Had even the chaplain’s faith been shaken by what happened next? Had he sent up a prayer to help him come to terms with it?
Caroline’s photo had been circulated, additional patrols sent to Beachy Head. Coastguard rescue worked in conjunction with the police, with the chaplaincy, as they were so often required to do. Volunteers and salaried officers working side by side. Different backgrounds, different training, but the same aim. To find Caroline Johnson alive.
Caroline’s phone had been identified as being at or near Beachy Head, and just after 5 p.m., her handbag and mobile phone were found by a dog walker on the edge of the cliff. The tide had been at its highest at 4.33 p.m. that day.
A BMW, parked in the car park at Beachy Head with the keys in the ignition, was quickly traced back to Johnson’s Cars, where Billy Johnson confirmed that the description given by the chaplain matched that of his sister-in-law, Caroline Johnson, a fellow director of Johnson’s Cars, and the recent widow of Billy’s brother, Tom Johnson.
With the exception of the suicidal texts – Caroline had sent none – it was a carbon copy of Tom Johnson’s suicide, seven months previously. How must Anna have felt, to answer the door to another policeman with his hat in his hands? To sit in the kitchen with the same friends and family gathered around? Another investigation, another funeral, another inquest.
Murray put down the file and let out a slow sigh. How many times had Sarah tried to take her own life?
Too many to count.
The first had come a few weeks into their relationship, when Murray had gone to play squash with a colleague instead of seeing Sarah. He had returned home to find seven messages on his answerphone, each more desperate than the last.
Murray had panicked that time. And the next. Sometimes there were months between attempts; on other occasions Sarah would try several times a day to end her life. It would be these times that would prompt another stay at Highfield.
Gradually he had learned that what Sarah needed was for him to be calm. To be there. Not judging, not panicking. And so he would come home and hold her, and if she didn’t need to go to hospital – as, more often than not, she didn’t – Murray would bathe her arms and gently wrap gauze across the cuts, and reassure her he wasn’t going anywhere. And only when Sarah was in bed – the lines on her forehead smoothed out by sleep – would Murray put his head in his hands and weep.
Murray rubbed his face. Focus. This job was supposed to fill some time. Distracting him from thinking about Sarah, not sending him down memory lanes he wished he’d never travelled.
He looked at his notebook, now filled with his neat handwriting. Nothing seemed out of place. So why would someone question Caroline’s death? To stir up trouble? To upset Anna?
Suicide? Think again.
Something had transpired that day that wasn’t in the police file. Something the investigating officers hadn’t seen. It happened. Not often, but it happened. Sloppy detectives, or simply busy ones. Prioritising other cases; filing the dead ends when perhaps – just perhaps – there were more questions to ask. More answers to find.
Murray picked up the final sheaf of paperwork: miscellaneous documents in no apparent order – a photograph of Caroline Johnson, a copy of the contact list from her phone, and a copy of Tom Johnson’s life assurance policy.
Murray looked at the latter. And looked again.
Tom Johnson had been worth a considerable amount of money.
Murray hadn’t seen Anna’s house, but he knew the street – a quiet, sought-after avenue with its own gated park – and properties there didn’t come cheap. Murray assumed the house would have been jointly owned by the Johnsons, and would since have passed to their daughter, as would, he imagined, the pay-out from Tom’s hefty life assurance policy. And that was before you factored in the family business, of which Anna now had joint control.
Whichever way you looked at it, Anna Johnson was an extremely wealthy woman.
TWELVE
ANNA
I fumble with my phone, finding recent calls and pressing Mark’s number as I tiptoe into the hall towards the stairs, Ella in my arms. I silently beseech her not to make a sound.
And then three things happen.
The crunch of gravel beneath feet becomes the solid tap of shoes on steps.
The tinny ringing of Mark’s phone at my ear is mirrored by a louder version coming from outside the house.
And the front door opens.
When Mark walks into the house, his ringing mobile still in his hand, he finds me standing in the hall, wild-eyed and high from the adrenalin coursing through my veins.
‘You rang, m’lady?’ He grins and taps his phone to end the call.
Slowly, I lower my own mobile from my ear, my heart-rate refusing to accept the danger has passed. I laugh awkwardly, relief making me as light-headed as fear did a moment ago.
‘I heard someone walking around outside. I thought they wanted to get in.’
‘Someone did. Me.’ Mark comes forward to kiss me, Ella sandwiched between us. He drops a kiss on our daughter’s forehead, then takes her from my arms.
‘You were creeping about. Why didn’t you come straight in?’ My irritated tone is unfair, a by-product of the panic slowly dissipating through my bloodstream.
Mark tilts his head to one side and surveys me with more patience than my shortness merits. ‘I was putting the bins out. It’s collection day tomorrow.’ He addresses Ella in a sing-song voice. ‘Isn’t it? Yes, it is!’
I squeeze my eyes closed for a beat. The dragging noise that might have been a ladder. The thud of the bin-store door. Noises so familiar I should have known instantly what they were. I follow Mark into the sitting room, where he turns on the lights and settles Ella in her beanbag chair.
‘Where’s Laura?’
‘I sent her home.’
‘She said she’d stay! I’d have come back earlier—’
‘I don’t need a babysitter. I’m fine.’
‘Are you?’ He takes each of my hands in his and holds my arms wide. I wriggle away from his inspection.
‘Yes. No. Not really.’
‘So where’s this card?’
‘The police have got it.’ I show him the same photos I showed Laura, and watch him zoom in on the writing. He reads aloud.
‘Suicide? Think again.’
‘You see? My mother was murdered.’
‘That’s not what it says, though.’
‘But that’s the implication, isn’t it?’
Mark looks at me thoughtfully. ‘Alternatively, it was an accident.’
‘An accident?’ My incredulity is clear. ‘Why not just say that then? Why the sinister message? The tacky card?’
Mark sits down with a long sigh that I think – I hope – is less about me and more about having spent the day in a stuffy classroom. ‘Perhaps someone’s trying to point the finger. Negligence rather than a deliberate act. Who’s responsible for maintaining the cliff edges?’
I say nothing, and when he continues, his voice is softer.
‘You see what I mean, though; it’s ambiguous.’
‘I suppose it is. Except Mum left her handbag and phone on the edge of the cliff, which would be a weird thing to happen accidentally as you fell …’
‘Unless she’d put them down first. So she didn’t drop them. She was looking over the edge, or trying to rescue a bird, and the edge crumbled, and—’
I sit down heavily next to Mark. ‘Do you really think it was an accident?’
He twists around so we’re facing each other. When he speaks, it’s gentle, and he keeps his eyes trained on mine. ‘No, sweetheart. I think your mum was desperately unhappy after your dad died. I think she was more unwell than anyone could have known. And,’ he pauses, making sure I’m listening, ‘I think she took her own life.’
Nothing he’s saying is new to me, yet my heart drops back into my stomach and I realise how much I wanted his alternative narrative to be true. How ready I am to grab on to a lifeline that hasn’t even been thrown.