Chapter 21
JEMMA
I open the front door and find DC Simon Waterhouse on the other side of it. He looks so odd, so very urban amid the greenery that surrounds him on all sides – like something that’s landed in the wrong place after being blown in from a nearby, down-at heel city.
Paddy and I did the opposite of what Dad and Marianne did when they bought Devey House.
Marianne fell in love with the house and grounds, and didn’t much care where it was.
If the location happened to be a featureless Fenland village, so be it.
I love my house because it’s home, and I love it even more because it’s Lottie’s home, and the home I share with her, but I’d be the first to admit there’s nothing pretty or special about it as a building.
It’s a low, red-brick cheat of a bungalow with just one tiny staircase and a triangular white-painted wooden ‘dormer’ section sticking out at the top, boasting three horrible PVC windows that we haven’t yet got round to replacing with wooden ones.
It was this location I knew I had to have as soon as I saw it, not the house.
You can’t see a single other building, though there are plenty in Little Holling down the road, and the view of trees, fields and hills from the front door and from every window, even the ugly plastic ones, would make anyone want to drop everything and take up landscape painting.
On a day like today, with bright, clear skies, it’s exceptionally beautiful.
DC Waterhouse doesn’t seem to have noticed. I’m not surprised. There’s something intrinsically idyll-repellent about him.
‘Can I come in?’ he says, and I wonder why he sounds furious.
Do I have a choice? I don’t think I do, so I might as well sound welcoming – as much as I can fake, anyway. ‘Sure.’ I stand back to let him pass.
‘Are your husband and daughter in?’ He stays where he is, as if he’s had second thoughts about entering my home.
‘No. Work and school respectively,’ I say. Thank God. I don’t want this strange man anywhere near Lottie. ‘I’d normally be at work too, on a Wednesday, but they’ve given me compassionate leave. Ironic, some might say.’
‘Where’s your laptop?’ he barks at me.
Shit.
‘It’s here, isn’t it? I need it, and any passwords?’
‘I—’
‘DS Kombothekra says he’s got all the devices belonging to your family, and they’ve got your phone, but no computer for you.’
‘You seem agitated,’ I tell him. ‘Remember, you don’t care if people murder their stepmothers.’ I flash him my most annoying fake smile. ‘You made that clear on Monday. Not that I did – kill Marianne, I mean.’
‘Where’s your laptop, Jemma?’
‘At my work,’ I lie.
‘So I can collect it from there?’
‘Yup. The Vanadiss School in Lower Heckencote. And also the only school in Lower Heckencote.’ I laugh nervously at my own feeble joke. ‘Is that all? Because I should probably—’
‘No, it’s not all. Not by a long way,’ says Waterhouse.
Damn. ‘You’d better come in, then.’ My bag, with my laptop inside it, is hanging from the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, just a few inches from where I’m standing. ‘Come through,’ I tell Waterhouse.
Why did he have to turn up now, when I’m finally feeling human again and breathing normally for the first time since Monday evening?
I’ve only just managed to convince myself, with a lot of help from Suzanne, that I’m not going to end up in prison, despite the many rash, stupid things I’ve done.
‘Send the mother of a thirteen-year-old girl to jail – a nice, upper-middle-class mum with no criminal record? No way. You’re a crime preventer, Jemma.
No, I mean it. You effectively handed yourself in to save Marianne’s life, remember? That shows good character.’
From the expression on Waterhouse’s face, I don’t think he’d agree. Maybe I should ask Suzanne to speak to him on my behalf, or to DS Kombothekra.
I have to destroy my laptop before he gets his hands on it.
If no detective ever reads my diary entries about the plan to kill Marianne, then they won’t be able to prove any such thing ever existed.
I never sent anything to Tom – we only ever discussed it in person – so I can pretend I was just desperate for attention and talking nonsense when I went to Spilling Police Station on Monday, as long as there’s nothing in black and white, nothing that can be read out to a jury.
I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine, me and Lottie. Wasting police time is a far less serious offence than conspiracy to commit murder.
I offer Waterhouse a cup of tea and he says yes, then doesn’t respond to any of the pleasantries I throw out as I make it – just sits at the kitchen table, waiting to have my full attention.
‘What do you know about the terms of Marianne’s will?’ he asks as I hand him his drink.
The question takes me by surprise. ‘I’ve never thought about it. I assume everything she owns goes to Dad.’
‘That wasn’t always the case. Not according to DS Kombothekra. I just spoke to him before coming here.’
Well, bully for you.
‘He’s talked to Marianne’s lawyers. Her most recent will was signed and witnessed on 13 December 2012, not much more than a month after she was attacked and left for dead on her kitchen floor. Before that, there was another will – one that left you a million and Paddy five hundred grand.’
‘What?’ My stomach lurches. ‘I … I didn’t know that. That’s a lot.’ I take a gulp of my tea. It’s too hot and burns my mouth: a welcome distraction from the confusion.
13 December 2012 …
‘I don’t want her money,’ I tell Waterhouse. ‘Not a penny of it.’
‘Good, because you haven’t got it,’ he says. ‘She’s left both you and Paddy nothing in her new will.’
‘Suits me.’
‘The timing’s interesting, though, isn’t it? Can’t help thinking you or your husband might have known she was about to cut you both out and decided to deprive her of the chance. I’m talking about in 2012.’
‘Are you asking if it was Paddy and me who tried to kill her? No, it wasn’t. We were—’
‘I know where you were meant to be. I also know you’re a liar.’
I smile at him coldly. ‘And I know you’re a weirdo who helps would-be criminals commit murder and get away with it. So I guess we’re even-stevens. I’d love to know, though, since we’re hanging out: what changed? You didn’t give a shit on Monday. Now you do. Why?’
‘I want to know the truth, that’s all. What happened to Marianne, in 2012 and … this time. For my own satisfaction, no other reason.’
Is he being serious? ‘What about the reason of locking up criminals to keep them off the streets, keep society safe?’
He shrugs. Suddenly, he looks sad. He puts down his mug of tea and says quietly, ‘Thing is, you don’t care about telling me the truth, do you? And I can’t make you care if you don’t. That’s the trouble.’
Something not one single real detective would ever say. What the hell is going on with this man?
‘Well …’ I begin tentatively. ‘I suppose that might be the “me” part of the trouble, yeah. But what about the “you” part? I’m sensing it’s substantial.’
I brace myself for his anger, but instead he nods. ‘You lied to both me and Sam Kombothekra about Tulloch.’
‘What? No, I didn’t,’ I say.
‘You did. You’ve already paid him part of the fee for killing Marianne. After he house-sat for you this year.’
‘Right. That’s what I told you the plan was, remember? I told DS Kombothekra too. The money for Marianne was going to be hidden in overly generous house-sitting wages.’
‘Going to be. Right.’ Waterhouse glares at me. ‘You presented it as something that would happen in the future, never said a word about having paid Tulloch two-fifths of the total already.’
‘No I didn’t. Didn’t mean to, anyway. Really. I’d happily have told you I’d already paid Tom two grand if you’d asked me. If I gave the impression the payments were all yet to be made, then I gave an incorrect impression—’
‘You’re telling me.’
‘I didn’t lie when I spoke to you on Monday or when I spoke to DS Kombothekra,’ I tell him.
‘If you’d made a down payment on the hit on Marianne, then you wanted it to happen,’ he says in a hard voice. ‘You intended it to happen and – lo and behold – it did.’
‘No. No! It’s not as simple as that. I’ve always, from the start, both wanted and not wanted it to happen. I’ve told you all this. Yes, I wanted to … secure Tom’s commitment, I suppose. It’s pretty normal to pay a chunk in advance and then the rest once the job’s done.’
‘And it’d suit Tulloch to do it at his earliest convenience, wouldn’t it? To claim the rest of his money.’
‘No, it can’t have been him,’ I say shakily. ‘It wasn’t. I made it very clear: nothing was to happen unless I said so.’
Waterhouse nods. ‘Here’s a straightforward question for you: what would it take to make you tell me the whole truth – everything you’ve lied about so far, everything you’re withholding?
What if I did the same?’Cause there’s plenty I haven’t told you, that I’m not allowed to tell you.
But I’m willing to, if you’re willing to level with me.
What if I promised anything you told me would go no further than these four walls? ’
I run what he’s said through my mind a couple of times. ‘You’re actually insane,’ I say.
‘Maybe.’
Bad idea, Jemma. Terrible. Definitely inadvisable. You have no reason to believe he’ll keep his word.
Somehow, the more like an unhinged zealot he seems, the more I want to trust him. In a way, he reminds me of myself: a reflection of my own desperation to know everything that’s been kept from me for so long.
‘My laptop’s in my bag, in the hall,’ I tell him.
Idiot. Biggest idiot in the entire world.
‘The password’s “Lottie”. Help yourself.’
‘Thank you.’ He smiles. ‘I’ll have a look. I won’t take it anywhere, or tell anyone I’ve seen it.’
‘But I thought you said the police—’
‘Fuck the police,’ says Waterhouse.
I laugh. ‘Wow.’
‘So we’ve got a deal? Full disclosure both ways?’ His stare is terrifying. What was I thinking? ‘You give me everything you’ve got.’ He makes it sound like an order. ‘You hold nothing back. In return, I’ll do the same. And nothing you tell me will go any further. Agreed?’
‘Full disclosure both ways,’ I mumble, feeling as if my heart might jump out of my mouth and fly across the kitchen table at him. I can only hope and pray that this won’t turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life.
He nods, and holds out his hand for me to shake.