The Loving Husband (38 page)

‘You
what
?’

Fran swallowed. ‘We had … we had sex,’ she said. ‘And now he’s out there. Leaving chocolates, flowers, Valentines. Writing stuff on my car. He’s been in here.’

‘He raped you.’ Ali spoke the word calmly, levelly. Wordless, Fran nodded. ‘I don’t need to ask,’ said Ali, ‘why you didn’t tell Doug Gerard,’ and now her voice was flat and angry.

‘I … I…’
Tell her.
‘I had washed the sheets,’ she said, stiff. ‘I don’t know why, it was before I knew, before I started to wonder. There was something about the way they smelled, something about how it felt, and I didn’t want … I didn’t want them looking. At me, at my dirty sheets. Gerard and Carswell.’

Ali’s shoulders dropped, and she sighed. ‘Fran,’ she said, sadly, ‘Fran, Fran.’ Shaking her head, then her head was still. ‘There’s something I need you to know. But I can’t be the one that tells you.’ Frowning fiercely.

Fran stared. ‘About the man that … the man that was in my bed?’ she said. ‘Is it, was it John Martin?’

‘It’s about your husband.’

‘About Nathan,’ Fran repeated dully. ‘Not that he was gay? I don’t care if he was gay.’

‘About his job,’ said Ali, arms folded tight across herself now. Fran stared and Ali went on. ‘Did you know your ex-boyfriend Nick Jason was allowing drugs to be dealt in his clubs? Did you know he was probably arranging drugs shipments himself, while you were his girlfriend?’ A pause. ‘Was Nick Jason a violent man?’

‘Violent?’ said Fran, shaking her head. ‘No. No!’ Though what did she know, about what he’d done, when she wasn’t there? She hadn’t thought he’d pimp her out to a business contact, either. ‘What’s Nick got to do with Nathan?’ Fran said, and Ali just looked at her, intent, willing her to understand something.

Fran spoke slowly. ‘Nathan went down to London for an interview nearly twenty years ago and just disappeared. What was he doing? Was he in prison?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’ Ali held her gaze. ‘I think you know I can’t tell you.’ A pause. ‘Did you think it was just by chance Nathan took a unit on the same industrial estate as Nick’s warehouse?’

Fran exhaled, shaky. ‘Not any more. What had Nathan got into?’

When Ali still didn’t answer she pushed, harder. ‘Drugs? Was it sex? Was that what Black Barn was about?’ Fran was feeling the cold in the room, the long draughty windows rattling in their frames, letting the outside in. ‘Karen says the police knew about Black Barn and turned a blind eye. Miranda said a visitor to Black Barn was the one that got him the interview for his first job, the job that took him off the radar for ten years. What was that job?’

She could hear Ali’s breath. ‘Ali? What was that job?’

‘You think about it,’ said Ali, pulling her jacket around her in the cold room. ‘I can’t tell you. Think about why I might not be able to tell you.’

From downstairs there was a sudden clatter and Fran was on her feet, but Ali was on the stairs before her.

In the kitchen Miranda looked pale and tired; a mug lay in pieces on the floor.

Fran took Ali back to the front door, knowing it wouldn’t open for her but she tugged anyway. It resisted, she gritted her teeth and hauled then suddenly it gave, in a swirling gust of icy air. Hunching in the outdoor jacket, Ali said, ‘It’s going to snow. Just do me a favour. You’ve got her now,’ nodding towards the kitchen, ‘and I’ve got your back. I have. Just lock the doors and stay put. Go nowhere, talk to no one.’

Fran opened her mouth but Ali just shook her head. ‘Nowhere,’ she repeated. ‘No one.’

Miranda.

Ali couldn’t tell her, but Miranda could. Softly, she closed the kitchen door behind them and knelt to gather up the pieces of the broken mug. She could feel Miranda watching her.

‘So you didn’t ask, even,’ Fran said, straightening, dustpan in hand. ‘When Nathan got back in touch. You didn’t say, where have you been?’

‘Not straight off,’ Miranda said, terse. ‘You must have known that much about Nathan. You poke him, he closes up. I had my ideas.’

‘What ideas?’ said Fran, determined. But before Miranda could answer, the phone rang, startlingly loud, on the wall.

It was Jo.

‘Jo,’ she said, feeling a sob of relief. ‘Look, I’m sorry—’

‘It’s all right,’ said Jo. ‘Two things.’ Brisk. ‘First off. There’s some work here if, when, you want it. Some maternity cover starting in two months’ time, yes … I know, crazy, but … and two interviews further down the line, it’s not much…’

Christ knows how she would sort it, childcare, where to live … ‘Yes,’ Fran said quickly. ‘Yes, please, yes. Totally.’ And waited, because she heard a hesitation in Jo’s voice.

‘It’s Craig,’ Jo said, abrupt, and Fran was thrown. ‘Who?’

Jo cleared her throat. ‘Craig’s the guy, the new guy. I told you about him. My … my fiancé,’ and suddenly she sounded uncomfortable. Fran put a hand to the wall, staring at Nathan’s handwriting, the list of useful names. Doctor. Dentist. Rob. Nathan’s office number, his mobile number.

‘I told you, he’s in construction, didn’t I? He’s a builder.’

‘Yes,’ said Fran, turning, setting her back against the wall.

‘Anyway. At the wedding, your wedding, that guy that was there. Practically Nathan’s only guest, the guy.’

‘Rob?’ She turned back again, studying the numbers without really seeing them. She remembered Jo talking to Rob.

‘No, not him,’ said Jo, impatient again. ‘The big bloke.’ Fran’s finger went to the numbers, down the list. Julian.

‘Julian Napier,’ she said. Rob eyeing him along the table, after the wedding. Rob’s expression turning flat in the pub when Nathan took a call from Julian.

‘Anyway, Craig says he’s dodgy.’

‘Dodgy how?’

Jo sighed, puzzling. ‘The company, for a start. The only jobs they ever run, he says, are vanity projects, bits and pieces put his way where the client’s abroad, or has money to burn.’

‘So?’ said Fran, almost impatient. It seemed like nothing.

Jo went on. ‘Craig says someone must be propping him up, somewhere down the line, because he doesn’t run the company professionally. Plus…’ She hesitated. ‘He’s a serious Mason. You know, the rolled-up trouser leg, all that, connections here, there and everywhere, the network.’

‘Masons,’ said Fran, feeling her ignorance, the world outside black as a cellar and her blundering about in it. ‘I don’t know anything about Masons.’ She heard Jo hold her breath. ‘That’s not all, is it?’ she said, seizing on the hesitation.

‘Look,’ said Jo, exhaling, resigned. ‘It could just be gossip. I don’t like this kind of rumour, and I’m no investigative journalist, am I, but … well. Apparently Napier has got specific sexual tastes.’ And then Fran heard a sound in the background, a clearing of the throat.

‘Is Craig there?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Jo, her voice muffling for a second, a door closing, then she was back. ‘Boys,’ she said. ‘Julian Napier likes boys. There were rumours he was … apprehended on the Heath having sex with a fourteen-year-old. Craig says more than rumour: someone who’d worked with Napier confirmed it.’

‘Apprehended?’

‘It never got to court, even though once that rumour went round there were plenty of others. The police never seemed to take them seriously, apparently.’

She turned then and saw that Miranda had got to her feet, pale and intent, as if there was something she wanted to say. Quickly Fran said, ‘Thanks, Jo, look, that’s … that’s important. Really important.’ Staring back at Miranda.

‘Just take care,’ said Jo, suddenly awkward, she never liked being thanked. ‘I only want to know you’re all right.’ As she hung up Fran turned to Miranda.

‘What is it?’ she said.

‘Julian Napier,’ said Miranda. ‘That name. I remember that name.’

Outside, someone was shouting.

On the desk Derek barely lifted his head as he buzzed her through. Invisible, she was, thought Ali, lifting a hand to thank him.

The carers’ agency had finally responded to her threats and pleas, after forty minutes of holding, of being hung up on, of being put through to the wrong extension, as she sat there glued to the mobile in her car, parked up outside the station. It had taken her telling them she was a police officer for someone to say, (deep long-suffering sigh), ‘We’ll get someone over there.’ A carer. ‘Your mother’s safety is our priority, Ms Compton.’

Derek called up the stairs after her, ‘You won’t find them up there, Ali, they’re all off to Chatteris, or they were, to the morgue.’ And as she got to the turn of the stairs, refusing to take the lift, too many beer bellies in this business as it is, ‘They might’ve left Sadie behind to hold the fort.’

And there she was, earnestly bent over her computer in the corner of the cramped operations room. She looked up warily as she saw Ali. ‘Ali,’ she said. ‘All right? How’s Mrs Hall doing?’

Sadie hesitated. ‘Sounds like we’re going to have some news for her soon,’ she said, then a shadow passed over her face as though she wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing.

‘Oh yes?’ said Ali, stopping.

There were the photographs, pinned up. You could look at them on the computer, these days, but they all still liked the real thing, Ali included, when she was in one of these rooms. You could stand at this angle or that, you could touch them, get up close to the detail. Nathan Hall’s white face under flash, the blood reading black. The shirt, ripped up to the aorta and saturated. A close-up on his trouser button, undone, an image almost arty, folds of fabric in the dark.

She put a hand up to the photograph. No sign of sexual assault, Gerard had said, almost disappointed. But something had gone on.

There were other photographs. Fran Hall, smiling outside a registry office in a pale dress, holding a baby. Ali wondered who had provided them with that. A shot of Rob Webster taken from his hospital ID. A fuzzy mugshot of Martin Beston, Bez, staring sullen at the camera, bleary with booze. She stepped closer. Nick Jason, a photograph taken in a club, a tall man leaning back against a bar in a dark suit with bottles behind him, something about the line of his shoulders in the expensive jacket. Impossible to tell if he was capable of almost disembowelling a man, in the dark in a muddy field. If you had money you didn’t usually do that kind of thing yourself, but it didn’t feel like a hit. A hit would have been a shotgun. Nick Jason was nice to look at: if she’d been Fran Hall, she’d have been tempted back there. Of course she would.

Gerard’s suspects. There was no photograph on Gerard’s whiteboard of the man who’d owned the Hall’s farmhouse: John Martin, whose wife had been a prostitute. That chicken barn out the back with its uneven concrete floor, she’d smelled it every time she went through their yard, you’d have thought they’d have had it taken down by now. Was that what John Martin was hanging around for? To see what they found?

No reference to Black Barn, either, not here on the board, not to the girl who died, not to the rumours that had flown around, as to who was going there, and for what.

Beside the photographs was the whiteboard, Gerard’s scrawl all over it.
FRAN HALL
, in capitals, then
INCONSISTENCIES
. Underlined three times. And an arrow winding across the board, to Nick Jason’s name, at the head of another column, with dates, club openings.

‘News?’ she said, turning to Sadie, who fidgeted. ‘Just … mind if I…’ said Ali, indicating the door to Doug Gerard’s office, and still flushed with anxiety Sadie bobbed her head. Sadie was engaged, deposit gone down on a new-build flat by the river, didn’t want kids. Or so she said – that conversation was another thing that made Sadie flush and fidget. Ali pushed the door open.

Now it was too late, Ali knew she’d have had kids like a shot, given the opportunity. Even seeing the way they weighed on Fran Hall, the way she twisted and turned, trying to free herself. Lie down under the weight and fuck the job. But sometimes the opportunity isn’t there. Sometimes the time’s right and the man’s wrong, or vice versa. Sometimes you have three miscarriages in a row and he can’t hack the unhappiness. So the job it is. Someone’s got to do it.

Gerard’s room smelt stale and sweaty, the windows grimy. She went to the desk, and sat down. There was a photograph in a frame on a shelf, the girlfriend before last, if she wasn’t mistaken, a film of dust on it. A calendar hung on the back of the door, photographs of muscle cars: once upon a time it’d have been a girly calendar, but they had to keep those somewhere else these days.

‘Good news?’ she called through to Sadie, leaning down, pulling open a drawer. No half bottle of whisky, no girly mags. A paper folder, though, scuffed at the edges, the label on the front curling off, the ink fading. Dates. A stamp. An investigating officer. Careful not to make a sound, she lifted it out and opened it. A photograph sat on the top: three lads, the middle one leaning back against a gate like he ruled the world. Ali turned it over. Handwriting faded to sepia, decades on and down in the corner the name of the photographer. Julian Napier.

Ali heard a chair move back next door, and she closed the folder, taking a cloth bag from her pocket, the one she used for Mum’s shopping, now they made you pay for the plastic ones. Putting the folder inside and setting it on her knee.

Confidential
, the folder said.
Black Barn, Oakenham, 1995.

She was closing the drawer when Sadie appeared in the doorway, her face paling as she saw Ali in DS Gerard’s chair.

‘Just the … you heard about the body?’ Sadie faltered. ‘In the reservoir.’

Ali got to her feet, slinging the cloth bag across her shoulder and seeing Sadie follow the movement with her eyes. ‘I heard,’ she said. ‘Where did you say they’d got to? Those two jokers?’

When she came round the side of the house the two women were spitting hostilities at each other over a buggy. The one with the child, Fran registered, was Sue from the playground. She was leaning aggressively forwards, her knuckles white on the pushchair’s handles. The other woman – a chunky blonde standing in the open door of a silver convertible saloon, its wheel arches spattered with rust – Fran had never seen before.