The Order of Things (35 page)

‘I’m proud to know you. Proud to be your friend. So much. You went through so much. Not once but twice. That makes you strong. No wonder …’

‘No wonder what?’

‘No wonder Gemma thinks so much of you. In Denmark we have a saying. Two herrings in the same tin.’

‘You mean we’re similar? Peas in a pod?’

‘
Ja
.’
She nodded. ‘Two peas exactly the same.’

Lizzie didn’t know how to take this. What little she’d seen of Gemma Caton had first alarmed and then frightened her. The woman was a force of nature fuelled by an ego the size of the planet, and the more she imagined what might have happened in Lympstone had she stayed that night, the more she wanted to keep her at arm’s length.

‘You worship her, don’t you?’

‘Who?’

‘Gemma. She looks after you. I understand that. She protects you. I understand that too. But in return she needs all of you.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes.’ Lizzie nodded. At last she thought she understood. ‘So are you her friend? Her lover? Her companion? Or something else?’

‘Like what?’

Lizzie didn’t want to use the word. It was too blunt. Too crude. Then came the inner shrug. What the hell. ‘Slave?’

Suttle had been in the pub a couple of minutes when Oona walked in. The Angel again. Across from Exeter Central station.

‘What have you done to your hair?’

‘Change of image, my lovely. Buy me a drink.’ She sank into the leather sofa under the window.

Suttle fetched a couple of large glasses and a bottle of Côtes-du-Rhône from the bar. Oona nodded in approval.
Good start
, Suttle thought.

‘God says we should let this breathe.’ She nodded at the bottle. ‘God’s wrong. You pour.’

Suttle was still looking at her hair. Green tints among the auburn curls. He reached for the bottle.

‘Why green?’ he asked.

‘I’m jealous as fuck. I’m also really angry. Tell me about that wife of yours.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Two things. How long has she been screwing women? And how come you’re still in the queue?’

‘Screwing women? You can prove that?’

‘Sure I can. You want the details?’ She described what she’d seen in Lizzie’s bedroom. ‘She was pretty too. I’ll give her marks for good taste.’

Suttle laughed. He’d spent the last couple of hours wondering how difficult this was going to be. When he was living with Lizzie, he’d got used to endless silences, tiny spasms of reproachful point-scoring, an unvoiced bitterness that could last for weeks. Not this woman. Not Oona.

‘Three things,’ he replied. ‘Number one, I haven’t a clue. Number two, because I was a twat. And number three, it will never happen again.’

‘Says you.’

‘Says me.’

‘You never knew she fancied women?’

‘Never. Big surprise.’

‘But you’re a detective. You’re supposed to spot these things. No clues at all?’

‘None. She was always hetero. Ambitious? Yes. Clever? Definitely. A turn-on? I’m afraid so. But lesbian? No way.’

‘So what’s changed?’

‘I just told you. I haven’t the faintest. She got into trouble the other night. She’s after a story. She’s been playing the cop. Do that and you sometimes need back-up. My ex-wife doesn’t do back-up.’

‘That’s because she’s got you.’

‘Wrong. I’m part of the furniture as far as she’s concerned, and that’s fine by me.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

Suttle hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do was let this conversation stray onto Job turf. He’d let that happen with Lizzie, and he was still living with the consequences.

‘She’s a journalist,’ he said. ‘Once a journalist, always a journalist.’

‘You mean people don’t change?’

‘Not in her case.’

‘And in yours? Were you always a two-faced serial shagger?’

‘No. As it happens.’

‘Why should I believe you?’

‘Because you’re here. Because you answered my email. In Dutch. Lovely touch.’

‘Gold star? You approve?’

‘I’m very glad you came.’ He paused. ‘Are you?’

She wouldn’t answer. She reached for her glass. In the light from the window Suttle watched her take a sip, then another. He’d never realised what a strong face she had. Oona, to his certain knowledge, always favoured the boldest line through life’s trickier corners. Where might this one lead?

She returned the glass to the table. Then she took his hand and kissed it.

‘Where I come from you always get two goes,’ she said. ‘After that, you’re history.’

Thirty-Nine

T
HURSDAY, 19
J
UNE 2014, 20.31

Mid-evening, the D/S in charge of the Surveillance Unit briefly conferenced with Carole Houghton on her mobile. Despite exhaustive covert checks around the university, plus a number of inputs from other sources, his guys had failed to locate Ms Caton. Two of them had plotted up her Lympstone house in case she came back. Another team had driven to London to sit on her partner’s Streatham flat. For the time being, she’d simply vanished.

Houghton wanted to know about Michala Haas. She knew that Suttle had provided photos lifted from Caton’s Facebook page that included them both. A sighting of one might lead to the other.

‘This is the pretty woman? Younger? Blonde hair? Slight?’

‘Yes.’

‘You want us to expand the search? Budget-wise that could be tricky.’

Houghton thought about the question. She knew that Nandy regarded
Buzzard
as home and dry. Bentner was squarely in the frame. Why spend another couple of grand on walk-on parts when the lead player was under lock and key?

‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Just find me Caton.’

Lizzie sat up late after Michala had gone back upstairs to finish
Mine.
Despite repeated attempts to trap or seduce Michala into revealing what had brought her to The Plantation, she’d got nowhere. She tried to fathom what Michala really felt about Gemma Caton but without success. Whether this reticence was due to fear or loyalty wasn’t clear. But whenever Lizzie even mentioned her name, Michala’s head would go down and the conversation was over. Finally, with the nearby church bell striking ten o’clock, she determined on one last attempt.

Michala appeared to be asleep. The book lay beside her, evidently finished. Lizzie perched on the bed, stroked her hand. Michala stirred and rolled over, and Lizzie rearranged her pillow to make her more comfortable. Under the pillow was Michala’s phone.

Lizzie toyed with slipping it out and taking it downstairs, but Michala was awake now, rubbing her eyes. She sat up in the bed.

‘You finished the book?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘I liked it. Very much.’

She said it was sad at the end. She’d nearly cried.

‘Sad for who?’

‘For all of you. Grace. You. And Claire as well. It was a good thing to do.’

‘Kill my daughter?’

‘Write the book.’

Lizzie nodded. There was an opening here. She had to take it. Tomorrow morning Michala might decide to leave.

‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’

Michala was staring at her. ‘How do you know?’

‘I had a daughter. There are some things you don’t forget.’ She smiled. ‘Like morning sickness.’

Michala said nothing. Lizzie took her silence for a yes.

‘How many months?’

‘Ten weeks.’

‘Does Gemma know?’

‘Of course.’

‘Who’s the father?’

Another silence. Longer this time. Then Michala turned into her. She wanted to be held. She wanted comfort. She wanted these incessant questions to end.

‘Are you frightened about having the baby?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Why?’

She shook her head, wriggled free and burrowed down under the duvet. Lizzie could hear her sobbing.

After a while Lizzie lifted the duvet. ‘I’m your friend,’ she said. ‘Trust me.’

‘That’s what Gemma says.’

‘Do you believe her?’

‘Yes. I have to believe her. She knows everything.’

‘You mean she’s wise?’

‘She knows everything.’

‘What does that mean?’

Michala was staring up at her. Her eyes were glassy. She shook her head. No way.

‘Maybe you should go,’ she said at last. ‘Leave this place. Go somewhere else.’

‘Why would I want to do that?’

Another shake of the head. Lizzie gazed at her for a long moment and then stripped off and slipped into the bed. Michala’s thin body was trembling. Her flesh was cold to the touch. Lizzie held her again, trying to offer comfort. This, she told herself, was her last and only opportunity to tease out the truth.

‘You’re frightened, aren’t you?’

Michala looked at her and nodded. ‘Yes.’

Suttle was alone in his flat. It was nearly midnight. He’d done his best to persuade Oona to come down to Exmouth with him but she wasn’t having it. She meant it about a second chance, but there was no way she was sharing a bed with him for a while. They were starting all over. When it happened, it happened. But not tonight.

They’d parted friends. She’d disappeared to find her car with most of the bottle undrunk, asking him to phone her.

‘Tonight? Tomorrow?’

‘When it feels right.’

‘It always feels right.’

‘Bullshit. You want to watch the football. My best to Mr Rooney. Sleep well, my angel.’

She was right about the football. Back home in Exmouth he settled down to watch the England–Uruguay match and then caught a highlights round-up of the day’s other games. He was wondering what he’d do if he found himself in Roy Hodgson’s shoes when his mobile buzzed with an incoming text. He checked caller ID. Lizzie.

His heart sank. After meeting Oona again, the last thing he needed was another knock on his door. He studied the phone for a moment or two, then put it to one side. Whatever it was could wait. For now, thanks to Luis Suarez, Mr Hodgson had a real problem.

Lizzie, still downstairs, waited for Suttle to respond. She’d sent him a one-line text – ‘Check out Budget Rent-a-Car Exeter booking in the name of Haas’
–
and thought at the very least she deserved an acknowledgement. She’d no idea where this tiny piece of intelligence lay within the bigger picture but imagined him alone in his flat, bewildered by developments in his private life, nailed by the address book she’d left. Neediness like that had consequences. There was no way she’d make it to Exmouth tonight, but over the weeks to come she could visualise all kinds of possibilities. He still belonged to her. And she could still make it happen for him.

She went back upstairs. Michala was fast asleep. For the first time since she’d turned up on the doorstep there was a smile on her face. Lizzie slipped under the duvet, checked her watch – nearly midnight – and drifted off. Tomorrow morning, first thing, she’d have it out with Michala. The woman knew exactly what had happened to Harriet Reilly. Hence the state of her.

Lizzie woke hours later. She’d no idea what time it was. She lay absolutely still for a moment, listening to the wind in the eaves. She had a roof full of loose slates, and their rattling sometimes woke her up. But then came another noise, a whispered conversation, very close. She rolled over, reaching for Michala, wanting to warn her, but the bed was empty. She struggled upright. A creaking floorboard on the bareness of the landing. She called Michala’s name. Nothing. Then came more whispers. Her blood turned to ice. Intruders, she thought. Definitely.

Her mobile was on the floor beside the bed. Waiting for a response from Jimmy, it was still switched on. She rang his number. Then, in the darkness, she felt a presence in the open doorway. She abandoned the phone and reached for the bedside lamp. At first, semi-blinded by the light, she couldn’t make out the looming figure above her. Then she felt hands around her throat, big hands, strong hands, squeezing and squeezing. Gemma Caton, she thought.

She was struggling now, fighting back, trying to wriggle free, but Caton’s weight was on her chest, another pressure, forcing the air from her lungs. The huge face was inches from hers, eyes glittering behind the rimless glasses.

Then came a question, gravel-voiced, American accent: ‘You gonna tell me?’

Somebody was at the foot of the bed, hands working under the duvet. Lizzie felt the bite of something sharp around her ankles. She tried to kick free again, couldn’t. The hands had tightened on her throat. Colour drained from the room and a greyness fogged what little she could still see until darkness stole into the room again.
Help me
, she thought dimly.
Please God, someone help me
.

Jimmy Suttle woke to the sound of an incoming call on his mobile. He groped for it in the darkness. Lizzie. It was 03.21. Oona had told him about the visit she’d paid to Lizzie’s house, about the woman in her bedroom upstairs, about the admission she’d wrung from Jimmy’s so-called ex-wife. Sure, she’d spent the night down in Exmouth. And guess what? She’d happily do it again.

He put the phone to his ear, angered by yet another intrusion. When would this bloody woman leave him alone?

About to tell her to stop ringing, he froze. It was an American voice: forceful, terse, commanding, unmistakable. Gemma Caton.

‘You know about Kelly, right? Because Michala told you, yes? So what else did she say?’

Suttle strained to catch a reply but heard nothing. Then came a groan and the faintest attempt at a question.

‘What are you doing? Leave me alone.’

Lizzie. Definitely Lizzie.

Suttle was out of bed now. He had two mobiles, one a work phone, one for personal use. The work phone was in the kitchen. Still monitoring the conversation, he fired up the work phone and dialled Houghton’s number. The number answered within seconds. He was about to speak when he realised the open line would carry his conversation. He wrapped the personal phone in a tea towel.

Houghton sounded wide awake. Night owl. No wonder she always looked so knackered.

‘We’ve got a situation, boss. Caton’s with Lizzie. My guess is we’re talking serious violence.’

‘Where?’

‘Either Caton’s house or Lizzie’s. God knows which.’ He was trying to remember exactly where Lizzie lived. Then the name of the property came back to him. ‘The Plantation, boss. St Leonard’s. Off the Topsham Road.’