by Nicci French
‘Does it have to be now?’ I said.
I knew Joy Wallis well by now but there was another detective with her at the police station I hadn’t seen before. She introduced him as Detective Chief Inspector James Brook.
‘Call me Jim,’ he said, as he took his jacket off and draped it over the back of a chair. He was about forty and his hair was cut very short, almost shaved, so it was like grey stubble. He looked at me with a smile. He was on my side, the smile said. We were in this together. It was about helping each other. He made me feel instantly insecure. Joy Wallis sat down further away. It seemed that Brook was in charge today. I imagined that he was one of those detectives who were meant to be good at getting people’s trust and persuading them to talk. He reminded me of the guys at college you hear are particularly successful with women. In a way it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It almost made you want to sleep with them just to see what their secret was. But usually it irritated me – and it irritated me now. If only I hadn’t been so tired, my head so fuzzy and generally inoperative . . .
‘Are you all right?’ said Joy Wallis.
‘I had a bit of a bad night.’
‘Anything you want to tell us about?’
‘What for?’ I said. There was a pause. ‘Sorry. That came out sounding wrong. I just meant that there isn’t anything to talk about.’
Brook leaned back and folded his arms. ‘I know these things are difficult,’ he said.
Even in my utterly befuddled state, I could see what he was doing. He was trying to get a conversation going in which I would be carried away or led into an area I didn’t want to go. Since there was no area in which I did want to go and since I was in an utterly confused state, it was clear that the only possible strategy for me was to play dumb. That wouldn’t be too hard. Brook began in the usual way by worrying that maybe I’d be better served if I had legal representation but I just repeated that I didn’t want that. He seemed disappointed but also slightly confused. Could it be that my behaviour was the sign of someone who was innocent or stupid or both? Finally he shrugged as if he realized, with regret, that there was nothing more he could do to help me.
‘I know what you’re going through,’ he said, ‘being involved in a case like this and having to talk to people like us, all the fuss and the media.’
‘I’m not involved,’ I said.
Brook looked puzzled. ‘Of course you’re involved,’ he said. ‘You were intimate with the victim. Did you think I meant something else?’
‘I thought you were accusing me of something,’ I said.
Now he looked even more puzzled, like someone on stage acting out bafflement for the spectators at the back.
‘What would I be accusing you of?’
I suspected he was trying to get me to do his work for him, to accuse myself of what I thought he might suspect. I just mumbled something. The impulse to spill the truth, to let it flood out of me and be empty and peaceful at last, was almost impossible to resist. Only the thought of Sonia and Neal kept me mute.
‘I’ve been reading through the file,’ said Brook. ‘I’ve looked at the witness statements, talked to people. Your Hayden was a difficult man. He clearly had some sort of charisma. At least for women.’
I gritted my teeth so that I couldn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to volunteer any information, any opinion unless asked point-blank to do so.
‘Clearly he had a difficult side to him,’ Brook continued. ‘He wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea.’
Still no question.
‘As I went through the file,’ he said, ‘I saw him as someone people had strong feelings about. He was someone you loved or hated, someone you could be angry with. Very angry.’ He looked at me. ‘Were you ever angry with him?’
Everything in the room seemed slightly strange as if the contours around objects were indistinct. How long had I slept? Two hours? Maybe a bit less? This was what the authorities did to torture people before interrogation. You deprive them of sleep. I’d done it to myself and delivered myself up to the police.
‘Why are you asking that?’ I said. ‘Why are you asking all of these questions? What’s the point? He’s dead. What does it matter any more what I felt about him? That’s all over. It’s over.’
I listened to myself as I talked. I sounded slightly drunk or insane; I sounded like someone about to veer out of control. Brook just smiled sympathetically, nodded.
‘It’s all about patterns,’ he said. ‘A detail here and there.’ He paused as if waiting for a reply from me, which didn’t come. Then his face took on an expression of concern. ‘Have you told us everything you know?’
‘I don’t know what that means,’ I said. ‘I’ll answer any question you put to me.’
‘My colleague is correct,’ he said. ‘You don’t look well. Trouble sleeping?’
‘Not really,’ I said.
He leaned across the table so that he was uncomfortably close. I could see the little laugh lines at the corner of his eyes. I could even see little purple broken veins in his cheeks. ‘I’ve been doing this job for twenty years,’ he said. ‘And one thing I’ve learned is that when you tell everything, when you own up and finally tell someone the full story, it’s the greatest relief you can imagine. People tell me that afterwards. They thank me. They tell me they feel suddenly clean for the first time in ages and ages.’
I knew he was right. There was nothing I wanted more than to tell the full story in a way I had never told it before, not even to myself. Would have. If it had been only me. But I would have been taking Neal and Sonia down with me. And both of them were in that vulnerable position because of what they’d done for me, in their own deluded ways. ‘I’ve answered every question,’ I made myself say. ‘That’s all.’
‘You were the one involved with him,’ said Brook. ‘People say it was quite tempestuous.’
‘What people?’
‘Two of you, both with a bit of a temper, both with wills of your own. Your relationship had its ups and downs, did it?’
‘It wasn’t really much of a relationship,’ I said.
‘Not enough for you?’
I could see he was still trying to suck me into a conversation, perhaps taunt me into saying something reckless that would give me away. I shrugged and didn’t reply.
‘I could imagine an argument,’ he said. ‘Almost a fight. He comes for you, you pick up something and hit him with it. If you confessed to that, get a good feminist lawyer, you could walk away with a suspended sentence for manslaughter.’
I didn’t reply. Brook’s face darkened.
‘But if you don’t confess, and the case has to be made against you, it starts to look more like premeditated murder.’
‘I don’t care what it looks like,’ I said. ‘I didn’t kill him. Of course I didn’t. Why would I confess?’
‘Listen, Ms Graham. You’re only a fingerprint or a hair or a fibre away from being charged. And let me tell you that I wouldn’t be satisfied with a charge of manslaughter. I’m interested in the lengths that were gone to in disposing of the body. I’m interested in the fact that we can’t identify a crime scene. We don’t even know where he was killed. I’m especially interested in what happened with the car. I’m interested in why someone would take the car to the airport car park and then that person or maybe another person would drive it away a week later. That’s the puzzle we need to solve.’ He reached a hand across the table and put it on my forearm. ‘Was your boyfriend in trouble?’
‘He wasn’t my boyfriend. I told you. I was with Neal Fenton. You can ask him.’
‘We’ll come to your alibi later.’ He put the word in quotation marks, staring at me, and I tried to hold his gaze. ‘But let’s turn to the question of where he was killed.’
My heart was hammering so loudly I felt sure he must be able to hear it.
‘The first place to look at was where he was staying – your friend’s flat. Let’s see: Liza Charles, at present travelling and unreachable.’
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t even make a small assenting noise.
‘We have, of course, done a forensic examination of the place. You’d be amazed by the things you can pick up. One hair, one spot of blood.’
I thought of Hayden’s body, face down on Liza’s rug. The blood puddling out beside his battered head. But we’d thrown away the rug.
‘So what did you find?’ I made myself say.
‘Well, of course, the difficulty was that he was living there. There are traces of him everywhere. It makes things harder.’
‘You mean you found nothing?’
‘Oh, no. I wouldn’t say that. I’ll tell you one thing we discovered.’
‘What’s that?’ I dug my fingers into the soft skin of my palms and waited.
‘For a feckless musician who lived on other people’s floors, your friend cleaned up very well.’
‘Oh.’
‘Odd, wouldn’t you say?’
Before
‘Guy, the rehearsal’s over!’ I said in surprise, but Guy was already in mid-sentence – he must have started speaking as soon as he’d rung the doorbell.
‘– so if you could please let us come in,’ he said, with icy courtesy, and, not giving me time to reply, swept past me, leaving me face to face with a tall, thin woman who I imagined usually was calmly elegant but today was brittle with miserable fury.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘You must be –’
‘I’m Guy’s wife, Celia. Joakim’s mother.’
‘Which is why we’re here,’ said Guy, from the foot of the stairs.
‘Hello, Celia,’ I said. ‘I think we’ve met at parents’ evening.’ I held out a hand, but she didn’t take it, and I realized that she was holding back tears. ‘Please. Come in. It’s a bit of a mess – the others have all just gone and I haven’t cleared up. And I’m decorating.’ I made myself stop babbling.
‘He was here, was he?’
‘You mean Hayden? Yes.’
‘What about Joakim?’ asked Celia.
‘Yes, he was here as well.’
‘Of course he was.’ Her mouth tightened as if she’d sucked a lemon. ‘He wouldn’t miss a chance of spending time with his beloved Hayden Booth.’
‘Celia’s a bit upset,’ said Guy.
‘Yes, I can see that,’ I said cautiously. ‘Can I offer you anything? Tea? Coffee?’
‘I’m not a bit upset. I’m very, very, very upset.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I sat down in the chair but they remained standing, so I got up again.
‘Very,’ she said again.
‘He has a place at Edinburgh,’ said Guy.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘But he’s not going.’
‘He’s so rude to me.’ Celia’s voice caught on a sob. ‘He treats me as if he had contempt for me.’
‘Teenagers . . .’ I began, without knowing what was going to come next.
‘What have I done to deserve that?’
‘What I want to know,’ said Guy, ‘is what you’re going to do about it.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been there for him his whole life and a few days with this – this sleazeball . . .’
‘I don’t understand, Guy. Obviously I know you’re disappointed –’
‘You’re his teacher.’
‘I was his teacher. He left school a couple of months ago.’
‘You’re his teacher and you roped him into your wretched band, and now this second-rate musician has lured him away from everything he’s worked for.’
‘It’s like a cult. A cult and he’s been brainwashed.’
I stayed silent.
‘Hayden says this and Hayden does that and I’m going to dress like Hayden and talk like Hayden and lie around all day like Hayden. I’m losing him.’
‘Celia, let’s try and keep this rational, shall we?’
‘That’s all very easy for you to say. I’m his mother!’
‘I’m his father, you know.’
It was as if I’d blundered into a private argument. Guy seemed to notice my presence once more. ‘He’s a con-man,’ he said. ‘And he’s conned my son and you’re responsible.’
‘Joakim is eighteen years old,’ I said.
‘You don’t have any children. How can you be expected to understand? I knew she wouldn’t understand.’ Celia regarded me with distaste so that all at once I felt acutely conscious of my spiky hair, my nose stud, my ripped shirt.
‘I just don’t know what you expect me to do about it. Joakim’s an adult.’
‘He’s not an adult. He doesn’t know what he’s doing – he doesn’t understand the consequences.’
‘Have you tried talking to him?’
‘We’re not here to ask your advice about him, thank you,’ said Guy. His voice was tight with fury and a small vein ticked in his forehead. ‘We’re here to say that you have to undo the harm you’ve done.’
I was getting irritated. ‘Don’t you think part of the problem is the way you’re thinking of your son?’
‘No,’ he roared. ‘I do not think that is the fucking problem. The problem is Hayden Booth. You sort this out before I do. Got it?’
After
I left the police station, walking slowly and unsteadily. I didn’t know where I was going and the hot sun bounced on my skull and burned in my eye sockets. I needed to sit down. I needed to eat something. I needed to lie in bed and sleep and sleep and sleep and preferably not wake up for a year when all of this would be over – except, of course, it would never be over, not really. Above all, I needed for this not to have happened. I didn’t want to be me, here, now. I thought back to the end of the school term and the feeling I’d had then that summer lay ahead of me, wonderfully empty and full of possibility. I wanted to go back to that time and do it again, and not say yes to Danielle’s request, not meet Hayden by rotten random chance, not be this Bonnie Graham – the one reeling down the road from the police station with fear in her mouth – but the Bonnie Graham of before, carefree and untested. Go back, go back – and then I saw his face.
It stared up at me from the newsstand, taking up almost half of the front page under the banner headline: ‘Death in the Fast Lane’. It wasn’t the picture the papers had used previously. He was quite a few years younger; his hair was long and he had stubble that almost amounted to a beard. He was smiling at whoever was behind the camera and his eyebrows were slightly raised so that he looked sardonic and questioning, as if he was sharing a secret thought with the person facing him. He had looked at me like that, as if he understood me, recognized me. He had looked at Sally like that too. And who else? Hundreds of women, I was sure, who, even as they knew he was unreliable, had fallen for that charm. And then someone had killed him – a stranger, after all, or someone who knew him, someone who hated him, loved him, hated him because they loved him?
I told myself I wouldn’t buy the paper, but I found myself counting out the change, taking it and trying to read it as I walked along the street. The caption under the picture told me to turn to page seven, so I stopped in the first café I came to, where I ordered a cappuccino and a slice of carrot cake. I felt I needed a dose of carbohydrate and sugar. Only when I’d eaten half of the cake and finished the coffee did I turn to page seven, and when I did, another photo leaped out at me: of a youthful Hayden with his arm wrapped around a woman who was vivid with happiness. She was slight and had a mane of chestnut hair, a wide, smiling mouth. Underneath the photograph there was a caption. Her name was Hannah Booth.
I closed my eyes for a moment but when I opened them again, there she still was. I liked the look of her. She was someone I could imagine having as a friend in another life. I looked at the caption again. The photo had been taken in 2002, seven years ago. Hayden would have been about thirty then – his face was thinner and softer than the one I had known, perhaps happier. Or perhaps that was simply because he was standing arm-in-arm with his wife. Why was I surprised an
d why was there a pain in my chest and why did my eyes sting?
I skimmed the story, my eyes jumping from paragraph to paragraph. Much of the beginning was a rather floridly written repetition of what had been in the papers before – talented and reckless musician, mysterious death, shocked friends, body found in the reservoir, police following up clues. But at the centre was the interview with Hannah Booth, who had spoken to the reporter about her grief (‘although I always believed he would die young’) at the murder of her estranged husband. ‘Estranged’ – I seized on the word and let it comfort me a bit, until my eyes lit on another word: ‘child’. I felt as though someone had punched me hard in the stomach. Hayden had a child, a son, aged just six and a half, who had last seen ‘his daddy’ a few months ago. His name was Josiah. Hayden had left Hannah and Josiah four years ago, when his son was just a toddler. Hannah Booth described how their marriage, embarked upon with such hope, had deteriorated. ‘I don’t think Hayden knew how to be content,’ she said. ‘He never had that kind of stability. He let his ambitions and his dreams destroy the reality of what we had together. And he hated getting older – he was just a kid at heart. A great, lovable kid. But you can’t be married to a child, especially when you become a parent yourself.’
I laid the paper aside for a bit and finished my cappuccino, sipping it slowly through the froth, trying to concentrate only on its milky sweetness. He had told me he never wanted to be a father, and all the time he had been one; he had told me he never wanted to be tied down and all the time he was married. OK, married to a woman he never saw, but married all the same. She had even taken his name. Why hadn’t he told me? Then I remembered his hasty, urgent note, my last communication with him – was that what he had wanted to tell me?
