Behind Closed Doors: The gripping debut thriller everyone is raving about (25 page)

‘Not really,’ I say. ‘Wait a minute, what about Moira and Giles, you know, the people who were at Millie’s party. Maybe you could contact them. I don’t have their number, though.’

‘Leave it with me. What’s their surname?’

‘Kilburn-Hawes, I think.’

‘I’ll give them a ring and get back to you,’ he promises.

He calls back half an hour later and, when he tells me that they haven’t heard from Jack either, I become distraught. Nobody seems to know what to do. The general consensus—from Margaret, Richard, Adam and Diane—is that it’s too early to launch a missing person’s inquiry so they tell me that the best thing would be to
try to get some sleep and see if Jack turns up the next morning.

He doesn’t. The day passes in a blur as Mr Ho, Margaret, Richard and Adam take over. I tell them I want to go home, but they persuade me to stay for one more day in case Jack turns up, so I do. In the early afternoon—eight o’clock in the morning in England—Adam calls to say that he has spoken to the local police and that, with my permission, they’ll be happy to break into the house to see if they can find anything to indicate where Jack might have gone.

They call me first and ask me to run through the last time I saw Jack and I tell them it was when Esther came to pick me up to take me to the airport, that he had waved me off from the study window. I explain that he hadn’t been able to drive me to the airport himself because he’d had quite a large whisky when he’d come in from work and add that I hadn’t particularly wanted to leave for Thailand by myself even though Jack had warned me, when the Tomasin case began to look as if it would overrun, that I might have to. They say they’ll get back to me as soon as they can and I sit in my room and wait for them to phone with Margaret by my side, holding my hand. I know the news I’m waiting for is going to be a long time coming so after a while I tell Margaret that I’d like to try to sleep, and lie down on the bed.

I manage to sleep until the moment I’ve been waiting for since I arrived in Thailand finally comes. It begins
with a knock on the door and, because I don’t move, Margaret goes to answer it. I hear a man’s voice and then Margaret comes over to the bed and, with a hand on my shoulder, gives me a little shake, telling me that there’s someone to see me. As I sit up, I see her slip out of the room and I want to call her back, to tell her not to leave me, but he is already walking towards me so it’s too late. My heart is beating so fast, my breathing so shallow that I don’t dare look at him until I’ve managed to compose myself. With my eyes fixed firmly on the ground, it’s his shoes I see first. They are made of good leather and are well polished, just as I would expect them to be. He says my name and, as my eyes travel upwards, I see that while his suit is dark, in keeping with the occasion, it’s made of a lightweight fabric, because of the climate. My eyes reach his face; it is pleasant, but grave, just as it should be.

‘Mrs Angel?’ he says again.

‘Yes?’ There’s a trace of anxiousness in my voice.

‘My name is Alastair Strachan. I’m from the British Embassy.’ He turns, and I see a young woman standing behind him. ‘And this is Vivienne Dashmoor. I wonder if we could have a word?’

I jump to my feet. ‘Is it to do with Jack, have you managed to find him?’

‘Yes—or rather, the police in England have.’

Relief floods my face. ‘Thank goodness for that! Where is he? Why wasn’t he answering his phone? Is he on his way here?’

‘Perhaps we could go and sit down?’ the young woman suggests.

‘Of course,’ I say, ushering them through to the sitting room. I sit down on the sofa and they take the armchairs. ‘So where is he?’ I ask. ‘I mean, is he on his way here?’

Mr Strachan clears his throat. ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs Angel, but I’m afraid that Mr Angel has been found dead.’

I stare at him, my eyes wide with shock. Confusion floods my face. ‘I don’t understand,’ I stammer.

He shifts uncomfortably. ‘I’m afraid your husband has been found dead, Mrs Angel.’

I shake my head vigorously. ‘No, he can’t be, he’s coming here, to join me, he said he would. Where is he?’ My voice trembles with emotion. ‘I want to know where he is. Why isn’t he here?’

‘Mrs Angel, I know this is very difficult for you, but we need to ask you some questions,’ the young lady says. ‘Would you like us to fetch someone—your friend, perhaps?’

‘Yes, yes.’ I nod. ‘Can you get Margaret, please?’

Mr Strachan goes to the door. I hear the murmur of voices and Margaret comes in. I see the shock on her face and I begin shaking uncontrollably. ‘They’re saying that Jack’s dead,’ I say. ‘But he can’t be, he can’t be.’

‘It’s all right,’ she murmurs, sitting down next to me and putting her arm around me. ‘It’s all right.’

‘Perhaps we could have some tea brought up,’ the young woman says, getting to her feet. She goes over to the phone and speaks to someone in reception.

‘Did he have a car crash?’ I ask Margaret, sounding bewildered. ‘Is that’s what happened? Did Jack have a car crash on the way to the airport? Is that why he’s not here?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says quietly.

‘He must have,’ I go on, nodding with conviction. ‘He must have been rushing to catch the flight, he must have left the house late and was driving too fast and had a crash. That’s what happened, isn’t it?’

Margaret glances at Mr Strachan. ‘I don’t know, I’m afraid.’

My teeth begin chattering. ‘I’m cold.’

She jumps to her feet, glad of something to do. ‘Would you like a jumper? Is there one in your wardrobe?’

‘Yes, I think so, not a jumper, a cardigan, maybe. The bathrobe, can I have the bathrobe?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She goes into the bathroom, finds the bathrobe, comes back and puts it around my shoulders.

‘Thank you,’ I murmur gratefully.

‘Is that better?’ she asks.

‘Yes. But Jack can’t be dead, it must be a mistake, it has to be.’

She’s saved from saying anything by a knock at the door. The young woman opens it and Mr Ho comes in, followed by a girl pushing a laden tea trolley.

‘If I can be of further assistance, please let me know,’ Mr Ho says quietly. I sense him looking at me as he leaves the room, but I keep my head bowed.

The young woman busies herself with the tea and asks me if I would like sugar.

‘No, thank you.’

She places a cup and saucer in front of me and I pick up the cup, but I’m shaking so much some of the tea slops over the side and onto my hand. Scalded, I clatter the cup back down onto the saucer.

‘Sorry,’ I say. Tears fill my eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ says Margaret hurriedly, taking a paper napkin and mopping my hand.

I make an effort to pull myself together. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ I say to Mr Strachan.

‘Alastair Strachan.’

‘Mr Strachan, you say that my husband is dead.’ I look at him for confirmation.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘Then can you please tell me how he died? I mean, was it quick, was anyone else hurt in the accident, where did it happen? I need to know, I need to know how it happened.’

‘It wasn’t a car accident, Mrs Angel.’

‘Not a car accident?’ I falter. ‘Then how did he die?’

Mr Strachan looks uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid there’s no easy way of saying this, Mrs Angel, but it seems that your husband took his own life.’

And I burst into tears.

O
nce I’d realised that I could get away with murder, I spent the rest of the night working out the details, thinking of ways to get Jack exactly where I needed him to be when the time came. Because my plan hinged on him losing the Tomasin case, I took a leaf out of his book and planned for every eventuality. I thought very carefully about what I would do if he won and, in the end, I decided that if he did I would drug him anyway and, while he was unconscious, phone the police. If I showed them the room in the basement, and the room where he kept me, maybe they would believe what I told them. In the event that I didn’t manage to drug him before we left for the airport, I would somehow get the pills into him on the plane and try to get help once we arrived in Thailand. Neither solution was brilliant, but I
didn’t have any other options. Unless he lost. And, even then, there was no guarantee that he would bring up a glass of whisky to commiserate.

The next day, the day of the verdict, I spent the morning crushing the remaining pills into as fine a powder as I possibly could and hid it in a screw of toilet paper, which I pushed into my sleeve as I would a tissue. When I eventually heard the whir of the black gates opening and the crunch of the gravel as Jack drove up to the front door sometime in the middle of the afternoon, my heart began hammering so hard I was afraid it would burst out of my chest. The time had finally come. Whether he had won or lost, I was going to have to act.

He came into the hall, closed the front door and activated the shutters. I heard him open the cloakroom door, walk across the hall to the kitchen, followed by the familiar sounds of the freezer door opening and closing, the ice cubes being popped from the tray, the cupboard door opening and closing, the clink as the ice cubes were dropped into one glass—I held my breath—two glasses. His footsteps as he came up the stairs were heavy and told me all I needed to know. I began rubbing my left eye furiously so that by the time he unlocked the door it would be red and inflamed.

‘Well?’ I asked. ‘How did it go?’

He held out a glass to me. ‘We lost.’

‘Lost?’ I said, taking it. Without bothering to answer, he raised his glass to his lips and, scared he would knock
the whole lot back before I’d had a chance to drug him, I jumped off the bed. ‘I’ve had something in my eye all morning,’ I explained, blinking rapidly. ‘Could you have a look?’

‘What?’

‘Could you just look at my eye a moment? I think there must be a fly in there or something.’

As he peered into my eye, which I kept half shut, I worked the paper holding the powder from my sleeve and into the palm of my hand. ‘So what happened?’ I asked, unscrewing it as best I could with my fingers.

‘Dena Anderson screwed me over,’ he said bitterly. ‘Can you open your eye a bit more?’

Keeping my movements small, I moved the glass I was holding in my other hand under the paper and shook the powder into it. ‘I can’t, it’s too painful,’ I told him, stirring the contents around with my finger. ‘Can you do it? I’ll hold your glass for you.’

With a sigh of annoyance, he handed me his glass and pulled my eye open using both hands. ‘I can’t see anything.’

‘If I had a mirror, I’d be able to see for myself,’ I grumbled. ‘It doesn’t matter, it’ll probably work itself out.’ He held out his hand for his glass and I gave him mine. ‘What shall we drink to?’

‘Revenge,’ he said, grimly.

I raised the glass I was holding. ‘To revenge, then.’ I knocked half of the whisky back and was gratified to see him doing the same.

‘Nobody makes a fool out of me. Antony Tomasin is going to suffer for this too.’

‘But he was innocent,’ I protested, wondering how I was going to keep him talking until the pills took effect.

‘What has that got to do with it?’ As he raised his glass to take another drink, I was alarmed to see tiny white specks floating in the whisky. ‘Do you know what the best part of my job is?’

‘No, what?’ I said quickly.

‘Sitting opposite all those battered women and imagining it was me who had beaten them up.’ He knocked the rest of his glass back. ‘And the photos, all those lovely photos of their injuries—I suppose you could call it one of the perks of the job.’

Incensed, I raised my glass and before I could stop myself, I had thrown the rest of my whisky in his face. His roar of anger, plus the knowledge that I had acted too soon, almost paralysed me. But as he lunged towards me, his eyes shut tight against the sting of the whisky, I took advantage of his momentary blindness and pushed him as hard as I could. As he stumbled awkwardly against the bed, the few seconds before he righted himself were all that I needed. Slamming the door behind me, I ran down the stairs to the hall below, looking urgently for somewhere to hide, because I couldn’t let him catch me, not just yet. Upstairs, the door crashed back against the wall and as he came pounding down the stairs, I headed for the cloakroom and climbed into the wardrobe, hoping to buy myself a few precious minutes.

This time, there was no singsong in his voice as he called for me. Instead, he roared my name, promising such harm to me that I trembled from my hiding place behind the coats. Several minutes passed, and I imagined him in the sitting room, checking behind every piece of furniture. The waiting was unbearable but I knew that with every minute that passed, the chances of the pills taking effect increased.

At last, I heard the unmistakable sound of his footsteps coming down the hall. My legs turned to jelly and as the cloakroom door opened, I found myself sliding to the floor. The silence that followed was terrifying; I knew he was there, outside the wardrobe and I knew he knew I was inside. But he seemed content to leave me to sweat, relishing no doubt in the fear emanating from every pore of my body.

I don’t know when it occurred to me that the wardrobe might have a key, but the thought that at any moment he could turn it in the lock and imprison me there made it impossible for me to breathe. If I couldn’t put the next part of my plan into action, there would be no saving Millie. Blind with panic, I flung myself against the doors. They burst open and I fell into a crumpled heap at Jack’s feet.

His rage as he pulled me up by my hair was tangible, and afraid that he might harm me physically I began screaming for mercy, telling him I was sorry and begging him not to take me down to the basement, gabbling
incoherently that I would do anything as long as he didn’t lock me in there.

The mention of the basement had the desired effect. As he dragged me back along the hall I struggled so hard that he had no choice but to pick me up, and I let myself go limp so he would think I had given up. I used the time it took for him to carry me to the room he had prepared so carefully for Millie to focus on what I needed to do, so that when he tried to throw me down I held onto him as hard as I could. Enraged, he tried to shake me off and as he cursed me loudly, the slur in his voice was all that I needed. Still keeping hold of him, I allowed myself to slide down his body towards the floor, and when I reached his knees, I yanked them towards me as hard as I could. His legs buckled immediately and as he swayed above me, I used every ounce of strength I possessed to send him crashing to the floor. Stunned by the fall, his body heavy from the pills, he lay without moving for a few precious seconds and before he could recover, I fled the room, slamming the door behind me.

As I ran towards the stairs, I could hear him hammering on the door, yelling at me to let him out and the fury in his voice made me start sobbing with fright. Reaching the hall, I kicked the door that led to the basement with my foot, shutting it against the noise. Taking the stairs two at a time, I ran to my bedroom, retrieved the glasses from where we had thrown them and carried them down to the kitchen, trying to ignore Jack’s desperate attempts to get out of the room below by focusing on what I needed
to do. With shaking hands, I washed the glasses, dried them carefully and put them back in the cupboard.

Hurrying back upstairs, I went to my bedroom, straightened the bed, removed the shampoo, sliver of soap and towel from the bathroom and carried them into Jack’s bathroom. Stripping off my pyjamas I put them in the laundry basket, went into the bedroom where my clothes were kept and got dressed quickly. I opened the wardrobe and took a couple of pairs of shoes from their boxes, some underwear and a dress, went back to the master bedroom and placed them around the room. On returning to the dressing room, I picked up the case that Jack had made me pack the night before and went downstairs.

I wasn’t worried about getting out of the house—I didn’t need a key to open the front door—but I was worried about how I was going to get to the airport without any money. I knew that Jack had probably hung the jacket he had worn that morning in the cloakroom, but I didn’t want to rifle through his clothes for money and hoped I would come across some while I was looking for my passport and tickets. I opened the door of his study and turned on the light. When I saw both passports and tickets lying neatly on his desk, I almost cried with relief. There was an envelope beside them and, opening it, I found some baht. With the sleeve of my cardigan over my fingers, I slid open one of the drawers, but I couldn’t find any money and I didn’t dare rifle through the other drawers. Taking my ticket, passport and the baht with me, I went back into the hall
and, because I couldn’t get to the airport without money, I went into the cloakroom, found his jacket, opened his wallet as carefully as I could and took out four fifty pound notes. I was about to close his wallet when his business cards caught my eye and, remembering that at some point I would need to phone his office, I took one.

Realising that I had no idea what the time was, I went back to the kitchen and looked at the clock on the microwave. I was alarmed to see that it was already half past four, around the time I would need to leave for the airport on a Friday night for a check in at seven. In all my careful planning I hadn’t actually thought about how I would get to the airport—I suppose I’d had a vague idea of taking a taxi—so it was galling to realise that I had no idea what number I should call to order one. Public transport was out—the nearest train station was a fifteen-minute walk away and I was loath to draw attention to myself by wheeling a heavy case along the road and anyway, I doubted it would get me there in time. Aware that I was wasting precious time, I went back into the hall and picked up the phone, wondering if such a thing as an operator still existed. As I stood there wondering what number I should dial, Esther’s came into my head and, hardly daring to believe that I had remembered it correctly, I called her, praying that she would pick up.

‘Hello?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Esther, it’s Grace. Am I disturbing you?’

‘No, not at all. I was just listening to the radio actually—apparently, Antony Tomasin was acquitted.’ She paused a moment as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say. ‘I guess Jack must be disappointed.’

My mind raced. ‘Yes, I’m afraid he is rather.’

‘Are you all right, Grace? You sound a bit upset.’

‘It’s Jack,’ I admitted. ‘He says he can’t leave for Thailand tonight as he has too much paperwork to do. When he booked the tickets, he thought the case would be over long before now but because of the new evidence, about Dena Anderson having a lover, it overran.’

‘You must be so disappointed! But you can always go later, can’t you?’

‘That’s just it. Jack wants me to go tonight, as planned, and says he’ll join me on Tuesday, once he’s got everything sorted out. I’ve told him that I’d rather wait for him, but he says it’s stupid to waste both tickets. He’ll have to buy a new one for Tuesday, you see.’

‘I take it you don’t want to go without him.’

‘No, of course I don’t.’ I gave a shaky laugh. ‘But in the mood he’s in, maybe it would be better. I’m meant to be phoning for a taxi to take me to the airport—he can’t take me because he had a hefty whisky when he came in. The trouble is, I don’t have a number for one and I don’t dare disturb Jack in his study and ask him if I can use the computer to look for one, so I was wondering if you knew of a local firm.’

‘Do you want me to take you? The children are already home from school and Rufus worked from home today, so it wouldn’t be a problem.’

It was the last thing I wanted. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I can’t ask you to drive to the airport on a Friday night,’ I said hastily.

‘I don’t think it’ll be that easy to get a taxi at such short notice. What time do you need to leave?’

‘Well, as soon as possible, really,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘I have to check in at seven.’

‘Then you’d better let me take you.’

‘I’d rather take a taxi. If you could just give me a number?’

‘Look, I’ll take you—it really isn’t any trouble. Anyway, it’ll get me out of the dreaded bath-time.’

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘Why won’t you let me help you, Grace?’

There was something about the way she said it that put me on my guard. ‘I just think it’s an awful imposition, that’s all.’

‘It isn’t.’ Her voice was firm. ‘Have you got all your stuff ready?’

‘Yes, we packed yesterday.’

‘Then I’ll just go and tell Rufus I’m taking you to the airport and I’ll be straight over—say, fifteen minutes?’

‘Great,’ I told her. ‘Thank you, Esther, I’ll tell Jack.’

I put the phone down, appalled at what I had just agreed to. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I was going to be able to pretend to someone like Esther that everything was all right.