by Sarah Hilary
‘Sorry.’ Ed shook his head. ‘One thing, though. Kenneth Reece. I made some calls, about his place at Excalibur House. He’s in an advanced stage of cirrhosis. The liver’s too scarred for a transplant and he’s being treated for a hepatitis C infection. In other words . . . he’s dying.’
‘Natural justice. Do you think Hope guessed as much, the last time she saw him?’
‘Possibly. She’s sharp enough. And she knew him when he was well.’
The French toast arrived, smelling so good Marnie’s mouth watered. The cutlery was warm, wrapped in heavy linen. Soft brown sugar dusted the lips of the plates, dissolving to gold in the hot heart of the toast. The café’s owner brought freshly frothed milk, a refill of coffee.
‘Thanks.’ Marnie smiled at the man. This place was her secret, jealously guarded. She wondered if Ed knew what a big deal it was that she’d brought him here. ‘Have you got time to go over there, after this?’
‘To Finchley? Sure.’ Ed ate a mouthful of toast. ‘Oh wow. Rome? This is the best thing I’ve eaten since—’
‘Careful.’
He grinned, attacking more of the toast. ‘Okay. I may need to come here every day.’
‘As long as you pick me up en route.’
Sugar at the corners of his mouth made his smile sparkle. ‘All roads lead to you, Rome.’ His phone yelped. He wiped his hands and checked it, frowning abruptly. ‘Text from Tessa. She says she’s got something she needs to show us.’
He handed Marnie the phone. Tessa’s text was enigmatic, not urgent or anxious, just a request for Ed to come to the refuge, when he could. Bring DIR.
‘That’s you,’ Ed said.
In Finchley, the scaffolding was empty, the roof’s plastic sheeting shifting with the breeze. The door was secure. Britt let them in, before returning to the dayroom. She sat down beside Mab, filling her lap with a purple scarf she was knitting. Mab was helping, a heap of heather wool held between her gloved hands. She beamed at Marnie and Ed, looking alert and content. ‘Hello! Look who’s here.’
Britt asked, ‘How’re things with you two? Any news for us?’
‘A little,’ Marnie said. ‘We found Simone, and Hope.’
‘Aw, that’s good! Isn’t that good, Mab?’
Mab nodded, still beaming. Britt’s arrival had transformed the refuge, and the women. Everywhere looked clean and comfortable. Fresh flowers on the table, a new shelf of books, cushions brightening the sofas, a rug doing the same on the floor.
Tessa was sitting next to Shelley. The TV was on, but Tessa wasn’t watching. She was filling in a book of crossword puzzles with a pen. When she saw Marnie and Ed, she nudged Shelley. ‘They’re here.’
‘I can see, can’t I? I ain’t blind.’ Shelley turned the gold hoop in her left ear, hunching her shoulder at Marnie, her eyes on the TV, her fists in the stretched pockets of her tracksuit. Some of the rhinestones had fallen off the black velour, leaving behind hard little glue stains.
Tessa rolled her eyes. ‘We were talking with Mab, after you left. We thought you should hear what she’s got to say.’
‘Okay.’ Marnie took a seat at Mab’s side, waiting until Ed was sitting also. ‘What was it you wanted to tell us?’
Mab beamed approval at Ed. ‘Teddy. You’re a nice boy.’
‘Thanks, lovely. Did you want to tell us something?’
‘We’re making a scarf.’
‘Yes, I can see.’
‘Tell them about the phone,’ Tessa said. ‘Go on, Mab. It’s important, remember?’ When Mab didn’t speak, Tessa said, ‘She thinks she’s in trouble, but we told her it’s not like the rings and stuff.’
‘Yeah,’ Shelley put in, ‘no one gave a shit about my rings.’
‘Shut up,’ Tessa told her. ‘Tell them about the nice phone, Mab.’ She glanced at Marnie. ‘There was a phone ad on the telly and, well, we felt bad about not listening to her before. About Ayana. So when she started up about the phone . . . We thought you’d want to know.’
Ed dug his own phone from a pocket and held it out for Mab. She smiled. ‘That’s a nice phone.’
‘It is nice.’ Britt hadn’t stopped knitting, the tick of her needles like a clock.
‘Not as pretty as the other one.’
Tessa nudged Shelley in the ribs, nodding at Marnie.
‘Which one’s that?’ Ed asked.
Mab said, ‘The one with the diamonds. She left it in her room.’
Ed kept his tone light, inconsequential. ‘Ayana left it?’
‘Not Ayana, she only thought I had hers. The other one. The new one. Hope.’
A fresh flood of adrenalin heated Marnie’s skin.
‘Mab.’ Ed crouched at the woman’s side, reaching for one of her gloved hands. ‘Where’s the pretty phone now?’
Mab looked flustered. She gripped at Ed’s fingers. ‘I have it safe,’ she said. ‘I’m keeping it safe for her.’
Ed nodded. ‘I know you are. You’re very careful. You take good care of everything. Will you show me the phone, please? Just so I can see how pretty it is?’
35
‘Mab had Hope’s phone?’ Noah Jake, banked by pillows in the hospital bed, looked better for a morning’s rest.
‘Hidden in the cushion of her chair.’ Marnie sat next to him. ‘Ed told me she was a magpie, collecting things the others left lying around.’
A frown pinched at Noah’s face. ‘Hope never mentioned a missing phone . . .’
‘Cover story. Leo swore blind she didn’t use one. Implied she wouldn’t know how. I’ve no doubt he believed that. It was part of her alibi; he isolated her, wouldn’t let her use a phone. Mab found it right after the stabbing. Hope must’ve intended Simone to bring it to the hospital. She thought she’d be safe, having Simone to mop up after her. She didn’t know that Mab had already found the phone and stashed it in her chair.’ She poured a glass of water. ‘Nice phone. Snazzy cover, a bit like Ayana’s, but more expensive. We’re lucky Mab wears gloves. Hope’s are the only prints on it.’
Noah’s frown was lifting. ‘Go on. There’s more, I can tell.’
Marnie measured a pause before telling the next part. ‘Ayana’s phone went missing overnight, a day before the stabbing. She reported it to Jeanette, who told her to sort it out with Mab. They all knew Mab took things from time to time. Ayana asked about the phone, but Mab denied taking it. She got upset, so Ayana left it alone. The phone turned up again, and she assumed Mab had put it back. The day after the stabbing, Mab found another phone, Hope’s phone, hidden in her room. Mab took it. I’m guessing Hope was counting on Simone bringing the phone to the hospital. Hope couldn’t risk taking the phone there herself, because it didn’t fit with her alibi.’ She watched Noah add this together. ‘We have the log, from Hope’s phone. She made a call right before the stabbing. To Ayana’s home number.’
‘Ayana . . . had her home number on her phone?’
‘Like Ed said, it’s hard to let go. The number was stored in her contacts. She never called it herself, but Hope did. Right before she stabbed Leo.’
Noah shut his eyes, opening them again as suddenly. ‘Hope called the number in Ayana’s phone?’
‘And got through to Ayana’s brothers. Yes.’
‘Then . . .’
‘No one followed you to the refuge. You didn’t give Ayana away. It was Hope.’
‘Why?’ Noah looked lost, despite the evidence implanted in his ribs of the sort of woman Hope Proctor was.
‘Most likely because Ayana saw through Hope’s act. Maybe not the whole way through, but enough for Hope to know she had a hostile witness on her hands. Someone she could get rid of with a phone call. It was the last thing she did before stabbing Leo. Clearing her way.’
Noah shifted against the pillows, wincing. ‘Have you found her? Ayana.’
‘Not yet, but we will.’
‘And Hope?’ Noah asked.
Marnie crooked her mouth. ‘I’m dealing with Hope. She doesn’t know yet that we f
ound the phone. I’m looking forward to telling her. And her lawyer.’
‘Have you spoken with Henry Stuke?’
‘Not yet. But I will.’
‘What about Simone?’
‘She needs time. The same as you. Time to mend.’ She stood, staying by his side a moment. ‘How’s Dan?’
‘Good, thanks. How’s Ed?’ Noah asked, innocently. He was smiling.
‘Not a proper detective?’ Marnie clicked her tongue. ‘Told you she lied.’
36
‘So Simone Bissell isn’t talking.’ Commander Tim Welland was behind his desk, polishing a photograph of his favourite car, with his favourite tie.
It was close to 3 p.m. Marnie was back from Talgarth Road, where the on-duty magistrate had refused bail to Lowell Paton. She was nursing a new optimism, cautiously. Ed had good news for Simone, when she was well enough to hear it; Paton was going to prison for a long time.
‘She’s not even talking to Belloc?’ Welland asked. ‘He’s usually the charm with these women.’
‘Simone’s in shock. I’m sure she will talk to Ed, but she needs time.’
‘Meanwhile Patrick Rolfe is gearing up to a charge of police negligence. You’re in his sights, Detective Inspector. How’re you going to head that off?’
‘I’ve got a pretty good idea.’ She paused. ‘It involves hard evidence.’
‘Glad to hear it . . . Hope Proctor looks the part.’ Welland restored the photo to its proper place on his desk. ‘Especially with those bandages. Rolfe’s wheeling her out like a ribbon-wrapped prize.’
Marnie nodded, accepting this. ‘Her entire defence rests on her credibility as a victim. We put cracks in that – and it all breaks down.’
Welland began rearranging pens in an empty Stilton jar. The jar gave off the faint, offensive tang of its original contents. ‘Rolfe wants to know why we’re not gunning for Simone Bissell. Seems to think the CPS would lap her up. He has a point, especially after the business with Nasif Mirza. This one’s got a weapon, fingerprints, the lot – but we’re asking them to prosecute the victim.’
‘It’s a long time since Hope Proctor was a victim. If Rolfe had any sense, he’d go for that angle. The things that happened to her as a kid.’
‘Plead insanity, when he can get her off scot-free and win compensation into the bargain? Not Rolfe’s way.’
‘You know him better than I do. Isn’t he expensive? I’m wondering how that sits with Hope’s isolation alibi. The world is such a big scary place, but she knows exactly where to lay her hands on a great lawyer? It doesn’t hang together.’
Welland quashed this with a shake of his head. ‘Rolfe’s an opportunist. He can sniff public sympathy at a thousand paces. More, when it comes with compensation thrown in. He approached her, not the other way around.’
He stood, reaching for his jacket. ‘I’m going to sit in on this one.’
Marnie blinked. ‘You don’t trust me?’
‘I’m counting on you,’ he corrected. ‘To run Rolfe and his client off the road. DI Rome,’ he put a large paw on her shoulder, ‘slayer of dragons.’
She blinked again, absurdly grateful for the heavy hand holding her in place. ‘Patrick Rolfe isn’t a dragon. He’s a tic.’
‘A lizard,’ Welland temporised. ‘One of the dragon family. Thrives in arid terrain, adept climber . . .’ His smile was lethargic, warm. ‘You could handle him in your sleep.’
‘Rolfe, maybe. It’s Hope I’m worried about.’
37
Hope, in her baggy grey sweats, looked about sixteen. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail that emphasised her scrubbed-clean soap-and-water skin. Worry in her eyes, but it wasn’t real. Not yet. Manufactured, like everything else about her. Marnie needed to make it real. Strip away the layers of Hope’s disguise, and show Tim Welland and Patrick Rolfe the real Hope Proctor née Reece. She sat, putting a box file of paperwork on the metal table. ‘I met your dad, in Dulwich.’
Hope’s mouth moved. When she spoke, her voice was very small. ‘How – how is he?’
‘How is he?’ Marnie folded her hands on the table. ‘He’s proud of you.’
Hope opened her blue eyes wide, wordless. Rolfe made a whistling shape with his mouth. Welland folded his arms, an entrenched expression on his face.
‘Proud of you,’ Marnie said. ‘For surviving. For being, and I quote, his tough nut.’
Hope shook her head, looking to Rolfe.
‘Don’t you get tired of this?’ Marnie really wanted to know. ‘Don’t you get tired of playing what you’re not – his good little girl? His nicely behaved dim little doll. I would. I’d get sick and tired. Especially after I’d stuck a knife in someone.’
All those years switching between golden girl and survivor. The balancing act, always having to get it right, fearing what would happen if she got it wrong. She couldn’t ever have been happy, not truly. And never secure.
‘Is this headed anywhere? Preferably in the direction of evidence.’ Rolfe wore a red tie and a white shirt, cufflinks with a club crest. The cufflinks were a mistake, embellishing his ego every time he moved his hands.
Marnie ignored him, addressing Hope. ‘Your dad said you never had a problem with anything he did. We know what he did. To Gayle, your mum. Did you really not have a problem with that?’
Hope shrank. She fretted with her fingers at her hair. She’d been biting her nails since her arrest, destroying the pearly pink evidence.
‘He said you’d not been in touch since your mum’s funeral. Why’s that?’
‘Leo wouldn’t let me,’ she whispered. ‘He . . . didn’t like my dad.’
‘And your dad didn’t like him. Why? Because Leo wasn’t enough like a real man? Pumping iron, beating women, or whatever real men do.’
‘Is this going to be at all relevant, at any point?’ Rolfe sat forward in the chair, the red of his tie like an autopsy wound opening his chest. He wasn’t in a hurry, patience lacquered like an extra layer to the smooth surface of his face.
Marnie served up a careful smile. ‘The iron is relevant. A forty-four-pound cast-iron kettlebell, with your client’s fingerprints on it. She used it to break her husband’s ribs. And Detective Sergeant Noah Jake’s.’
‘We’ve been through this. My client was under duress, in fear for her life.’
‘That’s not what DS Jake says. He’s pretty clear about how much your client enjoyed what she did. What’s more, it was his definite impression that she meant to kill him. We have a deliberate choice of weapon. The kettlebell belongs to your client. It was taken from her house. She used it to break DS Jake’s ribs, after threatening him with a knife.’
‘The knife found in Simone Bissell’s hands,’ Rolfe specified. ‘The knife used to inflict life-threatening injuries on my client.’
‘Explain to me again DS Jake’s reason for lying about the way in which he nearly died.’ Marnie nodded at Hope.
‘By all means.’ Rolfe settled his shoulders inside his bespoke suit; Marnie swore she could hear Tim Welland growling. ‘No one’s denying that DS Jake suffered trauma at the hands of a disturbed young woman. Given Simone Bissell’s past, I’m sure we can all sympathise with his chivalrous instinct to protect her. But not at the cost of justice for my client.’
‘She sat on my legs,’ Marnie read from Noah’s statement, ‘and held a knife to my chest. She warned me to be careful because “that bitch with her phone card isn’t here to help you”. When I spoke, she punched me in the throat with the handle of the knife.’
‘Chivalrous and politically expedient,’ Rolfe said.
‘Politically what?’ Welland demanded.
‘Correct, if you prefer. Politically correct.’ Rolfe shot his cuffs. ‘I doubt it’s a coincidence that DS Jake and Simone Bissell share the same skin colour . . .’
Marnie said, ‘He’s Jamaican. She’s Ugandan. And you’re a bigot.’
‘. . . and the same sexual preference,’ Rolfe finished.
�
�I take it back. You give bigots a bad name.’
Rolfe gave a slow nod, like applause without the noise.
‘She’s right.’ Welland pointed his thumb at Rolfe. ‘You play those cards with the CPS and you’re going to get your head handed back to you on a big plate. Noah Jake makes a terrific witness. We all know it.’
‘He’d better.’ Rolfe’s face was a lengthy study in smugness. ‘Since he’s all you’ve got. Your PSU team took the knife from the Bissell girl. DI Graves was a witness to my client’s trauma immediately after the attack. Your witness was in another room when that attack happened.’
Welland’s brows climbed. ‘Tied to a sink pipe by your client.’ He nodded at Hope. ‘You tie great knots for someone who’s never done it before.’
Hope did her shrinking trick; any minute now she’d be invisible. Just for a second, Marnie felt sorry for her – was this how she’d survived as a kid? By taking up as little room as possible in that godforsaken house? They weren’t seeing Hope Reece, or even Hope Proctor. Not really. They were seeing what little was left of her after Kenneth Reece had worked his paternal magic.
Noah Jake had seen the real Hope, in the bathroom at the Bissells’ house. Marnie summoned the image of his bleeding wrists, the skin he’d torn trying to get free so that he could save Simone. ‘DI Graves was a witness to your client’s acting ability. She puts on quite a show. Noah got a private performance, off-script. And Commander Welland’s right, he’s a hell of a witness. First-class degree in psychology. You should’ve taken advantage of that,’ she told Hope, ‘instead of amusing yourself with his torture. Still, I expect old habits are hard to break.’
‘I seriously doubt,’ Rolfe said, ‘that Leo Proctor has the guts to perjure himself for the sake of hurting his wife more than he’s hurt her already. Bullies are like that . . . all cowards under the skin.’
‘Is he right, Hope?’ Marnie looked at the woman sitting next to Rolfe. ‘Are you a coward under the skin? Like your dad?’
