When he mentioned the missing gloves, ‘a distraction’, I felt myself stiffen, a flush rise in my neck. I didn’t know whether Ailsa would say anything, but she didn’t. She kept her body very still.
Standling picked up his briefcase then and laid it on his knee. ‘CPS have produced a new piece of evidence,’ he said. ‘A note, retrieved from the kitchen bin.’
Clicking open the case, he flicked through a file and drew out a sheet. He laid it on the table in front of him. It was a photocopy. On it, words in my handwriting.
‘Familiar to you?’ he asked.
Ailsa nodded. ‘Yup.’
‘I understand from previous conversations you are not planning to contest imputations that your marriage was anything but satisfactory?’
Ailsa stared at him as if the sentence was confusing – which, to be fair, it was.
I edged forwards. ‘No. She won’t contest it.’
‘So this note shouldn’t cause any change in our perception of that. However,’ he sighed heavily. ‘Was it the first time you were made aware of the relationship between your husband and Delilah Perch?’
Ailsa shook her head. ‘No.’
‘But you received the note when?’
A flurry of rain hit the window, small stones against the glass. ‘The afternoon of Tom’s death,’ I said.
‘That correct?’ He gave Ailsa a level look over the top of his glasses.
She nodded.
‘It’s better to get in front of information that might be used as evidence against you. When you were asked if there was anything you thought was relevant, this sort of detail is the sort of thing that was meant.’ He was tapping the side of his briefcase now, keeping his emotions under control.
‘I’d forgotten it existed,’ she said. ‘What with everything. I read it. I dismissed it. I just thought it was Verity being Verity. I don’t even remember what happened to it.’
‘SOCO found it screwed up in a corner of the kitchen.’
‘I must have thrown it there.’ She tipped her chair back, her eyes focused on the panel above the garden door. It looks like green marble because of the ivy pressing up against it on the other side. Rain dripped. It was like being under water.
‘One other thing you could have mentioned . . .’ He took his glasses off, and rubbed them on the edge of his shirt before returning them to his face, making a little pressing movement with his fingers to adjust the arms. ‘Gavin Erridge. Is that name familiar to you?’
She was still looking up at the ivy-covered panel, her fingers tapping the dip in her throat.
Standling glanced at me, and back to her. ‘Gavin Erridge coached the Kent Warriors, an under-10 tag rugby team in Tunbridge Wells. Following claims from Tom’s mother that you and Mr Erridge became close, he has confirmed her allegation that it was Tom’s discovery of ongoing sexual relations between you that led to your departure from Kent.’
Ailsa made a face, shrugging one shoulder up to touch her ear. Her face was blank, all the muscles loose.
My stomach clenched as if someone had kneed it. ‘That’s the great mystery about Kent?’ I said. ‘That’s why you moved away?’
She glanced over to me. ‘It was ages ago,’ she said. ‘It’s not relevant now.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said.
Standling seemed to notice the teacake I’d toasted and buttered for him. He took a small bite, then laid it back down on the saucer and pushed the saucer lightly away. Cold. ‘Another witness has provided rather more up-to-date evidence that you may have wanted your husband out of the way.’ From a plastic folder he produced a single piece of A4 paper which he laid down on the table and spun round so it was the right way up for Ailsa to read.
She gripped it between her fingers as she read. It seemed to take a long time. I watched one particular raindrop slide down the window. ‘Pippa,’ she said eventually. ‘Yes.’
‘As you see, she claims that Mr Tilson had suspicions, before his death, of an intimate relationship between you and Ricky Addison, her husband. That Tom spoke to her on the phone about it, the night of 17 July and then again in person, by the swimming pool in Somerset on the day of 18 July. She claims that she believed Mr Addison’s protestations of innocence – until last week when she discovered texts on his mobile. She confronted her husband and’ – he produced another sheet from the folder – ‘he has reluctantly come forward to corroborate the affair.’
It all slotted into place then, like something thin and sharp, a key in a lock, or a knife in a block. All this she had kept from me. Ricky’s garden. Her mysterious disappearances. Tom asking for her at my door. Her guilt was like something solid and sharp-edged, like a pane of glass.
‘Why?’ It’s all I managed to say.
‘Oh God, Verity. Don’t look like that. Is it really such a surprise?’
Standling let out a long, heavy sigh which he arrested with a humourless smile. ‘Mr Addison’s statement is very clear that as far as he was concerned it was a casual fling, but that you were more intense about it. None of this is proof. I’ve spoken to Silk and he still believes as I do that the strength of our defence lies in simple mistake. Unless you have anything else to add. Or,’ he spoke very clearly, trying to get her to engage, ‘you can suggest anything else, or anyone.’
She’d been biting her lip, her eyes downcast. At this she looked up and for the first time in minutes, she turned her head directly towards Standling and there was an appeal, a vulnerability, in her eyes that made me want to leap to her defence.
‘Delilah was in the house that day,’ I said. ‘No one has thought of her.’
I thought he was ignoring me, but then he said: ‘Other people were in the house that day, yes.’
‘Including me,’ I said.
Neither of them seemed to register I’d even spoken.
Standling returned his eyes to the file on the table. He had already closed it and now he lined it up with the edge. He kept his hands on it, making minor adjustments, while he said: ‘The Crown has asked for a brief delay. They’ve requested an interview with a further witness.’ His phrasing was short, and list-like; he was trying to sound matter-of-fact. ‘Little bit different this time – not written, as the witness is underage. It would be an ABE – Achieving Best Evidence – interview, in the presence of an appropriate adult, of course. In this case, they’re suggesting the grandmother, Mrs Cecily Tilson.’
Ailsa was still staring at him. ‘Max.’
He looked up at her then, gave a small nod.
I’d been trying so hard not to think about Max. I felt a pain across my ribcage, a tight squeezing.
‘Do you know why they want to talk to him?’ She had begun very quietly to cry.
He gave her another very level look. ‘Not yet, no.’
Chapter Twenty-six
Faith’s pink jumper
Confession, noun. The disclosing of something, the
knowledge of which by others is considered
humiliating or prejudicial to the person confessing;
a making known or acknowledging one’s fault, wrong,
crime, weakness, etc.
She went upstairs to her room while I was seeing Standling out. I heard the door shut. I stayed in the hall for a few minutes, thinking, and then I went into the back room study and took the last few boxes of papers and put them in the skip. The desk, now revealed beneath its piles, was dusty, and I found some Mr Muscle and gave it a good clean and then I shoved it against one wall to make space. I put two chairs in front of it; one each. It took less than half an hour; it’s amazing how quickly you can make things nice if you put your mind to it. I didn’t have long. Max would need picking up from school soon. And before that, I had other things to sort out.
I went upstairs to Faith’s room, now Ailsa’s, and knocked.
Silence.
I knocked again. ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘I think we should talk.’
I tried to push the door open. I met traction. A sleeve of
pink jumper was caught under the jamb. I kept pushing and it dragged out of the way. Boxes and bags covered the carpet. Over the last few weeks Ailsa has emptied every drawer, every cupboard.
She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking out of the window. I stood in the doorway, but she didn’t acknowledge my presence so I picked up a chair, lifted it over the scattered clothes, and placed it next to the bed.
I was right up close to her, but still she didn’t turn her head. ‘Faith?’ I said. ‘Are you OK?’
There was a long silence. Wind threw a handful of rain against the window. ‘Murder,’ she said. ‘The word sounds so awful. But when you know what happened . . . I mean, when you know someone, nothing they do seems bad.’
I was disoriented for a second. It was the way she was staring into the garden that threw me. She seemed to be looking past the rain, to the darkness way down beyond, beneath the brambles at the back, deep in the undergrowth, among the ants and worms and woodlice. I leant forwards, put my elbows on the bed, getting as close to her as I dared.
‘I imagine a person can mean it in the moment,’ I said, ‘but it could be a terrible mistake, and they’d spend the rest of their life regretting it.’
She began pulling at the counterpane, plucking at the tufty bits that create the snakes in the pattern. A lot of threads were missing; the holes looked like tiny teeth marks.
‘Oh, Faith, it’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘We’ll make sure it is.’
She looked up and for a second I took in the upward sweep of her almond eyes; the particular crinkle of her hair, the central points of her lips. ‘Ailsa,’ she said. ‘You keep calling me Faith.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes. You’ve done it before.’
‘I don’t, do I?’ I tried to laugh. ‘It’s just you remind me of her. Here you are sitting on her bed, surrounded by all her things.’
She looked down at the items strewn across the floor. ‘I was looking for the gloves and then – there’s so much stuff.’ She sighed, twisting slightly so she could rest against the glass, laying her hands on top of her head, elbows out, leaning back. ‘Tom always thought you were hoarding her up here, or that she was dead; you’d killed her and buried her down there in the garden. No, no.’ She put up her hands. ‘Of course, now I know you, I don’t believe that. I never really did. But Verity.’ She made a billowing movement with her hand. ‘It’s all here: clothes, make-up, phone. Even her passport.’
I took a deep breath, feeling the air push against my ribcage. ‘Old phone. Old passport. Everyone uses their parental home as a dumping ground.’
I looked up. She was still gazing at me and I saw it in her eyes: the doubt. I don’t blame her. We both had secrets – she certainly did; all those lovers. I wondered about Tom; she wondered about Faith. We had sat across the table from each other, wondering. But we’d rubbed along regardless. The benefit of the doubt. Excuses. Extenuation.
Long ago, Faith carved her initials into the headboard and, though it has since been painted over, you can still see the shape of the letters. I pushed my finger into them. The room was so quiet you could hear the dust fall.
‘Tom was right,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s true that she’s dead.’
‘What?’ Ailsa hardly opened her mouth.
‘She was killed,’ I said. ‘One of those ordinary things: a tragic accident – or so the police eventually concluded. It was the day we argued. She stormed out. I went after her, to plead with her, to apologise, but when I got to the station it was too late. It was dark, and raining. The platform was packed. No one saw what happened. They said she must have slipped or tripped. She was on her phone . . . The police, they were so nice. They said she would have died instantly.’
‘Verity.’ She pushed herself away from the window, and shuffled forwards to hang her legs over the edge of the bed. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
That pressure again behind my ribs. ‘I try not to think about it. It makes me feel less alone.’
‘But Verity,’ she said, and her eyes were round and plaintive. ‘You’re not alone. You’ve got me. Us. We’re your family now.’ Her voice broke then; she breathed in deeply and when she sighed, it came out like a shudder, shaking her whole body. ‘Bloody hell. What are we going to do?’
The parts of me I’d depended upon, that I’d shored up, were collapsing. I felt a hot flood of love for Faith, the lost baby, for Ailsa, but most of all for Max.
I must have said his name out loud, let it out in a cry, because she tipped her elbows forward so she was holding the weight of her head in her hands. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘My darling boy.’
We sat there in silence for a bit. I wondered whether I should begin to say what I thought, to guide her, but she clasped her hands together, into a praying shape, and dug the tips of her fingers into her lips. ‘Did you know all along? Did you guess?’
I nodded. ‘I had a strong suspicion.’
‘It’s why you kept the gloves?’
‘I picked them up when I found them – it was that afternoon. They were just there. Then later, I kept them because I assumed they were incriminating.’
‘But it was their absence that was incriminating. It’s one of the first things they held against me – that I’d hidden them. If you’d come clean earlier, explained that you’d stolen them . . .’ Realisation hit her and she shook her head.
‘Exactly. They’d have tested them. The simplest test distinguishes between male and female DNA.’
‘I’ve been hoping it was me. I mean, that was what they kept telling me . . . I was sure I wore the gloves to chop the onions, and I can’t remember wandering out into the garden for garnish, but I was hoping that I did. On autopilot. Not coriander. But parsley? Fennel? I don’t know how but that’s what I hoped.’
‘I hoped that too.’
‘He thought he hated his father. But he didn’t.’
‘He’s a child,’ I said.
‘He didn’t want to move. I mean he really didn’t want to move. My fault. I should have listened. So many changes – he blamed Tom. But then your note.’ She looked at me, a fierce frown. ‘What did you write? I can’t even remember now. “Get rid of him”?’
I dug my nails into the palm of my hands. ‘I didn’t mean like that. He takes things so literally . . . But it was meant for you, not him.’ She was looking at me as though I held full responsibility. My eyes felt hot and small. I rubbed them, wiped my cheeks. Enough guilt. I said: ‘If only you hadn’t brought the hemlock back from Somerset. Then it wouldn’t have been there for him to pick.’
She frowned again, but this time it was more surprised. ‘What do you mean?’
‘If you hadn’t dug the hemlock up in Somerset and brought it back with you into your garden, then, well . . .’ I shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t have happened.’
‘But Verity, surely you know that’s not how it got into the garden?’
‘How did it get there then?’
I could feel the answer growing, coming, even before she turned her head and looked out of the window, past the rain, out to the wilderness. ‘From there,’ she said, pointing. ‘It came from there, from your side. It crept under the fence. Just one small plant. It’s so damp – the high water table, all those underground streams. But Tom was right: your garden harboured secrets and death, just not the kind he thought.’
I was shocked; I’m not afraid to admit it. This information knocked me off course. But maybe it was a good thing, because I pulled myself together, remembered what I had to do.
I took a deep breath. ‘Poor Max,’ I said. ‘I can’t bear it for him.’
She started tugging again at the counterpane. ‘I’ll ring Standling, ask his advice,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think Standling has already guessed.’
‘They won’t send him away, will they? They’ll understand. He didn’t mean it. He’s just a kid.’
The time had come. I needed to tread carefully.
I let out a sigh
. ‘I don’t think he even knows what he’s done. I’m sure he’s blocked it out.’ I went slowly, for I had rehearsed this. ‘It’s a shame they have to talk to him at all,’ I said. ‘I wish there was a way that they didn’t.’
‘Yes.’ She sounded tentative. ‘I can see. But I’m sure they will be kind. He’s not a bad boy. He’s a wonderful boy. He made a mistake, that’s all it is. He isn’t a murderer. They’re not going to put him away.’
I was careful not to answer.
She started fiddling with her hands. ‘And we’ll start afresh. Move somewhere new, where people won’t know.’
I nodded. I knew it. ‘I can’t bear it for him,’ I said finally. ‘He’ll never get over it. His life will never be the same again.’
‘They’ll give him counselling – surely that will be their priority.’
‘I wish I was as confident as you that the court will be so understanding.’ I closed my eyes. ‘I keep thinking about that contact centre, how grim it was.’
‘You think they’ll take him into care?’
I gave her a level look. ‘I think they’ll take him away,’ I said.
‘Do you mean lock him up? Prison?’
‘I think they call them detention centres.’
‘Oh, Verity.’ It came out like a cry. ‘What can we do?’
I stood up. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing we can do. I’ll ring Standling.’
I trod over Faith’s stuff, stumbled on her pink jumper. I waited until I reached the door.
Raising my hand to hold the jamb, I paused. ‘Unless . . .’ I said.
Finders, Keepers: The mesmerising new thriller from the author of LIE WITH ME Page 27
