The Adulterer's Wife

by Leigh Russell

  That feeling of liberty was so precious, and so rare. The posters had stayed.

  I sat on his bed, remembering and crying, until my head was pounding. At last I gathered myself together, washed my face and went downstairs to make a cup of tea. The rest of the day stretched out in front of me, empty. All I could do was visit the police station each morning and wait for the justice system to crawl to a conclusion. For now, this was my life. I felt I ought to be doing something, but the health centre where I had worked part-time as a receptionist had let me go and I couldn’t be bothered to contest their decision. Compared to my other problems, that was insignificant.

  With the demands Dan had placed on my time when he was younger, I had never gone back to a full-time job after he was born, and I wasn’t sure I could find another post when all this nightmare was over. But that didn’t matter. There were always jobs to do around the house. One day I might find the energy to redecorate the living room. For now, I couldn’t even be bothered to weed the garden or mow the grass which had grown an incredible amount in the month since it had last been cut.

  That evening, I was seriously tempted to open a bottle of wine, but I thought it might not be wise to drink alone, in my present desperate circumstances. Instead, I stuck to tea.

  Just as the kettle boiled, the doorbell rang.

  ‘I heard you were back,’ Nina said, flinging her arms around me. She smelled strongly of perfume. ‘But, how are you?’ She drew back and gazed earnestly at me. ‘You look bloody awful. You’ve been crying, haven’t you?’

  I shook my head and burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ she said, giving me another hug.

  ‘Everything’s gone,’ I wailed. ‘Everything. My life is over. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Let’s go in and sit down, and you can tell me all about it,’ she said, patting me sympathetically on the back. ‘Sometimes it helps to talk.’

  Over a glass of wine, I told her about Dan. ‘Stella wouldn’t even let me see him. When I tried to insist, she threatened to call the police.’

  ‘You should have gone in anyway.’

  ‘I couldn’t, not without physically shoving her out of the way. And she said it was best for Dan not to see me.’ I burst into tears again.

  ‘That’s horrible. But don’t worry, he’ll be back home once this is all over. It can’t be much longer until it all gets sorted out. And in the meantime, you know he’s in good hands. It’s not as if he’s with strangers, is it? They might hate you right now, but you know they love Dan. Everything will be fine in the end, you'll see. The police will get to the bottom of it. That’s their job.’

  She was trying to be nice, but it didn’t help. Still sobbing, I offered her another glass of wine.

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ she said. ‘I’m going out tonight.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s okay. It was nice of you to come over. I appreciate it, really I do.’

  ‘You know you can be honest with me.’ She paused. ‘Tell me, did you kill Paul? I mean, I’d understand if you did, after the way he behaved.’

  I looked at her. ‘No. I didn’t kill him. How could you even ask that?’

  Nina shrugged. ‘I felt like killing Eddy when I found out he was seeing someone else. I mean, it wasn’t just a brief fling for Paul, was it? They’d been seeing each other for years, hadn’t they? That makes a difference, doesn’t it? All the lies he must have told you.’ She shook her head and glanced at her watch. ‘I really ought to go. Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own?’

  I grunted. ‘I’m going to have to get used to it, aren’t I?’

  After she left, I switched the television on and sat gazing miserably at the opened bottle of wine on the table in front of me. It was only half empty. Or half full. Two versions of the same truth.

  20

  The house was eerily empty after Nina left. Evenings were going to be the worst time. I had often been on my own during the day, but Dan and Paul had always come home by supper time. Now the silence was painful, so I kept the television on as background noise. Even the voices of strangers were preferable to nothing at all. I slept little and was almost glad when it was time to go and report to the police station again. At least it gave me something to do. This time when I went back to the police station, the desk sergeant asked me to take a seat and wait for a moment.

  ‘But I’m only here to check in with you,’ I told him. I lowered my voice. ‘I’ve been let out on bail and need to report here every twenty-four hours. I’ve done that now, so can I go home?’

  ‘Just one moment,’ he replied stolidly, ‘we need you to sign the register. Take a seat please.’

  He picked up his phone, indicating our conversation was concluded, so I went and sat down. It was annoying, but I wasn’t going to make a fuss. I would just have to get used to the process. In the meantime, I would be home again soon enough.

  After a few minutes, a female officer in uniform emerged through an internal door and headed straight for me. I glanced around but there was no one else sitting waiting.

  ‘Julie Barrett.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Please come with me.’

  ‘I hope this isn’t going to take long,’ I grumbled as I followed her through the door. ‘I thought I just had to sign a register.’

  She led me along a grey corridor and into a small room furnished with grey chairs and a low table.

  ‘Wait here please,’ she said.

  ‘What’s this about?’

  She left the room without answering and returned a few moments later. Instructing me to follow her, she escorted me outside where a police car was waiting with the back-passenger door open.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Mind your head please.’

  I grunted. I knew the drill. This wasn’t the first time I had been in a police car.

  My resistance was short lived. ‘What's going on? I demand to know where you’re taking me.’

  She pushed me firmly into the car and slammed the door. Doing my best to reassure myself that we don’t live in a police state, and I was in safe hands, I leaned back in my seat and resigned myself to this journey to an unknown destination.

  Only our destination wasn’t unfamiliar. I recognised the Hendon police compound as soon as we drove into the car park, and it was no surprise when Detective Inspector Morgan entered the interview room where I had been taken.

  ‘No,’ I cried out, scowling at him as he sat down opposite me, ‘this isn't fair. You know perfectly well I was released on bail. There was a court order, signed by a judge. You can't bring me back here. You have to let me go home.’

  Ignoring my protests, he spoke quietly. ‘Where were you between five and six a.m. yesterday?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t keep me here!’

  ‘Can you answer the question, please?’

  ‘Not until you tell me what I’m doing here.’

  I wasn’t going to say anything until I knew what was going on.

  ‘We just want to ask you a few questions, Julie. I’m surprised that you would refuse to co-operate with us.’

  He was trying to unnerve me, to force me into making an admission I would later regret, but I had the presence of mind to tell him that I refused to say anything without my lawyer in the room. Apart from anything else, I needed time to decide how to respond to his question. Someone must have spotted me on the train, but Morgan was very specific about the time, and between five and six I had been in my seat. It was trick. Morgan was hoping to catch me out, but I couldn’t fathom what he was up to.

  I was led back to a cell, protesting loudly all the way. Andrew joined me after a while.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked me, his narrow features twisted in perplexity.

  ‘Why are you asking me that? You’re the lawyer. You’re the one who’s supposed to know what’s happening.’

  ‘Okay, calm down. Getting yourself, all worked up isn’t goi
ng to help. Now,’ he lowered his voice even though there was no one else there, ‘your friend Ackerman told me about your trip up north.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but I swear no one saw me, and I was back in time to report to the police station in Harrow by ten thirty yesterday morning.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘So, what’s going on? Why have I been brought back here?’

  ‘They’re still trying to nail you for your husband’s murder. They’re probably just trying to put pressure on you, to make you break down and confess.’

  ‘Can they do that?’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s up to you, whether you let them get to you or not. But I can’t see you caving in to pressure. There’s nothing they can do, really, expect play these stupid games to unsettle you. That’s all it is, Julie, I’m sure of it. Now, stand firm and you’ll be back home in no time. Admit nothing, say nothing. They can’t keep you here.’

  We reconvened, but this time I had Andrew at my side, his assurances that the police couldn’t hold me ringing in my ears. Morgan’s expression gave nothing away, and I met his gaze with what I hoped was similar inscrutability. Andrew had told me this was all a game. I was ready to play.

  ‘Where were you between five and six a.m. yesterday?’ Morgan asked again, as though the interview hadn’t been interrupted.

  ‘I was at home.’

  Morgan was trying it on, but I was confident no one could prove I had travelled further than the terms of my bail allowed. Miserable though it was in my empty house, I wasn’t going to lose my bail privileges without a fight.

  ‘Can I go home now?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘You can’t stop me leaving.’

  ‘My client fulfilled the conditions of her bail,’ Andrew interrupted quickly, no doubt intending to remind me to keep my mouth shut. ‘She was released on bail by the court and you can’t keep her here without good reason.’

  ‘I’ll ask you once again, where were you between the hours of five and six a.m. yesterday?’

  ‘Like I just told you, I was at home. My memory hasn’t altered in the last two seconds.’

  ‘Was anyone else at home with you?’

  ‘What? No, of course not. A friend came around later, but no one was there at that time.’

  ‘A friend?’ he repeated.

  Wondering if they were suggesting I had also been having an affair, I found it difficult to hide my indignation and glared at him.

  ‘So, no one can vouch for you being at home in the early hours of yesterday morning?’

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘You have no alibi for that time?’

  I turned to Andrew for support, but he was looking at the inspector with a faintly uneasy expression.

  ‘Alibi?’ he repeated, frowning. ‘What is the significance of this line of questioning? What happened yesterday morning that could have any relevance to my client’s status?’

  Morgan stared straight at me as he answered Andrew’s question. ‘Bella Foster is dead. She was murdered in her bed early yesterday morning. But I expect you already knew that, didn’t you, Julie?’

  For a moment no one spoke. Morgan’s question hung in the space between us like an invisible web.

  ‘Where were you between five and six a.m. yesterday?’ he asked again, very softly.

  Andrew answered. ‘I need to consult with my client.’

  Simultaneously I shouted over him in my terror at this new implied accusation. ‘So, Bella’s dead? What’s that got to do with me? You can’t think I had anything to do with it.’ I could feel myself shaking. ‘I wasn’t even in London!’

  Morgan’s features remained impassive, his voice devoid of expression. ‘You weren’t in London? Meaning what, precisely?’

  ‘I was in Scotland. No, I was on a train coming back from Edinburgh at that time. I’d gone to see my son. I knew I had to come back, so I could report to the police station at ten thirty.’ I was babbling, almost incoherent in my shock. ‘I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardise my bail. I did what you wanted. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘My client’s distressed. We would like to take a break.’

  Ignoring Andrew’s intervention, Morgan pressed on. ‘You were in Scotland? No, you were on a train? But you also just told us you were at home. Which is it, Julie? Which of your differing accounts are you asking us to believe?’

  ‘It’s the truth. I’m not making this up. I was on the train.’

  ‘Why did you tell us you were at home?’

  ‘I lied.’

  Morgan grunted.

  ‘I need to confer with my client,’ Andrew interrupted me urgently.

  But I felt compelled to explain. ‘I was afraid to admit I’d broken the conditions of my bail by travelling to Edinburgh to see my son. That’s the only reason I said I was at home, where I should have been.’

  ‘At what time did you see your son?’

  ‘I didn’t see him. They wouldn’t even let me talk to him. But I saw my mother-in-law. Ask her. She’ll tell you I was there. Ask Stella. She saw me.’

  Morgan sat forward in his chair. ‘Will she be prepared to swear in court that you were with her between five and six yesterday morning?’

  ‘It would take five hours to get back to London,’ his colleague pointed out.

  Morgan nodded and amended his question. ‘Will your mother-in-law swear in court that she was with you in Edinburgh at any time after midnight last night?’

  I was finding it difficult to speak. ‘No.’ I cast a desperate glance at Andrew. ‘I saw her at about five o’clock in the afternoon, on the day of my release. I went straight there, but I didn’t come back to London right away. I was booked on the eleven forty train which got in at seven twenty-seven yesterday morning. So, you see, I was on the train all the time.’

  ‘Let’s hope for your sake that we can find evidence you boarded the train. Sergeant, get onto it straight away.’

  Back in a cell I struggled to take in what had just happened. While I had been busy covering my tracks travelling to Scotland and back, another murder had been committed. CCTV film couldn’t prove my whereabouts because I had disguised my appearance, and there wasn’t even any proof I had bought a train ticket because I had paid in cash. Ackerman had dropped me at King’s Cross station in the evening, but he hadn't seen me board the train. Stella had seen me about twelve hours before the murder, and the train took under six hours, leaving me more than enough time to return to London and kill Bella. In my determination not to risk being discovered breaking the terms of my bail, I had left myself without an alibi for the time of the murder. And this time the victim was my husband’s mistress, the woman who had stolen my husband and wrecked my life.

  21

  I felt numb when they led me back to a cell, my brief spell of restricted liberty over. Accused of murdering my husband, and suspected of killing his mistress, there was no way I would be granted bail again. I was aware of that yet felt nothing. My anger was spent. Feeling as though there was no longer anything to fight for, I slept well that night. The following day I was informed that my friend, Nina, had come to visit me. I refused to see her. There was no point. She could do nothing to help me, and her sympathy would only unsettle me. I had shed enough tears. I didn’t want to cry any more. All I wanted to do was repair my relationship with my son. Somehow, together, we had to get past this. But first I needed to regain my freedom, and that seemed impossible.

  ‘It’s a pity your husband’s mistress was murdered the morning after you were released,’ Andrew said quietly at our next meeting.

  ‘I know, but I didn’t do it.’

  ‘All the same you’ve got to admit it’s a coincidence, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have.’

  He leaned forward, and I continued with my convoluted explanation.

  ‘When she was being killed, I was on a train travelling back to London. I must have been somewhere around Doncaster, or Peterborough,
I don’t know where. Somewhere miles north of London anyway. So, unless I managed to kill her by some sort of remote telekinesis, I can’t have done it.’ I paused, trying to interpret his expression, but it was impossible to tell what was going through his mind. He had somehow closed off from me. ‘I know it doesn’t matter what you think. It’s all about the jury. But you must believe me, otherwise you’re not going to be so determined to prove my innocence. And you must get me out of here. My son is only seventeen.’

  He nodded. ‘Tell me everything that happened after you left the remand facility.’

  Starting with Ackerman dropping me at King’s Cross station, I went through it all. By the time I finished, he was frowning.

  ‘It’s just about plausible, I suppose,’ was his response.

  ‘You can go to the charity shop and find the coat and scarf I was wearing on the train, if they’re still there.’

  His face brightened. ‘Did you hand them in to someone who might remember seeing you with them?’

  ‘Actually, I slipped them onto a hanger when no one was looking. But I know where they are. Surely that proves I put them there.’

  ‘No, it just proves that you saw them there.’

  ‘But the coat could have been picked up on CCTV. How would I know about that?’

  ‘What does it look like? Perhaps if it’s distinctive we might be able to build a case.’

  ‘It’s not distinctive at all. Quite the opposite.’

  He heaved a sigh.

  ‘I was trying not to attract attention. It’s just a black raincoat. I put it on a hanger with other black raincoats.’

  We stared at one another as the implications of my actions sank in. I had been too successful in covering my tracks.

  ‘Wouldn’t the coat have my DNA on it? Surely you could persuade the police to check? This isn’t some petty crime we’re talking about. They want to charge me with another murder.’

  ‘Traces of your DNA on a coat in a charity shop would only prove you’d worn it or had tried it on. It wouldn’t provide evidence that you travelled to Scotland and back in it, returning too late to have killed Bella.’ He paused. ‘You could have gone into a charity shop after you killed her and tried a coat on with the intention of fabricating an alibi.’ He shook his head. ‘The coat proves nothing.’ He gave me a curious look. ‘Did you kill her? I’m beginning to wonder if you’re actually an extremely cunning woman.’