by Tom Grieves
Zoe picked up on this and glanced at him, but he just stared at the table. So she carried on.
Ashley answered her questions with grumbles and moans, and Sam wanted to reach across the desk and grab her, shake some sense out of her, but he knew that he couldn’t, and he knew that she knew. And he worried that Zoe would wonder why he said nothing. He wouldn’t normally take such shit.
Finally it was over. Her statement had added nothing more – just that she had been at the lake earlier than the others and that, from her vague recollections, Sarah had also been there; twice that day. The first was around the same time that Arthur and Lily Downing had disappeared.
They left Ashley in the room, promising to return in a few minutes to drive her home. After they’d stepped outside, he felt Zoe pat him warmly on the shoulder.
‘Well done for keeping your cool in there, skip. I wanted to slap the silly cow.’
Sam shrugged as best he could.
‘We need to find the dress,’ he said gruffly, and felt cross with himself for not faking a laugh.
‘You think she’ll still have it?’
‘Depends on whether or not it’s incriminating. We should hunt for it anyway,’ he said. ‘You did well in there,’ he added, trying to soften his tone.
He saw the pleasure that this gave her and felt winded by his own deceit.
In the car, again, no one said much. Sam drove and would glance occasionally at the girl in the back seat. And whenever he did, he found that she was staring right back at him.
*
The cops returned to Sam’s room and his heart lurched as they entered and he saw the unmade bed; dirty sheets twisted and ruffled. He could almost see the imprint of the girl’s body upon them. He feared that they stank of sex.
‘How come they didn’t make your bed?’ Zoe asked casually. ‘I’m sure they did mine.’
Sam hurriedly straightened the sheets and dragged a cover over them. Zoe sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off her shoes.
‘My feet pong,’ she laughed.
Sam tried to bury his unease with questions about the case. Ashley’s information felt like a breakthrough, but, as with Bud’s revelations, it offered little concrete evidence. And Zoe was still unconvinced about Sarah.
‘Does Mr Downing know about Sarah being down at the lake?’ she asked.
‘That’s what we need to find out. He said that Sarah is pretty drunk by eight most evenings. I say we wait till she’s conked out and then go talk to him. Get him alone.’
Zoe nodded. As she thought about this she ran her hand over the bed cover absent-mindedly.
‘She was odd, that girl, the witness,’ she said.
‘How come?’ His stomach spun as he waited for her reply.
‘She remembered it pretty damn clearly. All of a sudden.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Maybe she was primed. Set up.’
‘By who?’
‘By anyone who doesn’t like Sarah Downing. Like all the men there.’
‘You don’t believe the girl’s statement?’
‘I don’t know. I think I do. I just don’t like being played and the way I found her.’
And with that she looked at him and he could feel the accusation that he was hiding things. He knew, for Zoe, that this was unforgivable.
‘Shall we go question her again?’ he offered, and prayed she wouldn’t expose the bluff.
She considered this for a moment, then blinked and the tension vanished. ‘No,’ she said, then sniffed her shoe again and then chucked it at him. He caught it and threw it back at her, as he knew she wanted. One of the boys.
‘So, we kick back for a bit?’ she asked. ‘And then take him apart.’
He nodded and she left him with a soldier’s salute.
Sam wondered about the water. He imagined the little girl in the bath and the boy drowned by his own mother in the swimming pool. He imagined little Arthur floating in the icy-calm lake, all alone. And he wondered whether Sarah Downing would herself fall into that strange, emotionless, blissful haze that had affected the other women. Maybe it was a disease of some sort, a virus that would strike at any time.
He remembered Andrea’s cold body, lifeless on the tarmac, soaked by the rain, and then he thought again about Ashley’s cool stare in the car mirror.
Outside, the sun battled with tumbling clouds above the austere fells. Sam tried to find some solace in their beauty.
TWENTY-SIX
Zoe went back to her room, sat on the bed, untied and then retied her shoes, and stared at her perfectly pleasant and inoffensive surroundings. She lasted another thirty seconds before she changed into her running gear and headed downstairs. Bernie at the bar gave her some brief directions with the understated warning that it can get a little steep up there, pet, and with that, off she went.
The run through the village was fine. An old man gawped at her Lycra but said nothing and soon she was out in the fields, following the footpaths’ signs – up, up and further up. Her lungs burned and legs ached but she loved feeling like this. When she was younger, she’d been a keen athlete and had competed at a high level – four hundred metres was her preferred distance. She used to break the opposition. A set of injuries had stopped her going further, but she still had the same hunger and desire when she ran. She pushed hard against the slope, exorcising the frustrations that swamped her. No bloody hill was going to defeat her.
Inevitably, the fell won. She reached the peak with a scrambled, desperate lunge and collapsed onto the rocky peak, breathless, staring up at the clouds that raced above her. She finally found the strength to sit up and stared out at the incredible, magnificent view and felt very small. Zoe enjoyed noise, clutter and chaos, but she found herself unusually still up there. She shivered as her sweat cooled. The wintry gusts never stopped. It was just her and the wind.
She thought about Sam’s silences and his odd avoidances over the past few days. He had turned away from her during their time here and she didn’t understand why. She didn’t understand his preoccupation with Sarah, just like everyone else in the village.
The lake shone below her like a glistening liquid silver bean. When they’d first arrived and stood at its edge it had felt mysterious, even a little creepy with the mist and fading light. But from up here, it was majestic.
She let out a roar, screamed as loud as she could and was delighted by the way that the wind stole it and threw her voice away. She’d always imagined her cry would echo across the hilltops. But it went nowhere. She was just a dot.
She made her way back – a mixture of sliding and staggering down the steep slopes of grass and shale. Her calves were sore by the time she reached the bottom. In fact, she was dog-tired, but pride forced her to jog the last half-mile into the village. She wondered again about Sarah Downing and why she might hurt her own little boy. Then she thought again about the girl, Ashley Deveraux, and the way her evidence had appeared out of the ether. It smelled wrong and she didn’t like the way the girl had stared at Sam. There was history between them, and Zoe worried about what this meant. Sam was a good guy, she believed that beyond anything else, but she didn’t know how long she could last without mentioning it again. She found she was constantly watching her words in this village and longed to get back to wide streets, bright lights and the reassuring cacophony of the city. She resolved to give Sam the rest of the day and then confront him in the morning. Hopefully both their heads would be a little cooler by then. She was full of such thoughts when David was suddenly in front of her.
‘Hi,’ he said without a smile.
She gave him a curt nod, then moved to step around him. But he blocked her path again.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
She was tired, her legs were heavy from the run and she just wanted to get back inside and flop into a hot bath. She caught his angry stare and couldn’t stomach such childishness.
‘You embarrassed me,’ h
e said.
‘Shit,’ she said, and then, a little too flat: ‘Sorry.’
Again she tried to make her way past him, but this time he pushed her back – a hard shove against her elbow. It was the act of a kid in the playground. Next would be a scuffle. And then a punch. And she was all alone.
‘Okay, stop that now, David,’ she said, but the next shove came too quickly and now she could see just how angry he was, pumped to the brim. He didn’t meet her eye. His gaze was trapped on her chest, her neck, her clothes.
‘David. I’m a cop, think about it. Stop. Okay? Stop.’
But he didn’t. He pushed her again. And then he raised his hand to strike her.
She had to move quick.
As his hand came powering down, she used his weight against him to send him tumbling to the ground.
‘Okay, stay there, just—’
But he went for her again and she had to force him back, jamming the heel of her trainer hard into his neck. He coughed and spluttered, unable to breath.
‘Shit. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry, just … I’m a bloody cop, you idiot!’
He looked up at her with rage in his eyes and she knew that she mustn’t let him get up. And so, as he pushed himself to his feet, she punched him hard in the kidneys – another apology slipping from her lips as she did so.
Winded, he fell back to ground on his front. She grabbed his right arm and pulled it behind his back. David yelled out in pain. She pressed herself on top of him, pinning his arm behind his back. He was powerless now.
‘You stupid prick,’ she shouted, angry and upset. Although he was bigger and stronger than her, her hold on him was such that he was utterly powerless. He wriggled for moment before he realised his pitiful position.
‘I could arrest you,’ she said, holding firm. She felt cold and tired and the man below her now looked pathetic. ‘What were you thinking?’ she asked, but he didn’t say a word.
She stood quickly, spitting angrily at the floor. He didn’t move.
As she began to walk away she saw him sit up from out of the corner of her eye. And then she heard him speak.
‘You fucking bitch.’
She looked at him, sitting on the floor, with grit stuck to his cheek from the road, and she felt like kicking him in the face. But she also felt ashamed. She rearranged her clothes and jogged away, slowly enough for him to catch up. Part of her wanted to continue this and end it properly, but she reached the pub alone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Sam walked around the village for ages, but he couldn’t find Ashley anywhere. He trudged around the back roads with high hedges, peered over farm gates and stiles, and followed meandering footpaths, but to no effect. Everyone had hunkered down inside, sheltering from the cold. The warm days had vanished as quickly as they’d come. Soon it was dark and he knew that Zoe would be wanting to go after Tim Downing. But he needed to find the girl first.
He saw them before he heard them. It was a flicker of flames through the wood that caught his eye as he trudged miserably along the lake’s shoreline. He followed the flames and soon realised that there was a party going on. He hung back, sheltering in the trees so he could take it all in.
Fifteen kids, some in their mid-teens, some maybe in their twenties, danced and cavorted around a fire. There were cans of cider and beer in their hands and someone had brought along a stereo which played rabidly tough, discordant music that seemed violent and crude. The kids loved it. They danced around the fire, whooping to the music, twirling and laughing: stoned, smashed, drunk, out of their tiny minds. He saw Ashley, all in white again, laughing and frolicking with two girls as they drank fiercely. Her face was lit by the flames, and as the others partied around her, so she swayed to the music, revelling in it.
Sam watched from a distance, shrouded in the night. He saw the kids jumping over the flames, pushing and fighting with each other, smashing bottles against trees. It was primal, a fight against rules and limits that was danced by each new generation in defiance of the old one. Sarah Downing would have done this herself, twenty years ago, Sam thought. And, in the middle of it all, the girl in white laughed and joked with her mates.
And then Ashley caught his eye.
He didn’t even know how she could see him from there, but her eyes hunted him out, somehow, and she left the others and found him.
‘You want me?’ she asked, starting to unbutton her top.
‘No.’
Behind them, the bonfire suddenly roared as one of the lads poured petrol onto it and the kids cheered and howled.
‘Jesus, you can’t pour petrol onto a fire like that. They’ll burn their faces off,’ Sam said.
Ashley laughed at him. She took his hand and held it like a girlfriend would.
‘I need some cash,’ she said softly.
‘I want to talk about what you were up to today. You can’t mess about like that. And we need to work out what you’ll say when the police come and ask you more questions.’
‘Not tonight, baby,’ she said and he faltered. Unexpectedly, she kissed him on the cheek.
‘Wasn’t I good today then?’ she asked.
‘No. You know you weren’t.’
The music thrashed through the trees. Its bass line was like a merciless stick that beat at him.
‘I did what you said, though, didn’t I?’
Sam looked at her, licked by the fire, her smile so sweet and so cruel. She knew she had him and he knew that this would play out in whatever ways she wanted, whatever he tried to do.
‘How much do you need?’ he asked wearily.
‘Fifty. Costs a bloody fortune in the club,’ she said with a sigh, as though she expected him to sympathise.
He dug into his wallet and handed her the money.
‘Thanks, babe.’
He didn’t know what to say. He heard another bottle break, and felt the heat of the fire as an idiot stoked it even higher with petrol.
‘You should go,’ she said. ‘This can get a bit crazy and you don’t want to be seen with us when it does.’
Her giving him advice. Her trying to protect him. He was powerless now.
The kids partied on. Sam backed away, tripping on invisible roots as he fled from the madness. She would be with them now, he thought, dancing and drinking and probably screwing.
He staggered to the lake, spooked by the whole thing. Its stillness was no comfort.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Sam seemed even more withdrawn when he finally came out of his room and marched ahead of Zoe, out of the hotel. He muttered stuff about his daughters and she knew well enough not to press him about it. But as they trudged through the dark, she felt compelled to talk.
‘Boss. You alright?’
‘Sure.’
‘No, I mean, are you alright for this, for Mr Downing?’
He looked at her, a glance of irritation, but he nodded. ‘Don’t worry, Zoe, I won’t fuck it up.’
‘Course not. Sorry.’
He walked on and she shuffled along next to him. A little later, he let out a long, slow sigh and stopped.
‘Sorry.’
He looked exhausted. She wanted to give him a hug but didn’t know how to bridge the gap. She chose a shit joke instead. ‘I’ll give you twenty quid if you make him cry,’ she said.
Ahead they could just make out the lit windows of the Downings’ house and those of its three neighbours. But other than that there was nothing. Clouds overhead masked the stars. Somewhere out there, the fells rose above them. Somewhere to their right, the land slipped gently away and led to the lake. But in this pitch-darkness there was nothing. Zoe imagined someone switching on a light and revealing that none of it existed at all.
Tim answered the door. He was wearing his usual outfit; this time his cords were lime-green, with a chequered blue shirt tucked in neatly by a brown leather belt. His shoes shone, perfectly clean. He nodded warily at them.
‘May we?’ Sam asked, and Tim reluctantly gestured for them t
o come inside. He closed the door quietly behind them.
‘I’m afraid Sarah has gone to bed. If you were hoping to talk to us both …’
He let the words drift in the hope that he’d be interrupted, but the two cops stared at him without offering any help. He looked at them, his mouth slightly agape, his shoulders tensing as he sensed the changing atmosphere in the room. Zoe waited for Sam to speak and stared grimly at Tim for effect.
‘How are you, Mr Downing?’ Sam made it sound as though his words were a criticism, not a question.
‘Same as ever.’
‘You should sit down,’ Sam said, and he walked to the kitchen table. Zoe followed him and clocked the confusion on Tim’s face. He sat down at the head of the table, where Sam had indicated, and the cops sat either side of him. He glanced nervously from one to the other. Neither smiled or offered him any solace.
‘Look, what’s going on?’ He voice sounded strangled.
Sam placed his big rugged hands on the table, calloused and scarred. Zoe watched as Tim stared nervously at them. Her heart was beating faster now.
Tim swallowed involuntarily. ‘Have you found something? From the autopsy, maybe?’
‘We’ve found something, yes.’
‘And?’
Neither cop spoke. Zoe watched Tim’s hands slip off the table and dig into his pockets.
‘Look, really, this silent treatment, it’s not appropriate. I’m the bloody dad, remember?’
‘We need to talk to you about your wife, sir.’
Zoe loved the way Sam would do this, with men like Tim – the tougher he’d be, the less he’d say and the more polite he would become.
‘There’s nothing to say about her.’
‘Can we talk about your movements from the moment you returned home that evening, please?’
‘Oh, I’m a suspect now, am I?’
‘No, sir. Your movements, please?’
‘For the millionth time: I got home. Sarah was there. And then Bud came up with Arthur’s bike. And that was when we started to panic.’
‘Bud.’