by Louise Voss
I rolled back, the knife still stuck in me, blood spurting everywhere and splashing my face as I kicked out at him with my free leg now that he was disarmed, determined that he wasn’t going to get another go. The knife was mine now – in me, through me, of me – and the shock was so great that it kept the pain at bay, just for a few seconds.
I’m sure he’d have had another go, had there not been someone outside. It would have been easy for him to overpower me and pull out the knife, but he must have panicked, or decided to cut his losses and make a run for it, shoving up the shutter just far enough to throw himself out and vanish into the dark stillness of the night.
I’d never believed in God, but the appearance of that Good Samaritan, right at that moment, made me change my mind.
40
Present Day
Gemma
‘Interview by DS Mark Davis and DC Gemma McMeekin with Meredith Vincent, commenced at nineteen forty on Monday, June the eighteenth, 2018. Right, Meredith, thanks for coming in. We already have your statements from the scenes about the discovery of the bodies of both Ralph Allerton and Andrea Horvath, but now that we have the results of the post-mortems back, and in the light of the new information you gave DC McMeekin earlier, we need to have another chat. Let’s start with Andrea. Talk us through the night before you found her, if you can?’
As Mavis spoke, Gemma scrutinised Meredith’s small figure, hunched in the chair opposite. It was almost impossible to imagine her ever screaming into a microphone on a stage, rapt fans – like Mavis, or at least his older brother – moshing in the front rows of the audience in front of her, commanding their attention, soaking it up, the trademark thick, black eye make-up and wild spiky black hair making her instantly recognisable. ‘Riot Grrls’, they were known as, apparently, back in those days. Gemma was young enough to be confused about the distinctions between them and punks – as far as she could tell, there was no difference. Perhaps it was an era thing.
Today Meredith Vincent couldn’t have looked anything less like a pop star. She sat staring at the table, her face bare and her thin mousy hair held back from her face with a plain band. She wore the running gear she’d been wearing earlier to do the gardening; not the expensive patterned stuff that cost a fortune from Sweaty Betty, but some faded grey Lycra leggings and a zip-up hoody that had bleach spots down the front of it. There were black circles beneath her eyes, and her skin had a parchment-like pallor to it, which had intensified when Gemma mentioned the autopsies. Her cheekbones were still high, and her eyes large and vivid – echoes of her past beauty, but it was clear to Gemma that the woman had made a conscious effort to minimise her assets, not enhance them.
‘This is a nightmare,’ she whispered, picking at the skin around her fingernails.
Mavis attempted to arrange his features into a sympathetic expression. ‘I appreciate it’s very difficult. Just talk us through what you know. It doesn’t matter if you’re repeating stuff you said before.’
Meredith swallowed. ‘She – Andrea – came over on Saturday night. Pete invited her and cooked dinner for the three of us. We were all good friends. Well, I think we were all hoping that Pete and her would get together, they have – had – such a spark. Me and Pete were hoping that, anyway, although he’d only just admitted it. He’s really slow at picking up on when women like him. I told him on Saturday he needed to make a move, and something did happen between them: a good-night kiss when I was in the loo…’ She caught the glance that Mark shot Gemma. ‘It was reciprocated! Pete was floating on air after it. He said she’d invited him round to hers next, to return the favour. He thought it was finally the start of something.’
‘Finally?’ Gemma asked. ‘How long had they known each other?’
‘A while,’ said Meredith. ‘Since Pete moved to the marina about a year ago. Andrea was there already – I think she bought her barge shortly after she got divorced in Hungary and moved to the UK. She was neighbourly to him when they moved in. They all are, on their pontoon; they’re like a little commune – or community anyway. They became friends quite quickly, and then I got to know her too, because I’m there a lot.’
‘And nothing had ever happened between them before?’ Mavis sounded incredulous, and Gemma thought how crass he was. As if he was implying that Andrea had been so attractive, it was impossible that Pete would have been able to resist. She could see from Meredith’s expression that she felt the same as her.
‘No. Pete’s shy, and I think Andy was reluctant to upset the status quo and possibly ruin their friendship. If you ask me, it’s because she was pregnant and saw that Pete still liked her in spite of that. She realised she could trust him…’
‘Who was the father of Andrea’s baby?’ Mark asked, clasping his hands together as if he was about to pray. Gemma, not for the first time, regarded his beautifully white, strong nails and wondered at them. Did the man go to a nail bar? She’d never seen a bloke with such perfect nails. Her own were bitten and ridged.
‘Nobody knows,’ Meredith said. ‘We all wondered. Apparently it was a result of a one-night stand she had in Hungary when she went back to visit her parents last year … Oh! Her parents…’
‘Her parents have been informed,’ Gemma said. ‘They’re planning to come over soon and sort out her possessions, try and organise selling the barge and so on.’
Meredith’s face was stricken. ‘They did know she was pregnant, didn’t they?’
‘No. They didn’t know. It came as a shock – another shock – to them.’ Gemma spoke quietly, and she and Meredith exhaled simultaneously, a breath of pure empathy, one woman to another.
‘How awful.’ There were tears in Meredith’s eyes. She couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it, Gemma thought, not unless she was a consummate actress.
‘Did you hear anything on Saturday night, after Andrea left?’ Mavis said, in an unnecessarily loud voice. ‘And did you see her leave? What time was it?’
Meredith sighed. ‘I did tell you this on Sunday. No, I didn’t hear a thing. Pete thought something had woken him, maybe a splash, but I sleep really heavily and I’d had a few glasses of wine. I didn’t wake up till seven. I didn’t see her leave that night. She said goodbye to me before I went to the loo – I was in there a while because I wanted to give them some time alone without making it look obvious. I was hoping they’d kiss … and they did. First and last time.’ Her voice shook.
‘And what time was that?’
She heaved another great sigh. ‘I’m not sure exactly. It wasn’t really late. She wasn’t drinking, of course, being pregnant, and said she was tired. I think it was about half past ten.’
‘What time did you and Pete turn in that night? And why did you stay there instead of going home?’ Mavis wasn’t even looking at her as he asked this, so Gemma sought out Meredith’s eyes and held them, in a gesture of solidarity.
‘I often sleep on the boat. Pete’s got a spare berth he calls my bedroom.’
‘What did you do during the day on Saturday? Did you see Andrea at all before she came over?’
Mavis was scribbling notes in his illegible spidery scrawl. He had terrible handwriting and held his pen in a hunched-over way, as if shielding what he was writing from prying eyes.
‘I’d stayed there on Friday night too. Got up about nine – Pete had already gone, he left for his workshop about half eight. I was awake from sevenish – I always am – but I was kind of messing round on my phone, and dozing for a couple of hours because it was Saturday. Then I made some bread, cleaned the place up a bit for Pete, had a shower.’
‘Did you see Andrea in the daytime, before she came over in the evening?’ Gemma asked. ‘We’re not clear on her movements that day.’
Meredith shook her head, then nodded, remembering. ‘Yeah, just briefly. I went and sat on the roof for a while, reading in the sun, then Paula – you know, Ralph’s wife … widow … came over in the afternoon. She was in a state and just wanted to drink wine and cry. She wa
nted me to get drunk with her, but I didn’t want to. I can’t drink in the daytime; it gives me a headache. I had a glass, though, to keep her company. That’s when I saw Andy … Andrea. She was accompanying one of her clients off the boat, then she came over and asked after Ralph, if he’d been found. She saw that Paula was upset, and I told her I’d fill her in later. She went back to her boat and I walked Paula home.’
‘And how did Andrea seem?’
‘Absolutely fine, then and in the evening.’ Meredith paused and looked up, her eyes huge and grey. ‘Please tell me – can you be sure that she didn’t just fall in and hit her head on the way?’
Gemma held her gaze. ‘From the nature and position of the blow to the back of her head, the pathologist’s opinion is that it’s highly likely someone inflicted that injury on Andrea prior to her falling into the water.’
Meredith’s good hand stole contemplatively up to the back of her own head as if in sympathy. ‘It’s so horrible.’ Then she froze. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered, ‘I’ve just remembered something I forgot to tell you last time. It might be nothing … but…’
‘Anything you can tell us could be helpful.’
Gemma saw a very faint stain of pink rise on Meredith’s cheeks. Guilt, at more stuff she hadn’t told them about?
‘The other day – last week? – Andrea trimmed my hair for me, in her salon on the boat. It was after Ralph went missing, but I didn’t think anything of it, not really. I thought I’d imagined it…’
Gemma shot a glance at Mavis, but he was staring intently at Meredith.
‘Go on,’ he said, in an uncharacteristically gentle voice.
‘It’s just that I could have sworn I saw someone passing the porthole – a flash of a leg, like someone was walking round the edge of the boat.’
Mavis somehow managed to combine a neutral expression with one of scepticism. Gemma wondered if he knew he was doing it. ‘What time of day was this?’
‘That’s the thing – it was only about four in the afternoon, broad daylight, and I really doubt that her murderer would be strolling round the edge of the boat for anyone to see. They’d have some nerve, if they were. I just thought I should mention it.’
Gemma mentally agreed with her at the unlikeliness. ‘I don’t know anything about boats, but would there be any other reason for someone to do that? Could it have been one of the neighbours?’
‘I suppose so,’ Meredith said, tracing a line on the tabletop with the side of her thumbnail. ‘They do sometimes jump from boat to boat. There was no-one out there when we went and looked. But it gave me a fright. Also…’
‘Yes?’
‘This does sound stupid, but when I went over there, Andrea had been doing a jigsaw on a table out on deck; she used to do them all the time. This one was almost done, everything except some cherry blossom on a tree – but there was one bit missing. We talked about it – Andrea was freaked out because the missing bit was a baby, in a pram. I remember she said she thought it was an omen…’
Gemma willed Mavis not to let his expression show what he doubtless thought of that. He thought that anything involving superstition or religion – the two were interchangeable as far as he was concerned – was for morons and sheep.
‘I know it sounds mad; it’s so easy to lose a jigsaw piece,’ Meredith ploughed on. ‘Like I said, it could be nothing. But then seeing that foot outside, it felt so creepy, after the stuff that had been going on even before all this.’
‘We’ll check to see if there’s any CCTV on the wharf,’ Mavis said, making a note. ‘And of course we’re talking to all the residents. We’ll ask if anyone saw anything that day.’
‘There’s no CCTV,’ said Meredith. ‘The council won’t put it in, so Pete’s been organising everyone to chip in for it themselves, because there’s been some petty vandalism. It’s due to be installed next month.’ She hesitated. ‘Could you tell me … What about Ralph? Do you have any idea how he ended up in that pond yet?’
Gemma cleared her throat. ‘Nothing’s shown up on CCTV. But at least now we know where he died. Forensics are working on the ice house and surrounding area.’
Meredith looked as though she had suddenly aged ten years.
‘DC McMeekin has explained what you told her earlier. Why on earth did you not let us know all this in your first statement?’ Mavis asked, in a tone of detached curiosity, as if he was Meredith’s therapist, Gemma thought, feeling faintly irritated. ‘For the benefit of the tape,’ he added, ‘this is the information that Ms Vincent was the last person to see Ralph Allerton alive. They had sexual intercourse in the ice house, she left, but forgot her keys, and when she returned for them, he was lying dead on the floor. Is that correct?’
Meredith cleared her throat. Tears sprang into her eyes. ‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘We, er, had sex in the disabled loo in the house. We went for a walk afterwards and he showed me the ice house. We kissed in there; he wanted to do it again, but I was already feeling guilty, so I went home.’
‘And how long had you and Ralph been having an affair?’ Mavis asked.
‘We hadn’t!’ Meredith replied hotly. ‘Honestly. We’ve been friends for years, but I swear on my life that was the first and only time anything ever happened between us. It was just a moment of madness, when I was feeling vulnerable and he was pissed.’
Gulping, she wiped away the two tears that had fallen at the same time, one from each eye, perfectly synchronised and straight down her pallid cheeks.
‘I was in shock. I couldn’t tell you because Paula’s my friend and I felt so guilty. And I was worried you’d think I did it.’ She looked up. ‘And I didn’t do it. I would never hurt either of them, Ralph or Andrea. I loved them. I think that’s why they’re dead. They were both killed because someone wants to get at me.’
41
1995
Meredith
My guardian angel’s name, I later found out, was Mr Martindale. I would be forever grateful that he’d been brave enough to shout, rather than just going off to call the police and not saying anything, because I’d have been dead if he’d done the latter. The strike of the knife had already severed several major veins in my hand; if I hadn’t got out then, I’d have bled to death.
Mr Martindale had heard the thuds and my muffled moans from the interior of the van as he took his corgi out for its middle-of-the-night constitutional. They were both elderly and insomniac. A war hero, even aged eighty-four he wasn’t afraid of confrontation, of speaking out when something was wrong. And it was clear that something was very wrong.
I would never forget the sound of Mr. Martindale’s voice, the firm, ‘Hello? Anyone still in there?’ to which I heaved and groaned and made whatever noise I could through my gaffer-tape gag, even though stars were exploding in my vision and black was creeping across my brain as I struggled to stay conscious. The pain in my body where the man had kicked me was nothing compared to the volcanic new agony of the knife piercing through my bones and sinews.
Mr Martindale shoved the shutter higher and shone his torch inside the van. I remembered his gasp at the slick crimson puddle illuminated in the beam, and the gentlemanly but heartfelt imprecation that he uttered when he saw me, gagged and chained by the ankle to a metal ring bolted into the side of the van, the knife still sticking through my hand. The bastard had plunged it in with such force that the tip was showing through my palm. I had neither strength nor stomach to try to pull it out, or to think about the reality that if my hand hadn’t been in the way, the knife would instead be residing in my jugular, or my eye, or my heart…
I was too far gone to think about anything by then. Fading fast, I watched two Mr Martindales heave themselves stiffly up over the lip of the van, valiantly ignore the crimson puddle, and rush towards me in duplicate, before slipping in my blood and ricocheting off the van’s other side like a grim sort of comedy double-act. Double-vision act…
‘Oh my dear girl,’ they were both saying, tears of shock and panic in their vo
ices. ‘What is your name? Don’t go to sleep! There’s a phone-box on the corner, I’ll call for help then come straight back, I promise…’
I didn’t want him to leave, even though he was going for help. I was so terrified that the man was going to come back and kill us both. But I must have passed out then, because I didn’t know anything else until I woke up in St Thomas’ Hospital.
Several days later, Mr Martindale asked permission to visit me, and I agreed. He was the only visitor I’d had the whole five days I was an inpatient. I missed Pete more than I had at any point over the decade we’d been estranged. But I just couldn’t bring myself to ring him; not yet. I was too afraid he’d reject me.
Mr Martindale turned up with an African violet in a little pot and a box of chocolates, those horrible sickly seashell ones I couldn’t stand. His kind eyes and compassionate tones were the things that made me lose it and break down, and I sobbed in his arms for the whole duration of his visit. He didn’t even seem to mind that I left snail-trails of mucus all over his Fair Isle tank top. It smelled of potpourri and tobacco – exactly as my dad would have smelled if he’d still been alive. When I had that thought, I howled so much that the policewoman who sat outside my door came in, thinking that Mr Martindale had done something awful. She saw him patting me tentatively on my hospital gown-clad back with his veined and shaky hand, and withdrew again tactfully.
Reece Martindale was my undoing and simultaneously my future strength, the only one who kept me going. The awareness that I owed my life to someone was an overwhelming and inexplicable sensation. All I knew was that every time the horror revisited me, followed by the terror that my intruder would one day find me again, I saw Mr Martindale’s face swim into my mind, and his steady, rheumy eyes calmed me. I really did think he was an angel. What, after all, were the chances of him happening across me in the van, in that remote part of Clapham Common – for that was where it turned out the man had taken me – at 4.00 a.m.?
