The Mistake I Made (28 page)

Once he’d left the building DS Aspinall approached the desk.

‘We’ve found something,’ she said.

32

‘A BODY?’ I
repeated.

DS Aspinall nodded.

‘A dead body?’ I asked.

‘We are waiting for a formal identification, but at this stage we are assuming it is the body of Mr Geddes.’

I sat down heavily on the office chair behind me. ‘Wayne’s dead?’ I whispered. ‘I can’t believe it.’

I stared at my hands. Christ, it didn’t seem possible. I looked to DS Aspinall, who at first remained silent, allowing me to process the news. It was only when she asked, ‘Can I get you anything? A drink of water? Tea?’ that I realized she was staying a while and hadn’t come here merely to inform me of the death.

‘Does his mother know?’ I asked.

‘She’s been informed. His cousin has agreed to view the body once it’s…’ She paused at this point, stopped herself from speaking further. ‘I’ll need to ask you and your colleagues a few questions,’ DS Aspinall said, ‘once you feel ready. I understand this must be difficult for you to make sense of.’ But in case I was in any doubt, she added, ‘I will need to question each of you now, though, Mrs Toovey. Today.’

I lifted my head. ‘Where was he found?’

‘At his home.’

I put my hand to my mouth.

‘How long has he been dead?’ I asked.

‘We can’t be sure at this stage.’

Wayne, what have you done?

I knew he was depressed when I left him. I knew he was confused – ashamed, even – at what had occurred, but dead? Really?

‘How did he do it?’ I asked quietly.

‘Sorry?’

‘How did he kill himself?’

‘Oh, Mrs Toovey, I’m so sorry, you misunderstood. Wayne Geddes didn’t kill himself.’

I frowned.

‘He was found inside the freezer in the outhouse,’ she said.

My eyes widened. ‘Someone
put
him in there?’

‘We believe so, yes.’

A stupid question, I realized. Wayne would hardly climb in himself. If DS Aspinall thought she was speaking to an idiot, she didn’t show it. ‘Apologies,’ I said, ‘I can’t seem to think straight.’

‘At the moment we don’t have an exact cause of death, but as you can imagine we’re eager to get going on this as quickly as possible. Now that it’s a murder inquiry, I have to ask you, Mrs Toovey, were you ever present at the property?’

‘At Wayne’s house?’ I asked shakily.

She nodded.

I swallowed. ‘I don’t think so.’

She tilted her head. ‘I need a definite yes or no.’

‘No, then.’

‘Okay, good. What we’re hoping to do in the first instance, after the initial door-to-door, is to take fingerprints from anyone Mr Geddes was in contact with. Friends, colleagues, and so on. That way we can quickly eliminate them from the case. I wonder if you would be able to supply us with a list of names, Mrs Toovey?’

‘Names.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Names of colleagues, patients he may have had a disagreement with, that sort of thing. To be honest, we just need a place to start. There is very little to go on as things stand.’

I could feel the pulse throbbing in my temporal artery. I wondered if it was visible.

My fingerprints were all over that house. All over Wayne.

DS Aspinall went to hand me another card with her details on it, but before releasing it from her grasp she paused. She regarded me for a moment, tilting her head to the side as though looking from a different angle might present an answer.

Then she smiled. ‘The sooner the better with that list, Mrs Toovey,’ she said, and I told her I would get started on it.

The list:

Roz Toovey.

Roz Toovey.

Roz Toovey.

Later, after she’d gone, I sat with my head in my hands, trying to remember, desperately; trying to recollect anything about that night at Wayne’s. Where did I put my prints? My DNA?

‘So you never went there, Mrs Toovey?’ DS Aspinall would inevitably ask. ‘You never once entered Mr Geddes’ house? Explain then, if you will, the presence of your pubic hair in the dining room. Explain the line of fingerprints on the windowsill.’

I should hand myself in. I should go after her right now and come clean. I went there to have sex with Wayne, but I didn’t murder him. It was consensual sex. Agreed upon beforehand. I went there specifically to have sex with Wayne Geddes, even though it didn’t actually happen.

Except this was
Wayne
.

Who in their right mind would believe that? No one would believe that.

So I should tell DS Aspinall that I went there to have sex with Wayne because he was blackmailing me about the stolen money.

Money I’d led DS Aspinall to believe was taken by Wayne.

I would be prosecuted. My name would be in the papers. I could say goodbye to my job, to running my own practice again. No one would trust me.

Fuck.

What if I told her I was being blackmailed by Wayne because I’d been accepting payments for sex from Scott Elias?

Then I would be popped right to the top of their list of suspects because not only was I at the property, I also had a motive for killing him.

Killing him.

Someone had killed Wayne. Poor, poor, pathetic Wayne.

Who would do such a thing? And what if they were at the house when I was there? What if they saw what happened between us?

33

NEXT, TWO THINGS
happened.

Two phone calls that in themselves were innocuous enough but together would make for a devastating outcome.

I drove home thinking about Wayne’s body, thinking about my situation, understanding for the first time what real fear was. By the time I got to the ferry the fear was so strong you could smell it on me. The combination of coffee and adrenalin poured in a rank sweat from my armpits. I sat with my hands gripped tight to the wheel, my face inches from the windscreen.

Terry was away, so a cocksure kid in his late teens had the job of ticket attendant. He rapped hard on my window, startling me, swathing me in pickled-onion-crisp breath as I lowered the glass. His upper row of teeth was clogged with food.

Reaching into the glove compartment, I retrieved the book of tickets, handing one over, just as my mobile rang.

UNKNOWN NUMBER.

‘Roz?’

I sighed out a long, weary breath. ‘Winston,’ I said.

‘Roz, you’ll never guess what’s happened—’

‘You’ve been stranded in Newquay.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Lucky guess.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve lost my lift home, and I can’t scrape the money together for the train fare. I won’t be back in time to pick George up tomorrow. Any chance you could do this weekend, and I’ll do the next two?’

‘What happened to the girl?’

‘The girl?’ he said innocently.

‘Your mother said you’d gone to Newquay with the blonde from the campsite.’

‘Oh her. Yeah, that didn’t really work out. She kind of hooked up with someone else, a slimy bastard who could get really strong skunk. Anyway, listen, if I can’t get the money in the next few days, I’ll just thumb it back, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Sure you don’t mind?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘You sound weird, Roz. You’re not doing that thing when you act all fine about something and then throw it back in my face later on, are you?’

‘I’m not doing that.’

‘Great. That’s a relief. I can never tell. See you when I get home then.’

‘Sure, Winston. When you get home.’

We ended the call and I sat back in my seat. Took a breath.

The uncomplicated life of Winston Toovey.

No money to get back to see his son? Hey, things’ll work out. And with me and his mother to pick up after him, they usually did.

The ferry docked, groaning more than usual. Tourists scurried back to their cars, engines were started, visors lowered, as we would all be heading west, directly into the sun. The woman in front must have left her car in gear, as it jolted forward when she turned the ignition. She touched her hair repeatedly in embarrassment.

Wayne was murdered and I was the last person to see him alive. I just couldn’t get my head around anyone wanting to kill Wayne and bundle his body into the freezer. House-to-house inquiries, DS Aspinall had said. Would anyone remember a black Jeep creeping towards Wayne’s house that night? Leaving again later, tearing up the turf at the edge of the garden, because I was in so much of a hurry to escape?

The farm cottage was on its own at the end of a short stretch of track. But there were one or two houses that had a view of it from across the fields. Someone could have been watching from their bedroom window. Someone could remember
something
.

What if they matched the tyre treads? I could only hope the rain had washed them away by now.

I wound my way over Claife Heights, behind a truck with two collies in the rear, along with a few bales of hay. The days of shepherds tending to one flock were long gone. These guys flitted from place to place, dropping food supplies out the back of their Mitsubishis, more FedEx than farmers.

I am innocent, I repeated as I descended into the valley. The storm of earlier had cleared and the valley was now awash with honey-coloured light. So pretty it made your heart stop. I could not be charged with killing Wayne Geddes, because I didn’t do it. I’m innocent, I said again. Hoping something –
anything
– would emerge from DS Aspinall’s inquiries that would prove it.

George was sitting on his own when I arrived at after-school club.

He was holding a piece of paper steady with his left hand and looked to be tracing. I was just about to approach when Iona caught my eye.

‘A word?’ she mouthed, beckoning me over.

I sensed danger so asked, ‘How’s the knee?’ bright and breezy, as though I wasn’t aware of something nasty to come.

Instinctively, Iona lifted her leg, flexing and extending it at the joint. ‘
So
much better. That tape you put on? It worked a treat. You should patent it.’

‘I keep meaning to. All okay?’ I asked, with respect to George, and her expression turned at once grave and formal.

‘I’ve been told to give you this.’

She handed me an envelope. ‘Mr and Mrs Toovey’ was printed across the front. Followed by ‘Confidential’.

‘Do I read it now?’ I asked.

‘That’s up to you.’

I unfolded it and read. The school requested my attendance at a meeting scheduled for Monday morning to discuss George. A representative from the Local Education Authority would be present.

I looked up at Iona. ‘Do you know what this is about?’

She leaned in, lowering her voice. ‘Sorry, Roz, it’s not really my place, not being his teacher, but I think he’s been stealing again.’

I slipped the letter back inside the envelope and pushed it hard into the pocket of my tunic.

‘I’m sure it’s something and nothing,’ Iona said, trying to smile, brushing it off as though it were a minor inconvenience. But it wasn’t. If the LEA was involved, it wasn’t.

I nodded, thanking Iona for her discretion, and told George to collect his things, quickly as he could. He didn’t make eye contact with me the whole time, didn’t say a word either. It wasn’t until I got him inside the car and was turning the ignition that he said, ‘It wasn’t me.’

I cut the engine. ‘What do you mean, it wasn’t you?’

He threw me a look that said
I knew you wouldn’t believe me
, and stared hard through the windscreen.

The sun broke through from behind a cloud, blinding us both. ‘George, reach into my handbag,’ I said to him, ‘and get my sunglasses. They might be in the side pocket.’

He lifted the bag on to his lap and pulled at the zip. It was in the habit of jamming and so he tugged hard a couple of times before it flew open, releasing a cloud of twenty-pound notes, which fluttered around us.

George looked at me agog. Shit, the money. I’d forgotten all about it.

‘Gather it up!’ I cried out. ‘Quick, gather it up before somebody sees.’

George did as he was asked, scrabbling around in the footwell. When we’d retrieved the last of them, we sat there in silence.

‘Are we rich now?’ he asked carefully.

‘No.’

‘Not even with all that money?’

‘Not even with all that money,’ I said. ‘It will only cover three months’ rent, sweetheart. So, no, we’re not rich. Tell me what happened at school.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Unfortunately, there’s no choice.’

A look of anger flashed across his face. ‘I didn’t do it,’ he said. ‘I told them I didn’t do it. I told you I didn’t do it. But no one will believe me.’

‘What was stolen?’

‘Pokémon figures.’

My heart sank. ‘Which ones exactly?’

‘I don’t know. Leif says three were taken out of his bag, and the teachers found them in my bag.’

‘So how did they get into your bag?’

He glared at me again. ‘
I don’t know
.’

‘Jesus, George, if they found them in your bag – if a teacher found them in your bag – then who else could it be?’

‘But I didn’t take them.’

‘Could you not help it because you really wanted Leif’s figures and you didn’t think he would notice because he has so many?’

George sighed impatiently, saying, ‘You
never
forget which ones you have.’

‘So who took them?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘And why would they put them in your bag?’

‘I
don’t know
.’

‘Have you had an argument? Have you been mean? Would another kid do this to get you into trouble?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘George! For God’s sake, I’m trying to help you! Don’t you see, once you’ve stolen stuff, people don’t
care
whether it was you who did it the next time or not? You’ll be blamed regardless!’

‘But I didn’t do it. And that’s not fair!’

‘I know it’s not fair, but it’s how it is!’

Why did this have to happen today? Why today, of all days?

I looked at George and he was crying. I was too angry to reach out to him. Angry with him. Angry with Winston for not being here again. For leaving me broke. Angry with myself for being such a fuck-up.