(2011) Only the Innocent

by Rachel Abbott

  Her brother’s face didn’t so much as flicker. She could see that he was still far from on her side.

  As she endured the never-ending hours of waiting for the train, Laura had gone over and over everything in her mind. The reason why this was the only option that made any sense. The reason why she was about to do something that sickened her to her very core.

  ‘Finally, I was able to board the train, and it was so easy. With the briefest of glances at my passport, and slightly more scrutiny to make sure it matched the name on the ticket, I was allowed through. I huddled in a corner and pretended to be asleep so that nobody would try to engage me in conversation. Getting off the train was easy too. If I’d continued to use Imogen’s Canadian passport, I’d have had to fill in a landing card. But I used her UK one, and I sailed through. No paper trail.’

  ‘I knew Hugo wouldn’t be at the apartment. But he was coming. We’d planned it, you see. He thought that his final deal with me - the one that got me out of the home for the second time - was about to come to fruition. I had to get there before him to prepare myself. Getting into the house was potentially hazardous though - I might gave been recognised by a neighbour. So I nipped into the toilets at the tube station, and I put on the hideous red wig - even though its associations with previous events made me feel sick. The rest of my outfit was waiting for me at the house, but at least with the wig nobody would make a connection.’

  She was now getting to the difficult part. She took three deep breaths to steady herself, and continued.

  ‘I unlocked the front door and disengaged the alarm. I went straight to the bedroom, and opened the wardrobe door. I hadn’t kept many clothes there for a long time - but there were still a few long dress bags from the early days, so I’d hidden everything I needed there just a week before.

  ‘I’d gone through this in my head so many times that I went into automatic mode. It was the only way. I had a step-by-step list so I couldn’t panic or forget anything. I pulled out the clothes and placed them on the bed. The first thing I did was put on the long soft leather gloves that I knew were a necessity, but I’d chosen well. Hugo would think they were part of the performance.

  ‘I unpacked a white coverall and took it into the bathroom, and pushed it deep into the clothes hamper. I went to the kitchen, and took a long, sharp knife from one of the drawers. I’d sharpened it myself. This went in the clothes hamper too. I took off everything that I travelled in, and packed the lot into a plastic bag marked A. There were other bags too, each one carefully marked. The last bag wasn’t empty, though. It contained five silk scarves - all bright crimson in colour. I laid the scarves on the bed.’

  Will was now leaning forward, a look of fascination and almost wonder on his face. Laura knew that he was amazed and slightly horrified at the cold planning that had gone into this act, and she didn’t want to look at him as she told him the rest. She stood up again, and went to stand at the fireplace, this time facing the fire, with her back to him.

  ‘Then I had a steaming hot shower. I needed it. I was frantic with worry - but I still had an hour left, and I didn’t know how I was going to get through it. I knew he wouldn’t be early. That might indicate that he was eager. Anyway, after the shower, I wiped the tiles down with the towel, and threw it in the tumble dryer. It would come out in half an hour and go back on the shelf with all the clean towels.

  ‘I put the gloves back on, and returned to the bedroom. Then I put on the clothes I’d chosen - clothes that Hugo would believe were for his benefit. When everything was ready, I took the final two items from a shoebox at the back of the wardrobe. One syringe, and one glass bottle. I went back to the bathroom and filled the syringe with the liquid. The syringe went into the hamper, and the empty bottle was returned to the bedroom and placed in one of the marked bags.

  ‘I was ready. There was only the room to prepare. It had to look perfect. He had to have no idea that I wasn’t a willing participant in his games. I took a bottle of Cristal champagne out of the wine fridge. I knew Hugo would think this was the ultimate evidence of my submission - the very champagne he’d bought on the first night of our honeymoon. I prepared an ice bucket and flutes, and arranged the furniture. Then there was just the wig.’

  ‘All I could do then was wait.’

  *

  Laura turned round and faced Will.

  ‘So now you know. I killed him. And God help me, Will, but it was the right thing to do. You have to believe me. Do you honestly believe I would have done it - put myself through that torture - if it hadn’t been the only option?’

  Laura risked a glance at Will. He hadn’t interrupted, and still he just stared at her through narrowed eyes.

  ‘Is there more, Laura? Are you going to explain the reason for this incredibly intricate plan?’

  Laura didn’t like Will’s tone, but she couldn’t entirely blame him. Perhaps she would appear more credible if she ranted and raved, but she knew that the minute she let her emotions take control, she wouldn’t be able to continue.

  ‘I’ll tell you the rest - but don’t judge me. Not yet, at least.’ Did she see a slight softening in his eyes, or was that wishful thinking? She looked away and stared at the opposite wall, unwilling to meet his gaze as she continued with her story.

  ‘The return journey was much the same. I’d prepared the bags so that I wouldn’t panic. Some of them contained different outfits, so that I could change my look at various points along the way back to Paris. The other bags were marked for disposal, so that I didn’t put more than one item of incriminating evidence in the same place. The syringe went in one, the empty bottle in another, and so on. I was back in Paris by late afternoon, and took the metro to Charles de Gaulle to fly back. Imogen landed at Stansted, picked up my car and drove to Heathrow to meet me. I’d changed into my drab Laura clothes at the airport. Then I drove back here. Imogen went into the terminal, ostensibly to catch her flight to Canada. That’s it.’

  Will continued to stare at her, almost as if he didn’t know her. After several minutes of a silence that Laura didn’t feel she should break, he spoke.

  ‘As I said, your planning was ingenious, your delivery of the plan impeccable. But to risk so much, just because you hated your husband? We know now what he was - but you didn’t know all of that before. So why didn’t you just leave him? And why involve Imogen?’

  Laura had known that this was going to be hard. She was trying to keep her tone level, but inside her emotions were in turmoil. After all she had learned that day, what she really wanted to do was curl up and die. But she had to get through this. Tell Will everything, and then crawl away into a very dark corner, away from the world.

  ‘When Imogen started to visit me, I told her just enough to make her realise what Hugo was capable of. There is a fatal flaw in him somewhere. And coupled with everything Hugo did to the pair of you, it was more than enough to persuade her to help me expose him for the person he really was. But she honestly had no idea that I was going to kill him. I couldn’t believe it when she turned up here. That was a very, very bad moment. I’ve still not admitted it to her. That would definitely make her an accessory. She knows, though - I’m certain of it.’

  Will’s face remained expressionless. Placing his glass on a side table, he leaned back against the sofa with his hands behind his head. Laura knew him well enough to realise that he would be weighing up her every word.

  She suddenly felt panic rising in her chest. She had always thought that Will would understand. She had relied on him to be the one person who would have done the same. She had to tell him how it really was.

  ‘He had to die, Will. If he didn’t die, he was going to eventually kill me anyway. He told me. I had to comply - or die. He’d have used some drug or other and said it was an overdose. Given the apparent state of my mental health, it wouldn’t have been difficult for people to believe. The problem was, I didn’t have the first idea how to commit murder.

  ‘I thought about so many methods.
Stabbing was the favourite, but I didn’t think I could do that, although I would have done if it had come to it - that’s what the knife was for. I wanted something that looked as if it had been done by some lover or other, but at the same time it had to be something that Hugo would go along with.

  ‘I knew he had other women, and I was sure they were Allium girls. He wouldn’t have risked an affair if there was any danger of it being made public. When he came to visit me in the home during my second stay his words to me were chilling. He said he had normal appetites and that over the years, finding “suitable participants” had become expensive. It was costing him over ten thousand pounds a month. We know what that was now - he was paying the girls. He said he’d found an alternative solution, but anything he’d done was due to my “dereliction of duty” and the culpability lay at my door. I went over and over that conversation, wondering what he could have meant. But it all makes sense now. It must have been after he had started to murder them, although I honestly didn’t know that.’

  Will whistled.

  ‘Why was he telling you this?’

  ‘Because he wanted to issue the ultimate threat. He said that he would arrange for me to be released from the home, but he needed me to resume my marital duties. He knew I hated his idea of sex - as did the girls that he took, it would seem. We had agreed after my first time in the home that I could be excused. But he’d never found anybody that enjoyed it - and with good reason. So he wanted me back in his bed - on his terms. I hated sex with him, but the more I hated it, the more he loved it. It was power, you see. He said that it wouldn’t be for long, because as I knew a preferable option was just around the corner.’

  ‘What on earth did that mean?’

  Laura walked over to Will and knelt on the floor - not quite close enough to touch him, but so that he would find it difficult to avoid looking at her. He needed to see her face now. He needed to see the passion and the hatred. He needed to understand her.

  ‘I’ll get to that. Anyway, he told me that the only person who could stop or delay the inevitable was me. He said that I had to stop playing the vestal virgin and get back into my role as his whore. I knew what the alternative was, although he never again said specifically that he would kill me. I asked him for time. The thought of having sex with him repulsed me beyond belief, but the consequences of not doing were more than I could contemplate.

  ‘I promised to think about it. I put it off for as long as I could. Finally he gave me an ultimatum. I would do as he asked, or I - and others - would pay the price. He played right into my hands. If he hadn’t issued that ultimatum I would have had to offer myself to him - and that would have been far less credible. I said I needed to go to Italy for a few days to prepare myself, but that I wasn’t happy to have sex with him here at Ashbury Park. It had to be at the apartment - a place that didn’t hold such awful memories for me.’

  Will was now leaning forward in his seat, his hands clasped tightly between his knees. He had demanded the truth, but finally he appeared to be struggling to witness his sister’s agony.

  ‘I led Hugo to believe that I might not come. I couldn’t seem too eager - and it really excited him to think that I was doing this under duress. All Imogen had to do in Italy was give me an alibi, even though she thought it was for something else entirely. On the Saturday, she phoned Hugo using a tape recording that I’d made earlier. I knew there wouldn’t be anybody here, so it was a safe bet that she could just play the tape into the answering machine. We obviously couldn’t phone him on his mobile, in case he answered. He still had it at the time.’

  Will looked at her with a mixture of admiration and horror.

  ‘When Hugo arrived, I behaved the way he wanted me to. He genuinely believed that he had triumphed,’ Laura paused. She fixed her eyes on Will’s.

  ‘Then I killed him.’

  Will didn’t speak. He picked up his drink and swallowed a large mouthful, but he didn’t say a word. Laura felt compelled to continue.

  ‘I’d taken the precaution of putting on the coverall so that I wouldn’t leave any trace of me, and I kept gloves on all the time. I bought the syringe in Italy - they sell them in the supermarkets there. I made the liquid nicotine myself.’

  Finally, Will spoke.

  ‘Weren’t you worried that it might not be the right strength or something? You could hardly try it first!’

  ‘That was another reason for the coverall. If it hadn’t worked I really wouldn’t have had a choice. I took the knife with me into the bedroom, and if he hadn’t died quickly, I would have had to stab him. Thank God it didn’t come to that. But I forgot to put the knife back in the kitchen.

  ‘His mobile went into one of the marked plastic bags for dumping, and the SIM card in another. Plus all the other paraphernalia - coverall, clothes, wig. Some went into bins in London, some in Paris. The phone had to go because I knew he’d been taking calls - I assumed from one of the girls. I thought once he was dead they would be safe, and I didn’t want all of this to come out because of the impact on Alexa. That’s why the phone had to disappear. Nobody wants the world to know that their father was a monster.’ Laura knew that now, of course, Alexa was going to have to be told, and she felt an intense, piercing sorrow at the thought of the child’s suffering.

  She could see that Will was still struggling to understand, and she knew that - soon - she was going to have to add the final detail to the image she had painted of Hugo. The one thing that would make sense of it all.

  ‘Weren’t you worried that one of you would get stopped because your face didn’t match your passport? You two don’t look even slightly alike!’

  ‘Oh Will, we’re women! Look, when you came into the bathroom yesterday you thought Imogen was me, didn’t you? That’s because I’ve been wearing my hair scraped back off my face for years in an effort to divert Hugo’s attention by looking as plain as possible. We’re the same age, and pretty close in height and weight. When you come into the country, you hardly get a glance as long as your passport tallies, particularly if it’s a UK passport. We simply did things to our appearance that minimised the difference. That was the easy part, honestly.’

  ‘It got a bit tricky for Imogen on the flight when Laura Fletcher was asked to make herself known to the crew. But she just ignored it. That’s why I’d been taking cheap flights with no seat numbers - I had to stick to a recognised pattern, and anonymity was everything.’

  ‘So why the hell did Imogen come here? What a bloody ridiculous thing to do!’ Will said, reaching once more for the whisky bottle - as if it could dull the pain of everything he was hearing.

  ‘I know, and I was furious with her. But she knew something was wrong. Why else would my name have been called on the flight? And when we met at Heathrow, I refused to talk. I said I was too stressed and I’d explain everything as soon as she was back in Canada. And anyway, there wasn’t time. I knew the police wouldn’t be far behind me, and I needed to get back here before them. Then she heard that Hugo was dead, and she didn’t know what to think. All she could think of was me.

  ‘Hugo wasn’t supposed to be found so soon. I was going to report him missing - probably late Sunday or even Monday morning. I thought I would have some time to compose myself. But Beryl went back for her purse - less than an hour after I’d left! God, what a disaster that could have been. And when the police came here, I was completely beside myself - the stress, the fear - it nearly swamped me. All I could think was how easily it could all have gone wrong. And the horror of what I’d done. And now the police suspect Imogen. I’m so ashamed of the fact that I involved her. But I couldn’t think of any other way.’

  Will was quiet. He was studying his clasped hands between his knees. After what seemed like hours, but was probably less than a minute, he looked up.

  ‘I still can’t believe this was your only option. I would have helped you. But murder? Why didn’t you ask me?’

  ‘I couldn’t. He wouldn’t have let me go. I told you, he
was adamant that he would have killed me first. And if I’d involved you, he would have done something else to ruin your life. Let’s face it, he’s already been fairly successful in that regard.’

  Will looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. He still didn’t get it.

  ‘So is that why you murdered him, then? Because you thought he was going to kill you, or because he was making your life a misery? Or was it that you thought he was abducting these prostitutes? Which was it?’

  ‘It was none of those, Will. I didn’t kill him for any of those reasons.’

  ‘So why, for God’s sake?

  ‘I killed him for Alexa.’

  Will stared at his sister. And it wasn’t until much later that he realised somewhere in the house a door had closed quietly.

  CHAPTER 40

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  Laura sat alone in the drawing room, a room that was hard to recognise as the drab and dreary place of just six months ago. Comfortable cream sofas provided a perfect contrast to the restored dark wood panelling, and the beautiful green Aubusson rug that had previously decorated the hallway had been lifted and moved into this room, showing the newly cleaned pale stone floor to maximum effect.

  She was waiting for the doorbell to ring. She forced herself to take some deep breaths and lean back, trying to relax her tense limbs, unable to decide whether it was fear or excitement that was causing the strange sensation in her chest. She hadn’t seen him now for such a long time, but she’d thought about him often. With no idea how she would react when he arrived, she fought to compose herself. Wearing a simple but elegant combination of charcoal trousers and a dove grey silk shirt, she looked neither too smart nor too casual - or at least, that was the intention. Her hair was now back to its natural brunette colour, and hung loose to her shoulders.