The Judas Scar (33 page)

‘The police are here,’ she said to him in hushed tones. ‘They want to talk to you.’

Will looked surprised. He stood up and dragged his arm over his damp, earthy brow. His T-shirt was tucked into his waistband and he pulled it out.

‘Do you know why?’ he asked as he walked up towards her, putting his T-shirt on as he went.

She shook her head. ‘They didn’t say. Maybe something to do with Luke?’ She began to chew the inside of her lip.

‘Why on earth would it be to do with him?’ he asked sharply. She shrugged and dropped her eyes. ‘I don’t know, all the phone calls and texts, and … ’ She hesitated. ‘Well … I went to see him to tell him to stop calling me and there were all these photos in his flat.’

‘What photos?’

‘Photos of us. I should have told you … ’ she paused again, wondering why on earth she hadn’t told him about the photographs.

‘He’s not well, Will. He needs to see someone who can help him.’ Will nodded. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing sinister. Probably some sort of routine check or maybe something to do with the shop. ‘ Harmony watched him go and then looked up at the sky. It was the blue of a robin’s egg, with a few white clouds hanging still as if suspended by invisible threads. She heard some children walk past on the pavement on the other side of the wall. They were laughing and joking with each other. She heard a snippet of their conversation, two boys discussing the football, then she heard a ball bounce, and one of them whooped. Then their happy voices faded as they walked on.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she said to the three men when she came back into the living room. They stood in a tight triangle and when she spoke they looked at her in unison.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

Will looked at the floor for a moment or two and then lifted his face again, his brow deeply furrowed, his lips tight.

‘They want to ask me a few questions,’ said Will.

‘Questions about what?’ She looked between the policemen for an answer.

‘A man’s been reported missing,’ Will said. ‘Apparently, his wife told the police I called him last night and asked to meet him.’ He turned to the men. ‘Is that right? That’s definitely what she said?’

‘Yes,’ said the older man. ‘She said a man called Will English called at around ten o’clock last night and then her husband left the house after telling her he had to go and meet him. He never returned.’

Harmony glanced back and forth between the three men. Fear engulfed her. Oh my God, she thought. What have you done, Will? Where were you last night?

Will was pale as a corpse.

‘Will?’ She took a step closer to him. ‘What’s going on? Do you know anything about this?’

‘No. No, I don’t.’ Will looked at her with pure incredulity, his eyes wide, his breath seeming to catch in his throat. She gripped her hands behind her back in the hope the policemen didn’t notice how much she was shaking.

‘Who is the man? Who’s gone missing?’ She looked between the three men again in search of an answer, her eyes settling back on Will.

Will opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. His eyes flicked back and forth. She could see his brain whirring.

‘Will?’

He stared at her blankly, as if he wasn’t seeing her. ‘It’s … it’s Alastair Farrow,’ he said. ‘Alastair Farrow’s gone missing and his wife said I was the last person to talk to him. That he left the house to meet me.’

‘Why would she say that?’ Harmony asked.

‘We just want to ask you a few questions,’ said the detective. Harmony glanced at the uniformed policeman who stared at Will like a hawk at a mouse.

‘Do you need me to come now?’

‘Yes, please.’

Will took a breath and nodded. ‘Can you give me a few minutes to change? I’m pretty dirty from the garden. I’d appreciate some clean clothes and maybe a chance to wash my face and hands.’

The detective briefly hesitated and then nodded.

Will went out of the living room and into their bedroom.

‘Will you excuse me?’ Harmony asked the men faintly.

‘We’ll wait out in the hallway,’ the older man said.

Harmony walked them to the hall and opened the front door. She saw the uniformed man check his watch. She was suddenly filled with an urge to flee, to pack a small bag and bundle Will out of the kitchen door and over the wall at the bottom of the garden and run as fast as they could away from there.

Will had changed his shorts for a pair of trousers and taken his T-shirt off, which lay in a heap at his feet. He was bent over the basin, using his hand to wash his armpits and back of his neck. Then he filled his cupped hands and buried his face in the water.

‘You need to tell me where were you last night,’ Harmony whispered shakily. ‘When you left your mum’s.You were gone all night. I left messages on people’s phones. People know you were missing.’

He turned the tap off and then reached for the towel. He patted his face and neck dry. Then he looked at her. ‘I didn’t call him. I didn’t see Alastair Farrow last night. Do you think I’ve done something?’ Though his question lacked accusation, she could see he was disappointed that he had to ask.

She studied him, his drawn face, lips tight with worry. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’ve done anything.’ She stepped towards him.

‘But I need to know where you were.’

He rubbed his face hard. ‘I went to visit my father’s grave,’ he said. He furrowed his brow as if hearing those words was a surprise to him.

‘What?’ She followed him out of the bathroom and into their bedroom.

‘I went to his grave and I sat beside it.’

He opened his cupboard and took a shirt off a hanger.

‘All night?’

‘Most of it.’ He began to button his shirt with the sombre air of a man dressing for his own execution. ‘Before that I drove to my parents’ old house and snuck in over the fence at the bottom of the garden and walked around. Sat in the places I had done as a child – down in the hollow in the copse, on the swing. I was thinking about things. About you and Luke. About how I’d fucked everything up, driven you away. And as I sat there in the dark, thinking about how much of it I blamed on my father, on his choices, I realised it was bullshit. It was like a bolt of lightning hit me. It was only myself I had to blame.’ He looked at her as he tucked his shirt into his trousers.

‘You can’t let the past ruin the present and future. I’d been blaming all sorts of things for my decision to have the vasectomy, for my fear of becoming a father, for keeping things from you – giving myself all these stupid excuses. But you have to take responsibility for your actions, don’t you?’

She braced herself against an unbidden memory of Luke kissing her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Blaming everybody else is far too easy.’

‘Anyway, that’s when I decided to go and see him.’ He turned and reached into the cupboard and chose a tie from the shelf.

‘His grave?’

‘Mum and I talked about him before you arrived on Saturday. She said some things that really stuck. It got me thinking about how much hostility I was carrying around.’ He stepped towards her and reached for her hand. ‘I drove to the church and sat by his headstone and ended up telling him I was sorry. Not an apology to him, but a sorry to both of us for our relationship. For our missed opportunity. Our wasted years. I told him I was going to have a baby with you,’ he said. ‘And then I lay down beside the grave and closed my eyes and for the first time in my life I felt close to him. It was as if we shook hands.’

Will turned his collar up and looped the tie around his neck. Harmony watched as he tried to tie it, his fingers fumbling, trembling too much to allow him to do it. She stepped closer to him and stilled his hands, then smiled gently and tied it for him. When it was done, she folded down his collar and then laid her hands on his shoulders.

‘I didn’t telephone Alastair Farrow last night,’ Will said.

‘I know you didn’t.’

C H A P T E R    T W E N T Y - E I G H T

Will sat in the interview room at the police station and tried not to panic. He was tired from a sleepless night in the police cell. It had been frustrating needing to get out and walk but being stuck in the small, claustrophobic room that smelt of disinfectant. He’d felt like a caged animal, pacing from one side of the room to the other, desperate to calm himself.

He’d answered their questions but then something had happened. A police car had been sent to investigate a business property after a local walker reported finding a body. His dog had pushed through the unlocked door of a warehouse unit and found the bloodied body. The police had found a wallet on the floor beside him containing the credit cards and driver’s licence of Alastair Farrow. His car, which had been reported missing, was parked outside. The unit belonged to Will English.

The detective who arrested him explained they would hold him for a period of time until he was either charged or released. They said further questioning would be recorded. And then he read him the police caution.

‘You do not have to say anything. However, it may harm your defence … ’

The man’s monotonous voice faded into nothing and Will found himself thinking about Alastair. About the hatred he’d seen in his eyes that day in the pub, how he’d stared at him coldly, remorselessly, fully believing he’d done nothing wrong. A voice inside Will wanted to tell the police how they needn’t worry. That if, as it indeed appeared, Farrow was dead, it didn’t matter. He deserved it. He was a nasty piece of work who deserved to be dead. He wondered if his lack of compassion, the unmistakeable smack of pleasure he’d felt, made him a bad person? Surely if he was a good person he would feel horrified by the news of Farrow’s death? The seriousness of his predicament hadn’t really sunk in. It was only when the policeman raised his voice that he snapped back into the here and now and it began to dawn on him what a mess he was in.

‘Mr English?’ the policeman barked, leaning forward and staring at Will. ‘Did you hear what I said about legal advice?’

‘Yes,’ mumbled Will. ‘Yes, I did. I have someone I can call.’

The detective who was questioning him opened his folder and took hold of his pen. Will noticed he was left-handed and wrote with an awkward, claw-like hold. He pressed record on a tape recorder that sat between them on the table. He said the date then checked his watch and said the time.

They covered the basics: name, address, contacts, work details. The policeman didn’t look up, he merely asked the questions and paused, pen suspended, waiting for Will’s answers. Will found it difficult to think. His mind was foggy, drifting away from the room, trying to work out how Alastair had ended up in his studio. Who had called him and pretended to be him? Luke? Surely he wasn’t a killer? Will began to wonder if perhaps he was actually psychotic and had killed Farrow but had no recollection of it, like a sleepwalker? Maybe the memory of being at his father’s grave was an elaborate fantasy created by his subconscious mind. Was that possible? Harmony would know more about that. He wished she were there so he could ask her.

‘Mr English?’

Will narrowed his eyes and forced himself to focus on the policeman.

‘Can you please answer these questions? Some of them you will have answered already, but if you could be patient, that would be appreciated. Did you know Mr Alastair Farrow?’

Will nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. We were at school together. Twenty-five years ago. But we weren’t friends.’

‘But you met up with him recently?’

Will began to drift again. He saw himself getting into the car to drive to the pub on the outskirts of Camberley. He tried to stop himself turning the engine on. Tried to stop himself going …

‘Answer the question,’ the policeman asked firmly.

‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘We went for a drink.’

‘And this was following contact you’d made with him … ’ The man looked back through his notebook, licking the tip of his finger to flip through the pages. ‘… via Facebook?’ He said the word Facebook as if it was something he’d never heard of.

‘Yes.’

‘And it was you who suggested you meet for this drink?’

‘I think so … though … it might have been him.’ Will racked his brain to remember which of them had suggested meeting up. Why couldn’t he recall? He closed his eyes and thought hard, trying to sift his mind for the answer. ‘It’s hard to remember … ’

‘If you weren’t friends, why did you contact him?’

‘Um, well another boy … a man now … from school … we bumped into each other at a friend’s house. I just … ’ Will shook his head. ‘It’s hard to explain. I think it was nostalgia. I was having a few problems with my marriage … ’ Will stopped talking as he watched the man scribbling with his hooked hand. What are you writing down? Will wanted to ask. Are you writing down that I was having problems with my wife? Because we’re fine now. You don’t need to write that down.

‘I understand from the landlord of The Dog and Duck—’

‘The Dog and Duck?’ Will shook his head.

‘The public house where you and Alastair Farrow met.’

Will nodded. He turned his right hand over and stared at the scar. He understood now. He was going to prison for a murder he didn’t commit, the murder of the only person in the world who he’d ever actually felt like killing. Will almost laughed out loud at the irony. He placed his hand palm down on the table and pressed it hard against the wood.

‘There are several witnesses who saw you fighting. We spoke to the landlord this morning. He said you attacked the deceased and he heard you threaten him.’

‘No, no,’ said Will then, shaking his head vigorously. ‘No, I didn’t attack him. Or threaten him. We had a row but I didn’t threaten him.’

‘Did you, or did you not say: “I could fucking kill you?”’

Will closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘I can’t remember. I might have done. I didn’t mean—’

‘And you did grab him by the neck?’ Will didn’t answer.

‘Mr English? Did you grab Alastair Farrow by the neck in The Dog and Duck pub?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was your argument about?’

Will recalled his feelings towards Alastair in the pub that night, the rage that caused him to jump up and lunge for him, the desire to put him down like a rabid dog.