* * *
Claire Wright is a very pretty, short, kind of plump girl in, I would guess, her late twenties, although I am spectacularly bad at guessing a woman’s age and always go into a sweaty panic if I’m ever asked to. Women seem to like to trip you up like that, don’t they? Aesthetically, Claire’s very different to Laurie Mills. Blonde hair in contrast to Laurie’s dark, blue eyes to her brown, pale skin to her olive complexion, and, compared with poor Laurie, appears like she enjoys a good meal every now and again. Claire looks like the type of girl who scrubs up well yet, when all the decoration comes off, is just a pretty girl-next-door type. But she has a nice smiley face and twinkly blue eyes, which only compounds the misery I feel at having to say what I’m about to.
‘Is everything okay?’ she asks, a little nervously. ‘I’m sorry about the state of the place. This little madam here…’ She looks down at the baby in her arms. I’d say she is around eight months old but I could be wildly off the mark. What do I know about babies? Other than that they make a hell of a racket when you’re trying to sleep. Oh, and that mine was killed before I ever got to meet him or her. ‘She’s teething,’ Claire sighs. ‘Had me up most of the night. I haven’t had the energy to clean up and look at the state of me, I—’
I look around the modest apartment. It’s a little messy, baby paraphernalia everywhere, but it looks clean and cosy enough.
‘No need to apologise,’ Davis says. ‘Listen, Claire, can we sit down?’
Her face drops then, but the light hasn’t gone from her eyes completely. Not yet. But it will. Believe me, it will.
‘Has something bad happened?’ Her voice is edgy now, filled with fear. I can almost see the panic as it creeps onto her face like poison ivy. She throws a baby blanket off the sofa and moves a few cushions out of the way with one hand. I wonder if I should ask her to put the baby down, if it would be safer to. Luckily however, the little thing looks as if she’s fallen asleep and so she places her in a fancy, frilly pink Moses basket that’s next to the sofa. We all sit down tentatively. I feel like time is moving in slo-mo, every action amplified and magnified. I detest this part of the job.
‘I believe you are in a relationship with Robert Mills. Robert Mills of 13 Cedar Close. Is that right, Claire?’
She looks caught off guard, as if his name was the last she had expected to hear.
‘Rob… Yes, Robert’s my… well, he’s my boyfriend.’ She looks to the side as she says this, a little awkwardly, but she’s still smiling. ‘He’s the father… he’s my daughter’s father. What’s happened? Is Rob okay? He’s not been hurt, has he?’ Confusion cuts through her voice like glass. And I’m about to shatter it.
‘Listen, Claire, I’m so very sorry; we’re very sorry to tell you this, but Robert Mills was found dead at his address in Cedar Close last night. I’m afraid he was murdered.’
In my experience it’s best to say it all in one go. No ripping the plaster off gently. It only hurts more. I watch, my heart filled with familiar pity, as the expression on her face changes as the words register. It’s amazing how expressive the face can be. I read shock, horror, disbelief and anguish across hers in less than a second.
‘Rob… Rob’s dead?’ Instinctively she looks over at the basket where the baby is sleeping, as if somehow she might have heard the news and she needs to protect her from it. ‘Oh my God!’ Her hands go straight up to her face and she folds herself in half. ‘OH MY GODDDDDDD!’ And then she starts to scream.
Davis goes to her and puts her arm around her, but she’s still screaming and the noise wakes the baby, who starts screaming in sympathy. So now they’re both screaming. And I feel like screaming with them because it’s a horrible thing to witness, to see another human being so distraught, especially as I’ve been the bearer of such bad news and there’s nothing I can do about it. I nod to Davis to pick the baby up because Claire Wright is in no fit state to. She’s in pieces. She goes to the basket and I take a seat next to Claire.
‘Listen, Claire, love, I’m so sorry. I know it’s a terrible shock; please trust me, I know. Is there anyone who can be here with you? A friend, a family member or a neighbour perhaps? You see, we need to ask you some questions.’
But she’s still wailing. Her hands are shaking. ‘Rob… Oh God, not Rob! It can’t be true! He can’t be dead! What about me and Matilda? What about Matty?’
Davis and I make eye contact. She’s got the little one in her arms now and is jiggling her up and down to try to quieten her down. I can’t exactly follow suit with Claire, so I say, ‘Claire, I need you to be strong for a moment. I need to ask you some questions. We really need your help.’
‘How was he killed? How did Rob die?’ Her knees are trembling. She’s jiggling herself up and down now.
‘His throat was cut,’ I say evenly, trying to keep the emotion from my voice. ‘And he’d been stabbed. It would’ve been very quick,’ I add, although I don’t actually know this for a fact; I’m simply guessing, because hey, I don’t actually know what it feels like to have your throat cut open and a knife plunged into your flesh repeatedly. But from what Vic Leyton said, it’s highly probable that the killer took him by surprise, most likely from behind. So the best-case scenario is that he was caught unawares and didn’t have too much time to think about it.
‘Claire, did you know Robert was going to see his wife last night, at the marital home in Cedar Close?’
‘She’s only his wife on paper. He was trying to leave but because she’s a psycho she wouldn’t let him go. Used all sorts of emotional blackmail on him… You do know she’s an alcoholic? She’s mental, unhinged… she’ll have killed him! Oh God, Laurie killed him! He told me that she had threatened to kill him, or kill herself—’
Davis is looking at me. The baby has settled a bit now, wrapping her little fist tightly around Davis’s hair, attempting to put it in her mouth. She’s a sweet little thing – the baby I mean, not Davis – and I feel a wave of sadness wash over me for that little girl who’ll never know or remember her father.
‘Claire, can you tell me where you were last night? It’s a routine question, okay?’
She looks startled but it’s a natural reaction and I don’t read anything into it.
‘I was… God, I was here… with Matty. I’m always here with Matty.’
As I’m pretty sure Matty can’t speak, I ask her if anyone else can corroborate this.
‘Well, no… Oh, actually yes! I called my mum around 7ish. I speak to her most nights. I can give you her number. You can check the phone records or whatever. I was watching some ITV drama thing on telly and we’d been discussing it. Rob told me he was going over to see Laurie. They’d been separated for a while and he said he was finally going to ask her for a divorce. You see, Laurie didn’t know about Matty… not until recently. I’d been begging Rob to tell her that she was his, that we were still together, but you see she’d been in an accident and—’
‘Yes,’ I cut in. ‘Yes, I know about the accident.’
She looks a little sheepish. ‘Don’t think I’m a horrible, heartless person. I’m not, really… I know she – I know Laurie went through a lot. But I’m telling you it sent her off her rocker. He couldn’t leave her after that because she was suicidal. He was planning to be here with us, to start a new life as a family but then she… well, then she found out about us and then she had her accident and he felt he couldn’t just leave her, you know? She was too unstable. Plus, she needed care for some time after the accident…’ Claire is rambling, spewing it all up like a dodgy kebab after one too many.
‘When did you and Robert meet, Claire? When did you begin a relationship?’
She’s slightly more composed now, though she’s still crying and visibly shaking. She wipes her face with a muslin cloth that’s over her shoulder. Presumably it’s something to do with the baby and not some kind of fashion statement I’m not aware of.
‘We met a little over four years ago. I was working as a temp at a phot
ography studio, answering the phones and stuff. Rob’s a photographer. He works at the studio regularly, shot a lot of stuff there for his clients, different magazines and stuff. We just got talking—’
‘Did you know he was married?’ Davis asks. ‘Did he tell you he had a wife?’
Claire looks over at her. Her mascara is clearly not the waterproof kind as it’s stained her face; she looks like a bad version of Alice Cooper.
‘Yes. Eventually. We started hanging out, you know, going for a few drinks after his shoots. We started off as friends really, although it was obvious there was an attraction between us. He told me he was unhappy…’
I resist the urge to emit a little grunt and roll my eyes.
‘He told me that he didn’t love her anymore. We began an affair about three weeks later…’
I’m sure I see Davis raise an eyebrow, though I could be imagining it.
‘It got serious pretty quickly. We fell in love!’ Claire starts to cry harder now and I squeeze her arm. I need her to keep talking. ‘It just happened… we fell in love.’
‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘We’re not here to judge anyone. We just need to know a bit of background. Anything that might help.’
She nods, sniffs deeply and exhales in a bid to calm herself.
‘Did Robert have any enemies that you know of? Anyone he upset at work, owed money to, anyone you can think of who may have had a grudge against him for any reason? A jealous ex-boyfriend of yours, a disgruntled client…?’
She shakes her head vehemently. ‘No. None. None that I know of anyway, and I would’ve known. Rob and I, we talked about everything. We had no secrets. That’s what he used to say to me, “no secrets between us”. Everyone loved Robbie. He was the life and soul. No one had a bad word to say about him – well, except for Laurie. I threatened to tell her, Laurie I mean, about us a few times. Rob kept saying he would leave her and I waited… but there was always some reason, some excuse, why he couldn’t. And then… and then she got pregnant, and I was out of my mind when he told me it was twins. Twins! And he said he didn’t want the babies, that he didn’t want her. That he wanted me. And I know he did. I know.’
I imagine the scenario in my mind: classic textbook ‘my wife doesn’t understand me… we haven’t had sex in years’. And all of a sudden she’s pregnant with his child, or, in this case, children. And I can’t help thinking that Robert Mills was a liar and that somehow this has led to his untimely demise.
‘I carried on seeing him,’ Claire continues. She’s clearly in shock now, struggling to make sense of everything as she rocks herself back and forth in her seat, hugging herself tightly. ‘He wouldn’t let me end it. I did try, but every time, you know, he reeled me back in. All these promises… promises that we’d be together, that we had a future together. That I was the love of his life – the one he really loved. And then she found out about us, messages on a phone or something… pictures,’ Claire says coyly. ‘Rob was furious. He couldn’t understand how she’d found out. He was always so careful—’
I bet he was. ‘I see. Okay…’
‘And so he came clean.’
Sounds to me like he didn’t have much of a choice, I think, though I don’t say it, of course. I see Davis out of the corner of my eye, placing the little girl back in the basket. She’s managed to get her back off to sleep. Davis is clearly something of a natural.
‘He was angry at first, you know,’ she says, her voice tremulous, ‘when I told him about the baby. I was six months gone already. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. He didn’t want her to find out – Laurie, I mean. Said that she wasn’t stable enough after she lost – after what happened. So I kept on waiting, went through the pregnancy alone. When Matty was born he totally fell in love with her. I’d never see him like that before – besotted by her he was. He swore to me that once they were settled in the new house he would leave Laurie and come to be with us, as soon as he felt she was stable enough. I mean, she’d really lost the plot, pills and booze and depression, a real mess—’
I want to say, You can hardly blame her. But I don’t. Robert Mills was clearly a very convincing character. And by convincing, I really mean manipulative.
‘And then the barbecue happened,’ Claire says. ‘Laurie overheard us talking on the phone or something. Realised that we were still together. That we’d never stopped being together. And she gathered, from what she’d heard, that Matty was his… ours.’
Davis is seated opposite us now, leaning forward as she takes notes.
‘Did he tell you what happened at the barbecue?’
Claire shrugs. ‘Only that she lost the plot in front of the whole street. Called him a liar and a cheat in front of all the neighbours… told them about us, about Matty, in a drunken showdown. Humiliated herself, made herself look like a right psycho bitch from hell – that’s what he said.’
I hold my tongue and remember I’m not here to pass any judgements. Not audibly anyway.
‘I was glad really, that she’d overheard that conversation. Because not long afterwards he said he was leaving her. That he desperately wanted to get away from that close—’
‘Was he here yesterday, Claire, with you and—’
‘Matty. Yes. He took a few days off to be with us, to get the divorce proceedings going and spend some time with Matty. He’d been to see a solicitor and everything. I was so happy… Finally, finally he was going to commit to us properly. Get rid of that albatross around his neck – that’s what he used to call her, his wife: “The Albatross”.’
Seems like our victim was all heart.
‘What time did he leave the apartment, Claire? This is very important. Try to think exactly.’
She shakes her head and I imagine her painful, jumbled thoughts crashing into each other. ‘It wasn’t long after lunch, I suppose. Around 1ish. Not much later than that. I put Matty down after feeding her around 1ish; she sleeps for a couple of hours. He kissed us both goodbye. Told me he loved me. That he loved us both.’ Her voice cracks with emotion as it dawns on her that those were her lover’s last words to her. She’s lucky in a way. Some people never get to say goodbye, or ‘I love you’ to their loved ones. Their parting words are often hurried and mundane ‘see you laters’ or sometimes, painfully, even cross words.
‘Did she kill him?’ Claire asks. She has a trail of mucus running from her nose that she wipes away with the muslin cloth. ‘Did Laurie kill Rob?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ Davis informs her gently. ‘She’s a person of interest. We’re making enquiries.’
Claire nods. ‘She did it… Laurie… I know she did. It couldn’t possibly be anyone else. Everyone loved Robbie.’
Well, he certainly didn’t mind sharing the love around from what I’m learning.
‘Is she… Have you arrested Laurie? Is she going to go to prison?’
We stand to leave.
‘She’s helping us with enquiries,’ Davis says gently. ‘We’ll keep you informed.’
‘We’ll need to talk to you again, Claire,’ I say. ‘We may need you to come to the station and give a statement. Would that be okay?’
She nods, the tears still streaking her face. I feel dreadful, leaving a young mother like this, distraught with a small baby in a basket next to her.
‘Can you call someone, Claire? Your mum perhaps? Someone to sit with you.’
She nods again.
‘I’ll call Mum,’ she says quietly. ‘My mum will come.’
I nod agreeably and gently touch her arm.
‘You will get them, won’t you? Whoever did this. Laurie… you will get her—’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I promise you, Claire. We will get whoever did this.’ And I mean it. I mean every word.
Twenty-Two
I’m driving on autopilot on the way back to Davis’s house, almost sick with exhaustion. My brain is no good to anyone like this, worn down like a battery. I need a few hours’ kip to recharge, a shower to wake me up and a decent breakf
ast to get me started again, but I know I’ll be lucky to achieve even one out of three. Through the fog of exhaustion however, there are a couple of questions that keep cycling like Bradley Wiggins around my battered brain.
‘Why do you think he left to go to Laurie’s house so early?’ I say aloud to Davis, who, incidentally, appears as knackered as I do and even looks a little peaky. Peaky. It’s an old-fashioned word favoured by my old man, which reminds me I should call him. I should probably call Fi too, and I feel a stab of self-loathing for having ignored her at the crime scene last night. What the hell’s the matter with me? I deal with hardened criminals for a living yet run away from a kind and beautiful woman with whom I’ve shared an intimate night. I need to man up.
‘Claire says he left the apartment after lunch, around 1ish. So where did he go? We’ve got Laurie Mills at the hairdressers around that time, shopping, picking up dry-cleaning… even in traffic it would take less than an hour to drive to Cedar Close from here.’
Davis shakes her head. ‘Ran some errands? Stopped off in the pub for a drink? Met up with a friend? Another lover? Who knows? Maybe he went straight to the house. Maybe he was already there and when she came home, she killed him and then prepared dinner and concocted the amnesia story after the event.’
I chew my bottom lip. I’m starving as well as tired; it’s a lethal combination. In wars they use sleep and food depravation as torture techniques to break a person down. Even the chicken dinner for one I have in the freezer back at our, sorry, my apartment is beginning to sound appetising. I think about eating it in bed.
‘It’s possible.’ Possible. Yet my gut is telling me it’s unlikely. ‘Hopefully the CCTV will clarify,’ I say.
I glance at Davis. She’s almost puce in colour, or maybe it’s the light. It looks like a storm is brewing and the sky has turned a deathly shade of grey.
‘You okay?’
She nods, covers her hand with her mouth. ‘Just tired, Gov.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I say. ‘I’m starting to hallucinate about duvets… and frozen meals for one.’
The Couple on Cedar Close Page 12
