you to leave with this man.’
‘Because fuck Dan if he was going to be an asshole.’
‘I believe that this Adam wasn’t the first man you’d had some kind of romantic liaison with that evening,’ Lightman said, quietly.
He had expected an expression of surprise or anger, but April gave an immediate smile of amusement. ‘Romantic liaison? Who in the hell talks like that?’
‘Just us,’ Lightman replied, smiling slightly in return. ‘As far as we know, you kissed someone else that night.’
April shook her head, still grinning. ‘Yeah, I did. Tall, upper-class kind of a guy with a six-pack. Who wouldn’t have?’
‘But you moved on pretty quickly?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, the smile fading slightly. ‘Turned out he was married, and had a guilty conscience about it.’ She gave a shrug. ‘Which I guess is up to him.’
‘You weren’t angry about it?’
April rolled her eyes. ‘Not really. I mean, I was a little pissed off for a second. He’d been so obviously keen. And his friend was all interfering, too. I was more annoyed with the friend.’
‘You didn’t try to follow this man?’ Lightman asked. ‘Or meet up with him later?’
‘I can take no for an answer,’ April said, beginning to look offended by his questions.
‘Did you find out who he was, this other guy?’ Lightman asked.
‘No,’ April said, ‘I didn’t. Why would I? And why are you so obsessed with it?’
‘Because that man was Alex Plaskitt,’ Lightman told her. ‘The man who died in Louise Reakes’s bed.’
There was a long beat. ‘Shit. Seriously?’ she said.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Lightman replied.
April turned away from him, looking out of the picture windows towards the sea. ‘That’s a hell of a shame,’ she said. ‘He was quite something. Even if he was a prude.’
‘You didn’t see anything later on that evening?’ he asked. ‘Anything to suggest why he might have been killed?’
April shook her head, slowly. ‘No, I don’t think … I guess the only thing I thought was how weirdly possessive his friend was.’ Lightman realised that April must mean Step Conti, and it gave him pause for thought. ‘When I kissed Alex,’ April went on, ‘it was almost like he was jealous.’
31
Louise
It’s morning now. I left my account where it was last night, wondering if I’d actually write any more, or if I was done. I felt like there was nothing more for me to tell you. There were, instead, a lot of unanswered questions.
But I hate leaving anything unfinished, as you know. And after talking to April, I felt an itch to write more of it down.
I called her this morning, in spite of my sudden doubts. This is the first time I’ve ever distrusted her. Perhaps that sounds ridiculous, when she’s so willing to sack me off in order to chase the man of the minute, and when she clearly has her own secrets. She’s perpetually vague about her job, and who’s paying her, and even more so about life back in Tennessee. But she’s always essentially been there, a strong, dependable rock for me to grab on to.
It was a vast relief to hear her voice. It was like an instant return to normality. She spoke, and the earth righted itself.
It didn’t matter if I was still under investigation for murder, or that you’d left, probably for good, or that she’d lied a while back, or that I felt like I might never be able to sleep again without dreaming of a smiling man following me. The moment she said, ‘Lou, honey, I’m just the gladdest to speak to you,’ I felt like I was back in my own skin.
‘You too,’ I told her. ‘Everything’s been such a fuck-up.’
‘I hear you, honey,’ she said. ‘I’ve just spoken to that insanely handsome cop. Who is completely, one hundred per cent immune to any kind of flirtation and it’s heartbreaking.’
I couldn’t help smiling. ‘The older one or the younger one?’
‘Well, he’s a sergeant, I think he said,’ she tried. ‘Probably thirty-something and with cheekbones like knives and the most incredible blue eyes.’ She sighed. ‘But nothing there, you know? Not a hint of sexuality.’
‘I know the one.’
And God, the relief of talking about the police like that. Of not thinking of them as terrifying figures of authority.
‘So,’ April said, ‘are you OK? I’ve been going crazy with worry.’
‘I know,’ I told her. There had been fourteen missed calls and eight messages from her on my phone by the time I got it back. Which was a lot, even for April. ‘I wanted so badly to talk to you. I’m back home now. Feeling like shit but on the up.’
‘Where’s Niall?’
I flinched slightly. ‘I – I asked him to go.’
‘You did?’
April sounded genuinely surprised, and I rushed to defend my actions. ‘If you’d been there … in that fucking cell …’ I swallowed, trying to be angry and not tearful. ‘He let me down so badly, April. He jumped to the immediate conclusion tha
t I must have slept with someone else and then killed him, and he refused to see me to even ask about it.’ I used my thumb to wipe each eye, frustrated that I was once again tearful. I wanted to be stronger when I talked about you, Niall. To be the kind of woman who stands up to her awful husband and walks away with no regrets. ‘Even Patrick believed in me more than Niall did. And do you know what he was actually doing on Friday night? He was with Dina.’
April hissed between her teeth. ‘So there really was something going on with those two.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve had zero other explanation. He couldn’t even look me in the eye when we were released. How fucking dare he stand there and judge me after that? And I should just be angry but I’m so fucking sad.’
‘Honey,’ April said, warmly, ‘I am positive he will come to his senses and realise what he’s ruined. But that doesn’t mean you have to take him back. Anyone who can do that to you – well, I’d be wondering if he was the right man to spend the rest of my life with.’
‘Too right.’ I said it so rebelliously, but I was still feeling lacerated by what you’d done, Niall. Whatever you felt when Dina abandoned you, what you’ve put me through has been infinitely worse. Trust me.
April sighed. ‘He’s not the only man out there, you know. Hey, you remember that Italian bambino from Hannah’s wedding? My friend Chez? He’s still single.’
‘Oh … I think it might be a little soon, but thanks.’ I didn’t tell her that the idea of seeing any other man was crazy right then, when I could close my eyes and remember someone pressing down on me. And beyond that, that I might be about to go to jail for a crime I was certain I hadn’t committed.
And then, just after that, I remembered that I needed to talk seriously to April. About that other time in the club. And I felt my stomach drop further.
‘Why don’t I come over?’ she offered. She sounded enthusiastic. As if there was nothing better she could think of doing than cheering me up.
I couldn’t ask her about that lie just then. I just couldn’t.
32