‘That’s a shite name,’ Charlie observed.
‘Yes, let’s talk about the name of the costume shop.’ Liv shook her head. ‘It’s clearly the most important detail.’
‘You rang up? DS Sam Kombothekra again?’
‘I spoke to Kat’s friend. Like the woman I rang at the school, she just accepted I was who I said I was. Wouldn’t happen in London. Anyone’d demand some kind of proof of ID; a toddler would ask. People are more trusting in the middle of nowhere, I suppose.’
‘Not for long, if pathological liars like you keep popping in.’ And not me. And don’t call everywhere that isn’t London ‘the middle of nowhere’.
‘You wouldn’t think it, would you?’ Liv said. ‘I’d be more suspicious if I lived in some rural hamlet, greenery all around me. I’d worry about truckers strangling prostitutes and leaving their bodies in woods near my house.’
Charlie could guess the rest of the story. ‘You asked Kat Allen’s friend if she had any fireman costumes.’
‘As I was saying it, I was thinking, “You’re mad, Zailer, get a grip.” But I was right.’
There it was, the painful line Charlie had steeled herself to hear: her sister was right.
‘She had two fireman’s uniforms. I asked her if anyone hired either of them in November 2008, told her the date of the fire at Sharon Len—’
‘Jo Utting,’ Charlie said quickly. She wanted to be right too. More right, ideally. If there was such a thing.
Liv nodded. ‘Johannah Utting booked one. She went to collect it four days before the fire that killed Sharon Lendrim. I was about to say thank you, get off the phone before something went wrong, but then she said, “How weird.” I asked her what she meant and she said, “I remember her. Corkscrew curly blonde hair, pretty. Did she kill Kat?” Then she started crying. It was awful. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Why don’t literary journalists get any training on how to deal with loved ones’ grief in the wake of a brutal murder?’ Charlie wondered aloud. ‘Someone’s not thought this through.’
‘Oh, shut up, Char. Do you want to know or not?’
What I want is for you not to know. Anything. Apart from your place.
Liv took her silence as a ‘yes’. ‘It was awkward for a few minutes. I was trying to cheer her up – well, not cheer her up, you know what I mean – and work out what was going on at the same time. First thought to cross my mind was how the hell does she remember a woman who hired a fireman outfit two years ago? Assuming she has a regular supply of customers.’
‘How?’
‘Kat Allen was there too. In the costume shop at the same time as Johannah Utting, four days before Sharon Lendrim died. They knew each other. They spoke. Kat’s friend heard their whole conversation. She clearly remembers Kat being pleased to see Jo, and the pleasure being all one way.’
It was too much. Too much information to take in at once; too much good luck to fall into Liv’s undeserving lap. No wonder she didn’t want Gibbs to find out. He might as well give up the day job and take up carpentry or stone-wall building; that’s how Charlie would feel in his position. ‘Jo wasn’t pleased to see Kat?’ she said.
‘Not at all. Apparently she was shocked, and not in a good way. She said, “What are you doing here?”, as if Kat was trespassing. She recovered quickly and turned on the charm, but neither Kat nor her friend could understand why she’d react like that. Jo knew Kat’s parents lived in Pulham Market, the costume business belonged to a close friend of Kat’s – why shouldn’t she be there? Jo was the one who didn’t live anywhere near and hadn’t been before. Kat was a regular customer.’
‘Stop, wait.’ Charlie started to feel panicky as unasked, unanswered questions started to jostle for position in her mind. ‘How do you know Jo knew that Kat’s parents lived in Pulham Market?’
Liv thought about it. ‘Kat’s friend said. When she was quoting Kat. She told me what Kat had said to her at the time, after Johannah Utting had left the shop.’
‘Which was?’
‘“Silly woman, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. God knows why, she knows my folks only live round the corner.” That’s not word for word, but . . .’
‘Did fake DS Sam ring Kat Allen’s parents?’ Charlie demanded. ‘Ask how their daughter knew Jo Utting?’
‘No.’ Liv looked stricken, as if she’d been found guilty of gross negligence. ‘I thought I’d done enough. Should I have . . .’
‘They knew each other,’ Charlie muttered, pacing up and down the kitchen. ‘Which is also how Kat knew Jo lived nowhere near Pulham Market.’
‘I guess so,’ Liv agreed.
‘What else did they say to each other?’
‘Hardly anything, according to the friend. Johannah said, “What are you doing here?”, Kat said, “I’m hiring costumes for my school play. I’m a primary school teacher now.”’
‘You sure about that? “I’m a primary school teacher now’’?’
‘Of course I’m not sure.’ Liv’s voice shook. ‘I mean, I don’t know if Kat’s friend was sure. All I know is what she said.’
‘Jo knew Kat a long time ago,’ Charlie deduced aloud. ‘They hadn’t seen each other for years.’ She turned on her sister. ‘What else was said?’
‘Kat told Johannah – Jo – that she’d got a job in her part of the world, in a school in Spilling. Jo didn’t seem happy to hear the news. Kat and her friend had a good laugh about it when Jo had gone, how freaky it was. Why would a woman Kat hardly knows mind Kat being in the costume shop and mind her teaching at a school in Spilling? Apparently she really did seem to mind, both. It made no sense, Kat said. I asked her friend if she said anything more about who Jo was. I thought she might have said, “She’s always been a loony, ever since . . .” and then mention something from their shared past.’
‘They didn’t have a shared past,’ said Charlie. ‘You just quoted Kat Allen as saying they hardly knew each other. Hardly knowing is still knowing, though.’
‘Kat’s friend did ask, but Kat just rolled her eyes and laughed to indicate that it was too boring,’ said Liv. ‘Before Jo Utting walked in, she and Kat had been discussing something more interesting to both of them, and they got back to gossiping as soon as they could.’
‘So Kat wasn’t worried by having seen Jo,’ said Charlie. This was a good kitchen for thinking. It was long enough that you could walk laps, keep your brain on the go by keeping your body moving. ‘No, she wouldn’t have been. She didn’t know she had any reason to fear Jo. She didn’t know Jo had hired a costume from a shop hours from home because she planned to wear that costume to commit murder.’
Liv nodded. ‘I was wrong. Kat Allen didn’t kill Sharon Lendrim. Did Jo Utting kill them both, then? That’s how it’s looking, isn’t it?’
‘If Kat hadn’t gone to her friend’s costume shop that day, if she’d gone the day before or the day after, she’d still be alive,’ said Charlie.
‘Don’t say that. It’s too horrible.’
‘It’s true. The meeting at the costume place might not have swung it on its own, but when Kat said she was working in Spilling . . .’
‘Jo Utting knew it was more likely she’d hear about Sharon’s death, a local murder,’ Liv completed the thought. ‘Started by someone dressed in a fireman’s uniform who turned out not to be a fireman. But why not kill Kat Allen sooner, then? Two years later? What sense does that make? You’d do it straight away or not at all.’
Charlie was shaking her head. ‘Jo Utting’s alibied for the day Kat died, Simon said. She was on a driver awareness course in place of Amber Hewerdine.’
‘Char, you can’t tell Simon any of this came from me. If Chris found out . . .’
‘He’ll have to learn to live with it,’ said Charlie.
‘Please. I’m begging you. I’ll do—’
‘Anything? End it with Gibbs?’
‘Not that.’
Charlie sighed, pressed her eyes shut. ‘Fine. In that case, how a
bout throwing a rock through the window of a locked room instead?’
Re: Next week’s appointment
From “Charlie Zailer”
To [email protected]
Fri, 3 December 2010 5.35 PM
Hi Ginny
Thanks for being so understanding about the short-notice cancellation. And, work permitting, I will do my best to make another appointment in the not too distant future, though based on past experience of never-ending workload, we might have to make that some time next century!
While I’m on the subject of work, I was wondering if I could pick your brains in relation to a man whose case I’m reviewing as part of my work as second in command to the Strategic Lead for Suicide for Culver Valley Police. This is unofficial and off the record, so if that’s a problem feel free to tell me to bog off (many people do, all the time), but I’m not going to miss a chance to ask an expert: can you give me any kind of psychological profile on someone who is embarrassed/shy about the prospect of having sex even with someone he loves, because he perceives it as having sex in public – i.e. even a loved and participating partner becomes ‘public’ or ‘audience’? But he wouldn’t do anything sexual on his own either, because that would be dirty/wrong? What sort of background/history/psychological problem might lead to feeling that sex is too private a thing to be done ‘in front of’ even a partner? I’m fairly certain no childhood physical or sexual abuse was involved, and also certain that it’s not an issue of not enjoying sex physically. More a case of things working fine on the desire/physical front, but some kind of strong psychological aversion to having sexual desire/behaviour witnessed. Have you ever heard of this kind of thing before?
Thanks in advance, and don’t worry, I won’t quote you on anything.
Charlie
13
Friday 3 December 2010
For the third time in my life, I have arrived at Little Orchard. The snow is still falling, but it didn’t stop us from getting here. I asked Simon on the way if he was worried about it and he told me he wasn’t. ‘Snow’s never been a problem for me,’ he said. ‘I drive as if it’s not there, and I’m fine.’
I know he’s hoping the third-time-lucky rule will work tonight: I’ll walk into Little Orchard’s kitchen and it will come to me – I’ll know where I saw ‘Kind, Cruel, Kind of Cruel’ written down, and Simon will have the link he’s desperate to find between Jo and Kat Allen’s murder.
As we trudge in silence through snow to the back door, I say a silent prayer: Please let this not be all down to me. Please let Simon not be relying solely on my unstable memory. Even if I do remember, what will it achieve? If I can’t produce the sheet of paper, which was probably tossed in a recycling bin weeks ago, how can he prove that Kat Allen’s killer tore it off the notepad in her flat? Even Simon Waterhouse is not a good enough detective to run DNA tests on a mental image.
Little Orchard’s back door opens as we approach. In the doorway, backlit by the glow from the kitchen, stands a woman I’ve never seen before. The collar and cuffs of her coat look oddly inflated and puffed up, as if someone’s injected them with the clothes equivalent of Botox.
‘Liv,’ says Simon. ‘You made it, then.’
‘Have you brought anything?’ the woman snaps at him, as if he’s done something wrong.
‘Anything such as . . . ?’
‘Food, wine, loo paper, soap? There are eight loos in this house and only two nearly finished rolls of loo paper. There’s nothing to eat. Nothing!’ She glances at me, decides I’m not important, and turns her attention back to Simon. ‘Sorry to lower the tone. I know your mind’s on higher things, but I seem to be the only person who’s worked out that we’re about an hour away from being totally snowed in here, so . . .’ She marches out into the night, tries to push past him.
‘Where are you going?’ He blocks her path. ‘You can’t drive in this weather.’
‘Says the man who’s just stepped out of his car, and doesn’t mind if we all starve.’
I hope he lets her go. I’ve heard enough of her voice already.
‘Where’s Charlie?’ Simon asks her.
‘In the locked study, which we’ve renamed the unlocked study. You can nose around in there all you like.’
My heart beats double time. I think about running into the house and up the stairs, picture myself doing it. I stay where I am.
‘Charlie found the key?’ Simon asks.
‘There’s a desk in there. Key was in the top drawer.’ Liv smiles at me suddenly, as if she’s decided it’s okay for me to be included in this part of the conversation. ‘I smashed the window earlier.’
‘You did what?’
‘I used a stone from the garden. Three, actually. It took three attempts, but I did it eventually. Char and I carried a ladder from the garage and Char climbed in through the smashed window. It was my idea,’ Liv raises her voice as Simon marches into the house. I run after him. ‘Charlie knew nothing about it until I’d done it!’
Through the kitchen, into the hall, up the stairs. Don’t think, don’t think. I can do this if I tell myself that all I’m doing is following Simon Waterhouse.
A minute or two later I am standing on the half-landing outside the study, looking in. I don’t know what I was expecting. I see nothing that shocks me. The study contains two wing-back armchairs, a desk, a computer, a rug, a whole wall of bookshelves, but only the top two shelves have books on them. The rest are covered with family photographs: Jo, Neil, the boys with their grandparents. There’s a photo of me, Luke, Dinah and Nonie in our new house, just after we’d moved in.
I try to imagine how terrified Jo must have been in 2003, when I stood with the key in my hand, threatening to unlock the door to this room, joking about what fun it would be. What would have happened if I’d insisted? Overpowered Jo, gone in against her wishes? What would we all have said and done once the locked study of Little Orchard had been found to contain row upon row of photographs of us, Jo’s family?
And Neil’s. Neil isn’t a killer, but he knew about this. No wonder he looked scared on Wednesday, when I asked about Little Orchard and said Luke and I were thinking of going again.
‘Anything?’ Simon asks Charlie, who is sitting at the computer as if it’s her own.
‘Just a bit,’ she says. She hands him a blue envelope file. ‘From a desk drawer.’ The file has black handwriting on it, but I can’t see what it says, not before Simon opens the flap and folds it back.
‘Coming here turned out to be a good idea after all,’ Charlie tells me.
I can’t answer her. My sister-in-law, my husband’s brother’s wife, the woman who gives Dinah and Nonie their tea every Wednesday after school and usually once at the weekend too, is probably a murderer. And here I am in a country house in Surrey with two police officers, about to be snowed in. Who will tell Luke? Someone needs to tell him, everything.
‘I should phone home,’ I say. Simon doesn’t look up from the papers he’s studying. Telling myself that I don’t need his permission to ring my husband, I make my way to the bedroom that was Luke’s and mine seven years ago, when we stayed here. Only the bedding has changed: from white with a blue border to plain white.
‘It’s me,’ I say when Luke picks up. ‘Is everything okay? Are the girls okay?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ he says. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘Yes, but . . . not now. I have to go. Can I talk to Dinah and Nonie, quickly?’
‘No, you can talk to me.’ I’ve made him angry.
‘Don’t let them out of your sight, okay? Until I get home.’
‘That’s it, end of conversation?’
‘I have to go.’
‘So why bother ringing at all?’ he asks. ‘You can’t just say “not now” and—’
‘Don’t let them out of your sight,’ I repeat, cutting him off, as anxious to get back to the study as I was to leave it a few minutes ago. I shou
ldn’t have phoned Luke; all it did was make me aware of the distance between us.
Simon hasn’t moved; he is still flicking through papers. ‘Veronique Coudert was the previous owner of Little Orchard,’ he tells me. ‘She sold it to Jo and Neil.’
That’s right, I think, as if his words have jogged my memory. Of what? Then I realise: whether he knows it or not, he is reminding me that I mustn’t fall apart. There are things I need to find out. Things we need to find out.
‘Looks like they had a previous second home before they bought this one,’ Simon says. ‘Little Manor Farm, in Pulham Market.’
‘Where Kat Allen came from,’ I say.
‘They sold it in 2002, traded up,’ says Charlie.
I force myself to listen as she tells Simon about a meeting in a costume shop: Jo meeting Kat Allen and not being pleased to see her. I don’t want to listen. I want to know what all of this means, but without having to pay attention. Normally I’m good at paying attention, but tonight it’s frightening, too hard. My mind is in pieces, held together only by taut threads stretched nearly to breaking point. For a long time, as Charlie talks, I feel unreal, too aware of myself, as if I’m a ghost no one else can see, but even that feeling isn’t strong enough to prevent me from knowing what Charlie’s story means, even though the precise details slide past me before I have the chance to grasp and grip onto them. It means that Jo is a killer. She hired a fireman’s uniform from a costume shop in Pulham Market. She wore it to kill Sharon.
Jo killed Sharon. The idea rolls around in my head, echoing in black space.
Think about Dinah and Nonie. Think how much they need you not to do anything stupid.
Jo killed Sharon. Luke will have to find out. I can’t let him hear it from anyone but me.
Kat Allen was murdered because Jo wanted peace of mind, Charlie is telling Simon. Jo knew Kat worked in Spilling, too close for safety. Kat’s friend who owns the costume business said to Jo, ‘Oh, you’ve come for your fireman costume, haven’t you?’ in front of Kat, who heard every word and was killed because of it.
Kind of Cruel Page 36