Lie Beside Me

by Gytha Lodge

  These were two sudden points in Drunk Louise’s favour, and as the mild alcohol poisoning receded, I imagined that I might be able to drink again, if I was more careful.

  It helped Drunk Louise’s case that I was nervous about meeting you when I was sober. I had no idea how to flirt without her help. So having booked in a date, I decided that I’d let myself have a few glasses before we met.

  It was such a relief to feel it happening again. To feel her take over. It was like putting on the warmest of coats. If you can imagine a warm coat that somehow also made me look smoking hot.

  I still could have kept it under control, I think, even then. I wasn’t inclined to drink most of the time. It was just a few drinks when I hung out with April, which I’d started to do twice a week. Though it was generally more than a few when I saw you.

  I think you finally, belatedly need to take a little responsibility for that, Niall. Drunk Louise didn’t gain power and frequency without help. She bloomed under your encouragement as much as mine.

  I want you to think back to those first dates of ours. To think back honestly, and to ask yourself how they must have been for me. How hard it was every time you told me about Dina, and about the raw anger you felt towards her. The hurt.

  It’s not the only thing I remember about those dates, of course. I remember learning things about you. Your hatred of ABBA. Your love of Miles Davis and Nat King Cole. Your secret obsession with Star Wars, which nobody from work was allowed to know about. Your equal love of food and your determination to eat organic.

  I’m aware of your influence on me, too. It was through you that I started to appreciate really good food. Beyond pizza, I mean, which I’ve always enjoyed heart and soul. The first time you cooked beef wellington, it was a revelation. It was extraordinary to me that you could make something so good in an ordinary kitchen.

  You laughed at me as I gorged myself on three helpings.

  ‘There’s a whole other course to come, you know,’ you told me.

  I said I’d just have to borrow another stomach from somewhere, and you gave me the hugest grin. You told me how happy you were that I enjoyed food.

  ‘It was so frustrating being with someone who was constantly dieting,’ you said. ‘Dina made food her enemy.’

  I honestly didn’t know whether I felt good about that, or awful. I washed away any more thought with another glass of Médoc.

  I also learned in those early days that you were far more impulsive than I have ever been. Far more likely, too, to put everything off until tomorrow. I remember being fascinated and horrified when you said you’d leave the washing-up until the morning. How I itched to do it, because I knew I would lie awake worrying about it. Though, in fact, by the time we’d spent a good hour in extended lovemaking, I slept like a baby. It was a revelation.

  You were far more comfortable in your own skin, too. Watching you speak to waiters and waitresses with warmth and without worry made me feel safe for some reason. And witnessing the way you laughed when you dropped something or screwed up filled me with wonder. Where was the immediate self-loathing that plagued me? And why weren’t you angry when I messed up, too?

  It occurred to me, for what was honestly the first time in my life, that I didn’t actually need to be hard on myself. That there was a choice in this. And every time I broke a glass or lost something, as you rubbed my arm and helped me sort it out, I let a little bit of the dislike I’d long felt towards myself drift away.

  In fact, Niall, if only it hadn’t been for Dina, you might have been nothing but good for me.

  5

  ‘We’d really appreciate any information you can give us on Alex’s movements last night,’ Hanson said to Issa, quietly, once his racking sobs had subsided into occasional juddering breaths. Jonah was happy to let her be the comforting presence in this conversation. He’d never been sure he was that good at it. ‘I know it’s hard when you’re trying to process this, but the more quickly we start looking for Alex’s killer, the more likely we are to bring them to justice.’

  Issa nodded, drew in another breath, and then nodded again. ‘Yes. Yes, I want to – help.’ He turned his eyes up towards the ceiling, gathering himself together. ‘Alex was out with one of his – our friends.’ He looked at Hanson. ‘I was away. I didn’t get back until one, and he was still out. I wasn’t there to protect him.’

  Jonah gave him a nod. The idea of the diminutive Issa protecting the powerful Alex looked a little ridiculous on the face of it, but there were other forms of protection than the physical. There was, for example, the kind that involved persuading someone to stop drinking when they’d had enough. Or that talked them out of aggressive behaviour.

  ‘Do you know where they went?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘A gig in the Porterhouse, and then they ended up staying out.’ He shook his head. ‘The last I heard from him – they were in Blue Underground, and he was quite drunk.’

  The tears gained the upper hand for a few moments, and then Jonah asked him, ‘Could we have the friend’s name?’

  He nodded, silently at first, before managing to say, ‘Step. Step Conti. He’s a Stefano, but he’s only ever called Step.’

  ‘You know this friend well?’

  ‘Yes,’ Issa said, swallowing. ‘He’s a good friend to both of us. Alex likes to go out – with Step and a couple of others. I sometimes join them and sometimes leave them to it. I’m not quite such a hard drinker.’ He gave a watery smile.

  ‘You don’t think he could have … argued with Alex?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Issa said, his voice shaking. ‘He was his friend. I don’t know how … If Step had been there, he would have helped. You don’t know what happened to him?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Hanson said. ‘You presumably haven’t spoken to Step this morning.’

  ‘No.’ Issa shook his head. ‘It didn’t – occur to me, for some reason. I just thought Alex had got drunk and – and maybe was sleeping off his hangover there.’

  ‘So you can’t be certain that Step wasn’t involved?’ she went on.

  Issa’s gaze flicked from Hanson to Jonah, and then it rested back on Hanson.

  ‘No,’ Alex’s husband said in the end. ‘I just don’t think he could be.’

  Hanson gave him a half-smile, one of those expressions that sat uniquely between solemn sympathy and warm support. It was a hard expression to pull off, and Hanson, Jonah thought, did it very well. ‘Of course. We’ll need to talk to him.’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ Issa picked up his phone from the side table and read out Step’s number, and then his address, both of which Jonah wrote down.

  ‘Are there other family members we should inform?’ Hanson asked gently, once that was done. ‘Parents? Siblings? Or would you prefer to call them?’

  Issa’s expression made Jonah’s chest ache. He was so transparently a man unable to believe he really had to do this.

  ‘His parents live in Surrey,’ he said, inconsequentially. ‘I’d … rather you told them. We never got on all that well.’

  Once they had taken their contact details, Jonah told Issa as gently as possible that he would need to identify the body, either in person or over a video link. Alex’s husband shook his head at the suggestion of a remote link.

  ‘I have to see for myself.’

  ‘The coroner requested a post mortem,’ Jonah said. ‘I know it’s a hard thing to have to deal with right now, but it will help us. It’s standard practice with a sudden death like this. Once that’s done, we’ll call you in.’

  ‘What if – what if it isn’t him?’ Issa’s eyes were large and dark, and full of a peculiar hope. ‘What if you’ve got it wrong?’

  Jonah found himself momentarily unable to think of anything to say. He couldn’t tell Issa that he had seen the body, and knew that it was Alex. It seemed unreasonably cruel. And yet to say anything else seemed even crueller.

  ‘We’ll make sure we get everything right,’ Hanson said, after a
moment. ‘We’ll take every care. We owe it to you and the victim.’

  It seemed to be the right thing to say. Issa nodded, and then said, quietly, ‘Thank you.’

  Jonah sent a swift text to Jojo as they headed back to the car, explaining that his Saturday now looked to be a write-off. She was supposed to be taking him indoor climbing, his first proper introduction to her slightly obsessive hobby. He was sadder about not getting to see her than he was about dodging the session, but he knew she would happily head down there without him anyway. Jojo was never short of climbing buddies.

  And then he called Surrey Constabulary through the Mondeo’s Bluetooth, asking them to notify Alex’s family of the death and to provide his number to call. Jonah disliked sending someone else to break the bad news, but it was a necessity when the trip would take them several hours.

  Alex’s father called them back only fifteen minutes later, while they were sitting in city-centre traffic. His voice was the full upper-class Surrey gentleman, which was not quite what Jonah had been expecting.

  ‘I’m … Edward Plaskitt. I was asked to call you about Alex. About the terribly sad news.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Plaskitt,’ Jonah said. ‘I know you must have a lot of questions. As senior investigating officer, I’d like you to feel you can ask me any of them.’

  ‘Well …’ There was a brief pause, and then Edward said, ‘The two who came said it happened in the early hours.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Jonah agreed. ‘Alex was found at six thirty this morning, at a residential property. We’re trying to find out when and how he died. At the moment we think it was sometime between one thirty and four.’

  ‘I see,’ Edward said, his voice strangely unemotional. ‘They implied that it was violent. An attack.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jonah said. ‘And I want to reassure you that we’re going to do everything we can to find the culprit or culprits.’

  ‘Thank you.’ There was another pause, and then Edward asked, ‘Is there anything in particular that we should be doing?’

  ‘At present there’s nothing pressing, but we will need to know anything you think might help us. Anybody who wished Alex harm. Any recent arguments. Any involvement with potentially violent groups.’

  ‘I’m … sorry, chief inspector,’ Mr Plaskitt answered, ‘but I don’t think we’ll be able to help. We’ve hardly seen Alex since he moved to Southampton. Perhaps three or four times in five years. He’s drifted out of touch, and we don’t really know anything about his life.’

  ‘Why might he have lost touch?’

  ‘Well. I suppose he didn’t really fit in at home. In staid old Surrey.’ There was a note of slightly cutting irony to the remark. ‘He changed when he went to school, and then more at university, in Brighton. He fell in with a … a group that wasn’t what we really wanted. We felt that he’d been led astray. That they’d indoctrinated him.’ Alex’s father sighed. ‘I suppose we let our disapproval be known a little too much, and Alex decided it was easier not to see us.’

  ‘I see,’ Jonah said, wondering at Mr Plaskitt’s calm. At his collected, unemotional speech, when his son had just been murdered. Everyone dealt with news of death differently, but Alex’s father seemed to be barely affected by it. ‘So when was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘It would have been … the Christmas before last. So a little over a year ago.’ There was a trace of emotion this time. Embarrassment, Jonah thought.

  ‘And did anything in particular happen then? A … disagreement?’ Jonah asked.

  There was a pause once again, and then Mr Plaskitt said, ‘No more than at any other family Christmas. Emotions ran high, and Alex got upset that we weren’t being kind enough to his other half. Which was an unfair accusation. We have always welcomed him into our home, despite the personal pain we’ve felt.’

  Jonah could well imagine why they felt pain at Alex’s marriage, and decided to shift the topic of conversation.

  ‘I’m happy to come to Surrey to talk further, but it might be that you’d prefer to come here, to Southampton.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Well, it doesn’t sound like there’s any need for that right now, does it?’

  Jonah heard a very faint indrawn breath from Hanson.

  ‘It might be more for your benefit, Mr Plaskitt,’ he said, gently. ‘To allow you to ask questions and talk to Alex’s friends.’

  ‘Edward, please,’ Alex’s father replied. He hesitated before saying, ‘I’ll discuss it with my wife. It might be better, anyway, for you to see our daughter, Phoebe. She lives in Winchester, so she’s much closer to you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jonah said. ‘Would you be able to give us her details?’

  He let Hanson write them down, and then said, ‘In the interim, I’ve asked the community support officer to stay with you.’

  ‘I … No, that won’t …’ Edward’s voice sounded defensive. Almost angry. ‘I think we’d prefer to grieve in private, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course. I understand. Thank you for your help, Edward.’

  Jonah ended the call, and the moment it showed up as complete, Hanson said, ‘That was like a lesson in respectable homophobia. That poor lad, having a dad like that! Talking about how “painful” it was, having to socialise with his husband …’

  ‘I hope it’s more complex than that,’ Jonah said, ‘but I suspect you may be spot on.’

  ‘Can we arrest him?’ she asked. ‘Just to ruin his day?’

  ‘If you can think of any reasonable charges,’ Jonah replied, grinning.

  Jonah was keen to talk to Step Conti, but given he was out in the New Forest, it made no sense for Hanson to drive there separately. They both went via the station and Jonah hovered while Hanson parked up. He fielded a brief reply from Jojo while he waited.

  A major incident is a pretty long way to go to avoid getting shown up on a wall, Copper Sheens. But I suppose I’ll let you get away with it this once. J xx

  Jonah couldn’t help laughing, as he so often did when communicating with Jojo. He sometimes caught himself in the middle of it all, wondering exactly how he had become so happy.

  This wasn’t how any of his previous relationships had gone. Particularly not the slow splintering of his six-year relationship with Michelle. And it was strange remembering that he’d jeopardised a future with Jojo only four months ago, before their relationship had even begun.

  He’d known how he felt about Jojo by then. He’d only been waiting for her to come back from Africa before trying to pursue anything with her. It should have been enough to make him resist anything else. But he had bumped into his ex-fiancée while very drunk, and it had been like being hit over the head with past regret. Michelle had been rolling drunk, too, and the result had been pretty inevitable.

  The morning after, he’d thought he actually wanted Michelle back. That was the strangest bit. He’d spent the day after their liaison depressed that his ex-fiancée seemed uninterested.

  He could only feel profoundly grateful, in retrospect, that Michelle hadn’t wanted to pick things up again. For once in his troubled romantic life, things had turned out for the best. And he knew enough to grab on to that lucky break with both hands and make the most of it.

  Hanson took a moment, once in the car, to message Jason. She knew he’d been planning on working today, which meant they would both end up in CID at some point. A slight compensation for a ruined weekend.

  Jason, as a detective inspector with one of Sheens’s fellow DCIs, generally worked a lot more independently than Hanson did. He was happiest playing lone investigator. And though he was obsessive about his work to the point where he sometimes seemed flat-out moody, he was a kind soul underneath it all.

  Their relationship was a strange one. Hanson had certainly never intended to get involved with Jason, and wasn’t aware that she’d ever flirted. A sudden invitation for a drink (which had come during the rather heightened emotions at the end of a case) had been accepted, and had turned into a series of
drinks. She’d been very reluctant to let those drinks become something more, not least because she wasn’t sure how she felt about anything at the time.

  But sometimes, Hanson had learned, you ended up falling into things without consciously choosing them. The drinks had turned into dinners, and then, a month after the first one, into going home together for the first time. And it was all … nice. Simple, normal, and worlds apart from her abusive relationship with Damian.

  The only downside to it all was that she and Ben Lightman no longer seemed to be friends. Things had got suddenly awkward, and it was hard to get her head around given that she and Ben had no history.

  There had, it was true, been a weird long hug a few hours before she’d gone for that first drink with Jason, an event that still made her feel embarrassed and strangely sad to think about. But that wasn’t really a reason for things to have turned sour, and she was at a loss to explain why everything had changed so quickly. Why she always resorted to false cheerfulness, and why he had become as distant and as detached from her as if they’d never been friends.

  Step Conti lived not far from Jojo. He was on the edge of the New Forest, in West Wellow, which was a little less picturesque than Furzley. There were more blocky sixties structures, retirement bungalows and modern touches. The effects of lying just outside the boundary of the national park. Modernity had been allowed to creep in.

  Step’s house, however, was on a lane that ran south-west out of the village into an open area of heathland. Houses lined one side of the tarmac, with unspoilt land on the other. Today, with a fall of snow over it all, it looked dazzling.

  Jonah eased the Mondeo along the lane carefully, trying to stay on the road surface as he manoeuvred round parked cars. There were deep, snowy tyre tracks running down the side, and he had no desire to test out the car’s four-wheel drive just now.

  Step’s house, right at the far end, had a new-looking wooden gate and a thickly gravelled drive. Someone had tied a pair of balloons to the gate, one pink and one blue. Jonah winced, thinking that a murdered friend was not the sort of news to be bringing to a kids’ party.