A Room Swept White (38 page)

‘The other man and the lady – can you tell me anything about them, what they looked like?’

‘They were plain.’

‘What was magic about the magic umbrella? In what way was it magic?’

‘Because it came from outer space and if you opened it you could make a wish and that wish would definitely come true. And when the rain dripped off it onto the carpet, it turned it into a magic carpet and you could use it to fly to space whenever you want and come back whenever you want.’

‘Is that what the man told you?’

Dillon nodded.

‘This man, did he . . . did he have hair on his head?’

‘Vegetarian.’

‘Brown hair? Did he have funny teeth?’

Dillon started to nod, then stopped and shook his head.

‘You can say no if no’s the right answer,’ Simon told him.

‘I want to watch the race again.’

Simon gave him back the remote control, and went in search of Stella. He found her in a small utility room at the back of the house, ironing and singing under her breath. She looked thin, but not unwell – not like someone with terminal cancer. ‘Do you remember taking Dillon round to the Yardleys’ house a while back?’ he asked her. ‘Helen and Paul were there, you and Dillon, two other men and one other woman. It was raining. The two men both had umbrellas.’

‘We went round there all the time.’ Stella frowned. ‘The place was always full of people. Everyone wanted to be around Helen. People flocked to her.’

‘All the time?’

‘At least twice a week, she’d have us round, usually with other people – her family, friends, other neighbours. Anyone, really. It was more or less open house.’

Simon tried not to look disappointed. He’d assumed that the occasion Dillon had described would stand out in Stella’s memory; he should have realised not everyone was as unsociable as he was. Simon had never had seven people in his living room at the same time, not once. The most he’d had was three: him and his parents. The prospect of a neighbour crossing his threshold would unsettle him to the point of sleepless nights, he suspected. He had no problem with meeting people in the pub; that was different. ‘Can you remember anyone you ever met at Helen’s house telling Dillon his umbrella was magic?’

‘No,’ said Stella. ‘I wouldn’t put it past Dillon to have made that up. It sounds like the invention of a four-year-old to me – not something a grown man would say.’

‘He didn’t make it up,’ said Simon impatiently. ‘A man said it to him, the same man you saw outside Helen’s house on Monday morning, the same man who killed Helen. I need you to put down that iron and start making a list of everyone you can remember meeting at the Yardleys’ house – anyone at all, even if you only caught their first name, even the vaguest physical description.’

‘In the last . . . how long?’ Stella asked.

How many days ago was beyond
?

‘Ever,’ Simon told her.

Charlie didn’t know how long she’d been lying face down on Judith Duffy’s kitchen floor. It could have been ten minutes, thirty, an hour. When she tried to speculate about time, it seemed to warp, loop back on itself. Duffy’s murderer sat cross-legged beside her, holding the gun against her head. She was all right – she kept telling herself that – not injured, not dead. If he was going to shoot her he’d have done it by now. All she had to do was not look at him. That was the only thing he’d said to her: ‘Don’t look at me. Keep your head down if you want to stay alive.’

He hadn’t told her she couldn’t speak. Charlie wondered if she ought to risk it.

She heard a series of beeps. He was ringing somebody. She waited for him to start talking.

Nothing. Then the beeps again. ‘Fucking answer,’ he muttered. A smashing sound told Charlie he’d hurled his phone at the wall. She saw it in her peripheral vision: it had
fallen and landed by the skirting board. She heard him start to cry, and the knot in her stomach tightened. If he lost control, that was bad news for her – he was more likely to kill her, deliberately or by accident.

‘Stay calm,’ she said, as gently as she could. She was on the point of losing control herself. How long would this go on for? How long had it gone on already?

‘I shouldn’t have done what I did,’ he said. A Cockney accent. ‘She didn’t deserve it.’

‘Judith Duffy didn’t deserve to be shot?’ He could have been talking about Helen Yardley.
Check
. Simon would say check.

‘You get too far in and then you can’t get out,’ he said, sniffing. ‘She did her best. So did you.’

Charlie’s stomach turned over. When had she done her best? She didn’t understand, and she needed to – understanding might save her life.

He murmured an apology. Charlie swallowed a mouthful of bile, thinking this was it, this was when he was going to shoot her.

He didn’t. He stood up, walked away. Charlie raised her head and saw him sitting on the stairs next to Judith Duffy’s body. Apart from his shaved head, he looked only a little like the police artist’s sketch she’d seen in the paper – his face was a different shape. Charlie was sure it was him, though.

‘Head down,’ he said without feeling. His mind wasn’t on Charlie. She had the sense that he didn’t care any more what she did. Lowering her head only a fraction, she watched as he pulled a card out of his jeans pocket and placed it on Judith Duffy’s face.

The numbers
.

Seeing him coming towards her again, she twisted away from him, but all he wanted was his phone. Once he had it, he headed for the front door. Charlie pressed her eyes shut. Being so close to free and safe was hard to bear. If it went wrong now, if he came back . . .

The front door slammed. She looked up and he was gone.

Part III

15

Monday 12 October 2009

‘If I’d known Marcella was going to die when she was eight weeks old, I’d never have left her, not for a second,’ says Ray. ‘I thought I’d have her for the rest of my life, years and years to spend together. Instead, I only had her for eight weeks. Fifty-six days – it sounds even shorter when you say it like that. For nine of those days I wasn’t even there. I walked out on my own daughter when she was only two weeks old. For years that made me hate myself. Sorry, should I look at you or at the camera?’

‘The camera,’ I tell her.

She inspects her fingernails. ‘You can always find a reason to hate yourself if you’re that way inclined. I thought I was getting better at forgiving myself, but . . . I hated myself yesterday, when I found out what had happened to Judith. I’m not overly fond of myself today.’ She tries to smile.

‘Did you kill Judith Duffy?’ I ask. ‘Because if you didn’t, then it’s not your fault that she’s dead.’

‘Isn’t it? People hated her because of me. Not only me, true, but . . . I contributed, didn’t I?’

‘No. Tell me about walking out on Marcella.’ I sense she’s trying to put it off; talking about Judith Duffy is easier.

She sighs. ‘I’m scared you’ll judge me. Isn’t that ridiculous?
It didn’t upset me at all when we first met and you told me you thought I’d probably killed my children.’

‘Because you knew you hadn’t, so my judgement didn’t apply to you. But now you’re going to tell me about something you did do.’

‘I used to have a business: PhysioFit. It was extremely successful. Still is, even though I’m no longer part of it. As well as individual clients, we provided physiotherapy for businesses. Let’s use your company as an example – Binary Star. Let’s say your boss decides that you all spend too long sitting hunched over your computers. She can see your posture deteriorating, you’re all complaining of back pain, the office is a breeding ground for vertebral occlusions. Boss decides to introduce routine physiotherapy provision for all Binary Star employees. First thing she does is invite several companies to tender for the contract.’

‘Like PhysioFit?’

‘Exactly. Assuming this is years ago, when I was still involved, what would happen is that my colleague Fiona and I would go to Binary Star’s offices and give a presentation that would last two or three hours. Fiona would talk about the business side of things, contract terms – all the stuff that I’m not particularly interested in. Then when she’d done her bit, it would be my turn to talk about the physiotherapy itself: what it involves, what conditions it’s particularly useful for, how it’s not only a last resort for chronic pain but something that can be preventative as well. I’d talk about postural training and cranial osteopathy – that was my specialism – and about the foolishness of believing, as some people do, that a machine can provide physiotherapeutic services as efficiently as a human being. Of course it can’t. When I put my hands on someone’s neck, I can feel—’

She breaks off, giving me a sheepish smile. ‘Sorry. I nearly forgot I wasn’t actually tendering for your business.’ She turns back to the camera. ‘You get the idea, I’m sure.’

‘You sound passionate about it,’ I tell her. ‘I’d employ you.’

‘I loved my work. I didn’t see why having children meant I had to give it up. When I found out I was pregnant with Marcella, the first thing I did was put her name down for a good local nursery. She was going to start when she was six . . . months. Sorry.’

‘It’s okay. Take your time.’

Ray makes a tunnel out of her hands, breathes through it. ‘That seemed a good compromise to me: six months at home with my baby, then back to the clinic.’ She turns to look at me again. ‘Lots of women go back to work when their babies are six months old.’

I point to the camera.

‘The day after I had Marcella, Fiona came to visit me in the hospital. She brought a box of duck-shaped biscuits with pink icing on them, and some good news from PhysioFit: we’d been asked to give a presentation to the bosses of a Swiss company with offices all over the world, several in the UK. It was a massive contract, one that would enable us to make the leap from national to international, and we really wanted it. We got it, too. They chose us over the competition. Sorry, I’m jumping ahead.’

‘No problem. I’m going to edit all this, so don’t worry about chronology.’

‘I want to see the finished version before it’s aired,’ Ray says immediately.

‘Of course.’

She seems to relax. ‘The company’s headquarters were in Geneva. That’s where Fiona was going, to meet and impress the bosses. “It’s such a shame you’re on maternity leave,” she said. “I’ve heard you do your spiel a thousand times, and I can recite it word-for-word, but it won’t be the same as having you there.” She was right. It wouldn’t have been the same without me. Of the two of us, I was better with people, and this was such an important presentation for PhysioFit. I couldn’t bear the thought of not being there. I couldn’t convince myself that my presence might not make the difference between success and failure.’

I think I know what’s coming. She went. Obviously she went. But why the lies? Why not tell the story she’s telling me to Julian Lance? In court?

‘I asked Fiona when the meeting was scheduled for. She told me the date. It was three weeks away. Marcella wouldn’t even be a month old when Fiona set off for Switzerland. I . . . this is the part you might not understand. You’ll think I should have been straightforward about what I wanted to do, said “Sorry, everyone, I know I’ve just had a baby, but I simply must jet off on a business trip – toodlepip, see you all soon.” ’

‘Angus would have been unhappy about it?’

Would he have been as unhappy as I was when I worked out how he’d escaped from my flat? I got back to find a note from Tamsin stuck to my fridge: ‘No Angus Hines anywhere on the premises, unless you’ve got a hidden room I don’t know about. RING ME!’

I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to contact Angus, either, and ask him how he managed to escape without breaking glass or drilling through a wall. I got my answer this morning when I
snuck back home for some things I needed, and bumped into Irina, my cleaner, who is also a PhD student at King’s. ‘How can you lock your friend in the flat?’ she demanded. ‘Not nice, Fleece. He was so embarrassed to ring me to say what had happened.’

I ran to the drawer where I keep business cards, spare lightbulbs, takeaway menus and tea towels (there’s not much space in my flat, so things have to double up). Irina’s card was there – ‘The Done and Dusted Cleaning Company’ – on top of a neat pile that hadn’t been quite so neat last time I’d opened the drawer.

I rang Angus and left a message saying I needed to speak to him as soon as possible. When he called me back, I yelled at him for rummaging in my kitchen drawers and demanded to know why he’d lied to Irina. Why did he tell her I’d forgotten all about him and locked the door behind me by mistake? Why hadn’t he smashed a window and climbed out, like anyone normal would have? He said he didn’t want to embarrass me by giving my cleaner the impression that I was the sort of person who would lock a man in her flat. ‘I don’t know what you’re so angry about,’ he said. ‘I was trying to be considerate. I assumed you’d rather not have a broken window.’ I told him that wasn’t the point, resenting his implication that Irina would have abandoned me in a flash if he hadn’t gallantly concealed my true nature from her. The whole conversation made me feel twitchy and paranoid. I tried not to imagine him methodically going through my business cards, putting each one to the back of the pile until he found Irina’s.

I haven’t told Ray any of this. I don’t think Angus has either.

‘My plan, at first, was to be straightforward,’ she says to the camera. ‘It wasn’t even a plan – it was simply the obvious
thing to do. That night, Marcella and I left hospital and went home. I opened my mouth to tell Angus a dozen times, but the words wouldn’t come out. He would have been horrified. Not that he wasn’t supportive of my work – he was. He was all in favour of me going back when Marcella was six months old, but going to Switzerland when she was three
weeks
old was completely different. I knew exactly what he’d have said. “Ray, we’ve just had a child. I’ve taken a month’s unpaid leave because I want to spend time with her. I thought you did too.” Then there were all the things he
wouldn’t
have said but that I’d have heard anyway: “What’s wrong with you? What sort of heartless wife and mother are you that you’d sacrifice precious family time to go on a business trip? Don’t you think you ought to get your priorities right?” ’