Tom nodded, handing her his warrant card. She wore sweat pants, long blonde hair pulled into a loose plait. Rimless glasses sat low. It looked like she had been crying. She studied the warrant card, glancing up at Tom, back down at the photograph.
“Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?”
“Of course. You want to come in?”
“If that’s okay.”
“Jim said. He said you’d want to talk to me. Because me and Libby…” She turned abruptly, Tom followed. The living room was spartan, wooden flooring, stark white walls, the chimney breast smothered in dark crimson paper. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. I’ve been working away. I didn’t…” She choked down a sob. “I didn’t know. Not until I came home last night.” Hannah shook her head, brushing at the tears with her fingers. “Her dad, Jim, he’d left me a message. Asking me to call.”
“You and Libby were friends?”
She had sunk onto the black leather sofa, long stick thin arms stretching between narrow knees. “The best. We moved in on the same day. Stinking weather. I saw this removal van a couple of doors down, and we’re both running back and forth and getting drenched. The next thing you know there’s this knock on the door, and Libby was standing there with a bottle of wine.”
“You guys hit it off?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. Saw each other like every day.”
“So you knew Libby as well as anybody?”
“Yeah. I did…” She still wasn’t looking at him, voice drifting off into nothing.
“When did you see her last, Hannah?”
“Uh, Monday. We were going to go get lunch, but I had to cancel. I had an appointment with a new client - I’m an accountant - so we got together for breakfast instead. I’d been away. Bournemouth, on my sister’s hen weekend. I wanted to see Libby, wanted to tell her, I mean, my sister, she’s marrying a prick. A real prick. And Libby and I, we’d been talking about this. She was going to come over.”
“How did she seem to you?”
“She was good. We laughed…”
“Did she tell you anything about having just gone through a break up?”
She looked up at him, gaze wary.
“Did she?” Tom could feel a well of frustration rising.
She looked like she was considering it, almost like she wasn’t going to answer. Then she sighed. “She was seeing someone. For the past year. Met him on a night out. She was out with a bunch of school friends in Swansea, and he came onto her, wanting to be her drinks, you know the drill. She said she wasn’t interested at first. She thought he was too old for her. And…there was other stuff.”
“Was he married?” His tone was harder than he had meant it to be.
She didn’t answer at first, just folded her hands into themselves. They were thin hands, long fingers. Like Cecilia’s. Knotted tight together. Just like Cecilia’s. She hadn’t spoken to him after the memorial. In truth they had barely spoken since. Two ghosts drifting past one another, just inhabiting the same space. Cecilia had left the church, got into the car, shoulder rested against the passenger side window as if she was afraid that Tom would try and touch her again. She needn’t have worried. He had driven a little faster on the way home, a little less careful than perhaps he should have been. He had wanted to get home. Had wanted to drop her off, leave. Had work to do. After all they were in the middle of a murder investigation. Had thought about the case, about Libby, only sparing a fleeting moment to wonder about the boy standing amongst the gravestones watching his wife whilst she starred, oblivious, into the cold bright sky. It occurred to him that he should have been curious, perhaps even jealous. Something. He had tried, effortfully mustering his energies, but there was nothing there.
Hannah shook her head, tears beginning to flood down her cheeks. “I told her he was bad news. Fucking jerk. He told her that he was unhappy, wanted to leave his wife. He was persistent. And, I don’t know, she just gave in. But the thing is he didn’t make her happy. She seemed to be miserable all the time. He was letting her down, left, right and centre. He’d keep her hanging on, saying he was going to leave, then coming up with all these excuses why he couldn’t. She finally had enough.”
“When was this?”
“Last week. He was supposed to be coming to see her, they were going to do like a pretend Christmas, exchanging gifts and stuff, but he just never showed up. She really lost it. Told him it was over.”
“How did he take it?”
“Not good. Not good at all. He was crying on the phone to her, kept calling, leaving messages, showing up outside her house. She was getting all these calls, all hours of the day and night. Then she’d answer. No-one there. It was getting really weird. She came around one night, all freaked out, said that someone had been in her garden. There were footprints, a broken plant pot. In the end, she answered one of his calls. That was when she was here on Wednesday. Said she’d had it. She was really calm, just said to him, look, you don’t make me happy, I can’t rely on you. He said he’d change, he’d leave, you know. But she said no, I don’t want you to. I don’t want you.”
“And what did he say?”
“Nothing. She hung up on him then. When she left she said that she was changing her number, was going to do it later that day but…”
“And you didn’t see her after that?”
“No.”
“Do you know his name?”
Hannah shook her head. “Oliver. I don’t know his surname. I think she was trying to protect him. In spite of everything.”
“Oliver. What about his work? Where he lived?”
“I don’t know. I know he used to travel, would go away with work. I know he wasn’t based in Swansea. I think maybe Cardiff way, but I’m really not sure.”
“Was she afraid of him?”
She chewed her nail. “I don’t think she was afraid. Libby wasn’t afraid of anything. But she didn’t like the calls. She said she kept feeling like she was being watched. It weirded her out.” Hannah looked up at him. “I was afraid for her.”
“Why?”
“He seemed so manipulative, so determined. I didn’t think that he would let her go.”
Tom nodded. Watching her. “Did he have a key?”
“Yes.”
His mobile phone sparked to life, making them both jump.
“I’m sorry, let me just…” Glancing down at the display, heart tightening a little. “I’m sorry. I just need to get this. Hi. Everything okay?”
“I’m sorry, love.” His mother sounded strained, awkward. “I know you’re working.”
“That’s okay. What’s wrong?”
“Well, nothing. I mean, I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s just, well, you said that Cecilia was going to pick Ben up. That was right, wasn’t it?”
It had been his suggestion, on the way to the memorial that morning, as the snowbound scenery hurried by and he’d looked for something to say. Why don’t you go get him? I’m sure he’d love to see you. It’d be nice. For the two of you to spend some time. She’d nodded, he was sure she’d nodded, made some sound, something that he’d taken to be acquiescence.
“She hasn’t been?”
“No. And it’s not that it matters. I mean, I can hang onto him. That’s fine. It’s just, you said she’d be here and, to be honest, I was worried.”
“Okay. I’ll give her a call. She said she’d be at home this afternoon.”
“There’s no answer at the house. Or on her mobile. That was why I was ringing. I can’t seem to find her anywhere.”
“Okay, don’t worry. I’ll give her a call when I’m done here. I’ll let you know.” Was watching Hannah, biting the edge of her thumbnail, her fingers shaking. Hung up. “Hannah?”
“Look, I…I don’t know if this is relevant, and, I mean, I feel awful even saying anything, you know, they’re going through so much…”
“What is it, Hannah? Anything could be of help to us.”
She sighed deeply. “Well, you know about the row, don’t you?”
Tom frowned. “What row?”
“The night before she…you know. Libby was at her parents’ house. Her brother gave her a lift home.”
“Okay.”
“Well, and I mean, I’m sure it meant nothing, but they had a row.”
“Ethan and Libby?”
“Yeah, I mean, she was gutted. They’ve always been really close. But he just lost it with her.”
Tom felt a tingling along his spine. “Why?”
“I think it was because of the news he’d just had – you know he applied for the police force, don’t you? I mean, he’s been trying for years and years, but he’s had problems with the fitness test. And there was this weird thing between them when Libby got in and he didn’t. But he had applied again this year, really sorted out his fitness, so he passed that bit. But then, last week he had the medical and they told him he had curvature of the spine. They said he’d never be able to be a police officer. I think that was the thing of it. Libby said he just lost it with her. Started laying into her about how it wasn’t fair, her getting to do it when he couldn’t. That it was all bull…you know. She was really upset about it.”
He was aware that his heart was beating faster.
Then Hannah stood up, frowning, moved to the front window, peering out into the street, now bathed in plunging darkness. Glanced back at him. “Do you smell smoke?”
Chapter 37
Freya – Sunday, 25th March – 6.03pm
Freya slipped through the puddle of light spilling from the living room window. The darkness was creeping in, oppressive, bringing with it a harsh cold. Freya shivered. Should have put a coat on. Stuffed her hands into the pockets of her sweater, brought her shoulders up tight. She stepped through the patchwork snow. It had begun to melt, a green, white patchwork quilt. Freya’s feet crunched on ice, and she glanced up. It was cold enough to snow again. But the air was clear, stars shining brightly.
Freya had tried to get to her brother after the memorial, as he stood there under the snow laden tree. But there were bodies everywhere, pressing into her. And so by the time she had pushed through them, he was gone. She had waited, with her mother, her grandparents, hanging in the narrow village street with its thick banked up snow, the smell of wood burning. Had waited until the bells had stopped ringing, until all that remained was the whispers of the yew trees. Searching face after face. But none of them were him. Finally they had given up. He was already home when they returned, had beaten them back. She had tried to talk to him, but he had locked himself in his room, turning his music up until she could barely hear her own voice above the thrum of the bass.
Freya pressed the key fob, opening the passenger door. She climbed into the Mercedes, tugged at the glove compartment, pulling it open with a force that would have made her father angry. He loved this car. His pride and joy. Freya pushed her hair back from her eyes, and the snow dripped onto the black carpet, staining it grey.
There were CDs, neatly stacked. She pulled them out, watching them as they tumbled into the footwell. The Beatles. Status Quo. Dire Straits. Freya leaned forward, picking up the CD, tucked neat into its case. Remembered him playing it, all those nights when he was too stressed from work, too tired to talk to his children, when his voice would bellow out across the room shouting at them to be quiet, for god’s sake. Her little brother, his lip trembling, eyes sparkling with tears. She snapped it in two. Behind the CDs, there was the log book, the manual. She pulled them free, leafing through the pages, even though she wasn’t sure what it was she was looking for. Then she dropped them onto the floor, pages spreading open in supplication. A glint of light, buried in the gloom of the glove compartment. A silver lighter and a packet of Benson & Hedges, so light in her hand it seemed that it would fly away.
Freya stared at the cigarettes, and she almost laughed. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damned sad. The extent of the facade.
She pushed open the passenger side door, climbing back out into the snow. She had watched the woman, moving through the snowbound churchyard. Beautiful and tired, wounded. Not the woman in the picture that her father had guarded so closely. That sinking feeling, as the answers moved further away. The back seat was empty, crisp, clean, the mats on the floor still wrapped in plastic. She wasn’t surprised.
She wondered who the woman was. She wondered why her brother was staring at her.
A feeling clung to her, cigarette smoke on her skin: the sense of waiting, that there’s another shoe just about to drop.
Freya’s footsteps crunched on snow, and she pulled at the car boot. Ice cold metal on her bare hands. The lock sticking, fighting to keep its secrets to itself. He had stood in the snow that day, with his shoulders drooping, his head sunk low. He had gotten onto a plane, filled it with people who trusted him to protect them, and then had allowed it to tumble from the sky.
Why?
It raced around and around in her head, tugging at her, pinching.
Freya gripped the boot lever harder, yanking.
The light was fainter in the boot, sickly and pale. And there was something else, a smell. It clambered its way out, striking her square in the face. Her stomach lurched. She pulled back, leaning over the snow, gasping in the bitter cold air. It smelled like gone off food, maggots and rot. She scanned the boot, almost empty. There was an old jacket, one that he never wore. She picked it up, shaking it so that the zips rattled, knotting the material tight in her fingers. Trying not to breathe. Plunged her hands into the pockets. A packet of gum. Wadded up receipts. And cigarettes.
The woman, the one in the picture. Freya knew that it was her that he was talking to on the phone, in the snowy garden, the day before he died. It was her that he had spoken to the day before he drove his plane into the ground.
Freya leaned further in, gagging. The cream interior scarred with dark stains that she couldn’t make out properly, not in this light. And there in the back, wedged right up against the back seats, was a sports bag. She tugged it free, pulling it into her.
Papers. Papers and papers and papers. Credit card bills with her father’s name, a stranger’s life. Freya scanned them, knowing what she was going to find and knowing what it would mean. Hotels. Jewellery stores. Florists. Then there were the phone bills. One after the other after the other. She pulled one free, a recent one, a month ago, maybe a little more. Holding it closer to the insipid light so she could see.