‘I think you might like to sit down,’ the young man said.
‘I’m fine. Just tell me.’
It was the woman who spoke.
‘I’m very sorry to tell you that your brother, Mark North, died this evening.’
The woman was still talking, but her words washed over Cleo. Nothing else mattered. Not how he died, when he died, or where he was now. Her brother, the most important person in her life, was gone.
Cleo felt a scream build inside her. She lifted her chin and threw her head back, hearing herself shouting, ‘No!’ over and over again. She felt as if her legs were going to give way beneath her and she stumbled back into a chair. The man scurried from the room and the female officer stood up and moved towards Cleo, but she waved her away, trying to control her breathing, gasping for air.
How could it be true? She had spent most of her life protecting Mark – how could she have let him down now? Had something happened at the house? Was it an accident? A fire?
The police officer was quiet, giving Cleo time to register the devastating news. After a few moments, one word penetrated the fog that was enveloping her.
Lulu.
Her head dropped and she stared at the woman. ‘Lulu’s not hurt, is she?’
‘No, Miss North. Lulu’s fine. But her mother has asked if you could look after her for a while.’
‘Why? Is she hurt too? This isn’t one of Evie’s stupid accidents, is it? Was it her fault? Tell me what’s happened.’ She knew she was shouting, but she didn’t care. There was a wall of pain inside; any moment now it was going to burst, and she would be lost.
As the man came back in with a mug of tea she saw a nervous glance pass between him and his partner.
‘I’m afraid Miss Clarke is in hospital,’ the woman said.
Cleo stared at her. She hadn’t felt a moment’s concern for Evie.
‘I knew it. I knew it would be something she did. Jesus. Mark, you can’t be dead. You can’t!’
Cleo had told Aminah that Evie’s clumsiness was dangerous, but nobody had believed her, and now look what had happened. The tears couldn’t be held back any longer, and she drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms round her shins, trying to hold herself together.
‘We don’t believe it was an accident and we’re treating your brother’s death as suspicious. Miss Clarke’s injuries are not severe, but she’s suffering from shock.’
Only one word had sunk in. Suspicious. What the hell did that mean?
‘What happened to him? Where’s my brother now? Where’s Lulu?’
‘Your brother is being taken to the mortuary. We’ll need to ask you to come to identify him, but not right now. Lulu’s safe, please don’t worry about her.’
There was something they weren’t saying. It was there, in the room, and Cleo wanted to scream at them, make them tell her everything.
When the woman spoke again her voice was soft, almost hesitant, as if she didn’t want to have to tell Cleo the truth.
‘Miss Clarke will probably only be in hospital overnight, but Social Services will need to know if you can look after Lulu for a longer period. This is going to be difficult for you, Miss North, but I’m afraid Miss Clarke has been arrested. She claims she killed your brother, although as yet we have no means of knowing whether that’s true.’
Despite the warmth of the night, Cleo felt her skin erupt in goosebumps. She stared at the police officer, wondering if she had heard her correctly, but knowing she had. She should never have trusted Evie. She’d had her doubts about her, so why hadn’t she done something – persuaded Mark to kick her out, or somehow found a way to drive Evie away herself?
She had let Mark down.
She had promised him since he was a kid that she would look after him. She’d seen off the bullies, protected him from every bad thing that had happened, lied for him to keep him safe. And now this. How hadn’t she seen trouble coming? How had she failed so completely to protect him?
Cleo rested her head on her raised knees, rocking to and fro, sobbing uncontrollably. The police officers gave her time, but her mind was chasing in every direction, making her dizzy. She thought she might be sick, and with trembling fingers she reached for the mug of tea and took a sip of the hot liquid. Her head was spinning again, the pain of losing Mark almost masking the shock at the news that Evie had killed him. She had suspected she was only with Mark for his money, but she had never thought of her as a murderer.
Suddenly Lulu felt like the only thing that mattered. At least Cleo could keep her safe, and loving the child might help to ease the worst of the pain.
‘Where is she? Where’s Lulu? I need her with me.’
She caught a glimpse of a frown forming between the eyebrows of the woman, but she didn’t care. The loss of Mark was making her feel as if her body was being crushed in a giant vice, squeezing the breath from her body. Evie had taken his life, and Cleo would never forgive that, never get over it. But Evie had given her a reason to carry on living too. She had given her Lulu.
22
Harriet James strode through the maze of corridors, the click of her heels sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet of the hushed hallway. She had been called to this hospital in the middle of the night more times than she would care to count, usually by some poor soul who had been beaten to a pulp by her partner and wanted to be taken to the safety of the refuge. This time was different, though, and she ran through the questions that were crowding her mind.
All she knew was that Evie had been arrested and that she had killed Mark North. She didn’t know why or how it had happened, and she had to keep an open mind. Had Evie lashed out in anger during an argument? Had she planned to kill Mark – and if so, why? Money? Revenge? Or was he hurting her and she had killed him in self-defence?
Speculation wasn’t helpful, but there was a terrible suspicion at the back of Harriet’s mind that she should have seen this coming. She had known there was something wrong when Evie couldn’t make it to the shelter recently, and had made a mental note to talk to her about it the next time she came in. But there hadn’t been a next time.
She also remembered hearing Evie talking to one of the women living at the shelter about coping with abuse. Her words reflected the advice they were all told to give, but there was a confidence in the way Evie spoke that had intrigued Harriet. Maybe she had been speaking from personal experience, but she had seemed so calm – so evenly balanced. If she had been a victim, how had Harriet missed it, knowing that it was almost always the least likely ones?
She needed to stop all of this second-guessing. She would find out the truth soon enough.
The hospital corridors seemed much longer at night, without the bustle of patients, visitors and staff. There was nobody about to ask where to find her client but she knew she was in the right place when she saw a policeman sitting outside the door to a private room.
‘Evie Clarke?’ she asked.
‘Well, not personally,’ he said with a grin.
Harriet gave him a withering glance. ‘I’m her lawyer – Harriet James. I’d like to see my client.’
Flushing slightly at his misplaced sense of humour, the policeman pulled out his radio to call through to seek permission to let her enter and she showed him her driving licence to confirm her identity. With a sideways nod of his head, he indicated that Harriet could enter the room, but the door remained open. He would be able to hear every word.
Evie looked so insubstantial in the narrow hospital bed. Her face was unmarked, but where her arms rested on the surface of the bed Harriet could see several strips of gauze, some with signs that blood had oozed through. She looked at Evie’s pale face, blotchy from crying. Walking over to the visitor’s chair, she sat down.
‘Evie, I’m glad you called me. I don’t know what’s happened, or why, but I’m going to do whatever I can to help you.’
Evie shook her head slowly from side to side, and when she spoke her voice was flat. ‘I’m not sure you or
anyone can help me, but thank you for coming.’
Harriet had seen this type of detachment from reality before, and knew it was a reaction to the events of the past few hours.
‘I need to know what you’ve said to the police, but bear in mind that our conversation could well be being monitored.’ She indicated towards the door with her head.
‘I haven’t said anything. Only that I killed him,’ Evie said quietly. ‘There was no point denying it. We were the only two people in the house, apart from Lulu, and Mark was dead. They’ve taken swabs from just about everywhere, photographed me, removed what I was wearing – which wasn’t much.’
‘I understand why you told them you killed him, but please don’t say anything else to them unless I’m with you. They won’t question you while you’re in here, so let’s do this by the book.’
‘What’s there to say?’ Evie frowned. ‘I killed him. Does it matter why?’
Harriet glanced at the open door and leaned closer to Evie, her voice low.
‘Don’t say that again. Until I have the facts and we’ve considered the options, say nothing. It’s not necessarily as clear-cut as you think. I’m going to have to understand everything that happened tonight, and you need to tell me about your relationship with Mark – but we should leave it until you’re out of here.’
Evie held up her bandaged arms. ‘He was hurting me, Harriet. He had a knife. He was cutting me. I had to stop him.’
Evie didn’t say anything more but it was enough. They should save the detail for the privacy of an interview room, but if she had killed Mark in self-defence and Harriet could make the police see that, Evie would walk free. Harriet was going to do everything she could to protect this woman from whatever charges were thrown at her.
‘Had he hurt you before?’ she asked, keeping her voice low.
Evie looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting and turning. She shrugged, and that said it all.
‘You worked at the refuge, Evie, surrounded by women who have suffered in the same way. You could have come to us at any time, with Lulu too. We could have looked after you. Why did you stay with him?’
Evie looked up and Harriet saw the pain in her eyes.
‘You know how it is. Nobody wants to admit they’ve allowed themselves to be abused. I was ashamed, and like a fool I thought it would stop. Mark was okay for most of the time, you see. I knew he was confused, conflicted, and he found life difficult. But he was a great dad and Lulu adores him.’ Her voice dropped to little more than a whisper. ‘Adored him.’
The use of the past tense seemed to break through Evie’s reserve and her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away and bit her top lip as if trying to pull herself together. Harriet couldn’t imagine the trauma of living with a man who one minute was a loving father and the next a violent brute.
‘I thought I could hang on until Lulu was older,’ Evie said. ‘I was sure he wouldn’t hurt me in case she saw him. I tried to leave, but he said if I did he’d kill himself, and I didn’t want that – although maybe it would have been a better outcome than this. Another time he said he would find me wherever I went and take Lulu somewhere I couldn’t trace him. He had so much money, I’m sure it would have been easy.’
Harriet reached for Evie’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze, looking into her eyes and expecting to see pain, guilt or possibly relief. What she saw, though, was confusion.
‘I shouldn’t have killed him, Harriet. I should have stopped it before it got that far.’
‘What do you mean?’ Harriet asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Evie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not making any sense to myself, let alone to you.’
‘We both know it’s not easy to make someone stop hurting you. You can’t blame yourself for what he did.’
Evie shook her head. ‘It only happened when he had to go away. It was as if something gripped him and took hold on the night before he left. I don’t know if it’s because of what happened to his wife when he was away.’
Harriet knew nothing about any wife. ‘What did happen to her?’
‘She fell downstairs and broke her neck.’
Harriet felt an icy trickle down her spine.
‘Where was Mark?’
Evie’s eyes met Harriet’s. There was an intensity in her expression that Harriet couldn’t read.
‘He left shortly before she died. I know what you’re thinking, but they investigated it thoroughly. Mia – his wife – spoke to someone on the phone after Mark left the house. So it couldn’t have been anything to do with him.’
‘Who did she speak to?’ Harriet asked.
‘Cleo – Mark’s sister.’
23
Stephanie pressed her finger briefly on Cleo North’s doorbell. Gus had told her that Cleo already knew of her brother’s death, but in Stephanie’s new role as acting Detective Sergeant he wanted her to talk to Cleo to find out what she could about Mark North’s relationship with Evie.
The door was answered by one of the two officers initially sent to give Cleo the bad news and Stephanie followed him through to the sitting room. She remembered Mark’s sister from the inquest into the death of his wife three and a half years earlier, but the woman curled up on the sofa in a vibrant blue silk dressing gown bore little resemblance to the woman she had met then. Her hair had been longer and golden blonde, but her reaction to the death of Mia had been nothing compared to the anguish she was suffering now. The colour had leached from her skin – even from her lips – and her eyes were black with shock.
‘Miss North, I’m Sergeant Stephanie King. Can I say how sorry I am for your loss and apologise for disturbing you at this time.’
Cleo glanced up, but there was no sign that she recognised Stephanie, which was a probably a good thing.
‘Where’s Lulu?’ she asked, her eyes darting to the doorway as if the child was about to be brought into the room.
‘We’ll be bringing her to you as soon as we’ve had a brief conversation, if that’s okay. Just so that you understand the process, Miss Clarke has said she is happy for Lulu to be placed in your care, but there will have to be an emergency case conference and Social Services will want to ensure that the child’s welfare is taken care of.’
Cleo nodded slowly as though she had heard, but Stephanie could see she wasn’t really taking anything in.
‘Do you mind if I ask you about your brother’s relationship with Miss Clarke?’ she said.
Cleo’s head snapped towards Stephanie at the mention of her brother.
‘How did she kill him?’
She blurted out the question as if it had been building inside her since the moment she heard the terrible news, and there was little point in Stephanie trying to hide the truth. It would all come out sooner or later, but she wanted to avoid the worst of it until Cleo had become more used to the idea that her brother was dead.
‘We won’t know exactly what happened until we have the pathologist’s report. But it would seem that he lost a great deal of blood after an incident with a knife. That’s all we know right now.’
Stephanie thought it would have been impossible for Cleo to lose any more colour, but she was wrong. Her face had turned almost grey and Stephanie quickly moved away from the detail of his death.
‘What can you tell me about your brother, Miss North?’
Cleo pulled her knees closer to her chest and sank her chin onto them.
‘He was a kind, sensitive, thoughtful man,’ she said, staring at nothing. ‘But he had shit taste in women.’
‘You don’t like Evie Clarke, then?’
Cleo looked up sharply, a look of incredulity in her wide grey eyes.
‘What do you think? She killed my brother – so no. I don’t like her. I fucking hate her!’ She took a breath and seemed to calm down a little. ‘It was different to start with – it seemed she might be good for him. But something changed and I could tell she wanted me to be sideline
d – she wanted me out of his life.’
Stephanie stayed quiet, giving Cleo time.
‘Mark and I have always been close, and she resented it.’ Her voice sounded as if her thoughts were far away, in a different time, a different place. But she snapped back to the present with a rush of words, tumbling over each other. ‘Why did she kill him? Why? What reason could she possibly have?’
‘We don’t know the answer to that. We can’t question her while she’s in hospital, but when she’s been discharged she’ll go straight to the police station and we’ll begin the process. As she’s admitted to killing him, I expect she will be charged and go before the magistrates at the first possible opportunity.’
‘And then she’ll be locked up?’
‘That’s not for me to say. I imagine she will be remanded in custody, pending a trial. But it depends on the circumstances. Because of the child, the solicitor may apply for bail.’
‘What? She’s a killer! Surely they won’t let her out? Surely she can’t be trusted to walk the streets, let alone look after a child?’
‘I’m sorry, Miss North, but until we know more I can’t say how it will go.’
Stephanie knew she had to calm the situation down, but at the same time there were questions she needed to ask.
‘Can you think of any reason why she would want to kill him – had they argued? Did they have a particularly volatile relationship?’
Cleo stared into the distance again, lost in thought. The other two officers had sat quietly throughout this conversation until now, but the young detective sat forward as if about to speak. Stephanie shook her head briefly to indicate he should say nothing.
‘Whether I thought she was right for him or not, Mark loved Evie. Each time he had to go away – for work reasons, that’s all – he told me he’d left her with something to remember him by. A small gift, I imagine. But Evie always engineered some situation that would make him feel guilty about the fact that he’d gone – some incident that might not have happened had he been there. She knew he had a fear of leaving her because of what happened to his wife, and she played on it. She was so manipulative. Mark wanted to marry her, the bloody fool – even though I warned him against it – but she always said no. That never made sense to me, although I was glad of it. His first marriage hadn’t turned out too well as far as I could see, and I didn’t want him to make another mistake.’
And So It Begins Page 10