The Carrier (33 page)

‘Gaby?’

It’s Charlie Zailer. Next to me. Where did she come from?

I order myself not to turn and run. When I met Charlie yesterday, before I was attacked, I wasn’t scared of her. I remember not being scared of her. I approved of her; she wanted to find out the truth and so did I. She listened to me.

‘Gaby, are you okay? You don’t look as if you are.’

‘Yes, I do. I look fine.’ I’ve washed every inch of myself and put on clean clothes. I’m able to speak and say what I mean. I’m not falling apart, not drawing attention to myself by shouting in public like the woman in front of me. I am looking better than okay, given the circumstances. ‘Can I talk to you as soon as you’re free?’ I say.

‘I can be free now.’

Lucky you.

‘Gaby, do you know there are teams of police out looking for you?’

‘No. Why? I’m here.’

Charlie Zailer smiles. ‘You do seem to be,’ she says. ‘What have you got in your pocket?’

‘You’re not taking it.’ I no longer have a home. I need it wherever I go.

‘I’m only asking what it is. I’m sure it’s fine. What is it?’

Inside my pocket, I unclench my fist. ‘It’s a St Christopher medal on a chain.’

‘Can I see? I won’t take it away. I just want to look at it.’

I show it to her.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she says. ‘Shall we go somewhere private where we can talk properly?’

‘No.’ What does she mean, ‘somewhere private’? Why?

‘You’d rather talk here?’ She looks over at the chairs in the waiting area. The man on reception is telling the shouter to go and sit there.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Not here.’

‘We have a very nice private consultation room,’ says Charlie. ‘We can leave the door open if you’d like.’

The idea of an open door bothers me. And a closed one. I say nothing.

‘Gaby? I’m happy to do whatever you’d like to do. Where shall we talk?’

Somewhere I’ve been before. A place I know I’m not scared of. I’ll be okay away from the police station if I have Charlie with me.

‘The Proscenium.’

‘What’s that?’ she asks.

‘No, it’s too far.’ I’m not thinking straight. ‘It’s a private subscription library in Rawndesley. Where I met Tim. It’s got the best collection of poetry books anywhere in the country. All first editions, some signed by the author.’

‘I’ll drive us to Rawndesley if that’s where you want to go to talk.’

‘They do lunches for members. Tim’s a member. So am I. I could take you in as a guest, but I’m not hungry.’ I am taking too long to make up my mind. If yesterday hadn’t happened, I would know what I wanted to do by now.

I look at the doors I walked in through ten minutes ago. I’m not brave enough to walk out onto the street again, not yet.

‘Let’s stay here,’ I say to Charlie Zailer. ‘The private consultation room sounds all right. With the door closed.’

‘Good idea,’ she says. ‘Shall we go via the tea and coffee machine? I wouldn’t recommend the coffee but there’s a decent range of teas – might help to keep you awake. You still haven’t slept, have you?’

‘I don’t feel tired,’ I tell her.
Sleep.
How will that ever happen again? I’ll have to see my GP, get some strong pills to knock me out. Without sleep, I’ll be no help to Tim. I only just had the energy this morning to cancel the three meetings I’d scheduled for today because the working week no longer adequately accommodates everything I need to do. As lies go, mine were hardly inspired: ‘I’m ill. Can we rearrange? I’ll be in touch as soon as I’m better.’ I knew no one would doubt me. I wouldn’t cancel a meeting unless I was half dead.

I follow Charlie Zailer along a brick-walled corridor, the brick broken up by thin floor-to-ceiling opaque glass windows on one side. She keeps slowing down so that I can catch her up, but I don’t want to be level with her. I want to be able to see her and for her not to see me, especially knowing that soon I’ll be facing her across a table and there will be no escape. Trying to keep my facial expressions and breathing under control has been the hardest part of today. One man I passed on the way from the car park to the police station stopped me and asked if I was all right. I hadn’t said anything to him or looked at him; all I’d done was walk past him.

At the drinks machine, I choose Earl Grey tea because it’s what I normally prefer, even though for once I would rather have ordinary. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to drink to help you through an ordeal: plain builders’ tea? Is an ordeal any excuse for allowing myself to become a cliché?

The private consultation room is small and warm with two pictures on the walls, framed but not behind glass. They must be oils. You don’t need to put oils behind glass, only police receptionists. One of the paintings is of a small building at the entrance to a park – a lodge house, with red leaves on its roof. It looks familiar; Blantyre Park, maybe. The other is of a man playing a piano. No, tuning a piano. Same artist. I walk over to look at the signature: Aidan Seed.

At the centre of the room are two blue-fabric armchairs, each one next to a small wooden coffee table, two tall pot plants and a view from the only window of a line-up of ventilation units embedded in a damp wall. The sight of them makes me feel immediately claustrophobic. I want to go somewhere else now that I’ve seen this, but I’m too embarrassed to ask. There’s a blind, though – a plain white roller. I walk over to the window and lower it. It’ll be better if I can’t see the grilles of the ventilation units. I’ll be able to imagine the view from a different bit of the police station. At the back of the building there must be rooms that overlook the river and the red bridge. I’ll picture that instead.

In the far corner, there’s a plastic-topped metal table with four metal-legged chairs. I would like it if Charlie Zailer would sit over there with her back to me and write down what I say, but she’ll want to discuss everything with me and look at me, and probably ask questions, even though there’s no need. All I need is for her to listen. I’ve been rehearsing my speech all the way here.

‘The furniture in here changes from day to day,’ she says. ‘Shall we sit in the comfy chairs?’

I sit down. The worst thing I can do is leave it to her to steer things. I have to run this show; I took the lead by coming in, and I can’t lose it. ‘Did you get the truth out of Kerry and Dan?’ I ask her. ‘You know they’re lying, right?’

She looks surprised. After a few seconds, she says, ‘Gaby, if it’s okay, I’d rather talk about you first. A lot of my colleagues have been very worried about you.’

‘Me?’ I’m fine, or I will be soon. Tim’s the one in prison. ‘No. I don’t want to talk about me first. I want you to answer my questions.’

‘All right. Yes, we all think Kerry and Dan haven’t been straight with us. But I think and hope that we’re getting closer to where we need to be. You seem to care about the truth as much as we do, which is . . . great. We don’t often meet people like you. Most people either only care about keeping them and theirs out of trouble, or they don’t care at all.’

‘I only care about keeping Tim out of trouble,’ I tell her. ‘I know he didn’t kill Francine, but if he had, I’d lie and say he hadn’t. I’m not a good person.’

Charlie seems to find this acceptable. ‘Who is?’ she asks.

‘Tim. Good and stupid. He’s covering for Jason Cookson for some reason. I don’t know why specifically but I can give you a wider explanation: Tim believes his own suffering matters less than anyone and everyone else’s. Look at his marriage to Francine if you want proof that he’s capable of long-term self-sacrifice.’

‘You’re saying Jason Cookson killed Francine Breary?’

‘Yes.’

Charlie nods. I was expecting a barrage of questions. Instead, she’s waiting for me to go on in my own time.

‘You heard me tell Kerry yesterday about meeting Lauren Cookson at Dusseldorf airport.’ This part is easy; I’ve been going over it in my mind for most of the night, the exact words I’ll use. ‘So you know that’s how I found out about Tim being charged with Francine’s murder – from Lauren. “An innocent man” she called him. I couldn’t persuade her to tell me any more. She was terrified: ran away, missed her flight home. That was how much she didn’t want to talk to me about it. From her many references to her husband Jason – other stuff she said, nothing to do with murder – I decided he had to be the one she was scared of. Yesterday morning when I got back from Germany, I came here and told DC Gibbs that Jason Cookson must have killed Francine. Why else would Lauren keep quiet if she knew Tim was innocent?’

‘Gaby . . .’

‘No, wait. I don’t know for sure that Jason bullies Lauren, but when I left here yesterday and went to the Dower House, guess who I met driving out of the gates? The bully himself. He was rude and threatening, warned me to leave Lauren alone and forget what she’d told me. He might as well have had “Thug” tattooed on his forehead, to add to his collection. He knew who I was before I told him. Lauren must have phoned him from Germany in a panic. She’d compromised security, hadn’t she? She was probably scared I’d turn up at the Dower House asking questions, and wanted to warn Jason in advance.’

Charlie’s expression hasn’t changed since I started talking.

‘Don’t you get it?’ I ask her. Am I not making sense apart from in my own head?

‘Get what?’

‘Why would Jason threaten me and warn me to keep away if it wasn’t him that killed Francine?’

‘Let’s assume he did, then,’ Charlie says. ‘How does that fit with Kerry and Dan lying? Are they protecting him too?’

‘Him or themselves. I’m not sure which. You need to find out if Jason’s got some kind of hold over them. Lauren’s his bullied wife, but I can’t think of any reason why the rest of them would rather Tim went down for Francine’s murder than Jason, unless they’re scared he’ll physically attack them. Which they might well be. Jason has henchmen: people to do the dirty work he’d rather not do himself.’

‘How do you know that, Gaby?’

I’ve rehearsed this bit too: tell without telling. The bare minimum, then move on. ‘One of them paid me a visit at home last night. To warn me. Same warning as Jason’s: keep away from Lauren. Not surprising, since it was Jason who sent it.’

‘How do you know Jason sent this man to your house?’ Charlie asks.

‘I can’t prove it. That’s your job. So is protecting vulnerable women. If I’ve been warned by Jason, and then again on Jason’s orders, what do you think’s happening to Lauren, who dragged me into it? Worse than warnings, for sure. You need to get her out of that house.’

That last part had an effect.
Good.

‘I take your point, Gaby, but I saw Lauren this morning. Sam Kombothekra and I spoke to her.’

‘Did she seem terrified?’

‘Everyone seemed . . . unsettled,’ says Charlie. ‘Not only Lauren. If she’s part of a conspiracy to obstruct, as we’re both saying we think she is, that’d be enough to explain her nerves, wouldn’t it? And if it’s more than that, if she’s scared of her husband—’

‘It is. You need to get her away from him!’

‘I can’t, Gaby. We don’t have the power to separate women from their husbands against their will. What I
can
do is go to the house again, have another chat with her . . .’

‘If Jason’s anywhere in the vicinity, she won’t tell you a thing. Even if he isn’t, she probably won’t.’ I close my eyes. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’

‘Actually, I do,’ says Charlie. I hear defensiveness in her voice. ‘I’m trying to explain that my powers are limited, but I’ll do what I can. In the meantime, I’m more concerned about you.’

‘Don’t be. I can look after myself. Lauren can’t.’

‘This . . . warning, from Jason’s henchman – what happened? You say he came to your house? Did he warn you verbally?’

I nod.

‘Was that all he did?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘You seem very distressed. And we were alerted to a possible attack. Someone posted an urgent appeal for help on Twitter.’

On Twitter. Where things can be retweeted dozens, hundreds of times.

So it’s out there, in the world. People know. I dig my fingernails into my palms as the horror in my mind pulls the plastic covering off its head and swings round to face me. I couldn’t see while it was happening; now it’s everywhere I look.

‘Whoever it was, they used Tim Breary’s Twitter ID and urged anyone reading to contact the police. They said you were being attacked in your driveway. Behind your house.’

Someone wanted to help me. I can’t dwell on that; it would involve seeing myself from the outside, as they saw me. Self-pity won’t achieve anything.

Smoke. I smelled smoke.

‘Gaby? What is it?’

‘The tweets saying . . . were they . . . How badly written were they?’

‘What do you mean?’ Charlie asks.

‘Grammar, spelling, punctuation.’

‘Lots of spelling mistakes. Grammar and punctuation pretty much non-existent.’

‘Lauren,’ I say. ‘She smokes. She was there. Watching.’ My vision warps. I am looking at the room through a layer of oil, a wobbly film that coats my eyes. I can see things on its surface: lines, dark blots swimming diagonally downwards. ‘Someone was smoking. I assumed it was the man who attacked me, but he didn’t smell of smoke. I smelled his breath: no smoke. It was Lauren smoking. Whoever he was, he brought her with him. She’ll have wanted to stop him but been too scared and too weak. He needs her to stay scared. Look, please, can you check she’s all right? Now?’

‘She was all right two hours ago, but I’ll have someone check again,’ Charlie says, pulling her mobile phone out of her pocket. She jabs at it with her thumb, swearing under her breath when she hits the wrong letter. ‘Did this man attack you physically?’ she asks me, her eyes on the message she’s composing.

‘Is this off the record?’

Charlie looks up. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think it can be. Anything you tell me that I think might be relevant to the Francine Breary case, I’ll have to pass on.’

‘In that case, let’s move on.’

‘Gaby, I understand that you might feel frightened or ashamed . . .’

‘It’s not that,’ I tell her. ‘I want to talk to Tim first. Until I know what’s going on in his mind, why he’s saying he killed Francine . . .’ I know what I mean, but it’s hard to put into words on no sleep. ‘I’m not prepared to add any extra pressure to the situation until I understand all the permutations of what I’m adding to. Does that make sense?’