by Emma Rowley
The room was utterly still: the two heads frozen as both detectives waited for him to speak.
“I don’t know where Olivia was the night Nicky disappeared,” he said slowly. “Because I wasn’t with her.”
* * *
For a second I think Moran heard it as something else: a confession.
“Are you saying . . .”
But no.
“I was with someone else,” Josh said. “All night.”
Barnett got it first. “Are you saying you were cheating on your wife?”
My husband gave a cough. “Well—yes. I’m afraid I am.”
He looked as if he were apologetic, but I could read the relief in his stance. He had relaxed now he was actually doing this: he could see his way out.
“It’s very awkward, but this person will be able to vouch for me. I was with Sabrina Alderson—you’ll recall that she was one of our guests that night. Her husband Leo wanted to leave before she did, and so we offered her one of the guest rooms, as we often do, and I, er, joined her in there.”
I knew this already, of course. He has never been very subtle about his activities.
Even if I hadn’t still been awake when he left our bed that night, the early morning shower he had taken, breaking his usual weekend routine, would have given him away the next day.
I remembered how the party had ended that evening: Leo and Sabrina standing out by their car, her hushed angry whisper reaching us as we said our goodbyes to Harry and Lucy: “. . . so much to drink, Leo.” Like she could talk.
His response, carelessly loud, carried through the night: “Stay then. I’m going.” And then he had got in the car and driven away, gravel spurting up from the wheels.
Well, of course Sabrina had to stay, Harry and Lucy were going in quite the other direction, Josh said. And so he set her up in a spare bedroom down the hall from us, and I felt the mattress shift and roll as soon as he thought I was asleep.
She had gone by the time I went downstairs the next morning: he must have given her a lift. Perhaps even Josh couldn’t face his wife and mistress and daughter sitting around the breakfast table together when he had a hangover.
“And is this the first time that you and this woman have . . .” That was Moran.
“No. No, I’m afraid not. Things being what they are between my wife and I . . . we have tried to do our best, for our daughter. But our marriage has its problems.”
“And she will say the same, will she? This Sabrina.”
“Yes . . . I rather think she will.” He sounded so mild, so gentle—so reasonable.
Things were worse than I had realized, then, if Josh was so sure she would vouch for him that night. Inside the room, he was still talking: “And as Sabrina is still living in the family home herself, for the moment, I trust you’ll be suitably discreet . . .”
Barnett tipped her head to one side in a questioning gesture I could read as clearly as she had spoken: Really? Tiptoeing round the niceties of his shagging was not her priority. I liked her a little more for that.
But now his wrongdoing would give him an alibi and put all of their focus on me. Josh didn’t need to spell it out, but he did anyway. “So of course, the unfortunate thing is . . . I cannot say what my wife was doing that night, after all.”
Chapter 56
Despair surged up in me, my eyes prickling. I moved away from the door quietly and went through the house, out to the kitchen garden. Bea was examining a worm that Cav had turned up, curling pink and exposed against the brown soil.
I walked over to the arch of the wall to compose myself, not wanting her to see me upset. Down at the bottom of the lawn, it looked like the diving team was finished for the day, putting equipment away in their van. Thank God.
I turned my back on them to watch Bea, my throat still burning as I fought back regret. I should never have let Sabrina under my roof, whining about her issues with Leo—as if I didn’t know why her marriage was really in trouble.
Not that my own was in a better state. Josh taking up with the nanny was bad enough; I’d turned a blind eye to that for as long as I could, not wanting to disrupt things for Bea.
Sabrina was trickier still: I’d known her for a long time. I didn’t want a rift. So I told myself, let him get bored, let it burn itself out. Just keep it all together. Don’t crack—even when she turned up at the house last Tuesday, interrupting that quiet meal, supposedly wanting “our” support and advice.
But it was worse than I could have imagined, having her stay. When Leo failed to turn up for tennis the next day, of course I knew why—and couldn’t hide my frustration from anyone.
Then, when the information about my past leaked online, I made the mistake of telling Josh. Reading it on my phone, I hadn’t thought of a lie quickly enough to explain my shocked expression. His anger surprised me—he was sick of the drama, he said; Sabrina was surely stirring the pot: Poor you, having to deal with Liv’s baggage.
When he wanted to cancel our dinner party, coming up with some excuse about the chatter online, I knew he was worried people would be talking about him and Sabrina—especially if she was a no-show, after I’d told her off about the cigarette.
I didn’t see why I should cancel; Nicky could take her place. When Sabrina turned up after all, I ended up seating the two of them together—I didn’t want Sabrina anywhere near Josh, if I could help it. But that was another mistake; she was so drunk. What could she have told Nicky? I’d never been sure exactly what she knew . . .
I shook my head. There was no point doing this to myself, not right now.
“Bea,” I called. “Time to go in. Cav’s got to get on. Thanks for looking after her,” I added.
He nodded, as she trotted over. “Found treasure,” she said confidentially, then bent down with a huff to pick something off her shoe.
“Did you, Bea,” I said absently. “Just like Peppa.” The little pig’s treasure hunt was her favorite episode.
“No,” she said firmly. She put a hand on my jeans and pulled. “Found treasure.”
And then I finally paid attention to where she was looking, and turned round.
There was no sense of urgency in the scene before me, no one rushing or running about, no one in the water, from what I could see.
But something about the way they were standing, the lines of their bodies not quite relaxed, held me there on the grass, still under the vast white sky.
And then I saw what was on the ground, what they had dredged up from the water.
* * *
Eventually I found my voice. “No, Bea, that’s not treasure.”
It didn’t look like anything to be afraid of: no telltale bundle of clothes and something else lying by the rushes. It was just a small dark shape flat against a yellow tarpaulin. It was covered in mud, although in one spot the dirt had come off, perhaps where a diver had handled it. But I saw the dull gleam, and I knew what had surfaced from the lake, what could bring my house of cards tumbling down completely.
They hadn’t found what—who—they were looking for.
But they had found the gun.
* * *
There was nothing to do right then but take Bea back inside.
I kept up a stream of loud chatter to announce my approach through the house: “. . . time for tea Bea, fish sticks I think, are you hungry yet—everything OK?”
That was to Josh, already in the hall with Moran and Barnett. My husband’s guilt was written all over his face—I had to bite back an impulse to ask him what was wrong, calling him out. But they all acted as if this was a routine visit; as if the detectives had just been checking in. We both saw them out.
The rest of the day passed in its usual fashion. Josh kept looking at his phone and going to make calls—Sabrina? The police? I didn’t know—then he went out again later, saying he had a few things to do. He didn’t bother to make anything up.
At one point I went up to my study. I phoned the guy who normally helped me with my contracts an
d asked for a recommendation. He gave me a name of a firm in Chester, the nearest city to us. I knew I needed a lawyer now, that it was just a matter of time after the detectives’ talk with Josh—and them finding that thing in the lake.
Then I went through the motions of Bea’s teatime, bath time, bedtime. Everything was beginning to feel dangerously muffled, somehow removed from me, as if I were underwater. And yet I knew everything was moving far too fast. I had to stop it. I asked Annie to listen out for Bea, in case she woke up, and went out.
* * *
As I walked up the dark cottage path, I wondered how to play it. I hadn’t seen him for years, only from a distance since I had been back. Of course we hadn’t talked. But I had nowhere else to turn now, except to the person who had helped me long ago.
He opened the front door, light spilling into the night. Behind him I could hear the buzz of the television. There was a faint smell of cooking in the air, onions sizzling.
And I could see from his expression, as he recognized me, that it was a mistake to just turn up.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said, immediately.
“I’m sorry, but please let me explain—I just need your advice. I’m in trouble.”
He stepped deftly in front of the door, pulling it to behind him. “I can’t help you.”
“I know what you did for us, all those years ago . . .”
He just shook his head, then, his mouth closed. He is a tough man, I thought, his job has made him so.
“. . . and I’ve always been grateful, Mr. Gregory, to your nephew, too . . .” I could hear the ugly pleading tone in my voice.
From inside the house, a woman’s voice called: “Pete, love? The film’s about to start. Who’s that there?”
We were silent, my eyes searching his face: I could see the distaste written across it, and something else, too. That was when I knew he would not help me: he was afraid.
“You need to go,” he said, his voice low but emphatic. “Now.”
I knew how risky it could be to press him. I didn’t wait for him to tell me again.
* * *
Back home, I went to my bedroom and sat on the bed, feeling the house vast and silent around me. I switched on the TV on the wall. When Josh came back, I heard him disappear to a guest room again.
I couldn’t sleep. I went up to my office: I had time to arrange some loose ends, but there didn’t really seem to be anything much worth doing, when it came to it. Eventually, I closed my laptop and went in to see Bea as she lay sleeping in her painted jungle.
“I never meant for any of this to happen,” I whispered to her. I touched one soft, hot cheek. “All I wanted was to forget what had happened. I don’t know how I can make it all right again now. But maybe one day you will be able to understand.”
Chapter 57
I was ready and dressed, when they arrived the next day: the gruesome twosome, Moran and Barnett, with two uniformed officers behind them. As if I was going to kick off, make a fuss. I stood back from the door and let them all into the hall, waiting. In a way, I had been waiting for this to happen for a very long time.
“We’ve got a warrant to search the address. Section eight PACE warrant,” said Moran. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Nicola Wilson.”
I sat down on the stairs behind me. For some reason I still felt the shock of it, now that it was finally happening.
“And of disposing of her body in a manner likely to obstruct the coroner,” he continued.
So they thought I’d hidden Nicky’s body somewhere.
“You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” I said, finally. “But I didn’t do it.”
“We can speak to you at the station,” he said. “These officers will transport you there.”
I saw Annie at the top of the stairs. “Tell Josh I have been arrested,” I said then. “Look after Bea.” I couldn’t say good-bye to her.
* * *
At the police station in Mansford, I had to give my fingerprints. Someone swabbed my skin and my mouth, for DNA, collected scrapings from under my fingernails, and plucked a sample of my hair. They took away my clothes and gave me a too-big gray tracksuit and sneakers to wear.
I was polite, and they were, too. There was no point making things more unpleasant than they had to be. They had done it all before, and for some reason that scared me more than if they were all riled up, shouting and swearing like on TV.
I told them I wanted a lawyer, one from a firm recommended to me, and they said they would contact them. “I need to make arrangements for my daughter,” I said then, and they were quite reasonable about letting me make that call also.
Not to Josh, but to Lucy. I asked her to please go and pick up Bea from my house, could she and Harry look after her for the night. Maybe for the next couple of days . . . I couldn’t go into why just now. Lucy was confused, then alarmed, but agreed.
I didn’t want Bea in the house while things unfolded, and Josh was never great at handling her alone at the best of times. I couldn’t leave it all to Annie.
Then, after the suddenness of it all, everything moved slowly again. I was put in a cell, small and boxy and with an undertone of vomit that the smell of disinfectant couldn’t mask. I was alone, for which I was grateful, but I had nothing to do now—they’d taken my phone and handbag. So I waited, trying to stay calm. Trying not to think about things that couldn’t help me.
* * *
It felt like hours before an officer showed me into the little room where my lawyer was. Nadia Malik, she said her name was: tall and glossy despite her gray suit, but surprisingly young-looking.
“The first thing you need to know is that with something of this seriousness, it’s standard procedure to arrest before they question you,” she told me briskly. “It doesn’t mean they have enough to actually charge you. OK?”
I nodded. But I couldn’t say I was reassured as she started to explain what the police wanted to talk to me about. “There was minimal disclosure,” she said, more to herself than me, as she opened her notebook. She only had the barest details.
Yet it still seemed like a lot, as she read out the outline of the case they’d given her, starting with the potential evidence of a crime. The fact that Nicola Wilson hadn’t used her phone—had left it behind, in fact—or her bank cards. That she had not been heard from by friends or contacts since Friday night—it was now Wednesday, she reminded me unnecessarily. The unknown whereabouts of Nicola’s laptop and voice recorder. The discovery of her necklace, possibly torn off in an altercation.
And then she moved on to their suspicions relating to me, in particular.
The circumstances of the fire that had occurred at the house some years ago. And the gun found on my property, which might have a bearing on a potential historic crime.
Her eyes flickered from her notes to my face at that: I didn’t react.
Signs of disturbance in a second cellar, she continued. . .
I wondered if that was where they thought I had put the body, at some stage.
“I do know Nicky was in there,” I offered. “They might find, I don’t know, her hair or something, but that doesn’t mean anything. She went down there of her own volition.”
She didn’t react. And, she said then, the police had an account from my husband. “I gather,” she added, raising her eyebrows slightly, “that your alibi for the night Nicky disappeared has been withdrawn.”
“Yes. But they haven’t found a body.” I clung to that fact.
My lawyer seemed less moved than I’d have hoped. “That’s true. But if the evidence is sufficient, they can prosecute in the absence of a body. And of course they’ll be in your house now, looking for trace amounts of blood, any signs of violence.”
I pictured officers in white plastic suits, dogs
sniffing around the place . . .
She closed her notepad with a snap and steepled her fingers.
“Now, Olivia,” she said. “It’s difficult for me to assess the strength of the case at this point. When the police interview you, it will be recorded and could be used in any trial. So, my advice to you is to make no comment, and in due course we can assess all the evidence they have. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Don’t commit us to something we can’t take back, she was telling me. Get your story straight later.
I nodded, pushing down my panic. “OK.”
* * *
When my lawyer was sure I knew what to say—nothing—she went to tell an officer that we were ready. We were moved to another stuffy room where Barnett and Moran were waiting for us at a small Formica table. A battered-looking camera was fixed in the corner of the room. They checked that I knew it was recording, announced who was present, our names, my details. I was reminded, incongruously, of Nicky, just days ago in my living room, getting our names for the tape in that first session.
“Olivia,” said Moran. “I’ll caution you that you do not need to say anything, but anything you do say . . .” and he ran over those familiar words again.
They checked I knew what the caution meant; reminded me I could break to speak to my lawyer separately, at any point, if I wished. And then we began.
Chapter 58
“So, Olivia,” said Moran. “We’re here to talk about the disappearance of Nicky Wilson. And the offense we are investigating is murder.”
Nadia interrupted then, to tell them that she had advised me, her client, to say “no comment,” before starting to read from a sheet of paper she had prepared. “My client wishes to exercise her right not to answer any questions but has asked me to read out this statement. . .”
As we’d agreed, it denied the offense, repeated what I’d already told them—I had been asleep in my bed all that night, I did not know what had happened to Nicky Wilson—before concluding: “My client will now answer no comment to any further questions.”