These Little Lies

by GRETTA MULROONEY

  ‘My name is Serena. I do what I love and love what I do. I live in a world of rich sensations. Pain and pleasure are my exquisite weapons. I can be subtle or strong. I can make you laugh, scream or cry. I can take you to extremes. I can take you to heights you’ve only dreamed of.

  ‘Then there’s an extensive, eye-watering menu of all the things Serena can do for you. Or to you. I suppose that’s how Visser finds a release for his controlling nature. I can see why he’d feel so guilty about his wife. He was regularly playing in Serena’s world of rich sensations. Bit of a difference from the worthy Lauren and her causes.’ She wondered if he enjoyed the guilt, if it was another form of masochism.

  ‘Expensive too, I suppose. Couple of hundred quid a month?’ Ali said.

  ‘Are you thinking you can’t afford Serena on a sergeant’s pay? She might offer special rates for public servants.’

  Ali laughed uneasily and bit into his apple to mask his discomfort. ‘What do you make of it though, guv? A man like that with a wife, a lovely house and a beezer job wanting to play sex games.’

  She looked at Ali, naïve and sheltered from the big wide world in a cosy marriage, with amusement. ‘I don’t make anything much of it. I could cite a number of famous men who appear to have it all but wander off-piste for other delights. It’s Visser’s life and he can do what he likes with it. What I can’t stand is his hypocrisy. Lying to his wives and not wanting to talk about it in front of me. As if I care if he wants to pay to be tied up or spanked or whatever. Right, can you get on to the Met? I want someone to call on Ms Davis and verify Visser’s story. Careful you don’t choke on that apple.’

  * * *

  Patrick took the call from Mrs Visser while the guv and Ali were interviewing her son. She sounded hesitant. She’d answered the door when he’d gone to arrest Visser and her anxious face had upset him. She reminded him of how his own mother looked after Noah had the stroke. He thought she was going to enquire about what was happening with Visser but she had something else on her mind.

  ‘I’ve found something and I’ve been so worried about it. I think I need to speak to Inspector Drummond. It might affect what’s happening with my son.’

  ‘She’s not available right now.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well . . . I suppose it can wait. It’s just that I was hoping to go home tomorrow morning. It’s my fault. I should have contacted you before now. Are you the policeman who was here earlier?’

  ‘That’s right. What have you found?’

  ‘Well . . . I found it in a drawer. It’s a postcard with paper scissors glued on and paint that looks like blood.’

  ‘I’ll come round, Mrs Visser. Don’t touch the card. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

  Patrick hurried out to his car, squirting some water on his face and wiping it off with a tissue. God, he was tired. Noah hadn’t gone to bed until after midnight and then had a restless night, calling out in his sleep. At 2 a.m., he’d needed the loo and fallen on his way there. He was like a ton of bricks to lift. Patrick had dozed in fits and starts after that. Then the carer had arrived late again this morning, rushed and apologetic, so that he hadn’t even had time for a shower. He sniffed his armpits, hoping he’d remembered deodorant. Just in case, he reached into the glove compartment for a roll on, undoing a shirt button and dabbing it on quickly. This was life nowadays. All fits and starts and making do.

  When Mrs Visser let him in, she said, ‘Why have you arrested Ade? I don’t understand. He wouldn’t have killed two people.’

  ‘He’s helping us with enquiries. That’s all I can say for now.’

  She pressed her lips together, her mouth drawing down. She looked haggard. ‘You’d better come to the kitchen.’

  He followed her into the airy, gleaming room. She pulled open a drawer. ‘The card is in there, just below the leaflets.’

  He pulled on gloves and took the leaflets out, exposing the postcard below. He removed it, looked at both sides and then placed it in an evidence bag. He took a photo of each side with his phone. ‘When did you find this?’

  ‘On Tuesday evening. I was looking for cutlery. I have touched it. I took it out to look at it and then I put it back. I know I should have called you straight away.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  Instead of answering she said, ‘Will you have a coffee with me?’

  It was like a plea. ‘Okay, thanks. Black for me.’ It would help keep him awake. ‘I just need to make a call.’

  He stepped out into the hallway, closed the door behind him, and called the guv. She was at her desk, so he sent her a photo and filled her in on what Mrs Visser had found.

  He went back into the kitchen and sat at the glass-topped table looking out to the manicured garden. The house was so shiny and uncluttered, so quiet. He’d love to live somewhere like this, in an elegant street. The messy semi that he shared with Noah fronted the busy road leading out of town to the beach. The living room vibrated every time a bus went past, and having the windows open meant you tasted diesel fumes. The coffee was proper stuff in a cafetière that Mrs Visser brought to the table on a tray with mugs and a plate of biscuits. She put two placemats down. Despite her agitation, she was being a polite host. He thought she’d be the kind of woman who always held things together. Bit like the guv, from what he’d seen of her.

  He took two biscuits. He hadn’t had time to eat yet today. ‘Did you tell your son about finding the postcard?’

  ‘No. I wanted to but I just couldn’t find a way. He’s been so distraught and I didn’t know what to make of it. It’s such a peculiar thing. It didn’t come through the post. Do you think Lauren might have made it herself?’

  He thought it unlikely. Maybe Visser had, threatening her with what was to come and maybe his mother had thought that. Mrs Visser was chewing her lip. ‘Are you frightened of your son?’ he asked.

  ‘What? No! That’s not why I didn’t speak to him about it. I felt confused. This has all been so hard to deal with. But after you asked him to go to the station with you, I realized I had to. What do you think it means? Was someone threatening Lauren?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll have to send it for forensic testing. That might tell us something. Why didn’t you contact us straight away?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I was shocked. I couldn’t think clearly but I’ve been worrying about it, knowing I should have. I’m sorry.’ Mrs Visser looked out to the garden. The sky had darkened and it had started to rain, a light drizzle. She spoke angrily. ‘Sometimes I really do wonder if everything is just random and pointless, whether there’s any meaning to anything in this life.’

  He stared at her profile and took a long drink to steady himself. It was strange to hear those raw sentiments from this well-mannered, carefully dressed woman with her Home Counties accent. He had often had those exact thoughts himself since what happened to Noah. He tried to keep them at bay with work but in quiet moments, they crept into his mind.

  On the way back to the station he called in to check on Noah. It wasn’t a day for the social centre so his brother was on his own for part of it. He was calling in because at four o’clock that morning he’d wished Noah dead. The medics had said that he might have another stroke, that if you’d had one, there might be more. Lying half awake in his bed, Patrick had wished that his brother would have another stroke that would finish him off, liberating both of them. He might live for years, slowly deteriorating and becoming more dependent. Patrick’s life would continue in its current rut, a pattern of juggling work, tending to Noah and trying to keep the house afloat.

  Noah was sitting in his adapted chair in the living room, amid the usual tide of clutter that always spread around him. They had a cleaner who came for a couple of hours a week but she only had time to touch the surface. The house always smelled a bit ripe, like an animal’s burrow, and the kitchen was a minefield of sticky patches and dropped foods. As Patrick came through the front door, he spotted a piece of toast and jam on the carpet that must
have escaped from Noah’s tray in transit.

  Noah was reading a book on his iPad, which was sitting in a special arm attachment on his chair. A soap opera was flickering on the TV screen with the volume low. The kind of programme Noah would have mocked not so long ago, saying that daytime telly was for saddos. He looked up as Patrick came in and gave his lopsided smile and a slightly mistimed, floppy high five.

  ‘Crime novel,’ he said indistinctly. ‘Page sixty. I’ve already guessed who did it.’

  ‘Glad you have, bro, ’cause I haven’t a clue about the murders we’re working on. You okay?’

  Noah grimaced. He’d been the good-looking one of the two brothers but now his face was chubby and his neck was vanishing into folds of flesh. ‘Sorry I woke you up last night. Naff.’

  ‘It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. What time did the carer leave?’

  ‘Just gone nine. Didn’t have time to give me a shower because of running late. I managed a sort of wash so not too pongy.’

  Patrick felt a flash of annoyance. ‘That’s not right. I’m going to complain.’

  ‘Oh, don’t sweat it. I’ll survive a day unshowered. Love a cuppa though, managed to spill most of the last one.’

  A lorry crashed its gears outside and the window rattled. Noah was smiling. How did he stay so cheerful, sitting here day after day trapped in his own body, listening to the traffic grind its way to and from the coast? He used to take his surfboard there, run the path to the headland. He’d been a lean, fit machine until the evening someone found him collapsed on the coast path. The GP had told their weeping mother that it was just one of those things. She’d said it wasn’t fair that this should happen to a fit young man who looked after himself but Patrick knew life didn’t work like that. He’d been a police constable for a while by then and he’d seen plenty of decent people whose lives had been shattered by random events.

  He glanced at his watch. The carer wasn’t due for another two hours — if she was punctual, which was unlikely. He didn’t have time. The guv would wonder where he’d got to. ‘Okay. Camomile time of day for you, right?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Siv looked at the time and rang Patrick. She was curt with him, asking where he’d got to. How long did it take to bag an item and bring it back? He was on his way, he said jumpily.

  Siv had spoken to Visser again. When she showed him the photo of the postcard and told him where his mother had found it, he looked as if a truck had hit him. He said he’d never seen it before and had no idea what it meant. She’d believed him and sent him back to his cell. Now Ali was perched on the corner of her desk, swinging a leg, while she finished the call to Patrick.

  ‘He sounds knackered,’ she said. ‘Is there something going on with him? He looks unfocused at times and I saw him asleep in his car the other day.’

  Ali fingered his beard. ‘He has a tricky time at home, guv. He lives with his brother, Noah. Noah had a stroke a couple of years ago and it left him pretty disabled. So Patrick has a lot of caring to do.’

  ‘No one else around?’

  ‘They lived with their mum but she died six months after Noah had the stroke.’

  ‘It would have been helpful if someone had told me about this.’ Mortimer should have told her.

  ‘Sorry, guv. Noah has carers going in and some days he attends a centre, but it’s still a big responsibility for Patrick.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks for telling me now. So — this postcard. I think Visser was telling the truth when he said he knew nothing about it. Either Lauren made it herself, which seems unlikely, or someone gave it to her or posted it through the letterbox.’

  ‘If she came home and found it, why not tell anyone and why keep it in a drawer?’

  ‘I can imagine she might do that out of shock. People shove red bills, debt letters and other post they don’t want to think about in drawers. Out of sight, out of mind.’ Mutsi used to until their father or a new man with a healthy bank balance bailed her out. What I don’t see I don’t worry about. They’d twice been threatened with electricity disconnection and on one terrible morning, the bailiffs had turned up. It was why Siv was always so careful to pay all her bills on time.

  ‘Interesting that she didn’t tell her husband.’

  ‘Along with other things. She certainly kept him out of the loop when she wanted to. But now I think this might be what she wanted to talk to Seaton about when she asked to meet him. He says they’d been close, confiding in each other, and maybe she missed that. We can now say with some assurance that the weapon used was scissors and that Lauren was definitely the primary target. Can you let Steve Wooton know about this and tell him we’re sending the postcard for testing? Here’s Patrick at last.’

  He came in, perspiring and holding the evidence bag out like a peace offering. ‘Sorry, guv. Mrs Visser wanted to talk and then the traffic was bad.’

  He had a husky voice, a catch in his throat. He sounded more like a smoker than Ali did. Siv examined the card on both sides. Homemade, a bit messy. She read out the message. ‘You will be the one to feel the pain soon enough. The underlined “You” implying that someone else had felt the pain before? So perhaps this was a revenge killing.’ She passed it to Ali and turned back to Patrick. ‘What did Mrs Visser have to say?’

  ‘She found the card on Tuesday evening when she was looking for cutlery. She was frightened by it. Sort of frozen, I’d say. She looks as if she can’t believe what’s going on. She said she didn’t tell Visser about it because he’s been so upset. I got the impression she tiptoes around him.’

  ‘If he was a difficult husband then he’s probably a difficult son,’ Ali said.

  ‘I asked her if she was frightened of Visser but she said no. She contacted us because we’d brought him in and she realized this might be important evidence. Maybe she wonders if he did it and thought she was protecting him.’

  Siv glanced at him. He was holding onto the back of a chair. He looked hot and rushed. That had been a good question to ask Mrs Visser. A strange detachment seized her. She had a sensation of being outside herself and regarding the three of them talking. It had happened a couple of times in the last few months but not recently. She licked her dry lips, aware that she was speaking a little too loudly. ‘Thanks, Patrick. Ade Visser has now told us that he went to visit a sex worker in London in the early hours of Monday morning and reiterated that he didn’t get back home until nine thirty. We’re asking the Met to check out Ms Davis, the sex worker. If it all adds up, he can’t have stuck the scissors in his wife and Rimas. Ali, can you get this evidence over to Steve?’

  Ali took the hint and left the office.

  ‘Sit down a minute, Patrick. Take a breath. I understand that you help to look after your brother.’

  He blushed. ‘Yeah, guv, that’s right. Who told you?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I’m glad I know. You look tired sometimes.’

  He sat up straight. ‘Yeah. I do a good job, though. I don’t slack, guv.’

  ‘Okay and I’m not suggesting you do. But it can be hard when you’re pedalling furiously below water to stay afloat.’

  He bristled. ‘Who says I am?’

  ‘I do. I know because there are times when I am too. It takes one to know one, Patrick.’

  He shot her a surprised look but said nothing. He was behaving like a suspect under questioning and she half expected a no comment.

  ‘That was good work today. This isn’t a pep talk or a guilt trip. We all limp along in life in our own ways. I’m acknowledging that we can carry burdens, but there’s a demanding job to do. Okay?’

  ‘Okay, guv.’

  ‘Right. If there’s anything I need to know about regarding your home situation or anything you think I can help with, let me know. Now, can you get back to Mrs Visser and tell her we need her fingerprints to check against the postcard. I don’t want her going home without that happening.’

  In the main office, Ali nodded to Patrick. ‘You okay?’

>   ‘Yeah. Guv knows about Noah.’

  ‘I told her. She asked about you, wondered if you were all right, so I thought it best.’

  ‘Right. I don’t need her sympathy.’ He chewed at the edge of his thumbnail.

  ‘Hey, big lad, ease back. I don’t think she’s that type. If anything, she can be a bit sharp. Look — she was widowed last year so she knows it can be tough.’

  Patrick nodded. Truth was, he felt relieved that the guv knew. She’d been okay. The previous guv had been a bristling macho type and you could never show weakness. It had encouraged Patrick to stay wound like a spring. He reached for his phone to ring Mrs Visser. Then he was going to get on to the care agency and give them hell.

  * * *

  The dog had been fed and was in his bed, dozing. Monty was getting old, like him. Now it was his turn to eat. There were seven days in a week, so Alan Vine had seven dinners: beef stew, ham and eggs, pork chops, fish and chips, roast or casseroled chicken, macaroni cheese and shepherd’s pie. He varied the sequence so as not to get into too much of a rut. He’d read all the stuff in the papers about keeping active and healthy in old age, and that included the brain. He dreaded losing his marbles and being carried off to some old folks’ home where he’d be fed baby mush. Tonight was pork chops, with mashed potatoes and frozen peas. He’d never married and had always been competent at looking after himself. That’s what the army did for you. Set you up for life. His one-bedroom bungalow was spic and span, everything in its place and as it should be, each task with its allotted time. 5.45 p.m. was time to start dinner.

  He seasoned the chop ready for the oven, then peeled the potatoes and put them on to boil. When he told people he cooked proper meals for himself every day, they seemed amazed. He couldn’t afford convenience food but he wouldn’t want to buy it even if he could. He liked to know what he was eating. He watched the woman over the road when she came back from the supermarket, heaving bags full of frozen stuff into the house. Pizzas and the like. No wonder that whole family was fat. They all had legs like tree trunks. He saw the kids puffing along the pavement and shook his head. He didn’t say anything, of course. You weren’t supposed to express opinions these days. Might hurt someone’s feelings. Alan prided himself on being fit for his age, despite the angina. He walked miles every day, in all weather.