The Cruellest Game (36 page)

Like me, he would have known that, at the very least, the investigation into Brenda’s sudden death was still ongoing. And, like me, he must surely have thought he would be the prime
suspect.

He opened the door wider, and stepped to one side, allowing the three officers to pass through. Then the door shut again.

I waited. After half an hour or so, Robert, wearing a coat now, appeared again at the door with the child I presumed to be Janey. He was carrying a small rucksack. I recognized it as the one he
always had with him when he travelled between home and the oil rig. Or when I’d assumed he’d been travelling to a rig. I thought the little girl now looked confused and ill at ease.
Robert put the rucksack down on the doorstep and took hold of her hand, bending over slightly to talk to her, as if trying to reassure her. He led her down the garden path and out through the gate
onto the pavement, turning right – fortunately in the direction away from me – as I really did not want him to see me, then up the garden path of a house two doors away.

An almost cliché-like motherly sort of woman, full-bosomed and smiley, welcomed the two of them, and made a big fuss of the child, before leading her inside.

Robert, head down, shuffling his feet, returned to his own house, though it still seemed odd for me to regard it as such. I noticed then that one of the male uniformed police officers was
standing in the porch. He had presumably been watching Robert’s activities. They stood there together for just a moment or two before being joined by the other two officers. Robert stepped
into the porch, to lock the front door, it seemed, and to pick up his rucksack. The smaller of the two uniformed men led the way to the patrol car, unlocked it, and climbed into the driver’s
seat. The second uniformed officer and the woman waited for Robert, then proceeded to walk on either side of him towards the car.

As they stepped onto the pavement two male photographers with cameras and another man and a woman, presumably reporters, came tearing out of a house opposite.

The police officers indicated that they should keep their distance, and the reporters satisfied themselves with shouting questions at Robert and his police escort, all of which remained
unanswered, while the photographers rattled off their snaps from several feet away. I suspected they had already taken plenty of shots from a window across the road from Robert’s. I’d
heard about journalists paying householders to use rooms in their house as a vantage point from which to keep watch on targets. The press had probably been watching 5 Riverview Avenue ever since it
became public knowledge that the house was the subject of a major search.

The whole incident only lasted a matter of seconds. Very swiftly Robert was ushered into the back of the patrol car where he sat with an officer on either side of him. I watched the car set off
up the road and the journalists retreat.

I hoped I could be forgiven for feeling a kind of vicarious satisfaction. Whatever the outcome, and whatever truth might be revealed, I found myself hoping that Robert suffered the same level of
fear and humiliation that I had experienced. After all, as he had admitted himself, if one person was to blame for everything, it had to be him. Not his poor sick wife, driven mad by a combination
of disease and despair, both probably as terrible as each other. Not her, nor anyone else, like the bullying father of Robbie’s poor young girlfriend.

Just him. Robert. The man I had married in good faith and devoted my entire life to.

The following afternoon DS Jarvis phoned to say that Robert had been charged with the murder of his wife. His legal wife.

‘We’re just about to release a press statement. I didn’t want you to see it on the news,’ he said.

Bizarrely, I reflected on his new-found sensitivity before the enormity of his words hit me. It had been obvious this might happen since my first conversation with Jarvis and Price three days
earlier. None the less, I found myself totally shocked. I was standing by the kitchen table. I sat down with a bump.

Nothing that Robert had said had given any indication he was likely to confess to killing his wife. Indeed, he had still been half protesting her innocence of any wrongdoing and insistent that
she was not involved in Robbie’s death.

‘So what happened?’ I asked. ‘Everybody seemed so sure Brenda Anderton’s death was an accident.’

‘That was when we had no reason to believe anyone may have wanted to kill her,’ said Jarvis. ‘The kind of woman she appeared to be, a married mother going about her business,
did not suggest there was anything suspicious about her death. So the investigation proceeded on that basis. But after what you told us, about your husband’s double life and Brenda
Anderton’s stalking of you and your son, we had the car re-examined by forensics. And we called in your husband for interview and subsequently arrested and charged him.’

‘Has he admitted it then?’ I asked.

‘Look, I can’t go into details,’ he said. ‘But let’s just say we have found evidence to indicate that this was no accident. We know the car had been tampered with,
and in such a way that it could only have been done by someone with expert knowledge. And we already know from you that he is an accomplished motor mechanic.’

It had all happened so fast. I had been aware of the effect of what I had earlier told the police. I had seen the reactions of Jarvis and Price. Yet I was shocked rigid. My mouth felt dry. I had
no words.

The months leading up to Robert’s trial at Exeter Crown Court in March the following year passed in a kind of limbo. I was barely able to even think about my shattered
life, let alone attempt to rebuild it.

My car and all the rest of my personal possessions, including everything that had been detained at Heavitree Road Police Station, were returned to me. So was the hard drive of Robbie’s
Mac, no longer any good to me, and his phone, which I eagerly checked out.

There were records of the call Sue Shaw had told me she’d made to Robbie on the day he died, and of several attempts he’d made to call her back. He’d also sent her a text
–
We must talk
– making no specific reference to the immense news Sue had given him. If he had mentioned her pregnancy, presumably the police would have picked up on it. Even
taking into account the lack of any real interest that they’d displayed at the time, I thought wryly.

I also heard from DS Jarvis that DNA extracted from the sample of excrement removed from Highrise matched that of Brenda Anderton.

‘We can’t try a dead woman,’ he said. ‘I just thought you’d like to know.’

I thanked him. But I’d known that anyway, of course.

I pretty much locked myself away inside Highrise. Actually, I didn’t have a lot of choice. The financial problems I had half expected kicked in just before Christmas, a couple of weeks
after Robert’s arrest.

The first indication came when I tried to pay for one of my regular Waitrose shops with my American Express card and it was declined. My Barclaycard was also declined. But my Barclays Connect
card, my debit card linked to the joint account in Robert’s and my name, was, however, and much to my relief, accepted.

I had gone into denial about my finances – I’d known full well that I should make enquiries into my financial situation and I had done nothing about it. In the distant-seeming days
when all had apparently been well with my family, I had known little or nothing about our financial affairs except that our household bills were paid by direct debit or standing order from our
Barclays joint account. The statements for this account arrived at Highrise regularly and I sometimes gave them a cursory glance, if Robert was not at home, before putting them into a drawer of the
desk in the study to await his return.

I knew that Robert had another Barclays account solely in his name into which his Amaco salary was paid. Robbie’s school fees and other larger or irregular expenditures, like the purchase
of a new car, were paid for directly out of this account, from which a substantial monthly amount was transferred to our joint account. It was the way Robert had liked to handle things, and
I’d had no reason to question him.

Robert had always been vague about his Amaco salary, but had indicated that it was into six figures annually, and that level of income would have been necessary to fund our lifestyle. He’d
said the precise amount varied according to the hours he put in, and also whether or not bonuses were paid. Again, I never pressed him because we always appeared to have more than enough for our
needs. It now seemed obvious, however, that the bulk of the transferred sums must have come from his lottery win. Certainly no rigger would be likely to earn that sort of money and, unknown to me,
Robert had been supporting a second family.

I drove home far too fast, rushed into the sitting room, and removed all the remaining joint account bank statements from the desk drawer. The most recent had arrived since Robert’s arrest
and I’d not even opened it. I tore the envelope apart. It showed an overdraft of £1,615 and 10p. And I had never seen the account overdrawn before.

I checked the ‘money in’ column. During November and so far in December there had been no transfer at all from the R. Anderson account. Then I checked the ‘money out’
column. There were no payments to either Barclaycard or American Express, and it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t think any such payment had ever been made from this account. I could
only assume that our credit card bills had been paid from Robert’s sole account, or even from some other one I knew nothing about, and that this account was no longer in funds.

It suddenly struck me that I had never seen a statement for the R. Anderson account. I rifled through every drawer in the desk, and had another quick look anywhere in the house that it seemed
likely the statements might be kept. But I knew I would find nothing. After all, I had searched thoroughly enough already, looking for anything in the name of Rob Anderton and any paperwork
connected to Robert’s lottery win. I found myself wondering about that too, suddenly. Had he really won the lottery? The money to fund us, his second family, must have come from somewhere.
But perhaps he’d robbed a bank. That thought was not a serious one. At first. But when I considered it further, well, who could guess what R. Anderton/Anderson might have been capable of
doing in order to live out his lie?

Robert and I were Barclays Premier customers. That meant, unusually in the modern age, that we had access to a personal bank manager for whom we had a mobile phone number. I remembered that his
details were also stored in the office desk drawer along with the joint account statements. I found the necessary paperwork and dialled the number, for the first time ever. After all, Robert dealt
with all that kind of thing. I was connected to a recorded message, but at least it had been recorded by the man himself, one George Lindsay. I left my name and number. Rather to my surprise, less
than a couple of hours later, he returned my call.

I asked him the current balance of our joint account and was told it was now £2,540 and 32p overdrawn.

‘But you have an overdraft limit of £5,000,’ he said.

Yes
, I thought,
and it looks like that is all I now have
.

‘I wonder if you could also give me the balance of my husband’s sole account,’ I said.

There was a brief silence before George Lindsay replied.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Anderson. As your name is not on that account I am not able to give you that information.’

I thought fast. Faster than I had for some time.

‘Mr Lindsay, I’m sure you must be aware, are you not, of my circumstances, of all that has happened to my family, and that my husband is in prison awaiting trial?’

‘Well, yes, of course I am, and I am very sorry for your—’

‘Yes, Mr Lindsay,’ I interrupted. ‘Of course you are, it’s been all over the media, hasn’t it? So, therefore, if I were to ask you to indicate if it was likely to
be possible for any moneys to be transferred from that R. Anderson account into our joint account in the near future, could you not do so?’

There was a slightly longer silence this time before George Lindsay spoke again. He spoke with a distinct North Devon accent, something I always found reassuring, probably for no other reason
than having been brought up there.

‘I think I can do that, Mrs Anderson,’ he said. ‘And no, it is not likely to be possible. Certainly not for as long as your husband remains in prison and unable to deal with
his affairs.’

‘Thank you, Mr Lindsay,’ I said. ‘I have just one other question. Will that overdraft limit still be honoured?’

‘I see no reason why not,’ said George Lindsay, whom I was quite sure could see any number of reasons why not.

Thank God for that, I thought. And thank God too, I reckoned, for George Lindsay. I hadn’t known that banks still employed human beings. His days had to be numbered, surely.

I realized what I should do next was contact Robert in prison. But I had no wish to, even though he had given every indication of wishing to stay in close contact. I’d already received
several letters from him, which I hadn’t opened, and there had even been phone calls I’d left to the answer machine, deleting the messages before even listening to them. In any case I
suspected that he would be unable to help even if he wanted to. It was pretty clear that, with devastating timing, his money had run out.

Of course, if Brenda had not discovered his double life and so cruelly set about destroying part of it, it was possible that Robert would have found a way around his financial problems, a way of
carrying on with his extraordinary deception. After all, he had proved himself to have the most inventive of minds, that was sure.

I called Mrs Rowlands and asked her about the possibility of returning to my teaching work. She told me she was sorry but she’d actually just hired another full-time staff member, long
overdue, she said. She’d been friendly enough and expressed what I thought was genuine concern about my predicament, and I expected it was probably true about the new full-time teacher. But I
somehow doubted she would have wanted me back anyway. In addition to having a husband who never really was my husband awaiting prosecution for murder, I had been arrested on suspicion of the
abduction and attempted murder of a child. Not something any headmistress would want her school associated with if she could avoid it. All charges against me may have been dropped, but such matters
are never forgotten. Mud sticks, and Dartmoor mud sticks particularly well, I’d told Gladys Ponsonby Smythe. It was the truth.