The Night Book (34 page)

His memory, along with everyone else’s, was about to be comprehensively refreshed.

Meriel had been too weary to make her full confession the evening before. Mark Thompson had to be satisfied with her signed statement of intent to do so the following morning.
Probus had countersigned it, and the detective supposed that would have to do.

When the DI arrived home he was pretty much exhausted himself. It had been one hell of a day, up before dawn to be at Ullswater in time for the dive, then back for one of the trickiest
interrogations he’d ever had to conduct. There was no doubt the case against Meriel Kidd was largely circumstantial. It had been vital to keep her under intense, relentless pressure from the
moment he produced the watch in what he admitted to himself was a piece of pure
coup de théâtre.

But it had bloody worked, he reflected with deep satisfaction, as he fumbled with his Yale to find the keyhole on his front door. Dammit . . . why was it so dark out here? The moon had been
riding high when he left headquarters half an hour ago.

He looked up at the sky. The stars and the moon had vanished from sight.

The door suddenly opened from the other side and light streamed out from the hall. It was Clemmie.

‘What’s the matter, Mark? Why can’t you open the door? Oh God, you’re not pissed, are you?’

She looked so pretty in the soft lamplight and he stepped forwards, took her in his arms, and kissed her for a long time before letting her go again. She smiled at him. ‘What was that for?
And I apologise, you can’t be drunk, I can’t smell any booze on you.’

He pushed the door shut behind him.

‘No, I’m not. But I will be in about half an hour. And so will you. Because I have good news, my beautiful Clementine: Meriel Kidd has agreed to confess, first thing in the
morning.’

He held up one finger as his wife was about to speak.

‘Wait, Clemmie, it gets better. This means that as of tomorrow the case is closed. I can legitimately hand over to my DC to wind things up. So, much more importantly, you and I can go on
holiday after all. Pretty much right away. Flights to the Med are going begging thanks to the heatwave here; it’s a buyer’s market. Never mind Portugal: how do you fancy southern Italy
and the Amalfi coast? Sorrento, Positano, Ravello . . . maybe even Naples?
Sí?
’

She kissed her own finger and pressed it firmly against his lips.

‘
Sí.
But you’re not to tell anyone at work where we’re going. Not a bloody soul, OK? If we get one single phone call from your sodding superintendent or anyone
else while we’re away, I swear I’ll pay the Mafia to drag you behind a mule up Mount Vesuvius and chuck you into the crater. Understood?’

He clicked his heels and bowed formally from the waist.

‘
Sí, signora. Comprendo.
Now let’s open some wine and take it up to bed with us.’

Meriel made her confession verbally in the presence of DI Thompson and a woman officer she hadn’t seen before.

Although the little room had windows overlooking a small courtyard, all the ceiling lights were switched on and a standard lamp had been dragged in from somewhere and placed next to the table.
It was growing steadily darker outside, even though it was mid-morning. Occasionally a faint rumble of thunder muttered in the distance.

Probus sat at her elbow, murmuring an occasional suggestion concerning the phrasing. As well as being recorded on cassette, a police shorthand secretary scribbled it all down at incredible speed
and when she was finished, bore it away to be typed up and copies made.

Less than an hour later, Meriel was reading through the neatly typed pages before she carefully signed each one at the bottom. They were a fleshed-out version of what she’d told Probus the
afternoon before. There was no attempt at mitigation; her lawyer told her that was a separate matter and something for later. This was just a straightforward laying out of the brutal facts.

She felt oddly detached and dispassionate as she reviewed what she’d just said. She’d been unable to sleep in her humid cell the previous night, wondering what effect seeing what
she’d done set down in black and white (well, black and sepia, actually; the confession forms had a distinctly nineteenth-century look about them) would have on her.

But she needn’t have worried. It was almost as if she were reading about someone else. Someone she knew vaguely and felt rather sorry for. Someone who’d got themselves into an awful
lot of trouble, by the look of things.

She signed the final page and sat back in her chair. She felt remarkably calm, everything considered.

‘There. What happens now, Inspector?’

‘Thank you, Miss Kidd.’

There was another rumble of thunder, louder than before. Mark took the pages and slid them carefully into a cheap cardboard file. ‘What happens next is that the custody sergeant will come
in to explain where you are to be taken to from here. There’ll be a short remand hearing here in Penrith and then you’ll be making quite a long journey in a prison van, I’m
afraid. Everything will be made clear to you on your eventual arrival, and Mr Probus here will be in touch in a day or so, won’t you, sir?’

The solicitor nodded. ‘Yes indeed, Inspector, but I have already explained to Miss Kidd how matters will unfold. I think she was asking you how much longer she will be held here in
Penrith.’

Mark got to his feet and glanced at his watch.

‘About ten minutes, I should think,’ he said shortly. He turned to Meriel.

‘Thank you for your co-operation, Miss Kidd. It will count in your favour with the judge, as I am sure Mr Probus has explained. The next time we see each other will be at the hearing to
determine sentence. Goodbye until then.’

He swiftly left the room.

Meriel leaned back in her chair and stared listlessly at the ceiling while Probus quietly made notes on his yellow legal pad.

‘I must say, Mr Probus,’ she said at last, ‘I had no idea events would move along quite so quickly this morning. If I’d realised, I would have taken it all a bit slower.
Do you know . . . I don’t think I’m going to get any lunch.’

Whatever Probus began to say in reply was completely drowned out by a colossal bang, apparently coming from directly overhead. A brilliant flash almost simultaneously filled the little room with
pure white light and there was a second, ear-splitting explosion, followed by a tremendous rattling from the window panes.

They turned to see enormous hailstones pounding the glass in a furious assault, almost as if some godlike entity was trying to smash its way into the little room. There was a third thunderclap,
even louder than the first two. It sounded to Meriel as if giant tree-trunks were being violently split apart just above them.

She turned to her lawyer.

‘Oh well, I suppose there’s one comfort,’ she said, almost shouting so that her voice could be heard above the angry drumming at the windows and yet another shivering
thunderclap.

‘At least it looks like I’m going to be kept safe and warm in the dry for a while, doesn’t it?’

Meriel was long gone when Seb arrived at police headquarters soon after three o’clock. He’d phoned ahead before driving down from Carlisle and Mark was expecting
him. The reporter had been delayed by the huge thunderstorm – roads were awash in places – and he was shown straight into the detective’s office.

‘Seb.’

‘DI Thompson.’

The policeman smiled. ‘You can call me Mark, now, Seb. The Meriel Kidd case is closed. We won’t be needing you any further.’

Seb stared at him in surprise. ‘But I thought you wanted me to make a full witness statement. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.’

The other man shook his head. ‘It won’t be necessary. We’re able to keep your name completely out of things. Miss Kidd made a detailed confession this morning – the
argument on the boat, the reasons for it, how she lured her husband to his death.’

‘All because of what I told you she said to me?’

‘Up to a point. But – and I’m telling you this strictly off the record, Seb – it was mainly because we found the watch.’

Seb was electrified.

‘I
thought
that was why you must have sent the divers down yesterday. So that bloody Rolex
did
have something to do with it all.’

Mark nodded. ‘Yup. You were completely right about that. We found it at the bottom of the lake, directly under the spot where Cameron Bruton drowned.

‘You were right about a lot of things, actually, Seb,’ he went on. ‘About Bruton threatening Meriel with exposure over
The Night Book.
And about the connection between
the missing watch and him asking her the time just before he died.’

‘What exactly happened there?’

‘When he called up to her she threw the watch into the lake, just out of his reach. She admitted hoping that, when it began to sink, he’d go after it and would get in difficulties
when he hit the icy layer beneath the surface. And when he did precisely that, she simply stood back and let him drown. It’s true Meriel can’t swim but she delayed throwing him the
lifebelt until she knew it was too late.’

‘Christ.
Christ.
I think I suspected something like that all along, but hearing you say it out loud . . . well . . . and she’s admitted all this, has she?’

‘Yup.’

Seb sat in silence for a while, before asking: ‘What will happen to her now?’

The DI considered. ‘Personally I think even a top silk might struggle to get a charge of murder to stick, so we decided to go with manslaughter, especially as she was willing to confess to
it. Keeps everything neat and tidy. She’ll—’

‘No, no,’ Seb interrupted. ‘I mean today. What’ll happen to Meriel today? Can I see her, assuming she’ll want me to?’

The DI shook his head.

‘I’m afraid not. She was remanded in custody by local magistrates a couple of hours ago and by now she should be snug as a bug in jail, assuming they kept ahead of this storm. I
think they’ve taken her to Low Newton women’s prison. It’s just outside Durham, about an hour and a half from here. She won’t get visiting rights for a while yet.’

He hesitated. ‘You can always write to her.’

Seb looked despondent.

‘She’ll probably send my letters straight back unopened. Even if she
had
still been here at Penrith, I didn’t hold out much hope that she’d agree to see me. She
must hate me.’

Mark Thompson looked at the unhappy young man opposite, and came to a sudden decision.

‘Here’s something else I shouldn’t be telling you. But I can’t see the harm.’

He weighed his next words carefully.

‘I had quite a long private chat with Mr Probus – he’s Miss Kidd’s solicitor – after her confession this morning. Incidentally, I must say it sounds to me as if
she’ll have some pretty strong grounds for mitigation. But Probus also made reference to you, in passing. To be precise it was something his client said about you. You might be surprised to
hear it.’

Seb lifted his head.

‘Why? What did she say?’

The DI slowly and deliberately pointed a finger at the reporter.

‘Meriel told Probus she thinks she’s still in love with you.’

JANUARY
1977

He took the whole day off on the morning she was due to be sentenced. He couldn’t bear to be in the newsroom, listening to all the gossip and sensationalised chit-chat as
details of the hearing clattered in on the teleprinter in dribs and drabs.

He went fell-walking, far away from radios and televisions and early-edition evening papers.

Seb had only had one letter from Meriel since she was remanded for reports, and he hadn’t replied to it. She’d made it clear she’d send anything he wrote to her straight back
to him, unread. He had understood.

Staring out high above little Buttermere, which wasn’t much bigger than the brave puddle nearby that called itself Rydal Water, he pushed the memory of that lonely letter away.

Forty miles to the north, in a dusty Carlisle courtroom, Meriel was learning her fate. He’d find out what it was soon enough. For now, it was enough to think of her as he sucked the
freezing air into his lungs, the wind up here kicking up tiny blizzards in the powdery snow that settled into miniature snowdrifts around his feet.

Maybe he and Meriel would come up here together one day – a good day – and he could tell her how he had stood here, thinking of her, on a very bad day a long time ago.

The winter sun was beginning to set over Ennerdale over to the west.

It was time to go back down.

He saw the newspaper hoarding on the corner of Warwick Road, its banner a silent scream into the darkness of a midwinter’s evening.

DEATH BY ROLEX – BUT MERCY FOR MERIEL.

He stopped to buy a special edition of the
Carlisle Evening News
, but he didn’t want to sit alone in his flat reading it so he went to the pub instead. There, over a pint of
Theakston’s and a stale ham sandwich, Seb learned what had befallen the woman he had loved, and then betrayed.