Let Me Lie(95)

‘Could be. Or could be she’s the violent one,’ Murray said. It never paid to assume. Taking things at face value was precisely how Caroline Johnson had got away with her crimes in the first place. ‘Who’s looking for her?’ He wondered if she’d head back towards Derbyshire, not knowing that Shifty had already sold her out.

‘Who isn’t? Her photo’s been circulated, and there’s an all ports warning out for both Caroline Johnson and Angela Grange, although for all we know she’s been using other names, too. We’ve got CCTV of a woman matching her description arriving at Eastbourne train station late on the twenty-first, and a taxi driver who thinks he might have dropped her off at the Hope hostel that night, but can’t be certain.’

‘What have they said at the Hope?’

‘What do you think they said?’

‘Get to fuck?’ Staff at the Hope were fiercely protective of their residents. Great when a victim was housed there; less helpful when there was a suspect in their midst.

‘Pretty much.’ James rubbed the side of his nose. ‘Derbyshire have lifted your man Shifty, but last I heard he’d gone no comment throughout.’

No surprise there, thought Murray, particularly given the snippet of intelligence with which landlady Caz had provided him, when he and Sarah had checked out of the Wagon and Horses.

‘It’s not only flats he hooks people up with, you know.’

Murray had waited.

‘Weed. Coke. Crack.’ She’d ticked off the items on her fingers as though she were checking off groceries. ‘Guns, too. Just be careful, duck, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘The super’s authorised a road check on all routes out of Eastbourne,’ James said, ‘but no joy so far. Mark Hemmings has followed his partner to London – he’s not answering his phone, so presumably he’s still driving. As soon as I have an address, I’ll get a Met unit around there to debrief them. Find out if Caroline’s been in touch, get hold of a list of people she might have made contact with.’

Murray wasn’t listening. Not to James, at any rate. He was listening instead to the replays in his head of the conversations he’d had with Anna Johnson, Mark Hemmings, Diane Brent-Taylor … He was responding to the misgivings in the pit of his stomach, to the prickle on the back of his neck.

As far as they knew, Caroline Johnson had arrived in Eastbourne on 21 December, the anniversary of her supposed death, and the day Anna Johnson had gone to the police with claims that her mother had been murdered. She’d been adamant that Murray re-open the case, yet less than a week later she had screamed at him to drop it. Murray had attributed the change of heart to the swinging emotions of a grieving daughter, but it now felt horribly, dangerously clear that he’d been wrong. Finally, he pinpointed what had struck him as odd when he had visited Anna at home to ask about her mobile phone. She had been home alone, she’d told him. Yet there had been two mugs of tea on the kitchen table.

‘I’m in the car. My … a friend’s driving,’ Anna had said earlier.

That hesitation – why hadn’t he picked up on it earlier? He had been so intent on being the one to tell Anna her father’s body had been found, so keen to prove that he was still a detective at heart.

‘We need that Putney address,’ Murray said. ‘And fast.’





FIFTY-EIGHT


ANNA


I think back to all the action films I’ve seen, in which someone is in a car against their will.

I am not bound and gagged. I’m not bleeding or semi-conscious. In films, they crawl through the back seat and open the boot; kick through the back lights and wave for help. They signal for attention; send Morse code messages with mobile phone flashes.

I am not in a film.

I sit meekly behind my mother as we leave the motorway and make our way through the streets of south west London. We slow at a set of lights, and I contemplate banging on the windows. Screaming. There is a woman in a Fiat 500 in the filter lane to our right. Middle-aged. Sensible-looking. If she calls the police, follows me till they get to us …

But what if she doesn’t? If she doesn’t notice me, or she dismisses my shouts as idiocy, or doesn’t want to be involved? If it doesn’t work, I anger my mother for nothing.

And right now, she’s on the edge. I think back to when I was a child, when I would be able to read the signs and know when I could interrupt to ask if I could play out, or to wheedle extra pocket money, a late pass for a Brighton gig. I would approach slowly, see the pulse throbbing in her temple, and know to leave it till later, when the stresses of the day had retreated and she was relaxing with a glass of wine.

Even though I know the child locks are on, I move my hand slowly to the inside of the door and press the button to open the window. There’s a dull click as the mechanism registers the action and blocks it. In the rearview mirror, my mother looks up.

‘Let us out.’ I try again. ‘You can take this car, and Ella and I will go home …’

‘It’s too late for that.’ Her voice is high. Panicky. ‘They’ve found Tom’s body.’

A shiver runs through me as I think of my father in the septic tank. ‘Why?’ I manage. ‘Why did you do it?’

‘It was an accident!’