The Order of Things

by Graham Hurley

  It was a colleague in A & E who broke the news to Oona about the overnight admission to the ICU. He was Irish too, an acting registrar from County Carlow.

  ‘Woman called Lizzie Hodson. Thought you ought to know.’

  Oona was preparing a line of trolleys. She toyed with a box of scalpels.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘Heart failure after suffocation.’

  ‘Shit. And you’re telling me she’s still alive?’

  ‘Just. The cop may have got to her in time. The jury’s out.’

  ‘Cop? You got a name by any chance?’

  ‘Afraid not. Either way, he’s probably down for a medal. Just thought you’d like to know.’

  ‘Great.’ Oona forced a smile. ‘Thanks.’

  Suttle got his head down in one of the rooms at headquarters reserved for overnight visitors. He slept fitfully, waking from time to time to try and still the voices in his head. It was Caton, always Caton. Sometimes she was dressed as a squaw. Other times she was stark naked, plodding heavily after him, her head down, a bent, menacing figure growing slowly bigger. It was the worst kind of nightmare, denied any kind of resolution, and when he finally surfaced it was to find Luke Golding at the door.

  He knew what had happened. Houghton had given him the gist.

  ‘You should have phoned me, boss.’

  ‘Bollocks. It was three in the morning.’

  ‘I meant afterwards.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It can’t have been …’ he shrugged ‘… a riot of laughs.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Suttle was rubbing his eyes. ‘Give Oona a bell. Tell her I did my best.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Just tell her. See what she makes of it.’

  Houghton had scheduled the next Bentner interview for midday. Suttle washed and shaved with one of the overnight kits before phoning Lizzie’s mother in Portsmouth. He briefly explained what had happened and gave her contact details at the hospital. If she wanted to come down to be with her daughter, she was welcome to stay at his flat in Exmouth. She was shocked. She’d be down as soon as possible. She said she’d find somewhere closer to the hospital to stay.

  Suttle drove across to Heavitree. Rosie Tremayne and Colin Myers were waiting for him in an office off the Custody Suite. Houghton had already briefed them about events overnight.

  Rosie had just finished reading the notes Suttle had made.

  ‘That must have been a tough thing to do.’

  ‘It was. Tougher for Lizzie, though.’

  Rosie nodded, held his gaze, said nothing. She thinks I played God, Suttle thought. And she’s probably right.

  The interview started early. Suttle had given Bentner’s solicitor partial disclosure. He’d taken a call from Lizzie. She had intruders in the house. One of them had been Gemma Caton. The phone had stayed on. He’d monitored what followed while he raced into Exeter. Mercifully, he’d been able to intervene in time to get his ex-wife out of the burning bedroom. God willing, she’d be up for a full recovery.

  The solicitor made some notes and then enquired what charges these women would now be facing.

  ‘They were arrested for breaking and entering,’ Suttle said, ‘but I imagine it’ll go a lot further than that. They tried to burn her alive. That’s arson and attempted murder in my book.’

  Bentner was waiting in the interview room when Tremayne and Myers arrived. Ten minutes with his solicitor appeared to have changed him. He seemed less defensive. Some of the wariness, the gloom, appeared to have lifted. Suttle was monitoring the interview on a video feed, curious about this change of mood.

  Bentner wanted to know more about the events of last night. Tremayne filled in the gaps in the account Bentner had got from his solicitor. A fellow officer had been in the happy position of eavesdropping on more or less everything. Ms Caton, it seemed, had been agitated about a woman called Kelly Willmott. She believed Lizzie had learned information from Michala Haas that would have been valuable to the police. Hence the need to silence her.

  Bentner said nothing. Then he wanted to know more about Lizzie Hodson.

  ‘I understand she’s some kind of journalist. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re telling me she knew Michala?’

  ‘Yes. She had dinner with Michala and Ms Caton earlier this week.’

  Mention of Michala Haas won Bentner’s total attention. It appeared to be news that she too had been at Lizzie’s house last night.

  ‘What was she doing there?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. It appears that she may have been in the property before Ms Caton arrived.’

  ‘Staying, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re telling me she’s here? In a cell? Arrested?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you talked to her yet?’

  ‘No. We have that pleasure to come.’ Tremayne leaned forward over the desk. ‘You know we had an opportunity to listen to the conversation last night. Mainly between Caton and Lizzie. That conversation throws a great deal of light on what happened to your partner, Harriet. Before we go any further, Mr Bentner, we’d like to give you the opportunity of sharing your version of events.’

  ‘I’ve already told you.’

  ‘You told us you went to Tesco in the middle of the night. We checked. That turned out to be a lie. You were never in the store. You also told us that you got a call just before midnight. Which was when you decided to go shopping. You said the call was from Harriet. It certainly came from her phone, but we suspect it might not have been her.’ She softened the suggestion with a smile. ‘Can you help us here?’

  Bentner thought hard about the question. Then he asked about Michala. What had she said last night?

  ‘Very little.’

  ‘But she’s charged too?’

  ‘We think she laid the fire. Then lit it. Watched what happened afterwards. That’s certainly arson. It may also turn out to be murder.’ Tremayne paused. ‘Why Michala? Why is she implicated?’

  Bentner shook his head, refused to comment. He seemed to be back in a world of his own, but Tremayne had definitely touched a nerve. Michala, Suttle thought. It’s all about Michala.

  Tremayne, it turned out, shared exactly the same thought. Without binding Buzzard to any definite offer, she hinted that a full account from Bentner might help Michala’s defence in court. Evidentially, she hadn’t got a prayer. Arson alone was an extremely serious offence. At the very least she could be looking at four years behind bars.

  ‘A full account?’

  ‘What actually happened down in Lympstone. Before and afterwards. Given what we know, what we can prove, we think we can make a decent case for you killing Harriet Reilly. That may not be true. Only you know.’ She shrugged, smiled again, then settled back in the chair, her arms folded over her chest. Over to you.

  Bentner was conferring with his solicitor. Suttle, watching the feed from an office down the corridor, caught the tiny nods, hers first, then his. He turned back to Tremayne. He looked, if anything, relieved.

  ‘You’re right about the call I took that Saturday night,’ he said. ‘It was on Harriet’s phone but it came from Gemma.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said for me to come at once.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d no idea. That’s all she said. Come at once.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I drove over there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To Lympstone.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘I found Harriet upstairs. She’d been butchered. Torn apart. You’ve seen the photos. That’s the way she was.’

  ‘And Gemma?’

  ‘She wasn’t around. She’d gone.’

  ‘Michala?’

  ‘I’ve no idea about Michala. She wasn’t there either.’

  ‘So why didn�
��t you phone us? Why didn’t you get in touch?’

  ‘Because life is never as simple as that.’

  ‘You’re telling me this thing was planned? That you knew it was going to happen?’

  ‘I knew it was possible. Not the way she did it. Not like that. But I knew the way Gemma thought about –’ he shrugged, ‘– us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Myself and Harriet. Jealous is too small a word. It wasn’t that. It was to do with possession. Gemma has to own things. They have to be hers. Exclusively. She owns Michala, for instance.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes what?’

  ‘She owned me. Or wanted to.’

  ‘There’s a difference, Mr Bentner. Did she own you? Or did she not?’

  Bentner nodded, acknowledging the distinction.

  ‘Yes, in a way she did. She’s a powerful woman. I’ve no idea whether you’ve met her or not, but she has a presence – more than a presence, an aura, maybe even more than that. She’s one of those people you meet once in a lifetime. She’s committed. She’s a superb anthropologist. Most of her, including her heart, absolutely including her heart, is in the right place. We talked constantly. She never bored me, never irritated me, always left me wanting more. Her take on where we’re going and why was exemplary. I’ve never heard it better expressed. She’d penetrated the core of the problem and made it hers.’

  ‘Just like everything else?’

  ‘Indeed. That can be compelling. I’m a climate scientist. I can reduce catastrophe to hard facts, to lines on a graph, to the certainty of what’s going to happen. But Gemma is so much better than that. She has the gift of tongues. She can make the language dance. I’ve seen her with a hall full of students. They’re captivated. She’s got them here.’ His right hand settled softly on his heart. ‘She’s utterly compelling. An hour with Gemma, and you become someone else. It’s remarkable to watch. But it has consequences.’

  He talked of moths around a flame. Far away you remained in the darkness. Too close and you risked immolation.

  ‘That was Harriet’s fate?’

  ‘Not at all. Harriet couldn’t stand her. Harriet thought she was a phoney. Harriet was never one of the converted, and Gemma knew that.’

  ‘But Harriet …?’

  ‘Knew I was one of the converted.’

  ‘Hence the fights? The diary entries?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So why didn’t you defend her? And why did you become complicit in her death?’

  Another silence. Suttle sensed this was new territory, even for Bentner’s solicitor. She was doodling circles on her pad. Frowning.

  ‘What did it for Gemma was the baby,’ Bentner said at last. ‘You didn’t want to be around when she found out Harriet was pregnant.’

  ‘Harriet told her?’

  ‘Harriet told her nothing. I told her. Gemma was like a child herself. It was like she’d been deprived. I’d betrayed her. Worse still, I’d betrayed what we had in common.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The cause. Fighting the opposition. Fighting apathy. Fighting ignorance. Trying to get the world to wake up. Gemma has a way of making you feel that small…’ He narrowed his forefinger against his thumb. ‘I felt even smaller. Then she said there was a way we could still be friends, still make it work, still carry the struggle forward. I thought it was crazy to begin with, but then she explained properly and I said yes.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Sleeping with Michala. Making her pregnant. Giving her a baby.’

  ‘You did that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s carrying your child?’

  ‘Yes. We must have fucked twice. That’s all it took.’ There was a hint of pride in the half-smile.

  ‘And afterwards? Once the baby had been born? What then?’

  ‘It would become Gemma and Michala’s child, their baby. As far as everyone else was concerned, she’d bought sperm from a donor bank. Mr Nobody.’

  ‘But it’s going to be yours.’

  ‘I know. Because that’s the way Gemma wanted it. She likes me. She may even love me. She certainly loves my genes. There was no way she could ever have me properly, and she knew that. Harriet and I and our own baby were off to Scotland, and she knew that too. That’s why giving a baby to Michala was such a neat solution.’

  ‘And Harriet?’

  ‘She knew nothing. Obviously. I thought that was for the best. In fact I thought everything was for the best. Gemma was off my back. She and Michala had the baby they wanted. Harriet and I were off to Uist. Win-win. Easy.’

  Win-win? Easy?

  Rosie Tremayne was playing a blinder, Suttle thought. She could have been a therapist, a counsellor, teasing out the knots in this man, paving the way for the full confession. Most of it was there now. All Suttle wanted was some hint of regret, of contrition, even of anger. To date, as far as Harriet was concerned, Bentner had displayed indifference to the pain she must have suffered. At work, according to Sheila Forshaw, there were certain colleagues who put Bentner high on the autism scale. Maybe they were right. Maybe, on an ever-warmer planet, he remained ice-cold inside.

  Tremayne, yet again, didn’t disappoint.

  ‘Win-win is wrong, Mr Bentner.’ Her voice was soft. ‘You’re telling us Gemma killed your partner. Tore her belly apart. Mutilated the child she was carrying. Yet you never lifted the phone. I find that inexplicable.’

  ‘Me too.’ He nodded. ‘We talked afterwards on the phone. Gemma knew about Scotland. She knew I wanted to put money down on the property. She wanted us all to go up there. That’s why I went last week. To check the place out. To try and visualise what it might be like.’

  ‘You mean the croft?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s why you broke in? Stayed over?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Hopeless. Being out there on the edge of things gives you perspective. The world is crazy. So is Gemma. No way would it ever have worked. That’s why I came back, booked into that pub across the road, gave myself up.’ He sat back, his story over, that same hint of relief on his face. ‘So here we are. Here we have it. Beware of Gemma. Be gentle with Michala. None of this is down to her.’

  Afterwards

  Gemma Caton and Michala Haas were interviewed later that same day. After consulting with the duty solicitor, who’d earlier conferred with Rosie Tremayne, Michala read a prepared statement admitting her role in the events of the previous evening. She’d used her phone to talk to Gemma while staying with Lizzie. She’d opened the door to her while Lizzie was asleep in bed. She’d done Gemma’s bidding, fetched the paper and the wood, and set fire to the bedroom. Asked why she hadn’t intervened when Gemma tried to kill Lizzie, she refused to comment.

  Finally, Tremayne asked about the hire car from Budget. Michala admitted that she’d hired the Ford Focus to use at the weekend. She’d taken it to London and then driven Gemma back down on the Saturday evening. After Gemma killed Harriet Reilly, they’d both returned to London, their alibi intact. On the Monday Michala and the hire car were back in Exeter.

  Gemma Caton did her best to browbeat both Tremayne and Myers. This was yet another show that belonged exclusively to her. She happily confirmed that she’d done her best to kill Lizzie. She suspected that Michala had told Lizzie everything. By getting so close to Michala, she had sealed her own fate. Agreeing to suffocate her before the fire took hold was an act of mercy. For that, Gemma insisted, she deserved nothing but thanks.

  Tremayne ignored the suggestion. When she put it to Caton that she’d killed Harriet Reilly, she simply nodded. Asked to explain why, she said that Reilly had made Michala deeply unhappy by denying Kelly a pain-free death. Worse still, by getting herself pregnant she’d come to stand between herself and Alois Bentner. In the world that she and Alois shared, there was no room for another. Harriet Reilly was a trespasser and had paid the price. Caton had no rem
orse, no shame, no guilt. It was, she said, simply an overdue adjustment to the order of things.

  Rosie Tremayne wanted to know where she and Michala would have headed next. The croft in Scotland was no longer a possibility. With Lizzie dead, the victim of a presumed accident, the pair of them would have been home free. But where was home?

  Caton had seemed indifferent. The world was a big place. She’d already seen most of it. Bhutan? Laos? Certain parts of the Mongolian steppe? They were all possibilities. Michala would love it because all three of them would be together, far from the madness of the rest of the world.

  ‘Three?’

  ‘Me. Michala. And the little one.’

  From Gemma Caton, to Nandy’s delight, Buzzard was thus looking at a full confession: not to one murder but possibly two. The news from the ICU was far from conclusive. Lizzie was still breathing with the aid of a machine, and there were hopeful signs that she might surface over the coming days, but the uncertainty about brain damage remained. Either way, in the opinion of the consultant in charge, she’d had a remarkable escape from what would otherwise have been certain death.

  Golding thought the same. He and Suttle had driven over to St Leonard’s. The fire brigade had saved most of the lower half of the property, but the house that Suttle had so briefly known was a ruin. The roof had gone, charred rafters against the summer sky, and swallows dived and soared through the smoke still curling from the wreckage inside.

  Suttle went to the front door. A fireman was standing guard. Forensic investigators were busy inside, combing through the debris to establish the seat of the fire. Within the hour they’d be joined by a Scenes of Crime team, but for the time being even Suttle’s warrant card couldn’t gain him entry.

  ‘Take this, though, buddy? Delivered this morning.’ The fireman gave Suttle a parcel. It was book shaped.

  Suttle returned to the car. They both got in.

  ‘Oona?’ They were driving back to the MIR.

  ‘Talked to her about an hour ago, skip.’

  ‘And?’