by Kate Medina
‘No, I’m alone, Mum. Ben’s not here.’
A surprised intake of breath echoed down the line. ‘Where is he?’
‘In Surrey, at my cottage.’ Unless he’s gone back to barracks in a temper, which I can’t rule out given our last conversation.
‘It’s Friday night, darling …’
‘Yes.’
‘So …’ The single word hung between them in the ensuing silence.
Oh, God, just say it, Jessie wanted to scream. Shouldn’t you be with your boyfriend, working on your relationship? Her mother was sixty: had grown up in a traditional family with father’s role as the breadwinner and mother’s as the housewife clearly demarcated. She had aped that example in her own disastrous marriage and though she professed pride in her daughter’s doctorate, Jessie knew that she’d far rather see her daughter ape that model too: settle down to married life and start producing the next generation, despite the fuck-up that her parents had made of the current generation.
‘Why aren’t you with him, darling?’
‘I was working, Mum, but I’m done now. I’m driving back tomorrow morning.’
Another intake of breath.
‘I’m driving back tomorrow morning,’ she repeated. And she was. She was done here now. She’d accomplished what she had set out to do: asked Carolynn Reynolds to call DI Simmons. Her part in this tragedy was over.
‘He told you that I’ve rearranged the dress fitting for Monday, ten a.m.?’
‘He did.’
‘It’s really the furthest I can push it.’
‘I’ll be there, Mum, I promise—’ She broke off. There was a whole world of things she had planned on saying – that she was looking forward to getting to know Richard better, and his daughter and granddaughters, but most important, that she hoped the wedding would act as a reset button for the two of them. Instead, all she said was, ‘I better go, Mum.’ Why can’t I open up?
‘Were you calling about something specific?’
‘No, nothing specific. Just to say hi.’
‘I’ll look forward to seeing you on Monday then, darling.’
‘Night, Mum.’
The line went dead. Jessie lowered the phone to the bed.
I was just calling to say that I wish everything between us was different. Everything about me was different. That’s all.
33
Carolynn lay rigid in bed as she heard Roger’s footsteps reach the top of the landing, the loose floorboard he had been promising to fix since they moved in, groaning under his weight. Her heart thumping, she waited for the bedroom door to open.
It didn’t. What was he doing on the landing? She had closed the loft hatch, hadn’t she? Put the hooked pole back in the corner of the landing? Now, on the spot, she couldn’t think, couldn’t remember. All she could visualize was the bloated plastic body in that box in the loft, the glassy, horror-film eyes.
Unable to settle, she had paced around the house for what had felt like hours, her heart leaping into her mouth with the sound of every car that drew up at the gates of the caravan park, thinking that it was that vile detective back again, or Roger, that she would have to face him, smile and kiss him, make small talk while his lies and the doll in the loft were clamouring for attention in her brain, grabbing a vice-like hold of her thoughts.
You were at home and I was at work when that girl was killed.
He hadn’t been at work.
You must have lost the necklace somewhere around the house.
She hadn’t lost it. The accusation was ridiculous. The house was spotless, a sterile mausoleum. She could close her eyes and visualize every square centimetre.
She had finally looked at her watch – ten p.m. Too late to leave now, she had nowhere to go. She’d leave in the morning, as soon as he left for work. When they’d lived in London together as a couple, before, when they’d called themselves DINKYs – Dual Income No Kids Yet – Roger had liked to choose what she wore to dinners out or parties. He liked her to look nice, to make him proud. She would have preferred to choose her own clothes – she wasn’t a child – but the fact he cared so much had made her feel loved and so she’d let him. So many people weren’t loved, weren’t wanted. She hadn’t been, as a child, and she had been determined that her adulthood would be different, that she would be adored.
Nowadays, they never went anywhere and he had no cause to open her cupboard, showed no interest in what she looked like. His only interest lay in keeping her calm. That was how he demonstrated his love nowadays, by moderating her alcohol intake and feeding her pills.
Light from the landing washed over Carolynn suddenly as the bedroom door opened. Eyes jammed shut, corpse-like in her stillness, she listened to him move around their bedroom, removing his clothes, laying them on the chair, every movement, every sound so familiar. She tried to soften her breathing to the regular timbre of a sleeper, but each breath caught in her throat, meeting the air in a stressed, hosing gasp.
The tilt of the mattress as he sat on the edge of the bed, a chill puff as he lifted the duvet and slid in next to her. Would he touch her? She wasn’t sure she could bear it if he did.
The lies.
The dolls.
The necklace.
Tomorrow was a Saturday. Oh God, she hadn’t thought. Roger wouldn’t be going to work tomorrow. Wouldn’t even be pretending. She only had one choice now. To wait until he was asleep and leave. It was her only chance to escape.
34
The woman who opened the door matched to perfection Marilyn’s image of the archetypical seaside bed and breakfast owner: early-sixties, coiffured hair highlighted in honeyed shades and set immovably; orange foundation caked into skin overly lined from too much exposure to the sun and wind.
‘I’m looking for Dr Jessica Flynn,’ Marilyn said.
Her expression shifted from one of welcome to one of suspicion. Tilting her head, she gazed at him through narrowed, powder-blue-lidded eyes.
‘I don’t have any guests by that name.’
Marilyn held up his warrant card, indicated with his other hand Jessie’s mini parked on the drive behind him. The woman’s mouth popped open, a fish gasping for its last breath.
‘I’ll wait for her on the beach.’ Sliding his warrant card into his pocket, Marilyn crunched back up the gravel, calling over his shoulder. ‘Detective Inspector Bobby Simmons, lovely to meet you.’
He was standing on the concrete walkway above the beach, smoking and gazing out to sea when Jessie stalked down the garden and joined him.
‘Bastard,’ she said.
‘Good morning to you too.’
‘Not you. Though I doubt if you’ll take long to earn that moniker today either.’
‘You wouldn’t be down here if you didn’t have a niggling doubt,’ Marilyn said. ‘Callan did the right thing.’
Shutting the garden gate behind her, Jessie swung round to face him, hands on her hips. ‘He did the right thing for you. He betrayed me. Bastard.’
‘Lots of B’s being bandied about this morning. Let me think of another one. Breakfast? My treat.’
Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the old adage? “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Make that, “There’s no such thing as a free breakfast” – I assume you’ll want something in exchange.’
‘I’ll take you for the best pancake you’ve ever had and it will be worth whatever I ask for in return.’
‘The surf café? I went there yesterday.’
‘With Carolynn Reynolds?’
‘With Laura.’
Marilyn looked momentarily crestfallen. ‘Is that what she’s calling herself nowadays?’ he said, as realization dawned.
‘For my sessions, yes. In public? I didn’t ask.’
‘And she’s living in Bracklesham Bay?’
‘My my, Callan was a thorough stool pigeon.’
Though it was barely past seven a.m., the sun was already high in the sky, reflecting off the hull of yet another container ship plou
ghing its way towards Portsmouth docks. How many a day? Scores of them, enough to keep up with the relentless British consumer. It promised to be another hot day, a day for pottering on the beach, collecting more shells for her mother’s wedding. She’d planned to call Callan, ask him to join her here for the weekend. Her room in the B & B was free tonight, she’d already checked in anticipation. Not now, though.
‘I’ve already found her,’ Marilyn said.
Jessie’s eyes swung back to meet his. ‘Fast work, Detective Inspector. I’m impressed.’
‘I got the team to put the hard word on all the cash-in-hand, ask-no-questions-and-I’ll-tell-you-no-lies landlords we know who own properties in Bracklesham Bay.’ He winked. ‘I’ve been in Surrey and Sussex Major crimes for twenty years and many of my team have been in it far longer. We know most of the low-level scrotes on our patch and know how to push their hot buttons when we need to. The threat of a tip-off to the Inland Revenue works wonders.’
‘The perils of living in a small town.’
‘They probably should have chosen to hide out in Birmingham or Manchester, though to be fair, this place has worked well for them for the past nine months. Seaside towns have a certain transient, touristy anonymity …’ He paused. ‘And this place has connections for them, doesn’t it? History. Something I’d like to talk to you about. I don’t understand why they’d choose to come back to where Zoe was murdered.’ Marilyn held out his arm. ‘Shall we? I’m starving.’ Grinding out his cigarette on the top of Una Subramaniam’s garden wall, he tossed the butt into the bushes at the end of her garden.
‘Biodegradable,’ he muttered, in response to Jessie’s admonishing frown.
‘No, they’re not.’
‘Thick bushes. They’ll never see it. Serves her right for lying to me.’
They walked side by side along the promenade towards the Fisherman’s Hut and the start of Shore Road, which would take them from the beach to East Wittering village centre.
‘She was looking out for the emotional welfare of one of her guests,’ Jessie said. ‘I told her that I’d just broken up with my fiancé and had come down here to get away.’
Marilyn laughed. ‘And who did she think I was? Your fiancé’s grandfather, or did she think you’d left your white stick in the car?’
Tilting sideways, Jessie nudged his shoulder with her own. ‘Don’t be so harsh on yourself, Detective Inspector. You have a certain weathered charm.’
‘Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?’
They fell silent, the only noise the flap of Jessie’s summer dress against her bare legs. Though she was still furious at Callan’s betrayal, another emotion had seeded itself alongside the first, an emotion she recognized as relief. She realized now how much the dilemma of whether to tell Marilyn about Carolynn had weighed on her mind – not that she was going to admit that to either him or Callan.
At the surf café, they found a table in the high-walled rear patio, so they could talk without being overheard and Marilyn could smoke. Jessie ordered a breakfast pancake and a latte, and Marilyn the same to eat with a strong black coffee, two sugars.
‘Thanks for coming, Jessie. I do appreciate it.’
She gave a non-committal nod. ‘Just don’t do anything that is going to make me regret taking you up on your offer of breakfast, however good the pancakes are.’
35
Carolynn was tying the laces on her running shoes when she heard the sound of knuckles against glass. Looking up, she saw Jessie Flynn, wearing black run capris and a sky-blue vest that matched the colour of her eyes, standing at her kitchen window.
‘Come for a run,’ Jessie mouthed through the glass.
Carolynn joined her outside. ‘I didn’t know that you ran.’
‘I don’t, but you can motivate me. I spend far too much time sitting on my arse talking and listening. Come on!’
They jogged across the road, climbed on to the wooden sea defence wall and jumped down the other side, landing on the beach in unison. Though the sun had risen, the early morning air was chill and Carolynn noticed goosebumps on Jessie’s bare arms.
‘Let’s run,’ Carolynn said, meeting Jessie’s smile with one of her own, a smile so genuine that she felt as if she would burst with it. ‘Warm you up.’
Jessie was lithe and strong and though she had said that she wasn’t a runner, her movements were fluid and confident and their pace and strides matched as they ran across the flat sand. Jessie’s jet-black ponytail was streaming out behind her like the tail of that galloping horse Carolynn had raced on the beach a few weeks ago.
‘You’re flying,’ Carolynn called out, laughing.
‘It’s you, Carolynn! It’s being with you. You make me feel amazing.’
She felt Jessie’s hand close around her own, and then they were sprinting, hurtling across the sand towards the sun, hand in hand like a couple of schoolkids at break time, running and laughing out loud. Carolynn felt an incredible rush: the rush of lactic acid building in her leg muscles as their pace outstripped her lungs’ ability to provide oxygen, the rush of the endless empty sand, the rush of knowing that she’d been right, that she was friends with Jessie Flynn.
Knuckles on glass again and the sun shining brightly, too brightly, right into her eyes. The morning sun’s rays magnified by the curved glass of her windscreen, she realized as she forced her eyes open. The knocking, not Jessie, but a man, banging his clenched fist against her passenger window. Her body telegraphed a message of discomfort to her brain, not only her legs, but her arms, neck and back as she struggled to sit up in the cramped space, raising her hands apologetically, ducking her head so that he couldn’t see her face.
‘You’re blocking the slipway,’ he shouted. ‘I need to launch my fishing boat.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she shouted back, her voice hoarse with sleep.
Shucking out of the sleeping bag, she squeezed herself between the front seats and sank into the driver’s seat. Zoe’s cat was still asleep, curled up in a tight doughnut on the passenger seat. Half-asleep still herself, Carolynn turned the key, which she’d had the good sense to leave in the ignition so she could find it easily. Thankfully the engine caught first time. Lifting a hand, she signalled a final apology, hoping that the man would be too caught up with launching his boat to wonder why she had been parked there. She would head for the A3 now and join the rush-hour traffic heading towards Guildford and London. Blend in, make herself invisible.
36
‘Did I ever tell you that I was married?’
Jessie met Marilyn’s gaze over the rim of her coffee cup. ‘That was unexpected. And, no, you didn’t, but you already know that you didn’t.’
‘Are you going to ask why I’m telling you this?’ he said, with a wry smile.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sure your reasons will reveal themselves.’
The waiter arrived with their pancakes, and they fell silent while he arranged the plates in front of them, set out napkins, knives and forks.
‘So what happened?’ Jessie asked, when the waiter had disappeared back inside. ‘To your marriage.’
‘I screwed around and she left me.’
‘It’s typical in the police. Broken relationships.’
‘Unfortunately, it is. When we first got married, we used to watch all my colleagues in Brighton having affairs, betraying their wives or husbands, splitting up. We were so smug back then. We always said that it would never happen to us.’
Jessie took a sip of her coffee, didn’t say anything. They had developed a solid professional relationship over the past year of working together intermittently, and Marilyn had become a friend of sorts, but she had never opened up to him or he to her before and she sensed that whatever she said at this point would halt, not encourage his flow. She also sensed that there was a point to his opening up to her, that it wasn’t just a sudden burning desire to unburden his soul. He wasn’t the type who needed to share.
‘How many affairs did you
have?’
‘Two she found out about and one she didn’t.’
Jessie gave a cynical half-smile. ‘Well done, you’ve earned it – the moniker, bastard.’
Marilyn lifted his shoulders in an apologetic shrug. ‘I wanted to stick with it, but she had grown up with parents who hated each other and she had no interest in repeating their mistakes.’
‘And you were the one having your cake and eating it, while she was the one at home with no cake, but lots of shit.’
‘Thanks for the support.’
‘You can always contradict me.’
‘But I won’t, of course, because you’re right.’
‘And she knew that you wouldn’t change your ways, whatever you promised. Old dogs, new tricks and all that.’
‘I wasn’t such an old dog in those days.’
She smiled. ‘Leopards and spots?’
He didn’t smile back. ‘I was convinced that it was a one-off.’
‘A three-off.’
Marilyn ploughed on. ‘And that I’d change, but she knew that I wouldn’t, and she was right. Fundamentally, the whole marriage thing didn’t suit me.’
‘How did you meet her?’
‘She was a civilian worker with the police, but she gave up when we had our first child.’
Jessie raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t know you had children.’