The Sleeper (20 page)

Laurie and I discussed it endlessly, but we just went around in circles, and the theorising was becoming stale. According to the police and the excited press, Lara had gone to bed early after keeling over (this, speculation had it, was to give herself the alibi of being tucked up in bed). However, she was soon back on her feet: another passenger had seen her at around half past midnight, heading towards Guy’s cabin. In the morning she was gone, and Guy was dead, killed by a small but sharp knife that had Lara’s fingerprints on it. Passengers in the cabins on either side reported hearing voices, but not raised ones, and a scuffle, but nothing dramatic enough to make them feel, at the time, anything other than annoyed at being disturbed.

Every passenger in the sleeper part of the train had been traced. It was easy, because everyone who travelled in the sleeper carriages was listed and ticked off by the attendants, like on an old-fashioned train. There was, however, a second section, which sleeper passengers called ‘cattle class’, where people sat in a chair all night. I trusted Alex when he told me that he was almost completely sure that none of the sleeper passengers had been involved in the murder, so I was certain that the killer must have been travelling on the ‘cattle’ part of the train, and must have left it long before the train reached its terminus

Nobody else seemed to think that, at all. Once it was not Sam, the entire world had decided it was Lara.

The police were checking the ground along the train’s route, but that covered many miles and I thought they were mainly looking for her body, working on the basis that she had flung herself from the train after accidentally stabbing her lover to death. The papers preferred more exciting storylines: she had melted away and could be anywhere. She could be right next to you now! their excitable chatter pointed out. As you’re reading this! On the bus! Keep an eye out, everyone! It was like when a child was missing, except that instead of the innocent angel, the entire country was scanning the faces on every street searching for a beautiful yet depraved murderer. It was very exciting entertainment for people who didn’t consider any actor in a drama like this to be a human being.

I had been back to see Sam once, and then only briefly. I could not bear to be near his pain. That, I knew, was bad of me. He told me about his hours in custody at a centre in Camborne, the forensic checking of his computer and his car and his home. ‘That was the good bit, though,’ he added. ‘It didn’t feel it at the time, but at least things were happening, then.’

His mother was frail yet formidable, his brother thick-necked and shouty, and Sam had all but clung to me as I extricated myself. I told myself that I owed him nothing; but I knew I should have stayed longer. He had no friends to speak of, and he had lost his wife twice over, and he was plainly hating the company of his family.

DC Alex showed up on my doorstep the day after she went missing. That had been unexpected and unsettling. It was Sunday lunchtime, and I was cooking. I was not expecting anyone, and when the bell jangled, Laurie sighed.

‘I don’t want to see anyone,’ he said. ‘Not unless it’s Lara Finch herself. I’ll be upstairs. Don’t tell them I’m here.’

‘Yes, your highness,’ I muttered as he stormed off, but not loud enough for him to hear.

The policeman, tall, skinny and kind, looked at me apologetically as he stamped on the doorstep to keep warm.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have called, I know.’

‘Um. That’s OK.’ He was being oddly informal, and I could tell from his face that there was no good news. ‘Come in,’ I said, because I had to. I trusted Laurie to stay shut away upstairs for as long as he had to. He would, I knew, go to any lengths to avoid the police.

‘I just wanted to talk to you as a friend of Mrs Finch’s,’ he said, when we were inside. ‘Oh, you’re cooking. That smells amazing. I really am sorry to interrupt. Are you expecting people? Is it a bad time?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Really. Have a drink. My boyfriend’s not here. I’m not expecting anyone else.’ Suddenly I wanted a proper drink. Laurie and I did not often drink alcohol. ‘I suppose I can’t offer you a glass of wine? Is that banned if you’re working?’

‘I wish I could. A coffee or something would be lovely, though. Sorry, Iris. All you do is make me coffee.’

‘Oh, this is only the second. I think that’s OK.’

He stood in the kitchen while I made the coffee, and explained that he wanted to have an informal chat.

‘This whole case is so bizarre,’ he said. ‘So enormously unusual. I can’t get my head around it. Mrs Finch seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth.’

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘That’s surely where you come in?’

‘I know, I know. Though I’m not even involved any more. Going to visit Mr Finch was the extent of my involvement. I’m Falmouth, and, as you know, it’s being run by the MCIT out of Penzance. But it’s not often something this bizarre happens down here.’ He pulled himself up on to the worktop. His legs were so long, his feet nearly reached the floor. ‘I like your skirt, by the way. Is it vintage?’

That made me laugh out loud. My skirt was an ancient floral dress I’d bought from a charity shop. I’d had to wash it three times before it stopped smelling of musk and dead people.

‘Charity-shop vintage, not couture vintage. Thanks, though. It’s actually a dress.’ I lifted my cardigan to prove it.

And then I was smiling at him, and he was looking back at me, and I was enormously confused.

‘So. Lara,’ I said quickly. ‘Yes. I didn’t know her that well, actually. I had no idea she was seeing Guy Thomas. Poor bloke. Because he’s dead, I mean. Not because he was seeing Lara. Oh, you know what I mean.’

‘I do.’ He nodded solemnly. ‘It seems it was only the regulars on the train who knew about the connection between Lara and Guy. And the hotel staff, if they cared. And her sister, actually, and her godfather in London says he had an idea but that he hadn’t met Mr Thomas.’

‘How are her family?’

‘They’re how you would expect. Look. I’m sorry to have to do this, but could you just tell me how it was that you were with Mr Finch yesterday morning? I mean, there’s no suggestion that there was anything untoward. I know he’s already been released without charge. It’s just … if a woman’s illicit lover is dead; you have to look to her husband. And when you go to visit the husband and find he’s with another woman, well …’

‘They teach you that in police school?’

‘Fairly early on, yes.’

I told him exactly what had happened. I went through the day from the moment I woke up until the point at which Sam was taken away in the police car.

‘And your partner?’ he asked. ‘Would he be happy to give a statement, if we needed him to? Just to tie everything up? Though I can’t imagine it will be necessary unless anything changes.’

That gave me the confidence to say, ‘I’m sure that would be fine.’

‘Could I just take his name?’

I didn’t have the presence of mind to lie to the police. I could not do anything except say it.

‘Laurie Madaki.’ I instantly wished I could retract, and carried on speaking, too quickly. ‘Look, I’m having a glass of wine. Are you sure you don’t want to join me? Just a small one?’

Alex grinned and jumped down from the worktop.

‘I could be persuaded. I go off duty in twenty minutes. You’re my last job of the shift. So no one would ever know. Thank you. That would be lovely.’

I tried not to think of Laurie, upstairs and seething, and told myself he could not possibly have heard me telling his full name to a police officer. Instead, I opened a bottle of velvety red wine and sat down with the oddly engaging policeman, feeling my betrayal with every nerve-ending in my body, yet callously revelling in it.

If I were single, I thought, I would be drawn to Alex Zielowski. I would be pulled into his orbit. I would want to know everything about him. If I were single.

And then he had coordinated my visit to Diana, as Sam’s representative, and here I was because I was desperate to meet her. As I walked up to the Thomas family’s front door, the journalists kept shouting. They should have gone away by now, moved on to the next big story. The trouble was, none of the proper news was anywhere near this salacious. This was about sex and death and railways; the economy, by contrast, was dull and depressing. Everyone wanted a scandal, and the entire country was going wild about Lara.

Guy had had a Twitter account, rarely used, which suddenly, posthumously, had nearly half a million followers in place of its previous twenty-seven. Everything he had ever written on it (which was not much) had been held up for inspection and found disappointing: almost all he had ever done was link to news articles from the
Guardian
and the BBC. It was generally agreed to be the most boring Twitter account ever, and despite the scrutiny, no coded messages between the lovers were found within it. Lara, meanwhile, had an essentially never-used Twitter account and a long-dormant Facebook account that was similarly and unsurprisingly unyielding. That morning I had seen a desperate article on a tabloid website headlined: ‘Can a successful woman really have only 47 friends? “A psychotic need to exert control,” says top psychologist.’ The barrel was being scraped.

The door was varnished wood, with a brass knocker which bounced when I picked it up and released it. Diana Thomas opened the door instantly; she was far better-looking in real life than she was on the television or in the papers. She was taller than me, with wavy black hair cut in a straggly bob with grey threaded through it. She looked terrible, of course; everything she was going through was etched on to her face, but she tried to smile.

‘You’re Iris,’ she said, with a glance at the excited press pack who were leaping around behind the gate taking her photo. ‘Come in, quick.’

‘Thanks for seeing me. Thanks loads. It’s really kind of you. I’m so sorry for everything you’re going through.’

My words were trite, but I had no idea what else to say.

‘You had to climb over that gate, didn’t you? I saw from the window. We have to keep it padlocked. You understand?’

‘Oh God, yes. Of course. I left my bike on their side.’

‘It should be safe there.’ She did an almost-laugh under her breath. ‘I don’t think there’s much danger of one of them cycling off. I don’t think it’s really their style.’

‘Thanks for seeing me.’

She sighed, blowing her breath out through pursed lips.

‘In a perverse way I want to know more about that woman. From someone who knows her, not the rubbish the papers print. Sam Finch and I have never set eyes on each other, but it turns out we’ve been linked for all this time without having a clue. I can see why he wanted to make contact. When all these bastards have gone home, maybe we can actually meet.’

I followed her down a dark hallway, with the kind of worn-smooth tiles on the floor that denoted an old and cared-for house, and into a kitchen with French windows that led out into a grassy back garden. There was washing on the line outside, but it looked as though it had been there some time: it was stiff with frost.

One family photograph hung on a wall. I tried to look at it unobtrusively. It had been taken at some kind of party: Diana was wearing a turquoise dress that was a tiny bit too bright for her skin tone, and Guy was squinting into the camera, his pale pink tie loosened, his top button undone. He was a good-looking man. I could see where Lara’s temptation had sprung from, though I was still amazed that she had been capable of so massive and prolonged a deception.

There seemed to be nobody else in the house. That was strange. I had expected it to be filled with friends and family, rallying round.

‘Are you all alone?’ I asked, as she filled an old-fashioned kettle with water and put it on the gas burner.

‘I’ve tried to be, these last couple of days, but everyone wants to come and be comforting. The kids are upstairs with friends. That seems to be working for them better than anything else. My brother came and took my mum off for a bit. She lives with us, you know. We have a Family Liaison Officer from the police, and she’s been utterly wonderful, a total rock in a way I would never have been able to imagine before any of this. But she only comes over once a day now. The rest of the well-wishers come and go. Sometimes I just can’t bear it. Sitting there drinking tea with people who are so desperately sorry for me, and knowing that, while they try to say the right thing, they have no idea. To have your life ripped apart. Your husband dead. And then to discover all the rest of it and not even be able to be properly angry with him. I’m fucking furious with him, in fact, the bastard, and by getting himself murdered he’s outmanoeuvred me so we can never have a conversation about it, and I don’t even get to …’ She bit her lip and took some deep breaths. ‘Anyway. Let’s have some tea, shall we? I’d rather be on the hard stuff, but I’m trying to resist because I know where it will lead. Tell me about her. Lara Finch. Did she kill my husband?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m absolutely sure she didn’t.’ I had slipped easily into the exaggerated version of our friendship. If Lara did somehow show up, innocent, I was going to have some serious backtracking to do when it came to the strength and duration of our bond. Real friends of hers, and colleagues and acquaintances had popped up in the papers, baffled by her dramatic story, insisting that illicit sex was out of character for her, let alone murder. ‘I was with Sam last Saturday, because I went over to see her and she wasn’t there. But all we knew then was that she hadn’t turned up from the train. I had no idea that she and Guy were … I’m so sorry. She never spoke about him at all, not to me. I mean, I’d never even heard his name.’

Diana turned her back and started fiddling with a teapot.

‘Poor bastard,’ she said. ‘Sam Finch, I mean. He must be in pieces. Being arrested so dramatically on top of everything else. I knew. I didn’t
know
– Guy obviously didn’t tell
me or anything like that. Why would he? But it wasn’t exactly a first offence, and I can read him like a book. One minute he was mentioning this woman on the train all the time, and then suddenly he never spoke of her again. That was his pattern.’