The Cradle in the Grave

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘But you’re certain you saw the card on Mr Nattrass’s desk on 2 September,’ said Sellers. ‘That’s very precise, and more than a month ago. How can you—?’

  ‘2 September’s my boyfriend’s birthday. I was hanging around in Laurie’s office trying to pluck up the courage to ask him if I could leave early.’

  ‘I thought you said he wasn’t your boss.’ Sellers stifled a sigh. He hated it when attractive women had boyfriends. He genuinely believed he’d do a better job, given the opportunity. Not knowing the boyfriends in question made no difference to the strength of his conviction. Like anyone with a vocation, Sellers felt frustrated whenever he was prevented from doing what he was put on this earth to do.

  ‘He wasn’t my boss as such. I was his researcher.’

  ‘On the crib death film?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She leaned in even closer, trying to read Sellers’ notes. Nosey cow. If he stuck out his tongue now he could lick her hair. ‘Laurie never seemed to want to go home, and I was embarrassed to admit that I did,’ she said. ‘Embarrassed to have made plans that didn’t involve defeating injustice, plans Laurie wouldn’t have given a toss about. I was hovering round his desk like an idiot, and I saw the card next to his BlackBerry. I asked him about it because it was easier than asking what I really wanted to ask.’

  ‘This is important, Miss Waddington, so please be as accurate as you can.’ Can I play with your swishy hair while you suck my nads? ‘What did you say to Mr Nattrass about the card, and what was his response?’ For a moment, Sellers imagined he’d asked the wrong question, the X-rated one, but he couldn’t have. She didn’t look offended, wasn’t running from the room.

  ‘I picked it up. He didn’t seem to notice. I said, “What’s this?” He grunted at me.’

  ‘Grunted?’ This was torture. Couldn’t she use more neutral words?

  ‘Laurie grunts all the time – when he knows a response is required, but hasn’t heard what you’ve said. It works with a lot of people, but I’m not easily fobbed off. I waved the card in front of his face and asked him again what it was. Typical Laurie, he blinked at me like a mole emerging into the light after a month underground and said, “What is that bloody thing? Did you send it to me? What do those numbers mean?” I told him I had no idea. He snatched the card out of my hand, tore it up, threw the pieces in the air, and turned back to his work.’

  ‘You saw him tear it up?’

  ‘Into at least eight pieces, which I picked up and chucked in the bin. Don’t know why I bothered – Laurie didn’t notice, or thank me, and when I finally got round to asking him if I could leave early he said, “No, you fucking can’t.” If I’d known the numbers were important, I’d have—’ Tamsin broke off, tutted as if annoyed with herself. ‘I have a vague memory of the first number being a two, but I wouldn’t swear to it. I didn’t think anything of it until Fliss turned up here in a state last night and told me about the card she’d been sent and an anonymous stalker who might or might not want to kill her.’

  ‘Did Mr Nattrass say whether the card was sent to him at work or at home?’

  ‘No, but if I had to guess I’d say work. I doubt he’d have bothered to bring it into the office if it had been sent to him at home. He seemed completely uninterested in it – it meant nothing to him.’

  ‘Can you be sure of that?’ Sellers asked. ‘Anger might be one reason for ripping something to pieces.’

  ‘Anger at having his time wasted, that’s all. Honestly – I know Laurie. Which is why I wasn’t surprised when Fliss told me he hadn’t mentioned getting a similar card himself, when she showed him the one she’d been sent. Laurie doesn’t waste words on anything he doesn’t consider important.’

  Sellers thought it was odd, nevertheless, that Nattrass hadn’t mentioned it to Fliss Benson. It would have been the most natural thing in the world for him to say, ‘That’s strange – someone sent me one of those a few weeks ago.’ Why keep quiet about it, unless he was the person who’d sent the sixteen numbers to Benson – a second draft, after he’d torn up the first to put Tamsin off the scent?

  What scent, dick head? On 2 September, Helen Yardley was still alive. Nattrass can’t be her killer – he’s got an alibi, and looks nothing like the man Sarah Jaggard described.

  Everyone had a sodding alibi. Judith Duffy, though she was still refusing to be interviewed, had left a message on Sam Kombothekra’s voicemail detailing her whereabouts on Monday. She’d spent the morning with her lawyers, and the afternoon in a restaurant with Rachel Hines. Sellers couldn’t begin to get his head round that, but there seemed to be no doubt about it – three waiters had confirmed that the two of them arrived at 1 p.m. and didn’t leave until 5.

  Duffy’s two daughters and their husbands – Imogen and Spencer, Antonia and George – had been in the Maldives. They’d left the country before Sarah Jaggard was attacked and got back on Wednesday, two days after Helen Yardley was shot. Sellers had interviewed the four of them yesterday, and it had put him right off his traditional Friday night curry. He didn’t usually let the job get to him, but he’d started to feel increasingly uncomfortable as he listened to them explain, one after another, that they didn’t care if they never saw Duffy again. ‘She’s got no heart,’ Imogen said. ‘She ruined innocent women’s lives to further her own career. You can’t sink much lower than that.’ Antonia wasn’t quite so black and white about it. ‘I’ll never feel the same about Mum,’ she said. ‘I’m so angry with her, I can’t bring myself to speak to her at the moment. Maybe one day.’

  The two sons in law clearly regarded Duffy as an embarrassment. One went as far as to say he’d have thought twice about marrying her daughter if he’d known what would happen. ‘My kids keep asking me why other kids at school are laughing at them, saying their granny’s in all the papers,’ he said angrily. ‘They’re only eight and six – they don’t understand it. What am I supposed to say?’

  Sellers hadn’t been able to resist asking, though it had no bearing on the investigation, how healthy the relationship between Duffy and her daughters and sons-in-law had been before Laurie Nattrass had brought her lack of professional integrity to the public’s attention. ‘All right,’ Imogen had said doubtfully. Antonia had nodded more enthusiastically. ‘We were a normal family before this nightmare started.’

  Sellers couldn’t stand the thought of his own children one day saying similar things about him – that he had no heart, or they couldn’t bring themselves to speak to him. Would Stacey try to make Harrison and Bethany hate him, if he left her?

  Suki thought she would – the woman he’d been seeing behind Stacey’s back for nearly ten years. She’d told him over and over, and he’d ended up believing her. She talked about Stacey as if she knew her better than Sellers did, even though they’d never met.

  Suki didn’t want Sellers full-time anyway. She had at one time, but not any more. ‘This way you don’t have to lose me or your kids,’ she often said. Sellers was almost as bored of Suki as he was of Stacey. He’d tell them both where to stick it if in exchange he could have one night with Tamsin Waddington. Even one hour . . .

  ‘Did you hear what I just said?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I know you’re a man, but do you think you could pay attention?’

  Sellers risked a grin. ‘You’d make a good DCI,’ he said.

  ‘There’s nothing suspicious about Laurie Nattrass failing to communicate efficiently,’ said Tamsin. ‘If he’d said to Fliss, “How interesting – I received a similar card myself, also with sixteen numbers on it, only a few weeks ago”—now that would have been suspicious. He once said to me, “Where’s that coffee I asked for?” three seconds after I’d handed it to him. I pointed at the mug of coffee in his right hand, and he said, “Did you just give me this?” Then he dropped it and I had to make him another one.’

  Sellers still wasn’t convinced. Nattrass had failed to mention having been sent the sixteen numbers not only to Fliss Benson but a
lso to Waterhouse, during their telephone conversation. He must have known at that point that the card was important, if a detective was asking about it. Waterhouse had asked him if he’d had any unusual emails or letters recently, and Nattrass had dodged the question. He’d described the card Fliss Benson had received and said nothing about being sent one himself. Was that the behaviour of an innocent man?

  ‘I’m worried about Fliss.’ Tamsin’s haughty tone suggested Sellers had damn well better share her concern. ‘I read the paper this morning – why do you think I called the police? I know a card like the ones Fliss and Laurie were sent was found on Helen Yardley’s dead body. I know Sarah Jaggard was attacked and whoever did it left a card with sixteen numbers on it in her pocket. It doesn’t make sense, though.’ Her forehead creased.

  ‘What doesn’t?’

  ‘With both Helen Yardley and Sarah Jaggard, the violent part came first, didn’t it? He attacked them, then left the cards. Fliss and Laurie both got cards through the post, but they haven’t been attacked. So maybe he isn’t going to hurt them, because if he was, wouldn’t he have done it already?’

  Which is why Superintendent Barrow won’t authorise protection. That and his loathing for the Snowman.

  ‘Fliss isn’t in good shape,’ said Tamsin. ‘I think she’s really scared, though she insists she’s not, and I’m almost certain there’s something she’s not telling me, something to do with the card. The numbers. She went off first thing this morning without telling me or Joe where she was going, and I’ve no idea where she is now. And . . .’

  ‘And?’ Sellers prompted.

  ‘She promised a detective she spoke to that she wouldn’t work on the film, but she has been. There, I’ve shopped her,’ said Tamsin proudly. ‘I’m happy to be a grass if it keeps her safe. She met up with Ray Hines yesterday.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At her parents’ house, I think.’

  ‘Miss Benson’s parents’ house?’

  ‘No, Ray Hines’.’

  Sellers bit the inside of his lip. This was no good. Waterhouse would be furious.

  ‘You did the right thing telling me.’ He smiled. Tamsin smiled back.

  All right, love, wipe yourself, your taxi’s here. It’s four in the morning, love, pay for yourself . . .

  Fuck. The voice was back. Recently, Sellers had been finding it hard to banish Gibbs’ impression of him from his mind when he was around a woman or women; it was doing nothing for his confidence. He’d heard it last Saturday night, just before he’d made a complete tit of himself. It had honestly been as if Gibbs was there with him, whispering in his ear. He could have sworn he heard it. Must have been the drink, since Gibbs was nowhere nearby. Thank God. Absolutely arseholed on a mixture of Timothy Taylor Landlord and Laphroaig, Sellers had tried to pick up a woman he’d seen through the window of a restaurant while walking home from the pub. He’d gone in and propositioned her, oblivious to her companions, a young man and a middle-aged couple. She’d been celebrating her twenty-first birthday with her boyfriend and parents, as she had repeatedly told him, but that hadn’t stopped him. He’d continued to insist that she accompany him to a nearby hotel. Eventually the restaurant manager and a waiter had dragged him out on to the street, told him never to come back, and slammed the door in his face. He might have had more luck if he’d propositioned her mother, come to think of it.

  ‘If either Mr Nattrass or Miss Benson contacts you . . .’

  ‘Are you going to look for Fliss?’ Tamsin asked. ‘If I don’t hear back from her soon, I’m really going to panic. Twickenham – that’s where you want to start looking.’

  ‘Why there?’

  ‘I think that’s where Ray Hines’ parents live. And I’m pretty sure Fliss will have gone back there today.’

  Sellers wrote ‘Ray Hines – parents – Twickenham’ in his notebook.

  ‘She’s next, isn’t she?’ said Tamsin.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘First Sarah Jaggard’s nearly knifed, then Helen Yardley’s shot. Ray Hines is number three, isn’t she? She’s bound to be next.’

  This is the happiest I’ve ever been, thought Sergeant Charlie Zailer. She’d been in a state of deep joy all morning, but she’d been alone at home, and bliss – as she’d only recently discovered, never having experienced it or anything like it before – pulsed even more strongly through the veins, glowed all the more brightly under the skin, when you were around other people. Which was why she had wanted to throw her arms round Sam Kombothekra’s neck and cover him with kisses – platonic ones – when he’d arrived to escort her to Proust’s office, and why now, walking beside Sam along the corridor to the CID room, listening to his apologies and proclamations of innocence, she felt her happiness was reaching a peak. Here she was with her good friend, on this brilliant day, talking, breathing air. She didn’t care about being taken away from her work, or the manner in which this had been effected. All that mattered to her was the scrap of paper in her pocket.

  She hadn’t been planning to tell anyone but her sister – it was private, after all – but she was still waiting for Liv to ring her back, and now here she was, strolling along with Sam . . . Well, she was strolling. He was marching, glancing back over his shoulder at her every few seconds, scared the Snowman would glaciate him if he took too long to round Charlie up. Who cared? And who cared what Proust wanted? Let him wait, let everything wait apart from the need to reveal that was surging inside her. She’d have preferred to tell Sam’s wife, Kate – Kate would have been ideal, better than Liv, even – but Kate wasn’t here.

  ‘Simon wrote me a love letter this morning.’

  Sam stopped, turned round. ‘What?’ He’d been too far ahead. It was hard to hear anyone clearly in the corridors in the oldest part of the police station; there was the constant sound of rushing water to contend with, something to do with the pipes. According to Simon, it had sounded exactly the same when he was a kid; the nick had been the local swimming baths in those days. Parts of the building still smelled of chlorine.

  ‘Simon wrote me a love letter,’ Charlie said again, grinning. ‘I woke up and found it lying next to me in bed.’

  Sam frowned. ‘Is everything okay? You and Simon haven’t . . . broken up? He hasn’t . . .?’

  Charlie giggled. ‘Explain to me how you got that from what I just said. Everything is fine, Sam. Everything is perfect. He sent me a love letter. A proper one.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Sam looked perplexed.

  ‘I’m not going to tell you what he wrote.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ If ever a man was happy to be let off the hook . . . ‘Shall we?’ Sam inclined his head in the direction of the Snowman’s office. ‘Whatever it is, let’s get it over with.’

  ‘What are you so nervous about? I’m used to this, Sam. Ever since I left CID, Proust’s been in the habit of rubbing lamps and hoping I’ll appear.’

  ‘Why didn’t he ring you? Why send me to fetch you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’ Now that Charlie had told Sam about it, Simon’s note felt more real. Perhaps she didn’t need to tell Liv. Liv would demand to know exactly what it said. She’d pick holes in it, one big hole in particular: the word ‘love’ wasn’t mentioned.

  I do. I know I never say it, but I do.

  Charlie appreciated the subtlety. She more than appreciated it; she adored it. Simon’s note was perfect; those were the best eleven words he could have chosen. Only the crassest of drips would use the word ‘love’ in a love letter. I’m doing it again, she thought – arguing with Liv in my head.

  Liv would ask if Simon had signed the letter, or put kisses at the bottom. No, and no. She’d ask about the paper. Charlie would have to tell her it was a corner of a page torn off the pad of lined yellow A4 she kept by the phone. She didn’t care. Simon was a man – he was hardly going to use scented pink paper with a border of flowers. Liv would say, Would it have killed him to use a whole sheet instead of tearing off a corner? She’
d say, Big deal. You’ve been engaged for a year and a half and you still haven’t had sex, nor is he any closer to explaining why he won’t, but, hey, what does any of that matter now that he’s written some words on a scrap of paper?

  Perhaps, after tonight, there would be no need for Simon to explain why he wouldn’t. He’d left a message on Charlie’s voicemail half an hour ago telling her he’d see her later, to try to get back as early as she could. He had to have written that note for a reason – he’d never done anything like it before. Maybe he’d decided it was time.

  Charlie had torn a scrap from the pad herself before leaving for work. She’d written, ‘About the honeymoon: whatever you want is fine, even if it’s a fortnight at the Beaumont Guest House.’ That should make Simon laugh. The Beaumont was a bed and breakfast across the road from his parents’ house. You could see it from their lounge window.

  ‘He wants you at a disadvantage,’ Sam was saying. ‘That’s why he’s sent me to collect you. You’re supposed to wonder if you’re in trouble.’

  ‘Sam, relax. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘I’m only saying what Simon would say if he were here.’

  Charlie laughed. ‘Did you just snap at me? You did. You actually snapped. Are you okay?’

  Sam’s nickname, originally invented by Chris Gibbs, was Stepford, on account of his impeccable courteousness. He’d once admitted to Charlie that the part of his job he hated most was making arrests. She’d asked him why and he’d said, ‘Putting handcuffs on someone seems so . . . rude.’

  He stopped walking and leaned against the wall, his body sagging as he sighed heavily. ‘Do you ever feel as if you’re turning into Simon? Too long spent in close proximity . . .’