“Mr. Talbot made a call to you on the night of the twenty-first of June. I assume that was when he told you that his wife had found out where he was.”
“Yes,” I say, feeling hot around the back of my neck. I lift my hair and pull it over my shoulder in an attempt to cool myself down.
“There are then six further calls from you and a text message asking him to call you.”
“I-I was worried. I just wanted to know that he was OK.”
“But not worried enough to call us?” asks Harris.
I snort. “No disrespect, but you drag your heels when it’s an emergency, so I didn’t think a threat against a man from his wife was going to see you come out with a blue light.”
“You also left a voicemail,” says Robson, ignoring the slight.
Harris taps the screen a few times and holds the phone up on speaker mode.
“Hi, it’s me … Naomi. Erm, listen, about last night, I’m sorry that it ended up like it did. I think the alcohol played a large part. Anyway, I hope we can wipe the slate clean and put it all behind us. I’ll see you tomorrow, but if you hear from Vanessa in the meantime, call me.”
I want the ground to open up and swallow me.
“So this was a message you left on Michael’s voicemail on Tuesday morning,” says Robson, looking at me through narrowed eyes. “Do you want to explain what you were referring to?”
I think about denying it’s me, but I say my name. I think about saying that the message was meant for someone else, but I mention Vanessa. I think about telling the truth, but that will get me in a whole heap of trouble. So I opt for something in between and cross my fingers.
“When Jacob called me, he’d clearly had a lot to drink,” I say, not yet knowing where I’m going with this. I pause, playing for time. “He asked if he could come to the office, but it was late, so I said no.”
They’re both looking at me, waiting for me to elaborate.
“He was insistent, but I stood firm and told him that if he had a problem, he should call the police.” That’s not too far from the truth.
“But the next day, you’d had a change of heart?” asks Robson.
“I’d thought about it and wanted him to know that I’d not taken offense to anything he said the night before and if he did hear anything further from his wife, then it was OK to call me.”
I’m looking between them, hoping that I’ve let them know he needs help, but without entangling myself and confusing the issue.
“It’s his wife you need to talk to,” I say. “She’s the one who will know where he is.”
Robson nods thoughtfully, though there’s nothing but suspicion in her eyes.
“And you’re still maintaining that you have never been in an improper relationship with Mr. Talbot.”
“Absolutely,” I say adamantly.
She gives a nod to her colleague.
“You said that you hadn’t been to Mr. Talbot’s flat since he moved in.”
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Th-that’s right.”
Harris turns the phone toward me and clicks on an app too quickly for me to see what it is. But suddenly, my face is on the screen, screwed up and pinched as I stare out of it.
I’m so shocked that I jump back, as if scared of my own reflection. My brain spurts and splutters as it hotwires itself to make sense of what it’s seeing. I hope that by the time my eye sends the pixels to the part that puts them all together, the picture will have changed. But as I look at the phone, waiting, it’s still me, looking like a deranged woman, staring out of it.
“Jacob? Are you there? I know you’re in there,” comes a voice that sounds a lot like my own. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened the other night, but surely we’ve got to be a bit grown-up about this? Why don’t you just open the door so we can talk?”
I don’t want to look at the screen, but I have to, to know it’s me. My features are contorted, not helped by the curvature of the lens. “Is she in there with you?” I hiss. “You’re going to need to come out, because I’m not leaving until I see you.”
Detective Harris taps a button and the torment stops, but I know it’s only going to be a matter of seconds before it starts again. What the hell have I done?
“So, this footage is from a doorbell camera at the property that Mr. Talbot rents from you,” says Robson.
“I didn’t know he’d installed a camera,” I say, making myself sound even more guilty. I shove my hands into my pockets and look down at the floor. It’s taking all of my concentration not to collapse in a heap.
“This was the night before last,” Robson goes on, ignoring the thumping of my heart that she must surely be able to hear. “Yet, you said—”
“I did go around there,” I blurt out, unable to stop my conscience from telling the truth. But how can I possibly lie about this? “I was worried about him when he didn’t turn up for our appointment, so I went round there to check he was OK.”
“This was because he said his wife had threatened him?”
“Yes.”
“Yet from this footage, it seems that you were the one threatening him,” says Robson.
I run a shaky hand through my hair and pace up and down, unable to believe how my good deed has turned into me being accused of … of what?
“Why did you tell us you hadn’t been round there?”
“B-because…” I stutter. “I hadn’t told my husband that Jacob, I mean Michael, was living in the flat.”
“Why not?” asks Robson, her interest piqued.
“It’s just a bone of contention between us. He thinks I do too much for my clients, get more involved than I should. But the flat was sitting there empty and Jacob—Michael—needed somewhere to go. It was a matter of urgency, so I told him to go there. I just haven’t got round to telling Leon yet.”
“Would you mind coming down to the station with us?” says Harris, putting the phone into his back pocket. I almost expect him to bring out a pair of handcuffs in its place.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, but we do need to take your fingerprints and a statement from you, and it would be easier if this were done at the station.”
“I need to leave a note for my husband,” I say.
Robson nods and I walk into the kitchen on legs that don’t feel like my own.
Out of sight, I pick up the chalk pen and look at the chalkboard on the wall, where we normally write the shopping list, wondering how I’m supposed to leave a message of such magnitude next to eggs, bananas, and teabags.
I imagine Leon’s shock and confusion as he struggles to understand how the wife who’d just told him she loves him is now being questioned about the disappearance of a man it looks like she was stalking. And he thought putting Anna up for a couple of nights was a problem.
Shit, Anna! She could be back any minute and I’m not going to be here. I finger the chalk pen in my hand, trying to suppress the tears and panic that are welling up inside me.
Just popped out, I write. Should be home in time for dinner, but there’s mince in the fridge if I’m not.
“Ready?” asks Robson, eyeing me up and down suspiciously, as if I might be concealing something from the cutlery drawer.
I nod, and as I follow them out, I surreptitiously pop a key under the doormat in the porch, in the hope that Anna will look there when she gets no answer.
16
The police station in Canterbury is a twenty-minute journey in a mercifully unmarked car. It’s so nondescript that I’m not surprised I haven’t noticed it before. It’s like the ones you see on BBC cop dramas; a three-story, Sixties-built building that looks like a block of flats rather than a place of authority.
I’m shown to a windowless room and asked if I want a hot drink. I decline, but they still leave me on my own for five minutes. I wonder which of the walls is a secret two-way mirror.
“So as I explained, this is just a formality at this stage,” says Robson, coming back in. “But we’ll be recording you while we take your statement.”
I nod, wishing I knew my rights.
They both sit down opposite me and introduce themselves for the purposes of the tape.
“So you’ve told us that you visited Mr. Talbot’s flat on the evening of the twenty-third of June.”