Yes, he did. It was him and his secretary, Lisa Palmer.
He’d known they would find the pictures as soon as he’d heard they were searching the offices. They’d ordered Daniel to hand over the code to the safe. Daniel had refused, said the safe was private. But they’d shown the warrant, threatened to charge him as an accessory. Terrified, he’d agreed.
The detective leaned forward, nudging the photographs closer towards him with her fingertips.
‘How did these photographs come to be in your possession, Rory?’
He didn’t know, he said. Lisa had put the envelope on his desk one day, saying someone dropped them off while she was out at lunch. She hadn’t seen who. The police nodded, then. Told him that Lisa had confirmed the story, had told them she did not recall ever seeing the person who had dropped off the envelope, that she had no idea what the contents were. Luckily, though, the detective said, they had obtained fingerprints from the envelope. Fingerprints which were a match for an individual whose DNA profile was held on the database. That person was Rachel Wells.
DCI Betsky pulled out another piece of paper from the same folder, spun it round and slapped it down in front of him.
‘For the tape, the witness is being shown item KXG-09. An email you received from the email address [email protected]. Do you remember this email, Rory?’
He did. The address hadn’t meant anything to him, except the first three letters, his initials. He had assumed someone was mocking him.
Hope you enjoyed the photos. Looking forward to your birthday drinks. Hope no one causes a scene. PS – I’ll be the one in red.
He still had no idea who it was, he told them. Not when he got the email, anyway. But then, that evening, when he’d walked into the kitchen, he had seen a girl, a stranger, in a red dress. Even without the dress, he thinks he would have known.
Lisa on her left. Serena on her right. Rachel was grinning. She had been laughing at him. Before he had known what was happening, there had been glass everywhere, blood dripping into golden pools of champagne. It had taken him a minute to realise the blood was even his.
DCI Betsky spun round another sheet of paper.
‘For the tape, the witness is being shown item KXG-10,’ she said. ‘This is an email you received the day after your birthday dinner, at 8.37 a.m., from the same email address.’
Enjoyed your dinner. Seabass was sublime. Nice house. No idea you were so rich! So price has just gone up. £100k, sooner rather than later. See you on Bonfire Night. Bring half. Unless you want to end up as the Guy.
The atmosphere in the room changed then. He felt his lawyer stiffen, push her glasses up her nose. The detective leaned in towards him.
‘You were being blackmailed, weren’t you, Rory? Rachel was threatening to ruin your marriage. She was threatening you physically. Wouldn’t you agree? What did you do after you received this email?’
He hardly needed to reply. They pulled his bank records, of course. A withdrawal dated 4 November, the day before Helen’s bonfire party, for £50,000. From the company’s account in the Cayman Islands. And CCTV photographs of the Greenwich Park branch of his private banking provider, showing him, Rory Richard Haverstock, organising the Cayman withdrawal and leaving the offices with a large white Jiffy bag containing the cash.
So yes, he admitted that he had taken the money. And yes, he’d been planning to give her what she wanted. He had wanted it to go away. He hadn’t wanted his wife to know.
Rory looks at me, his eyes pinched and raw.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry.’
For some reason, his tearfulness makes me angrier than ever. I shake my head. ‘Keep going,’ I tell him, my teeth gritted. ‘I mean it, Rory. You tell me everything. Or I swear to God I will walk out of here, and never come back.’ He nods, still staring at the floor. Takes a breath.
DCI Betsky didn’t flicker. ‘On the night of November 5th,’ she continued, ‘did you give the money to Miss Wells?’
He hadn’t, he insisted. He hadn’t even spoken to her. He went to look for her, later in the night, but she must have left. He couldn’t find her anywhere. He didn’t know what to do.
‘So what did you do?’
He did nothing. Just went home, hid the cash in his study.
‘You didn’t seek her out?’ DCI Betsky’s eyes narrowed. ‘This woman who was threatening to destroy your marriage? A woman you’d gone to the trouble of withdrawing £50,000 in cash for?’
He did seek her out, he insisted, sweat blooming on his forehead. He just couldn’t find her.
‘How interesting. You see, Rory, we have spoken to almost everyone who attended the party that night. Not one is able to vouch for your presence there after around 9 p.m. It seems you just … disappeared.’
That wasn’t true, he said. He was there.
Then the detective showed him a text message. The message had been sent from a number registered to Rachel Wells to his sister. Helen Thorpe. This message had been sent the day after the bonfire party.
Hey Helen. I’m really sorry about last night too. I’m going back to my mum’s for a while. I hope that we are still friends. Good luck with the baby. See you soon xxx. ‘I’m sure you’re aware, Rory,’ she said, ‘that telecommunications data allows us to pinpoint exactly where a mobile phone is when a message is sent. Our mast triangulation data tells us that this particular message was sent from an area matching the vicinity of your home on Maze Hill in Greenwich.’ DCI Betsky cocked her head to one side. ‘Could Rachel Wells have been present at your home the day after the party at your sister’s house, Rory?’
Of course she wasn’t, he said. He was there with his wife. They would have told the police if Rachel had been there.
‘Well, I suppose that makes sense,’ DCI Betsky said. ‘Given the fact that Miss Wells is very unlikely to have sent this message herself.’
She used her index finger to trace the two lines on the paper in front of Rory, as if showing him a fascinating puzzle they were solving together. ‘You see, Rory, the grammatical nature of this message is a poor match for Rachel’s usual, more colloquial messaging style. “I’m really sorry about last night too” – Rachel didn’t usually use full sentences of that kind in her messages. In addition to that, Rachel Wells’s mother has been dead for the last fifteen years.’ She paused at this point, drumming her fingers gently on the table.
‘If Rachel didn’t send this message, Rory, it would seem that someone else did. Someone who was situated in or around your house the morning after Rachel went missing. Someone with access to her mobile phone. And someone who would have a reason to impersonate her.’
Rory did not say anything. He had nothing to say. DCI Betsky leaned forward, pushed the paper towards him.
‘You sent this message, didn’t you, Rory?’
He hadn’t, he said. He swore he hadn’t. His lawyer had come to life, then – something Rory had interpreted as a bad sign. She wanted a break for her client, she said. In a moment, DCI Betsky snapped.
‘For the tape,’ she continued, ‘the witness is being shown item KMF-0019. Do you recognise this item, Mr Haverstock?’
DCI Betsky picked up a package, slid it over to Rory. Through the thick polythene of the evidence bag, he could see the familiar fabric, the worn collar. This must be a dream, he thought. It must be. He had the sensation of being surrounded, of the walls and ceiling moving to enclose him. Yes, he said. That was his coat.
‘A coat,’ DCI Betsky said, ‘that you were seen by several witnesses wearing on the night of November 5th. A coat that my officers found hidden under a large pile of shoes, in a black plastic bin bag in the back of a forest-green Land Rover Discovery registered in your name, parked outside your home in Maze Hill, Greenwich.’
She sat back in her chair.
‘This item has undergone extensive forensic examination. A number of blood traces were found on the coat. This blood matched DNA samples held on the police database for Rachel Well
s. The probability that the blood on this coat belonged to Rachel Wells is greater than 99.9 per cent.’
The silence in the room felt loud and close, like the noise of water when you are underneath it. Rory wanted to put his hands over his ears.
‘You killed Rachel Wells, didn’t you, Rory?’
No.
‘You realised it wasn’t going to stop with the money. It was never going to stop. You were never going to be free of her. You had no choice. You snapped.’
No.
‘And then, you panicked.’
No. It was ridiculous, he said. He hadn’t killed anyone, he said. He –
‘You had her phone, didn’t you, Rory? People were looking for her, weren’t they, Rory? Her dad, ringing, leaving messages. And a message from your sister of all people, worried about her whereabouts. You needed to give yourself some breathing space, didn’t you? You needed people to think she was still alive. To give you time.’
Time to do what? he said. He didn’t understand, he said. This was madness.
DCI Betsky slammed a hand to the desk. Both Rory and the lawyer jumped.
‘Time to dispose of her body.’
Rory found he could say nothing at all. He could feel the eyes of his lawyer searching for his, looking for some kind of sign, but he found himself unable to meet her gaze.
When DCI Betsky spoke again, her voice was softer. As if Rory were just a little boy, caught in a lie.
‘Look,’ she said, gently. ‘It’s over now, Rory. It’s time to start telling the truth. It will be so much better for you if you do. Tell us what you did with her, Rory. Tell us what you did with the body.’
I stare at my husband through the glass. He can’t tell me the rest. He is crying now, his head in his hands.
I place my shaking hands over the bump in my lap to steady them, to feel the warmth of my little baby. There is a lump in my throat. I can’t speak. I wish I could. I want to ask him what went through his mind in that moment. Did he think of me? I want to ask. Did he think of his pregnant wife, of the baby in my belly? Or were there other things on his mind? Things he couldn’t push away, however hard he tried? Like an image of a girl, in a blue velvet dress. Her eyes wide, staring blankly at the ceiling, her neck broken in two. A pool of blood, spreading out behind her like a scarlet cape.
KATIE
As I push against the glass of the revolving door, Charlie is waiting on the other side. I’ve never known him to come to my work before. I didn’t think he even knew where it was.
‘They let you out then.’
His face clouds over, his eyes full of anger.
‘They had nothing to charge me with, Katie,’ he says furiously. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Come on. Before someone sees you. Your brother’s face is all over the bloody news.’
I pull my coat tightly around myself. The street lamps are already on, the car headlights swishing at us as they turn the corner of the street. I take my scarf out of my bag.
I’d been dying to get out of the office. The Rachel case is now huge. Rory’s arrest has propelled it to the top of the news list – the wealthy son of a famous architect, questioned over the disappearance, possible murder, of a pretty young single girl, who may or may not have been pregnant.
Her father’s red-eyed press conference is still being endlessly replayed on Sky News, along with the new footage of Rory outside the Haverstock offices being led into a police car, his eyes locked on the ground. All the other news – war in the Middle East, the latest Brexit crisis – has been reduced to a few lines of tickertape along the bottom of the screen.
Of course, it had got back to Hugh that I knew her, that I’d been questioned. ‘I’m sorry,’ I’d told him. ‘I just can’t get involved.’ Hugh had shook his head, looked away. ‘Fine,’ he’d said. And handed me a pile of rewrites.
Normally I would have been gutted he was disappointed in me, but now I was too preoccupied to care. I kept staring at the huge TV screens, the footage of Rory being shoved into the back of a police car, a police officer’s hand clamped to the back of his head. Could it have been Rory I saw her going into the cellar with, all this time, and not Charlie? Could Rory have done something to her?
‘It’s cold out here,’ Charlie says. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’
The bar has a red velvet curtain across the door – as we step beyond it, it is deliciously warm after the icy wind outside. We are shown across the diamond-patterned floor and seated at a corner table, a low lamp between us, and handed two leather-backed menus. I order a glass of Malbec and Charlie asks for a beer. The waiter brings him a glass. He ignores it, takes a sip from the bottle. In the mirrored walls, I see the waiter glance back at him disapprovingly.
‘So you know about Rory being arrested, do you?’ Charlie says, taking a swig.
‘I work in a newsroom, Charlie, what do you think? It’s been all over the TV all day. Sky must have got a van to his office before the cops did.’ I pick the menu up, stare at it, put it down again. ‘Helen is beside herself. She said she’s had reporters knocking. Poor thing. Due to give birth any minute.’ I push the menu away. ‘I’ve told her about speaking to the regulator. And I’ve told our lot to lay off. I don’t know how much good it’ll do.’
Charlie sighs.
‘So. Helen told me you found out about how I knew Rachel.’
I nod. I find I can’t even look at him. I’m too angry. Charlie tries to take my hand, but I pull it away, shake my head.
‘I don’t understand. Why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you just say you knew her from the club?’
‘It wasn’t that simple. She told me not to. I know it sounds weird.’ He rubs his hand against the stubble on his chin. ‘I’m sorry, Katie. I did it because she asked me to.’ He searches for my eyes, smiling slightly. ‘You didn’t need to go the full Spotlight on me, you know. Going to the club. Scouting out the photo board –’
‘Don’t patronise me, Charlie. Don’t you fucking dare. And anyway, I obviously did have to. I obviously can’t rely on you to tell me the truth.’
The smile falls from his face. I look past him and stare into the mirror on the wall.
‘So what. You were fucking her, is that it?’
He looks at me, then down. He doesn’t reply. I look at the reflection of us together, sitting at the table. We’re not young any more, I think crossly. Why does he not understand that he needs to stop acting like a child?
‘All right,’ he says eventually. ‘Yes. It was before me and you got back together. It wasn’t serious. But yes. There’d … there had been a couple of times when …’
My heart sinks. Of course. ‘Oh, spare me the details, Charlie.’ I take a deep sip of wine.
‘It’s strange. She’d sort of disappeared from the club, too. She’d been working there a few months. Then we had this big night, the one Rory and Daniel came to, Serena too. They brought some client with them. I remember she was there then. But not long after that, she quit, and no one really knew why.’
He pauses, drops his gaze, runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Then suddenly she’s at Rory’s birthday dinner. Looks totally different, all dolled up and stuff. Somehow, she has become mates with my sister. And obviously I could see by then that she looked … you know.’ He grimaces. ‘Pregnant.’
I sense he is telling the truth. Still too angry to meet his eye, I scan the room for the waiter. I need another drink.
‘The night of Rory’s dinner,’ he continues. ‘They sat her next to me. So I asked her what she was doing there. She was really intense about it. She said she needed me to keep it a secret that we knew each other from the club. I didn’t really understand why, but she just kept saying it was important, that I needed to trust her.’ He raises his eyes again, looks at me. ‘She said there was something she needed to do, and she couldn’t do it if people knew who she really was.’
I stare at him, incredulous. ‘You went along with this? Knowing she was lyin
g to your sister – moving herself into their house?’
‘I didn’t know she had moved in with Helen. She said she was just staying a night or two. I didn’t think – that she was lying, exactly. Oh, I don’t know – she was so intense about it. I just agreed because … well, it seemed a bit easier, for one thing.’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, Katie,’ he hisses. ‘Obviously I didn’t want you to know about me and her. You’d given me another chance, I didn’t want to fuck it up again. All right?’
I stare up to the ceiling, try to focus on the line of brass lights, the mahogany pillars, the mirrors bordered in green and gold. I try not to let the tears welling in my eyes spill down my face. This is not what’s important, I tell myself. There is a girl who could be dead.
‘So Rachel wasn’t having an affair with Rory?’
Charlie’s eyes widen. ‘With Rory? God, no. I mean – God, not as far as I know. What makes you say that?’
I ignore him.
‘And the baby? If there was a baby?’
He drops his head, pulls at his hair again.
‘As far as I know, she really was pregnant,’ he says miserably. ‘I asked her if it was mine. At Helen’s party. When you saw us talking.’
I nod, grimly. At least I wasn’t going mad. I knew it wasn’t some casual chat. The look in her eyes. It was important.
‘She told me it wasn’t. That I shouldn’t worry.’ He pauses. ‘But honestly?’ He swallows, looks away. ‘The timing would … sort of fit. So … I don’t know.’
The waiter returns, takes Charlie’s empty bottle. I order another glass.
We are silent for a long time, after that. My wine arrives and I take a large gulp from the glass.
Charlie clears his throat. ‘Katie, I swear you and me weren’t back together then, or I would never have –’
I cough my wine back into my glass, then slam it down, cheeks flaming. ‘Oh my God, Charlie. Are you fucking serious? This is so far from being about you and me. Jesus.’
I fold my arms. I can’t look at him. And when I finally do, I realise it is over between us. It has to be. And in that moment, I can see that he knows it too.
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