Authors: Michael Robotham
‘She had her sketchbook.’
‘What was she going to sketch?’
She gives me a pantomime shrug. ‘I don’t know – the usual stuff. She drew a lot of buildings and people’s faces. I’m hopeless at drawing, but she didn’t mind stopping some random and asking if she could draw them.’
‘Random?’
‘Stranger.’
‘When you met up with her that evening, how did she seem?’
‘OK, I guess – excited about her birthday.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘You don’t normally forget the last moments you spend with your best friend.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Personal experience.’
Sophie flinches, annoyed with herself.
‘Did you talk to anyone at the pub?’
‘A couple of older guys tried to chat us up. They were business types, trying to act like they were hipsters.’
‘When you say older…?’
‘Thirtyish.’
Ancient.
‘Did you recognise any of them?’
‘Harper knew one guy. I think he was a family friend … an architect.’
‘Jeremy Egan?’
‘That might have been his name. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Harper – a real D.O.M.’
‘What’s a “D.O.M.”?’
‘Dirty Old Man.’
I make a mental note to check out Jeremy Egan’s statement. According to his wife he was home at the time of the murders, but Egan didn’t mention seeing Harper earlier in the evening.
‘Did anything happen that night that was unusual or out-of-the-ordinary?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Anything strange or surprising?’
Sophie screws up her face. ‘You’re talking about Clevedon, right?’
Ignoring her sarcasm, I ask her to think back and try to picture the scene at the pub. Where were they were standing. Who else was there? Was anyone watching?
Her tongue peeps out from between her teeth. ‘Harper saw something on the TV. She wanted the barman to turn up the sound, but he was too busy serving drinks.’
‘Why was she so interested?’
‘It was something about a woman being attacked on a footpath.’
‘Did she know this woman?’
‘No.’
‘Where was the footpath?’
‘She didn’t say.’
‘And you didn’t ask?’
‘No. That’s when Blake arrived. He hadn’t bothered having a shower or getting changed. Harper was narked.’
‘They argued.’
‘I guess.’
‘Did you see the fight?’
‘It wasn’t a fight. Harper left in a huff. Blake followed her.’
‘She scratched his face.’
‘He had the scratch when he arrived.’
‘Did he tell you to say that?’
‘No.’
‘You must like Blake a lot to risk lying for him.’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘I know you went to the farmhouse that night.’
Sophie’s eyes shoot up to mine. She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You see – right there – that little pause before you responded tells me that you’re lying. I know you were at the farmhouse that night. Blake said it was your idea.’
‘What! No! It was him – he wanted to give Harper her present.’
‘And you volunteered to go with him. That’s sweet. There’s a theory that two people killed Harper and her mother.’
Sophie chokes on her response. Her head pivots from side to side. ‘You can’t be serious – I would never – I mean … that’s just crazy.’
‘You ever heard of Bonnie and Clyde?’ She shakes her head. ‘They were young lovers who went a killing spree in Texas in the 1930s. They got off on murdering people until the police shot them. Bonnie Parker was twenty-three, Clyde Barrow twenty-five.’
Sophie scratches at her wrists. ‘We didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘Why didn’t you tell the police?’
‘Blake told me to keep my mouth shut. He was scared people might think we were involved. But we didn’t do anything wrong. I swear. Mrs Crowe wouldn’t let us in. Blake broke a window but that was an accident.’
She’s shouting the words. The manager has reached the table. Sophie pushes past him and disappears into the kitchen. Everything about her persona reminds me of an actress in a bad play, who wants to rush off the stage and disappear, but there are still two more acts to come and the script doesn’t get any better.
Tuesday afternoon and I thread my way along the crowded footpath where tourists are lunching at cafés or queuing for gelato at the Italian restaurant. On the seafront children are paddling in the shallows, watched over by mothers wearing wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses. Teenage girls are lying on their bellies, chatting and texting, ignoring the boys who are sitting on the steps checking them out. Meanwhile, joggers jog and old people amble and the waves sigh upon the shingles.
Catching the bus I take a seat halfway down, watching the driver’s forearms knot and bulge as he turns the wheel. People get on. Fewer get off. A trio of girls laughs at some private joke. An old woman sags under the weight of her age. A little girl looks at me from the folds of her mother’s dress. I offer the mother a seat. She doesn’t smile or thank me.
Eventually the bus is a crowded, rackety sweating box, reeking of diesel fumes and deodorant. People bump against me, touching my knees, and I tense up. Light and shade tick over my eyelids. I am physically aware of the woman I seek, even though I can only see the back of her head and her shoulders. A man is sitting next to her, sneaking glances when she turns her gaze out the window. She is clutching a bag on her lap.
When I last saw her she was dolled up in a cocktail frock, twirling stilettos on her finger. Now she’s dressed in a blouse and simple skirt, sitting near the back of the bus, head down, noodling on her phone.
It has taken me weeks to learn her routines – where she lives, where she works, what bus she catches, who she’s really married to … I knew she was married. I saw the tell-tale white band of skin where she had taken off her wedding ring.
Fields roll past the windows of the bus. Narrow lanes. Small villages. I get off the bus first and walk quickly away along the narrow country lane, knowing the woman is behind me.
I pass the church and turn into the graveyard, where I squat on my haunches, bracing my back against the cool stone, listening for her footsteps. I can hear them now, getting closer. Does she speed up a little? Perhaps she has some sense of foreboding, that funny fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach.
Let her pass.
– Take her now.
It’s too open. Just watch her.
– I’m sick of watching.
Let her pass.
– No. No.
What if she runs? What if she screams? The last one spoke to the police. I made her promise, but she lied to me. They all lie. I won’t trust this one.
I step out suddenly. She doesn’t scream. People rarely do what TV cop shows and movies say they should. Instead she opens her lips and makes a small noise, almost a hiccup, before my hand covers her mouth. I can feel her heartbeat. Smell her hair. Picture her nerves prickling on her skin. I can feel the energy beneath her shoulders and the tightness of her bladder and the smell of her sweat.
‘Are you frightened?’ I whisper.
She nods, muttering something beneath my hand.
‘Some people say that we should embrace our fears and that fear makes us feel our own humanity. Others think we fear what we want the most, but that’s not true, is it? You see, fear cannot be defined or enclosed. It has no confines and shows no mercy and respects no laws. Fear doesn’t begin in the mind. It goes deeper. It is wired into muscle fibres and nerve-endings, our very DNA. That’s why the body reacts faster than the mind. We fight or flee or freeze before we ever know why. Unconsciously. Innately.’
Her tears and snot are wetting my fingers, oily and warm. She’s trying to fathom what’s coming – considering the possibilities from rape to death and the infinite landscape that lies between. She’s trying to think of a way out, but her mind is her enemy, not her last hope.
I have felt a soul leave a body. I have felt a soul struggling to escape. Every one of them cries out for one more chance to see, smell, touch, hear and taste. This one is doing the same.
I take my hand from her mouth and place my forearm around her throat, pressing my mouth close to her ear.
‘Please let me go,’ she croaks.
‘You must try harder than that.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s more fun that way.’
The blade touches her skin. Her flesh opens. Three lines: Adam’s initial. Her body heaves as blood leaks over her eyelids and sprinkles her white blouse like garnets.
That night at the cottage I spread my notes across the bed and begin writing a report for DCS Cray. In the morning Ruiz will talk to the tradesmen who worked at the farmhouse, going over their statements, looking for any inconsistencies.
I’ve interviewed most of the major suspects, studied the crime scene photographs and footage, and talked to family and friends. No gaping holes or anomalies have emerged apart from the obvious one – the killer’s identity.
Blake Lehmann lied to police. He didn’t mention visiting the farmhouse or throwing rocks at Harper’s bedroom window. Sophie Baxter also lied. It’s possible the two of them killed Harper and Elizabeth, with Blake as the dominant personality and Sophie being manipulated to follow.
Dominic Crowe has no alibi and seems caught between grieving for his daughter and feeling sorry for himself. Jeremy Egan has a long-suffering wife to back up his story and is safe from prosecution unless smugness becomes a criminal offence. Dion Ferguson can’t prove his whereabouts that night and blackmail is a powerful motive, but he comes across as frightened of women rather than angry.
Then there’s the family. Becca Washburn went to work that Saturday, leaving the baby with Francis and her mother. Elliot Crowe is the only gap in my research. Nobody answered my knock at his bedsit in Bristol and he hasn’t replied to the message I pushed under the door.
Perhaps the killer was a random stranger who watched Elizabeth having sex in public or arranged to meet her through an online chat room or dating service. He could have followed her home, talked his way inside and managed to kill mother and daughter before they could raise the alarm.
Julianne appears in the doorway. I’ve been concentrating so hard I didn’t hear her climb the stairs. I close a folder quickly, like a schoolboy caught looking at a centrefold.
‘You missed a telephone call,’ she says, holding my phone. I have a vague memory of ringing. I look at the screen. The caller doesn’t have an ID. ‘They’ll call back if it’s important,’ I say.
Julianne is still in the doorway, regarding me solemnly. I notice the dark shadows beneath her eyes and the thin line of grey at the roots of her hair where she’s pulled it back from her forehead. She hasn’t had time to visit her hairdresser, or perhaps doesn’t see the need.
‘I thought you were in bed,’ I say.
‘I’m heading there now. What are you doing?’
‘Packing up.’
‘Have you finished?’
‘I’m going to wrap this up tomorrow. DCS Cray can get by without me.’
‘Really?’
‘I thought I might take Emma to Longleat to see the animals.’
‘She’d enjoy that.’
Our youngest is obsessed with Africa. She’s been writing letters to David Attenborough since she was five, asking him very specific questions about meerkats and honey badgers, her favourite animals. The naturalist has written back to her twice, but is probably rather frightened by her intensity.
Julianne steps into the room and begins rearranging Emma’s menagerie of stuffed animals – a panda, a patchwork elephant, a flop-eared rabbit and a whole family of teddy bears, who share Emma’s bed as though it’s a life-raft. The silence reminds me of the cold quiet of the past six years, when divorce always beckoned and Julianne’s affections were parcelled up and doled out like donations to charity.
‘Why didn’t you remarry?’ I ask.
‘I don’t think I had the energy,’ she replies.
‘Is it that hard?’
‘Not the words, I guess. The compromises.’
‘Was I a compromise?’
‘Don’t go fishing for compliments, Joe; you know the answer.’
Julianne shivers and I offer to fetch her dressing gown. I hold it open for her and she slips her arms into the sleeves. As I wrap the gown around her, I give her a hug. She settles against me and I smell her shampoo and see the lone freckle beneath her right ear.
I turn her slowly and cup her face and pull her towards me. I feel her heart beating and the soft swell of her stomach. She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t kiss back. I harden against her.
‘Don’t,’ she says, twisting sideways and leaving the room.
My hands are trembling but it has nothing to do with the Parkinson’s.
The pillow beneath my head is vibrating. Maybe it’s an earthquake. I slide my hand beneath the soft toys and search for the source.
When did I begin sleeping with my mobile phone?
The digital clock next to my head says 03:52. Nothing good ever comes at this hour. Virtuous people are dreaming. Polite people call at a sociable time. I roll over and leave the call unanswered.
The phone vibrates again. This time I answer it. ‘Who is it?’
‘DCS Cray.’
‘Who?’
‘Ronnie Cray.’
‘You can’t be Ronnie Cray. She wouldn’t call me at three in the morning.’
‘It’s almost four.’
‘DCS Cray knows I’m a late riser. She knows I have to be medicated.’
‘It’s important, Joe.’
‘I’m hanging up now.’
‘There’s been another murder!’ she says suddenly, not trying to hide the urgency in her voice. ‘A woman was reported missing in North Somerset at nine o’clock last night. She was found three hours ago. We think she was strangled, possibly raped. It’s too early to tell.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘It could be linked to the farmhouse murders. The victim had her fingers dipped in bleach – just like Harper Crowe.’ Cray clears her throat. ‘There’s something else. She had a symbol carved into her forehead.’