The Couple on Cedar Close

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  Saying the words aloud causes tears to flow as the full horror and confusion of Laurie’s words hit home. She knows how it must sound, like she’s concocted some absurd cock and bull story in a bid to save herself.

  ‘I think she pretended to be me that night. Took my clothes and shoes and drove my car to Claire’s. She must’ve planted my DNA in the apartment because I’ve never been there before; I don’t even know where Claire lives. She killed them both and made it look like I had done it. Look, I know… I know how this sounds, Detective, but you’ve got to believe me. You’ve got to believe me, please.’ Laurie crumples back onto the cell bed like a piece of paper, exhausted.

  ‘It’s okay, Laurie.’ The detective places his hands on her shoulders. ‘I do. I do believe you,’ he says and embraces her, pulling her into him. She feels weightless in his arms, like she’s made of dust. His voice is soft and, despite what he’s telling her, gently reassuring. ‘You didn’t kill your husband, Laurie. She did. Monica.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she says. ‘Oh God. Oh God. Monica. Why would she do this? Why?’ A dozen or so more ‘Oh Gods’ follow.

  ‘I was hoping you might be able to help us with the answer to that, Laurie.’

  Her whole body is shaking, vibrating uncontrollably, awash with adrenaline, a familiar feeling that tells her she’s going into shock. The relief of knowing that she’s not a murderer is muted by the horror that her closest and most trusted friend is, and that not only is she a psychopath capable of killing two people in cold blood, but that she’d set out to frame Laurie for it: all of it.

  ‘I trusted her, Detective,’ she says, not bothering to wipe away the tears that are dripping from her face. There’s no point anymore; there’ll only be more. She feels as if she hasn’t stopped crying in years. Perhaps she never will.

  The detective takes a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his jacket and dabs at her face with it, a caring gesture that only threatens to undo her more.

  ‘She was my friend.’

  ‘I know the shock must be terrible right now, Laurie. Someone you loved betraying you so badly—’

  ‘Betrayal.’ She says the word aloud, unable to process the scale of it. First Robert and now Monica, who had always been there for her, always. She thinks of all the memories they’ve shared; the life they’ve experienced together. Monica was the one person she could count upon in a crisis: her confidante; her rock; her bridesmaid and nursemaid; her personal stylist and relationship counsellor. Monica, who loved to watch old black-and-white 1950s films, curled up on the sofa together, sharing a bottle of Chardonnay; the woman whose infectious laugh and acerbic wit always brought a smile to her face. Monica was the girl who did a great impression of Phoebe from Friends; the girl she’d shared carefree holidays with in her twenties, flirting with guys around the pool and getting glammed up with in the evening. Normal, nice, salt-of-the-earth Mon, who knew what was what and who was always on hand with a box of tissues and a bottle of wine to help mop up Laurie’s tears over the years.

  It’s not possible, is it, that this person, this clever, funny, reliable, kind woman she had felt she’d known so intimately, so completely, is capable of slaughtering two people – that she’s a cold-hearted monster who’s orchestrated it for Laurie to carry the can for her wickedness.

  The thought is too much to bear, too much to contemplate or accept. It undoes the fabric of everything Laurie has ever believed in; it’s like discovering your parents aren’t your real parents. Robert and Monica. She had loved them both deeply and they had both betrayed her. And she thinks she might die right there and then rather than live with this knowledge. All these years Monica had been pretending. They both had.

  Detective Riley sits down on the thin, hard cell bed next to her and puts his hands on his knees. He smells good. Clean and fresh like soap.

  Was she having an affair with Robert? There can be no other explanation for any of this.

  ‘All these years,’ Laurie says. ‘All these years…’ The pain stings like salt in an open wound and she places her hand over her heart, wondering if it’s possible for a heart that’s been shattered so many times to be pieced back together again.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Laurie, truly; I am so, so sorry.’ She can tell he means it. ‘You’ve suffered so much at the hands of those who were supposed to love you and care about you.’

  Laurie pulls her knees up to her chin like a child and hugs herself. She is all she has now. All she has left. ‘How is this possible?’ she asks herself the question out loud. ‘How did I not see it?’

  The detective sighs, a deep sad sound. ‘Psychopaths are very convincing people, Laurie. They fool everyone. Monica is a very dangerous woman. She’s a fraud. That’s why we need your help to stop her.’

  ‘But if this was about Robert, if she loved Robert and they’d been having an affair, then why did she kill him? Why not kill me instead? Get me out of the picture. It doesn’t make any sense.’ None of it did.

  ‘Did you know Monica’s parents, Laurie? Did you ever meet them?’

  She shakes her head. ‘She wasn’t living with them when we met. Said her parents had kicked her out and wanted nothing more to do with her. She hardly ever spoke about them, and when she did it was always with complete contempt.’

  ‘What about siblings?’

  ‘No. At least none I’m aware of. She was an only child. Or a “lonely” child as she used to say.’

  The detective nods. ‘We think she attempted to kill a woman called Leanna George, a woman Robert had had an affair with for some years.’

  Laurie closes her eyes: so many women. She doubts she will ever know how many there really were. It doesn’t matter now.

  ‘She went to her address and put sulphuric acid in her drink.’

  Laurie gasps, covers her face with her thin hands. ‘Oh God. No. No… Is she dead?’

  Detective Riley’s head drops, a display of inevitable resignation. ‘It’s not looking good.’

  ‘So she’s punishing his women: Claire, this Leanna girl… and me… punishing me by trying to frame me?’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s right, Laurie. But there’s something missing. Something more… but I don’t yet know what for sure.’

  Laurie looks up at his face and suddenly realises how handsome he is, those kind eyes…

  ‘We need to find Monica, Laurie. We need to catch her and put her away for a very long time.’

  Icy fear travels the length of Laurie’s spine. So now Monica is missing. She’d left her to rot in a police cell, stripped of her liberty, labelled a monster, mad and bad. Killing her would have been kinder, but she had chosen a fate worse than death for her best friend instead. Why?

  ‘Have you any idea where she might be? Somewhere she may have mentioned before, friends she might visit to lie low for a while…?’

  Laurie is overcome with emotions as she tightens her grip around her knees. She can’t think straight. She doesn’t want to think at all. Part of her wishes she could end up in a mental asylum where they’d lobotomise her and erase her memory.

  ‘It’s possible that she may have decided to leave the country.’ The detective has shifted to face her now; his expression is earnest and grave. ‘If she was to leave the country, where do you think she would go? Look, you knew her best. Or at least you thought you knew her best. Psychopaths don’t come with it written on their foreheads, Laurie. They come as your friend, as your lover, as your saviour; you have nothing, nothing to reproach yourself for. Did she ever mention a place, any places she’d like to visit, had connections to, anything…’

  Laurie pauses for a moment. ‘Paris When it Sizzles,’ she says quietly, her voice barely above a whisper now.

  ‘Paris? You think she’s gone to Paris?’

  ‘Audrey Hepburn. She starred in the film. It was one of Mon’s favourites. I can’t remember the name of the leading man now… it’s escaped me.’

  The detective shakes his head. ‘Me neither.’

  ‘
It was set in Paris but parts of it were shot in the French Riviera. Monica loved Audrey Hepburn and the French Riviera. She always said she wanted to live there one day.’

  ‘Where, Laurie? Where in particular in the French Riviera?’

  ‘Cannes,’ she says, ‘where all the film stars go.’

  The detective stands abruptly but she doesn’t follow suit. Her limbs won’t allow it.

  ‘I’m sending an officer down now to collect you, Laurie. Take you somewhere safe. And once this is all over I’ll come to see you, okay? I’m sorry, Laurie.’

  She looks at him and sees that his eyes are watery and blue, like a clear sea. She watches as he begins to walk away and then he suddenly stops short of the cell door and turns round.

  ‘William Holden,’ he says, with a smile that’s almost as sad as her own.

  Sixty-Six

  ‘Check every single flight that’s leaving today for Cannes,’ I direct Murray as I march into the incident room. ‘Find out if they’ve got a Monica Lewis or Monica or Kiki Mills travelling with them. Every airport in London, Murray.’

  She nods efficiently.

  ‘Listen up, everyone. We’re letting Laurie Mills go. She’s not our murderer. Our suspect is Monica Lewis, friend and neighbour of the Millses. She may also go by the name Monica or Kiki Mills…’ I tell them about Leanna George, and about our surprise witness, Miss Foster.

  ‘We missed Miss Foster. I need to know why and how this happened. Who did the initial house-to-house?’

  The team all look at each other shiftily.

  ‘Me and Baylis spoke to some of them.’ Harding takes her notebook out, flips back through it. ‘We talked to the Bartletts, and numbers 73–115, all covered, boss.’

  ‘Who was responsible for the rest?’

  There’s silence among the team. I think I hear a few sniffs, the shuffle of papers.

  ‘Right, well, if we’d been doing our jobs properly then Laurie Mills wouldn’t be wasting away down in the cells and Leanna George wouldn’t be in intensive care with her organs disintegrating, so come on—’

  ‘I did the other numbers, Gov,’ Delaney says measuredly. ‘They’re all listed here. Statements from all of them.’

  ‘All of them except Miss Foster.’

  ‘She’s blind, Gov. She wouldn’t have seen anything.’

  I look over at him in his flashy, pristine suit, his hair perfectly styled. He does look good, granted, but there’s a slight smirk on that handsome face of his. One I’m going to relish wiping off.

  ‘So, you didn’t speak to the old lady because she’s blind? Is that what you’re telling me, Martin?’

  ‘Like I said, boss, she wouldn’t have seen anything.’ He’s almost grinning now, looking at me like I’m the village idiot.

  ‘Who told you she was blind, Delaney? Did she tell you that herself?’

  ‘No. No. It was Monica Lewis who told me. She said she’d seen her on the day of Robert’s murder, staring out of the window when she’d gone over to the Millses’ place to have coffee with the suspect – with Laurie Mills I mean.’

  ‘Did she?’ I ask rhetorically. ‘Only she was wrong, Delaney. Monica Lewis got it wrong. She thought the woman was blind because of her dark glasses and walking stick. But she’s not blind, not at all. You were misinformed.’

  Delaney’s expression goes from cocksure to panic in a split second and I can’t say it doesn’t give me a small rush of satisfaction.

  ‘Schoolboy error, Martin,’ I berate him. ‘Always double-check the facts. It’s page one, as well you should know. You can’t just believe what someone tells you, or make assumptions. Stone-cold facts. You should’ve spoken with Miss Foster yourself. Instead you took a murderer’s word for it. Monica Lewis fucked up royally too. Like you, she simply assumed. She judged a book by its cover and as a result she shot herself in the foot and provided us with a star witness.’

  I think I see Davis turn away, hiding the smile on her face by pretending to drink from an empty paper cup.

  The team are staring at Delaney now. Waiting for some kind of response, an explanation. But he doesn’t give one. He doesn’t have one. He fucked up big time and he knows it, only men like Martin Delaney are too arrogant to admit it. It why he’s such a lousy team player, and it’s the reason Leanna George is lying in a hospital bed right now and our killer is on her way to Cannes.

  ‘I’ll deal with this later,’ I say to him, his suit looking less sharp by the second.

  ‘Gov?’ Baylis puts the phone down. ‘There’s someone downstairs to see you. Says it’s urgent. Says her name is Agnes. And she says that you’ll know what it’s about.’

  Davis and I exchange a wide-eyed glance.

  ‘Tell her I’m on my way.’

  ‘No one called Monica Lewis booked on any flights to Cannes, Gov,’ Murray tells me.

  ‘Mills? How about Monica Mills?’

  ‘Nope.’ She shakes her head, scrolling down her computer screen. ‘But there is someone called Monica on a 6.40 p.m. flight to Cannes this evening. A Monica Atkins. Flying from Gatwick Terminal One with Air France… she’s already checked in. Could that be her, Gov?’

  I look at my watch. It’s 4.17 p.m.

  ‘Get onto them, Murray. Make sure that plane does not leave the runway. And tell them to reserve the two seats next to her.’

  Davis looks at me. ‘Two seats?’ she asks and I nod at her slowly. ‘Great!’ She smiles. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Cannes.’

  Sixty-Seven

  ‘Agnes.’ I greet her in the interview room with a handshake. ‘You remembered something?’

  She shifts on the plastic chair, looks like a fish out of water. I ask her if she wants any refreshments and she politely declines.

  ‘Stanley can’t know I’m here,’ she says nervously. ‘You won’t tell him, will you?’

  ‘No, Agnes, of course not – this conversation can be just between us if you like. What is it you want to tell me? I’m sorry to press you but there was another attempted murder this morning and I’m pretty pushed for time.’

  ‘Another one? By the same killer?’

  ‘We think so, yes.’

  ‘Good God.’ She shakes her head, buries it in her palms and mumbles something. ‘She’s mad. God help us, she is truly mad and it’s my fault.’

  ‘Who’s mad, Agnes?’

  But she turns away from me, can’t look me in the eye.

  ‘Do you have children, Detective Riley?’

  I struggle with how to answer this question. Technically I don’t. But then I think about how Rach and I had created another life, one that was just getting started inside of her when she was taken from me.

  ‘Almost.’ I answer.

  ‘Sometimes I wish I had never had them. Children I mean. The heartache and shame it’s brought me… and Stanley. You’re sure you won’t tell him I’m here. He’ll go spare.’

  ‘I promise,’ I say. ‘But you need to tell me why you are here, Agnes. If you’ve something important to say, please say it. Like I said, I don’t have much time.’

  She pauses for a moment, as though she’s unsure where to begin. ‘We loved Robert, Detective, perhaps too much. He was our first-born. Bonnie little chap he was, all gurgles and smiles. After the birth I suffered with severe post-natal depression. I wasn’t well… I developed a bit of a…’ She pauses, lowers her eyes. ‘A drinking problem. Ironically, I thought that having another baby might help – ridiculous when I think back on it now, but at the time… Anyway, it turned out that I couldn’t have more children: polycystic ovaries… I should have accepted it as God’s wish, should have left well alone and been happy just with my Bertie, but I wanted a little girl, a little sister for him to complete our family.’

  I stay silent: I let her tell her story.

  ‘The shame has been the worst thing, Detective. We’re Catholics you see, God-loving people. The church has always been integral to our lives: mine and Stan’s. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want�
� We tried to stop it – believe me, we tried. We prayed and prayed and prayed…’

  ‘What did you try to stop, Agnes?’

  She doesn’t answer me. Not directly anyway.

  ‘You must meet a lot of bad people in your line of work. Tell me, do you think they’re born that way or created?’

  I blow air through my lips. ‘I think it’s a mix of both, Agnes.’ It’s the simplest answer I can give to such a complex question. And the shortest.

  ‘Stan thinks she was born with the devil in her. From the moment she came into the world. But I know I neglected her; I abused that child… I can’t tell you why. I have no excuses, only that I was sick; I was an alcoholic suffering with depression at the time. I blamed her for it; she became my scapegoat. I felt like I’d chosen her for a reason.’

  ‘Chosen her? Who did you choose Agnes?’

  ‘Kiki,’ she says, ‘Monica. We adopted her when she was just six weeks old. I tried to love her. But right from the moment we took her on I sensed she was a bad seed.’

  I nod.

  ‘I never bonded with her, not like I did with our Bertie… she wasn’t my blood. I should have given her up – maybe she would’ve had a better chance then. The guilt I feel, Detective… I was a different person back then, do you understand?’

  ‘Are you telling me that Monica is your daughter? That she’s Robert’s sister?’

  Agnes can’t look at me. I see shame and humiliation burning in her eyes like fire.

  ‘Adopted daughter, yes.’

  ‘So, they were having an incestuous relationship, Robert and Monica?’

  The word ‘incest’ causes her to visibly flinch.

  ‘I never bonded with Kiki but Bertie did. They were so close as children. He doted on her from the moment she entered our home; he never let her out of his sight. They would spend all their time together as children, playing in the tree house in the garden, picking apples, playing in the park… They were best friends. I suppose I was jealous, that I resented her in some ways…’ Her voice trails off. ‘We could only hope that the Lord would forgive them, forgive us. We prayed and prayed and prayed, Detective…’