Daisy in Chains(41)

‘The beach isn’t happening. But are you admitting to having killed those women? Do you know where Zoe is?’

He runs his hands over the back of his head, exhales loudly. ‘Of course I’m not. I have no idea where Zoe is. But I could run the boys in blue a merry chase through Cheddar’s caves. I could even escape. I know those caves very well.’

‘You’d live on the run for the rest of your life.’

He gives a quick, dismissive look round and more than one pair of eyes drops. ‘Has to be better than spending my life in here. And maybe I’d prove my innocence. Become a free man again. If I do, maybe you and I can meet normally.’

The conversation is spinning out of control. She needs to slow it down. ‘Let me explain a little about how I work. I monitor every high-profile or controversial conviction for murder or serious violence that takes place in this jurisdiction. I do some research, a bit of digging, into all those that catch my interest. I make notes and they form the first draft of a book. Currently, I have around two dozen books in progress. Most of them will never go beyond two or three chapters because I take on very few cases.’

‘How many chapters does mine have?’

His directness, his presumption, is bothering her. ‘Half a dozen,’ she says, although it has more.

‘I’m encouraged. But please tell me the title isn’t some lame reference to my name.’

She feels her face glow a shade warmer. ‘I think we’ve seen enough lupine puns over the past two years. The point I’m leading to is that, unless I become convinced there’s been some serious miscarriage of justice, I won’t get involved. More than that, and more important to me than justice, is a belief that I can win. I don’t flog dead horses.’

‘That’s why it has to be you.’

There is something in the simple sentence that feels too intimate. ‘It would be very foolish to pin hopes on me.’

‘You must have wondered why I haven’t appealed. Others did. And concluded, wrongly, that it’s because I accepted the justice of the sentence. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve been waiting for the right time.’

He reaches forward. He’s going to touch her. She waits for someone to step in. Physical contact is only allowed at the start and end of visits, not now, not—

No one does. Her hands stay, flat, on the tabletop, as though they are nailed in place. His fingertips rest lightly on hers.

‘I’ve been waiting for you.’





Chapter 32


PETE STANDS IN the doorway of Maggie’s kitchen, watching the crime scene processing team. One is taking photographs. Another is dusting for prints. The photographer pauses for a second. ‘We’ve got access to the whole of the house and the garages, but not the cellar. She says it’s permanently locked and only one way in. No one’s been in it for years, she says, and the stairs aren’t safe.’

Just the sort of place Pete wants to see. ‘Did she leave a key?’

‘Not that we’ve found.’

‘OK if I take a look upstairs?’

‘Yeah, we’re done up there.’

As he walks through the hall, Pete checks his watch. Visiting time at Parkhurst began half an hour ago. Barring an act of God, Maggie and Wolfe are together.

The stairs are a tall, straight flight, ending in a wide landing. White orchids, as pale and fragile as Maggie herself, stand on narrow tables along its length. Five doors. Gambling on her bedroom overlooking the front of the house, he turns left and passes an open door. A technician is inside it, sitting at Maggie’s desk. He doesn’t even look up. Pulling on latex gloves, Pete pushes gently on the next door.

He’d no idea how many shades of white there are in the world.

The walls are the colour that snow assumes on forest floors, the painted woodwork around the windows and doors a brighter shade, like sun on snow. The curtains and bedding are in the palest shades of grey. The bed is silver, the wooden furniture stripped birch. This has to be her room. Guest rooms are never this fancy. And yet, apart from the endless variety of white, he can see nothing in it that is essentially Maggie.

Almost without realizing what he is doing, he slips off his shoes to find the carpet is thick and soft beneath his feet. He checks the bedside cabinets, the dressing table.

The wardrobes line one wall. She favours trousers and sweaters, but there are a few slim, tailored dresses, all with long sleeves and low hemlines. She is a size eight. There are several woollen coats, including the fondant pink with black buttons that she’d worn to the station. Everything in the wardrobe is in bright, jewel colours or shades of white and cream. Nothing green, brown or beige.

Nothing that will fit a man.

A sound startles him and he opens the door of the en suite bathroom to see a male backside sticking out from beneath the bath.

‘Found anything?’ he asks.

Sunday shuffles out and sits back on his heels. ‘Plumbing needs some attention. Apart from that, nothing yet.’

As Sunday half disappears again beneath the bath, Pete pulls open the bathroom cabinet. Make-up, contact lenses, all the usual ‘lady products’. In a cupboard below the washbasin are toilet rolls, cleaning fluids and industrial-sized bottles of cream peroxide.

He turns to leave and gets halfway across the bedroom when he hears Sunday in the bathroom.