Chapter 10
JEMMA
‘Can this be quick?’ I ask DS Sam Kombothekra.
I’ve been moved to a different interview room.
This one has more natural light and smells fresher, thank God.
Unfortunately, the improved aesthetic can’t make up for the fact that I’ve been here too long already, and now all I want is to get back to Lottie, check she’s okay.
Has she had dinner? What will Paddy have given her? Something easy and unhealthy, no doubt.
‘It’s up to you whether it’s long or short.’ DS Kombothekra smiles at me. ‘You’re here voluntarily and you’re in charge. So …’
‘It’s just that … my daughter, Lottie—’ I break off, frustrated by the part I can’t say: that I need him to leave me alone so that I can carry on trying to work out what it means that Marianne has been in my laptop diary file and changed the spelling of Ollie’s name throughout.
Did she read it all, including the part where I outlined my plan to have her killed?
Did she get as far as my much better plan: to come here, to the police, in order to make sure I didn’t go through with it?
Of course she did. She’s read it all, every last word.
Marianne’s nothing if not thorough. She’ll never forgive me for any of it. If I thought I was in danger from her before …
‘Lottie’s fine,’ DS Kombothekra says. ‘Safe and well.’
‘What?’ A knot tightens in my stomach. ‘How do you know? Why would you … how …?’
‘When people come in to confess to murders, even ones they haven’t committed yet and hope never to commit, we check on their loved ones as a matter of course,’ he says.
That makes sense.
Of course she’s all right. She’s safe and healthy and perfectly okay. Why wouldn’t she be?
Why do I have the irrational fear that she’s with Marianne at this very moment, having been swept up, in my absence, under that malignant wing?
‘Did you see and talk to her yourself?’ I ask. ‘Did … did you tell her about my … about why I came here?’
‘Yes to the first, no to the second.’ DS Kombothekra smiles again.
He’s tall and handsome with olive skin and green eyes, immaculately dressed in a grey suit and tie.
His voice sounds like velvet, and it makes no sense that I feel so much worse than I did an hour ago, but I do.
I almost wish I was back in the ugly room with the offensively disengaged DC Waterhouse. I felt more in control then.
I just need to get home. Soon as I can.
Is it strange that a detective sergeant handled a routine safety-check trip himself?
Wouldn’t he send a uniformed PC to check on Lottie? Unless …
He said Lottie was safe, though. He wouldn’t lie about that.
‘You seem jumpy, Jemma. We don’t have to talk now if you’d rather not.’
‘No, I … I need to tell you.’
‘About your plan to murder Marianne Upton?’
I nod. ‘You’ll turn the recording into a statement, right? For me to sign?’
Kombothekra nods. He pressed record a few minutes ago, and then the first thing he asked me was if I was sure I didn’t want a lawyer to be present. That freaked me out. I’m not trying to get away with any dishonesty here. All I want is to tell the truth and be heard, properly.
‘Marianne’s my stepmother,’ I say. ‘I’ve never loved or even liked her, and I thought I hated her, but I didn’t. Not really. Not until 7 July this year, when she … she did something that turned my dislike to hatred, and … fear. The kind I couldn’t ignore.’
Predictably, DS Kombothekra asks what she did.
‘Can we come back to that later?’ I say. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story, but the plan to kill Marianne is more important. I need to say all the details and you need to record them.’
‘Why is it so urgent that you tell me your murder plan?’ asks DS Kombothekra.
‘Because … every second that I’m not telling you is a second I’m actively considering never telling you,’ I blurt out. ‘Even now, I could decide to lie. I could feed you some rubbish, then kill Marianne in the exact way I’ve planned, imagining I might get away with it.’
I’ve never been more tempted, knowing she’s read every word of my diary file.
To think of her even opening it is like spiders crawling all over me, underneath my skin.
Since I found out, I’ve been fighting with the same thought that won’t leave me alone: You stupid idiot, Jemma.
If only you hadn’t come here and opened your big mouth. If only you could still do it …
DS Kombothekra looks unperturbed by what I’ve told him so far, but he’s much more put together and harder to read than Waterhouse. Who knows what he’s thinking? Will he understand if I tell him that the murderer part of me is now, once again, in the ascendant?
I decide an analogy might work better. ‘Do you know any alcoholics?’
He starts to shake his head, then converts it into a nod. Evidently an alcoholic acquaintance came suddenly to mind.
‘That’s what it’s like. My murder plan is like an unbearably tempting, full, sealed bottle of—’ I stop, wondering what an alcoholic’s drink of choice would be.
Nothing as girly and frivolous as any of my favourite drinks, probably.
‘The strongest vodka in the world. Telling you every detail of my plan is the equivalent of opening that bottle and pouring the vodka down the sink. Gone forever, no longer available to me. By telling you, I remove the chance that I’ll ever try it.
If anything happened to Marianne, you’d know it was me.
You’d know I’d paid Tom, how I’d hidden the payments—’
‘Tom?’ DS Kombothekra cuts me off.
I’m going to have to give his surname too. There’s no way of keeping him out of this.
‘Tom Tulloch,’ I say. ‘Middle name Ellis. Address: 9 Fore Street, Little Holling. Look, let me tell you everything, okay? And then I’ll answer all your questions.’
He nods.
‘Paddy and I – that’s my husband – we were at school with Tom.
The three of us were really close, for years, until Tom treated us pretty shoddily, which ended the friendship.
Then he got in touch again about three years ago, wanting to get together, being all cheerful and “Hey, guys, let’s hang out”, as if nothing had ever happened.
He and his girlfriend had split up, and …
well, the reason we’d lost touch was because of her, indirectly.
But now they weren’t together any more and Tom wanted to pick up where we’d left off.
Paddy seemed to want that too, but I didn’t.
I didn’t think I could. Tom had behaved badly, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to think well of him again, so I said so in the most tactful and least hurtful way possible.
I didn’t expect we’d ever hear from him after that, but he messaged last year, out of the blue, to ask for …
’ I stop suddenly. ‘You probably don’t need all this background. ’
‘Please, go on,’ says DS Kombothekra. ‘I’m curious to know why you’d hire someone you think so poorly of to carry out a task that involves extreme violence and high risk.’
‘You’d understand if you knew the full story.
It’s really not that relevant or interesting.
The important part is what happened when Tom reappeared in my life.
He messaged me last year, asking for help.
His life had fallen apart, he said. He’d been made redundant and been booted out of a flat by whichever woman had got sick of him most recently. ’
In response to DS Kombothekra’s raised eyebrows, I say, ‘I’ve never known Tom’s love life to be anything but a disaster.
He had nowhere to live and no money, and wanted to know if I could lend him some cash, put him up, do anything to help.
Oh, and also forgive him for being the shittest friend ever.
I told him that of course I forgave him, but sorry, there was no way he could live with us.
I didn’t want him in my space every day.
That would have been awful. Paddy, Lottie and I had only just moved out of Marianne and Dad’s house and into our own place.
But … I did genuinely want to help Tom – mainly just to ease my conscience, knowing I didn’t really want him as a friend any more – so I said I’d pay him to house-sit for us while we went on holiday for a fortnight.
It was August 2022 when he got in touch, and we were just about to set off to the Italian lakes, in, like, three days’ time.
I offered to pay him to live at ours while we were away and just keep an eye on the place.
I pretended our burglar alarm wasn’t working and that I was worried about leaving the house empty for so long.
Easiest job in the world for him, and normally I’d have offered maybe five hundred quid.
I mean, he hardly had to do anything – just live in our house for two weeks, that was literally it. But I offered him two grand.’
‘That’s … generous,’ says DS Kombothekra.
‘Deliberately so. I felt guilty for the extent to which I just … didn’t want to be around him any more.
I suppose, also, I’ve got quite a bit more spare money than a lot of people.
’ I shrug. ‘Anyway, Tom said yes, and our house was still standing and immaculately clean and tidy when we got back, so … no problems there. And then this year, beginning of August, he texted again, asking if I want the same again this summer: two weeks house-sitting for two grand. I didn’t, but I did want something else by that point. ’
‘Someone to kill Marianne for you?’ Kombothekra says.
I nod. ‘I knew I’d never be able to do it myself.
All the ways of killing people I could think of, I just …
I knew I couldn’t. And they all seemed so risky.
If I bought a gun illegally, the police might find evidence of me doing that.
Plus I’d have to learn how to use it. If I stabbed Marianne myself, I’d probably leave DNA traces, and I’d need to be right next to her to do it – frighteningly close. ’