The Perfect Life

by Valerie Keogh

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked, cupping her hands around her mug and wishing she’d insisted Jack be called.

  DI Fanshawe took a few sips before putting the mug down and taking a notebook from his pocket. ‘Before we begin,’ he said, tapping it with a well-chewed pen, ‘I think it’s best if we read you your rights. Keep it formal and correct, you understand.’

  Molly’s jaw dropped. Shutting it with an audible snap, she forced an uncertain laugh. ‘There must be some mistake, what am I supposed to have done?’ In the television dramas she watched, this was where she was supposed to ask if she should get a solicitor. She wanted to laugh, but none of this was remotely funny.

  Ignoring her question, Fanshawe said words she’d only ever expected to hear in TV programmes. ‘Do you understand your rights, as I have informed you?’

  She looked at him. She’d done nothing wrong, yet fear shimmied down her spine. ‘Yes,’ she said, she understood her rights, but she’d no idea why they were being read. ‘Do I need to have a solicitor present?’

  DI Fanshawe tilted his head. ‘That is certainly your prerogative, Mrs Chatwell. We are merely looking for information; reading you your rights allows us to use any information you may give us. If you prefer, you can come with us to the station and we can wait for your solicitor there.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, that’s okay. I’m happy to cooperate. I have done nothing wrong.’

  He gave a slight smile, as if of approval, and sat forward, hands dangling between his spread knees to look at her with cold grey eyes. ‘Do you know a man named Oliver or Ollie Vine?’

  Her brow furrowed as she thought of all the men in the office. She was almost sure none of them was called Oliver. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said hesitantly. ‘There are always people coming and going in work though, one of the newer ones that I haven’t met might be–’

  ‘This isn’t someone in your office,’ Fanshawe interrupted her.

  ‘Socially,’ she said with more conviction, ‘I don’t know anyone called Oliver Vine.’ Her eyes flitted from one man to the other. Neither was giving anything away. What the hell was going on?

  Fanshawe turned a page of his notebook, placed it on the coffee table and gave it a little nudge in her direction. ‘Is that your phone number?’

  She picked it up. Was it? She’d no idea. ‘I’ll have to go and get my mobile,’ she said, ‘it’s not a number I’ve memorised.’ When he nodded, as if to give her permission, she lifted her chin in annoyance. ‘I want to know what this is all about,’ she said, crossing her arms.

  But if that attitude was effective with junior members of her staff in Dawson Marketing, it wasn’t with the two policemen who sat unmoving opposite.

  ‘If you’d go and get your phone, Mrs Chatwell.’

  She stood, threw him a baleful glance and left the room. Upstairs, she stood for a moment at the door of the spare bedroom. Jack would know what to do, she’d call him, he’d get rid of them. But there was something in the detective inspector’s eyes that made her hesitate. Maybe she’d better wait and see what on earth was going on.

  She grabbed her phone from the bed table, unplugging the charging lead. Looking down at her robe, she swore softly. The soft fabric made her look feminine and weak. Quickly, she took it off, pulled on underwear and a white shirt and jeans from her wardrobe. Better.

  She didn’t bother with shoes and ran lightly down the stairs.

  The two men hadn’t moved. They sat with the mugs of coffee in one hand, their legs spread in that relaxed masculine way as if they were there on a social visit.

  She sat in the same chair, waving her mobile. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘my number is…’ She read it aloud, her eyes widening as she realised they matched the numbers written on the notebook. ‘It seems it is my number,’ she said unnecessarily.

  Fanshawe took his notebook back with a satisfied nod. ‘So, although you don’t know Oliver Vine, you were sending him messages.’

  Colour leeched from her face. The man on the canal. Oliver Vine. She gulped. ‘I didn’t know his name,’ she muttered. ‘A message. I sent him one message.’

  ‘Ah yes. What was it you wrote again?’ He turned pages in his notebook, stopping when he got to one, throwing her a look before reading, ‘I’m sorry I misread the signals. I don’t want to meet you. Please don’t come to my house again. I’ve told my husband how stupid I was. Now I want to forget it happened.’

  DS Carstairs, who’d not yet opened his mouth, gave an unamused snort.

  ‘Were you and Oliver Vine lovers, Mrs Chatwell?’ Fanshawe asked calmly.

  She ran a hand through her unbrushed hair. ‘No,’ she said emphatically, then dropped her hand into her lap. ‘No, we weren’t.’ She looked from one to the other of the men but if she expected a lessening of their stern regard, she was disappointed. They stared at her as if she was an object of fascination and didn’t say a word.

  She’d watched enough police series in her day, she knew they were waiting for her to speak, to talk herself into something. What that was, she’d no idea. She blinked, taking stock. She had done nothing wrong. Humiliating herself wasn’t a crime.

  ‘I’m not sure what business it is of the police,’ she said, drawing her shoulders back and looking the detective inspector directly in the eye.

  Fanshawe looked at her coldly. ‘Where were you between five and five-thirty yesterday afternoon?’

  She shook her head, confused at the change in direction. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because in that short window, somebody murdered Oliver Vine.’

  14

  In the silence of the room, Molly’s gasp was loud. Covering her mouth with a shaking hand, she looked at the inspector. ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘You understand now why we need answers to our questions, Mrs Chatwell,’ the inspector said evenly.

  She was frozen for a moment, then dropping her hand, she nodded.

  ‘So, I ask you again, were you and Oliver Vine lovers?’

  A flashback of the canal encounter came to her; the handsome man, his smouldering sexuality, those vivid eyes. Now, he was dead. A twinge of regret for such a tragic loss made her clasp her arms across her chest. ‘No,’ she said, ‘we weren’t lovers, it was a moment’s madness.’ She gulped, feeling a wave of nausea sweep over her. ‘I need a glass of water.’ And before they could say anything, she left the room.

  In the kitchen, she let the cold tap run, scooping water up with her two hands and bathing her face, the water dripping from her chin onto her shirt. After a moment, she turned the water off, grabbed a towel and hid her eyes in its comforting darkness.

  She had to go back. Answer questions. Oliver Vine. She squeezed her eyes shut on the memory.

  Returning to the lounge, she sat in the same chair. She didn’t wait for them to ask. In a slow monotone, she described the two occasions she had met Oliver Vine and what had taken place on the towpath. ‘It is completely out of character for me to do something like that,’ she said. ‘It was a moment’s craziness. He was so handsome, so… sexy… his turquoise eyes so mesmerising.’

  ‘Turquoise eyes?’ Fanshawe said, with a raised eyebrow.

  DS Carstairs was less interested in the description. ‘You met this man a couple of times and tried to seduce him?’

  Colour flooded her cheeks. Had she really? Hadn’t she simply wanted a moment – a moment of feeling desirable. But if Oliver Vine had responded, if he had lowered those gorgeous lips to hers, would she have done what Amelia had suggested, dragged him into the fields and had her wicked way with him? It sounded so unlike anything she would have done, and yet… Her eyes met Carstairs’ hard critical ones. How could she explain, when she didn’t really understand it herself? That for a while she’d believed this incredibly handsome man had found her attractive and desirable and it had made her feel good. That she’d relished the feeling and when the opportunity arose she’d taken it… and oh yes, she would have taken it further, would have lost herself in one crazy act,
only it didn’t happen because she’d got it all wrong.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said. When neither spoke, her voiced hitched, a pathetic sound in the quiet room. ‘I thought it was a mutual attraction. I was wrong.’

  ‘So, you ran away?’ Fanshawe’s tone of voice said he wasn’t sure if he believed her.

  ‘As fast as I could,’ she said, lifting her chin. ‘Humiliation, I discovered, makes me a faster runner. Maybe I should market it.’ She saw pity in his eyes, she wasn’t sure if it was preferable to his disdain. ‘So that’s as far as my…’ she hesitated over the word… ‘seduction, went.’

  Fanshawe jotted in his notebook before looking at her with a critical light in his eye and giving a slight shrug. ‘And this was in Wiltshire?’

  ‘Yes, I was away with friends for a weekend in Semington House Hotel.’

  Fanshawe wrote the name down, then looked back to her. ‘And their names?’

  ‘Amelia and Tristan Lovell.’

  A murder investigation. Every stone was going to be moved, the dirt dug out and raked over. Tristan wouldn’t be impressed; Amelia would likely be amused.

  ‘And you are absolutely sure you didn’t tell Vine where you lived?’ Fanshawe asked.

  ‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘I definitely didn’t.’

  ‘When did he come here?’

  ‘The day before yesterday, he was waiting when I came home from work.’

  Fanshawe scribbled as he spoke, ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I didn’t speak to him.’ She saw by Fanshawe’s expression that she needed to do better than that. ‘I saw him when I turned the corner and recognised him immediately. I didn’t want to speak to him. That moment by the canal was something and nothing, I’d been humiliated, I didn’t want to speak to him.’ She looked from one detective to the other. ‘I hid,’ she said.

  Carstairs snorted his disbelief. Fanshawe, one eyebrow raised, said, ‘You hid?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said and rushed on. ‘You have to understand, I didn’t want to see him, or speak to him. I thought, if I didn’t turn up, he’d go away. The houses across the road, they have high walls, and gates. I went behind one and watched until he left.’

  ‘So, you never spoke to him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So how did you get his phone number? And if you didn’t tell him, how did he know where you lived?’

  How? She’d met him hundreds of miles away. ‘I don’t know how he found out where I lived,’ she said. ‘But the day he came here, before he left, he put a note through the door asking me to ring him. That’s how I was able to send a text.’ She blinked. ‘I still have it. I meant to take it to work to shred, but I forgot.’

  Fanshawe nodded. ‘Can you get it, please?’

  ‘Of course.’ She stood immediately, left the room and raced up the stairs. The door to the spare bedroom was shut. She breathed a thanks for Jack’s ability to sleep through anything, and went into their room.

  The note was where she’d left it, crumpled in the back of her drawer. She smoothed it out as she returned to the room where both men sat waiting.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said, handing it over.

  Taking it by one corner, Fanshawe read it aloud. ‘we need to meat ring me.’

  He slid the note into an envelope that Carstairs held out for him, then looked at her. ‘He went to the trouble of finding out where you live, then hung around hoping to speak to you. And you’ve no idea why? Are you sure you’re telling us everything, Mrs Chatwell?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word caught in her throat.

  ‘Yes?’ Fanshawe’s eyes bored into her. ‘You don’t sound so sure. Was the temptation too much to resist, Mrs Chatwell? Did you have a sexual relationship with this man, thinking you’d never see him again, that your husband would never find out. You didn’t tell him where you lived, you thought you were safe but then he turns up on your doorstep and you had to get rid of him.’

  Molly looked at him, appalled. This couldn’t be happening. This kind of thing didn’t happen to women like her… but then again, exactly what kind of woman was she? She used to be so sure.

  She ran a hand through her hair. ‘No, I swear. Nothing happened. I admit, I thought he was attracted to me, that he was reaching for me.’ She gave a short embarrassed laugh. ‘He must have been afraid I’d fall in; we were standing very close to the edge and the lock chamber is very deep.’

  ‘Looking out for you, was he?’ Carstairs said with heavy sarcasm.

  She ignored him and looked back to Fanshawe. ‘He was being nice, I suppose, and as I said, we were standing very close to the edge. He seemed to know about canals and locks, he mentioned that there wasn’t a ladder so if you fell in, there was no way out. Perhaps, that’s why he was being careful.’ Molly shrugged as if it hadn’t mattered, as if she hadn’t been cut to the bone. ‘I misunderstood, that was all.’

  If she’d hoped that Jack would stay asleep until they were gone, the creak of floorboards over their heads indicated she was out of luck. She closed her eyes tightly.

  ‘Your husband?’ Fanshawe asked. When she nodded, he looked down at his notebook again. ‘You said in your text he knew about your liaison. Is that true?’

  Wanting to scream with frustration, she waited a few seconds before answering. ‘It wasn’t a liaison and no, he doesn’t know. I said that in case that man was going to try to blackmail me.’

  ‘Blackmail,’ the inspector said sharply. ‘You insist nothing happened and yet you considered that this might be an attempt to blackmail you?’

  ‘Nothing did happen but I suppose,’ she admitted finally, ‘I had wanted it to. I was afraid he’d tell my husband–’

  ‘That you were up for it?’ Carstairs said, leaning towards her, a sneer twisting his mouth.

  It was exactly what she’d thought but hearing the words on this obnoxious man’s lips made it sound so much more sordid. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Anyway, what other possible reason would he have for contacting and wanting to meet me?’

  ‘And yet he went to the trouble of doing so,’ Fanshawe said. ‘You didn’t hear from him again?’

  She handed him her phone. ‘Have a look,’ she said, ‘you can see he never answered.’

  He took the phone and skimmed through without comment. ‘You might have deleted them,’ he said. ‘We’ll take it with us, if we may, and have it checked.’

  It was a strange feeling, not to be believed. ‘Of course,’ she said.

  Fanshawe put it into his jacket pocket and picked up his notebook. Turning to a clean page, he clicked his pen and looked at her expectantly. ‘What time did you leave work yesterday?’

  ‘I finish at four thirty,’ she said.

  ‘And you left immediately?’

  She nodded and felt the blood rush from her as the seriousness of her position dawned on her. ‘You can’t think I’m anyway involved in what happened to him?’ She reached a hand toward Fanshawe, pulling back at his stern expression. ‘Oh my God, you do?’ Crossing her hands on her chest, she took a deep breath.

  ‘We’re gathering information for the moment,’ Fanshawe said, his voice cool. ‘We don’t speculate. It would be in your best interest to answer our questions as clearly and honestly as you can.’

  A chill crept over her, making her shiver.

  ‘So,’ Fanshawe said. ‘You left work at four thirty. Did you come straight home?’

  Reluctantly, she shook her head. ‘I decided to go to a bookshop one of my colleagues had recommended.’

  Fanshawe looked up from his notebook. ‘And where is that?’

  ‘It’s called The Final Chapter. It’s a second-hand bookshop. They have a lot of rare and unusual books…’ Her voice tailed away.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s on White Horse Street, a few minutes’ walk from the station.’

  She saw his expression change, eyes growing harder, lips pressing into a thin line.

  ‘That’s Green Park station, isn’t it?’ he said, exchangin
g a glance with Carstairs. ‘How long did you stay in this shop?’

  She lifted her hands. ‘An hour or so.’ She saw the inspector’s look of disbelief and added, ‘If you like books, it’s a fascinating shop.’

  ‘And the staff will be able to vouch for you being there for that length of time?’

  It would have been good to have been able to say yes, but it was unlikely that the assistant would remember her. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.

  Fanshawe looked at her. ‘We’ll check it out. They might have CCTV.’

  Molly had her doubts; the exterior of the shop had been rundown and tatty, but what did she know? Less and less by the minute.

  ‘And what time did you arrive home?’

  ‘A little before six,’ she said, confident in this if nothing else.

  He tapped his notebook with the pen. ‘Between four-thirty when you left work, and six when you arrived home, did you speak to anyone?’

  ‘No, there was no need to. I had intended to buy books in the shop, but the only assistant was so engrossed in his phone that he didn’t bother to look up, so I didn’t speak to him.’

  ‘What did you do with the books?’

  Surprised, she glared at him. ‘I didn’t steal them, I dumped them on the counter and left.’

  The door opened and Jack stood there, looking confused. ‘I thought I was hearing the radio,’ he said. ‘What the hell is going on?’ Panic appeared in his eyes. ‘It’s not the children?’

  DI Fanshawe stood, putting his notebook and pen in his inside jacket pocket. ‘No, it’s not, Mr Chatwell. I’m sure your wife will explain everything. I think we’ve got all we need for the moment.’ He turned to look down at Molly. ‘If you would keep yourself available for further questions, we’d appreciate it. And,’ he finished, and for the first time she saw a sympathetic look in his eyes, ‘it might be in your best interest to hire a solicitor.’