Finders, Keepers: The mesmerising new thriller from the author of LIE WITH ME

by Sabine Durrant

  She didn’t want to go alone. Lawyers intimidate her and fair enough, she’s spent enough time being bullied by Tom’s father. She’d wanted to get an Uber, but I persuaded her the Tube would be quicker and we took the Northern line up to Embankment, and then changed onto the Circle line, alighting at Temple.

  We got a little lost, finding the right chambers, and wandered, buffeted by a brisk wind, under towering plane trees, up stone steps, past fountains and through courtyards, along rows of black railings. Our footsteps echoed and jackdaws cawed, heating vents hummed; there was the occasional smell of cabbage and boiled pasta. It was inappropriate but I did feel a slight thrill – it was my first time at the inns of court and it reminded me of visiting Fred in Oxford: the same mix of architecture, the same sense of hushed scholarship, the same preponderance of balding men in cords.

  John Standling, her solicitor, was waiting for us on a bench when we finally found Terrace Court. I’ve met him a couple of times now, at the police station, and at the plea and trial preparation hearing, and he seems a decent enough man. He’s in his mid-forties with cropped ginger hair, a very straight mouth – literally no curve to his lips at all – and a pinkish round tip to his nose, rather like that of the actor who played Pod in the film version of The Borrowers. He has the traces of a Mancunian accent (flat vowels), which I approve of, and an owlish air, accentuated by rectangular steel-topped glasses.

  He leapt to his feet when he saw us, pumping our hands up and down, and muttering, ‘OK, OK, grand,’ under his breath. He was the duty solicitor the night Ailsa was charged, and most of our encounters are underpinned by the sense that for him, her case (murder!) is quite a coup. Shortly after she was first arrested, I caught sight of him outside the police station, talking on his mobile while pacing up and down. Glitzier lawyers had already begun to circle like piranhas. To Ailsa he’d been all politeness and legal restraint, but as I passed, I heard him hiss to whomever it was he was talking to, ‘I’m fighting the fuckers off,’ and I was quietly impressed. Ailsa’s decision to stick with him is mainly financial – his offices are behind a grimly anonymous shopfront in Clapham Junction, and he’s priced accordingly – but I like knowing he has something to prove.

  This morning, he led us through a modern glass door into a tall red-brick building, and up a flight of stairs carpeted in royal blue, to the first floor. We waited in a grey antechamber, a bit like a dentist’s waiting room only with worse magazines (New Law Journal), until a tall, lean man with a hooked nose and thinning hair walked into the doorway and stood there, as if striking a pose. Robert Grainger QC, I assumed: the man described by Standling as ‘my first choice for murder’.

  Ailsa had met him once, and he greeted her with an air of restrained professional courtesy, like a head teacher meeting a parent who’s come in with a complaint. He shook Standling’s hand, then he turned to me and said baldly: ‘And you are?’

  ‘This is Verity Baxter, the neighbour with whom Mrs Tilson is residing.’

  Grainger looked at me carefully. ‘You’re not a witness?’

  ‘No. I gave a statement to the police, but it wasn’t very helpful.’

  I found my hand reaching for the back of my head, patting down the hair there. I washed it this morning before setting off, but the water was cold and my head was sticky with soap. I adjusted my glasses, squeezing the little bundle of Sellotape that secured the arms at each side. I put my hand out, but as he didn’t proffer his, I made to put it in my pocket, though it was too full.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘So, just to be sure: you’re not the neighbour who has given evidence for the prosecution?’

  Standling took a small step forwards, knocking his shin on the low magazine table. ‘That’s the other side. Mr Andrew Dawson. Verity is a friend of the family, but she was out on the evening in question.’

  ‘Pub quiz,’ I said. ‘Every Wednesday.’

  He nodded. ‘OK. I need to check, you do understand. It wouldn’t do for myself, or Mrs Tilson, to be having any contact with a material witness.’

  ‘I’m an immaterial witness,’ I said. It was a stab at a joke, and it covered my unhappiness that I wasn’t a witness. ‘I didn’t know Tom was in the country. He was supposed to be away.’

  ‘Right, OK.’ He cut me off. ‘Well if you’re all right waiting here, Mrs Tilson will be out in a while.’

  The three of them left the antechamber and through the open doorway, I saw them enter a room opposite. The door closed decisively, but I could still hear Grainger’s voice now and then, a general burr and the occasional ejaculation. ‘That’s very important’ and ‘I’d like to be clear’, and something that sounded like ‘good God’. In court, it’s obviously an advantage to have a voice that travels. But he seemed to do an awful lot of talking for someone who was in this instance being paid to listen.

  I sat alone on a black leather chair, nursing the bottle of water I’d brought with me. On the ledge outside the window, an enormous white seagull perched apparently motionless. The room smelt of stale chicory. I recognised the particular reek from the coffee machine at the council; the drop that fell from the black plastic funnelled neck onto the hotplate if you took the jug away too soon, the hiss and ensuing stench of it. In the doorway, a woman in a black gown was talking to a young man with a neat beard about a Netflix true-crime drama. He caught my eye and said: ‘Can I get you anything? No? OK,’ adding, ‘Your sister won’t be long.’

  My sister. I thought for a moment about times when I had waited for Faith: in the street outside her first job interview aged sixteen at the local hairdresser (I combed out her hair before she went in); on a chair at the bank while she opened her starter account; in the foyer at the centre during her driving theory test. I hadn’t realised at the time, but I was her enabler. Each wait was a step towards her escape.

  ‘Ailsa’s not my sister,’ I said, but he’d gone.

  About forty minutes later, the door opened, and the three of them stood in the hall. Ailsa’s mascara had run. She was holding out one palm as if proffering it to shake, and scratching it, back and forth, up and down. Her eczema flares up under stress. Grainger patted her on the shoulder and then walked through the door into the ‘private’ section of the building. When I reached them, Standling was muttering: ‘OK, OK. Grand.’

  ‘How was that?’ I said.

  Ailsa was already heading for the stairs. ‘I’m fucked,’ she said.

  Hand on heart, I have tried not to think too hard about the question of Ailsa’s ‘guilt’ or ‘innocence’. I don’t like to think of it in those terms. The most plausible explanation is a mistake; I really believe that. It’s what she screamed the day they finally took her away, and the fear and panic and grief in her eyes: well, it was enough to persuade me, if not the arresting officer. She is not a bad person. There is room for doubt.

  Until recently, as I think I’ve said, I’ve had faith in the legal system. Ailsa would not go down for this. The status quo would be restored. But as we walked to the Tube, the three of us, I had the feeling things were beginning to unravel, not quite in the direction I had hoped. If I was going to help her, to take control, I needed to do it now.

  I waited until the pavement narrowed and Ailsa was a few steps behind to ask Standling if he had time for a quick coffee.

  He took a look at his watch, a flimsy electronic Casio, narrow for the thickness of his wrist. ‘Er . . .’

  ‘It might be useful,’ I murmured, ‘for us to compare notes.’

  He must have seen something in my expression because he froze for a second and then nodded curtly. ‘Yup. Let’s do that.’

  The cafe, a greasy spoon, was tucked between the Embankment and the Tube station, one of those small forgotten corners of London. ‘Come on,’ I said to Ailsa, who was still lagging. ‘Don’t know about you, but I need my shot of caffeine.’ It isn’t the sort of thing I usually say – it’s more her, really – but she didn’t demur. I almost wished she had. The passivity is a coping mechanism, I’
m sure, but it comes across as sulkiness. Standling took up the rear. ‘Oh, are you coming too?’ she said, only just noticing. ‘Do I have to pay you for that?’

  Standling laughed awkwardly. ‘I’m sure we can come to an arrangement,’ he said.

  ‘I am married to a lawyer,’ she said. ‘I know all about billable hours.’

  She had crossed her arms; her frame was all defensive angles and sharp points. She was so brittle, I was worried she might fragment.

  ‘It’s not quite the same these days, as I’m sure your husband told you.’ He had gone pink at the mention of Tom, or her use of the present tense. ‘It’s more often a flat fee. I mean, there are problems with accountancy always, but . . .’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘Problems with accountancy. It was quite our thing.’ She smiled, her lips stretched tight across her teeth.

  We had taken a table near the counter – it was at right angles to the wall, with a fixed banquette on either side of it, a ‘booth’ I suppose you’d call it. She and I sat together on one side; Standling asked us what we wanted and went to the front to order.

  The table was clean, but a little sticky. It smelt of damp J-cloth. A laminated menu offered a wide range of fare, including the handwritten addition of ‘spicey chiken’. Ailsa rested her arm along the back of the banquette, and looked to the other side of the room, to where a man in a suit was eating a full English.

  When Standling sloped in opposite us, I said, wishing I could jolt her to make her pay attention, ‘So what happened in there? Where are we with everything?’

  He tapped his finger against his upper lip. ‘Mrs Tilson. Ailsa. Are you happy for us to discuss this now?’

  Ailsa shrugged. ‘You can say anything you like in front of Verity,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t count.’

  ‘Well, Silk explained the criminal justice system to Mrs Tilson. He ran through what the next few months will involve, the process going forward, how, as we know, there are now five months until trial; he reminded us of stage 1, the date for primary disclosure from the prosecution and stage 2, the date for service of the defence case statement, and then 3 and 4, when we both have the chance to ask for items that appear on the schedule of unused material. And then he reminded her never to lose sight of the theatre of it all. What she wears, how she carries herself; it’s all important. Once the trial starts, he said, one of the twelve will always be looking and judging.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not as if I don’t know that.’

  ‘That’s what he meant,’ I said. ‘No rolling of eyes.’

  She held her head very still then, keeping her expression pointedly bland. Her body language was really very concerning.

  I turned back to Standling. ‘What about the case? We’re going for an innocent plea, yes?’

  He looked at Ailsa enquiringly. One of her shoulders rose very slightly and fell. Almost uncooperative, but not quite.

  ‘Mrs Tilson is maintaining she has no knowledge of how the toxic alkaloids made their way into Mr Tilson’s, um, supper.’

  ‘So, an accident,’ I said. ‘An accident. Ailsa?’ I smiled at her encouragingly. ‘You must have gone into the garden and picked what you thought was coriander. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.’ Ailsa was still looking at me blankly. To Standling I said: ‘I don’t see what the problem is. I don’t see why it’s even going to trial. It was just a mistake.’

  Standling pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. He sighed, his nostrils pinching. ‘Unfortunately, the prosecution thinks otherwise. They are claiming premeditation. They have a witness who says Mrs Tilson was a competent gardener, who knew the difference between a poisonous and a non-poisonous plant.’

  ‘What witness?’ I asked. ‘One of the children?’

  ‘No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘Everyone’s always reluctant to call kids. They’re notoriously unreliable, liable to agree with anything that is put to them. Um.’ He opened his briefcase. ‘Sorry . . . let me just . . .’ He rifled through some papers and then put them away. ‘Mrs Delilah Perch; she’s the witness here.’

  ‘Delilah. Tom’s ex-girlfriend. She’s not objective.’

  ‘Do you think she has it in for me?’ Ailsa asked. She sounded detached, as if the thought didn’t upset her. Again: not a good stance.

  ‘She was in the house that evening,’ I told Standling. ‘Has anyone considered she might have done something to the curry?’

  ‘What motive would she have?’

  ‘She and Tom went way back—’ I broke off. One has to be careful.

  After a few moments, Standling referred again to his notes.

  ‘The prosecution is claiming Mrs Tilson would have sustained injuries herself if she had accidentally touched the plant. There would at the very least have been lesions on her skin. The conjecture is that she wore gloves.’

  Ailsa turned her head and looked at him directly for the first time. ‘I did wear gloves,’ she said. Her voice was clear, and defiant.

  I caught my breath. I wished again that I had managed to school her beforehand. She was playing this wrong. All wrong.

  Standling swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple moving. ‘Yes, I know. The police found a box of unused disposable gloves under the sink.’

  ‘It’s because of her eczema,’ I said. ‘She would have been cutting onions and chilli. I mean . . .’ I shook my head a few times to try and convey my exasperation with this line of enquiry.

  Standling adjusted the arm of his glasses. ‘The question is: what happened to those gloves? If they had been worn innocently – the Crown maintains – she would have simply chucked them away. But if gloves were worn, they’ve gone missing. SOCO went through the kitchen bin and the bagged-up refuse in the wheelie bin outside and found no used gloves, so if she did wear them to cook – as she has consistently maintained – they have been disposed of elsewhere, which, as you know from your conversations with the police, Ailsa, has left them unsatisfied.’

  Again, I watched Ailsa while he was talking. She was fiddling with the cuff of her sleeve.

  Standling stroked his chin. ‘We should also think about the fact that there was a half-empty packet of coriander in the fridge – a receipt for which, along with the other ingredients, was found in the bottom of a Waitrose bag, dated that morning. Forensics found the same coriander, which was grown in Spain – amazing, the detail they can unearth – in the pot of curry. I suppose also . . . this is only circumstantial. But we should think about why you didn’t eat any of the food yourself.’

  ‘Here you go, my darlings.’ Three coffees had arrived, as well as a plate bearing a sultana scone. The waitress who brought them, a young blonde woman with a black stud in the middle of her chin, put my cup down a little roughly and I was preoccupied for a second with mopping up a pool of spume.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ailsa said. She smiled sweetly. It was uncanny how quickly her tone could change. But this was better; much better. That sweetness, if only I could bottle it.

  ‘She doesn’t eat,’ I said when the waitress had gone. ‘I mean she does, but she’s a bit odd about food. Aren’t you, Ailsa? You’re always on a diet, or trying to cut down, or you used to be. You make bargains with yourself – had cake, won’t have supper.’ I turned back to Standling. ‘That makes sense, doesn’t it? And also motive. Don’t they need motive?’

  He nodded. ‘There was the shouting and the high-pitched scream the neighbour overheard that morning.’

  ‘ “I wish you were dead,” ’ Ailsa offered for him.

  I took a gulp of my coffee. Standling tipped the sugar out of the glass dispenser into his spoon and I watched as he poured it into his cup. The sugar rested on top of the foam, suspended for a few seconds, before it sank.

  ‘Financial difficulties,’ he muttered. ‘Mr Tilson had substantial life insurance – recently extended.’

  I nodded. Those forms. I remembered signing them now.

  Ailsa stood up suddenly and sidled out of the banquette. She asked if she co
uld use the toilet, and the waitress lifted up a section of the counter, then she went through a door at the back of the cafe. Standling craned his neck to watch her go.

  ‘So what?’ I said quickly. ‘Is it too weak a defence? An accident, I mean? Be honest, are you thinking about a plea? You don’t seem convinced.’

  ‘All we have to do, as I have said, is unpick their case. We don’t need to come up with anything of our own.’ He had sliced his scone in half and was trying to butter it, but the butter was hard and the scone was breaking up under his knife. ‘The worry is not knowing what else the Crown has up its sleeve. We’ll know soon.’

  ‘So.’ I took a deep breath. I’d thought hard about this. ‘What about arguing self-defence?’

  ‘Ms Baxter, there is no evidence Mrs Tilson was under attack – no defence wounds, no sign of provocation and this type of, um, death . . . well, it would be hard to argue that it transpired from a moment of madness.’

  I laid my hands flat on the table. ‘I’ve been reading about coercive control. There was that case recently, wasn’t there – the wife who killed her husband, but who got out on appeal on the basis she had been ground down by long-term hidden abuse.’

  He breathed out deeply, half-groan, half-sigh. ‘I don’t see how it would apply here.’

  I told him then about the weird order in the house, Tom’s obsession with an empty fridge and clear surfaces, how he didn’t like to see Ailsa eat. I told him about the way he undermined her and the children in public. He was a bully. Something had happened in Kent, where they’d lived before. I didn’t know what it was but it was like he was holding her hostage.

  ‘She hasn’t mentioned any of this.’

  ‘Isn’t that the thing with coercive control? The abuser saps your confidence so deeply and so relentlessly that you lose perspective. You stop trusting in your own judgement. You start to think you are as worthless as they say you are.’

  ‘Nothing came up in the psychiatric review,’ he said. ‘Obviously a history of mental health issues, but it’s important for our purposes that we play those down. We could look for witnesses, but . . . it would be hard to prove. Physical abuse is easier. It still plays better with a jury – that she feared for her life, that after years of abuse, she snapped.’