Kind of Cruel (31 page)

‘No. If I had, I’d have told Simon. I saw nothing.’

She looks like someone who did not set fire to my house. I never thought she did, so there’s no mental adjustment to make.

‘I was the only person on the street when I posted that envelope. Did the fire destroy it?’

‘No. I was awake. When I heard the fire, I was upstairs reading the notes.’

‘You
heard
the fire?’

I nod. It bothers me that I can’t describe the sound, apart from inaccurately.

‘How long after?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe three quarters of an hour. I’d skimmed through the Katharine Allen notes twice before I went to look, but I don’t know how long the fire had being going before I noticed it. Whoever did it could have got there ten minutes after you left.’

‘Or before I arrived. If you were going to set fire to a house, would you do it straight away, soon as you got there? Or would you take your time, get your bearings first?’

‘I’d get it over with and get myself out of there as quickly as I could.’ I can see that she disagrees with me. ‘You’d linger?’

‘I’d want to familiarise myself with my surroundings. Unless I already knew them by heart.’

My legs shake. I lean my hands on the table to steady myself.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she says.

Why don’t I? Why am I kidding myself that I can nip in here, grab an easy answer and run to the police station with it, waving it in the air like a football scarf?
Yes, when I was outside your house last night, I saw a man who looked as if he might be called Neil loitering in the bushes with a box of matches in his hand
. She was never going to say that; I was stupid to hope she would.

My suspecting Neil makes no sense, not even to me. When I think about him in isolation, I know that he’d never set fire to anything, especially not a house with two children in it. It’s only when I think about Jo that I start to wonder about Neil. Jo wouldn’t do her dirty work herself if she didn’t have to.

‘Whoever started the fire could have been there when I was,’ Charlie says. ‘Could have watched me post that envelope through your letterbox.’

‘Maybe you saw something you don’t remember seeing,’ I say, aware of how unlike myself I sound. If I had photographs of Jo and Neil on me now, would I show them to her, hoping to jog her memory? I like to think I wouldn’t.

I wish I still had the luxury of being able to laugh at the idea of recovering buried memories.

First thing this morning I phoned Ginny Saxon and booked myself in for tomorrow, ten until one: three hours, without a break. Two hundred and ten pounds, plus the seventy I owe her from Tuesday’s aborted session. She was resistant to the idea of spending more than an hour with me, until I explained that the urgency had more to do with murder and arson and less to do with me being a spoiled brat who can’t manage on her hour-a-week ration like everyone else.

Kind, Cruel, Kind of Cruel
. The memory of seeing those words is in me somewhere. It’s only partially buried; I can see that piece of paper, the capital Ks and Cs . . .

‘Are you . . . have you moved out?’ Charlie asks.

‘Temporarily.’

‘Where to?’

My chest fills with something solid. It’s difficult to speak when there’s so much you’re trying not to say. ‘Extended family.’
It could be worse. You could be at Jo’s
. ‘I need to ask you a very big favour,’ I blurt out. No point pretending it’s trivial. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever asked anyone to do for me.

And you’re asking a stranger. Good plan.

‘Why me?’ Charlie Zailer asks. ‘You hardly know me.’

I want to tell her that knowing people in the conventional sense means nothing. I know Luke, but I can’t tell him about the worst thing I’ve ever done. I knew Sharon; I couldn’t tell her either. I know Neil – we even share a fear of Jo – but I don’t know if he’s an ally or an enemy; I don’t know if Veronique Coudert lied to us both about Little Orchard, or if Neil lied to me.

I’m pleased that Charlie asked
Why me?
instead of telling me how busy she is, how little she wants to get involved in my problems.

‘Why did you give me the Katharine Allen notes after telling me you couldn’t?’

She grins at the mention of her misdemeanour. ‘I was pissed off with Simon. He took my notebook into work, the one you saw – waved it around in front of all his colleagues. I asked him not to, but he didn’t listen. He never does. Ah, now I see why I’ve been chosen for the very big favour. You think you’ve got leverage. Any time you like, you can tell Simon I gave you those copied files.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’ I’m about to ask how she can think that I would. I stop myself in time. It’s not the sort of question you can ask someone you’ve met three times.

‘Make sure you don’t,’ she says. ‘I want to use it myself at some point, to score a shock-point in an argument about who’s better at screwing who over. What’s the favour?’

I’m going to need to sit down for this. I choose the chair that looks least filthy.

‘There’s a house in Surrey called Little Orchard, a holiday let. I stayed there once, in 2003 . . .’

She holds up a hand. ‘I know I said take as long as you want, but if we’re starting seven years ago . . .’

‘The background’s not important,’ I tell her. ‘I want to book to stay there again. The house is advertised on a website called My Home For Hire. I emailed the owner last night. She said she wasn’t renting the house out any more, but she was lying. She just doesn’t want to let it to me, but . . . I need to go there again.’ I’m trying to read the expression on Charlie’s face. I’m hoping it’s not disbelief.

‘You want me to book it for you, under my name?’

I nod. ‘I’ll pay. It won’t cost you anything.’

‘I’m not encouraging you to do this, but, in theory . . . Couldn’t you just book it using a made-up name?’

‘Wouldn’t work,’ I say. ‘At some point, money’s going to have to change hands. Paying cash’d look too suspicious. I’d need a real bank account in a name that isn’t mine, and . . . I don’t have one.’

‘So you thought of mine?’ Charlie laughs. ‘You’re unbelievable.’

‘All you need to do is transfer the money I’ll have given you, make the arrangements for picking up the keys, find out any alarm codes . . .’

‘Amber, stop. Even if I had time to drive back and forth to Surrey . . .’

‘You won’t have to. I’ve never met Veronique Coudert . . .’

‘Who?’

‘The owner. I’ve never met her. She doesn’t know what I look like. I’ll pick up the keys, pretending to be Charlie Zailer. None of it should put you out hardly at all.’

‘And yet you described it as a very big favour.’

‘It’s . . . conceptually big,’ I say. ‘In practical terms, it’s next to nothing.’

‘I see. Conceptually huge because overwhelmingly bad and wrong, but I won’t have to burn off too many calories.’ She shakes her head. ‘And the owner, this Coudert person, will agree to let the house to me because . . . I haven’t been blacklisted?’

I can’t bring myself to contradict her.

‘Which means you have. Why?’

‘I honestly have no idea,’ I tell her.

‘Can I be equally honest with you?’ She sticks her little finger into the opening of her 7UP can and tries to lift it off the table. It falls back down with a thud. ‘If you were asking this favour of your best friend, it’d be inappropriate, but for you to ask me, a police officer . . .’

‘My best friend is dead. She was murdered,’ I snap. ‘Someone set fire to her house two years ago.’

Charlie nods. ‘Simon told me. You must know plenty of people, Amber. Why are you asking me to do this? Why not Simon? What time are you seeing him?’ She looks at her watch. I hate her for how much she knows, how much power she has when I have so little.

‘Why . . .’ I have to stop to clear my throat. ‘Why would I ask Simon? He’s . . . This isn’t . . .’ My inability to produce an intelligible sequence of words frightens me. Last night, for the first time since my insomnia began, I had no sleep at all.

‘It’s got nothing to do with Katharine Allen’s death,’ I tell Charlie.

‘Hasn’t it?’

‘No.’

It’s true. I don’t know that Jo has done anything wrong, or that Neil has. I don’t know that there’s any connection between them and Little Orchard beyond their having stayed there once. I don’t know that they hid anything in the locked study, or know what’s hidden there. Maybe nothing is. Hidden and private are two different things.

‘You’re going to tell Simon about this conversation, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. He’s my husband, and we both work for the police. If you thought you’d be able to persuade me to do your very big favour and keep it from him . . .’

‘What about last night? The notes you gave me – you’re happy to keep that from him.’ Is she right? Have I been thinking of it as leverage? Tiredness is like a fog that has settled on my brain and obscured everything; I can no longer negotiate my way around safely. I have no idea what I’m doing, thinking or feeling.

‘I
was
happy to keep it from him,’ Charlie says. ‘Now I’m thinking I’d better come clean about that too.’ She sighs. ‘Look, Amber, I was an idiot last night, and you’re being one now. I know you haven’t killed anybody. I’m as convinced of that as Simon is, but if you want to know what I really think . . .’

I don’t. I never said I did.

She takes my silence as a sign that she should go on. ‘Your wanting to book this Little Orchard place again is connected. To your friend’s death, to Katharine Allen, to the fire last night. I don’t know what the connection is. I don’t think you’re sure either. If you were you’d go to Simon, if you could guarantee you wouldn’t end up looking stupid. I’m not him, but I’m connected to him. Whether you realise it or not, that’s why you asked me. That and my track record for preposterous behaviour, for which I take full responsibility.’

She’s smiling at me. I’m in no mood to be smiled at.

‘Take it straight to Simon,’ she says. ‘I know it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the best advice I can give you.’

I don’t like taking advice. I am not good at switching off my own instincts, forcing myself to tune into someone else’s. I know how wrong I can be. A hunch tells me that Charlie Zailer’s judgement is less reliable than mine. I don’t recognise myself in too many of the statements I hear her make about me. She told me I’d have approached Simon and not her if I was sure Little Orchard was connected to Katharine Allen’s death, if I could guarantee I wouldn’t look stupid.

Not true. Apart from Luke, Dinah and Nonie, I don’t care what people think of me. If I mention to Simon a possible connection between Little Orchard and Katharine Allen’s murder, I know what his next move will be. He would have no trouble getting into the locked study; if you’re police and you’re investigating a murder, you’re allowed to break down the door.

Whatever’s in that room, I want to see it before he does.

Why? Because you think you’ll find out something about Jo and Neil? Because Neil is Luke’s brother, and if he might have killed someone . . .

How can you even think it?

Neil has done nothing. Lack of sleep is turning me insane.

I haven’t told Simon because there is no solid reason to think there’s any link between Little Orchard and any murder, Katharine Allen’s or Sharon’s. A connection in my mind isn’t the same thing as a connection in the real world.

He will find out anyway, as soon as he gets home tonight, probably. Let Charlie tell him; my throat is already raw and inflamed on one side from talking too much. I wonder if I’m getting ill. When I do, this is where I always feel it first: up near my tonsils.

If he’s going to find out tonight, that gives me only this afternoon to do . . . what? I don’t know how serious I am. Not serious enough to put into words what I might do.

I rub my neck as Simon looks over what he’s written, checking he’s got it all down. ‘Are you going to have to tell anyone about the DriveTech course?’ I ask him.

‘I ought to. But . . . as long as I bear it in mind as we go along, I should be able to get away with keeping it to myself. I can’t make you any promises, though. Sorry.’ He looks up at me expectantly. ‘Are you good for another half hour or so? I’ve got a few more questions.’