Behind Dead Eyes (31 page)

‘Wait!' she called.

Tom turned slowly back to her then, hoping the truth might finally be waiting for him.

Tom
walked back and sat down next to Annie on the bench then waited for her to begin. When she eventually spoke her voice was flat. She had finally given up.

‘Men are stupid,' Annie informed him quietly. ‘They think we don't know, but we always know. They come home then head straight for the shower because they say they got sweaty in the office but they're really trying to wash away the traces of her, whoever
she
happens to be. They say they're late because they've been to the gym or the tennis club but when they throw their sports gear into the washing machine, you go and take a closer look and find it's bone dry.'

Tom stared silently ahead, not moving, barely breathing, because he didn't want to do anything to break the spell. Annie continued to speak in a quiet voice with no discernible emotion as if she was in a trance and the words poured from her.

‘So you know, you always know, you just don't know who, not at first, which is why you follow him. You take one of the pool cars and no one notices because there are always new demos coming in and it's your job to try them all anyway. You park it round a corner and you wait until he comes out of that business lunch, the one that finishes early but later he will tell you, in just a bit too much detail, how it dragged on and on because Nick wanted to brag about his new nine iron or Andrew was sleazing over his young PA. You just want to tell him to shut up and stop lying, because you were there.
You saw him leave early and you followed him so you know where he's been and
exactly
what he has been doing.

‘You follow him at a distance because women are discreet and you don't want him to see you but you wonder whether he would even notice if you were tailgating him. Eventually he turns off the main road and takes a narrow lane off the beaten track, but you don't follow him down there. That would be too obvious. Instead you park further down on the other side of the road and you wait to see what happens.'

He noticed she was using the word
you
not
I
, distancing herself from her own story.

‘Then another car comes along not five minutes after your husband and you wonder what the odds are of that happening. People only go down that track for one reason. Teenagers go there at night to snog and grope one another, though I never did,' she sounded regretful at that, ‘but they aren't married and it's their business what they get up to. You only care about your husband and who he's with, but you don't see clearly. The sun reflected off the windscreen so you couldn't make out the other driver but you know it's a woman. You know it's
the
woman. So you wait.'

Annie paused momentarily as if she was remembering how that felt.

‘You wait for more than an hour and it eats you up inside because you know what he is doing with her there; you can't help but imagine them together and it breaks your heart, just breaks it.' Tears started to form in her eyes but she angrily brushed them away. ‘Finally your husband's car emerges and this time the other car is right behind it. They didn't even wait. They weren't even careful because they thought they were so bloody clever and nobody could ever work out what they were up to. Your husband's car turns right but you don't
follow him. You're more interested in the other driver so, when she turns left, you pull your car round and go after her. You follow her for miles, nearly crashing your car on a roundabout because you're so desperate to keep her in your sights. You're waiting for her to stop so you can get a good look at this woman who has been fucking your husband in a car in broad daylight just minutes earlier and you wonder what kind of person she is. Is she single or married, younger than him or the same age; you're pretty damn certain she won't be any older. You think about what she's got that he craves so badly he's willing to risk everything for it.' Then she sighed in a resigned way, ‘You already know she's more beautiful.'

She stopped talking then but Tom waited for her to continue. ‘Then, at last, she pulls over at a supermarket. You're certain she hasn't noticed you, so you park just a short way from her car. She's taking her time. Maybe she's spraying something on herself to disguise the smell of sex and you find yourself wondering whose car they did it in, his or hers.

‘Then finally she's climbing out of her car and you almost duck down but you can't take your eyes off her because you're desperate to know what she looks like. You needn't worry. She's oblivious to the fact you are just a few cars away from her and you get a good long look. She
is
beautiful, of course she is. She's young too and has money for clothes and you're willing to bet the car is all hers, even if she didn't pay for it herself. Somehow you can see right into her and you know she's a clever, cunning, manipulative, ruthless woman who is used to getting what she wants and will happily use each man she meets as a stepping stone to the next one. The reality of it hits you like a punch in the stomach. This isn't some waitress or chambermaid your husband is screwing. This
woman is going to take everything from you,' Annie closed her eyes, ‘you know that, you just know it.' Then she opened them again and her face bore a determined look. ‘Unless you stop her.'

Annie's speech halted then and Tom realised he would have to prompt her to get at the truth.

‘So what did you do?'

‘I wanted to meet her on the way out of the supermarket. I wanted to grab her and pull her down and smash her pretty face,' said Annie, ‘but instead I went home, lay on the bed, cried for a while, then I pulled myself together before the kids came home.'

‘Did you say anything to him that night?'

‘No, I just listened as he told me all about his day, while I contemplated sticking a kitchen knife between his shoulder blades.'

‘But you started to plan?' He was coaxing the story from her, little by little.

‘Not then. I felt dead inside at first.' And she exhaled. ‘It was a while before I hated him enough to start planning anything.'

‘Why didn't you just divorce him?' Tom asked, though he knew the answer already.

‘And let him take half of everything? Why should I let him leave and become rich at our expense? Why should we pay him hundreds of thousands of pounds he never earned and damage the company irreparably?'

‘Did you think about killing him?'

‘Every day for a while,' she admitted. ‘Didn't think I'd get away with that. Finally, I started to imagine a way to destroy them. I'd kill her and make it look like he'd done it. Then I'd be rid of them both.'

She'd finally admitted the truth. Tom felt a combination of shock and relief. Even though he had already convinced himself of her guilt it was still incredible to hear it from Annie's own mouth after all of her denials. ‘How did you get her to go out there?' Tom had never been able to imagine a way for Annie to lure Rebecca to her death.

‘The same way he did.'

‘The dead-letter drop?'

‘Yes.'

‘How did you know about that?'

‘I followed him again.'

‘And you saw him leave a letter under the stone in the wall?'

‘I only saw him park up and get out then head up that little lane but I didn't understand because it doesn't lead anywhere. I drove past him then circled back and when I reached the spot he was already coming out again, so I knew he couldn't have been meeting someone there. When he was gone, I went down the lane myself. I didn't even know what I was looking for and I found nothing that time but I realised the spot was overlooked by Picket Copse. We used to play there when I was a kid.' Annie seemed almost wistful, lost in that memory for a moment. ‘I went down there the next day and watched from the copse. I invented meetings so I could catch him out. Then I saw him put a note in the wall.'

She needed a moment then before she could continue. The memory was too raw, even now.

‘And that's how you found out where they were meeting and when?'

‘Not just that,' she said bitterly, ‘they wrote love letters to one another when they couldn't meet. I read their
correspondence for two months but there wasn't much love in them. You should have seen the things they wrote about me. They were both so cruel. She said I was fat and looked like a man. I didn't deserve Richard because I didn't have a warm bone in my body and was incapable of real love. She told the father of my children that and he didn't even contradict her.

‘He told her I was frigid and he had never loved me, not really. He said he only stayed with me for the sake of the children. I was his biggest regret. He told her he knew he had made a terrible mistake on our wedding day but he went ahead with it anyway. He'd been trapped with me ever since. I don't think you can imagine how that felt.' She sounded at breaking point.

‘No, I can't.' And, even though he now knew she must be a killer, for the first time Tom felt sorry for Annie Bell.

‘Then she started to persuade him to leave me and soon that was all they ever talked about. If only they could leave us all behind: her jealous, controlling husband, his ugly, frigid wife. If only they could be together forever. I hated her then,' Annie explained. ‘I hated him and at first I wanted to die. Then, later, I wanted them both dead instead.'

‘But then you had a better idea?' She nodded slowly. ‘Kill her and put him in the frame for the murder.'

‘That seemed fairer,' she said, ‘they both got what they deserved.'

‘How did you get her to meet you out there?'

‘It was staggeringly easy,' she said. ‘I practised his handwriting and I wrote her a note. I waited till he went down there in the morning and switched his note for mine; same location, just a different day and time. I brought their meeting forward.'

‘And you faked the note from the waitress too?'

‘Yes,' she admitted, ‘I knew something had happened between them from the way she treated him when we ate a meal there. She was rude; dismissive in a way she wouldn't have been with a normal customer and he pretended not to notice. I got her name from her badge then chose a simple, legible hand and gambled she hadn't written to him before. I asked him to go and see her while I was meeting that woman and he fell for it.'

‘What did you write?'

‘The waitress told him she was pregnant,' she said. ‘She was going to tell everyone it was his. I knew that would work. Even if he was convinced it couldn't have been his baby he'd still want to go down there and shut her up or buy her off. I didn't even need her address. I just told him to meet her at her flat.'

‘And when he turned up there was no one there.'

‘She'd already left the country. I was at the club the week before and I heard one of the barmaids there telling the other she'd gone to Thailand and I thought, this is it, the final piece. Richard will try and claim that a girl who'd already gone abroad asked him for a meeting at her old flat. He'd look like an idiot and a very bad liar.'

‘What if he kept the note?' asked Tom.

‘She didn't write it,' Annie reminded him, ‘so it wouldn't be much of an alibi, would it? The police would think he'd written it. I wore gloves so the only prints they'd find would be his. Anyway,' she said, ‘I knew he wouldn't keep it. He'd be too worried in case his frigid wife found it.'

‘So he took the bait and drove down there but nobody saw him.'

‘Her old flat was empty and he wasn't going to hang
around in case anyone saw him. He still thinks it was some kind of malicious joke by her because he wouldn't see her again. That's how much of an ego my husband has.'

‘And you went to meet Rebecca Holt.'

‘Yes.'

‘How did you get right up to her car without her spotting you?'

‘I changed in the demo car. I wore a tracksuit and running shoes, with a baseball cap and my hair tied back. I put sunglasses on. I hardly recognised myself in the rear-view mirror. I parked up some way from the lane then ran to the spot. There was no one around. I had the hammer hidden in the sleeve of my tracksuit top. I thought I'd have to tap on the glass to get her to wind the window down so I could pretend to ask her something but it was already open because she was smoking. It was so easy,' she marvelled. ‘I just let the hammer slip into my hand and I hit her hard,' she made a chopping motion with her hand to show Tom the angle, ‘right in the middle of that beautiful face.

‘She screamed,' said Annie. ‘I think she knew straight away that she was done. I hit her again and I just kept on hitting her. She tried to get out of the car and managed to get the door open but she was trapped by her seat belt. I bashed her across the head then … I just … kept … hitting her,' Annie Bell's teeth were gritted now as she relived the moment in her mind, ‘until it was over and she was gone.'

‘When the police came you acted like Richard was an innocent man who couldn't possibly have committed such a terrible crime?'

‘Well, he was,' Annie said, almost gloating, ‘and what better way to avoid suspicion than by forgiving your husband and standing by him?'

‘That expert witness must have been a godsend,' he observed.

‘He was a miracle,' said Annie, looking grateful.

‘Why stand by Richard all this time though?' asked Tom. ‘Why not just divorce him now he's inside?'

‘After standing by him so publicly, I can't do that,' she said, ‘not yet. Even Richard would be suspicious. Eventually maybe, when even he would understand that I cannot wait forever. Then I might ask him for a divorce, on my terms. No judge would award a jailed killer half of his poor wife's estate but I'm in no hurry. It's not as if I want to go down that road again.'

‘What road?'

‘Marriage,' and she added, ‘I get more control this way.'