by Adam Croft
What if it’s worse than that? What if someone in a neighbouring room reported a smell from my room? Would a dead body start to smell that quickly? What about the blood? Would that have come through the ceiling? No, of course not, I tell myself. Her body was in the bath. It’d just go down the plughole. But what if a plumber was working on the drains at the time? Wait a minute. Was there any blood? Thinking back, I don’t think there was. So why is there an image burned onto my retinas, branded onto my mind, of Lisa lying in a pool of blood?
What if Lisa was seen entering the hotel and not exiting? What if someone else on reception noticed Jess had gone and they searched all the rooms? My mind’s running away with so many ideas and possibilities, and I’m trying my level best to keep it calm and rational. It’s all I can do right now.
The roads are actually pretty clear, and I can see why so many people have said they like driving in Switzerland. There’s an almost serene beauty in the gentle curvature of the road as it delicately body-swerves natural obstacles.
But that calmness and rationality soon disappears when I take the umpteen-thousandth glance in my rear-view mirror just outside Bern and see the livery of the Swiss police car. The two male officers sat up front appear to be staring straight into my eyes as I look back at them, and I quickly realise I have been making eye contact for too long. What if they can see the fear? They can probably smell it. They’re trained to.
I swallow and tighten my hands on the wheel.
‘Jess, don’t look now, but there’s a police car behind us.’
‘So?’ she says, as worryingly calm as ever.
‘What do you mean, so? I’m five miles an hour under the speed limit and they’re just sitting behind us while everyone else overtakes.’
‘Speed up, then. You’re going to look suspicious if you drive that slowly.’
‘Won’t that look even more suspicious, though? Seeing a police car and totally changing the way I drive?’
‘Dan, you need to calm the fuck down,’ she says, both slowly and sternly at the same time. ‘Right now, you could be fast asleep and still look suspicious.’
Before I can say another word, and before I can alter my speed, the police car pulls out to the left and starts to coast past, barely walking pace above what we’re doing. I try to keep my eyes focused straight in front of me, but I can feel the eyes of the non-driving officer boring into my skull.
I quickly assume that the game’s up. They’ve found Lisa, they’ve circulated a photo of me and Jess and we’ve been rumbled. Game over. Where they’d find a recent picture of me, though, I don’t know. They couldn’t exactly ask Lisa to provide one. Facebook? No. I never put pictures of myself on there.
In the space of a split second, I register that the police car’s presence next to me has blocked the blinding sunlight from streaming in through that window. Because of the light, I’d pulled the sun visor out and turned it across the side window about fifteen minutes earlier. That same sun visor that’d now be obscuring the top half of my head quite nicely.
With newfound confidence, I tilt my head slightly and smile and nod at the police officer. It’s kill or cure.
The officer smiles, then points to our car, gives me a thumbs up and laughs.
It’s weird, but my first thought is to be slightly offended. Yeah, the other cars on the roads in Switzerland are all new Mercedes and BMWs, but I’m still a little affronted at him taking the piss.
Then it dawns on me.
We’re clear.
20
When you’re a child, you have a hierarchy of dependence. Your first port of call is your parents, closely followed by the rest of your family. In Daniel’s case, calling on his parents wasn’t possible and his family was right here in Pendleton House. This was the only family he’d ever really known. People who weren’t flesh and blood but who he ate with, lived with and grew up with. The nuns were the closest thing he’d had to parents in a long time – perhaps ever. But the looks in the eyes of the junior nuns in the early hours of that morning told him everything he needed to know.
He didn’t know who’d called the police, nor from which phone. He could tell from the Mother Superior’s face that it wasn’t her, but he didn’t know any other rooms in the building which had a telephone apart from her office. Judging by some of the questions the police officers were asking him, he assumed it must have been one of the boys.
The police hadn’t let the Mother Superior sit in the same room when they spoke to him, instead having told her they’d speak to her separately afterwards. The officers were both dressed in plain clothes – something that even Daniel’s young brain knew meant something was serious.
‘Do you know who made the phone call to the police, Daniel?’ one of the officers asks. Daniel says no, he doesn’t. He hopes the officer can see that he’s telling the truth. The police have to know these things. It’s their job.
The other officer speaks. ‘The person who called the control room made some very serious allegations. About Mr Duggan. Do you want to tell us what that was all about?’
The officers sound curt and accusatory.
‘No,’ Daniel says. ‘Because I don’t know what they said.’ This time, he hopes they can’t see the truth behind his eyes.
‘Are you sure?’ the same officer replies.
‘Yes.’
A moment of silence. ‘Well, in that case we can only presume that it isn’t true, can’t we?’
The first officer speaks again. ‘We know it can’t be easy for you having to live here, but it doesn’t excuse boys from making things up about other people. Especially about people who put a lot into the community and who keep a roof over your head. Do you know what it’s like out there on the streets? Cold and alone, without anywhere to live?’
Daniel shakes his head.
‘That’s what they had to do in Victorian times. Then after that there were workhouses. Life isn’t perfect, but you should think yourself very lucky that you live in a society that looks after you when you get in trouble.’
The way the police officer says these things makes even Daniel start to question his own attitude.
‘If you were outside this house, on the streets, and behaved in the way that you did earlier tonight, what do you think would happen?’
Daniel shrugs, his knuckles starting to throb now that the adrenaline has well and truly subsided.
‘I can tell you what would happen. You’d be going down to the police station. You’d be arrested and put in jail. Would you prefer that?’
Daniel swallows and shakes his head. He’s pretty sure they wouldn’t do that at his age, but he still isn’t particularly keen to find out.
‘Good. Now you’ll be pleased to know you’ve got a second chance. A last chance. Mr Duggan has told us he doesn’t want to press charges. Do you know what that means?’
Daniel shakes his head again.
‘It means he doesn’t want to take it any further. He doesn’t want you to be arrested and put in jail. Do you think that’s a good thing?’
Daniel thinks for a moment, then nods. ‘I suppose.’
‘You’re lucky Mr Duggan is a gracious man,’ the officer says. ‘He didn’t have to do that for you. But he did. Because he’s a good man. Do you understand that?’
Daniel nods, and begins to pick at the seam of the armchair he’s sitting in. He knows what this means. Even at his age, he understands the concept of them doing him a favour as long as he promises not to say any more about Mr Duggan. He’s not happy with it, but he doesn’t particularly want to go to jail, either.
Part of him wonders if Mr Duggan might change his ways after tonight. After seeing how close he came to being found out. After Daniel fractured his eye socket, broke four of his teeth and burst his eardrum. Even though he’s the one sat here being spoken to by the police, he knows who came off worse tonight. And he knows one thing for sure: he doesn’t have to worry about being the boy to be called out of his room on Mr Duggan’s next visi
t.
21
We finally arrive at the campsite. On any other occasion I would describe it as ‘lovely’, but that hardly seems like the right sort of word to be using now. A place to bed down and gather our thoughts is what it is. Here, we can lie low and keep away from motorways and police cars, at least until the initial buzz has died down and we can work out how to prove I had nothing at all to do with any of this.
That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway, because deep down I just want to keep running. I don’t feel safe anywhere – not here, for sure. Interpol will soon know we’ve been through France. My car went through the tunnel and was seen leaving at Calais. Jess went into the shop in Kerzers, too, and she’s not exactly the sort of woman a shopkeeper’s going to forget seeing – particularly not if he’s male. And what about the police officers who saw us on the motorway just a few miles back? No, this isn’t good. As far as I’m concerned, we need to be a lot further away, and it’s only really Jess’s insistence and apparent total control over the situation that’s actually keeping me here.
I need to have my escape route planned. The only problem is, I don’t really know where we are or how to get anywhere. We’ve been doing everything based on an old map we found in Claude’s glovebox and Jess’s intuition and sense of direction. She wasn’t keen to activate the GPS feature on her iPhone for fear of being tracked, and I wasn’t going to argue with that.
After Jess has paid (in cash, naturally) for the caravan, she makes her way back to the car, the baseball cap pulled down as far over her head as it’ll go with her hair tucked up inside it, and looks back over her shoulder before leaning through the window to talk to me.
‘Come on. It’s this one over here. Try and keep out of people’s sight until we’re inside, though.’
Once I’ve parked the car up next to the caravan and made sure I can’t be seen, I grab my bag out of the car and step inside. My first impression is that it’s actually not a bad place to stay. Sure, it’s just a caravan, but it’s clearly laid out for people who want to have a half-decent holiday.
Jess puts the carrier bag from the shop in Kerzers down on the table and rummages through it, taking out a few items.
‘Right, here’s some razors and some scissors. We’re going to have to use accents while we’re here, too. I told the woman on the reception we were Norwegian.’
‘Jesus Christ, Jess! Norwegian? At least pick an accent I can actually do.’
‘What, like French? Yeah, because they won’t see right through that one,’ she replies.
‘Seriously, though. Who the hell knows what a Norwegian accent even sounds like?’
‘Exactly. It’s foolproof. Now, get that beard off. When you’re done, I’m going to cut your hair.’
I stare at her. ‘Cut my hair?’
‘Well, yes. I’ll need to cut it before I shave it off or it’s going to hurt like hell.’
I open my eyes wider. ‘Shave it off? No way. We didn’t say anything about this.’
She picks up the scissors and the packet of disposable razors. ‘It’s not negotiable, Dan. Pretty soon now the police are going to be looking for an English bloke with hair over his ears and a scruffy beard, not a Norwegian bloke with a shaved head.’
She’s got a point.
‘I hope I’m not going to be the only one doing this. What’s your plan for yourself, O mistress of disguises?’
‘I’m going to cut my hair shorter. Not as short as yours, mind. Or, more accurately, you’re going to cut it for me.’
‘Me?’ I yelp. ‘What the hell do I know about cutting hair?’
‘Oh yeah, cool, I’ll just call the mobile hairdresser out, then, shall I? Or maybe pop into the salon in town and ask for a Fugitive Special?’
‘There’s no need to be like that,’ I say, completely refusing to acknowledge the fact that she’s right and I know it. To be fair to her, she looks pretty damn good with the short hair and baseball cap combination. She’d look good in anything, though.
‘What about supplies?’ I ask. ‘Food and stuff like that.’
‘There’s a little shop on-site. Does everything you need, apparently. Not much point going there while we still look like this, though.’
It’s been a while since I’ve had a haircut, and I’ve never gone as short as having my head shaved, but I can see Jess’s reasoning. To be quite honest, I don’t give two hoots about my hair or my beard – they’re both pretty low maintenance aside from the occasional beard trim, and it saves regular trips to the barber’s or constant shaving, which I hate. I’ve always been lucky that my hair grows pretty slowly and always tends to look neat, plus I had the advantage that fashion actually seemed to catch up with me for a change in terms of my facial hair. Deep down, I know that my reluctance to do this isn’t because of me personally; it’s because I know how much Lisa likes – liked – my hair and my beard. It feels as though it’s the last thing keeping the memory alive, as daft as that sounds after she’s only been dead a matter of hours. However, out here in a strange country in a strange car with – let’s face it – a strange woman, it’s one of the only constants I’ve had.
‘It’ll grow back soon enough,’ Jess says, as if she’s been reading my mind.
I swallow and nod, then pick up the razors and head for the bathroom.
22
After my haircut and shave I feel as though I’m starting to think more clearly. It’s as if the hair was somehow clouding my brain.
I can’t help but keep touching it. It feels odd.
‘Right, we need to sit down and go through everything,’ I say as Jess tries to neaten up her new fringe in the mirror. Thankfully she can’t see the back, because I’m fairly sure I’ve butchered it. ‘We need to try and make sense of all this.’
‘I think you need to tell me something first,’ she says.
I swallow. ‘Like what?’
‘That text message. Are you sure you didn’t send it?’
‘No! Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Why would I? She was seventy miles away. That’s just the thing: I didn’t even know she was in Herne Bay, never mind at the hotel, so why would I tell her to come up to my room?’ I sigh loudly. ‘Jess, she didn’t even know which hotel I was staying at. I don’t even know for sure that I specifically told her it was Herne Bay. I might’ve just told her it was Kent. I go away on work that often, it’s not even a talking point in our house any more.’
‘So why was she there? And how did she get there?’ Jess asks.
‘I don’t know. That’s what’s really freaking me out.’
‘Was her car in the car park?’
I think for a moment. I hadn’t even thought about that until now. ‘No. I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t see it, but then I wasn’t exactly looking out for it. It’s a silver Fiesta, so it’s not exactly an uncommon car.’
‘And she didn’t tell you she was coming?’ As she speaks, Jess starts rifling through the cupboards.
‘No, of course not. I think I’d remember that.’
‘Score. Minibar,’ she says, pulling a bottle of red wine out of the cupboard. ‘Right. Glasses . . .’
I can’t help but shake my head. ‘Are you actually taking this seriously? My wife’s dead, I’ve been framed for her murder, we’re . . . fuck knows how many miles away from home in fuck knows what country, and you’re more worried about wine glasses?’
‘Switzerland,’ she says, opening another cupboard and pulling two wine glasses out.
‘What?’
‘The country. It’s still Switzerland. We’re not far from Germany or Liechtenstein, though.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ I yell at the top of my voice, all of my emotions finally bubbling to the surface. I stand and slam my hands down on the table before marching over to Jess, towering over her as she stands in front of me, her face neutral and a wine glass held in each of her hands. ‘What is wrong with you? Are you some sort of mental case or something? This is serious shit, Jess! Why can’t you grasp just how serio
us this is? This is my whole life, fucked up by one act that wasn’t even my fault! I’ve lost my wife, I’ve lost my freedom and I’m about to become the most wanted man in Europe!’
‘Probably the world, to be fair,’ she says.
I grab her by the shoulders and start shaking her. ‘I’m serious! Will you stop being such a fucking idiot and grow up for a minute so we can get our heads round this?’
‘Grow up?’ she says, her voice calm. ‘You want to talk about growing up?’ As she speaks, I hear the anger starting to come through in her voice, bit by bit until she’s roaring at a full crescendo. ‘You’re away on work, having a great time and you decide to bed the young receptionist while your good little wife waits at home for you, completely unaware of what you’re doing? Is that what you call grown-up?’
‘Oh, so that’s what this is all about, is it? You can hardly talk, Jess. It takes two to tango.’
Before I can realise what I’m doing, I’ve done the stereotypical soap opera turn-away-towards-a-window move.
‘What do you want me to do, exactly?’ she says. ‘I got you out of there. I got you safe. I got you the time and space to think, but I can’t think for you, Dan. I don’t know who would’ve wanted to kill your wife and frame you, do I? I barely fucking know you.’
She says those last few words in a way which has them laced with hidden meaning.
‘And what do you mean by that?’ I ask, turning back to her.
‘Exactly what it sounds like. You need to get your brain into gear and work out what’s gone on here, because I can’t help you with that. I mean, yes, I’m a pretty good judge of character after the stuff I’ve been through over the years, but what’s to say it wasn’t you who killed Lisa?’
‘It wasn’t,’ I say quietly, almost whispering.
‘Of course you’ll tell me that. Look at it from my point of view, though. A guy I don’t even know – in terms of his life and background anyway – seduces me and then convinces me that the dead body in his hotel room has nothing to do with him. Dan, I don’t even know that there was a dead body. I’ve only got your word for that.’
