“Let’s go over together this evening, the four of us?” Naomi suggested, with more of her old warmth. “If she won’t answer, we can always let ourselves in and call from the hallway. My mum’s here, so I’ll see if she can mind the kids for an hour or two.”
“Good plan,” Tess said, and the relief she felt that she and Naomi might be back on friendly terms was dismayingly acute.
On the other hand—and obviously it was petty even to think it—she hoped Naomi didn’t intend presenting the news about Booth’s arrest as her own.
CHAPTER
16
ANT
If you’re looking for witnesses, it must be because you don’t think it was a straightforward accident—is that right? What kind of a charge are we looking at here? OK, maybe not murder. It’s not like he planned it. Manslaughter, then? You should have him for something, seriously. Come on, it’s basic stuff. A child could solve this case.
MR. ANTHONY KENDALL, 3 LOWLAND WAY, HOUSE-TO-HOUSE INQUIRIES BY METROPOLITAN POLICE, AUGUST 11, 2018
Five days later
Sissy looked worse than Ant had seen anyone look ever. He had expected grief, of course, but in a form that had recognizable color and texture. The raw, raised skin of daylong sobbing, the red of eyes cried dry. What he saw was profound, a human being stripped to the soul. When he hugged her, he could feel the break in her, the imminent bodily collapse. “I’m so sorry, Sissy. Really. Is there anything we can do?”
Sissy choked a few words that he was unable to make sense of.
“Nobody can do anything,” Naomi interpreted. “Not yet. But thank you, Ant. Try to breathe, Sissy, deep and slow.”
It was Naomi who had answered the door when the Kendalls arrived. Though Ant had rung several times since the accident, it was only when he and Em were able to piggyback on a visit from the Morgans that he actually set eyes on Sissy. Naomi had kindly suggested they leave Sam with her mother and the other children (“Libby adores little ones”) and follow them across, the unspoken message being Sissy should not be reminded of babies. Because Amy had been pregnant—Ralph had told Ant that. Horrific.
“I should have stopped her from going over there,” Sissy told Naomi, suddenly lucid. “She didn’t tell me she was doing that. I thought she was going home.”
“You couldn’t possibly have known, darling,” Naomi said. “We can’t control the decisions other people make. I’ve been thinking, thank God it wasn’t the two of them, her and Pete.”
Sissy bowed her head, unable to answer, and Ant ached for her, wordless himself.
While Ralph organized drinks, Finn opened the kitchen doors to let in fresh air, and between them they managed to steer Sissy a few steps onto the terrace. As if natural light was all that was needed to reanimate an annihilated soul! In any case, drizzle threatened, the sky low and morose. Ant couldn’t be certain he was remembering correctly, but he had a sense that the good weather had ended last Sunday, overnight. Like a mark of respect, a flag flown at half-mast.
“How are the formalities going?” Tess asked Sissy. “Have you got a date for the funeral yet?”
With a ghostly detachment that unnerved Ant, Sissy explained that Amy’s funeral would be taking place the following Monday, a private affair in her hometown of Chichester. Pete was staying with Amy’s parents until afterward.
There were degrees of grief, Ant supposed, a natural order or even entitlement, and Amy’s parents’ was the deepest, the most abominable. Imagine if it were Sam who’d died! A terrible shiver passed over him. He became aware of the smell of rotting vegetation, soon identifying the source as a vase of dying sunflowers on the windowsill, the water slimy and opaque. “Shall I throw these away?” he suggested, hoping to be useful, but Sissy protested with an abrupt keening, and once more Naomi acted as her interpreter.
“Not those ones, Ant. But would you let us change the water, Sissy?”
As the weird, sucked-dry version of Sissy gave her assent, Naomi murmured the explanation: “Amy gave these to her. When she was here last Friday.”
“Oh God. I’m sorry.” Ant flushed deeply at his blunder.
“I’m going to look up how to dry and preserve them. These things are symbols, you know. Links.”
“Yes, thank you.” Ant looked gratefully at her as if she were a goddess bestowing a blessing on him.
“I’ve got bookings for early September,” Sissy was telling Tess, in response to a question about her business. “I can’t afford to turn them down.”
“I can help you,” Tess said, squeezing the other woman’s hand. “I’ve got more time than Naomi.” She sent a glance Naomi’s way that Ant could not decipher; he had never been able to tell if the sisters-in-law were accomplices or rivals. “Maybe it will be good to have the structure? You know, while things are still going on.”
Now she and Naomi traded a different sort of look, something more buoyant.
“Sissy, we have some news,” Naomi said, and her raised voice caught the others’ attention. “I don’t know if you’ve heard either, Ant and Em, but Darren Booth was arrested this morning. Tess was there when it happened.”
“What?” As Ant’s spirits soared, Sissy visibly stiffened. For the first time, she looked square at the faces in front of her, fully concentrating as Tess described an expedition to the police station on Milkwood Lane that had ended with her witnessing the event they’d all been anticipating since Saturday morning.
“What did they look like, the detectives he was with?” Ralph asked her.
Tess narrowed her eyes. “A tall Asian guy, late twenties, maybe, and a woman about my age, quite short, curly brown hair and glasses.”
“They’re the ones I saw at the house the other day.” Ralph nodded, satisfied. “Good work, Tess.”
“Well, we’d have found out soon enough anyway,” she said, going pink.
“Every second of peace of mind is a gift, though, isn’t it?” Naomi said, including Sissy in her remark. How tactful she was, Ant thought, how subtle, warning the others not to display too much glee. This was justice, not victory.
But it was too late for Em, who had let out a cry of triumph. “That’s fantastic news,” she gasped joyfully. “Why didn’t you tell me as soon as it happened, Tess? I’d have—”
“Em,” Ant interrupted, frowning. “Sissy’s the only one directly connected.”
As Em gave him a piqued look, Sissy turned helplessly from Ant to Naomi. “I can’t bear it,” she whispered suddenly.
“Oh, Sissy.” Naomi looked horrified. “Perhaps we shouldn’t have told you, but we thought it might be of some comfort.”
Ralph moved forward then, almost theatrically grave as he drew Sissy into his embrace, and Ant withdrew, feeling both drained by the exposure to grief and sick with excitement at the good news. Yes, there would still be Jodie, but without her mechanic she would surely have to wind down the car business. As for the building work, unless she had hidden DIY skills of her own, she’d need to hire other workmen, preferably professionals, or abandon the renovations entirely.
He slipped upstairs to use the bathroom, and strayed afterward into the bedroom at the front to look out the window. Taking in the pocked exterior of number 1 and the heap of junk before it, the confusion of cars and vans, he had a very clear sense of how momentous this occasion was. An end to a short, intense period that had obliterated all memory of the good times that went before.
An appalling tragedy for the bereaved families, but a miraculous reprieve for the Kendalls.
* * *
—
They stayed at Sissy’s only an hour or so, not wishing to exhaust her, and left as they’d arrived, en masse. Ant was at the rear, still on the doorstep, when the quiet evening air was torn abruptly by an ugly mechanical sound. A tile cutter or something similar, a screaming noise that must have been terrifying for the street’s pets. There was
a collective seizure. It was almost eight o’clock: Who but number 1 would be so antisocial as to start noisy work two hours beyond the six p.m. permitted hour?
“That isn’t him?” Naomi said finally.
Ralph spoke with authority, as if on behalf of all of them: “Can’t be, can it?”
As they shuffled on, the screaming noise stopped and the side gate to number 1 sprang open. Pieces of tile were hurled out, landing on the edge of the slag heap. Then the noise began again.
“It was him,” Finn said. “I saw his gray overalls.”
“Tess?” Em said, moving from Ant’s side to her friend’s, eyes bright with fear.
“I don’t understand,” Tess said, stammering slightly.
“You said he was in a police cell,” Naomi hissed at her, “and now we’ve told Sissy that!”
“Look, I only told you what I saw,” Tess protested.
“Which must have been him going into the station for some other reason, because they obviously haven’t charged him,” Ralph said, glaring at her as if she were a complete idiot.
“Hang on, mate,” Finn said. “He might’ve been bailed.”
“Not after everything we said when they went door to door. How can they not see him as a risk to others? To us?” Naomi shook her head with vigor, as if to make the statement true. Her hair glistened with damp. It had begun drizzling, but no one mentioned it or made any attempt to seek shelter.
“I’m going over there,” Ralph said, “find out what’s going on.”
“We’ll all come,” Finn said, falling into step with him.
“Thank you, Finn,” Naomi muttered, but she was the next to follow, leaving Tess and the Kendalls to scamper after them.
With a soldier’s posture, Ralph strode past the cars on the drive and picked his way through the debris to the side passage, cluttered with materials. The rest of them tailed behind in single file, arriving in the rear garden as the rain grew heavier. A workstation had been set up on the concrete patio, which was littered with tools, and the rain was turning the dust to dirty smears. Booth could be seen through the kitchen window, moving about in the living room beyond.
“Booth?” Ralph yelled. “Get out here, will you!”
He emerged, his expression as disobliging as ever. His wrist had been freed from the sling, though it was still bandaged almost to the elbow. Ant felt weighed down with dejection. Ralph was right; Tess had misunderstood what she’d witnessed that morning. This was not an end to the horror but a resumption of it, business as usual.
Booth addressed them with a gruff shout: “Get off my property, the lot of you!”
Ralph folded his arms, his stance broad, every inch the immovable defender. “Not until you tell us what’s going on. Are you out on bail or something?”
Booth stepped forward, a shard of tile in his hand at his side, like a switchblade. “You’re the one who should be out on bail, mate. You could’ve fucking killed me!”
Ralph glowered at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re responsible for your own injuries. That must be obvious even to you,” Naomi told him, undaunted by his aggression.
“It’s fucking well not,” Booth said, nostrils flaring.
Now they were faced with his anger, the animal strength of it, Ant saw that it had never before been fully roused. Feeling the bleak, hardwired fear of prey in the path of a predator, he took a shameful step back.
Startling them, Jodie now called down from the upper window, leaning out above their heads. Even at this angle, Ant could see that her face was swollen from crying. “Right. Let’s get this sorted: Which one of you was it?”
“Which one of us what?” Ralph said.
“Messed with the scaffolding. They’ve told us all about it.”
Ant got it first: she was saying that the police were considering the possibility that this had been a crime committed not by Darren but against him. That Amy’s fate had been intended for him. For a long moment, he couldn’t breathe. The rain on his face felt sticky, as if it were solvent. Behind him, Em began to whimper.
Now Ralph made the same deduction. “You’ve told the police someone deliberately made the scaffolding collapse? In order to injure you?”
“That’s ridiculous!” Naomi cried.
“Total bollocks,” Finn said.
Jodie scowled at them from on high. “That’s not what the police think. So if any of you trespass on our property again, we’ll apply for a restraining order!”
Em started sobbing then, noisily, unable to control herself, and Ant moved across to comfort her, grateful Sam was not here to witness his mother’s distress. “Let’s head off,” he said, “get you inside.”
“I’m not going in there,” she railed. “No way, never again!”
“Em, it’s our home.”
“It’s not, not while they’re here. Get me the car keys. I’m going to my parents’.”
“You can’t drive,” Ant protested. “You’re too upset.” He was struggling to hide his annoyance with this scene. Why couldn’t she keep her cool? She wasn’t the only one overwrought by events, and yet she behaved as if she were. And God knew how it must look to the others as she resisted his attempts to steer her back toward the side gate: like some grisly scene of domestic abuse, though in this case it was the man who was getting the worst of it, Em’s open palms smacking down on him as she yelled, “Don’t tell me what to do! I hate you!”
Ralph moved toward them, frowning. “Stop this, guys. Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
“That’s right—fuck off!” Jodie screamed furiously. “Did the rest of you not hear me?”
Behind Ant, Ralph gestured to the others that they should follow. “Don’t worry—we’re going. We’re not going to stand here and listen to your insane persecution fantasies.”
The last Ant saw was Booth standing in the rain in his soaked overalls, gaze tracking Ralph as he moved away. “It’s no fucking fantasy, Kray boy. Ask the cops yourselves. They’re coming after you.”
CHAPTER
17
DARREN
I’m loads better, thanks, yeah. Concussion, pretty bad bruising, a bit of a twisted wrist, you know. Whatever the medics call it. I was lucky, turns out.
Happy to go over it again, sure. Like I told your guy in the hospital, I just felt the boards give way under my feet, didn’t I? Not right away after I stepped off the ladder, no, but when I was about halfway along.
No, I’d only been out a couple of minutes. Came out the upstairs window. Just been to the loo, hadn’t I? I was checking what I needed up top when I heard the girl calling.
Didn’t have a clue, mate. Didn’t know her from Adam. Wouldn’t have bothered answering, but I could tell she weren’t gonna go away and Jodie weren’t feeling well. I didn’t want her hammering on the door and waking her up.
Course I know who Sissy is, yeah. Sissy Spacek, we call her. Not someone I’m looking to spend any time with, to be honest with you. Same goes for all of them on this street.
Because they’re all fucking mental—that’s why. Take my word for it, mate—they’re on my case morning, noon and night, the lot of them. Obsessed with parking and clearing the street all the time like it’s a fucking jubilee street party—you know what I’m saying? Like they haven’t got massive gardens for the kids to mess around in. Always whining about noise and dust, like they’ve never seen anyone do up a house before.
Huh? Yeah, so, she went out of sight. Under the scaffolding, by the front door. She was only there a minute, not even that. As long as it took me to come down the top ladder. Then, like I say, I was on the lower level and when I was about halfway along I felt it move and then the whole bloody thing went down and I was trapped on my side. Thought there’d been a fucking earthquake.
You tell me—you’re the detectives! If
I’d walked on it earlier, then it would’ve collapsed earlier, wouldn’t it? Simple as that. All I know is it was all right the day before. Solid as a rock. I was on it off and on all day, didn’t have any kind of problem.
Someone messed with the nuts on the couplings, didn’t they? No other explanation. There’s no way vibrations could’ve made them come loose in that time.
Do me harm? Jodie? No way, mate. You’re barking up the wrong tree there. One hundred percent no way. Anyone could’ve had a go at loosening them. It’s basic stuff.
The neighbors? They have been violent, yeah, since you ask. Chucked a brick at me, old Sissy Spacek did. I was lucky to get out of the way in time. And one of them tried to strangle me. That was the Morgan bloke. He got all arsey when his kid ran into my van on his skateboard. I had to touch up the paintwork—not a word of apology.
Jodie reckons the bird with all the dogs is up to something. Dunno her name but she’s with the other Morgan bloke, the brother. If you ask me, the one that’s really deranged is her next door. She is totally out of control. Someone needs to keep her in line and I don’t think the husband’s up to the job, if you know what I’m saying. Hey, maybe they’re all in it together?
Yeah, I know a girl died. I’m not laughing. I’m just saying, if it was them and they cooked it up between them, then they got the wrong person, didn’t they? ’Cause look at me: I’m still standing.
MR. DARREN BOOTH, 1 LOWLAND WAY, INTERVIEWED BY DC SHAH AND DC FORRESTER AT MILKWOOD LANE POLICE STATION, AUGUST 16, 2018
CHAPTER
18
RALPH
“DELIBERATE SABOTAGE” IN SCAFFOLDING COLLAPSE HORROR
The death of a 29-year-old woman in a horrific scaffolding collapse is being treated as suspicious, police said today. The tragedy occurred on 11 August, when marketing executive Amy Pope from North London was visiting the property on Lowland Way, Lowland Gardens.
Those People Page 14
