by Jane Casey
‘You’d think for the sake of the money alone he’d keep his cock under control,’ Ben Dornton commented.
I pulled a face. ‘I didn’t spend a lot of time analysing him, but I’d have to guess that he finds it a bit emasculating to be in such an unequal relationship. He’s done well enough for himself, especially given that basically he’s a disgraced academic, but she’s astronomically wealthy. It must be hard to give up the kind of lifestyle he currently enjoys – that doesn’t mean he likes himself for it.’
‘Let’s get rid of Dr Chen and have Maeve do her bit instead.’
I glared at Rob. ‘Thank you for the suggestion, DC Langton. It’s just conjecture, as you know.’
‘This is all conjecture,’ Belcott complained. ‘Why did you decide the academic and his wife were out of the picture?’
‘Rebecca was Faraday’s walk on the wild side – he didn’t want her dead. And I don’t think that Delia would have bothered with having her rival killed. She’d just have reminded her husband who was in charge and made him live in a different city for a while.’ I pointed at the screen. ‘With hindsight, Louise’s behaviour has been suspicious from the start, when we found her in Rebecca’s flat. We never found Rebecca’s address book, an appointments diary or the notebook she always carried. I have a feeling they walked out the door in Louise’s Prada bag.’ I turned to Sam. ‘Do you remember her bursting into tears all of a sudden and needing to pay a trip to the bathroom to recover her composure? What do you want to bet that while we were talking in the living room, she was hunting through the rest of the flat to make sure she hadn’t missed anything?’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised,’ Sam said. ‘We missed it.’
‘Comprehensively,’ I agreed. ‘But if we hadn’t been there in the first place, we’d never have known she was in the flat at all.’ I managed not to look at Godley as I said it. He had already apologised to me for bollocking us; Sam’s apology would presumably come after the meeting.
‘Why take the risk of trying to make it look like a Burning Man murder?’ Judd asked.
‘I think she thought she could get away with it. She must be extremely arrogant to have taken the risk of going to Rebecca’s flat and cleaning it up. Remember, if I’m right about all this, she got away with murder once before. And there is something flashy about this crime, something that I, for one, was convinced fitted in with the flamboyant confidence that Gil Maddick has in spades. From the first, Louise tried to point me in his direction. She had him lined up to take the fall if we weren’t convinced Rebecca was one of the serial killer’s victims. That was before she started a relationship with him, of course. I have to assume becoming involved with him wasn’t part of her initial plan, because it seems foolhardy in the extreme. Rebecca was always the dominant one when they became friends – she was the pretty, popular girl, and Louise was more in her shadow. I get the impression that with Rebecca gone, Louise has a chance to shine, and she’s taking it, no matter how unwise it may be.’
‘I’m still missing something,’ Judd said. ‘You’ve told us how. You haven’t said why.’
‘Because I can’t be sure about it until we talk to her, and that’s assuming she’ll cough to it, which I doubt she will. She is a lawyer, after all. And she’s very proud of that fact. She has a lot to lose if her reputation is damaged. That’s why, I think, Rebecca had to die.’
‘Because she threatened her reputation?’ Colin Vale asked.
‘Because Louise couldn’t take the risk that she would. Her only insurance was if Rebecca had been sufficiently involved in killing Adam Rowley to make it impossible for her to blackmail her friend without dropping herself in it. But Rebecca was broke and desperate, and she’d exhibited some fairly appalling judgement all along. Louise couldn’t trust her. If she got away with murder seven years ago, why not perform the same trick now when she had so much more to lose if she didn’t?’
‘Are we taking this to the CPS on the strength of a voicemail message and some CCTV?’ Judd asked Godley.
‘We’ve got enough to make an arrest. Whether we can charge her with murder depends on the interview. We need a confession.’ Godley looked down the table. ‘Ben and Chris, were you taking notes? It’s going to be up to you now to get this case off the ground.’
Dornton and Pettifer nodded, looking thoughtful. I wished them luck with facing down Louise when she was brought in; I wouldn’t have wanted to try. I was gathering up my notes, so tired I could barely see straight. Godley’s voice called me back to attention.
‘Maeve, stick around. We’ll get things organised for the arrest and go straight into the interview. I’m going to need you to watch it with me. There’s that chance you might spot something we’d miss, like you did with the car.’
‘Oh. Really? I––’
‘It’ll be a couple of hours before we move on making the arrest. So get some food or something. Relax. Take things easy.’
‘I was going to––’ I broke off. Godley wasn’t listening to me. He had already moved on to talk in a low-pitched mutter with Judd about briefing the CPS. I stood there, swaying with fatigue, wanting more than anything to go home.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Rob was standing up, stretching, then sauntering towards me. Rob, whom I had known for over a year without being remotely ruffled by his presence. Rob, who had sat beside me in countless cars and interviews and briefings, his shoulder against mine. Rob, who had surely never made my heart beat in such an infuriatingly erratic way just by standing near me and saying my name. I turned and smiled, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the colour that had risen in my cheeks.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Just tired.’
‘You must be. All that talking.’
‘And thinking. Don’t forget the thinking.’
‘Unaccustomed as you are to it. Want to go for a coffee? You’ve got time if it’s going to be a few hours yet before she’s interviewed.’
I shook my head. I couldn’t think of anything worse than coffee for my state of mind. I was already feeling jittery, nervous about Louise being arrested, worried that I’d missed something or invented something that wasn’t there. I had that sort of fatigue that comes at the end of a long-haul flight, when the world seems to recede down a narrow tunnel. Even Rob was suddenly very far away.
‘I’m OK.’ I looked around the room piteously, as if a bed would materialise in front of me if I wished for it. ‘What I’d really like is a rest.’
‘We can manage that.’ He dug in his pocket for car keys. ‘Let me take you home.’
‘To my parents’ house? Too far to go. We wouldn’t even have time to get there and back before the interview starts.’
‘So I’ll take you somewhere else. Come on.’
‘Where to?’
He didn’t answer, just smiled and walked out of the room. I followed, too worn out even to be curious. I didn’t even particularly care if anyone saw us leaving the building together. No one would think anything of it. We went places all the time together. And Rob wasn’t acting as if there was anything to hide anyway.
He interrupted my train of thought by stopping on the steps outside and looking at me assessingly. ‘We’d better get a cab. You look as if you couldn’t walk to the corner without keeling over.’
‘You’re not driving?’
‘No parking,’ he said succinctly, and hailed a black cab, leaning in through the driver’s window to give the address so I didn’t hear where he was taking me. The traffic was, as usual, horrible, and it took a while to get to our destination, even though it proved not to be too far away. Rob looked out of the window, his face turned away from me, and instead of second-guessing him as I usually would, I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes, drifting a little. Somewhere, Louise was going about her life, oblivious to the effort that was building up to take her into custody, more or less on my say-so. I felt a wave of nausea and fought it down. If I was right, she deserved it. If I was wron
g … but I couldn’t be wrong.
Where Rob took me turned out to be a tiny hotel tucked between shops in a Knightsbridge back street, a hotel that made up in luxury for what it lacked in size. He made me sit in a wing-backed armchair by the fire in the minuscule bar while he dealt with the receptionist, and the warmth revived me to the point where I was ready to tackle him when he came back.
‘You can’t do this. We can’t just check into a hotel because I want a rest.’
‘Can. Have.’ He dangled a key in front of me. ‘Want to see if there’s a minibar?’
‘We’re on duty,’ I said automatically.
‘Spoilsport.’
‘This is ridiculous.’ I allowed my arm to be taken as I was helped out of my chair and escorted to the lift, past the reception desk where two immaculately made-up girls were standing, eyes cast down discreetly as we went by. ‘And what must they think?’
‘They can think what they like,’ Rob said firmly, summoning the lift. ‘If you want to go back to the nick, tell me and I’ll get you a cab. But I’m staying.’
I grumbled all the way into room 4, where I abruptly stopped, because it was a jewel of a room with rose-coloured walls, a claw-footed bath in the black-and-white tiled bathroom, big windows veiled in layers of curtains that muffled the sounds of the traffic below and, dominating the room entirely, a vast bed with fat pillows and a satin coverlet.
‘Wow. How did you know about this place?’
He laughed. ‘Do you really want to know?’
I had time to experience a spasm of pure jealousy in the split-second before he relented.
‘It’s not what you’re thinking. I used to be on the Met hotel crimes squad. I arrested someone here. The assistant manager was part of a gang from Kosovo who had a nice little thing going, thieving from the guests. He got four years, I seem to recall. And I got a discount card from the very grateful manager which I hadn’t had a chance to use before today.’
‘Oh. So not a regular romantic hang-out, then.’
‘No. I haven’t brought anyone else here. Just you.’ He turned and prodded the bed. ‘Decent mattress, I hope. Do you want to lie down?’
I did. But I did not want to lie there on my own. Before I could think of a way to convey my feelings without sounding too cheap, he had knelt down in front of me and started undoing the laces on my trainers, whistling under his breath in a particularly unromantic way.
‘I feel like a horse at the blacksmith’s,’ I said as he lifted my foot to slide my trainer off.
‘Whoa there, Bessy.’ He pulled the other one off and stood up, very close to me, and again I experienced that wave of excitement and nerves that had so unsettled me earlier. I stared at his mouth, thinking about leaning forward and letting my lips brush his … I edged forward a little, close enough to feel the warmth from his skin.
He cleared his throat. ‘Maeve.’
I snapped out of my reverie and looked up at him, aware from the blood beating in my cheeks that my face had gone the colour of the walls.
‘I thought you might just want to rest. Don’t think I haven’t realised that you may be suffering from brain damage because of your head injury.’
‘I’m fine. I feel much better. Really, apart from being tired, I’m back to my old self,’ I gabbled and he laid a finger on my lips to stop me talking.
‘Don’t think I won’t take full advantage of your weakened condition, then. If you want me to.’ I took his hand and moved it away from my mouth. ‘How might you do that?’
‘I thought I might start like this.’ He bent his head to kiss me, and it was wonderful and strange and completely right all at the same time.
‘The only part of me that is weak,’ I observed presently, ‘is my knees.’
‘Really?’ Rob sounded interested. ‘Let’s have a look.’
The easiest way to do that, it seemed, was to take off my jeans. And before long, we had moved beyond the initial awkwardness, the laughter, the playing around. It was serious, what we were doing. But more than that, it was right.
And it was better than I could have imagined.
‘Again?’ he asked some time later as we lay side by side, facing each other, no more than three inches apart. He was trailing his finger down the length of my spine and back up in an unhurried rhythm.
‘Yes. No. Not yet.’ I struggled to open my eyes, lulled into a daze by the overwhelming feeling of well-being. ‘Rob.’
‘Maeve.’ He matched my tone, sounding and looking absurdly solemn. I poked him in the chest.
‘Take me seriously. We need to talk.’
‘Now?’ He rolled onto his back and threw his forearm over his eyes, shutting me out. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ I sat up, pulling the sheet up around me. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this. It’s just going to complicate a good working relationship. And if you tell anyone on the squad, I’m not going to be able to show my face in the incident room.’
He moved his arm so he could glare at me with one eye. ‘Why do you think I would talk about this?’
‘“Maeve’s got great legs and a nice little arse too. She’s gagging for it. I’d shag her until she couldn’t walk in a straight line,” ’ I mimicked. ‘That was it, wasn’t it? I haven’t forgotten anything? I only heard bits of it, but I think I got the gist.’
‘That was completely different. That was just talk.’ He reached up and drew me down to him. ‘Let me see if I can do it, though.’
‘For God’s sake,’ I protested, half-laughing, half-cross. ‘We have to work together. We can’t possibly do whatever it is we’re doing here without jeopardising everything. At the very least, one of us will probably have to leave the team, whether this goes anywhere or not. I mean, I’m jumping too far ahead here. It’s not like I’m trying to see into the future. But we should be responsible about it.’
Rob frowned, looking down so I couldn’t see his eyes. ‘Why don’t you stop thinking about what’s going to happen and concentrate on the here and now?’
‘Don’t you even care about what I’m saying?’ Did that mean he saw what we were doing as a one-off?
He thought for a second as his hands moved, sliding under the sheet I still held around me. ‘No. Now I appreciate your efforts to wrap yourself up as my Christmas present, but I’ve been a very good boy and I’d like to open it a few days early.’
It was easier, somehow, to push the doubts to the back of my mind. Easier to allow myself to be folded into his arms again. Easier to run my hands over his skin, learning every inch of it, shutting out the real world as it rattled on, far below our windows.
Easier just to let go.
*
The room was dim when I opened my eyes, wondering what had woken me. A small lamp on the table by the window was the only source of light. I turned my head, disorientated for a moment, and looked into Rob’s eyes. He was standing by the bed, hovering over me. From where I was lying, he seemed to be showered, fully clothed and ready to go.
‘You’re up already,’ I said, starting to sit up, feeling groggy and somehow at a disadvantage for being still in bed.
‘Yeah. Sorry, pet, but you need to get moving too.’ He opened one hand to show me a mobile phone: my own. I reached across and snatched it from him, checking the screen. One voicemail.
‘It’s from Godley.’
I looked up, ready to snap at him for listening to my messages. He held up his hands.
‘I didn’t touch it. I heard it ringing and his number came up on the screen.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought you wouldn’t want me to answer it for you.’
‘You thought correctly.’ I shushed him then, listening to the superintendent’s mellow voice murmuring from my phone, pulling me back to the real world.
The message was a short one, and when it finished, I looked at Rob, reluctant to be the one to speak. He knew already though.
It was time to get back.
LOUISE
I risked a covert glance at my watch under the t
able and almost groaned. It was ten past six and the client meeting had been going on for over three hours. Not that I was surprised. The sale of Pientotel’s UK subsidiaries to Kionacom was the most important deal I’d been involved in, and as the senior associate, this should have been a big thrill. I looked around the table at the assembled bigwigs from Kionacom who were frowning as Preyhard Gunther’s heads of tax, real estate, finance, pensions and employment reported on the due diligence we had done on Pientotel’s assets, and wished I was somewhere else.
The conference room was on the top floor of the Preyhard Gunther offices; the wind cut around the building at the best of times, but it was blowing a gale now and I could hardly hear the senior partner who was chairing the meeting. From the shuffling of papers and fidgeting around me, I wasn’t the only one who was keen to get on with my day. I had a frightening backlog of work in my office, things I should have done weeks ago. It wasn’t like me to let things slide, but then it hadn’t been like me to embark on a passionate, wrongheaded relationship with a highly unsuitable and demanding man. My stomach turned over at the thought of Gil. The pressure had been getting to me. I’d made some questionable decisions but that was all over. I was back on track.