‘Can’t hear,’ he says.
She takes the airgun off the mantelpiece as gently as she can.
‘Perhaps we can call her Karin,’ she says. He closes his eyes, nods his head slowly, she thinks he must be able to hear something, a dull thud of blood pulsing around her unborn child. She looks over at Prue, balled fist waving in the air though sleeping still, looks at her chest rising and falling, the violent slash across the sofa cushions and then back to her daughter, her flawless throat, the image of the knife held against it. Without taking her eyes off her little girl, she moves the gun down towards the leonine head resting on her belly, breathes out slowly and pulls the trigger.
Lex Palmstrom cries out in pain, hand to his face, for no more than a second before he collapses off her and on to the rug. The sound wakes Prue and she starts crying. Naomi runs to her and picks her up in her arms, wrapping the shirt around her head and sshing her back to sleep, a flat hand beating a metronome on her back.
A black people-carrier pulls up outside their house. Naomi watches Charlie climbing out of the back seat. Prue nuzzles deeper into the crook of her mother’s neck. Her husband sees her on the sofa and waves, a wary smile. She glances at the huge figure lying prostrate across her living room. Blood trickles out of his ear on to the floorboards. They’re getting them sanded next week, she thinks and closes her eyes.
THIRTEEN
‘You did some work for the Fallons?’
‘I did, yeah. Been working on the house off and on for six, seven months.
‘And in what capacity?’
‘Carpenter.’
‘Not pest control?’
‘A bit. Not much. I took care of a pigeon infestation for them.’
‘Are you licensed to carry out pest control work, Mr Frost?’
‘You don’t need a license to carry out pest control in the UK, Detective.’
‘Are you insured?’
‘There was a stabbing up at the Fountain Estate, perhaps you lot should be spending your time on that, what you reckon?’
‘Mr Frost, a gun you supplied resulted in someone’s death.’
‘I didn’t supply—’
‘You didn’t provide the Fallons with a gun?’
‘They had a pigeon problem. A pigeon problem that, it’s pretty obvious, was being caused by the psycho that copped it. I lent them an air-pistol. I’d lent Mr Fallon a rifle before. After Mrs Fallon had the incident on the ladder, I lent them the pistol for clearing the attic in case the bastards came back.’
‘You gave the gun to Mrs Fallon.’
‘I left it with my tools in the basement—’
‘You left a gun in a household with a two-year-old—’
‘Locked. The toolbox is always kept locked.’
‘How did Mrs Fallon get the gun, then?’
‘I left a key for Charlie in their kitchen drawer. I lent them the gun. No one’s saying I didn’t.’
‘Did you teach Mrs Fallon how to use it?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t tell her how to take the safety off.’
‘No.’
‘You know a lot about guns, though, don’t you, Mr Frost?’
‘Fair bit, I suppose.’
‘Did you tell Mrs Fallon or Mr Fallon that you can kill someone with an airgun?’
‘No.’
‘But you knew that you could, if a gun at the maximum legal velocity is fired point-blank into someone’s temple or, more certainly, into their eye, the pellet can cause a massive brain haemorrhage?’
‘Anyone who’s got any sort of pellet gun knows you don’t mess around with eyes.’
‘Did you pass this information on to Mrs Fallon? Mr Frost, a man’s dead.’
‘I didn’t tell her that if you fire a gun into someone’s eye it might hurt them. Just like I didn’t tell her, when I was hammering a nail into one of their skirting boards, that if you do that into someone’s eye, it might not do them much good.’
‘You were in a sexual relationship with Mr Palmstrom? For the tape, Miss Kaminskas is nodding. And you’re living in his flat?’
‘I was.’
‘Was?’
‘Charles— That man, he used a false name and bank account to rent the flat. He never paid for it. So I was eventually evicted.’
‘And his relationship to Greg, the little boy he picked up from nursery, did you think it was his child?’
‘He told me he was looking after him for a friend, someone he worked with. I knew Greg’s mother and father.’
‘And they moved Greg from your workplace because of your relationship with Mr Palmstrom?’
‘They saw photos of me that I sent him.’
‘What sort of photos?’
‘Photos of me. With not all my clothes on.’
‘And he held these photos over you?’
‘No, he asked them not to say anything, he helped me keep the job at the nursery.’
‘Which is why you agreed to be his accomplice?’
‘I had no idea what he was doing. Nothing.’
‘You faked an injury, a bite mark on your arm; you told us you did this, in order to get Mrs Fallon’s daughter excluded. Why?’
‘He said she was obsessed with him and it might make her leave him alone. I wanted that.’
‘Because you were in love with him? Miss Kaminskas?
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you believed him? About Mrs Fallon?’
‘After Greg went to the different nursery, she came to ask me questions about why he’d left, where he’d gone.’
‘And you thought that was proof that she was obsessed with Mr Palmstrom?’
‘He … Mr Palmstrom was very charming.’
‘Good-looking too? Miss Kaminskas is nodding. Greg’s father, Merrick Clayton, he told us the same story. Told us that Mrs Fallon was stalking Mr Palmstrom. Do you still believe this to be true?’
‘I— He told me many things that were not true. I know that now.’
‘Let’s talk about the day of Mr Palmstrom’s death. Your colleague, Jess Fenton, told us that Mrs Fallon had requested her daughter be kept inside until further notice. You ignored her request on the day in question. Was this under his instruction? Miss Kaminskas?’
‘I couldn’t keep her inside.’
‘And yet Mr Palmstrom was there waiting for her in the park. Are you telling me that you didn’t aid him in kidnapping Prudence Fallon? That you didn’t tip him off that you’d be in the park at that time? That you passed on to him what Mrs Fallon had said about her husband being stuck away with the inclement weather?’
‘I have a glass of water?’
‘Of course.’
‘If I knew what he was doing I never, I never— I would have moved out of his flat and come to see you, the police. I love the children I look after. Ask my boss at the nursery, I love the children.’
‘How do you know what he was doing? Have you spoken to Mrs Fallon about this investigation?’
‘No.’
‘Because she has appealed for us not to press charges against you for the involvement in Prudence Fallon’s kidnap. Any idea why that would be? Miss Kaminskas?
‘No idea.’
‘It’s not for me to say whether her opinion will have any bearing on the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service. You aided and abetted the actions of a very dangerous man and it’s unlikely that the CPS will be able to ignore that.’
‘Do you remember Miss Palmstrom, the victim’s sister?’
‘The victim?’
‘The deceased I should say, my apologies.’
‘I remember her, yes.’
‘In the yellow Transit van belonging to the deceased, there were reams of paper. Certain conversation chains from online forums, pages from the Internet, printouts of his sister’s conversations on MSN Messenger. There’s one to Chazinho? Is that you, Mr Fallon? Mr Fallon is nodding. The messages become increasingly pleading, for your attention, in light of the fact that Miss P
almstrom fell pregnant. You ignored all of these messages.’
‘I suppose I did.’
‘You suppose?’
‘I ignored them. I did.’
‘Why?’
‘I was fifteen. I slept with a girl at a party. It was my first time.’
‘Hers too reputedly, according to Mr Palmstrom’s notes.’
‘I wanted the whole thing to go away.’
‘Nothing to do with the fact that it could be construed, from her messages, that she wasn’t in her right mind to consent to have sex with you.’
‘It was consensual. We were both really drunk but she came up to the room with me and it was definitely consensual. I liked her and I think she liked me.’
‘We can’t ask her, though, can we?’
‘Sorry, can I just ask, what has this got to do with anything? It was nearly twenty years ago. I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘You don’t feel any remorse?’
‘It’s irrelevant. This man befriended me. He came into our house. He flirted with my wife. He tried to kill her. He kidnapped my child, twice. Then he ends up in my living room with a Stanley knife, threatening to kill my pregnant wife, and you’re asking me about something that happened twenty years ago. Excuse my language, but what the fuck?’
‘I understand you’re upset, Mr Fallon, but I won’t excuse your language and I advise you not to use it again.’
‘Fine. Fine. Sorry. But why am I here? My wife suffered a horrific trauma, this man was torturing her and she couldn’t tell me, and—’
‘And why was that?’
‘What?’
‘Why was it that she never told you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If she knew these things were happening, knew enough to report that someone was harassing her to the police, twice, why couldn’t she tell her husband? Mr Fallon? Have you asked her why that was? Have you ever considered that there might be more to her version of events than she’s letting on?’
‘My wife is the most honest woman I’ve ever met. My cowardice brought this man into our lives, me, me, me. I brought it on her. And she still protected me.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s what he wanted. You’ve got it on the tape, the tape recording from the baby monitor that he set up in my living room to spy on me and my wife, for Christ’s sake. He sent her messages threatening to hurt me, hurt Prue if she said anything to me.’
‘We’ve not been able to find Mr Palmstrom’s phone, so we haven’t been able to corroborate the messages your wife has shown us.’
‘We just want the chance to try and move on. Christ, you have no idea. No idea. I came home to find her catatonic.’
‘Because she’d just killed someone.’
‘I can’t believe this.’
‘The baby monitor. Your carpenter, Mr Frost? He said that your wife found it in the bedroom.’
‘Can I go? What’s the point of this? I want to go.’
‘If the threat involves deadly force, the person defending themselves can use deadly force to counteract the threat. That’s the definition of self-defence. Someone has been killed, shot point-blank in their right eye, and we have a responsibility to meticulously assess that the threat from Mr Palmstrom can be said to have been deadly, otherwise we’re looking at a charge of manslaughter or murder.’
FOURTEEN
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FIFTEEN
32 weeks
‘Good to see you.’ Naomi sits back down at the table in the hipster café. Uggy bends herself into the chair by the wall. She looks uncomfortable here. ‘Do you want a coffee?’ Uggy shakes her head. She begins to fiddle with a flyer on the table for a vegetable-box scheme. Naomi thinks it unlikely that Uggy is going to order a weekly delivery of organic vegetables. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Fine, thank you.’ She’s not fine. She looks pale; she was always thin but now the skin’s pulled taut on her sharp cheekbones and she looks almost alien. Naomi reaches across the table and grabs her hand up from the flyer.
‘He’s gone.’
‘I know he’s gone,’ Uggy says, a flash of anger as if Naomi were talking down to her. Her delicate hand rests in Naomi’s but doesn’t grip it back.
‘He went for my daughter with a knife, I had no choice.’ She takes her hand out of Naomi’s and brushes her hair back behind her ears. ‘We had no choice. He wouldn’t have stopped until I’d lost everything. He wouldn’t. And you; he would have pushed you further and further until you said no to him and then he would have hurt you too.’
‘Yes,’ she says but she doesn’t mean it. There’s part of her that’s still in love with him.
Naomi had been to see Uggy in his flat. She remembered seeing someone dash from the window to go and meet him the day she broke into his van and decided she needed to talk with them. When she saw it was Uggy she knew she’d be able to get her on her side. She could see from the way Uggy was with the kids at nursery that she was someone who felt more kinship with children than adults. Naomi told her everything that Lex Palmstrom had done to her. At first Uggy refused to believe her and it became clear that she too had been told that Naomi was obsessed with him, but when she showed her the faked documents she’d got from the estate agent and told her that by living in the flat Uggy was unknowingly breaking the law and could be sent to prison, her conviction began to waver. Naomi neglected to mention that she was the one who had tipped off the estate agent that a well-known con man was staying in one of their flats and that they should go check his tenancy paperwork.
When Naomi revealed to Uggy that Sean planned on killing her baby before it was born and told her the whole story about Karin Palmstrom, Uggy agreed to help in any way she could.
But Uggy had no idea how Naomi intended to stop Lex Palmstrom. She couldn’t know. Naomi had to ensure that there was absolutely no indication of premeditation. The main point she had taken from the articles she’d read about obtaining a verdict of self-defence was that there could be absolutely no evidence of intention or premeditation.
Naomi pulls a giant bag of almonds and dried cranberries out of her pocket and plonks it on the table, inviting Uggy to help herself. She doesn’t. Naomi plucks nuts from the bag like a child with sweeties. She’s gone back to being starving all the time.
‘He didn’t love anyone, Uggy. He couldn’t. I’m so sorry that you were dragged into all of this.’ Uggy closes her eyes and takes four deep breaths. ‘How’s it working out with Victoria?’ Uggy lost her job at the nursery, of course, so Naomi suggested she go and work for Victoria as a part-time cleaner-cum-personal assistant. Victoria showed a surprisingly maternal side following the events of a couple of weeks ago and, although a little shocked that this was how Naomi was choosing to use her offer of help, took Uggy on without any quibbles and found her both diligent and very capable.
‘The work is fine. I miss the little ones. I suppose, perhaps I won’t be working with children again.’
‘No.’ Nor should you, Naomi thinks. As she looks at the severe features of the woman across from her she wishes she’d chosen a different venue, the park, somewhere Uggy wouldn’t feel so out of place. Naomi needs to ask her about her police interview. She’s heard nothing for a week. She spent hours being interviewed, formally telling them everything she’d already told DC Crawford, but also her meeting with Eliza, her conversation with the foster mother and how she worked out what he wanted from them. She handed over the email from Eliza and her mobile phone, though with one or two of her messages to ‘Sean’ deleted. She pocketed Palmstrom’s phone before Charlie saw his body sprawled on their living-room floor and dropped it in a
crusher at the tip at the first opportunity. She told the police that he must have had a recording device somewhere in the house because that was the only way he knew so much about them. They found the baby monitor where she put it, under a loose floorboard beneath the sofa in the living room and the receiver with its recording device in the attic, where she’d discovered it the day she searched the house for him and where she’d decided to leave it. The forensics also found a large man-sized indentation in a big pile of loft insulation right in the rafters that Naomi hadn’t spotted. They think he might have been sleeping up there from time to time though there was no way of knowing how often.
Naomi tried to save the righteous indignation about how she’d reported his threatening behaviour and been ignored by the police for the few occasions that the detectives edged towards a sticky area that she might struggle to explain and it mostly seemed to distract them into a different line of questioning. She’s confident that the investigation will die away, the PR fall-out if they were to charge a pregnant mother should be enough to put them off even if they didn’t have so much evidence against him. But DC Crawford seems keen to explore every detail of the case, which Naomi hadn’t expected. Charlie said that when he talked to her she implied that she thought it might not be a straightforward case of self-defence.
She needs to hear what Uggy said to the detective, however difficult a conversation it may be. Naomi had to make sure Lex Palmstrom couldn’t hurt her children and there was only one way to guarantee that. But she had to ensure that there was absolutely no way they could send her to prison for it so she did what she has always done when faced with a problem: she did her research and planned everything as practically and thoroughly as possible. Acting scared and making a scene with Charlie about him going away in the same room as Lex’s recording device to set up that she was in fear for her life, enlisting Uggy to stage-manage Lex on a day when, due to the bad weather, a call to the police wouldn’t be an option, moving the monitor into the living room to record him threatening them with the knife. All of it satisfied what she’d read at the library, which was a two-hour drive from her house – if the aggressor has a weapon, if there’s a written threat, concrete evidence to avoid it being your word against the dead person’s, all of that stuff is really important for getting a verdict of self-defence.
Happy Ever After Page 29