Where the Memories Lie (22 page)

mouthful of coffee to lubricate my dry throat. ‘You know that

last day I saw her in the shop and asked her to come out with us?

I told her who was going and she said about having something

he wanted and she’d make him pay, and she said about fuck-

ing him again. I thought she was talking about Chris, but Chris

says he never slept with her after they split up. What if she was

really talking about Tom? What if they really were having a secret

relationship?’

‘He wouldn’t have.’ She shook her head adamantly. ‘Dad didn’t

like her that much. He was glad when Chris finished with her. And

he was old enough to be her father! There’s no way he would’ve been involved like that with her.’

‘Yes, but she was young and attractive and wasn’t shy about

having sex. What if he was tempted? What older man isn’t going to

find that tempting?’

‘No way. Not Dad.’

‘He kept Georgia a secret from everyone. What if he kept Katie

a secret, too? I know none of us wants to imagine our parents having sex, but it’s not that unlikely when you think about it.’

‘Even supposing they were in a relationship, why kill her?’ Nadia

shook her head solemnly, wringing her shaking hands together.

‘Don’t they say most people are murdered by people they know?’

I paused, trying to ignore the pulse thumping in my forehead.

‘When Katie said that she had something he wanted, she
must’ve

been talking about something she stole from him that he wanted

back. Maybe Tom arranged to meet her at the house to get it from

her before she left the village and they argued about it. Maybe she’d already sold whatever it was she stole to get money to run away

with. That’s the most likely explanation, isn’t it? I don’t think she 162

Where the Memories Lie

was walking towards Abbotsbury at all. She was walking towards

the barn.’

Nadia stared at me blankly. ‘How do we even know it’s her

body?’

‘Who else would it be? How many other people do you think

he’s
murdered?
’ I hissed the word, glancing around me to make sure none of the other customers could hear us. ‘It’s got to be her.’

I chewed on my lip. ‘But I think I can count on one hand the

number of times I’ve ever seen Tom lose his temper in all the time

I’ve known him. I know sometimes Tom and Lucas don’t see eye to

eye about things, but Tom never gets
angry
with him, does he?

Whatever happened, it must’ve been pretty bad for him to have

killed her.’

‘He only ever used to get angry with things, not people.

Frustrated, more like – if the vacuum didn’t work, or some tool or

other went wrong, or he was fixing the car and it wasn’t going right.

But he was never angry with us or anyone else.’

‘Yes, but he did hit that man once in that car park in Weymouth,

didn’t he?’

‘That was different! The man had already punched his wife in

the middle of the street and was going to do it again if Dad hadn’t intervened. He was just protecting her.’

I looked at my watch. ‘We need to get back home. I want to be

back in time to meet Anna off the school bus in case the crime scene people are still there. I’ll have to explain something to her at least.’

Nadia stood, squaring her shoulders. ‘We’ll have to be strong

for the girls. I think it will be best if I bring Charlotte back to yours and we can tell them together. That will be easier. At least it’s the last day of term and they won’t have to go back to school while this is all still fresh in people’s minds.’

As we headed out the door, my mobile phone rang.

‘It’s Chris,’ I said to her, looking at the name on the display.

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‘What the hell is going on?’ he said when I answered. ‘I’ve just

had the police up at work to talk to me, saying Dad killed someone

and buried them under your garage!’

‘It’s true. It’s unbelievable, but it’s true.’

‘And he just confessed this to you?’ he asked dubiously.

‘Yes. I don’t know why, but, yes. I wish he hadn’t.’

‘I just don’t believe it.’ He sounded exactly like Ethan and Nadia.

‘Look, Nadia and I are going back to the house. I’m hoping the

police have finished there by now. But we need to say something to

Charlotte and Anna. Why don’t you meet us there?’

‘OK. I’m on my way back. Where’s Ethan? I’ve been trying to

get hold of him but his phone’s turned off.’

‘Maybe it’s run out of battery, or sometimes the signal at Durdle

Door is not that strong.’

‘Has he taken Dad up there?’

‘Yes.’

‘What, in the middle of all this shit?’

‘Look, just come to ours, OK? We can talk more then.’

‘All right. I’ll see you soon.’

I held my breath as Nadia’s car approached my house. The gates

were shut now, which was hopefully a good sign that the police had

finished collecting whatever evidence they needed. I didn’t exhale

until I got out of the car to swing them open.

The garage doors were closed, too, and there was no sign that

anything untoward had even happened inside them earlier that day.

No white suits. No crime scene tape. No officer stationed at the

entrance. Thank goodness for that. I didn’t want Anna to see it.

Nadia pulled in behind my Mini as I walked to the front door.

I was opening it just as Chris swung in behind her.

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Where the Memories Lie

He jerked his pick-up truck to a stop and shot out of the car, his

face pale, eyes wild. ‘What is this? It’s got to be some kind of joke.

The Georgia thing wasn’t true. This can’t be, either.’

I tried to hug him but he stepped away.

‘Come inside.’ Nadia tugged his arm.

In the kitchen, the only telltale sign of what had been dis-

covered earlier was DI Spencer’s business card on the oak

table. I picked it up and shoved it in a drawer, wanting it out of

my sight.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Nadia took charge, filling the kettle

with water and turning it on to boil.

‘When’s Ethan coming back?’ Chris ignored her.

‘Probably soon.’ I explained what had happened when the

police questioned Tom earlier and how upset he’d become. ‘I don’t

know how long it would’ve taken to get Tom dressed after we left.

Mary was going to make him a cup of tea. Maybe Tom and Ethan

are still on their way to Durdle Door.’

‘Christ. He’s going to die soon, anyway. Why do the police have

to harass him?’

I sat at the table, feet up on the edge of the chair, arms wrapped

around my knees. ‘They have to find out what happened. They have

to ask questions.’

Nadia pulled her mobile out her bag. ‘I’m going to call Lucas

and get him to come over, too.’ She dialled his number and

walked out into the hallway with it pressed to her ear. I heard her mumbled voice as Chris sat down so hard on the chair I thought it

would collapse beneath him.

‘I bet they think I had something to do with it.’ His knee jigged

up and down.

‘What? Why?’

‘Because I was the last one to see her.’

‘Is that what they said?’

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‘No, not in so many words. But they didn’t sound like they

believed me.’

‘Why shouldn’t they believe you? Tom’s confessed to it.’

He shook his head. ‘Have you got any whisky?’

I pointed to one of the cupboards. ‘Help yourself.’

He grabbed a cut glass tumbler and poured himself a hefty

couple of inches. Staring out of the kitchen window at the garage,

he swallowed half of it in one go. ‘This is bloody mental. She was

really under the garage this whole time?’

Nadia came back in and grabbed some mugs, filled them with

coffee granules. ‘Apparently, yes.’

‘I thought she was leaving. She was supposed to be leaving.’

He threw his head back and drained the remains of the glass, then

winced and coughed.

‘Do you want tea or coffee?’ Nadia asked him.

He wiggled the glass in the air. ‘No, I’ll stick to this.’ He

poured himself some more whisky. ‘Dad couldn’t even kill a spider.

Don’t you remember, when you were a kid and you were scared of

them all the time?’ His gaze darted in Nadia’s direction. ‘He never killed them. He always captured them between a glass and a bit of

cardboard. Said that everything deserved a chance to live.’ He threw a hand in the air wildly. ‘So how could he kill her?’

‘People can snap,’ I said. ‘Lose their temper and do things they

regret. It must’ve been an accident. That’s what Tom told me, that

it was an accident.’ It’s what I kept trying to tell myself, although exactly what kind of accident, I couldn’t even imagine. And if it

was, why hadn’t he told the police at the time? Why cover it up?

‘What did the police ask you?’ Nadia poured boiling water into

the mugs and stirred them with a spoon.

‘Just . . .’ He sniffed. ‘Just what had happened between me and

Katie. I told them about me finishing with her about seven months

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Where the Memories Lie

before she left, and that I hadn’t really seen her until that day when I was waiting at the bus stop and she was leaving home.’

‘Are you sure you never slept with her after you’d split up?’

I asked.

‘Of course I’m sure! I think I’d know that. Why?’

‘It’s just that she said something weird the last time I saw her.

At the time I thought she meant you but maybe she really meant

Tom. She said, “If he thinks I’m going to fuck him again, he can

fuck off”.’

Chris looked at me as if I’d punched him. ‘She wasn’t sleeping

with Dad. That’s just . . . sick.’

Nadia handed me a mug of steaming coffee and sat opposite.

My hands shook as I took it. I’d probably had far too much caffeine for one day.

I told them what Ethan had said about Katie trying it on

with him. ‘Maybe she was sleeping with Tom to get you back for

dumping her. She could’ve been doing it out of spite, planning to

tell you so she could rub your face in it, or she’d set her sights on Tom when you broke up with her so he could support her.’

‘Oh, come on, she wouldn’t have done that,’ Chris said. ‘She

wasn’t spiteful.’

But trying to sleep with Ethan was pretty spiteful, wasn’t it?

What was she planning on doing if he’d slept with her that night?

Rub my face in it? Try to split us up because she wasn’t with Chris anymore so she thought I didn’t deserve to be happy, either? And it got me thinking about something that happened one day at school

when we were coming out of science block after a lesson. There were these heavy metal and reinforced glass doors with wire mesh inside, and I’d opened the door first with Katie behind me. The next thing

I knew, one of the annoying, mouthy girls in our class was scream-

ing and crying behind us, her nose pouring with blood. She’d told

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everyone Katie had slammed the door in her face on purpose, but

Katie had denied it, saying it was an accident and the wind had

banged it shut after her, but she had this amused glint in her eyes when she said it. Months later she told me the girl had called her a slag and no one got away with calling her names. I knew then for

certain it hadn’t been an accident.

‘If she was going to say something to hurt me she could’ve done

it on that last day I saw her, but she never said a word.’ Chris shook his head and stared out of the window again. ‘And what about the

letter she wrote, then?’

‘She must’ve written the letter intending to run away but then

Tom killed her before she actually left the village,’ I said. ‘Maybe she saw him when she was walking past the barn, or she could’ve

already arranged to meet him here to get money or something.

Maybe she was blackmailing him about something she’d found out

or had stolen something from him. Or maybe it started off as some-

thing innocent where he saw her walking along the road and picked

her up, offering her a lift somewhere. Whatever happened, she paid

an awful price for it.’

‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’ he muttered. ‘If I’d stopped her that

day . . . if—’

‘You can’t play “what ifs”,’ Nadia said. ‘It’s too late for that now.

There’s no point looking back and trying to think of things you

should’ve done differently. It’s happened and we can’t change it.

Now we have to concentrate on getting through this.’

There was a knock at the door and Nadia got up to open it.

‘That’s probably Lucas.’

Lucas took one look round the room at our faces and said,

‘So, it’s really true, then? What Nadia’s just told me about Tom

and Katie?’

‘Apparently so.’ Nadia hovered beside him, her hand touching

his arm. ‘Do you want a drink, darling?’

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Where the Memories Lie

‘Have one of these.’ Chris tilted the bottle of whisky in Lucas’s

direction. ‘Or are you flying later?’

‘No, I’ve got a couple of rest days. I definitely feel a Scotch

coming on.’ He poured himself a large one and sat down opposite

me. ‘I can’t get my head round this.’

‘You and me both,’ Chris muttered, clutching the worktop so

hard his hand shook with the force.

‘He really killed Katie?’ Lucas asked.

‘It looks like it,’ I said as Nadia sat next to him, sliding her hand through his.