“Down at Tankerton.”
“Right … that’s where I met Anna,” I say, before correcting myself. “Vanessa, I mean. She was there yesterday, threatening to kill herself, so I went to try to talk her down.”
“You seem to have forged quite the relationship with Mrs. Talbot,” says Robson.
“As I keep telling you, I will do anything I can to help my clients,” I say, tempering my frustration.
Robson nods. “And yet she says she’s never met you before tonight.”
Every single nerve ending in my body stands to attention, sending a frisson of electricity from my fingertips to my toes. I clasp my hands together to stop them from shaking, but I can’t still the trembling inside.
“That’s … that’s absurd,” I mumble, while frantically searching for a way to prove her wrong. “She bought me the picture in my office, knowing that as a fellow New Yorker, it would remind me of home.”
Robson seems taken aback. “Mrs. Talbot’s American?”
I laugh because I can’t not. There may be many anomalies in this case, but Vanessa’s origin cannot be called into question. “Didn’t you notice her accent?”
Robson narrows her eyes as if she’s having real trouble working me out. I don’t know what she’s finding so difficult.
“She hasn’t got one,” she says eventually.
I suddenly doubt myself, wondering if I’d imagined it. I certainly can’t recall Vanessa sounding American when she was in the stables, but then I was too busy trying to stay alive.
I remember the picture that’s hanging on my office wall; the shared stories from back home; her memories of Mom’s murder. Of course she’s American, otherwise …
My hands grip the sides of my head, my fingernails digging into my scalp in the hope it relieves the pressure that’s building.
“Why don’t you describe the beach hut for me?” asks Robson. “The one you visited yesterday with Mrs. Talbot.”
I force myself to breathe, but my lungs don’t seem to be working properly. “It’s something of a shrine to their son,” I say. “He died in a tragic accident and it’s full of pictures of him and the family in happier times.”
Robson nods. “I went there today,” she says. “But I couldn’t have come across a more different scene.”
I look to Leon, wanting to fall into his arms and never wake up.
“Shall I tell you what I found?” she asks.
My throat dries up as she gives one of her colleagues a nod and he hands her a see-through plastic bag.
Leon bristles beside me; its contents are so easily identifiable.
“Is this your underwear?” asks Robson, tilting her head toward the black and pink lace bra and panty set.
“Yes, but—”
“And this?” she asks, taking another evidence bag. “Is this your blouse?”
Prettily decorated with red cherries and a black tie at the neck and wrists, it’s not a blouse you’d wear if you wanted to be incognito. But then I didn’t know I didn’t want to be recognized for being the last person to have a drink with a man who is now dead.
I can do nothing but nod, because anything else would be pointless and untrue.
A shrill ringtone resounds around the tent and Robson reaches into her jacket pocket to answer her phone.
“OK,” she says dourly, after listening for a few seconds. “You’re absolutely sure? There’s no room for error?”
I clasp my clammy hands together, wondering if whatever she’s being told is going to work in my favor or against me.
“The lab results have just come back,” she says, as she ends the call. “And it’s been confirmed that a partial print we found in Mr. Talbot’s blood in his kitchen is an exact match for a pair of shoes we found in your home.”
I look at her dumbfounded as Leon calls out, “No, that can’t be true.”
“Naomi Chandler, I’m arresting you on suspicion of kidnap and murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.”
As I’m led out of the tent in handcuffs, a woman with long blonde hair looks as if she might approach me but thinks better of it. Instead she raises her hand awkwardly as I pass by, and in that moment I realize that even after all these years, I’d know that face anywhere. She’s just a grown-up version of the little girl I left behind.
EPILOGUE
The two police officers, who I’ve come to despise for their ineptitude, are staring at me across the desk in the interview room. It surely can’t be hard to see what’s going on here—it should be an open and shut case, yet still they persist in asking me stupid questions.
“So you have never encountered Naomi Chandler before last night,” says Robson, for the umpteenth time.
“Not in person, no,” I say, careful to give them everything they need without them even realizing they need to know it.
“Yet you obviously knew of her?”
I nod. “Only when Michael eventually admitted that they’d had an affair, but that it had been a terrible mistake and she wouldn’t leave him alone.”
“We’ve recovered a file that Mrs. Chandler says she discovered on her laptop,” says Harris, his beady little eyes alight. “Of herself in a rather compromising position.” He licks his lips and I almost feel sorry for her. “Engaged in a sexual act.”
I cover my eyes theatrically. “Oh, please don’t tell me she’s with Michael,” I say. “I couldn’t bear it.”
Robson clears her throat. “No, I can assure you she isn’t, but we weren’t quite able to work out how it had been filmed.”
Robson and Naomi both, I imagine. I hadn’t meant to use the video. I hadn’t expected to get it, if I’m honest—it was something of a surprise bonus that I thought might come in handy to drive a wedge between Naomi and Leon. Not that I needed to—I had more than enough evidence to use against her—but I knew it would all work much more in my favor if a bit of discord was created in their relationship as well.
“Well, I would assume on a phone,” I offer, unable to believe that they couldn’t have worked that one out. “It’s quite a big thing among couples these days; they set up a tripod and away they go.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” muses Robson. “But we’ve spoken to Mr. Chandler and he has no knowledge of any such recording taking place.”
I shrug my shoulders.
“So we checked out his wife’s office,” she says. I don’t like the way she’s looking at me. “As that’s where they were at the time, and we found a camera, hidden in the back of a picture of New York.”
“I don’t understand what this has got to do with me or Michael,” I say, careful to maintain eye contact.
“Well, Mrs. Chandler insists that it’s a picture you bought her,” says Robson. “To remind her of where you both come from.”
I look at her as if she’s mad and give a little snigger. “I’m not quite sure which of those statements is more preposterous. I neither gave it to her, nor am I, as I hope you can tell, even remotely American.”
Robson smiles as if she’s onside.
“Are you familiar with the Royal Garden hotel in Canterbury?” she asks.
“Yes, I’ve been there a few times over the years,” I say. “Why? Is that where they used to meet?”
“Your husband and Naomi Chandler?” asks Robson.
I nod meekly, as if I don’t want to know, yet am resigned to having to.
“Mrs. Chandler is quite adamant that she’s never had an improper relationship with Michael,” she says.
“I don’t know how she expects anyone to believe that when all the evidence proves otherwise,” I say. “He was living in her flat—and didn’t you say you had doorbell footage of her being there?”
They give each other a sideways glance and sweat instantly springs to my armpits. Had they told me about the video on Michael’s phone? Or have I just implied that I’d already seen it before leaving it for them to find? I need to be more careful.
“So what’s the relevance of the hotel then?” I say, eager to turn it back onto them.