by Adam Croft
‘This is stupid,’ I say.
‘I almost hope there wasn’t. Lies, I can deal with. I’ve dealt with plenty. But assuming there was a dead body in your bathtub and assuming it was your wife, I’ve only got your word and my judgement that it wasn’t you. And my judgement’s been wrong before.’
‘Jess, I don’t know how else I can—’
‘I mean, no-one even knows we’re here. We don’t have contact numbers for anyone. What if I were to die? What if you were to do the same to me? No-one would ever know.’
‘I didn’t do it, Jess.’
She nods slowly. ‘I know. I believe that. For now.’
‘For now?’
‘What more do you want?’ she replies, turning to unpack her bag. ‘I’m just a child, remember.’
23
There’s paper everywhere. This was meant to help me organise my thoughts and try to work out what had gone on, but it’s just making things worse. It’s clutter, and I can’t deal with clutter.
Jess is furiously scribbling away on another piece of paper, which she then puts on the table, moving two other pieces slightly further away from each other to make room for the new one.
I’ve been trying to tell her everything I can – everything I want to, at least. It feels utterly bizarre giving my life story and intimate details to someone I barely know – and someone who less than an hour ago accused me of murdering my wife and wanting to kill her. But if I’m not able to get my head around what’s happened, I need to give the facts to someone who could.
As far as I’m concerned, Jess has now become the police detective who should’ve been helping me, were it not for the fact that I’d be arrested on the spot and likely charged with my wife’s murder.
‘I still don’t get the whole thing with the phone,’ Jess says, as we reach that point.
‘Me neither. The weird thing is, the message wasn’t appearing on my phone as being sent from it. I guess the police would just say I deleted it, though.’
‘Does anyone know the passcode for your phone?’
‘No,’ I say, having not even considered that up until now. My phone needs a four-digit code to unlock it before use – and that’s if I don’t use my fingerprint to unlock it.
‘What I really don’t get, though, is why that’d prove to the police that you did it. Surely the phone could’ve been hacked or something? They can prove these things.’
‘I dunno,’ I say. I’ve already told her more than enough. She wanted to know all about my relationship with Lisa, for starters. I told her it was a marriage like any other – we’d had our ups and downs, occasionally argued but nothing serious. Before I knew it, she’d had me opening up about my own feelings on the marriage. The problem is I’ve always been a lone wolf. I’ve never been the sort of person who’s felt comfortable being tied down to one particular person or place. I think that’s part of why escaping to Switzerland has allowed me to start to gather my thoughts again.
I made the mistake of telling Jess I’ve never really believed in love. She gave me an odd look that I couldn’t quite decipher, and I had to try and explain to her that it didn’t mean I never loved Lisa, but that I have a different concept of what love is. I know my own personal concept of love is there for a reason: it allows me to get away with whatever I want to get away with. After all, it’s my life, isn’t it? I’ve never hurt Lisa.
Jess wanted to know about affairs. I couldn’t help but laugh. I’ve not been the best-behaved bloke in the world, but who has? As for Lisa, I truthfully don’t know. I’d always worked off the assumption that she’d been faithful, and whether she had or not I failed to see what bearing that would’ve had on someone wanting to murder her. Would a psychotic ex-lover or his wife do this? It seems doubtful. If Lisa didn’t know I was staying at this hotel, how is some mythical lover meant to know? The only thing I could think of was that if she’d been having an affair it would be yet another sign that pointed to me being her murderer.
We go through everything. I tell her about people I’ve fallen out with at work, neighbours we don’t particularly like and long-forgotten family feuds. I know why she’s doing it, but I really don’t see the point. How many people murder a bloke’s wife because he forgot to put sugar in their tea, or because he cuts his privet hedge a bit too short? True, there are some seriously unhinged and deranged people out there, but I think I’d know if I’d come across one of them. Sure enough, I have, but I’ve always kept a wide-enough berth not to get involved.
The harder I try to think, the more clouded and confused my brain becomes and the more I have to try and calm myself down. Thankfully for me, Jess is a pretty calming presence in herself.
I tell her I can’t think straight; my head is buzzing.
‘I didn’t want this to be the first resort, but this is serious now. We really have to get your head straight,’ she says, rummaging in the inside of her jacket pocket and pulling out two sizeable roll-ups. I’ve never taken illegal drugs, but I recognise this straight away.
‘The fuck?’ I squeak, unable to come up with anything wittier.
‘To clear your mind. It’ll loosen you up and let you think better.’
I can’t even think of a response. ‘You tried to cross two national borders with a coat full of weed?’ I say, trying to get my head around the way this girl’s brain works.
‘Tried and succeeded, I think you’ll find,’ she says, lighting one roll-up and handing the other to me, with the lighter, at least giving me the choice of whether to spark up or not. She waits a few seconds before speaking again. ‘Go on. It’ll help.’
‘From what I’ve heard, it’ll make me paranoid, too, and that’s something I can do without right now. I’ve got plenty of paranoia to keep me going for about a decade.’
‘Suit yourself,’ she says, taking a huge drag and leaning back on the chair. The sweet smell of the smoke is familiar, and takes me back to my college days. I never indulged myself, but I knew plenty of people who did.
Jess is the dictionary definition of contradiction. To look at, she’s a slim, petite and incredibly attractive young woman. She’s got a face like butter wouldn’t melt, and seems like the perfect church-going daughter. Close your eyes, though, and you’ve got the devil incarnate. A temptress. A sex goddess. A girl who thinks nothing of smuggling a coatful of drugs across two national borders whilst escaping a murder scene with the prime suspect. A girl who knows people, who can summon up a getaway car and a bagful of euros at a moment’s notice.
This is a girl in control.
And all I can do is sit and watch.
24
That night, the first news reports start to roll in. We’ve had BBC News 24 on the TV screen for a good few hours now, but it’s taken a while for what happened in Herne Bay to hit the public consciousness.
The news story on the ticket at the bottom of the screen changes to BREAKING: HERNE BAY HOTEL DEATH and I reach for the remote control to turn up the volume as the newsreader begins to speak.
‘Kent Police have appealed for witnesses in the Herne Bay area to come forward after the body of a woman was found in a bath in a local hotel. The woman’s body was found in the TruMotel on Thanet Way. The woman, in her thirties, was not believed to have been a guest at the hotel. The room’s occupier has since been declared missing, along with a member of staff from the hotel. Peter O’Dell’s at the scene. Peter, what more can you tell us?’
The camera cuts to the news reporter, who’s stood in a very familiar-looking hotel car park, the hotel behind him surrounded with police cars and vans, with officers in hi-vis jackets standing around the police tape billowing in the wind.
‘Duncan, Kent Police have naturally been quite cagey with the details so far, but we do know a number of things.’ The man glances occasionally at his notepad as he speaks to the camera. ‘Shortly after eleven thirty this morning, a call was made to the emergency services reporting that a woman’s body had been found in a bathtub in one of the rooms at t
his hotel. We believe she was found by one of the cleaners at the hotel. We don’t have any details on how the woman died, but the police have told us that she had been dead for some hours, and that they are treating her death as suspicious. They’ve told us they want to speak to two people: one, a man who was staying at the hotel, a Daniel Cooper, of East Grinstead, Sussex, and another, a woman, Jessica Walsh, who was employed at the hotel.’
Walsh. I didn’t even know her surname until now.
‘Neither Mr Cooper nor Miss Walsh have been seen since yesterday afternoon, and police are keen to speak to them. They’ve released a picture of Miss Walsh, and ask that members of the public should call the police immediately if they see either Mr Cooper or Miss Walsh.’
As the reporter speaks, a picture of Jess pops up on the screen. It’s her staff picture from the hotel – the one that was on her name badge.
‘Peter, have the police said what connection these two people have with each other or the victim, and whether or not they are suspects?’ the newsreader asks from the studio.
‘No, the details are still a bit sketchy, but the police have told us they’re concerned at the fact that neither Mr Cooper nor Miss Walsh has been seen since yesterday afternoon, and that Miss Walsh was employed on duty at the time of her disappearance. I did ask the senior investigating officer, though, where they believed Mr Cooper and Miss Walsh might be, and he seemed to indicate that there was a possibility they could have already left the country. That’s something we’ll get more on as the facts start to become clear, I’m sure.’
Almost before it’s even begun, the news report is over and the presenter is back onto a story on the latest deaths from a conflict in the Middle East.
Neither of us can say anything for a good few minutes. Jess’s face is emotionless, as it so often is. I think that’s what scares me the most about her: that I never quite know what she’s thinking or feeling.
It’s a bizarre feeling, hearing your name mentioned on TV, especially considering the circumstances. Even though there was no photo of me on the screen, and although the foreign news channels are unlikely to have picked up the report yet, I feel all eyes are on me. I instinctively slide down a little on my seat, trying to take myself out of the eyeline of the windows of the caravan.
Without saying anything, Jess gets up and walks over to the kitchen area. She opens cupboards and looks through them before starting to rummage through drawers.
‘Christ, there’s all sorts of shit in here,’ she says as she opens one drawer. ‘Looks like a man drawer to me.’
‘Man drawer?’ I ask, still unable to take my eyes off the TV screen, which is now focused on a story about a Premier League footballer’s latest sex scandal.
‘Yeah, all men have a man drawer, don’t they? A drawer filled with old keys, drawing pins, radiator keys, curtain hooks . . . And tennis balls, apparently.’
She pulls the tube out of the drawer, the plastic screeching against the laminate edge as she does so, before popping the red cap off the end and taking a tennis ball out, which she throws towards me.
‘Catch.’
I make a cursory effort at flapping my hand in the general direction of the ball, but I miss and it bounces off the formica-topped table. Before I’ve even seen it, another ball hits me on the shoulder.
‘Hey, pack it in,’ I yell.
‘Alright, chill,’ comes Jess’s reply.
‘Don’t tell me to chill. How can you be so calm? The biggest news network in the country has just named us as prime suspects in a murder case.’
‘Not the biggest news network in this country.’
‘What?’
‘Well, it’s not. Besides, no-one watches those things. Unless it’s on BuzzFeed, no-one’ll take a blind bit of notice. And what are you worried about? There wasn’t a photo of you. As long as you don’t walk around introducing yourself as “Daniel Cooper of East Grinstead, Sussex, wife murderer extraordinaire”, you’ll be fine.’
‘There wasn’t a photo of me yet, you mean. That’s a matter of time.’
‘Yes, time by which the whole of Europe’ll be looking for a scruffy bastard with floppy hair and a beard. Meanwhile, you’ll be strutting your shaven head around a Swiss campsite saying “Good morning” to everyone in Norwegian.’
No response I can think of will drag this conversation back into the realms of sanity, so I just shake my head and continue to watch the newsreader mouthing silently to me.
25
It all happened very quickly. A good week or so went by after the incident with Mr Duggan and the police before Daniel was called in to see the Mother Superior.
‘Sit down, Daniel,’ she says, gesturing with one of her tree-trunk arms. Her voice is calm, maternal. But there is still something in the air that tells Daniel this is not simply a friendly chat. ‘Pendleton House always does its best to try and make its boys happy and healthy, especially when they haven’t had the best start in life.’ The Mother Superior crosses her arms and leans forward on the desk. ‘Many of the boys who have grown up here over the years have flourished and become responsible, successful young men. But it would be remiss of me to assume that the same approach will work for every boy.’
Daniel isn’t entirely sure what all these words mean, but he’s learnt to pick up a lot through tone of voice and he can see where this is heading. He swallows and shifts his weight in the chair.
‘Sometimes, Daniel, boys don’t flourish here. That’s no fault of theirs, or of ours, but it’s the way God intended. Daniel, do you know what foster parents are?’
Daniel shakes his head. He does know what they are – not long after he first arrived, one of the older boys was sent to live with foster parents – but he wants to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
‘There are a lot of families, a lot of people who have the kind hearts and souls that make them want to do God’s work and take young boys in as part of their family. To give them a regular family home and give them a second chance. Would you prefer to live in a regular family home than here at Pendleton House?’
Daniel thinks for a moment. He wants to make sure this isn’t a trick question. He looks up and meets the eye of the Mother Superior, looking for any indication of what the right answer might be. All he sees is genuine benevolence – something he’s never seen in her eyes until now. He nods his head slowly.
‘There’s a family, Daniel. Mr and Mrs Cooper. God has not been able to bless them with children of their own, so they would like to give the gift of family to a boy who doesn’t have one. They’re a fine, upstanding couple. Mr Cooper is a doctor, and Mrs Cooper is a legal secretary. Would you like to meet them?’
Daniel nods slowly again. All that’s going through his mind is that he might finally be able to get out of this hellhole. He has plenty of apprehension, though, after the way he’s already been shoved from pillar to post in his young life.
The Mother Superior smiles.
Mr and Mrs Cooper’s house is quite a drive from Pendleton House. As far as Daniel is concerned, that’s a good thing. He’d rather forget all about the place and try to become a normal boy, whatever one of those was.
After a few minutes, Daniel stops looking at the glass in the rear-view mirror. Every time he does, he sees the eyes of Mr or Mrs Cooper in the front seats glancing back at him. The drive to their house is quiet, the tyres humming on the road as Daniel rests his head on the cold glass window and looks out at the rolling fields.
The front driveway to their house is gravelled, bordered with conifers. The Jaguar makes a satisfying crunching sound as it rolls over the gravel, gliding to a stop in front of a large bay window. Inside, he can see a light-brown dog jumping up, his tongue lolling from his mouth as his head appears, then disappears; appears, then disappears.
Daniel stays in the car, looking up at the house in front of him. It isn’t anywhere near as big as Pendleton House, but he knows that he will be the only boy here, with his own room and his own freedom.
<
br /> The door opens beside him. ‘Are you coming in, Daniel?’ the woman asks, her voice friendly and as fresh as summer daisies.
Daniel unclips his seatbelt and follows her to the front door, the man fetching his bags out of the boot of the car.
Inside, the house is immaculate. He hasn’t felt carpet under his toes in years. Not carpet like this, anyway. It is soft and luxurious, the fibres tickling the undersides of his feet like clouds. There’s a scratching sound from behind the living room door. Daniel looks at the door, amused.
‘Do you want to meet Skip, Daniel?’ the woman asks.
‘Honey, he might not like dogs. One step at a time, yeah?’ the man replies.
‘Do you like dogs, Daniel?’ she asks him.
Daniel nods. The woman smiles and opens the door. Skip comes bounding in and circles Daniel twice, sniffing his legs and investigating the new addition to the family.
‘I think he likes you,’ the woman says.
‘I like him,’ Daniel replies, bending down and stroking Skip’s head. The dog pants and grins.
Later that night, Mrs Cooper makes sausages and mash. Daniel likes sausages and mash. He wolfs it down inside a few minutes, Mr and Mrs Cooper watching him with barely concealed amusement. He noticed earlier that Mr and Mrs Cooper have a large television in their front room. Daniel would kill to watch some television, but he daren’t ask them. He doesn’t want to offend Mr and Mrs Cooper.
Afterwards, they go for a walk around the local neighbourhood, Daniel filling his lungs with the freshest of fresh air. Although he was allowed outside into the grounds at Pendleton House, the air never felt fresh there. It was always tainted with a heavy fog, a sense that this air was only borrowed. Now, though, Daniel knows this was the air of home. The air of freedom.
