The Cradle in the Grave (40 page)

Days
.

‘Definite Article's going to win.' Dillon's face lit up. ‘Watch.'

Simon did as he was told. When the race was over, Dillon reached for the remote control. ‘We can watch it again from the beginning,' he said.

‘Dillon? When did Definite Article win the race we've just watched? Did he win it today?'

‘No. Beyond.'

‘You mean a long time ago?' said Simon. He was sorry Dillon was only four; he'd have liked to buy him a pint. Gently, he took the remote control from the boy's hand. For the first time since Simon had arrived, Dillon looked at him. ‘The man you saw outside Helen Yardley's house on Monday morning – it wasn't the first time you'd seen him at Helen's house, was it? You saw him before, a long time ago. Beyond. The first time you saw him it was raining, wasn't it? That was when he had his magic umbrella. Not on Monday.'

Dillon jerked his head up and down: clear agreement.

‘You saw him in the lounge. Was anyone else there, in the lounge?'

More affirmative head-jerking.

‘Who?'

‘Auntie Helen.'

‘That's good, Dillon, that's really helpful. You're doing brilliantly. You're doing as well as Definite Article did when he won that race.'

The boy's face lit up, and he beamed. ‘I love Definite Article. When I grow up, I'm going to live with him.'

‘Was it just Auntie Helen and the man, in the lounge?'

‘No.'

‘Who else was there?'

‘Uncle Paul. The other man. And a lady. And Mummy and me.'

‘How many people altogether?'

‘All of us.' Dillon nodded solemnly.

Simon looked around the room, hoping to see something that might help him. Then he had an idea. ‘One: Auntie Helen,' he said. ‘Two: the man with the umbrella . . .'

‘Three: the other man,' Dillon took over, speaking quickly. ‘He had an umbrella too, but it wasn't magic so he left it outside. Four: Uncle Paul, five: the lady, six: Mummy, seven: me.'

‘The other man and the lady – can you tell me anything about them, what they looked like?'

‘They were plain.'

‘What was magic about the magic umbrella? In what way was it magic?'

‘Because it came from outer space and if you opened it you could make a wish and that wish would definitely come true. And when the rain dripped off it onto the carpet, it turned it into a magic carpet and you could use it to fly to space whenever you want and come back whenever you want.'

‘Is that what the man told you?'

Dillon nodded.

‘This man, did he . . . did he have hair on his head?'

‘Vegetarian.'

‘Brown hair? Did he have funny teeth?'

Dillon started to nod, then stopped and shook his head.

‘You can say no if no's the right answer,' Simon told him.

‘I want to watch the race again.'

Simon gave him back the remote control, and went in search of Stella. He found her in a small utility room at the back of the house, ironing and singing under her breath. She looked thin, but not unwell – not like someone with terminal cancer. ‘Do you remember taking Dillon round to the Yardleys' house a while back?' he asked her. ‘Helen and Paul were there, you and Dillon, two other men and one other woman. It was raining. The two men both had umbrellas.'

‘We went round there all the time.' Stella frowned. ‘The place was always full of people. Everyone wanted to be around Helen. People flocked to her.'

‘All the time?'

‘At least twice a week, she'd have us round, usually with other people – her family, friends, other neighbours. Anyone, really. It was more or less open house.'

Simon tried not to look disappointed. He'd assumed that the occasion Dillon had described would stand out in Stella's memory; he should have realised not everyone was as unsociable as he was. Simon had never had seven people in his living room at the same time, not once. The most he'd had was three: him and his parents. The prospect of a neighbour crossing his threshold would unsettle him to the point of sleepless nights, he suspected. He had no problem with meeting people in the pub; that was different. ‘Can you remember anyone you ever met at Helen's house telling Dillon his umbrella was magic?'

‘No,' said Stella. ‘I wouldn't put it past Dillon to have made that up. It sounds like the invention of a four-year-old to me – not something a grown man would say.'

‘He didn't make it up,' said Simon impatiently. ‘A man said it to him, the same man you saw outside Helen's house on Monday morning, the same man who killed Helen. I need you to put down that iron and start making a list of everyone you can remember meeting at the Yardleys' house – anyone at all, even if you only caught their first name, even the vaguest physical description.' ‘In the last . . . how long?' Stella asked.

‘Ever,' Simon told her.

 

Charlie didn't know how long she'd been lying face down on Judith Duffy's kitchen floor. It could have been ten minutes, thirty, an hour. When she tried to speculate about time, it seemed to warp, loop back on itself. Duffy's murderer sat cross-legged beside her, holding the gun against her head. She was all right – she kept telling herself that – not injured, not dead. If he was going to shoot her he'd have done it by now. All she had to do was not look at him. That was the only thing he'd said to her: ‘Don't look at me. Keep your head down if you want to stay alive.'

He hadn't told her she couldn't speak. Charlie wondered if she ought to risk it.

She heard a series of beeps. He was ringing somebody. She waited for him to start talking.

Nothing. Then the beeps again. ‘Fucking answer,' he muttered. A smashing sound told Charlie he'd hurled his phone at the wall. She saw it in her peripheral vision: it had fallen and landed by the skirting board. She heard him start to cry, and the knot in her stomach tightened. If he lost control, that was bad news for her – he was more likely to kill her, deliberately or by accident.

‘Stay calm,' she said, as gently as she could. She was on the point of losing control herself. How long would this go on for? How long had it gone on already?

‘I shouldn't have done what I did,' he said. A Cockney accent. ‘She didn't deserve it.'

‘Judith Duffy didn't deserve to be shot?' He could have been talking about Helen Yardley.
Check
. Simon would say check.

‘You get too far in and then you can't get out,' he said, sniffing. ‘She did her best. So did you.'

Charlie's stomach turned over. When had she done her best? She didn't understand, and she needed to – understanding might save her life.

He murmured an apology. Charlie swallowed a mouthful of bile, thinking this was it, this was when he was going to shoot her.

He didn't. He stood up, walked away. Charlie raised her head and saw him sitting on the stairs next to Judith Duffy's body. Apart from his shaved head, he looked only a little like the police artist's sketch she'd seen in the paper – his face was a different shape. Charlie was sure it was him, though.

‘Head down,' he said without feeling. His mind wasn't on Charlie. She had the sense that he didn't care any more what she did. Lowering her head only a fraction, she watched as he pulled a card out of his jeans pocket and placed it on Judith Duffy's face.

The numbers
.

Seeing him coming towards her again, she twisted away from him, but all he wanted was his phone. Once he had it, he headed for the front door. Charlie pressed her eyes shut. Being so close to free and safe was hard to bear. If it went wrong now, if he came back . . .

The front door slammed. She looked up and he was gone.

‘If I'd known Marcella was going to die when she was eight weeks old, I'd never have left her, not for a second,' says Ray. ‘I thought I'd have her for the rest of my life, years and years to spend together. Instead, I only had her for eight weeks. Fifty-six days – it sounds even shorter when you say it like that. For nine of those days I wasn't even there. I walked out on my own daughter when she was only two weeks old. For years that made me hate myself. Sorry, should I look at you or at the camera?'

‘The camera,' I tell her.

She inspects her fingernails. ‘You can always find a reason to hate yourself if you're that way inclined. I thought I was getting better at forgiving myself, but . . . I hated myself yesterday, when I found out what had happened to Judith. I'm not overly fond of myself today.' She tries to smile.

‘Did you kill Judith Duffy?' I ask. ‘Because if you didn't, then it's not your fault that she's dead.'

‘Isn't it? People hated her because of me. Not only me, true, but . . . I contributed, didn't I?'

‘No. Tell me about walking out on Marcella.' I sense she's trying to put it off; talking about Judith Duffy is easier.

She sighs. ‘I'm scared you'll judge me. Isn't that ridiculous? It didn't upset me at all when we first met and you told me you thought I'd probably killed my children.'

‘Because you knew you hadn't, so my judgement didn't apply to you. But now you're going to tell me about something you did do.'

‘I used to have a business: PhysioFit. It was extremely successful. Still is, even though I'm no longer part of it. As well as individual clients, we provided physiotherapy for businesses. Let's use your company as an example – Binary Star. Let's say your boss decides that you all spend too long sitting hunched over your computers. She can see your posture deteriorating, you're all complaining of back pain, the office is a breeding ground for vertebral occlusions. Boss decides to introduce routine physiotherapy provision for all Binary Star employees. First thing she does is invite several companies to tender for the contract.'

‘Like PhysioFit?'

‘Exactly. Assuming this is years ago, when I was still involved, what would happen is that my colleague Fiona and I would go to Binary Star's offices and give a presentation that would last two or three hours. Fiona would talk about the business side of things, contract terms – all the stuff that I'm not particularly interested in. Then when she'd done her bit, it would be my turn to talk about the physiotherapy itself: what it involves, what conditions it's particularly useful for, how it's not only a last resort for chronic pain but something that can be preventative as well. I'd talk about postural training and cranial osteopathy – that was my specialism – and about the foolishness of believing, as some people do, that a machine can provide physiotherapeutic services as efficiently as a human being. Of course it can't. When I put my hands on someone's neck, I can feel—'

She breaks off, giving me a sheepish smile. ‘Sorry. I nearly forgot I wasn't actually tendering for your business.' She turns back to the camera. ‘You get the idea, I'm sure.'

‘You sound passionate about it,' I tell her. ‘I'd employ you.'

‘I loved my work. I didn't see why having children meant I had to give it up. When I found out I was pregnant with Marcella, the first thing I did was put her name down for a good local nursery. She was going to start when she was six . . . months. Sorry.'

‘It's okay. Take your time.'

Ray makes a tunnel out of her hands, breathes through it. ‘That seemed a good compromise to me: six months at home with my baby, then back to the clinic.' She turns to look at me again. ‘Lots of women go back to work when their babies are six months old.'

I point to the camera.

‘The day after I had Marcella, Fiona came to visit me in the hospital. She brought a box of duck-shaped biscuits with pink icing on them, and some good news from PhysioFit: we'd been asked to give a presentation to the bosses of a Swiss company with offices all over the world, several in the UK. It was a massive contract, one that would enable us to make the leap from national to international, and we really wanted it. We got it, too. They chose us over the competition. Sorry, I'm jumping ahead.'

‘No problem. I'm going to edit all this, so don't worry about chronology.'

‘I want to see the finished version before it's aired,' Ray says immediately.

‘Of course.'

She seems to relax. ‘The company's headquarters were in Geneva. That's where Fiona was going, to meet and impress the bosses. “It's such a shame you're on maternity leave,” she said. “I've heard you do your spiel a thousand times, and I can recite it word-for-word, but it won't be the same as having you there.” She was right. It wouldn't have been the same without me. Of the two of us, I was better with people, and this was such an important presentation for PhysioFit. I couldn't bear the thought of not being there. I couldn't convince myself that my presence might not make the difference between success and failure.'

I think I know what's coming. She went. Obviously she went. But why the lies? Why not tell the story she's telling me to Julian Lance? In court?

‘I asked Fiona when the meeting was scheduled for. She told me the date. It was three weeks away. Marcella wouldn't even be a month old when Fiona set off for Switzerland. I . . . this is the part you might not understand. You'll think I should have been straightforward about what I wanted to do, said “Sorry, everyone, I know I've just had a baby, but I simply must jet off on a business trip – toodlepip, see you all soon.”'