Chapter 16
‘I don’t understand. He hated her, right? She didn’t like him either. How does that even work?’
Finn gazes into the river. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked myself that very question.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘He engineered it so I’d walk in on them.’
‘Bastard. What happened?’
‘Oh, he was clever. It’s a move I like to call the “reverse Iago”. You could probably use it in one of your books, although I’ll want a share of the royalties.’
‘Iago as in the Othello character?’
‘That’s it. So, in the play, Iago fills Othello’s head with doubts about whether his wife, Desdemona, is being unfaithful to him.
That’s what Adam did to Roisin. I found out later that he’d been engineering ways to bump into her when I wasn’t around, and he’d use the opportunities to suggest I’d been closer to Holly than he’d been comfortable with.
He even insinuated that he and Holly had split up because there was something going on between her and me.
Anyway, Roisin didn’t believe him to begin with, but Adam is a good salesperson and knows how to spin a yarn, so it wasn’t long before the doubts began to creep in. ’
‘And she didn’t talk to you about this?’
‘No, but what could I have said anyway? We’d all got on really well when it was the four of us and the best way to sell a lie is to lace it with a known truth.
So he used the fact that Holly and I had been friendly towards each other to imply that there was more, and over time she came to believe it.
From there, all you apparently need is some alcohol to lower inhibitions, a suggestion of revenge sex to settle the score and bingo. ’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Yes. Of course, Roisin realised that he’d played her the moment I walked in and caught them, but it was too late. The damage was done.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Roisin was distraught, but I’ll never forget the look of satisfaction on Adam’s face. I moved out the next day and haven’t spoken to him since.’
‘And Roisin?’
‘We tried to patch it up, but it proved to be too big a thing for us to get over. We split up a few weeks later. Last I heard, she’d moved back to Ireland.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He smiles ruefully and points at the river. ‘It’s literally water under the bridge, isn’t it.’
‘And now?’ I ask.
‘Now, I live on my own in a fairly crappy one-bed flat in Mile End, which I’ll lose if I don’t come up with a decent idea for this game show. Shall we think about heading back?’
Without thinking, I reach out and wrap him in hug.
‘What was that for?’ he asks when I let him go. I’m relieved to see his expression is curious rather than offended.
‘I don’t know,’ I tell him honestly. ‘I just felt you needed it.’
‘I’m not sure I’m the only one,’ he says as his arms come up to draw me back in. This is a much longer hug and, after a while, I become aware that we’re no longer alone on the bridge. An elderly woman is making her way towards us.
‘Finn,’ I murmur. ‘I think that woman is watching us.’
‘So she is,’ he replies as he releases me before waving to her and calling, ‘Bonjour, Madame! C’est un matin tres beau, n’est-ce pas?’
The old woman smiles as she comes closer. ‘C’est une belle matinée pour être jeune et amoureux, oui!’
‘What did she say?’ I ask.
‘I’m not sure, but amour is love, isn’t it. She obviously thinks we’re a couple.’
Unfortunately, neither of us have sufficient grasp of the language to interpret the stream of French that comes from the old woman when she reaches us, but the expression on her face and the way she presses our hands tightly together while exhorting us to do something or other is enough to confirm our suspicions.
Unable to say anything to correct her, we resort to embarrassed nodding and smiling and let her get on with it until, with a final squeeze of our hands and an earnest plea to ‘aimer férocement pour toujours, comme Bertrand et moi’, she releases us and continues on her way.
‘That was interesting,’ Finn says as we start to make our way back towards the bank. He hasn’t let go of my hand, but I’m surprised to find I’m enjoying the sensation, so decide not to mention it.
‘I think we made her day,’ I agree.
‘Tell me more about your book,’ Finn says a few minutes later. ‘Claire has murdered Darren. There’s arterial spray all up the walls and a hell of a mess. Now what? I’m guessing the police don’t pitch up and arrest her, because that wouldn’t give you much of a storyline.’
‘You’re right,’ I agree. ‘Initially, she’s numb and in shock, of course, horrified by what she’s done. But then self-preservation kicks in and she does what a lot of young women faced with a seemingly impossible situation would do.’
‘Which is?’
‘She calls her dad.’
Finn’s expression is inscrutable behind his sunglasses, but he’s making no move to release my hand as we walk.
‘Aren’t they estranged? I mean, if Darren has been coercively controlling her, he’ll have cut her off from her family early on, won’t he?’
‘Yes, but what father is going to resist a call from a daughter in distress?’
‘Fair point. So he comes round on his white charger.’
‘Something like that. But he’s out of his depth too. We’ve got a kitchen that resembles an abattoir and a dead body to dispose of.’
‘I guess you can clear up the blood with enough bleach, but I can see the body is a problem. Is there a garden they can bury it in?’
‘There is, but the risk of being spotted by the neighbours is too great.’
‘Put him in a body bag, bundle him into the boot of the car and dump him somewhere?’
‘Again, there’s a risk the neighbours will see. Plus, if the body bag leaks in the car, that’s DNA evidence tying Claire and her dad to the crime. And that’s before you factor in the risk of someone finding the body later.’
‘Bloody hell, this is hard. Remind me never to kill anyone. What’s the solution then?’
I smile nervously. I hope he doesn’t shoot this idea down in flames as it’s central to the second half of the story at the moment. ‘I was thinking that he never leaves the house.’
‘Go on.’
‘Claire’s dad is a builder by trade and notices that the fireplace in the sitting room has alcoves either side. So they wrap him up securely, put him in one of the alcoves and brick them up. Bit of plaster and redecoration and you’d never know it wasn’t original.’
He considers for a moment and I’m aware that I’m chewing my lip, waiting for him to reveal his verdict.
‘Can I ask a couple of questions?’ he says eventually.
‘Of course.’
‘Presumably the dad would have to bring building materials into the house. Wouldn’t the neighbours see that?’
‘Yes, but they wouldn’t find it suspicious. They’d just think Darren was having some work done.’
‘OK. Question two: Wouldn’t the body start to smell after a bit?’
‘It would, but if you wrapped it securely and sealed the cavity properly, you wouldn’t be able to smell it from the rest of the house.’
Finn grimaces. ‘Do you know, I’m starting to wonder if evil Gina has a point. Your mind must be a truly macabre place to come up with something like that.’
‘Oh, it’s not completely original. I saw something similar on a true crime documentary and decided to adapt it.’
‘I’ve just thought of another question. What about the missing person aspect?’
‘Yes, that’s got to be done carefully. Darren’s a loner, so we don’t have friends as such to worry about, but he will be missed at work, and there needs to be some sort of plausible explanation for his disappearance that points the finger away from her.’
‘She’s going to be the prime suspect though, because they lived together.’
‘Yes, but remember the coercive control. The neighbours will have seen her coming and going, but she won’t have been allowed to socialise with them.
Also, there’s no way he’d have allowed her name to appear on any official documents to do with the house, because of a further twist I’m planning to throw in right at the end. ’
‘So people would know he had a girlfriend, but nothing about her.’
‘Exactly. All she needs is time to construct a plausible story.’
‘OK, so I guess she could call his work and say he’s sick.’
‘Not call, because we don’t want to risk anyone recording her voice. So she’ll email from his work laptop, pretending to be him.’
‘How does she have the password? There’s no way he’d have let her know what it was.’
‘I’m working on that. Then she’s going to clear all of her stuff out, making sure the neighbours see her leaving with it. And finally a forged suicide note saying he can’t carry on after his girlfriend left so everything’s tied up in a neat bow.’
He thinks for a moment. ‘What about the body though? Wouldn’t there be a body if he’d committed suicide?’
‘Good point.’ I think for a while. ‘How about this? At some point after she’s very publicly left, Claire and her dad sneak back to the house in the middle of the night to set the scene.
Dad dresses up in some of Darren’s clothes and puts on a cap so his face can’t be seen when he passes any CCTV cameras.
He then drives Darren’s car to a remote car park at the coast and leaves it there.
The working assumption would be that he’d drowned himself. ’
‘That would work. But it means she gets away with it.’
‘She does.’
‘Is that allowed?’
‘Everything’s allowed, but remember that this is just the first half of the book.’
‘So something will happen in the second half.’
‘It will.’
‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘Not yet. I’ve got the broad-brush strokes of it, but not the detail.’
We lapse into a comfortable silence for a little while, before Finn unexpectedly laughs.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘I was just thinking. There I am, wrestling with a concept for a daytime TV show and thinking how difficult it is, but it’s a walk in the park compared to the tangled web you’re having to weave. Do you have one of those collages stuck to your wall at home, by any chance?’
‘What collages?’
‘You know. There are pictures of suspects, maps, news articles and stuff, and then random bits of string going from one to the other, usually with a big red question mark somewhere.’
I smile. ‘You’ve been watching too much TV, and no. I think Liv would chuck me out if I started doing stuff like that.’
He chuckles again. ‘Yes, from what you’ve told me about her, she probably would.’
We fall back into silence as we cover the final part of the journey but, when we reach the end of the track that leads to L’Ancien Presbytère, Finn pauses, turning to face me.
‘I’m a little nervous about what we’re going to find down there,’ he admits, letting go of my hand and removing his sunglasses. ‘But I wanted to say thank you for this morning. It’s been a welcome break from the shitfest.’
As I look back at him, the sunlight catches his blue eyes, making them sparkle.
For a moment, everything outside the two of us seems to fade into insignificance, and I briefly wonder whether to hug him again.
The truth is that I’ve enjoyed this walk much more than I expected to, and it’s not just because it’s given me a respite from the deeply unpleasant atmosphere in the house.
The long hug on the bridge, followed by the simple act of walking along, hand in hand with Finn, has relaxed me in a way that I never could have expected.
There’s no tension across my shoulders or any of the other usual places.
I feel languid, as if I’ve just had a long massage.
The conversation, on the other hand, has sharpened and focused my mind, and I can feel ideas fizzing in my brain, eager to find their way onto the page later today.
‘I think it’s me who should be thanking you,’ I tell him honestly. ‘This has been really good for me.’
‘Same time tomorrow?’ he asks.
‘On one condition.’
‘Which is?’
‘Tomorrow we brainstorm your show.’
‘It’s a deal.’