The Man She Married (ARC)

by Alison James

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask.

  ‘Mmmhhhh. I’ll pop a full statement in the post, along with your options when it comes to closing the account.’

  There should have been at least three times that amount: we saved every month over nearly three years. Where has the rest of it gone?

  I sink down in the chair with my head in my hands for a few seconds. Then I send a couple of texts. The first is to Matt.

  Let’s go over some figures, and see if we can reach consensus on Comida’s valuation. X

  The second is to JoJo.

  Can you come over here for a couple of hours? Xx

  * * *

  When JoJo arrives, I’m on my knees surrounded by a mountain of shirts and ties and suits, wrenched from their hangers. I feel suddenly full of fury. Furious that this has all been done to me, and I have no control over it whatsoever.

  JoJo kneels down beside me. ‘Hey… what’s going on here?’

  ‘I can’t think,’ I wail. ‘The baby, the car crash, the identity theft, trying to run the business… it’s all tangled up in my brain like a huge ball of knitting wool.’ I throw an Arran sweater onto the heap of clothes. ‘I thought if I cleared out his stuff it would free up some mental space. But it’s just making me angry.’

  ‘Deep breaths,’ JoJo urges. ‘You’re being way too hard on yourself. Wait here a sec…’

  She darts downstairs and comes back with a roll of black plastic refuse sacks. Rolling up the sleeves of her shirt, she bends down and starts bundling all the clothes into bags.

  ‘I’ll take this lot to the charity shop for you,’ she says. ‘Maybe once they’re actually gone from the house it will help clear your head.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, sniffing.

  JoJo works hard at clearing the bedroom floor, but she’s quiet, and seems troubled.

  ‘You okay?’ I ask, as she slides salopettes and a ski hat into a bag.

  ‘Alice, love, I need to say something. It’s hard, but I don’t think it’s really going to help you unless I get it out there.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ I tell her quietly. I already have an idea what she’s going to say.

  ‘I never…’ She sighs heavily and drops her hands to her sides. ‘I always had my doubts about Dominic. Or whatever his name now is.’

  ‘You never told me,’ I say weakly. This is only half true. She said by not saying, not endorsing. His presence made her uncharacteristically passive-aggressive. The two of them – though I never liked to admit it – didn’t get on.

  ‘I tried to,’ JoJo tries a smile. ‘I was worried when he proposed so quickly, and then at the wedding… remember? He had nobody there who knew him. It bothered me a lot more than it seemed to bother you. I did point it out as odd at the time, but… you seemed so thrilled with him that I didn’t want to labour the point. But I was privately worrying he was just a gold-digger.’

  ‘We were happy,’ I say stubbornly, despite this being only a partial truth. ‘We were happy most of the time.’

  ‘Were you, though? Look, don’t get angry, but I did some digging.’

  I frown at her, and she flushes slightly.

  ‘Back when you first got together, I googled Dominic Gill and the hits brought up someone else.’

  ‘It’s not that uncommon a name,’ I say. Why am I being so defensive of someone who deceived me? And worse.

  ‘And I went through his Instagram. His avatar was just a glass of beer, and there wasn’t a single photo on there with his face in it. And a couple of hundred supposed friends, none of whom he ever mentioned or asked to his wedding. It just struck me as… sketchy.’

  ‘Well, clever old you,’ I say sharply. ‘Turns out you were right, doesn’t it?’

  She ignores my tone and presses on. ‘Have the police come up with a motive? Do you know why he was doing all this? Only it might help you—’

  ‘No,’ I lie. ‘They have no idea.’

  There’s an awkward silence between us as we heft all the full plastic sacks down the stairs and into the hall, dropping them around our feet like so many PVC-wrapped corpses. The doorbell rings, and I climb past the bags to answer it.

  It’s PC Gillespie. She surveys the results of our purge, then pastes on a professional smile. ‘Ms Palmer, would you mind coming down to the station with me? We’ve got a few more questions we need to ask you.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ JoJo asks. ‘We’re in the middle of something here.’

  ‘It can’t, no,’ PC Gillespie is unapologetic. When a police officer asks if you mind coming to the station, I think to myself, what they mean is, you have to come to the station.

  ‘You go,’ JoJo tells me. ‘I’ll get this stuff into the boot of the car and offload it for you on my way home. There are a couple of charity places on Kilburn High Road.’

  I give a long, last look at the bags that contain the remnants of my marriage, then follow PC Gillespie out to the squad car.

  Thirty-Two

  Alice

  Now

  I’m shown into the same interview room as before, only this time DS Sutherland isn’t sorrowful; he’s edgy and tense. I realise with shock what’s responsible for this difference. This time, I’m being treated as a suspect.

  He pushes a photograph across the table at me. ‘Do you recognise this man, Ms Palmer?’

  I look at the ordinary, regular features. The mousey receding hair and blue eyes. ‘Yes,’ I say calmly. ‘That’s Dominic Gill. The real Dominic Gill,’ I clarify. ‘Not the man I was married to.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Sutherland demands.

  ‘Because his brother, Simon, came round to my house and showed me a photo of him. To convince me that Dom – my husband – was an impostor.’

  He’s looking directly at me, and his voice still has that hard edge. ‘So did you ever meet Dominic Gill?’ He taps the photo to clarify the question. ‘This man.’

  ‘No,’ I say firmly. ‘Never.’

  ‘Are you quite sure about that?’ His eyes bore into me.

  ‘Of course I am. Look – what is this about? What are you implying?’

  ‘Did you ever meet his mother, Mrs Patricia Gill?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘It’s a fair question,’ Sutherland says drily, spreading out his huge hands on the desk. ‘She was supposed to be your mother-in-law… So you’re quite sure you never made a visit to her home address in Ponteland, Tyne and Wear?

  ‘No.’ I feel my face reddening. Oh Christ, I think, they’re going to think I was somehow involved in my husband’s deception. ‘Well, I mean… yes. I did make a trip to her house once. But she wasn’t there. She was away on holiday.’

  ‘And how did you know about her? Her name? Where she lived?’

  ‘He told me.’ I realise how suspicious this is all sounding. No matter that I don’t even know my husband’s real name. ‘I mean Ben MacAlister.’

  ‘You mean the man calling himself “Ben MacAlister”,’ Sutherland says grimly. ‘So you were at Mrs Gill’s house because…?’

  ‘Because I thought she was my new mother-in-law,’ I say desperately. ‘Because she hadn’t attended the wedding. Although obviously now I know why. Look, where is this leading?’

  ‘We’ve found the body of Dominic Gill.’ Sutherland adjusts his huge body on the small plastic chair. ‘Well, we haven’t found him, exactly. His body washed up in the Thames about three years ago. Fortunately, at the time he was found, the remains were not too decomposed for the pathologist to conclude that he’d died of strangulation. What I mean is, we’ve finally got a confirmed identity, using the DNA samples we took from the body back then and comparing them with Simon Gill’s DNA. And the thing is,’ he looks me directly in the eye, ‘there’s evidence that your husband knew him. Not surprising really, given he’d got his hands on his phone and his passport and his flat keys. Oh, and his car. A Mitsubishi that Gill owned at the time was sold by someone answering your husband’s description, right around the time the re
mains of the real Mr Gill were found near Northfleet.’

  I stare back at him. He sighs extravagantly.

  ‘There’s something else, I’m afraid. That steel wire we found in the jacket from your husband’s desk… it had traces of third-party DNA on it. DNA from Dominic Gill. And the wounds on Gill’s neck were consistent with a sharp-edged instrument being used.’ He gives a grim little smile. ‘Something like wire.’

  I feel a chill starting at the soles of my feet and sliding up over my body, the same sensation you get when you’re succumbing to an anaesthetic. Going under.

  ‘You’re saying my husband killed him?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying, yes. Would you happen to know anything about that, Ms Palmer?’

  I feel blood drain from my face, so fast, I worry for the baby. My hand slips instinctively to my abdomen. ‘No!’ I croak. ‘No, of course not. I know nothing about any of this.’

  And I think about the red-soled trainers, the footsteps running away down the wintry street. The vials of atropine. My husband, a killer.

  ‘Have you ever been to Carlton Court in Hayfield Road, Acton?’

  ‘No,’ I say, then correct myself, reddening again. ‘Well, I’ve seen it from the outside. I’ve never been inside. My husband said it was his old flat. That he lived there with a flatmate.’

  ‘It was a studio flat, and Dominic Gill was the only tenant, until a few months ago. Our forensic sweep came up with contact trace DNA and fingerprints in there for three individuals. The current tenant, Mr Gill and the man who posed as Mr Gill. Your husband.’

  He raises his gaze to eye level and meets mine. We stare at each other for a couple of seconds. I don’t want to say anything more because I don’t want it to be true. But Sutherland doesn’t speak, and I feel I have to fill the silence.

  ‘So that’s it then? You’re certain?’

  ‘There’s enough evidence that the man you were married to killed Dominic Gill for the CPS to prosecute him. If he were still alive. So yes, we’re as certain as we can be, given we can’t question him. We don’t know how exactly the two men met, but your husband attended the job interview at Ellwood Archer that Dominic Gill had been invited to attend. So we can narrow it down to the week or so between the interviews being scheduled and the day of the interview itself, back in September 2015.’

  I look down at my fingers, lacing them and unlacing them. Sutherland glances at my hands, and I’m sure he’s staring at my diamond engagement ring and platinum wedding band. Wondering, as I now am, why I haven’t thought to take them off.

  ‘So your formal statement is that you first met your husband at Ellwood Archer when you were attending a meeting there, on the same day the interviews for finance officer were being held.’

  I nod.

  ‘And he introduced himself as Dominic Gill?’

  ‘Yes.’ With a rapid jolt of memory, I can picture the suit he was wearing. It didn’t fit, as though he had borrowed it from a slightly smaller man.

  As if it had recently been worn by someone else.

  I push the thought from my mind. Right now, I’m not ready to share this information with DS Sutherland. Looks like he’s made up his mind about what happened anyway. Why would he need even more evidence? He seems to have more than enough already.

  Sutherland is looking down at the file in front of him, skim-reading it. ‘…And then you met up with him again in October and the two of you started dating… he proposed on New Year’s Eve and you married in April of the following year.’

  I nod, twisting the wedding ring on my finger.

  ‘And, just to confirm, you had no suspicion that he was anyone other than Dominic Stephen Gill?’

  I think back to the little anomalies. The tiny signs that I was only too happy to ignore.

  ‘No, not at all,’ I say. ‘I’d be more than happy to take a lie detector test to that effect.’

  For Christ sake, why did you say that? I ask myself. What do you think this is, an episode of Law and Order?

  DS Sutherland’s sorrowful expression returns, as he closes the cover of the file. ‘That won’t be necessary, Ms Palmer.’

  * * *

  April arrives, with its cloud of blossom and canopy of acid-bright greenery.

  I sign the documents selling my interest in Comida Catering Ltd and bank a substantial sum of money. I attend my first antenatal ultrasound appointment as Alice Palmer, having first removed the rings from my left hand and shoved them into the back of a drawer. And I receive a Metropolitan Police compliment slip, with three handwritten words Please See Attached.

  The attached is a formal document, a ‘Recorded Crime Outcome’, confirming that there would be sufficient evidence to charge the individual using the alias Ben MacAlister with the murder of Dominic Stephen Gill, if said individual were still alive.

  A check of the envelope reveals nothing more. I take out my phone and enter DS Sutherland’s number.

  ‘So what happens next?’ I demand.

  ‘I’m not sure I follow, Ms Palmer,’ he says in the tone of someone whose attention and patience are elsewhere.

  ‘To the case. To finding out what happened.’

  He sighs down the line. ‘The thing is, when the suspect is deceased, a case can only remain open if we believe that there are other potential offenders involved. But we’re satisfied that your former husband was the only person responsible for Mr Gill’s death. The CPS won’t look at prosecuting a dead person: that’s the bottom line. It’s not a worthwhile use of their overstretched resources.’

  ‘But we still need to know who he was, surely?’ I persist.

  ‘The details will remain on file with the Missing Person’s Unit and there’ll be a photo and details on their website, in case further information comes to light, but it won’t be pursued as an active enquiry any more. I’m sure you understand: we just don’t have the manpower.’

  ‘So that’s it?’ I can’t keep the desperation from my voice.

  ‘There’s about to be an inquest into the death of Dominic Gill too, which will draw a line under things for his family, and allow them to plan the funeral.’

  I say nothing, but Simon Gill’s face comes into my mind. It may not have been his younger brother in that coffin, but he will be burying his brother after all.

  ‘And the Coroner has released the remains of your husband for burial, if you… if that—’

  ‘I’ve got to go. Thank you.’ I hang up hurriedly, pressing my hand over my mouth as if I’m attempting to supress a scream. Then, exhaling hard, I scroll through Contacts and make another call.

  Thirty-Three

  Alice

  Now

  ‘I told you not to phone.’ The Yorkshire accent is more pronounced over the phone, flat and slightly nasal. ‘I told you I’d phone you.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’ This comes out as a whine.

  ‘And that’s because I don’t have any free time in which to work on your case. I did explain to you how I’m fixed.’ He emphasises every other word, as though speaking to a child.

  ‘Yes, but things have changed since then.’ I’m aware that I sound desperate. I am desperate. ‘There have been more developments.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Palmer, but, like I said, I can only offer you the name of one of my industry associates.’ He hangs up.

  I sit on the edge of my bed, head in hands. My stomach feels gassy, crampy, and I lurch into the bathroom and sit on the closed toilet seat for a few minutes, until the sensation has passed. I seem to have permanent indigestion these days. I gulp down a mouthful of Gaviscon, grab my bag and walk to the tube station to catch a train to Whitechapel.

  * * *

  James Cardle is not pleased to see me and doesn’t attempt to hide it.

  My first few attempts to get into his office are ignored. Then a man in a suit comes out of the building, opening the front door for me, and I take the lift to the second floor.

  ‘Was that you ringing the bell?’ Cardle ask
s tersely, opening the door to me. ‘Only I was with a client. Thought you might have worked that out for yourself.’

  Once again he doesn’t offer me a seat, but I sit down on the sofa anyway.

  ‘You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,’ he says grudgingly. He’s wearing a pink-and-white gingham shirt and dark blue chinos; the sleeves of the shirt rolled up to reveal brawny forearms. This is the first time I’ve seen him standing up and he’s tall as well as broad; I estimate about 6’3”.

  ‘Please just let me explain why I’ve come back,’ I say. ‘And if you still aren’t interested in helping me, then I’ll leave you in peace, I promise.’

  He raises an eyebrow, but sits down opposite me anyway. ‘Really? Hold you to that, can I?’

  I manage a faint smile, before filling him in on the Met’s conclusion that the real Dominic Gill was killed by the man calling himself Ben MacAlister. I tell him about the note left for me, but not about the trainers I found, or the atropine. I’m not ready to give voice to those awful thoughts: not yet.

  ‘Only it turns out Ben MacAlister was also just an alias,’ I say with more sangfroid. ‘He used a passport in that name, but it was fake.’

  Cardle narrows his eyes at me. ‘But, if I understand you correctly, the police have now closed the case. That’s a good thing, surely?’

  I stare at him. ‘Well no, of course it’s not. I still want answers.’

  ‘We have a saying where I come from: least said, soonest mended. Maybe that’s advice you should be following.’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ I say quietly.

  I can tell that he’s trying to employ patience, and that this doesn’t come naturally to him. ‘Look – the guy was a conman, and now he’s dead. Which means he can’t take you to the cleaners in a divorce, which it sounds like he was planning to.’ He twists the heavy gold watch on his wrist, not so subtly checking the time. ‘So, if you want my professional opinion, you’re better off leaving well alone and moving on with your life. So you don’t know this bloke’s real name – so what? What difference does it make? He was just some dangerous psychopath who wanted to rip you off.’ Cardle’s tone is brisk, but not unkind. He stands up.