The Couple on Cedar Close Read online

  ‘Aside from your husband, what was the first thing you noticed about the scene?’

  ‘His shoes,’ she replies. ‘He was wearing new shoes. I could still see the remains of the labels on the soles where he’d tried to peel them off.’

  ‘So you didn’t notice the blood, Mrs Mills, or that your husband’s throat had been severed? Or the message on the mirror…?’

  Bad Detective’s tone is accusatory, as though somehow this observation about Robert’s shoes makes her guilty. This is when she begins to doubt herself and her recollection of events. Is it possible she really did finally flip and has blanked it all out in a bid to manage the psychological damage? She has read about this kind of thing happening to people who suffer with extreme anxiety and depression before. Happening to other people – that’s what she had thought about fatal car accidents too. But she knows, guiltily, that she has experienced alcoholic blackouts before, times where she has drunk herself into a dark abyss of oblivion in a bid to obliterate the searing agony inside her shattered soul. She wonders if they will find this out. Will they speak to her therapist? Obtain her GP records? Should she just come clean now? Laurie wants to ask the advice of the funny little man sitting next to her who smells faintly of TCP, a smell which reminds her of being in hospital, triggering yet more anxiety, but she thinks this will make her look like she has something to hide so she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to mention the blackouts because of how damning it might look.

  ‘I… I was in total shock. I… How could I possibly have been expected to…? I was hysterical – I couldn’t take it in. I thought it was a sick joke, that Robert was maybe playing some kind of sick joke on me. Or that he was drunk and had fallen over, or that he’d hurt himself, knocked himself out. I – I just wasn’t expecting to see him there, not like that—’

  ‘Of course not – that’s understandable,’ Nice Detective says. He’s on her side, isn’t he? He seems to be.

  The knock on the door startles Laurie and she visibly jumps in her seat. Her heart is racing again, galloping frantically, almost painfully, inside of her chest. She can feel the onset of an anxiety attack; her mouth is as dry as sandpaper and she sips some water. It brings no relief.

  ‘For the benefit of the tape, DS Davis has just entered the room. Interview terminated at…’

  Laurie looks over at the female officer and tries to read her expression as she begins to speak to the good cop in hushed tones.

  ‘Will you excuse me for a moment?’ he says. ‘I think now might be a good time to take a break.’ He glances at Bad Detective who’s still looking at her with a hint of menace and suspicion in his dark eyes as he stands and they all leave her alone with the odd-smelling solicitor. Dread begins to trickle on top of her anxiety and fear; something tells her things are not looking good.

  Fifteen

  Davis’s expression puts me immediately on high alert. Clearly she has news.

  ‘The court order was rushed through… phone records.’

  She hands me a sheet, a list of calls made from Laurie Mills’ phone. I am about to enter the incident room but stop short of the door and read it there. My eyes scan it as Delaney comes up behind me and attempts to look over my shoulder. I know I somehow need to work with this guy so I resist the childish impulse to turn it to such an angle that he can’t see. It’s rude to read over people’s shoulders. And irritating.

  Even if Laurie Mills is a killer, she is a vulnerable one. This may sound like a ridiculous statement but it doesn’t make it untrue. I’ve seen emotionally abused and battered women throughout my career, some of whom have turned on their perpetrators and done them in, usually in a frenzied, spur-of-the moment defensive attack, or simply because they couldn’t take any more and caved the bastard’s head in. It still makes them murderers of course, I’m not disputing this fact, but when you dig deeper, when you listen to the stories these women tell, the years of horrific and unrelenting abuse of their minds, hearts and bodies, and the living hell they’ve endured at the hands of monsters who were supposed to love them then it makes a lot more sense.

  Does it justify what they did? No, not in the eyes of the law, although there have been times when I’ve felt these women had every justification to extinguish such malignant, cruel punishers from their lives and I’ve secretly high-fived them in my head. Human beings have limits, and some of the abused women I have encountered had had theirs pushed beyond the realms of what could be considered human. The law is the law of course, and sadly in these cases it doesn’t always distinguish. But I don’t like abusers. Jesus, who does?

  ‘She’s telling the truth,’ I say, ‘about the calls she made to his phone. And the times add up.’ I scan through the records. The last activity recorded on Laurie Mills’ phone, aside from calling her dead husband’s number, is a text message sent to an as-yet-unidentified number at 3.12 p.m.

  Davis is hovering by the door next to me. She looks a little uncomfortable. The body language between her and Delaney is brittle as she keeps her eyes focused on me. Something is not quite right, and like an animal I sense it.

  ‘That close must be CCTV’d up to the hilt, all that money there. See what the neighbours have got, what the Millses have got, if any. Laurie Mills claims there was some kind of power shortage. Find out if it was just number 13’s electric that tripped out or if the whole street was plunged into darkness. And get hold of anything from yesterday of Laurie at the hairdressers and at the dry-cleaners. See if there’s footage we can recover from the supermarket. We can cross-reference it all. Make sure the timings add up.’

  ‘What about the mistress? Claire someone?’

  Davis nods. ‘Claire Wright. Lives in Luton.’

  ‘We need to get round there,’ I say. ‘You and me, ASAP.’

  Davis nods again.

  Delaney holds his hands up. ‘Shall we just finish this? Can we? Let’s just get this wrapped up. Maybe then we can all go home and’ – he shoots a look at Davis – ‘go to bed.’

  I watch the exchange between them. Davis gives nothing away in her expression, but I think I see a slight bristle. Jesus Christ, have they slept together? I concentrate on the matter at hand and push such an unsavoury thought to the back of my mind. I like Davis – she’s a good copper and I trust her judgement – but if she’s been doing the dirty with Delaney then this puts my whole opinion of her in jeopardy.

  ‘It’s possible someone could’ve already been in the house,’ I say.

  ‘No sign of a break-in though,’ Delaney reminds me. ‘No sign of any intruder. No classic signs of a robbery.’

  ‘She could’ve left the back door open, a window… Someone could’ve walked right into the house either before she blacked out or while she did. It’s not enough to keep her, Martin, let alone present anything to the CPS at this stage and you know it. We need forensics, hard facts, and we need to look into Robert Mills’ life a whole lot more. This is a man with secrets. A man who cheats on his wife, has affairs. I suspect, by looking and listening to Laurie, that he was possibly an abuser.’ I’ve said what I think now and I can see the agreement in Davis’s eyes.

  ‘There’s no evidence of that,’ Delaney says measuredly. ‘The neighbours heard them arguing but he’s got no previous, never been pulled in for DV.’

  ‘Sometimes the bruises are on the inside,’ I snap back, shutting him down. ‘She isn’t lying about timings,’ I continue. ‘She did call her husband when she said she did. We need witnesses. Let’s piece together Laurie Mills’ day yesterday, get the timing down pat.’

  ‘The team are on it, Gov. Sending people down tomorrow to the hairdressers, the dry-cleaners, the supermarket to corroborate—’

  ‘And the witnesses who say she threatened to kill her husband at the barbecue?’ Delaney adds smoothly. ‘What about them?’

  ‘She said something about an accident,’ I address Davis, trying not to think of her and that schmuck Delaney in bed together. I thought she was married? ‘We need to find out about th
is accident. We need to talk to Laurie Mills some more. The clock’s ticking.’

  ‘We can always apply for an extension,’ Delaney says. ‘Wait and see what comes back from forensics.’

  He’s clearly relishing the idea of prolonging Laurie Mills’ agony. Hell, maybe she is the killer. Maybe she did slit her husband’s throat and stab him in a frenzied attack and then slit her own wrists in a bid to end it all. But we need to prove it – we need to make a watertight case before we charge her and we’ve got less than twenty-four hours to do so. If we don’t have enough evidence to charge her and she’s still our prime suspect, then we’ll release her on bail and keep tabs on her. That’s the protocol and Delaney knows it.

  Laurie Mills doesn’t look like the type to abscond. I’d bet my bones she isn’t a danger to anyone, with the exception of herself maybe. Right now, she doesn’t look like she could put one foot in front of the other.

  Harding pops her head round the door just as I’m about to walk through it.

  ‘Gov.’

  ‘Harding—’

  ‘There’s a Monica Lewis downstairs. She’s asking to speak to you. Reckons she was with the suspect around the TOD.’

  I turn to Delaney and I’m unable to prevent a small smile from escaping my lips.

  ‘Well, perhaps we might not need that extension after all.’

  Sixteen

  ‘Oh thank God!’ Monica Lewis stops pacing as I enter the room and for a moment I think she might throw her arms around me. ‘Is she okay? Is Laurie okay? I came as soon as I heard.’ Her face is a picture of concern. She looks like she might have been crying, or is about to. ‘This is just awful. God… just so awful.’

  I nod, extend my hand. She’s still holding her car keys and places them on the table. ‘Detective Riley. Dan Riley.’ She shakes my hand solidly. ‘Please, sit down.’

  ‘I’ve been absolutely frantic,’ she says, ‘out of my mind with worry when I got the call. I was in bed when all the commotion happened. Slept right through it. When I got the call from Laurie I thought I must be dreaming.’ She gives a little absurd laugh. ‘I just… I just can’t believe this has happened. Is she okay? Where’s Laurie? Is she alright?’

  ‘She’s okay. She’s in the interview room, helping us with our enquiries,’ I say calmly in a bid not to alarm her any further.

  ‘But you’ve arrested her?’ She shrieks the words in disbelief, puts her forehead in her hands. ‘You’ve arrested Laurie. You know that’s ridiculous! She’d never harm Robert. God help her, she loved that man more than life itself, even after everything he— Look, she’s not stable, you do know that, don’t you, Detective? Laurie is vulnerable, very vulnerable. I can’t imagine what must be going through her mind right now! Oh God,’ she says again, ‘poor Laurie. She’s had so much tragedy in her life already. This will push her over the edge.’

  ‘She’s just helping us piece everything together at this point.’ I don’t mention the cuts on Laurie’s wrists. Not yet. Let’s see what she has to say first.

  I watch Monica Lewis as she fights back tears, chewing on her bottom lip. I’d say she was around the mid-thirties mark, a similar age to Laurie, possibly a little older, or maybe that’s down to what she’s wearing – a roll-neck jumper and plain leggings, like she’s thrown them on in the dark, which, to be fair to her, she probably has. Her blonde hair is scraped back into a loose low ponytail. I suspect she hasn’t brushed it, and her face is free of make-up. She’s probably just got out of bed.

  ‘How do you know Laurie Mills, Mrs Lewis? It is Mrs, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, adding, ‘I’m a widow,’ by way of explanation. ‘My husband, Dougie. He died suddenly of a heart attack last year. He wasn’t even forty years old.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say genuinely. This job is a constant reminder to me that I’m not the only one who has lost someone so young in tragic circumstances. Yet somehow it still doesn’t make it any easier.

  ‘We… well, just me now, live directly opposite the Millses. I’ve known Laurie since I was a teenager and Robert, well’ – she pauses, as if thinking – ‘most of my life. We’re like sisters, Laurie and I. After the accident she moved opposite to be close to me, so I could help look after her. She doesn’t really have any family, no one close anyway. She’s practically a recluse. We’re like sisters…’ Monica repeats. Tears well up in her eyes. I push a box of tissues towards her across the table but she doesn’t take one.

  ‘What she’s had to endure, what she’s been through, and now this! She’s a shell of who she used to be because of Robert and what he did. I wish I’d never introduced them to one another.’

  ‘The affair you mean?’

  ‘Oh God, and the rest of it.’ She shakes her head as if this is the tip of the iceberg. ‘What happened, Detective? What happened to Robert? Laurie said that he was dead. That he’d been murdered. Is… is that true? Has Robert been murdered?’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid he has. I can’t give too many details at this point, Mrs Lewis, other than to tell you that Robert Mills was, we believe, killed sometime between 8 and 10 p.m. last night.’

  Monica Lewis gasps and says something incoherent. Then she starts to cry. She says what feels like a hundred ‘oh Gods’.

  ‘There’s press swarming the entire close you know.’ She sniffs, wiping away tears with her fingertips. ‘It was mayhem down there when I left, reporters everywhere.’

  I’m reminded of Fi. I need to call her. I’m surprised she hasn’t been on the phone fishing for info already to be honest and this makes me feel bad. Perhaps she feels as awkward as I do.

  ‘I don’t advise you to talk to the press, Mrs Lewis, but of course it is your prerogative to do so if you wish. You said Mrs Mills – Laurie – doesn’t like to go out much?’

  ‘Yes, she’s practically agoraphobic. It’s part of her condition I think.’

  ‘Her condition?’

  Monica shakes her head again and sighs. ‘Depression. Severe depression. She suffers from PTSD, that’s post-traumatic str—’

  ‘I know what it is,’ I cut her off gently and she smiles apologetically.

  ‘Yes, of course. It was after the barbecue, the annual summer street barbecue, that’s when it started up again, after she found out— Well, like I said, I really felt for her and all she’d been through.’

  ‘What did you find out?’

  I keep my questions open. Fi told me it’s one of the first rules of good journalism to always ask an open question. It keeps people talking.

  ‘Well he was still cheating on her, wasn’t he? Had been for years, only she was completely unaware of it for a long time. Unaware that Robert had been leading a double, maybe even treble life. Who knows how many others there were—’

  ‘When did she find out about his infidelity, Monica?’ I start making notes.

  ‘Last year. She discovered a second phone, saw some messages… some woman he’d met at a studio he worked at, apparently – Robert’s a photographer. She was the receptionist or something… I mean, Laurie is an intelligent woman, Detective. She once had a good career you know, in interior design. She’s very talented. Used to do up famous people’s houses and everything. He stole that from her too,’ she says, sighing. ‘Then he threw her, and their marriage, overboard, for some nobody, some overweight little tart with—’

  ‘Right,’ I interrupt her. She’s heading off-track. There’s a reason she’s here and I need her to tell me what that reason is.

  ‘She was pregnant at the time,’ she says, ‘when she found out about the affair I mean – Laurie was pregnant.’

  Surprise must register on my face because she says, ‘Oh, she hasn’t told you about the twins?’

  ‘Twins? No,’ I say. ‘She’s hasn’t mentioned them. Not yet.’

  Her left eyebrow arches ever so slightly. ‘Well,’ she says, almost bristling, ‘Laurie was eight months pregnant with twins when she found out about Robert’s secret life. She was happier than she’d e
ver been before, suspected nothing. She was looking forward to becoming a mother, and then she discovered the truth about the affair.’

  ‘What happened to the twins?’ Laurie hasn’t mentioned any children and there were no children at the address.

  Monica’s face registers surprise this time. ‘Jesus, she hasn’t told you anything, has she? Well, the day she found out about Robert’s double life with this Claire woman, she was beyond distraught, as you can imagine. I mean, beside-herself distraught, as any wife would be, but she was heavily pregnant on top of it, you know, full of hormones, emotional, and the lies, the betrayal, such terrible, terrible deceit… well, her life fell apart in that moment – she fell apart, basically.’ Monica’s voice is loaded with gravitas. ‘She’d been driving down to where he was working when it happened, to confront him about the affair.’

  ‘When what happened?’

  ‘The accident,’ Monica says, as though I should already know this. ‘She was driving down the M25 in a terrible state, crying, hysterical, hormonal, heavily pregnant… in total despair and devastation – that’s how she described it anyway. She wasn’t concentrating properly, couldn’t see through the crying, driving a little faster than usual. I think she said it was raining too. Anyway, she clipped another car as she changed lanes, or something like that – I forget the exact details now – but anyway, she lost control and careened off the motorway, went straight through the barriers and rolled the car at around 75 miles an hour. Total write-off. It took them nearly six hours to pull her out of the wreck. She was barely alive when they finally got her free.’ Monica looks away, as if it’s too painful for her to recount the details. ‘She suffered such atrocious injuries: a collapsed lung, broken ribs, a shattered collarbone, internal bleeding and God, I can’t even remember what else now… A catalogue of horrific injuries; she’s only just functioning again now really. It was a miracle that she came out of it alive.’