The Carrier (14 page)

‘If she didn’t know already,’ says Gibbs.

I nod. It’s hard for me to keep this in mind: that Lauren might have had the upper hand all along.
Must
have had. ‘I’d never have told her what I did if I’d known she knew him,’ I say. The idea of her inaccurately reporting our conversation back to Tim makes my stomach churn with shame:
She says she’d ditch her bloke and pull you now, given half a chance.
Please don’t let that happen, God-that-I-don’t-believe-in.

I reach for the chain around my neck and press it between my fingertips, wondering if I’m desperate enough to start praying to a gold medallion.
Do I still count as a traveller, St Christopher, even though I’m back in the UK? Are you still the right person to be talking to, or did your shift end when I landed at Combingham?
Is there a patron saint for women who love innocent men charged with murder?

‘I had to find out the truth, for Tim’s sake,’ I say. ‘That mattered more than anything else.’ He can’t have confessed. Any second now, Gibbs will tell me it was a lie, a tactic to get a reaction out of me.
‘The quickest way to do it was to stay and confront Lauren. Or so I thought.’

‘Go on.’

‘She was in the bathroom for ages. I was glad. It gave me a chance to get myself together. When she finally came out, everything was . . . too different, too quickly. I didn’t have to say anything. As soon as she saw my face, and my phone in my hand, she knew. I’ve never seen anyone look so guilty. She stood there like a block of stone, waiting for me to accuse her. I said, “I know Tim Breary, Lauren. What the hell’s going on?” She grabbed her jacket and her bag and ran.’ I don’t tell Gibbs, because it’s too humiliating, that I was sitting cross-legged on the floor when Lauren darted out of the room, that in my shock it hadn’t occurred to me that she might try to escape, even though she’d run away from me before.

‘I went after her, but she was too fast – she was in the lift before I got to the door. I thought I might be able to catch her if I ran down the stairs, but there was no sign of her in the lobby. I went outside, shouted her name, ran up and down the dual carriageway like a lunatic. I even went back to the grotty petrol station, but she was nowhere.’

‘So what did you do?’

It won’t help him to know that I fell down in a heap on the wet, muddy forecourt in the pouring rain and howled at the top of my lungs, helpless with frustration and rage. ‘I went back up to the room. Tried to work out what the hell was going on, tried to get some sleep. Failed at both. I ended up writing Lauren a long letter – begging her to tell me what was going on, basically.’

‘What did you do with the letter?’

Nothing, yet. It’s in my bag.
‘I tore it up,’ I lie. ‘It was full of personal stuff about me and Tim. I read it through and decided I wasn’t comfortable with the idea that it existed, let alone the thought of Lauren ever reading it. I just had to do something to calm myself down.’

‘And in the morning? Lauren wasn’t there for the coach at 7 a.m.?’

‘No. Nor at the airport, nor on the flight home. We landed, and I came straight here.’

Gibbs writes something down on the notepad on the table between us. From where I’m sitting, it looks like a pattern of squiggles that wouldn’t be improved by being turned the right way round. ‘If her fear of being in a foreign country on her own was genuine . . .’

‘It was,’ I say.

‘Then she was even more scared of answering your questions, once she knew you knew. She was willing to go it alone and miss her flight, get back to the UK later, increase the risk of her husband finding out she’d lied to him.’

‘She knew I’d force the truth out of her,’ I say, wondering if I’d have resorted to physical violence. Probably not, not then. I would today, now that I’ve had a chance to think about it: I’d put my hands round her stupid throat and squeeze until she told me everything.

‘She wouldn’t have been able to sustain a lie over a long period, assuming she could come up with one in the first place,’ I say. ‘She hasn’t got the psychological resources. When you find her, it won’t be hard to get her to talk. You can speed things up by telling her what you’ve worked out. Then all she has to do is agree.’

Gibbs looks up at me. ‘What I’ve worked out?’

‘She’s lying to protect her husband. Jason Cookson killed Francine Breary. He must have.’

‘For the sake of argument, why couldn’t it have been Lauren herself?’ Gibbs says. ‘From your description, she sounds volatile – easily provoked.’

‘According to the internet, Francine Breary had a stroke two years ago and couldn’t move or speak. How do you provoke someone into committing murder when you’re mute and immobile?’

Gibbs nods matter-of-factly. This is the second time I’ve made a good point and he’s seemed bored. He’s an odd man.

‘Lauren isn’t and couldn’t be a killer,’ I tell him. ‘She’d think it was . . . unfair to murder someone, whatever they’d done.’

‘Unfair?’ His mouth twitches. He’s mocking me.

I can’t be bothered to explain what I mean. ‘I know I’ve only met her once, but it was a very long once, and it felt even longer. She didn’t do it. Can you say the same about her husband?’

‘I can’t, but Tim Breary can. He’s pretty sure he killed his wife. He ought to know, don’t you think? He’s told us things that only the person responsible would know.’

‘Unless the person responsible shared their knowledge with someone else, which you can’t guarantee they didn’t,’ I snap. Why is everybody I meet so stupid? ‘Why did he kill her? Was he trying to help her? Was it so she wouldn’t suffer any more?’

Gibbs brushes my unentitled questions aside with an officially sanctioned one of his own. ‘What does Tim Breary stand to gain by protecting Jason Cookson?’

Bringing Jason into it was a mistake. I can’t be certain he’s the killer

‘If I had to pick, from everyone I’ve ever met, the one person who might confess to a murder he didn’t commit for a reason that would make perfect sense to him and no sense at all to anybody else, I’d pick Tim Breary,’ I say.

Something Gibbs said is brushing awkwardly against the back of my mind. Three words:
stand to gain.
‘Who benefits financially from Francine’s death apart from Tim?’ I ask.

‘That’s restricted information.’

‘I’m guessing Tim’s the main beneficiary, if not the only one. I know he and Francine both had life insurance policies.’

‘How?’ Gibbs pounces on this as if it’s a revelation.

‘He was my accountant for years.’ So misleading, yet completely true. It makes my relationship with Tim sound safe and boring. ‘When my partner Sean and I were buying our house, Tim shopped around for mortgages and life insurance for us.’

‘That explains how he’d know
you
had life insurance,’ said Gibbs. ‘It doesn’t explain your knowing the same about him and Francine.’

Smartarse.
‘He told me,’ I say irritably. ‘I asked him. I wanted to check that what he was recommending for me was something he’d done himself. I always do that. Never spend money unless the person advising you thinks it’s worth his money too, right?’

Gibbs isn’t listening. Or rather, he’s listening to the voice in his head that’s whispering, ‘She’s in love with Tim Breary, and she knew his wife’s death would be profitable.’

I refuse to think like a guilty person when I’ve got nothing to hide. I didn’t murder Francine, and if anyone tries to suggest I did, I’ll simply ask when she was killed and then direct DC Gibbs to whatever flight I was on at the time and the many airline operatives and passengers who will be able to confirm my whereabouts. One advantage of being a workaholic with a packed schedule is that alibis are easy to come by.

Under Gibbs’ incisive gaze, my bravado wears off quickly. Have I put my foot in it and made things worse for Tim? How can I have, when he’s confessed to Francine’s murder?
For all I know he’s sitting in a prison cell right now, holding up a banner that says in capital letters, ‘I DID IT FOR THE MONEY’.

Except that wouldn’t have been his motive. Not in a million years.

I straighten up in my seat. ‘If Tim were ever to commit murder, it would be for someone else’s sake, not his own,’ I say. ‘He wouldn’t be the beneficiary.’

‘That’s an unusual character trait to have,’ Gibbs says woodenly. ‘Most of the murderers I meet aren’t so public-spirited.’

‘It’s true. Tim wouldn’t think it was worth the fuss, just for him. Even for someone else, he wouldn’t do it. It’s too extreme. Tim hates extreme . . . expressions, extreme actions, more than anything, because they make people vulnerable. They allow others to control you and know you too intimately. Tim likes to glide along the surface. He likes controlled and ironic, letting things happen, pretending nothing matters even when it does.’

I see that I have lost Gibbs somewhere along the way.
Keep it simple.
‘Tim’s no more a killer than Lauren is,’ I say.

‘Have you ever met Jason Cookson?’

‘No. You’re right. I know nothing about him. If I could take back what I said about him, I would.’

‘It’s always easier to believe that the people we don’t know and don’t care about are the evil ones,’ says Gibbs.

‘I don’t
care
about Lauren,’ I say indignantly. ‘Saying she can’t be a killer is hardly a declaration of undying love.’

‘Undying love. That’s an interesting phrase.’ Gibbs leans back in his chair. ‘What made you think of it?’

‘My ambition to find new and inventive ways of being sarcastic,’ I say flatly.

‘Tell me about your relationship with Tim, aside from him being your accountant.’

i carry your heart with me, i carry it in my heart.

Tears flood my eyes, spill over. ‘I can’t,’ I whisper.

‘You said Lauren seemed frightened of you at Dusseldorf airport, when you first spoke to her.’

Did he mean to help me out with that swift change of subject? I’m grateful for it either way. ‘Yes. I gave her a fairly ruthless pep talk at the boarding gate. She was yelling at the airport staff, yelling at other passengers, at anyone who told her something she didn’t want to hear. Except me. Soon as I weighed in, the fight went out of her. It was instant. She just stood there and looked at me as if she couldn’t believe I was talking to her. I don’t know if it was surprise or horror or what, but direct contact with me was a problem for her. It makes sense now, but it didn’t at the time. Then later, when I bumped into her in a corridor, after—’ I break off.

‘After what?’

He doesn’t need to know about the pregnancy test. ‘After we’d been told to go to Departures and wait for the coach. She ran away from me as if I was chasing her, which I then did.’

Gibbs frowns and looks at his notes again. ‘She ran away, but then a few minutes later she threw herself into your arms, told you she’d helped to frame a man for murder, and ordered you to look after her all the way back to Combingham.’

‘Yes. It makes no sense.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Gibbs stands, walks over to the window. He balls his hands into fists and presses them against the glass as if he’s getting into position for smashing it. ‘It makes sense if her feelings about you are mixed. She wants to get near you, or else why’s she there?’

He must be right. But why?
Why shadow me all the way to Dusseldorf and back? How did she know about me? Did she hear Tim mention my name?

‘She’s on that flight because of you, and frightened in case you find out her reason for being in Germany, which is that you’re in Germany. Last thing she wants is a confrontation.’

‘Then what does she want?’

‘Let’s stick to questions we can answer,’ says Gibbs. ‘Was she on your morning flight as well?’

‘That was the impression I got. She had no suitcase with her, so she hadn’t been away overnight, and she mentioned having seen me in the morning. There’s only one Combingham to Dusseldorf flight on a weekday morning – the one I was on, the 7 a.m.’

‘Can you think, off the top of your head, how she might have known you were planning to go to Germany yesterday, and your flight times?’

‘I have a blog,’ I say, embarrassed.
I can’t communicate with the man I live with, so I compensate by over-sharing on the internet.
‘It’s mainly about science-y tech-y stuff, but it has my schedule on it.’
So that Tim can keep track of what I’m doing. So that one day, if he ever wants to, he can be waiting for me at the airport when my plane lands. ‘
It also has a lot of me exaggeratedly moaning about having to get up early in the morning to fly to various places. Including Dusseldorf.’

‘Name?’

‘You know my . . . oh, right, the blog. Gaby Struthers dot com forward slash blog.’

‘What line of work are you in?’ Gibbs asks.

I hate answering that question unless I can do it properly. It’s difficult to summarise, and I’m too passionate about my work to skirt over any of the details. ‘At the moment I’m part of a company called Rawndesley Technological Generics. We’re working with a German company on a new product. Hence yesterday’s trip.’

‘New product as in something you’ve invented?’

‘Something we’re trying to invent.’

Gibbs walks back to the table and sits down. ‘What?’ he asks.

‘Is it relevant?’

He shrugs. ‘I’m interested in people who invent things. I’ve never had the urge myself. Everything I want exists already.’ Something flickers across his face: a problematic or unhappy thought. His strained smile immediately afterwards convinces me that I didn’t imagine it. ‘I’ve always reckoned people who invent things are trying to make life too complicated, but that’s probably just me.’

‘Lucky the person who dreamed up the wheel didn’t agree with you,’ I say.

‘That’s different. I’m not saying nothing
ever
needed to be invented. It was different in the old days, before we had everything we needed.’

Is he being serious? ‘So you wouldn’t bother to invent intelligent string, then?’
As if you’d have a hope in hell of succeeding.

‘What’s that?’ Gibbs asks.

‘What it sounds like. Imagine being able to wrap one piece of string around a box, say, and have the string measure the dimensions of the box.’