The Couple on Cedar Close Read online

  The duty solicitor should be on their way now, surely? They told her they would come and get her when the solicitor arrived and that she would be interviewed and assessed by a doctor. She has never had to use a solicitor before, not unless she includes the one she and Robert used when they bought the house. She thinks of her house then. How will she ever be able to go back there, to the place Robert died, where she found him lying in a pool of his own blood, his throat severed almost in two?

  Panic returns again as the image of his body flashes up in her mind. Suddenly Laurie remembers the phone call. They allow you one, just like on the telly. She had thought of calling her mother, as a child does when they’re in trouble. But her mother lives in California, the time difference makes things difficult and there wouldn’t be much she could do from there except make a fuss. So she had called Monica instead, her best friend. Monica would know what to do. She always did.

  The sound of the iron door opening startles Laurie back to the present and she bolts upright.

  ‘Laurie Mills?’ a uniformed man with a gruff voice addresses her.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘They’re ready to see you now.’

  Twelve

  Kiki – 1986

  ‘Stop it, Bertie, you’re hurting me.’ Kiki’s half-laughing as she says it, although it’s true, he is hurting her. Sometimes she thinks he doesn’t know his own strength and at other times she thinks he hurts her deliberately.

  ‘Wuss,’ he says, dropping her wrist. ‘Oh, come on, don’t tell me those are tears I see?’

  ‘No!’ she says, spinning round, putting her back to him so he can’t see her face and the fact that she’s welling up. Bertie has a habit of making her feel opposing emotions in quick succession, sometimes even simultaneously: happiness, sadness, laughter, tears, pleasure, pain… but that’s what made spending time with him so thrilling and exciting.

  ‘Ah, c’mon, Ki, I was only playing. I’ve been giving you Chinese burns since you were two years old.’

  ‘It’s called child abuse,’ she replies, flashing him an ironic smile. It’s something they both know about. ‘So, did they get you the car?’

  His face reveals the answer. ‘Look out of the window.’

  Bertie grins as she opens the curtains and peers out, rubbing away the condensation to get a better look at the shiny red Ford Escort.

  ‘You lucky sod!’ Kiki breathes, making more condensation on the windowpane. ‘That’s brand fucking new!’

  ‘Wanna go for a spin in her?’

  ‘Do I!’ Her excitement wanes almost instantly. ‘But Mum will never let me go out in it with you though. That would be too much like having a good time, even on Christmas morning – in fact especially on Christmas morning, when I should be on my hands and knees praying for my sins and singing happy-bastard-fucking-birthday to Jesus Christ.’

  He laughs. ‘I love the fire in you, Kiki. One day, we’ll be away from here, from them. One day soon, I promise. I’m going to study hard and get a job, get us the fuck out of this mental institution they call a home.’

  She looks at him lovingly. ‘You will? You promise? I think I’ll go mad if I have to stay here without you. I couldn’t bear it if you left me here alone with them. I’d rather be dead.’

  Bertie stares at Kiki, suddenly struck by how much she has grown recently, how tall she’s getting, how she’s turning into a woman. His eyes travel the length of her as she stands awkwardly in front of him, somehow uncomfortable in her own skin yet defiant at the same time. She has done a good job of hiding her emotional scars, he thinks, but the ones on her arms, where she cuts herself, are just visible beneath the cuff of her nightshirt.

  ‘Fuck her and him. Anyway she’s downstairs prepping the spuds and Brussels sprouts you spent last night peeling, no doubt already been at the brandy. I’ll sneak you in the boot.’

  ‘No you bloody won’t! I’m not getting in the boot. I’m claustro-whatsit called?’

  ‘Claustrophobic. Santa Claus-trophobic.’

  ‘Ha ha, idiot. I’ll get dressed.’ She turns round and pulls her nightshirt up over her head. ‘No looking!’ But she knows that he will, and secretly she wants him to.

  ‘Wrap up though, because baby, it’s cold outside.’ He breaks into song and she starts to laugh. He has a good voice but she doesn’t want to tell him that. His head is big enough already.

  ‘Looks like Santa forgot about me again this year.’ Kiki looks down at the end of the bed and sighs. ‘A hand-engraved Bible again, oh and extra piano lessons. Thank you, Mummy; thank you, Daddy.’ She mimics a sickly, childlike voice.

  He watches her as she pulls a sweater on over some jeans. ‘What would you have really liked for Christmas then?’

  Kiki taps her lip. ‘Hmmm, roller skates, some Giorgio Beverly Hills perfume and a Madonna album…’

  In fact, a bra is what she had truly hoped for. Her breasts were visible now beneath her clothes. All the girls at school wore them. Except for her, of course, and she’d not got the courage to ask her drunken old bitch of a mother – it wasn’t worth the aggro and lecture on sins of the flesh that would inevitably follow. ‘Anything but a bloody Bible. I mean, how come you get a car and I get a Bible? How it that fair?’

  ‘Because I’m old enough to drive. I’m sure they’ll get you a car too when you’re old enough.’

  But they both know he’s saying that just to make her feel better.

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Kiki pulls her jeans up over her slim legs.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ he says.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I have a surprise for you.’

  She giggles. ‘What is it?’

  ‘If I tell you it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it, dopey?’

  She complies, squeezing her eyes shut.

  ‘No cheating,’ he says, placing a wrapped package in her hands. ‘Happy Christmas, Kiki. Santa may have forgotten you, but I never will.’

  She opens her eyes and stares at the wrapped present for a few seconds before tearing it open with excitement. Inside is a plain, simple white bra with the tiniest yellow flowers on it. For a second she thinks she might burst into tears.

  ‘You can try it on if you like. I promise not to peek. Scout’s honour.’ He crosses his fingers and they both laugh.

  Almost tearing her sweater off in haste, she turns her back to him and puts the bra on, savouring the soft cotton fabric and the way it makes her feel.

  ‘Let’s see if it fits you,’ he says and she turns to face him, her cheeks burning; love, embarrassment and warmth spread through her adolescent body. ‘I love it,’ he says softly.

  ‘I love you, Bertie,’ she replies. ‘It’s the best Christmas present ever.’ Kiki hugs him then, wraps her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek. She feels his hands on her back, the tips of his fingers lightly touching her skin, gently running over the soft cotton fabric.

  ‘How about that ride then?’ she says. ‘Take your new toy for a spin—’

  But he pulls back from her and she senses the change in his mood instantly. ‘Another time,’ he says sharply. ‘I said I’d take Becky from up the road in it first anyway. Best you get dressed and get downstairs before it becomes a Christmas to remember for all the wrong reasons.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says, feeling crushed as he shuts the door behind him.

  Thirteen

  If Delaney were the kind of copper worth his boots, one who was able to read people better, then it would be clear to him, like it is to me, that Laurie Mills is in an emotionally fragile condition right now and the best way forward is to treat her with extreme caution. Despite getting the all-clear from the doctor, she has ‘suicide case’ written through her like a stick of Blackpool rock. Instead, however, Delaney appears to be taking the bull-in-a-china-shop approach, or perhaps bully would be more appropriate.

  ‘For the benefit of the tape, today’s date is Saturday, 14 October 2017. Myself, DS Martin Delaney, and DI Daniel Riley are both present, as is Da
vid Michaels, duty solicitor. Could you please clearly state your name, address and date of birth?’ He addresses Laurie coldly, with an air of superiority.

  Laurie Mills looks at him, then me, nervously. Then she turns to Michaels. I think I know Michaels. We’ve met once before. If I remember correctly his looks are quite deceiving. He’s a weasel-faced man with particularly bad taste in suits – today he has opted for a grey shiny number circa 1985 and a purple tie – like he’s just stepped out of some dubious 80s nightclub with a name like ‘Bon Bonnies’. But actually, he was one of the more astute duties I’ve come across, and he seems to actually care about his clients. I’m secretly glad he’s here for Laurie Mills today. Right now, she looks like a rabbit caught in headlights and I feel a pang of empathy for her. I know, I know – I just can’t help it.

  ‘Yes… um… my name is Laurie Ann Mills, my address is 13 Cedar Close, London N21…’ She rubs her temples with her thumb and forefinger. ‘Oh God, my mind’s gone blank… er, 6GX… yes, 6GX. My date of birth is 21 July 1979.’ Her voice is shaky, almost a warble. She’s panicking, of course. Most people do when they find themselves arrested for suspected murder.

  I nod at the cup of water on the table in front of her and she reaches for it as though she has been waiting for permission to take a sip.

  ‘For the benefit of the tape once more,’ Delaney says, ‘I have to caution you again, okay. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  Laurie nods.

  ‘Do you understand why you’re here, Mrs Mills?’ Delaney is seated next to me now. I can smell his aftershave. It’s a little overbearing, a bit like him.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, wringing her hands as she chews her bottom lip. ‘Yes, you think I killed Robert. You think I killed my husband.’

  I stay silent and observe, let Delaney work what he believes to be his magic first.

  ‘According to Constable Rawlins, who accompanied you from your home address to the station, you said, when asked if you killed Robert Mills, that you didn’t know. That you didn’t remember. Is that correct?’

  Michaels whispers something in her ear and Laurie’s expression doesn’t change, like she hasn’t heard him.

  ‘No. No, I don’t remember,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I killed him.’

  I see Michaels visibly flinch.

  ‘You don’t think?’ Delaney says. ‘Well, you need to think, Mrs Mills. Your husband is dead. Someone slit his throat with a knife and watched the blood drain from him, then they stabbed him a total of eighteen times, even going as far as writing him a final farewell on the mirror in your guest bedroom. Were those your parting words to your husband, Mrs Mills? We know he was having an affair and that he fathered a child with his mistress. That’s correct, isn’t it?’

  Laurie Mills almost melts in her chair, like the Wicked Witch of the West who’s just had a bucket of water thrown over her.

  ‘He was stabbed? Stabbed?’ She looks genuinely surprised by this information. I watch her expression carefully.

  ‘Yes, eighteen times in the chest and stomach.’

  Her eyes widen. ‘Oh God…’ She buries her face in her hands. ‘Stabbed—’

  ‘Is it possible, Mrs Mills,’ Delaney continues apace, ‘that you killed your husband in a fit of jealous rage? You recently found out about the child, didn’t you? The fact your husband had fathered his mistress’s child. Did it push you over the edge? Your husband was coming over that night to serve you with divorce papers, wasn’t he?’

  I think I see another flicker of surprise, or perhaps it’s shock, on her face as she finally looks up. She’s shaking her head.

  ‘No… No…’ She’s crying. ‘I don’t remember… I blacked out… I… I… fell asleep. I must’ve… I was waiting for him… The beef Wellington… He… he didn’t come…’ Her face is screwed up with anguish and emotion. Delaney is pushing her too hard too quickly and I don’t like it. She obviously can’t think straight and thinking straight is what I need Laurie Mills to do right now.

  ‘It’s okay, Laurie,’ I say before Delaney can go at her again. ‘Just tell us what you do remember.’

  Delaney gives me a sharp sideways glance and I pretend not to have noticed it. Prick. ‘Tell us, from the beginning, everything you remember about that day, about yesterday. Start from when you woke up in the morning until the moment you discovered your husband in the bathroom. Take your time, Laurie. As much detail as you can.’ I nod at her reassuringly and keep my voice low and calm, the antithesis of Delaney, who is leaning forward on the table, chomping at the bit like a lion circling a wounded antelope.

  Laurie hugs herself as she sits in the chair. She’s so tiny she can almost wrap her arms around her entire frame. I study her closely. She’s a pretty woman, despite the puffiness of her eyes and the redness of her skin from crying. Perhaps she’s even beautiful, and I’m suddenly reminded of the photographs, the black-and-white artistic nude shots that were hanging on the wall in the guest bedroom where Robert Mills was found.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say again. ‘Whenever you’re ready. You’ve faced a terrible shock and I know this must be difficult for you.’

  Her big brown eyes look up at me, grateful. I see something in them that I have recognised in my own many times before: grief and pain.

  She takes an intake of breath, blinks back the tears. ‘I went shopping,’ she says. ‘Robert… well, he… he was due to come over, to come to the house. He said he wanted to talk. He sent me a message in the morning, that morning, asking if he could come to the house.’

  Her phone is with forensics and they should be back to us with something very soon to corroborate this.

  ‘Do you know what he wanted to talk to you about, Laurie?’ I’m being gentle with her, trying to coax her into opening up. I don’t want to let Delaney loose on her. Not yet anyway. I want the measure of her first. If he’s not careful with her, I suspect Mrs Mills here will clam up like a shell.

  ‘No… he just said he needed to talk. I hadn’t seen him in a while—’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A few weeks, maybe a couple of months… Not since the…’ She stalls, looks at me. ‘Not since the day of the barbecue.’

  ‘Ahh yes,’ Delaney chips in. ‘The street barbecue. We spoke to some of your neighbours. There was an altercation that day, wasn’t there, between you and your husband? Back in’ – he looks down at his notes – ‘early August, 10 August.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replies quietly, dropping her chin. ‘There was.’

  ‘You threatened to kill him, your husband, at the barbecue, is that right? In front of your neighbours and friends?’

  She makes to speak but Michaels stops her, talks quietly in her ear again.

  ‘We’ll get to the barbecue,’ I say. ‘Keep telling us about yesterday, Laurie. Robert texted you and told you he was coming over to the house to see you. What time was that?’

  ‘He texted me in the morning, around 9.30 a.m. I think,’ she replies, her voice just above a whisper, hoarse from crying. ‘When he said he wanted to talk, wanted to come to the house I hoped… well, part of me hoped he was coming to…’ She stops. ‘He said he’d be over around 7.30 p.m. I decided to make him a meal. We usually ate around that time, when we were together.’

  ‘He agreed to come to dinner?’

  She shifts in her seat, looks agitated. ‘No, not exactly. I just decided I would make him dinner – surprise him, I suppose. I went to the hairdressers—’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘About 1.30 p.m. Then I picked up my dress from the dry-cleaners.’

  ‘The dress you were wearing last night?’ We’ll hear back from forensics about that soon, too.

  ‘Yes. It was Robert’s favourite. Well, he always said he liked it on me…’ Her voice dissipates into sadness and she tries to smile, though it looks more like a lid on a scre
am.

  ‘Go on, Laurie. You went to the hairdressers, picked up your dress from the dry-cleaners. Then where did you go?’

  ‘Home, I think… Yes, I went home. Hung the dress up. I… I pottered around the house for a bit…’ Laurie screws her eyes tightly together as if this will somehow make her thoughts clearer.

  ‘My friend, she popped in to see me.’

  ‘Your friend?’

  ‘Yes, my friend Monica. Monica Lewis. She lives opposite me.’

  ‘What time was this, Laurie?’

  She exhales, her agitation returning.

  ‘Come on, Mrs Mills, think!’ Delaney butts in and I imagine what a good-cop bad-cop cliché we must be coming across as. I don’t think there can be any ambiguity over who is who. I can see she’s struggling, poor woman, that even the smallest amount of pressure is causing her distress. Like I said, Delaney is handling her all wrong.

  ‘I… I don’t know… Maybe 3 p.m. – 3.30 p.m.? I didn’t look at the time…’

  We’ll need to get the neighbour in, this Monica Lewis, get her to corroborate Laurie’s story. I write her name down on the notepad in front of me and suddenly think about that American woman, Monica Lewinsky. ‘That woman’ who led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment and the speech he gave where he lied to his country on public television, claiming that he’d never had ‘sexual relations’ with her. He was convincing though; I’ll give him that.

  ‘We had coffee I think, chatted a bit. Then she left and I went to the supermarket to buy the groceries for dinner, for Robert.’ Laurie’s faces crumples a little as she says his name.

  ‘Which supermarket?’ Delaney snaps.

  ‘Waitrose, the one just off the high street.’

  ‘What did you buy?’

  ‘Look, is this relevant?’ Michaels chips in. ‘Mrs Mills’ shopping list bears no relevance to her husband’s death, does it?’

  ‘I was going to… I did make him scallops in their shells with a beurre blanc sauce and beef Wellington. He… Robert, loved my cooking.’