The Dead Dog Day (33 page)

Cora sighed. Her brain was still racing, a thousand questions buzzing unanswered through her mind.

‘But I still don't get it. Why did you think I was in danger? You weren't even in the country, were you, for the past few months? What on earth made you think I needed protection?'

There was a long pause. Finally Justin looked up, his face serious. He rubbed his nose, and Cora remembered the gesture from the CCTV footage, the gesture that had convinced her beyond doubt that her ex was the man police were searching for.

‘Because, Cora, as you and only you know, I was outside TV Centre when Jeanette died. And I think – well, now I'm almost positive – that I know who killed her. I wasn't sure, not a hundred per cent, not at first, which is why I hired the private eye while I researched it all. I didn't want to just call you and tell you what I suspected, just in case I was wrong … I didn't want to destroy your life until I was absolutely certain, Cora.'

Cora felt a chill run through her. ‘Destroy – my life? What on earth are you talking about?'

She stared at him, almost willing him not to answer, and starting to hope that this might actually be a nightmare from which, any moment, she might wake.

‘It's – it's because it's someone you know. Someone you're close to. And I was scared, Cora. Scared that you'd get hurt too.'

Cora's voice was barely a whisper. ‘Someone I know? A friend of mine? A friend of mine pushed Jeanette out of that window?'

Justin nodded. ‘I don't know how to tell you this, but yes, I think so. Oh and by the way – she wasn't pushed.'

‘Wasn't pushed? What? It was suicide after all? You're not making sense, Justin!'

He shook his head. ‘No, it was murder alright. But she wasn't pushed. She was pulled. Pulled out of the window. From the
outside
, Cora.'

52

Cora stared at her ex-boyfriend again.

‘Pulled? From the outside? On the seventh floor of a tower block? How did that work then? Did Superman fly by and decide to be a baddie for a change?'

She laughed, feeling slightly hysterical. This night – or morning, as it was now – was taking on a rather surreal feel.

Justin took a deep breath. ‘Look, let me tell you the story, how I saw it, from the beginning, OK?'

‘I'm all ears. But this is feeling more and more like a weird dream, Justin.'

He smiled briefly, then his face was serious again. ‘I bet. Right. Here we go. I felt bad, Cora. I felt terrible, in fact, that I'd ended things with you by telephone. It was a horrible, cowardly thing to do, and I should never have done it like that.'

Cora nodded vehemently, but didn't say anything.

‘I think, if I'm honest, that I'd been, well, depressed for a few months before that – I mean properly depressed, not just a bit down. I wasn't sure where my life was going, what I wanted, and I just started to feel really … really low. Like a twat I didn't say anything to anyone, you know what us blokes are like. And we were hardly seeing each other anyway, were we, with work and everything, and things just got on top of me, I suppose. So I decided to go away, get out of the country for a little while, take a break from work and from everything, try to sort my head out. I just needed to be alone for a bit, so I even ditched my UK mobile – I knew I'd get a load of grief from everyone for dumping you like that, and I just couldn't take it. That's why I used Twitter to contact you, instead of phoning or texting. I just couldn't handle the angry phone calls I'd get from you … from everyone, if they had my number. I even shut down my email account when I left, because so many people had my email address and I knew I'd be bombarded. I know that makes me sound like a pathetic coward, but it's the truth.'

He paused. Cora said nothing, suddenly feeling horribly guilty that she hadn't realised how depressed her boyfriend had been.

He carried on. ‘I'd booked a flight to Spain for later that morning, the eighteenth of December, and I checked into a hotel in London the night before. But in the middle of the night, I suddenly decided I needed to see you before I went, just to say sorry, and to say goodbye. So I got up at stupid o'clock – I still have no idea how you do that every day, Cora – and called a taxi to take me over to TV Centre. I knew you'd be arriving at work in the early hours and I thought I could catch you before you went in. But the taxi took ages to arrive, and by the time I got there it was about 4 a.m. and I knew I'd missed you.'

‘So you hung about, for
four hours
? You were on CCTV, Justin, lurking around till about eight o'clock! No wonder the police were suspicious!' Cora couldn't help it – she felt totally exasperated again.

He groaned. ‘I know, I know, I haven't handled any of this very well, have I? Yes, I hung about. I nearly went inside a couple of times, to ask Reception if they could call up and tell you I was there, and then chickened out of that. And then I thought, I'll just hang about till the show's over, and catch you coming out. It was freezing, and there's nothing open round there at that hour, no cafés or anything, so I kept wandering off, doing laps of the building to keep warm. There was a security guard roving around a bit, and I avoided him in case he made me leave. It was sort of fun, in a perverse way, hiding in the shadows.'

He hesitated, coughed, and then carried on. Cora's eyes were fixed on his face.

‘There were these cradle things on two sides of the building – you know, the kind window cleaners use? They were on the ground, presumably waiting to be used later on. And then, well it was still quite dark, but it was nearly eight o'clock, and I was doing another lap, and I heard this creaking sound, coming from above. I looked up, and one of the cradles was up there, instead of down on the ground where it had been earlier. I stopped and looked up for a bit, wondering why it was up there so early. And then I heard voices coming from up there, muffled voices. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it sounded like a man and a woman, arguing. And then I was even more puzzled – what were two people doing on a window cleaning cradle, when it was barely light?'

Cora's heart was pounding. ‘Are you saying the killer was in that cradle? Seriously? I suppose it explains why nobody saw anyone go in or out of her office. So – go on. You saw? You saw what happened?'

‘Well – sort of. It all went quiet for a bit, and then I heard noises again, and it looked like something was being hauled out of the window above … it looked like a big sack or something at first. There was grunting, as if it was a struggle, something heavy, you know?'

He stopped again, breathing deeply.

‘And then seconds later – oh God, Cora, the noise. I'll never forget it. Something whistled through the air just a few feet away from me, and then there was this thud, the most sickening, crunching thud. And I knew. I knew it was a person, a body. Right there, right in front of me.'

He moaned slightly. His face had turned white, his eyes suddenly brimming with tears.

‘Are you OK? Justin?'

‘Yes. Yes. I'm fine.' He rubbed his eyes fiercely.

‘The cradle started to come down really quickly, and I was scared. I know that makes me sound like a total coward, but I was scared, Cora. If this person had just pulled someone out of a window and thrown them to the ground, what else were they capable of? So I just shrank back, into the shadows, flattened myself against the wall. The cradle hit the ground, and this man, a tall man, wearing a black balaclava or something like that, leaped out of it. He walked over to the body on the ground, and pulled something off her face … there was a ripping sound, as if it was tape, I think. And then he just walked away.'

Cora could barely breathe. ‘But you said – you said you knew who it was. How? How did you know? If his face was covered?'

‘Because, as he left, he pulled it off. The mask thing. And I caught a glimpse – just a glimpse. But his face was so distinctive, Cora. I knew I'd never forget it.'

‘So – who? Who was it?' Her voice was just a squeak now, hardly audible.

‘It was Benjamin, Cora. Benjamin Boland.'

53

Cora leaped from the sofa, pain in her bad ankle forgotten, staggered to the kitchen and threw up, violently and for a long time, in the kitchen sink. When she'd finished, Justin gently wiped her mouth with a handful of tissues and led her back to the living room. She sat there shivering, hands shaking, brain numb. Benjamin? Her Benjamin? So not only was the wonderful man she'd thought she loved a dirty little two-timer, he was a murderer too? Really?
Really
? Well, this beat them all, didn't it? She knew how to pick them, didn't she? Yep, she sure knew how to pick them …

‘I'm so sorry, Cora. That's all I seem to be saying to you today, but I really am so sorry, to be the one to tell you this. I just had to, I couldn't let it go on any longer – you do understand?'

Cora nodded, still trembling. ‘How can you be sure, Justin? You saw him for – what, a couple of seconds? The man. The man who killed Jeanette. Are you positive, really, that it was – that it was Benjamin?'

Justin leaned forwards, taking her quivering fingers gently in his.

‘That's just it. I wasn't, at first. I'm not a great TV watcher, as you know. But that glimpse, that glance I got – I only knew at first that the face looked sort of familiar. I couldn't place him, but I knew I knew him from somewhere. That's why I didn't say anything in those first messages I sent you. I just wanted you to know that I had nothing to do with the murder, but I didn't want to start throwing names around because I just couldn't remember where I'd seen that face before. And then I just stopped answering your messages, and I know that must have been incredibly frustrating for you, but I was just trying and trying to remember who he was and I didn't want to talk to anyone until I'd done that. I desperately wanted to talk to you, tell you what I'd seen, but you can't accuse people of murder, can you, unless you're pretty sure? It wasn't until I was browsing the British newspapers online, and I saw that picture of you and him together – you remember, when you got photographed at some do?'

Cora nodded. That picture in the
Mirror
, the one she'd been teased so mercilessly about by the boys.

Justin was still talking. ‘… then, well, I still wasn't a hundred per cent sure, but he looked so like the person I'd seen. And I thought, what if it really is him, and Cora's dating a murderer! And I was so scared, scared for you. Which is why I sent that tweet.'

‘The one – the one warning me to be careful? And not trust anyone? But Justin, that was so vague! I thought you were threatening me! Why didn't you just
tell
me what you'd seen, what you were thinking? You made me so scared, do you realise that? So scared, so many times! That night, when I saw the private detective outside my house, on his phone – I suppose he was texting you to tell you Benjamin was inside with me – and then you immediately sent me another warning tweet? I was terrified!'

Justin sighed heavily. ‘Oh, Cora, I'm just so, so sorry. I don't know. I wasn't positive, and I thought that if I made such an enormous accusation, and I was wrong, that someone like him wouldn't hesitate to sue me to hell and back, and then you'd hate me even more than you did already, and … so that's why I hired the detective, to follow you, make sure you were safe. I told him that if he saw anything, any hint at all that Boland might hurt you, to go to the police. I couldn't bear it, Cora, if anything had happened to you …'

He sank his face into his hands. Cora stared at him for a moment, then reached out and stroked his head briefly.

‘Fair enough, I suppose. But there are still so many questions, Justin. Why didn't you just go to the police there and then, when you saw Jeanette being pulled out of the window and …' – she couldn't bring herself to say ‘Benjamin' – ‘… saw whoever it was getting away, on The Dead Dog Day?'

Justin sat up straight again. Cora noticed with a shock that his eyes were bright with unshed tears.

‘Pardon? What day?'

‘It's what we call it. The day Jeanette died. Because there was a dog, which died too … oh, never mind. Go on. Why didn't you go to the police?'

‘Because I'm a moron. I wasn't thinking straight. I panicked – I stood there for a minute, two minutes, I'm not sure, trying to process what had just happened in front of my eyes. I could hear her moaning, and I know I should have gone to her, tried to see if I could save her, but I was in shock, I think. And then there were footsteps, and I saw the security guard coming round the corner, and – I don't know, I suppose I thought that as I was the one standing there, just feet from the body, that I might somehow be blamed. So I hid, behind a skip that was sitting there, until he'd gone running off to get help, and then I ran too. I ran away, Cora. Like a coward. It's something that will haunt me for ever, believe me.'

‘And then, when you realised you'd been captured on CCTV? Why not come forward then, allow them to eliminate you from the enquiry?'

‘I saw it online. Yes, it was me, but it could have been anyone, Cora. My face was never seen, just that coat you'd bought me, which I'd never worn before so I knew nobody else would recognise me from it. I gave it away to a charity shop in Madrid, though, just in case.'

He had the good grace to look shamefaced as Cora glared at him, then continued.

‘I just thought, how can I come forward now? How can I explain running away from the scene of a murder? It would have looked so suspicious. So I just didn't come forward. Sorry, Cora.'

Cora rubbed her sore ankle, head still buzzing.

‘OK, so if you're right – why? Why on earth would Benjamin kill Jeanette? He barely knows her. In fact, I think he only met her once or twice, when she was trying to get him to work on the show. It makes no sense. What possible motive could he have for wanting her dead?'