by Sarah Hilary
‘Let’s delay the interview and regroup in the morning. Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
She ended the call, looking up at the night sky in search of stars, wanting to see a constellation she recognised, anything to anchor her in this sea of darkness. In London, the sky never closed as completely as this, always broken by pollution of one kind or another. The sky above the cottage was pitch dark, making it impossible to see even the edges of dense cloud cover.
Lara was upstairs, put to bed. Marnie had called Fabian and Hannah, explaining their mother needed them. She’d said nothing of Lara’s mistakes or her self-loathing, only that she wasn’t to be on her own. She’d fallen into a pit, that was how Marnie saw it. Lara had fallen into a pit and was too tired of trying to claw her way out so instead she’d made her peace with it. With self-disgust and remorse, with despair. The pit was her home now.
An animal moved in the bushes by Marnie’s feet, a swift scampering of claws. She stepped back, skin pricking in fright. Was she any better than Lara? Obsessing over Stephen, tied to him by her need for answers, unable and unwilling to give him up. He crooked his finger and she came running, again and again. If he escaped from prison, as Vokey had, would she feel compelled to follow and find him? He was the only tie left to her parents, the idea of losing him was grotesque. But he was a killer. She recognised the games he was playing, knew when she was dancing to his tune. That wasn’t true of Lara, or Ruth. Neither woman had an instinct for threat. Ruth was calm to the point of complacency, utterly convinced of her hero’s innocence. Lara was focused on her own shortcomings, exonerating him of any blame. Both women were incapable of imagining his guilt or appreciating the danger she’d put herself in by handing out her address. But neither had Julie been afraid, and she’d come face to face with Vokey, close enough to see the pores in his skin. It was one thing for Ruth with her armour-plated self-delusion to consider Vokey no threat, but Julie?
Ferguson’s voice drifted from the cottage, giving her instructions to the team inside. They needed to get going. Ferguson would see this as wasted time, might even charge Lara on that basis. She’d been so certain they would find if not Vokey then fresh clues here, especially after the inventory from the allotment, those missives from Lara convincing them that she was the one hiding or helping him. Except Lara didn’t write those letters. They should have suspected as much, the allotment letters being typed rather than handwritten. Lara didn’t own a printer, had given up her laptop without a fight, handing over Vokey’s correspondence and pointing out the change in tone and style, insisting she’d guessed the recent letters were forgeries. Just as she insisted her letter about the red dress was a forgery. So what was Darren doing with a stash of forged letters? What purpose had the forgeries served, and what part did they play in Vokey’s escape? Lara said Michael was crude in his earlier letters, too lazy to write at length or with imagination. Pictures were his thing, not words. When suddenly the words became graceful and persuasive, Lara knew someone else was signing his name as Michael. Who was the forger, and what had he hoped to gain by writing so eloquently to Lara? Had he written to Ruth in the same way, persuading her that what they had was special, beautiful? What else had he persuaded her of?
Marnie’s phone rang. ‘Noah?’
‘One thing,’ he said. ‘Julie mentioned three women. Letters from three women, not two. “One of them wasn’t so bad,” remember? What if the third letter was from the forger?’
‘Let’s ask her. I’m bringing back the letters Lara gave me. Colin’s looking into the ones from the allotment. Can you get hold of Julie first thing, ask her to come to the station?’
‘Will do.’ He paused. ‘You sound shattered.’
‘I think we have this wrong, Noah.’ She turned a circle on the gravel, watching the small movements in the shadows at her feet, feeling the breathy stillness of the cottage at her back. ‘I think we have a lot of it very wrong.’
Ferguson was waiting in the kitchen where Joe was washing mugs, tidying away the tea things. He met Marnie’s eyes with a measure of sympathy, either for their wasted journey or in respect of Marnie’s return trip – five hours in the car with Ferguson whose mood had not been improved by the lack of progress made here, and might struggle to be improved even by the Phantom of the Opera’s extended soundtrack on replay.
‘Alyson,’ she told Marnie. ‘Next on our list. Seeing as she’s conscious now. Hopefully she’ll appreciate our efforts to return her brother to custody.’ She rolled her eyes at the bedroom above them. ‘Unlike madam up there, with her smutty missives and her smug silence.’
It wasn’t how Marnie would have summed up Lara’s confession. She was inclined to admire Lara’s courage in speaking so plainly about why she’d betrayed herself to a complete stranger.
‘I’m thinking we can leave Alyson to DS Coen.’ Marnie trusted Joe to handle that interview, having seen the careful way he dealt with Lara. ‘I’d like to get back to London as soon as possible.’
Ferguson looked across at Joe. ‘DS Coen?’
‘Of course, Ma’am.’ He nodded, smiling at Marnie. ‘I’ll get over there as soon as the hospital says she’s fit.’
‘Oh, I’d move a bit faster than that,’ Ferguson told him. ‘We need to know who attacked her, if she was attacked, and how recently she’s been in touch with her brother. D’you have sisters?’
Joe nodded. ‘Three.’
‘Then you’ll know all about sibling rivalries. We’ll need you to figure out whether she had good reasons for cutting her ties with Michael. If she happens to know where he’s run to, that would be the bonus ball.’ Ferguson dusted the shoulders of her shirt, glancing around Lara’s cottage kitchen one last time. ‘Right, DI Rome, let’s get you home to your bed. It wouldn’t do to be interviewing Aidan Duffy with a motorway hangover.’
29
Back in London, Marnie persuaded Lorna Ferguson to drop her at the station so that she could collect her car for the morning. Ed was away, there was no rush to get home. She headed to the hospital, needing news of Ted, and of Stephen. She needed news of Stephen.
It was nearly 2 a.m. Of course the hospital had nothing for her, only weary night staff advising her to return during visiting hours. She stood at the door to the room where Ted Elms was sleeping, trying to imagine what had happened in the cell at Cloverton to turn him into the frenzied man in Vokey’s sketch. A light shone above the bed, silvering the tubes that snaked in and out of him, a riot of tubes, like a child’s puzzle. A nurse was sitting by the side of his bed, holding a crucifix between her left thumb and forefinger, looking so beaten down by exhaustion that Marnie worried for her.
In the second room, Stephen was unconscious, oblivious to her presence at the foot of his bed. No nurse was praying for him. He was all alone in the room. Marnie thought of Anita begging for Darren to be taken from her house, shutting herself away with the roses and travel guides as if she could forget she had a son who’d helped a sadist to escape.
Marnie’s body blazed with tiredness. She felt the pressure of tears in her throat and chest, but she couldn’t weep. She didn’t know what she would be weeping for, unless it was Lara’s loneliness or Anita’s pain. She walked down the corridors where empty trolleys were parked, away from the people waiting for news of loved ones. Whether it was tiredness or the tears she was holding at bay she didn’t know, but she wanted to comfort at least one of these waiting people. The woman with the child’s lunchbox held in her lap, her eyes on the muted TV screen – Marnie wanted to put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and tell her it would be all right, it was going to be all right, and for that not to be a lie or a platitude but the truth.
It was cold in the car park, the sky sulphurous, the moon like something missing, a hole punched through the night’s wall. She was walking to where she’d parked the car when she saw a dark-haired man standing with his head down, thumbing at the screen of his phone.
‘Harry, hello.’
He looked up.
‘Hey . . .’ Smiling, but he was gaunt and muddy-eyed, so different to when she’d seen him at the station twelve hours earlier.
She felt a queasy jolt of distress. ‘What’s happened?’
‘This?’ He lifted his bandaged right hand. ‘It’s nothing. Just— They gave me a shot, said I can’t drive. I’m waiting for a taxi.’
‘I can take you home.’
‘Thanks.’ He pushed his hand into the pocket of his coat, brightening the smile. ‘But I’m okay.’
His skin was bruised by lack of sleep. He looked worse than she felt.
‘Let me do this,’ Marnie said. ‘Drive you home. I’d like to be useful, and I could do with the company.’
‘It’ll be out of your way. I’m headed back to my mum’s place.’ He put his phone in his pocket, rubbing a hand through his hair, glancing at the hospital. ‘They’re keeping her overnight.’
‘Out of my way’s good, too much paperwork waiting there.’
Marnie drove to an address in Highgate. When they drew up outside the house, Harry hesitated. ‘I’d ask you in, but it’s a bit of a mess. Sorry.’
The way he said it made her ask, ‘What happened?’
‘Would you believe she attacked me with a glass clown?’
Marnie blinked at him, not knowing whether to laugh. His tone was light, but his eyes were dark blue and desperately sad. He held up his bandaged hand. ‘Actually her Swarovski Crystal Pierrot but you know, rounding down. So, yes. It’s a mess in there. Antiques Roadshow Massacre.’
‘Harry—’
‘It’s okay. She’s in safe hands. They think – dementia.’ He tensed, as if anticipating sympathy. ‘But she’s in safe hands.’ He didn’t want her to say how sorry she was, he wasn’t ready for that.
Marnie unfastened her seat belt. ‘Let’s clean up.’
The house was a cottage, Edwardian, set back from the road by a small garden which had once been neat and was now neglected. The cottage was built over three floors, detached from its neighbours by a margin too narrow even for a cat to squeeze through. Harry searched a keyring for the right key, unlocking the front door. A hallway led to a kitchen at the back where a strong smell of burnt toast battled with scalded milk and air freshener.
‘Careful where you walk.’ Harry clicked on the lights.
Broken glass and china on the floor, swimming in a messy slop of food and tea. Harry separated sheets from a newspaper, dropping them over the worst of the mess. Then he crossed to the sink for a pair of yellow rubber gloves like the ones worn by Anita when she’d answered the door – was that really only hours ago? Marnie stripped off her jacket, rolling up her sleeves.
‘Let me do the floor,’ Harry said.
‘With that hand?’ She shook her head. ‘Quicker anyway, with two of us.’
‘Okay, but you’d better wear these.’ He held out the gloves.
When he crouched, she saw the nape of his neck above his shirt collar, the bronze notes in his dark hair. She crouched next to him and they sorted the worst of the glass and china onto a clean sheet of newspaper, Harry keeping his bandaged hand on his thigh, out of the way. Once all the broken bits were collected, Marnie folded the newspaper, waiting while Harry brought an empty carrier bag. ‘You’ll need two,’ she warned, ‘too much of this is sharp.’
While he was hunting for a second bag, she cleaned the food and tea from the floor, wrapping the sodden kitchen roll in more newspaper until it stopped soaking through. Harry found a heavy-duty bin liner and they loaded it with everything before he knotted the neck.
‘Thanks. The rest can wait until the morning.’
The rest was dirty dishes in the sink, crusted plates and cups, at least a week’s worth. And whatever was hiding in the other rooms. From the tension in his shoulders, Harry was preparing for a night of housework to get the cottage fit for his mum’s return.
‘Is there hot water?’ Marnie asked.
‘Yes, sorry. The bathroom’s upstairs. You’ll want to wash your hands.’
She ran the hot tap at the sink, putting in the plug, adding washing-up liquid.
‘You don’t need to—’ He broke off. ‘Okay, you’re a star. Thank you.’
‘It’s this or the paperwork. You’re doing me a favour.’
He laughed, sounding more like himself, and started clearing the table.
Above the sink, a window looked out into the garden. Too dark to see what was planted, but Marnie made out a long line of fruit trees, their branches knotted with buds. The windowsill held an African violet in a ceramic pot next to a red Roberts radio. A yellow jug painted with windmills and stuffed with wooden spoons frayed and blackened from use stood alongside a green tin bucket holding a collection of whisks and a fish slice. To her left, the fridge was stuck with magnets, photos of babies and children – a boy in a pink dress smoking a pipe – and pottery butterflies, a snow-dome filled with dice and glitter.
Harry had finished cleaning and was resting his hand on the table, a long slab of pine scarred by knives and ringed by scorch-marks from saucepans and cups. He traced its patterns with the tips of his fingers, finding the knots in the wood, resting his thumb in the shallow groove left by a blade. He’d grown up in this house, Marnie could tell by the way he moved around the kitchen and now this tracing of the table’s imperfections. What was he remembering? Breakfasts here before school. Family meals, laughter, the pine infused with the different scents of butter and brown sugar, a tang of rosemary, the airy sweetness of dough. Harry curled his fingers under the lip of the table as if holding onto whatever memories were stored there. Marnie dropped her eyes to the sink, conscious of intruding on his privacy.
When the washing-up was done, she removed the gloves and washed her hands, leaving her sleeves rolled up. ‘What else needs sorting?’
‘It can wait.’ Harry raised a smile. ‘Seriously. This’s your night.’
‘Paperwork was my night, however late it is. I wasn’t joking about that.’
‘Michael Vokey?’
‘We’re no nearer finding him. I’m afraid we won’t.’ She hadn’t admitted this to anyone, not to Noah, not even to herself.
Harry’s eyes were bright with empathy. He nodded, not speaking.
‘I have to ask,’ Marnie said. ‘What is a Swarovski Crystal Pierrot?’
He laughed, welcoming the change of mood. ‘I’ll show you, come on.’
The sitting room was a shrine to china and glass, from ornamental plates mounted on the walls to side tables set with thimbles and tiny china figures. Harry singled out a seven-inch crystal statue of a girl in a ruffled dress holding up a miniature golden mask. ‘This’s Columbine, recently widowed. Pierrot’s the one we just picked off the floor in the kitchen.’ He set the statue down alongside a kneeling figure with a red rose. ‘Harlequin, star of Mum’s killer clown collection.’
He wasn’t exaggerating. The room was full of clowns – on plates, on tables, as figurines and statues, even a doll or two. Marnie looked for photos of Harry, but all the space was taken up by the clowns, mournful, gleeful and gruesome.
‘I’m thinking I should make up a story about this,’ Harry flexed his bandaged hand, ‘that doesn’t involve the removal of coloured crystal gems with surgical tweezers.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Makes a change from vigilante knife wounds.’
‘True.’ He dropped his hand to his side.
She was close enough to smell the astringency of his skin and to see the shifting patterns in his irises as he aligned the two statues more precisely. His sadness hurt her at a level she was afraid to examine. She’d been on the brink of tears for days, she should leave before she wept them here. Harry wasn’t a stranger, but he was more than a colleague. Her feelings for him, reciprocated or otherwise, made him more than a colleague.
‘Stay for a coffee?’ he said.
She met his eyes, saw the plea there, how little he wanted to be alone in the house. ‘But let me make it.’
On their way back to the
kitchen, Harry stopped at the door to a cupboard built under the stairs. ‘Can I show you this?’ As if he were exposing the ghosts in the house in the hope of laying at least some of them to rest. Marnie nodded and he opened the door, putting up a hand as if he expected a deluge from the other side. The cupboard was crammed full of packages. Boxes mostly but Jiffy bags too and dozens of bubble-wrapped parcels. It looked like ten months’ worth of unopened post.
‘This’s what we fought about,’ Harry said. ‘I didn’t mean it to turn into a fight. She’d been hiding all this from me. I found a credit card statement and she’s run up a huge debt, thousands more than either of us can afford. Buying all this.’ He blinked at the contents of the cupboard, looking dazed. ‘Gifts, she said. For friends, neighbours, the nice man in the corner shop who always puts a copy of My Weekly aside for her. She buys these then forgets to give them. It all ends up in here.’ He rubbed at his cheek with the knuckle of his thumb. ‘They sell this stuff out of the Sunday supplements. Collectibles, like the clowns. She’s spent a fortune.’
‘Can you return any of it?’
‘I can try. When I’ve worked up the energy to open it all, check for terms and conditions.’ He closed the cupboard door, turning towards the kitchen. ‘Sorry, I seem to be offloading on you. Blame it on the painkillers.’
‘Show me where the coffee is.’
They sat at the kitchen table when the coffee was made, Harry with his elbows propped on the scored wood, the white cup cradled in his lean fingers. Much of the tension had bled out of him, but he was still immeasurably sad.
Marnie said, ‘Talk, if you’d like to. I’m a good listener, took a training module in it.’
Harry hesitated before saying, ‘I’m trying not to give in to the guilt. There’s enough of it in the day job and this week’s been especially bad.’ He drank a mouthful of coffee. ‘Two eleven-year-olds with fatal gunshot wounds. Girls. Sometimes I think eighty per cent of London is illegal guns.’
‘The other twenty being targets and spreadsheets?’