It rattles around my head like a ball bearing in a pinball machine, firing shots indiscriminately. For a whole year she has lied to me. To everyone.
I arrive in the hall so fast, and with so little control, that my socks slip from under me and I crash onto my back; the breath knocked from me with such velocity that when I pick myself up I feel as sore as if I’d fallen from the top of the stairs.
The doorbell rings again. Rita’s nowhere to be seen. Even the dog has stopped hoping I’ll answer the door, but when my mother sets her mind to something, she doesn’t rest.
A whole year.
If someone had told me, six months ago – this morning, even – that I would one day tell my mother to leave me alone, I’d have thought them insane. But that is exactly what I’m going to do. The past can’t be undone; you can’t lie to someone and then bowl back into their lives and expect to be forgiven. Some lies are too big for that.
A whole year of lies.
I fling open the door.
‘There you are! I thought you must be upstairs. You’ll have to bring the pram up for me, dear. I don’t like doing it with the baby inside, in case it topples.’ Joan looks at me curiously. ‘Are you all right, dear? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
THIRTY
MURRAY
Sarah was mopping the kitchen floor. This was not a reflection on Murray’s own efforts the previous day, but an indication of Sarah’s rising anxiety. The change had been sudden, like the sun disappearing behind a cloud. Murray had tried to hang on to the feeling of contentment he’d had as they’d driven home from Johnson’s Cars, laughing about Ginger’s thwarted sale, but – like trying to recall thirty-degree heat in the depths of winter – it had eluded him.
Murray wasn’t sure what the trigger had been. Sometimes there wasn’t one.
‘Sit down and have a cup of tea.’
‘I want to do the windows first.’
‘It’s Christmas Eve.’
‘So?’
Murray looked through the Radio Times for something to distract them both. It’s a Wonderful Life was probably not ideal. ‘The Snowman’s on in a minute.’
‘There’s a surprise.’ She dumped the mop in the bucket. ‘I bet even Aled Jones is sick of that one.’
Murray would have riffed on it, but Sarah’s brow was knitted into a deep V as she looked under the sink for window cleaner and a cloth, so he let it go without comment. Murray was good at reading the signs, at taking his lead from someone else, and mirroring their reaction back to them. He’d done it for years with criminals, long before non-verbal communication became something you had to be taught in a classroom. He’d done it for years at home.
It was tiring, though, and not for the first time Murray wished he and Sarah had children to dilute the ripples of her condition. He had wanted them – desperately – but Sarah had been too frightened.
‘What if they take after me?’
He had deliberately misunderstood. ‘Then they’ll be the luckiest kids in the world.’
‘What if they inherit my head? My fucked-up, bastard, shitty head?’ She had started crying, and Murray had wrapped her up in his arms so she couldn’t see that his own eyes were leaking too.
‘Or my nose?’ he said gently. There was a hiccough of laughter from the folds of his jumper, and then she’d pulled away.
‘What if I hurt them?’
‘You wouldn’t. You’ve only ever hurt yourself.’
Murray’s reassurances had fallen on deaf ears. Sarah became terrified of falling pregnant – refusing to be intimate with Murray. She spiralled into a paranoiac episode involving weeks of pointless pregnancy tests, in the unlikely event that Eastbourne had been selected as the location of the next Immaculate Conception. Eventually their GP had agreed to refer Sarah for sterilisation, for the sake of her mental health.
Which meant it was just Murray and Sarah. They could have spent Christmas with Sarah’s brother and his family, but Sarah’s recent admission meant that no plans had been made. Murray wished he hadn’t already got the tree down from the loft, or that he’d had the foresight not to buy a pre-decorated one. At least that would have given them something to do.
Something other than cleaning.
Sarah was kneeling on the draining board to do the kitchen window, and Murray was looking for another cloth – he may as well make himself useful – when he heard the sound of singing from outside the front door.
‘We three Kings of Orient are One in a taxi, one in a car One on a scooter, blowing his hooter …’ The singing stopped and was replaced by raucous laughter.
‘What on earth …’
Sarah was curious enough to put down the Windolene and come with Murray to the front door.
‘Happy Christmas!’ Nish’s partner Gill thrust a bottle of wine at Murray.
‘And welcome home!’ Nish handed Sarah a gift bag with a large beribboned tag. ‘You don’t get anything,’ she said to Murray, ’cos you’re a miserable old codger.’ She grinned. ‘Aren’t you going to invite us in? Proper carol singers get mince pies and mulled wine.’
‘Mince pies I think we can do,’ Murray said, opening the door wide. Sarah was clutching the gift bag with both hands, her eyes startled.
‘I was just …’ She looked towards the kitchen, as though planning her escape.
Murray felt his heart sink. He held her gaze and wondered how to make her understand that he needed this. Friends over on Christmas Eve. Mince pies. Carols. Normality.
Sarah hesitated, then gave a tentative smile. ‘I was just getting everything ready for Christmas. Come on in!’
Murray found the Waitrose mince pies he’d been keeping for the next day, and glasses for the wine Nish and Gill had brought. He found a CD of King’s College carols, and then Nish found one of top ten Christmas hits. Sarah opened her present, and hugged everyone for the impromptu party, and Murray thought Nish and Gill could never know what a perfect gift they’d given him.
‘A little bird tells me you were in the Lion’s den this morning …’ Nish said.
That hadn’t taken long.
‘The Lion?’ Gill was topping up everyone’s glasses. Sarah held hers out, and Murray tried not to let his face reflect his thoughts. A bit of alcohol made Sarah buoyant. Happy. A lot had the opposite effect.
‘Superintendent Leo Griffiths,’ Nish explained. ‘Fond of roaring.’
‘Would the little bird who told you that have had flashing bauble earrings and tinsel in her hair?’
‘No idea – she texted me. I take it your plan to single-handedly solve Eastbourne’s historic murders has been thwarted?’
Murray took a sip of his wine. ‘If anything, I’m even more determined to get to the bottom of what happened to the Johnsons, especially now things have escalated.’
Nish nodded. ‘The brick’s gone for further analysis. No fingerprints, I’m afraid – it’s a bugger of a surface, and whoever wrapped the paper around it was forensically aware enough to wear gloves. But I can tell you that the note wrapped around the brick was printed on different paper to the one used for the card. And it was produced on a different printer.’
Sarah put down her glass. ‘They came from different people?’
‘Not necessarily, but it’s possible.’
‘That makes sense.’ Sarah looked at Murray. ‘Doesn’t it? One person prompting Anna to dig into the past; the other warning her off.’
‘Maybe.’ Like Nish, Murray was reluctant to commit, but he was fast coming to the same conclusion himself: they weren’t dealing with one person, but two. The anniversary card came from someone who knew the truth about what had happened to Caroline Johnson, and wanted Anna to ask questions. Last night’s note was a different matter. An instruction. A threat.
No police. Stop before you get hurt.
‘Why send a warning, unless you’re the murderer?’
Murray couldn’t fault Sarah’s logic.
Whoever threw that brick through the window of Anna’s house was responsible for Tom’s and Caroline’s deaths, and it looked as though they weren’t finished with the Johnsons yet. Murray needed to unravel this case before Anna – or her baby – got hurt.
THIRTY-ONE
ANNA