Let Me Lie(24)

The chaplain had talked Caroline back from the edge.

‘I waited while she took the stones out of her rucksack,’ his statement read. ‘We walked back to the car park. I told her God was always ready to listen. To forgive. That nothing was so bad God wouldn’t help us through it.’

Murray admired those whose faith gave them such immense peace of mind. He wished he felt that depth of belief when he went into a church, but there were too many terrible things in the world for him to accept they were all part of God’s grand plan.

Had even the chaplain’s faith been shaken by what happened next? Had he sent up a prayer to help him come to terms with it?

Caroline’s photo had been circulated, additional patrols sent to Beachy Head. Coastguard rescue worked in conjunction with the police, with the chaplaincy, as they were so often required to do. Volunteers and salaried officers working side by side. Different backgrounds, different training, but the same aim. To find Caroline Johnson alive.

Caroline’s phone had been identified as being at or near Beachy Head, and just after 5 p.m., her handbag and mobile phone were found by a dog walker on the edge of the cliff. The tide had been at its highest at 4.33 p.m. that day.

A BMW, parked in the car park at Beachy Head with the keys in the ignition, was quickly traced back to Johnson’s Cars, where Billy Johnson confirmed that the description given by the chaplain matched that of his sister-in-law, Caroline Johnson, a fellow director of Johnson’s Cars, and the recent widow of Billy’s brother, Tom Johnson.

With the exception of the suicidal texts – Caroline had sent none – it was a carbon copy of Tom Johnson’s suicide, seven months previously. How must Anna have felt, to answer the door to another policeman with his hat in his hands? To sit in the kitchen with the same friends and family gathered around? Another investigation, another funeral, another inquest.

Murray put down the file and let out a slow sigh. How many times had Sarah tried to take her own life?

Too many to count.

The first had come a few weeks into their relationship, when Murray had gone to play squash with a colleague instead of seeing Sarah. He had returned home to find seven messages on his answerphone, each more desperate than the last.

Murray had panicked that time. And the next. Sometimes there were months between attempts; on other occasions Sarah would try several times a day to end her life. It would be these times that would prompt another stay at Highfield.

Gradually he had learned that what Sarah needed was for him to be calm. To be there. Not judging, not panicking. And so he would come home and hold her, and if she didn’t need to go to hospital – as, more often than not, she didn’t – Murray would bathe her arms and gently wrap gauze across the cuts, and reassure her he wasn’t going anywhere. And only when Sarah was in bed – the lines on her forehead smoothed out by sleep – would Murray put his head in his hands and weep.

Murray rubbed his face. Focus. This job was supposed to fill some time. Distracting him from thinking about Sarah, not sending him down memory lanes he wished he’d never travelled.

He looked at his notebook, now filled with his neat handwriting. Nothing seemed out of place. So why would someone question Caroline’s death? To stir up trouble? To upset Anna?

Suicide? Think again.

Something had transpired that day that wasn’t in the police file. Something the investigating officers hadn’t seen. It happened. Not often, but it happened. Sloppy detectives, or simply busy ones. Prioritising other cases; filing the dead ends when perhaps – just perhaps – there were more questions to ask. More answers to find.

Murray picked up the final sheaf of paperwork: miscellaneous documents in no apparent order – a photograph of Caroline Johnson, a copy of the contact list from her phone, and a copy of Tom Johnson’s life assurance policy.

Murray looked at the latter. And looked again.

Tom Johnson had been worth a considerable amount of money.

Murray hadn’t seen Anna’s house, but he knew the street – a quiet, sought-after avenue with its own gated park – and properties there didn’t come cheap. Murray assumed the house would have been jointly owned by the Johnsons, and would since have passed to their daughter, as would, he imagined, the pay-out from Tom’s hefty life assurance policy. And that was before you factored in the family business, of which Anna now had joint control.

Whichever way you looked at it, Anna Johnson was an extremely wealthy woman.





TWELVE


ANNA


I fumble with my phone, finding recent calls and pressing Mark’s number as I tiptoe into the hall towards the stairs, Ella in my arms. I silently beseech her not to make a sound.

And then three things happen.

The crunch of gravel beneath feet becomes the solid tap of shoes on steps.

The tinny ringing of Mark’s phone at my ear is mirrored by a louder version coming from outside the house.

And the front door opens.

When Mark walks into the house, his ringing mobile still in his hand, he finds me standing in the hall, wild-eyed and high from the adrenalin coursing through my veins.

‘You rang, m’lady?’ He grins and taps his phone to end the call.

Slowly, I lower my own mobile from my ear, my heart-rate refusing to accept the danger has passed. I laugh awkwardly, relief making me as light-headed as fear did a moment ago.