I sighed and rubbed my face. ‘I should have taken better care of my finances. One week, when I was really busy and stressed with work, he started talking about how he thought he could get our bills reduced. Things were starting to pinch with how much he was borrowing from me each month, so I gave him the log-in for my online banking. I was pretty lax then, and I never really looked at it, only checking my balance at cash machines, so it took me several months to realise he’d changed my passcode. When I asked him to tell me what it was, he agreed, but then “never got around to it”. If I pushed it, he’d get cross, and start accusing me of not trusting him. I was such an idiot.’
‘It sounds like you were being financially abused,’ Singh said gently. ‘It happens to more people than you’d think.’
I nodded. ‘It reached a head when he took my bank card then claimed he’d lost it. I tried calling the bank to get a new one, but it never arrived. Of course, he intercepted my post. He lost his job when we’d been living together for just over two years, but managed to hide it from me for another two. Two whole years I didn’t realise the man I was living with wasn’t going out to work every day, but was spending his entire time gambling online. He took out loans in my name, using my bank details, and by the time we split up I had thousands of pounds of debt. This was three years ago and I still haven’t paid even half of it off.’
Singh blew out slowly. ‘I’m really sorry, Paige, I never realised. But there’s more, isn’t there?’
I nodded. ‘How did you know?’
‘You flinch when you look at him. He was physically abusive, I assume?’
I shook my head. ‘No, actually. He was very clever, and he never laid a hand on me.’
Singh looked puzzled. ‘I assumed the scar …’
‘No, technically that was self-inflicted.’ I took a gulp of tea, knowing I needed to continue. ‘In amongst the financial trouble, I didn’t even notice him stopping me from going out. Not at first anyway. He would talk me out of going to see Gem or visiting Anna, saying he really wanted to spend the time with me, he missed me too much, things like that. Then it tipped over into the manipulative behaviour – didn’t I care about him? Wasn’t he enough for me? Couldn’t I see how my selfishness was affecting him? Whenever I did see my friends, I felt guilty that I was leaving him alone, and I always made excuses to leave early. They could all see what I was blind to, and they all told me he was manipulating me, but I was in love. It worked in Mike’s favour, because I didn’t want to see them if they were slagging off the man I loved.
‘As time went on, I never knew what sort of mood he was going to be in. We had some wonderful romantic evenings, when he told me just how wonderful I was, though he often followed it up with an assurance that if I ever left him he’d kill himself, or me, or both. We had some evenings where he would calmly list all of my faults and flaws, and tell me just how lucky I was that someone like him loved me despite them. The worst times were when he let his anger loose – he would shout and rail at me as if I’d caused everything bad that had ever happened to him. Anything could trigger his rage, from him deciding he didn’t like the meal I’d cooked to me painting my nails. I learnt to avoid a lot of triggers, but they were like Medusa’s heads, more kept popping up until I couldn’t keep track.
‘Towards the end, he got annoyed at me going to work. I couldn’t stop working, because as soon as I earned anything the money was gone. I’d found out about the gambling by then, encouraged him to get help, and he promised he would, but there was always one big win just waiting around the corner. Then he’d stop. Then he’d get help. It never happened, because the house always wins, especially with online gambling, but he clung to that excuse. Anyway, he started trying to stop me from going to work. One week, he called the agency and told them I was ill so couldn’t take any jobs for a week. I was furious with him and called them back, but they’d already given some of my jobs to other interpreters. I managed to get some other jobs that week, but he told me I couldn’t go. That I wasn’t allowed.’ I noted the bitterness in my own voice as I said that. ‘We had a row about it – don’t think I didn’t argue back, I often did. I stormed out, went to work and did my job. When I got back that night, he apologised, and I thought everything was fine.
‘The next morning I woke up to find he’d gone out early. There was a note on the table telling me he’d gone to Lincoln to the casino and he wasn’t going to come home until he’d made enough so I never needed to work again. He always saw it as making money, rather than winning money. He knew there were professional gamblers, so he started seeing himself that way, even though all he ever did was lose.’
I rubbed my face with a hand. I’d never told anyone about this after it happened. Even Anna and Gem only knew the absolute basics.
‘The door to the flat was locked, and I couldn’t find my keys, or my phone. We hadn’t had a landline in ages – we’d been cut off for not paying the bill. I didn’t look too hard that day; I actually thought he’d locked me in by accident, and I assumed my phone was somewhere in the flat. When I couldn’t find it, I wondered if he’d taken it to sell. He didn’t come back that night. Or the night after. Or the night after that. There was food in the fridge, though not a lot, and I found myself rationing it in case he didn’t come home for a week.
‘I don’t know what finally made me realise that I needed to get out. Not just out of the flat, but out of the relationship. I can’t pinpoint the moment I thought, “What the hell are you doing? How can you be living like this?” But it happened eventually. I tried shouting out of the window for help when people passed by, but this is a quiet village and on the rare occasion when people do go past either they’re in their own world or they have headphones in. So, nobody heard me, and in the end I dug out a hammer and broke the window. He took my phone and keys, but he didn’t think to take any tools.’
‘So, the scar is from where you cut yourself breaking the window?’ Singh asked, his voice hushed.
‘Climbing out of the broken window, really,’ I said. ‘I threw a blanket over the bottom of the window frame to try and prevent that, but I slipped as I was climbing out and caught my arm on the glass at the side. I knocked on one of my neighbours’ doors and they called an ambulance.’
I hadn’t been signing the story while I was speaking. It was enough effort just to tell the story without telling it in two languages at once. As I came to the end, I felt tears well up in my eyes, and Anna hugged me close.
‘How long were you in hospital?’
‘Three days. It probably would have been less, but Gem told the nurses that I was at high risk of domestic abuse if I was discharged any earlier. I didn’t find that out until later. She and Anna had the locks changed and threw all of Mike’s stuff into the corridor. When he came back, he found out I was in hospital and tried to visit me, but I knew by then the damage he’d done to me and I asked him to leave. When he wouldn’t, the ward staff called security. That was the last time I saw him.’
‘Until you saw him at Normanby Hall?’
‘Until then.’
Chapter 29
Once I’d finished telling my story and managed to regain my composure I actually felt better. I had never believed the old adage that a problem shared is a problem halved, yet knowing there was someone else who knew the story and believed me gave me a confidence I hadn’t felt before.
Singh asked about our plans for the day, and I had a quick signed conversation with Anna.
Should I ask him to come with me to visit Jane Villiers?
Anna pulled a face. Do you think she’ll still talk to you if he’s there?
I think so, I replied. She doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman who would be put off by the presence of a detective.
Anna reluctantly agreed with me. I could tell from the sulky expression on her face that she wanted to come too, but Jane had asked for me, and she respected that. When I asked Singh if he wanted to join me, he was clearly exasperated at me for going behind his
back. He accepted the invitation to join me, though I could tell he would have some questions for me about why I hadn’t already told him about my planned visit.
The weather had improved since the beginning of the week, and I enjoyed the twenty-minute drive through the countryside. Jane Villiers lived on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, the limestone ridge running roughly north to south through the northern half of the county.
Her house wasn’t the only picture-perfect one in the village, and I admired several as we drove through. I could imagine there was a lot of pressure on residents to maintain the same standards as their neighbours when it came to their homes and gardens. One house we passed was next to a ford, and I could see the stream winding under the fence and through the garden, complete with a little ornamental bridge. I thought it would be nice to come back in the summer, when all the gardens would be a riot of colour.
Jane was waiting for us and had opened the front door before we reached it. She frowned at Singh, then looked faintly amused when I introduced him.
‘I suppose I should have expected Paige to bring someone from the police with her,’ she told him. ‘You might have had a wasted trip, I’m afraid, Detective. I don’t know if my concerns are really worth listening to.’
Singh gave her one of his winning smiles. ‘I understand, but I might think of a couple of questions I’d like to ask you anyway.’
There was a pause, then Jane nodded, and led us into the front room again. I sat on the same worn sofa as before, while Singh stood and examined some of the pictures on the wall.
Jane came back in with tea and cake, and served us before sitting back and steepling her fingers, looking at us over the top of them.
‘Now you’re here, I feel almost foolish,’ she said with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose. ‘I’ve been going over this in my mind repeatedly – could I have prevented this? Has this all stemmed from my failure to protect my students?’
Singh came and joined me on the sofa, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at the ex-head teacher.
‘Why do you think that?’
‘In the three decades I worked at that school, we never had a single major issue until the incident that lost me my job. And now this, only a few months later. I feel there must be a connection of some sort.’ Her eyes were flicking between the two of us, searching in earnest for a sign that we agreed with her. Or maybe she wanted us to disagree, then she was absolved of any connection between herself and the murder of the man who replaced her.
I looked around the room, and for the first time I noticed the photos on the end wall – they were the same as some of the ones I’d seen in the entrance hall of Lincoln School for the Deaf, whole school photos stretching back thirty years. I wondered if Jane had every photo from her time at the school.
‘I think we’ve lost you,’ she said, bringing me out of my reverie.
‘Sorry,’ I said, nodding at the wall in front of me. ‘I just noticed all of the photos. How long did you work at the school?’
‘For most of my career,’ she replied. ‘Thirty-two years, nineteen of those as head teacher.’ The look on her face was a mixture of sadness and pride, and I wondered how deeply her swift exit from the school had hurt her.
‘You must have seen a lot of people come and go,’ I said.
‘Yes, students and staff.’ She turned to Singh. ‘I don’t think my replacement employed any new staff though, so if you want the gossip on any of the murder suspects, do let me know.’
I thought at first she was joking, and the curve of her lips suggested she was, yet there was a flintiness to her eyes that surprised me.
‘Did you ever meet Steve Wilkinson?’ Singh asked.
She sniffed. ‘No. They didn’t even give me a decent handover period, which would have been for the good of the school and everyone in it. As it was, I expect the first few weeks were a bit hectic for him. I can’t say I had any interest in meeting him; I know it wasn’t anything to do with him, me getting shunted off into retirement early, but I still felt bitter about it. And now the poor man’s dead,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Who do you think would murder him?’ I asked. ‘I mean, you should be a suspect, he took your job.’
Jane laughed at that. ‘If only I had it in me to kill someone. No, I’m sure the police will cover all bases but they’ll discover I wasn’t anywhere near the poor man. If it could have been anyone at that school, I’d say Jess Farriday would be one to look at. The woman has naked ambition like I’ve never seen before.’
Singh and I shared a look.
‘Ambition for what?’ he asked.
Jane spread her palms wide. ‘Influence. Control. She worked her way through a number of her male colleagues, to see what she could get out of them. Any piece of information she found out would be squirrelled away in her mind, in case it could be useful at a later date. And when I say useful, I mean be used to influence or manipulate someone into doing what she wanted.’
This matched up with Anna’s account of Jess, and it made sense that she had been using Steve – if she wanted influence then who better to try and get her claws into than the head teacher. Was it possible she’d gone up to Normanby Hall to meet him and something had happened, something that had ultimately led to his death? I made a mental note to ask Singh later if he’d looked into Jess’s alibi. Could she have slipped away from the hen party unnoticed for a while?
Jane was watching us carefully, and it was clear she knew she’d planted a seed of an idea in our minds.
‘You don’t think it could have been one of the students?’ I asked, wanting to move the conversation on.
‘What, Leon? Never. The boy wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘What about his father?’ Singh countered.
Jane rolled her eyes. ‘That was self-defence. The man was abusive, and Leon snapped. I don’t blame him at all for what he did, especially as he only wounded his father and then went for help. This is completely different. He didn’t do it.’
‘You seem to be very confident of that, even without having the full facts of the case,’ Singh told her, with a sideways glance at me. I shook my head to tell him I hadn’t been passing on any information.
‘The residential students are very close,’ I said to her. ‘They’re secretive and don’t mix with any other students, and there’s a good chance they haven’t told the police everything they know about this case. Have they always been like that?’
Jane frowned. ‘They were always close, of course. That’s natural, given their shared experience. But you’re making it sound sinister. It was never like that. Are you suggesting something changed when that man took over?’
Singh frowned. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘I am not an idiot, Detective,’ Jane replied, acid in her voice. ‘Can I assume that the staff member who was discovered to be grooming students was the dead man? I saw the news online.’
Singh hesitated, then nodded. ‘It was.’
‘So, it is natural to assume someone killed him because of that.’
‘That’s certainly our main avenue of investigation at the moment.’
‘But that doesn’t mean it was Leon, regardless of his history. Did Paige tell you about the video?’
‘She did. Our techs have been looking at the school network and we asked them to keep an eye out for anything similar. They haven’t found anything untoward so far.’
She grunted. ‘Well, I suppose it was too much to hope they hadn’t covered their tracks. No, I believe these incidents are connected, and I think only an adult could have orchestrated all of this.’
‘What about Mike Lowther?’ I asked impulsively, and Jane’s eyes flashed.
‘He would seem to be an obvious culprit, wouldn’t he? With his gambling problem, and his little habit of making off with other people’s possessions. Oh yes, he was always busy trying to get money out of people he knew, particularly his girlfriends, and I was fairly sure he was responsible for a spate of
thefts from the residence. If he found out what Steve Wilkinson was up to he might have blackmailed him. Mike wouldn’t pass up a money-making opportunity. And I absolutely believe Mike would kill if he was backed into a corner and felt it was his only option.’
Neither of us responded to this for a moment. I felt as if a huge force had been aimed at my chest, and I put my head down onto my knees as a wave of dizziness overtook me. I’d trusted him. I’d believed him when he tried to apologise to me, even though last night’s behaviour had proved he hadn’t meant it. Could he really be a murderer? How could I have been so stupid to be taken in by him? I’d desperately wanted to believe he’d changed, because if he could change then maybe I could change too. I could forget about what he did to me and move on with my life.
I remembered Mike’s posturing about how Jane had seen his potential and offered him extra training. It sounded like she hadn’t thought that much of him after all. Of course he’d been lying, making empty boasts to try and impress … who? Me, or the police? Was he covering his tracks, trying to make himself look above suspicion?
‘You think he’d blackmail someone who was grooming students, rather than going to the police?’ Singh asked, unable to keep the incredulity from his voice.
I nodded in response to this question and Jane raised an eyebrow.
‘I see you already know the levels of his scruples,’ she said to me, and I felt my face flush.
‘I agree with you,’ I said quietly. ‘If he saw a chance to get a large amount of money out of someone, that would be his priority.’ My own words made me shudder, but it was true.
There was a long, heavy silence. Both Singh and Jane were watching me carefully.
‘Thank you for your time, Ms Villiers,’ Singh said after a moment or two, judging that it was time for us to leave, and reaching out to shake her hand. ‘We’re sorry to have disturbed your day.’
Silent Night Page 22
