by Knight, Ali
25
Troy was livid, so steaming angry he wanted to punch the seats in his car till he nearly broke the leather. He was going to fucking strangle this mad bitch who’d just totalled his car, but he was reeling from the impact and the unfamiliar feeling of grappling with an air bag. So he sat stunned as he watched her jump from that piece-of-shit rust bucket with the smashed-out window and scream at him for his phone like the banshee she was. He wouldn’t have let her touch it with her filthy hands, not for all the lager in Bournemouth, but the impact had sent his I-phone 4 flipping skywards from the passenger seat to land on the dashboard near the passenger window, allowing her to see it mid-rant and snatch it up in her claws and call the law.
He undid his seatbelt and tried to open his door, but he’d been shunted tight up against the hedge and had to climb across the car to the passenger side to get out. He staggered as he stood, shock from the impact coursing round his body and his rage multiplying as he reached open air. She was gonna pay for this, every fucking penny was coming from this tart.
He checked himself for injuries, ran his tongue over his new teeth and balled up his fists. He was going to fucking deck her, this bitch with the wild hair and filthy clothes. This gypsy country whore, fingernails ingrained with black, was holding his phone! But then he tuned into what she was saying to the police and then he stood transfixed. She’d been kidnapped, held against her will for three days at Hayersleigh House. An Adam Thornton was coming down the road to get her. He’d killed an intruder. And then she said her name, repeated it three times, louder and louder into the small I-phone microphone. He hadn’t recognized her from the photo he’d handed to Struan, so changed and distressed did she seem.
Troy took a step towards her as another car screeched to a halt on the country lane. She rang off and started shouting at him: ‘I need to make a call!’ Great sobs racked her body. She was holding out his phone, pleading for him to unlock it. He did so immediately, handing it back to her with all the concern of an upstanding member of the public. With shaking fingers she dialled a number as he watched a couple tumble from the other car, their faces telegraphing concern, a shout of enquiry that he batted off with a wave. He stood awkwardly in front of her as if he might have to catch her if she fell. ‘Honey, it’s me, it’s me. Please pick up, please!’ Troy could tell her man wasn’t there. He wondered idly if he was with another woman. She hung up and started to cry. He pulled her dirty face towards the lapel of his pristine linen suit and patted her on the back, offering words of comfort and encouragement as she sobbed and shook with fear and relief.
His mind was crunching through scenarios. So Struan had been struck out. He was going to have to finish this off himself. As if he didn’t have enough to do. He looked back at his buckled side panel, the cracked window and the deflating air bags, and then actually kissed the top of Nicky’s head.
Now he had two reasons to kill her.
26
Nicky couldn’t work out what time it was in LA and she didn’t care if she woke him up. She wanted to speak to Greg so badly, to hear his voice. The perspex bubble of the phone booth was scored with scratch marks. She doubted many pleasant conversations had been heard by this receiver in the corridor outside A&E. She had been checked for concussion and had her ankle dressed, her scabs and scrapes dabbed and disinfected. The policewoman had given her some coins as she had no money or ID and no phone; the bindings to an understandable life had been severed. She had never felt more exposed, less prepared.
She heard his phone ringing and the tears sprang to her eyes as he answered. ‘Greg? Greg it’s me.’ He groaned and she couldn’t tell if it was from panic or pain. ‘Greg it’s me.’
‘What? What time is it? Christ! Nicky, you’re alive?’
She was taken aback. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I . . . Jesus . . . I don’t know—’
‘I’m running out of money. Call me back on this number.’ He mumbled, hunting for a pen as she read out the digits. ‘Call me back.’
She replaced the receiver and stared at it as if it might suddenly attack her. You’re alive? For the first time a suspicion about her husband began a slow crawl up her back. It was roasting in the hospital, the smell of fetid bodies and old food flourishing in the heat. She waited a long couple of minutes before the phone rang and she picked it up.
‘Nicky? Hi. How are you? Having a good time?’
Her call had dragged him from sleep; had he unwittingly revealed something while struggling to consciousness? Now his voice was perky and fake, a million miles from the warts-and-all reality of where she stood. She’d caught him unawares with the unknown number, but he’d spent a while phoning her back. He’d been composing himself.
‘I’m OK.’ She coughed. ‘Yes, I’m good, I suppose.’
‘Well.’ There was a pause on the line. ‘That’s just dandy.’
Dandy? Her misgivings deepened. He was being sarcastic, she was sure.
‘I really miss you. I miss you terribly.’
Silence. ‘I miss you too, Nicky.’
Nicky’s eyes filled with tears. Twice in the past two weeks she had come perilously close to dying. She thought about that moment when she keeled over backwards and there was nothing there to break her fall except the river. It didn’t make any sense. Why had Adam jumped in to save her that time if he wanted to hide her away a week later? The second time terror drilled through her guts as she fought to stay alive and get away. She had a vivid image of Adam hanging off the car as she floored the accelerator to escape. What had been his parting shot? Your life’s in danger. It didn’t get clearer than that. He was mad, bad and dangerous, but what if part of what he was saying was true? The brutal reality was that she couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t, she couldn’t be certain that Greg’s reaction to hearing her voice hadn’t been tinged with surprise – and disappointment.
‘Greg?’ She felt overwhelming foreboding and horribly alone. Even while on the phone to her husband, all that filled her mind was Adam. She knew this was irrational, maybe a reaction to the trauma she’d experienced earlier in the day, but it was powerful nonetheless. ‘I’m going now. I’ll phone you soon.’ She hung up before he did.
As she put the phone down she saw the policewoman who had taken her original statement – was it Sandra? – watching her from the plastic seats lining the corridor. Nicky’s hand moved to her dress pocket and she fingered the battered photo of herself. She gripped the dirty plastic to stop herself keeling over. How did she know that Grace’s killer wasn’t coming for her? The answer was that she didn’t. She didn’t even understand what questions she should be asking.
The policewoman sitting a little way away gave her a smile of sympathy, an invitation to revelations.
All Nicky could think, as she stood injured and alone, was that no one was above suspicion.
27
DI Jenny Broadbent turned the AFC Bournemouth mug round so that the chip in the rim was away from her lips. It was the last clean cup in the staff kitchen – their rota system for washing-up had proved as successful as the local football team. She stared at the fruit tea bag floating in the hot water. The contents looked like things cleaned off a stable floor. Raspberry and Echinacea, Sondra had said: a good way to cut down on the caffeine. Jenny needed a caffeine shot in the veins right now as she skim-read the report in front of her. This was a situation that was confused at best. They were dealing with a night-time break-in and a fight that ended in death. These were talking points enough at this small station, or, as Sondra had said excitedly, ‘A posh bloke in a huge house. They’re the worst, aren’t they?’
Jenny didn’t agree. She could think of plenty worse, but then Sondra was younger and fresher and had yet to rack up the years of experience Jenny had behind her. She sniffed the mug carefully; like most healthy things, it smelled of nothing at all, as if it didn’t exist. Other accusations were flying around: kidnapping, hit and run, hints of sexual violence. The force had swung into action,
squad cars screaming off down country lanes. The victim, a Nicky Ayers, was involved in a car crash and had been taken to hospital; the alleged perpetrator was here at the station with none other than his father, Judge Lawrence Thornton, to represent him. The women’s hero with a sexual molester for a son? The station was humming with rumour and it was Jenny’s job to set the record straight.
She picked up her mug and approached the interview rooms, knocked and entered. This side of the building had high, south-facing windows and she walked into a wall of heat. A fan spun uselessly in the corner. The two men across the table automatically rose as one and then sat back down. Jenny pushed the record button on the huge black tape recorder that took up half the desk they were sitting at. Jenny introduced herself and stated the date and the time as she sized up the men in front of her.
She found it easy to put herself in other women’s shoes, to see things and scenarios as they might. Adam Thornton was a person in whom two potent attributes collided: good looks and youth. The first she had never enjoyed and the other she had said goodbye to a while ago. He was deeply tanned with a livid bruise over one eye and an arm in a sling. His T-shirt was torn and dirty and his arms were covered in scratches. That was some fight, she thought.
‘You’ve been seen by a doctor, have you?’
Adam nodded. She looked at his forearms, muscled and sinewy. Jenny liked generalizing; it made the world ordered, understandable. She thought it was a great asset in this job. A punch from this guy would do great damage, as the dead man had found to his cost.
She looked down at her notes. He had gone to a top boarding school, the family owned the country house where the incidents took place, and he was living temporarily at his father’s house. The father’s address in the capital was in a smart area she’d heard of. Adam was a walking embodiment of privilege, with a big inheritance coming his way and a nice bit of countryside property to impress the ladies with. Jenny figured that if this guy turned his attentions on you he would be hard to resist.
‘We’re trying to establish what exactly happened on Tuesday morning.’ Jenny paused and looked down again at the notes. ‘So you wake in the middle of the night, you hear a noise, you come down the main stairs and you see Struan Clarke.’
‘I saw he had something big in his hand – I couldn’t see what exactly because it was dark. So I picked up the vase from the landing and I threw it at him.’
‘Which way was he facing when you threw the vase?’
‘He was facing me. He had started to come for me.’
‘And then you jumped on him?’
‘He was coming right at me.’
Jenny let out a silent groan. This kind of case was the worst. It was not as clear-cut as she would have liked. Adam had used fatal force but she’d like to see this stand up in court. A householder on trial for killing an intruder in his home? It never played well. The media howled with outrage, politicians jabbed fingers, the police and the CPS were made to look like fools. And here was the defendant: young, attractive, and posh to boot, with no prior convictions. The contrast between him and Struan, a tattooed bouncer with a criminal history, was all too evident. Jenny leaned forward to try to unstick her skirt from the back of her thighs. ‘Tell me in your own words exactly what happened next.’
‘We fought. He was trying to kill me, no doubt about that. He was swinging that crowbar around, but I got it out of his hand in the end. I punched him a few times and we were on the ground, rolling this way and that.’ Adam illustrated by swaying in his seat, his shoulders feinting and ducking. ‘He tried to strangle me at one point but I got him off me and my foot hit the crowbar – it was really dark down there – and I picked it up and hit him with it.’
‘During this fight where was Nicky?’
‘She must have been upstairs. I told her to stay there. She had a bad leg too.’
‘Why?’
‘She fell on the wine-cellar steps that day and couldn’t walk properly.’
‘Why did you tell her to stay upstairs?’
‘I was worried for her safety.’
‘Why? Why were you worried? You had no idea there was even someone in the house at that point.’
‘How is this relevant to the chain of events?’ Lawrence asked.
Jenny paused and let it go. ‘Would you describe your fight as vicious?’
‘It was a fight for life.’
‘Would you describe yourself as a man with a temper, Adam?’
‘When someone’s trying to kill me, yes.’
‘Struan Clarke was a bouncer. He was used to throwing young men like you around for a living, tossing you off the steps of nightclubs. He was used to fighting, but you managed not just to injure him but to kill him.’
‘Again, I ask what is the inference of this question? You are implying my son is at fault, when the intruder broke into a private house and attacked my son – my client – with a weapon.’ Lawrence Thornton was leaning forward, calm but determined.
‘I meant only that—’
But she didn’t finish her answer because Adam interrupted. ‘Like I said before, it was me or him.’
There was silence.
‘Did you know him, Adam?’
‘What?’
‘Have you ever seen him or met him before?’
She sensed his discomfort; it was impossible to hide. ‘No, never.’
‘Nicky Ayers says she heard you two talking before you started fighting. That’s a strange thing to do with someone who’s broken into your house in the middle of the night.’
Adam looked surprised. ‘I never said a word to him. I may have shouted when I saw him. I don’t remember; it was a very tense and frightening situation.’
‘Struan Clarke lives in London. Why would he be burgling your house? How would he even know about your house?’
Adam shook his head. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Are there valuable things in your house to steal, Adam?’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’
‘What happened after you’d killed Struan? You had your phone at the house. I’ve heard that reception’s fine there; it’s not a mobile black spot. Surely you called the police immediately?’ Adam began rocking back and forth in the chair and didn’t respond. ‘Adam? Why didn’t you call the police?’
‘I’m not saying any more.’ Adam glanced at his dad and looked away.
‘Nicky says you wanted to bury Struan under the front lawn. That you were digging up the lawn to put him under it.’
Adam leaned forward across the table. Jenny instinctively leaned back. There was something about him that made her uneasy. She sensed an animal rage running beneath the surface. An image of Nicky and what she’d put in her statement flashed unpleasantly across Jenny’s memory. She spent a second or two imagining how terrifying it would be to be this man’s captive for days on end.
‘When Nicky wanted to call the police, why did you stop her?’ Jenny couldn’t help glancing at Lawrence. He was wearing a pale linen suit that was rather crumpled and gave him the air of a man who had just returned from a punt along a river and had dropped his hamper by the back door, opened that door and found his rectory trashed. He was making an effort to stay unaffected by what he heard, but it wasn’t working. If she hadn’t worked as a police officer for nearly twenty years and had her heart hardened to all manner of things, she would have felt sorry for this father. He was looking after his son’s interests here, but he looked grey and crushed. The overriding emotion that was present on his face was shame.
‘No comment.’
‘Adam, try to answer the question,’ Lawrence said.
Jenny saw Adam flash his father a look she couldn’t interpret. ‘Did you kidnap Nicky Ayers, hold her against her will?’
He said nothing.
‘Did you handcuff her to a radiator? Did you puncture the tyre on her car so she couldn’t leave your house?’
‘I—’
There was a knock on the door and Sondra came in. ‘Excus
e me, I need a word.’
Jenny leaned towards the tape recorder even though she knew it picked up sound perfectly well. She did it to hide her irritation. ‘DI Jenny Broadbent leaving the room.’ She stood and excused herself and turned to Sondra when they were out in the corridor. ‘This had better be good.’
‘She’s changed her mind. She’s retracted.’
‘What?’
‘Nicky Ayers wants to give a new statement. She’s now saying she wasn’t held captive.’
Jenny swore. She went back into the room and ended the interview. Lawrence followed her out immediately, smelling a hitch. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You and your client will have to wait, sir.’ She walked off stiffly down the corridor, Sondra half jogging to keep up with her.
‘She’s adamant,’ Sondra said.
Jenny swore softly to herself again. ‘I haven’t even met this woman and already she’s pissing me off.’
‘She’s waiting for you,’ Sondra said.
The first thing Jenny noticed about Nicky when she entered the room was her dress. It was ripped and stained with mud and dust but it was a summery, designer piece in almost comic contrast to the cheap and heavy black courts she had been given as emergency footwear. One of her ankles was bandaged. ‘Miss Ayers? I’m Detective Inspector Jenny Broadbent. Please don’t get up.’
