Let Me Lie(43)

Murray got out his notebook. ‘What time was this?’

‘Around midnight,’ Anna said. ‘We were—’

Mark interrupted. ‘Do we have to go through this again? We were up till two a.m. giving statements.’

It was then that Murray noticed the paperwork on the kitchen table. The card with contact details for the Police Enquiry Centre; the Victim Support leaflet with the phone number ringed in biro. He put away his notebook.

‘No, of course not. I’ll check in with the officers who attended, and make sure they’ve got all the information they need.’

Mark’s eyes narrowed. ‘They asked if we had a crime number.’

Somewhere in the pit of Murray’s stomach, he felt a familiar sensation.

‘From the other job – the anniversary card.’

When Murray had been a probationer, he had cuffed a job that had come back to bite him. The sergeant – a sharp Glaswegian – had hauled Murray into the office to ask why nothing had been done about ‘what seems to me to be an open-and-shut case, laddie,’ then promptly assigned Murray to traffic duties. He had stood in the rain, water dripping off his helmet, and felt sick to his stomach. Three weeks into the job and he’d already been told off. Was that it? Would his skipper write him off as a bad lot?

It wasn’t, and the skipper didn’t. But that might have been because, from that moment, Murray vowed to treat every victim with the consideration they deserved, and to play everything by the book.

He hadn’t played this one by the book.

‘Not to worry,’ he said, as brightly as he could manage. ‘I’ll sort all that out, back at the station.’

‘Why don’t we have a crime number?’ Anna said. She picked up the baby from her bouncy chair and walked towards Murray. ‘You are investigating it properly, aren’t you?’

Metaphorical hand on metaphorical heart, Murray nodded. ‘I assure you, I am.’ Better than if I’d passed it straight to CID, he thought. Nevertheless, the knot of anxiety in his stomach remained, and he wondered if, even now, someone back at the police station was asking why Murray Mackenzie, a retired police officer now working on Lower Meads front desk, was investigating a possible double homicide.

‘I wanted to check something, actually,’ Murray said. He reached into his inside pocket for the leaflet Sarah had found in Caroline Johnson’s diary, keeping it inside his hand for the time being. ‘Mr Hemmings, you never met Anna’s parents?’

‘That’s right. I told you that yesterday. It was because of their deaths that Anna came to see me in the first place.’

‘Right. So, when you met Anna, that was the first you’d heard of her …’ Murray searched for the right word, acknowledging his clumsiness with a sympathetic smile in Anna’s direction. ‘Her situation?’

‘Yes.’ There was a touch of impatience in Mark’s reply.

Impatience? Or something else? Something he was trying to hide? Murray produced the flyer.

‘Is this yours, Mr Hemmings?’

‘Yes. I’m not sure I’m following …’

Murray handed him the flyer, turning it over as he did so. Curious, Anna moved to see the writing, clearly visible on the reverse. There was a single, sharp inhalation, followed by a look of complete confusion.

‘That’s Mum’s writing.’

Murray spoke gently. ‘It was found in your mother’s diary.’

Mark’s mouth was working, but nothing was coming out. He brandished the flyer. ‘And … what? I don’t know why she had it.’

‘It seems she had an appointment with you, Mr Hemmings.’

‘An appointment? Mark, what’s going on? Was Mum … a patient of yours?’ Anna took a step back, unconsciously distancing herself from the leaflet, from the father of her child.

‘No! Christ, Anna! I told you, I don’t know why my leaflet was with her things.’

‘Right. Well, I just wanted to double-check.’ Murray held out his hand for the flyer. The younger man hesitated, then dropped it into Murray’s open palm with such deliberate lack of direction that Murray was forced to catch it before it fluttered to the floor. Murray smiled politely. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’

Light the blue touchpaper and stand well back, Murray thought as he left the house. Mark Hemmings had some explaining to do.





TWENTY-FOUR


ANNA


‘You’d think he’d have known about last night, wouldn’t you?’ Mark starts clearing the table again, transferring our cereal bowls from table to dishwasher. ‘The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing – it’s ridiculous.’ He bends to stack the dishes, rearranging what’s already there from last night. It crosses my mind that he’s deliberately taking his time, deliberately avoiding looking at me.

‘Did you know my mum?’

‘What?’ He drops our spoons into the rack. One, two.

‘Mark, look at me!’

He straightens slowly, picks up a tea towel and wipes his hands, then folds it and places it on the counter. Then he looks at me. ‘I never met your mum, Anna.’

If Mark and I had been together for a decade – if we’d met as teenagers, grown up together – I’d know if he was lying. If we’d been through the challenges other couples go through – ups and downs, break-ups and make-ups – I’d know if he was lying.