The Carrier

by Sophie Hannah

  Charlie heard frustration in Sam’s voice and tried not to smile. He hated it when, despite his best efforts, he didn’t feel able to believe witnesses.

  “Of the four who aren’t Tim Breary, none of them’s saying, ‘Ask Tim what happened, he was the only one in the room when Francine died.’ They tell it as if they saw it, and their stories are identical. They all talk about the paisley pillow, they quote Tim without saying they’re quoting him. It’s as if they were all there in the room with him. Except they say they weren’t, they say he told them what happened afterward, but . . . I don’t know. It feels wrong.”

  “Are you thinking Murder on the Orient Express?” Charlie asked. “Agatha Christie. Have you read it?”

  “I haven’t, but I’ve seen it on telly. They all did it, together—all the suspects.”

  “And it’s fiction,” Charlie said pointedly. “And the reason for all doing it together was so that everyone could be alibied by a supposedly unrelated third party, so that it looks as if none of them can have done it. Brilliant idea, but there’s only a point if no one wants to go down for murder. Your Tim Breary seems keen to do just that—in which case, why would they all need to . . .” Charlie stopped and laughed at herself. “Of course they didn’t all do it together. It doesn’t take five people to hold a pillow over a semi-paralyzed stroke victim’s face.” In the Agatha Christie novel, the participation of all the conspirators wasn’t necessary to ensure the death of the target, but was symbolically significant: everyone wanted to get revenge in person and at close range by inflicting his or her own knife wound. Pillow wound? Stop it, Zailer.

  Sam pulled the car over by the grassy bank at the side of the road. Charlie tossed her cigarette butt out of the open window and listened to the kind of silence you only ever hear near the homes of the very rich. Ahead was a pair of gray stone gateposts topped by large stone balls. “Welcome to Lower Heckencott Hall,” said Sam. “The Dower House doesn’t have separate access, so we have to go through the grounds of the big house.” He chuckled. “That’s what Kerry Jose calls the Hall. You should see the size of her place.”

  Charlie couldn’t take her eyes off the gateposts. On each one was a carved relief of what looked like a cake stand piled high with fruit. Odd choice, so far from a kitchen. Charlie pictured, instead of the fruit platters, an image on each post of a pillow, with a woman suffocating beneath it, a hand pressing the pillow down. Or perhaps several hands, each one pressing on the one beneath . . .

  “What if Tim Breary did it, but they all wanted it done?” said Sam. “I’ve no proof, but maybe that’s where the group thing comes in—the conspiracy, if you want to call it that.”

  “You obviously do.” Funny, he’d thought of the word too. Charlie reminded herself that she hadn’t yet met any of these people. She was in no position to be theorizing with Sam.

  He turned to face her. “Personally, I think Tim Breary killed his wife, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t lying. Whatever the story is, they all know it. They all know the word-perfect lie they’ve agreed to present for public consumption, and they all know the truth. And none of them’s telling.”

  7

  FRIDAY, 11 MARCH 2011

  “So what did you do?” Detective Constable Chris Gibbs asks me. “When you realized Lauren was talking about Tim Breary.”

  I thought I’d finished the story I came here to tell. That’s why I stopped talking.

  Staying focused is hard. My eyes ache to close and won’t stop watering. The left one twitches every few seconds; I’ve tried rubbing the skin around it, but the spasm is stubborn and won’t be smoothed away. My hair is unbrushed and tangled, my trousers are streaked with mud and there are coffee stains on my top thanks to a bout of mid-flight turbulence. I must look repulsive. Poor DC Gibbs; I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a too-small, too-warm interview room with me.

  “Does it matter what I did?” I say. “This is about Tim Breary, not me. He didn’t kill his wife, so drop the charges and release him. You don’t prosecute when there’s no chance of a conviction, do you?”

  “Not as simple as that, and not up to us,” says Gibbs. “It’s the CPS’ call. Crown Prosecution Service.”

  “You, them, whoever,” I say impatiently. “What’s a jury going to think when I stand up in court and quote Lauren Cookson on the subject of letting an innocent man go to prison for murder?”

  “Your word against hers—that’s what I’d think. I’d also wonder about your feelings for Tim Breary. I do wonder about them.” He stares at me. Am I supposed to feel guilty for having feelings? It would be so convenient to have none. I’d be able to sit here and concentrate on protecting my interests, and Tim’s, with no red whirlwind raging inside me; police detectives would hear my rational arguments and not sense the havoc underneath.

  “Whatever your relationship with Tim Breary is or was, the prosecution’ll sniff it out,” Gibbs says. “When and how did the two of you meet?”

  I’m not ready for this. “I’ll save the prosecution the effort by not hiding anything,” I say, hardly hearing myself. Reasonable speech is no competition for the roaring whirlwind. “Tim and I were good friends at one time. It’s no secret. I’ll tell them that, and then I’ll tell them what Lauren said about him being innocent of murder, and the jury will acquit him. Except there won’t be a jury. It won’t come to that. The CPS will drop the charge as soon as they’ve read my statement.”

  Gibbs doesn’t disagree as I expect him to. “It wouldn’t happen that quickly,” he says distractedly, as if something more interesting has drawn his attention away from me. “A lot’s going to depend on whether Lauren confirms or denies your account of last night.”

  So Tim’s freedom hinges on the testimony of an unstable tattooed moron. That’s comforting to know. “She’ll deny it because she’s scared shitless,” I say.

  “You’d be surprised how many people cave in at the first challenge,” says Gibbs.

  I want to tell him to stop wasting time speculating and get out there and find Lauren.

  “Where’s Tim?” I ask. “Is he here, in a cell somewhere?” If the answer is yes, I’m going to find it hard to stay in my seat. “Is he in prison? I need to see him.” I think of what Lauren said last night about smashing down doors.

  “He’s on the CPS’ side.”

  “What?”

  “Who’s a more reliable witness in your opinion, Tim Breary or Lauren Cookson?”

  I can’t give him the quick answer he wants. No question about Tim’s character can be answered easily. He is both reliable and unreliable.

  “Because they disagree,” Gibbs says. “Assuming what you’re telling me’s the truth and she’s claiming he’s innocent.”

  “Every word I’ve said is true.” Gibbs’ words are the problem, not mine. I don’t understand them. Who disagrees? With what? Is this how Lauren felt last night, trying to talk to me? “In an ideal world, I’d be having this conversation after ten hours’ sleep,” I say. “I know you probably don’t mean to, but . . . please, can you not mess me around?”

  “Tim Breary’s confessed to the murder of his wife.”

  My stomach lurches. I swallow hard, do my best to breathe at the same time as keeping my throat shut tight. I compensated for lack of sleep with a big cooked breakfast at Cologne Airport this morning. It looked and tasted disgusting, but will give me enough energy to get through the day, if it doesn’t end up splashed all over the table in front of me.

  “If he’s confessed, he’s lying,” I say once my stomach waves have subsided. He can’t have. The article I read said nothing about a confession, only that Tim had been charged. “Why would he confess? It must mean . . .” I fall silent, temporarily unable to locate the meaning. I didn’t expect a police station to be so much like an airport: being here makes me feel grainy, undefined, simultaneously lost inside myself and trapped outside my life.

&nbs
p; “You’re too tired to work anything out,” Gibbs says. “If you want to help Tim, answer my questions. You can think later.”

  If I tell him that I can usually do both at the same time—thinking and answering—will I come over as big-headed?

  You’re pathetic. You want him to know that you’re the great Gaby Struthers, but look at you. You can’t keep a coherent idea in your brain for two seconds.

  “What did you do after you Googled Lauren Cookson’s name and found out about Tim?” Gibbs asks.

  Fell apart. Am still falling. “Tried to convince myself to believe it,” I say. “Made myself go through the search results on my phone systematically, reading as much as I could. I had no idea what I’d do when Lauren came out of the bathroom, what I’d say. I wanted to run away.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “The obvious thing would be to talk to her, wouldn’t it?” Gibbs says. “Tell her that you know her innocent man and you don’t think that can be a coincidence?”

  “How can it not be a coincidence?” I wipe my runny eyes. “I know it can’t be, but if it isn’t, that has to mean—”

  “Gaby,” Gibbs interrupts me. “You’re exhausted.”

  Why is he telling me things I ought to be telling him?

  “Don’t put yourself under pressure. It’s my job to work out what’s going on, not yours.” He smiles at me as if he wants to get his smiling practice over and done with for the day. Or maybe he wants to be warm and reassuring, but doesn’t know how to go about it. “Why did you want to run away from Lauren, once you found out her innocent man charged with murder was Tim Breary?” he asks.

  “I wasn’t thinking straight. I wanted to get back to the UK and the police as soon as I could. Not that tramping miles along the autobahn at night would have made that happen—which is why I stayed put.”

  “You said you wanted to run away. That suggests running from as well as running to.”

  He’s got me there. In exchange for his smile, I decide to tell him the truth. “I’d mentioned Tim to Lauren already. Not by name, but I’d told her about a man who’d been important to me. Then to find out she must have meant Tim . . .” The red whirlwind roars louder.

  “Take your time,” Gibbs says quietly.

  There is no time. I have to see Tim now, help him now. “I was scared she’d walk out of that bathroom and I’d grab hold of her and shake her till she told me everything: why she was letting Tim take the blame for a crime he didn’t commit, how she knew he hadn’t done it, who did it if not him. I didn’t think I’d be able to restrain myself. She’d have seen how much it mattered to me. Even someone as stupid as Lauren would have guessed it was Tim, the man I’d been talking about.”

  “If she didn’t know already,” says Gibbs.

  I nod. It’s hard for me to keep this in mind: that Lauren might have had the upper hand all along. Must have had. “I’d never have told her what I did if I’d known she knew him,” I say. The idea of her inaccurately reporting our conversation back to Tim makes my stomach churn with shame: She says she’d ditch her bloke and pull you now, given half a chance. Please don’t let that happen, God-that-I-don’t-believe-in.

  I reach for the chain around my neck and press it between my fingertips, wondering if I’m desperate enough yet to start praying to a gold medallion. Do I still count as a traveler, Saint Christopher, even though I’m back in the UK? Are you still the right person to be talking to, or did your shift end when I landed at Combingham? Is there a patron saint for women who love innocent men charged with murder?

  “So why didn’t you run away?” Gibbs asks.

  “I had to find out the truth, for Tim’s sake. That mattered more than anything else.” He can’t have confessed. Any second now, Gibbs will tell me it was a lie, a tactic to get a reaction out of me. “The quickest way to do it was to stay and confront Lauren. Or so I thought.”

  “Go on.”

  “She was in the bathroom for ages. I was glad. It gave me a chance to get myself together. When she finally came out, everything was . . . too different, too quickly. I didn’t have to say anything. As soon as she saw my face, and my phone in my hand, she knew. I’ve never seen anyone look so guilty. She stood there like a block of stone, waiting for me to accuse her. I said, ‘I know Tim Breary, Lauren. What the hell’s going on?’ She grabbed her jacket and her bag and ran.” I don’t tell Gibbs, because it’s too humiliating, that I was sitting cross-legged on the floor when Lauren darted out of the room, that in my shock it hadn’t occurred to me that she might try to escape, even though she’d run away from me before.

  “I went after her, but she was too fast—she was in the lift before I got to the door. I thought I might be able to catch her if I ran down the stairs, but there was no sign of her in the lobby. I went outside, shouted her name, ran up and down the autobahn like a lunatic. I even went back to the grotty petrol station, but she was nowhere.”

  “So what did you do?”

  It won’t help him to know that I fell down in a heap on the wet, muddy forecourt in the pouring rain and howled at the top of my lungs, helpless with frustration and rage. “I went back up to the room. Tried to work out what the hell was going on, tried to get some sleep. Failed at both. I ended up writing Lauren a long letter—begging her to tell me what was going on, basically.”

  “What did you do with the letter?”

  Nothing, yet. It’s in my bag. “I tore it up,” I lie. “It was full of personal stuff about me and Tim.” True. “I read it through and decided I wasn’t comfortable with the idea that it existed, let alone the thought of Lauren ever reading it. I just had to do something to calm myself down.”

  “And in the morning? Lauren wasn’t there for the coach at seven a.m.?”

  “No. Nor at the airport, nor on the flight home. We landed, and I came straight here.”

  Gibbs writes something down on the notepad on the table between us. From where I’m sitting, it looks like a pattern of squiggles that wouldn’t be improved by being turned the right way round. “If her fear of being in a foreign country on her own was genuine . . .”

  “It was,” I say.

  “Then she was even more scared of answering your questions, once she knew you knew. She was willing to go it alone and miss her flight, get back to the UK later, increase the risk of her husband finding out she’d lied to him.”

  “She knew I’d force the truth out of her,” I say, wondering if I’d have resorted to physical violence. Probably not, not then. I would today, now that I’ve had a chance to think about it: I’d put my hands round her stupid throat and squeeze until she told me everything.

  “She wouldn’t have been able to sustain a lie over a long period, assuming she could come up with one in the first place,” I say. “She hasn’t got the psychological resources. When you find her, it won’t be hard to get her to talk. You can speed things up by telling her what you’ve worked out. Then all she has to do is agree.”

  Gibbs looks up at me. “What I’ve worked out?”

  “She’s lying to protect her husband. Jason Cookson killed Francine Breary. He must have.”

  “For the sake of argument, why couldn’t it have been Lauren herself?” Gibbs says. “From your description, she sounds volatile—easily provoked.”

  “And from my Internet search results, I know that Francine had a stroke two years ago and couldn’t move or speak. How do you provoke someone into committing murder when you’re mute and immobile?”

  Gibbs nods matter-of-factly. This is the second time I’ve made a good point and he’s seemed bored. He’s an odd man.

  “Lauren isn’t and couldn’t be a killer,” I tell him. “She’d think it was . . . unfair to murder someone, whatever they’d done.”

  “Unfair?” His mouth twitches. He’s mocking me.

  I can’t be bothered to e
xplain what I mean. “I know I’ve only met her once, but it was a very long once, and it felt even longer. She didn’t do it. Can you say the same about her husband?”

  “I can’t, but Tim Breary can. He’s pretty sure he killed his wife. He ought to know, don’t you think? He’s told us things that only the person responsible would know.”

  “Unless the person responsible shared their knowledge with someone else, which you can’t guarantee they didn’t,” I snap. Why is everybody I meet so stupid? “Why did he kill her? Was he trying to help her? Was it so she wouldn’t suffer anymore?”

  Gibbs brushes my unentitled questions aside with an officially sanctioned one of his own. “What does Tim Breary stand to gain by protecting Jason Cookson?”

  Bringing Jason into it was a mistake. I know nothing about him, but I’m tired and scared and angry, so I pretended I did, or forgot that I didn’t. That’s why Gibbs mentally demoted me.

  Time to prove him wrong.

  “If I had to pick, from everyone I’ve ever met, the one person who might confess to a murder he didn’t commit for a reason that would make perfect sense to him and no sense at all to anybody else, I’d pick Tim Breary,” I say.

  Something Gibbs said is brushing awkwardly against the back of my mind. Three words: stand to gain. “Who benefits from Francine’s death apart from Tim?” I ask.

  “That’s restricted information.”

  “I’m guessing Tim’s the main beneficiary, if not the only one. I know he and Francine both had life insurance policies.”

  “How?” Gibbs pounces on this as if it’s a revelation.

  “Tim was my accountant for years.” I wonder if that sounds wrong to DC Gibbs. It sounds wrong to me, though it’s completely true. It makes my relationship with Tim sound safe and boring. “When my partner, Sean, and I were buying our house, Tim shopped around for mortgages and life insurance for us.”

  “That explains how he’d know you had life insurance,” said Gibbs. “It doesn’t explain your knowing the same about him and Francine.”