The sergeant seemed to shrink. “It’s the most straightforward reading of events.”
I found myself nodding, furiously. I wanted to grab the ginger detective’s arm but I forced myself to keep within the padded arms of my chair. I swivelled gently, too anxious to keep entirely still. Where is Nigel? I was screaming in my head. I suddenly wanted him. He suddenly seemed bigger than both of these men, more imperious, more powerful. I hoped.
Both doors of the room sprang open. Mum was pulling on Nigel’s hand, but he stopped in the doorway. His glare wafted past Sergeant Spencer and fell on Mr. Keene as the more significant adversary. I didn’t disagree.
Mum let go of Nigel and put her hands to use shutting the double doors.
Introductions again. News again. Henry out. Blake confessed. The police under pressure for having allowed my attack while I was linked to an active case of possible domestic violence.
“Are you accusing Sandra of something?” Nigel asked, and I rolled my eyes.
Mr. Keene took that question. “Blake Ambrose is. He’s accusing her of having arranged her own beating at his hands, and lying to the police about it, in order to frame Henry Ware. I can find half a dozen crimes in there. Can you?”
Nigel waved a hand. “A spurned lover. What of it? A boy like that will say anything.”
The word “lover” made me laugh-snort. We’d only kissed and hugged and talked, even the night that he stayed. Next they’ll be calling him a “suitor.”
Mr. Keene leaned forward, his left hand oddly wrapped around his right. “Blake says he’s figured you out.” He was addressing me, not Nigel, and neither of us liked that. “He says that you told him the beating and the framing were to make sure that Henry paid for his real crime against Hannah-Claire. But now he’s thought a little further ahead, and sees things differently. He thinks that you had something to do with Hannah-Claire’s death, and were framing Henry to cover that up.”
“No. That’s stupid. That’s stupid. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do anything to her, but even if I did, it would be safer to leave it alone than to try to frame someone and get the police looking. It was an accident. It was just an accident. She fell in all on her own …”
“Were you there, Ms. Williams?” Mr. Keene drawled.
“No. Of course not. But just from the evidence … Look, I was at home. I was with Blake Ambrose! All night. He knows that. He knows. Ask him that!”
“So you trust him to be truthful. So do I,” agreed Mr. Keene, and his agreement just made me worry that I’d said something very, very wrong. “My colleague, Detective Inspector Frohmann, has been here, asking questions, phoning with follow-ups. As it turns out, her questions had nothing to do with Hannah-Claire, but you didn’t know that, did you?”
I think that was sweat on my head. Either that or I was bleeding. I remembered in the hospital, or maybe at the church, having blood in my eyes.
“So I could see,” Mr. Keene concluded, “how you might feel the need to see someone else pinned with the crime.”
I was shaking. I was thinking no, so maybe I was just acting out that word by wagging my head, but really maybe I was just shaking. “Blake can’t think that. He can’t. His mother made him say it.”
“Be realistic, Ms. Williams. Dr. Ambrose is a respected professional.” That was still Keene, not Spencer-who-thought-I-was-beautiful. I didn’t have to lift my head to know the difference.
“No, he knows that’s a lie. He was with me. He saw Hannah-Claire leave my flat, and he stayed with me. He knows!”
Nigel was coughing into his hand. Hypocritical bastard. Mum moved in here before they were married. Besides, we just stayed up all night, talking. Talking about everything. Blake was sad about his dead dad, and I was sad about my own things. We took care of each other.
And then I had to throw that connection away. For her. To protect us all from Laurie Ambrose and what Hannah-Claire had told her. And she wasn’t even grateful. She wasn’t even saying anything. I looked at her but she wasn’t even facing me. She was looking at Nigel. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
Mr. Keene said, “Blake says you asked him to say that he was with you that night, but that he actually wasn’t. He says that you were alone.”
“Is that true, Ms. Williams?” asked the sergeant, in a hopeful voice. He wanted me to say no. He wanted me to keep fighting.
Mum wasn’t saying anything.
“Where were you that night?” I asked her, asked Mum.
“What do you mean?” she said.
That was her chance to do right. She didn’t take it.
Nigel stood up and ordered the police out of the building. Spencer said that the alternative to this conversation was to arrest me and I begged them to stay. “Listen!” I said. “Listen.” They’ve set me up. Dr. Ambrose has already given them the emails. They know. I know they know. “Mum met Hannah-Claire that night. Hannah took a photo to show her. It was one of mine that I’d put up on Hannah’s bookshelves, and she just took it. I told her to give it back and she just walked out, just like that. Then she died.”
“What was the photograph of?”
I honestly don’t know which detective asked me that. They were both the same now. They had always been the same, just playing at taking sides.
Mum interrupted, “I wasn’t there. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mr. Keene reached for the door. “Shall we bring Rosalie in? I believe she took the phone call from Hannah-Claire confirming your meeting.”
Mum just opened and closed her mouth, with no sound. He called for Rosalie to join us.
She stood in the doorway, no farther in than that. “Yes?”
“Did Hannah-Claire Finney have plans with Cathy Rigg on the night of her death?” Mr. Keene asked.
“Yes. I mean no. I mean yes and no together. They had plans, but then she cancelled.”
In the silence, just breathing, breathing and a little bit of squeaking from the conference room chairs, which roll and turn and bend at the slightest nudge. None of us was moving per se but we were all pulsing, and vibrating, and the chairs magnified it.
The sergeant clarified, “Hannah-Claire called you back later that day to cancel the plans?”
“Yes!” Rosalie agreed. “I mean, no. I mean, she phoned once to confirm, when Ms. Frohmann was here, and then called again later, to cancel.”
The sergeant repeated, “Cancel?”
I felt the air squeeze out of me. Had she cancelled? Did I have this wrong? I’d spoken to Hannah that evening, and she’d said she was meeting “family.” I’d thought I knew who that meant. But now … Who is “family” anyway?
Silence stretched out like an expanding balloon.
Mr. Keene made a pin of his voice: “It’s very loyal of you to cover for Mrs. Rigg, Rosalie, but—”
“I’m not covering any—”
Mum said firmly, “Hannah did cancel, Mr. Keene.”
The sergeant blustered: “We’ll see if the phone records match and—”
“Well, you’ll find that they will.” Rosalie was immovable. I admired that.
The sergeant rallied. “I don’t suppose you have an alibi for the evening, Mrs. Rigg?”
“Of course not. I was here at home. You don’t think to get yourself a witness for an ordinary evening at home.”
Mr. Rigg put his hand on Mum’s shoulder. “I assure you all that Cathy was here with me. She was home the entire evening and night. She never left the house.”
For a moment, we were all safe. Everyone in the room, even the one who didn’t deserve to be. The two police exchanged looks.
Then, “You wouldn’t know,” Mum said to Nigel. She turned her head sideways, her mouth almost touching his hand, which had started to squeeze.
I felt dizzy. Is that a side effect? I should read the little inserts that came with the medicines. I should lie down. Maybe I’m supposed to feel this way …
“You’re misremembering,” Nigel said, but she shi
mmied him off and stood up.
“I wanted us to go out to dinner,” Mum said. “But you said you had to meet a client.”
“That’s not true. You can check my appointment book. I had no clients that evening.”
“You went out. You told me you were meeting a client.”
“That was the next evening, remember? I did work the evening we’re talking about, but I worked at my desk. You can ask Rosalie.”
“I went home at six o’clock, Mr. Rigg.”
Silence again, that silence made of breathing and squeaking.
Mum looked between the two police and chose Mr. Keene. “Hannah did phone a second time, Mr. Keene. I was out, and Rosalie answered for me, as she does. She passed the call on to Nigel, and he’s the one who then told us that Hannah had cancelled our plans. Rosalie, did Hannah-Claire tell you that?”
Rosalie closed her eyes, to act out a drama of remembering. “No. No, she didn’t. Only Mr. Rigg said that, after he spoke to her.” Her eyes popped open and her hand clapped over her mouth.
We all looked at Nigel.
“This is getting out of hand,” Nigel said, stepping back. “It’s time that the police put their efforts towards gathering enough evidence to put Henry Ware back behind bars. I think we can all agree that he wasn’t the man Hannah-Claire deserved! His behaviour with Sandra at the funeral made that clear. Disgusting.” He shuddered theatrically.
My voice felt cold in my throat. “Do you mean kissing me, or beating me?”
“I mean both, young lady! And you’re no better, rubbing yourself up against a fresh widower.” His chest rose and fell as if he’d just run a mile.
“I didn’t want to!” It felt very important to make all of them understand. “All it took was to say ‘I’m lonely; are you?’ and he did the rest. I let him do it, but I didn’t make him do it.”
“That’s not what it looked like,” Nigel sneered.
Rosalie gasped.
Mr. Keene spoke quietly, making us strain to hear. “Mr. Rigg, you were there?”
Everyone spoke at once. Defending, accusing, distracting, asking. I had to shout: “I did what I did at the funeral because of you, Mum. I did it for you.”
Everyone looked. Everyone: Mum, Nigel, Rosalie, the police. It felt like Dr. Ambrose was there too, and Blake, because they would know soon enough. Once I said it here it would get told over and over.
“I thought you’d killed Hannah-Claire, Mum,” I said. “Hannah-Claire had figured it out,” I explained. “She’d figured out that you’d had a baby. That you’d had her.”
Mum was hugging herself, but not denying it.
“I knew already, because I heard you and Dad fight about it. I knew. And she was poking around, so I had to give her something. I gave her a version that she should have been proud of, but instead she just wanted more and more and more… . She just kept looking and asking, trying to prove it, and it wasn’t working. She knew that I knew something more and she tried to get it out of me but I didn’t crack, I didn’t. Then she saw, over my shoulder, she saw a picture of you as a kid, on the shelf. It’s that one with your two friends with the braided hair, and your hair is loose. She saw it and she figured it out. I don’t know what in that picture did it to her but she suddenly knew. She knew and she took it and I couldn’t stop her.”
They were all standing. This was important.
“She said she was going to show you,” I continued. “And then she died. She died. And no one said a word about her being your daughter. About her being my sister.” I’d never phrased it like that before, even in my mind. “So I knew you’d taken care of it. And I thought, you chose me and Sadie. You chose us over her. So I protected you, by making sure the police thought Henry had done it. When I found out from Rosalie that the police had come round asking you questions, that’s when I knew I had to do something. Henry hadn’t been very nice to Hannah-Claire anyway, and thin-skinned besides. It didn’t take much to provoke him.” Just a few exaggerations of personal criticisms that Hannah-Claire had actually told me, whispered to him in that church closet.
They’re going to arrest me, I thought. For framing Henry. For lying to them and misusing public resources or some such. I’m going to be in jail with my face like this and limping. I’m going to have to beg for my medicines. Maybe if it gets worse I could get put in a hospital instead… .
“I wasn’t there,” Mum said. “And I would never do that to her. I couldn’t tell her, not without upending my life, but if she knew, if she told me …” She closed her eyes and the sigh that came out of her had such love in it … She hadn’t chosen me and Sadie after all. She hadn’t pushed Hannah-Claire away. It was Nigel who’d done it. It was Nigel who’d done it, not Mum. Apparently Mum would never have got rid of her. I’d been right in the first place. I’d been right to have been jealous.
Mr. Keene said to Nigel, “You don’t seem surprised to hear all of this about Hannah and your wife.”
“I already knew, of course.”
Mum was shaking her head and mouthing “no.”
Nigel seemed to be sorting through options. “It was obvious. I hadn’t had to be told. But that doesn’t mean I took the ridiculous actions you’re implying I did.”
“It was obvious in what way, Mr. Rigg?”
“It wasn’t!” Mum interrupted. “I know that it wasn’t because I made sure that it wasn’t. When Charlie refused to be my cover, when he refused to pretend to be her father, I buried it. I took her in like a niece and nothing more. If you knew, you knew because she told you. She confronted you on that bridge and—” She clapped her hand over her mouth. She couldn’t even say it.
“I did nothing of the kind,” Nigel said smoothly. “This is all easily explained. I had you researched when we first started seeing each other. Your past wasn’t ideal, but the fact that the child had been put up for adoption seemed sufficient. When Hannah-Claire moved here, I didn’t know for sure, but I could see how she was already insinuating herself into our life. She phoned that day to change the place of meeting, and I told her you weren’t feeling well and wouldn’t be able to come along. Then I told you and Rosalie that Hannah-Claire had cancelled. It was easy. I don’t need to resort to the crassness of murder to solve my problems.”
Mum was fierce. “Is that what Hannah-Claire was to you? A ‘problem’?”
“Isn’t that what she was to you?” Nigel retorted. “You got rid of her too.”
Mum was crying now, and bent over, and I was sitting because I couldn’t stand any more. The detectives had moved closer to the doors, so none of us could run out, I suppose. Rosalie stood between them, her fingers twitching, unconsciously knitting air.
The sergeant said, “Mr. Rigg …”
“I understand perfectly, young man. I’m happy to be officially interviewed so long as I can be accompanied by my own solicitor. Rosalie …” He rattled off a phone number. “Then I think you’ll find that the only thing I’m guilty of is lying to my wife.”
“Mr. Rigg,” said Mr. Keene, echoing the sergeant. “We had the law office rubbish searched this morning, after it was taken away by the bin lorry. In that blizzard of document shreddings, we found shreddings of a photograph. We haven’t seen it put together yet, but I believe in our forensics team. I have no doubt that they’ll manage it, and that it will be an image familiar to Anna from her bookshelf. And they’re handling it in such a way as to preserve fingerprints. I just thought you’d like to know, as this may inform your choice of solicitor. Perhaps someone experienced with serious crime.”
They were all staring at Nigel, as if they didn’t understand him. But I understood him. I didn’t want her in this house either, even just popping in. I didn’t want her at Christmas dinners, and included in family holidays, and her picture up on the wall. I didn’t want another sister. I didn’t want Mum saying her name in the voice she was using now for her, as if Hannah-Claire were the only thing that ever mattered. I didn’t want to reimagine family history to include where
she was at the time, and catch each other up on all that we’ve missed. Why couldn’t she have stayed in Canada? Mum gave her up for a reason. Why couldn’t she have taken the hint?
I didn’t know how much time was passing. I was the only one still sitting. I think I was leaning. It must be time for my medicine again… .
The police both stepped towards Nigel, but Mum pushed him against the wall. They had to grab her instead, and hold her arms behind her. Nigel began to snap back at her, but she spoke over him, which I’d never heard her do before.
“She was my child!” Mum wailed.
“I don’t want children!” he answered back to her, in the same echoing volume.
I felt a stabbing sensation in my gut, a sparkly kind of cramp, remembering all of the Christmas and Easter and summer holidays that I returned here, all of the books and clothes that Mum helped me buy, all of the ways in which I was present here despite being an adult. Mum had thought she was safe getting married after we were grown. She’d thought she was a single woman again, not still a single mother. That’s what Nigel had thought too. I, and Hannah-Claire, had taught him otherwise.
“Listen!” Mum said. “Listen.” She relaxed her arms and the police let go of her.
“I had Hannah-Claire at a very unpleasant ‘home’ in Devon. We told everyone that I was going to France. The school advertised the programme, but ultimately it was up to each interested family to make their own arrangements with the agency. So long as my parents said that was where I was, the school had no reason to doubt it. Annalise was going, and I asked her to cover for me. We weren’t close, but she was kind. When she came back, I tried a bit too hard to make a show of having been there together, hung around her a bit too much and told stories of things we’d supposedly done together. It was a fantasy, I suppose, of something much better than what I’d really been up to. I needed it desperately, but Annalise hated it.”
Mum sucked in a deep breath, then pushed out the rest: “The day she, the day she … We argued about it. She told me to stop. She said that if I didn’t stop, she’d tell everyone the truth. I couldn’t yell at her—I didn’t want anyone to hear—so I hissed it all out, that she was selfish and mean and awful and had everything, just everything, and why couldn’t she share just a little bit? Why should it bother her if I made up stories about us in France? I never made a fool of her, or made her out to be mean. Both of us came off well, and to be honest I even sometimes made her out to be better than me. Braver. More special. They were just stories. And I would have stopped, eventually. I just needed them for a while.”
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