‘What about your husband? Was he at home?’ Ferran isn’t going to stop until his notebook is full.
‘He was later than usual. Again I can’t be certain as I think I was in bed when he got home.’ This sounds odd as if I’m being evasive but I can’t remember. I glance at the kitchen clock, willing it to offer inspiration. It shows midday. ‘I don’t sleep too well so took a couple of sleeping pills and can’t recall much after that.’ Perhaps I should have cleared away the pile of white tablets lying on the bedside cabinet in case we’re suspects. But suspects in what?
Columbo stands up and hesitates. He’s going to ask me one more thing.
‘We’ll need to talk to your husband as soon as he gets home.’ Ferran hands me his card, circling his mobile number with his pen. ‘Please ask him to call me.’
‘Of course,’ I answer, setting the card down on the kitchen table.
The neighbours are circling like vultures when I finally join them outside on the pavement. The sun is high in the sky but there is an unnatural chill in the air. The milling ensemble hovers patiently, waiting for the first scraps of death meat. I don’t recognise some of the faces and am scared to look too closely. Not knowing the onlookers imbues me with hope that I’ve no part in unfolding events. A young man with a camera clicks his lens. Click, click, click. Another woman is talking gravely into a microphone. I think of a street party with excited but muted chatter which is gaining momentum. Everyone is waiting but no one is sure for what.
‘Susan.’ It’s Alexis from across the road. She steps across and hugs me. I pull my cardigan across my chest and wonder why she’s showing me such concern. Perhaps it’s a general concern.
‘Alexis,’ I echo. ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’ She pulls me away, out of earshot from the cameraman, and whispers in my ear.
‘Someone’s been murdered. I’m not sure who but I telephoned the police this morning. Olive Thompson ended up in hospital last night and I popped in to see her. She’s got pneumonia but insisted that she had seen something going on across the road before she collapsed and asked me to take a look.’
‘What did she see? Is it anyone we know?’ I find it hard to concentrate, take in what Alexis is saying but the fresh air is helping and the activity soothing my personal concerns. It isn’t Roger. It’s not the kids. I should be relieved but there’s something unsettling about the turn of events.
‘I don’t know. The cops won’t let on.’
We watch as another police car drives up the close, slowly like a brightly coloured hearse. There’s someone sitting in the back seat alongside a female officer, and I can make out a bent head which slowly lifts up as the car pulls alongside the gathered group.
The thick bleached-blonde hair is unmistakable and the bright yellow jacket incongruously garish in contrast to the sombre mood. Alexis and I watch Caroline Swinton stagger from the car, staring ahead as she walks slowly towards the blue tape. A young officer efficiently peels back the temporary barrier to let her through and we all watch on in silence, as the little procession moves round to the back of the house.
It is the howl of a wolf, feral and shrill. It won’t stop, and the vultures look at the ground, silenced for a moment, their hunger and thirst for blood temporarily quelled. The noise pierces the air and sends shockwaves which vibrate round the houses of Riverside Close. Our middle-class haven of respectability will never be the same again, someone proffers in reverential tones.
The sun dips behind a cloud. Alexis looks at me and I look back at her. She’s gone very pale and seems to have shrunk in front of me as I tower over her. She met Caroline at my house. I’m not sure if Alexis knows Caroline’s husband but as I turn to seek refuge behind my own four walls, I don’t really care. I have to get back inside, away from the baying monster whose desperate screeches from the house next door have become gradually more intermittent. I don’t want to hear the silence that will follow shortly. I think of the movie The Silence of the Lambs which tells the story of the eerie stillness which follows the separation of the new-born lambs from their mothers. And afterwards, the slaughter.
39
Caroline
I can hear a scream. It’s deafening but it won’t stop. I’ve collapsed but I’m not allowed to stay where I am. A dishevelled middle-aged man tells me it’s a crime scene and coaxes me to get up. I won’t go, Jason needs me. He’s cold and a policewoman tries to prise my fingers away from his hands but they are locked, tightly closed, and I’m unable to intertwine mine through the hardened bones.
He is sitting on a kitchen chair, slumped leadenly to one side, as if he’s asleep but his shape is grotesque. He looks like a macabre Halloween guy botched together for burning. I try to escape the clutches of the woman holding me back, pushing and kicking at her shins. I want her to move aside; she is blocking my view of Jason’s head. I need to see his face once more and re-touch his lips, trace the outline of his perfect features and smell his scent. These people are after a positive identification. How can I identify him?
The woman finally moves and I have a clear view. But it’s not Jason. Not my Jason. This is the picture of Dorian Gray, ugly and deformed.
‘Mrs Swinton.’ I hear a voice encourage me up from the frozen marble tiles which are splattered with dark red pools of blood.
‘You need to come with us. We have to ask you a few questions.’ Why? What’s there to ask? I don’t answer, I can’t. A doctor, Alexis’ husband I think, is offering me some pills. They are small and blue and he says, with quiet assurance, that they’ll help calm me down. Why am I not calm and where is the screaming coming from? It’s getting louder and everyone is encouraging me to move away. If I leave Jason now, I’ll never get back to him. They’ll take him away and burn him on the sacrificial pyre. His ashes will mingle with the deadwood and he will be no more.
I’m not sure where I am. I think I’m in Alexis’ front room as I see her sitting across from me. Her fine little features and pretty face stare with concern in my direction. I have an overwhelming desire to pick up a heavy object and smash it over her skull. The tablets are making me woozy and I can’t think straight but the detective is determined to make me talk, answer his immediate questions. Where was I last night? When did I last see my husband? Had we argued? Alexis is talking to her husband, Adam. I thought they had split up. I had forbidden Jason to meet her because she was newly single, separated. Then I remember that she was following my husband, trailing him to feed me information about his whereabouts. He was having a break away, a short holiday before he came home. I remember now.
Two hours have elapsed and I am alone with Detective Inspector Ferran. Everyone else seems to have gone although I’m still at the Morleys’ under house arrest. That’s what it feels like and something tells me I need to straighten out my thoughts and my story. The possibility that I might have murdered my husband hangs like an elephant in the room, a bizarre theory that this wizened but hardened cop will be considering. Most murders are connected to someone close to the victim will be his premise.
‘Last night. Can you remember where you were?’ he begins.
‘At home. Who killed him?’ I need answers too.
‘It’s too early to say but we are trying to paint a picture of Mr Swinton’s last-known movements.’ I don’t instantly register who they are referring to. ‘When did he leave home?’ the detective asks. Jason hadn’t been at home. I don’t know where he was. Alexis Morley might know but I daren’t alert this guy to the fact that I was having my husband followed. Some emotion other than grief is battling to the fore. This guy is going to pry, test the theory that most victims know their killers. Did I have a motive? This is what he wants to find out.
‘He had gone away for a couple of days but he was coming back. I don’t know where he went.’ The truth is easy to tell.
‘Had you argued?’ He’s staring at me, full in the face, probing behind my eyes for answers. What can he see? I’m no longer sure myself what is in there.
/> ‘Not really. He needed some space. He was like that.’ I’m toying with the truth. Subterfuge will be difficult. I don’t really know what sort of man he was, nothing other than I loved him more than life itself. Perhaps I would have killed to keep him. Perhaps I did. Perhaps I was out of my mind but I don’t remember. It’s the grief and the tablets which are causing the fog.
Through the window I see an ambulance arrive. DI Ferran shifts uncomfortably in his seat and asks if I would like the curtains closed. I shake my head. I watch the cadaver, wrapped in a black body bag, like a huge bin liner, being carried out to the waiting vehicle. That’s not Jason. My husband, my lover, is not wrapped up in some rough and ready packaging being carted away to an incinerator; he’s waiting for me at home.
‘No. Leave them open. I’ll be going home soon anyway,’ I say, looking blankly at the cop. I will him to believe in my innocence.
I have managed to escape back home and have an overwhelming urge to down the whole bottle of pills Adam Morley has given me and go to sleep. Instead I pull the blinds across and boot up the laptop. I need to wake up, for a short time anyway, and get my affairs in order. I haven’t decided yet whether I will join Jason or not.
I fill a pint glass of water and pour it down my throat. It’s cool and cleansing but violently hits my empty stomach and bile spurts back over the kitchen surfaces. I scrub the mess clean with a cloth and only stop when I hear a noise.
The phone rings. I have already turned off my mobile and proceed to pull the landline out of its socket before I sit down and log in to Join Me. I need to be alone with my thoughts and to talk with you in private. I wonder if any of our clients might have considered who would delete their profiles in the event of sudden death. As the screen flickers to life in front of me and faces fuse in and out of view, I consider that perhaps Jason might not be the only deceased member. I stare at my husband’s pictures, clicking through the individual images of his perfect face and body, touching the outline of his cheekbones delicately with my finger. The bottle of little blue tablets sit on the desk beside me and, like Alice in Wonderland, I’m tempted by their magical lure. Perhaps they would make me small and I could disappear across to the other side before anyone realised I’d gone.
The room is cold, silent like a morgue. I see you hover in the corner of the room, urging me on.
I methodically delete my dead husband’s profile, all his pictures, his browsing history and all email communications since the site was launched. I don’t reread the dangled verbal carrots that we concocted to entice unwitting users, but cut every piece of evidence that earmarked Jason as a member of our cleverly masterminded machine.
You are smiling at me and have raised a transparent, ghostly arm in the air. I know what you’re saying and I smile back. We’re still working as a team but as I get up and move towards the filing cabinet, your spectral image fades.
I lift out the banking files and start, one by one, to feed every single statement and cheque book stub through the shredder. I only destroy the evidence of my husband’s bank accounts; the secret accounts which house the large payments extorted for the bogus investment schemes. These amounts have nothing to do with me and I will feign ignorance. When the money might eventually come my way, I will act unsurprised by the large amounts confirming what my husband used to say, that he would always look after me and make sure I wanted for nothing. No one will ever know that I knew of his dalliances and the monetary scams. What wife would allow that, everyone will ask? It will be our little secret, something that worked for us. No one else would understand.
The balance on the private Jason Swinton bank account has reached a six-figure sum but I need to deny all knowledge of this. ‘You don’t want me to take the rap for the extortion, do you?’ I search for you in the room, letting my eyes flit from corner to corner, but you have disappeared from view. ‘I know you won’t mind. All the cheques were made out in your name for a reason. If I don’t join you straightaway, I’ll need to go somewhere, escape and perhaps the money, if no wrongdoing can be proven, will one day soothe the pain.’ I talk out loud. I know you’re listening.
There’ll be no paper trail to the money; nothing illegal will be pinned on my dead husband to tarnish his good name. No one will come forward, I’m certain, to own up to their stupidity in handing over such ludicrous sums.
Susan Harper was to be our blackmail victim but she’s had a lucky escape. You don’t answer me but a window in the bathroom must be open because something falls off a shelf. It’s not windy outside so it must be you telling me that my plan has your approval. I always was the brains behind the scheme and you happily let me take the lead.
I bag up the shredded documents, lock up the house and load it into the car. I start the engine and turn the music up loud so that it blasts around my ears, rendering further thought impossible, and drive. I’ll go to Brighton and we can walk hand in hand along the beach, sharing ice creams on the promenade and perhaps we’ll browse the lanes for souvenirs like we did when we got engaged.
First though I need to dump the paperwork. The police have told me that I mustn’t go anywhere but they’ll not miss me for a day or two if I decide to take a dip in the sea and follow the waves all the way to France. Whatever I decide, my work here is done and as I drive away, out of North London, I don’t look back.
40
Susan
I don’t recognise the number flashing up on my phone. I’m in the kitchen, drinking camomile tea to soothe my nerves when I hear the beep of the message. It will probably be Roger.
Slut, whore. Do you think it ends here?
I stare at the message and immediately think it’s a wrong number. Someone has sent the message to me by mistake. As I reread the words, the phone rings and the incoming call screen hides the message. This time it is Roger.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘You called.’ He’s busy on yet another very important high-powered legal case and has no time for small talk. He doesn’t yet know what has happened.
‘You need to come home. The police want to talk to you,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’ I have his attention but instead of telling him in concise logical sentences of what’s going on, I cry; large blubbering sobs. My thoughts are in a jumble, all over the place, and the threatening text message has added to the confusion.
‘Susan? Are you okay? Is it the children? What’s happened?’ I hear him excuse himself from some hovering colleague, most likely his secretary, and head outside.
‘Can you come home? It’s not the children. It’s the house next door. Someone’s been murdered.’
‘I’m on my way.’ The phone goes dead.
After I jot down the number of the caller who left the message and delete the text, I wander round the house like a caged animal. I don’t know how much to tell Roger, whether now is the time to come clean. What can I tell him? That I joined some online sightseeing website and the man I’ve been to London Zoo with is none other than the dead body next door. That he was also the man who came to dinner at our house recently, the husband of my new friend, Caroline Swinton.
A constant hum of activity bubbles through from next door and I watch from the window as people move backwards and forwards round the building. I have to get out of the house for a bit, before Roger comes home, act normal as if nothing untoward has happened. No one needs to suspect me. What is there to suspect? Having a bit of fun is not a criminal offence, although, where I’m concerned, I know Roger would put it down as such. He would have me hung, drawn and quartered. He has always told me that the one thing he would never tolerate in marriage is deceit.
Relationships are built on trust and without trust he sees no point. In his wildest dreams, I would be the last person he would suspect of having an affair as he has told me often enough that he only sympathises with abused or battered wives who seek escape routes. He deals with enough divorce cases to have little time with bored, spoilt or philandering spouses who think they’re clever en
ough to get away with cheating.
I go upstairs and wash my face, scrubbing it hard until the red flaky patches appear again on my cheeks. I apply a thin layer of foundation and lightly rouge my cheeks in an attempt to hide the damage. I dampen my hands and run them through the ends of my hair, trying to flatten it out but this only makes it more unkempt. I look deranged.
I must calm down and not draw attention to myself. I’m an ordinary middle-class housewife who is as shocked as everyone else by the turn of events. I’m not a criminal. Yet the picture in the mirror tells another story.
I text Roger to tell him I’m popping to the shops as I need to get some fresh air. I shouldn’t be too long and will see him soon. I thank him for coming home. A message pings straight back. As I look down to note the reply, his default and concise Ok, I drop the phone. There’s another threatening text on the screen from the same random number as before.
Dirty little bitch. I’m watching you. Do you think you can fuck other people’s husbands and get away with it?
41
Alexis
I’m at the lock-up with Gary who’s got in early at my request. The thick cloying stench of grease is slowly fading and our new offices, with the strong smell of lavender air freshener, have started to have the feel of a professional outfit.
It doesn’t end here, you little slut. Watch your back because I’m watching you.
I turn the message on my phone round to Gary for him to read and for a moment he doesn’t seem to register what I’m showing him.
‘I’ve no idea who it’s from but this is the second text in the last couple of days; since the murder.’ I save the message and the number as I think they might be of future importance, evidence of what though I’m not sure. I know they’ll be untraceable and most likely from the murderer; probably sent from a cheap burner phone. There’s no reply when I dial back and it automatically goes to a generic voicemail. Yet for some reason it seems vital to log the details.
4 Riverside Close Page 20
