Complicit (24 page)

‘I don’t know. I don’t think…’

If they were offering me a solicitor, did that mean I was – what was the phrase that was always used? – under suspicion? My first instinct was to say yes. I imagined someone – a silver-haired man in a grey suit, carrying a slim leather briefcase, or a slender, well-groomed woman with high cheekbones and a fine, ironic intelligence – sitting beside me and steering me through the dangerous waters ahead, making everything steady and safe. But, then, what would I tell the solicitor? I realized I would have to lie to them as well, have to attempt to remember the exact story I had already told, and the thought of adding another layer of deception to the tottering edifice made me feel giddy with panic.

‘No,’ I managed. ‘I don’t need a solicitor.’ I attempted a breezy self-confidence. ‘Why would I?’

‘Why indeed?’ said DI Wade. ‘So…’

So we began – and began, of course, with the fact that I had known Hayden Booth rather better than I had previously let on.

‘You told us…’ said DI Wade, flicking through his notebook ‘… yes, you said that he didn’t have a girlfriend.’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘That is, yes, I told you that.’

‘Would you like to amend that statement?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do you still want to tell us that he didn’t have a girlfriend?’

A deep heat flooded my body. I could feel it passing through me in waves. My face burned. ‘He didn’t. I mean, that’s not the word for it.’ They both waited. Joy Wallis bounced her pencil lightly on the surface of the table, tap tap tap. ‘It wasn’t like that with Hayden.’ Silence opened in front of me and I thought for a moment that I would hurl myself into it, blabber everything, get this over with. I swallowed hard and looked up. ‘He wasn’t the kind of man who had a steady girlfriend.’

‘So you said last time.’

‘Well, then.’

‘You misled us.’

‘I didn’t understand.’

‘Understand what?’

‘I don’t know.’ I tried again. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mislead you. It’s true that I wasn’t Hayden’s girlfriend.’

‘How so?’ mused DI Wade.

‘We weren’t in a committed relationship,’ I said. ‘I had only known him for a couple of weeks or so, through the band. You know. I told you before.’

‘Were you sexually involved with Mr Booth?’

‘Yes.’

‘So. You weren’t his girlfriend but you were sexually involved with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘You had sex with him.’

‘Obviously.’

‘How many times?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Approximately how many times did you have sex with Hayden Booth?’

‘Is that relevant?’

‘We’ll know once you’ve told us.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Once? Twice? Three times? More?’

‘Nearer that, yes.’

‘More than three?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many more?’

‘I don’t know. A few.’

‘Say, six or seven times in less than two weeks and you weren’t his girlfriend?’

‘No. I wasn’t.’

‘Was it secret?’ This was from Joy Wallis.

‘Kind of.’

‘Why?’

‘It just was. We didn’t want people to know. To make assumptions. That kind of thing.’

‘Assumptions that you were a couple?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So nobody knew.’

‘I guess Jan and Nat knew. Kind of. The guys in his band. Knew that we had a – thing.’

‘This
thing
.’ DI Wade spoke the word carefully, as if it was an accurate portrayal of what had been between Hayden and myself. ‘Was it still going on when he died?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Sorry – you guess so?’

‘It was.’

‘Where did you meet?’

‘My flat. His. It belongs to my friend who’s away at the moment – but I’ve told you that.’

‘Did you have arguments?’ Joy Wallis again. Her voice was softer than DI Wade’s and she didn’t look at me when she spoke, but down at her notebook, in which, I saw, she was not writing.

I flinched. For a moment, I saw Hayden’s fist plunging towards my face. As they looked at me, waiting for my answer, I felt the now-faded bruise on my neck throb, as if to give me away. Surely they must see it, feel it.

‘No. We snapped at each other, of course. You know.’

‘Not really. Go on.’

‘He was a bit of a slob.’

‘So you argued about mess?’

‘A bit. Maybe.’

‘Was he faithful to you?’

‘I told you, I wasn’t his girlfriend. He didn’t need to be faithful.’

‘So he wasn’t faithful.’

‘The word doesn’t apply.’

‘There were other women?’

I thought of Sally, whom he’d captivated and abandoned. ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

We went round and round the subject. My head was banging in the stifling heat. My hands sweated. And then DI Wade asked: ‘Did Mr Booth have a car?’

‘Yes.’ My voice rasped. I wound my fingers together and tried to make my voice stronger. ‘He had a car. I went in it once.’ That was in case traces of me remained in spite of the valet cleaning.

‘Do you remember the make?’

‘Blue. That’s all I know. Old and blue.’

‘A blue Rover, thirteen years old.’ He gave me the registration number as well, reading it out from the file.

‘Maybe.’

‘Do you know where he kept it?’

‘That would be outside Liza’s flat, where he was staying.’

‘I see.’ He leaned back in his chair and put his latticed hands behind his head. ‘I’m going to tell you something about that car, Miss Graham. It’s not outside his flat now.’ I muttered something meaningless. ‘It was found in Walthamstow, parked illegally on Fountain Road on the afternoon of Sunday, the thirtieth of August.’ He consulted his notebook again. ‘It was ticketed at seven minutes past three and the vehicle was removed twenty minutes later.’

There was a pause.

‘Someone must have stolen it,’ I said.

‘The keys were still in the ignition.’

‘So?’ I said.

‘Doesn’t that seem strange?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I don’t mean to be rude but what does it matter what it seems to me?’

‘Do you know where it was before that?’

‘No.’

‘It was at Stansted airport, the long-stay car park.’

‘What was it doing there?’ I said.

‘It was left there just after four a.m. on the twenty-second of August… The driver was wearing sunglasses and a headscarf. In the middle of the night.’

‘Do you think it could have been Hayden?’ I asked.

‘It doesn’t seem very likely. We believe the driver was a woman.’

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘White, quite young.’

I made a noise that came out wrong, a strangled croak.

‘On the morning of August the thirtieth the car was driven down the M11 towards London, west onto the North Circular and then immediately off.’ Joy Wallis looked down at her file. ‘But then the car was simply left, with the key in the ignition, as I said.’

‘Sounds weird.’

I heard Sonia’s voice in my head: You
idiot
.

‘Doesn’t that seem strange? Can you think of any explanation why the car should be parked for a week at the airport and then moved?’

‘Maybe it was stolen.’

‘I think that’s extremely unlikely. I’ve seen the car. There may have been something in the car that needed delivering. Something valuable.’

‘Was anything found?’ I asked.

‘Nothing at all. When did you last see Mr Booth?’ asked DI Wade.

‘I told you before. It must have been at the rehearsal. The Wednesday, I think. You can check that with the others.’

‘And where were you, Bonnie?’

‘When?’

‘Where were you between the morning of August the twenty-first and the morning of August the twenty-second?’

‘That’s easy,’ I said, ‘I was with Neal. Neal Fenton.’

‘All day?’

‘Yes.’

‘And all night?’

‘Yes. He’s my boyfriend, you see.’

I was kept at the police station for just over six hours. We went over and over my account, and then I was taken into a different room where a woman took my fingerprints and then stuck a cotton bud into my mouth for a DNA sample. Only then was I allowed to leave. I walked out into the sunny, late-afternoon street. I wanted to stop and curl up in a ball on the pavement and howl, but I thought someone might be watching me, so I kept going, trying to impersonate a normal person, an innocent person, until the station was quite out of sight. I took out my mobile and found the number with clumsy fingers.

‘Neal. Don’t go anywhere. I’m coming round now.’

Before

‘I’m about two minutes away. I’m coming round.’

‘No, Neal.’

‘I’ve got something to say to you.’

‘There isn’t any point.’

‘Two minutes,’ he repeated.

And two minutes later, there he was, standing at the front door.

‘What is it?’

‘Can I come in?’ His expression hardened in comprehension. ‘He’s there, isn’t he?’

I didn’t pretend not to know who he was talking about. ‘Yes.’ I looked at his face, stiff with misery. ‘Look, I’m sorry – about everything. Really.’

‘What I came to say,’ he began, as if he hadn’t heard me, ‘was that I don’t think you know what you’re doing.’

‘Maybe not.’ He started to reply but I interrupted him. ‘Or maybe I like not knowing.’

‘And when it’s over I’ll still be there.’

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t work out if this was creepy or touching; probably it was a bit of both. Or perhaps, I thought, this was just what love was like when it wasn’t returned – oppressive, inappropriate, with something embarrassing and almost shameful about it.

‘Thanks.’

‘Right.’

I shifted from foot to foot, feeling hot under his gaze.

‘So remember, Bonnie.’

After

When I arrived at Neal’s I felt as if we were two fearful, panicking strangers who didn’t know how to deal with each other. Neal asked me if I wanted a drink but I refused. I felt dizzy already, with a queasy sense of unreality that made it hard to stand steadily and speak evenly. I just wanted to get this over with and be gone.

‘I was just going to have one myself,’ he said. ‘A glass of wine or a beer.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s almost six. Maybe you need something stronger. I’ve got whisky and there’s vodka I bought in Cracow.’

‘A glass of water would be fine,’ I said. ‘Just from the tap.’

He filled two large tumblers and handed me one. I drained it without any effort and still felt thirsty. I passed it back to him. He gave me the other tumbler and I drank half of it. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I’ve been talking to the police,’ I said.

‘I know.’

‘No, they interviewed me again. I’ve just spent the day with them.’

Neal’s expression was completely impassive. ‘Is there a problem?’

I took a deep, shuddery breath. ‘When I first talked to them, I was a bit evasive about my… you know, connection with Hayden.’

‘You mean the fact that you were sleeping with him?’

I was tired after my hours of talking to the police, hours of having to think all the time and keep my story consistent. I didn’t feel I could manage any more of it. ‘They asked me if he had a girlfriend and I said he didn’t – because, you know, I
wasn’t
, not really – and then they talked to other people who mentioned me, so they thought I was lying and I had a
reason
to be lying, and so they’ve asked me a lot of questions. They were pretty aggressive about it. I’ve come straight from the police station.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Neal. ‘What do you want me to do, Bonnie? I mean, you did have a reason to lie, didn’t you?’

The way he phrased his sentence unsettled me. It took me a few moments to reply. ‘We haven’t talked about what happened. I understand that. Neither of us wanted to. There are some things it’s best to leave unsaid. But now there’s something important I’ve got to tell you and I needed to tell you before you talked to anyone else.’

There was a pause. I was on the verge of speaking the words that I had stopped myself uttering for days and days, but I was going to be forced into it now.

‘Yes?’

‘The police were suspicious,’ I said. ‘They were particularly interested in the evening of August the twenty-first. They even asked me where I was.’

‘I’m sure they did. And what did you say?’

I wanted to sit down, bury my head in my hands, block out the whole loud, violent world. My legs were shaking under me. ‘That’s why I came here. I said I was with you. I said you were my boyfriend.’ I looked closely at Neal, his cold, blank face. ‘Do you understand, Neal? I gave you an alibi.’

Neal turned away from me and brought one hand up to his head. I could see him thinking, as if it was an immense physical effort to be wrestled with. Finally he turned back to me. When he spoke it was slowly and deliberately. ‘You want me to be your alibi? Is that it?’

‘No. Why are you doing this? I
know
, Neal. You know and I know, and the great charade is over at last. You can stop pretending and so can I.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Neal?’ Everything seemed to be happening in a murk of incomprehension. ‘Are you listening? I gave you an alibi for the evening Hayden died.’

‘You gave
me
an alibi?’

I held up a hand to ward off any words. ‘You don’t need to say anything. I don’t really want to talk about it. I want it all to go away. Just accept it, OK?’

‘I think I’m going to regret asking this, but why did you give me an alibi?’

‘Oh, come on, Neal, you know why. Don’t make this even more difficult.’

‘No, Bonnie, I don’t know. What the fuck are you trying to say?’

‘You want me to say it out loud?’

‘Go on.’

I took a deep breath and held his gaze as I finally said the words: ‘Because you killed Hayden.’

There. I’d said it. I thought Neal would get emotional, angry. Perhaps he would break down and cry and tell me he hadn’t meant to, it was an accident, a moment of violence that had turned his life into a nightmare. But he simply stared at me, his face slack and wiped of all expression.