Black Heart

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  ‘No,’ she replies, ‘of course not! Although I could pull something else…’ she giggles and whinnies like a little pony as she slides off the desk and grabs her handbag.

  ‘What do you like on your pizza?’ Danni-Jo asks before he has a chance to respond.

  He’s staring at her blankly, like this is some kind of MTV prank and Ashton Kutcher’s going to turn up any minute with a camera crew and humiliate him on live TV.

  ‘I’m a ham and pineapple girl myself… Let me guess, you like something hot and spicy, you’re a meat-feast kind of guy – pepperoni? Am I right?’

  He can all but nod, speechless.

  ‘And you drink Budweiser? I can get us a six-pack. I won’t tell anyone you’ve been drinking on the job, don’t worry, this will be our little secret, yeah?’

  He’s nodding like a dog on a dashboard now, wondering if perhaps he’s actually still asleep and this is a dream: a fantasy in his unconscious mind. He’ll wake up soon, but hopefully not before the action begins.

  ‘Yeah,’ he finally manages to respond, ‘I like Budweiser.’

  Danni-Jo smiles brightly, exposing her neat white teeth. She looks like one of those Victoria’s Secret models he masturbates to sometimes, all bouncy blonde hair, tits and teeth. He wonders if she’ll let him take a photo? The lads down the The Crown will never believe him otherwise.

  ‘Great,’ she says, ‘I’ll go grab us some beer from the corner shop on Rupert Street. I’ll order the pizza from Dominos. I’ll be about half an hour maybe… perhaps you can start looking through the CCTV for me while I’m gone, make a head start, yeah?’

  He’s still nodding, like his head is stuck. ‘Yeah, okay…’

  ‘Perfect.’ she says, thinking about the Rohypnol she has in her handbag. She’ll slip some in his Budweiser. Just enough to disorientate him and induce memory loss. He’ll never know if he’s had sex with her or not, let him think he did, let the sad, dirty old sicko have his perverted little fantasy of fucking her over his desk. Everyone’s a winner.

  ‘See you soon,’ Danni-Jo sings, blowing him a kiss. She’s hamming it up, almost enjoying herself. His sheer disbelief is written all over his unshaven face. She closes the door behind her and then reopens it, poking her head around and smiling, ‘Oh, and don’t go anywhere, will you?’

  He shakes his head. As bloody well if!

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Janet has spared no expense for her husband’s send-off; she’s hired caterers in and people are getting stuck into the buffet. I wouldn’t eat a thing even if I could. It wouldn’t seem right. Besides, I’m not here as a guest, merely as an observer. I shouldn’t be happy on an occasion like this but I’m buzzing thanks to Leah Carlton. It’s not much, I know, but it’s an ID, a potential ID anyway, and she’s agreed to come to the station to do an e-fit and look at CCTV. As reluctant as she initially was to help – understandable given her career choice – I sense that Leah’s a decent girl and she appeared genuinely fond of Baxter. So the funeral, as I’d hopefully predicted, has thrown something up at least. It’s a start.

  Janet is busy hostessing – drinks are topped up, plates are full – and seeing her fussing around, I suspect she’s been this way her entire life. Some habits are hard to break. I stand at the side of the buffet table, watching her.

  She smiles at me, her thirteen-year-old son hovering behind her. His face is bloated, swollen from crying and he looks pale. I feel like hurting someone. Because I know that whoever did this will never see or never feel remorse for the paleness on that young man’s face. Whoever it was is only wrapped up in their own concerns. I ask him about football. It’s what boys and men do. He says he’s an Arsenal supporter because his dad was. Janet smiles at this, but it doesn’t reach her puffy eyes. When her son is led away by an auntie, I’m glad and I feel guilty at my relief.

  ‘I’m assuming there’s no news, nothing to report back to me…?’ Janet asks without personal or malicious overtones.

  ‘I’m sorry, Janet,’ I say, meaning it, ‘we’re following every lead we’ve got, we’re leaving no stone uncovered.’ I hear the clichés in my own words and feel like sticking my face into the trifle that’s on the table next to me. At least it looks home-made. I think about the dogging revelation and brace myself to share it with her; I don’t have a choice.

  ‘Janet,’ I repeat her name quietly, almost gravely, and she glances up at me with wide and expectant watery eyes. ‘We did find a number; a phone number in the records of your husband’s suspected mistress…’

  She shifts from one foot to the other, her sensible shoes creaking, but her face remains the same. ‘We traced this number from a text message sent to this unknown suspect’s number, just once.’ I pause, take a silent breath. ‘It was registered in your name, Janet.’

  Janet pauses for a few seconds, a sad half-smile flickers across her lips before she looks up at me again. ‘I know about my husband’s little pastime,’ she says, ‘the times he went to various “beauty spots” for that dog…’ A sad irony spills from her lips as she says it. She can’t bring herself to fully say the word ‘dogging’.

  I blink back at her.

  ‘I guessed he was doing it again… I saw a message on his phone, I… I got one of those pay-as-you-go phone things, didn’t want Nigel to know that I knew. He would’ve been upset, ashamed…’ Her voice trails off before she composes herself again, ‘I sent an anonymous text to her, whoever it was he had been messaging.’

  I nod. ‘And what did you say, Janet?’

  ‘Hold on,’ she replies and then disappears, returning less than a minute later with a small Nokia phone, one of those old ones that definitely isn’t smart. ‘Here, read it for yourself.’

  I take the phone and look through it. There’s only one sent message on it. I open it.

  ‘I know what you’re both up to. Stop it now.’

  I stare at the message; it’s short and non-threatening, very much like Janet herself, and I feel a wave of sadness wash over me. ‘Did she reply,’ I ask, ‘did Nigel ever mention it?’

  ‘He never mentioned it,’ she replies with a gentle sigh, ‘and no, she didn’t.’

  ‘I see,’ I say. ‘How long have you known, Janet, about Nigel’s pastime?’ I wish I could have a drink. The cold beer and Champagne that’s being passed around suddenly appears very appealing.

  ‘All our marriage, practically,’ Janet answers, her shoulders visibly sagging. The black cardigan she’s wearing seems too big for her now: it’s swallowing her up as she wraps it around her like a comfort blanket.

  ‘Right. I see. How did you find out about it?’

  She snorts a little then, though not with mirth, and bows her head as though consumed with shame. ‘Because,’ she says, eventually looking up to meet my gaze with her watery eyes, ‘I used to go with him.’

  See. I told you. Funerals. They’re always so revealing.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  So it transpires that Janet Baxter not only knew that Nigel was into watching strangers have sex in public places, but that she was actually complicit in it, for a short time anyway. She suspected, many years ago, that her husband might be having an affair. There were signs she says: he kept disappearing late at night in his car, coming home exhilarated and often ‘amorous’ as she’d put it, blushing. Poor Janet. I could see how excruciating it was for her to make such a confession to me, and at his funeral as well. So, one night she got in her car and followed him up to a secluded area somewhere on the outskirts of North London. She couldn’t remember the location exactly. It horrified her to learn that her clean-cut, hard-working, loving, affectionate and respectful husband was going to watch random strangers get their kit off and get down to business in the back seats of cars. She said that as awful as it was, part of her had actually been relieved, relieved there wasn’t someone else, no significant ‘other’, and that he just had a perversion, a guilty pleasure, albeit a sleazy, seedy one that made her feel sick. She’d thought about divorc
ing him but when he’d broken down and cried she’d felt sorry for him, pitied him. And of course, she loved him. So Janet, good, kind and slightly prudish Janet, did what she believed any loving, loyal wife would do and joined in.

  She told me she’d only ever accompanied him twice in his dogging pursuits and that both times she had felt repulsed, dirty and shameful. The first time she had pretended to get some kind of kick from it just to please Nigel; the second time she had broken down and cried afterwards, prompting her husband to promise her he would never again indulge himself. And she had believed him. ‘We never spoke about it ever again after that last time,’ she said, although she had suspected, on occasion, that he had fallen off the wagon. Recently, she had concerns that perhaps he was once again ‘up to those old tricks’ but she denied it to herself and never questioned him about it, instead deciding to send the message in a bid to try and put a stop to it.

  I told Janet that it had come to our attention that Nigel had been sighted at a renowned spot up in Hampstead Heath and she didn’t look altogether shocked or surprised. I explained that he was seen with a blonde woman, possibly the same woman we have on CCTV going up to his suite on the day he was murdered. A flicker of hope crosses her face when she hears this and I can see that despite her guilt and shame and humiliation, she simply wants her husband’s killer caught. Whatever Nigel was – or wasn’t – she still loved him and she still does. She repressed her own feelings, as I suspect she had throughout her entire marriage, maybe even her life. I told her not to worry and clarified that this information is not in the public domain: only the team knows about it. Janet looked relieved.

  ‘That’s something at least,’ she said quietly.

  I don’t mention Fiona Li.

  * * *

  On my way back to the station I send Florence a very brief text message asking her when she’s free for dinner. Then I go back to beating myself up about having sat outside my girl’s murderer’s mother’s house for the best part of an evening. I know I could get in trouble for it if Mathers or his mother saw me and made a complaint. But I’m not and I wasn’t breaking any rules.

  So, against my better judgement and fuelled by a thousand emotions, I go and do it again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  She’s eating Jaffa cakes and Doritos simultaneously as she flicks through the job section of the local newspaper, ringing potentials with a pink sharpie she found in the drawer along with other miscellaneous stationery. Her feet are tucked underneath her on the battered old sofa that in the right setting, maybe some gastropub in Shoreditch, could pass for being vintage shabby-chic cool. Only this sofa is in the living room of a tiny one-bed apartment above a fried-chicken shop in Penge and therefore just looks like what it is: a filthy, knackered old couch.

  The apartment is a world apart from her own: it’s dark and featureless, there’s paint peeling on the windowsills, next to black spots of mould on the frames. There’s lino on the floor, cheap laminate stuff, really nasty. The walls are an off-white colour, decorated with random damp patches and stains. It smells of cooking fat and fried food. There’s a kitchen: small, surprisingly cleaner than the rest of the place, and functional. It’s equipped with a kettle, a toaster, a small cheap-branded microwave, a cooker that looks on its last knockings and a fridge with fingermarks on the door. It doesn’t quite shut properly on first attempt, but with a good slam on the third it sticks. The bedroom is the worst: it’s tiny, just big enough for her essentials, with a shabby bedside table and an MDF wardrobe with a mirror that’s cracked on the front. The carpet is old, though it feels okay underfoot, soft even. A light cord hangs in the middle of the room, there is no shade and the tiny window lets in limited natural light.

  She imagines it’s the kind of place where people might commit suicide, an irony that doesn’t fully escape her. But no one knows her here and it’s cheap. Plus, its only temporary, she’s not planning on staying, and with a little luck, she might have got herself a job by the time the rent’s due and then she can do a moonlight flit without paying for it. This idea gives her a little thrill. She’s renting out her own place for a small fortune through a posh estate agent. It’s on a short-lease loan to some rich Japanese student. The estate agent informed her that his references were immaculate and that her apartment was in very good hands. She wonders if Mummy Bear has started to smell yet…

  * * *

  As she expected, she’d been on the CCTV, and together with Simon, the security manager, she’d watched as she’d entered Kizzy’s apartment on the day she’d killed Esmerelda. I was feeding her cat she’d said to him nonchalantly as she’d chewed on a slice of pizza, admiring her own image on the screen. She looked good on camera. He’d nodded, adding that she was a good neighbour for doing so. Drink up, she’d told him, handing him a can of Budweiser which he’d sipped enthusiastically, alongside eating a slice of the hot pepperoni. She’d slid up next to him as they’d watched the screen together in silence apart from their chewing, she’d made sure her thigh was resting against his cheap polyester uniform trousers and she swang her legs back and forth for friction. At one point he’d shot her a sideways glance and she’d flashed him her best slutty smile, one she had perfected over the years, and he’d shaken his head in a mix of delighted disbelief, as though he couldn’t quite believe any of what was happening was real. He’d started to ask her questions: how old she was, what she did for a living, did she have a boyfriend? She’d answered him enthusiastically, chatting amiably about herself as she waited for the drugs to kick into his system. Once she had begun to notice his coordination slowing down and his speech starting to slur, she got down off the desk and onto her hands and knees in front of him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he’d laughed, looking a little disorientated, his eyelids heavy.

  ‘Shhh,’ she’d said, looking up at him as she unzipped his cheap shiny trousers and pulled his cock out.

  ‘Jesus…’ his head had fallen back on his shoulders, ‘you’re… you’re fucking insane.’

  She’d giggled a little as she’d begun to pull on him, making him hard almost instantly. She continued with this for a few moments, smiling up at him as he relaxed back into the swivel chair. After a few moments she felt his hard-on soften. He was asleep. Getting off her knees with a small sigh she left his limp dick exposed and swivelled round to the screens in front of her, rewinding the footage back to the beginning and wiping the whole lot from the computer system.

  Chucking the empty can into a black plastic bag, she grabbed another slice of pizza and began to chew on it as she set about tidying up. She opened a can of Bud and swallowed half the contents, wincing. She hated beer. Her father drank it day and night, and she loathed the smell, the scent of it – bitter and acidic on his breath. Taking the DVD from her handbag she placed it into the drive of his computer and uploaded it. High School Huneez began to play on the screen; the low amorous moans and grunts of pig-tailed schoolgirls emanating from the speaker. Then she had left.

  * * *

  Throwing another Jaffa Cake down her neck, she picks up her phone and scrolls through her messages, smiling when she comes to his. Dan, Dan, the disappearing man. He’s come good on his word and asked her to dinner. Such a shame. There had been something about him, something that had made her feel hopeful and… human, though she wasn’t quite sure how these feelings were supposed to feel. But she’d liked it, whatever it was she’d experienced in the brief time they’d been together. It would be a gamble… Lying low and staying out of central London, that was best for now. Once she’d finished the story, then perhaps she could go away somewhere – maybe Daniel would come with her? Maybe they would live together in a remote, sleepy village in a little cobblestone cottage with miniature roses climbing the front; a village with a pond and a pub where everyone knew everyone else, where there was a tiny post office and one of those old-style butchers that sold sausages on strings. An English country rose and her darling family waving to their neighbours as they went
for their Sunday walk together. Her fantasy is poignant enough for her to reach for her phone and hit reply.

  Yes, Daniel would be her future. But first she needed to rectify her past. She needed to write the ending.

  She rubs at the dye on her hair. It’s beginning to drip, cold black droplets hit her back, making her uncomfortable. She pulls the towel around her shoulders a little tighter and carries on scanning the job section until she comes across something.

  ‘Experienced nanny needed for Beckenham-based family. Live-in. Taking care of a little boy of eight months, full-time with most weekends free. Some light domestic chores. Must have a clean driving license and references.’

  She circles it three times. Bingo.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  She’s wearing a pretty floral summer dress with the biker boots I remember from before. This stops me in my tracks because it’s almost identical to how Rach used to dress – it was her favourite look, or at least it was mine.

  Florence acknowledges my surprised expression because she asks, ‘You don’t like my outfit?’

  I tell her I do like her outfit: I like it very much. I don’t tell her it reminds me of my dead girlfriend.

  ‘I figured you’re not the posh restaurant type, that for you it’s more about good food than fanciness, am I right?’ she says.

  She is. Spot on in fact.

  Florence looks pleased with herself. ‘Good,’ she replies, ‘because there’s a sushi restaurant, a favourite of mine, that I’d like to show you.’

  I like a woman in charge and tell her to lead the way. She calls an Uber.