‘Sing, Jason and Lew,’ ordered Gemma, following Jason in and carrying a cake of gigantic proportions. ‘. . . Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear Charlotte. Happy Birthday to you. Blow, Charlotte.’
Charlotte blew out the big pink candle which Jason was holding in front of her. Lew cheered. Jason twisted the light back up. Gemma put the cake in front of Charlotte so she could see it. Charlotte registered the word BITCH spelt out in cherries couched in inches of cream a mere second before it was pushed up into her face.
Chapter 55
‘Can I get you both a drink? The kettle’s just boiled,’ said Bonnie, a tremor heavy in her voice.
‘Please,’ Henderson answered for both of them. ‘Coffee, white one sugar, times two.’ He knew that talking to the lady with a hot drink in his hand humanised the situation. Some cases required the heavy approach, emotional ones like this needed more of the gentle touch.
‘I’ll be a couple of minutes. Please sit down,’ said Bonnie, darting into the kitchen and getting cups out. The detectives heard something fall on the floor, a spoon probably. She was jittery.
Henderson looked around at the décor. She owned a proper mish-mash of furniture styles and colours; nothing matched but the effect was homely rather than junk-shop. There was a stack of small plastic bags and bits of paper on the coffee table and he reckoned they’d interrupted her doing something crafty, though not in the same ‘crafty’ sense he usually found people. He picked one up and found it was full of tiny umbrellas with a fold of cardboard at the top reading ‘The Rainbow Lady’. Bags of confetti. It made a nice change from what he was used to finding in small plastic bags in houses he visited.
Bonnie came back into the room with two cups of coffee, put them down and scooped up all the small bags. ‘Sorry for the mess,’ she apologised.
‘You don’t know what mess is, love,’ Henderson wanted to say to her, but instead he said, ‘Thank you.’
Bonnie sat down on the brown ‘flip-out bed’ chair, knees together, hands clasped tightly as if in prayer, her whole body stiff with tension.
‘You said you’d been expecting us,’ said Henderson, with a friendly smile. ‘Why’s that then?’
‘You’re here to arrest me,’ said Bonnie, smiling back. A strange smile. A smile almost borne of relief. It was the smile of a person who had done something wrong and the guilt weighed so heavy on them that when the police finally caught up with them, they rushed towards the chance to atone with open arms. He’d seen it before; not many times, but enough to recognise it.
So to business. ‘There’s been an allegation made against you . . .’ Henderson began.
‘My husband, Stephen. He said he would,’ Bonnie interrupted him. Her eyes were shiny with tears now and she pressed them back with her fingers. ‘Sorry. I’m a bit nervous.’
Stephen Brookland had insisted she should be charged with ‘first degree murder’. He’d been watching too many American dramas. Henderson pitied the woman they had appointed as his FLO – the family liaison officer, whose duty it would be to keep him updated of the events. He’d be a daily pest, Henderson was sure of it. He could smell the neediness coming off the older man in waves.
‘We’re not here to arrest you, but we would like you to come into the station on a voluntary basis and make a statement,’ Henderson said, adopting a calm, avuncular tone. He took a sip of the coffee. The cup had Mondrian coloured squares all over it. Barrett’s featured Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
‘I’d rather come now,’ said Bonnie. ‘Please just arrest me.’
‘I’m not going to do that, Mrs Brookland,’ said Henderson, kindly but firmly. ‘The police cells are not pretty places. You don’t need to go there when you can sleep soundly in your bed here and see us in the next couple of days.’
‘I haven’t slept soundly in my bed for a long time. Just let me face this now, I’m ready. It’s the right thing to do,’ said Bonnie, flicking tears from her cheeks. Henderson knew she was forty-one but she looked fifteen. Her eyes were huge and full of pain.
‘Trust me, you really don’t—’ began Barrett, before Bonnie interrupted her.
‘Please. I don’t think I could bear for you to leave me here by myself now that it’s started. I don’t know what I’d do . . .’
‘Is there anyone you can call to come and stay with you, or you stay with them?’ Henderson’s concerned tone pulled more tears from her eyes, one after the other like a stream of magician’s scarves.
‘No,’ said Bonnie. ‘There’s no one.’ There’s no one. It sounded so sad and pathetic but it was true, there was no one. Not really. ‘Please,’ she said again. ‘This has cast a long shadow over my life.’ She knew she needed to force their hand. ‘I won’t turn up of my own accord so you’ll only have to come back and arrest me, so you might as well save yourself a job.’ She tried to sound bolshie but failed. Her head fell into her hands. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve dreaded this day.’ She had already been imprisoned for five years in her mind; one more night would not make a difference.
Henderson felt Barrett look at him for guidance. Henderson really did not want to arrest this woman but neither did he want to risk what she might do to herself and she was presenting as unstable and vulnerable. She needed help, not arresting. These emotional cases were the ones that stayed in his brain when he was trying to get to sleep at night. He put his empty cup down on the coffee table, said thank you and stood up.
‘If I arrest you, you might end up spending hours in a cell and they aren’t nice, Mrs Brookland,’ said DS Henderson, trying again to put her off. ‘There’s a toilet with no seat in the corner of the room, no sink and don’t even get me started on what the food they’ll give you is like. You’ll be searched and questioned and if you end up having to stay until the morning, as well you might, you won’t get a wink of sleep. There’s no need for any of that, now, is there?’
‘There is,’ begged Bonnie. ‘Please. Help me. There is.’
Chapter 56
There was a stunned silence in which no one spoke and it seemed to last for minutes, rather than the seconds it actually was. Strangely enough, Charlotte was the last to react. First was Lew who grabbed serviettes and started scooping the cake from Charlotte’s face and shoulders, his brain telling him that Gemma must have slipped. Second was Jason who leapt up from his seat with a ‘What the fuck . . .?’
‘Fuck? Fuck . . . oh yes, let’s talk about fucks and fucking and fuckers.’ Gemma gave a hard forced chuckle.
Charlotte had now stirred into life and was spitting out cream and wiping herself with her hands whilst making strange noises of distress. Lew’s skull was prickling; Gemma never swore. He knew something had been amiss with her. He’d felt it as soon as he’d laid eyes on her tonight.
‘What are you talking about?’ growled Jason, but there was something in his tone that inferred he might know exactly what his wife was talking about.
‘I had a visitor today,’ said Gemma, calmly licking a lump of chocolate-sprinkled cream from her finger. ‘Lovely cake. What a waste. Regina. Came to crawl up my arse because no one else was speaking to her. Wanted to wangle an invite for this evening but obviously I told her to stuff off. So guess what she told me, Jason?’ Gemma stared hard at her husband, then swivelled her head around to Charlotte, who looked as if she were metamorphosing into a snowman. ‘Sh . . . Harlot?’
Charlotte was silent under her cake mask. Jason was struck dumb, wide-eyed and his face was turning redder by the second. Lew was silent too but his brain was sparking, trying to work out what was going on.
‘Regina told me that you two had been screwing. My husband and my best friend, fucking like minxes,’ Gemma went on, calmly as if she was talking about the price of potatoes rather than the ultimate betrayal.
‘Regina is fucking evil,’ said Charlotte now, spraying whipped cream like a snow machine as she spoke. ‘I can’t believe that you’d actually take her seriously.’
But whilst Lew was lis
tening to his wife’s reasonable response, he was looking at Jason, who had gone past red and was heading for purple. Jason hadn’t opened his mouth and Lew thought, If that were me, I would be screaming a protest.
‘You know, Charlotte, that’s exactly what I said to myself to begin with. But I have to admit, she was pretty convincing.’ Gemma’s composure began to slip now and her voice started to rise. ‘She said that the night Patrick left her, the two of you got wrecked on Jack Daniel’s and you fessed up to her, you bitch. As for you . . .’ Gemma’s attention swung to Jason. ‘Guess what I did this morning? A pregnancy test. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant to a wanker who is fucking my best friend.’
Jason folded like a concertina that had been kicked in the bollocks. ‘Oh no. God, I’m so sorry,’ he said, face creasing like a five-year-old who had just been told Christmas was cancelled.
‘What are you sorry for? Nothing happened,’ screamed Charlotte at him. ‘Tell them Jason, nothing bloody happened.’ But Jason had his hands on his head as if performing a penance for a teacher and he was saying absolutely nothing as he rocked backwards and forwards.
Lew stood as if in the eye of the storm, the cool, clear part that saw the disaster surrounding him, and none of it was making sense. Or rather it was and his brain was repulsing it, refusing to let him accept what his eyes were seeing and his ears were hearing.
‘Jason, tell them nothing happened!’ Charlotte was shrieking like a harpy, but he was dissolving in front of them, sinking to a chair, sobbing.
‘You pathetic shit,’ Gemma bawled at him. ‘You make me feel sick. What should have been the best day of my life, ruined. And as for you – ’ she screwed up her face at Charlotte ‘ – it’s a good job you never had kids, you selfish—’
‘That’s enough, Gemma. Do not go there,’ Lew cut in sternly. Whatever mess they were all in, that was just cruel.
‘Oh, oh,’ Gemma laughed almost manically. ‘Of course you don’t know, do you?’
Charlotte sprang from the chair, pushed past Lew and lunged at Gemma. ‘Don’t, Gem.’ Charlotte pressed her hand over Gemma’s mouth. Gemma prised it off.
‘You do know that while YOU thought you were trying for a baby, SHE was on the pill. She only came off it because you thought something was wrong and wanted to send her for medical tests.’
‘What?’ Lew’s eyes tennis-matched between Gemma and Charlotte.
‘You lying bitch. Lewis, don’t listen to her, she’s mental.’
‘Am I now? You’re painting me out to be the bad guy, are you?’ Gemma guffawed like a panto villain. ‘Bad news usually comes in threes, so guess what the third one is, Lew. SHE had an abortion, not a miscarriage.’
‘She’s lying, Lewis. You fucking bitch.’ Charlotte grabbed a handful of Gemma’s hair, Gemma reached for Charlotte’s, Lew threw himself between them and it was Charlotte he pushed away and Gemma whom he closed his arms around and whom he held firmly whilst she slumped against him and sobbed as if her heart was breaking up inside her.
He couldn’t remember how long he stood there holding her, giving her comfort, claiming comfort for himself from this terribly wounded woman. Later when he tried to recall the events of the evening, there were gaping black holes in his memory. He couldn’t remember what happened between standing there with Gemma and getting into a taxi with Charlotte. He could remember paying the taxi driver and storming up the path whilst Charlotte trailed behind, carrying her shoes.
Then they were in the kitchen and he recalled pouring himself a whisky and throwing it down his neck and he remembered how the burn on the back of his throat felt good, real, after the numbness of the last half-hour/hour . . . however long it was, he had no idea, his brain was scrambled.
‘Is it true?’ he said eventually, coming ‘back into the room’ as if a hypnotist had clicked his fingers.
‘No, of course not,’ snapped Charlotte, bottom lip pushed out so far Tom Daly could have dived from it.
‘She made it all up? Really? Did she?’ he bellowed and she jumped back a step.
‘Yes.’ That stupid giveaway nerve was jerking on the edge of her lip.
Lew picked up the glass and threw it across the room where it smashed against the wall clock. He walked straight up to bed with the thought in his head that he’d never liked the bastard thing anyway.
The Daily Trumpet would, once again, like to apologise to the Mayor Derek Trubshaw for the report in our weekend edition supplement. When asked what he considered was the greatest gift in life, his worshipfulness was sadly misquoted as saying ‘A penis’. This should have read ‘Happiness.’ We wholeheartedly accept responsibility for the error.
Chapter 57
Everything seemed distorted and dreamlike when Bonnie entered the police station with the detectives: the custody sergeant behind the wide elevated desk appeared huge, built of different proportions to a normal man. The shouting from the smartarse drunk in front of them in the queue hurt her ears, the rancid body-odour of the man with the tattooed face whom she had to sit next to in the waiting room made her feel sick. None of it appeared real, yet at the same time she knew it was very real and she was here and it was every bit as grim as the detective sergeant had told her it would be. The rhetoric he and the arresting officers used brought it home to her that she was in terrible trouble: Due to the seriousness of the offence . . . refused to comply with voluntary attendance . . . arrested on suspicion of encouraging and aiding the suicide of her mother-in-law. A woman police officer snapped on some blue gloves, took her into another room and searched her before returning her to the custody sergeant. She had her fingerprints scanned to be compared to those recovered from crime scenes. Her necklace, watch, dress-belt and handbag were put into a bag. The policewoman suggested she put her cardigan in there as well just to be sure, the inference being that she could hang herself with it. She was given a rip-proof grey sweatshirt to wear instead for warmth. She was told she had the right to free and independent legal advice and could look at a book which detailed how she should be treated by the police. She was asked if there was anyone whom they could inform of her arrest. She said that there was no one.
The detention officer led her to a cell. He was putting her in the one at the far end, which would be the quietest, he said. She had to leave her shoes outside the door. The cell was small and square with glossy yellow wipe-clean walls; a Crimestoppers telephone number was stencilled on the ceiling and a steel toilet stood in the corner. There was a wooden bench with a plastic-coated mattress little more than an inch thick. It smelt so strongly of cheap disinfectant and sweaty trainers that she could almost taste it in the back of her throat. When the door shut with a loud, heavy clang, Bonnie truly realised what had been set in motion now. She made it to the toilet just in time to vomit. There was nowhere to wash her face afterwards or swill her mouth or sponge the splashes off her dress.
Minutes later, the flap on the door was pulled down and eyes appeared in the gap. Then the flap slid down further and a flimsy green blanket was pushed through. ‘Just in case you feel cold. And I’ve got some food and a hot drink for you. Do you take sugar?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Here you go then.’
Bonnie got up to receive the polystyrene bowl with soggy chips, a square of grey fish and congealed beans and a cup of weak coffee through the hatch.
‘Try and get your head down. The duty solicitor says you’ll need a specialist because she can’t handle what you’ve been brought in for but he won’t be here until the morning. Little tip, we’ll check on you every hour so if you want a bit of privacy to use the toilet, go and use it straight after we’ve been.’ The custody officer didn’t extend the courtesy of his advice to everyone, but he felt this lady should have it.
‘Thank you,’ replied Bonnie.
She couldn’t eat the meal but the coffee was welcome. She was shivering. The cell wasn’t cold but the chill was bone-deep, borne of panic and desolation. She felt numb at the core of her, but at
the same time her senses were hyper-aware. Her ears sifted through the layers of sound outside the cell: shouting, doors clanging, banging, people talking, swearing, echoes falling from them all. So much for this being the quietest cell.
She curled into a foetal position on the wafer-thin mattress and knew the policeman was right and that she wouldn’t sleep. She wanted to be at home in the bed that Goldfinger had given her, snuggled under her cheap Argos quilt with a salted caramel latte swilling in her stomach and she tried to wish herself back there now, looking forward to waking tomorrow morning on her Monday off. She had planned to fill some of the plastic pots which she had found in the tumbledown shed with the flowers she had bought that day from the florist in Spring Hill Square. She’d left them outside the back door and they’d be dried out and dying by lunchtime. She should have watered them before she left. Then she thought how ridiculous it was that her anxiety levels were spiking over a fiversworth of marigolds when she could be charged with murder. Because that’s what assisted suicide was really, wasn’t it? And she was guilty but she would have done it all over again if time had been rewound. So it was right that she should be here in this cell with despair and fear solid in her gut like a dense boulder. She should have walked into a police station as soon as Alma died. She had wanted to . . .
She closed her eyes and thought back again to that night, but it was like a well-worn recording and she wasn’t sure if she was remembering it properly any more. Guilt and emotion had warped it.
She had waited by Alma’s side until Stephen returned from wherever he had been. She’d heard once that the newly deceased were often disorientated by their new state and so she talked to her, hoping she could hear her and be comforted by her. Then, when Stephen arrived, Bonnie left them alone. He was dry-eyed at his mother’s passing, which was ironic, though she hadn’t thought about it until now: her devoted son emotionless, her despised daughter-in-law, heartbroken.
The Queen of Wishful Thinking Page 25
