The Couple on Cedar Close

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  I feel my heart rate increase; pulsing loudly in my ears with the powerful surge of adrenaline that’s rushing through my system. Brother and sister.

  ‘When we found out, we did everything we could, everything we could to stop it. We sent her away to a boarding school in a bid to keep them apart. She was pregnant—’

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘At fourteen.’

  ‘And the child was Bertie’s – Robert’s?’

  She nods quickly, wipes the rims of her eyes with a finger. ‘Yes. I’m afraid it was. We dealt with it, got her seen to, but there was no stopping Kiki. That girl had an unstoppable force inside of her, Detective… the nuns threw her out in the end.’

  ‘And Robert? Bertie?’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t blameless either, not like Stan would have it. I see it all much more clearly now, now that I’m clean and sober. He was promiscuous from a very young age. Obsessed by pleasures of the flesh, Detective. And nothing, nothing we did could prevent them from finding a way back to each other. In the end, they couldn’t hide their… feelings for each other, right under our noses, under our roof.’ Agnes lowers her eyes in disgust. ‘We knew what was going on. It made us sick. Stanley, well, he had a breakdown in the end. Had to go away himself for a while.’

  This is the missing piece. This is the piece of the puzzle I’ve been looking for. Brother and sister.

  ‘We washed our hands of her, disowned her. Told her to leave and never come back. We, Stan and I, tried to put an end to it by threatening to disinherit Bertie, write him out of our will. We’re not poor people, Detective. He stood to lose a great deal.’

  ‘It’s okay, Agnes,’ I say, nodding. ‘I understand this must be extremely difficult for you.’

  She exhales loudly. ‘We cut her off completely, made her go and live with a distant cousin of mine in London. But she found a way back to him; they found a way back to each other.’ She’s crying now, and I see the guilt and shame and regret in each tear that falls. ‘I am to blame, Detective. I was a monster back then; I was sick. I should never have been allowed to adopt a child. I wasn’t fit. I’m a different person now, and I spend every single day repenting my sins and praying for Kiki, for her damaged soul.’

  I nod again. I’m trying to understand, to make sense of it. ‘What about Robert? You said you remained in contact with him when we last spoke.’

  ‘Briefly, yes – sporadically. When he married Laurie, we were ecstatic. Equally when we learned that not long afterwards Kiki had married too. We were hopeful, Stan and I, that this was the end of it. That we could put it all behind us, blame it all on teenage hormones and feel satisfied that God had heard our pleas and answered our prayers. But they couldn’t keep away… whatever it was between them, that pull, that diabolical connection…’

  Her voice catches and she takes a breath, composes herself. ‘After Laurie’s accident, they moved into the house opposite Kiki, the one on Cedar Close. Stan would never speak of her, but secretly I kept tabs on her; I couldn’t help it. I begged Robert not to do it, to move there; I begged him to stay away from her. I wanted to believe that it was all her: to believe that Kiki was the seductress who had lured my son away and into the devil’s clutches, but it was just as much him; this bond between them, they had a hold over each other, a truly diabolical hold. The others – Laurie, Dougie – they were all simply collateral damage; their marriages were smokescreens for what was really going on underneath. Robert hoped we wouldn’t find out. He didn’t want to be disinherited. I kept it quiet from Stanley when I discovered that they lived opposite each other. But when that baby came, baby Matilda, Robert changed. Something in him shifted. He wanted to be a dad to that little girl; he wanted to do right by her, be a proper family.

  ‘The moment we found out about Robert’s murder, I wondered if it was her who had killed him, deep down. Only I didn’t want to believe it; I denied it to myself… There’s still part of me that refuses to believe she could ever do such a wicked thing—’

  ‘So, you think she killed Robert because she couldn’t have him? That they couldn’t be open about their love?’

  Agnes flinches again.

  ‘There was something between them, Detective, something evil, a force so strong that it obliterated any good that came near it. Whatever it was, they destroyed each other’s lives, and the lives of many more… Love should never hurt, Detective. Love is the antithesis of pain and suffering. Love is everything that’s good in this world. What they had wasn’t love, not love as I – and I’m sure you – know it to be. It was something twisted and dark, something deviant.’

  ‘I need to find your daughter, Agnes,’ I say gently and she nods with the inevitability of what she knows will follow: their family secret exposed; shame, blame and sensationalism; her own skeletons yanked from the closet. Monica Atkins will be written about – she will have notoriety and fame, an incestuous serial killer who murdered her lover brother and his mistress, and attempted to poison another mistress while setting up her best friend to take the rap. It’s got Hollywood movie written all over it. I realise what courage and strength it has taken Agnes Atkins to come here today and I sense the dark cloud of sadness that seems to hover over her oppressively. I can sense sadness in a person now, like cadaver dogs can smell death.

  ‘Will you find her, Detective?’ She stands up and collects herself; I wonder if she feels a lightness for having unburdened the truth at last. ‘You must find her.’

  I nod. ‘I will, Agnes. I will.’

  Sixty-Eight

  ‘Will all passengers for flight Air France 447 to Cannes please make your way to gate 67.’

  Monica moves through the airport crowds at a carefree pace, wheeling her Burberry travel case behind her. Her mood is buoyant as she thinks about her duty-free purchases: some Crème de la Mer moisturiser and a Chanel lipstick in Rouge Noir. She’d gone back after donning her disguise; she had some time to kill before her flight.

  ‘It’s so your colour, Madam,’ the young Arabic girl in the headscarf had remarked, smiling at her. ‘It offsets your eyes.’

  She’d purchased the nail polish as well, plus a kohl pencil, but the pièce de résistance had been an Asprey handbag that had caught her eye. It was peach leather, very 1950s, very retro, and as soft as butter to touch. It had been an impulse buy, but then she was an impulsive kind of woman. It felt good to spend Dougie’s life-insurance money. He’d never once bought her a gift she’d genuinely liked throughout their sham of a marriage. Still, he’d made up for it in the last hour or so, God rest his tortured soul. Poor old useless, sexless, insipid Dougie; he was in a better place now, just as she soon would be.

  Monica summarises her emotions as she struts past the departure gates. She knows she’s catching people’s attention in her white shift dress, headscarf and oversized Audrey Hepburn-style sunglasses. She looks like a film star, a rich, successful woman who men want to fuck and women want to be. She can’t wait to reinvent herself once she arrives in Cannes. The beautiful, rich widow from the UK, mysterious and alluring, someone with an intriguing past and a sensational wardrobe. Finally she’s going to lead the life that she was meant to; the life he had always promised her she would have. She will no longer be a dirty secret, shunned and betrayed and rejected by her own family, by the one and only person she has ever loved. She can start anew with a clean slate. Everyone gets what they deserve, in the end, don’t they?

  Grabbing a copy of the Evening Standard from the complimentary news stand – something to read with the large gin and tonic she’s planning to order once they’ve taken off – she makes her way to gate 67. Monica’s not a seasoned flier and she feels a flutter of nerves hit her digestive system.

  She passes through boarding without issue, smiling at the heavily made-up woman behind the counter who checks her passport, and waits in the queue as her fellow passengers begin the slow and laborious process of boarding. The man opposite her is reading the free newspaper and the headline sends a jolt of a
drenaline through her like an electric shock.

  ACID ATTACK: MODEL IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

  A jolt of adrenaline hits her solar plexus like a fist, almost taking the wind from her. Critical condition? There’s a photograph of Leanna George, that publicity shot that had accompanied the interview she’d given about Robert, the one that had sent her into a furious rage. Next to it, inset, is a smaller photograph. One she recognises. It was taken on the day of the street barbecue, the day she had found out about Matilda, and discovered Robert’s plan to abandon her for fatherhood and a life with Claire.

  ‘Police are looking to interview this woman, Monica Lewis, although she may also be using the aliases Monica Mills or Kiki Mills.’

  Monica freezes, momentarily stunned. How was it possible that Leanna George was still alive? She had left her incapacitated and in agony and had been sure to dispose of her mobile phone so that she would be unable to call for help even if she was capable of it. She’d ingested sulphuric acid and should’ve been dead within ten minutes at the very most: a mercifully swift death, albeit an agonising one. Monica had banked on her being a putrefied corpse before she was discovered. But someone had got to her in time and saved her.

  Had someone second-guessed her intentions? Had Leanna been able to tell them who she was? The panic that’s engulfed her is swiftly followed by acute paranoia. Her picture is in the newspaper. Suddenly she sees it everywhere she looks, hundreds of passengers holding or reading their free copies of the Evening Standard, her face staring back at her from the front page. Jesus fucking Christ! Someone will recognise her. Damn it!

  Automatically she lowers her head, grateful that she’s chosen to wear a headscarf and glasses, although now she’s wondering if this will afford her more attention.

  That wretched slut Leanna George – she’d been a big mistake. It had been an impulsive decision to kill her and now it looked as though it would be her undoing. How could she not be dead? How had they got to her in time?

  The realisation dawns on Monica that she is now a wanted woman, a suspected murderer. The police will be looking for her. She needs to board this aircraft, lively. Once she’s up in the air she’ll be safe, won’t she? She got through security without event, French customs won’t know who she is. They won’t be looking for her. They don’t know where she’s headed. No one does. She has a new identity waiting for her in France. She’ll have plastic surgery, change her eye colour, reinvent her whole history if she has to. They’ll never find her.

  Monica is shaking as she opens the newspaper and covers her face while pretending to read it. Is the man opposite staring at her? Stay calm, Kiki, she tells herself. Just stay calm. She almost loses control of her bladder as finally the queue begins to move and she steps onto the aircraft.

  Sixty-Nine

  The plan was always to let her board the plane. It’s difficult to abscond from a plane once the doors are shut and I wasn’t prepared to take any chances of Monica Atkins making a break for it. The French borders have been alerted though, just in case.

  I board flight Air France 447 with Davis about five people deep behind me. We’re both incognito. I doubt Monica will recognise Davis but there is a chance she could recognise me. Never underestimate the cunning of a psychopathic killer, so I’ve prepared for the worst-case scenario. If she manages to get past me, which is unlikely, then Davis is there as back-up, plus the team of armed police who are on alert at Gatwick, should we royally screw it up.

  I watch her from behind the newspaper that I’m pretending to read; she’s looking at a copy too and I wonder if she’s seen the headline yet. I’d given Fi a heads-up and told her to talk to her contacts at ES, which she gratefully did. I needed Monica’s mugshot on the front page of that paper. Besides, it’s not every day you get the scoop on a serial killer at large. That said, the usually tenacious Fi has been uncharacteristically quiet throughout this investigation; I hadn’t heard a peep out of her since our last encounter in the pub, and the Leanna George tip-off.

  ‘It has to make the late edition, Fi, has to.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dan. It will – you have my word.’

  That was good enough for me. And she hadn’t let me down.

  ‘Actually, I’m glad you called me, Dan,’ she’d said, hesitating. I sensed she wanted to tell me something. ‘I need to see you, to talk to you.’

  I didn’t have time to ask why, so when she said she’d come to my apartment later that night, I agreed and hung up, momentarily perplexed. Whatever the reason, for now it had to wait. I had a killer to catch. One who thought she’d outsmarted me and everyone else. I suppose she had, for a time. One who thought she was going to get away with it, pin her crimes on someone else, someone who had trusted her and called her a friend. Arrogance: I’ve seen it be the undoing of so many.

  Psychopaths are known for remaining calm in situations that would cause most people to freak out, largely because of emotional detachment and lack of conscience, yet still I wonder what’s going through Monica Atkins’ mind as she boards the aircraft. If she’s panicking on the inside then she’s doing a stellar job of holding it together on the outside. It’s unfathomable to the rational mind how a human being can just a few hours earlier have attempted to murder a virtual stranger by tricking them into ingesting acid, leaving them to die in excruciating agony, then simply carry on about their day like nothing happened. I attempt to imagine the level of hatred a person must have to feel to enable them to carry out such an abhorrent crime, but I can’t. Revenge, they say, is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die. Only it was Leanna George who swallowed that poison. Now it was time for Monica Atkins to receive a taste of her own bitter medicine.

  Perhaps Agnes Akins was right and Monica was simply born bad. Just as there are geniuses in this world, lauded for their supreme intellect and goodness, their altruism and selfless dedication to the good of others, there are also those who are inherently evil and for whom no amount of love and care would ever have changed that fact. It’s a depressing thought.

  An image of Claire Wright flashes up inside my head, of her chubby, mottled legs pulled up to her chest on that milk-stained sofa, the expression of horror on her face, distorted through the plastic bag, and baby Matilda, deathly pale and barely breathing as she nestled beside her mother. It’s an image I’ll live with for the rest of my life. Crimes of passion, however brutal and frenzied, are more commonplace than people think. Jealousy, sex, passion, infidelity, the need to be in control… all these things are potential driving forces behind a mentally sound person who flips. But the Monica Atkinses of the world, they’re a different kind of creature altogether.

  Part of me is glad Robert Mills is dead. I don’t condone his murder, but perhaps the world will be a better place without him in it. And I definitely know it will be once I’ve dealt with Monica Atkins. I owe it to Claire Wright’s grieving mother; I owe it to Leanna George. And perhaps, above all people, I owe it to Laurie Mills.

  She looks unruffled as she takes her window seat and buckles up. I tilt my straw trilby as I sit down next to her, hoping it and the dark Ray-Bans are going to be enough, for long enough.

  Seventy

  Monica scans the article, rereading each line twice before she can take in the words.

  ‘Leanna George, a model and actress who lives in London, is currently in a critical condition in St Thomas’s hospital after allegedly ingesting what doctors believe to be sulphuric acid. Ms George, 32, originally from Newcastle, was rushed to hospital this morning after she was found collapsed and screaming in agony on the floor of her apartment in West London…’

  Thirty-two my arse, Monica inwardly scoffs as she stuffs the newspaper into the seat pocket angrily, silently praying, hoping, that Leanna doesn’t pull through. Bitch won’t be able to talk anyway, not with a burnt-out throat. She curses herself. She’d covered her tracks well before Leanna George, had everything worked out. There were no witnesses, nothing that could lead the police t
o her. She had made sure that everything pointed to Laurie, had set it all up so that there was no one else in the frame. Leanna George, if she survived, had the potential to undo everything. She wishes she’d slit the silly bitch’s throat now, left no room for error.

  Monica tells herself to calm down. They’ll be taking off imminently and she’ll be home and dry. No one has recognised her. The headscarf she’d chosen to wear had been a godsend and for a moment she wonders if someone, some higher power, is looking out for her.

  She exhales, a flutter of nerves gently resting on her stomach. She’s always like this before take-off. She’s not big on flying, but this is a necessary journey. Anyway, it’s a short hop really. She’ll have a couple of gin and tonics to ameliorate the butterflies; maybe she’ll listen to some Chopin on her iPod – that always cheers her up. Chopin was Robert’s favourite. Stanley used to play it to them when they were kids on that old record player from the 1970s that he no doubt still has; it was his favourite too. They had made love often, her and Robert, with Chopin playing in the background, and Piano Concerto No. 1 had been their wedding-day music. She thinks of it then, that day they had married in secret. It had been the single happiest moment of her entire life. She’d been wearing the dress she has on now, a beautiful white dress she’d found in one of those vintage shops in Portobello, original 1950s with a lace overlay.