Woman with a Secret (26 page)

After the three girls came a few more clumps of uniformed bodies, all traipsing along unenthusiastically in the direction of the open gates to Gibbs’s left; their lunch hour was over and they had no choice but to return to their prison.

Keen to get away from the pupil procession, Gibbs crossed the wide main road again and tried Reuben Tasker’s doorbell for the fourth time. Still no answer. Gibbs had been certain someone was in—he could have sworn he’d heard movement from inside the first time he’d rung the bell—but he was starting to wonder if he’d imagined it. It seemed plausible that a man who had no landline or mobile phone, was addicted to cannabis and had failed to respond to six emails marked ‘urgent’ might ignore his own doorbell, but that didn’t make it impossible that Tasker was out. Weedheads who worked from home needed to visit their dealers, after all.

Gibbs looked up at the tall redbrick three-story house. He was too close to see into the windows on the top two levels. A white ceramic sign screwed to the brickwork beside the front door told
him that this was 76 Gaywood Road. The numbers and letters were fussy and old-fashioned.
Chosen by a woman
, thought Gibbs.

On the phone this morning, Tasker’s literary agent had used words like “dedicated” and “committed” to describe Jane Tasker. He’d made Reuben Tasker sound more like a good cause than a man.

Gibbs turned around to see what was happening on the other side of Gaywood Road. It was nowhere near as busy. That was where he needed to be, to get a better view of the top part of the house. He decided to give it a couple more minutes, then cross over again once the last of the uniformed stragglers had slouched through the school gates to be penned up for the afternoon. If Tasker was in and not opening the door, he wouldn’t be able to resist looking out of a window eventually to see if all was clear, and he was more likely to pick one on a higher floor to avoid a face-to-face encounter.

Gibbs walked around his car, which was parked on the paved area that would once have been number 76’s front garden, and waited for a gap in the traffic. There wasn’t one, so he crossed anyway, raising his middle finger at a driver who used his horn to protest. Seconds later, he regretted his overreaction. He ought to buy a punching bag—set it up in the spare room at home. Maybe it would help to sort his head out if he could spend an hour a day beating the crap out of something he couldn’t hurt.

On the pavement opposite Reuben Tasker’s house, he looked up and made an involuntary noise as he saw a face framed in the single dormer window at the top. It was Tasker: gaunt, black-haired, bare-chested. Gibbs recognized him from the photograph on his website, and waited for him to pull back from the window, fearing he’d been spotted. Tasker stayed where he was. Staring.

So he’d been in all along. And wanted it known that he could have come to the door but had chosen not to.

Tasker’s gaze was neutral rather than actively defiant, but Gibbs felt the defiance all the same. There was something chillingly arrogant—no, something
more
chilling than arrogance—about
looking at someone so expressionlessly, as if nothing they could do or say could have any effect on you, positive or negative. Tasker was watching the world in the way that a ghost separated from the living would watch.

He did it. He killed Damon Blundy. And he thinks he can get away with it
.

Gibbs shook his head and swore under his breath. Who did he think he was, Simon Waterhouse? Most people’s hunches were worthless, and Gibbs was realistic enough to include his own in that category. Tasker was a weirdo, but that didn’t make him a killer. “Not the easiest man in the world to deal with,” the literary agent had said. Neither was Gibbs, so the two of them were well matched.

Gibbs pointed in the direction of Tasker’s front door and mouthed, “Come down and let me in?” He pulled his ID out of his pocket and held it up.

Tasker disappeared from the window. Gibbs wove his way through the heavy traffic of Gaywood Road again.
Why did the detective cross the road? To talk to a weed-addicted horror writer
. It wasn’t much of a punchline.

He didn’t see the point of ringing the bell again, so he waited, listening for the sound of feet on the stairs.

Nothing. Once he was certain he’d waited long enough, he knocked loudly on the door, then opened the letterbox and shouted, “Mr. Tasker! DC Chris Gibbs, Culver Valley CID. I’ve sent you several emails. Can you open up? I’d like to talk to you.”

The bastard wasn’t coming to the door. Gibbs pressed his finger down on the doorbell and kept it there for a good minute and a half. Then, too angry to stay where he was, he marched back out into the traffic, attracting multiple horn beeps. This time he managed to resist making any obscene gestures.

He’s going to be back in the window again, staring blankly out as if nothing’s happened
.

On the pavement opposite, Gibbs looked up and got a shock.
Tasker had reappeared, but only partially. His hairless bare chest was visible, and the bottom of his neck, but not his face. Tasker had stuck a large square of black paper to the window—with Blu-Tack by the look of it; Gibbs could see four pale dots, one at each corner—and was standing behind it.

“What the fuck . . . ?” Gibbs murmured.

He watched as Tasker did the same with a second square of black, fixing it beneath the first so that the edges lined up. Now hardly any of him was visible—only his right arm.

“Detective Gibbs?” A woman who looked somewhere between thirty and forty was standing beside him.

“Detective Constable. DC Gibbs.”

“I’m Jane Tasker, Reuben’s wife.” She was holding the handle of a black, waist-high shopping cart. A loaf of bread and a packet of raspberry-flavored popsicles poked out of the top. Didn’t she drive? Or use the Internet? She seemed to have been to the supermarket on foot with what was effectively an open-topped suitcase to wheel her groceries home in.
Bizarre
.

Her face, free of makeup, had a raw, pink, peeled look—as if it had been scrubbed vigorously over and over again. She was wearing jeans that bunched at the bottom, around the tops of her scuffed black ankle boots, and a bulky red padded anorak in spite of the warm weather.

“Your husband doesn’t seem to want to talk to me,” Gibbs told her.

“No, he does. He called me as soon as you arrived. That’s why I hurried back, to let you in. He doesn’t like having people in the house unless I’m there too, and he hates to have to interrupt his writing to come downstairs. Shall we . . . ?” She made a gesture that suggested crossing the road.

Gibbs shook his head in disbelief. He was about to follow her when it occurred to him that her husband had probably been watching their exchange. He looked up.

It was impossible to tell if Reuben Tasker was there or not. If he was, he was no longer able to watch the street as he had been a few minutes
ago. While Gibbs had been talking to his wife, Tasker had covered the whole window—top to bottom, side to side—with black paper.

CHARLIE’S BAG STARTED TO
vibrate against her hip as she walked briskly along the corridor. She would have ignored it, except it might be Simon and it might be important. Even if it wasn’t, he would think it was. He could, of course, wait, but he wouldn’t think that he could. Charlie sighed, jammed the files she was holding under her left arm and rummaged in her bag for her phone. She pulled it out and looked at the screen.

Simon. Waiting. He was the only person in her life who could communicate impatience telepathically. Other emotions, not so much. “Make it quick,” she told him by way of greeting.

“Why?”

“I’m on my way to interview Nicki Clements. She’s here with her husband, which is . . . interesting. Let’s see if she tells the same story Robbie Meakin tells about their . . . um, meeting. She said she’d only talk to a woman, so I think it’s looking promising.”

“Why you?” Simon asked.

“What, you think Gaynor from the canteen would do a better job? The Snowman asked me extra nicely. His exact words were, ‘You’re Waterhouse’s X chromosome—you do it.’ Where are you, by the way?”

“Walking,” said Simon. “Thinking. I need you to find out something for me, and not mention it to anyone else.”

“Sorry,” said Charlie. “Interviewing Nicki Clements is the only favor I’m doing for you today. I haven’t got time to—”

“Melissa Redgate. Find out if she drives. Find out if she
can
drive, but also if she does, and how she feels about it—does she have any issues about driving? Is she one of those women who won’t drive on a highway, or at night, or in the snow, or on a route she’s not familiar with?”

“No,” said Charlie. “
You
find out all those things.” She tried to
smile at Sergeant Jack Zlosnik as he passed her, walking in the opposite direction. It was hard to snap at one person while simultaneously smiling at another.

“Will she only drive if her husband’s in the car, maybe?” Simon went on. “Also, find out if she’s got a car—not one she shares with her husband that she doesn’t have access to all the time, but her own car that she can drive whenever she wants. Has she ever been in a crash? Has she lost relatives in car crashes?”

“Why do you want to know all this?” Charlie asked.

“I’ll tell you when you get me the answers to those questions, and any others you can think of that I haven’t. Anything to do with Melissa Redgate, cars or driving—I want to know about it.”

“Like, is her car tidy or messy?”

“No, that’s irrelevant.”

“Ah. OK. As the asker of these questions, aren’t I more likely to be able to work out what’s relevant if you . . . Simon? You still there?”

Unbelievable. He’d cut her off midsentence.

ADAM IS DRIVING. I
am thinking how much I wish we were driving to a police station because I’m kind of a suspect in a murder case, but one who has no other terrible problems. Not one who has just confessed to cyber infidelity, and been told she’s forgiven, and doesn’t believe it for a second.

“You can’t forgive me,” I say. “I don’t believe you have. Not so soon.”

Adam sighs. “Well, I have. I’m not sure what you expect me to do to convince you. I’ve not shouted, or refused to talk about it. I’m not being off with you, am I?”

He sounds anxious to please me. I sense he’s turned to look at me. I wish he’d be more careful while he’s driving. Keeping my eyes on the road, I say, “You’re being exactly the same as you always are. How is that possible? Don’t you care?”

I want him to care. Two days into my correspondence with him, King Edward asked me how I’d feel about us pledging to be exclusive to one another, though he made clear that this vow of exclusivity couldn’t include spouses. I said yes. I stuck to it too. It’s the only time I’ve ever been anything approaching faithful in a relationship.

I want Adam to want me all to himself the way King Edward did.

Whoever he is
.

“Nicki, I care. OK? If you’re asking if I’m angry . . . what would be the point?” Adam indicates left. “It was a shock, I’m not denying that, but . . .” He sighs. “We’ve been together for twenty years. It’d be too much to expect that you’d
never
be tempted by anyone else.” After a pause, he adds quietly, “I have been.”

“Really?” I hope I don’t sound too eager. “Tell me. Who? Did anything happen?” I’d give anything for it to turn out that Adam’s as bad as me. I would forgive him anything.

“Nothing’s ever happened, no,” he says decisively. So decisively it makes me wonder. I don’t think he’d lie, but . . . how tempted was he? How many times?

I’d forgive you. Whatever you’d done
. Words I say to Sophie and Ethan often. Words no one has ever said to me.

That must be real love, mustn’t it? Knowing you want to share the rest of your life with someone whatever they’ve done, knowing they’re perfect for you whatever mistakes they’ve made. I hope that’s how Adam feels about me.

“And nothing happened between you and this Gavin guy, did it?” he asks.

“If nothing had happened, I wouldn’t be on my way to the police station to humiliate myself,” I say, nearly gagging as I contemplate the ordeal that lies ahead.

“I mean nothing physical.”

“No. Nothing physical.”

“Good. If you’d slept with him twice a week for the last six months, that I’d find harder to forgive, but you said yourself—when you think about it now, it seems like a kind of madness came over you.”

“Yes.”

“I can understand that. I’m not saying I’m thrilled it happened, but . . . I don’t know, maybe it’s unrealistic to expect no obstacles ever in a marriage.”

“Maybe,” I say, wondering what exactly Melissa told Lee. She doesn’t know about Gavin or King Edward, thank God, but she does
know about two one-night stands I had when Adam and I were first married, two incidents that now seem so trivial and far away it’s as if they happened to someone else—or perhaps they didn’t happen at all. The case for their being real is no more persuasive than an episode of some old soap opera I watched decades ago.

I have to hope that if Melissa or any member of the Redgate family says anything to Adam, it will be in general terms.

So Nicki’s told you, has she?

Yeah, she’s told me
.

My mother would be talking about the two one-night stands, and Adam would be talking about Gavin. No one would be indelicate enough to go into detail, surely.

“I read something once,” I tell Adam. As soon as I’ve said it, I regret it.

“What?”

“You’ll think I’m trying to make an excuse.”

“No, I won’t. Even if I do, it might be quite a relief. I’m not sure I can take extreme hair shirt for much longer.” Adam grins at me. When I look at his face, I see that he is upset—more so than he’s willing to admit. He’s trying to protect me from his pain, because he can see mine growing in me and it scares him.

“I read that people who have judgmental, controlling parents . . . that they kind of . . .” How I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. It’s a daft theory. Adam will laugh. “That they sexualize bad behavior, in their minds. They grow up being criticized for everything they do, because it’s not what the parents would ideally like them to do, and . . . it’s hard to live with the daily attacks of a parent determined to improve you. Hard for a child—even an older teenage child—to cope with that kind of onslaught when their only crime is just trying to be themselves.”
Even an adult child
. “So their minds sort of warp, to defend against too much pain. They twist their perceptions so that they get pleasure from the idea that they’re being bad and that people would disapprove. They sexualize wrongdoing.
They become the people who get kicks out of illicit affairs. But . . . it’s just a theory. One that’s obviously hugely convenient for sinners like me.”

“Sounds plausible, I suppose,” says Adam. “Look, on the subject of difficult parents . . . I know yours can be irritating, but you didn’t mean what you said, did you? About never seeing them again? I hope you didn’t.”

“No.”
Yes
. But without Adam’s support, I won’t be brave enough. So, no.

“Good. Because they’re Sophie and Ethan’s grandparents.”

I laugh weakly. “Yeah. Lucky old Sophie and Ethan. You don’t think they picked up that anything was wrong, do you? Between us?”

“No. Definitely not.”

We’ve left them with a babysitter—the teenage daughter of a neighbor. I had to fight the urge to say, “If by any chance someone calls or comes around saying they’re a member of my family, don’t let them in. Don’t let them speak to the children.”

“My mother will probably tell them, first chance she gets,” I say to Adam. “‘Hi, kids. How’s school? By the way, your mother’s a cyber-slag. She’s lucky your dad didn’t throw her out on the street when he found out, to forage for scraps.’”

Adam winces. “Oh, come on! Nora would never do that to Soph and Ethan. Your family don’t really believe you killed Damon Blundy. And I don’t think Nora would actually have told me anything about Gavin, if push had come to shove.”

Has he not been paying attention? “Adam, Melissa went to the police and encouraged them to suspect me of Damon Blundy’s murder. My parents and Lee will have been behind that for sure. No way Melissa’d do it of her own accord.”

“I can see them thinking you needed a bit of sense shaking into you, but I don’t believe they honestly think you’re capable of murder.”

“I am capable of murder,” I tell him. “I just haven’t committed it yet, that’s all.”

THE POLICE HAVE SENT
a woman to take my statement: Sergeant Charlotte Zailer. Tall, skinny, dark hair, bright red lipstick. Sharp dark eyes that make me wonder what she’s thinking about me, even before I’ve said anything. She looks as if she’s thinking plenty.

Her breasts are large for a skinny woman. It was the first thing I noticed about her when she walked into the holding cell Adam and I were placed in when we arrived. It’s probably not called a holding cell. The man who escorted us in here called it a meeting room. Still, it’s not a room I’d wish to spend any time in.

I don’t normally pay much attention to other women’s breasts, but Sergeant Zailer’s are hard to miss. Given what I’m about to reveal, the sight of them, even covered up, makes me feel paranoid. I am certain Adam is thinking the same thing. Perhaps we’ll laugh about it together later.

“Mr. Clements, perhaps you could encourage your wife to tell me what she came here to tell me?” says Sergeant Zailer. “I can’t wait forever.”

“Nicki . . .” Adam murmurs.

“I don’t need encouragement.” I needed to prepare myself, that’s all. And now I have. “Now that Adam knows the truth, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. You’ll disapprove of me, but I don’t mind that. I’m used to being disapproved of.”

“I already disapprove of you,” Sergeant Zailer says as if it’s a stroke of good luck. “You lied to two of my colleagues, didn’t you? You said your car was missing a side mirror on the morning that Damon Blundy was murdered. We know that’s not true. We’ve got CCTV of your car with both mirrors clearly still attached.”

“Yes, I thought of that several days too late. I know it’s pathetic, but the mirror thing was the best I could come up with. God knows how I could make such a stupid mistake. I could have told literally
any
other lie and it would have been more convincing: I’d left my phone at home; I remembered I’d left the stove on—anything! Once I realized I’d screwed up, I hoped the CCTV might
be so grainy that my mirrors wouldn’t stand out, but . . .” I shrug.

“Well, I’m sorry your lie didn’t work.” Sergeant Zailer smiles. She looks and sounds as if she might actually mean it. Unless it’s a tactic. It must be a tactic. “Is that why you called and asked to come in? You realized your story’d fall flat, so you decided to tell the truth?”

“No. I’ve just told you, I was pinning all my hopes on excessive graininess of CCTV film.” I smile back at her. “I decided to tell the truth because my mother threatened me.”

“Nicki,” Adam says urgently. I don’t know what he thinks can be done. The words are out and can’t be taken back. I don’t want to take them back. “She didn’t
threaten
you.”

“She did, actually.” To Sergeant Zailer, I say, “My husband refuses to believe my mother would stoop so low, but she did threaten me. She said if I didn’t tell Adam the truth, she would. So I told him—and having told him, there’s absolutely no reason not to tell you, especially when telling you has the added advantage of making it clear I’m not a murderer.”

“Go on,” says Sergeant Zailer.

I sigh. Even prepared as I am, this is not going to be pleasant. “I behaved suspiciously on Monday morning on Elmhirst Road—I’m not denying that. I did a U-turn rather than drive past a certain policeman, but . . . my reason for doing so had nothing to do with Damon Blundy, dead or alive. It was the policeman I wanted to avoid.”

“Why?”

“Because I was embarrassed and ashamed about something I’m
still
embarrassed and ashamed about—although now I can bear to face up to it, whereas on Monday morning, I didn’t feel I could. I just . . . saw that policeman, panicked and had to get away from him as quickly as I could.” I clear my throat, but the lump in it is still there. “I suppose the difference is that now I have no choice but to face up to it. All right. I had a cyber affair with a man called Gavin. Well, a man who told me he was called Gavin—I doubt it’s his real name. One feature of this . . . relationship, if you can call it that, is
that I sent him photographs of myself. Some were more explicit than others.”

“Go on.”

I glance at Adam. How must he feel, hearing all this a second time, in front of a stranger?

“I’m OK,” he says. “You can tell her. Don’t worry about me.” He turns to Sergeant Zailer. “I love my wife and I’m not going to let a brief stupid lapse turn me against her.”

Really? How about a brief stupid lapse of nearly half a century—my entire life, in fact?

“Your relationship’s none of my business, Mr. Clements. Go on, Nicki.”

I can’t. I can’t say the difficult part. Maybe if I start earlier in the story, it’ll be easier. “Gavin put an ad on a website called Intimate Links. Do you know it?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Sergeant Zailer says.

“If you’ve never looked at Intimate Links, this might sound a bit strange, but a lot of people advertise for very specific things. Particular fetishes, for example. There’s a lot of dom-sub stuff: foot worship, guys wanting mother-baby role-play, doctor-patient fantasies . . . When I used to look regularly, there was a man who posted the same ad every day asking for a woman who would make insulting remarks about his wife while having sex with him. I always wondered about that one—I mean, why specifically
that
? Anyway, sorry, that’s irrelevant. These ads often have particular physical requirements: this or that type of body—skinny, obese, shaved, unshaved. A lot of the adverts are very direct. Gavin’s was. He specified certain . . . physical things, things that applied to me. Blond, petite and . . . other more intimate things. His advert read as if he was describing
me
.”

Because he was. He was King Edward, using a different name to reel you in
.

Adam reaches for my hand. I understand him less now than I ever have.

I say, “I’m sure this sounds very sordid, and maybe it is, but there’s also something liberating about being able to abandon social niceties and read what people really want. And to read an ad written by a man who tells you in advance that he will be completely transfixed by your body when he hasn’t seen it yet . . . To write back and say, ‘That’s me you’re describing,’ and to get a reply within ten seconds that says, ‘Then I want you’ . . . There’s something refreshing about that, believe it or not.”

“I can believe it,” says Sergeant Zailer. “Nicki, there’s no need to be defensive. I’m not judgmental about other people’s sex lives. Really. Mine would probably shock you more than yours shocks me. To be honest, if I’m shocked by anything, it’s the resilience of your marriage. I think it’s great that you and Adam are sitting here holding hands while you’re telling me all this.”

“I know Nicki loves me,” says Adam. “She didn’t love this Gavin person. That’s why I can get past it.”

Yes, that’s true. I love Adam. I didn’t love Gavin. I thought I loved King Edward, but I was wrong.

“Our emails became very graphic very quickly,” I say. “It was . . . I’m not making an excuse, but it felt as if my brain had been taken over by a kind of fever.”

It always does. Every time. You like the fever, don’t you? You need it
.

“I wasn’t me; I was this . . . lust-crazed maniac. I had no idea what this man looked like, but it made no difference. It was the things he said about my body and what he’d like to do to it that got me hooked on him.”