Last Place You Look

by Louisa Scarr

  ‘Amy attacking Jonathan?’ Kal says. His forehead creases.

  ‘Yes. We know they’d had run-ins in the past. Police had been called, Kal. Amy had been beating Jonathan.’

  ‘No, no, you’ve got it the wrong way round. I’ve seen the marks on Amy’s face. He was beating her.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ Robin says. ‘Watch the tape.’

  They all stare at the video as Robin presses play. Robin knows what must be going through Kal’s head, the same as Robin and Freya thought when they first saw it. The video is bonkers, almost unbelievable if it wasn’t there in black and white.

  Kal watches as Amy stands in the middle of her living room. She’s still, thinking. Then she walks to the open door, between the living room and the hallway. She stands with her feet either side of the door, her hands gripping the handles on each side. And then rams her head hard against the edge.

  Kal gasps. The force of the impact makes Amy reel slightly, step backwards from the door. Then she steps forward and does it again. This time her hands go up and she tentatively prods with a finger at her forehead, then walks to the mirror on the other side of the room and looks at it, poking gently.

  Kal looks at the video, then back at Robin.

  ‘She did it to herself?’ he asks, disbelievingly.

  ‘It seems that way,’ Robin says.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘We’re hoping you’ll be able to tell us that.’

  Kal reaches forward, winds the video back, then presses play. They all watch the bizarre display again.

  ‘But she said…’ he mutters. He shakes his head. ‘This can’t be right.’

  ‘You believed Jonathan was beating her, Kal,’ Robin says slowly. ‘But she was lying to you the whole time.’

  Kal shakes his head again, his mouth open. ‘I thought… oh god…’ His hands fly to his mouth.

  ‘What happened on that Monday when Jonathan died?’ Robin asks. He watches as Kal shuts his eyes tight. ‘How did you kill him?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ Kal repeats. He starts to cry, shaking his head. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ Robin asks quietly.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Kal says. ‘He was already dead.’

  60

  Kal can’t think. He leans forward over the table, pushing his fingers into his eyes so hard he sees colours. He needs to make it stop. The constant thoughts, the guilt, the fear. And now… So Amy had been…?

  Kal feels like he might vomit. The sandwich he ate earlier sits in his stomach, hard as rock. He takes a sip from the cup of water; saliva fills his mouth. But he can’t be sick, not here, not now.

  ‘I didn’t,’ he repeats. ‘He was already dead.’

  Kal remembers the frantic call from Amy that Monday. ‘He’s dead,’ she was screaming. ‘He’s dead. You have to help me.’

  Kal tried to persuade her to come and see him, but she wouldn’t. She just said, ‘You have to help me. We have to make it look like an accident.’

  ‘But how?’ he replied. And she explained.

  He drove to the Miller house, picked up Jonathan’s car, keys left in the ignition, and took it to the hotel. He used the key card left in the glovebox to let himself in, then went to the room. Room 302.

  And there he was. Jonathan was lying on the bed. Just laid out, in his shirt and suit. Not a mark on him except for the bruises circling his neck. And the belt, still looped tightly round.

  Amy was clear with her instructions.

  ‘Check into the room next door,’ she said, ‘303. I’ve reserved it in Jonathan’s name. Wear gloves. Move the body.’

  Kal stripped him naked, left his clothes on the chair. Then put the belt back into the bruises, the ridges round his neck, and pulled up. Jonathan wasn’t light, the angle difficult. But eventually the belt held, and Jonathan stayed. Hung from the door. Like a piece of meat.

  All the time he told himself: he’s not your best friend. He’s not the guy you thought you knew. He’s a wife beater. A coward. Amy was only defending herself. She would be dead, if she hadn’t killed him.

  But part of him couldn’t comprehend what was going on. What he was doing.

  He pressed Jonathan’s hand against the page, then left the porn open on the side. He pulled the door shut. And he left, running out of the hotel, leaving Jonathan’s car behind.

  Since then all he can see is Jonathan’s face. All he can feel on his hands is Jonathan’s skin: cold and dry. When he sleeps he feels the belt on his own neck, pulling, tightening. Jonathan getting his revenge.

  He’s constantly questioned what he’s done. If Amy killing Jonny was an accident, why the belt round his neck? Why was he at the hotel? Why stage his death in such a horrific way? Why didn’t Amy call the police? Why didn’t he? Why didn’t he?

  And now everything he believed about Jonathan was wrong.

  He tells all this, in fits and spurts, to the detectives. He knows he shouldn’t. That he needs to get a lawyer, that someone needs to stop him, but he can’t help it. He feels like that guilty kid again. That fifteen-year-old that stopped his father. Except this time he was wrong.

  Oh god, so wrong. What has he done?

  ‘How did Jonathan die?’ the detective asks.

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ Kal says. He can feel his heart beating, faster and faster. ‘He was dead when I got there.’

  ‘In the hotel?’

  The detective doesn’t believe him. Oh god. His hands are clammy; he feels a bead of sweat run down his spine. He’s going to go to prison for murder. For his best friend’s murder.

  ‘Yes, in the hotel.’

  ‘And how did his body get there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Who killed Jonathan, Kal?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Was it Amy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Oh god oh god oh god. What has he done?

  Kal looks up. ‘I want a lawyer,’ he stutters. ‘I need a lawyer.’

  61

  Freya and Robin sit in Baker’s office. The look on their DCI’s face is grim.

  ‘So the CPS will charge Riaz for preventing the lawful burial of a body and perverting the course of justice, but not murder or conspiracy,’ Baker tells them.

  ‘We have no evidence he was involved in his death,’ Robin confirms.

  ‘And he says he just found him dead in a hotel room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The hotel room next door? And you didn’t notice this in your investigation?’

  Freya glances at Butler. It’s not going well. ‘It was booked in a fake name,’ Robin explains. ‘Although Jonathan Miller’s credit card was used to pay.’ He holds his hands up apologetically. ‘We missed it, guv. Buried in all that data.’

  Freya feels the blame for that one. She should have spotted it. But she was so overwrought in the days just after Jon’s death, detail wasn’t exactly her forte.

  ‘Forensics are working the room now,’ Robin continues. ‘But we don’t hold out much hope. Someone’s been staying in there since. It’s been cleaned many times.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Baker frowns at them both. ‘So what do you have?’

  Robin takes a long breath in. ‘We have video of Amy Miller beating herself up—’

  ‘Which is strange, but not a crime.’

  ‘We can put Riaz at the hotel and in the car because of the CCTV and the telematics. And we know Jonathan Miller wasn’t at work on Monday.’

  ‘But Amy Miller was.’ Freya can see Baker losing his temper, his eyes narrowing, his body tensing.

  ‘Yes, guv. She has an alibi.’

  ‘Christ, Butler!’ Baker shouts. ‘What are you arresting her for? You can’t even prove when Miller was killed!’

  Robin looks at the floor. Freya knows he’s right. But they’re so close. Khalid’s confession was incomplete before he lawyered up, but they know Amy is implicated, there is no doubt. She feels the frustration. An unbearable ten
sion of knowing that they are so close to the truth. It makes her muscles ache and her stomach contract in knots. They’re on the brink of getting an arrest for this. Getting justice for her Jon. And that means more to her than anything else.

  ‘Guv,’ she begins, her voice shaking slightly. ‘Let us arrest her.’ She can feel herself gabbling, but this is their last desperate chance to convince him. ‘Riaz’s testimony is enough, you know that. Jonathan Miller was drugged. And the video proves something strange is going on with that woman.’ Baker blinks at her tone, but stays quiet. ‘Then we can search her house properly. See what else we can find.’

  Baker sits back in his seat. Robin looks at her, the faint hint of a smile on his face, then over at the DCI.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Sorry, guv?’

  ‘Fine,’ he says again to Freya. ‘Arrest her. But if she puts another complaint in about your skipper,’ he says, gesturing to Robin, ‘I can’t protect you. And I hope to god you find something that proves she killed him.’

  62

  Thursday

  Fuck you.

  Amy sits ramrod straight in the interview room, staring directly at Detective Sergeant Robin fucking Butler. I will not be intimidated by you, she thinks, over and over in her head. Fuck you.

  She looks closely at the man accusing her of her husband’s murder. His hair could do with a cut, he’s obviously made the effort to shave this morning, but his skin is sallow, he looks tired. Worse than her, she thinks. She’s been here overnight, in that stinking, putrid cell, but she knows her hair is still clean, make-up in place.

  She didn’t know they were going to arrive the evening before, but like every day, she’d made the effort. Prepared for anything life might throw at her, and today is turning out to be no exception.

  Her solicitor sits next to her, primed and on the alert, iPad in his hand. She was ready.

  ‘Tell us again about the events of that weekend, beginning with the party on Friday the eleventh of September,’ Butler says. His voice is measured and calm.

  She sighs. ‘No comment.’

  ‘What is your relationship to Khalid Riaz?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Did you phone him on Monday the fourteenth of September?’

  Interesting, Amy thinks. ‘No comment.’

  ‘Because we have a warrant for your phone records, Amy,’ Butler adds. ‘We can find out.’

  ‘No comment.’

  He raises an eyebrow and looks down at his notepad.

  She knows they’re searching her house again. But she also knows they’ll find nothing.

  Butler pulls a photo out of the file and puts it in front of her. She looks at it. It’s a small black box with a few wires trailing, a ruler next to it to show size.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’ he asks.

  ‘Should I?’ Amy says, and receives a look from her solicitor. ‘No comment,’ she adds.

  ‘It’s a wireless camera, sending video feed from your house to a remote laptop.’

  The solicitor sits up straight in his chair. ‘You had no authority to place video cameras in my client’s home.’

  ‘We didn’t put it there,’ Robin says. Amy sees a smug smile appear on his face. ‘Jonathan Miller did.’

  Amy feels her muscles tighten. Jonathan was filming her? What the hell? But she forces herself to stay calm. They don’t have anything. They don’t.

  ‘When did you recover this item?’ her solicitor asks.

  ‘Last time we did the search. With your client’s permission,’ he adds pointedly. ‘And it shows some interesting footage, Amy.’

  She stays silent, waiting as Butler puts a laptop in front of her and turns on the video. She watches. It’s from her living room, and she can’t help but stare as it shows her hitting herself on the edge of the door. The solicitor watches it, then turns to stare at her. But he doesn’t say anything to Amy.

  The solicitor clears his throat. ‘What’s your point, Detective?’ he asks, regaining his composure.

  ‘Why are you doing this, Amy?’ he asks.

  ‘No comment,’ she replies. And she smiles. So this is all they have? It’s okay. She’s right, they have nothing.

  Butler closes the lid of the laptop.

  ‘We’ve arrested Khalid Riaz,’ he says. Amy waits. ‘And he’s told us on record how you phoned him and told him to move the body of your husband and stage his death to make it look like an accident.’

  Has he now? Amy always knew Kal was going to be the weak link. She was wrong there, on many levels. Not the man she thought he was.

  ‘Is that a question?’ Amy says.

  Robin stares at her. ‘Did you?’

  ‘No comment.’

  She can see her calm is starting to get to him.

  ‘Did you ask Kal to stage the death of your husband?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Did you deceive Khalid Riaz, tell him that Jonathan was beating you up?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Did you tell him to strip your husband’s body naked?’ Butler’s eyes flare; his jaw tightens. ‘Hang him with a belt? Suspend him, undignified, cold, rotting, in that shitty hotel room?’

  She sees her solicitor cringe. ‘No comment,’ she says.

  ‘Did you kill your husband, Amy?’ he asks, his voice raised.

  ‘My client has no more to say on this matter, Detective.’

  ‘Yeah, no fucking comment,’ she hears Butler mutter. Then, louder for the tape: ‘Interview concluded, 12:46 p.m.’

  He stands up, his chair making a bang as it hits the wall behind, and walks out of the interview room. ‘Take her back to her cell,’ she hears him snap at the uniform outside.

  Amy stands up, her solicitor following her. They pause in the corridor, the uniform waiting. Amy watches Butler walk away, then stop at the end.

  ‘They have nothing concrete on you, Mrs Miller,’ her solicitor whispers. ‘Just hold tight and we’ll get you out of here.’

  But Amy’s not listening. Butler’s talking to a woman at the end of the corridor – Amy recognises her from the funeral: the other detective, the blonde one. She’s clearly angry, glancing back at where Amy is standing.

  And then, as Amy watches, she notices the woman’s manner change, her body tensing, emotion taking over. Amy frowns. Is it anger? Then it comes to her slowly. It’s grief. She should know. Butler puts his hand on the woman’s arm, his head bowed towards hers.

  Amy stares. She can barely believe what she’s seeing.

  In a flash, she remembers the woman’s face from the funeral. The sadness, a level of anguish you wouldn’t normally see on a detective. Especially not one so used to investigating murders.

  And that’s when she knows. The blonde hair, the blue eyes – Jonathan’s type to a tee. This is the woman who was having an affair with her husband. And she’s working the case.

  She feels the churn in the pit of her stomach. Her solicitor is still talking, but she’s not listening. She wants to get away. She needs to make sense of what she’s seen.

  ‘Take me back to my cell,’ she demands. Amy knows that all she needs to do is think. Think – and there’ll be a way she can use this to her advantage. ‘I want to be alone,’ she says again, fragments of a plan forming in her head. ‘Take me back now.’

  63

  ‘What do you mean, he’s gone?’

  Robin stares at his boss, as the three of them stand in the incident room. He’s aware he’s getting looks from his colleagues, and that shouting at his chief inspector in the middle of the office might not be a good idea, but he can’t help himself.

  Bloody Amy Miller, with her no comments and infuriating calm. Bloody Freya, looking at him with her wide blue eyes like he’d personally let her down by not locking Amy up there and then. And now this.

  DCI Baker glares back. ‘Gone. To Midfield Psychiatric down the road. To be assessed. Apparently, your little barrage of questions yesterday, plus a stay overnight in our finest cus
tody suite have tipped him over the edge.’

  ‘Riaz’s faking it. He knows he’s in trouble and he’s pulling the diminished responsibility card.’

  ‘Well, whatever the reason, we can’t touch him. And Miller’s solicitor is claiming his testimony was given under duress.’

  ‘Shit!’ Robin turns, his hands on his head. He stares at the board in front of him. The timeline, the reports from the PM, from the car, from the PCs – it’s all come to nothing. ‘How long do we have?’

  Baker glances up at the clock. ‘You’ve got five hours left. You’ve got SOCO at the house, right?’ Robin nods. ‘So give it your all. And then we’ll have to pull them out and let her go.’

  ‘Unless we find something.’

  Baker gives him an incredulous look. ‘Unless you find something.’

  Robin watches Baker leave. Freya has been standing, mute, next to them this whole time, and now she slumps in the chair, her head in her hands. He watches her.

  ‘You okay? Should you be here?’ he asks, placing a hand gently on her shoulder.

  She looks up at him with bloodshot eyes. ‘Where else am I going to go, Robin?’ Then she sits up straight. ‘Tell me what to do.’

  Robin sighs. He looks at the board again, then rubs his eyes. He went back over the camera footage following Miller’s death. Multiple files, selecting the one for last Wednesday, watching Freya breaking into the house. Her shifty expression as she walked through the lounge, searching the study, then leaving via the window with the laptop. His finger hovered over the delete key for a second before he pressed it. And the file was gone.

  Such a fucking mess. He can’t stand her looking at him any more.

  ‘Get me a coffee,’ he mutters.

  She gets up and leaves without a word.

  ‘Shit,’ he growls under his breath. The case is falling apart. What do they have? They’re waiting for Amy Miller’s phone records to come in, but all that will confirm is that she called Kal, not what they discussed. They’ve checked the rest of the camera footage from the house, and apart from the weird display of self-harm, there’s nothing exceptional. They have no evidence in Miller’s car linking it to Amy, nothing on his phone. He’s sent a message to Steph asking for her to look at the PM results again, but she hasn’t replied, and it’s a shot in the bloody dark as it is.