by Gytha Lodge
Janet McCullough had already been primed to search the bedroom. She left three of her overall-covered team downstairs and headed upwards with just one of them. Jonah gestured for Hanson to follow them, while he prowled around downstairs. Louise retreated to the far end of the house, and Jonah left her to it for now.
What was to follow was both thorough forensic work and a little play-acting. They had to let a reasonable amount of time pass for it to look like the blood had been discovered organically. So Jonah drifted in and out of rooms, asking the three forensic staff to look at a few things. A faint mark on the wall next to the stairs. The laundry hanging out on a rack in the tiny utility room.
McCullough left it fifteen minutes before she called him upstairs. Jonah was in the music room at that point, where Louise was sitting with her legs pulled up on a futon. In that position she was largely hidden behind her harp, but he could still see the side of her face through the strings.
It was clear from her expression that she knew what McCullough had found. Her legs moved instinctively, as if she were about to get up, before she froze in the act and tried to sit back naturally.
Jonah left her there. He climbed the stairs and entered Louise and Niall’s bedroom. McCullough and her assistant had stripped the sheets back from the bed, exposing a tide mark of brownish red. Hanson was standing to one side, a satisfied expression on her face.
Despite having been prepared for this, Jonah found himself a little nauseated at the extent of the blood. It had soaked through most of the mattress. The only white details remaining were the little plastic buttons dented into its top.
‘I’m confident we’ll be able to get DNA,’ McCullough said. ‘The underneath hasn’t entirely dried yet.’
‘Good,’ Jonah said. ‘And quantity … You’d say it looks enough for him to have died here?’
‘I’ll get you a volumetric estimate,’ McCullough said, ‘but on a visual reckoning it looks more than enough.’
Jonah gave her a small smile. McCullough was renowned for being difficult to pin down. She hated committing herself to theories, and tended to offer stark fact with no interpretation. For her to give him that much meant she had no doubt at all.
Hanson went back downstairs with him. He let her walk into the music room first. Louise’s expression looked hopeless. Her fear was stark and obvious even viewed through the strings of her harp.
‘Louise Reakes, I’m arresting you for the murder of Alex Plaskitt, and for perverting the course of justice,’ Hanson began.
‘I’m sorry for lying,’ Louise said, before she could go on. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Did she say anything else?’ Lightman asked an hour later. His eyes were on the pale, sick-looking face of Louise Reakes.
He, Jonah and Hanson had gathered briefly in the observation room. Louise’s solicitor was on his way over. Jonah had gone into the interview room to tell her, but Louise had said nothing. Done nothing. He wondered whether she had really understood him.
‘Not a word,’ Hanson murmured. ‘We both tried asking her why she’d lied, but we only got head shakes.’
‘Any news on the husband?’ Jonah asked.
‘No reply from his mobile,’ Lightman told him. ‘Presumably in flight.’
Jonah nodded. He didn’t go on to say anything more yet. About the significance of the blood being in Louise and Niall Reakes’s marital bed. About the fact that Alex Plaskitt had been married to a man and yet had almost certainly died in bed with a woman. There were too many questions that needed answering, and no way of making sense of any of it without making a lot of strange assumptions.
‘Juliette, I want you and Domnall to go and see April Dumont. And we should talk to Alex’s husband again as soon as we can. It’s high time we found out whether Alex and Louise actually knew each other before that night, and I doubt Louise will tell us.’
The pressure was now on to pin this thing down, and soon. They might only have twenty-four hours to charge Louise Reakes with murder. But Jonah had already applied to the superintendent for an extension to the standard twenty-four-hour limit. He was asking for an initial thirty-six hours, but fully intended to apply to the magistrates’ court for the maximum after that, which was ninety-six. Given the seriousness of the crime, with the added charge of perverting the course of justice, it was highly likely they’d be granted their request.
If, in the next ninety-six hours, they could prove that the blood on the bed was Alex’s – which was the only reasonable explanation – then they would almost certainly have passed the threshold for Louise to be prosecuted. They could charge her knowing that the prosecutor would be happy to work with them to obtain further proof. Which was satisfying, but it wasn’t enough.
As far as Jonah was concerned, within those ninety-six hours they needed to know whether she really had killed him and why. Because although the circumstances and her actions pointed that way, there were an awful lot of unanswered questions.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ Lightman said, quietly, a few minutes after he and Hanson had returned to their desks.
Hanson looked at him in surprise as he smiled at her. Was this banter? With the exception of their car journey, Ben hadn’t offered anything like that in months.
Recovering, she asked, mock-seriously, ‘Is it a cake? Please let it be a cake.’
Ben smiled more widely, and shook his head. ‘Sadly not. But it is great.’ He leaned across the desk. ‘As well as being a solo harpist, Louise Reakes is a member of a harp ensemble. They’re called, get this, the Mother Pluckers.’
Hanson gave a delighted laugh, in part at the name and in part because he really was bantering again. ‘All right, that is genuinely almost as good as cake. Are they all mums or something?’
‘Looks like it,’ he agreed. ‘There are loads of cheerful and not-at-all-posed pictures of them with their children. Louise seems to be the odd one out.’
‘I have to look at this,’ Hanson said, and was in the process of typing it into Google when the DCI emerged.
‘Louise Reakes’s solicitor’s just arrived downstairs,’ Sheens told them. ‘I’ll give them a quarter of an hour to get their ducks in a row and then we can head in, Ben.’
Hanson watched him return to his office, still a little disappointed at missing out on Louise’s grilling. Not that she didn’t have plenty to be getting on with. She needed to put together a new social media post asking for information on Louise Reakes, and ask her colleagues in Intelligence to circulate it to the public in case someone had seen her on her way home. It would also be up to her, as the team’s constable, to appear in front of the magistrates tomorrow to ask for their custody extension. But before doing any of that, she finished loading up the Mother Pluckers’ website. She shook her head as she flicked through their pictures.
‘Oh my God, look at this one,’ she said, turning her screen so that Ben could see. It was an aggressively arty black-and-white image of the group posing in leather jackets. ‘It looks like a poorly thought-through eighties album cover. I love it.’
Ben nodded. ‘Fo sho, motherplucker.’
Hanson laughed so loudly that Jason looked over from the far side of CID with a frown. She mouthed at him, ‘I’ll tell you later,’ a little guiltily, and then, still grinning, started to get their case against Louise Reakes moving.
Patrick arrived a little over an hour after Louise had called him, and her feelings as the dashing, ever so slightly chubby solicitor was let into the interview room were entirely mixed. Relief made up a big part. She had someone to fight her corner now. But on top of all that, she felt a nauseous, squirming sense of shame. Patrick was the last person she wanted to be going into all this with. She wished, helplessly, that he could have been simply her lawyer, and not Niall’s best friend.
Patrick’s smile was warm and confident, and she tried to return it. She wondered how he would look at her once she’d explained everything. Once he knew.
He settled himself into a chair opposite her, and pl
aced his dark brown leather case, which looked like it cost about the same as Niall’s car, on top of the table. Then he drew out a notebook and a silver fountain pen, as though they were his weapons.
‘How are you holding up?’ he asked her, all brown-eyed charm.
‘All right,’ she said. And then she added, wanting to make sure he really did like her before the shit hit the fan, ‘Better now that you’re here.’
‘Good. Good. I’ve managed to get through to Niall. He’s just landed. He won’t be long.’
It was supposed to be comforting, Louise knew. Instead the threat of Niall arriving drove her anxiety up to a critical level. She’d thought she’d have more time.
Patrick unscrewed the lid of his fountain pen. ‘So. Tell me.’
‘OK,’ she said, and then without meaning to she gave what was almost a laugh. ‘Please brace yourself because it sounds – it sounds fucking awful, and I’m a little afraid you’re going to think exactly the same as the police.’
‘Of course I won’t,’ he said, soothingly.
‘Well, I went out drinking last night.’ She swallowed. ‘I remember almost none of the later part of the evening. Nothing about how I got home. When I woke up early this morning, there was a dead man lying next to me.’
Patrick’s writing hand went absolutely still, and he fixed his gaze on her. ‘Cause of death?’
‘He was stabbed,’ she said, feeling heat in her eyes and then wetness tracking down her cheeks. ‘And they think – they think I did it. But you have to believe me, Patrick. I don’t know who the hell he was, or how he got there. And I’m – I’m sure I could never have stabbed anyone. I’m so very sure.’
Sometimes you had to attack. To be relentless and without mercy. It was clear to Jonah that this was what he had to do today, to get in there and shake Louise up in the seconds before her solicitor could intervene and distract or calm or deflect. And so he took Lightman with him, told him to play it cold and clinical, and began as he meant to go on.
‘Alex Plaskitt died in your bed,’ he said, harshly. ‘Not in the front garden, as you tried to lead us to assume. In your bed. This man that you apparently didn’t know.’
‘My client’s statement that she didn’t know this man stands,’ Patrick Moorcroft said, easily and loudly. ‘Did you have an actual question, or just a series of statements to make?’
Jonah had dealt with Mr Moorcroft once before. Only the once. He was too expensive for most of the people Jonah interviewed. And he was expensive because he was bloody good. Or, to put it from Jonah’s perspective, bloody infuriating. But Jonah couldn’t help feeling a grudging respect for him, however frustrating it was to have an interview essentially dictated by a solicitor.
‘How did a man you don’t recognise end up in your bed?’ Jonah tried instead.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Louise said, with a glance at her solicitor. And that was all she said. Louise seemed collected now. Focused, in a grim sort of way, and less afraid. Presumably because her expensive solicitor was now there.
Patrick gave him the smallest of smiles, and Jonah shared a momentary glance with Lightman, both exasperated and amused in spite of himself. Lightman’s expression in return was, of course, unreadable. Jonah turned back to Louise.
‘I’d like to know how Alex Plaskitt died.’
She glanced at Patrick Moorcroft, and then said, ‘I want to be able to help. I wish I could, because what happened to him was awful. But I don’t remember anything about the later stages of last night.’ She looked down. ‘I’ve tried. I’ve tried over and over again. But there’s nothing. All I know is that I’ve never done anything violent, and I don’t believe I would have harmed Alex Plaskitt or anyone else.’
Jonah kept his gaze on her. ‘Why would he have been in your bed?’
Louise’s expression changed slightly. A note of discomfort crept in.
‘I can’t think of any reason at all. In five years there’s been nobody in that bed except me, my husband or, on a few occasions, his parents.’ Her mouth twisted slightly. ‘I wasn’t out on the pull, if that’s what you might be thinking. I’ve never cheated on my husband and in the memories I have of yesterday night I was talking to April, not to any men.’
‘And yet Alex ended up there,’ Jonah said. ‘In your bed.’
Patrick leaned over to murmur to her, and Louise said simply, ‘I’ve told you already that I can’t explain it.’
‘You claim never to have met him before,’ Lightman commented.
‘I hadn’t.’
‘It seems unlikely that you would have invited an unknown man back to your house, to sleep in your bed, unless you had a sexual motivation,’ the sergeant went on.
‘Who says I invited him?’ Louise asked, coldly. ‘For all I know he took advantage of me.’
‘Was there any sign of that?’ Jonah asked.
Louise’s face flushed a deep red. ‘I don’t – I don’t know.’
Jonah expected another murmur from her solicitor, but Patrick, surprisingly, said nothing. He kept his gaze on his papers.
‘If you need an examination,’ Jonah said, more gently, ‘we can get you one. If that’s what happened, then it’s important for us to know, as well as for you.’
Louise shook her head, rapidly, and then said, ‘I don’t want an examination.’
Jonah nodded, not without frustration. It wasn’t uncommon for possible victims to panic at the idea of an examination. But Louise could equally well know that she hadn’t been assaulted, and still want to keep the possibility open.
‘Do you often experience complete blackouts after nights out drinking?’ Jonah asked, changing tack.
‘What relevance does that have?’ Patrick Moorcroft asked.
‘It gives us an idea of whether her apparent failure of memory stands up,’ Jonah replied, giving him a level stare. ‘In addition, Mrs Reakes has suggested that Alex Plaskitt might have sexually assaulted her. If she makes a habit of going out and becoming incapacitated through alcohol, it’s possible that she and Mr Plaskitt had met on another occasion, without her remembering it.’
The solicitor leaned over to mutter to Louise, and she said in a quiet voice, ‘I do lose … time, sometimes. Some events. Not normally quite so much, but …’
‘Do you often drink alone?’ Jonah asked.
‘No,’ Louise said. ‘I don’t.’
Jonah signalled to Lightman, who brought up the slide containing the photo of the knife.
‘I’d like to ask you once again whether you recognise this weapon.’
‘No,’ Louise said. ‘I told you that before.’
‘Then how did it end up in your bed, alongside the body of Alex Plaskitt?’
‘I don’t know!’ Louise said, suddenly half shouting. ‘It isn’t mine, and I didn’t stab him!’
‘Then who did?’
Louise dropped her head to her hands and let out a growl, but Patrick stepped in smoothly to say, ‘It is the duty of the investigating officers to suggest other suspects. It isn’t my client’s responsibility.’
Jonah had to smile slightly. He gave Patrick a nod.
‘Well, at the moment, our theories are fairly limited,’ Jonah said. ‘We have a murder weapon found in your bed, a dead man likewise, and a frantic attempt to cover up the crime scene.’
‘It wasn’t how you’re trying to make it sound,’ Louise said, angrily, before her solicitor could say anything more.
Jonah nodded again, in satisfaction, this time. He was getting to her, and if he kept on prodding her into speech, then her solicitor wouldn’t be able to help her. ‘So how did he wind up in your front garden when he died upstairs?’
Louise took a deep breath, as though she’d realised that she needed to calm down. To keep to the script. Her voice was much more measured as she said, ‘When I woke up this morning, I was still very much under the influence of alcohol. I was terrified when I found a bleeding man in my bed. At that point I wasn’t certain that he was dead.’
‘It wasn’t obvious from the quantity of blood?’
‘I’m not a doctor,’ Louise said, with a slight spikiness back in her voice. ‘I don’t know how much blood loss would kill someone.’
‘So your reaction would have been to call for help,’ Jonah said. ‘To call an ambulance.’
‘It might have been if I’d been in a more rational frame of mind,’ Louise countered, ‘but unfortunately I panicked. I think it was a combination of the alcohol clouding my judgement and sheer fear. I thought I needed to get him to someone. A neighbour. Anyone. So I dragged him outside, telling him it would be all right, and not understanding that it really wasn’t all right until he was lying on the grass. I realised – I realised …’ She waved a hand in what looked like frustration, her eyes filling with tears.
Jonah sat back, watching her for a moment, absolutely certain that this was an account her solicitor had rehearsed with her. They might even have rehearsed the tears. The problem for him, and the prosecutor, would be that it could just about be true, and therefore was difficult to disprove. Despite its unlikeliness. Despite all the obvious doubts that her actions raised.
‘I’ll admit that I’m finding that hard to believe,’ he said, after a deliberate pause for consideration. ‘Particularly given the care you took to clear up any traces of Alex being in your house.’
‘However hard it is to believe, you need to start trying,’ Louise said thickly. She drew in a slightly ragged breath. ‘I didn’t kill him, and somebody else did. I want to know how he ended up there, too. I really, really want to know, so I can prove to my husband that I wasn’t shagging someone else.’
She descended quite suddenly into actual sobs, and dropped her head into her hands, the heels of her palms squeezing into each eye socket.
Jonah glanced towards Lightman, whose face was as neutral as ever as he sat up to ask, ‘Do you know a man called Issa Benhawy?’
Louise raised her head slightly, and her mouth twisted, as if she hadn’t expected any kindness and was almost satisfied to have it confirmed. ‘No,’ she said, from behind her hands. ‘I don’t think so.’
