The First Cut

by Knight, Ali

  Sondra craned to see if there were any parking spaces further up the street.

  A car behind them honked angrily.

  ‘I hate this city!’ Jenny hissed under her breath. When they’d got the call from the Met this morning about a murder at Struan’s address, she’d lost no time in getting to the scene, but it hadn’t been easy or pleasant. They’d got lost three times getting here, after sitting nose to tail in Saturday jams on the M3, the heat radiating up from the tarmac in waves. They’d stop-started across giant roundabouts as Sondra struggled to interpret a jumble of road signs at knocked-about angles. They’d been frustrated by one-way systems, by no-right-hand-turn signs – the A–Z was no bloody good for that, was it? – and now they were finally here her bad mood could expand to meet the ugliness of the place. She felt hemmed in already, a haze of dirt and pollution hanging over the row upon row of terraced houses, giant wheelie bins blocking the pavement and skinny front yards in a never-ending battle to recycle the tons of rubbish produced by all these people crammed in too tightly together. It was the fag end of summer and the whole place felt like it needed a bath.

  Jenny got out of the car and approached the Astra behind her. ‘This road is closed,’ she snapped at the Sikh in the driving seat. He groaned loudly as he stared back at the long reverse he would have to do.

  She turned back to Sondra. ‘It’s number 197,’ Sondra said.

  ‘We’ll just have to leave the car here,’ Jenny said and they trudged down the road towards the blue and white police tape fluttering in the Saharan wind. ‘I probably couldn’t afford to buy a flat in this street,’ Jenny added sourly. Sondra tripped on a broken paving stone as they approached Struan’s front door. Detective Inspector Martin Webster came out to meet them and they all shook hands.

  ‘Flat’s upstairs,’ he said. Martin was large and cheerful and must have got overexcited by the weather recently as his nose was red and peeling with sunburn, Jenny noticed with a touch of disapproval.

  ‘You’ve got a traffic problem out there,’ Jenny said, nodding her head back at the street.

  Martin shrugged. ‘It’s the weekend. People kill for parking spaces round here,’ he replied with a smile, and called for someone upstairs to go and sort it out.

  ‘No one broke the front door,’ Jenny said, eyeing the cheap door that covered the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘No sign of a break-in but there was a fight,’ Martin said as they climbed the stairs and came into the living room. Two men were still dusting for fingerprints, a woman held a camera and was taking pictures, but the majority of the team dealing with murder cases had already left with the forensic evidence they needed.

  The bay window was covered in net curtains that were clean and bright and a modern sofa in grey sat along the back wall. There was a modern shelving unit at right angles to the window; it was lined with DVDs and photos in frames and a cuddly toy that said ‘Easy tiger’ on it. A glass coffee table was at a skewed angle. The blood splatters had reached as far as the large and expensive flat-screen in the corner.

  ‘Someone was eating a bowl of crisps,’ Martin pointed out and Jenny tracked the scatter pattern of crisps across the wooden floor, a bowl and a cup accompanying them, and saw several women’s weekly magazines scrunched on the sofa and floor, some scattered with blood. ‘And that scrape on the wall –’ both women turned to see a grey diagonal line in the magnolia paint – ‘we think this mark was made by the end of the gun that they were fighting to get control of. From the angle of the blood splatters on the TV we think Louise Bell was pushed backwards over the coffee table and then shot. Best estimates so far are that death occurred sometime Thursday afternoon, between one and three.’

  ‘One of my team interviewed her after Struan’s death,’ Jenny said. ‘She’d been going out with Struan for at least five years.’

  Martin nodded. ‘Her mother called her every day. They were like sisters. After the death of Struan Clarke she didn’t want to even leave Louise alone, she said, as Louise was too upset. When her mother hadn’t heard from her she simply came round and let herself in with a key that she’s got. She got a nasty shock.’

  ‘Louise claimed she couldn’t understand what Struan was doing out in Dorset in a country house in the middle of the night,’ Jenny said. ‘It was a total shock to her.’

  ‘Louise’s mother says the same,’ Martin added. ‘Far as she knew, Struan was just a bouncer.’

  ‘A shotgun makes a very loud noise. No one heard anything?’ Sondra asked.

  Martin shook his head. ‘The neighbour below is in Greece, those either side were either out or away. Those across the garden at the back don’t speak any English and we’re waiting for a Tagalog interpreter to arrive from Kensington.’

  ‘Tagalog?’ said Sondra uncertainly.

  ‘It’s a dialect of the Philippines,’ he said. ‘There’s no remote entry system so she would have had to come down the stairs, open the door and bring the killer up.’

  ‘So it’s likely it was someone she knew.’ Martin nodded. ‘And this shotgun—’

  ‘We’re still waiting for the full report, but it’s a Beretta 687, a pretty standard make, the kind of thing you’d find on many farms . . .’ he paused, ‘or estates, and I don’t mean the types on the other side of the main road.’

  ‘There are two shotguns registered at Hayersleigh,’ Jenny added. ‘Both are still there, but the place is chaotic to say the least . . .’ Jenny tailed off. Most crime, particularly violent crime, was obvious, brutal and sordid. Passion made people into animals – the human race was not sophisticated. All the education, fine clothes and opera in the world couldn’t prevent the violence lurking inside most people from exploding with lethal force if the circumstances were right. Jenny didn’t know what had occurred here in west London, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it tied up in the end with what had happened at Hayersleigh.

  ‘And then there’s this.’ Martin grinned as he pulled some photos of the body out of a file. ‘A necklace.’ He started sorting through them. ‘It’s been bagged and tagged. Mother doesn’t recognize it. Here.’

  Jenny heard Sondra make a clucking noise of satisfaction. ‘Would you look at that?’ Sondra said, holding the photo aloft for Jenny to see.

  The necklace was a thin chain and nestling in the centre of it was a name, each letter joined to the next by a little piece of silver. The silver letters spelled out ‘Nicky’.

  ‘I doubt it belongs to a Debra,’ Martin said cheerfully. ‘That’s a stupid thing to leave behind at a murder,’ he added.

  Jenny didn’t answer. Over the years that she’d worked murder cases she’d learned that the most obvious suspect usually was the perpetrator, the most obvious evidence was irrefutable. Leaving your own necklace in the dead woman’s grasping hand wasn’t so surprising after all; it was banal and stupid and real. She stared at the photo. Nicky Ayers wasn’t stupid, but she was clearly out of her depth. The necklace was something for teenagers, or someone like Kate Moss. She could see Nicky in this necklace. On herself such a thing would scream out ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, but Nicky could pull it off without looking ridiculous. Jenny could see Nicky in a nightclub, come to that; she would have clothes suitable for a club full of teenagers. Was that where she’d come across Struan and Louise?

  ‘Whose flat is this?’ asked Sondra.

  ‘Louise rented it. She’s lived here for three years and it is in her name. She was a midwife.’ Martin rubbed his sunburned nose. ‘Louise Bell isn’t your case, but now you’ve come all this way why not wait and hear what Nicky Ayers has to say? It could be illuminating.’

  38

  Greg was still woozy with the pills he’d taken to survive the flight and also hungover from his whiskies as he tried to fit his key into his front door. He didn’t need to bother as Nicky opened it and started shouting at him before he’d even put the handle down on his suitcase.

  ‘Who’s Francesca? Who is she, Greg!’ He backed up against the wall, tryi
ng to process his shock and surprise at that name being bandied about by his wife. ‘Come on, tell me, Greg!’ She looked livid, with staring eyes and wild gestures.

  This homecoming was so different from the fantasies he indulged in during the long lonely hours it took to get back home. He would imagine them hugging each other on the doorstep, right where she was shouting at him now, then they would take a bottle of wine and go upstairs, and he would pull off his uncomfortable travelling clothes and they would go to bed even though it was only the early afternoon and he would just lie there, nuzzling her, coming back to earth. But not today.

  She kept up the attack. ‘Francesca. She was your girlfriend, wasn’t she?’

  Greg nodded, sobering up fast under her questioning. ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘She was pregnant, wasn’t she?’

  Greg sensed his heart beginning its slow thump, thump of alarm. There had better be a good reason why this had all come out. The weather must have been hot, Greg thought, because she was sunburned, which was unlike Nicky, and she looked different, though he couldn’t put a finger on why. She seemed a bit wilder, a bit . . . stronger.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to say? This bit of information isn’t worth commenting on?’ Nicky came closer to him, pointing her finger. ‘Why did you never tell me and why did you never tell Grace?’

  Greg was big and solid and could have shoved that physicality in people’s faces, but he walked away from a fight and very rarely used his strength for baser purposes. He walked past her, towards the kitchen, to gain some space to think. ‘Did I ever lie to you? Did I ever?’

  ‘A total omission is just as bad!’ She was a pace behind him as he retreated to the back of the house.

  ‘Bullshit! I never lied.’

  ‘But you hid it! You were never going to tell me!’

  ‘No, I wasn’t.’

  ‘Your girlfriend died!’

  ‘Yes, she did.’

  ‘How could you never tell me, never talk to me—’

  ‘This is bullshit! Talking? That’s clap-trap dreamed up by people trying to steal your money, though they call it counselling! I had to forget, otherwise I’d go mad. Always onwards, always forwards, Nicky, that’s how I cope. I don’t dwell, I don’t think about the might have beens. Nothing corrodes me like thinking that if only I had done something different, something cleverer, I might have saved her. So forgive me if I don’t put flowers on a grave or build a shrine to dead love in my fucking garden. I’m doing it my way!’

  Greg could feel his face reddening, his rage coursing through his veins as he turned to face her. ‘Cut the crap, Nicky. I’ll ask you the same question. Have you ever lied to me? Come on? Have you ever? Anything you want to confess?’

  She ignored him and went back on the attack. ‘Why was Liz so angry when she unwittingly told me? Why should it be a secret?’

  ‘It’s not a secret!’

  ‘She acted like—’

  ‘Liz is Liz. For Chrissake, she’s a pain in the arse at the best of times, and now I’ve got to be judged on my sister? How do I know why she said those things? She’s probably a bit like me and wants to protect you from it.’

  ‘Protect me from what?’

  ‘Pain and grief, that’s what! Don’t tell me you understand, Nicky. Don’t tell me you know how I feel—’

  ‘I’ve never said that to you!’

  ‘I wouldn’t be with you if you had! People expect grief to play out as they see it in a film. If you don’t act a certain way they feel cheated – if you don’t cry they think you don’t feel; if you cry too much they tell you to pull yourself together. You don’t know what I’ve been through, you can never know! And remember, I had those detectives sitting opposite me at that fucking table, assessing my every reaction to Grace’s death, scrutinizing me for faults, trying to find chinks, and your charming workmates were doorstepping me, phoning my friends, insinuating rubbish—’

  ‘You don’t have a monopoly on suffering! Grace was my best friend! I had known her all my life!’

  That pulled Greg up short and he began to moan and drag his hands across his scratchy, jet-lagged eyes. ‘I know . . . I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘How did Francesca die?’

  Greg took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. He was standing by the sliding glass doors that led to their large garden. It was the kind of London garden that millions must covet: wide and long, with mature trees at the back that shielded them from the neighbours, who were never there anyway. A secret, hidden place that children should play in, a garden that his unborn child should have enjoyed. ‘She fell off a sixth-storey balcony. We were on holiday in Morocco.’ His voice was flat, expressionless. ‘I had gone to the chemist’s because her mosquito bites were itching. She was scratching them too much and I was worried about them getting infected. She was found naked in the grass by the edge of the pool. Twenty-third of August 1999.’

  Nicky paused. ‘I’m so sorry. Did you have any idea she was suicidal?’

  ‘She wasn’t.’ He spat the words out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She didn’t kill herself.’ He made a funny movement with his shoulders, halfway between a shrug and a gesture full of defiance. ‘She had been treated for depression in the past and could be very up and down, but I don’t think she would ever have done that . . . I mean, it must have been some kind of accident.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do I. She had no reason to . . . Maybe she was disorientated . . . The bloody hotel . . . They were just so keen to cover it all over because it was bad for business.’

  ‘No rooms above the ground floor . . . It makes sense now. But how—’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t understand, OK? I can’t explain it to you, any more than I could explain it to her parents!’ He was shouting now, his voice harsh in the afternoon heat. ‘There was a queue at the chemist’s, an Australian was dithering about buying waterproof plasters or something . . .’ He tailed off, his eyes glazing over. ‘When I got back she wasn’t there.’ He turned to Nicky. ‘It was at least ten minutes before I heard shouts outside the window and leaned over that bloody balcony.’ He paused. ‘You’ll never get the details you want because I can’t even begin to explain it to you. I don’t have the words!’

  ‘I know how it can be difficult to explain things, to reveal things that are not straightforward . . .’ She looked crushed.

  ‘Nicky?’ She was silent for a beat too long. ‘Nicky?’

  ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ She looked about to cry.

  ‘I don’t want pity. I can’t stand pity. So I didn’t tell you or anyone. I was away in California a lot then – that’s where she lived – and we’d only occasionally stay in London, but we were on holiday in Morocco. The police never asked about it because it never came up in their searches, and I never told them.’

  ‘She was going to have your child.’

  ‘But she didn’t, Nicky! She never did have that child! I might want to pretend otherwise, but that child never existed! She was five months pregnant when she died and I used to feel that baby’s elbow under the skin, feel those tiny feet pushing against her stomach . . . But there is no name for that child, that child has no sex, it has no birth certificate and it has no grave!’ Greg was angry now, so angry that blotches were appearing on his face. Nicky had never seen him like this before. ‘I’ve just got back from a twelve-hour flight during which I sat sweating in fear the whole time. I’m jet-lagged. And I don’t need this inquisition about things in the past I’m trying to forget from my wife!’ He picked up his jacket and jabbed his arms roughly into the armholes. He nearly ripped the fabric in his haste. ‘Don’t you think I spend enough time in hotels? You think I want to come home and spend my first day back in a fucking Novotel? Cos that’s what you’re making me do, Nicky!’

  ‘Please stay here so we can talk about this.’ Nicky was pleading with him now. ‘You’re cutting me out and I’m trying to help.’

 
; ‘Oh really!’ He wheeled round to her. ‘You’re telling me you’re not like all the rest? When you found out about Francesca you thought about Grace, didn’t you? And you thought: two dead women? No one can be that unlucky! That’s what this is really all about. You suspect me, just like everyone else!’

  He marched to the front door, feeling for his wallet, but it wasn’t there so he whirled back to the kitchen and swiped it from the island while she stood in the hallway. He put his hand on the front door and turned towards her. Now his voice was low and menacing. ‘You thought I’d killed both of them, didn’t you? But you didn’t answer my question, did you? Have you ever lied to me?’ He leaned forward. ‘Where were you phoning from when you woke me up the other day, eh? And then you rang off without saying anything at all.’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Have you ever lied to me about something that happened recently?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’ She said it loudly, without any shame or embarrassment.

  ‘God help you,’ he said in a whisper as he slammed the door behind him.

  Troy used a reverse directory to find the address that connected to the phone number that had taken him to Greg Peterson’s voicemail. His heart beat a little quicker when he saw the postcode: Maida Vale was a pricey part of town. Troy didn’t like to give in to intuition, he didn’t trust it, but every so often he had to admit a feeling would come over him and excitement and hope would soar in him. This just felt different from that loser RJ, who hadn’t been able to stump up a sou in payment for his past sins. A secret taken to the grave was about to reach out of the cold earth and grab at Greg Peterson in his very own Carrie finale. Troy couldn’t wait. But first he had to get prepared – for success and for failure. However excited he might be, the potential for fuck-ups was ever present. Struan’s snake tattoo flashed in his mind, but only for a moment.

  39