‘It doesn’t,’ she says. ‘The police are happy with that, why can’t you be?’
Manon wonders why the police are happy with it. When have they ever been happy with a seven-hour hole in a key witness’s alibi? She notices she’s thinking ‘they’ instead of ‘we’.
‘Why should it matter if I know who it is?’ Manon asks. ‘What’s the big secret?’
‘No big secret. It’s just … not serious, that’s all. It’s no big deal. I don’t want to go into it, with you or with anyone else. Why can’t you understand that?’
‘Because I don’t think your privacy matters as much as Fly.’
‘Who I was shagging is not going to have any effect on Fly’s case, I’m telling you that now.’ Ellie leans forward. ‘He won’t go down for this,’ she says. ‘He didn’t do anything, so he won’t—’
‘He better not,’ Manon says, and she’s hard as nails, she can feel it. ‘But I wouldn’t be so sure that the truth will out. You think people don’t go down for stuff they didn’t do? You’re fucking deluded.’
Their entente cordiale hangs by a thread. Old jealousies, happy to rouse themselves. Part of Manon wants to cut the ties now, because Ellie’s son is sleeping in a room upstairs while Manon’s is in Arlidge House. All their life they’ve been like this – a double helix curling together, then away.
‘I hate this house,’ Ellie says quietly and they both look around them, at the half-open drawers, the cushions badly rearranged by SOCO. There will be worse upstairs – clothes spilling out of chests of drawers, wardrobe doors open, duvet covers turned inside out as they were pulled off, this disarrangement like their innards exposed. The hands of strangers all over their personal things, except Manon probably knew a few of the SOCO team, which only seems to make it worse.
‘Me too,’ she says.
The next morning, once she has heard her sister’s departure from the house, Manon sits on Ellie’s bed. The curtains are still part-drawn, so the room is in darkness apart from a bright plank of sunshine down one wall. The air is laden with moisture and the scent of Ellie’s shower gel from the en suite. A damp towel lies on the lower half of the bed.
Manon looks around the room, at the shoes banked against the wardrobe, the clothes strewn on the chair by the window. She wants to pry, but without a mobile or computer (God alone knows where Ellie’s laptop is) she’s not sure where to search. She goes to the doorway of Ellie’s bathroom. Makeup all over the Ikea sink unit. A bottle of CK One, lid off. A blue eyeliner, which Manon has long coveted though she can’t be bothered with daily makeup. Beside the toilet, a box of Tampax. Tights strung from the little radiator.
Manon returns to the bedroom, sits back down on the bed and opens Ellie’s bedside cabinet. In its cavity is a bottle with a tumbler upturned on its neck. Manon lifts it out. A dusty bottle of The Famous Grouse, half empty. Manon remembers seeing it in some out-of-the-way cupboard in London, alongside never-used napkin rings and some defunct fairy lights. It was packed for the move, she can’t think why (‘Well, doesn’t go off, whiskey, does it?’ Ellie had said); the remnant of a long-gone Christmas.
Manon smells the glass, breathes traces of whisky. Has Ellie taken up drinking? And why hasn’t she discussed it and given Manon the option to bail in (pregnancy not withstanding)? She replaces the Famous Grouse, closes the cabinet door. Above this is a small drawer which she opens and pats about inside. She lifts a bundle of paper: receipt from Primark, receipt from Starbucks (Ellie must’ve emptied the scraps from her purse in here), and then a blister pack of pink pills. She turns it over and reads the word Xanax. Half the pack has been popped.
Downstairs Manon Googles Xanax, unsure what it is. ‘Commonly used for the treatment of panic and anxiety disorders. A sedative, or sleeping aid, which can cause dependency, not to be used during pregnancy [another pleasure closed to her] or lactation.’ Easy to buy online from the looks of her Google search, but Ellie can probably come by them fairly easily at work.
Is it her upset over Jon-Oliver’s death that’s making her pop pills and knock back whiskey?
Day 17
31 December
Manon
‘Right, so I’ve read through the evidence file that has mysteriously landed in our lap,’ says Mark, giving Manon a disapproving look. Then he begins attacking his eggs with gusto.
‘Yes,’ she says, eyeing his plate and wondering where her own eggs have got to. She’s not even peckish but has ordered anyway. For the baby.
‘And their primary case, their scenario if you like, is this: Jon-Oliver was stabbed in the heart. If you’re stabbed in the heart, so Derry Mackeith has it anyway, you cannot walk anywhere. There are blood spots on the path leading away from the body, which must have come from the assailant. Fly is on CCTV walking over those blood spots. Fly is therefore the killer. His trainer print is in one of the blood drips; that puts him categorically at the scene. And the fibre from his hoodie.’
‘Wait, so Fly is supposed to have dripped the blood then trodden in it? Is that even feasible?’ Manon asks.
‘I suppose it is, if he’s holding a knife away from his body. But it’s a bit contorted as a theory. We should look at that,’ Mark says.
‘And their witness – this Mrs Cole woman – has identified Fly,’ Manon says. ‘But the thing is, Fly doesn’t dispute being there – it’s his route home from school. All their evidence puts him at the scene, fine, we’re not arguing with that. Doesn’t mean he did it.’
‘Jon-Oliver was texting him, telling him to hop it, while he visited the son,’ Mark says. ‘That’s presumably the motive, such as it is.’
Manon has been telling herself to think about the whole case dispassionately. Think of it as the start of any old investigation.
‘Let’s say we agree with them,’ she says. ‘The blood spots are critical to solving this. So we need to go back to the blood spots, we need to do an inch-by-inch search of the crime scene ourselves. Widen it, show exactly where the spots are coming from or where they lead to.’
‘What else?’ he says, chewing his food while leaning back and looking at her. ‘Let’s say you are SIO – what evidence would you go for?’
‘Send the CCTV to forensic analysts, sharpen it up, see what I could see. I’d get back-up testimony from cardiac experts to firm up Derry’s theory as it’s central to the case. And I’d look at character witnesses, evidence of motive.’
He is nodding, swallows. ‘Which brings us on to this statement by Giles Carruthers.’
‘Wait, I’ve missed this. Show me.’
He rifles through his file for the right witness statement.
Saying, ‘Right, so Carruthers is a wanker, I’m sorry BANKER, at Dunlop & Finch with Ross. They worked hard, played hard—’