And what if by removing his body and staging his suicide we’d also removed the evidence that would have shown his death was an accident?
The irony wasn’t lost on me that this was the second house I’d lived in where someone had died. It made me question my own judgement. Was I in some subconscious way drawn to disaster and doomed houses or were doomed people drawn to me?
Then the anger hit me. I felt furious that the future I’d once taken for granted – meeting someone, having a family, writing for one of the top magazines – had been taken away from me. No, I’d thrown it away. Instead – but only if I was lucky – I’d be stuck here in this mausoleum with these people, one of whom might very well be a killer or be shielding one, because we couldn’t risk letting each other go.
But one thing I discovered is that it’s not possible to maintain fear at its highest level. So even though it nags away at you it’s quite possible to function almost as normal. It was frightening in some ways how mundane our lives were and how unremarkable we must have appeared to other people. A bit distracted maybe but I doubt many would have guessed we were hiding anything at all.
I found ways to drive the whole business to the back of my mind, filling up my spare time by working, joining an aerobics class and accepting any invitation to go out with other people who knew nothing about Bob.
But every now and then a question would crop up that would plunge you back into the hellish reality. Friendly invitations from one of the other three to go for a coffee at lunch time or stay in at the weekend usually masked a frantic worry, an obstacle we hadn’t foreseen. We went over the events of the party so many times and yet new worries always came to the surface.
“When did each of us last see Bob?” Xanthe asked.
No one could say for sure. I thought I might have seen him again in the kitchen, but it was very hard to remember the order of things and there had been so many people there. Every time I thought about that it chilled my stomach. So many witnesses – what would it take for them to recognise Bob?
We went over all the people we remembered at the party. Most of them we could vouch for but how well do you really know anyone? Whoever the killer was, and whether they’d killed Bob by accident or design, I hoped they were going through hell not knowing whether the body was still down in our basement or whether we’d been to the police and the noose was closing on them.
Two weeks passed.
Zak found himself a girlfriend. Chiara. She had tumbling red hair and legs that went on forever. But more importantly she had something I didn’t – she was unsullied by the dead body thing. He didn’t have to feel guilty when he was with her. Perhaps she even helped him forget.
At times I felt like I was on the run. Every moment of freedom that remained before the police tracked us down was precious. I took every opportunity to experience new things. At the end of the month I went on a press trip to Brussels as part of my new placement on a brewery magazine.
During the beer and chocolates walking tour and the visit to the Museum of Modern Art I fell into conversation with a reporter called Ansel with hair the colour of sunshine who shared my love of Magritte and waffles and told me that the saxophone was invented in Belgium by a man called Sax and that the country had the longest tram railway in the world. I felt a million miles away from the claustrophobic Bristol house with its sordid secret.
I sat next to Ansel at dinner that evening in a restaurant in the old market area and afterwards strolled with him around the Grand Place, which was all lit up and looked magical. Afterwards I had my first and only one-night stand – unless you counted the night with Zak which I was doing my best to forget.
In the morning Ansel asked for my address in England. Although I was tempted to see him again I said no because it didn’t seem fair to get close to someone when I was so uncertain about what my future held.
***
After we got back from the exhibition Stuart had a lock fitted to his door. He was very careful about locking it each time he left the room, even if he was just popping across the landing to the toilet and taking the key with him. He locked it from the inside too. Perhaps the discovery of the body had brought home the reality to him – that the killer might be one of us living in the house. But it also made us wonder if he had something to hide.
“What the hell does he get up to in there?” asked Imogen putting her ear to the door.
On the one occasion the room was left open I couldn’t resist taking a look inside to see if I could get any clue to what he’d done in the past that made him feel so ashamed.
The room was almost bare, as if he was planning to clear out. All his clothes and belongings had been put away apart from the books which were arranged in order from Asimov to Zola. On his bed lay a book with a couple of photos on top of the open pages. Intrigued, I took a few steps towards them and picked up the picture on top of the pile.
It was of a girl – she looked around twelve with a cloud of blonde hair.
“What are you doing in my room?” Hot shame flushed through my limbs as Stuart’s voice sounded close behind me. He’d come up the stairs so quietly I hadn’t heard him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking a step back. “I was about to make a coffee. Thought I’d see if you wanted one.”
He held up the mug he was carrying. “I’ve just made tea.”
“Great minds,” I said, mustering a bright smile. I turned to leave but he stood between me and the door.
His eyes fell on the photograph in my hand.
“Oh. I was just looking at it,” I said, putting it back as carefully as I could. “It’s a lovely picture. Who is she?”
“My sister.”
I hoped he couldn’t detect the shake in my voice “I didn’t realise you had a sister. You never talk about her.”
He shrugged. “It’s how I like to remember her.”
“I’m sorry. Were you close?”
A funny look crossed his face. My heart pounded. I felt I was getting near to the truth at last about Stuart’s past. Was this what he’d been trying to tell me at the party?
“We were. Until my stepdad arrived. He turned her against me, like he turned my mother against me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, it’s all right.”
His voice was terse even for him. I moved again towards the door, but he leant back against until it clicked shut.
“Actually, Stuart, I need to get on.”
Wordlessly, he produced his key and turned it in the lock. I was wondering if any of the others would know where I was.
He sat on the bed and patted the space next to him.
“Sit down. I’ll tell you.”
He picked up another picture of the same girl but quite a few years younger with a young Stuart and a ruggedly handsome man digging a sandcastle.
“My father,” said Stuart. “My real father. I don’t remember much about him – a few things but I’m not sure how much I’ve imagined or been told. He died when I was eight. My mother remarried when I was twelve and my sister Skye was ten.
“My childhood ended the moment Paul walked in. We had a bigger house and a bigger car, but it wasn’t a better life. He pulled apart everything my father had done for us.
“He hated me. He liked Skye - couldn’t do enough for her – but he didn’t want me around. There were always tensions. The only thing he wanted me for was as a babysitter, so he and my mother could go out for romantic evenings and weekends away.
“You should have seen him with his clients – charming, ingratiating, full of bonhomie. He was always inviting them to dinner without giving my mother enough notice and belittling her attempts to turn out something suitably impressive.
“But behind closed doors it was a different story. It began with criticisms but got nastier. I watched my mother change from a vibrant, funny person to a someone who was too nervous to contradict her husband or voice an opinion on anything without looking to him for approval. It was s
ickening. I asked how she could let him do it to her, but she’d fallen so far under his control she wouldn’t see it.
“Skye had always been clingy – never had friends of her own - but she got worse after Paul moved in, always following me about. It annoyed me because she was too young to do the things I wanted to, and I couldn’t stand to see the way he manipulated her.
“That weekend in Cornwall - Paul persuaded my mother I was a danger to Skye and I’d tried to kill her.”
I swallowed more loudly than I meant to. “That’s terrible. How can she have believed that?”
He gulped some tea. “They told me to keep an eye on her as usual, but I wanted some time on my own, scrambling over the rocks at the edge of the beach - I was thirteen for God’s sake, it’s only natural. I wanted to see if I could get to the other bay before the tide cut it off. I looked round and she was following me. I shouted at her to go back. She was only going to slow me down – she had a really bad sense of balance - and I’d miss the tide.
“She kept pleading with me to stop but I pretended I couldn’t hear her. At last she went quiet. I looked round and couldn’t see her anymore. I assumed she’d given up and gone back.
“It wasn’t until later that I got back full of excitement about how I’d made it across that I saw the crowd of people and everyone shouting. And Skye was laid out on the beach, her hair was all clogged with sand and someone was pumping their hands on her chest.
“My stepdad persuaded my mother I must have pushed Skye in. He said I was jealous and a danger to her.”
I absorbed all this. “And Skye – was it too late?”
He shook his head. “No, she was all right. She could have told the truth but she was angry with me for not waiting and I think she liked the fuss she received so she let him convince her to go along with his story.
“Which is how I got sent to boarding school.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. “But it wasn’t your fault. And Skye wasn’t a baby, was she? I doubt she’d have wanted you watching over her the whole time.”
He drained his mug and put it down on the cabinet.
“She has learning difficulties. Very trusting and she doesn’t understand danger. But my mother believed him too. I still can’t believe she let him talk her into sending me away. She shouldn’t have done that. She was too weak to stand up to him. What it boils down to is that sex with Paul was more important to her than keeping her own son.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t the only thing,” I said, “what else could she do with two young children?” He didn’t seem to hear me.
“I hated school. The bullying I suffered there. There were a couple of boys who made my life a misery. They identified me as a victim the moment I walked through the door. And because the other children were cowards it spread. I despise that about people.”
“Did you tell your mum about it?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t spell out to her exactly what was happening, but she should have been able to read between the lines shouldn’t she? I told her enough to make most intelligent people start asking questions, but she didn’t. And do you know why? Because she didn’t want to hear the answers. She was my mother for God’s sake. Mothers are supposed to protect their children. But she hadn’t protected me from him and she didn’t protect me from them.”
“Stuart, this is so sad,” I said. “But what happened to Skye wasn’t your fault. So, you took your eye off her – but you didn’t push her. Didn’t the police believe you?”
He looked at me oddly.
“I told you, what happened to Skye was an accident. She slipped. But that’s not what I went to the detention centre for. I told you about that at the party.”
With a sick realisation I saw that I hadn’t understood this thing at all and was no closer to finding out what he’d done in his past that he was so ashamed of.
Chapter Eleven
My stomach clutched as I saw two well-built men stop outside our house, looking it up and down. It was always at the back of my mind that Fitz, whoever he was, might come looking for us one day. But after consulting a clip board the men went across the street. A little later they loaded up a van with a television and some furniture while the home owner looked on, distraught.
“Bailiffs,” said Imogen.
“Bastards,” said Zak.
Repossession had seemed a distant threat when we bought the house but by the end of 1988 hundreds of homes had been taken back by mortgage lenders and the during the year that followed more and more people were losing their homes. The government’s promise that mortgage rates would never rise over 9.5 per cent turned out to be worthless which didn’t surprise any of us but left us with a real probability of finding ourselves homeless. Which would in itself have been a disaster but we now had the added complication of Bob.
“Perhaps we should just sell,” said Xanthe, “and go our separate ways.”
“We can’t sell,” said Stuart. “Are you mad? The more people that come traipsing round here the more chance someone will sniff something out.”
“There’s nothing left to find,” Zak argued. “At least we’d have a chance of making a new start, each of us.”
But Stuart shook his head. “We can’t afford to sell the house yet. Haven’t you heard of negative equity? And with interest rates going up none of us is going to be able to afford to live anywhere else.”
The solution he proposed was to fix the repayments before they went up even more. But the new rate was more than any of us could afford and the thought of being tied to paying thirteen and a half per cent for the next two years was unbearable, so we took our chances. “It’s got to come down some time,” Zak said.
It did. But not before it had gone up.
***
Around a week later I had a rare evening to myself. I’d had a bath and was shuffling around in my dressing gown making some dinner. I opened the kitchen door to take the bowl of pasta and a magazine into the living room. I caught my breath as something moved in the shadows. Someone was standing in the hallway.
“I didn't know you had a key," I said, recovering, as Rick turned around. I knew he'd borrowed Imogen's key while we were at the exhibition but hadn't realised it was a permanent arrangement. “Imogen’s in Hertfordshire – an overnight press do.”
“I know,” was all he said. “So, how is everybody?”
“Fine.” I rambled through a list of barely-relevant achievements, without mentioning the real developments. Whatever the others said I had my doubts about Rick’s innocence in all this.
I could feel his eyes travel up and down over me and I wished I hadn’t decided to get ready for bed at such an early hour. I felt vulnerable and dishevelled standing there in my nightwear. He looked like he was about to say something about my appearance but in the end he didn’t. Most disturbingly, he was standing by the door to the basement, and it was open. I was suddenly aware of how tall he was.
“You’ve done this space up,” he said, watching me for my reaction.
My stomach flipped but I tried to keep my voice even. “Yes, it was a bit dank. We just wanted to brighten it up a little.”
“New flooring,” he said peering. “And you’ve painted the walls.”
I nodded, trying to look as though it was of no importance, but my heart was crashing against my ribs.
“When did you do this?”
I shrugged. “Can’t remember exactly. Quite a while ago now.”
His conker-bright eyes flitted round the space again. “It wasn’t like this at New Year.”
“Um – no, probably not, I can’t remember.”
“You’ve put in a lot of effort. But you’ve filled it with junk - what’s the point of that?”
I kept my tone light. “It might look like junk to you but it’s valuable to us.”
He eyed the conglomeration of junk and pulled up the corners of his mouth. “Really?”
He didn’t move. “The bikes I get. It makes sense to have them down here –
but what’s in all the boxes?”
“I don’t know about all of them. I only know what’s in mine. Old school books, stuff from uni, things my mum and dad stored for me while I was a student but refuse to hang onto any longer. Nothing exciting.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Do you really need to hang onto that stuff? What’s wrong with the attic?”
Was he trying to get me to admit something? I was desperate to move away but forced myself to stand there.
He took a step inside. “You know, this space could be much better used. You could make it into a studio flat and let it out. That would help solve your financial situation. You’re struggling, aren’t you?”
He must have noticed my face flood with colour because he asked if I was all right. I insisted I was.
“The basement gets damp,” I said. “And there’s no central heating. What we’ve done’s only cosmetic. We haven’t sorted out the problem.”
But all he said was, “These things can always be put right. Let me show you what I’d do to sort out your situation.”
I made excuses about being pushed for time. No way was I going to set foot in the basement, especially with Rick. Either he knew nothing about Bob and would become suspicious or he knew everything about Bob in which case I didn’t want to be on my own with him ever. Besides, my pasta was getting cold.
“It will only take a second,” he said. His eyes glinted with excitement.
Once I’d recovered my voice I said, “No. Sorry, I can’t. Not now.”
He looked disgusted. “That’s the trouble with you lot – no vision. I’ve never understood what Imogen’s doing here with you. The way you treat this house like a dump. No respect, no aspiration. I can see you all dragging her down. She deserves better.”
I didn’t feel like getting drawn into an argument in which I’d probably say something I regretted so I just said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
The Suspects Page 12