Close to the Bone: An addictive crime thriller with edge-of-your-seat suspense (Detective Megan Thomas)

by Susan Wilkins

  ‘Do you remember where you chucked it?’

  Aidan shakes his head.

  ‘Did you drop it before you left the flat?’

  ‘Probably. Don’t remember.’

  In the corner of the incident room, Ted Jennings puts his phone down, gets up from his desk and comes over. He hovers at Slater’s shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ he says. He’s adopted Collins’s habit of calling her ma’am.

  Slater turns to face him.

  ‘Think we’ve got a bit of a problem,’ he says. ‘Barry Porter, the boy’s grandfather, is downstairs. He’s brought his lawyer and he’s kicking up a rumpus.’

  Megan watches the exchange. There’s something shifty in Ted’s look; he’s no good at dissembling. Has Slater noticed? But she says, ‘Can’t you deal with him?’

  ‘Might be better if you had a word, ma’am. He wants his lawyer to see the boy.’

  Slater sighs. ‘Okay. He’s downstairs?’

  Ted nods and retreats.

  Megan’s hoping she can do the same. But Slater glances at her and says, ‘Let’s go and see what he’s got to say, shall we?’

  Megan knows what the boss is up to: trying to reel her in and get her to engage with the case.

  They find Barry Porter pacing the foyer like a caged grizzly. His lawyer is small and dapper. He’s from a local firm and known to Slater.

  ‘Tim, how are you?’ she says. ‘What can we do for you?’

  Tim Wardell dips his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘My client, Mr Porter, is the grandfather of Aidan Porter,’ he says, then turns to Porter. ‘This is DCI Slater.’ Megan is ignored, which is fine by her.

  ‘And this is bloody ridiculous,’ says Porter. ‘You do know that, don’t you? My grandson did not kill his father. I don’t know who says he did.’

  Slater remains perfectly still. ‘He’s telling us that he did.’

  ‘He’s a child. You can’t drag him in here and intimidate him like this.’ Porter glances at his lawyer for support. ‘Can they?’

  ‘He came to us voluntarily,’ says Slater. ‘And he’s being interviewed in the presence of his aunt, who is an appropriate adult. And a solicitor.’

  ‘You mean Penny? Well that’s bloody absurd! I won’t have it. And who’s the bloody solicitor? This is his solicitor, chosen by me.’

  ‘Barry—’ says the lawyer. But he gets short shrift.

  ‘You think I don’t know what’s happened here?’ Porter wags a forefinger in Slater’s face. ‘You had a suspect, an open and shut case. Some nasty money-grubbing slut that Greg employed as a cleaner. But now a little bird tells me that she’s related to a cop. So you lot are closing ranks and trying to pin this on Aidan. I know how it works.’ He looms over Slater.

  Slater turns to the lawyer and her voice is icily calm. ‘Tim, you need to advise your client that his accusations are entirely unfounded. Moreover, I will not tolerate his aggressive manner. He may be angry and upset but there’s no excuse. He needs to go home and calm down. Get him out of here. Now!’

  The lawyer grabs Porter’s arm. ‘Come on, Barry—’

  ‘Don’t think you can shut me up, you stupid bitch. You haven’t heard the last of this! I’ll go to the press,’ shouts Porter, as the unfortunate Tim shoves him towards the door.

  Slater turns on her heel and walks back up the stairs. Megan follows. She can feel the fury crackling around Slater like static electricity.

  When they reach the top of the stairs, Slater says, ‘Tell Ted I want to see him in my office.’

  Megan nods. She could almost feel sorry for him. But she doesn’t.

  Thirty

  Saturday, 5.15 p.m.

  As Megan drives home, she mulls over the encounter with Barry Porter. She doesn’t want to take it personally, although it’s hard not to. She reminds herself that he’s an angry old man trying to deal with the fact that his grandson may have murdered his son. He’s lashing out and looking for someone to blame. His view of her sister is based entirely on hearsay and rumour. Megan is fairly sure he’s never met her. But it still rankles.

  The conversation Slater had with Ted Jennings happened in the privacy of her office. Slater is not a shouter. Her physical presence is neither large nor imposing; her power resides in the coldness and precision of her voice. The stooped outline of Ted could be glimpsed through the opaque glass as she eviscerated him. In the middle of the process, DI Collins emerged from the interview room. He glanced across at Slater’s office and frowned. Megan wondered if he knew of Ted’s cosy relationship with Barry Porter. She tended to doubt it.

  Brittney was in a corner, filling Vish in on what had been happening. Collins watched them for a moment. He seemed almost forlorn. It was beneath his dignity to ask a DC what was going on. He looked in Megan’s direction. This was the point at which she decided to go home.

  It seems to her now that given Barry Porter’s accusations and threats, the chief super won’t allow Slater to put Megan on the murder inquiry. He’ll find a DS from Exeter or even Penzance, he’ll have to. And that suits Megan down to the ground. As she walked out of the office, she avoided Collins’s eye. The whole thing is a shitshow and she wants nothing to do with it.

  It’s a relief to get home. She steps through the front door and Scout comes trotting down the hall to greet her. She rubs his muzzle and he licks her hand. He follows her into the kitchen.

  Debbie is cooking. The aroma of chicken and wine wafts from the pot she’s stirring. The prospect of coq au vin, a few glasses of wine and a film on the telly lifts Megan’s mood.

  ‘Hiya,’ she says. ‘That smells great.’

  Debbie gives her a sidelong glance but says nothing. She’s intent on chopping vegetables for the pot.

  ‘Got my message then?’ says Megan.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Debbie. ‘So I’m off the hook.’ There’s a surliness in her tone which is impossible to ignore, although Megan tries.

  ‘It’s thanks to Brittney,’ Megan says. ‘She spent hours tracking down and stitching together all the necessary CCTV so we had a map of the route you took from the pub, round the harbour and back, proving your alibi.’

  ‘And what?’ says Debbie. ‘I’m supposed to be grateful to your fat little friend? Grateful that you lot finally did your job and decided I was telling the truth? Maybe I should send her a box of chocolates? And when do I get my phone back?’

  ‘Deb, I know you’re upset,’ says Megan.

  ‘Upset?’ says Debbie. ‘Don’t try and pat me on the head and calm me down, big sister. I’m not twelve. And as for those tossers that came round here this morning…’

  ‘There’s absolutely no excuse for Collins,’ says Megan. ‘I do know that. And so does my boss.’

  ‘So why didn’t you back me up?’

  ‘I think I did. I told you to stay upstairs while I sorted it out.’

  ‘That’s bollocks, Meg. You were just intent on shutting me up. And I get it, he’s a DI, you’re a sergeant. Can’t upset the bosses.’

  That’s not what happened.

  Megan stands stock still. She doesn’t trust herself to speak. Debbie is still seething and looking for somewhere to direct her anger. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

  The front door slams and Mark walks into the room with a hessian bag of shopping. He glances at his wife but ignores Megan.

  It feels as if she’s being made the fall guy.

  But she smiles and says, ‘Hi.’

  He replies with a curt nod and starts to unpack his shopping on the kitchen table. A bottle of wine, some ice cream, which he puts in the freezer.

  There’s an uncomfortable silence.

  Then Debbie says, ‘Amber’s going to her mate’s for a sleepover. And I’m putting the other two to bed early so that Mark and I can have a quiet dinner together.’

  Megan feels as if she’s been slapped in the face. She is the fall guy. They blame her. They don’t want her around.

  ‘I think that’s a
very good idea,’ she says evenly. ‘I’ll make myself scarce and leave you to it.’

  She heads for the door with as much dignity as she can muster.

  ‘Is anybody even going to apologise to us?’ says Mark. ‘I feel as if we’ve been completely done over.’

  Megan looks at her brother-in-law. There’s a hostility in his face that she’s never seen before.

  ‘It was a bad mistake,’ she says. ‘It should never have happened. I expect Superintendent Barker will write to you.’

  ‘I look forward to that,’ says Mark sourly.

  He turns away from Megan and puts a protective arm round his wife’s shoulder and gives her a little squeeze.

  Megan watches them. They’re battered and angry and they’ve closed ranks against her. She wants to cry out: this is not my fault.

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ says Megan. ‘I am really sorry about this. My boss is really sorry about this. But sometimes situations develop—’

  ‘I don’t understand how you can work with people like that,’ says Debbie with a tearful crack in her voice. ‘It’s like the power has just gone to their heads. We were treated like scum. Every financial detail about us, they had it all. Questioned Mark like he’d done something wrong too. It’s so unfair. None of this is his fault. Whatever happened to innocent until proved guilty? Isn’t that the law?’

  Now Megan is beginning to understand. This is also about Mark’s pride and the exposure of his debts.

  ‘Yes, it is the law,’ says Megan. ‘And I don’t know why I’m apologising for Collins. The man’s an idiot and he got it wrong. What more can I say?’

  ‘We don’t blame you,’ says Mark stiffly. He’s lying. He does. ‘You did what you could.’ She did rather more than that but she says nothing.

  She meets his gaze. His look is cold and truculent. And her sister is avoiding eye contact. Debbie has to put her marriage back together; Megan gets it. Choices have to be made. Closing ranks.

  ‘Well,’ says Megan. ‘I’ll leave you to your meal.’

  Debbie glances tentatively at Mark, then she sighs and says, ‘There’s plenty. You can eat with us if you like.’ She’s backtracking now because she can see Megan’s upset and she’s feeling bad. Megan knows her sister only too well. Debbie’s emotions erupt in a cascade, whoosh, then it’s over. She’s angry, then she’s sorry. Her moods flip at lightning speed, they always have.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ says Megan. ‘I was planning to go out anyway.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Debbie. ‘Well, if you’re sure.’ She sounds relieved. Megan can see Debbie’s caught between the two of them. But there’s nothing she can do.

  She walks out of the kitchen and heads upstairs to her room. On the way she glances into the open doorways of the children’s bedrooms. Kyle is on his PlayStation. Amber and Ruby are in the bedroom they share, in order that Megan can be accommodated in the attic room. Not a comfortable thought at this moment. Amber has headphones on; she’s listening to music and texting. She catches Megan’s eye for a second and immediately looks away. Amber too? It’s like a kick in the gut.

  Ruby is sitting on her bed, cross-legged, reading a picture book to herself out loud. It’s not the kids’ fault, Megan has to remind herself. They’re all adrift in the backwash of this trauma.

  As Megan mounts the final flight of stairs to her room, she realises how desolate she feels. This is her family, her home, and yet she’s being given the cold shoulder. It’s understandable they’re angry. Megan is angry herself. But somehow the blame has shifted onto her shoulders and it’s hard not to feel resentful. Why does unfairness always get passed down the line?

  She walks into her room and tosses her bag onto the bed. She has a lump in her throat. She’s trying to hold it all down, but a sense of choking misery rises up from her guts. She sinks down on the bed, puts her face in her hands and cries. But her tears are silent and private. She doesn’t want the children to hear. She certainly doesn’t want Debbie and Mark to know. Their rejection of her stings. She sits alone in her tiny attic room and wonders what she’s going to do. She feels abandoned. Now she definitely has to get her own place. She should’ve done it months ago. It was stupid not to. She’s not wanted here.

  The tears gradually stop.

  She wipes her eyes, takes her phone from her bag and calls Danny Ingram.

  Thirty-One

  Saturday, 6.30 p.m.

  Yvonne is sitting at the kitchen table. It feels as if she’s been there for a very long time. She’s been watching the sun move across the back of the house and sink behind the garden hedge. Her thoughts drift; there’s no coherence to any of them. She wonders where the children are. Then she remembers: arrangements have been made. Penny has grasped the reins. When the phone rang this morning, she answered it. She dealt with it. The new nanny arrived from the agency at lunchtime. The awful Christine, with her grubby fingerprints, has been banished. Yvonne’s not sure how her sister managed that.

  The kitchen is her favourite place in the house. Hand-built, bespoke, unique; the cabinets are faced with brushed steel and the worktops are marble, making it all really easy to keep clean. It has bi-fold doors onto the terrace, which means she can keep an eye on the children when they’re playing in the garden. But the new nanny has them safely corralled in the playroom. The situation has been explained to her.

  Yvonne thinks about the children. If she’s brutally honest, Aidan has always been her favourite. He’s her firstborn, so perhaps that’s natural even though she always wanted a girl. Imogen is a sweet, pretty little thing, but she’s never touched Yvonne’s heart in the same way as Aidan. And she’s such a nervous child, which is annoying. It’s wrong for a mother to have favourites. She knows that. She does try and treat them all the same.

  The front door slams. Penny has returned. Her sister walks into the kitchen and plonks her bag down on a chair. Yvonne eyes it enviously. It’s Hermès. In her opinion Prada is more classy. But it’s still a lovely bag.

  ‘They’ve arrested him and he’s being held for further questioning,’ says Penny. ‘The lawyer was bloody useless. We’ll have to get someone else. Are you listening to me, Yvonne?’

  Yvonne drags her eyes from the bag. ‘Do you want a glass of wine, darling?’ she says.

  ‘You mean you haven’t consumed every bottle in the house yet?’

  Yvonne meets her sister’s gaze. It’s not fair. Why is she being so nasty?

  Penny shakes her head. ‘Oh, what the hell,’ she says. She goes to the fridge, takes out a fresh bottle of white and unscrews the top.

  Yvonne gropes through her fuddled thoughts for the question she was about to ask. Here it is!

  ‘Where’s Aidan?’ she says. ‘When’s he coming home?’

  Penny pours herself a glass of wine. ‘I’ve just told you. He’s locked up in a police cell. The lawyer friend I spoke to in London said we should argue for release under investigation. But, as I said, the solicitor they gave us was useless. Aidan’s made a detailed confession, that’s the problem.’

  ‘Locked in a cell?’ says Yvonne. ‘He’s a child. They can’t put a child in a cell, can they?’

  ‘They can hold him for questioning for up to thirty-six hours from his arrest. They told me to come back in the morning.’

  Yvonne picks up the new bottle of wine and tops up her own glass.

  ‘Are you just going to keep drinking yourself into oblivion?’ says Penny. ‘We have to do something. Make a plan. Get a better lawyer.’

  Yvonne doesn’t reply. She doesn’t like it when Penny tries to bully her like this. She takes a large swallow of wine to steady her nerves.

  ‘You think this is all my fault, don’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ says Penny.

  ‘Maybe, if I’d been a better wife to him—’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. That wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference and you know it.’

  ‘But maybe if I’d—�
��

  Penny grabs her wrist.

  ‘Ouch!’ says Yvonne. Her sister’s manicured nails are sharp.

  ‘Listen to me and focus,’ says Penny. ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Whatever’s happened in the past with Greg, who did what, that’s water under the bridge. He’s dead. All that’s behind us. We forget it. Now we have to think about Aidan. Do you really want him to go to prison for this?’

  Penny releases her. Yvonne cradles her wrist.

  ‘No, of course I don’t,’ she says.

  ‘I’m trying to help you, Yvonne.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then you need to pull yourself together. The police are going to be coming here and asking questions. You need to be able to deal with that.’

  Yvonne nods. Tears well in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Pen. I never meant—’

  ‘You’ve got to be ready for them. Do you understand me? That means you have to sober up.’

  Penny’s right of course. Penny’s always right, isn’t she?

  Yvonne wipes her face with her palm. She’s trembling. But she has to say it. ‘Why would Aidan go to the police and say he did this?’

  Penny exhales and gives her that long-suffering look. ‘You know why.’

  ‘I’m confused.’

  ‘Darling, he thinks it’s the only way he can protect you.’

  Yvonne’s chin quivers. Her beautiful boy! She loves him so much.

  Thirty-Two

  Sunday, 9.35 a.m.

  Megan didn’t expect to be summoned to police HQ in Exeter on a Sunday morning. She was supposed to be going with Ingram to interview Ranim. But an urgent message from Chief Superintendent Rob Barker’s office takes precedence. She has no option but to obey. She was told to be there at nine thirty but Barker is running late. She doesn’t mind waiting. She has plenty to think about.

  When she drove out of Berrycombe the previous evening, she was at her lowest ebb for months. The rift with Debbie and Mark has poleaxed her. Even so, as she headed for Torquay and Ingram’s hotel, she couldn’t escape the feeling she was making a colossal mistake. Wasn’t it sheer desperation, running to a man? There’ve been times in her life before when she’s done this and it’s never turned out well. And yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself.