Death Comes First (31 page)

‘Well, I knew you wouldn’t rest till you found him. I thought if I had Fred then I could let you find me, when the time was right, and we could all be together again, somewhere away from your father’s clutches.’

‘So what changed your mind about that? You didn’t wait. You’ve snatched Molly and me too.’

‘It’s not like that, really it’s not like that. Fred wouldn’t come with me. He wouldn’t go anywhere without you two. Mark as well, Fred said at first, but I think I’ve talked him out of that.’

‘You’ve talked him out of that?’ Joyce queried, incredulous. ‘He’s an eleven-year-old boy – what did you think you were doing, putting him in a position where he was having to make such monumental decisions about his own future? Was he going to run away with Daddy or was he going to stay with Mummy? For God’s sake, Charlie, how could you?’

‘Look, I’ve told you everything. You know the truth about your father now. You know how he seduced me, and corrupted me—’

‘Don’t you take responsibility for anything, ever?’

‘I’m trying to,’ said Charlie.

He stepped back from her at last, everything about his body language unthreatening. She still felt threatened. She made no attempt to move away either from him or the car.

‘I came to my senses in the end. It took a long time, but I did it. That’s what this is all about. So now can we talk about the future? Our future. I want us to be together, away from all of this. That’s all. That’s all I have ever wanted. Now we can do it, get away from your father and everything that is
Tanner-Max for ever. He doesn’t even know I’m alive. We can do it, Joyce, you and me and the kids
 . . .
’

Charlie carried on talking, but Joyce stopped listening. She slumped against the side of her car. He had to be mad; it was the only possible explanation. She felt numb. She didn’t know what to believe.

She waited until the drone of his voice finally stopped.

‘Did you shoot Dad, Charlie?’ she asked.

Charlie looked aghast. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Apart from the fact that I don’t have a gun and wouldn’t know how to begin, I’ve been here, two and a half hours from Bristol, all day. Apart from driving over the moors to send those texts. Still miles from Bristol. And with Fred, the whole time. Ask him.’

‘I have no intention of asking our son anything. If you didn’t do it yourself, are you sure you weren’t involved in some way? Are you sure you don’t know who shot Dad?’

‘Of course not.’

Joyce thought Charlie didn’t look too certain, but he gave her no time to question him further.

‘I just want to look to our future. I want to take you and our children away. I want us to start a new life. That’s all I have ever wanted.’

Joyce was wondering how to end the conversation and get away from this place when a voice from somewhere behind her cut in.

‘Is it? Well then, what a fool I have been.’

It was the voice of a young woman, instantly familiar. But so out of context Joyce couldn’t place it at first.

She was still struggling with her memory when a female figure dropped athletically into the barn from the top of the
broken wall upon which she had apparently been perched, listening to everything that had been said.

It was a young woman wearing grey jeans, grey jacket, and a grey woolly hat.

Monika.

Charlie took a single step towards her.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘I told you to stay in the flat.’

‘And you think always I am going to do what you say, eh?’ responded Monika.

She seemed to be seething with anger. Her English was not nearly as good as usual.

Charlie turned to face Joyce again. Joyce just stared at Monika.

‘What is the matter, Joycey, you never look at me before, is that it?’ Monika enquired, using Charlie’s name for Joyce, and loading it with sarcasm.

‘That is possible, no? After all, Mrs Mildmay, I am a servant only.’

Joyce stepped back and, out of habit, looked towards Charlie, seeking reassurance, or at least an explanation.

He seemed to be rooted to the spot. His mouth had fallen open. He said nothing.

Joyce turned towards Monika again. Her being there was so absurd, so ridiculously out of context that Joyce couldn’t make sense of it. Why would Monika be doing this? Speaking to her as if she had a nasty taste in her mouth. As if she hated Joyce. Monika, who came into her home and looked after her children and managed her affairs. But this was a different Monika. An arrogant, angry Monika. The look in her eyes was chilling.

Monika turned on Charlie then. ‘You bastard liar,’ she
yelled, so angry she was trembling with rage. ‘I hear every word you say to your
 . . . 
your wife. Think what I do for you. The risks I take. I help you steal car. Because I believe you. I believe it is all for us. For you and me. The only way, you say. Now I know truth. You use me to get you out of fucking mess. That is what you do.’

‘No,’ said Charlie. He turned to Joyce. ‘You have to believe me, darling. I have no idea what she’s talking about.’

Monika narrowed her eyes and took a step towards Charlie.

Joyce wouldn’t have thought it was possible for him to look any more grey. But he did. He was standing quite still. She saw his Adam’s apple move, as if he was trying to swallow, but without much success.

Her own mouth was dry. No doubt his was too.

What had he done? What had Charlie got himself into? And how had she remained so totally unaware of it? Or was she kidding herself? There had been times over the years when she’d suspected that he was seeing someone else. Times when he’d disappear in the early hours or come home way after midnight without explanation. But she had not suspected anything like this. How could she? Never in a million years had she suspected that her husband might be engaged in a relationship with Monika. Neither had she suspected that Monika could be so full of hatred.

Suddenly she could contain herself no longer.

‘So this is the truth, then, Charlie,’ she said. ‘Nothing to do with your stupid conscience or my father’s alleged greed. You staged your own death to be with a girl young enough to be your daughter, a girl about the same age as your eldest son. Someone I trusted in my home. Now I understand.’

‘No, you don’t understand anything,’ said Charlie. ‘I never
wanted to be with Monika. But I had to escape. I thought your father would find me wherever I went and whatever I did. Unless he thought I was dead. I couldn’t do it alone. I couldn’t. I used Monika – she’s right about that. I didn’t do it to be with her. I had no intention of being with her. It was you I wanted, Joyce. You and our children. I thought the letter would alert you. I suppose I put too much store on it
 . . .
’

‘You say you had no intention of being with me?’ Monika stepped forward. ‘You use me? Now you tell me, yes, that is so?’

‘Shut up!’ commanded Charlie.

He didn’t even look at her. His eyes remained fixed on Joyce. Pleading eyes.

‘You betray me,’ said Monika. ‘I believed in you.’

‘I told you to shut up,’ Charlie shouted, still not looking at her.

‘Then that is it,’ Monika said. Her voice suddenly confident. ‘I go to the police. I will tell them everything I know. You will go to prison, Charlie. You commit many crimes. There is abduction, I think you embezzle money from your company. And, what is the charge? You pervert the course of justice. I think also there is more I do not know about. You will go to prison for long time, Charlie. And I will be glad.’ She gave a short bitter laugh. ‘I go to the police. I shall tell everything.’

‘No, you mustn’t do that,’ said Charlie, his voice calm.

‘Yes, I must,’ she said. ‘Because I do not let you get away with this. I who have done everything you ask me. I get you your drugs. I even go to doctor and I lie. I get you everything you need. I smuggle you into my home. I know I break law. I keep you in flat for months. While you stay all day in my bed and smoke your stink—’

‘Skunk,’ Charlie corrected her.

For Joyce this was yet another shock. Skunk, which hadn’t been around in her long-ago smoking days, was by far the most potent and dangerous strain of marijuana ever to have been developed. Of course. It must have been skunk Charlie had been smoking that night she interrupted him in the garden shed. That was why the effect on her had been so powerful. Skunk is known to cause psychosis. According to Monika, Charlie had been smoking the stuff day in and day out for months. If that was the case, what mental state might he be in, and what might he be capable of?

Monika had begun to speak again. ‘Skunk. You call it how you like. It stink anyway. I look after you, Charlie. I keep you safe. Until we are able to go away together, you say. I continue work for your family, because you say if I leave it will be suspect. I spy for you. I even do what you want when you tell me you cannot go away without your son. I go along with your crazy plan to take him from the house in the night and bring him out here where you can hide. Away from everything and everyone, you say. You will tell him then about me, about us, you say. He will be fine with it. What was I doing, believing you? I am idiot. Now I will make you suffer for what you do. I report you for all of it.’

Everything was beginning to fall horribly into place now for Joyce. Monika said she had spied for Charlie. No wonder he seemed to know so much about what she and the children had and hadn’t been doing.

Charlie was still staring at her. She hated him now for what he had done. She hoped he could not read her mind. Finally he removed his gaze from Joyce and looked at Monika directly. It was a chilling look.

‘I can’t let you do that,’ he said, his voice still disturbingly calm.

‘You cannot stop me,’ said Monika. ‘I have car parked on the road. I go now. And I go straight to police.’

Joyce saw the expression on Charlie’s face change. Something came over him. There was a glint in his eye she had never seen before. She hadn’t imagined, for all the ups and downs of their marriage, that she could ever be afraid of Charlie. Afraid of what he might do.

Suddenly she was very afraid.

Twenty-two

Charlie moved quickly. In three strides he was across the barn and had reached Monika. In one fluid movement he lashed out with his clenched right fist, smashing it straight into her face. There was a crunching sound. Joyce thought the girl’s nose must have been broken. Blood spouted everywhere. All over Monika and all over Charlie.

Monika did not utter a sound. Joyce saw her knees buckle. It looked as if that one punch had knocked her out cold. But Charlie did not stop.

He swayed back on his heels, crouching as he formed a fist with his other hand, and aimed a vicious left hook into the young woman’s belly, right below her ribcage. There was the sort of noise you get when air is ejected from a rubber cushion. Monika folded like a concertina and fell motionless to the floor. Joyce had never before witnessed an act of such violent brutality. And this from her husband. A man she had always considered to be so gentle. Only now did it occur to her that he had probably never been that, merely weak. And weak men can often be the most vicious of all. And the most dangerous.

Joyce was horrified. She heard herself screaming. She hadn’t meant to scream because of her children. Molly and
Fred were still zipped in the tent at one end of the barn. Whatever they may or may not have heard before, they must have heard their mother scream. The tent opened and they both came rushing out.

They stopped in their tracks when they saw the scene before them. Their father was standing, legs akimbo, blood on his hands, over the prone body of Monika.

Their mother had managed to stop screaming but was looking on in horror.

‘Dad,’ shouted Molly, taking in the dreadful scene. ‘What’s Monika doing here? She’s hurt. Did you hurt her? What’s going on? What have you done?’

‘Nothing, I haven’t done anything,’ said Charlie. ‘This isn’t what it seems, sweetheart, honestly it’s not.’

It was, of course, exactly what it seemed. Charlie was behaving like the weak man Joyce already knew him to be, although she had not imagined for one moment that he could ever be capable of anything like the display of violence she had just witnessed.

He was desperate, obviously. Desperate and weak. What a combination.

Charlie turned to face Fred directly and opened his arms, inviting the boy to run into them the way he always had done. After all, whatever else may have been going on in their marriage, Charlie had always been a good father. Or at least, that’s what Joyce had thought until now.

‘It’s all right Fred, honestly,’ said Charlie.

Fred started to move towards him again. Then he stopped.

‘No, no, Dad. It’s not. You’ve got blood on your hands.’

Charlie looked down at his hands, surprised. He rubbed them hastily on the back of his trousers.

‘Look, you can trust me, Fred,’ he said. ‘You know that,
don’t you?’ Charlie’s glance took in his wife and his daughter too. ‘You can all trust me,’ he said.

Joyce at that moment thought her husband was the last man in the world she would ever trust. She heard Monika moan. At least the girl was alive. The way she’d gone down, Joyce had feared Charlie may have killed her.

It was clear that Charlie had told Monika he was running away with her. He must have sworn his love for her so that she would help him stage his disappearance. He couldn’t have done it alone. His dinghy had been left on the boat; his life jacket had been found. He had to have had an accomplice who had rendezvoused with him at sea. Was Monika his accomplice in that too? She must be a reasonably competent sailor then. Joyce wondered if Charlie had coached her, and how often she’d accompanied him on those ‘solo’ trips aboard the boat named after his daughter. This young woman who, as she said, had risked everything for him. Yet as soon as Monika presented a threat to him, Charlie had viciously attacked her. And without a moment’s hesitation. What would he do to his wife, or even to his children, if any of them presented a threat? Joyce wondered. He said he had done everything for them to be together. But that didn’t make any sense. They had been together before. Before Charlie had decided he wanted his new life!