Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

  It’s just my body.

  She nodded.

  ‘Mrs Parry,’ said the blonde. ‘Is this your husband Neil?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay – thank you.’

  You’re welcome, she almost said. But the woman had been speaking to the man, who was now closing the curtain.

  ‘You’re doing great,’ the brunette said, and took her arm. ‘Let’s just sit in here for a minute and you can have a cup of water.’

  In here was a small, airless room with more abstract paintings on the walls, and a water cooler, and hard chairs arranged round the walls. In the middle of the room was a large square table with leaflets on it with titles like Coping with Grief and What To Do When Someone Dies.

  Alec would say: ‘Hubby dead? Don’t worry dear, we’ve got a leaflet for that.’

  And she would say back: ‘I wonder if they’ve got What To Do When You’ve Been Framed for your Husband’s Murder.’

  ‘Mrs Parry?’

  Oh God – had she been smiling?

  She rounded on the brunette. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Well, there’s going to be a post mortem, and that will determine how he died.’ She guided Flora to a chair. The blonde seemed to have disappeared.

  ‘But – it can’t have been an accident, can it?’ She accepted the thin plastic cup, grateful for the coolness of it in her hand. She took a gulp of water. ‘He – Someone did this to him. Someone –’

  She thought of his body – his body, that was all it was – as it had been when she’d found it, lying on their bed –

  There was something. Something not right.

  The duvet... She’d changed the bedding the day before, she’d put the white set on the bed, the one with an embroidered panel... But he was lying on the floral one. It was white too, but it had tiny orange flowers on it in a spray down one side, and green leaves... The Johnsons must have changed the duvet cover in case the all-white one had forensics on it, in case it had their DNA. Maybe they’d taken it away with them, but maybe not, maybe they’d folded it and put it in the linen cupboard. There had been no blood, so they might have reasoned it wouldn’t be obvious that there was anything amiss with it, that the police wouldn’t put it through forensics, that it would just seem like a laundered cover stored in the cupboard with all the others –

  She would check when she got back.

  If it was there, then maybe she could tell the police the truth, because there would be evidence against the Johnsons to back up her story?

  The policewoman was speaking. ‘So we won’t know until the results of the post mortem what happened, but – his death is being treated as suspicious.’ She sat down next to Flora, her expression as carefully neutral as the artwork.

  Flora squeezed the cup in her hand, making it crinkle.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Parry, but it looks like he may have been strangled.’

  ‘The Johnsons. The Johnsons must have done it. Oh God! They’ve killed him!’

  Really bad acting in a really bad TV drama.

  She set the cup down on the table and put her hands over her face. But the tears she needed wouldn’t come. Beckie, she thought. How was she going to tell Beckie? What words would she use? Beckie, it’s very bad news about Dad... Beckie’s face, Beckie trying not to cry –

  Still nothing.

  She took a long breath, removed her hands and looked at the policewoman.

  And found her looking back, the moment stretching on, and Flora couldn’t think what to do, what to say –

  ‘The Johnsons must have killed him,’ she said eventually, feebly. ‘They’re – they’re criminals.’ Not like me. ‘They’re psychopaths. Oh God!’

  ‘I think it might be an idea if you came back to the station and we’ll get a statement from you – would that be okay?’

  Of course it’s not okay!

  Flora nodded.

  ‘And as this is now... I’m sorry, but this is now a murder inquiry, so if it’s all right with you, we thought we’d make a start with the forensics at the house, if you have your keys? While your daughter’s not there? Is there a friend you can stay with while we process the house? It’ll take a few days, I’m afraid.’

  Maybe the police would find the duvet cover in the cupboard. Maybe there would be something on it, something that would prompt them to test it –

  She could think about all that later. Right now, Beckie was all that mattered.

  ‘My daughter – Beckie – I’ll have to tell her. She’s staying with a friend. I’ll have to go and tell her – I don’t want her hearing it on the News or something. His name won’t be released straight away, will it?’

  Round and round her head were going the questions: How can I protect Beckie from this? How can I make it OK for her? How can I make it right? But they were questions with only one answer:

  I can’t.

  ‘No, not for twenty-four hours, or longer if there are family members you can’t reach. Did you say he had a sister living abroad?’

  Flora nodded. ‘Pippa. Yes. I’ll need time to contact Pippa.’ Her stomach lurched at the thought of having to tell Pippa over the phone.

  ‘Okay, let us know when everyone has been informed, and we’ll hold off releasing his name until then. Better for your daughter too, I think, if it doesn’t hit the press straight away.’

  Flora nodded.

  ‘Flora!’ Caroline opened her arms and Flora walked into them.

  When she could speak: ‘They think I killed him. They kept asking things like Have you ever been to Cairn Hill? and of course I had to say yes, I had to tell the truth because they’d find out, wouldn’t they, and then suddenly one of them would say Were you and your husband getting on okay? and I had to say we’d disagreed about how to handle the Johnson thing...’

  Caroline guided her through to the lounge and eased her down onto the sofa. ‘That’s hardly a motive for murder.’

  ‘But the way they were looking at me... It’s usually the spouse, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, when it’s the man’s killed the woman. Other way round’s surely pretty rare. Would you even have the strength to strangle him? They’re just fishing. You stuck to the story, yeah?’

  ‘I tried, but... It was going on and on and on... They kept asking me the same things again and again, in different ways... I must have been in there for hours. They took my fingerprints and everything, they said they needed to eliminate them for the forensics in the house, but... In the end I couldn’t think straight, I even got things wrong that I wasn’t lying about, like I forgot we’d picked up Edith before driving to the beach – How could I have forgotten that?’

  ‘But that’s fine. Who’s going to remember every little detail of any particular day? It would be more suss if you had everything off pat. Why would you want to miss out the bit about picking up Edith when she’s part of your alibi, for God’s sake? It’s actually good that you got muddled up about that, when it’s obviously not something you’d need or want to lie about. It’ll make any other mistakes seem more innocent.’

  ‘They’re at the house. They’re going to find his car –’

  ‘So? You’ve no idea why it’s in the garage, remember.’

  Flora nodded.

  ‘I didn’t... His... his body... Apparently the Forestry Commission worker who found it... It was his white T-shirt the man spotted through the vegetation. I can’t have hidden him properly...’

  ‘Forget that! You didn’t hide him, right? You’ve got to get yourself into the mindset of an innocent person who’s got no idea what happened. You’ve just found out your husband is dead, murdered, yeah? You’re convinced the Johnsons did it –’

  ‘They did do it! And Caroline, I’m hoping, maybe it’s possible that there’s evidence of that in the house, on –’

  ‘Yeah, let’s hope, eh? But the point is, Flora – how are you going to react to finding out Neil’s been murdered? You’ve been thinking up till now that he’s maybe had an accident or gon
e off for some reason...’

  ‘I’d be trying to get them to arrest the Johnsons. I know that! I kept on about it in the interview, I kept on saying I didn’t know anything that could help, that they needed to go and arrest the Johnsons...’

  ‘And what was their response?’

  She lifted her shoulders wearily. ‘They didn’t respond.’

  ‘Playing mind games. Excellent. So, you’re thinking the police aren’t looking at the Johnsons seriously, and they’ve murdered your husband? How are you going to react to that?’

  ‘Go round there?’

  ‘Get your arse round the Johnsons’ house – you know the address, yeah?’

  She nodded. ‘But – I have to go and get Beckie. I have to tell Beckie.’

  ‘You can do that afterwards. Get the Johnsons over with first. You’re hysterical, you’re screaming at them that they’re fucking murderers, that they’ve murdered Neil... Don’t go in, obviously, don’t put yourself in danger, just stand in the street hurling abuse, maybe chuck things at the windows. Get yourself noticed. Keep the engine running though, and first sign of trouble, get yourself outta there. I’d come with you, but I’ve got to be in Tranent...’ She looked at her watch.

  ‘Sorry, am I making you late?’

  ‘Na, don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Oh God, but my car’s at the house... The police will be examining it for forensic evidence –’ Her heart had begun to thump in her chest again.

  ‘So? You were careful, weren’t you? There’s nothing for them to find. I’ll take you into town on my way to Tranent, and you can hire a car.’

  ‘Caroline, I don’t know if I can do it. Go and confront the Johnsons...’

  ‘Course you can. You only have to stay a couple of minutes, long as you get yourself noticed by the neighbours. God’s sakes, Flora, you’ve just found out your hubby’s been murdered by those bastards and you come back to mine and watch Neighbours? You’d be over there giving them hell.’

  Flora nodded.

  ‘All the time, you have to be thinking: What would Flora be doing if she was innocent?’

  ‘I am innocent! You believe that, don’t you? I am innocent!’

  Caroline pulled her back into a hug. ‘I know you are.’

  Here’s the bint now. She’s parked up right at the gate and she’s out on the pavement leaning in on the passenger side, fat arse in the air, big fat fucking arse in one-hundred-per-cent-linen navy fucking Boden. She’s reaching in there for something, cannae see what.

  Jesus Chutney, it’s her fucking handbag!

  Now she’s standing there with the bag hanging off of her arm, like she’s off to Starbucks for a wee full-fat latte, and you can see her going: Okay, so maybe I don’t need this right now? and she wheechs it back in and slams the door.

  I get back from the windae.

  ‘Carly-hen, get Jordaine a lolly in the kitchen, aye? And yous can take the dug an’ all.’

  Carly sighs. Carly and Jordaine have been making a wee birthday card for Bekki and there’s glitter all over the coffee table, the carpet, the settee, Carly, Jordaine and the dug. Jordaine’s put a massive sticker of a Labradoodle on the dug’s heid and he’s going mental so he is.

  ‘Can I get a strawberry mivvi?’ goes Jordaine.

  ‘If Connor hasnae had them all.’ Carly picks the sticker off of the dug, puffing at me like she’s I’m fucking pregnant by the way.

  ‘Right,’ I goes to Jed once the kitchen door’s shut. ‘Dinnae you go touching her. Ryan son, get your arse out there, and keep your fucking Da on a short fucking leash.’

  ‘Aye Da,’ goes Ryan. ‘Play nice, eh?’

  I take the phone up the stair to Carly’s room that’s right above the front door, and get a chair up to the windae. Ring-side seat, eh? I keek through the lacy wee nets.

  She hasnae even come in the gate, she’s on the pavement giving it: ‘Murderers! You murderers!’ and now she’s lifting the glaikit-looking concrete hedgehog off of the wall and hudding it, and now she’s tossing it up and it lands on the slabs in the front bit, and she’s winching, like she’s rearranging the garden ornaments and that was a wee accident.

  Fuck’s sake.

  I’m pissing myself.

  I tap in 999 and ask for the polis.

  Down on the step Ryan’s going: ‘Uh, excuse me?’ Ryan in Ted Baker, like a model out their fucking catalogue. ‘Can I help you?’

  That boy’s something else.

  ‘Aye, polis?’ I goes. ‘There’s a woman at our bit chucking shite and mouthing off, making threats and that. She’s off her heid, and we’ve a five-year-old wean in the house? We need polis round here pronto... Aye, it’s 34 Meadowlands Crescent.’

  ‘You murdered my husband!’ she’s yelling. ‘I know you murdered him!’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re gonnae have to be more specific,’ goes Ryan. ‘Your husband is...? Sorry, was...?’

  Belter.

  ‘You’re... You’re psychopaths!’ goes the bitch.

  Ryan chuckles. ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘Get to fuck!’ yells Jed.

  ‘Okay Da, no need for that language, eh? Putting two and two together here and maybe making five, I dunno, but I’m thinking your husband could be Neil Parry?’

  ‘You know he is!’

  ‘Right you are, it’s all making sense now so it is. Aye, the polis have been round interviewing us about Mr Parry’s death. I’m guessing because of Bekki being taken off of us for no fucking reason and given to yous, maybe the polis were thinking we had something to do with it, but as we said, we dinnae blame yous for the Bekki shite, eh? And we’ve got alibis for the time in question by the way, which, once the polis have got off their fucking arses and checked them out, will prove we had hee-haw to do with your husband’s demise. So –’

  ‘Fuck off bitch!’ goes Jed, right on cue.

  Ryan chuckles. ‘Aye Da, ever the diplomat. But seriously, do you no think you’re maybe a wee bit out of order, Mrs Parry, coming round giving it Yous are murdering psychopaths when, way I hear it from my sources in the polis, any road, you’re the one in the frame for it, eh?’

  Bint just stands there with her gub hanging open.

  And now here’s a polis car turning the corner.

  Belter.

  ‘And you had no idea his car was in the garage?’ DI Murray shook his head, looking not at Flora but down at his notes, as if he could hardly be bothered listening to whatever unlikely justification she was about to come out with.

  When the police car had turned up in Meadowlands Crescent she’d thought they might arrest her, but they hadn’t – one of the policemen had had a long conversation on his radio and then they’d brought her here to the station, to the same pale blue interview room, to ‘have a quick chat’ about what they’d found at the house.

  In the bad TV drama, DI Murray was Bad Cop – old school CID, close to retirement, in a worn suit and beige tie, slumped back in his chair. He’d be off down the pub after his shift, sinking pints and whisky chasers.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Neil never puts his car away in the garage. Neither of us do. I – I didn’t think to check in there.’ She took a long breath. ‘My daughter – I have to go and tell my daughter.’ How many times had she said that?

  Why didn’t she just get up and go? They hadn’t arrested her.

  But she couldn’t look like she was running away from their questions.

  And Beckie – each extra hour, each extra minute Flora could give her of not knowing that Neil was dead was surely precious. Let her have this time. Let her not know for a little longer. Let her hold onto the hope that Dad would come home.

  ‘Okay, we won’t keep you too much longer.’ He tapped his pen on the table. ‘But I’m trying to get my head round your thought processes here, Mrs Parry. Your husband is missing. You presumably checked the house? Checked he wasn’t lying somewhere injured or ill?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Did you check the garden shed?’

/>   She blinked. ‘I – I can’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t remember.’

  ‘I think I did.’

  ‘So you definitely checked the house, and you think you checked the garden shed, but you never checked the garage.’

  ‘We don’t use it. He wouldn’t have gone in there.’

  ‘And yet that’s where we found his car.’

  She grabbed her cup of water and gulped at it. ‘Yes. I don’t know why it would have been in there.’

  The blonde policewoman sitting next to him passed him a sheet of paper.

  ‘We’ve also been analysing the CCTV footage from your cameras,’ he said. ‘And we’re hoping you can explain an anomaly. The post mortem findings include an estimation of time of death of between 8 am and 1 pm on the day he went missing. Our problem is that there’s no footage of him leaving the house. There was an outage affecting all the cameras starting at 6:04 pm on the day in question, but you see our problem? According to the time of death estimate, if he left the house after 6 pm, he must already have been dead.’

  Flora just blinked at him.

  ‘No one appears on the CCTV footage apart from yourself, your daughter and your neighbour Caroline Turnbull – the three of you leave the house at 9:03 am, you and your daughter return at 5:38 pm and then leave again at 5:46, and you and Ms Turnbull return at 6 pm precisely, exactly four minutes before the unexplained outage.’ He sat back and looked at her.

  ‘I’m going to ask you to look at this footage, Mrs Parry.’ He angled the laptop in front of the policewoman towards Flora.

  On the screen was a sharp image of the front path. Alec had insisted on state-of-the-art cameras and had spent hours adjusting them to get the pictures as sharp as possible. She could see the individual lavender flowers, and the little weeds between the stone slabs. And then the gate swung open and Caroline was striding towards the camera, and behind her –

  Behind her was a pale-faced, wild-haired woman with the kind of fixed expression you saw on people filmed during earthquakes, or gun massacres, or famines.

  ‘You look like you’re in shock,’ said the blonde woman.