After You Die (16 page)

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’ His brow furrowed. ‘Dawn was still having people around – she invited me over a few times – but Holly never came down for any of it.’

‘What people?’ Ferreira asked.

‘Dawn’s friends. Julia and Matthew from the village, their kids. Some other women she knew.’

‘Matthew and Dawn, how close were they?’

‘Were they having an affair, do you mean?’

Ferreira nodded, seeing that the idea didn’t shock him, was maybe something he’d asked himself already and was now considering more deeply, new significance brought to the question by Dawn’s murder.

His mouth twisted before he spoke, another weighing-up. ‘Look, sometimes I heard bedroom noise from Dawn’s side but I couldn’t tell you who was making it. She didn’t scream his name or anything. Not that I heard.’

‘Did you ever see him go round there?” Ferreira asked. ‘On his own?’

Gibson nodded. ‘He stopped by pretty often actually. I figured he was going in to see Holly, him being a teacher. She wasn’t back at school yet. I don’t think she wanted to go back, to be honest.’

‘How often are we talking?’

‘Once a week maybe. Early evening. I suppose he was stopping on his way home from work. I haven’t seen him for few months, though.’

For someone who insisted he barely noticed his neighbour’s movements he seemed to have seen plenty.

‘What about Holly’s dad?’ Zigic asked. ‘Was he a regular visitor?’

‘Not lately.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘A few weeks ago, I guess.’ Gibson rubbed his bare arm, fine hairs rising across his skin. ‘He might have been back since but I didn’t see him. They – it sounded like they were arguing.’

Zigic cocked his head. ‘What about?’

‘I heard Dawn shout something about him going around there but that’s all I know.’ Gibson shrank in his chair, discomfort growing. ‘I wondered if she was annoyed with him not seeing Holly very often. Holly was depressed, anyone could see that. I suppose maybe Dawn needed him to be more involved. It was a lot to deal with at her age.’ He shifted where he sat. ‘I mentioned it to Dawn …’

‘And she wasn’t happy about that?’

‘I wasn’t rude. I just asked if there was anything I could do. She flew for me. I mean, she went ballistic. I don’t have kids, who am I to question her parenting. That kind of thing.’ He looked uncomfortable just relating it. ‘That’s the last time I talked to her.’

The school where Matthew Campbell taught was a short drive from Thorpe Wood station, set among large houses all gated and watched over by security cameras. It was hidden away at the bottom of a long, tree-lined driveway which took them past caged tennis courts and sports fields bigger than any other school in the city could boast.

‘How the other seven per cent learn, hey?’ Ferreira said, as she pulled into a space outside the main building.

Zigic murmured agreement, thinking it best not to mention that this was one of the schools Anna was eyeing up for their daughter. Another conversation he was trying to avoid having, another set of numbers to be crunched. The fees were exorbitant but she was confident her mother would contribute. Meaning the deal was already done. Grandma Jacqueline thought it was important to educate girls properly. Not well. Just properly. Like she’d been.

There were a few other vehicles in the parking area, teachers’ cars, not parents’, judging by the makes and number plates. Almost five now and the students were long gone, except for a few boarders sitting out under a cypress tree with their books across their knees, too much laughter for them to be working.

It was a beautiful setting. Zigic imagined his daughter growing up in this environment and wondered if it would spoil her, decided it might but he wouldn’t mind that, not when he considered the alternative.

Then he thought of Milan and Stefan and how they’d never have this advantage and felt a stab of annoyance for Anna’s mother, using her money to divide his children.

Ferreira walked on ahead of him, towards the grand old Victorian house which served as the main building. She stopped a maintenance man carrying a stepladder and asked where they could find Matthew Campbell.

The man gestured away towards a converted coach house and they followed his directions, accompanied by the decreasing scales of someone practising clarinet in a nearby music room, no bum notes, but no fluidity either.

‘What does he teach?’ Zigic asked.

‘What they all teach here – baseless superiority and oppressing the masses.’

Zigic smiled. ‘You old commie.’

‘Come the revolution …’

‘You’ll be standing at the barricade protecting them from those masses,’ he said. ‘You already are.’

Her turn to smile. ‘And
I’m
the communist.’

There were two classrooms in the coach house, whitewashed and wooden floored, smaller than the rooms Zigic had been taught in, containing enough desks for a dozen pupils at most, but they were cavernous spaces, open to the eaves. One was empty, the other not and Matthew Campbell looked up from a stack of marking as they entered.

‘Can I help you?’

Zigic made the introductions and Matthew’s irritation gave way to discomfort. He shifted in his seat, put down the pen he was holding and picked it up again, saw his fingers tighten around it and put it aside once more.

He was a nondescript sort of man, lean and pale, greying brown hair receding from a hangdog face dominated by heavy-framed black glasses. He wore a shadow of stubble that probably hadn’t been there when he arrived for work in the morning and sideburns too extravagant for his age.

As they settled on the desks in front of him he straightened the green knit tie which had been hanging loose at his neck, but forgot the unfastened collar button. Neither of them spoke. He looked between them, wet his lips.

‘You’re here about Nathan.’

‘No,’ Zigic said, before Ferreira could reply. ‘We’d like to talk to you about Dawn and Holly.’

‘But Nathan’s run away,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think that might be significant?’

‘We’re more interested in your relationship with them.’

‘Dawn and my wife were very good friends.’

‘What about you and Dawn?’ Ferreira asked, the desk creaking as she crossed her legs. ‘Very good friends too?’

Matthew aimed a vaguely disgusted look at her. ‘What are you insinuating?’

‘It’s a perfectly reasonable question.’

‘We were friends. Men and women can have platonic relationships, you know?’

Zigic was expecting him to get defensive but not so quickly. If he was trying to look innocent he’d done a bad job of it. But he seemed the nervy type and most teachers Zigic had come across hated having their authority or probity questioned, especially by adults they couldn’t shout down or put in detention. Maybe Ferreira was a little bit too similar to the girls he taught as well; too much cheek by half.

He’d let her take this.

‘When did you last see Dawn?’ she asked.

‘I can’t remember the exact date. It was weeks ago. Perhaps longer.’

‘That doesn’t sound very friendly. Did you have a falling out?’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Over the summer holidays? What were you busy with?’

‘Teachers work during the holidays,’ he said grimly. ‘This is a boarding school, you may have noticed. We have fifteen girls who don’t go home for the summer. Somebody has to keep them out of trouble.’

‘Sounds more like they were keeping you out of trouble.’ There was a teasing note in Ferreira’s voice and Matthew Campbell bristled at it, jaw tensing. ‘Before this … busy-ness of yours, you were a regular visitor to the house.’

He relaxed slightly, against Zigic’s expectations.

‘Dawn was concerned about Holly falling behind in her education, I offered to help. Not a full curriculum, you understand, but I designed a plan with her. English literature and history, suggested some books and set her some essays.’ He felt confident now, kept talking unprompted. ‘She really should have been back at school by now. There’s a very good facility outside Huntingdon for pupils with challenging conditions. Holly was far too bright to be left atrophying in that house.’

‘So why wasn’t she going?’

A grimace stretched his face. ‘She was embarrassed. I don’t think Holly was ever a particularly vain girl but being paralysed seemed to bring it out in her.’

‘Nobody could judge her at a place like that, surely?’ Ferreira said. ‘They’d all be in the same boat.’

‘Not really. Some of the children would have behavioural problems or minor disabilities. Holly was very much at the extreme end of the scale. She went for a few days, as a test run, but she refused to go back and Dawn wouldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to.’ He shrugged. ‘I gather there was some unpleasantness.’

‘What kind of unpleasantness?’

He waved a hand. ‘Nothing that would lead to murder. Just the usual name calling you get at all schools. But Holly took it much worse than she would have before the accident and Dawn didn’t want her going back there to face any more of it.’

‘Was Dawn a good mother?’

‘Of course she was.’ He cocked his head. ‘Anyone who’s told you otherwise can’t have known her very well. Dawn was entirely dedicated to Holly. She fought tooth and nail to make her life as comfortable as possible. Under very difficult circumstances.’

‘Difficult circumstances like Julia not helping out with Holly any more?’ Ferreira asked. The question sent Matthew’s hand to his fatly knotted tie again. ‘Why did Dawn and your wife fall out, Mr Campbell?’

‘They haven’t. They didn’t.’

The classroom door opened and Zigic turned to see a cleaner in a blue tabard and a headscarf. Matthew told her to come back later and she backed out, mumbling an apology.

‘I don’t understand what bearing this could possibly have on their murders,’ he said.

‘We’re just trying to get some background,’ Ferreria told him. ‘From their friends.’

‘Was Dawn worried about anything?’ Zigic asked. ‘Anyone hanging around the house? Hassling her?’

‘There was an incident last year. Someone vandalised her car.’

‘And since then?’

‘She didn’t mention anything. They lived a very insular life. I really can’t imagine anyone having a reason to kill them.’ He glanced away, out of the window to where a group of girls were walking past, their voices high and fast, hyper. ‘People don’t always need a reason, though, do they?’

He said it under his breath, almost to himself.

‘Women are usually murdered by their lovers,’ Ferreira said. ‘Or rejected hopefuls.’

Matthew Campbell turned a hard stare on her. ‘In that case you should be speaking to Warren. They always had a combustible relationship.’

‘Was he violent?’

‘He’s volatile. Especially after a few drinks.’ Matthew flexed his fingers against the arm of his chair. ‘I don’t think he ever hit her, but they were in the middle of a divorce and that tends to bring out the worst in people.’

‘Warren claims it’s amicable,’ Ferreira said.

‘He could hardly say anything else now, could he? She’s been murdered.’ A thin and humourless smile cut his face. ‘He doesn’t pay a penny towards Holly’s care. Did he tell you that? He let his business go under, he lost their house, gave up on work. All within months of Holly’s accident. By the time she was well enough to leave hospital her home was gone and her father was living with another woman. How amicable does that sound to you?’

‘Dawn must have been angry,’ Zigic said.

Matthew snorted. ‘She was a tad miffed, yes.’

‘What about Holly?’

‘She loved her father.’

‘After all that?’ Ferreira asked. ‘She didn’t resent him for leaving?’

Matthew considered it for a moment, staring into the middle distance. ‘Dawn said Holly blamed her for driving him away. It’s not unusual in separations, I suppose. But it made it difficult for her. Holly couldn’t just walk through the village and go to see him.’

‘But Warren could go to her,’ Ferreira said. ‘Or wouldn’t Dawn let him?’

‘She wasn’t using Holly against him,’ Matthew said wearily. ‘If he tells you that he’s lying. Dawn needed him to man up and start acting like a proper father again but he wouldn’t or couldn’t do it. Maybe Sally had a hand in it. All I know for certain is that Dawn was bearing the full emotional and financial burden of caring for Holly and it was wearing her down to nothing.’

His sympathy for Dawn was clear but Zigic thought his version of Dawn and Warren’s relationship was a bit too black and white. Matthew telling him what he believed they wanted to hear. It was easy to be cynical, though, and he knew that if the same information had come from Julia Campbell he wouldn’t be questioning it.

They seemed too close, him and Dawn, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that emotional intimacy was often accompanied by physical intimacy when a man and woman were friends. Or that at least one of them would want it to be.

Dawn was alone with a disabled child, living in reduced circumstances, struggling and in need of support. Would Matthew have looked like a good bet? Older and steady and caring. It was only a short step from friend to lover.

‘Where were you on Thursday evening, Mr Campbell?’ Ferreira asked.

‘At home with the children. Caitlin can tell you that. Since I evidently need an alibi.’ A bitter tone came into his voice, as if the question was a betrayal after the honesty he’d shown. ‘Nathan could too if he was here.’

Ferreira didn’t pursue it, maybe because Matthew so blatantly wanted them to. She’d asked Caitlin already, knew where he was at the time of the murder and they’d come here to speak to him as a friend of the family rather than a suspect.

The taint of guilt clung to him, though. Not the guilt they were interested in, Zigic thought, but he was hiding something.

Nathan could still feel the policewoman’s fingernails at the back of his neck, the scratch marks she’d left there stinging. She almost caught him. Grabbed the collar of his hoodie, dragged him away so sharply that he stumbled, dropping the handbag he’d swiped off the back of a cafe chair.

He’d slipped her, though. Pulled his arms out of his top and left her holding it, stupidly, as he bolted for the train station’s main doors, heard her shouting, heard her boots striking the tile floor fast and heavy but didn’t look back because you should never look back or you’d be caught.