by Mark Edwards
But here he was, coming up the stairs.
‘No, in here,’ Isabel said. ‘It’s better in here.’
What did she mean? Unable to resist, Ryan peeked out through the gap and saw the two of them disappear into a room on the right. The bedroom?
He held his breath. Had Isabel really just taken her brother-in-law into the bedroom? He couldn’t hear anything for a minute, and he was preparing to leave the closet, to get out of the house, when he heard something unmistakable.
The sound of a woman’s pleasure.
Soft moans. Sharp breaths. And as Ryan listened in abject horror, the moans grew louder, approaching orgasm. Oh God, they were doing it, right now, metres from where he stood. He clamped his hands over his ears, unable to bear it. His love, his perfect Isabel, was fucking her sister’s husband and clearly enjoying it immensely. Ryan tried not to weep. It should have been him. It should have been him!
Ryan knew that when they were teenagers he hadn’t been good enough for Isabel. Too weedy. Too nerdy. But since encountering her again he had done everything he could to counter that. He spent a lot of time at the gym. He had a fake tan, a trendy haircut. He had made himself attractive so she would notice him, but she still didn’t know he existed. Oh, how ironic – she was screwing her computer-nerd brother-in-law!
The noises stopped and he could hear them talking, though he couldn’t make out the words, just the low rumble of Will’s voice and the sweeter pitch of Isabel’s.
But then Will’s voice began to grow louder. He sounded exasperated. Angry? Ryan tensed.
Will shouted, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’
He was angry. What had happened? Had Isabel told him it had to end? Had she criticised his sexual performance? She was, after all, an expert. Will yelled something else, and Ryan could hear Isabel trying to defend herself. They were still in the bedroom, and Ryan realised this was his chance to escape. The best chance he’d get.
He peered out through the crack, then pushed the door open. They were still arguing, their voices loud, though he couldn’t make out what they were rowing about. He took a deep breath and exited the closet. He paused for a second – full of regret that he hadn’t managed to take any photos or find any souvenirs – then padded down the stairs and out the front door. He ran back around the garden, out through the gap in the fence, and threw himself into his car. He was sweating again, but he could finally breathe.
Later that day he heard the terrible news on the radio. Sex therapist found dead at her Beckenham home.
There was no mention of Will. And later still, when the coroner ruled it an accident, Ryan was left feeling powerless and furious, with Will and himself.
He knew that Will – angry, possibly desperate to keep their affair a secret – must have pushed Isabel off that balcony. But there was nothing he could do about it. No one he could tell.
Chapter 43
‘You were there,’ Ryan repeated, stabbing a finger at Will. ‘I know because I was in the house . . .’
‘What?’ Will and Jessica said it simultaneously. Now Jessica knew why Ryan hadn’t gone to the police; why he had felt the need to get across what he thought he knew in such an elaborate way. He couldn’t let anyone know he had been inside Isabel’s house. It would immediately have made him the prime suspect.
‘Isabel invited me in,’ he said.
‘Liar!’ Will exclaimed, raising his head. When he spoke, the bloody gap where his front tooth had been was exposed. ‘She never said . . .’
He stopped, his words killed by Jessica’s glare.
‘So you were there too?’ she said, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. ‘The day Izzy died, you were at her house?’
Will laid his head back down on the floor. ‘Yes, okay. I popped round to talk about her website . . .’
‘To fuck her,’ spat Ryan.
‘No, Ryan. Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t do anything like that.’
‘I heard you! I heard you make her come.’
Will’s shoulders shook and, for a second, Jessica thought he was crying. But it wasn’t tears, it was laughter. ‘I was showing her a video,’ he said when he managed to get his breath back.
‘What, porn? To get you in the mood?’
‘No, you idiot. A video for her website. A short clip to advertise Blissful Massage.’ He raised his head again. ‘Jess, you’ve seen it.’
She nodded. She remembered the video, which Will had made shortly before Izzy’s death. It was an arty video, using flowers to represent female genitalia. Male fingers touching shiny, dewy flowers, as she remembered. The soundtrack was a woman making orgasmic panting sounds. Isabel making orgasmic panting sounds, to be precise. Watching it, hearing those noises, had made Jessica cringe and she’d told Will to turn it off.
‘I went round because the video was the last thing I needed to do for her bloody site and I wanted to get it off my desk. We went up to her bedroom to watch it . . .’
‘Her bedroom?’
‘Yes. Her iMac was in there. She and Darpak used it like a TV, to watch Netflix in bed. She said she wanted to see the video on the big screen.’ He winced with pain as he spoke, his voice distorted by his swollen lips and missing tooth. ‘Ryan, that’s what you heard. The bloody video. And she still wasn’t happy with it and . . . well, Jess, I’m afraid I lost my temper with her. I’d spent so long working on it, on the whole stupid site, and she was so fussy. I shouted at her, told her I was sick of it, that she should find someone else to work on it. We argued about it for a few minutes, and then I left.’
Jessica wanted to know why Will hadn’t told her he’d been at Isabel’s the day she died. But now was not the time to quiz him. She had to deal with Ryan first, who was pacing around them, clearly trying to process what he was hearing.
Ryan moved to the furthest point from the baseball bat and Jessica saw her chance. She sprung to her feet and dashed across the room. She felt Ryan move behind her, leaping over Will, coming after her, but she was too fast. She snatched up the bat and grasped it with both hands, holding it level with her shoulder as she whirled around to face Ryan.
He stopped. He was two metres away from her, still holding the knife. She had one chance. If she swung and missed, it would unbalance her and give him the upper hand.
She took half a step towards him. ‘Drop the knife!’
He didn’t move. She adjusted the bat, becoming accustomed to its weight. One hard strike to his head and this would be over. She shifted her feet, gritted her teeth and tried to look confident.
He took a tiny step back, the knife trembling in his hand.
‘Drop it,’ she repeated.
He shook his head, glanced over his shoulder at Will, who had pushed himself up into a half-sitting position. ‘Do what she says,’ Will said.
Jessica moved a little closer, within striking distance. ‘Just drop the fucking knife, Ryan.’
But he wasn’t looking at her any more. He had gone inside himself, frowning with confusion. Then he looked up at her.
‘It was you’ he said.
‘What?’
His lip curled. ‘You were always jealous of her, and when you found out Will was fucking her, it was the last straw, wasn’t it?’
‘Will wasn’t fucking her.’ As she said the words, she asked herself if she believed them even though Will hadn’t told her he’d been there that day. She found that she did. The story about the video was too plausible and she had been watching Will’s face as he told it. He hadn’t been lying.
But Ryan was in denial. ‘No. I bet . . . I bet you found out and, after I left, you went round there. Confronted her. You pushed her!’
‘Ryan . . . Drop the knife.’
But he wasn’t listening. He pointed at Jessica with his free hand. ‘You did it.’
She had no time to speak. He charged at her, the knife in his fist, screaming with rage. Jessica didn’t think. She swung the bat.
It connected with his skull. He crashed to the flo
or and lay still.
Jessica sat next to Will, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. The crack that had rung out when the bat made contact with Ryan’s skull would, she knew, reverberate in her dreams for months to come. She had dropped to her knees after he fell, crawling across to him, fighting back the urge to vomit.
He was still breathing.
Will was sitting up now, holding the tooth he had lost between thumb and forefinger.
‘How did he get you here?’ she asked.
‘He called me at work. He must have got my number from school records, or maybe from Pete. He called me and told me he had Olivia, that if I called the police or contacted you, he would hurt her, then kill her.’
In the distance, Jessica heard a siren.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked. ‘That you were at Isabel’s that morning.’
He closed his eyes. ‘Because I was scared people would suspect me of killing her. You. Darpak. The police. I knew if they interviewed me and asked me to recount what happened I wouldn’t be able to lie. I’d have to tell them I got angry with her. I thought they’d accuse me of killing her. But you have to believe me, Jess. She was alive and well when I left. And she was nowhere near that balcony.’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘I do believe you.’
They were both quiet for a while before Will said, ‘Do you think it was him? Ryan?’
She shook her head. ‘No. He’s demented. He was obsessed with her. I mean, Jesus, he was in her house. But I think he genuinely believes you did it. There’s no way he would have stirred all this up, nearly five years after the police closed the case, if he was guilty.’
She looked across the room at Ryan. His phone was lying close to him and Jessica crawled over and picked it up. She lifted Ryan’s hand and used his thumb to unlock it, then scrolled through the photos. There were numerous pictures of their house, their cars, photos of Jessica coming out of their front door. There was even a picture of Caspar in the back garden, which must have been taken over the fence. This was proof, on top of everything else, that Ryan had been following them. He must have been doing it because he was desperate to see what was going on, if there were signs of stress or conflict between them. He wanted to know if his plan was working.
Disgusted, she tossed the phone aside.
A blue light flickered outside the window. The ambulance was here. Probably the police too.
‘So it was an accident after all?’ Will asked.
Jessica didn’t answer immediately. She was thinking about the photos in the Manila envelope in her car. A record of Izzy’s life in the months leading up to her death.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But I’m going to find out.’
Chapter 44
Jessica sat beside Will’s bed. They had kept him in overnight for observation, in case he had concussion, and wanted him to stay for another twenty-four hours. Olivia and Felix were with Mum and Pete. Jessica had decided to keep them off school because, right now, she couldn’t bear the thought of them going back to that place, where Ryan had so badly abused his position. She had also decided to forgive Pete for his indiscretion. He’d had no idea what his loose lips would lead to.
The head teacher, the rest of the early-years staff, the governors – they were going to have serious questions to answer about how they had allowed it to happen. The head teacher had already phoned Jessica to apologise, promising an inquiry, but it seemed that Ryan had taken Olivia into an empty classroom for what Mrs Rose thought was one-on-one literacy practice. It was something they did occasionally, especially with children who’d had behavioural issues. Apparently it was allowed as long as other staff could see into the room and, as there was a large window that gave a full view of what was happening inside, Ryan hadn’t broken that rule. Unfortunately no one had been able to hear what he was telling Olivia. The words he had used to make her believe she was being visited by her dead aunt. As far as Jessica was concerned, the school had failed in its duty to look after her daughter, and it was something she was going to have to deal with later.
‘You were amazing,’ Will said, squeezing her hand. He looked strange with a missing front tooth, but the swelling around his lips had diminished a little. ‘When you hit him with the baseball bat.’
She cringed. ‘Don’t.’
‘But it was impressive. Did you play a lot of rounders when you were a kid?’
She laughed, before a silence fell between them.
‘You should have told me you went to see Isabel that day,’ she said.
‘I know. I’m so sorry. The day she died I made a gut decision not to say anything, and then it was too late.’
‘Will you make me a promise?’ she said. ‘From now on, no more secrets.’
‘That’s easy. Of course I promise.’
She hugged him, but he flinched away.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘The bruises. It still hurts.’
She stood up. ‘I’ll see you later, okay?’
‘Where are you going?’
She hesitated.
‘Come on, no more secrets.’
‘All right. Don’t try to dissuade me. I’m going to try to talk to Ryan.’
Ryan was in a private room on the next floor up. As Jessica approached, DS Michelle Ward came out. DS Ward had been involved in the investigation into Izzy’s death back in 2013. She was a brunette in her late thirties who gave off a capable but impatient air. She was with another plain-clothes cop, a young man. Ward saw Jessica and stopped.
‘You know, you shouldn’t have gone to his house,’ she said. ‘It was a foolish thing to do.’
Jessica brushed off the comment. ‘Has he told you anything about what he saw the day Izzy died? About breaking into her house?’
‘We can’t interview him properly until he’s been discharged and we can get him to the station. But he keeps going on about your husband.’
‘I thought he might.’
‘And how he thinks you killed Isabel because you were jealous of her.’
‘You don’t believe him, do you? I can prove I wasn’t anywhere near her house that day.’
DS Ward waved a hand. ‘It’s fine. I know it wasn’t you. I am going to need to talk to Will, though.’
‘He didn’t do anything! I’m certain—’
Ward cut her off. ‘I still need to have a chat with him.’
Jessica sighed. ‘All right. I understand.’
‘And I’m going to have to talk to you again too. This whole case is . . .’ Ward pulled a face like she’d tasted something sour. The story Jessica had told them last night, about Ryan faking a haunting, was unlike anything they’d encountered before. Jessica had seen the scepticism on their faces. ‘But we’ll do that later.’
During this exchange the other detective had been on the phone. He ended the call and said, ‘The uniform’s been delayed. He’s not going to get here for another ten minutes.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’
Jessica listened to their conversation. It became apparent that they were waiting for a police officer to arrive to stand guard. Ward looked at the door of Ryan’s room, clearly eager to get moving.
The other detective said, ‘It’ll be okay for ten minutes. He’s not going anywhere.’
Ward turned to Jessica. ‘Do you think Will’s up to a quick chat now? Is he awake?’
‘He was five minutes ago. Do you need me there? I, er, need to get back to my children.’
‘No, you go ahead.’
The two cops headed towards the lift, Jessica a step behind them. They all got in together and descended one floor, where the detectives exited.
‘I’ll call you later,’ Ward said. ‘I have some more questions for you.’
‘Sure.’
Jessica rode down one more floor, got out, then pressed the button to go back up. From what Ward and the other detective had said, she had ten minutes. She hurried along the corridor and went straight into Ryan’s room.
Chapter 45
/> Ryan was in the bed, his head wrapped in a bandage. The TV was on, tuned to some antiques show. Jessica was gratified to see fear appear on Ryan’s face when he noticed her. He immediately went for the assistance cord beside his bed, but she was too fast. She grabbed his wrist. She was strong, unafraid. She pushed his arm down until he gave up and went limp.
‘I just want to talk to you for a minute,’ she said.
He stared at her. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy.
‘We both want the same thing, Ryan. We want to find out what happened to Izzy. Are you going to help me?’
‘I know what happened to her. Will killed her. Or you did. Maybe you were in it together.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. Listen to yourself. Insisting that it was Will or me isn’t doing anyone, including Izzy, any favours. Do you want to find out what really happened?’
He fell silent. He had the air of a beaten man. His words emerged in a whisper. ‘More than anything.’
‘Then help me.’
Finally she seemed to have got through to him. He gave her a sly look. ‘Maybe if you do something for me . . . Tell the police I didn’t mean any harm . . . I thought I was doing the right thing, Jessica. For Izzy.’
She wanted to slap him. But she kept hold of her temper. She was learning to control it, to use it to her advantage. And she wasn’t afraid to lie to him if it helped her get what she wanted.
‘I understand now why you did what you did with Olivia. You couldn’t tell me or the police what you’d seen, not directly, because you didn’t want anyone to know you were stalking Izzy.’
‘I wasn’t stalking her! I was . . . watching her. Watching out for her.’
‘You broke into her house!’
‘Only because . . . I wanted to be close to her.’
Jessica shuddered and took an involuntary step away from him. It filled her with shame to think she had been so friendly with him. If she was truly honest with herself, she had found him attractive. But now he made her skin crawl.
‘I loved her, Jess,’ he said, his eyes brimming with tears. ‘I always loved her. If she hadn’t dumped me . . .’