by Gytha Lodge
“I’m curious about that,” Jonah said. “I don’t understand why you made it look like a suicide but then also framed Aidan.”
Greta laughed. “I hadn’t really decided to frame him, even then. There was a weak side to me that just wanted Zoe out of the way. I thought that might be enough. But I had backups. All the images I’d spent weeks adding to his computer, and the painting, and the fingerprints.” She shook her head. “I still had the option of reporting the theft of that bathroom lock. It would do enough to cast doubt on the prints. I could have let him walk. It was that awful fake Christian, Maeve, who decided it for me. The moment Zoe was dead, she was messaging Aidan again.”
“Again?” Jonah asked.
“Oh, they had history,” Greta said bitterly. “I thought it was just a one-off. A kiss when Aidan was drunk and upset at being dumped. He seemed to be keeping her at arm’s length. But he agreed to meet her and I could see it all happening again. She was going on and on at him. Messages about who might have killed Zoe. Saying they should try to find the killer together, and that she didn’t believe it was him. I did my best to warn her off. Some of the things she said…she was getting a little too close for comfort.”
Jonah nodded, glad that they could definitively lay the attack on Maeve at Greta’s door, and said, “Thank you. I’d like you to tell me how you became Esther.”
Greta gave a slow, brilliant smile. “That was a lot of fun. I knew where Zoe worked, and it wasn’t hard to find out where she lived. I’d been watching her for months without her ever noticing. When I decided I needed to punish her, I parked my car outside Café Gina, and I followed her home. I did a better job of that than Aidan.” She gave a little throaty laugh. “I’d already seen her talking to Felix in the coffee shop, so I got him to let me into the flats. I said I was checking on my tenant and they weren’t answering the bell. It was enough to get him talking, and from there, it was so easy to work my way in with him.”
“And you took the spare keys to Zoe’s flat, and copied them,” Jonah said.
“Weeks ago,” she agreed. “I actually bumped into him on the day, did he tell you? I went to check on the knife so I was prepared. I was letting myself out when I saw him. He even asked me in for tea again, and never stopped to think.” She leaned forward. “He was pretty slow for a police officer, you know. He never stopped to ask which flat Esther owned, or why she was only there occasionally. He spent too long talking about himself and his problems.”
“So you had the knife,” Lightman said, “and the keys.”
“Yes,” Greta said. “I went home to change for the dinner, and on the way the little whore gave me all the proof I needed that she deserved to die. She must have recognized me, because she started following me.”
“We caught some of it on camera,” Jonah said. “Can you explain what happened?”
“She attacked me,” Greta said flatly. “Poor little heartbroken Zoe went for me. The first I knew was that someone had shoved me over, and I was suddenly facedown on the pavement, and the little bitch was kicking and punching me. And do you know what she was saying? That sweet little thing?” she asked. “She was telling me I’d taken everything from her and she wished I would die. She said that to me.”
There was such anger in Greta’s expression. Such a sense of righteous fury. It made Jonah feel cold.
“What happened?” Lightman asked. “Did you manage to fight her off?”
“It didn’t last all that long,” Greta said. “A stranger, a fairly strong man, got hold of her and pulled her away. She ran off, and I told him not to worry. I said she’s a family member and troubled, and he left it. It’s a good thing people don’t take assault by females that seriously, you know. It might have ruined everything if I’d been connected to her.”
Jonah let out a sigh. He wondered increasingly whether Greta were in some kind of denial about the prison sentence she was facing and the severity of what she had done. It was in no way a “good thing” that the police hadn’t been involved. If they had, she might never have killed a young woman.
“So you went back home after the attack,” Lightman said, after a pause, “and then you went to the awards dinner?”
“I did,” she said. “An event can be one of the best places to leave unnoticed, you know. I chose a tight, clingy dress that was short enough that it wouldn’t show under other clothes. I sat through dinner, and gave my award, and then pretended to take a phone call. In fact, I picked up my coat and went out through the garden entrance and got into the taxi I’d booked. I made it onto the nine fifty-one from London Bridge. I’d covered up my dress with my coat, and with my boots on I looked reasonably casual.”
“And then you changed,” Jonah said, “into a tracksuit and a cap.”
“Yes,” Greta said. “I changed at the gym and left with my hold-all. And then I walked to Zoe’s flat, and I let myself in.”
Jonah didn’t want to hear the rest, but Greta told them anyway. About the desflurane and how Zoe being in the bath already had felt like a gift from the gods.
“Didn’t you worry that Aidan might see you?” Lightman asked her at one point.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said irritably. “I wouldn’t go all that way if I hadn’t checked. I knew he couldn’t see beyond the hinge of the door. I’d loaded up his little spying program and tried it.”
“Did you know he’d be watching then?” Jonah asked curiously.
“I didn’t know,” she said with a strange smile, “but I hoped that he might.”
She finished with an account of how she’d changed clothes again, to resemble a frumpy older woman, and left the flat. Jonah remembered that there had been a woman in a huge coat on the CCTV footage. He hadn’t had any reason to look at her twice.
And then he thought about how much of all of this came down to observation. Aidan, observing Zoe without consent, and Greta watching him do it. Maeve and Victor both watching the affair and taking their own kicks and hurts from it. The CCTV that Greta had known about and avoided.
He remembered someone, perhaps a scientist, saying that nothing really happened unless it was observed, and he felt as though there were a bizarre truth to that.
“What happened to the hold-all?” he asked.
“I filled it with some of Zoe’s clothes and shoved it in the wardrobe,” Greta said with a shrug. “Nobody was going to check there, at least not immediately. I went back and picked it up again Sunday. Oh, you might need to go and feed her cat. The stupid thing was sitting outside the front door when I was letting myself in.”
Jonah shook his head slightly, in part at her intelligence, in part at her arrogance, and in part at the bizarre note of care for an animal when she had just murdered a young woman.
And then she suddenly lifted her head and said, “Oh, did you find the painting?”
“The one you stole?” Lightman asked.
“I did not steal it,” Greta said, her voice suddenly harsh. “That painting was mine from the moment she put me in it. It was mine. It showed me that she deserved what happened. She put me in it and she painted out my eyes and showed the two of them hurting me, and that meant she knew what she was doing. She knew that she was hurting me with every moment she spent with Aidan. She just thought I was blind. But I wasn’t blind.” Her voice had returned to normal now. “I was never blind.”
And she’d told them, after that, where the painting was: in the spare room at the house, hanging apparently innocently on the wall.
“It didn’t worry me if anyone saw it, because they’d assume Aidan took it,” she said with a smile. “It was just another piece of evidence against him.”
“Which was before you threw Aidan out,” Lightman said, frowning. “Weren’t you worried about him seeing it?”
Greta laughed and shook her head. “I could absolutely rely on Aidan not to break from his routine and
look in there. And, you know, even if he had gone in, I don’t think he would have recognized it. In all the time he and Zoe were together, they barely spoke about her work. I don’t think he cared whether she painted cartoon kittens, as long as she kept giving out.”
Lightman went through a few more details, clarifying and tidying up, but that was pretty much all of it. The whole, grubby truth.
“You know,” Greta added, after they were done, “when I went back home, after the dinner, I was so happy to see his face. I could tell he’d seen something while trying to perve on her, and was tearing himself to pieces over what to do. It was so good to make him feel like that.”
* * *
—
HANSON HAD LISTENED to Greta’s testimony from the viewing gallery. O’Malley had come and gone, interested but not fascinated like she was. Perhaps, to him, it all seemed too easy now.
She only left after Greta explained about the painting, partly because it looked like the interview was finishing, and partly because she was feeling such a burning sense of anger on Zoe’s behalf.
She could hear her phone ringing on her desk as she left the interview suite. She recognized Siku Swardadine’s voice as she answered, and was glad she’d picked up.
“I’m calling because DCI Sheens left a message,” Zoe’s mother said, her voice raw with emotion. “You’re sure? You’re sure you have them?”
“Yes,” Hanson said firmly. “We are. I’ll have to get the DCI to give you the details, but we’re sure.”
There was a silence from the other end of the line, and Hanson was about to check that Siku was still there. But then there was a ragged breath, and she said, “Thank you. Thank you.”
“I hope it helps,” she said quietly, and hung up with eyes that felt embarrassingly damp. She gave a sniff and tried to swallow the tears down. When she looked up, she found DI Walker looking at her, clearly on his way back from the kitchen. She could feel the heat that rose into her cheeks.
“Was that the family?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Hanson said. “Hard not to feel for them.”
“It’s crap,” Walker agreed with a nod. “But at least with the case wrapped up you can drown your sorrows in drink.”
“I guess so,” Hanson said, trying to smile. “How are things with you?”
“Promising,” he said. “One of my vandalism cases should go to court. So it looks like that’s the pub for both of us later.”
Hanson nodded and gave him an uncertain smile. She wasn’t quite sure what he was suggesting. Maybe he just meant a group pub trip. A social occasion.
She gave a nod when Lightman appeared at the door to the interview suite, and then buried her head in work. But by seven, it felt like she needed to do something. Lightman hadn’t said a word to her in hours, and she was sick of second-guessing why that might be. Whether she’d made him feel awkward by hugging him. Whether she’d spoiled things.
As Lightman headed to the kitchen for a coffee, she stood and followed with a ridiculous sense of trepidation.
“Hey,” she said, coming to a stop next to him. “Walker was suggesting the pub. Are you keen?”
Lightman’s expression was as friendly and inscrutable as always. “I’d probably better not,” he said, and smiled. “I’ve just spent two days getting over the last hangover.”
“You don’t need to get drunk,” she said, trying to make it sound like banter. “I’m only going for a couple.”
His gaze moved past her toward Walker, and then briefly off into the distance. When he looked back, it was with something that looked like a screensaver on his face. Like Ben had checked out somehow. “I’ll be good. But thanks.”
Hanson felt every step of the walk back to her desk. She felt like she was fourteen again, and walking back across the lunch hall from asking the popular boy for a date. At least this time nobody was laughing.
She bypassed her desk and drifted over to where DI Walker was still at work. She gave him a brilliant smile when he looked up. “Are you ready for that drink yet?”
* * *
—
JONAH’S FIRST STEPS toward getting paperwork together were interrupted by a visitor. A man called Richard Hoskins was asking to talk to him, and he agreed to have him shown up with no real idea of who he was or what he had to say.
He checked his phone while he waited, and saw that there was a message from Michelle. He glanced up, making sure he had time to read it, and then opened it.
He read that she’d been thinking about it all and was positive that it had been a mistake for both of them. That nothing had really changed to make their relationship work, and that she’d been on a few dates with someone at work.
It felt almost like the breakup all over again. The self-recrimination. The desolation. The desire to beg her to reconsider.
It didn’t help that he knew she was right, or that this probably made his life easier.
As he put the phone down again, he did his best to pack everything away with it. He needed to focus on wrapping up this case. On giving Zoe Swardadine justice.
Richard Hoskins arrived at his door and proved to be a thirtysomething male with gelled hair and a leather jacket that was too small for him. It gaped open over his patterned shirt.
“Mr. Hoskins,” Jonah said, shaking his hand and showing him to a seat at the far side of his desk.
“Richie,” he said. “Just Richie.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Well,” Richie said, tugging at his ear, “it’s not so much for me. It’s for my girlfriend. She’s called Angeline Judd.”
Jonah looked at him anew, surprised that Angeline was in a relationship with a slightly overweight, unprepossessing man at least ten years older, who sounded like he came from working-class Portsmouth. One with cheap clothes and a pervasive scent of aftershave.
“She’s been assisting us in our murder investigation,” Jonah said, nodding.
“I know, and I’m glad she wants to help,” Richie said, holding a hand up. “But it’s hurting her, all of it. I’m hoping she can be left alone for a while.”
Jonah nodded slowly. “I think she probably can.”
“I did wonder if I should say,” he added. “I saw her the evening she died. Zoe.”
Jonah thought back to their CCTV footage, and said, “You were waiting for her when she got home, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Richie said. “I think I scared her a bit. I didn’t mean to. I just asked her to call Angeline, because she was so upset about their argument. I mean, she never liked me, anyway. I think she didn’t trust me. But anyway, I didn’t want some stupid row coming between them. She was so dependent on Zoe.” He tutted and lowered his head. “She’s not got her anymore, though.”
“I’m sorry,” Jonah said.
“I know, it’s all right. She’ll be all right somehow.” Richie nodded. “I’ll do my best to look after her. And she’s got Maeve and some of the girls from her course.” He gave a sigh. “It’s an awful thing to say, but maybe in a funny way it’ll be good for her. That dependency on Zoe wasn’t good, I don’t think.”
“Maybe not,” Jonah said. And then he rose. “You don’t need to worry about us bothering her, anyway, Mr. Hoskins. Zoe’s killer is already in custody.”
“Oh,” Richie said, and then hurried to stand as well. “That’s good. That’s really good, that is. I’ll tell Angeline.” He paused on his way out, and turned to ask, “It wasn’t a friend of Angie’s, was it?”
“No,” Jonah said with a smile. “It wasn’t.”
“Good.” Richie gave him a small salute. “Good luck with it.”
* * *
—
HANSON AND WALKER had thrown a few pub ideas around before landing on the wine bar on Bedford Place, which Hanson had suggested because it had parking. If she ended up ha
ving more than one drink, she wanted somewhere she could leave her car overnight without getting ticketed.
The DI was ready before she was, and Hanson, pulling on her coat, told him she’d meet him there. She went to knock briefly on the door of the DCI’s office while Walker headed out. Sheens was staring at his screen with a distant expression.
“See you in the morning,” she said.
The DCI looked up at her vacantly and then gave a sudden, firm nod. “Great. I won’t be here much longer. Just want to finish my notes on today.”
“Congratulations on all of it,” Hanson said.
“You, too,” Sheens said. And then, as she was leaving, he added, “Great work on all of this, by the way. And particularly on the painting. You had it on the nail.”
“Only I thought it was Maeve,” she said wryly.
The DCI gave a shrug. “I thought it was probably Felix earlier on, and maybe Angeline. That’s the way it goes. It doesn’t mean you didn’t do a really good job.”
“Thanks,” she said with a reluctant smile. “I appreciate it.”
He nodded. And then said, “Oh. I wanted to follow up on that guy at your house on Saturday. To see if it was Victor Varos. And it doesn’t look like it can have been. I put it to him, after everything else, and he seemed genuinely confused. He said he’d been at the cinema, and I’ve sent a quick message to check. It looks like he really was.”
“Oh,” Hanson said. And with everything feeling like it was tying up and becoming clearer, this almost felt unimportant for a moment.
“I just wanted to make you aware,” Sheens said quietly, “so you can think about whether it was someone else. And, you know…whether it might be a problem.”
The DCI’s gaze was steady, and for some reason she felt herself becoming embarrassed.
“Well, I’ll think.” She gave a slight smile. “Probably nothing.”
