by John Harvey
'Paul must have been ten,' he said. 'Eleven at best. A year or so younger than most of these lads, but no more. "Go on," I said. "Get up there with the rest. Get in line. Take your place." He would not. He was scared. "You great jessie," I said. And he must've read the disgust on my face.'
They set off walking again, Carey with his hands behind his back, upright, Will keeping step alongside.
'You say things ... you say things and then you wish later you never had. Do anything you could to cancel them out, but of course you can't. You have to live with it and so do they.'
'Yes,' Will said. 'Yes, I know.' Remembering the times he had lost his temper with Jake, often without reason; words blurted out in haste that he had wanted to swallow back the moment they were out of his mouth.
They sat on a bench and Carey removed his jacket, folding it neatly before setting it down, then turning back the cuffs of his shirt, once then once again.
'Paul and Linda,' Will said, 'did you have any inkling of how things were between them?'
The older man shook his head.
'And the fact that Paul apparently took his own life ...'
'It beggars belief,' Carey said heavily. 'All of it. It beggars belief.'
They sat for a while longer and then Will walked back with him to where Carey had parked his car.
'There'll be an inquest?' Carey said.
'Oh, yes.'
'Anything you discover ...'
'You'll be informed.'
Carey nodded briefly and they shook hands, Will waiting while he drove away.
25
It took Helen Walker a good thirty minutes to drive out to Huntingdon, where five-year-old Carl was now living, at the discretion of Social Services, with his maternal grandparents, Bill and Barbara Connors. Had it not been for the plague of roadworks on the A14 it would have taken less.
She had been out to the house—a two-storey semi near the town centre—once before, but with little success; the most basic questions aside, Bill Connors had left everything to his wife, who was clearly too distressed to answer coherently. This time Helen was hoping for more.
Barbara Connors pressed a finger to her lips as she opened the door. She was a small, neat woman with an oval face and gently greying hair.
'Carl's sleeping. He's only just gone off. I try and get him to sleep for a little while in the afternoon if I can. I don't want to wake him.' She pointed towards the rear of the house. 'We won't disturb him if we go through there.'
A small conservatory had been built on to the back of the kitchen and Barbara Connors had been sitting there reading, her glasses resting on a thick paperback beside one of a pair of wicker chairs.
'Bill's out playing golf, he didn't think you'd mind.'
'Of course not, that's fine.'
'Twice a week since he's been retired. Him and the same three pals. Has to miss it for any reason, he just sits around and mopes.'
Helen nodded understandingly.
'You'll have some tea? I've got the kettle on, ready.'
'Yes, thank you, that'd be lovely.'
All this politeness was doing her head in.
Left alone, Helen looked out at the garden, partly paved, a straggle of small roses dangling over the neighbours' fence to one side; a small bird she couldn't identify washing itself energetically in a stone bird bath; late tomatoes sagging on the vine.
'These past few weeks,' Barbara Connors said, returning with a tray, 'it's been so hot. If you don't water everything night and morning it shrivels up and dies.'
She set the tray down carefully on a glass-topped table: teapot, cups and saucers, sugar, milk in a Cornish ware jug. Three different kinds of biscuits, fanned out around a plate.
'You look,' Barbara Connors said, as she passed the tea, 'as if you've been in the wars.'
'Oh, this?' Helen's hand went instinctively to the side of her face, a bruise high over her left cheek that make-up couldn't adequately hide, yellow darkening into mauve. 'It's nothing.'
The older woman smiled. The backs of her hands were slightly swollen, Helen noticed, as if she suffered, perhaps, from arthritis. That apart she looked fit and well. Spry. Sixties, Helen guessed, middle-aged these days, not old. But young enough to bring up a small boy?
'Carl,' she said, 'how's he getting on?'
At first Helen thought she hadn't heard.
'He cries a lot,' Barbara Connors said eventually. 'That's only to be expected, of course. Keeps calling for his mummy and daddy.' She shook her head. 'I don't think he really understands. What happened. I don't think he understands.'
Helen nodded and waited for her to go on. The tea was weak and slightly scented, Earl Grey mixed with something more standard.
Barbara Connors set down her cup. 'We brought all of his toys over from the house, his little bed, everything. Put them upstairs in the spare room. We thought that's what he'd like.' Leaning forward, she drew a tissue from her bag. 'He won't go up the stairs. Just won't. No matter what. We tried carrying him, Bill and I, between us, but he wriggled and kicked and tried to bite. We've made up a bed for him down here, for now. We didn't know what else to do. The social worker says he'll get better in time, settle, get used to being here. The worst thing we can do, she says, is push him too hard.' She twisted the tissue between her fingers. 'That's where he found her, his mummy—our daughter—on the stairs.'
Helen smiled sympathetically, sensing there was more to come.
'They'd been trying for a baby more or less ever since they were married, you know. I don't know what the problem was, Linda never said, not in so many words. But they went to doctors and everything, I do know that. Even talked about IVF, read up about it, went along to the clinic and what have you, but in the end they decided against it. I've never really been clear why.'
She picked up her cup but didn't drink.
'They both had busy jobs, I suppose that was part of it. Good jobs with good money. After a while I think it was a case of, instead of fretting let's enjoy what we've got. Holidays, that's what they went in for. Egypt, America, the Bahamas. I thought they might move house, buy somewhere bigger, you know, out in the country. But no, they seemed content with where they were. And Linda always kept it looking nice—she had help, of course, working full time the way she did—but that was Linda, everything neat and in its place.'
She paused to sip some tea.
'They seemed to have stopped thinking about starting a family. Linda never talked about it to me, at least, not the way she had before, and then, suddenly, there she was, pregnant. I don't know who was more surprised. A shock to the pair of them. I mean, Linda had stopped, you know, taking precautions, there didn't seem to be any point, but even so ...' She smiled. 'It changes everything, doesn't it? Especially when you're used to doing what you want when you like. A baby. Independence, that goes out the window.'
'They weren't totally happy about it, then?'
'Oh, no. They were, they were. Of course they were. Overjoyed. Paul, especially. I mean, Linda loved Carl, of course she did, she was his mother, it's only natural that she should. But Paul—he was besotted, he really was. He'd sit with little Carl and play with him for hours. Always reading to him—those picture books, you know—carrying him round on his shoulders. It was lovely, lovely to see ...'
She turned her face aside. Helen knew she was crying, without needing to see the tears.
Barbara Connors stood hurriedly, turning away. 'Carl, I'd best go and check that he's all right.'
Moments later, Helen heard the splash of water at the downstairs sink. Several houses away, a lawnmower whirred to life. Reaching across for the pot, she topped up her cup and added milk.
'Poor lamb,' Barbara Connors said from the doorway, 'he's barely stirred. This whole awful business, it's worn him out.'
'I just helped myself,' Helen said. 'I hope you don't mind?'
'No, of course not.'
'How about you?'
Barbara Connors shook her head and sat back down. 'I'd
best wake him before too long. Sleeps overmuch now he'll not go off tonight.'
Time to push on, Helen thought. 'Paul and Linda, before this terrible thing happened, there'd not been any tension between them? Something out of the ordinary, I mean.'
'No. No, I don't think so.'
'No major arguments? Disagreements?'
'Not that I know of.'
'And you would have known—if there was anything serious?'
'Yes. Yes, I think so.'
'You and Linda, you were close?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Talked on the phone, that kind of thing?'
'Yes. All the time. And twice a week I'd go over, Mondays and Fridays, look after Carl when there wasn't nursery.'
'How about Paul? You got along?'
'Yes.'
'And there was nothing...?'
Barbara Connors was shaking her head.
Helen sat forward a little in her chair. 'Mrs Connors—I don't like to ask you this—but is there any chance Linda could have been seeing somebody else?'
'Seeing...? You mean, having an affair?'
'Yes.'
'Good God, no!'
Helen was surprised by the strength of her reply.
'You seem quite certain.'
'I am.'
'Shocked, even.'
'I suppose ... No, not shocked, at least not in the way I think you mean. I know these things happen. They always have. It's just ...' Embarrassed, she tugged at the pleats of her dress. 'Linda—it's not that she wasn't interested in, you know, sex, it's more that, well, as I understand it, for some time before Carl was born, they—she and Paul, they didn't ... Oh, dear, I'm not expressing this very well, am I?'
'They didn't enjoy a very active sex life,' Helen offered, helpfully.
'Yes, that's right. That's why Carl—when he came along—it was such a lovely surprise.' Another tug at the recalcitrant folds of her dress. 'They'd been on holiday. Egypt. Around the time, you know, Carl was conceived.'
'Something about the sun, perhaps,' Helen said. 'All that afternoon heat.'
'I'm sorry, I don't ...'
'It doesn't matter. I was being flippant, I'm sorry.'
Barbara Connors forced a smile.
'How about more recently?' Helen asked. 'After Carl was born. Did things change between them? In that way? They didn't try for another child?'
Barbara Connors was looking at something out in the garden, concentrating quite hard. 'I got the impression—I may be wrong—but I got the impression that Paul—I mean, he was always very affectionate—but I think what he really wanted most of all was a cuddle. A kiss and a cuddle and that was enough.' She cleared her throat. 'And who's to say there's anything wrong with that?'
'No,' Helen said softly. 'No, indeed.'
'That cat from next door,' Barbara Connors said, 'it will keep coming and doing its business in our begonias.'
Helen sat in the car, lowered the window partway and lit a cigarette. She and Declan had been fooling around the previous evening, Declan several pints to the good before he arrived and Helen with a bottle of wine just opened. She'd been flirting with him, knowing they were going to end up in bed, but just holding back, prolonging the moment, kissing him then pulling away; a bit of fake coquetry around the far side of the table, touching herself for a moment through the silk of her camisole top then poking out her tongue.
Declan had seized hold of her and pulled her across the table, then grabbed her hair and swung her hard against the wall, his hand pushed up between her legs from behind.
'Playing games, huh?' Laughing. 'I know that's what you like. Playing games.'
Sitting there, she remembered, with a quick aftershock, the force of her orgasm when she'd come.
Overwhelmed.
Out of control.
Was that what she needed now? The way it had to be? Lowering the window further, she tossed out her half-smoked cigarette and a moment later lit another. A kiss and a cuddle and that was enough. Turning the key in the ignition, she slid the car into gear.
26
'I think she was having an affair,' Helen said. 'I'm sure of it.'
'Sure?'
'Pretty sure.'
They were in a lay-by off the A10, the Ely to Cambridge road, leaning back against Will's Astra, late in the afternoon, the sun's strength just beginning to fade. Helen's VW was immediately behind. Will was eating a bacon roll from the van permanently parked at the lay-by's edge, a polystyrene cup of dubious coffee resting on the car roof. Helen stood nursing some tea and smoking her second cigarette.
'A kiss and a cuddle,' Helen said, 'and that was enough. All those years. I don't believe it.'
'Everyone's not the same,' Will said.
'Meaning?'
'Meaning everyone's not the same.'
Helen took a mouthful of tea, made a face, and tipped the remainder out on to the ground.
'Supposing you're right,' Will said, 'we've no proof.'
'I know.'
Paul and Linda Carey's house had been searched from top to bottom: diaries and items of correspondence had been taken away, along with two laptops and both mobile phones. So far nothing untoward had been found. Friends, colleagues and acquaintances had been interviewed. Nothing. Nada. If Linda Carey had been having an affair she had gone to exceptional pains to keep it quiet.
'How come,' Will said, 'we've turned up diddly-squat and yet her husband, presumably, found out?'
'Maybe she told him,' Helen said.
'After going to so much trouble to keep it quiet? Why do that?'
'She was about to leave him, that'd be my guess.'
'And that would be enough?'
'Don't you think?'
Will nodded. There were cases like that, he knew. Jealous husbands, possessive men. It was usually the men. Leave me and I'll kill you. If I can't have you, nobody else will. Try and take my children away and I'll kill them, them and you, too. Stick the kids in the car and drive off the edge of the cliff. It happened. All too often. At least, in this instance, the child was still alive. He took the last bite of roll, screwed up the paper it had been wrapped in and tossed it, together with his now empty coffee cup, into a nearby bin. Conjecture was one thing, proof another. They hadn't yet found it. But if it was there they would.
Helen stubbed out her cigarette. 'Time to go?'
Will reached a hand carefully towards her face, the backs of his fingers just brushing the spot on her cheek where the bruise still lingered.
'Walked into the well-known door, I suppose?'
'Exactly.'
Will shook his head. 'What's going on?'
'Nothing. Nothing's going on.'
He raised his hand towards her face again and she swung her head aside. 'That isn't nothing,' he said.
'For God's sake, Will. I tripped and fell, okay? Heels, I was wearing heels. Always a mistake. It's no big deal.'
She started to walk away and he caught hold of her arm. 'You had an argument? Some kind of a row?'
'Who?'
'You and Declan.'
'I told you.' She stared at him, unblinking, until he let go and stepped away. 'Interrogation over?'
Will unlocked his car and pulled open the door. 'Just take care.'
She stood there, watching, as he drove away.
Two days later, one of the young detective constables who'd been going through the material taken from the Carey home intercepted Helen on her way back to her desk.
'It may be nothing, but...'
Linda Carey had been in the habit of logging appointments on her laptop and then transferring that information to the calendar on her mobile phone. The majority of these fell into a pattern: a succession of regular work meetings, visits to the hairdresser or the dentist or to the beauty salon to get her legs waxed, occasional drinks to celebrate a colleague's birthday or promotion, dinner or a visit to the theatre with Paul. The same names over and over.
Before that she seemed to have used a succession of small leather-bound di
aries in combination with a computer; printouts for several odd months had been found—April and November 2002, June, July and August 2003—along with diaries for 1998, 2001 and 2002.
'Look,' the DC said, 'there's a name here, September 2001, Terry Markham, followed by three question marks. That seems to be the first time it appears. There are two Terrys after that —end of September and again in October—then nothing until the following year, April 23rd. After which there's a whole bunch of them—not Terry any more, just T or, once or twice, TM—I'm assuming it refers to the same person—right on through to December. Then they stop.'
'For good?'
The young detective grinned. 'Nothing until this year. Not too long ago, either. Last month. Same initials, TM, and a time, 19.30. Laptop and mobile, the same. On the laptop, as well as the time, it's got Arts Bar.'
'The Arts Picture House?'
'Could be. Clocked it first time round, but didn't mean much till I started going through the old diaries. Then I thought, well, worth bringing it to you.'
Helen rewarded him with a smile. 'Three Brownie points and a gold star. Now sod off back to your desk and see what you can turn up on Terry Markham.'
Barbara Connors came round from the side of the house wearing gardening gloves and holding a pair of secateurs. Helen had tried to raise her several times on the phone and failed, but had reasoned that, with a five-year-old to look after, she most likely wouldn't have strayed far.
'I'm sorry to disturb you,' Helen said, 'but the name Terry Markham, I was wondering if it meant anything to you? In relation to your daughter?'
The older woman wiped an arm across her forehead. 'Markham? No, I don't think so.'
'Someone Linda might have known about six years ago? A friend. Possibly someone she met through work.'
'No, I'm sorry. Terry, you say? I'm afraid I can't think of any Terrys.'
'Perhaps you could ask your husband, just in case? And if anything does come to mind, you'll let me know?'
'Of course. I'm sorry you had to come out all this way.'
'Not a problem.'
