Close Your Eyes (19 page)

‘I am overwhelmed by the support we have received. I drove past the farm on my way here and I saw all the ribbons and the flowers and the cards on the gate. And I thought how much people must have loved Elizabeth and Harper.’

After a final hymn, the coffins are carried outside and I can hear broken sobs from the pews behind me. Those who couldn’t make it inside the church are still waiting, lined up along the driveway and the road. The coffins are slid into the hearses and wreathes are arranged. The cars pull away, flanked by police motorcyclists. Most of the town seems to have come out. Some are holding posters. One of them reads:
Harper We Love You. You Won’t Be Forgotten
.

I drift to the edge of the mourners and notice Jeremy Egan trying to slip away as quietly as he must have arrived.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ I say.

Egan stiffens and stands awkwardly. ‘Elizabeth was my friend before any of the rest happened,’ he says defensively. Rocking back and forth on his polished shoes, he pats at his fringe. ‘I’m sorry about the other day – the things I said about your, ah, shaking…’

‘I was also out of line,’ I admit.

‘That was very clever, how you summed up my life. How did you do it?’

‘Observation. Research.’

‘I thought you must have been reading my mail.’

‘Hardly.’

Egan takes off his sunglasses. ‘You might not believe me, but I regret what happened between Elizabeth and me. It should never have started. Maybe I wanted to punish Dominic for holding back the company and costing me money. I know that’s no excuse. Elizabeth had a way of getting her hooks into someone.’

‘She was needy?’

‘I’d say greedy.’ He glances at me apologetically. ‘I guess that’s not a very nice thing to say – in the circumstances.’

‘No. Did your wife blame you or Elizabeth for the affair?’

‘You should ask her.’

‘Is she here?’

‘Afraid not. I did invite her, but we don’t do a lot together. Familiarity breeds contempt – isn’t that what they say? It’s my fault. I’m your classic example of someone who marries up and screws down. My wife is the youngest daughter of a baronet. I still love her. I just don’t fancy her.’

We don’t shake hands when he leaves. Mourners are milling outside the church. Someone touches my shoulder. My arm twitches strongly.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Francis Washburn, thinking he’s caused the reaction.

‘It’s not you,’ I explain. ‘I get spasms like that.’

He nods, not understanding, but he’s too polite to ask. His face tilts at an angle and his eyes seem to focus on my mouth. ‘I wanted to apologise for Friday. Becca said you were very kind to her and I was extremely rude.’

‘Don’t give it another thought,’ I say.

He smiles gratefully. ‘I don’t usually lose my temper. Becca says I’m old-fashioned. Stiff upper lip and all that.’

We stand for a moment, sharing the view, until he talks to cover his awkwardness. ‘You’re welcome to come back to the house. We’re serving refreshments. My mother-in-law particularly wants to meet you. She seems to think you’re famous.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Well, she wants you to come. Please say yes or she’ll blame me.’

‘Blame you?’

He laughs. ‘My mother-in-law is a force of nature. I love her to bits, but it sometimes feels as though we have another child in the house.’

‘She lives with you?’

‘It’s a big house. She has her own wing.’ He gives me the address on a printed card. ‘You were right about Becca – she does need help. I keep hoping the police will make an arrest and things will settle down.’

Francis hears his name being called. Cars are leaving for the crematorium.

‘Two o’clock,’ he shouts behind him.

The last of the mourners are making their way to their cars. Some are still carrying purple balloons. Others have released them, watching them float away on the breeze, as though it symbolises something they can’t put into words.

A new one rises. Dominic Crowe is beneath it. The balloon swirls sideways in the gusty breeze and is caught in the branches of a tree. After a moment it pops and suddenly denotes something different. Dominic lowers his head and leaves quickly, walking in his own reality.

Before he can reach the gate a scrum of reporters surrounds him. I see Bannerman among them. Shouldering people aside, he shoves a microphone under Crowe’s nose. ‘Did you kill your wife and daughter?’

The bluntness of the question shocks everyone else into silence.

‘What did you say?’

‘I asked you if you killed your wife and daughter.’

Dominic finds the strength to ignore him and pushes through the crowd. Cameras chase him across the road and into a side street where he dodges between cars, trying to shield his face with his coat.

Meanwhile, Milo Coleman has materialised with a camera crew. He confronts Ronnie Cray. ‘Why haven’t the police made an arrest?’

‘What are you doing here?’ asks the DCS.

‘I’m filming a documentary about the murders,’ replies Milo. ‘We’re calling it
Manhunt
.’

Cray pushes the camera out of her face.

‘Are you trying to avoid my questions?’ asks Milo, his left hand opening and closing at his side. ‘Do you admit that mistakes have been made?’

‘I have no comment to make.’

‘What are you trying to hide?’

For a moment it appears as though Cray might ignore him completely but then she stops and turns, staring straight into the barrel of the camera. ‘Is that thing turned on?’

The cameraman nods.

Cray looks into the lens. ‘Today we have said goodbye to and celebrated the lives of two people who were the victims of a violent unsolved crime. Unfortunately some members of the media have shown they have no respect for the dead or the law. Even worse, certain individuals have actively sought to sabotage a double murder investigation. I
did
make a mistake. I allowed a pseudo-psychologist, Milo Coleman, to volunteer his services and gain access to confidential information. This man has jeopardised any future prosecution by releasing those details to the public. He has compounded this by trading on people’s fears and turning them against each other.’

‘I’m keeping them safe,’ says Milo.

‘You’re a pariah and a fraud.’

‘You can’t say that.’

‘I just did, Mr Coleman. I have sent a file to the CPS seeking to have you charged with perverting the course of justice.’

She turns and leaves. Mourners step aside. Momentarily robbed of speech, Milo looks from face to face. The camera is still recording. He pushes it away. In the same breath he spies me on the edge of the crowd. Dropping his shoulder as he passes, he tries to knock me down, but Ruiz has seen it coming. He intercepts Milo and braces for the inevitable contact. The younger man goes down like a felled tree, holding his face.

‘You saw that,’ he yells. ‘He hit me. That’s assault.’

Ruiz looks disgusted rather than surprised.

‘Get on your feet,’ he says, and then to the crew, ‘Show’s over, lads.’

Milo is still complaining, but his colleagues ignore him.

‘That was some dive,’ I tell Ruiz.

‘I scored it an eight.’

The double-fronted house has a gabled roof with chimney pots at either end giving it a pleasant symmetry and illusions of grandeur. I grew up in a place similar to this – a large Victorian home with strange internal angles, creaking corridors and dodgy plumbing, which left behind an impression on my consciousness like a pen pressed too hard into a sheet of paper.

Becca Washburn greets me at the front door. She is still wearing her funeral attire – a simple black dress, which clings to her heavy breasts. She smiles at me nervously and turns to the next group of mourners. I navigate along the crowded hallway and reach the rear garden where people have clustered beneath a white marquee and the shade of a large jacaranda tree.

Trestle tables are laden with food – party pies, sausage rolls, spinach triangles and samosas. Trays of sandwiches, curling in the heat, are being protected from flies beneath muslin. Two young men are operating a makeshift bar, serving wine and beer from barrels full of ice.

A matronly woman wields an oversized teapot, offering me a cup. Pancake make-up pools in the hollows of her cheeks. ‘That strong enough for you, pet?’ she asks, as liquid creeps up the inside of the mug.

‘The man don’t wanna be drinking that,’ says her husband, looking over her shoulder. ‘Might as well be water.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my tea.’

‘It’s so weak it can barely crawl out the spout.’

I leave them bickering and carry my cup into the garden. Father Abermain has a group of women around him. Like an island in a sea of black, he cuts an impressive figure in his laundered white shirt with twin golden crosses on the starched collar. Handsome, steady and a good listener, if he weren’t sworn to celibacy I can imagine a lot of middle-aged women queuing to catch his eye.

Francis Washburn leaves another group and crosses the lawn to greet me. ‘I’m glad you came. We men are rather outnumbered. Can I get you something stronger to drink?’

‘No, I’m fine; you mentioned Elizabeth’s mother…’

‘Right, yes, I’ll try to find her.’

In the meantime he introduces me to a clutch of distant relatives who have travelled from Ireland for the funerals. They include an Uncle Ira who is so deaf he shouts at everyone, and a cousin with macular degeneration, who is showing off a much younger husband. I hover on the edge of their conversation, nodding and smiling. I am not a lover of small talk. I don’t feel equipped. One of the problems is that I discover too much about people. It’s not a conscious thing. I don’t set out to unpick their psyches or explore their motivations. The information comes to me almost instinctively. I see their clothes, how they’re groomed, where they stand, whom they speak to, where they look and the thousands of almost imperceptible tics, gestures, shrugs and mannerisms that clutter human behaviour and reveal hidden truths about them. It is not mindreading, but it feels just as intrusive – knowing so much about someone I’ve barely met.

Leaving the group, I walk across the lawn to the house in search of the bathroom. It’s occupied. I wait. Most of Harper’s friends have gathered in the adjoining dining room. I don’t see Blake Lehmann or Sophie Baxter among them. Elliot Crowe is swigging beer from an oversized can. Pale and perspiring, his eyes and lips are darkened like an actor in a silent movie. There is a strange disconnectedness between the neatness of his clothes and how his body looks ready to fall apart.

‘I fucking hate funerals,’ he announces too loudly.

‘You shouldn’t say that,’ whispers a girl with a pink streak in her hair.

‘Why not? I wanted to miss this one. Bad form, I suppose, to be a no-show at dear Mummy’s funeral, but I keep asking myself – are they sure she’s really dead? Did the killer use a wooden stake?’

The girl hushes him and stifles a giggle.

The bathroom is free. When I’m finished, I wash my hands with a tiny square of newly unwrapped soap – the sort you find in hotels. There are dozens of miniature bottles of shampoo and conditioner and shower gel on a shelf above the sink and more on the windowsill. It must have been a job lot, I think, as I swallow one of my pills and scoop water into my mouth.

As I leave the bathroom something cold and wet touches my fingers. A golden retriever with a grey muzzle has risen slowly from under the hallway table so he can lick my hand.

‘He’s a dear old thing,’ says Becca, watching me from the first-floor landing. She’s holding baby George in her arms. I can only see the top of his head, which is covered in hair as fine as corn silk.

‘You have a beautiful baby,’ I say.

She smiles and says thank you, cradling his head, which fits neatly into the palm of her hand. She comes down the stairs. ‘He’s just woken … hungry, as usual.’

I follow her into the kitchen, where she takes a seat and rests George on her lap while she unbuttons her blouse, revealing a nursing bra. I avert my eyes.

‘Am I embarrassing you?’ she asks.

‘Not at all.’

When I turn back she has lifted George to her breast and he has latched on, his mouth stretched wide and his lips barely seeming to move, but I can see him swallowing. Becca half closes her eyes. ‘I wanted to apologise to you for the other day.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘I don’t know what happened to me. One minute I was at home and the next…’

‘What’s the last thing you remember?’

‘I was taking a nap. I lay down upstairs and fell asleep. I had a nightmare. I dreamed about going to the mortuary to identify Elizabeth and Harper. They showed me Elizabeth first. I couldn’t look at Harper…’ She shudders and the sentence trails off. ‘Francis says you’re helping the police.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why do you do it? I mean – do you enjoy investigating crimes?’

‘No.’

‘Why, then?’

‘I have trouble saying no to people.’

Becca doesn’t seem convinced by my altruism.

‘How old is George?’ I ask.

‘Five months.’

‘Are you back at work?’

‘I’m on nights this week.’

‘You’re a nurse.’

‘Yes.’

‘What does Francis do?’

‘He’s a property manager. He looks after holiday houses and rentals. We have to juggle the babysitting. My mum helps.’

‘She lives with you?’

‘Yes.’

Becca glances through the window at the people in the garden. ‘Everybody has been so nice, calling and dropping by, but I think I’m ready for them to go home now.’ She uses two fingers to brush hair from her face. ‘Is it true that Tommy Garrett was released?’

‘The police didn’t have enough evidence to hold him.’

Two children run into the room and out again, their faces pooled with colour. Becca puts a finger on her lips. They see her breastfeeding and spin away, giggling as they run outside.

‘Were you and Elizabeth close?’ I ask.

‘Not always. Maybe it was the age difference – ten years. I idolised Lizzie when we were growing up. She was the pretty one, the bright one, the popular one, but as the youngest everybody doted on me.’ She smiles serenely. ‘Ever since George was born we’d grown a lot closer. She was a wonderful aunt. Harper was our babysitter.’