Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Sunday
EMILY
The officer’s hand is light on my arm. Guiding rather than forcing, but I’m being herded somewhere I don’t want to go.
We pass reams of fluttering yellow tape. Up close, it’s thin, cheap plastic, and yet somehow impenetrable.
We pass the Coach House—our house—still so new it doesn’t quite feel like home. It looks exactly like it did this morning: neat lawn, ivy curling at the windows. Perfectly styled, like a home-magazine lie. Promising comfort while hiding everything that is real.
It all looks like Oliver’s waiting inside. At the breakfast bar with his iPad, footie scores. Springing up to make coffee when he hears me at the door.
The officer slows because my feet drag. It feels as though I’m walking on the edge of a dream, the last few seconds before it slips into a nightmare.
The officer clears his throat. ‘Here we are, Mrs Sharpe. We’ve set up a temporary unit for family liaison.’
A white tent stands further up the lane, tucked into a turning area. Plain canvas walls and zipped flaps—it looks like a summer fête tent for teas and tombola. It doesn’t belong here. But when we get closer, the fluorescent jackets and uniforms moving in and out give it weight and purpose.
The officer pushes back the entrance flap and gestures for me to step forward. Inside, I can hear the hum of a generator rattling through the metal struts behind and a thin, fluorescent light buzzes overhead like an insect.
It smells of damp canvas and instant coffee in here. Folding chairs line one side, a narrow trestle table the other. It’s cluttered with clipboards, bottled water, a box of tissues. The air is too warm, too trapped. Like me.
A woman stands waiting inside. She’s dressed in a dark grey suit, her black hair slicked and tucked behind her ears. Her expression isn’t unkind, just controlled.
‘Mrs Sharpe? I’m Detective Inspector Denise Adebayo. Please, take a seat.’
Her voice makes it sound like an instruction, not a kindness.
She sits one side of the trestle table, and I lower myself on to a plastic chair opposite. It squeaks when I sit down and the edge of it cuts through my thin skirt, pressing into the backs of my thighs.
She opens a folder and glances down briefly.
‘Mrs Sharpe, I need to clarify your movements today. Where is it you’ve just been?’
‘I went into the city,’ I say. ‘I took an Uber because my car is in for its MOT.’
‘You were alone?’
‘Yes.’
She makes a note. ‘And what did you do while you were there?’
‘I had coffee at 200 Degrees, the one near the market square.’ I pause, steadying my voice. ‘I stayed about thirty minutes. Then I went into John Lewis. Had a look around the clothes and shoes, and then I had a sandwich and a cup of tea in the café upstairs.’
‘How did you pay?’
‘Credit card. Both times.’
She looks up at that, eyes sharp but unreadable.
Another note. Calm, methodical.
‘Anyone who can confirm you were there?’
‘I assume the card transactions will,’ I say. ‘There were plenty of people around. I wasn’t hiding or anything.’
The corner of her mouth shifts slightly at that, not quite a smile.
‘And after John Lewis?’
‘I walked around the shops for a bit. Bought a book at Five Leaves. I paid by card for that, too. I got another cab, and here I am.’ I tap my phone screen to show my Apple Pay receipts. ‘Where is my husband? What’s happened to him?’
She studies me for a long moment.
‘You understand why we’re asking, Mrs Sharpe.’
‘I do.’ I swallow. ‘It looks like something awful has happened here and my husband isn’t answering his phone. Is he . . . is he hurt?’
The chair creaks again as I shift, forcing myself not to fidget.
Seemingly satisfied for now, she closes the file. But her eyes remain on me.
‘We understand this must be a big shock to you, so I’m going to bend the rules and give you some confidential information.’ Her voice is calm and measured. ‘A deceased female was found earlier this afternoon inside the property known as the Stables.’
‘Vanessa.’ The name falls out of me. ‘Oh god, it’s Vanessa.’ Relief hits, fast and shameful. Oliver is alive. It isn’t him. My words tumble out, too quick to stop. ‘But why . . .’ My mouth can’t keep up with my spinning mind. ‘Why is our house taped off, too?’
DI Adebayo exchanges a glance with the constable beside her. She turns back to me, folding her hands together on the table.
‘Mrs Sharpe, your husband has been arrested on suspicion of murder. He is currently being questioned at Nottingham Central Police Station.’
For a second, I can’t hear anything else. Just the blood thundering in my ears.
‘Arrested?’ I grip the edge of the chair to steady myself.
Arrested. Murder. Oliver.
Three words that don’t belong together. Three words that split my life in two.
I hear myself gasp, a small, meek sound, but infused with a creeping horror. If Oliver is alive, if he’s under arrest, then what does that mean for us . . . for the terrible mess we’ve left behind?
‘I . . .’ My voice is barely there. ‘I don’t understand. Oliver, he wouldn’t . . .’ I swallow. ‘He knows Vanessa. He—’
‘Mrs Sharpe, your husband was present at the scene when Mrs Lambert’s body was discovered.
I can’t divulge further details at this stage because this is an active murder investigation.
Suffice to say, your own property is now part of the crime scene and, as such, will be subject to a full forensic search. ’
I blink at her, trying to take it in. ‘But what about all my things?’ My voice spikes. Clothes, toiletries. ‘Can I just quickly grab a bag?’
DI Adebayo shakes her head. ‘The property is now sealed. If there is something urgent—important medication, for example—we can have an officer collect it. I’m afraid you won’t be able to enter yourself until the search is fully complete, which we anticipate will be in a day or two.’
I feel my throat constrict. No bag, no clothes, no choice.
No control.
Even my own front door is out of bounds to me now.
I press my fingers to my forehead. My skin is clammy and hot, even though my core feels like ice. They’ll go through everything. Every drawer, every folder, every digital scrap, and not just Oliver’s. Mine, too. They’ll rip open the places we never open ourselves.
All the little pieces of a past life we’ve smoothed over and tucked away, hoping we’ll never have to face them again.
That last job, especially—the one that didn’t end cleanly, that left someone badly hurt and me unable to pretend it was just a game .
. . it all feels suddenly close enough to touch again.
Now, all our mistakes could be prised open under bright lights by slick, gloved hands.
I’m still sitting down, but the walls of the tent start to sway.
The young constable appears at my side with a plastic cup of water.
It buckles slightly in my hand as I grip it, the ridged sides slippery.
I take a mouthful, and it is tepid and metallic-tasting.
I grimace and set it down on the trestle table between myself and DI Adebayo.
Her eyes come to rest on me and her voice cuts through the fog in my head.
‘Do you have relatives or a friend you could stay with for a couple of days, perhaps?’
The twins’ faces flash into my mind. Beth and Loren and their silent judgement.
‘I’ll find a local B everything inside me feels somehow unmoored. Part of me wants to argue, insist I’ll manage, but the fight has gone out of me and, truthfully, I’m just relieved someone else is giving me directions on how I might get through the next few minutes.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper.
She slips an arm around me. ‘Let’s get you away from this bloody goldfish bowl.’
Outside the tent, the lane is louder than before.
From further up the street behind the police tape, voices rise above the police radios—sharp questions, urgent, cutting across each other.
Cameras swivel on long black lenses. Police officers are preventing vehicles coming on to the lane off the main road, but up here, a swell of reporters has obviously slipped through the shortcut from the park, and they stand beyond the cordon, shouting.
‘Has Oliver Sharpe been charged with murder?’ a voice demands.
‘Have you spoken to your husband, Mrs Sharpe?’
How do they know all this? How do they know my name?
News must travel faster when it’s ugly.
I keep my head down, but I feel the weight of curious eyes and the hungry focus of strangers eager to witness my world disintegrating.
The noise swells as Lara tightens her arm around me, shielding me the best she can. I’m being steered away again, across the lane towards Orchard Cottage.
My legs only move because she’s there to guide me with a solid, certain grip, anchoring me to the ground while everything else unravels.