The Second Woman

by Charlotte Philby

  ‘You’re lucky that he’s so keen to go,’ one of the mums noted in the playground. ‘He must feel very secure. Joel never wants to be more than a metre away from me.’

  Artemis had spent the morning at a step aerobics class arranged as a fundraiser for a new computer suite for the school – as if the school didn’t get enough donations on top of the already exorbitant fees. Slinking off as soon as she could, she made her way back through Hampstead with a sense of relief. It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to like them – she had attempted to connect with the mothers of David’s new friends, despite her instinctive aversion to their competitive socialising and unnecessarily obtrusive 4x4 cars with bull bars that would so easily break a child.

  Dutifully, she turned up occasionally at the endless fundraisers or the coffee mornings where the teachers looked at her with an expression she could never quite read. But in the company of these women, her sense of loneliness was even more profound.

  The sky was unusually bright this morning. Artemis nibbled at the corner of a chocolate bourbon she had snaffled from the tea tray on the way out. As she moved along Parliament Hill she cast her eyes over the houses that finally felt familiar, after more than five years. When she had first arrived here she had felt so claustrophobic inside the house, thinking of all the bodies wedged in their terraces along this street. But now, as she approached home, she longed for the feeling that she wasn’t entirely alone.

  As if by some projected response, the moment she moved into the hallway, she heard movement from the middle floor of the house. Feeling her heart lift to know Clive was home, she moved quickly upstairs to the bedroom. The moment she stepped inside, she saw the suitcase.

  ‘You’re not going away again?’

  Without looking up, Clive continued to place neatly folded shirts into the open bag. ‘You know I am. It’s been in the diary for weeks. We have a big meeting in Asia. A whole new market is opening up and Francisco has brokered some meetings—’

  Artemis felt her chest tighten. ‘But I need you here.’

  ‘Why?’ He moved towards her, staring intensely as if he didn’t understand the person who was standing in front of him. ‘I don’t understand, I go away all the time …’

  ‘Exactly,’ Artemis muttered under her breath. Either Clive didn’t hear or he pretended not to.

  ‘You’re all sweaty,’ he said, his eyes glistening as he pulled the strap of her vest-top from her shoulder.

  ‘No,’ she said, moving away from him. ‘I’m serious. Maybe we could come with you?’

  Clive laughed, as if it was the most preposterous thing he’d ever heard. ‘Artemis, I’m going now. It’s Tuesday, David’s at school.’

  ‘We could pick him up. He’s still our child,’ she snapped.

  ‘Look,’ he said kindly, ‘whatever is happening, whatever’s going on in your head, I wonder if you should talk to someone. I spoke to Athena – she’s worried too, after your last conversation.’

  Artemis paused. ‘You spoke to Athena, about me?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. She rang and you were out and … Well, she mentioned you’d been distressed when you called her last week.’

  ‘I wasn’t distressed,’ Artemis snapped, her hands opening and closing like a clam. She tried to think back on what she had said, but nothing sprang to mind. She might have mentioned that she missed her friend, and her parents, but she wasn’t distressed as such. She was lonely. She was allowed to be lonely, wasn’t she? ‘Why would Athena say that?’

  ‘Because she cares about you and she’s worried. To be honest, she’s not the only one.’ He took her hand and she recoiled at his touch. Clive carried on regardless, as if addressing a wary animal, staying calm so as not to spook it. Not so worried that you’d consider actually spending time at home, she wanted to shout back at him, but he interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘She mentioned what happened to your sister, in the earthquake—’

  Artemis took a step back. ‘I don’t want to talk about that with you. How dare you talk about me behind my back?’ Her face was stinging with heat, as if she had been slapped.

  How could Athena do that to her? If she had wanted Clive to know about Helena then she would have told him. So why hadn’t she? What sort of marriage involved one partner withholding such a key fact from the other?

  ‘Go! Go and leave us again, I don’t give a shit!’ she said, suddenly furious, though she couldn’t say exactly why or who she was angry at. Marching out of the bedroom and into the hallway, she ran down the stairs and back out the front door, slamming it behind her, the whole house quivering with what was to come.

  Madeleine

  London, present day

  They meet at the Wenlock Arms, off Essex Road – a pub far enough from the office that Madeleine is unlikely to bump into anyone she knows. This is not a meeting she wants to declare.

  Isobel is already waiting at a table opposite the bar. She looks more composed, and healthier, than when they first met a couple of months earlier at the women’s refuge, though she still seems outrageously young – or perhaps this is merely another sign that Madeleine really is past it.

  ‘Isobel, thank you for meeting me,’ she says, with a smile. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘I’m fine with water,’ Isobel replies, indicating the glass in front of her.

  Madeleine takes a seat, placing her bag on the table and signalling to the barman for a coffee. Presumably there was a day when ordering an espresso in a place like this would have been as frowned upon as the notion of table service, but those days are sadly gone. It would seem that she has somehow managed to be born both too early and too late.

  ‘I appreciate your time; I realise you must be incredibly busy … I read your piece this morning on the inquest.’

  Isobel raises her eyebrows. ‘It’s a pleasure. It’s good that you’re interested in the story.’

  Madeleine smiles wryly. ‘To me it’s not a story, it’s a case.’

  ‘Same thing,’ Isobel replies, taking a sip of her water. ‘Except a case presumably ends when the judgement is made, but a story doesn’t.’

  Madeleine thinks of the first time she had seen Isobel, how she had blatantly smelt of booze. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, Madeleine had told herself it was probably a hangover rather than her drinking on the job in the middle of the day.

  ‘That’s a pretty deep assessment for ten a.m.,’ Madeleine says, smiling. ‘So you don’t think this story is finished— Oh, thank you so much, please add it to the tab,’ she says, turning to the barman as he sets down her drink.

  Isobel leans back in her chair. ‘I suppose I’m interested in why the NCA is interested in it,’ she says, once the barman has left.

  ‘First I should say that everything we discuss here is off the record.’ Madeleine looks at Isobel’s phone, which is on the table between them.

  ‘I’m not recording,’ Isobel says, picking it up and showing her the blank screen. ‘And of course, off the record is fine.’

  ‘You look well, by the way,’ Madeleine says, hoping to start again, on a better footing.

  ‘Thanks,’ Isobel smiles coyly. ‘I was having a bit of a stressful time when we last met. I really appreciated your – Dana’s – help.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Madeleine says. ‘Did you find her, the missing woman?’

  Isobel’s face tightens. ‘Yes. It wasn’t quite what I’d thought. She’s in prison.’

  ‘Wow, I’m sorry to hear that.’ Madeleine unwraps the biscuit on the side of her saucer. ‘I read your piece about Anna Witherall’s death, when it first happened. It was very thorough.’

  Isobel scoffs. ‘Yeah, well, it would have been more thorough if it hadn’t been heavily cut.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She exhales sharply. ‘I mean, as a local paper we don’t have the resources to make allegations that bigger papers might be prepared to make, if they had enough evidence, and later see through in court.’ She pauses. �
��Let’s just say, the story involving Eva, which I’ve been looking into for months, isn’t as straightforward as I hoped it would be, and there are ties that connect that case and this.’

  Madeleine’s eyes narrow. ‘In your piece, you mention the family business, TradeSmart.’

  She sits back slightly and observes the young woman.

  After a moment, Isobel nods. ‘If you come back to my flat, I have some things you might be interested to see.’

  Madeleine hails a cab and they sit in silence for a while after Isobel gives the address, a part of Hackney she has only heard of vaguely and even then, only in newspaper reports on trends in gentrification.

  ‘I don’t think it was suicide,’ Isobel says after a while, her gaze fixed on the streets outside as they move along Essex Road.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Lots of reasons. There are inconsistencies that don’t seem to have been picked up on or looked at. According to the scrapings under the fingernails, there was no blood or skin or anything else to suggest any sort of skirmish. There was also little evidence of bruising to suggest that she had been hauled up there. The crime scene shows no signs of forced entry or disturbance – no obvious wounds on the body. But it also appears the scene wasn’t properly preserved. Usually, to check the implications of the ligature and marks around the neck, it would be proper to cut down a hanging victim using a cut above the knot, which preserves the item for forensics. Right? Knots usually involve a high degree of movement in their creation, leading to plenty of forensic opportunities for DNA profiles at a later stage …’

  Isobel’s voice gathers momentum, as if she has been waiting to share this for some time.

  ‘From that you can ask, what do the marks around the neck show you? Is it just bruising following a similar pattern to the ridges on the rope used? That would be pretty normal and may be consistent with suicide. If there are other marks, alarm bells might start ringing …’

  Madeleine nods. ‘I have also read the Dummies’ Guide to Forensics.’

  ‘Ha,’ Isobel says. ‘But in this instance the knot wasn’t cut properly, so either way, the evidence simply isn’t there.’

  ‘How do you know this? None of it was mentioned in court.’

  ‘It was in the initial police report, which wasn’t read out in full at the inquest.’

  ‘Right, and you’ve seen this how …?’

  ‘I have contacts, it’s my job. This happened on my patch.’ Isobel shrugs. ‘And it’s just as well seeing as no one else appears to want to look into it properly. There wasn’t even a post-mortem.’

  ‘That’s not that unusual,’ Madeleine says, playing devil’s advocate. ‘Without reason to suggest foul play …’

  ‘Except how do you know if there was foul play or not unless every aspect is looked into – including a post-mortem?’

  ‘Do you know what it would involve to investigate every suicide?’

  ‘But this wasn’t every suicide,’ Isobel says, glancing at the light on the door to make sure the speaker transmitting their conversation to the driver’s part of the cab isn’t on. It isn’t, but she holds her tongue nonetheless as the car turns onto St Paul’s Road.

  ‘This is it,’ Isobel says a few moments later as they turn onto a residential street with tall Georgian houses lining one side, a wall bridging the pavement and a railway on the other. Madeleine pays with cash and waits a moment for a receipt.

  ‘It’s the top-floor flat,’ Isobel says, as they move inside a metal gate that hangs from only one hinge.

  ‘No problem,’ Madeleine replies, before looking up at the incline of the staircase. ‘I take that back.’

  By the time they reach the top, Madeleine’s breath is ragged. ‘Christ, no wonder you’re so thin.’

  Isobel laughs. ‘I haven’t lived here long, still haven’t got around to unpacking properly,’ she says as they move through the tiny hallway and into a bright living room with high ceilings and large, rickety sash windows overlooking the train-line. The room is sparsely furnished, a couple of boxes stacked up against one wall.

  ‘No need to apologise,’ Madeleine replies. ‘It’s a lovely place.’

  Isobel smiles appreciatively. ‘It is. Especially compared to my last flat. Do you want a drink? I have tea or only instant coffee, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Madeleine replies, her attention settling on the wall that divides the living space from a galley kitchen.

  Isobel clears her throat. ‘I realise this makes me look a bit like a serial killer.’

  ‘Actually it makes me feel very at home,’ Madeleine says. ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course.’ There is a glint in Isobel’s eye as she watches Madeleine move towards the wall, which is covered in printouts of newspaper articles, internet clippings and, at the centre, a photograph of Anna Witherall. ‘What I was leading to in the cab is that one of the paramedics who was on duty that night said that the psychiatrist showed up at the hospital and kept asking questions. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Tough crowd.’ Isobel shrugs, pulling out her rolling tobacco. ‘That’s Eva,’ she says, pointing to a photo of a young woman with piercing blue eyes. Eva was the woman whose disappearance had originally brought Madeleine and the reporter into contact, and here she was again, this time her picture on a wall alongside the wife of the heir of the company that Gabriela’s boyfriend was in business with.

  ‘You saw her being attacked on Hampstead Heath, is that right?’

  Isobel pauses. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought I saw. And in a way it was true – it was her who was being attacked, by the guy who had trafficked her to England – initially. But she hit him back, with a rock.’

  ‘Oh,’ Madeleine says.

  ‘Yeah, oh.’

  ‘Was he badly hurt?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And now she’s in prison,’ Isobel continues. ‘Because I wouldn’t let the case go and in the process of thinking I was avenging her death, I managed to get her put in jail for defending herself against a man who—’ She cut herself off. ‘Anyway, it’s all pretty fucked up.’

  ‘Presumably she hasn’t been tried yet?’ Madeleine asks.

  ‘Not yet. I’m hoping there will be leniency, or perhaps she could do some sort of plea deal … If she had information that was useful …’

  Madeleine shrugs. ‘Possibly. So tell me more about this.’ She indicates the pages stuck to the wall.

  Isobel clears her throat, pulling out a Rizla and filling it with tobacco, licking the paper before rolling it between her fingers. ‘After I saw what I thought was Eva being attacked on the Heath, I started doing some digging. I found a building near Tottenham Court Road which was being used to film porn.’ Holding the unlit roll-up between her fingers, she points to another piece of paper, with information about a business scrawled in illegible writing. ‘The building is registered to a company called PKI Ltd, and when I looked into them it turns out it’s a shell company, owned by another company called the Stan Group, which is registered to the British Virgin Islands – the signatory on both companies is a lawyer named James McCann.’

  Lighting up, Isobel moves her fingers between various names tacked to the wall in a bid to illustrate the web she is unpicking.

  ‘This lawyer, it’s almost impossible to find out anything about his business online other than it’s a law firm, McCann and Partners, based in Queen Square – but when I Googled him, what I did find was a photo. It was taken at a party, and in the picture he was there suited and booted necking champagne with a couple of “philanthropists”, according to the caption. When I Googled their names, it turned out the first man in the picture was Anna Witherall’s father-in-law, Clive Witherall, the owner of a seemingly legit international trading company called TradeSmart. The other …’

  Madeleine’s eyes have already moved on to what Isobel is about to reveal next.

  ‘The other,’ Isobe
l continues regardless, ‘was a Russian by the name of—’

  ‘Irena Vasiliev,’ Madeleine interrupts.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Know of her,’ Madeleine says. ‘Please, carry on.’

  ‘So I’m sure you know she is wanted by various countries for supporting violent regimes in Africa, as well as money laundering and financial terrorism.’

  Madeleine takes a step closer. ‘What’s this?’ She is pointing to an article from one of the leading newspapers, printed up on A3 paper.

  In a letter exclusively obtained by this newspaper, Witherall, heir to the leading trading company TradeSmart, admitted he and his wife, magazine editor Anna Witherall, had masterminded the chemical dump in a bid to avoid necessary treatment costs to dispose of the toxic waste product.

  The CEO and heir to the TradeSmart business, which was worth $76 billion at the time of the dump, hired a small local firm to illegally dispose of raw toxic waste, near a children’s playground in a residential area of Equatorial Guinea, along with his then-girlfriend.

  Organised by the pair when they were in their early twenties, while living together in the Witherall family home in Hampstead where they hosted frequent parties, more than 300 tons of the deadly chemical compound mercaptan, referred to in emails between the company’s staff as ‘slops’ and ‘crap’, was offloaded in a residential area in Bata. As a result, 22 died and hundreds more suffered symptoms including burns and respiratory problems. The case has also been linked to a spate of miscarriages in the surrounding area.

  Clive Witherall, who is in the late stages of an aggressive form of cancer, has denied all knowledge of the dump, and has passed on copies of correspondence between his son and daughter-in-law. A receipt for the cargo, which was erroneously abandoned near a playground by local delivery drivers after they panicked over the smell of the toxic waste, has been handed to police along with a letter hand-written by David Witherall not long before he died, after being hit by a car moving at high speed.

  The former magazine editor and mother-of-two, Anna Witherall, has battled mental health problems since childhood when she underwent professional treatment following the loss of her brother, and suffered extreme postnatal depression after the birth of her twin daughters in 2016.