by Louisa Scarr
He sits down at the desk and makes a call to the woman in charge of the SOCOs at the Miller house.
She answers immediately. ‘It’s too early,’ she says, without waiting for Robin to ask, her voice slightly muffled. Robin’s worked with Jess for years – an experienced crime scene manager – and now imagines her standing in the house, dressed in the full white suit, her mask over her face, hood over her ears.
‘But any suggestion of anything?’ Robin pleads.
Jess sighs. ‘This place is spotless. There’s nothing back from the initial run-through with luminol—’ so no obvious traces of blood, he thinks ‘—and the whole house stinks of bleach. My guess is she’s been over it, top to bottom, and if there was anything it’s gone.’
‘Any sign of the life insurance paperwork?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘And you’ll look for prescription drugs?’
‘Yes, Robin.’ Her tone is slightly patronising now; he knows she’s barely humouring him.
‘And what about the freezer in the garage?’
‘We’ve impounded it, but nothing stands out, no. There’s not even any rubbish in the wheelie bins.’
‘Shit!’ Robin leans back in his chair. ‘The rubbish! We took that last time we were there.’
‘You did?’ Jess says. ‘Well, have a look through that. It’ll give you something to do instead of bothering me. I’ll call you if we find anything.’
Robin hangs up the phone, and gratefully takes the coffee from Freya as she comes back.
‘Nothing?’ she asks.
‘No.’ He stands up. ‘But come with me. We have work to do.’
64
Freya stands in the doorway of the evidence storeroom.
‘You’re having a laugh,’ she says.
In front of them are six large balls of rubbish, bundled up again into huge see-through evidence bags. Even through the plastic, Freya can detect the smell, and it’s making her feel faintly nauseous.
Robin’s frowning. She knows he likes it as much as she does.
‘Do we even know what we’re looking for?’ she asks.
He sighs, blowing his cheeks out, then takes a long swig from the coffee. ‘Not a clue,’ he says. ‘Anything that looks suspicious.’
He glances at her and notices the slightly green look on her face. ‘You do the recycling. That lot will be clean, at least.’
‘And what? You’re going to wade through a week’s worth of rubbish?’
‘I guess so, yes,’ he says.
* * *
They fetch massive sheets of brown paper and white protective suits, commandeer two rooms and get to work. They set up video recorders and cameras. They fetch two of the admin staff to stand, watch and take notes.
‘Video everything,’ Robin says. ‘Every item documented, photographed, then exhibited in its own bag. I don’t want them accusing us of any shit.’
And they start. Freya slowly opens out the bags of recycling, one at a time, recording everything coming out of the plastic and spreading it across the floor. Even though it’s supposedly clean, it doesn’t smell great, and Freya is glad of the protective mask covering her face, however hot and breathless it makes her. The admin woman makes notes as they go through it, itemising, detailing Freya’s thoughts.
And three hours later, Freya couldn’t feel more discouraged. This look into Jonathan’s life is both dehumanising and strange. An insight into the habits of him and his wife, trying to decipher what might have once been her lover, and what was Amy.
Plastic milk bottles – from Waitrose, both semi-skimmed and skimmed. (Freya knows Jonathan had semi-skimmed on his breakfast.)
An empty cardboard box of Special K. (Amy? With her, Jonathan always ate Weetabix.)
Aerosol can of shaving gel. (Jonathan.)
Two cardboard pizza boxes, one Hawaiian (Amy?), one Meat Feast (Jonathan).
Endless domestic rubbish that could have been either of them:
Empty plastic bottles: lemon washing-up liquid, Tresemmé shampoo.
Tin cans: chopped tomatoes, baked beans, pineapple.
Two empty cardboard cartons and inner cardboard rolls of cling film.
Three empty cans of Diet Coke.
Envelopes, flier for Domino’s Pizza, the local newspaper.
And so, so much more. Freya stands up and looks at it all, her back aching. So what? she thinks. How can any of this help?
She feels a sudden gnawing hunger. She didn’t eat much for lunch, and she wonders how Robin’s getting on. The admin woman looks at her hopefully.
‘Shall we call it a night?’ Freya says, and the woman pulls off her white suit and scuttles out of the room before Freya has a chance to thank her.
Freya picks up the laptop, saves the notes, then takes off her own suit, leaving it in the room to pick up again tomorrow.
She closes the door and locks it, then goes next door to where Robin is working. She pushes the door open, and instantly realises how kind her boss has been to her.
The smell fills her nose, immediately making her gag. Like her room, brown paper is laid out on the floor. But unlike hers the items strewn across it are stained, wet, stinking, liquid.
And in the middle of it stands Robin. His white suit is stained with brown and red and yellow. He turns and looks, then points a finger in her direction. She knows he wants to say something, but he just points, his eyes narrow.
Despite everything that’s going on, or maybe because of it, Freya feels a bubble of laughter erupting from inside her. And then, before she can help it, she’s doubled over in hysterics.
‘Fuck you,’ she hears Robin growl, but it only makes her laugh more. He walks out of the mess, carefully manoeuvring round the disgusting, indescribable items. And up close, he stinks.
She bites her lip, trying to quell the giggles.
‘I’m so sorry, Robin,’ she manages at last. ‘Let me buy you dinner.’
He shakes his head; she knows he’s scowling behind the mask. Then he gestures to a large reddish-yellow mark on his leg.
‘Just not curry,’ he replies. ‘Please.’
65
Robin’s changed his clothes, had a shower, but the stink of the Miller rubbish still clings to his skin. He’s convinced it’s in his hair, under his nails, even though he was wearing a full suit and gloves. Double layer tomorrow, he resolves.
They’ve agreed on a takeaway rather than dinner out, and he hears Freya open his front door to the delivery driver as he’s finishing getting dressed. He pulls a hoodie over his head and smooths his hair down with his fingers, looking in the mirror as he does so.
He needs a haircut. He needs a shave. And when did he get so grey? In the past he’s been able to convince himself that it’s only here and there, but now he can see great tufts of it on the top, patches in his stubble. He looks old. And he feels it. Every one of his forty-one years. Or? He does the maths in his head. Christ, he’s forty-two, how did that happen?
He goes downstairs into the kitchen, where Freya has managed to find knives and forks and plates and laid the Chinese takeaway out on the table.
He sits down and takes a prawn cracker, enjoying the polystyrene-like texture as it dissolves on his tongue. She passes him the rice and he tips it out on his plate, then adds chilli crispy beef, sweet and sour pork, lemon chicken.
‘I think I over-ordered,’ Freya says, through a mouthful of something.
‘No such thing,’ he replies.
They eat in silence for a while, both of them starving.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asks tentatively.
‘About what? Jon, or…’ She doesn’t finish. She knows he’s referring to Trevor Stevens’ murder.
‘Both, I guess.’
Freya offers him the last prawn cracker and he shakes his head. ‘About Jon, okay, generally,’ she says. ‘He wasn’t a part of my day-to-day life, because of the way we were. So when I’m at work and distracted, I can almost forget. But then it’ll catch m
e unawares. I’ll pick up my phone without thinking, to check if he’s messaged. And that will be it.’ She laughs, awkwardly. ‘Waterworks.’
He nods. He’s not sure what to say. He remembers those early days, just after Georgia and the twins died, but their lives had been so completely intertwined that everything he did came with a paralysing tiredness. Yet he carried on, in the same way that she is.
He watches as she puts a forkful of rice in her mouth and chews. ‘Are we going to get her, Robin?’ she asks quietly.
He doesn’t reply. He trails his fork in his leftover food, then puts it down, his appetite lost. ‘I don’t know, Freya, I really don’t. We need something.’
They’re still waiting for any results to come back from the search of Amy Miller’s house, but he doesn’t hold out much hope. They found Amy’s prescription medication, diazepam and zopiclone, which could tie to the sedatives found in Jonathan’s system, but there is no way to prove that she gave them to him. As he said to Freya before, he could have easily taken them himself.
Freya considers his words, nodding slowly. ‘Why do you think she did it?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know. Why does anyone kill?’ he says, before he realises that he can include himself in this group. Why did he? ‘Revenge? Love? Money?’ he asks.
‘Revenge for what?’
‘Did she know about you?’
‘He might have told her that weekend. But otherwise I don’t think so. And I don’t think it’s money. We haven’t found anything in their financials that would show any sort of motive.’
He knows what Freya means. Not too much, or too little. He thinks about the video of her beating herself up. ‘Perhaps there’s something not quite right there,’ he says. ‘I mean, why make out your husband’s abusing you? What did she have to gain from that?’
Freya frowns. ‘Sympathy? Attention?’
‘From who? Kal?’ Robin suggests.
‘Maybe. Was she in love with him? There were certainly a lot of phone calls between them.’
The phone logs had come in while Freya and Robin were sifting through the rubbish and Robin gave them a quick look, searching for Kal’s number. Sure enough, Amy Miller had called him on Monday afternoon, and looking back, their conversations hadn’t started there. They’d regularly messaged and spoken on the phone.
‘But there’s nothing in their texts to show any sort of romance,’ Freya replies. ‘Can you get anything else from Olivia Cross?’
Robin screws his face up. He has no desire to speak to her again, risk adding fuel to the complaint. But he agrees, ‘Worth a try. You finished?’ he asks, pointing to the near-empty takeaway trays.
Freya nods, and Robin stands up, clearing away the plates. He picks up a half-full portion of rice and adds it the leftover lemon chicken.
‘Breakfast?’ Freya asks.
‘Maybe.’ Robin smiles, and takes out the cling film, covering it and putting it in the fridge. He turns and Freya’s looking at him strangely. ‘I’m kidding,’ he adds. ‘Even for me that’s disgusting.’
‘No, it’s not that.’ She points at the tube in his hand. ‘How many rolls would you say you get through?’
‘Er…’ He looks at it, confused. ‘One a month, at most.’
‘Right.’ Freya gets up and collects her laptop from her bag. She opens it and pulls up a document on the screen. ‘See, here. Two empty rolls and boxes of cling film.’ She looks up at him. ‘In the Miller recycling. That strike you as weird?’
‘Yeah, but why? What would you use it for?’
They both stare at each other for a second, neither daring to articulate what’s in their heads.
Then Freya says, ‘You don’t think…’
Robin nods. ‘That’s exactly what I’m thinking. To wrap up a body.’
66
Robin doesn’t know what to say. It’s a theory, but how do they prove it?
He can make an intelligent guess at why Amy Miller would wrap her husband’s body in cling film: some sort of forensic countermeasure. A way of stopping skin and hair from the body spreading elsewhere. She’s not daft, he has to give her that.
Freya leaves, and Robin carries on clearing up the kitchen. If what they’re assuming is right, then… He can hardly bear the thought.
And when? Robin’s head is starting to hurt. There’s still so much of this case that doesn’t make sense.
He remembers Freya’s suggestion, about speaking to Liv, and picks up his phone and dials. It rings, then goes to voicemail, and he tries again. Then again. Eventually he gives up, carries a beer into the living room and slumps on the sofa. He switches the television on but he doesn’t watch it; he just rolls the case round in his head.
Freya’s convinced Amy Miller killed Jonathan, and even he has to agree, something isn’t right about the woman. But how? She has an alibi, and there’s no getting round that. If it was just one person’s word for it, then maybe, but CCTV has her working at her hotel all day, the restaurant confirming the night.
His phone rings and he jumps, then answers it.
‘Stop calling me,’ Liv snaps.
‘I need to speak to you. It’s about Amy.’
‘I’m not going to tell you any more about my sister.’
‘You know something’s up with her, Liv. Let me help her.’
‘Oh, piss off,’ she says. Robin expects her to hang up on him, but he can still hear the background noise. A thud, thud of bass, the chatter of people shouting over music.
‘Are you working?’ he asks.
‘I’m busy, Robin,’ he hears, and this time the phone disconnects.
He sits for a moment longer. Then he puts down his beer, pulls on his shoes and coat and walks out of the door.
* * *
The neon sign of For Your Eyes Only lights up the grubby street. Two large bouncers in white shirts and black trousers stand by the entrance, and for a moment Robin sits in his car and watches. It’s late, just past midnight. A busy time for strip clubs as pubs close and drunk, horny men need somewhere to go.
He gets out of the car and walks to the door. He waits behind two younger guys, their skinheads pink and glossy in the street lights, arms bare and tattooed, then pays his money and goes inside.
The music is loud, pounding out beat after beat in time with the throbbing in Robin’s head. The club smells of old beer, of sweat and cheap aftershave. His feet stick to the carpet as he goes to the bar, buys an overpriced bottle of beer and waits, looking around for Liv. He doesn’t know what she does here. He takes in the sparsely dressed waitresses and the women in less, barely underwear, rotating around the tables, smiling, no doubt trawling for private dances. He’s been to a few of these places in his time, but never this sober, and never this uninterested.
Two women dance on the stage, thrusting at a pole, nearly naked, throwing their hair around to the catcalls of the men watching. He wonders about Liv, about how she got into this. But then, which is better? Dancing and stripping on a garish stage, or shagging men privately, earning money while lying on your back?
Then he sees her, emerging from a door to the right of the stage. She’s wearing a low balconette bra, a thong and a pair of skyscraper heels. Her hair is large, her make-up overdone. He watches as she walks slowly round the tables, knocking a straying hand back, bending down with a grin to a punter, only to get a shake of the head in return.
But then she catches his eye, and her face instantly clouds. She walks quickly towards him.
‘You can’t be here,’ she snarls, a forced smile on her face. ‘I’m working.’
‘Talk to me and I’ll go.’
She glances to the side, clocks someone watching her.
‘Okay, but you’ll need to pay.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll need to pay for a private dance.’
He digs in his pocket for the cash, and then follows her into a small room on one side of the club. There’s no door, just a few low chairs, and Liv pushes Robin down onto on
e.
‘I don’t want the fucking dance, Liv,’ he replies.
‘They’re watching, now take your coat off and look like you’re enjoying yourself.’ He pauses. ‘Do you want me to get fired?’ she hisses.
‘Fine.’ He does as he’s told, and she slowly twirls in front of him. He doesn’t feel turned on, just awkward, not sure where to direct his eyes.
‘What do you want to know?’ she says.
‘Did she kill Jonathan?’ he asks.
She moves closer to him, her bum hovering over his legs as she gyrates. ‘If she did, she hasn’t told me.’ She glances over her shoulder, catches his disbelieving expression. ‘I don’t know, honestly I don’t. But is she capable of it? Probably, yes.’
Liv turns to face him, then sits on his lap, straddling him. She’s very close. He can feel the warmth of her body, smell her perfume. ‘When we were teenagers, there was this guy. She wanted him to take her to some party, but he had a girlfriend, and turned her down flat.’ She’s still swaying on his lap, and Robin’s finding it hard to concentrate, his face near her breasts. ‘And then the day before, the girlfriend gets sick. Proper vomiting. Had to be taken to hospital. She was okay in the end but turns out she was poisoned.’
‘And it was Amy?’
‘She didn’t admit it, but I thought so, yes. I was just in college, so she must have been about fifteen. And if she could do something like that then…’
She leaves the words unsaid; Robin knows what she’s implying.
‘Then help us, Liv, please. Help us find something so we can charge her.’
He can see her thinking. Then she says: ‘The life insurance. It’s a lot. I saw the paperwork for it in her kitchen. If it’s a motive you want, you’ve got it.’