‘Please,’ she said, ‘let me, or I won’t get it out.’ She took another breath. ‘You have to come here, but you mustn’t bring Emmie, you have to leave her with someone safe.’
‘Kate, for God’s—’
‘Just listen, please.’ Her throat hurt with the effort not to cry. ‘You have to leave her with someone you trust completely, and tell them not to let her out of their sight for a second, and then you have to come here.’
‘All right,’ Rob said, bewildered.
‘And you have to do it right now,’ Kate said. ‘You’ll understand when you get here. The police are on their way, so I’m OK, so you can please drive carefully, but you have to come.’
She ended that call, too.
Went on waiting.
Nearly over now.
After
Kate
Kate knew, within a short space of time, that nothing was over and that she was still in trouble, albeit of a very different kind. Still, though, of their making.
The game continuing.
‘I can see how odd it must all look,’ she said to DCI Helen Newton and DS Ben Poulter in a shabby blue and grey interview room at the Oxford headquarters of the South Oxfordshire Major Investigation Team. ‘From your point of view.’
Detective Chief Inspector Helen Newton of SOMIT was around thirty, Kate hazarded; a composed woman with jaw-length straight brown hair with a well-cut fringe, minimal make-up but fine skin and clear, candid light-brown eyes. Dressed in a charcoal trouser suit with plain white blouse; authoritative clothes.
‘Odd not quite the word I’d use,’ said the DCI wryly.
Two dead women, one tied up on Kate’s own bed, her throat cut and the knife on the floor nearby – Kate, with Laurie’s blood on her face, telling them they would find her prints on the handle. The second woman hanging bloodily off a hook, having crashed through a railing after being pushed.
By her.
Everyone had been kindly and considerate to her when they’d first talked to her at Caisleán – while around her an increasing number of men and women in white hooded suits and overshoes had set about transforming the former barn into what it had become, Kate realized, long before their arrival: a crime scene – a murder scene.
They had been gentle to her, both there and later, at SOMIT HQ, where paper chains and mistletoe glimpsed through open office doors reminded Kate that less than twenty-four hours had passed since she had been taken prisoner, and that life had gone on just as before outside Caisleán.
Gentle and apologetic too, as they photographed her, then asked her to undress, took away her bloodstained blue sweater and jeans, the Todds, even her bra and panties – which had confused Kate, seeming to add to her already vulnerable, shocked state – and issued her with a white suit of her own to wear. Still considerate as they took scrapings from her face and beneath her fingernails – even though Kate had told them she’d worn gloves for most of the time and had never had a chance to scratch any of the gang – and had a police surgeon examine her for injuries and more trace evidence. All regularly offering her cups of tea, telling her to take her time, telling her there was no hurry.
‘But there is,’ Kate had told them, had kept on telling them, because with every minute that passed, Jack and Pig and Roger were getting further away.
Not Simon, though, who she had killed.
All kindly to her, all gentle and patient.
Yet still, all the while, Kate had been conscious of their underlying doubts.
She had already volunteered as much as she’d been able, but her thoughts were coming erratically and out of sequence and sometimes repetitively, and she was finding it hard to work through from the beginning, kept coming back to those final details the gang had seen to in the bathroom.
‘Part of their game,’ she said.
She had mentioned the game several times already, had seen their expressions.
Had felt she was not believed.
‘Simon had a black stocking over her face,’ she said. ‘They all did.’
‘But they took it off her after the fall,’ DS Poulter said. ‘Not you.’
The sergeant was a very tall, gangly man with narrow, angular features and mousy, close-clipped hair. His wedding ring, Kate noticed as he made notes, had a notch in it that looked almost like a scar.
‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘But they made me watch.’
She looked down at her hands, trying not to go back there, focusing for a moment on her own skin, on her fingers, on her nails, and some of the pale varnish she’d painted on a few days before was chipped, and that was OK, that was real.
‘Did they take it off to try to help her?’ Poulter dragged her back.
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘I told you, she was already dead.’
The room smelt of stale cigarette smoke, and she’d seen No Smoking signs everywhere they’d taken her, but the smell, she supposed, was ingrained in the walls and in the old burn marks on the table between them.
‘And they took the stocking away with them,’ said DCI Newton.
There was no wedding band on her hand, no earrings, just a simple twisted gold ring on her right ring finger and a narrow black leather strap watch on her wrist.
‘Along with everything else,’ Kate said.
Which seemed to her one of the least significant things, yet they kept on about it, had asked her almost the same questions earlier, and she was doing her best to be patient, but it was getting harder.
‘You do have people out looking for them, don’t you?’
That was all she really wanted to know, that they would be caught.
‘Depend on it,’ Helen Newton said, ‘though we don’t have much to go on.’
Which was, of course, true. No vehicle to report on, not even the sound of one. Two men and a woman – probably separated by now – known only to Kate by aliases possibly plucked from a novel, carrying plastic bags filled with empty disposable coffee cups and spoons, discarded bandages, bits of sticky tape and sundry fragments of debris. Wearing red overalls and trainers and surgical-type gloves, all presumably shed long since – though the police did, at least, have Simon’s clothes, which was something to start checking on . . .
‘So,’ Poulter said, ‘they took everything, but left their colleague.’
Kate ignored what sounded like cynicism, forced herself to focus again on her own account. ‘One of them – the man called Pig – was terribly upset – heartbroken, I thought – about leaving Simon, but the woman called Roger told him it was part of the game now.’ She thought back. ‘I think she said that after Jack had phoned their chief.’
‘You didn’t actually hear that call?’ Poulter asked.
‘No,’ Kate said.
‘So if leaving Simon was now part of this game,’ Newton asked, ‘do you think they might have planned her killing, too?’
‘No.’ Kate was clear on that. ‘Definitely not. That was an accident. No one could have engineered it, and anyway, they were much too shocked, much too upset and angry.’
She had already told them about Jack saying he wanted to kill her.
‘And you have no idea what this “game” is really about?’ asked DS Poulter.
‘I only know what they told us – me and Laurie.’ The words came back to her with sickening clarity. ‘They said – Jack said: “We pick a beast and punish it.”’
‘A “beast”,’ the detective sergeant echoed.
‘Probably from the book I told you about,’ Kate said. ‘Same as the names.’
‘Lord of the Flies.’ The DCI nodded. ‘The children in the story believe there’s a dangerous beast they have to kill.’
Kate experienced a touch of relief, focused all her attention on the senior detective. ‘And then the man named Pig said that this time – which I imagine means there must have been other games – they had two beasts, which he said was a first.’
‘Meaning you and Laurie Moon,’ Newton clarified.
Kate nodded. ‘They said it wa
s simple. They said we had to punish each other.’ She took a breath. ‘Jack said that Laurie was going to punish me by being my victim, and that I . . .’
‘Go on.’ The DCI was gentle.
Kate’s shudder was involuntary. ‘He said I was going to punish her by executing her.’
‘And did he – this Jack – say what either of you were to be punished for?’
Kate felt her jaw tremble, dug her fingers into her thighs, then quickly stopped, hating the feel of the white suit that was not hers, and it reminded her too much of the overalls the gang had worn, and the next time she saw red overalls anywhere, she wasn’t sure how she’d react, perhaps she’d run screaming through the streets . . .
‘Mrs Turner?’ DCI Newton nudged her gently again.
‘Not exactly.’ Kate dredged up more strength. ‘Except that they were under the impression that I’d once had an abortion.’
‘Had you?’ Helen Newton asked. ‘If you don’t mind my asking.’
‘I don’t know if I mind or not.’ Kate sighed. ‘But no, as it happens, I had not, though I did have a miscarriage.’ She paused. ‘I have written a couple of pieces on abortion for my column, which they quoted from – I’m sorry, I can’t remember if I’ve told you that already.’
DS Poulter consulted his notebook, raised both eyebrows. ‘Diary of a Short-Fused Female.’
‘And Laurie Moon.’ The DCI spoke again. ‘What was she being punished for?’
Kate felt a great surge of sorrow and rage. ‘They said she’d put her son in a home of some kind when she didn’t have to.’
‘And had she done that?’ asked Poulter.
‘I don’t know,’ Kate said. ‘I’ve told you, I didn’t know her.’
Neither detective said anything.
‘It was insanity.’ Emotion was starting to get the better of her now, was resonating in Kate’s voice now, was in her face like a fever flush, she could feel it, building. ‘All of it, from the moment it began. It was mad and it was wicked.’
‘And did you?’ asked Helen Newton.
‘Did I what?’ She was confused.
‘Did you do what they – Jack – said you had to do?’
Kate stared at her. ‘You’re asking if I did that to her?’
‘That is what I’m asking. Did you execute Laurie Moon?’
‘No.’ Kate was trembling now, with a different kind of anger. ‘I did not. Of course I did not.’
‘Even though they made threats against your husband’s child?’ asked Poulter.
‘But it didn’t come to that, did it?’ Kate said. ‘I told you, they put my fingerprints on the knife.’ The words were coming quickly now, and she knew that the only way to put an end to this was to answer every question, however stupid. ‘And then Jack said he couldn’t trust me with it, with the knife, because I might stab him, and he said something about it not going right. “Not the Chief’s great fucking plan” was what he said.’ She stopped, breathing fast. ‘Remember you have to find this chief, too, right? This Ralph.’
It had occurred to her a while ago that, bizarre as the idea was, she might perhaps need a lawyer, but that really did seem too mad, because she was the victim, and so what she needed most was for them to listen to and to believe her, so she was just going to go on giving them everything she could, just plunge on with the whole truth.
‘I think he – Jack – was wavering for a moment,’ she went on, ‘but then, right after Pig shouted that Simon was dead, he just did it.’ Her voice choked up for the first time. ‘He just cut Laurie’s throat.’
‘How exactly did Jack do it?’ asked Poulter.
‘I don’t know.’ Kate looked hard at him. ‘I shut my eyes because I thought he was going to stick the knife in me, to kill me, not Laurie, and then I heard this horrible little sound, and I opened my eyes, and the blood was . . .’
The two detectives gave her a moment.
‘Why do you think they told you your husband’s daughter was in danger,’ Helen Newton asked, ‘if they weren’t even going to let you do the killing?’
‘I can’t answer that. Maybe it’s what their chief planned, and they knew – or at least Jack knew – it wasn’t going to work out.’ Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t even know – I can’t begin to imagine what I’d have done if Jack had put the knife in my hand.’
‘Are you saying,’ DS Poulter asked, ‘that you might have killed Miss Moon?’
Kate’s returning look was of pure disgust. ‘I’m saying that I’m incredibly grateful that I didn’t have to face that moment, and I have absolutely no intention of making this nightmare even more horrific by contemplating it now just to please you.’
Her anger and frustration spilling over, finally, for one reason above all others.
They did not believe her.
It was naïve of her not to have registered that cold hard truth right away. She was a journalist, after all, not a reporter, but still, this was textbook stuff. Two women dead, Kate the only witness. The surviving victim, but nothing solid to support her story.
In their eyes, first and foremost, she was a suspect.
Rob arrived, white-faced and growing ever more bewildered, but patently relieved to find her unharmed.
‘Thank God you’re all right,’ he said. ‘I’ve been imagining all sorts.’
‘Where’s Emmie?’ Kate wanted to know.
‘With your dad.’ He shook his head. ‘Kate, why did you say that about her?’ His eyes were intense, almost fierce. ‘What’s been happening to you, and what in God’s name does it have to do with Emmie?’
For the first time since walking into Caisleán the previous evening, Kate burst into tears, just let it all go, and Rob did what he always had on the comparatively rare occasions that had happened since he’d known and loved his emotional, but seldom histrionic wife. He put his arms around her and held her, and for just a few moments the sheer familiar physical comfort of the man pushed some of the horror away.
And then he drew back, held her at arm’s length.
‘I need to know everything, Kate,’ he told her. ‘Caisleán’s cordoned off, and—’
‘It’s a crime scene,’ Kate said bluntly through her tears. ‘That’s why I’m here.’ She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I was beginning to think they might not let you see me.’
‘I’d like to have seen them try and stop me,’ said Rob.
‘Good,’ said Kate.
Ralph
Ralph’s isolation was greater than ever.
Everything now existing, it seemed to her, only in her imaginings.
The three leaving the barn together, in sorrowful silence, disposing of overalls and evidence and then parting – as had always been the plan – at separate points along the way.
One less stop than planned.
Then home. Roger and Pig to their homes in Reading and Swindon. Jack to his long-suffering wife and children in Newbury.
Simon’s flat remaining empty.
Ralph wondered how long it would be until her body was identified.
It hurt just to think of her that way.
How long would it take before Simon’s colleagues at school would become sufficiently concerned to query her absence, how long before an absent Oxford teaching assistant became linked to a violent death in an isolated converted barn in the Berkshire Downs?
Ralph wondered if a post-mortem might reveal any pre-birth internal scars caused by her desperate young mother, wondered if Simon’s old hospital records were intact, if computer systems would be able to connect the dots; and if so, what difference it would make to the police investigation into the killing of Laurie Moon.
They had agreed, during their last, unhappy conversation, that there could be no further contact between them for the foreseeable future.
Safer that way for them all.
This game is over for our part. Now we can only observe, from afar, as other players pick up our balls and run with them. Nothing more to be done than to watch
and wait to see where they fall.
I wish, more than ever, that I could be with my children to comfort and grieve with them.
None of us has said it, but we all know.
We have played our last game.
Kate
Rob had brought Kate back from Oxford that day to the cottage, and had not left.
Still paying rent on his flat in Coley Hill, though, both of them agreeing that the hideous shocks of unlawful imprisonment and murder might not be the soundest foundations for reconciliation and long-term happiness.
The police had not finished with Kate and were still putting her through interviews, the stresses of being pulled back and forth, being treated one moment as victim, the next as a potential suspect, all taxing her considerably. Laurie Moon and Simon preoccupied her constantly, her attempts to deny to herself her part in their deaths hopeless; the dead gang member exercising her conscience almost as much as Laurie, however irrational she knew that to be.
‘Something monstrous was about to happen.’ Rob had reiterated that in so many ways, as had her parents. ‘You had to do something, you had to fight.’
‘I know that,’ Kate had told them all.
Except the fact was that what she had done had resulted in Simon’s death. And Jack had been wavering about killing Laurie until Pig had told him Simon was dead.
‘Which means that if I hadn’t pushed Simon, Laurie might still be alive now.’
‘You can’t think like that,’ Rob had said.
‘You mustn’t think like that.’ Her father.
Her mother had not said that, for which Kate was grateful.
‘If you are feeling it,’ Bel had said last week, ‘it’s probably better to voice it than let it eat you alive.’
‘But there’s no justification to Kate feeing even a shred of guilt,’ Michael had said with passion, ‘when it’s clear that if she hadn’t fought back at that moment, she and Laurie might both be dead now.’
‘No,’ Kate had said. ‘That wasn’t the aim of the game.’
That was when she’d seen the flicker in her father’s eyes.
Ralph’s Children Page 15