by Julie Corbin
‘Yes. Of course.’ My brain activates with a clunking of gears. ‘Robbie?’ I unwind Lauren’s arms from around me. ‘I want you to take your sister out of here. Grab your coats and stand outside, in the middle of the path where I can see you.’
He does as he’s told, speaking to Lauren the whole time, ‘It’s okay, Lauren. Everyone’s fine. We’ll look back on this in a few weeks’ time and we’ll laugh.’
I doubt that this will ever be funny, but I know that he’s doing his best to stop her tears and it seems to be working so I’m grateful for that. I glance up the stairs and then along the hallway into the black space beyond the kitchen where Robbie just went to find Benson. What was I thinking of letting him go out there on his own? As soon as we came in the front door it was obvious that something wasn’t right. What if whoever did this had still been out there? A few glasses of champagne and my guard is completely down. Instead of thinking about the children, I was imagining myself with O’Reilly. I can’t believe my own stupidity. I take my phone from my evening bag, my hands shaking as I scan through previous calls to find the numbers O’Reilly has called me from. Mostly he’s rung me from the station but once it was from a mobile and when I find the number I highlight it with my finger and the call goes through.
‘Hello!’ he shouts. ‘Dr Somers! What can I do for you?’
There’s laughter in the background behind him and I have to give him the information twice before he hears me. ‘We’ve been broken into. The word “MURDERER” is painted across the wall in the living room. In giant red letters,’ I shout.
There are a couple more seconds of background chaos and then I hear a door shut and sudden quiet. ‘Are you still in the house?’
‘I’m in the porch. Robbie and Lauren are on the path.’
‘All of you go out on to the pavement. Just in case.’ He sounds completely sober now and I hear the sound of his feet running on the ground. ‘I’ll have a squad car there in minutes and I’ll be with you soon after.’
‘Okay.’ I finish the call and climb into a pair of wellies, Benson running around my feet, letting me know he’s up for a midnight walk.
‘DI O’Reilly says we should stand out on the pavement and wait for the police to arrive,’ I tell the children, not adding the Just in case. Just in case there’s something, or someone, waiting for us upstairs.
I shiver at the thought and Robbie pulls me towards him and Lauren. We all huddle together like this for the short time it takes the police to arrive. The first policeman goes straight into the house, the second one tells us to wait inside the car until they’ve finished their search. So we do, the three of us in a line on the back seat, Lauren in the middle with Benson on her knee. She’s stopped crying and her expression is wide-eyed and anxious. ‘I can’t believe someone broke into our house.’
‘It’s awful,’ I agree.
‘Why didn’t Benson attack him?’
‘Darling, he’s not a guard dog; he’s a family pet. I’m sure that if whoever it was came in with a biscuit or a steak, he would have happily followed him to the garden.’
‘At least they didn’t hurt him.’ She strokes his head. ‘He seems completely fine.’
‘He does.’
I stare up the garden path and into our house. The front door is open and I can see along the hallway to the kitchen. As the police move through the rooms, they’re turning on every light so that our home is now the only one in the street that’s fully illuminated. My body tenses as I wait for a scream or hurried footsteps when the perpetrator is found hidden in a wardrobe or under the bed and makes a run for it.
‘The paint was dry, Mum,’ Robbie says, reading my mind. ‘Whoever wrote on the wall is long gone.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ I look round at him and try to smile but his expression is serious, not as wide-eyed and fearful as Lauren’s, but far more sombre than usual.
‘Do you think this is linked to the drink spiking?’ He’s half mouthing, half whispering over the top of Lauren’s head and I do the same back.
‘I think it has to be.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘I can hear you, you know,’ Lauren says, her upturned face swivelling from side to side as she looks at us. ‘You shouldn’t try to protect me from the truth because it’s much worse being kept in the dark. If I know things, I don’t worry so much.’
‘Sorry, poppet.’ I hug her hard. ‘It’s just that we forget how smart you are.’
‘Nosy, more like,’ Robbie says. He starts to tickle her and she’s giggling like a four-year-old when O’Reilly’s car pulls up outside the house. We all watch him as he climbs out the passenger side, gives us a perfunctory wave and runs up the path.
‘Big boss man arrives,’ Robbie says.
‘He seems quite nice, actually,’ Lauren says, leaning forwards so that she sees him go right into the house. ‘Sometimes the police can be corrupt or they drink too much.’
‘Jeez, Lauren!’ Robbie pokes her in the ribs. ‘That’s only on TV.’
She jerks out of his way and Benson ends up on my knee, his paws dragging at my dress. ‘Settle down, you two!’ I say, checking that Benson’s nails haven’t snagged the silk. ‘We’ll be out of here in a minute.’
‘You looked like you were getting on well with him, Mum,’ Robbie remarks, lifting Benson away from me.
‘With DI O’Reilly?’
‘Who else?’
I try to sound casual. ‘Yes, we were,’ I say. ‘And as I’ve been hassling him a lot these last couple of weeks, all credit to him that he didn’t plant himself at the opposite end of the room and pretend he hadn’t seen me.’
‘It was a good night,’ Robbie says.
‘It was.’ I’m already feeling wistful for a couple of hours ago when it seemed as though the drink spiking was behind us, and I was daring to imagine the possibility of a relationship with someone other than Phil. It felt, for a few heady minutes, as if my life might shed its grey skin, left over from the divorce, and explode with colour and texture.
‘Robbie, remember the girl I was asking you about – Tess Williamson?’
He nods.
‘She was in the pub that night.’
‘Who’s she?’ Lauren asks, and I fill her in on the back story. ‘But if she’s never even met Robbie, why would she be doing things to him?’
‘Something simple could have sparked off her interest,’ I say. ‘Or perhaps she’s not the one doing it but she knows the person who is.’
‘Well, if it helps, I’m absolutely sure I haven’t murdered anyone,’ Robbie says. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course!’ Lauren and I cry out, both at the same time, and she snuggles into his shoulder.
‘But if we don’t take the word “murderer” literally,’ I say, ‘then perhaps it’s something to do with you murdering her dreams or her friend’s dreams or something.’
‘How?’ he laughs.
‘Could she have wanted to join the hockey club?’ I hear myself clutching at straws, but I’m desperately trying to unearth a connection. ‘Or could you have met her at a party and snubbed her without realising it?’
‘I don’t have any control over who joins the hockey club. And, yeah.’ He shrugs. ‘I guess I could have snubbed her. Maybe. I dunno. I’m usually friendly with everyone.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘Hello again.’ The car door swings open and O’Reilly is there. ‘There are no intruders in the house, so we need you to come inside now and tell us whether anything else has been done or anything has been taken.’
We climb out of the car and follow him inside, all of us still in our finery. Robbie and Lauren go with one of each of the officers to check their rooms and I stay with O’Reilly. We walk back into the living room and my eyes are drawn at once to the livid red writing on the wall. Even although I’m prepared, it’s still shocking, and I feel panic rise up through my chest. ‘I want to tear
the wallpaper off,’ I say. ‘Can I do that now?’
‘We need to take photographs first,’ he says. ‘Forensics are on their way. They’ll also take fingerprints, although that might be a long shot as so many people have been in here and the perpetrator most likely wore gloves.’
‘And as soon as they’ve collected the evidence?’
‘You can tear off the paper and have it redecorated.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Spot anything missing or tampered with?’ O’Reilly says.
I pull my eyes away from the writing and look around the rest of the room. Benson has taken himself into his basket and is lying with his head perched on the rim, his eyes half closed. The coffee table is strewn with magazines and schoolbooks and other stray pieces of paper. Lauren and her friends went through a stage of crocheting cushions, multicoloured fun cushions that brighten the sofas and chairs like happy smiles. Books line the back of one whole wall from ceiling to floor: classics, thrillers, how to do this or that books, collected over a lifetime. Wedgwood-blue velvet curtains are closed over the windows at the front and the patio doors to the garden at the back and some of the hooks have slipped, showing uneven gaps at the top. Hastily hung photo frames decorate the back wall, the children’s ages and stages, family birthdays and Christmas mornings.
‘Everything seems to be as we left it.’
‘You don’t have any money stashed anywhere?’
I give a short laugh. ‘I should be so lucky.’
My eyes are drawn back to the wall. I expect the impact to lessen each time I look at it but it does not. The sight is so gruesome, like something from a horror film, completely at odds with the décor in the living room. I realise where my daughter gets her need to understand everything, to make sense of what happens around her, because I know that I won’t rest until I’ve worked out what this can possibly mean.
‘Do you think this is linked to what happened to Robbie?’ I ask O’Reilly.
‘Very likely.’
I wonder whether this could have been the work of Tess Williamson; whether she would have had the presence of mind to break in, be friendly towards the dog and then spray-paint this message across the wall. She didn’t appear to have that much guile, but then how would I know? I only met her for five minutes.
‘Do you think Tess Williamson could have done this?’
‘We’ll check whether she has an alibi for this evening and we’ll also ask her to voluntarily give us her fingerprints, but I have a feeling her parents aren’t going to like it. When we questioned her earlier, her father hired a lawyer and he was present throughout.’
‘Doesn’t that make her seem guilty?’
‘I don’t think so. There are a lot of people out there who don’t entirely trust the police.’
‘Well, I’m one hundred per cent sure that Robbie hasn’t murdered anyone.’
‘Of course,’ he acknowledges. ‘But perhaps we should be looking wider than Robbie’s friends. Could this be the work of one of Phil’s patients?’
‘With him being a psychiatrist, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
I think about this. It makes sense. Psychiatrists spend time with people who are often seriously deluded and inhabiting realities that aren’t necessarily shared by the rest of us. ‘You think this could have been done by someone who wants to get back at Phil? Perhaps he or she feels like their sense of self was murdered by the treatment they were given?’
He shrugs. ‘It’s possible.’
‘Except that Phil has never lived here. The kids and I moved in six months ago and whoever did this would surely know that.’
‘True.’ He nods. ‘And did you lock all the doors before you left?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s strange because we can’t find any sign of forced entry.’
‘I distinctly remember making sure all the doors were locked,’ I say. ‘And there were no windows left open, apart from the small ones upstairs.’
Robbie and the male police officer come into the living room. ‘Can’t see anything different in my bedroom,’ Robbie says. He has changed out of his suit and is wearing jeans and a hoodie. ‘My guitar’s still there and my computer and my iPod.’
‘We’re just trying to work out how the person got in,’ I say. ‘I know I locked all the doors and none of the downstairs windows were open, were they?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Robbie says.
‘I always leave the back door key in the lock,’ I tell O’Reilly, and then I explain about Robbie finding Benson in the garden hut. ‘So whoever did this must have used the back door key to open the door into the garden.’
‘Good,’ O’Reilly says. ‘We’ll make sure forensics fingerprint the key.’
‘The front door key I took with me.’
‘You don’t keep one under the doormat or under a plant pot outside?’
‘No. We all carry our own keys.’ I feel Robbie shifting his feet beside me. ‘What is it?’ I say to him.
‘Em.’ He’s clearly uncomfortable. He pulls at his ear then makes an apologetic face. ‘I meant to tell you this but I kept on forgetting. I think I lost my house key the night my drink was spiked.’
‘What do you mean, you think?’
‘Well, I haven’t seen it since then. I thought it might have fallen down inside the couch, or something but—’
‘So what have you been using?’
‘One of the spare ones from the kitchen drawer.’
‘Robbie!’ I glance across at O’Reilly. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I shake my head and stare back at Robbie again. ‘This is all because you weren’t taking the attack on you seriously enough.’
‘I screwed up. I’m really sorry.’
‘That’s just not good enough! It really, bloody isn’t!’ I shout, the evening’s fear and frustration welling into words. ‘The police are making their best efforts here.’
He keeps his eyes low and mumbles something. I’m about to wade in some more when O’Reilly speaks first.
‘Well, that clears that up,’ he says, matter-of-factly. ‘And it also positively links the two crimes.’ He sits down on the edge of the sofa. ‘We should get these locks changed. I know a twenty-four-hour locksmith. Would you like me to call him?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘I don’t think whoever did this will be back,’ he says. ‘But just to be on the safe side, I think you should all stay elsewhere tonight.’
‘Leila will have us,’ I say automatically, and then look at my watch. It’s the early hours of Saturday morning and she has her cousin’s wedding today. She has to organise the four children and Archie and help her parents. The last thing she needs is the three of us tipping up on her doorstep. So although I desperately want another adult to put their arms around me, I say quickly, ‘Actually no, that’s not a good idea. Not when it’s so late.’ I briefly consider the sensible option – ringing Phil so that the children can go and stay with him – but I don’t want to be separated from them and I have a feeling he’ll find a reason to keep them for longer than just one night. ‘We can go to a hotel,’ I say, putting my arm around Lauren as she comes to join us. She’s also changed out of her evening clothes and is back into jeans. ‘Return to the mood of earlier this evening and spoil ourselves a bit.’
‘Can we afford it?’ Lauren says. She leans in to whisper so that O’Reilly won’t hear her. ‘You could cancel my piano lessons to pay for it.’
‘I think the budget will stretch to that, love.’
‘We have to take Benson with us.’
‘We’ll find a hotel that takes dogs. Although we’ll be lucky to get anywhere with it being high season.’
‘I’ll look on the Internet,’ Robbie says, glad to leave the room. I’m avoiding his eye because I’m still angry with him for not telling me about the key. And I’m angry with myself for not being more on his case. And I’m angry with whoever did this – came into our house and spread their message across the wall. I wish I cou
ld explain it away but I can’t, and suddenly it’s all too clear that the attack on Robbie was deliberate. I try to take some steadying breaths but my lungs feel waterlogged, as a simmering pool of anger drains into my chest. And underneath the anger and frustration, fear is lodged, stuck to my ribs with Super Glue.
Robbie comes back with the name of a hotel fairly close by. There’s been a late cancellation and they’re happy to take dogs. O’Reilly offers one of the policemen to drive us there and I take him up on the offer. I go upstairs to my room and check that my small amount of jewellery is intact, then change out of my evening dress and gather some overnight toiletries. I promise to check in with O’Reilly tomorrow morning when he will give us a new set of house keys and let me know whether the forensic team found anything of note.
The hotel is not as quiet as I expected. Some wedding guests are milling around in reception and Benson goes up to say hello to each one of them. They’re all cheerfully drunk and chat to Benson and the children while I register us at the desk. I book us one room with two large beds. I’m sure Robbie would prefer to be in a room on his own, but I want us all to be together.
‘We can give you an extended checkout time,’ the receptionist tells me. ‘Two o’clock instead of twelve?’
‘That would be great,’ I say, sliding my credit card across the desk. ‘And we’ll probably have a late breakfast in the room, if that’s okay.’
‘Of course.’
I shout on the children and we go upstairs. As soon as we’re in the room, I bolt the door behind us and satisfy myself that there are no adjoining doors into the rooms either side of us. Robbie lounges back on one of the super-king-size beds while Lauren and Benson have a look in the bathroom and then the wardrobe and the mini-bar.
‘It’s quite grand in here, isn’t it?’ Lauren says, throwing herself backwards and landing with a soft thump next to Robbie. ‘It makes me wish I still had my dress on.’
Benson takes a leap on to Robbie’s chest and he holds him tight, his face thoughtful as he strokes the dog’s ears. ‘You okay, love?’ I say.