‘Oh, as long ago as that.’ Was the surprise in his voice genuine, Rowan wondered, or a move in whatever game he was playing? There was a pause, a rustle of paper. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m just going back over some notes. That was the same summer her father died, wasn’t it? Seb Glass?’
Fuck. She was on the point of launching into the old story – her insensitivity; Marianne’s irrationality in grief; the bust-up that ensued – but at the last second she stopped. With every word that came out of her mouth, she laid herself wider open. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Right.’ Another pause, as if he were jotting something down. ‘Okay,’ he said, thoughtful. ‘That’s it. For now.’
He hung up without signing off and she stood on the pavement and felt fear crawling up her back, down her arms. Should she try to make a run for it, throw her things in the car and go? She could get on a ferry – there was probably still time. She could lose herself in Europe somewhere; go to ground. If it came to it, she’d thought last night as she’d lain awake, she didn’t know if she would be able to stand life in prison. Day in, day out, grinding towards a date in the distant future when she would be let out – to what?
But perhaps she was being premature: perhaps, like the flurry of police activity after Lorna’s death, this would all come to nothing. Let Theo think she was a tart: it wasn’t a criminal offence. And there was no surer admission of guilt than running, no more certain way of pulling all police attention in her direction. And if she stayed, she thought, chest aching, even if it all went wrong later, she could have a little longer with Adam, a few more hours or days. Leaving meant leaving him.
At the door an hour ago, she’d struggled not to give herself away. Please don’t go, she’d wanted to beg. Just ring Jacqueline: you don’t have to see her in person. She’d wanted to put her arms round him and hold on forever but she’d limited herself to one quick hug. ‘Drive safely.’
He’d kissed her. ‘Always. I’ll see you tonight.’
Putting the phone back in her pocket, she felt Bryony’s again and remembered why she’d come here: Greenwood.
The velocity with which he’d sent Theo in her direction had piqued her interest at once. Why had he been so keen to do that? Directing the police to Jacqueline or Adam made sense – it was their daughter and sister whom Cory had been friends with – but to Rowan, specifically? Was he trying to deflect attention from himself? And if so, why?
What if he’d got wind of the situation between Marianne and Cory after all? Maybe Marianne had even told him, tried to end their relationship. But then what? Had he driven her to jump? Threatened her? With what? Dumping her from the gallery? No, that wouldn’t have mattered very much – the letters in her box of paperwork showed how many other options she had. What if he’d discovered what she’d done to Lorna? Rowan’s stomach turned over but then she remembered how upset he’d been in the studio that afternoon, how defensive of her. And anyway, how would he have found out? No, it didn’t feel right, none of it added up. But there was something. Something …
She turned onto Southmoor Road and walked along until she came to the house that Bryony had gone into last night. Opening the little gate from the street, she went up the path to the door. The glass in the bay window on the raised ground floor shone like water, cleaned very recently, and through it she could see exactly the sort of sitting room she’d imagined Greenwood would have: heavy lined curtains, an abstract oil above the original fireplace, books packed tight on the shelves either side. She felt another flush of anger at Marianne: she was so spoiled, she always had been. To have all this and even consider giving it up.
As Rowan pressed the bell, the telephone rang inside. A few seconds later, there were footsteps on a wooden floor and James Greenwood’s patrician voice as he answered. Then the deadbolt clunked and the door cracked open. Surprise and annoyance and, she thought, a hint of relief flickered across his face before they disappeared behind a mask of bland good manners. He pointed at the phone by his ear and held up a finger.
‘Saul, can I call you back? I’ve got someone at the door. Yes, on your cell – a minute or two.’
Greenwood put the handset on the stand then came back to the door. He’d barely said her name before the phone started ringing again.
‘Please,’ Rowan said, ‘do get it. I can wait.’
‘They’ll call back, whoever it is. But how can I help? The media’s got hold of the news about Michael and the phone’s ringing off the hook, as you can see, so I really haven’t got time to …’
‘No, of course. I won’t hold you up: I just came to drop off Bryony’s mobile. She left it at Fyfield Road yesterday.’
It was a simple thing, a small and simple thing, and if she’d been anyone else – if she hadn’t been her father’s daughter – she might have missed it.
At the mention of Bryony and Fyfield Road, a momentary but unmistakable look of alarm crossed James Greenwood’s face and Rowan realised that she was right: he was afraid. But of what?
Making no attempt at subtlety, she peered behind him into the house. All was good taste and order: a sisal stair carpet and another abstract oil, the hall table with the phone and a glass-based lamp. And then, this side of the table, lined up neatly next to one another on pages of newsprint as if to dry off after a walk together, two pairs of wellies, father’s and daughter’s: his basic dull green ones of the kind that cost a tenner, hers navy Hunters. Envy was her first response – not for you, Rowan, a dad like that; closeness like that. Her second was navy Hunters.
Greenwood seemed to see the flare that went up in her mind and he moved closer to the doorway, blocking her view. ‘Was there anything else?’ he said, voice icy.
She put her hand on the jamb, preventing him from shutting the door. ‘Are those Bryony’s boots, James?’
A look passed between them, and along with the fear in Greenwood’s eyes, Rowan saw pure hatred. ‘Are they?’ she pressed.
She moved her fingers just before he slammed the door in her face.
The rain started as she stepped out from under the porch, and by the time she reached Walton Well Road again, barely a minute later, it was coming down hard and cold, driven by the pernicious breeze that had sprung up as enforcer. Rowan barely noticed: she was dizzy with revelation, almost ecstatic. If earlier she’d been frightened that her face would give away her guilt, now she was afraid that anyone passing would be struck by her euphoric relief.
Marianne had been wearing wellies when she died. Hunters – navy blue Hunters, though probably the colour made no difference. She’d been wearing them when her body was found and, Theo had told her, the police had CCTV footage of her wearing them a few hours before she died, after it snowed.
The lane towards Port Meadow was deserted, the weather keeping people indoors, and Rowan allowed herself one loud laugh at the idea that having slept with him had paid off after all. She’d thought what he’d told her had ruled out anyone else being at the house the night Marianne died but perhaps – perhaps – it had ruled in just one person.
Those three words: after it snowed. There had been one set of footprints going into the house, he said, and one coming out, and Marianne had made them both. By which, presumably, he meant that they’d been made by the same boots. They were shopping together, Turk had said. They used to share clothes and shoes. And shoes. If they’d shared shoes, they must have been the same size. Had they bought their matching Hunters together, Marianne and Bryony?
Greenwood had been trying to deflect attention but not from himself: there had been no larger, male footprints in the snow. She remembered his ferocity when he came to the house to look at Marianne’s work, the rage he’d barely contained. He wasn’t trying to protect Marianne that day, though: he was afraid for his daughter. Bryony said you went to find her at school yesterday. Please don’t do that again.
Marianne had made the footprints going in, that was certain – at some point between appearing on CCTV in North Parade and falling to her death
, she must have entered the house in order to have come off the roof. But if she’d been out of the house before the snow started and came back after it stopped, perhaps she’d made only the footprints that headed into the house. If Bryony had been at Fyfield Road that day before it started snowing, maybe hanging out and reading, waiting for Marianne to come home, she, in her identical boots, could have made the ones that headed out.
Rowan reached the end of the lane and stood at the gate to the meadow. It was as bleak as she’d ever seen it, a pockmarked stretch of drab grass stretching away under a grey sky towards an unremarkable length of river, but to her, now, it was beautiful. Bryony could have been in the house that day after all, and if she’d seen the relationship that was growing between Marianne and Cory, or even, like Adam, only intuited it, she’d had a motive.
When she announced herself over the intercom, Sarah Johnson sounded surprised but also a little pleased and Rowan remembered what she’d said about Marianne’s trips out with Martin being almost as nice for her as they were for him. A break, if you know what I’m saying.
Rowan accepted tea in a fussy china cup and saucer and sipped it while she waited for Sarah to prise Martin away from his computer game. ‘Hello again.’ She smiled as he came into the room with his deliberate, muscular gait, the men’s senior champion approaching the springboard.
‘You’re Marianne’s friend,’ he said baldly. ‘You were here before.’
‘That’s right. Martin, I’m trying to help Marianne now – well, her family. I wondered if I could ask for your help?’
He looked at her, expressionless.
‘The day Marianne died.’ She glanced quickly at Sarah to check she wasn’t going to upset him. ‘That afternoon – I don’t know if you’ll remember but just in case. Was anyone else there, during the day? Did you see anyone?’
‘Yes,’ he said, as proud as if he knew the answer to a difficult question in class. ‘The blonde one. The one who was there all the time. She was there all day. She stayed there the night before.’
Rowan felt another joyful upsurge in her chest. It was a struggle to keep the elation off her face.
‘The day that Marianne died, Martin?’ said his mother, frowning. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’ He was annoyed at that. ‘I remember. Marianne was my friend.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything to the police when they came?’
‘They didn’t ask me. They asked if I saw anything susp … susp …’
‘Suspicious,’ supplied Sarah.
‘Did you?’ said Rowan.
‘No.’ He shook his head, emphatic. ‘I went to bed. I waved to them, Marianne and the blonde one, and then I went to bed. I woke up and Marianne was lying in the garden. She was all … broken.’
Thirty-five
They waited for Theo and Grange in the sitting room. When Rowan heard their feet coming up the front steps, she felt another rush of adrenaline. It was as if she were walking a tightrope over a dizzying gully, peace on the far side, the promise of a future with Adam, but first the narrow cable underfoot, the knowledge that any misstep now could be ruinous.
Coming in from Benson Place, she’d allowed herself a single nerve-settling brandy. Adam had arrived back just after six so she’d had two and a half hours to work out the best way to make known what she’d discovered while attracting minimum limelight herself. She’d realised at once that going direct to Theo could backfire dangerously. She imagined the puzzled frown above those twinkling eyes: So this morning you knew nothing at all, Rowan, and now, suddenly, you bring us the scalp of Marianne’s killer?
Adam had seen Bryony’s phone on the table this morning, however, and before he left, she’d told him that to pass some time and keep herself occupied – she couldn’t study today, after hearing the news – she would walk over to Southmoor Road and return it. It was a small thing, just an innocent-seeming seed, but what she had to say would seem all the more plausible for having grown from it.
But there was also the question of time. On the one hand, it wasn’t good that her discovery had come so close on the heels of the news of Cory’s death – Greenwood’s haste was what had drawn her attention, after all – but on the other, the sooner focus shifted to Bryony, the better. Theo’s phone call had shown her how thoughtfully he was working. She imagined him doing his jigsaw puzzle in the same methodical way as the Glasses at Christmas, separating out the edge pieces, making the frame, then patiently – piece by piece, minute by minute – building the picture. The two and a half hours she’d waited for Adam had seemed an eternity.
As soon as he came through the door, he’d known from her face that something had happened. ‘Tell me,’ he said. When she’d finished, he sat with his head in his hands for a full minute. ‘This is a nightmare,’ he said finally.
‘I’m so sorry, Adam.’
‘There’s no way you’re making a mistake?’
‘It’s possible – anything’s possible. I mean, we won’t know for sure until the police talk to her – but James’ response – the way he slammed the door in my face like that … I don’t think so.’
Her mind had proffered another image of Theo at his jigsaw and she’d felt almost mad with frustration. Come on, Adam, she wanted to shout, call the police, do it, but even after he’d fetched his phone, he’d hesitated. ‘I like them, Rowan,’ he said. ‘Both of them. Greenwood’s a good man. And Bryony – she’s so young. This—’ He made a despairing gesture, raising his hands from his knees then letting them fall limply back. ‘Even if it’s true, doing this … I feel dirty.’
Though he’d made the call, he let her tell the police the story. ‘It was you who worked it out, Ro.’
Theo and Grange barely uttered a word while she told them about Bryony’s phone, the boots in the hallway, Greenwood’s alarm, Martin Johnson’s confirmation. All the time she was talking, her heart fluttered with anxiety, at times seeming to stop altogether and then giving a run of sharp, clutching beats that threatened to take her breath away. And their eyes seemed not to leave her face for a moment, even though DS Grange made note after note in the book balanced on his knee.
She’d expected them to be excited by such a major break – the solution, potentially – but instead Theo in particular was muted, even deflated. She thought of Cory the day he’d broken into the house and found Marianne’s drawing, the way the light in him had seemed to go out. She wondered if Theo was embarrassed. She, an amateur, had managed to work out that Bryony had been there the night of Mazz’s death while his investigation had concluded it was an accident.
He looked at her, face solemn. ‘This is a very serious allegation, Rowan.’
‘It’s not an allegation,’ she said. ‘They’re observations. Thoughts.’
‘No. If you’re right, you’ve given us motive and opportunity.’
‘Bryony was eighteen just before Christmas, she had a party,’ Adam said suddenly. ‘If she did … I mean, if she was … involved, she’ll be tried as an adult, won’t she? Not a juvenile.’
Rowan thought she saw sympathy in Theo’s eyes. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ he said. ‘There could still be a completely different explanation. We need to talk to her.’ He stood up from the sofa then looked at DS Grange, who was flipping back through his notes as if he were searching for something. ‘Okay, David?’
‘Just to double-check I’ve got everything straight,’ he said. ‘The footprints in the snow we know about – you told Ms Winter about those when you met for drinks.’ Drinks. Rowan saw the tangle of sheets on the bed upstairs, Theo’s blond head next to hers on the pillow, the fine hair on his chest so unlike Adam’s thick dark mat.
He avoided her eye. ‘Yes.’
‘But the information about the shoe size, or Marianne and Bryony sharing shoes at least – that came from Peter Turk?’
She nodded.
‘And when did he tell you that again?’
‘It was a Saturday – yes, the Saturday before last. He ha
d biscotti from Borough Market – he’d been to buy them that morning.’
‘So you met him in London?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you were already here by that point – looking after the house, I mean.’
Shit. Rowan made herself look him in the eye. ‘Yes.’
‘You made a special trip back to London to see him?’ asked Theo.
Now she felt Adam’s eyes on her and she turned to meet them. ‘After Marianne and I fell out, I lost touch with Turk, too. When I saw him again at the funeral, I realised how much I’d missed him over the years – his friendship. I thought, if we could find anything good in all this …’ She reached out and took Adam’s hand.
By the time the police went, it was after ten o’clock. Adam closed the door and, when the car pulled away on to the street, he locked it. Even in the buttery lamplight, his face was drawn. ‘I’m exhausted,’ he said. ‘All this – the shock, the police. And God, having to tell Mum that it might not have been an accident – I can’t even begin to explain how terrible it was, Ro.’
Downstairs, they made tea and sat on Jacqueline’s sofa for a few minutes to drink it. The Johnsons’ window was bright as ever, and Rowan pictured Martin padding around up there, destined for another sleepless night of watching.
‘Are you going to tell your mother about Bryony?’ she said.
‘No, not until I have to. I’m still praying you’ve got your wires crossed and there’s some other explanation, something totally innocent.’
‘I know.’
In bed, skin to skin, Rowan wanted him as much as she ever had but she held back. Adam seemed glad just to have her close and she hugged him for a long time in the dark. Eventually his breathing slowed and she thought he was falling asleep when abruptly, sounding wide awake, he asked her, ‘How did Theo come to tell you about the footprints?’
She hoped he hadn’t felt her jump. ‘Like we said: when we had a drink together just after I came back. I rang him.’
Keep You Close Page 31