Let Me Lie(39)

It hadn’t, but I was relieved to discover it hadn’t been weighing on her mind, either.

Now, my skin prickles, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, one by one. I catch a trace of jasmine in my nostrils.

And then …

Nothing.

I open my eyes and drop my arms to my side, because this is absurd. Ridiculous. My parents are dead, and I can no more summon them from my kitchen than I can spread wings and fly.

There are no messages. No hauntings. No afterlife.

Mark’s right. It’s all in my head.





TWENTY-ONE


MURRAY


‘I take it the husband doesn’t believe in ghosts,’ Sarah said. They were sitting on the black leather sofa of Highfield’s family room, where Murray had joined Sarah for the forty-five minutes permitted for his evening meal break.

‘Partner. No, he says they’re post-bereavement hallucinatory experiences.’

‘Casper will be devastated.’

The door to the family room opened and a young girl came in. She was so thin her head seemed disproportionately large, and a criss-cross of fine scars covered her arms from wrist to shoulder. She didn’t acknowledge Murray or Sarah, just picked up a magazine from the coffee table and took it back out of the room.

‘According to Mark Hemmings, up to sixty per cent of bereaved people report seeing or hearing a loved one after death, or sense their presence in some other way.’

‘So, what’s the difference between that and a ghost?’ Sarah was flicking through the pages of Caroline Johnson’s diary. They ate early at Highfield, like kids fed their tea at five o’clock, and so Sarah had sat cross-legged on the sofa and looked through the case papers while Murray ate his sandwiches.

‘Beats me.’

‘I shall haunt you, when I’m gone.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Why not? I would have thought you’d be glad to see me.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant … Oh, never mind.’ Don’t talk about dying, he’d meant. He looked out of the window. The sky was clear and sprinkled with stars, and Murray had a sudden memory of lying in the park when he and Sarah first got together, pointing out the constellations they knew, and making up names for the ones they didn’t.

‘That’s the Plough.’

‘And there’s the Porcupine.’

‘Idiot.’

‘Idiot yourself.’

They had made love on the damp grass, only moving when their empty stomachs reminded them they hadn’t eaten since lunchtime.

‘Fancy a walk?’ Murray said now. ‘Once around the block?’

Instantly the spark in Sarah’s eyes was replaced with anxiety. She drew up her knees to her chest, hugging them close, her fingers gripping Caroline’s diary like they were glued to it.

It was new, this fear of being outside. Not agoraphobia – not according to her consultant – just another small piece of the anxiety mosaic that was Murray’s beautiful, funny, intensely complex wife.

‘No problem.’ He waved an arm, dismissing the idea and, with it, the hope that Sarah was ready to come home. Small steps, he thought. It was Friday. Christmas wasn’t till Monday. There was plenty of time to get her home. ‘Anything leap out at you?’ He indicated the diary. Slowly, now that he wasn’t suggesting she leave the premises, Sarah’s muscles began to unwind. She opened the book, looking for a particular date.

‘Did the daughter say anything about a planning objection?’

‘Not that I recall.’

Sarah showed him the page, a month before Caroline had died, on which a reference number had been noted, beneath the reminder planning objection. ‘People get very het up about planning permission.’

‘Het up enough to kill someone?’

‘Nowt so queer as folk.’

Murray brought up the Eastbourne planning portal on his phone and peered at the reference on the diary, tapping it in with his forefinger. ‘It’s an application for an extension.’ He found the applicant’s name. ‘Mr Robert Drake.’ Murray remembered the list of friends and relatives who had consoled Caroline Johnson the day of her husband’s death. ‘He lives next door to Anna Johnson.’ Murray scanned the summary. ‘It was rejected. Although it looks like he’s trying again now – there’s a linked appeal.’

‘You see. There’s your motive, Poirot.’

‘There were thirty-four objections. I’d better check they haven’t all been bumped off.’

Sarah raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on, take the piss out of my theories … What’s your money on, Detective?’

Murray wasn’t a betting man. There were enough variables in life without seeking out more, and the picture around the Johnson investigation was far from clear.

Suicide? Think again.

‘Caroline Johnson’s suicide was a carbon copy of her husband’s,’ he said, as much to himself as to Sarah. ‘The similarities added weight to the coroner’s verdict, not least because of details from Tom Johnson’s death that had never been released to the press.’

The Gazette had run an obituary following Tom’s death. The family had been well known locally, the business handed down through three generations. They had referred to the personal effects left on the cliff top, the car abandoned in the car park, but not to the rucksack Tom had filled with rocks. The only people privy to that piece of information had been the family, and the woman who witnessed Tom’s suicide: Diane Brent-Taylor.