by Louisa Scarr
‘What did you do?’ Freya whispers.
Robin keeps on talking. He describes speaking to Stevens in the petrol station, laughing and joking, then mentioning he’d been in the army. He’d known Stevens had a history there, and that he wouldn’t hesitate to give a lift to a fellow squaddie. He’d followed him out to the car, still unsure what was going to happen.
‘And he was driving fast. Much, much too fast,’ Robin says. He feels his chest tighten at the memory. Remembering kicking the Jack Daniel’s bottle in the footwell by his feet, then the sudden exhilaration, knowing what he was going to do. ‘So I reached over and grabbed the wheel.’
He remembers the rain, barely being able to see out of the windscreen as they careered down that road. He remembers Stevens with his foot hard to the floor, watching as the speedometer went past eighty. Feeling the car shake, the rumble of the wheels, then the loss of control as the tyres lost their grip.
Freya takes a sharp breath in. ‘But you could have been killed,’ she says, open-mouthed.
Robin clenches his jaw, then swallows, willing away the tightness in his throat. ‘That was the plan, Freya.’
And then, to his dismay, he realises he’s crying. He puts his hands over his face, trying to stop the flood of emotion, but it’s too much. He can’t help the great gulping sobs as he leans over the table. He feels a gentle arm round his shoulders, and slowly, slowly feels it abate. He knows Freya is still watching him, but he can’t look at her: the shame, the feeling of worthlessness, of guilt, is too much. He feels that one look from him and she’d know it all.
‘I woke up. In a huge amount of pain, but alive.’
The smell of petrol, damp leaves. The creak of crumpled metal sinking into new positions. And the sudden panic, knowing he needed to get out of there.
‘I managed to kick the door open,’ he continues, ‘and pretty much fell out of the car. I made it about ten metres away before the whole thing caught fire.’ The warmth of the flames on his body, the feeling of the hairs on his arms singeing in the heat.
‘And Stevens?’ Freya asks.
He sits up now, pulling his hands down his face, wiping the tears away from his eyes. Freya gets up and fetches a tissue and he smiles weakly at her.
‘I think he was already dead. But I didn’t wait to find out. I could barely see from the airbag. My body was in agony. I managed to get across the road, through the hedge, to the field. I think I passed out there, too, because when I woke I could hear the sirens from the fire engine.’
Freya clamps her hand to her mouth. ‘I remember now,’ she says. ‘We weren’t working together but the gossip from the station. You were off for two days, and when you came back you had a broken arm, broken ribs.’
‘Broken collarbone, severe whiplash. I made it home, lay low until the morning and then went to the hospital.’
‘You said you’d fallen down your stairs.’
‘They believed me. Everyone believed me. What was the alternative? That I’d killed someone? Baker took me aside when I was back at work and said that Stevens had died, and that’s when I knew.’
‘They didn’t think anyone else had been in the car,’ she finishes for him.
Robin nods. He watches her. She sits silently, taking in everything he’s told her. But he’s left out the biggest secret. That before he dragged himself off to the field, he’d stood, watching. He’d seen Stevens start to move, shifting in the driver’s seat, regaining consciousness and realising he was trapped. He’d watched as the man’s movements got more frantic, as panic set in. And he’d done nothing as the car caught fire.
He’d stood, listening to his screams, watching the man burn.
He takes another swallow from the wine in front of him. A drop misses and falls on the table, and he puts a shaking finger into it, swirling it around in frenetic loops on the polished oak.
‘Do you want me to go to the station and hand myself in?’ Robin asks.
‘No.’ Freya says it quickly, and he looks at her in surprise. She shakes her head, her eyes shut for a moment. Then she opens them again, and reaches across, taking his hands in hers.
The contact feels strange. Too intimate between sergeant and subordinate, but Robin knows they’ve crossed that line tonight.
‘No,’ she says again. ‘I want you to find Jonathan’s killer.’
51
Robin’s talking, but Freya can barely hear the words. Her superior officer. Her boss. This man who, like her, is a detective: something that stands for honesty, and upholding the law. And he’s talking to her about how he killed someone.
She touches the photograph in front of her. The woman that looks so much like Robin. The kids that were so similar to him, they could have been his.
Then she puts it down and takes Robin’s hands.
She knows that if he goes to prison, nobody is going to believe their theory about how Jonathan died. Nobody will care. He was a man with a liking for dodgy sex acts, and one day it got the better of him and he died. That’s how he’ll be remembered. And there’s no way she can tell anyone else about how she knows none of this was true, because she knew, loved, Jonathan intimately. She’ll lose her job, for sure.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I want you to find Jonathan’s killer.’
He stares at her.
‘You can do that,’ he says. ‘Look at how well you ran this investigation—’
‘No, no, I can’t. You know I can’t. Baker’s not giving you much longer to work the case. This is the only way we get justice for Jon. We find out who did it.’
‘But this…’ Robin points at the CCTV footage on the screen. ‘What will we do about this?’
Freya presses the eject button on the computer and the disc pops out. She takes it and puts it in the plastic box, shutting it firmly.
‘We make this disappear, Robin. I’ll hang onto it. Or you can. And I’ll write a report for Baker saying that I haven’t found anything new on the Stevens case. Steph’s doing the same.’ At the mention of Steph, Robin’s face clouds for a second, but he stays quiet. ‘I’ll write this report,’ she continues, ‘then get back on the investigation tomorrow. We’ll sort this.’
Robin’s still silent.
‘Please?’
He looks up at her, and then slowly nods. He takes the photo of his family from the table, carefully folds it again and replaces it in his wallet. Freya realises how tired he looks, hollows under his cheekbones, dark smudges under his eyes.
‘Okay then.’ Robin puts his hand on the disc on the table, looks at it for a moment, then pushes it across to her. ‘You keep this. We’ll find who killed Jonathan. And then you can decide what to do from there.’
They walk to her front door in silence, Jonathan’s laptop under Robin’s arm. Once they get there, Robin turns, as if to say something, then thinks better of it. She watches him walk away into the dark, rainy night.
She shuts the door behind him. She goes back to the kitchen and stops, looking at the computer, at the disc in its plastic case.
It isn’t too late, she tells herself. She can call Baker, tell him everything.
But Jonathan’s killer will go free. She picks up the disc and carries it up to her bedroom, hiding it in her underwear drawer.
The wheels are in motion. Robin knows everything about her, and she knows about him. There’s no way either of them can turn back now.
52
Tuesday
There’s nothing different about the incident room today, but Robin feels a disconnect from his colleagues. These are people – good people – who work hard, solve crimes. And he is one of them, but somehow, today, he recognises that he has more in common with the people they seek to put behind bars.
Since he killed Trevor Stevens, he’s done his best to leave it in his past. To try and forget the events of that day which left him limping frantically across a field, arm, shoulder, chest in agony, to get away from the fire that was burning behind him.
He heard the second expl
osion as the petrol tank caught fire, and for a moment he turned, watching the fireball in the distance, stark against the black night. And he listened for the sirens, waiting, debating. Should he go back – accept the punishment for what he’d done, or keep walking?
And he strode away. He made it to the nearest main road, teeth gritted, then kept going until he got back to his car. Falling through his front door, he stripped off the clothes he’d worn in the accident, putting them in a bin bag to throw away the next day. He downed paracetamol and beer and tried to sleep. Twelve hours later he was in A and E, being patched up by a patronising nurse, who told him next time be more careful when you’re going downstairs, pissed.
He nodded, accepted contritely, then spent the next few days in bed. His neck was so painful he was barely able to move. Then back to work. A bit of piss-taking from his colleagues, and it was done.
Nobody looked closely at Trevor Stevens’ death. Nobody thought it was any more than a tragic accident.
And he began to relax. Just a bit.
Freya arrives at her desk at half ten.
She clicks her computer on. ‘I’ve submitted my report to Baker,’ she says, without looking at him.
‘Thank you,’ he replies quietly. ‘You okay?’
‘Fine,’ she mutters. ‘What do you want me looking at today, Sarge?’
Back to the conventions of old. Slowly he runs through everything he knows about the case. About the unknown, taller man driving Jonathan’s car. About the DNA and fingerprints in the car and on the porn. The lack of witnesses at the party, and the fish and chip shop on the Friday night.
‘What do we know?’ Freya asks. He sees her miserable expression and feels like he’s let her down.
‘We know from the CCTV that someone else was driving his car, and we know Amy Miller has an alibi.’ He sees Freya about to protest. ‘I’m sorry, but even if Olivia Cross is lying, we have the waiters from the restaurant who confirm her story. And the laptop’s down with the techies,’ he continues. ‘I’ve asked them to get through the password protection but do nothing else.’ She looks at him, but doesn’t ask. ‘Get on the backgrounds for all our main suspects,’ he finishes.
‘How far back?’
‘As far as you can. Back to childhood, if there’s something. I’ll chase up forensics, have another look for CCTV.’
She nods and turns away from him. The techies didn’t ask where the laptop had come from, now wiped down and placed in a new evidence bag; they just took it eagerly. A new code to break. But he knows people will ask questions about the continuity of exhibits, so first thing this morning he pulled up the report filed after the original search and carefully added it to the list of evidence seized. It isn’t great, but it will have to be enough. And falsifying records isn’t the worst thing Robin has done in his career.
An hour later, and constant phone calls to the council haven’t brought up any new CCTV from the area around the Premier Inn. Robin’s phone rings, and he hesitates, seeing the name on the screen. Steph.
He debates declining the call, but knows they need to talk.
‘DS Butler, I have results back on the tox screen from your asphyxiation victim.’ Steph’s voice is hard and businesslike.
‘Steph, please,’ Robin begins, but she cuts him off.
‘Robin, I don’t have time today. I have two PMs to complete. I just need to give you these results.’
‘Fine.’ He imagines her face at the other end of the line, mouth tense, eyes cast down.
‘Jonathan Miller had a blood alcohol level of 0.1 at the time of death—’
‘So nothing significant.’
‘No. And consistent with the alcohol found in his stomach contents. Plus trace of some sort of benzodiazepine, although I can’t tell which at this stage, and a cyclopyrrolone.’
‘Which means?’
‘He was sedated, and by some amount. The quantities in his blood, and adding this to the fact that there was very little food in his stomach, means he would have been woozy, if not unconscious when he died.’
‘Thanks. And Steph…’ he begins, but she’s hung up. ‘Fuck,’ he mutters under his breath.
Freya turns. ‘That was Steph?’
‘Yeah. Jonathan was sedated when he died.’
‘So that proves murder?’ she says, her voice rising.
‘Not necessarily. Maybe he took something because he was nervous about what he was going to do. Maybe he got the dose wrong and it contributed to his death.’ Freya scowls. ‘I’m just saying,’ Robin adds. ‘We need to be sure.’
‘He didn’t take any sedatives,’ Freya says. ‘Here.’
He pushes his chair over to her screen, and watches as she pulls up his medical reports. ‘See?’
They both read down the notes – and sure enough, Jonathan Miller wasn’t prescribed with anything.
‘What’s that there?’ Robin asks. He points to a line at the bottom of the page. An appointment, the Friday before he died. ‘Why did he go to the doctor’s?’
‘I’ll find out,’ Freya says, but Robin stops her.
‘I’ll do it. You stick with the backgrounds.’
Robin picks up the phone. Even though their investigation, with Freya on it, is dodgy as hell, he wants to keep her as far away as he can. She loved Jonathan Miller, and her memory of him should be preserved as much as possible.
The phone’s answered quickly, the voice at the other end bored and grumpy. He explains the purpose for his call, and the receptionist grunts in response.
‘I’ll send an update through to the email address from last time,’ she confirms, then hangs up.
Robin sighs, then taps his finger on the desk while he waits. He picks up his mobile and stares at it, as if it’ll somehow give him the solution to the problem with Steph. He feels like he needs to apologise, but for what? He was telling the truth, but the reality of why, and everything entwined with it is so multifaceted he doesn’t know how to begin.
Yes, he is scared by the idea of having kids, but no, it isn’t because he doesn’t want children, or he doesn’t want them with her. It’s because of his sister, and the twins, and the man he killed…
Fuck.
Perhaps he should just leave Steph alone. Let her get on with her life and find a nice man with a steady job who hasn’t committed murder.
His email pings, interrupting him from the black chain of thought. He opens it and reads the brief notes on the page. Then he reads them again. The medical terms talk about viscosity, density, motility, but he can get the gist of it.
Four days before he died, the man that was supposedly leaving his wife had a fertility test. And the results were normal.
He glances across to Freya. But why?
If he was in love with Freya, why have a baby with his wife?
53
Freya’s too busy at first to notice Robin’s abrupt change in demeanour. She’s typing names into the databases – the Police National Computer, the Record Management System – eyes rapidly scanning the information presented to her on the screen.
For Amy Miller, there’s nothing. No previous convictions, no warnings, nothing. For Jonathan, the same. Then, at the bottom, she notices one small note. No charges brought, but a brief comment.
24/3/18, PC Watts, domestic disturbance, DV?
She knows what the notes mean. That acronym again.
‘Sarge? Look at this.’
She turns, but Butler is still staring at his screen. ‘Robin?’
‘Hmm?’
He looks at her at last, then reads over her shoulder.
She notices him hesitate. ‘So there was some sort of domestic violence in that household,’ he says at last. ‘Did…’
She knows what he’s asking. ‘No, Jonathan was never violent with me.’ She meets his gaze. ‘Never,’ she says firmly.
‘What was he like?’ he asks tentatively.
‘Jon? He…’ How to describe the man she loved? How to do him justice? ‘For my last birthday,
he bought me a kite.’
Robin looks confused and she laughs. ‘I’d mentioned in passing that when I was little we used to fly kites on the beach, and that I’d loved it. The flutter of the ribbons, the bright colours against the blue sky.’ Freya smiles. ‘That was him all over. He’d listen and then months later remember stuff that even I’d forgotten. He made it one of my favourite days. Middle of December, we went down to the beach at Boscombe, freezing cold, wind like ice. Flew that kite for about five minutes, then went for fish and chips. It was perfect.’
He listens with a sympathetic wrinkling of the forehead. ‘I’m sorry, Freya,’ he says.
She nods slowly, not trusting herself to speak. She knows he understands.
‘You want me to speak to Watts?’ he adds.
‘No, I’ll do it.’
He turns away from her quickly, too quickly, and flicks his screen away from what he’s been looking at, but not before she catches a glimpse of the heading.
‘Why are you still looking at Jon’s medical records?’ Robin doesn’t answer. ‘Robin? Please. No secrets. Not now.’
He sighs, and flicks the screen back, letting her read the notes. She scans it once, then again. She can’t take it in.
‘So…’ she begins. ‘Jon had fertility tests done?’
She feels Robin scrutinising her face for a reaction. ‘Did he ever mention it to you?’
‘No.’ Her face is getting hot; her body feels sweaty. ‘All he ever said was they tried for a baby when they first got married, but it never came.’
‘And you didn’t discuss it?’
‘Yes, briefly. He said he wanted them. Two. He never liked being an only child.’
She turns away from Robin, and he does the same, respecting the silence. She stares at her screen but she can’t concentrate. The same question comes back into her head. Was Jon lying, all this time? Was he using her? How many times has she seen it? Women in the nick, being lied to by men. Their excuses, all the same. He loves me, I love him. It’s not like that. He’d never do that to me.