Let the Dead Speak

by Jane Casey

  He smiled, a brief flash of the old Derwent. ‘I think it would make her even more determined to get me to quit. She’d like me to do a nicer job.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You name it, she’s suggested it. Something nine to five.’ He stretched, yawning. ‘I’d only have to be scared of dying from boredom.’

  ‘I can’t imagine it,’ I said.

  ‘Me neither.’

  Life was so complicated, I thought. Melissa had fallen for Derwent because of what he was: the alpha male in his prime, strong and aggressive, able to defend her and her child. She had trusted him because he was a police officer. She loved what he did and who he was, I was sure of that. And then she ran up against the reality of his job. He wouldn’t be easy company to live with, whether you understood him or not, but she couldn’t understand him the way I did. I saw what he saw. I heard what he heard. She couldn’t begin to guess why he came home snappy and withdrawn, or why he was short with her now and then.

  But you couldn’t change him. You’d destroy everything that was good in him if you tried to make him into something docile and peaceful. She’d kill their chance of being happy together unless she accepted him for what he was.

  ‘Where’s the house?’ Derwent asked, his tone of voice indicating that the conversation was now over.

  ‘Two hundred metres that way.’

  ‘Better try and look awake.’ He got out of the car, stretched, and then opened the passenger door so he could sit in the front. ‘Let’s go.’

  I drove the short distance in silence and parked in front of the house. It was made of the local honey-coloured stone and came complete with a Range Rover squatting on the drive and a climbing rose over the front door. Too good to be true. I wondered if I would think that if I hadn’t known about Chloe running away.

  Derwent squinted up at the house. ‘What does Emery do?’

  ‘Carpets, apparently. You should ask him about it, since you’re looking for a new career.’ I got out of the car before he could come up with a comeback.

  Emery must have been waiting inside the door because he opened it before I even had a chance to knock. He was small with thinning dark hair and a round face. His daughter looked very like him, I thought, but by a lucky quirk of genetics, on her face the features were perfectly proportioned. His version was less successful.

  I introduced myself, and Derwent.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ He held the door open, directing us to a sitting room to the left of the front door. It was more of the same perfect country life: squashy sofas, a wood-burning stove, heart-shaped willow wreaths, a vase full of wildflowers on the windowsill. There would be an Aga in the kitchen, I thought, and a dog or two somewhere about the place.

  ‘Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? I was going to have a coffee myself.’ He had a slightly hurried, stuttering delivery that was quite charming.

  ‘Not for me.’ I took out my notebook and sat on one of the sofas, waiting for Emery to sit too. Derwent stood near the door. This isn’t a social call.

  ‘So, you’ve come all the way from London to talk to me.’ He perched on the edge of the sofa opposite. ‘Very thorough of you.’

  ‘We wanted to ask a few questions.’

  ‘I’ll do anything I can to help.’ His right knee was jiggling. ‘Not that I can really think of much I can tell you about Kate. We got divorced a long time ago and I haven’t been part of her life since then.’

  ‘When did you split up?’

  ‘When Chloe was six. Twelve years ago, it would be. God, it doesn’t seem that long.’

  ‘What happened?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘It was my fault. We were happy.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, as happy as we could be, given Chloe’s issues. I’d recently been promoted. Money was tight for us up until then, because Kate gave up work once Chloe started having problems at nursery. We didn’t know there was anything wrong until they flagged it up. Kate devoted herself to Chloe from that point on. She was a good mother, I always said that.’

  ‘But not a good wife?’ Derwent suggested. Emery flinched.

  ‘No. That’s not true. She was fine. I wasn’t a good husband.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I was busy. Working hard. And – well, I met Belinda while we were married. Belinda is my current wife.’ He glanced at me, shamefaced. ‘It was messy. When Kate found out, she asked me for a divorce. I went along with it. There was nothing else I could do.’ He dropped his voice. ‘According to my current wife, Kate took me for a ride. I agreed to pay her the amount she said she needed, but maybe if I’d had a better lawyer he’d have negotiated a more favourable settlement for me. But then again, I didn’t want Chloe to suffer because we couldn’t make our marriage last.’

  ‘I’ve seen the bank statements,’ I said. ‘You were pretty generous.’

  ‘Well, I increased it over time. When I was making more money, they got more. It only seemed fair.’

  ‘Many men wouldn’t have done that,’ Derwent said. ‘Not without a court order.’

  ‘I wanted to do what I thought was right.’ He pressed his lips together. ‘Having a child like Chloe – it was even more important to give her the best possible start in life.’

  ‘And in the nicest possible house?’

  ‘Oh. Kate moved there after we split up.’ Emery shrugged. ‘I never went there. Not until—’ He broke off.

  ‘Until?’

  ‘Until about three months ago. She asked me to come and meet her at her house. She wanted to talk to me about Chloe’s future. Her prospects, now that she’s finished school.’

  ‘Was it a pleasant discussion?’ I asked.

  ‘It started off that way.’ A nervous smile. ‘She wanted me to give Chloe a large sum of money to set her up for her adult life. Belinda – that’s my wife – thought we should draw a line under funding Chloe after she turned eighteen. I’d agreed to another year initially. Trying to find a compromise. I knew Bel wouldn’t like the idea of handing over a lump sum.’ He looked like a man who spent a lot of time between a rock and a hard place.

  ‘So you talked.’

  ‘We did.’ He licked his lips. ‘I asked about the house. About her business. She seemed to be very well off. But she said she was short of money and she couldn’t support Chloe on her own. I mean, we are both her parents. If Kate was paying for Chloe, I felt I should be too. But Belinda didn’t see it that way.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘We argued. Well, that’s not really true. I told her what Belinda thought and she told me Belinda needed to stay out of her life. I mean, it was a bit unreasonable of Kate. It does affect Bel and the boys too. I can see both sides, but no one else seemed to be able to do that. Kate got quite angry with me. She told me to— well, she told me to grow a pair.’

  I darted a look at Derwent, who was struggling to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up.

  ‘How did you leave things?’

  ‘I said I’d talk to Bel. What else could I do?’

  ‘And did you?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t actually tell her I’d seen Kate. I told her what I’d decided, which was that I’d continue to pay for Chloe until she was twenty-one. If she was at university, I’d be funding her studies. Even though she’s not capable of that, I’m not going to deprive her.’

  ‘And did you tell Kate?’

  ‘I emailed her.’

  ‘Did she reply?’

  ‘Ye-es. She was a bit disappointed. If I’ve learned anything it’s that you can’t please everyone.’ He trapped his hands between his knees. ‘Look, my wife doesn’t know about me going to see Kate and I don’t want her to know.’

  ‘Is she here?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s upstairs, resting.’

  ‘We’ll probably need to speak to her too.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked awkward. ‘I don’t know if she’ll agree.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘She didn’t know Kate. They
never actually met. She doesn’t want anything to do with all this.’

  ‘We’ll keep it brief.’

  Emery swallowed nervously. ‘She’s not— don’t think she’s always— Kate brings out the worst in her, basically.’

  ‘It can be difficult to cope with ex-wives,’ I said. It can be fatal. ‘How does she get on with Chloe?’

  ‘Fine. Bel’s absolutely wonderful with her. Wonderful. They’re great pals.’ A big smile. ‘The daughter she never had, I suppose.’

  ‘You have stepsons, I gather.’

  ‘Oh yes. Nathan’s fourteen and Nolan’s eighteen. They go to boarding school.’

  ‘Were they here at the weekend?’

  He nodded. ‘They come back one weekend in three. It’s nice for them. A bit of a break. I don’t think they’d want to be here all the time – too boring for one thing, with just their mum and me. It’s a bit remote here for teenagers.’

  ‘So they were here, and Chloe was here,’ I said slowly, ‘and your wife was here … but you weren’t.’

  ‘Oh.’ He laughed. ‘No. Very unfortunate timing. I had a business meeting.’

  ‘In London.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you stayed overnight.’ I tapped the end of my pen on my pad. ‘It took us fifty-three minutes to get here from central London through weekday traffic. I wouldn’t have thought you’d need to stay away.’

  ‘Well, it was two meetings. One late on Friday, one early on Saturday morning.’

  ‘A business meeting on Saturday morning.’

  ‘Business breakfast.’ He patted his stomach. ‘I should really try to avoid that sort of thing. You can eat a hell of a lot of saturated fat that way without even noticing. My heart won’t thank me for it in a few years.’

  ‘What is it you do, Mr Emery?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘I run my own business supplying and fitting carpets. We work with developers, mainly. My team have just done all the carpets for a development of two hundred flats in Nine Elms. We’re talking about that sort of scale of job.’

  ‘Impressive,’ Derwent said softly. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought it was the kind of thing that involved meetings at weekends. I mean, in our job, we work weekends without even thinking about it because we have to, but if I had a choice about it, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘What can I say? I love my job.’

  ‘And you probably take home a bit more cash than we do,’ Derwent said.

  ‘It’s very unfair really. The police, teachers, nurses – I mean, you’re the ones making a valuable contribution to society. All I do is keep people from having cold feet.’

  ‘So what was the big carpeting emergency on Saturday morning?’

  ‘A supplier.’

  ‘What’s the name?’ I asked.

  He rubbed the top of his head with the heel of his hand. ‘They’re an Indian company. I don’t see why it’s important to involve them.’

  ‘Mr Emery, your ex-wife was murdered some time between Wednesday and Sunday,’ I said coldly. ‘You need an alibi more than you need to avoid upsetting your supplier.’

  He gave a sigh. ‘All right, then. I’ll get you the details. They’ll be able to confirm where I was.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I leaned forward. ‘And while you were gone, Mr Emery, what happened here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why did Chloe run away? She wasn’t supposed to go, was she?’

  He blinked. ‘No. She was supposed to stay until today. I’d taken the day off work yesterday to spend it with her. Another plan that didn’t quite work out.’

  ‘Why did she go?’

  ‘I have no idea. She hasn’t told you?’

  ‘She hasn’t said anything.’

  ‘When I came back on Saturday she was quiet. That’s all I can tell you. I tried to bring her out of herself – I thought we could all go to the cinema in Oxford, and then out for a meal. But she said she wasn’t hungry and there was nothing she wanted to see. She went to bed, in fact. The rest of us watched a film together – something the boys found on Netflix. It was all right. Kept us occupied.’

  ‘When did she go?’

  ‘Very early Sunday morning. I was up at six – we have a chug and a cockapoo, Betsy and Tyler, and I had to take them out for a walk. I can only think she left right after me, because the alarm was off and no one would notice the door opening and closing. They’re used to me going in and out in the morning.’

  ‘How did she get to the train station?’

  ‘Not the train. She’ll have got the coach. It stops near here on the way to and from London. There are loads of them – they run a twenty-four-hour service. Nothing easier than getting back to London from here.’

  A creak from upstairs made him jump. ‘That’ll be Belinda. She must be up.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘We can speak to her now.’

  He stood up, rubbing his hands on his shirt as if his palms were sweaty. ‘I’ll let her know you’re here. I’m sure she’ll want to help but – well, she might take a bit of persuasion. I’ll try to hurry her along.’

  ‘Take your time,’ Derwent said, and held the door open for him. We listened to him making his way upstairs, followed by the low murmur of a quiet conversation. It was too indistinct to be able to pick up any words, and Derwent closed the door softly.

  ‘Are you wondering what I’m wondering?’ he murmured.

  ‘Probably. Why did it take Chloe Emery so long to get home if she left here at six in the morning? She didn’t get off the train in Putney until after three.’

  ‘That,’ Derwent allowed. ‘That’s worth wondering. But that wasn’t it.’

  ‘What, then?’

  He looked genuinely bewildered. ‘What the fuck is a chug?’

  11

  The second Mrs Emery was physically different in almost every way from her predecessor. Tall where Kate had been of average height, Belinda Emery had a mane of black curls and an impressive bosom. For a large lady, she was light on her feet; I didn’t hear her approaching the door. She flung it open as if she was expecting to catch us doing something we shouldn’t have been doing. I was, in fact, trying to get Derwent to stop holding forth about designer dogs and speculating on what a Chihuahua/pug cross might look like, so I was more than pleased to see her.

  ‘Mrs Emery?’ I ventured.

  A brisk nod. ‘Brian says you want to speak to me. I can’t imagine why. I don’t know anything about what happened. I never met the woman and I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Your husband mentioned that.’

  She seemed to swell. ‘Did he, indeed? Well, I hope he told you what she wanted him to do. Fund her lifestyle indefinitely. As if she was entitled to enjoy the benefits of his hard work. She wasn’t even with him when he set up the company. She contributed nothing. Why should she take a share?’

  ‘I thought the money was for your husband’s daughter,’ Derwent said. ‘Isn’t that where it was going?’

  Belinda Emery delivered herself of a world-class eye roll. ‘Oh, apparently that’s where it went. But it’s not as if Brian ever asked to see receipts. “Chloe needs this. Chloe needs that. Chloe wants to try horse-riding. Chloe needs a holiday.” Money was what she wanted and Chloe was the way she got it.’

  ‘Chloe does have some learning disabilities—’ I started to say.

  ‘Do you know how many educational experts she had to consult before she found one who’d say that?’ Belinda demanded. ‘There was nothing wrong with that girl when she was a child and there’s still nothing wrong with her now that she’s an adult. She’s not the brightest – that I will admit – but her main problem was her mother. That woman kept her isolated. She made her dependent. She wouldn’t let her make her own way in the world, because of course if Chloe was able to live on her own and get a job – lead a normal life – poor little Kate would have to start working for a living.’

  ‘I’ve interviewed Chloe,’ I said, ‘and I didn’t find it all that easy to talk to her. A
nd I have to say, I didn’t think she was faking anything.’

  ‘Oh, she’s learned to play the part well enough. But if you catch her off guard, you get a very different Chloe.’

  ‘Would you say you know her quite well?’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of her,’ she said evenly. ‘Over the years. It used to be some weekends and the occasional holiday, but now she’s not in school any more she can come and stay regularly. Especially when it suits Kate.’

  ‘I suppose it’s nice for her to spend time with her father and stepbrothers.’

  Belinda shook her head pityingly. ‘That’s not what it’s about. It’s about Kate keeping my husband under her thumb. Intruding into our lives. That’s what she does. She’s never let go of him – not really. Why didn’t she change her name when they divorced? She’s not Mrs Emery any more, but of course she clung on to it for dear life, along with her direct access to poor Brian’s bank balance.’

  ‘It must be hard for you.’ I put as much sympathy as I could fake into my voice.

  ‘Well, it has been. It’s been a challenge all the way.’ She caught sight of herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece and paused to fluff her hair, pouting at her reflection. She reminded me of a giant doll, her eyelashes standing out in spikes, her lips glossed to a high shine. ‘I’m not the sort of person to walk away from a challenge, fortunately. And I would never let Brian down. I made it my business to get to know Chloe really well, so I could encourage her to lead a normal life.’

  ‘How did Chloe feel about that?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘She was grateful.’

  ‘Was she?’ He folded his arms. ‘I hear she ran away Sunday morning, early doors. What was that about?’

  ‘Some sort of teenage drama.’

  ‘Do you know that or are you just guessing?’

  Belinda sighed. ‘You have to understand, Chloe needed to grow up. She didn’t like me telling her that. She’s lived in a bubble her whole life and I’m the only one who’s tried to burst it.’

  ‘What did you say to her?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ Belinda blinked at me, all affronted innocence. ‘I only said what I would say to any girl her age, which was that she has a responsibility to conduct herself in a modest way. She needs to understand that men will make assumptions about her if she dresses in revealing clothes. It’s like leaving your handbag in your car – it’s your own fault if it gets stolen. You can’t expect people not to take advantage.’