by Cohen, Tammy
‘It’s just a formality, Emma. This isn’t an official interview, but I need to record it just in case it becomes part of our investigation. Do you understand? Otherwise, I’m afraid, I won’t be able to give you the information you need.’
‘OK,’ Emma said, but her voice was hoarse and gravelly.
‘Righto. Let’s just make sure this thing is working. Can you say something?’
‘It feels like I’m stuck inside a made-for-TV drama or something.’
Leanne smiled and clicked the machine off, rewound and played it back.
Feels like I’m stuck inside a made-for-TV drama or something, came Emma’s tinny voice.
‘Perfect. The thing is, Emma, as you know, Guy has been finishing work at peculiar times and going AWOL, only he hasn’t been seeing another woman. He’s been sitting in his car outside primary schools. Mostly one in St John’s Wood, but we’ve also found out he’s been spotted at a couple of others in the area.’
‘I don’t understand. That’s nowhere near where our daughters go to school—’
‘Exactly. That’s why I was hoping you’d be able to shed some light on what he might be doing?’
Emma shook her head slowly. She swallowed, suddenly afraid she was going to vomit right there and then. Something occurred to her. ‘Have you asked him? Have the police talked to Guy?’
The thought that he could have been called into the station and hadn’t told her was unbearable.
‘We’re talking to him right now as it happens.’
‘So that’s why you insisted on meeting here rather than at the station?’
Leanne nodded. ‘It shouldn’t take too long. We just need him to clear it up for us.’
But Emma’s thoughts were whirling around in her brain and she could hardly focus on what her companion was saying. Why would Guy be lurking outside primary schools?
‘Emma.’ Leanne leaned right in so she was inches away from Emma’s face. Her eyes, close up, were tinged with pink as if she hadn’t been sleeping. ‘You know that when Tilly died we tested Guy’s DNA against the sample found at the scene of Megan Purvis’s murder. It wasn’t a match. Keep bearing that in mind. Guy is not suspected of anything. This is just a formality.’
But on the way home the doubts built up in Emma’s head until she thought she would explode. What if the thing that had come between her and Guy wasn’t grief but guilt? Paedophilia was a compulsion, wasn’t it? A disease? Maybe he couldn’t help himself. The sudden pain that shot up her side at the thought of her two surviving daughters stopped her in her tracks.
By the time she reached her house, Emma was having difficulty breathing. Though she was panting, she didn’t seem to be able to draw enough oxygen into her lungs. At first she assumed Guy wasn’t back from the police station yet as she couldn’t see his car anywhere, but then she spotted it further down the street.
Approaching the front door, she wondered if she had the nerve to go in. There was a painful stitch in her side and her heart was pounding uncontrollably. But she knew it was less than an hour until the girls were home from school so she forced herself to take out her keys.
Guy was sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. Emma noticed with a shock how grey his hair was getting at the back. He still had his work clothes on – his shoulders in his grey suit jacket were slumped.
He didn’t look up, though he must have known she was standing in the doorway. For a moment there was a silence that settled over the two of them like a net.
Then: ‘I’ve been with Leanne. I know you were called in by the police.’
Silence.
‘Tell me. Tell me why you’ve been sneaking out of work to go and lurk outside primary schools.’
More silence.
‘You owe me an explanation, you bastard. I need to know if you did something to our daughter.’
That got a reaction all right. Guy’s head shot up.
‘What? What did you just say?’
‘You heard.’ But the conviction was already draining from her voice. ‘I just want to know what’s going on. It was bad enough when I thought you were seeing another woman but now I know you’ve been hanging around watching little girls come out of school. Day after day after day. Why were you there?’
‘Because I miss her!’ The words tore from Guy’s throat as if ripped out of him against his will. To her astonishment, Emma saw that he was crying, tears that fell messily from his reddened eyes, splashing on the blond-wood table.
‘I go and I sit and I watch the gate and I imagine that she’s going to come through it any moment. And I watch the girls and the way they talk and laugh and carry their paintings so carefully to show their parents, and I imagine she’s one of them and for five or ten minutes I convince myself it never happened.’
‘So why not go to our daughters’ school? Why not go and watch the children you still have instead of a whole bunch of strangers?’
‘Because I don’t want Caitlin and Jemima to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this. I don’t want you to see me like this. It’s been two whole years. I’m supposed to be coping.’
Emma looked at her weeping husband and felt something shifting and dissolving inside. The feeling panicked her. The barrier between her and Guy had been there so long it was part of her emotional framework. How would she keep holding herself upright without it?
‘Who says you’re supposed to be coping? Who do you think will judge you if you fall apart?’
Guy gazed at her through his overspilling eyes. And then a noise came from out of nowhere like the cry made by foxes that occasionally woke them up in the dead of night. A terrible, inhuman roar, and then she was across the floor and standing beside him and he had his arms around her waist and his face buried in her stomach and she was stroking his head and telling him it was OK, it was OK, it was OK. And for the first time since it had happened, for the first time in two years, she forced herself to believe this might be true.
31
Suzy’s house was in the Bermuda triangle where three different North London districts met. They all had Green in their name, though there was nothing green about any of them. The terraced houses on Suzy’s road were either greyish brick or painted the maroon colour favoured by Greeks of a certain age or done up in fake stone cladding. A double mattress had been dumped on the corner. Jason wrinkled up his nose at the sight of the large brown stain in the middle. People were disgusting.
The houses in this street were mostly rented out and carved up into bedsits. Next door to Suzy’s house one lot of tenants had clearly recently moved out. The front yard was piled with black bin bags, many of them split, the contents strewn all over the path. There was a bright-orange flannel slipper on the pavement just outside and Jason kicked it back in through the gate.
Outside Suzy’s door, he paused before ringing the bell. He squinted at his reflection in the diamond-shaped panel of the white plastic front door, with its fake leaded glass. His mouth was dry and he tried to swallow. The palms of his hands felt damp with sweat.
Suzy’s house was a riot of soft furnishings in various vibrant colours and prints. The cushions on the sofa they passed were red, as was the kettle, while the toaster and the pedal bin were bright blue. Sitting at the kitchen table he could feel the beginnings of a headache throbbing at his temples.
‘Shame you couldn’t get here earlier,’ Suzy said, perching on his knee and putting her arms around his neck. ‘Bethany is about to get home from school. I thought I told you she gets home later on Thursdays on account of street dance. We could have … you know …’
She nuzzled into his neck. The pain in his head intensified.
‘Sorry. I got held up at the gym.’
‘Show us your muscles then.’ Suzy pushed her hands with their bright-yellow nails up the sleeve of his T-shirt and squeezed his biceps with her fingers.
‘Yeah. I can see you’ve been busy,’ she said. ‘Wanna see mine?’
She bent
her left arm and made a straining face as if trying to flex her non-existent muscles. Just then there was the sound of a key in the lock followed by an explosion of high-pitched giggles.
‘Sounds like Emily is here as well,’ said Suzy, not moving from Jason’s lap. ‘Sometimes I’d swear that girl lives at our house. Her mum’s on her own, like me, and she’s got three other little ones. I think Em comes round here for a bit of peace and quiet. It’s not easy for her back home.’
Jason’s heart was pounding as the two girls came into the kitchen, looping the straps of their bags over the chairs.
‘Oh, all right, Jase,’ said Bethany, hardly registering his presence. ‘Mum, what’s there to eat? I’m starving.’
Jason waited for Suzy to tell them it was nearly dinner time, but she just reached over for the packet of chocolate digestives on the sideboard and tossed it at her daughter.
‘How did you get home?’ Jason asked, hoping his voice was steady. He directed the question at Bethany, not daring to look at Emily who was leaning awkwardly against the fridge.
‘Bus,’ she said airily, licking the chocolate off the top of her biscuit.
He got up, tipping Suzy off his lap.
‘They’re too young to be getting the bus on their own.’ He could feel the anger working its way up his body, through his arms all the way down to his fingertips. It felt good. ‘Do you know how many nutters there are out there? Anything could happen.’
Suzy stared at him, an ugly flush creeping over her chest and neck – red to match the kettle.
‘It’s fine. Loads of them get the bus together. I don’t want to fall out with you, Jason, but please don’t start telling me how to raise my own kid. Not when I’ve been doing it just fine on my own for three years, thank you very much.’
For a few seconds they stared at each other. He snatched a glance at Emily and saw she looked nervous, as if she was about to cry.
‘Course you have. I’m sorry, love.’ He reached out to take Suzy’s hand. ‘I’m just a bit over-anxious. It probably comes from having a daughter of my own I’m not allowed to see and lying awake at night thinking of all the terrible things that could be happening to her. Course you know what’s best.’
Suzy squeezed his hand and her body relaxed.
‘You’re missing your daughter. That’s natural. It still winds me up that your ex is keeping her from you. I haven’t always seen eye to eye with Bethany’s dad, but I’d never stop him seeing her. Children need their fathers.’
She raised her face up to his and touched his cheek with a yellow nail.
‘Our first row,’ she said softly.
‘This is getting serious.’
She was joking and yet not joking.
All the time, Jason was conscious of Emily standing to his left. He wanted to unhook Suzy’s arms and turn to look at her, but he worried his face might give him away.
‘We’ve been planning my birthday on Saturday,’ Bethany said, spraying biscuit crumbs all over the kitchen surfaces. ‘We were going to go bowling, but now I think we’ll just chill here with pizza and movies. We’re going to stay up all night. Aren’t we, Emily?’
Finally Jason turned to look. The girl had her long dark hair in a plait which she’d pulled forward over her shoulder so she could play with the end. Her narrow face looked paler than ever in contrast to the bright pink of the bread bin she was standing beside. Her strangely colourless eyes were fixed on her friend as if looking at either of the adults would be too scary. Jason noticed the individual hairs standing up on his arm and he felt curiously light-headed.
‘Mum’s giving me One Direction tickets for my present, aren’t you, Mummy, lovely beautiful Mummy?’
‘Just you wait and see, Miss Nosy.’
Suzy snuggled into Jason and he had to stop himself from pulling away. She was wearing some kind of cloying perfume that was catching in his throat.
‘How many you got coming to your sleepover, Bethany?’ he asked.
‘Dunno. Four? Five if I’m talking to Tasha by then but she was such a cow in maths. She told Mr Tenby that I’d told Josh Perriman the answer but I never did. I didn’t even know the answer.’
Jason stiffened at the word ‘cow’, waiting for Suzy to call her out on it, but she seemed to think the whole thing was funny. If that had been Keira … No, he mustn’t think about Keira. But now that the thought was in his mind, it was making him antsy. Anger was prickling at the soles of his feet, the palms of his hands, the soft flesh of his inner wrist. He glanced again at Emily and had a flash of another dark-haired girl, the smell of apple shampoo. Blood rushed to his head and he closed his eyes. Suzy, misinterpreting his actions, stood up on tiptoe to kiss him on the mouth.
‘I gotta go,’ he said, moving abruptly away. ‘Tell you what, though, Suzy, I’ll come back the day after tomorrow for the sleepover. Help you with sorting out food and all that stuff.’
Suzy’s expression now dissolved into the kind of look she might have given a kitten that had just done something unbearably cute.
‘Aw, that’s so sweet of you. But honestly, don’t worry. I can sort out the sleepover. I’m used to it. Better for you to come round when it’s just the two of us, if you know what I mean.’ She gave him an exaggerated wink.
‘Eww, gross!’ Bethany was grinning in a way that was all too knowing for an eleven-year-old, if you asked him.
‘No, I’d like to help. It’d make me feel, you know, part of your life.’
Suzy reached up and kissed him on the cheek.
‘You are a sweetheart. You know that? You look all hard on the outside, but you’re just a big softie underneath, aren’t you?’
He forced himself to look up and hold her gaze.
‘I’d love it if you helped,’ she said, then she gave him a playful pinch on the arm. ‘Just wanted to check you’re real.’
32
‘You a writer then?’
The man had sat himself down on the opposite side of the table before Sally had a chance to tell him she was waiting for someone. She took a deep breath in, then exhaled slowly until her flare of anger was under control.
‘The computer,’ the man went on, nodding towards Sally’s MacBook Pro. ‘I saw you were deep in thought, tapping away there. I write myself actually.’
Sally’s heart, which was already in free fall, plummeted further.
‘Yes,’ he continued as if she’d evinced the slightest interest, ‘I write fantasy mostly – only it’s a bit different, a bit cross-genre.’
‘Don’t tell me. The Hobbit meets Fifty Shades of Grey?’
‘Haha. That’s very funny. No, mine is about a group of Nazi-hunting vampires. It’s actually a bit of an allegory of the dichotomy at the heart of modern society between our opposing desires for justice and for retribution. It’s four hundred and fifteen thousand words long at the moment.’ He looked expectantly at Sally.
‘Well, you know what they say? Everyone has a book in them – and in most cases that’s exactly where it should stay.’
The man’s smile slipped and Sally went back to her computer screen where she was trying to force a new angle on to the Kenwood Killings, to disguise the fact she was actually just trotting out the same rehashed facts and conjectures. When she looked up again the man had gone and Leanne Miller was slipping into his recently vacated seat.
‘Thank you for coming.’ Sally smiled in what she hoped was a warm way.
She tried not to stare at the creases in Leanne’s pink top. What was it about plain-clothes policewomen and irons?
‘I haven’t got long,’ said Leanne, waving aside Sally’s offer of a latte. ‘I’ve already been out of the office much longer than I’d planned.’
‘Right. Well, the thing is, like I said before, I thought it would be a good thing for both of us if we pooled our resources on this case. I’m not suggesting you tell me official secrets or anything, just that we help each other a bit.’
Leanne looked like she was stifling a sigh,
and Sally felt her hackles rising.
‘You mentioned Nemo this morning.’
‘Yes. But before we talk about that, I do need to know what might be in it for me, supposing I was to have information that might turn out to be useful to you.’
Leanne didn’t even try to stifle her sigh this time.
‘I’ve talked to my boss. He’d be prepared to offer you the first exclusive interview once the case is solved. Depending on what you have to say, of course.’
‘I want to be involved as the case unfolds. I want to be included in the investigation.’
Leanne started to gather her things together. ‘Uh-uh, not going to happen,’ she said, perching a pair of sunglasses on her head.
Sally put up her hand in a gesture of surrender. ‘OK, OK. But I want exclusive interviews with all the officers involved, not just DCI Desmond.’
Leanne nodded – just the slightest of movements.
‘And I want an interview with Emma Reid.’
‘You know perfectly well I can’t force Emma to talk to you.’
‘Not force. Persuade. She’ll listen to you. Especially if you tell her I’ve helped with finding Tilly’s killer.’
Leanne glared at her, and Sally forced herself to hold her gaze.
‘I’ll talk to her. That’s all I can do.’ Leanne looked pointedly at her watch. ‘Nemo?’
‘Right. So I have a contact, anonymous naturally, who is a member of this online paedophile chatroom which was formed basically to fantasize about the Kenwood Killings. Hideous, isn’t it, what turns some people on? One of them even used to be quite famous, my contact says, though he wouldn’t give me any details of who it was.’
‘Wait. This man you know is a member of this chatroom? He’s actually in it?’
‘Yes. Have you heard about it then?’
‘I’ll tell you at the end. Carry on.’
‘Well, like I say, the group was formed to swap fantasies and photographs. At least that’s what my contact thought when he joined, but then he went offline for a while. He has issues with his conscience, my contact. Keeps wanting to go straight, as it were, but then gets dragged back into it. It’s an addiction, you know. Child pornography. Anyway. When he went back to the chatroom he got the sense something big had happened, only no one was saying anything. But then, from little comments here and there, he realized the others were talking to each other privately, so no one else could see. They’d formed their own private group. When I spoke to him the first time, he didn’t know anything about it except they were calling it Nemo. But then somebody in the group sent round a photo by mistake. Of the body.’