Over the next few hours she was busy with clients. ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Babs said several times during each consultation. Sometimes there were more important things than clients’ aches and pains. She slipped out and down the corridor to reception where she peered through the glass door of the waiting room.
Toby Carter. It looked as if he hadn’t moved from one of her visits to the next. Wondering how much longer he’d be waiting, Babs went to the minor surgery room where his wife was having her procedure.
Babs nudged the door of the anaesthetic room open a crack. It was empty apart from a nurse she didn’t know who was tidying away equipment. Babs pushed open the door fully with a smile. ‘I’m out of micropore tape, do you have a roll to spare?’
‘Sure.’ The nurse pulled open a drawer, took out a roll and handed it over.
‘Great, thanks.’ Babs tilted her head to the operating room. ‘A long case?’
‘No, nearly done, thank goodness. I could do with a break.’
‘Good.’ Babs waved the roll of tape. ‘Thanks for this.’
She’d left her latest client having treatment for shoulder pain using transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. The sound of the machine beeping to say the programme was complete came to her as she approached the door of the room and she swore under her breath. ‘Sorry,’ she said, pushing through the door with a frown of professional concentration on her face. ‘A complicated case came in.’ It sounded good but she could see by the tight lips of the client that she was neither fooled nor impressed.
The client remained silent as the two electrodes were peeled from her shoulder and left without a word or glance in Babs’ direction. She waited ten minutes to make sure the client had left the building before going back to the waiting room, desperate to catch a sight of Toby again.
Unfortunately, the client was in reception. Worse, she was in conversation with the physiotherapy department manager and neither of them looked happy.
Babs ducked back out of sight, swearing under her breath again, her eyes darting between the obviously irate client and the door to the waiting room.
Only a minute later, the nurse she’d spoken to earlier came along the corridor, a short, weedy, pale woman at her side.
This is Dee Carter? Babs sniffed, muttered a hello to the nurse and walked a few steps away, turning when she heard her name called, her hands curling into tight fists when she saw the furious expression on her manager’s face.
The manager was too professional to deal with the issue in the corridor and requested Babs’ attendance at a meeting in her office the following day. Unfortunately, Babs was only half-listening, too busy looking over the woman’s shoulder to where Toby and his weedy wife were nodding and smiling at the nurse.
‘At 2pm, if that’s not too much trouble.’
The acid sarcasm brought Babs’ attention reluctantly back. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘Have you been listening to a word I said?’
‘Of course,’ Babs said, trying to infuse her words with sincerity. ‘I’m sorry, it’s been a stressful day.’
The manager’s downturned mouth didn’t indicate sympathy and her next words were staccato sharp. ‘Tomorrow. At 2pm. My office.’ She gave Babs a scathing look and walked away.
As soon as she’d gone, the following day’s meeting was forgotten. Babs hurried to the floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the reception area to scan the car park, her eyes narrowing against the glare of the sun as she searched for one more glimpse of Toby.
Over the next few weeks, Babs found out as much as she could about Toby Carter. It wasn’t hard, it simply took persistence and dedication. She used some of her precious annual leave to hang around outside his house in Croydon, followed him when he left for work, then hung around there gathering more information.
She found him on Facebook, drooled over the few photographs that were public. Unsurprisingly, her friend request was denied so she made do with what she had and copied and printed out the few photographs available. Cutting his wife and friends from them, she had them blown up to poster size and hung them on her wall, adding other photos over the years – the ones she snapped with her mobile phone when he wasn’t looking.
Her obsession became her passion but, eventually, looking at him from a distance wasn’t sufficient. She wanted much more.
It required weeks of careful preparation and planning to arrange an accidental meeting. She knew where he worked, which gym he visited, the shops he liked to frequent, the café near his office where he liked to stop for coffee.
The café seemed the most suitable venue for her plan. Sometimes Toby stopped for coffee on his way to work in the morning, sometimes he’d call in for one mid-morning or at lunchtime or, very occasionally, later in the afternoon. But it was a rare day when he didn’t go in at some stage.
Years of observing him had given her an advantage; she knew he liked the finer things in life and in preparation for their meeting, spent a fortune on herself. It was, she decided, an investment in her future.
When the day she’d planned for came, she arrived at the café early. She sat with her Armani jacket hanging over the back of a spare chair, her Gucci handbag on the tabletop beside her and her legs crossed, one foot swinging to show off the red sole of her Louboutin shoes. Her mousy brown hair had been cut and expertly dyed, shades of blonde shining in the overhead lights.
The stage was set. She had her Kindle with her and was willing to wait the whole day, reading book after book, if that was what it took for the meeting she knew would change her life.
When Toby walked through the doors of the café mid-morning, she took his early arrival as a good omen and struggled to keep a smile of pleasure from curving her lips. Her eyes flicked from the book she wasn’t reading to where he stood in the queue. He’d order a macchiato. He always did.
She waited until he’d taken a seat on the other side of the busy café before getting to her feet, and with her Gucci bag over her arm she weaved around the tables to the exit. She stopped to slip on her jacket, turning as she did so to let her eyes drift around the room. Then she gave a loud gasp, lifted a hand in greeting and rushed over to his table. ‘Peter!’ Her voice was pitched husky sexy as she bent down to press a kiss against his cheek and her breasts against his shoulder. ‘It’s been so long.’ She pulled back then and let a look of horror appear, open mouth, wide eyes. ‘Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. Gosh, please forgive me, you are so like an old college friend of mine.’ She held both hands over her chest, careful to emphasise the Gucci logo on her bag.
‘Lucky friend,’ Toby said with relaxed gallantry.
‘I’m so embarrassed.’ Babs flapped a hand before her face. ‘Do you mind if I sit a moment?’
Of course, he hadn’t minded and offered to get her a drink.
Babs, who’d drunk enough coffee that morning to last a lifetime, nodded. ‘That’s so kind of you. A macchiato would be lovely, thank you.’
And that was the start of what she had hoped would be the rest of her life. She didn’t give the skinny whippet of a wife a second thought. If she couldn’t hang on to Toby, someone else would and that would be Babs. She’d hang on to him and keep him so happy he’d never want to leave.
When, after only a few weeks, Toby left his wife and moved in with Babs, she’d thought, this was it. Happy ever after. Her life became a whirl of dinners in fancy restaurants, weekends away, shopping trips to top up her, and his, expensive wardrobes, nights wrapped in his arms, days when her face ached from smiling.
Her life, so dull and lifeless before, sizzled.
Then Misty had slithered in and stolen Toby away.
21
Babs
‘Ms Sanderson?’ DI Hopper’s voice dragged Babs back to her Streatham apartment. ‘I asked you… was that why you called around to confront Misty Eastwood? You held her responsible for Mr Carter leaving you?’
‘We were happy together until he met her, so what do you think? That day–’ Ba
bs remembered the absolute pleasure she’d felt as her clenched fist had connected with the writer’s cheek. ‘–I was having a bad day, had a bit to drink and lost my temper.’ There was no point in telling the police that she’d spent hours outside the house in Hanwell hoping to catch a glimpse of Toby and even more time staring up at the window where Misty sat, hating her with a fury that had finally driven Babs to act. There was no point in telling the police that she still went every day.
‘Sounds like you have a nasty temper, you were lucky Ms Eastwood didn’t call the police.’
‘She was lucky I didn’t kill her.’ Babs grinned as if to indicate she was joking, but she wasn’t sure she was. She’d often wondered, if Toby hadn’t returned, would she have stopped, or kept going until she’d beaten the bitch to a pulp.
Hopper didn’t look amused. She made a note in her notebook and sat back. ‘According to Ms Eastwood, Mr Carter was leaving her for someone else. How did that make you feel?’
Babs stared at the detective for a moment before releasing a sigh. ‘I didn’t know about that until that woman called here yesterday looking for him. Gwen something or other… glamorous but old. Anyway, in the last few weeks, I’ve come to my senses, you know. Faced reality.’
‘Reality?’ Hopper queried when the silence stretched.
‘That I’m broke. Behind in my mortgage. Maxed out on my credit cards.’ Babs ran a hand over her hair. ‘I can’t even afford to go to the hairdresser.’
‘You gave him money?’
‘Fifty quid now and then, when he’d–’ She made inverted commas in the air. ‘–forgotten his wallet. But that wasn’t the problem really, it was all the other expenses. Toby liked the good life. Expensive restaurants, fine wine, a whisky to finish off a meal. He liked to get gifts too…’ Babs’ voice faded. ‘He was very amorous and attentive afterward, the more costly the gift, the more amorous he became. Plus there were the weekends away in posh hotels where everyone wore designer clothes. Every trip meant shopping beforehand to buy new clothes for us both.’
Babs had tried to keep Toby so happy that he wouldn’t want to leave her. Unfortunately, his happiness was directly proportionate to how much money she spent on him and the money ran out. And now here she was… broke. She’d no illusions about the job either. For the moment she was on suspension but she’d a feeling one of those letters she was refusing to open was from the human resources manager of the clinic. Babs was ignoring it the same way she was ignoring the final demands and the letters from the bank.
‘Did he force you to pay for everything?’ Hopper’s voice was suddenly gentle as if she wasn’t sure what she was dealing with here and was making an effort to tread carefully.
Babs brought her thoughts back from her money woes and looked at the detective with wide eyes before snorting a laugh. ‘What, you think I was gaslighted or something? You don’t understand.’ She laughed again but this time the sound held thick layers of sadness. ‘Toby is charisma personified. He has the ability to make you feel like you’re something special, something amazing.’ She held her arms out. ‘I mean look at me, I’m not exactly a beauty.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘But when I was with him, I felt gorgeous and charming, everything I ever wanted to be but wasn’t. I would have spent every penny to hold on to that.’ She slumped back with a loud sigh. ‘I did spend every penny: all my savings, all my salary every month.’
‘I’m sorry.’
The sympathy on the older detective’s face looked genuine. Babs nodded in acknowledgement and decided to ignore what she took to be an expression of derision on the painted face of the younger detective. Babs pressed her lips together to hold back the tears she felt building. ‘Do you know what the saddest thing is, Detective Inspector Hopper? It’s that despite this reality, despite waking up to my situation, I’d take him back tomorrow and sell my soul to keep him.’
22
Dee
Dee Carter lived in a small, terraced Victorian house on Cedar Road in Croydon. A black-and-terracotta tiled path led from a wrought-iron gate to an unattractive uPVC front door but the windows, one down and two above, were original wooden sashes. The area between the front wall and the house would no doubt at one time have been a pretty garden but necessity had caused it to be concreted in; now all that bloomed in it were a proliferation of recycling bins.
Dee had been waiting anxiously for someone to call with news since she’d reported her husband missing early that morning. Mug after mug of tea was downed as she sat on the sofa in the living room with the phone beside her, afraid to turn on the TV in case she missed something.
Fine voile curtains at the windows gave a soft-focus view of the road outside. But the fabric didn’t soften the edges of the two women who arrived and stood at the gate staring at the house. Police. Panic jolted Dee to her feet. Wasn’t it only bad news that was delivered in person?
She heard them mumbling outside before they pressed the doorbell. Maybe they were practising the words they were going to use to impart the news.
Dee swallowed a sob and before the echoing chime of the doorbell faded, she wrenched the door open. A petite woman, she was immediately intimidated by the tall officers who stood shoulder to shoulder on the doorstep. She glanced blankly at the proffered identification, stood back and waved them into the narrow entrance hall.
Their grim, set faces increased her nervous anxiety. She wanted to bark out tell me but she was a woman used to waiting and convinced as she was that the news was bad, she wanted contrarily to put the words off as long as she could, to live in ignorance a little longer, to pretend that everything was going to end happily ever after as she had for so many years.
She wondered if they found her silence odd or if they were used to people’s varying reactions to bad news. Bad news. Toby, my love.
She finally found words to use. ‘Please, go in.’ She pointed to the doorway of the living room. ‘Have a seat. Can I get you coffee, tea or something?’ She saw them look around, their eyes assessing.
She’d done her best with the small space. When they’d bought the house almost fifteen years before, there had been shelving to both sides of the chimney breast. She had it removed from one side to fit one of the two sofas they’d brought with them from their previous home but they still overpowered the room. Between them, a low coffee table almost covered the remainder of the polished wooden floor.
The two detectives sat and looked up to where she hovered in the doorway. ‘Coffee would be good,’ Hopper said. ‘Both black, thank you.’
Dee returned minutes later and set a tray down on the table. ‘Here you go, coffee and biscuits. You can’t have a cuppa without something to eat, can you?’ Her forced cheerfulness sounded wrong even to her ears and she wondered what they thought of her.
She waited until they’d picked up their mugs before she sat on the other sofa. A mug of tea was held clasped to her chest. She wanted to draw the heat from it in hope it would stop the shivers that had been sweeping over her since she’d realised Toby wasn’t coming back.
Hopper’s stubby fingers curled through the handle of the mug. She lifted it and sipped, her eyes never leaving Babs’ face. ‘You went into Croydon Police Station this morning to report your husband missing, Mrs Carter.’
‘Dee, please.’ A nervous smile fluttered and died.
‘Dee, you reported your husband missing.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You haven’t heard from him.’
‘No. No, that’s why I reported him missing.’
‘He might have contacted you since, is what I mean.’
They thought she was stupid. She could see it in their eyes, in the derisive smile on the younger officer’s bright-red lips. ‘Ah, sorry, I’m sorry.’ Dee shook her head, annoyed with herself for apologising, with them for making her feel a fool, with Toby for leaving her… again. Maybe they were right, maybe she was stupid. ‘I get you. No, he didn’t, I haven’t heard from him.’
‘Right.’
Hopper reached into her pocket for her notebook, flipped it open and searched in her other pocket for a pen. ‘You told the station you haven’t seen your husband since last week but he normally rang you every day.’
‘That’s right.’
Hopper looked at the notes, squinting to read. Despite the window, there was little light in the room. ‘You last heard from him three days ago.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Nothing special,’ Dee said. ‘He asked how my job was, I asked him how his was, and that was about it.’
‘He didn’t say anything about the woman he was living with?’
‘No.’ One curt word. Dee could have told them that he never did speak about them… these women he dallied with, the bits of fluff he picked up and dropped as quickly, the ones he lingered with for a night, a week, longer, all the women there had been over the years. He never spoke about his women but she knew about them. Sometimes she’d follow him, weighing up and assessing her opponent in a fight she won in her head every time.
When Hopper waved a hand to get her attention she wondered how long she’d been lost in her memories. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘It’s all a bit stressful.’
‘I was asking if you knew where he was living?’
Dee’s expression stayed grim. ‘With some tart called Babs, in Streatham.’
‘You didn’t know he’d moved from Streatham to Hanwell and was, in fact, planning a move to Knightsbridge.’
Dee’s mouth twisted. ‘The tart came into money, did she? He’d have liked that.’
‘No.’ Hopper sat forward. ‘You didn’t know he’d left Babs and moved in with another woman in Hanwell?’
The Lies He Told: a gripping psychological suspense thriller Page 9