Wink Murder

by Ali Knight

  A problem shared is a problem halved, my mum used to say. God, she talked a lot of nonsense. A woman who spends her life repeating and rehashing gossip for a magazine and anonymously online now knows something explosive, something she shouldn’t. A few cuts exchanged for a murder isn’t a fair deal. I’ve vomited my troubles on to the person least able to keep her counsel, and with the widest audience. My heart returns to its heavy thud as I try to push the mounting dread of what I’ve just revealed away. I’m nearing the school gate; this is safe, sane territory. I’m so tired I drag my feet along the tarmac. As I lead my children home down my street I notice a car behind us.

  ‘Mrs Forman?’ A man is leaning out of the window between the parked cars. ‘Can I have a word, Mrs Forman?’ He pulls into the kerb at a bad angle and jumps out. ‘I’m Declan Moore from the Express.’ I grab Josh and Ava’s hand and with a yowl from my daughter I half run up the street, my children’s legs cartwheeling in air. ‘Just a few questions about Melody Graham, Mrs Forman.’ He’s keeping pace, rasping already, physical exercise is something he left behind at school along with graffiti in the toilets.

  ‘I have nothing to say,’ I begin.

  ‘There’s no need to be scared, Mrs Forman, just a few words about what your husband thinks—’

  ‘No. You can’t expect me to comment on an ongoing investigation.’ I pull at my children’s hands.

  ‘Chillax, Mum,’ Josh says indignantly.

  He’s recording my voice on his mobile, ignoring my pleas to be let alone. ‘What’s your reaction to Lex Wood’s arrest?’ When he sees that I’ve stopped to recover from the shock he closes in on me with renewed interest. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  Josh is tugging at my sleeve. ‘Know what, Mum?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Despite knowing I shouldn’t say anything, I’ve started to blabber.

  Declan holds the phone nearer my face. ‘Like I said, he’s been taken in for Melody’s murder. Any comment?’

  I look down helplessly at my bag on my shoulder, into which my phone is buried and probably beeping. I feel the warmth in my children’s hands radiating back at me. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  He nods. ‘How long have Lex and your husband been business partners?’

  ‘Mummy, I want to go.’ Ava’s eyes are saucers as she stares up at Declan.

  ‘Ten years.’

  ‘Where’d they meet?’

  ‘They worked at Channel 4 together.’

  ‘Are they close, would you say? Do they have a close relationship?’

  I turn my feet towards home, wishing him gone. He doesn’t take the hint and we are a huddle of bodies that moves down the pavement, Declan dodging saplings with his recording arm outstretched.

  ‘What was Melody’s relationship to Lex? What’s your view on the copycat theory? That he’s trying to make it look like Gerry did it?’

  ‘I have no view. I really don’t know.’

  ‘Can I have your husband’s mobile? The bloke who answers his phone won’t give anything away. He guards him closely, doesn’t he?’

  I stand my ground and tighten my grip on Ava’s hand. ‘No. Give me your card and I’ll give it to him. That’s the best I can do.’

  I can see my house now but there’s another Declan standing outside it. He does a double take at us and starts to bear down.

  ‘Mrs Forman, I’m from the Sun.’

  ‘Please leave me alone. That’s enough.’

  ‘What does this mean for Forwood TV?’ asks the first Declan. ‘Can they continue to produce crime shows if one of the bosses is in jail?’

  The second man is standing in front of me, blocking the way. ‘I’m with my kids, have a heart!’

  They remind me of beggars in a Third World country, one little outstretched hand appeals to your vanity, you almost love them as you dispense your trifle, then eight others surround you and you’d beat them off with a stick if you had one, your fear trampling on your feelings of being had.

  ‘If you just take a few moments to answer my questions I’ll be gone,’ Declan adds. I keep my head down to stop being photographed, push past him and ram my key in the lock. ‘Mrs Forman, the public want to know what your family think!’ Questions are still being shouted at me as I shut the door.

  ‘Mummy, who are those men?’ Ava asks. I’m shaking as I explain as calmly as I can that someone Daddy and Lex and Uncle John knew has died and the police and the newspapers are trying to understand what happened to this person to make her family feel better because it’s sad when someone dies, and the men outside work for the newspapers and they are asking questions so that they can write about it and let people know the truth. Ava eyes look huge in her small head as she nods. ‘Mummy . . .’ I hold my breath. ‘. . . When I grow up I want to be a mermaid.’ She skips off into the kitchen; the wall seems the only thing still keeping me upright.

  A noise makes me turn. Josh is sobbing on the stairs, great wordless gulps punctuated by his little shoulders heaving.

  I love terraced houses. Being jammed in next to others makes me feel protected, safe. The street is only yards away from the living room and on summer evenings you can hear a woman’s stilettos as she walks quickly home, the rumble of a pull-along suitcase as it bumps over the uneven paving stones. Someone in this street works for an airline, I’d guess. I didn’t grow up in a house like this and I know my mum can’t understand why, with Paul’s success and the size of our family, we don’t live in a bigger, newer place in the suburbs, a garden running all around and a nice fat garage. ‘All those stairs!’ she exclaims, as if walking up and down them is too much for an invalid such as myself. When I told her Paul likes to live close enough to central London to cycle to work, Mum muttered, ‘A man of his status.’ She comes from a world where important people drive, because driving insulates you from her other great fear: people who want to do you harm, which in her view is nearly everyone.

  I’m in my garden now with the late-afternoon sun full on me, wondering if my mum understands the world better than I. Suspicion, anger and sadness twist round one another in my heart. The garden hides us from the men out front who made my nine-year-old child cry. Paul and I watch Josh throw a tennis ball to Max and Marcus as we study Josh’s movement and attitude for signs of distress. The M&Ms are a welcome distraction and still the only thing that will get Josh off the computer and out into the fresh air. They help us play happy families.

  ‘Do you think he’s OK?’ Paul asks me, keeping his voice low.

  ‘He won’t talk to me. He cried for a long time.’

  Paul makes a dissatisfied noise. ‘Good throw, Josh! D’you think he understands what’s happened?’

  ‘Some of it at least.’ I pause. ‘Which is more than me.’

  Paul pulls at a leaf on the nearest bush and it bends towards us, springing back with an accusatory rustle. ‘Apparently he went to meet Melody for a drink. They were seen in the pub together near the woods where she died.’

  ‘Christ! Why didn’t he tell anyone?’

  Paul starts folding the leaf in his fingers. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Was he shagging her?’

  Paul looks at me warily. ‘Lex tried it on with everybody. You know that.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked. I asked if he was shagging her.’

  The ball flies over Paul’s head and Max strides over to pick it up. He’s budding with youth and energy, not unlike the vivid green leaf Paul’s just shredded.

  Paul’s mobile rings and he drops the remains of the leaf on the grass. ‘I don’t know, Eggy. I just don’t know what to believe any more. Oh Christ, it’s Astrid.’ He answers as he returns to the house.

  I walk down the garden and beyond the trees to the canal. I stare at the empty towpath across the sludgy water, wondering how long it’ll take the reporters to work out that there’s a back view of our house should they wish for one. Marcus jogs past in his Bermudas, a light sweater clinging to his six-pack.

  ‘Marcus, can
I ask you a favour?’

  ‘Course.’ He tries to flick the ball up with his bare feet into his hands as Max comes back and stands in front of me, hands on hips.

  ‘There are reporters outside the front of the house,’ I tell him.

  ‘Cool!’ He casually tosses the ball from hand to hand.

  ‘Well, not really. Paul’s business partner has been arrested. It’s very serious.’

  ‘How serious?’ asks Max, scratching the back of his head.

  ‘They think he might have killed a woman he worked with.’ Marcus whistles. ‘If you see anyone hanging around on the towpath, can you come and tell me?’

  ‘No worries.’ He drops the ball and I pick it up. I turn its squidgy roundness over in my hands, trace the curvy grooves with a finger.

  ‘You sure everything’s OK, Mrs F?’ asks Max.

  ‘No.’ I hurl the ball as high and as hard as I can up the garden and shout, ‘Picnic table.’ It bounces once on the wooden top and ricochets like a pinball against paving stones and the wall of the house.

  ‘Nice throw!’ Marcus is impressed.

  ‘Those reporters better watch out or I’ll do that to them, but with something a lot heavier.’ Marcus gives me an appreciative long-body glance and I tingle like a teenager, revelling in how great it feels to be even momentarily fancied by someone born in 1988. ‘As long as they stay away from my children, then it’s OK.’

  ‘I’ll keep my eyes peeled,’ Marcus says.

  ‘Think of us as the guard dogs in the garden,’ Max adds, putting a comforting hand on my knotted-up shoulder.

  I come in through the back door to find Paul in the kitchen trying to extricate himself from Astrid’s southern-sun embrace. She sees me and her big hair envelops me, bringing on a sneeze as some spiky blonde ends tickle my nostrils. ‘Oh, Kate, it‘s just awful, isn’t it? To think I used to travel with him in his car!’

  ‘Well, even I’ve done that with him.’

  ‘Yeah, but to think that someone you know can be so . . . so . . . different from what you think.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Paul rolls his eyes behind Astrid’s blonde halo. ‘Do you want a drink?’

  ‘Fuck yeah! Do you have rosé?’

  ‘Sorry, no. Only white.’

  She sits down at the table and takes the gulp of a sheep shearer after a ten-hour shift. ‘You know, when I think about it now, he always had that funny look in his eye.’

  ‘“Funny look”?’ Paul raises his head from his iPhone.

  Astrid is warming to her theme. ‘Yeah. Kind of sinister—’

  ‘Oh please,’ scoffs Paul. ‘He’s being questioned, he hasn’t been charged!’ Astrid looks blankly from me to Paul.

  ‘The police haven’t actually said that he did it,’ I explain to Astrid.

  ‘Yeah, but he met her that night and he didn’t tell us that in the pub, did he! I mean, I’m just in a state of shock—’

  ‘Astrid, it’s very important that you speak to no one about this, do you understand?’ Paul is using a finger for extra emphasis. ‘With Lex indisposed I am now your boss, none of us know for how long. You are not to speak to the press or your friends about this, is that clear?’ She nods. His mobile rings again. ‘I’ve got to take this call,’ Paul goes into the living room leaving us alone.

  ‘Have you moved anything on Lex’s desk?’

  She takes another long gulp of wine. ‘Oh God no, I haven’t had time. There was a load of things he wanted me to do, but you know I’m so busy at Forwood . . .’ Now it’s my turn to glug. ‘He wanted me to go to her house—’ she leans forward even though there’s no one else in the room and actually looks over her shoulder – ‘to get stuff she kept there, but I can’t do it. It’s kind of . . . creepy—’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Recordings, paperwork, I guess, he never said exactly what—’ Something interrupts Astrid’s train of thought. She’s staring out of the kitchen window. ‘Who’s that?’

  Marcus pokes his head in the back door and holds up the cricket bat and some stumps. ‘I’ll put these in the shed, shall I? The dew might damage them otherwise.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’ Marcus pauses, blinking like a woodland animal at Astrid. I go through the motions of introductions. ‘Um, Marcus, this is Astrid, Astrid, Marcus.’

  ‘You a cricketer?’ Astrid asks, her smile on full beam.

  ‘I play with Josh sometimes . . . and with my friend Max—well, not just Max of course, you know, other people too . . .’

  Astrid’s beam has set on lock. I almost feel sorry for Marcus, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, unable to look away. He’s only twenty-two, Astrid, have a heart.

  ‘My brother used to play for Canberra. He said it was important to keep your bat well oiled.’

  Marcus’s Adam’s apple pogoes like it’s 1977 as he backs out of the door. Astrid waves with the tips of her fingers and crosses to the window to watch him retreating down the garden. ‘God he’s hot!’ She turns to me with a scandalised look. ‘You’re a dark horse, aren’t you, Kate!’

  I start to protest but realise I can’t be bothered. I quite like Astrid thinking it might be even a little bit possible. ‘Is he your type then?’

  ‘Fuck yeah! You don’t see shoulders like that on many English guys, I can tell you.’ She fluffs her bouncy hair as Paul’s urgent tones filter through from the living room.

  ‘Listen, if it’s a help, why don’t I go to Melody’s house. It’s no bother.’

  ‘He really is A1 puurfect.’ She turns back to me, her bum resting on my worktop. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I said I’d do it.’

  ‘But if you feel uncomfortable . . .’ I let the silence stretch. ‘I’m sure you’re needed at the office, tomorrow will be a very important day.’

  ‘No. It’s my job.’ She’s digging in.

  I nod. ‘I guess Sergei can deal with the press and the TV companies. They tend to all come together so there’ll be quite a crowd.’

  ‘Oh.’ Astrid’s paying attention now, her ambition tuning into a golden opportunity. ‘Yes, of course, I’m needed at the office. Well, if you really don’t mind?’

  ‘It’s no problem. Paul can give me the address.’ I pick up my wine glass, thinking of Melody’s card that I hid behind some books.

  At the mention of Paul’s name a frown crosses Astrid’s forehead. ‘Then again, I should really go. I know what Lex has done is terrible, but it’s important to always be professional. Now that Paul’s my boss it’s imperative I help out in every way . . .’

  She’s already moving on, planning how to enhance her career, how Lex’s demise can help her. She’s as hard-headed as Lex had always claimed. She’ll go far. I admire her, she’s pure TV – but I’m going to Melody’s house . . .

  ‘Astrid.’ I interrupt her sharply and she looks up startled. ‘There’s something I need to ask you.’ I fold my arms and assume a look like thunder.

  Her big blue eyes stare into mine as she twists a lock of her long blonde hair nervously round a finger. Her eyebrows rise in terrified anticipation of what I’m about to say. She’s thinking double quick what indiscretion I might have discovered, what I have over her. I wait a long, long moment. ‘Do you use Aussie 3-Minute Miracle?’

  An hour later I wave Astrid goodbye, after we’ve hugged tightly on my doorstep. We’ve shared excessive toe hair, the best colourists, chemical peels, her dreams of daytime TV fame. I’m left in awe of the career mountain she has yet to climb.

  ‘What on earth were you two finding to talk about?’ Paul asks, emerging from the bedroom.

  ‘Oh, stuff you wouldn’t be interested in.’

  Paul shakes his head. ‘You’ve got this knack of being able to talk to anyone. It’s a very underrated skill.’

  ‘Yup.’ I smile. ‘Who was that on the phone?’

  ‘John.’

  I see my coat hanging on the banister and remember something, rummaging inside the pocket for the journalist’s card. ‘He wants you to call him.’

&
nbsp; Paul shoves it in his nearest pocket. ‘Him and all the rest.’ Paul stands on the stairs so that his feet are at the level of my head. He suddenly punches the wall and springs back, staring at his knuckles. ‘Ow. Fuck, that really hurts.’ He waves his hand in the air and sucks his knuckle, looking very sorry for himself.

  ‘I can almost hear Lex laughing at that.’

  Paul sinks back down on the stairs above me. ‘I never realised how much I might miss that laugh.’ We both sit in silence staring at the front door, as if we’re expecting someone to come through it and save us from ourselves. My mobile flashes with an incoming text from Eloide. ‘Call me,’ she’s pleading.

  23

  ‘Kate, get in here now! Now!’ Paul is yelling at me from the living room. Today is a workday and I’ve been dressed since seven, harried the kids along since 7.30 a.m. I’m making sure nothing can derail my carefully laid plans to be in on time, on the ball and full of ideas. I’ve tried to put the reporters in the street and the revelations about Lex to one side as I help Ava into her coat for the walk to school. The darkest thoughts about my own husband I try to shove to my mind’s furthest corners.

  ‘Coming,’ I mumble, double-checking my handbag for the things I’ll need for the long hours ahead. The morning news is on and Lex is standing outside what must be the police station. A crowd is jostling for position as he starts to speak.

  ‘I’ve been questioned about the murder of Melody Graham, but I stand here this morning an innocent man. You know me as the king of reality TV—’

  ‘God he’s not modest even now!’

  ‘Sshh—’ says Paul.

  ‘I cannot sit idly by when a woman I knew and respected has died in such a tragic and pointless way. So I’m giving you, the viewers, the chance to keep her murder in the public eye. Today I’m placing half a million pounds in an account at BetFair. You, the viewer, can bet on whether I murdered Melody. If I’m convicted of this crime within the next two years, I will pay out double whatever money you put in. I’ll even pay out if I die. If I’m not convicted in the next two years, I’ll donate your money to the charity Victim Support, which helps people affected by violent crime.’