‘Oh not tomorrow,’ he replied. ‘Nan and Granddad are taking me to the cinema. But I’ll speak to you soon. ‘Bye, Mum.’
Although I was glad he was settled and having a good time, I was jealous, knowing he was happy without me. I had devoted so many years of my life to nurturing his development, helping him with his physical exercises and talking him through the bullying and isolation he had encountered as a child, selflessly dedicating my life to his welfare. Not that I regretted it for a moment. I would willingly do it again. Dan had given meaning to my life in a way that no one else ever could. But now that he had grown into an articulate and caring young adult, I resented the fact that his grandparents were the ones enjoying the results of my efforts. Still, he would soon be home again. In the meantime, I knew I ought to be pleased he was happy in Scotland. And, after all, his grandparents were good people who had lost their son. It would be selfish to begrudge them their transient pleasure.
The rest of the evening passed slowly. I was in limbo, waiting to hear from Ackerman, waiting to hear from Andrew, and waiting to hear from the police. It was the feeling of helplessness that was hardest to bear.
The next morning I went to the supermarket and stocked up on cleaning materials and bed linen. The house was dusty and had an empty feel to it, even though I had moved back in. I spent the afternoon wiping and scrubbing, dusting and polishing, and pushing the hoover around. I even took down the curtains in my bedroom and washed them. As soon as I could get my hands on my money, I was going to replace the bed Paul and I had shared for nearly a quarter of a century. He was history. I was going to start again. I might even move to a new house.
I flicked aimlessly through the television channels. There were any number of programmes, but none of them appealed to me. My attention was caught by a promotion aimed at people who had problems sleeping. It was nothing more than an advert for a brand of bed claiming to be so popular that the price had been reduced in an offer that had to end on Sunday. It wasn’t going to help me get to sleep that night, but it might be worth following up later. I made a note of the name but until I could access my funds, it was pointless. With a curse, I screwed up the slip of paper and tossed it away.
There was a film on television that evening. For the first time since Paul’s death, I lost myself in another story in which a man died in a war leaving his pregnant wife to the care of his best friend who had always loved her. It was a daft story, really, but I shed a few tears at the end of it, because her baby would never know his father. After that I watched a film where a woman married a man only to discover he was a violent maniac who punished her if she didn’t arrange the kitchen cupboards neatly or hang the towels in tidy rows in the bathroom. They lived in a house overlooking the ocean, so she managed to escape by pretending to drown but of course the mad husband discovered her ruse and came looking for her. After she ran away she met a gentle, fun-loving man but the husband tracked her down. I sighed with relief when she shot her husband and cried when the man who had been kind to her turned out to be alive after appearing to die. But of course it was fiction, so when the heroine left her husband, she could somehow afford to live in her own beautiful house although she hardly had any money of her own, and the villain died in the end. If only life was that generous and fair to people acting out their stories in the real world.
28
The police called me the following morning to say they had finished with our computers and other devices, and I was free to collect them. At least it meant they hadn’t forgotten about me, stuck at home with a tag round my ankle, like a fettered animal. After the officer rang off I wondered whether I ought to contact my lawyer, but collecting my computers hardly constituted a formal interview, and besides, I wasn't obliged to say anything if I didn't feel comfortable talking to the police.
Arriving at the police station, I was dismayed when Detective Inspector Morgan appeared. I should have known he would want to see me and kicked myself for my naïveté. He towered over me as he greeted me. I had forgotten how tall he was. He must have been about six feet four and solid without being overweight, carrying his bulk well on account of his height. It gave me a childish satisfaction to think he would probably grow fat in his old age, but for now he looked like a man in his prime, physically robust, mentally sharp, and generally satisfied with his own competence. Only a month earlier, I might have found his confidence reassuring. Now, he intimidated me. No doubt he boasted a hundred per cent conviction rate and was keen to see me sent down so as not to leave a blot on his so far unblemished record, like a sexual predator chasing another notch on his bed post, except that Morgan got his kicks out of locking people up. Apart from valuing my freedom, I wanted to wipe the smug look off his face.
He turned up with the same female Detective Sergeant in tow. If anything, I was even less pleased to see her than the Detective Inspector. Also tall and well built, she was dwarfed by Morgan. I hadn't taken to her on our first meeting, and I liked her even less this time. Her voice was soft and low, and sounded gentle, but her features were hard, and her eyes glittered coldly at me. All the time the Detective Inspector was talking, she kept her lips pressed together as though she disapproved of me. I was sorry I had allowed my enemies to lure me into their lair on my own.
When we were all seated in a small room, with the three laptops on the table between us, the Detective Sergeant spoke first. Her voice was pleasant, but her eyes were hard. She had missed her vocation as a nurse caring for blind patients.
‘We found evidence your husband was drugged before he was killed.’
‘I wasn't aware my husband took drugs.’
‘The drug in question was Rohypnol, also known as a date rape drug. We don't believe your husband took it knowingly. We believe it was given to him without his consent.’
Ackerman had already told me about that, but I feigned surprise. ‘That's terrible. Poor Paul. Do you know who did that to him? Was he drugged to make it easier to kill him? The killer must have been strong, to lift his body onto the bed after he was knocked out, before he was suffocated with his pillow.’
They looked at me, their expressions blank.
‘Either that, or he went to bed because he was feeling faint and dizzy, either of which can be initial reactions to Rohypnol,’ the Detective Sergeant replied.
‘There were no bruises or marks indicating he had been manhandled onto the bed, and he undressed before he was killed by a pillow pressed over his face,’ the Detective Inspector said.
I nodded, uncertain whether they knew how much of that information had already been shared with me. It could have been one of them, or Ackerman or Andrew, who had told me how Paul had been killed. So many people had been informing me and questioning me about his death for so long, it was hardly surprising I was confused and didn’t know how I ought to react on hearing exactly what had happened.
‘Did he... would he have known about it?’ I stammered.
It seemed a natural question to ask. A loving wife would have been concerned to know her dying husband hadn’t suffered. There was no need for the police to know how much I hated him for his betrayal.
‘He would have been unconscious when he died,’ the Detective Sergeant replied. ‘He was drugged.’
‘You said. I’m sorry-’
I covered my face with my hands, as though talking about Paul’s death distressed me. Which of course it did, only not for the reasons the police might imagine. My overwhelming feeling was rage, not sadness. His death, and his activities leading up to it, had wrecked my life. The detectives waited in respectful silence for a moment. Working with murder cases as they did, they must have understood better than most people that grief is a private emotion. But I couldn’t sit like that interminably, knowing they were there, watching me and analysing every word I uttered, hoping to trip me up.
They carried on casting around for leads, waiting for me to say something incriminating that would make life easy for them. Under a guise of nonchalance, they were constantly observing my r
eactions and twisting my words to imply I had something to hide, but I knew what they were doing and remained alert, claiming ignorance when I didn’t know how to respond. I reminded myself constantly that they were just doing their job and doing it thoroughly. It wouldn’t help my cause if I allowed myself to become agitated. I was really thankful they hadn’t turned up the previous evening, when I had been drinking.
‘That’s not what you said last time we spoke to you,’ the Detective Inspector told me at one point, his eyes a shade more animated than usual.
‘Isn’t it? To be honest, much as I want to help you, I really can’t remember exactly. It might have been eleven or eleven thirty when I got home. I didn’t look at the time. It could have been earlier or later than that. The restaurant might be able to tell you what time we left, or at least when we paid the bill, and you can probably make a reasonable estimate from that.’
‘We don’t do “earlier or later”,’ the Detective Sergeant said shortly. ‘And we don’t work with “more or less” either. A matter of a few minutes can result in a conviction.’ She gave a rare tight smile.
‘Or in an accusation being disproved,’ I pointed out.
If they hadn’t taken me in a police car, I don’t know how I would have found my way home afterwards, I was so stressed. After struggling to appear calm while I was out, I burst into tears as soon as my front door closed behind me.
Still sobbing, I took Dan’s laptop up to his bedroom and placed it gently on the landing outside his room. Going into his room would make me cry even more, because he wouldn’t be sleeping there that night. I put Paul’s laptop in a black bag and shoved it in the bin outside, where every trace of him belonged.
Back in the house, I showered and changed my clothes, trying to eliminate every trace of my excursion. Then I opened all the windows in the living room and dusted and cleaned the hard surfaces and hoovered the furniture and carpet.
When I had finished cleaning up, I flopped down on my sofa and tried to rest. I had just about calmed down, when Nina called me.
‘Have you seen the paper?’ she asked.
‘What paper?’
‘You’re in the Times. Well, Paul is.’
‘What?’
‘Just look it up, go on. And then call me back.’
With a sense of foreboding, I googled the site but couldn’t find any mention of Paul, so I hurried down to the shops and bought a print copy of the paper and went straight home to study it carefully. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good news.
But, when I finally found the article Nina had been talking about, it wasn’t that bad. My name didn’t appear, and Paul was only mentioned once, in an article about Bella. It was a short paragraph.
“A woman is helping police with their enquiries following the unlawful killing of Isabella Foster who was found dead in her Hampstead home last week. Miss Foster was an acclaimed local artist whose work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy. ‘She was a lovely woman, and a wonderful artist,’ her neighbour, Anita Masters told us. ‘We’re all going to miss her.’ Miss Foster’s death has been linked to the murder of her lover, Harrow resident Paul Barrett, whose body was discovered at his home, where he lived with his wife and teenage son.”
That was all it said, but it was enough to give me an idea.
29
The next day being Saturday, I figured there was a reasonable chance Anita Masters would be at home if I called round early in the morning. After a quick breakfast I set off for the converted Victorian house in Lindfield Gardens, off the main Finchley Road, where Bella had lived. I didn’t know whether Anita lived in the same building, but my journey would hopefully not be wasted even if I didn’t manage to track her down, as there might be other neighbours who could help me.
Reaching the building I checked the names written up beside the numbered bells and quickly spotted A. Masters, in flat number 2. I had to ring the bell a couple of times before the intercom buzzed and a voice enquired who was calling.
Anita looked under thirty, with long curly hair and a friendly smile. She let me in, after I had assured her that I wasn’t a journalist but a friend of her former neighbour. As I climbed the stairs to the second floor, it occurred to me that Anita would have no inkling that I was the widow of Bella’s murdered lover and there was no need to let her know my relationship with the dead woman.
‘You weren’t really her friend, were you?’ Anita asked me as she opened the door.
I stared at her in dismay.
‘You’re from the police, aren’t you? Do you know how long your forensic team are going to be traipsing up and down, looking for clues?’
I shook my head, trying not to smile with relief that she didn’t know who I was. It was obvious really that the police would still be there, subjecting Bella’s flat to a forensic search. With her death only just over a week earlier, the last thing I wanted was to be seen loitering around near her home.
‘I told you, I was her friend.’
‘What did you say your name was?’
I have no idea why the name Laura Burnley popped into my head. ‘Can I come in?’
Her front door opened into a poky hallway which led to a living room which appeared smaller than it was because there was more furniture crammed in there than the space could easily accommodate. Apart from a gap for the door, every inch of wall was covered by a sofa or armchair, all squashed up against each other. Two of the armchairs matched one of the sofas, but the rest were a miscellaneous collection of seats.
‘Take a seat, Laura,’ Anita said.
‘You must have a lot of people here,’ I said, looking around at all the seats.
‘Yes, I do.’
She didn’t expand on her answer. I guessed she ran some kind of alternative therapy group, but I didn’t enquire. The less inquisitive I was, the fewer questions she might feel able to ask me, and it was already going to be difficult enough to maintain my pretence of having known her neighbour.
‘Tell me about Bella,’ I said.
‘I thought you said you were a friend of hers?’
‘Yes, we were friends.’
Like her, I didn’t add any information, wary of exposing my subterfuge. The less I said, the more likely I was to succeed in concealing the fact that I barely knew Bella.
‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’ I smiled as warmly as I could. ‘It's really very kind of you.’
She shrugged. Somehow, I had to keep control of the conversation to stop her asking me too many unanswerable questions.
‘The thing is, I really want to know what happened to her. How did she die? I just can’t stop thinking about her. I know the police said she was murdered, but why? I’m guessing it must have been an intruder. I mean, no one would want to hurt Bella. Or do you think her killer could have mistaken her for someone else? What do you think happened to her? Please, tell me everything you know.’
I did my best to sound upset.
Anita frowned. ‘You’re right that no one would want to hurt her. Unless they were unhinged, that is. It’s frightening to think we could be passing maniacs like that on the streets every day.’
‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘The same thought has been bothering me ever since I heard what happened.’
‘I hope the police catch whoever it was soon.’
‘Is there any chance it might not have been a random attack by a lunatic?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps she had a violent ex-boyfriend she never talked about? Did you ever see any suspicious-looking strangers visiting her?’
She rose to her feet and paced up and down the restricted space between the chairs and sofas. Pausing in mid stride, she spun round to face me.
‘You do know she was seeing someone?’
Her eyes searched my face as though she was trying to discover how much I knew.
I nodded. ‘She told me she’d met a married man. Do you think he-’
‘No, not him,’ she interrupted me. ‘It was his wife.’
‘His wife? What about her?
’
‘She was madly jealous of Bella.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘She told me she never met his wife.’
‘No, but he warned Bella about her.’
‘Warned her about what?’
‘According to this man she was seeing, his wife was a dangerous woman. He was afraid to leave her. He would have divorced his wife and married Bella, if he could have done. I met him once,’ she added.
I tried to sound merely curious, but I could hear my voice shaking. ‘What was he like?’
‘He seemed nice. Kind of old.’ She glanced at me. ‘Older than you, I mean. Not that you’re old.’
‘And he was going to leave his wife for Bella?’
‘He wanted to, but he was afraid his wife would go crazy. He told Bella his wife ought to be locked up for her own protection because she was insane.’
‘Insane? How was she insane? It sounds to me as though he was inventing reasons for not leaving his wife. I know it’s a cliché, but I warned Bella it’s never a good idea to get involved with a married man. Someone always ends up getting hurt.’
‘You know her boyfriend was murdered?’
For a second, I didn’t realise she was talking about Paul. It was strange hearing him referred to as someone else’s boyfriend. He was a forty-six-year-old married man, father of a teenager.
‘You’ll never guess what happened to Bella after he was killed.’
‘What?’
‘It was about a month ago, and only a few days after his death.’
‘She was very cut up about it,’ I said.
‘Who wouldn’t be?’
‘So, you were saying something happened to her?’
Anita nodded. ‘Guess who went to see her.’
I shook my head. ‘Who?’
‘The crazy wife.’
‘The boyfriend’s wife?’
Anita nodded again.
‘She never told me that,’ I said. ‘I had a couple of missed calls from her, but to be honest I was up to my eyes at work, and then my mother had a fall and I had to go and stay with her for a couple of weeks, and by the time I got back home, Bella was dead. I wish I’d returned her calls while I was away. I never spoke to her again.’
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