In Denial (2 page)

But he could not move them.

If he moved them he would be disturbing evidence, and if he did that the chances of catching whoever … who was it? Who could have taken his family, his life from him? What sort of monster, what sort of psychopath could murder such lovely people? He didn’t even bother looking to see if anything had been stolen. What did it matter if everything had been stolen? What had been stolen were the three most loved people in his life. Without them nothing else mattered. Without them what happened to him did not matter. There was no present, there was no future; there was only a past.

He had to see her once more.

He could not stay where he was, she would be lonely.

Adam went back into the living room, knelt down by his wife’s body, picked up her hand and held it against his cheek.

‘
Goodbye,’ he whispered.

He wanted to say so much more.

He wanted to tell her how much he loved her once more. He had told her he loved her three times a day, every day for the last week … every day? He had last spoken to her the previous evening. As he crawled into bed he had rung her to say goodnight. It must have been after eleven o’clock.

She was murdered after eleven o’clock.

As he switched off his phone and picked up his book to read a few pages before sleep took over, Lucinda could have been facing her killer; Charlotte and Timothy could have been facing their killer.

He had slept whilst they were being murdered.

While his wife’s throat was being sliced from ear to ear, he had slept.

While Charlotte’s and Timothy’s throats were being cut from ear to ear, he had still been asleep.

He had woken on Friday morning, taken a shower, had a shave, and his entire family had been murdered. He never rang Lucinda on a Friday morning as he did first thing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. It was a game they played.

On Fridays they did not speak.

They were storing up their energy, their news, their everything - for Friday evening.

*  *  *

After turning the car round, Adam drove slowly towards the T-junction with the main road. He turned right.

Until he looked at the map before leaving the house, he had never heard of Luss.

He had never been to Loch Lomond before.

Why was he here?

It was simple.

It was a place Lucinda and the children had always wanted to see but they had never been able to find the time.

Now it was too late.

Only when it was too late had he found the time.

He swore when he missed the first turning to the village, but knew from the map there was another turning further along the main road.

After taking the second turning he saw The Manor of Loch Lomond signposted off to the left.

If Lucinda had been with him they would have looked no further. He had checked on the Internet for what hotels there were in Luss and The Manor of Loch Lomond was not for him. He wanted something less ostentatious; he wanted peace and quiet, he wanted to be left alone. He drove on towards the rest of the village. The hotel he was looking for wasn’t as grand, nowhere near as grand, but it would suit his purpose.

The Colcorran Arms was a large white-rendered building to the right of the road running north through and on the edge of Luss. The lack of cars in the hotel car park would normally have made it appear uninviting but not on this occasion; it was exactly what he wanted.

Adam got out of the car.

Leaning against the driver’s door he surveyed the building in the gathering gloom.

It was after all the place where he might have his last supper.

‘
Mr Harrison?’

He had expected somebody different. He had not expected to answer the door to a grey-suited female with a younger, equally smart but very stern looking man at her shoulder. Beyond them he could see a couple of uniformed policemen standing just inside the front gate. There were two cars in the driveway. The Volvo V70 was white with the blue and yellow check of the Derbyshire Police emblazoned on the sides, and the other car was an unmarked dark blue Audi A4.

Adam refocused on the female officer who had asked him the question. ‘Yes. You’d better come in.’

‘
No, sir, do you think you could step outside?’

‘
Outside? Why?’

But he did as he was asked. Two other uniformed policemen he hadn’t noticed appeared and stood either side of him. They did not touch him but it was obvious why they were here. ‘What …?’

‘
Sir, you have reported a very serious crime and it would be best if you do exactly what we say.’

Adam looked at the female.

They had not said who they were.

They had not shown him any form of identity. ‘My wife and children are in there.’

‘
Yes, sir. Please stay out here while we go inside.’ The two plain-clothes officers went into the house, pulling on rubber gloves they extracted from their pockets.

Adam waited in silence.

His mind was screaming, not with anything particularly intelligible, but it was screaming all the same. It was his family, his house, his garden, his everything, and yet these complete strangers were invading what was his.

He should be with them.

He should be by their sides when these strangers saw them.

Had he really lost them?

Was he really without those who were part of him. their very presence treasured, their every move, their every breath, their every word … now gone forever?

How do you see your wife like that and not … not what?

How was he supposed to feel?

He could not get his head round what had happened. His children, not yet out of their early teens, their lives so gruesomely taken away from them, from him. His brain refused to compute the enormity of what he had found, the sheer magnitude of what he had seen. The blood, the staring eyes, their innocence and their silence … what the hell was he supposed to do?

How the hell was he supposed to feel?

Adam was aware that the female detective, if that’s what she was, was standing just outside the front door. ‘Mr Harrison, I’m terribly sorry but -’

‘
There’s no need,’ Adam said, wondering how he was actually able to speak, ‘I’ve seen them.’

‘
I’m still -’

‘
Don’t, please don’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t know what to call you, you didn’t -’

‘
No, I didn’t, did I?’ The woman took a small black wallet from her jacket pocket. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Caroline Brown.’ She showed Adam her ID. ‘I’ve left Detective Constable John Tilsey in the house. Yes, I’m sorry, that was an oversight.’

Adam stared at the woman. Incongruously he thought how white her teeth were against her black skin, how white her eyes were, with dark brown pupils, how pink her lips were - how normal she looked. ‘What, what happens now?’

‘
SOCO is on -’

‘
SOCO?’

‘
Scenes of Crime. We must sanitize the area so that nothing is disturbed. It will take -’

‘
Yes, I know, hours.’

‘
Yes, Mr Harrison, hours.’ She was watching him very closely, her face almost expressionless.

‘
Clues, they’ll want to look for clues. I’ve seen what they do. Does this mean I can’t be with them?’

‘
No, I’m afraid that is out of the question.’

‘
Not even go into the house?’

‘
No.’

‘
But it’s …’

‘
But it’s what, sir?’

‘
Nothing … I understand.’

*  *  *

‘
Good evenin’, sir,’ the man behind the bar said, his face unsmiling, a slight frown on his forehead. ‘What would ye be likin’?’

Adam looked around him.

There were eight or nine others in the bar. Four middle-aged men were playing cards over by the spitting log fire - all of whom were now eyeing him inquisitively; a young couple was tucked over in the corner and three other men sat on stools at the bar itself, their eyes focussed on him. Adam nodded at the men before turning back to the barman.

‘
Er, yes, good evening. I was wondering if you had a room for the night, maybe two or three nights.’

‘
A room?’ The man looked at his watch. ‘Bit late for a room, it’s gone eight.’

‘
Oh, right, bit late, right, I’d better …’

‘
I s’pose I could go an’ ask Doris. She won’t be likin’ it, mind.’

‘
Then perhaps it would be best …’ Adam watched the barman go out through the door at the back of the bar. He nodded once again at the men sitting to his left, their expressions now distinctly hostile. The card game over by the log fire had resumed. The couple in the corner were kissing.

‘
It’s a room you’re wanting,’ said the matronly woman who suddenly appeared in the bar, looking as though she had materialised from the 1940s.

‘
Eh, yes, if that’s …’

‘
It’s after eight,’ she told him.

‘
Yes, your … the barman said the same thing. If it’s too difficult …’

‘
I suppose it’s not too far after eight,’ the woman said without a hint of a smile. ‘English, are you?’ Whereas the barman had a broad Scottish accent, Doris’s was only slight.

‘
Yes, does that -’

‘
Most tourists go to The Manor. Don’t get many down this end.’ Adam wanted to ask if tourists didn’t fill the rooms then who did.

‘
If it’s …’

‘
Is it a single you’ll be wanting or a double?’

‘
A double would be nice but a single will do.’

‘
On your own then?’

‘
Yes, I’m on my own.’

‘
Overlooking the loch is forty-five pounds, not overlooking the loch forty pounds. Although I have to add that at this time of year the word overlooking is used a wee bit loosely. Which would you prefer?’

‘
The loch, please. Overlooking the loch would be perfect.’

‘
The loch, is it? Well, you’d better come with me. To overlook the loch we have to go to the top.’

The woman selected a key from behind the bar and disappeared through the door the barman was now propping open. In response to Adam’s raised eyebrows, he pointed to the door on the other side of the bar.

*  *  *

‘
What time did you get home, sir?’ Sergeant Brown asked him from the other side of the table.

Adam had gone willingly to the police station, mainly because he had nowhere else to go. Even in his bewildered state, he realised the sooner he answered their questions, the sooner they would leave him alone. Why did he want to be left alone? How do you tell your mother-in-law and father-in-law that their only daughter and only grandchildren had been murdered - and not just murdered?

The shock could quite easily kill Christina and Joseph. Neither were at their best any more. Thank God his own parents had died long ago. At least they had been saved the horror.

‘
Just after seven. I always get in on a Friday at just after seven,’ Adam replied in a monotone.

Detective Constable John Tilsey was leaning back in the other chair. ‘And your wife an’ kids were dead when you got home?’ he asked, a slight sneer on his face. He was even more fresh-faced than Adam had first realised.

Sergeant Brown gave her junior an exasperated look. ‘What DC Tilsey means, sir,’ she said turning back to Adam, ‘is …’

‘
I know what he means,’ Adam told her. ‘Yes, as you found them I found them.’ He wondered when he was going to break.

It had to come.

The full realisation of what had happened would hit him shortly and when it did, God knows what he would do.

‘
You said you commute between Ashbourne and London on a weekly basis.’

‘
Yes, I leave late on a Sunday evening and then get back -’

‘
At just after seven on a Friday,’ DC Tilsey said, finishing Adam’s sentence for him.

DS Brown pushed back her chair. ‘Would you excuse us for a moment please, sir?’ She signaled with her eyes to DC Tilsey and they both left the interview room.

*  *  *