Lie Beside Me

by Gytha Lodge

  ‘Goddamn right she stabbed you. She’s a stone-cold badass.’

  There was little left for Jonah’s team to do except deal with the aftermath. They arrived an hour too late to stop Louise Reakes stabbing someone for real this time. Fifty minutes too late to help Charlie Ruskin, who went into arrest before the two paramedics managed to get him to the ambulance.

  And when one of the uniformed constables from Portsmouth City asked if he’d really wanted to save an attempted murderer, Jonah had rounded on him and told him of course he bloody had. That a human life had been lost tonight, and another one probably ruined.

  Though at present, Louise actually looked the happiest he’d ever seen her. Her neck was already red and purple with bruising, her left leg had a bandage on the knee, and she was holding an ice pack to her right wrist. But she gave Jonah what was definitely a smile when he went to speak with her.

  ‘The crew tells me they want your wrist and neck checked,’ Jonah said. ‘Let’s get you taken to Portsmouth General and we can talk later.’

  ‘You can talk to me right now,’ April said, from her perch next to her. Jonah was glad she had stuck around. There was an awful lot he wanted to ask her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jonah said. ‘Perhaps we can take your statement.’

  There was nothing in April’s account to suggest that she’d had anything to do with the attack on Louise Reakes. Nothing to suggest that she might be involved in Niall Reakes and Dina Weyman’s drug trafficking, either. Nothing, in fact, to give him any reason to take her into custody. At least not yet.

  And counting in her favour was the fact that she’d been the one to call an ambulance, and the one to drag Charlie Ruskin off Louise. She was also determined to come to the hospital, and Jonah told her to ride with him, rather than the paramedics. He shut her into the car, and then watched alongside his team as the ambulance carrying Louise Reakes drove away.

  He breathed out in a long sigh. ‘What an utter mess.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hanson said, looking wretched. ‘I should have thought of asking Step earlier. Ben said – well, he was the one who thought of it.’

  Jonah shook his head. ‘Honestly, I’m not sure yet whether this was our mistake or not. We’ll undoubtedly spend a lot of time over the next few weeks trying to work that out. Regardless, you actually did work it out.’ He gave her a tired smile. ‘Which puts you a whole step ahead of your wrong-headed chief.’

  He told O’Malley to drive Hanson home, then took Lightman to the hospital along with April Dumont. He glanced frequently in the rear-view mirror at April, but there was nothing in her expression except grim determination.

  April stayed with Louise until Niall Reakes arrived, ash-white and frenzied and desperate to see his wife.

  There was a curious moment, though, when Niall and April came face to face. Niall faltered, and then gave her a very small nod.

  April raised an eyebrow and asked, ‘So you’re here for her now? I can trust you with her?’

  Niall Reakes’s voice was very quiet and very raw as he said, ‘Yes. You can.’

  April smiled, jumped up from her chair and announced that she was going home.

  ‘We’ll need you at the station tomorrow,’ Jonah told her.

  ‘Sure thing,’ April said. ‘Just don’t make it too early, hey? See you, Niall.’

  ‘Is Niall there?’ Louise called from behind the curtain. ‘I want to see him.’

  And Niall Reakes had surprised Jonah by crying as he cuddled his wife. He had kissed her again and again and told her he was sorry.

  Patrick Moorcroft surprised Jonah almost as much by coming to advise Louise in person. He was waiting at Southampton Central by the time she’d been discharged at one in the morning.

  Niall had followed his wife to the station and agreed to wait in the relatives’ room for as long as it took. Though Louise had told him to get some sleep if he could. That he looked exhausted. She had suddenly seemed like a parent looking out for a child, and it had been a strange thing to watch.

  What followed was the first interview in which Louise seemed unafraid. She sat up straight in her chair, apparently unaffected by tiredness or injury except for the huskiness of her voice. And she was calm and rational as she told them what she’d finally remembered about that Friday night.

  ‘I’d seen Alex’s face so many times. I looked him up online, watched some of his videos … and I suppose, without realising it, I started to overlay him onto other things, so when I began to remember sitting at the bar, I just assumed it was with him.’ She shook her head, her mouth tight. ‘Probably partly a guilty conscience at work.’

  She explained to them April’s idea of going out in Portsmouth, and her own terror of being attacked again.

  ‘I just thought … that I would never have survived last time if I hadn’t got my hands on a knife,’ she said. ‘And it made me feel like I could face going if I knew I had one.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘I can’t tell you how little I actually believed that I’d use it. But I suppose I became the same as every other terrified knife-carrying adult out there.’

  ‘Weren’t you afraid of what you might be capable of?’ Jonah asked her. ‘You thought you’d killed Alex Plaskitt. Did you not think you might kill again, but without cause?’

  Louise shook her head, and said, very clearly, ‘I was thinking of nothing more than surviving. I’m sorry.’ She frowned, after that. ‘Though I’m not, really. I wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t taken it with me, would I?’

  And then she’d told them about Charlie’s attack on her, and how stupid she’d been from the first.

  ‘I panicked, and I did the wrong thing,’ she said. ‘I should never have left the club. I should have gone to the ladies’ and found April.’

  Jonah gave her a thoughtful look before he asked, ‘Do you feel that you can trust her? She’s explained that she knows Charlie. It’s possible that … well, that she invited you to Portsmouth so he could silence you.’

  Louise gave him a smile. ‘I thought that for a minute, too. When she turned up at the scene. And then instead of helping him, she hauled him off me and was in no hurry to stop the bleeding. She cared a lot more about if I was OK than about him. Until I said I didn’t want to be facing a murder charge.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘And I do know that I’m facing one now. I do know.’

  Jonah could only nod, feeling inwardly furious that she had avoided one false charge for killing Alex Plaskitt, only to find herself forced into killing Charlie Ruskin. It seemed desperately unfair, and he wondered what going through all this did to a person. Ironically, he now strongly suspected that the Louise of over a week ago would never have reacted violently. They had all, between them, somehow created a new version of her.

  The strange thing was that their wrong assumptions had helped her. Without them, she would almost certainly have been dead before April Dumont arrived. It was possible that April would have been killed shortly afterwards, too.

  That said, he still wasn’t sure what to make of April Dumont’s involvement. She had insisted that setting up Charlie and Louise had been her own idea, not Charlie’s, and that it had all been the worst coincidence. She said she’d had no clue what Charlie was capable of. She’d thought, like the rest of them, that Alex Plaskitt was the killer.

  She’d also insisted that setting Louise up had been a secondary part of the evening. ‘The main thing was to make her feel like she could go out and be herself,’ she’d explained, with her customary firmness. ‘I didn’t want all of this to end up changing her for good.’

  They’d also found out that April had known Charlie for longer than she’d known Louise. But a lot less well, she said. He’d run the bar at a conference she’d been to several years running, back when she worked in pharma. They’d got on well and managed not to ruin everything by sleeping together. Jonah had tried not to smile at that. A world where not sleeping with a friend seemed surprising was a very different world from Jonah’s.

  ‘Yo
u really weren’t aware of any of Charlie’s crimes?’ Jonah had asked her, watching her very closely.

  ‘Of course I wasn’t,’ April said. ‘Jesus, you think I’d try and get my best friend together with him if I knew he’d sexually assaulted her before and stabbed a guy? I love Louise.’ She fixed him with a very direct gaze. ‘I would probably have killed him for her if it would have saved her life. She’s the only one – the only family I have, and it doesn’t matter that we aren’t blood-related.’

  And asked whether she was involved in organised crime, April had laughed, and said of course she wasn’t. That she had enough trouble organising her own life.

  Discussing it with Lightman after Louise had given her statement, Jonah admitted that he at least partly believed in April’s ignorance. Charlie Ruskin had successfully convinced the world that Alex Plaskitt had died poetically at the hands of his own victim. The last thing he would have wanted was to meet Louise. The chance of her recognising him was too high.

  The conversation had tailed off in uncertainty. Jonah wanted to grill April again the next day, though he suspected she’d be a tricky customer. Louise, at least, had told them everything readily, and then had been given an overnight cell with as many comforts as Jonah could get organised at that time in the morning.

  After that, Jonah had finally headed home. He had to wind the windows down for most of the drive. His eyes were desperately heavy and he was seriously concerned about nodding off. He drew the car into Jojo’s driveway as quietly as he could and got himself ready for bed downstairs to avoid disturbing her. And then he climbed the stairs and slid into her very new Egyptian-cotton sheets beside her.

  He thought about Alex as he started to drift off. About what a good man he had been, and the unfairness of Charlie Ruskin and alcohol conspiring to kill him.

  But at least everyone would know now. Everyone would know what he’d done.

  39

  By the time Saturday evening came round, Jonah felt like walking right out of the station and not coming back.

  It had been a gruelling day, made up of difficult conversations and extensive paperwork. He’d reported to the DCS first thing on Saturday morning, and after a long silence, Wilkinson had asked to meet him for a proper conversation. That second conversation had been probing, and difficult, and had made Jonah feel like he’d failed everyone.

  In the end Wilkinson had sighed. ‘My personal feeling is that you made the best decisions you could at each stage. I honestly don’t think anyone could have been more careful, Jonah.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jonah said, already braced for what was coming next.

  ‘But, as DCS, I’ll have to put this all under review. We need to dig into everything and show that we weren’t lax in allowing a serial offender to almost kill the woman who might identify him. We need to show that there were no failings. And perhaps we’ll all learn something from the process, too.’

  ‘Understood.’

  He’d had to call on Marc Ruskin after that, with Lightman, and inform him of his brother’s death. Marc, who was a shorter, milder version of his brother, had gradually become pale and silent, and had then gone to be sick for some while in the bathroom of his home.

  On his return, he had sat down in front of Jonah, fixed his gaze on the carpet, and said, ‘It wasn’t his fault. That he was like he was.’

  ‘Did he … was there something in his past?’

  ‘It was our mum,’ Marc said, his voice unsteady. ‘She … we were both abused by her. She used to make us do things … Charlie was older, and he often used to talk her into leaving me alone. So he got the worst of it. The worst of all of it. I knew it had messed him up, but I thought that we’d – that we’d come through it.’

  Jonah thought of the box planted in Alex Plaskitt’s car and asked if his mother had been dark-haired.

  ‘Yes,’ Marc said. ‘She had long dark hair. She used to make us brush it, before …’

  Jonah did his best to get the full story out of Marc as gently as he could. He eventually left the house with a heavy feeling in his chest.

  April Dumont had been due in to see them after that, but they’d been unable to raise her. Her phone was, in fact, no longer connecting. And when they’d eventually sent someone round to her flat, it was to find her husband distraught. April had left him a full twenty-four hours before, removing her stuff before she’d picked Louise up to head to Portsmouth. She’d told him she was unhappy, and that she wasn’t sure if she would see him again.

  It became apparent that April had wound up every part of her life. She had closed down her bank accounts, or at least the ones her husband knew about, and had left her passport in the hotel room she and Louise had booked in Portsmouth.

  And somehow Jonah knew they wouldn’t find her again. That she was far, far too clever for that. And that she must have had an escape route planned for years.

  ‘At least it answers a few questions,’ Jonah told the DCS, with an attempt at positivity. ‘I’m pretty sure it was April and her ex-husband who recruited Niall Reakes. I have a strong suspicion that she was doing a lot more, too. My guess is that the whole drugs operation was her brainchild, and under her management. And now that she’s gone, Niall will probably be happy enough pointing the finger at her.’

  There was nothing much else for Jonah or the DCS to do about April, except to pass her details to the National Crime Agency and make tracking her down their problem.

  Later, in the early evening, Jonah and Lightman had arrived at Issa’s house. They’d come to sit amid his brightly coloured cushions and tell him that his husband hadn’t been a killer after all.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Issa had said, his hand to his mouth. ‘You’re sure? You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jonah had said. ‘We believe that it was Charlie Ruskin. His friend, apparently.’

  ‘Charlie?’ Issa asked, his face blank.

  ‘We think Alex happened on him while he was attacking Louise Reakes,’ Jonah told him. ‘Charlie was masked, and unrecognisable. Alex stepped in to stop him. Louise is now certain that that’s what happened, and that the killer stabbed him and ran.’

  Issa was listening to this intently. ‘So … so he tried to save her.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jonah said, and he added, quietly, ‘I’m so sorry we were so wrong about him.’

  Issa’s eyes moved back and forth a few times, as if he was trying to compute all of this. ‘But how did he end up back at her house?’ His voice sounded anguished again. ‘Why didn’t he go for help?’

  ‘We think it’s because he was very drunk and didn’t realise how badly injured he was,’ Jonah said. ‘And also because he wanted to make sure Louise got home. She says … he put her to bed, and then asked if he could lie down, because he felt unwell. Louise did her best to comfort him, not realising that he was dying.’

  Issa’s mouth twisted, and then he nodded. ‘What about – the box? In his car.’

  ‘It was Charlie’s, not his,’ Lightman said, taking over. ‘We think Charlie had a stroke of good luck. Alex had left his bag at the club, and so Charlie had access to his car keys. He planted the box in Alex’s car at some point during the early hours of the morning, once you’d driven it home and parked up. And then we think he posted the keys through your front door.’

  Which was something Jonah had realised for himself, when he’d finally remembered how Issa had struggled to open the front door to receive news of Alex’s death. There had been a set of car keys jamming it, apparently having fallen from the table in the hall, but, in fact, shoved through the letterbox.

  ‘They were actions of desperation,’ Jonah added, ‘designed to cast doubt if Alex survived, and to frame him if he didn’t.’

  ‘We also have accounts of the killer talking to Louise Reakes for some time at the club,’ Lightman added. ‘And we’ve placed him at three scenes where other women have been victims of assault.’

  ‘So you think it’ll be enough for the court?’ Issa asked, his expression sudden
ly and markedly eager.

  ‘It’s certainly enough to be conclusive,’ Jonah agreed. ‘Unfortunately Charlie died late last night in circumstances we’re still looking into.’

  For a moment Issa looked as though he might crumble again. But then he breathed out a shuddering sigh and said, ‘Good. He deserved to die.’

  There wasn’t much more to tell him at this stage. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to explain the events of the night before, so they took their leave. But as they reached the front door, Issa said, ‘Please say thank you. To Louise. For – for comforting him. It means such a lot to know that he didn’t die alone.’

  Jonah nodded. ‘I will.’

  Hanson finally managed to get some exercise on Sunday, tired though she was from the day before. She ran until she felt wobbly and slightly sick, and enjoyed the sensation hugely.

  Lightman messaged her late in the afternoon to suggest they go for a drink. She wondered whether he was just looking out for her, or whether he wanted to talk something through. It was unusual for him to suggest anything sociable.

  They met at the Marriott, the same hotel where they’d last had a drink together. It had seemed the natural place, though she then felt awkward at having suggested it. That last drink had been on uncertain terms. She’d never been quite clear whether they’d purely gone as friends.

  She took a good look at him as she approached his table. She thought he looked tired. And possibly, just possibly, like he was sad. It was admittedly hard to tell. She’d known cappuccino art that was more expressive than he was. But she decided she was going to be brave and ask him before he had a chance to sidetrack the conversation.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked, putting her bag down and sitting quickly. ‘How was yesterday? How’s your dad doing?’

  Lightman looked up at her and broke into a grin. ‘Do you want me to answer all those at once, or shall I take them one at a time?’

  She grinned back at him. ‘Well, the most important one really is how you are. But I thought that might be affected by the other two.’