True, though not the whole truth. Because his fiancée was no longer his fiancée, she no longer moaned to him about her weight, nor was she waiting for him to pick her up to accompany him to Málaga. In her last email, sent some months ago now, she’d wished misery on him, told him she’d never forgive him for the way he’d treated her.
But what had he done that was so terrible? If he’d been a truly awful man, a cold, cruel, unfeeling man, he’d have strung her along for appearances’ sake. It would have been in his interests, after all. But he wasn’t a bad man. It was just that when he loved, he loved completely – and what on earth was wrong with that?
After the detective left, he walked around the house, opening drawers, thumbing through the pages of books, looking. Looking for something he knew very well he wouldn’t find. The night after Midsummer, angry and frightened, he’d built a fire in the back garden and had piled on to it cards and letters, a book. Other gifts. If he looked out of the back window now, he could still see it, a little patch of scorched earth where he had eradicated every trace of her.
As he pulled open the desk drawer in his living room, he knew exactly what he’d see, because this wasn’t the first time he’d done it. He’d searched and searched for something he’d missed, sometimes in fear and often in grief. But he’d been thorough that first night.
There were pictures, he knew, in the head’s office at school. A file. Closed now, but still kept. He had a key to the admin block and he knew exactly where to look. And he wanted something, he needed something to take with him. This wasn’t a triviality, it was essential, he felt, because the future was suddenly so uncertain. He had an inkling that when he turned the key in the back door, locking up the house, he might never do that again. Perhaps he wouldn’t come back. Perhaps it was time to disappear, to start over.
He drove to the school, parking in the empty car park. Sometimes Helen Townsend worked there during the school holidays, but there was no sign of her car today. He was alone. He let himself into the building and headed up past the staff room to Helen’s office. Her door was closed, but when he tried the handle, he found it unlocked.
He pushed the door open, breathing in the nasty chemical whiff of carpet cleaner. He crossed the room to the filing cabinet and pulled open the top drawer. It had been emptied, and the drawer below was locked. He realized with an acute sense of disappointment that someone had rearranged everything, that in fact he didn’t know exactly where to look, that perhaps this had been a wasted journey. He darted out to the hallway to check that he was still alone – he was, his red Vauxhall still the only vehicle in the car park – and went back to the head’s office. Taking care not to disturb anything, he opened Helen’s desk drawers one by one, looking for the keys to the filing cabinet. He didn’t find them, but he did find something else: a trinket he couldn’t imagine Helen wearing. Something which struck him as vaguely familiar. A silver bracelet with an onyx clasp, and an engraving reading SJA.
He sat and stared at it for a long time. He couldn’t for the life of him think what it meant, the fact that it was here. It meant nothing. It couldn’t mean anything. Mark replaced the bracelet in the desk, abandoned his search and returned to his car. He had the key in the ignition when it struck him exactly when he’d seen that bracelet last. He’d seen it on Nel, outside the pub. They’d spoken briefly. He’d watched her head off towards the Mill House. But before that, before she had left him, she had been fidgeting with something on her wrist as they spoke, and there, it was there. He retraced his steps, went back to Helen’s office and opened the drawer, took the bracelet and put it into his pocket. He knew as he was doing it that if someone asked him why, he wouldn’t be able to explain himself.
It was, he thought, as though he were in deep water, as though he were reaching for something, anything, to save himself. It was as though he had reached for a lifebuoy and instead found weeds, and grabbed hold of them anyway.
Erin
THE BOY – JOSH – was standing outside the house when we arrived, like a little soldier on guard, pale and watchful. He greeted the DI politely, looking more suspiciously at me. He was holding a Swiss army knife in his hands, his fingers working nervously around the blade as he opened and closed it.
‘Is your mum in, Josh?’ Sean asked him, and he nodded.
‘Why do you want to talk to us again?’ he asked, his voice rising with a sharp squeak. He cleared his throat.
‘We just need to check a couple of things,’ Sean said. ‘It’s nothing to worry about.’
‘She was in bed,’ Josh announced, his eyes flicking from Sean’s face to mine. ‘That night. Mum was asleep. We were all asleep.’
‘What night?’ I asked. ‘What night was that, Josh?’
He blushed and looked down at his hands and fiddled with his knife. A little boy who hadn’t learned yet how to lie.
His mother opened the door behind him. She looked from me to Sean and sighed, rubbing her fingers over her brows. Her face was the colour of weak tea and when she turned to talk to her son I noticed that her back was hunched, like an old woman. She beckoned him to her, speaking quietly.
‘But what if they want to talk to me too?’ I heard him asking.
She placed her hands firmly on his shoulders. ‘They won’t, darling,’ she said. ‘Off you go.’
Josh closed his knife and slipped it into his jeans pocket, his eyes on mine as he did. I smiled and he turned away, walking quickly down the path, glancing back just once as his mother was pulling the door closed behind us.
I followed Louise and Sean into a big, bright living room leading out into one of those boxy, modern conservatories which seem to make the house bleed seamlessly into the garden. Outside, I could see a wooden hutch on the lawn and bantams, pretty black and white and golden hens, scratching around for food. Louise indicated for us to sit on the sofa. She lowered herself into the armchair opposite, slowly and carefully, like someone recovering from an injury, afraid of inflicting more damage.
‘So,’ she said, raising her chin slightly as she looked at Sean. ‘What have you got to tell me?’
He explained that the new blood tests gave the same results as the original ones: there were no traces of drugs in Katie’s system.
Louise listened, shaking her head in clear disbelief. ‘But you don’t know, do you, how long that sort of drug stays in the system? Or how long it takes for the effects to manifest, or to wear off? You can’t dismiss this, Sean—’
‘We’re dismissing nothing, Louise,’ he said evenly. ‘All I’m telling you is what we have found.’
‘Surely … well, surely supplying illegal drugs to someone – to a child – is an offence, in any case? I know …’ She grazed her teeth over her lower lip. ‘I know it’s too late to punish her, but it should be made known, don’t you think? What she did?’
Sean said nothing. I cleared my throat and Louise glared at me as I began to speak.
‘From what we’ve discovered, Mrs Whittaker, regarding the timing of the purchase of the pills, Nel could not have purchased them. Although her credit card was used, it—’
‘What are you suggesting?’ Her voice rose angrily. ‘Now you’re saying Katie stole her credit card?’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘We’re not saying anything of the sort …’
Her face changed as realization dawned on her. ‘Lena,’ she said, leaning back in her chair, her mouth fixed in grim resignation. ‘Lena did it.’