by R. J. Parker
He dialled her, regardless. Answer service. Ted hung up and strained his ears. No sound from the corridor. He rang the landline at home.
‘Hello?’
He immediately recognized the voice. ‘Hi, Zoe. Everything there all right? Georgie OK?’
‘Yes, he’s on his laptop. But Juliette’s still not back.’
‘What?’ Ted tried to calculate how long it had been since he’d left her at Kathryn’s house. Had to be over an hour and a half. ‘When did you last speak to her?’
‘When she called me from the hospital. I was here for Peta to drop Georgie off, but I still haven’t heard from her. Will you be back soon? I need to change Pip and all my fresh nappies are next door.’
‘I’m sorry. I may be a while longer. I’m at the police station. Have you tried Juliette’s number?’
‘A few times. I can try again.’
‘If you would. And let me know if you have any luck.’
‘You sound worried.’ Now she did.
‘Sure there’s an explanation.’ But Ted couldn’t think of one. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘OK, keep me posted.’
Ted cut the call and clutched the phone. The conversation he needed to have would take a back seat until he knew Juliette was safe. He stood and padded over to the door. What had been so urgent to pull Renton out of their interview?
Should he just walk out? Renton hadn’t said he was holding him. He opened the door and looked both ways. There was room 8. Were they in there with Kathryn? The only activity was the people passing at the far end of the corridor.
His phone buzzed in his hand. Zoe?
Juliette
‘Everything OK?’ she asked first. But Juliette sounded strange.
Ted returned to the desk and let the door close behind him. ‘Yes. I’m still at the station and they haven’t let me up for breath.’
‘Why are they holding you so long?’
‘We can talk later. Why haven’t you been picking up?’
‘Sorry, just got your message. Had to catch up with Zoe first.’
Ted’s next question froze on his lips. She couldn’t have spoken to Zoe in the ten seconds he’d just put his head into the corridor. He tried not to let her register the pause. ‘Sure you’re OK?’
‘All under control. Just going to get some dinner for Georgie sorted.’
She wasn’t at home. She couldn’t be. Juliette hadn’t actually said she was, but she’d inferred it.
‘Do you want anything?’
‘No.’ He had to know. ‘Can you put Georgie on?’
She hesitated. ‘He’s in the shower.’
Ted felt his heart slide downwards.
‘How much longer will you be?’
Ted scarcely caught the question. ‘A while. I’ll be home as soon as I can though.’
‘OK. We can catch up then.’ Her response was upbeat, mimicking the way she always sounded when he phoned to say he would be late.
‘I’ll ring when I’m on my way.’
‘OK, speak then.’ Wherever Juliette was, she abruptly hung up.
Ted hurried back to the door and peered into the corridor. As before, the only activity was in the adjoining one. He strode down it and headed quickly for the exit.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Ted slipped into his car and hastily started it. Would Renton’s colleague have got back to the interview room and found it empty yet? He didn’t care. He wasn’t under arrest and he needed to find Juliette, to speak to her before the police, and he had one idea where she’d be.
Ten minutes later he was pulling into Kathryn and Rhys’s road. It was the place he’d left her and that she’d lied about visiting and he was sure her presence there had more significance than the story she and Kathryn had given him.
No sign of Juliette’s yellow Fiat 500 on the drive. Ted accelerated by, checking the windows on the way past. There was one light on upstairs. Kathryn was still at the station. Had Rhys returned?
But then he spotted Juliette’s empty car parked at the end of the street. He slid in behind it. Ted switched off the engine and went over their recent conversation, trying to pinpoint a reason for him misunderstanding. There was none. He’d told her that he’d been waylaid at the police station; she’d obviously assumed he hadn’t phoned Zoe and lied to him.
Ted got out of the car and quietly closed the door. A few lights glowed behind the hedges of the other homes. He made his way along the pavement, the cold air stinging his ears and his face burning hot.
He hung back at the gates to the house and examined the windows again. Just the landing light on. Should he bang the front door or wait for Juliette to leave? Surely she would be heading home soon. Maybe she’d spoken to Zoe by now. If she had she’d know that he’d phoned her. Was she already concocting her next lie to cover whatever she was doing here?
There had to be something going on between Juliette, Kathryn and Rhys. They’d become closer when Juliette’s father died. They’d both counselled her through it because they knew what it was like to lose a parent. He recalled coming home from work and finding Kathryn and Rhys in the dining room. Had that experience drawn them even closer together, made them more intimate than he’d realized? It seemed preposterous, but Juliette’s car was parked outside and the only light on was upstairs. Ted’s stomach shrank as he focused on the pane.
Then Ted remembered how he’d entered the house last time. Kathryn had opened the back door for him. After Rhys had attacked him the three of them had left in a hurry. Had she locked it?
He squinted at the darkened windows downstairs and then kept his eye on the landing as he moved across the driveway and the lawn to the passage at the side, his heartbeat overtaking the quiet echo of his feet.
When he got to the end of the path, he took a breath. The smell of rotting compost from the bin there seemed even more overpowering. Ted passed the empty conservatory and took a quick peek in through the double windows beside the back door. It was where he’d found Juliette and Kathryn having their heated conversation that morning, but now the room was unoccupied.
He put his fingers on the cold back door handle and gripped it tight. When he’d stood outside this house the last time he’d told himself that what he found inside might change his perception of Juliette. Now he felt there was no doubt. He tensed, pulled down on the metal and it silently opened.
Ted moved into the dimly lit kitchen, softly closed the door behind him and listened. He could hear the low rumble of the central heating but nothing else. The first aid kit that Juliette had dressed his wound with was on the central breakfast bar next to a bowl of brown bananas. The room smelt vaguely of stale oil. He crossed the pale granite tiles to the doorway to the dingy hall. To his left was the cupboard he’d been locked in to protect him from Rhys.
A muffled thud from above.
Ted clenched his breathing but remained where he was. He waited. Was somebody about to come down the stairs? His body rigidly anticipated Juliette’s appearance.
But nobody descended and there was no further noise. Ted followed the ornamental carpet runner to the foot of the stairs and looked to the top. Weak light spilled down them from above. There was no point hesitating. He knew who was up there. Ted put his foot on the bottom stair.
‘Please …’
Ted halted. That was Juliette’s voice.
‘Please … don’t do this to me,’ she implored.
That triggered Ted up the stairs but as he swiftly climbed, he still trod carefully and reached the top without creaking a board. Of the five doors he could see three were sealed, one was open and the other slightly ajar.
‘Please …’ Juliette grunted.
Sounded like she was behind the third along that was partially open. Ted stole to it but paused outside. What was he about to walk in on?
‘Please …’ she barely whispered.
Ted pushed the door and took in the room. Nobody on or in the double bed. But Ted’s relief was fleetin
g. He could see the back of Juliette’s head on the far side of it. She was sitting on the floor.
She’d heard him enter and turned; her expression aghast.
Ted understood why though. He was the very last person she expected or wanted to see. ‘Juliette?’ Was she hurt? He circled around the end of the bed until he was standing over her.
She looked up at him, but he didn’t see her face. He was focused on what she was sitting cross-legged beside. It was long and wrapped in black refuse sacks and a man’s hairy right arm protruded from it.
The body was lying at an angle and it appeared that she’d been trying to shift it.
There was a brief moment of pure silence.
Then Juliette was speaking to him. He didn’t hear her but bent down, his hands scrabbling for the black plastic over the man’s face. His fingers trembled but he easily tore it, the polythene popping and revealing the lifeless features beneath. It was Rhys. His eyes were half closed and there was dried spittle over his beard.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
‘Ted …’ she said his name mournfully.
He knew there was to be no explanation, not one that could ever possibly mitigate what he’d found. Ted choked a reaction to Rhys’s dead expression and shifted his attention back to her.
She got unsteadily up, and he realized she was barefoot. She was wearing a turquoise silk robe.
‘Where are your clothes?’ It was his first question.
‘In a bag downstairs.’ Her gaze was on the floor but not on who lay there.
‘Why?’ But he’d already guessed. She didn’t want to get Rhys’s blood on them.
She took a step towards him.
Ted recoiled.
She halted, eyes bulging, as if she had too many things to say that she knew wouldn’t make any difference.
‘What happened?’ Coldness flushed his face.
‘It was an accident.’
Nobody needed to dispose of an accident. She was still lying. ‘Tell me the truth.’
‘I am.’
Ted shook his head.
‘Kathryn already asked me to come over this morning. But just before I did Rhys attacked her and she retaliated.’
‘Kathryn did this?’ Ted looked down at Rhys’s twisted position. One arm extended and the fingers curled into his palm.
‘Yes.’
He wanted to believe her. ‘How?’
‘With a glass jug. He’d gone mad and was strangling her on the floor. She managed to get free and hit him as he was getting up. She didn’t mean to hit him so hard, but she was terrified. He was out cold. She tied him up so he couldn’t attack her again.’
‘When?’
‘Not long before you arrived this morning.’
‘That’s crap. Rhys hit me over the head.’
‘No, he didn’t. Kathryn did.’
Ted was about to rebuke her but realized he hadn’t actually seen Rhys before he was slugged. ‘When the three of us were in the lounge, I heard a noise upstairs.’
‘Yes, Rhys had come round.’
‘And when I was locked in the cupboard, he kicked the door.’
‘No. That was Kathryn too.’
He’d only heard Kathryn shout Rhys’s name. ‘Why?’
‘The police would only have her word that he attacked her. But if you believed he’d attacked you as well …’
He was stunned by how devious they’d both been. ‘And you went along with it?’
‘No.’ She paused. ‘I tried to talk sense into her when you were out cold. I told her we should untie Rhys and call the police. I convinced her. She went upstairs to do it. But Rhys had rolled off the bed and hit his head. That’s what you heard when you were talking to us downstairs in the lounge. She couldn’t wake him. He’d stopped breathing.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me what had happened?’
‘She said all we had to do was convince you Rhys was still alive when the three of us left the house together. That he’d walked out of here.’
Ted understood but his revulsion swelled further. ‘So I was a witness.’
‘Kathryn just wanted me to clean everything up while she was at the police station. The plan was to get her and the kids to stay with us for the night straight after she’d been interviewed. Then she’d come back here in the early hours and get rid of him. I was to say I’d got up with Kathryn and kept her company because she couldn’t sleep.’
‘So she had alibis the whole time. And it would look like Rhys had stormed out and vanished.’ Ted was appalled by how calculating they’d been. Had that all been Kathryn?
‘But then we got the call from Connor at the railway station and it all went wrong. Renton kept Kathryn at the police station, so I had to phone her from the hospital.’
‘I can’t believe you could have been so stupid.’
She turned her back on Rhys, wobbling on her feet. ‘We panicked … but it’s done now.’
‘What d’you mean, it’s done?’
‘We’ve both already lied to the police.’
‘You haven’t yet.’
‘I’ve been cleaning up blood and glass fragments.’
‘You were under duress.’ But it was going to be impossible to defend what she’d already carried out. ‘We have to go to the police right away. It’s the only way.’
‘You know what will happen if we do,’ she said solemnly.
He did, but the alternative was unthinkable. His focus darted to Rhys and away again. How could she even be considering it? How could she have gone this far? ‘The police, Juliette. It has to be.’
‘What’s already happened can’t be undone. We could walk out of here, go home. Kathryn will take care of this.’
‘Take care of this? Our friend is dead, Juliette.’ Anger bled through numbness. ‘I won’t allow her to do this. And what, we go on telling the lie? How could you live with yourself?’
‘Think of Kathryn’s girls. Think of Georgie.’ There was desperation in her voice.
‘Don’t. You’re not doing that.’
Juliette straightened. ‘We walk into the station tonight and I won’t be coming back.’
‘You didn’t kill Rhys. You don’t have a criminal record.’
Juliette approached him, reached out.
Again he backed away. He didn’t want to be touched by her.
‘Think about it. We just walk out of here.’
‘He’s right, Juliette. Listen to him.’
Ted turned to the doorway.
Kathryn was standing there.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Ted registered that Juliette wasn’t surprised by Kathryn’s appearance. ‘Where have you come from?’
‘The bathroom, cleaning up. Heard you come in through the back.’ Kathryn was barefoot and wearing a silk robe too. A canary yellow one.
Ted wondered if they were going to burn both garments once they’d finished. ‘I thought you were at the police station.’
‘I was. Looked out of my interview room when I heard your voice, saw Renton take you into the other one. I asked an officer if I could go to the canteen. When he OK’d it, I hopped in a cab.’
‘To help Juliette?’
‘To stop her. She wasn’t answering her phone.’
‘I didn’t want to turn it on when I was here,’ Juliette explained.
Made sense. Ted assumed Juliette didn’t want any record of her being at the house after that morning. ‘So, when you called me earlier …’
‘I drove to the square in town, made the call from there.’
He returned his attention to Kathryn. ‘So, why didn’t you just confess to Renton?’
‘I had to get Juliette out of here first.’
‘You’ve just been trying to talk Juliette out of it?’ Ted asked sceptically.
She nodded her bun of hair. It had been tightened to her head again.
‘So why are you in a robe as well?’
‘She wouldn’t listen to me. Made the same argument she just has to you.
’ Kathryn bit her jaw.
Ted looked at Juliette and she nodded as well. But could he believe anything she said now?
‘I won’t let the girls grow up without Kathryn,’ Juliette said resolutely.
‘But if Kathryn confesses now, they may be more lenient,’ Ted reasoned.
Juliette shook her head. ‘Even if she can leave me out of it, she’s tried to cover it up. How will that make her look at a trial?’
Ted held up his hand. ‘She’s giving you the chance to walk away, Juliette. Take it, for the sake of our family.’ He had to seize on Kathryn’s approval. ‘This was something that happened between them.’
Juliette took a deep breath before she answered. ‘Because of the game we played around our table.’
‘Not that again.’ Ted felt his blood surge. ‘We’re not responsible. If anybody’s to blame, it’s Evie.’
Juliette bit her lip, clearly harnessing her emotions. ‘And what about Evie … and Jakob, and Orla and Connor?’
Ted was silent.
Juliette clenched her fists. ‘We can do this. Kathryn’s life doesn’t need to be ruined as well. Nor the children’s. I’m not asking you to do anything except walk out of here.’
‘And live a lie. At best. If this goes wrong, I’m an accomplice too. What happens to Georgie then?’
‘He’s right,’ Kathryn reiterated. ‘You know he is. This is my situation; I never should have dragged you into it. I panicked. It was selfish.’
Juliette held up her palm. ‘Kathryn, we want to do this.’
‘No … we don’t,’ Ted stated firmly.
‘Juliette, listen to him.’ Kathryn stood back from the doorway. ‘There’s no choice. You have to go, both of you. Now.’
Juliette didn’t move. ‘We’re staying.’
‘Renton will be looking for me soon.’ Kathryn fixed Ted. ‘I told him about the game to misdirect him from what we were doing here. But he’ll come here to find me. I don’t want him to find you two as well.’
‘I walked out of the police station too.’ Ted glimpsed his watch. ‘And I think Renton already knows Kathryn’s gone. We can’t be seen here. We have to go.’
‘Juliette, you’re a good friend.’ Kathryn’s voice was level. ‘But you must let me handle this now. You have to leave.’
