Suspicion

by Leigh Russell

  Her cool gaze and measured tone helped me to regain my composure. Despite the depressing impact of her words, she seemed thoughtful, not dismayed. Her clothes were unwrinkled, her hair as neat as if she had just stepped out of a salon. By contrast, my eyes must have been red and swollen from crying, and my hair a mess. Glancing down, I could see my trousers were creased, and no doubt there were damp patches under my arms. When I turned my head to the side I was aware of a faint unpleasant odour of sweat, and wondered if she could smell it too.

  ‘It was stupid of me, I know, but I was angry. They were having an affair. I wanted to warn her off, force her to leave him alone. And yes, I wanted to punish her. She deserved to be taught a lesson. I wanted to show her up for the slag she was. But I never intended to make her that desperate. If I’d suspected for one second the emails might drive her to commit suicide, I wouldn’t have done it. Believe me, I’m as horrified as anyone about what happened. More so, because it was my fault, in a way. But I never imagined that would happen. How was I supposed to know? She always seemed so calm and capable, so cheerful.’

  Ingrid nodded. ‘Her response was unpredictable and certainly excessive. Your emails might have triggered her death, but there’s nothing to indicate that was your intention.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t my intention! I just wanted to rattle her, make her post at Edleybury so uncomfortable she would be forced to find another job and leave us alone. I certainly hoped they would think twice about continuing their relationship once they realised someone else knew about it. But that’s all it was. I was jealous. That’s not a crime, is it? They were the ones who started it. I just wanted her to go away. She was hardly innocent in all this, was she? All I did was dash off a few emails. She was having an affair with my husband, trying to undermine our marriage. Surely that’s a lot worse than sending a few insulting emails.’

  Ingrid looked solemn. ‘A jealous wife.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what it comes down to. And that’s all it was.’

  ‘Very well. I advise you to remain calm, if you can. A suicide is not going to exercise the police for long. They are going through the motions, and that’s all this is. So there’s no need to worry. This can all be resolved swiftly and discreetly.’

  Warning me to leave the talking to her, she rose to her feet and knocked on the door.

  A few moments later, we were led to another room where we sat facing Detective Inspector Jarvis and Detective Sergeant Woods across a table.

  The inspector began the proceedings by asking me about the three emails I had sent. Cursing myself for ever having been stupid enough to write them, I listened to Ingrid’s defence. She described my shock on discovering my husband was having an affair, and how traumatised I had been to see photographs of Nick and Sue together. Ingrid talked about my unswerving loyalty to my husband, and how I had sacrificed my own career to support him in his role as headmaster of an eminent school. Listening to her, I found myself fighting back tears of self-pity. Everything she said was true. I had given up my own career for Nick, and he had repaid me by betraying my trust in the basest way imaginable. Sending those three emails had been an understandable, if foolish, response which I now deeply regretted.

  ‘It is perhaps conceivable that my client’s actions may have contributed to Susan Ross’s decision to take her own life, but in the absence of any testimony from the deceased, that has to remain a matter for supposition,’ Ingrid concluded. ‘What is certain is that the possibility that her victim might overreact so violently never once crossed my client’s mind, and there is no reason whatsoever to suppose she should have considered so excessive a response to her provocation. There is clearly a background to this of which we have not yet been apprised, and no blame can attach to my client, who was by no means alone in her ignorance of Susan Ross’s mental state.’

  ‘Mental state?’ the inspector repeated. ‘What mental state was that?’

  ‘The deceased was clearly unbalanced–’

  ‘How was I supposed to predict that three stupid emails would drive her to take her own life?’ I interrupted. Ingrid gave me a warning glare, but fear made me angry. ‘I could just as easily have killed myself when I discovered they were having an affair. Would she have been to blame for my death if I were the one who had killed myself? Think about it. I had a lot more to lose. Nick’s my husband. Her suicide is not down to me. All I did was retaliate when I found out about their affair–’

  ‘She must have had a history of mental illness,’ Ingrid cut me short. ‘It is unreasonable to believe that my client’s actions alone could have led her husband’s mistress to kill herself.’

  I flinched, hearing her refer to Sue as Nick’s mistress.

  ‘There must have been more leading up to this death than my client’s three emails,’ Ingrid insisted.

  The inspector inclined his head, and when he spoke his voice sounded as casual as someone commenting on the weather. ‘Oh, there is more to it. A lot more.’ He turned to me, his expression blank. ‘We don’t investigate suicides.’

  Chapter 21

  My heart seemed to stop. Almost immediately, I felt throbbing in my chest that rose up to my throat and through my head like a shot of adrenaline coursing through my veins. At the same time, blood pulsed behind my eyes and I began to tremble. For a moment, everything went black, but no one appeared to notice my distress. Seated at my side, Ingrid had probably not seen the expression on my face change, and the detectives must have been accustomed to maintaining an almost inhuman impassivity when they observed people react in extreme ways. But my shocked reaction was no admission of guilt. Having known Sue, obviously I would be horrified to hear that the police did not believe her death had been suicide.

  The detective inspector looked back at me and blinked very slowly. His features were not unattractive but his cold reptilian eyes made me shudder. In that moment he seemed inhuman, pitiless. Yet of the two of us, I was the one suspected of murder. The inspector was just doing his job to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Like Sue, he was not a bad person, yet, like her, he was my enemy. In that moment, it seemed to me that the problem lay with my own moral compass. After all, what was it that made anyone righteous, if we were all capable of committing an evil act in a moment of thoughtlessness?

  Gazing into the inspector’s eyes, I was paralysed by the conundrum. My husband was held up as an example of a man of integrity, the morally upright headmaster of a school, yet he had strayed into deceit and betrayal, while I was considered as good as a murderer – or as bad. And the detective, who demonstrated not so much as an iota of humanity, was a champion for justice and virtue. None of it made any sense.

  I longed to ask him if he had never done anything he deeply regretted but, just in time, I remembered that Ingrid had told me to leave the talking to her, and some instinct of self-preservation held me back. Ingrid remained motionless at my side, looking as cool as ever, but she wasn’t the one under threat. When the interview was over, she would return to her smart office, or perhaps go out to a fashionable restaurant, while I languished in a cell awaiting trial for murder. Chatting over an expensive dinner later that evening, she might mention that she was defending a client suspected of murdering her husband’s mistress, before the conversation drifted onto other subjects.

  For her, I was no more than a topic of conversation at the dinner table. For me, what happened in this small room would determine my future. And the contrast between my potential prospects was stark. In place of my present luxurious life style, I faced the possibility of life in prison, locked in a cell smaller than the room in which we were sitting.

  The inspector was watching me, impervious to my terror.

  ‘What do you mean? What exactly do you mean by that?’ I asked.

  Despite my efforts to remain calm, my voice rose as I repeated the question, because the implication of his words had been clear.

  ‘Are you really asking me to spell this out for you?’ He leaned forward slightly in h
is chair and his eyes, previously so blank, seemed to glitter with intensity. ‘Susan Ross was murdered. But of course you already knew that, didn’t you, Louise.’

  ‘You can’t think I did it!’

  ‘Where were you on Tuesday the twenty-sixth of June between six and eight o’clock?’

  It was hard to believe anyone could remain so unruffled when the whole world was spinning out of control.

  ‘Where were you on the twenty-sixth of June between six and eight?’ he repeated in his quiet voice.

  ‘At six o’clock? I would have been at home, preparing supper.’

  ‘Can anyone vouch for you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are there any witnesses who can confirm that?’

  ‘My husband, but please, you can’t tell him what I did. The emails, I mean. That’s all I did. You have to believe me. You can’t tell him. You can’t.’

  ‘Your husband was having dinner with the chairman of the governors that evening,’ the inspector informed me coldly. ‘That has already been established.’

  The rest of his words flew around me unheard after which, numb with shock, I was led to a cell. All I could think was that this couldn’t be happening. It was too terrible. Nick was going to find out what I had done and know that I had discovered his affair. I almost envied Sue. At least she was free of any more torment. Given the means, I might have ended my own life right there in that bare white cell. While I was lying on the hard bunk, trying to come to terms with what the inspector had told me, and wondering what was going to happen to me, the door to my cell opened and I was summoned.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Your husband’s here to take you home.’

  Following the constable along the corridor, I tried to smooth down my matted hair. I must have looked terrible.

  Nick was waiting for me, seated at a table. He leaped to his feet when he saw me.

  ‘Louise! You poor thing! What the hell are they doing to you? Come on, let’s go.’

  Taking me by the arm, he led me out to the car, and we drove home in silence.

  ‘Now,’ Nick said, when we were seated in our living room, a pot of tea on the table between us. ‘Tell me what that was all about.’

  ‘They think I killed her,’ I said flatly.

  He frowned at me and lowered his voice. ‘Did you?’

  ‘What? No, of course not! How could you think that?’

  ‘I never believed it, not for a second.’

  There was no point in trying to hide what I had done. ‘All I did was send those emails.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those emails accusing her of being a slut. I sent them.’

  ‘What? Why would you do that?’

  I stared into his eyes. ‘I know about the affair,’ I said softly.

  ‘What affair?’

  Nick looked so puzzled, I almost believed he had no idea what I was talking about.

  ‘Oh, you’re good,’ I said, remembering how he had told me he was an expert liar. ‘You’re very convincing. You almost had me fooled.’

  ‘Louise, what the hell are you talking about?’

  He was almost in tears.

  ‘I’m talking about Derby. And the rest of it.’

  ‘Derby? What about Derby?’

  ‘Your weekend away with her.’

  He frowned. ‘Sue? Me and Sue? You– surely you don’t think there was anything going on between us?’

  ‘Nick, you can stop this pretence, because I know.’

  ‘Whatever it is you think you know, you’re wrong. You’re completely wrong.’

  ‘Stop lying to me.’

  ‘Louise, this is madness. You’ve got it all wrong.’

  ‘I’m not wrong,’ I replied, remembering how Rosie had said those same words to me.

  ‘Louise, we need you to see a doctor, you’re not well–’

  ‘Stop lying to me! Please, just tell me the truth. Did you love her?’

  ‘You need help, Louise. This is a fantasy–’

  ‘So you keep saying. Is this the defence Ingrid has cooked up? Is she putting you up to this, to say I’m sick and that’s why I did it? That would suit you, wouldn’t it. The poor headmaster with his crazy wife. That way you could put me away and maybe even still keep your job, with your reputation untouched. Is that what this is all about? Covering up what you did. And what then? Divorce after a decent interval, to pave the way for another wife? Is that the plan?’

  My voice had risen until I was yelling at him, shaking, lost in a fit of rage.

  ‘Louise, calm down, please. You’re talking complete nonsense. Can you hear me? Do you understand me? What you’re saying makes no sense. Listen to me. Listen. I wasn’t having an affair with Sue, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wasn’t having an affair with anyone. It’s always been you and me, ever since we first met. You’re my wife, Louise, and I love you. There’s no one else, and there never has been. Whatever you’ve done, I don’t want you to worry. I’m going to look after you. We’ll get you the help you need and you’re going to get better, and we’ll be together just like before–’

  I shook my head, wishing he was right and he could make all this go away.

  ‘Listen to me. The police don’t think you killed Sue because you suspected I was being unfaithful. That’s just your overactive imagination talking. And anyway, we both know it’s not true. It can’t be true. It’s crazy. If you really suspected I was being unfaithful, you would have challenged me about it. You wouldn’t have done this. What? Killed someone? You would never have done it. Never. I know you, Louise, and I know you would never have done something like that. And the police don’t believe it either. They’ve just questioned you because you said you sent those emails. Let’s hear no more about you being suspected of murder, for Christ’s sake. Please. I know you didn’t kill her. You couldn’t have.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t kill her. But I did send those emails because– because–’ I heaved a sigh that was broken by a sob. ‘I was so angry. More than angry. I wanted you both to know that your affair was no longer a secret. I wanted everyone to know about it so that it would stop. I couldn’t bear it, Nick. I couldn’t bear it. And I wanted her to go away. I thought that threatening to expose you would make it stop. But I didn’t mean to kill her.’

  ‘It’s all in your head, Louise. This alleged affair I was having, it’s some kind of fantasy you’re suffering. It’s not true.’

  ‘I saw the photos,’ I said.

  ‘What photos?’

  ‘Photos of you and her. I saw them.’

  ‘There were no photos because there was no me and her.’

  ‘I saw the photos,’ I repeated, but suspicion had begun to undermine my conviction.

  If Nick was right, and I had imagined seeing him with Sue in the photos Rosie had shown me, I might also be deluded in believing that I hadn’t killed her. Or perhaps the image of her dead body had been a delusion too. I was no longer even sure I had been there, at her house, when it happened.

  The one certainty in all this was that Sue had been murdered.

  Chapter 22

  I thought about everything that had happened. In a way the details of my husband’s relationship with Sue were no longer important now that she was dead. Even the truth about her death ceased to matter, although I still wanted to know about the affair. Assuming I wasn’t completely crazy, then someone must be lying. The simplest explanation was usually the right one, and the obvious conclusion was that my husband had been unfaithful.

  Determined to maintain the appearance of rectitude which his position required, of course he would deny that he had been having an affair and, according to the police, Nick had been having dinner with the chairman of the governors on the evening Sue was killed. Yet there was no doubt that Sue’s death helped to protect Nick. Perhaps she had threatened to expose the truth and he had killed her himself to shut her up, believing that no one else knew about their affair. But he hadn’t known about the photos Rosie had s
hown me.

  Assuming I hadn’t been hallucinating, the other possibility was that Rosie had fabricated the story of Nick’s affair with Sue. If she had been lying all along, and the photos were fake, she was hardly likely to own up. Recalling how she had offered to give me copies of the photos led me to believe they were genuine, but I needed to be sure. There was nothing to be gained from tackling Rosie head on. That would only arouse her suspicion. I needed another ally, someone who wasn’t directly involved in the situation and, ideally, someone with the power to investigate the role Rosie had played in the circumstances leading up to Sue’s death. In desperation, I decided to approach Detective Inspector Jarvis for help.

  Nick wasn’t keen on my returning to the police station. Realising I was adamant, he insisted on driving me there and waiting for me in the entrance hall.

  ‘You have something to tell me?’ the inspector asked, as he entered the room. ‘I’m ready to listen, but wouldn’t you like your solicitor to be present?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ve already told you everything I did. There’s nothing to add to my statement. But there is something else.’

  He must have been annoyed at my equivocation, but his expression gave nothing away. ‘Go on,’ he said, sitting down.

  Having explained my suspicions of Rosie, I urged him to find the photos she had shown me.

  ‘She had them on her phone,’ I said. ‘Even if she’s deleted them, you can restore them, can’t you? I know nothing is permanently wiped out, and there would be a record of her tampering with them if they were photoshopped. And if they were genuine… at least that would prove they were having an affair. At least we’d know for sure what was going on with Nick and Sue.’

  ‘We’re not concerned to establish whether or not your husband was conducting an extramarital affair,’ the inspector replied, rising to his feet and towering over me. ‘What is of interest to us is that you believed he was unfaithful at the time his mistress, alleged or otherwise, was killed.’ He stared at me as though he was trying to read my mind. ‘Please think very carefully about the statement you gave us, Louise. Would you like to change it?’