I skirted the question. I did – of course I did – but I wanted him to want me for my sake, not for our baby’s.
He asked twice while I was pregnant, and again just after Ella was born. I almost said yes that time, lying in a post-birth glow, filled with drugs and the euphoria of having created the tiny life that lay sleeping in my arms.
‘Soon,’ I promised.
Like most women, I’ve imagined my wedding. The identity of the groom has changed over the years – from six-year-old Joey Matthews when I was in primary school, through a series of unsuitable boyfriends, to a couple of almost suitable ones – but the congregation has remained constant. Friends. Billy. Laura.
Mum and Dad.
When I think about marrying Mark, all I can think about is who won’t be there to see it.
It’s late by the time Billy and Laura leave. I walk out with them and wave them off, glad of the cold air to clear my wine-filled head. I wrap my arms around myself and stand on the pavement, looking back at the house. I think about Mark’s suggestion that we sell up and start afresh, and even though I know he’s right, the very thought of leaving Oak View hurts.
I glance next door. There are lights on downstairs and one on what I assume must be the middle landing. The pink planning notice Billy saw is fixed to the gate with plastic cable ties, tiny print explaining the process for lodging a complaint. I suppose there’ll be a consultation period, an address for people to write to, should they object to the plans.
I can’t help but feel there are more important fights to have than whether Robert Drake’s extension will block light to our kitchen. Unlike my parents, who seemed at times to thrive on confrontation, the idea of entering into a dispute with a neighbour fills me with dread. Perhaps it’s being an only child, with no sibling warfare to toughen me up, but the hint of an argument is more likely to push me to tears than fire me up for retaliation.
I’m just walking back to the house when there’s a loud crash, and the sound of breaking glass. The night air is disorientating; I can’t tell where it came from. As I open the front door I catch a glimpse of Mark, running upstairs. Seconds later he calls out. I run up the stairs.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’
There’s a gust of cold air in Ella’s nursery, and the open curtains blow into the room, the glass behind them shattered. I let out a cry.
Mark points at her cot. It’s covered in shards of glass that glint in the glow from the overhead light, and in the centre of the mattress is a brick. An elastic band holds a sheet of paper in place.
Gingerly, Mark picks up the brick.
‘Fingerprints!’ I remember.
He holds the paper by a single corner, and twists his head to read the typed message.
No police. Stop before you get hurt.
TWENTY-THREE
MURRAY
Anna Johnson looked tired. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and although she smiled politely when she opened the door, she had none of the determination Murray had seen in her the previous day. She showed him through to the kitchen, where Mark Hemmings was clearing the table from breakfast.
Murray found the dynamic interesting. Despite Anna’s obvious strength, when the couple were together she seemed to let Mark take charge. Murray wondered if this was by choice, or by design. Was it Mark who called the shots in this relationship? Had he really lied about not knowing Caroline Johnson?
‘I’m sorry – am I interrupting?’
‘Not at all. We’re a bit late getting going today, after last night.’
‘Last night?’ There were several wine glasses upturned on the draining board. Murray smiled, wanting to diffuse the tension he didn’t fully understand. ‘Ah – a good time had by all?’ He looked at Anna and then Mark, and his smile faded. Anna was glaring at him, her mouth open.
‘A good time? What the—’
Mark crossed the room and put an arm around Anna. ‘It’s okay.’ He addressed Murray. ‘Someone threw a brick through our daughter’s window, with a note wrapped around it. It could have killed her.’
Murray got out his notebook. ‘What time was this?’
‘Around midnight,’ Anna said. ‘We were—’
Mark interrupted. ‘Do we have to go through this again? We were up till two a.m. giving statements.’
It was then that Murray noticed the paperwork on the kitchen table. The card with contact details for the Police Enquiry Centre; the Victim Support leaflet with the phone number ringed in biro. He put away his notebook.
‘No, of course not. I’ll check in with the officers who attended, and make sure they’ve got all the information they need.’
Mark’s eyes narrowed. ‘They asked if we had a crime number.’
Somewhere in the pit of Murray’s stomach, he felt a familiar sensation.
‘From the other job – the anniversary card.’
When Murray had been a probationer, he had cuffed a job that had come back to bite him. The sergeant – a sharp Glaswegian – had hauled Murray into the office to ask why nothing had been done about ‘what seems to me to be an open-and-shut case, laddie,’ then promptly assigned Murray to traffic duties. He had stood in the rain, water dripping off his helmet, and felt sick to his stomach. Three weeks into the job and he’d already been told off. Was that it? Would his skipper write him off as a bad lot?
It wasn’t, and the skipper didn’t. But that might have been because, from that moment, Murray vowed to treat every victim with the consideration they deserved, and to play everything by the book.
He hadn’t played this one by the book.
‘Not to worry,’ he said, as brightly as he could manage. ‘I’ll sort all that out, back at the station.’
‘Why don’t we have a crime number?’ Anna said. She picked up the baby from her bouncy chair and walked towards Murray. ‘You are investigating it properly, aren’t you?’
Metaphorical hand on metaphorical heart, Murray nodded. ‘I assure you, I am.’ Better than if I’d passed it straight to CID, he thought. Nevertheless, the knot of anxiety in his stomach remained, and he wondered if, even now, someone back at the police station was asking why Murray Mackenzie, a retired police officer now working on Lower Meads front desk, was investigating a possible double homicide.
‘I wanted to check something, actually,’ Murray said. He reached into his inside pocket for the leaflet Sarah had found in Caroline Johnson’s diary, keeping it inside his hand for the time being. ‘Mr Hemmings, you never met Anna’s parents?’
‘That’s right. I told you that yesterday. It was because of their deaths that Anna came to see me in the first place.’
‘Right. So, when you met Anna, that was the first you’d heard of her …’ Murray searched for the right word, acknowledging his clumsiness with a sympathetic smile in Anna’s direction. ‘Her situation?’
‘Yes.’ There was a touch of impatience in Mark’s reply.
Impatience? Or something else? Something he was trying to hide? Murray produced the flyer.
‘Is this yours, Mr Hemmings?’
‘Yes. I’m not sure I’m following …’
Murray handed him the flyer, turning it over as he did so. Curious, Anna moved to see the writing, clearly visible on the reverse. There was a single, sharp inhalation, followed by a look of complete confusion.
‘That’s Mum’s writing.’
Murray spoke gently. ‘It was found in your mother’s diary.’
Mark’s mouth was working, but nothing was coming out. He brandished the flyer. ‘And … what? I don’t know why she had it.’
‘It seems she had an appointment with you, Mr Hemmings.’
‘An appointment? Mark, what’s going on? Was Mum … a patient of yours?’ Anna took a step back, unconsciously distancing herself from the leaflet, from the father of her child.
‘No! Christ, Anna! I told you, I don’t know why my leaflet was with her things.’