Suspicion

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Tell me about Sue,’ I said.

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘What about her?’

  ‘What was she like?’

  For an instant, an expression of such pain flitted across his face that I wanted to put my arms round him and comfort him. Her death had been a loss for him too. But the thought that I might never know how much of a loss hardened me against him.

  ‘You know perfectly well what she was like,’ he replied. ‘At the risk of repeating the eulogy I gave at the end of term, she was popular, efficient and kind to a fault. I never once saw her lose her composure, and everyone liked her, without exception.’ He gave me a strange glance. ‘The whole school will miss her warm smile, and her readiness to help regardless of the circumstances and whatever the problem.’

  His response was lifted, more or less word for word, from his end-of-term speech.

  ‘Now, can we stop talking about her, please,’ he said. ‘It’s not helping either of us to dwell on what happened. We have a meeting with Ingrid next week and, until then, can we please try to assume some semblance of normality. And now I’d like to eat my dinner in peace. It’s a good carbonara, by the way.’

  I stared at my plate miserably, wondering how he could sit there calmly eating, when the life we had worked so hard to build seemed to be in danger of collapsing around us.

  ‘Are you really going to do nothing to help me?’

  ‘I’m paying the best criminal lawyer money can buy,’ he replied, genuinely surprised. ‘What else do you want me to do?’

  My disappointment at Nick’s refusal to do anything more to help me was a bitter blow. Had our situations been reversed, I would have worked night and day to clear his name, and would never have doubted his word, not for an instant.

  ‘If you were in trouble, I’d support you,’ I said reproachfully. ‘Even if the whole world was against you.’

  ‘Listen, if there was anything I could do to make this go away, anything at all, believe me, I would do it, whatever the cost. But we have to let the justice system run its course. If you’re innocent – which I don’t doubt for one minute, so please don’t start up again – given you’re innocent, they won’t find any evidence to convict you. And in the meantime, I’m sure the police are still looking into all this, and they must be following up other leads. They wouldn’t have let you come home if they really thought you were guilty. So, unless you have something new to say, let’s not talk about it again until we see Ingrid.’

  He finished his supper in silence.

  ‘That was delicious,’ he said as he put down his fork.

  Nick wasn’t prepared to discuss Sue, and clearly it wasn’t going to be easy questioning the staff at school. In desperation, I started to make plans to go and see Rosie again and force her to tell me what she knew. I said nothing to Nick about my intended visit, and resolved to be careful as well as discreet. The last thing I wanted was for a misquoted interview with me to appear in the paper after I spoke to Rosie. She was, after all, a journalist, and probably the last person to be trusted. But I couldn’t just sit around at home, waiting and doing nothing to prove my innocence when no one else wanted to do it for me.

  That night I hardly slept, thinking about my plans. This meeting could be crucial to my future, but I had no idea what I was going to say to Rosie, if she would even agree to see me.

  Chapter 29

  We were expecting Jen and her family for Sunday lunch and I spent the morning preparing a roast, peeling and chopping different-coloured root vegetables to go with the potatoes: butternut squash, parsnips, and carrots, as well as a selection of vegetables: broccoli, sweet corn and red peppers, in addition to all the trimmings.

  Nick smiled at me as he walked through the kitchen. ‘It looks like you’re getting ready to feed an army.’

  I laughed. ‘You’re not far wrong.’

  Jen turned up mid-morning, as expected, accompanied by her family, en route to a holiday home in Wales. In an instant, the house erupted in a cacophony of lively chatter, with everyone talking at once.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘It’s so great to see you!’

  ‘Take your things off and come out in the garden.’

  ‘I’ll crack open a bottle,’ Nick called out.

  ‘Where’s the loo, Aunty Lou?’

  My niece burst into the fit of giggles that question always prompted.

  Forced to temporarily shelve my own thoughts, any speculation about how to force Rosie to speak to me was driven out by the noise. A talkative family, they were all enthusiastic about their holiday in Wales, and their break from work and studies. Listening to them was like a gust of wind from another planet where life was lively and cheerful and brimming over with interest and optimism. Until their arrival, I had not realised how far my own life had fallen down a dark and insular tunnel, with no end in sight.

  ‘It’s the first time we’ve all been away together for years and years,’ one of my nieces told me, buzzing with excitement. ‘The whole family together.’

  ‘Five years, to be exact,’ Jen said.

  ‘A week stuck with this lot,’ my youngest nephew, Zac, groaned. ‘How am I going to survive?’

  His father gave him a playful cuff on the ear.

  ‘You show some respect,’ he said with mock severity, and my nephew flung himself on the floor, rolling around and complaining of parental brutality.

  ‘Should have been a footballer,’ his father chuckled.

  Nick popped open a bottle of bubbly and we went outside to have a drink on the patio.

  ‘We’re going to need more than one bottle,’ I told Nick.

  He scurried off and returned a moment later with another two.

  ‘Plenty more where that came from,’ he said with a broad smile.

  It was a bright day, sunny but not too hot thanks to a pleasant breeze, and the youngsters were soon kicking a football around on the lawn.

  ‘Mind the roses,’ Jen called out, but no one took any notice of her.

  Before long before Nick and Tony joined in the noisy game.

  ‘Make two teams,’ the oldest girl shouted out. ‘Uncle Nick, you come over here. Annie, stay where you are!’

  ‘Kimberley’s so bossy,’ Jen complained, with a complacent smile.

  ‘Perhaps she’ll be a teacher,’ I suggested.

  ‘I don’t think a classroom would satisfy her monstrous ambition. I rather think she’s set her sights on running the country,’ Jen replied, ‘if not the world. She wants to go into politics but I’m not sure she’s got the killer instinct. It’s a tough game, politics.’

  ‘The killer instinct,’ I repeated softly, and laughed to cover my momentary awkwardness. ‘I’d better go in and see to the dinner.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Jen said.

  ‘No, there’s nothing to do, honestly. You sit here and put your feet up.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she repeated in a voice that brooked no opposition.

  Once Jen had cornered me in the kitchen, she set about questioning me, but this time I was ready.

  ‘If you ever need anything, you just have to ask,’ she told me, gazing at me earnestly. ‘You’re looking tired. I can give you something to help you sleep, if you need it. You can come to me in confidence, like you did when you first moved here. I know you and Nick have to be careful to protect your reputation for being morally and mentally flawless.’ She smiled.

  I did not tell her that Nick had discreetly taken me to see a psychiatrist.

  ‘Oh, the trouble we were having is all over,’ I assured her cheerfully. ‘The police haven’t bothered us again. It was all pretty unpleasant at the time, but we’ve put it behind us. The problem is that Nick’s got to find himself another secretary. There’s no one here who can do the job so he’s looking for an outside candidate, but that brings its own problems. They have a certain way of doing things here–’

  ‘The Edleybury tradition.’ Jen laughed. ‘You’ve mentioned that before, bu
t I thought you said Nick was changing the place, bringing it up to date.’

  ‘He’s introducing changes, yes, and all long overdue. Honestly, it’s like living in the dark ages here in some ways. Do you know how the staff get their tea and coffee at break time?’

  ‘Surprise me.’

  I knew she was laughing at me, but I carried on anyway. All the time we were talking I was busy, carving the joint, stirring gravy, and checking the vegetables.

  ‘One of the women from the kitchen – who must be sixty if she’s a day – wheels a trolley loaded up with pots and jugs and biscuits all the way from the kitchen to the staff room. I’m talking about a heavy trolley which she pushes across the school, and some of it is uphill. Then when she finally reaches the staff room and gets the trolley over the doorstep, she has to carry all the pots and jugs and plates of biscuits, by hand, up the stairs to the social area in the staff room. Seriously, up and down the stairs with trays of pots and jugs.’

  ‘And plates of biscuits,’ Jen added. ‘Don’t forget the plates of biscuits.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s more than her job’s worth to forget to bring the teachers their morning biscuits. It’s a good five-minute walk from the kitchen to the staff room at the best of times, and it takes her about fifteen minutes, pushing the bloody trolley. By the time she gets there, the coffee’s barely warm. And then, when break is over, she carts the whole lot down the stairs again and loads up her trolley and pushes it back to the kitchen. She’s been doing it for God knows how many years – probably all her working life. No one ever questions her completely batty routine, and do you know why? Because that’s how it’s always been done. Can you believe it?’

  Jen shook her head. ‘Why don’t they get a coffee machine for the staff room?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I said. It’s what anyone with half a grain of sense would say.’

  We both laughed.

  Just then Kimberley came in from the garden. ‘Everyone wants to know when we’re going to have lunch,’ she said.

  ‘It’s ready now. Tell them all to come in and sit down.’

  She ran off and a few minutes later Nick and Tony came in from the garden, laughing and joking, followed by the four youngsters.

  ‘Something smells good,’ Tony said, prompting a string of insults between the younger siblings starting with which of them had the smelliest feet, and moving up through their various body parts.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Jen said sharply. ‘You’re not at home now. Go and wash your hands, kids, and let’s eat. I’m starving and this all looks wonderful, Lou.’

  ‘Yes, Aunty Lou,’ Kimberley said.

  ‘It looks yummy,’ Zac agreed.

  ‘Good enough to eat,’ Nick agreed, putting his arm round my waist and planting a kiss on my cheek.

  Jen smiled, and I relaxed for the first time since her arrival, seeing she was convinced that everything had returned to normal. I wished I could convince myself as easily.

  Chapter 30

  Nick had taken to bringing me breakfast in bed. Since my encounter with the police, his solicitude had increased until my gratitude had turned to irritation.

  ‘I’m not an invalid,’ I protested when he told me he wanted to look after me.

  It wasn’t to spite him that I started getting up early, although that might have seemed to be the reason. The truth was I had people to see and errands to run.

  By ten to nine on Monday morning I was waiting outside the office in Watford where Rosie worked. Pretending to be looking at my phone, I loitered on the pavement trying not to look as though I was waiting for someone. Several people went into the building, including the receptionist I had spoken to the previous week, but I kept my head down and she didn’t notice me. When Rosie finally arrived, scurrying along the pavement with her grey beret pulled right down to her eyes, I stepped forward to block her path and prevent her from entering the building.

  ‘You again,’ she muttered. ‘What are you doing here? Shopping again?’

  ‘I need to speak to you. I won’t be put off this time.’

  A man approached and she called out to him. As he paused in his stride and looked round, she dodged past me to join him and they went inside together. There was no point in hanging around all day so I went home for a couple of hours.

  Returning at midday, I waited for her again until she emerged at one.

  ‘You have to stop doing this,’ she told me as she strode along the pavement with me hurrying at her heels.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Stalking me. It was no coincidence, you being here last week. Go away.’

  ‘One drink and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.’

  She stopped and glared at me, and I could have sworn I saw fear in her eyes.

  ‘One drink,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘And after that I never want to see you again.’

  So far so good. At least I had persuaded her to talk to me. We didn’t exchange another word or a single glance as we walked along the road until we reached the nearby pub.

  Inside, subdued lighting, a dark wooden bar and maroon carpets contributed to the dingy atmosphere, the gloom disturbed only by intermittent flashing from a fruit machine winking its neon lights in a hideous assault of clashing colours.

  ‘What’ll you have?’ I asked.

  ‘A glass of red wine.’

  I ordered two glasses from the young girl behind the bar.

  ‘Make them as large as you like,’ I told her recklessly.

  Rosie was seated at a corner table, watching my approach. She took a gulp of wine and then another, evidently keen to knock her drink back as quickly as possible. I didn’t mind. If I could get her tipsy, so much the better. She sat gazing steadily at me over the rim of her glass, waiting for me to speak, the brightness of her eyes accentuated by heavy black eyeliner. With no clear idea of what to say to her, I nodded and took a sip of my wine, playing for time. Beyond discovering whether she had lied to me about Nick and Sue I had no plans, and could think of no easy way to coax the truth out of her.

  ‘The affair between my husband and Sue,’ I said finally, putting my glass down on the table.

  She frowned and said nothing.

  ‘It was very clever, what you did,’ I went on, hoping to provoke a response. ‘You really had me fooled. What I don’t understand, is why you did it. What was it between you and Nick? How long have you known him?’

  She had removed her beret when she sat down, and she pushed her fringe off her face so that I could see her eyes as she stared at me with a mixture of perplexity and hostility.

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ she asked in a low voice.

  ‘I thought that was perfectly clear. I want you to tell me how long you’ve known my husband.’

  ‘I don’t know your husband. I met him for the first time when I interviewed him for the local paper, and again when I returned with a photographer. Apart from those two occasions, I’ve never seen him in my life.’

  ‘And you’d really never met him before you came to our house to interview us?’

  ‘Isn’t that what I just said? I’ve never met him apart from those occasions, either before or since. Is that all?’

  ‘The photos you showed me–’

  ‘What photos?’ She interrupted me, putting her glass down on the table with a gesture of finality.

  ‘Okay, I need you to be honest with me.’

  I smiled to show that she hadn’t riled me in the slightest. If anything, she was the one who seemed wary and I was concerned to keep her on the back foot.

  ‘You know,’ I went on, ‘I still can’t work out how you did it. Some kind of photoshopping, but it was brilliantly done. You have a real talent for–’ I almost said ‘for lying’, but I stopped myself just in time, ‘for manipulating digital images. We should get you to take some photos of the school.’ I laughed, inviting her confidence. ‘Tell me something. We both know you did it, but what I want to know is, why did you go to all that bothe
r? Come on, you can be frank with me. I promise I won’t tell anyone but, just for my own peace of mind, I really need to know those photos were fake. One woman to another. Please, I just want to know if my husband’s been playing away from home. You can understand that, can’t you?’

  I was reduced to begging again.

  She must have realised that she had somehow regained the upper hand, because she shook her head and drank some more of her wine. ‘I’m sorry, but I really have no idea what you’re talking about. Not the foggiest.’

  ‘Do you deny you came to see me at my house?’

  ‘No, why would I deny it, to you of all people? You were there, weren’t you?’

  I frowned at her. ‘And is it still your contention that those photos of Nick and Sue were genuine? Because unless you can convince me they were authentic, then everything you’ve told me is one big lie from start to finish.’

  ‘What photos?’ She leaned forward. ‘You know, your husband came to see me, banging on about some photos you told him about. I take it you’re pestering me about the same thing. But I’ll tell you exactly what I told him.’ She paused to take another gulp of her wine, draining her glass. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t know what you’re playing at.’

  Her words were defiant, but beneath her aggression I thought she looked nervous. Yet I could tell she wasn’t really worried. I had seen exactly the same expression on the faces of pupils when they were handing over their mobile phones in class. It was futile confiscating their phones because the kids always had another one on them, and merely handed over a decoy. In that instant I realised how stupid I had been to assume that Rosie only had two mobile phones, one for work and one for her personal use. Of course she had volunteered to take them to the police station in Watford to be checked, knowing there was nothing incriminating in the memories. She must have taken the photos, and stored them, on another phone.

  ‘I guess I was mistaken,’ I said. ‘I’d better be on my way. Thanks for your time. It’s been very interesting chatting to you.’