Lie in Wait: A dark and gripping crime thriller

by GJ Minett

‘A key, you mean? Sure. He showed me where he keeps a spare one. Looks like you’ve already found it.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to mention this to us earlier?’

  ‘No. Again, why would I? You said you wanted to look at my shed. You didn’t say anything about any others.’

  Holloway nods and points to the bat which Misery Guts is holding.

  ‘And this baseball bat. Have you ever seen it before?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware.’

  ‘Can you be more precise than that?’

  Kitchener laughs.

  ‘It’s a baseball bat. They all look pretty much the same, don’t they? Have I seen a baseball bat before? Yes. Have I seen that particular one? Haven’t a clue. Not as far as I’m aware, like I said.’

  ‘We found it in this shed.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Do you remember seeing a bat in there yesterday?’

  ‘No. But then again, I wasn’t looking for one, was I? I was busy painting.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea how it got there?’

  ‘Well, normally I’d assume it was put there by whoever owns the shed but in this case I’d say that’s probably unlikely.’

  Holloway smiles, nods again. He’s taking his time over this and Owen’s starting to get a little impatient. Kitchener’s playing with them all and yet Holloway seems happy to plod along at his own infuriatingly slow pace instead of cutting to the heart of the matter. Surely it’s not relevant whose shed it is. What’s important is that Kitchener knew where the key was. Thought it would be a decent place to hide the bat. Why doesn’t Holloway get on with it?

  And as if in answer to a prayer, he does precisely that.

  ‘Mr Kitchener,’ he says, taking a small notebook from his pocket and flicking through the pages as if trying to find something he’d jotted there earlier, ‘what time did you finish here yesterday?’

  Kitchener frowns.

  ‘What, finish painting or actually leave?’

  ‘The latter.’

  ‘Well,’ says Kitchener, looking up as if the answer might be written in the clouds overhead, ‘that would have been around three. It can’t have been much later than that cos first thing I did when I got in the car was turn on the radio and get the latest football scores and they’d only been playing for a few minutes. So yeah, I’d say about three.’

  ‘And can you account for your movements after that?’

  ‘Yes. I went straight home, had a bath, got changed. Then sometime around five I picked up my girlfriend and drove her to my parents’ house in Bridport. It was my dad’s birthday and we wanted to take him out for a meal.’

  ‘And you stayed the night there?’

  ‘No,’ says Kitchener. ‘My girlfriend and I both wanted to be back here first thing so we drove home late last night. I don’t know what time we got back here exactly but it must have been around one fifteen or one thirty in the morning.’

  ‘And where did you sleep last night?’

  Kitchener gives a half-smile that Owen would very much like to ram down his throat.

  ‘At her place.’

  ‘And you were together the whole time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’ll vouch for that?’

  ‘Yes. We were together until you rang my mobile and came to collect me.’

  Holloway jots something on his notepad, then looks up and smiles.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I think that will be all for now. If you’d like to go with these two officers, they’ll drop you off at your girlfriend’s house or back home, whichever is more convenient.’

  ‘Her place would make more sense,’ says Kitchener, stepping forward to shake hands with Holloway and Misery Guts. ‘My car’s still blocking her drive.’ He shoots a quick glance at Owen but doesn’t offer his hand to him. Instead he winks. It may have been a sharp gust of wind that made him blink suddenly but that’s not how it looks to Owen, especially as he’s done it with his back to Holloway and his partner so that no one else will see it. Then he turns and starts to walk off down the path with the two officers who escorted him here earlier.

  Without a care in the world.

  And Owen is raging inside. He knows he’s not supposed to say anything but Kitchener is lying. He knows he is. And now it’s starting to look as if they’re going to let him just walk off without challenging him on any of the detail. He waits for a few seconds, convinced even now that Holloway must have something up his sleeve and when it becomes clear this is not the case he decides he can’t stay silent any longer.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he blurts out.

  Shut it, warns Willie.

  ‘You can’t just let him go like that. Everything he’s just said, it’s all lies.’

  Don’t say another word.

  ‘Owen –’ says Holloway.

  ‘Mr Hall,’ Owen snaps, rounding on him. ‘You c-called him Mr K-Kitchener so you can c-call me Mr Hall.’

  ‘Mr Hall –’

  ‘Every time you’ve questioned m-me you’ve assumed I’m l-lying and you’ve pushed and pushed again, trying to find a way to t-trip me up, even though I was telling you the truth.’

  ‘Mr Hall, I can assure you –’

  ‘Then, when it’s his turn you just s-smile and say, “Thank you, Mr K-Kitchener,” and you let him walk away without even challenging it. Why is he t-treated differently from me?’

  ‘Owen . . . Mr Hall,’ says Holloway, holding up a hand to tell the others to wait a moment. Kitchener has stopped anyway and is watching the exchange with one of those irritating smirks spread all across his face. ‘If you have reason to believe Mr Kitchener is not being honest with us –’

  ‘Of course he’s not being honest. He hasn’t g-got a girlfriend. He used to have one but she’s in Africa for a year and he m-made her come all the way back here just so he could t-tell her he didn’t want to see her anymore.’

  Kitchener laughs.

  ‘I didn’t know you were such an authority on my private life,’ he says. ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time?’

  ‘Mr Kitchener?’ says Holloway, inviting him to be more specific in his response.

  ‘He’s talking about my ex-girlfriend,’ Kitchener says, with a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘Freja and I finished . . . what, three months ago? Getting on for the end of September, must have been. I’ve been seeing someone else since then.’

  ‘That’s a lie too,’ says Owen. ‘He hasn’t g-got a girlfriend now. If he had, he’d have b-bought the jumper for her.’

  Shut it, for fuck’s sake.

  ‘Jumper?’

  ‘He bought one in Leeds last week. S-so he said anyway. T-tried to give it to Abi just yesterday but she wouldn’t take it.’

  ‘So what’s your point?’ says Kitchener.

  ‘If you had a girlfriend, why would you be trying to g-give the jumper to Abi?’

  Kitchener looks at the ground for a moment, shaking his head. When he looks back up, there’s a flash in his eyes, something approaching triumph in his expression.

  ‘Abi is my girlfriend.’

  A sharp gust of wind finally wins its ongoing battle with an empty compost bag which had been weighed down by a slate. It rips the bag out from underneath and sends it skittering along the path. One of the officers instinctively tries to trap it under his foot as it flies past but he’s a fraction too slow. Everyone’s attention seems to be drawn to it momentarily as it careers off into the distance.

  Owen is the exception. He hasn’t taken his eyes off Kitchener for one second.

  ‘That’s a L-LIE!’ he yells, and it’s all he can do to stay where he is and maintain the distance between them. One of the officers is obviously on the ball because he moves a little closer to Kitchener to make sure he’s in a position to intervene should the need arise. Holloway puts a restraining hand on Owen’s arm and he shrugs it off angrily. He’s steaming now. Abi? He shouldn’t even be allowed to say the name after what he’s put her through rece
ntly. And now he thinks it’s OK to make up lies about her? To use her to get himself off the hook?

  ‘It’s the truth,’ says Kitchener and if he’s at all rattled by Owen’s outburst he gives no sign of it.

  ‘If it’s the truth, why d-did she ask me to come here with her to give back your k-keys, eh? Answer me that. I’ll tell you why. Abi’s scared of you. She’s t-told me everything, about how you keep p-pestering her and won’t l-leave her alone. She doesn’t feel she can trust you anymore. She’d n-never choose someone like you.’

  ‘Well, don’t take my word for it,’ says Kitchener with a shrug. ‘Call her. See what she has to say. Better still, why don’t you ask these officers for the address where they picked me up first thing this morning. See if it rings a few bells.’

  Holloway nods at one of the two officers who already has his notebook in his hand as if expecting this.

  ‘An address in Bosham, sir. Place called Hedge End in Walton Lane.’

  ‘We’ve been going out for nearly two months now.’

  ‘You’re l-lying,’ yells Owen, turning to Holloway for support. ‘He’s lying,’ he repeats, scanning his face for some hint that he at least isn’t fooled by this ridiculous web of lies that Kitchener has been spinning. Instead, he sees something else and for one awful moment it occurs to him that it looks a lot like pity. He’s buying it.

  ‘Owen –’

  ‘IT’S MR HALL,’ he screams, frustration oozing out of every pore. ‘How many times do I have to t-tell you?’ He’s uncomfortably aware that another one of his episodes is imminent if he can’t do something about his temper. The last thing he needs now is to start rocking and mumbling to himself. He has to show them what Kitchener is up to. There’s no way he and Abi have been seeing each other for two months. For that to be true, she’d have to have been lying as well. What about their dinner together at Prezzo’s earlier in the week? The necklace she wore, just to please him? And the gardening project she wants him to go ahead with – does anyone seriously believe that’s all a lie? What about yesterday when she asked him to come along and protect her? It doesn’t make sense. Why would she do such a thing? Why?

  Why?

  Penny beginning to drop? You stupid, stupid . . .

  Shut up!

  Sure! Not like you need my advice, is it?

  SHUT UP! I need to think!

  Yeah, right. You do the thinking. That’s what you’re good at.

  SHUT UP!!

  Owen squeezes his eyes shut, works hard to stave off the episode. Tries to think of nice things but all nice things start and end with Abi and that doesn’t feel much like solid ground at the moment. He doesn’t feel he can afford to let his thoughts go there just yet. Sometime later maybe, when this has all been cleared up and he can look back on it and even laugh at himself. He takes several deep breaths and finally manages some semblance of self-control.

  When he looks up again, Kitchener is walking off down the path, escorted by just the one officer this time as he makes his way back to the gate. The other one has stayed behind with Holloway and his partner. All three of them are watching him closely.

  Holloway clears his throat.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks, and there’s genuine concern on his face, or that’s how it looks at any rate. Owen isn’t sure he trusts his own judgement on anything at the moment.

  ‘You know he’s lying, right?’ he says wearily. ‘You’re tricking him, yes?’

  ‘I know you don’t want to believe it,’ says Holloway, ‘but he’s telling the truth. About Abi, at any rate. And that leaves us with a bit of a problem, I’m afraid.’

  Owen is building himself up to protest again, long and hard. But he decides that can wait. For now the second half of that sentence needs to be looked at carefully.

  ‘What problem?’

  ‘Well, not to put too fine a point on it, someone put the bat in this shed. And we know it wasn’t either Adam Kitchener or Abi Green.’

  ‘No, you d-don’t,’ he protests. ‘How can you s-say that? He could have p-put it in there any time. It could have been in there already when Abi and I were here yesterday.’

  ‘No,’ says Holloway, and there’s a certainty about the way he says it that Owen finds a little disconcerting. ‘No, I’m afraid it couldn’t. You see, we searched this shed yesterday afternoon almost immediately after he left.’

  ‘You . . . why? How could you have? You didn’t even know about this shed till I t-told you just now.’

  Holloway says nothing.

  And speaks volumes.

  ‘He was quite right about the time, incidentally,’ Holloway continues. ‘It was almost exactly three o’clock when he left and we searched it thoroughly no more than ten minutes later. There was no bat here then.’

  ‘So?’ says Owen who now feels there’s a corner he badly needs to work his way out of. ‘M-maybe he c-came back later. Before he went to wherever he says he went last night. Or even after they g-got back.’

  Again Holloway shakes his head.

  ‘No, that’s not possible. You see, we had Mr Kitchener under police observation from the moment he left here yesterday afternoon until we picked him up this morning. And the version he gave just now is accurate in all respects. He left here, went back to his place . . . he says it was to have a bath and get changed and there’s nothing in the timing to suggest that’s not the case. Then he drove to Bosham, picked up Abi Green and then drove to Bridport with one of our cars tailing him all the way. He’s been under surveillance the whole time – there’s no way he was able to come back here and hide the bat in the shed.’

  ‘No. You’re wrong!’

  Owen’s head is starting to pound. This is wrong. It’s all wrong. He needs Abi there, needs to talk with her and get this whole thing straightened out. There’s no way she went anywhere with Kitchener last night. She’d die rather than let him sleep over as they’re all trying to make him believe. And somehow he must have managed to get here and drop the bat off without their realising it. Someone’s made a bad mistake. They’ve lost Kitchener for a few minutes and rather than admit what’s happened they’ve tried to cover it up. There’s an explanation somewhere in all this mess if he can just process everything and make sense of it, only there are voices at war inside his head and Willie’s screaming advice at him, telling him to shut his mouth and say nothing and he just can’t concentrate with all this going on. Why don’t they all just shut up and leave him alone?

  ‘So you see my problem,’ says Holloway, droning on in that slow, deliberate manner of his. ‘If the bat wasn’t there and neither Adam Kitchener nor Abi Green had any opportunity to put it there after we last searched it, the only other person who knew about this shed, who knew there was a key and where it was kept . . . is you.’

  ‘No,’ he says again.

  Shakes his head vehemently.

  ‘As you’ve just demonstrated.’

  ‘No, no, no. You’re f-forgetting something.’

  ‘Forgetting what?’

  ‘Even if he didn’t put the bat there himself, he could easily have got someone else to do it for him.’

  ‘He could,’ agrees Holloway. ‘But why would he do that? He either thinks it’s a safe hiding place or he doesn’t. If he does, as you said just now, he could have put the bat in there any time he wanted. If he doesn’t, surely it’s the last place he’d put it? And why put himself further at risk by involving someone else?’

  ‘Maybe he knew he was b-being watched. Maybe you weren’t as c-clever as you thought. Maybe he sneaked away in the night and the p-people watching him weren’t doing a very good job of it. If he knows you’ve already searched it, it would be the perfect place to hide it. Have you thought about that?’

  Holloway nods and for a moment Owen thinks maybe he’s scoring a few points here. If he keeps throwing out objections, there’s a chance he might blow them off course.

  ‘Just one problem though,’ he says, and Owen hates it when he does that. Doesn
’t matter how many good arguments he comes up with, there’s always that one little but he has up his sleeve.

  ‘You see,’ he continues, ‘even if we come up with a convincing explanation as to how he managed to sneak the bat in there, we can’t get away from the fact that it would be a really stupid thing for him to do. This shed is just about the last place Adam Kitchener would want to hide a murder weapon.’

  He senses where this is heading. Doesn’t know how to stop it.

  ‘He said . . . he said it belongs to a f-friend of his f-father,’ he says, increasingly aware of a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps.’

  ‘So whose is it?

  There’s a pause and it feels for a moment as if he’s being invited to do all the sums himself. And he’s almost got there, almost connected all the dots when a voice away to his left finishes the job for him.

  ‘It’s mine,’ says Misery Guts.

  And all he knows right now, as his world threatens to implode, is that there are layers and layers of deceit here that he’s going to have to unpick: a sticky web of lies and betrayals he’s going to have to smash his way through in order to make sense of what’s happening. And somewhere beyond all these layers there’s a reality he’s going to have to face up to at some stage but now’s not the time. Whatever Abi’s done to him and whatever her reasons for it, he can’t bear the thought of looking too closely at it right now. It’s too much.

  ‘So you see,’ says Holloway, ‘I don’t think anyone is likely to believe Adam Kitchener would choose as his hiding place a shed belonging to a member of the team responsible for trying to track the bat down. If that’s where it ended up, it could only have been put there by someone who didn’t know. Who thought the shed belonged to Kitchener himself. And that person –’

  And so he stands there, watching Holloway as he drones on, but taking nothing in. He could be reciting a prayer or the Highway Code for all he knows. All he can hear is the wind, ripping through the allotments, a car horn in the distance, plastic sheeting flapping and crackling as it strains against the restraints keeping it in place. He can’t even hear Willie, which is something of a relief. The last thing he needs right now is another lecture, a thousand variations on the theme I told you so. But he can see him. He’s there right next to Holloway, head tilted to one side, and he’s clapping him . . . slowly . . . sarcastically . . . mouthing one word over and over. It’s hard to hear above the wind and the maelstrom that’s threatening to drag him under right now.