The Carrier

by Sophie Hannah

  “Had you done anything to your car before setting off?” Sam asked.

  “You know what I did to the car. I told you: I took off the number plates.”

  “Why did you do that, Mr. Cuffley?”

  “Didn’t want the car traced back to me. I wasn’t planning to give myself up at that point.”

  “So what changed your mind?” This was new territory.

  “Lauren. She was panicking. She had no idea where Jason was, and she’s not good with stress. She was going out of her mind, not knowing what had happened to him. Best she knows as soon as possible, I thought.” Cuffley exhaled slowly. “Look, I didn’t want to give myself up. If I’d hidden the body, you’d never have found it, but . . . Lauren’s my daughter and I love her. She deserves to know the truth about what happened and why. If I didn’t owe that to my daughter, you’d never have known it was me. You’d never have found that cunt’s body, for a start.”

  Sam had come across this phenomenon many times before: killers facing long sentences, keen to let you know how easily they could have got away with it.

  “Lisa supported my decision—that’s my wife. She said, ‘What’s the point of doing what you did if Lauren’s still living in fear of him walking back in at any moment?’”

  “That explains why you gave us Cookson’s body,” said Sam. “It doesn’t explain why you’re confessing.”

  Cuffley folded his arms. He looked as if he was trying to stare Sam down. As if he couldn’t believe Sam had had the nerve to make such a trivial point. Or perhaps Cuffley’s objection was that he didn’t know how to respond to it.

  “I couldn’t have Lauren thinking someone else might have done it, could I?” he said, just as Sam was about to give up hope of getting an answer. “If she knows it’s me, she knows I’m not going to come after her. I did it for her, to protect her—she’ll understand that. If she thinks it might be one of Jason’s crew, some vendetta, she’s going to worry about them targeting her next, isn’t she?”

  Crew? Did handymen-cum-gardeners have crews?

  “They often target the wives, even when they’re nothing to do with anything,” Cuffley said.

  “Was Lauren scared of Jason?” Sam asked.

  “Me and Lisa thought so. She always denied it. Look, can you let me tell her he’s dead?”

  That he’s dead, and that you killed him? Talk about two for the price of one.

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr. Cuffley. I’m sorry. I need you to tell me what happened between you and Jason Cookson on Friday night.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Where and how did you kill him?”

  “In the house.”

  “Your house?”

  “Yeah. Stabbed the cunt through the heart.” Cuffley smiled as if at a fond memory.

  “Where did this happen?”

  “I told you: at home.”

  “Which room?” Sam asked.

  “Lauren’s old bedroom.”

  “When?”

  “Friday night. Bit after midnight.”

  “I need the full story, Mr. Cuffley. What happened?”

  “Me and Lisa were watching telly, about to go to bed. Suddenly there’s all kinds of loud banging on the window. Jason. We knew it was, soon as we heard the noise. No one else we know’d turn up at that time.”

  “What time was it?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know—eleven-thirty? He’d come from the pub, pissed up, shouting all kinds of shit about Lauren.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It was disrespectful to my daughter. I’m not repeating it.” Cuffley sneered. “What are you going to do, send me to prison? I’m going there anyway.”

  “All right, so . . . Jason was shouting unpleasant things about Lauren. Had anything like that happened before?”

  “Once or twice,” said Cuffley. “When he was drunk, which didn’t happen very often. This time he was so drunk, his guard was down. He said too much. I’d always thought he probably did worse than get pissed now and then and come round asking me if Lauren was shagging someone else. Which she wasn’t, and she never would have either. She’s no slut, my Lauren. She’s loyal as anything.”

  Sam waited, sensing Cuffley hadn’t finished.

  “I asked her all the time: is he treating you nice? She always said he was, said he just needed to get it into his head that she wasn’t interested in anyone else. He was the jealous type, you could say. Lisa used to worry about it—so did I—but Lauren’d say, ‘Please, Dad, just leave it.’ So what could I do?”

  Kill him? Had Cuffley forgotten the solution he’d eventually arrived at?

  “You say Jason said too much on Friday night. What did he say that was too much?”

  “He was mouthing off about what he’d done to Lauren—in the fucking street! Any of our neighbors could have heard. Some probably did. And you can ask me as many times as you like, I’m not telling you what he did to her. Bang me up for a hundred years—I don’t give a fuck. My daughter’s been through enough. I’m not having her humiliated any more.” Cuffley clenched both fists. “I went to open the door, drag him inside before he made any more of a show of us all. By the time I got there he was on the floor. He’d passed out. I dragged him inside. Lisa said to take him up to Lauren’s old room. ‘Best ring Lauren,’ she said. ‘No way,’ I told her.”

  “Because?”

  “I didn’t want Lauren coming round to fetch him home. I wanted to fucking kill the twat. And I did,” Cuffley reminded Sam, scratching his “IRONMAN” tattoo. “I went to the kitchen, got hold of the biggest knife I could find, went back upstairs and stuck it in him—all the way in. Lisa wasn’t involved. I didn’t tell her what I was planning. She’d have stopped me. You know what women are like.”

  Not so much women as people who disapprove of murder, thought Sam. He stood up, walked over to the window. There were metal bars across it, top to bottom. He was tired of spending so much time in this room and others like it. Whatever his next job was, its windows needed to offer a view that was uninterrupted by gray stripes. “Where did the Bubble Wrap come from?” he asked.

  “The what?”

  “That you wrapped Jason’s body in.”

  “Oh, right. I bought a roll from Brodigan’s yesterday. Look.” Cuffley reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small white piece of paper. He handed it to Sam.

  A receipt.

  Sam managed not to thank him. “When forensics search your house, what evidence will they find that Jason was killed where you say he was?”

  Cuffley was unfazed by the question. “We got rid of the bedding, but the mattress is still there. Lisa won’t come back till it’s gone. She’s taken the kids and gone to her mum’s. Put it this way, no one’ll be looking at that mattress and imagining someone cut themselves shaving.”

  “You and Lisa have children?”

  “Two. They’re not mine.”

  “Were they in the house when you killed Jason?”

  “They were asleep,” said Cuffley defensively. “They saw nothing. I wouldn’t have let them see anything. Lisa got them up, dressed and out first thing Saturday morning.”

  Oh, well, that’s all right, then. Here’s your Stepdad of the Year award back. Sorry I doubted you.

  “How did Lisa react when you told her what you’d done?” Sam asked.

  Cuffley shrugged. “She’d rather it hadn’t happened in her house, but she was never Jason’s biggest fan. We both had a feeling he wasn’t treating Lauren right. We’re solid, me and Lise. She drove me here, when I needed to . . . you know, with the body, and she’s said she’ll stand by me whatever happens. She knows I did what I did for Lauren.”

  Something was bothering Sam. It took him a few seconds to pin down what it was. “How long was it between you killing Jason and telling
Lisa what you’d done?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Cuffley. “Not long. Few minutes.”

  “Why didn’t you also tell Lauren?”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  “You could have phoned her. Or gone round to see her—it’s not far, is it, from your house to the Dower House?”

  Cuffley shrugged.

  “You asked me before if I’d let you tell Lauren, and I said no,” Sam reminded him. “You could have told her yourself, anytime between when you killed Jason and when you turned yourself in. Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I just didn’t. I’ve got a few questions for you.” Cuffley jabbed his finger at Sam. “Did Tim Breary kill his wife or not? Lauren won’t tell me what’s going on, but I know something’s not right. Did Jason kill her?”

  This Sam had not been expecting. He opened his mouth, but Wayne Cuffley was on a roll. “Why did Lauren end up in Germany and then miss her flight back, so that I had to pay for another one? And who’s Gaby Struthers?”

  “Tim Breary’s been charged with Francine’s murder,” Sam said neutrally. “Do you have any reason to think he might be innocent?”

  “No, but I know Lauren’s not been right since Francine died. She won’t tell me what it’s all about. Clams up whenever I ask.”

  And when I do. “Why did you ask who Gaby Struthers is?” said Sam. “You’ve met her. You knew who she was before she introduced herself.”

  “I know fuck all about her apart from she met Lauren at an airport and hassled her, wouldn’t leave her alone. And she’s posh and up herself—that’s what Lauren said when she rang in hysterics from Germany: Gaby Struthers, a snooty bitch. Lauren’s shit-scared of her, but she won’t tell me why. She said she’d come looking for her at the Dower House, and she did. That’s got to be something to do with Francine Breary.”

  “I can’t discuss the case with you,” Sam told him. Cuffley’s questions had put a new one in his mind. “Why were you at the Dower House on Friday, when you met Gaby? You must have known Lauren wasn’t back yet if you’d booked her flight home.”

  Cuffley closed his eyes, shook his head. “I was fucking stupid. Lauren was in such a state about this Gaby Struthers, I couldn’t get any sense out of her. I thought Jason might know who she was, and what Lauren was doing in Germany. Course, Lauren hadn’t said anything about anything to him, so I fucked up there. I should have realized she was ringing me because she couldn’t ring him, because he didn’t know.”

  “He was angry?” Sam asked.

  “He didn’t want to lose his cool in front of me, but I could see what was going on underneath,” said Cuffley. “He could barely keep it together. Guy was a psycho—same since he was eight years old.”

  “Eight?” said Sam, surprised.

  “We were at primary school together. And secondary.”

  “What did he say when you told him about Gaby Struthers?”

  “I never did,” said Cuffley. “I only got as far as asking why Lauren was in Germany. Jason stared at me like he didn’t have a clue what I meant. Then he walked off, saying he was going to ring her. I shouted after him did he want me to pick her up from the airport. He said no, he’d do it. The way he said it, it didn’t sound right. I nearly went to the airport but . . .” Cuffley stopped. Shrugged. “It’s not like he was going to start smacking her about in the Arrivals Hall, is it? What good would I do by going there? I couldn’t stop him taking her home.” He smiled suddenly, as if he and Sam were on the same side. “I’ve stopped him now, though.”

  “Where were you on Wednesday, the sixteenth of February?” Sam asked him.

  “That when Francine died? I was working. Lauren was lucky: I’d have been working on Friday if I hadn’t taken the week off to redecorate the front room. I wouldn’t have been able to sort out her flight for her.”

  “What’s your job?”

  “Delivery driver. For Portabas.”

  “Which is . . . ?”

  “Courier company.”

  “I’m going to need to contact them,” said Sam.

  “You think I killed Francine? Why would I ask what was going on if I knew I’d killed her?”

  Sam’s questions were different: why would Cuffley have wanted to murder Francine? What motive could he possibly have had? “You said something interesting to Gaby Struthers at the Dower House on Friday. You said, ‘Never bullshit a bullshitter.’ What did you mean by that?”

  Cuffley ignored the question and asked one of his own instead: “Is there a chance Jason could have done it?”

  “Killed Francine Breary?” said Sam. “Why do you ask?”

  “If he did it, I want it made public.” Cuffley lifted his head, looked past Sam as if imagining a bigger audience. “I want the world to know I did us all a favor,” he said.

  23

  SUNDAY, 13 MARCH 2011

  Tim. Tim Breary, standing in front of me.

  He doesn’t seem big enough, somehow. No, that’s wrong. Not what I mean.

  His face . . . Is it a face that can explain everything I feel? I used to be sure it was, but after all this time . . .

  This isn’t an emotional response I’m having, it’s an assault: so many sensations screaming in the air that don’t feel like mine. I don’t recognize their harshness, can’t get a firm hold on any one of them. All I can do is stand here as they whirl around me in a thick storm, cutting me off from my surroundings. I’m closer to Tim and farther away from myself than I’ve been for a long time.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he says.

  I listen for clues in the silence that follows his words. Who were you then, Tim? Who are you now?

  “Gaby?”

  I open my bag, pull out the Valentine’s card with the e. e. cummings poem in it.

  i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

  “Who was The Carrier?” I ask Tim.

  Counting the seconds before he answers: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven . . .

  “Me.”

  “No. You didn’t send me this card. Kerry did.”

  “Me,” he says again. “I’m The Carrier, Gaby. I wished I’d sent it. As soon as I knew about it, I wished I’d thought of it. Kerry sent it on my behalf, but I’m The Carrier. You must see that. I do carry your heart, Gaby. I always have.”

  “It was stupid of me to believe it could have been you,” I say. “I suppose we believe what we want to believe, right?”

  “Please sit down.” Tim edges toward the door, as if to block it. He thinks I might walk out.

  There are chairs: comfortable ones. What is this room? It’s not how I imagined a prison would be.

  I sit. “I didn’t work it out until I went to the Dower House and found the e. e. cummings book in your room. I’d read the poem hundreds of times in the card, but it was different when I saw it printed in a book. I thought about all the other poems I’d read in books, all the ones you’d shown me, and I realized the card couldn’t have come from you. There’s no way you’d have chosen that poem.”

  “‘And it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant / and whatever a sun will always sing is you,’” Tim quotes. “‘And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart // I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart).’”

  He sits down opposite me. He could have come closer. Could be touching me now. There’s a free chair next to me.

  Simon Waterhouse is outside. Our invisible chaperone. Francine always used to play that role.

  This is too strange.

  I don’t want poetry quoted at me. I want Tim’s arms around me. I want to claw at his face in fury. Jason Cookson wouldn’t have come after me if Lauren hadn’t followed me to Germany. That happened because of Tim: the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

  I’m not going to say any of that. I’m going to
talk about a poem instead.

  “It’s nonsense,” I say. “Moons don’t mean anything. Suns don’t sing, the stars aren’t kept apart by wonder. The poem you asked Simon Waterhouse to give me—that’s much more your style: literal. If a poet has something important to say, he says it as simply as he can. Remember?”

  Tim nods.

  I open the card. My turn to quote. “‘To Gaby, I love you. Happy Valentine’s Day, with love from The Carrier.’ Those words were written by Kerry. Not you.”

  She knew I’d think you’d sent the card. She knew I’d respond in kind and declare my love. She wasn’t trying to help you say what you were too timid to say—she was trying to force a crisis that would break us up. And she succeeded: if there had been no card from The Carrier, I wouldn’t have rushed to your office and told you I loved you too. You wouldn’t have confided in me about your dream, I wouldn’t have gone to Switzerland looking for clues. . . . You wouldn’t have panicked and told me to get away from you and stay out of your life.

  “I should have told you the truth,” Tim says. “I know that, I just . . . what could I say? I’d have sounded pathetic: ‘Actually, it’s from one of my friends, but coincidentally, that is how I feel about you.’”

  “Did you know Kerry had done it?”

  “Dan told me as soon as it was too late to undo. Kerry was too embarrassed to tell me herself. I don’t know why she expected me to be angry. I was grateful for her impatience. She knew how I felt about you. Better than I did.”

  He believes she did it with the best possible motive. Of course.

  “Turns out my literal style isn’t suited to realistic human emotions.” Tim smiles sadly. “Turns out moons do mean something. Suns do sing.”

  Feelings. More feelings. I’ve got too many of my own to deal with without adding Tim’s to the mix. What I’m short of is facts.

  “So,” I say. “Who else’s handiwork have you taken credit for, more recently? Whose burden of guilt has The Carrier been carrying?”

  “I killed Francine, Gaby.”

  “Lauren doesn’t think so. Neither does Simon Waterhouse. Neither do I.”

  “Lauren?” Tim looks at me as if I’ve said something blasphemous. “You trust her more than you trust me?”