CHAPTER EIGHTY
By the time Jo walked into the Kramers’ kitchen the discussion was in full swing. Nick Boden and Gordon Kramer were facing each other across the granite island and the chrome taps. Harry McNair-Phillips was shuffling through the trial papers as he made a point, the laptop was open, Tania was making coffee and Alison was watching.
They all turned to look as she came in, but Gordon was first off the mark. ‘Ah, Jo. An update for you. Foley’s off the hook, born 1980 and was never a postgrad. Whereas Vaizey definitely fits the profile.’
Jo was staring at her parents. ‘Nathan told me.’
Harry removed his glasses. ‘But it’s going to be a hell of a job proving it.’
‘Have you thought maybe Vaizey and Foley knew each back then?’
The lawyer scratched his head. ‘That would complicate the issue even more, if this is some kind of conspiracy.’
Gordon folded his arms. ‘You think it is, Jo?’
She sighed. ‘Who knows?’ It felt to her as if she knew nothing.
Alison stepped forward and put her arms round her daughter. ‘Are you all right?’
Jo glanced from her mother to her father. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen them in the same room together. Since Nick Boden had remarried, his ex-wife had refused to speak to him.
He gave his daughter a nervous smile. ‘Your mother and I agree . . .’ he hesitated, possibly to highlight the rarity of this, ‘that it would be best if you came and stayed with me for a while.’
‘How would that work, Dad? You planning to hide me from the police?’
‘We only want to protect you, Jo.’ She noticed him swallowing and the glint of a tear.
Gordon Kramer waded in. ‘I’ve spoken to the Deputy Assistant Commissioner and told him he’s got a problem. He’s agreed to see me at twelve o’clock. Once we show him all the footage and recordings we’ve got, I think he’ll agree he has to at least investigate Vaizey.’
Jo nodded and checked her watch. ‘That’s helpful. Thanks, Gordon.’ He meant well, they all did.
Alison looped her arm through Jo’s. ‘You wouldn’t be hiding exactly. But until this is sorted out, we think you’d be safest at your dad’s.’
Nick Boden was nodding. ‘She’s right. I can drive you back to Norfolk with me right now.’
Jo smiled. She studied her parents’ earnest faces and she didn’t want to hurt their feelings. But how was it that they had no real perception of who she was? Was it the fallout from their shared family tragedy or something that would’ve occurred over time anyway?
She wondered who’d called whom. The initiative must’ve been Alison’s, she knew more of what was going on. Either way, her parents managing to adopt a united front in order to try and help her was a momentous thing in itself. She should probably be grateful.
They were all watching her expectantly. She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to work. I know you both want to look after me. But I’m not a little girl any more. Or a teenager like Sarah. I’m a grown woman. And I’m a police officer. You want to help me, Dad, lend me your car.’
‘What? I don’t—’
‘If you recall, I qualified as a police driver some years ago.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Okay. If you don’t want to help me.’
Alison huffed. ‘Of course he wants to help you. For God’s sake, Nick, give her the keys.’
He stared at his daughter. She had a confidence and resolution that puzzled him. ‘I don’t want to argue with you—’
‘Then don’t. I know what I’m doing, Dad.’
Her gaze bored into his. He pulled the keys from his pocket and handed them over.
Jo turned to Tania. ‘And can I borrow some of your fancy kit plus a phone? I chucked mine in the river.’
The producer nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
As Jo gunned her father’s Range Rover Evoque up the outside lane of the A12 she reflected on the difference between driving this and her mother’s Astra. It felt like some kind of caustic comment on the way their lives had diverged. One of Tania’s researchers, who was taking the morning shift outside Cynthia’s office, had reported that she hadn’t turned up for work and Jo was taking a punt on her being at home – and on her own. Vaizey would have already left for the office.
The confidence Jo had displayed at the Kramers’ was a bit of an act. She was suspended from duty and out on a limb. Going to confront Cynthia in her own home was a huge risk. Was it even the best way to proceed? Probably not. A formal interview at a police station was more likely to persuade her to tell the truth.
But Jo had another siren voice whispering in her ear and its motives were far more suspect. She wanted to go there and see it, see the home and family he’d walked away from her to go back to. I’m married and I intend to stay married. It made no sense after what that bastard’d done to her, but still squirming inside her subconscious was the primal impulse to take a sniff at a sexual rival in her lair.
Kayleigh had provided the address and Jo drove through Ingatestone village and into a leafy lane of large, recently built luxury homes. Each driveway had a tall hedge, a clipped lawn and at least one high-end four-by-four or expensive sports car. This was the Essex of serious money, of City financiers and celebrity hideaways.
A small white van pootled ahead of her and pulled up. The lettering on the side advertised its business as Jules’s Doggy Daycare and the driver opened the back doors to load two Golden Retrievers being handed over by their owner.
Jo parked in the road outside and surveyed the house. It was large, a portico with columns either side of the front door, a double garage and a substantial garden ringed for privacy with shrubs and trees. She walked up the semicircular brick drive. It was unlikely that Steve Vaizey had come to afford all this on even a senior police officer’s salary. Cynthia and her successful branding agency must’ve paid for their multimillion-pound home.
If there was a spyhole in the front door Cynthia didn’t use it. Answering, while the doorbell was still chiming, she was clearly expecting someone else and looked aghast when she saw Jo Boden on her doorstep.
‘What the hell—’ Her right cheekbone was bruised and mauve with a large contusion that was partly closing her eye. She had a coat and scarf on and a suitcase behind her in the hallway. ‘I thought you were my brother.’
‘Did Steve do that to you? You need to go to the police.’
‘The police? You think I’m stupid?’ She shot a nervous glance towards the road. ‘I’m hiring a security firm and a very expensive divorce lawyer.’
‘You won’t need a security firm if your testimony sends him to prison.’
‘He never gives up. Never.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
Cynthia ignored her and turned back into the house. ‘Sasha, put your coat on now!’
Jo moved forward. ‘When you told him about Briony, what did he do?’
‘I certainly didn’t think he’d kill her. I swear to you.’
‘What did you think he would do?’
An Audi Estate turned into the drive.
Cynthia gazed at the driver with relief. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She turned back into the house and called. ‘Come on, kids! Uncle Mark’s here.’
Jo grabbed her arm. ‘Cynthia, please.’
She flinched and pulled away. ‘Leave me alone. I don’t know if he killed your sister.’
‘What did happen that night?’
Cynthia was in a spin. The cool, perfectly groomed businesswoman was gone, she looked broken and fearful.
‘Okay, it’s true, we did see Nathan.’
‘We?’
‘Me and Steve. We were a bit pissed. Nathan asked the time. Steve looked at his watch and told him.’
‘Then what did you do?’
‘I thought Steve was coming back with me.’
‘You were sleeping together?’
‘On and
off. I knew he was still obsessed with Sarah. That was pretty obvious.’
The little boy that Jo had seen in the surveillance video emerged from the house and with him an older girl, possibly ten or eleven. Uncle Mark got out of the Audi and opened the back door for them.
Cynthia was trying to hide her panic from the children; she shepherded them towards the car. ‘Jump in. Seat belts on.’
Jo watched them, they were taking their cue from their mother, both looked extremely anxious. The girl had the hard watchful grey eyes of her father. She glared at Jo. Cynthia’s brother gave her a curt nod as he stepped into the hallway to collect two large suitcases.
‘Did you know that my sister got pregnant?’
Cynthia was fussing over the children, but this stopped her in her tracks. She closed the back door of the car and stepped away from it.
Her gaze came to rest on Jo. She was visibly shaking. ‘Was it his?’
‘I don’t know. She had an abortion.’
A distracted look spread over Cynthia’s features, a glimpse of some private torment. ‘He told me once, some years after uni, that if I ever had an abortion he’d kill me. When I became pregnant we got married straight away.’
‘He didn’t come back with you that night?’
‘No. He said he was going to move his car, didn’t want to get a ticket. He didn’t come back.’
‘How did he seem?’
‘Moody. He was always moody. I didn’t see him until about a week later. And then he was nice as pie.’
‘But by then Nathan Wade would’ve been arrested. Why didn’t you go to the police and tell them you’d seen him that night?’
Tears welled in Cynthia’s eyes.
Jo watched her. Contrition or fear? It was hard to tell. ‘You knew it was Steve, didn’t you? Or you suspected?’
She brushed away the tears. ‘I didn’t know anything. But I knew what he was like. That he wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
The suitcases were loaded in the back of the Audi and Cynthia opened the passenger door.
‘I’m sorry for all of it. But you have to understand—’
A grey BMW turned into the drive at speed and came to a sharp stop in front of the Audi.
‘—I was in love with him.’
Vaizey got out. His gaze zeroed in on Jo then flipped back to his wife. ‘What’s going on?’
Mark came round to stand in front of his sister. He was a big bloke, thickset. He placed his hands on his hips. ‘Don’t make any trouble, Steve.’
‘Or what? You’ll call the police?’ Vaizey huffed his disdain, glanced at Jo then back to his wife. ‘What nonsense have you told her?’
Cynthia remained behind Mark. ‘Nothing. Nothing she can prove. Please let us go.’
He jabbed an index finger in his wife’s direction. ‘They’re my children, that’s why they bear my name.’
‘Let us go. That’s all I ask.’
‘I will take half your assets and bankrupt your business. It’ll cost you a fortune in lawyers just to fight me.’
Mark took Cynthia by the shoulders and steered her to the passenger seat of the Audi. Once she was safely in the car, he trotted round to the driver’s seat, got in, backed up and drove round the BMW.
The Audi accelerated down the drive, brake lights flashing on as it paused at the gate, then it turned out into the lane and disappeared.
Steve Vaizey sighed as he flicked his key fob back and forth in his fingers. ‘What is it they say, marry in haste, repent at leisure?’
Jo scanned him, if he was angry there was no real sign of it. He seemed blankly indifferent. This was the opposite of her own tumultuous feelings. She knew she should probably get away while she could.
But he turned to her and smiled. ‘Don’t look so worried, Jo. I’m not going to hurt you.’
‘I’ve seen the state of your wife’s face.’
‘She came at me with a very sharp Sabatier carving knife. Believe me, when her blood’s up she’s dangerous.’
He went to the BMW and took his briefcase from the passenger seat. He held it up. ‘Come on in and have a drink, I’ve got something on my laptop I want to show you.’
Jo stood rooted to the spot. Outside she was comparatively safe. Her heart was thumping, her palms were clammy.
He seemed amused by her reluctance. ‘Don’t be put off by that little marital tiff. You’ve been a cop long enough to know there are two sides to every domestic. Don’t you want to hear my side of the story?’
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Jo hesitated. She’d never thought facing him would be easy. But what had she expected? She watched him unlock the front door and disappear into the house. It left her feeling vaguely foolish, hovering on the doorstep. The idea of him with Sarah still felt incongruous. The evidence against him was circumstantial. Could this all be a vast misunderstanding?
He reappeared with a bottle of single malt in his hand. ‘Be realistic. I’m not likely to set about you in my own home. Think of the forensics. And the neighbours round here have got more security cameras than Fort Knox. They’re worried about being car-jacked or phone-jacked or burgled or someone parking on the grass verge.’
The look on his face was knowing and contemptuous. He knew that she knew but he was giving nothing away. Stripping his jacket off, he disappeared into the interior. Jo took a deep breath and followed.
The hallway was spacious with a wide glass-panelled staircase. A large abstract painting hung on the facing wall. Despite its semi-rural location, the place had a cool metropolitan feel. Using visual detail to create mood was Cynthia’s business so it seemed likely this was her taste.
Vaizey was in the kitchen pouring the whisky into two heavy-bottomed tumblers.
He opened the freezer. ‘Ice?’
She nodded. ‘You have a beautiful home.’
‘Of course I do.’ He plopped ice cubes into a glass and handed it to her. ‘And a rich wife. Let’s not forget her. The lovely Cynthia.’ He sneered as he slowly pronounced her name.
Jo was doing a rapid scan of the room. She was locating the exits. Sliding doors on to the garden, but probably locked. She also noticed the block of Sabatier knives, which he’d already mentioned, on the worktop near the island sink. If it came to it, she could probably grab one but that would be a last resort.
He was watching her, that adamantine gaze, with a wry twitching around the mouth as if he’d guessed what she was thinking. Walking round to the other side of the marble-topped breakfast bar, he perched on a stool and loosened his tie.
Tilting his head, a wistful look crept into his eye. ‘I wonder if Cynthia would’ve been quite so willing to talk to you if she’d known we’d slept together? And how much I enjoyed it.’
‘She didn’t know?’
‘Not unless you told her. Did you enjoy it, Jo?’
Her face remained impassive. He was toying with her, trying to provoke a reaction. Even now he thought he could manipulate her. But her fury was helping her focus, providing an override for the fear.
He grinned. ‘I think we both know the answer, don’t we? So I’ll spare your blushes.’
Blushes. It made their encounter sound romantic. But it wasn’t. It was sex with the boss, a perfunctory shag on a sofa in a hotel room. If she hadn’t fully realized that before, she did now.
He sighed. ‘Didn’t expect you to be so coy. But I want you to know I appreciate the professional way you dealt with the whole thing. Some women would have used it as leverage. But not you, Jo Boden. So, let’s get the preliminaries out of the way. I’m guessing you came here to doorstep my wife and you’ve recorded that encounter to use as evidence. Am I right?’
Jo sighed and shrugged. ‘You are right.’
She pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and placed it on the counter. It was still recording.
He picked it up and clicked it off. ‘Nice try. You appreciate I will have to relieve you of this?’
She nodded.
He
dropped it on the floor and stamped on it with his heel. ‘Don’t want any accidents, do we?’
‘You said you wanted to show me something on your laptop.’
‘Yes.’ He went to his briefcase, pulled out the computer and extracted it from its sleeve. ‘I’ve been writing to you. No one writes letters any more, do they? A dying art. These are drafts, I was going to print them out.’
He opened the laptop up and turned it on. ‘I didn’t know if I’d ever send them. But I thought if you understood this from my point of view . . .’ He inhaled, shook his head. ‘But maybe it’s too late for all that.’
Jo watched the first document come up on the screen. His look was wary but she glimpsed a hint of vulnerability, felt a zing of sexual energy. She knew she had to use it.
She dipped her gaze in submission. ‘I’d like to read them.’
‘Would you? Really?’ The tone was wistful, he was deciding whether to trust her.
‘Yeah. Really.’
She could see him scanning her for some flicker of desire, something to reassure him. She knew she couldn’t fake it, but then she didn’t have to.
Abruptly he seemed to make up his mind. He clicked on another document. ‘Actually, I wrote something this morning.’
He turned the screen to face her. She took a sip of her whisky – she hated whisky – and read:
I think of my unborn baby often. I wonder if it would’ve been a girl or a boy. I wouldn’t have minded. I think Sarah would’ve made a good mother eventually, once she’d put all her nonsense away. And you would’ve grown up in very different circumstances with a little niece or nephew to spoil.
She gave him what she hoped was an understanding look. ‘How did you find out about the abortion?’
‘It wasn’t that hard. I am quite a good detective, y’know. She’d been behaving oddly, tried to dump me. Then your father turned up out of the blue. That’s when I smelt a rat. I watched him, he was definitely upset about something. She skipped a couple of seminars, pretending to have the flu. But she was fine. Then she dropped out of the play. I knew how much that’d meant to her. And I had a hunch.’
It Should Have Been Me Page 31