After You Die (5 page)

‘You don’t have to apologise,’ Zigic said, giving him a thin smile. ‘There’s nothing we appreciate more in a murder investigation than an honest response from potential suspects.’

He left the boy babbling apologies and denials, Sally telling him that she was ashamed to call him her son, that he treated everything like a game and this was serious.

Zigic didn’t believe he was a credible suspect, not for a heartbeat – he was just another budding misogynist, devoid of empathy – but he’d wanted to shake some of the arrogance out of the boy.

He scanned the yard for Warren and Ferreira, saw no sign of them. Checked his phone, nothing from Jenkins yet but Anna had messaged him:
The paint looks fine now it’s dry x
.

As he pocketed his phone Ferreira emerged from one of the breeze-block kennels, brushing down the back of her jeans, doing all the talking while Warren followed her, nodding along.

He’d stopped crying but his eyes were bloodshot and sunken, cheeks hollowed under his greying beard. Zigic could see Holly in him, though, the same athletic build, same long face and strong nose.

Ferreira left him with the dog and fell in step with Zigic as he started away from the house, along the farm track back towards the village, their feet kicking up puffs of dust. The sun was dropping, cutting low across the fields, throwing long shadows ahead of them.

‘Did you get anything out of him?’ Zigic asked.

‘He was pretty honest about his feelings towards Dawn – the divorce was getting nasty, she wanted money, he insists he doesn’t have any.’

‘They look well enough off,’ Zigic said.

‘It’s Sally’s money. Dawn thought she should be getting maintenance, though.’

‘From where?’

‘Sally. Warren’s living with her – off her, really – so Dawn considered that his income.’ Ferreira slowed to roll a cigarette as she walked. ‘It was never going to happen. So, annoying for them but no reason to murder her. And he’d hardly leave Holly to die like that, would he?’

He considered it as they crossed the lane, a couple of kids on skateboards cutting in front of them. Sally was too careful, the boy too cold and Zigic never trusted anyone who ran from bad news like Warren had. Not when murder was involved. It was the easiest way to avoid questioning, grab a few vital minutes to gather yourself and prepare a response.

After her six months away from work he didn’t trust Ferreira’s instincts as far as he usually would either.

‘I’m not ruling him out.’

It started as a joke on her pretensions – Julia’s Atelier – but now that’s how she thought of the uninspiring double garage with the whitewashed walls and the concrete floor. Matthew bought her a little hand-painted sign that they hung on the door, a curly script, black on dove grey. Very Parisian, hinting at the beautiful things she made inside; the neglected old wardrobes and bureaux she’d scouted out among the classified ads and local auctions, pieces from house clearances nobody else wanted.

She lovingly fixed them up, filling and sanding, burning off ill-advised colour choices, recreating them as chic armoires in Farrow and Ball tones, adding crystal handles and pretty lining paper.

The last piece she’d finished was a reproduction dressing table painted celadon green and touched with gold here and there. She’d sold it last week and now it was waiting for the buyer to come and collect. In her home but no longer really hers.

There wouldn’t be any more projects for a fair while now. Not with the baby due in a few months.

Her atelier had lost its magic, the lovely sense of potential which drew her in every morning, eager to see how the day before’s finishes had dried or to try some clever new combination which had occurred to her just as she nodded off.

Now, when she walked in she saw a mess of abandoned pieces sitting sadly in the weak evening light, a simple elm plate rack which needed stripping, a bergère screen to be re-caned. On the workbench under the window, a Victorian nursing chair she’d stripped of its grubby velvet, the shapes already traced onto tissue-thin paper, ready for her to transfer them onto a blush-coloured linen. Reupholstery was out of the question, too much dust in the disintegrating hessian linings, too many spores in the horsehair.

She hadn’t waited this long to get pregnant only to jeopardise the baby’s health with sawdust or paint-stripper fumes or microscopic fibres from wadding.

She was forty-two years old, nature was already against them.

Julia stood at the workbench, her fingers straying to the pattern she’d cut, the paper crinkling as she folded the pieces and slipped them away into the drawer. She straightened her rulers and the sliver of chalk she used to mark up, retrieved a pencil which had fallen to the floor and put it back in the pot on the windowsill, an earthenware jar she’d found buried in the garden soon after they moved in. Its glaze was cracked and crazed but she still loved it.

People were too quick to throw things away for the slightest damage.

The tears welled suddenly, and hunched over the workbench she let them come, trying not to make a sound, aware that Caitlin was doing her homework in the kitchen next door.

She was supposed to be providing the girl with a safe, stable environment, not adding fresh misery to the complex baggage Caitlin carried around.

She was also supposed to be doing the same thing for Nathan, but he was gone, missing since Saturday afternoon. She would never forgive herself if anything happened to him. He was so young for his age, eleven going on eight, and so small. Completely defenceless against the kind of people who would prey on him out there.

For the hundredth time she imagined him bundled into the back of a van, tape over his mouth, hands and feet tied. She’d been doing this job long enough to know all of the terrible, inhuman things that could happen to young children. She’d cared for the survivors, seen the physical and psychological scars which never completely healed, tried to help them the only way she knew how, with patience and kindness.

Twenty-four hours ago he left the house and nobody had seen him since.

Now it was out of her hands and all she could do was try and hold herself together for the sake of her baby, keep things as normal as possible for Caitlin, and wait for the phone call telling her Nathan had been found.

Part of her was still capable of hope – he’d taken off before and found his way home safely – but as the hours drew on with no word, that optimistic part of her was shrinking.

In the kitchen the phone began to ring.

‘Caitlin, would you answer that, please?’

They weren’t allowed to tell Caitlin anything about Nathan’s situation and that was another source of guilt for Julia.

Even though he’d only been here for a couple of months Caitlin was attached to him and now she was suffering much worse than any of them expected. She knew better than anyone what danger he was in and all their bland reassurances were doing nothing to soothe her.

She knocked tentatively on the door of Julia’s workroom. She’d been told before she didn’t need to do that but still she did, conditioned by the harsh regimes of former foster carers.

‘Come in, lovey.’

Caitlin lingered in the open doorway, one foot on top of the other, holding the phone to her chest. She had tears in her eyes, her bottom lip ominously trembling.

‘What is it?’ Julia rushed over to her. ‘Is it Nathan? Have they found him?’

‘No.’ She held the phone out, said, voice breaking, ‘It’s Dawn. She’s dead.’

Julia felt her knees threatening to give but Caitlin caught her and helped her to the kitchen table. Taking the phone she heard Sally’s voice, borderline hysterical on the other end, telling her about a gas explosion and Dawn being murdered and Holly dead too, all of it coming out in a torrent, no gap for Julia to speak.

‘They think Warren killed her,’ Sally said. ‘I just know they do.’

Julia wrapped her hand around the phone. ‘Caitlin, go and tell Matthew what’s happened.’

She waited until she was alone before she spoke again, using the firm tone which always worked with Sally.

‘Calm down. You’re not helping anything like this.’

‘He’s furious, he won’t talk to me,’ she said, almost wailing. ‘Why won’t he talk to me about this, Jules?’

‘Listen to me … he’s just lost his daughter, he’s distraught. Let him absorb this. That’s something we all need to do right now.’

‘I know,’ Sally said. She stopped to take a noisy gulp of what would almost definitely be red wine. ‘You’re right, of course you are. God, though, it’s insane. Can you believe this? I mean, Dawn, yes, she was a grown woman but what could Holly possibly have done to deserve that?’

Julia closed her eyes, wishing she could end the call.

‘Do you think it’s that builder she’s had in?’ Sally asked, excitement coming into her voice, as if they were picking apart some thriller she’d chosen for their book club rather than accusing a man of murdering her boyfriend’s soon-to-be-ex-wife and daughter. ‘I saw him in the shop a couple of weeks ago, he looks a complete animal. Attractive enough but you wouldn’t get away with saying no to him.’

‘When did it happen?’ Julia asked. ‘Do the police know?’

‘I don’t know, they wouldn’t tell us anything. We don’t even know how they died.’ Another mouthful at her end. ‘The detective in charge went ballistic when Ben asked if they’d been raped, so – oh, I can’t even bear to think about it.’

Matthew came in from the garden, propped the hoe against the wall and went to wash his hands in the utility room, followed by Caitlin, who was asking him if she should call Nathan’s mobile and tell him about the murders.

‘Best not to upset him,’ Matthew said gently, then told her to go and watch some television.

Sally was running through her suspects list, every man in the village virtually. Tactfully she left Matthew out but Julia didn’t trust her to make the same omission when she was talking to the police.

‘It must be the neighbour, though,’ she said, almost regretfully, as if she’d solved the case too soon. ‘They get murdered just as he
happens
to have a gas leak. He was trying to cover up the evidence, obviously.’

Matthew gestured for her to end the call and she nodded, waiting for an opening which wasn’t coming. He paced away from the table, to the window and back again, long impatient strides, one hand clamped to his forehead, fingers twitching in his receding hair.

‘Sally – look, I’ve got to go. Caitlin is in a real mess here, I need to sort her out.’

‘Oh, okay. Yes, sorry, I shouldn’t have just blurted it out to her like that, should I? Didn’t think. God, that’s me all over, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll call you later,’ Julia said and cut her off before she could protest.

Matthew took the phone from her and replaced it in the dock by the message board. His movements very deliberate but she could still see the slight tremor in his hand. He pulled out the chair closest to her, sat down, their knees touching.

‘We need to tell the police about Nathan.’

Julia pushed away from him. ‘What? My best friend’s just been murdered and that’s your first thought?’

‘She wasn’t your best friend,’ Matthew said, giving her a pointed look. ‘She might have been once but we both know better so don’t pretend you’re cut up about it.’

‘What about Holly? Am I allowed to be upset for her?’

He leaned back in the chair, eyes closed, as if the full force of it had hit him finally. He liked Holly, she knew that. She was smart and Matthew had always respected and admired intelligence above everything else.

‘She had so much potential,’ he said. ‘She could have done anything she wanted.’

‘She was a lovely girl.’

‘God, what a waste of life.’ His took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes and when he slipped the heavy black frames on again there was a new resolve hardening his face. ‘Holly’s at peace now, anyway. That’s something, I suppose.’

‘It’s not much,’ Julia said.

Matthew patted her on the thigh. ‘I think we both need a drink.’

She sat silently while he made two gin and tonics in the antique French tumblers she’d bought from a little shop in Stamford. Today she needed it in a highball glass, too much bad news for a single measure.

She wasn’t allowed that, though. Just the smallest splash to taste. Barely a teaspoonful.

‘We can’t tell anyone about Nathan,’ she said, striking first. ‘We agreed.’

‘That was before.’

‘Before?’ she asked, incredulous. ‘This has got nothing to do with him.’

‘You don’t know that.’ Matthew placed his own drink on the table. ‘He was round there all the time, we’ve got no idea what was going on between them.’

Julia scowled at him. ‘You read his case file, there’s no suggestion that he’s dangerous or violent. My God, Matthew, do you think I wouldn’t see it if he was?’

He picked his G&T up, took a long mouthful. ‘You always find the best in people.’

‘That’s usually considered a good thing.’

‘It is, but it’s a weakness too because you end up ignoring the bad that’s in them.’ She knew what he was thinking. They didn’t discuss
the incident
any more, it had been picked over enough already and she’d admitted he was right. Her reward was never to have it mentioned again.

She told herself to stay calm.

‘Even if we wanted to tell the police you know we can’t.’

‘We have to,’ he said, taking her hand, his skin cold and wet from the glass. ‘There’s a reason Nathan ran away this weekend – of all the times he could have done it – and if it’s because of Holly and Dawn’s murders we owe it to them to come forward.’

Julia shook her head. She wouldn’t let him do this. ‘We’re supposed to be protecting him. I won’t do it.’

‘Someone’s going to tell them eventually,’ he said. ‘How will it look when the police find out we’ve been hiding this from them?’

He was right but she wouldn’t be bullied. Not by him and not by the police. She knew Nathan was a good, kind boy and she’d promised to look after him. She’d failed him once, she wouldn’t do it again.

‘No, Matthew.’ She pulled her hand free and stood up. ‘We are not going to talk to the police. We made promises and we’re going to honour them and if you go behind my back on this, I’ll never forgive you.’