‘You’ll need to do a recorded interview at the station,’ Stephanie said. ‘They may charge you with death by dangerous driving at that point. If so, we’ll get a court date and try to get you out on bail before a court hearing.’
‘And if I can’t get bail?’
‘Then you’ll be put on remand.’ Stephanie turned away from me. Her shoulders shook.
‘What about my children?’
‘I’m sure they’d be able to visit, but with the assault charge too, Social Services could be involved.’ She came and sat in the chair Denise had been in. Her eyes were red.
‘I didn’t assault anyone,’ I said. My jaw ached from clenching and I wriggled my lower jaw around, rubbing the sides with my hands. This can’t be happening.
Denise
I went back to the station and started looking into the background of Lily Gundersen. I knew from Stephanie what a talented musician she had been and about the terrible accident she had in New York State, not the city I discover, still I supposed trapping your hands in doors can happen anywhere, but a part of me wanted it to be somewhere exciting and fantastical.
I wondered why she did it. Stephanie told me she’d hurt her hands purposely. It seemed a strange thing to do, but then my mother always told me terrible things about baby brain and how it made you act unreasonably, irrationally.
As I pushed myself back from my chair, DI Anita Blaine popped into the squad room. ‘What are you up to DJ?’ she said, although I suspected she already knew. Nothing much happened in this police station that Anita Blaine didn’t get wind of.
‘I’m just doing some background checks on Lily Gundersen.’
‘Okay, but don’t waste too much time on it,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at me. ‘That woman’s still responsible for the deaths of an entire family. Don’t forget it.’
‘I won’t,’ I told her, ‘but there are some other things which have come up, and I’d like to look into them.’
‘Okay,’ said DI Blaine, ‘but, as I said. Don’t waste too much time on finding justification for her. Dig up some dirt. She’s a murderer after all.’
Although I knew I shouldn’t ignore a direct command from the guvnor, there is something about Lily Gunderson that made me believe she wasn't a murderer. Call it gut instinct, but I’m not convinced that someone who could produce such beautiful music could be evil at their core. However, if there’s one thing I have learned since joining the Met it’s never judge by appearance. If Lily hadn’t caused the collision, then who had? I needed to request the traffic camera footage from the Highways Agency. I groaned inwardly. It could take forever, especially if I had to convince DI Blaine to request it. Her name carried more weight on a request than mine did.
Chapter Thirteen
Lily
A few days after DC Jones visited me, I was allowed to leave hospital. Unfortunately, this also meant that Mummy had come to stay, so she could help look after me.
I was still on strong painkillers and I spent a lot of time asleep, but I was hoping once I got home and could sleep in my own bed, I would begin to feel more alert. Topher offered to sleep in one of the bedrooms on the first floor so he wouldn’t disturb me or knock my leg during the night. I readily agreed. After his attitude in the hospital, I couldn’t bear him near me.
Surgery on my knee had been postponed indefinitely. Even so, I couldn’t put any weight on my right side until my leg was healed. I was going to be completely helpless.
Before leaving hospital, I was looking forward to seeing how much work on the house had been done in my absence but was extremely disappointed to discover work hadn’t commenced on the garage extension and Topher’s garden office.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked Topher when I got back to the house.
‘Oh, I’ve got no idea,’ he shrugged. ‘The workmen just didn’t turn up. You’ll have to phone them, but leave it until you’re better, hey?’
‘But this was going to be your garden office. You said you needed this so you could spend less time at chambers. I thought that was the whole idea?’
‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter really does it?’ he said. ‘I did tell you I can always work from chambers. After all I’ve been doing it for years.’
‘I guess,’ I said, ‘but it’s a bit of a disappointment for the kids. I think they were looking forward to having you at home more.’
I let the conversation drop, but there was something amiss. Topher had been so keen to have a home office and now he was almost blasé about the workmen not turning up. However, I was going to have to deal with the builders later. Head throbbing, I reached out for the analgesics on the bedside table and swallowed them down with water that mummy had left in reach.
The following morning, I called the building company to discover that, far from not turning up, the work had been cancelled. Apparently, whilst I was in hospital, I’d emailed them to put the work off. I was very apologetic to Mr Yates, the builder, and tried to convince him there was no way I had been emailing anyone whilst I was in hospital. I didn’t need a calculator to see that Topher’s casual dismissal of their no-show and an email cancelling their services added up nicely. Eventually I got Mr Yates to agree to come and see me and bring a copy of the email. I looked around for my laptop. I was going to have to change the password again, but since I kept forgetting them, I had to write them down. Was that why Topher was so calm? Had he cancelled them? I asked mummy to bring me my laptop, but it took forever for her to find it and bring it to me.
‘Lily,’ she said. ‘Why are you always so untidy? I spent ages looking for this. Absolutely ages. You’re always such a mess.’
‘Thanks Mum,’ I said, thinking of the constant nagging about the state of my room when I was younger. Sadly, it did nothing to make me any tidier. I supposed the untidiness was my small rebellion.
‘Thanks for everything you’re doing here,’ I told her. ‘Perhaps you could go home at the weekend? I’m sure we’ll be fine without you. Heather can come in every day; she’ll look after me.’
‘Now, now, you’re just getting depressed again, aren’t you? It’s like the time when you had your accident; when you were depressed about being pregnant.’
‘I wasn’t depressed about being pregnant,’ I retorted.
Mummy looked at me with one of her knowing smiles. Disagreeing with her would be pointless.
She patted my hands. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘She looked at my damaged hands with a moue of disappointment across her face.
‘What’s wrong, Mum? What are you upset about?’
‘Nothing,’ she sighed. ‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘Mummy?’
‘It’s just all that money and time we spent on your violin lessons and taking you to competitions. All that time and money wasted on you, and then you go and ruin it all.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, but it was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose,’ I told her.
‘No, of course not. If you say so. Now then here’s your laptop, is there anything else you want, otherwise I’ve got things to do downstairs.’
‘No Mum. I’m fine,’ I said.
She went to the to the bedroom door and stood leaning against the doorframe staring at me.
‘I would have given anything to have the opportunities you’ve had,’ she said. Her smile was sad, wistful as if she wanted me to feel guilty again. Then she was gone.
I picked up my laptop, logged in and checked my email. After a while I found the email to Mr Yates the builder, cancelling the contract and telling them I would pay monies owed so far, but that was the end of it.
I checked the date. 5th June. The day after the accident. The day I was unconscious. I noted at the bottom of the email, it said sent from my smart phone. I scrabbled around on the bedside cabinet to try and find my phone and yes, the email was there in my sent items, but I couldn’t have sent it. Whilst I was online. I logged on to my bank account and I saw I had indeed paid off Mr Yates. There was even a little bonus in
there.
This was when I was comatose in the hospital. While they were trying to fix my leg. In fact, hadn’t I been in the operating theatre all of that day? It made no sense. Nothing did anymore.
I dashed tears away from my eyes as the door handle was pushed down. Topher. What did he want?
‘I came to make sure you’re okay,’ he said. ‘Do you need anything?’ He strolled across the room and perched on the side of the bed. He traced his fingers down my bare arm. It was all I could do not to snatch it away.
He pretended not to notice how I trembled as he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. Turning my hand over he held my palm to his face. His skin was always so smooth. I hung my head, thinking of earlier times. Times when I had loved stroking his face, his chest, making love to him.
He smiled, but his eyes were cold. He ran his hand back up my arm. ‘I hope you recover soon, Lily. We don’t want to make you wear long sleeves again, do we?’
I snatched my hand back. Bastard! How dare he threaten me again. All the same I was afraid. Scared that he’d commit me again as he had done in the States. My hands had been too severely damaged to be forced into a strait jacket, but he still liked to goad me about it. And with it the underlying threat. Disobey him and I would never see my children again.
‘I’m getting better every day,’ I said.
‘Good to know,’ he said. ‘By the way, the police aren’t getting anywhere finding your Range Rover.’
I frowned. ‘Range Rover?’
‘The one you claim ran you off the road.’
‘How did you know it was a Ranger Rover, Topher?’
‘You told me Lily. When you were in the hospital. Don’t you remember?’ He gave me such a sad smile, I could almost believe his sorrow, but I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart beating. I knew I hadn’t told him about the Range Rover. It came back to me when I spoke to Denise Jones and Stephanie, but I’d not mentioned it to anyone else. Had one of them told him? But if that were the case why would he lie about it? There was only one reason I could think of for him to lie and it was too frightening to countenance.
Terrified by more of his treats and determined that he wouldn’t beat me. I decided to create the plan my therapist had suggested. First of all to make sure I had somewhere to go. I logged onto my credit card account and went through the items. There had been some spend, which was odd since it was quite some time since I’d last seen the card. I haven’t dared tell Topher I’d lost it. I ran my eye down the list of items. Then I stopped at one. What on earth was that for? I looked at it more closely. That was an awful lot of money and not a company name I recognised.
I sighed and shut the laptop. I was exhausted. I decided Google the company name later. No doubt it would all become clear then. It was probably the painkillers making me so tired, I thought. I pushed the laptop away from me, and then remembered Topher would be annoyed if it fell to the floor, so I placed it on the beside cabinet. I removed one of the pillows from under my head, put it onto the floor and snuggled down so I could rest.
Chapter Fourteen
Lily
Life continued in the same vein for a while. Not unhappily, but Mummy refused to go home and stayed to look after me. After a while even James, usually her favourite, had taken refuge in my bedroom and was asking when Granny would be going home.
‘Soon sweetheart,’ I said, ‘Granny will be going home very soon.’
There was a knock on the door, and it opened to reveal a bunch of expensive flowers. Roses, lilies; all my favourites. I frowned as the door opened wider. The flowers shimmied, pollen dropping to the carpet as the bouquet shook and the plastic wrapping crackled. Stephanie giggled, unable to keep up the pretence. James rushed to hug her, and she bent down to give him a kiss and a cuddle.
‘Now you go and find Granny, darling,’ she said. ‘Auntie Stephanie needs to talk to Mummy.’
I patted the bed, and she came and squatted beside me and gave me a huge hug.
‘I’m so pleased to see you,’ I told her. ‘I’m going out of my mind with boredom sitting here.’
‘Yes, I’ve phoned a few times and I’ve been put off by your mother. How are things with Lillian, by the way?’
‘I just want her to go, but she says it’s her duty to stay with me as I’m injured,’ I groaned. ‘I’m sure she wants to torture me.’
‘Yeah, I’m not sure I could have coped with my mum staying for longer than a weekend,’ said Stephanie. ‘When’s the knee operation?’
‘Good news on that front. I don’t need one, apparently. They told me the leg is mending well. I might need an operation sometime in the future, as I get older. But for now, as soon as I can put weight on my leg again, I’ll be back to my old self.’
‘That is good news, and you’re definitely looking better. More roses in your cheeks than at your anniversary party. Have you stopped taking those dreadful tablets?’
‘Yes, yes,’ I told her. Although in fact I haven’t. They seemed to help push everything to one side and I’d spent most of the last few weeks asleep. Mother had been threatening to give me bed baths, which was an absolute nightmare, so I managed to hobble to the bathroom to wash. But life was continuing, and I’d managed to persuade the builders to come back. Work progressed in the garden. I could stagger over to watch their headway from the window. I could dress and Topher had organised a wheelchair for me, which meant I could get around up here, but I was trapped on the top floor. I tried the stairs but couldn’t manoeuvre the steps and crutches. My jailers, as I’d come to see them, were furious when I threw the crutches downstairs and slid down on my bottom. Topher insisted I stayed up in my room. I sighed. I looked at Stephanie and said, ‘I am so bored. I have read all the books on my “to be read” pile. I am just going out of my mind with boredom.’
Stephanie laughed. ‘Well, you’ll be pleased to see what I brought you then.’ She dug into the bunch of flowers and pulled out two small cans of gin and tonic.
‘You absolute star,’ I told her. ‘There are some glasses in the bathroom.’
‘Oh goody,’ she said, ‘I did wonder if we would be drinking out of mugs like we did when we were teenagers.’
I laughed, thinking of the many times we’d sneaked out of lectures and gone to sit by the lake at our university, watching the geese and drinking gin and tonic out of plastic bottles, leaning our backs against the faux standing stones, which were placed around the lake.
She returned my smile. ‘Thoughts?’
‘I was just thinking about university.’
She giggled. ‘Ha ha, yes, I remember only too well. We did have fun didn’t we? Well, when you weren’t going off to do yet more practice. You were always so dedicated.’
‘It’s funny you should say that. I had a similar conversation with Mum two or three days ago. She remembers it quite differently.’
‘Your mother remembers everything differently. For what it’s worth, I remember you being very focused. You knew exactly what you wanted to do,’ Stephanie mused. ‘Still, I didn’t come here to talk about the fabulous Lillian. I’ve got other problems, like a stalker.’
‘What?’ I gasped. ‘Not John? Still?’ Stephanie had been threatened once before but, when it was over, she resumed with her string of men. None of them lasted for more than a month or two. ‘You didn’t tell me how you met him,’ I said.
‘At a ghastly January Christmas dinner,’ she pulled her mouth down into a sad face.
I laughed and gave her the sympathy she desired. ‘So, what happened,’ I asked.
‘Well we started seeing each other on and off through February and before Easter it was definitely been on,’ she sighed. ‘Then he got too clingy and I ended it. Now, well?’ She shrugged. ‘Why can’t they take no for an answer?’
‘I don’t know darling,’ I said. ‘Perhaps because you’re too beautiful?’
She laughed. ‘That should show them I’m out of their league,’ she sniffed and looked out of the window. ‘Tell me what’s
happening outside. You seem to have the workmen back again.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s the last job. They finally came back and are building a double garage for our cars so we don’t have to park out front or in the rear alley anymore and then Topher is having a garden office built.’
‘Oh a garden office? Is that where he’s going to hide all his porn?’ Stephanie giggled again.
‘I don’t know if he’s got any porn,’ I said. ‘He’s Danish not Swedish.’
Stephanie looked at me. ‘What you never go through his stuff?’
‘No, never. I’m not that kind of wife. Everybody has to have some secrets.’ I tried to turn my mind away from scouring credit card bills, but the curiosity is overwhelming. ‘Stephanie, did you tell Topher about the Range Rover?’
‘No, why would I? I assumed you’d mention it.’
My blood froze. Goosebumps flared on my entire body. I rubbed my arms to warm myself. Sweat beaded on my forehead. If Stephanie hadn’t told him, how did he know the vehicle’s make? It must have been Heather. That was the only logical answer. Or was it?
‘I wouldn’t be able to resist going through his stuff,’ said Stephanie. She turned away from the window to smile at me. ‘I’d be in amongst everything he had. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.’
‘Yes, well, you always were a lot nosier than me.’
‘I don’t know how you can’t be. I just love to know everything about people.’ Stephanie shrugged again and wrinkled her nose at me.
‘Is that what why you became a solicitor?’ I asked.
‘Possibly,’ Stephanie said, the tooth glass of gin and tonic halfway to her mouth. She took a sip and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘I do know an awful lot about people’s lives now,’ she said. ‘Some of it I don’t particularly want to know. Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk about me. I came to talk about you. So, you’ve got the builders back. Did you get to the bottom of how they got cancelled?’
The Love Trap: an unputdownable psychological thriller Page 6
