The First Cut (29 page)

Nicky chose a table away from the ice-cream queue and sat down to wait, pigeons pecking at the crumbs on the seats around her. She phoned Maria and cursed as she got the message service. In contrast to her indecision outside the police station, she felt full of conviction now. After ten minutes she saw Liz walking purposefully from the south, up the wide avenue flanked by beech trees, her face with its frown giving no hint that this was a hot, sunny bank holiday weekend and that it was almost impossible not to be enjoying yourself. They didn’t hug or kiss as she sat down, mutual suspicion still swirling after their last meeting.

‘Urgh, air rats.’ Liz waved her hand aggressively at the pigeons and they fluttered half-heartedly just out of arm’s reach. ‘What’s so important that I’ve been dragged half across London on my day off?’

‘I thought you were on call.’ Liz’s lips thinned. ‘I want to talk about Grace and Francesca.’

Liz let out a bored sigh. ‘If we must.’

‘Did you ever think their deaths were connected?’

‘I can’t be doing with these histrionics, Nicky, really.’

Nicky shook her head. ‘You can’t have it both ways. If you act smart all the time you can’t play dumb when it suits.’

Liz frowned and slowly took off her sunglasses, folding them carefully and placing them on the table. ‘Why are you asking?’

‘When you stood there at Grace’s graveside, did you also think about Francesca? Did it cross your mind at any point that Greg could have—’

‘See sense, Nicky! Greg was thousands of miles away when Grace was murdered.’

‘The police back then never found out about Francesca, did they? They never made the connection and he – and you – never told them. Why not, Liz?’ Liz didn’t reply. ‘I believe my life is in danger, and for me that’s one coincidence too many. I don’t understand why Greg would be killing his wives and girlfriends, but I can find no other logical explanation.’

‘You’re not the first person that springs to mind when I think of “logical”,’ Liz muttered. She held out her hand to stop Nicky protesting at her jibe. ‘It really is all a bit far-fetched, don’t you think? We didn’t tell the police because it would simply have brought Greg more unwanted scrutiny when he was half drowning under the grief and pressure anyway. Francesca was a depressive and it’s terribly sad what happened to her. Grace . . .’ She tailed off. ‘Grace I can’t explain. No one can.’

‘Ever heard of Louise Bell or Struan Clarke?’

‘No.’

‘They’re dead, and the police think I’m involved.’

‘Who are they?’

‘I have absolutely no idea. I’m this close –’ Nicky held her thumb and forefinger together in front of Liz’s face – ‘to being charged with murder. So for the love of your brother, come clean and tell me what you know about his past.’

Liz looked like she’d tasted something bad. ‘Greg’s the victim, let’s remember. I’d like to see other men cope so bravely and so stoically with the misfortunes he’s endured. Don’t become a tired cliché like others, Nicky, and start to think he’s somehow responsible.’

‘Has he changed over the years?’

‘We’ve all changed. It’s what we do,’ Liz said sharply. Nicky looked round at some shrieking toddlers, each grasping for possession of a cheap plastic toy. They were grappling unfettered for what they desired; as they aged, as they watched and imitated, they would learn the subtleties of getting what they wanted without a bare-knuckle fight. ‘Let’s get back to basics here. What evidence have you got?’

‘He hires people to do it for him.’

‘Oh please!’

‘Do you recognize this man?’ Nicky opened her phone and showed Liz the photo of crash man.

‘No.’

‘He’s been following me. This morning I found him talking to Greg on our doorstep!’

Liz put the phone carefully down on the table, her movements slow. ‘What does Greg say?’

‘He denies it, a flat denial. He simply claimed he had no idea who he was even talking to!’

‘I’m not sure I have any idea what you’re talking
about
.’

Nicky decided to try another tactic. ‘If you heard tomorrow that I’d died, are you telling me that you wouldn’t be just a little bit suspicious?’ Nicky watched as Liz put her sunglasses back on. Liz’s eyes were now covered with mirrored glass in which Nicky could see only a dishevelled version of herself, but she could sense Liz’s indecision. Liz was a woman who prided herself on always having a view, who knew exactly where she stood on every moral issue. She didn’t back down and she was never wrong. So Nicky understood that it took a great mental leap for Liz to pick up her phone and look again at Troy’s photo. ‘I think Greg’s hired him to follow me and . . . well, I don’t know what else.’

‘What’s happened to make you so convinced your life is in danger?’ She homed in. ‘Have you been playing away, Nicky?’ Liz gave her shark’s smile: cold and wide. ‘Unless I know the full story how can I help you?’

Nicky hesitated. How much should she confide in Liz? Her allegiances were with her brother. ‘Who’s Adam Thornton?’

Had she just seen Liz stiffen? The mirrored glasses threw her own reflection back at her. ‘I’ve no idea.’ Liz shrugged and paused for what seemed to Nicky like a second too long. ‘Look, I’m a fair person. What you say about this man in your phone sounds strange. Let me look into it, let me talk to Greg.’ She looked around. ‘Is there a toilet here? I’m desperate.’

‘In there.’ Nicky pointed inside the children’s play area.

‘Wait here, I’ll be back in a sec.’ Liz got up, opened the gate and walked stiffly past careening children to the toilet block.

Nicky got up as soon as she’d disappeared from view and followed her. Liz was standing with her back to the basins, phone clamped to her ear.

A second later Nicky grabbed it from her hand. ‘That desperate for the toilet, are we?’ She looked and saw Greg’s was the last number dialled.

‘Give me back my phone.’

Nicky handed it to her and marched out into the sunlight, Liz following.

‘Who is he, Liz? Who is Adam Thornton?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bullshit.’ They were both walking fast now towards the gates of the park.

‘I met him recently, Liz. He sought me out. I’ve been to Hayersleigh.’

Liz jerked her face towards hers.

‘Who is he, Liz?’

Liz suddenly grabbed her arm. ‘Stay away from him, Nicky!’

‘Why? What is going on?’

‘I . . . I don’t know. I can’t say.’

‘Tell me!’

‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I can tell you this – stay away from that man, Nicky!’

‘On the contrary, I’m going back there. There’s something at the house, isn’t there? What is it?’ Nicky ripped her arm away from Liz’s grasp.

‘Nicky, stop!’

Liz cursed sourly under her breath as she watched Nicky turn from the gates of the park and jog west towards Notting Hill Gate. She could see Nicky ahead of her, running through the clumps of people on the wide pavement, thunder rumbling ominously. Liz had never felt older as she tried to catch up. The crowds had started to thicken; it was Carnival Sunday. She shouted repeatedly after Nicky, trying to get her to stop, but after a few hundred metres she pulled up at the closed tube station, panting and sweating. Nicky had the advantage of fewer years and a manic, misplaced zeal about her. The contest wasn’t equal. She wasn’t going to get to Nicky like this.

She pulled out her phone and looked up at the building clouds, at the rain that was sure to come. So Adam Thornton had been in contact with Nicky. Pretty close contact, from what she’d observed. Loyalty to Greg flamed intensely inside her. Her brother’s silly wife and her search for self-fulfilment could ruin Greg. But something deeper, a more worrying concern, was niggling her. She typed in some numbers and made a call.

T
hat Liz obviously knew Adam meant Nicky had another piece of the jigsaw but the picture it was a part of was as jumbled as ever. She pulled up at the top of Portobello Road and called Greg. She swore when she got no connection. Hundreds of people crowded round her, streaming down the street to the Notting Hill Carnival. The roar of the huge street party just a few blocks away carried towards her on the sultry afternoon air. She needed more jigsaw pieces; she
had
to complete this picture and she knew where she needed to go.

She rang the bell at the entrance gate of the mews and was buzzed in. She crossed the courtyard and rang the bell on the flat. The door clicked open and she headed up the stairs to Lawrence’s flat. Adam had told her his parents always had a party during the carnival and sure enough a waitress opened the door and offered up a tray of cocktails topped off with umbrellas and chunks of fruit. Nicky snatched at one before the girl had finished describing what each contained and gulped it down. ‘Would you like another?’ she asked with a smile, but Nicky was scanning groups of people weaving between the grey sofas and in and out of the sliding glass doors. A small steel band was playing on the patio next to a barbecue, where chicken was frying. A waiter walked past with a tray piled high with barbecued and caramelized sweetcorn. The Thorntons were getting into carnival spirit and she admired them for having a go. Most of the inhabitants of this wealthy part of west London hurried away for the bank-holiday weekend with the panic of the medieval nobility fleeing the plague pits and only returned once the noise, the crowds and the mountains of rubbish had been cleaned away. Nicky took a step further into the party. Through the patio doors towering clouds of the imminent storm could be seen building.

Being in this flat flooded her with memories of the last time she had been there, in circumstances so different – before the madness at Hayersleigh, before the revelations that had led her back here. A Nigerian woman in a yellow headdress walked towards her with a piece of jerked chicken wrapped in a napkin. ‘Don’t stand there being a wallflower, come in! Eat now before the rain douses the barbecue.’ Nicky felt the damp slick of sweat in her armpits. ‘I’m Minty.’

‘Nicky. Have you seen—’

‘Jonas!’ Minty hugged a tall man with a big nose and Nicky found herself surrounded by a smiling group of strangers. Minty began to introduce her, waving her piece of chicken like a baton.

‘No complaints about the noise yet?’ Jonas asked.

Minty threw her head back and laughed. ‘Ask Bridget!’ She turned to Nicky, pointing the chicken drumstick at her. ‘Were you here last year?’ Nicky shook her head. ‘An angry neighbour came round and said if they didn’t turn the music down he was going to call the police and we’d end up in the papers! You can imagine what Lawrence thought of that!’

‘“Judge takes the rap”, didn’t he say?’ finished Jonas.

‘Guilty of noise in the first degree?’ a man with thick-rimmed glasses quipped.

‘Wait . . . QC is the MC?’ offered a young woman.

‘Not bad! “Judge me by my bass bins”?’ Minty and Jonas and the others roared. They were having fun, on holiday and at a party, but Nicky couldn’t even force a smile. She hunted for Lawrence with her eyes.

‘The man of the hour!’ Minty shouted and she turned to see Lawrence approaching. He looked older but he was battling it, smiling at everyone and shaking hands. He gave her a puzzled, searching expression. He was surprised to see her here, that much was clear. He began to wordlessly lead Nicky away, but Minty called after them, ‘Nicky, where are you taking him? Bring back our host!’

Lawrence cocked his head, gesturing for her to come with him. She excused herself and followed him down a corridor and through to a study, where he shut the door behind them. It seemed very quiet with the door closed.

‘Please, sit down.’ He offered her a felt-covered chair, while he stood leaning against a bookcase. ‘I’m very surprised to see you here.’ He was formal and strained.

‘Adam told me this was an annual event. I’m sorry to barge in.’ He didn’t reply. ‘Where is Adam?’

He looked incredulous. ‘He’s still in the police station. I assume you’ve only recently been discharged yourself.’

Nicky nodded. ‘You’re not representing him?’

‘This is murder, Nicky! This is as serious as it gets! I’ve got him the best lawyer I know. Of course I have. I’m waiting for a call any moment now to say that he’s been released.’ He paused and looked at her, his hands in his pockets. ‘You know, I can’t help feeling that if my son had never met you none of this horrendous stuff would have happened.’

It was an outburst of frustration and suspicion. Nicky stood and faced Lawrence full on. ‘I believe that your son is innocent and that he was trying to protect me from . . . from certain people.’ Lawrence looked unconvinced. ‘I came here today to ask you a favour, a massive favour really.’ Lawrence raised an eyebrow and waited. ‘Five years ago my best friend, Grace, was murdered. Grace Peterson. She was known as the body in the lake. Maybe you remember that?’

‘Adam told me. He never stops talking about you.’

‘I want to see the police files on that case. Can you get them for me?’

Lawrence frowned. ‘I’m a judge, Nicky! I can’t do that!’

‘I think my husband might have had something to do with her death. My husband is Greg Peterson and he was Grace’s husband when she died.’

Lawrence took a big intake of breath. ‘If you have concerns about your husband you should go to the police. Right now, in fact.’

‘The problem is that I don’t have enough evidence – yet.’

Lawrence threw his hands up in a gesture of despair. ‘The police, Nicky—’

He was interrupted by the door opening. ‘Lawrence, there you are. I was—’ Bridget came up short when she saw Nicky. ‘My God, what on earth are you doing here?’ She closed the door behind her and stood side by side with her husband. Her expression was cold.

Nicky ploughed on. ‘I changed my statement after what happened at the house because I believe your son is innocent. I don’t understand what’s happening, or what the connection is between the man Adam killed at your house, Louise Bell, your son and me. But what’s in that file might help.’

‘You’ve given me no reason to see a connection. And at this moment my only concern is my own son and helping him clear his name—’