The Stranger You Know (Maeve Kerrigan Novels)

by Jane Casey

  “Sorry. We were playing hide and seek after lunch.” He started dismantling the stack and I muttered something about there being no need to tidy up, distracted by his appearance. It wasn’t the muscles flexing in his forearms or his lean, gym-honed torso that made me stare as he rearranged the room. It was more the fact that, like Shane Poole, he had conformed to the Derwent template as he grew into adulthood. I tried to work out what made them look similar. He was better-looking than Derwent but his hair was cut the same way and his clothes were the sort Derwent wore off duty, as I now knew. He had a very white, very perfect smile, an ad for his orthodontist if what Derwent had said was true. Despite the resemblance to Derwent I thought he was attractive—a handsome face with blue eyes, a square jaw and a straight nose. He turned around at just the wrong moment and caught me staring: I deserved the smirk I got. I sat down on the restored sofa and took my time over getting my notebook out, spending ages looking for my pen although I knew exactly where it was. Derwent would never let me live it down if I let Stuart Sinclair get the upper hand, I thought, and sat up a little bit straighter.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me at such short notice.”

  “Glad to help,” he said, sitting down in an armchair and propping his right ankle on top of his left knee. I could hear Derwent’s opinion of that: only a total plonker sits like that, Kerrigan, no matter how pretty he may be. He wore thick-soled boots and I wondered if he was sensitive about his height. He was a shade shorter than me—five nine to my five eleven, a difference that was negligible when he was wearing such heavy boots. Far from small, anyway, but I remembered Derwent’s description of him and while diet and exercise could put manners on your genetic heritage, height was pretty difficult to change. Being tall myself I couldn’t quite understand why anyone would care; it wasn’t all that amazing to be leggy.

  Quickly, I filled him in on the possible connection between Angela Poole and the three current murders. Each victim got a two-second look from under eyebrows twisted with pity, but no reaction beyond that.

  “And what makes you think there’s a connection?” He handed the three pictures back to me.

  “The MO. That’s modus operandi.”

  “I know. I watch a lot of crime dramas.” A big grin. “Bet you avoid them.”

  “Like the plague. I don’t know how much you remember about Angela’s death—”

  “More than I thought,” he said promptly. “I’ve been thinking about it since you called. It’s all coming back.”

  “Great. Because you’re one of the only people who might have seen Angela’s killer, and I was wondering if you’d managed to recall anything that you didn’t tell the police at the time.”

  He shook his head. “I told them, and I’m telling you now, I saw her boyfriend walking off, just after midnight. Something woke me up a few minutes before that—must have been the poor girl screaming, I suppose.”

  There was something dispassionate about how he spoke about her, especially compared to Derwent’s raw grief. It had been a long time since she died, though. “Did you know her? Angela?”

  “She was the girl next door. I knew about her more than I knew her.”

  “Did you have a crush on her?” I saw him look surprised for the first time and explained what I’d meant. “Because she was the girl next door. That’s what’s supposed to happen, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t remember that.” He smiled. “Anyway, she wouldn’t have looked twice at me. I was short and fat and ugly. And as I said, she had her boyfriend. The one the police wouldn’t arrest for killing her.”

  “He had an alibi.”

  “That must have been wrong. He did it. I saw him.” His eyes were unwavering. He sounded sure and I had to resist the urge to argue with him, to defend Derwent.

  “What exactly did you see? When you got up, before twelve—did you see anything in the garden?”

  “No. Or hear anything. It was summer and my window was open. I leaned out, didn’t hear anything, gave up. That’s why I went back to bed.”

  “And then…”

  “I got worried. I thought I’d go and look out of another window.”

  “At the front.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the main bedroom, isn’t it? Your parents’ room?”

  “My mum’s. My dad had left us.” A flash of the white teeth. “I’ve got over it now, but I missed him at the time.”

  “So you went in and looked out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she was in bed, asleep, or…”

  “I don’t remember.” He raised his eyebrows. “You’re very interested in the details, aren’t you?”

  There was no easy way to say it. “I don’t believe you really did look out of the window upstairs at the front.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” His voice was still pleasant but his fingers were digging into the uppermost leg, his knuckles white.

  “I think you’ve told the story so often you almost believe it yourself, but you didn’t see anyone walking away at a minute after twelve. You didn’t like Angela’s boyfriend and you wanted him to get into trouble, so you said you’d seen him. You didn’t know about his alibi, and once you’d said it, you had to keep saying it.”

  He was shaking his head. “No. Wrong.”

  “He was mean to you, wasn’t he? He bullied you. Called you names. You had a massive grudge against him but you were scared of him and this was your chance to get him into trouble like you couldn’t believe. You were fifteen—you probably didn’t even realize how serious it was and that the last thing you should do was lie.”

  “Oh, spare me the psychology.” His face was red now. “I saw someone and I thought it was Josh Derwent. It looked like Josh Derwent.”

  “In what way?”

  “He was tall. Moved fast. He—I don’t know. I was expecting it to be Josh. I thought it was him.” He looked at me again, back to the wide-eyed sincerity. “I really thought it was him.”

  “Thinking again, can you add anything to the description that you didn’t say before?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’d seen Der— Josh Derwent earlier in the evening. Did you describe the clothes you’d seen him wearing? Or was the person you saw really wearing the same color T-shirt as Josh Derwent and similar jeans? Could you tell, in the streetlight, when he was walking away from you at speed?”

  “Okay. Okay. You’re right. I just saw a silhouette, really. He might have been wearing black. Dark colors, anyway.” Stuart touched a hand to his upper lip and looked at it. “I’m actually sweating. You’re pretty good at this, aren’t you?”

  “I do all right.”

  “But you gave something away. You started to call him by his surname. You know him, don’t you? Josh Derwent? He’s a copper, I know that much. Are you mates?” He waited a beat. “Lovers?”

  “I know him. I work with him sometimes. But I’m here because my guv’nor wanted me to find out about Angela’s death, not because of Derwent.”

  “You must get asked that a lot. If you’re in a relationship with him, I mean.”

  “Surprisingly often,” I agreed. “Especially since he’s not my type.” The understatement of the decade.

  “I’ll do you the courtesy of believing you if you’ll do the same for me. I really did think I saw him. I wouldn’t have been able to keep lying about it.” He shuddered. “I’d almost forgotten that guy—Orpen, his name was. He was a beast. A real old-fashioned copper. I was terrified every time he spoke to me. He always seemed to be trying to stop himself from lashing out. Met him?”

  “A pleasure that awaits me,” I said with a smile.

  “You’re in for a treat.” He checked his watch. “Wow. Time marches on. Is there anything else?”

  I ran through my usual questions about seeing strangers or strange cars, to which he replied in the negative.

  “Do you recall anything else from that night? Even after the body was discovered? The noise and lights must ha
ve disturbed you.”

  “They must have. I don’t really remember.”

  I found that very hard to believe, but then I had been fascinated by the police and their work since I was about five. A murder next door would have been more entertaining than the best soap opera. “Did you see the police? The ambulance?”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “What about Angela’s body?”

  “No.” He looked edgy. “Why do you ask?”

  “There are similarities in the crime scenes we’ve been processing. It looks as if someone familiar with how Angela’s body was left is perpetrating these crimes. I’m just trying to work out how many people could have seen her there. But you said you couldn’t see anything from the window.”

  “No.” He pulled at his lip. “Is this important?”

  “Very. Do you know if there were photographs circulating in school, or outside it? Were you aware of people talking about it, even?”

  “No. But…” He went into the hall and came back with a brown leather messenger bag, an expensive man bag that Derwent would have described, instantly and implacably, as gay, and would not have meant that as a compliment. He took out a battered iPad and tapped at the screen before handing it to me. “If you want to know who’s seen Angela’s body, you’d better see this.”

  I stared at it, not understanding for a second. There, filling the entire screen, was the close-up of Angela’s face that I’d seen in the file, her hair caught up in flowers, her eyelids drawn down over empty sockets. “What the fuck?”

  Instead of an answer a long, miserable wail cut through the air and I jumped.

  “It’s the monitor. Oliver’s up.” Stuart picked up a white handset and poked at it until the noise stopped. “Thank God for mute.”

  In the distance there was a faint shadow of a scream, coming from the top of the house.

  “Do you think you should go and get him?” I asked.

  “Probably.” He was still staring at me, trying to read me. “You know what that is, don’t you?”

  “A crime-scene picture of Angela Poole.”

  “Scroll down. There’s more. I could not believe it when I saw it. I’m sure you feel the same way.”

  I did as he suggested, distracted by the crying from upstairs. It was getting louder and more high-pitched by the second. “How did you find this? What is this website?”

  “It’s a blog called Crime-scene Shots. I’d never heard of it. After we spoke I was thinking about Angela and I don’t know, I just thought I should search for her name online to see if there had been any developments I didn’t know about, and that came up.”

  I swore under my breath as pictures slipped down the screen, images I hadn’t even seen in the file. “Anyone could have seen this.”

  “Anyone with access to the Internet,” Stuart agreed. Reluctantly, he edged toward the door. “Better go up.”

  “Yeah, I’ll wait.”

  “Well.” He checked his watch again. “It’s just that my wife will be coming back, and I didn’t tell her you were going to be here.”

  “I’m good at explaining things,” I said, not moving.

  “I don’t want to have to tell her about Angela. It’s history. Nothing to do with who I am now.”

  “I’ll be gone in five minutes,” I promised and he looked as if he was about to say something else, but then changed his mind and left. I heard him taking the stairs two at a time.

  He was back quickly, holding a red-headed boy of about fourteen months with his thumb lodged in his mouth. The child was wearing a vest and nappy and still had tears on his cheeks, which were flushed. Teething, I thought, remembering my nieces and their misery as the incredibly sharp baby teeth cut through their gums.

  “Is he all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “Is it his molars? They’re awfully sore when they’re coming through.”

  Stuart shrugged. “Could be. It’s always something.” The boy was leaning away from him and he bent down to let him stand on the floor. “There you go, Oliver. Find a toy. Plenty of them about.”

  Oliver looked at me, then turned around to check the rest of the room. Finding no one else, he collapsed to the floor and gave an anguished howl.

  “Missing Mummy,” Stuart said over the noise. “I definitely come second compared to her. Was there anything else?”

  “Do you remember anyone behaving differently after Angela’s death? Erratic behavior, seeming upset, or changing their routine?”

  “Yeah. One person. Josh Derwent.” He shook his head. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I still think he was guilty.”

  “If he was, there would have been some evidence to prove it.”

  “He had an answer for everything. He made up a story and got away with it, but he killed her.” On the floor, Oliver was coughing and crying alternately, snot running down his upper lip in two gray-green rivers. Stuart bent down to him and ruffled his hair. “Come on, Oliver. Belt up. She’ll be back soon.”

  “If you think of anything else—”

  “I’ll call.” He snatched the card I held out to him and shoved it in his back pocket. “Right. I’ll show you out.”

  He left Oliver in his puddle of misery and disappeared into the hall. I couldn’t just walk past him. I crouched down beside the boy.

  “It’s all right. Your mummy will be back soon. Daddy will play with you once I’m gone.”

  Oliver stared at me, his face blank. I dug in my bag for a tissue and swiped it across his face, heaving slightly as I folded the soggy tissue up. There was no bin in sight so I had to put it back in my bag and I hoped like hell I’d remember it was there before I went looking for something and put my hand in it.

  Stuart was standing in the hall, impatience obvious on his face. When he saw me emerge from the sitting room he opened the door. No long goodbyes, then.

  As I stepped onto the doorstep, a small dark-haired woman was striding up the front path, neat in a gray suit and carrying a briefcase. She stared at me, then looked past me to Stuart.

  “What’s going on?”

  “She’s just leaving.”

  “Who are you?” There was a cry from inside the house and her attention switched to Stuart before I could answer. She was already moving past me. “Was that Oliver? Is he okay? When did he wake up?”

  “Just now.”

  “Shit. I thought he’d sleep for another half-hour at least.” She turned and glowered at me again. “Who are you? Did you say?”

  “Jehovah’s Witness,” came from behind her and I saw Stuart pulling a face, like what could I do? “I did try to discourage her.”

  “I don’t do God,” the woman said to me. “Stu, honestly. I leave you alone for an hour and you let random people into the house. You’re hopeless.”

  “You know me. I can’t be rude.” Over her head he widened his eyes at me. Go away.

  I walked off without saying anything to back him up or undermine him. Behind me, I heard Stuart ask, “How was the interview?” The door closed before I could hear a reply. It made sense that he wasn’t usually left in sole charge of Oliver. He really didn’t seem used to the messy end of parenting. Typical dad, loving the toys and games, hating the snot and nappies, I thought, and couldn’t suppress the thought that the fair-weather dads had the right idea. Wiping snotty noses was not my idea of fun.

  I hoped Stuart didn’t get into too much trouble. If I’d been his wife I would have known he was lying, and I’d have been going through him for a short cut at that very moment. Maybe it was easier to pretend she believed him, given that they had a child. Maybe she didn’t even care that he’d been alone with a relatively nice-looking woman, or that he was prepared to try to mislead her about it.

  Or maybe I was vastly overrating my personal attractiveness. It wasn’t my favorite option, but it was probably the most likely.

  TUESDAY

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I sat in the car waiting for a traffic light to change to gr
een and wished myself absolutely elsewhere. I’d have been nervous enough about interviewing Lionel Orpen, Detective Inspector (retired) on my own. Having to take Derwent along was positively the last straw.

  “Tell me again what he said.”

  “He told me to bring you with me. He said he wanted to see how you’d turned out, and he wanted to tell you some things about the investigation that he’d never told anyone else.” I was beyond bored now with repeating my phone conversation with the retired police officer. Gruff wasn’t the word for his phone manner. Once I’d explained who I was, all he wanted to know was whether I knew Derwent.

  “And then?” Derwent prompted.

  “And then he said he wouldn’t talk to me at all unless you came with me.” I shot a glance at him. “Happy now?”

  “Intrigued.” He grinned. “Glad to be back in the saddle.”

  “You’re not. That’s why you’re not driving.” The car tore away from the lights and I braked, then bit my lip. The accelerator needed to be practically on the floor before the car would move and it was easy to misjudge it. Easy for me, as Derwent had said two minutes after I picked him up. A normal driver would have been fine, apparently. “Remember, you mustn’t tell anyone you were with me. I’m supposed to be doing this on my own.”

  “You need someone to hold your hand, Kerrigan. Firstly, because Lionel is fucking scary. Secondly, because you let Fat Stu run rings around you. And Shaney.”

  I hadn’t told him I’d seen Claire; I hadn’t even mentioned her name. Undoubtedly I would have got that interview wrong too, somehow. Derwent was the worst kind of backseat driver and not just in the car. I was glad to have him along if it made Lionel Orpen more forthcoming but I was seriously considering dumping him by the side of the nearest main road on my way back.

  “Remember, I’m not telling Godley you came with me today. If you let it slip, I’ll get in a ton of trouble.”

  “Relax,” Derwent said, opening the window and sticking his elbow out. Icy wind blasted across my face, blowing my hair into my eyes.