Last Place You Look

by Louisa Scarr

  ‘But you said it was an accident,’ she says.

  He gives her his best reassuring smile. ‘We just need to be sure.’

  They’ve moved on to easier ground, and Amy Miller is now telling him about the weekend before. Her speech is quiet and hesitant, her eyes downcast.

  ‘We were at a party Friday night, Kal’s fortieth,’ she says.

  ‘Kal?’

  ‘Khalid Riaz, Jonathan’s best friend.’ Robin writes down the name as she spells it out. ‘Works for Sterling and Blake, a hedge fund in London. Saturday we didn’t do much, just went for a walk in the morning, takeaway Saturday night.’

  ‘Sunday?’

  ‘I went for a run, Jonathan went to the tip.’ She makes an apologetic face. ‘Sorry, our lives aren’t that interesting.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘Monday morning. I left about eight for work.’

  ‘What did Jonathan do?’ Robin realises the past tense of his question, but there’s no avoiding the stark reality.

  ‘He was a procurement manager. Negotiating contracts, finding suppliers, stuff like that.’

  No obvious motives for murder, Robin thinks. Except maybe accepting bribes for contracts? Backhanders in brown envelopes? She looks like she’s going to cry again, so Robin asks another question quickly to distract her. ‘And where were you on Monday and Tuesday?’

  ‘At work. I’m on days this week: I’m a sous chef at the Hotel Continental in town. And I went out with my sister on Monday night. Since Jonathan was working. Or so I thought.’

  ‘And you were off work this weekend?’

  ‘Yes, I get one in four. Lucky really, given that…’

  The tears come swiftly now, and Robin hands her another tissue. She wipes her eyes, delicately dabbing to avoid transferring mascara underneath.

  ‘Have you managed to find out what he was doing at that hotel?’ She sniffs.

  ‘We believe it was— Well, what it looked like. Mrs Miller, I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Were you aware of Jonathan doing anything like this in the past?’

  She shakes her head, a quick motion. ‘No, no, not at all.’

  ‘And your sex life? It was… er…’

  Amy’s face goes red and she looks down at her hands. ‘Pretty normal,’ she replies.

  ‘Mrs Miller? Please? Anything you say will be strictly between us, and it would be helpful to get a complete view of your husband.’

  ‘Well, he… we…’ She stutters for a moment. ‘He liked it when I talked dirty.’

  Robin does his best not to show his disappointment. ‘Saying what?’ he asks as sensitively as he can.

  ‘You know, fuck me harder, that kind of stuff.’

  Robin leans back in his chair. It was hardly Fifty Shades of Grey, nothing that would explain why he’d been found as he had.

  ‘And your face?’ he asks, pointing to the bruise on her forehead. It’s faded to no more than a yellow and green smudge, but still visible under her foundation.

  ‘This? Oh!’ Amy Miller looks surprised. ‘I walked into an open cupboard door. You know, silly accident. You don’t think—’ She stops. ‘Jonathan didn’t do this!’ she exclaims. ‘Jonathan was the nicest, the gentlest, the most loving…’

  Her voice trails off and she starts sobbing, harder this time. Robin sits forward awkwardly, offering her the tissue box again, but she doesn’t take one. Instead, her eyes stay cast downward, her hands covering her mouth. ‘I always tried to make him happy, do things the way he wanted,’ she mumbles. ‘I know I wasn’t the best wife.’

  They end the interview. Robin waits as Amy writes down names – her sister from Monday night, the other people at the party on Friday, the name of the takeaway they used on Saturday – and they walk together towards the door. But before she goes, as much as he doesn’t like to ask, Robin needs to know.

  ‘Mrs Miller, did your husband stay away a lot?’

  She stands in the doorway, grasping the handle of her handbag tightly. ‘A bit. With work.’

  ‘Weekends?’

  ‘No, why would he?’ she asks. Then her face changes. Her eyes open wide and her mouth wobbles. She knows why; Robin started to ask her the day before. ‘Who was she?’ she asks, voice quivering with barely contained emotion.

  ‘We don’t know, Mrs Miller. Do you have any ideas?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t. He never… There was no…’ Her hands flap weakly and she starts to wail, ‘How could he? How could he do this to me?’ She looks up at Robin, red-rimmed eyes watery. ‘I didn’t know. But they all say that, don’t they, the wives? You must think me so stupid.’

  ‘I don’t think that at all, Mrs Miller. I’m sorry.’

  They’ve reached the reception now, and she turns and walks away from him. Head down, she pushes out of the double doors, back into the grey autumn day.

  He so hadn’t wanted to be the one to confirm the affair. But her reaction spoke volumes. The uncontrolled emotion. A sudden burst of disbelief. So she hadn’t known, Robin thinks, watching her go. One less motive to consider.

  9

  Freya wakes early with a banging headache and a churning in her stomach that she puts down to part hangover, part nerves. She can’t face breakfast, but forces herself to eat a slice of toast, the pieces feeling like sawdust in her mouth.

  She’s already texted Butler, his curt reply lessening her guilty feelings for lying about her absence. But hangover aside, she knows she has something more important to do today.

  She showers, puts on jeans and a jumper, then gets in her car. She drives the twenty minutes down the road, to the house she only visited yesterday for the first time.

  In her darker moments, when Jon wasn’t returning her texts, or when she knew he was spending time with Amy, she’d imagine them together. She’d had a picture in her head of what their house looked like, and she’d torture herself imagining Jon with her, doing the everyday things that she yearned to do.

  And she’d imagined herself walking up to their front door, ringing the bell, then confronting Amy.

  I’m Freya, she’d say. And I love your husband.

  But she never had. And now he’s dead.

  Today, she sits and waits. She’s insignificant, ignored. She’s parked around the corner in the next street: far enough away that she won’t be noticed by the wife, but close enough so she can still see the house. She knows the white Audi parked in the driveway is Amy’s, and she also knows that Mrs Miller has an appointment at the police station at ten. An interview that Robin will have to do alone, because she is here. Watching, waiting.

  She looks at the space next to the Audi on the driveway, imagining Jon’s black Mazda sitting there. She knows where that car is now – impounded in the police garage, waiting to be examined by the forensics team.

  She realises, her body growing hot, that they might find evidence of her. Of them.

  Nine months ago, the two of them met in a deserted car park. Christmas, and they’d barely been able to catch a minute together. Jonathan had said Amy was more clingy than usual, not going out, not leaving his side. And this was the best they managed – a hasty excuse by him to go to the supermarket. No time to get to hers or to a hotel.

  She hurried out of her car, ducking in the freezing rain and throwing herself into the passenger seat of his Mazda. The inside of the car was warm and muggy, suffocating air blowing out of the vents, steaming up the windows. But this wasn’t the slightest bit Titanic movie-perfect. It was awkward, clumsy – his seat rolled backwards, her straddling him, knees painful against the door and the centre console. But they laughed, and kissed, and—

  Shit.

  This is a ridiculous idea, sticking with the investigation. She is risking the job she loves, everything she’s spent so long working for. But this is important. That tryst in the car was the most adventurous they’d ever been. Something badly wrong happened in that hotel room, she knows it.

  She’ll come clean, she will. Once they’ve fo
und out what happened. Once she’s ensured first-hand that Butler’s thoughts aren’t taken off course. He’s already mentioned other cases they both need to look at. All it will take is an upweighting of one of those, and Jonathan’s death will be pushed to the side.

  Freya feels tears threatening again, but pushes them away as the front door opens. There she is. Amy Miller is dressed in smart black jeans and a shirt, a posh coat over the top. Her hair is shining and blow-dried, and even from this distance Freya can tell her make-up is immaculate. She doesn’t look like a woman torn apart by grief.

  Freya watches as Amy clicks her car open, climbs inside then drives off. She waits a few minutes, biding her time in case Amy comes back, then gets out and hurries across the road towards the house. Freya glances around quickly. She knows where Jon keeps the spare key, a chance remark from her a month ago where burglars had got into a house using the key found in a fake rock. Piss-taking followed when Jon revealed he did exactly the same thing.

  She hopes he didn’t take heed of her warnings, and sure enough, she picks the key out of the plastic rock in the flower bed. She puts it in the door, and she’s in.

  She closes the door with a click, then stands, breathing hard, her back against the wall. She has shoe covers and plastic gloves in her hand, and now puts them on, not wanting to leave a trace of her having been there that day.

  What is she doing? she asks herself. The house seems tidy, with a faint smell of detergent in the air. Has Amy been cleaning? she wonders. Cleaning what? Who cleans when they’ve just been told their husband is dead?

  Freya’s more than mindful she hasn’t got long, but she can’t resist looking around. She barely registered it the previous day. This is the house of her imagination, Jon and Amy’s marital home, and she takes in the details as she walks. The kitchen – worktops bare, washing-up tidied away. The lounge – cushions plumped since Freya and Robin were there, coasters stacked in a neat pile on the coffee table. It’s show-home perfect – impersonal, fastidiously neat. Her own house is nothing like this, especially since she found out about Jon’s death. She left it in a state: the empty wine glass on its side on the bedroom carpet, clothes scattered, washing-up piled in the sink. She didn’t have the energy to do anything about it, and wonders again how Amy, the grieving wife, can keep her house looking so spotless.

  A bookshelf runs the length of the main room, and Freya traces her fingers along the spines, wondering which are his and which are Amy’s. She remembers a comment once, that Amy doesn’t read much, scorn in his voice. The paperbacks turn into non-fiction. Economics textbooks from Jon’s university days, a few travel books, and then some strange ones. Your Day-by-Day Pregnancy. A Midwife’s Guide to Your Newborn. Is Amy pregnant? The idea shocks Freya.

  Jon hadn’t mentioned still sleeping with his wife. And Freya had never asked. But they were a married couple in their late thirties; it was more than likely children would be on the agenda. They’d always used protection, but he wouldn’t have used condoms with his wife, would he?

  For the first time Freya wonders about other women. She’d always assumed she was the only one, but if Jon cheated on his wife once, what would have stopped him from doing it before? Or even at the same time?

  What else had he been lying about?

  She suddenly feels hot, a surge of nausea rolling up from her stomach. Saliva fills her mouth and she runs towards a closed door in the hallway, guessing correctly at the location of the downstairs toilet. The door bangs against the wall. She falls to her knees, throwing up the toast from this morning’s crappy breakfast. She stays there for a moment, vomit abating to a painful dry retch, then sits back, wiping her eyes, her nose, her mouth, with a piece of toilet roll.

  Was Jon telling the truth when he said he was planning on leaving his wife? Was their affair just that? Something fun, to pass the time, while he carried on with his marriage? Trying to conceive, hoping to have a baby?

  She blows her nose, then flushes the chain, washing away the foul reek of her vomit. Whatever the truth, she needs to get on with it. Get what she’s come here for.

  Freya goes back into the living room, walking through and opening the door at the far end. And the moment she steps inside, it stops her in her tracks.

  This room is different from the rest of the house. His office. It reminds her so much of him it physically hurts. More mess, more dust. There was always something dishevelled about Jon. His slightly curly hair had too much bounce to sit straight. His clothes were always coming untucked, a stray button undone. She’d never minded. They were holes she could poke her fingers into, touch the warm skin that lay underneath.

  And this office – this is him. She starts her search, opening drawers, checking shelves. In his desk there’s notepads, Post-it notes, pens, spare phone chargers. She flicks through a few of the notebooks, in case he’s hidden a stray photo, but there’s nothing. A pair of his reading glasses, old ones she remembers him replacing early on in their relationship, lies on a shelf.

  The smell of his aftershave, his jacket hanging behind the door, books on the desk he told her about. Just him. And she misses him, so much.

  She can’t believe that all their shared moments were a lie. Not Jon. Not her Jon. He loved her. He was going to leave his wife for her. She knows that’s true, from her very core. Perhaps the baby books were from earlier in the marriage. Perhaps they were given to them by well-meaning friends, and forever ignored.

  But she can’t think about that now.

  Freya moves along. She knows what she’s looking for, anything that might give her away. Early in their relationship she would email him photographs. Of her, with next to nothing on. He’d laugh, red, embarrassed spots appearing on his cheeks, saying he’d have to get rid of them. But once, he confessed to deleting the emails but saving the photos on his laptop. Password-protected, hidden in a folder and safe from Amy. But not from the clever brains of the police’s digital department. If they got their hands on them, that would be it: they’d know and she’d be off the case. Probably fired. Not to mention the shame of her colleagues seeing photos of her with her tits out.

  She finds it in the next drawer – his laptop. She lifts it out and places it on the desk, opening the screen. It pops into life, asking for a password. She has no idea, but she closes the lid again, putting it under her arm.

  Then she hears it. The sound of a car pulling up outside the house. She swears under her breath, her heart beating hard. There’s no way she can get out of this room without being seen, and she looks around for a solution. Her eyes alight on the window – large, big enough for her to climb through, and facing out to the garden behind the house.

  She pushes it open fully, and climbs awkwardly onto the windowsill. She knows she’s disturbing dust, leaving behind evidence of having been there, but the gloves and shoe covers are still on. They’ll never know who. She leaps out of the window into a flower bed, pushing the window closed, and hurries round to the front of the house. Through a gap in the gate, she watches Amy stand at the front door, her key in her hand. Freya remembers the spare key, still in her pocket, but there’s nothing she can do about that now.

  She hears the front door close, waits a few seconds, then scuttles quickly through the gate, out into the street and back to her car.

  Breathing quickly, the stolen laptop clutched tightly to her chest.

  10

  Amy Miller gone, Robin spends the rest of the morning raking through the contents of Jonathan Miller’s phone. Call logs, text messages, everywhere he went across his last few days.

  As much as people claim invasion of privacy, Robin knows social media and the geotagging on mobile devices is invaluable on a case like this. Phones, especially lovely iPhones like Miller’s, record the user’s every move. Where they’ve been, where they were when they posted on Twitter or took a photograph. What time they sent a text, made a call or logged onto WhatsApp. And with the passcode provided by Amy Miller, they can see everything.

 
; Plus the techies have come through with the information from the car telematics. Jonathan Miller’s Mazda is new enough to have a satnav and engine management system, so they can tell where it has been, and exactly what time the car was started or turned off. Every single change of electronics, from the seat position to the boot opening and closing, was recorded. Combined with the phone, it is vital data.

  Freya has finally made it into the office. She looks distinctly green, and Robin makes a silent pledge to keep a good arm’s distance away, but he needs her here. There’s work to be done.

  Between the two of them they plot Miller’s movements onto a whiteboard. Freya reads from the car telematics and adds them to the iPhone details they have: Friday night, and King’s Wine Bar in town for Khalid Riaz’s fortieth. Home, via a brief stop on Jewry Street. Waitrose on Saturday. Then a walk along the River Itchen. Phone call to Domino’s Pizza at 19:15 Saturday night. To the municipal tip on Sunday morning. Working from home Monday, then the hotel, where he, and his phone, stayed until Robin picked it up and entered it into evidence on Tuesday.

  Freya prints out the photos from Twitter and sticks them on the board. There is nothing here that raises a red flag. The satnav in the car matches the geotagging on the phone. Even a few searches on Google seem to correspond: late Sunday night he types in what is erotic asphyxiation? And follows it up with a few videos on YouTube. Then: what do you need for auto-erotic asphyxiation?

  ‘Bloody quick learning curve,’ Robin remarks to Freya.

  ‘Hmm?’ she replies, her back to him, staring at the board. She’s still distracted, hardly listening to him.

  ‘West?’ he says, and she turns. ‘Should you be here?’

  ‘Yes, yes, sorry, Sarge. I’m fine,’ she blusters, then adds a few actions to their list. Follow up with Domino’s Pizza, chase forensics on car, interview neighbours to check movements.

  She puts the marker pen down, then grabs the bottle of water on her desk, taking a desperate swig. Robin eyes her warily. Hangover? he wonders. But it’s something he’s done on more than one occasion, and he lets it go.