The Telling Error (28 page)

On the pavement opposite Reuben Tasker’s house, he looked up and made an involuntary noise as he saw a face framed in the single dormer window at the top. It was Tasker: gaunt, black-haired, bare-chested. Gibbs recognised him from the photograph on his website, and waited for him to pull back from the window, fearing he’d been spotted. Tasker stayed where he was. Staring.

So he’d been in all along. And wanted it known that he could have come to the door but had chosen not to.

Tasker’s gaze was neutral rather than actively defiant, but Gibbs felt the defiance all the same. There was something chillingly arrogant – no, something
more
chilling than arrogance – about looking at someone so expressionlessly, as if nothing they could do or say could have any effect on you, positive or negative. Tasker was watching the world in the way that a ghost separated from the living would watch.

He did it. He killed Damon Blundy. And he thinks he can get away with it.

Gibbs shook his head and swore under his breath. Who did he think he was, Simon Waterhouse? Most people’s hunches were worthless, and Gibbs was realistic enough to include his own in that category. Tasker was a weirdo, but that didn’t make him a killer. ‘Not the easiest man in the world to deal with,’ the literary agent had said. Neither was Gibbs, so the two of them were well matched.

Gibbs pointed in the direction of Tasker’s front door and mouthed, ‘Come down and let me in?’ He pulled his ID out of his pocket and held it up.

Tasker disappeared from the window. Gibbs wove his way through the heavy traffic of Gaywood Road again.
Why did the detective cross the road? To talk to a weed-addicted horror writer.
It wasn’t much of a punchline.

He didn’t see the point of ringing the bell again, so he waited, listening for the sound of feet on the stairs.

Nothing. Once he was certain he’d waited long enough, he knocked loudly on the door, then opened the letterbox and shouted, ‘Mr Tasker! DC Chris Gibbs, Culver Valley CID. I’ve sent you several emails. Can you open up? I’d like to talk to you.’

The bastard wasn’t coming to the door. Gibbs pressed his finger down on the doorbell and kept it there for a good minute and a half. Then, too angry to stay where he was, he marched back out into the traffic, attracting multiple horn beeps. This time he managed to resist making any obscene gestures.

He’s going to be back in the window again, staring blankly out as if nothing’s happened.

On the pavement opposite, Gibbs looked up and got a shock. Tasker had reappeared, but only partially. His hairless bare chest was visible, and the bottom of his neck, but not his face. Tasker had stuck a large square of black paper to the window – with Blu-Tack by the look of it; Gibbs could see four pale dots, one at each corner – and was standing behind it.

‘What the fuck …?’ Gibbs murmured.

He watched as Tasker did the same with a second square of black, fixing it beneath the first so that the edges lined up. Now hardly any of him was visible – only his right arm.

‘Detective Gibbs?’ A woman who looked somewhere between thirty and forty was standing beside him.

‘Detective Constable. DC Gibbs.’

‘I’m Jane Tasker, Reuben’s wife.’ She was holding the handle of a black, waist-high shopping trolley on wheels. A loaf of bread and a packet of raspberry-flavoured ice lollies poked out of the top. Didn’t she drive? Or use the Internet? She seemed to have been to the supermarket on foot with what was effectively an open-topped suitcase to wheel her groceries home in.
Bizarre
.

Her face, free of make-up, had a raw, pink, peeled look – as if it had been scrubbed vigorously over and over again. She was wearing jeans that bunched at the bottom, around the tops of her scuffed black ankle boots, and a bulky red padded anorak in spite of the warm weather.

‘Your husband doesn’t seem to want to talk to me,’ Gibbs told her.

‘No, he does. He rang me as soon as you arrived. That’s why I hurried back, to let you in. He doesn’t like having people in the house unless I’m there too, and he hates to have to interrupt his writing to come downstairs. Shall we …?’ She made a gesture that suggested crossing the road.

Gibbs shook his head in disbelief. He was about to follow her when it occurred to him that her husband had probably been watching their exchange. He looked up.

It was impossible to tell if Reuben Tasker was there or not. If he was, he was no longer able to watch the street as he had been a few minutes ago. While Gibbs had been talking to his wife, Tasker had covered the whole window – top to bottom, side to side – with black paper.

Charlie’s bag started to vibrate against her hip as she walked briskly along the corridor. She would have ignored it, except it might be Simon and it might be important. Even if it wasn’t, he would think it was. He could, of course, wait, but he wouldn’t think that he could. Charlie sighed, jammed the files she was holding under her left arm and rummaged in her bag for her phone. She pulled it out and looked at the screen.

Simon. Waiting. He was the only person in her life who could communicate impatience telepathically. Other emotions, not so much. ‘Make it quick,’ she told him by way of greeting.

‘Why?’

‘I’m on my way to interview Nicki Clements. She’s here with her husband, which is … interesting. Let’s see if she tells the same story Robbie Meakin tells about their … um, meeting. She said she’d only talk to a woman, so I think it’s looking promising.’

‘Why you?’ Simon asked.

‘What, you think Gaynor from the canteen would do a better job? The Snowman asked me extra nicely. His exact words were, “You’re Waterhouse’s X chromosome – you do it.” Where are you, by the way?’

‘Walking,’ said Simon. ‘Thinking. I need you to find out something for me, and not mention it to anyone else.’

‘Sorry,’ said Charlie. ‘Interviewing Nicki Clements is the only favour I’m doing for you today. I haven’t got time to—’

‘Melissa Redgate. Find out if she drives. Find out if she
can
drive, but also if she does, and how she feels about it – does she have any issues about driving? Is she one of those women who won’t drive on a motorway, or at night, or in the snow, or on a route she’s not familiar with?’

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘
You
find out all those things.’ She tried to smile at Sergeant Jack Zlosnik as he passed her, walking in the opposite direction. It was hard to snap at one person while simultaneously smiling at another.

‘Will she only drive if her husband’s in the car, maybe?’ Simon went on. ‘Also, find out if she’s got a car – not one she shares with her husband that she doesn’t have access to all the time, but her own car that she can drive whenever she wants. Has she ever been in a crash? Has she lost relatives in car crashes?’

‘Why do you want to know all this?’ Charlie asked.

‘I’ll tell you when you get me the answers to those questions, and any others you can think of that I haven’t. Anything to do with Melissa Redgate, cars or driving – I want to know about it.’

‘Like, is her car tidy or messy?’

‘No, that’s irrelevant.’

‘Ah. OK. As the asker of these questions, aren’t I more likely to be able to work out what’s relevant if you … Simon? You still there?’

Unbelievable. He’d cut her off mid-sentence.

Adam is driving. I am thinking how much I wish we were driving to a police station because I’m kind of a suspect in a murder case, but one who has no other terrible problems. Not one who has just confessed to cyber infidelity, and been told she’s forgiven, and doesn’t believe it for a second.

‘You can’t forgive me,’ I say. ‘I don’t believe you have. Not so soon.’

Adam sighs. ‘Well, I have. I’m not sure what you expect me to do to convince you. I’ve not shouted, or refused to talk about it. I’m not being off with you, am I?’

He sounds anxious to please me. I sense he’s turned to look at me. I wish he’d be more careful while he’s driving. Keeping my eyes on the road, I say, ‘You’re being exactly the same as you always are. How is that possible? Don’t you care?’

I want him to care. Two days into my correspondence with him, King Edward asked me how I’d feel about us pledging to be exclusive to one another, though he made clear that this vow of exclusivity couldn’t include spouses. I said yes. I stuck to it too. It’s the only time I’ve ever been anything approaching faithful in a relationship.

I want Adam to want me all to himself the way King Edward did.

Whoever he is.

‘Nicki, I care. OK? If you’re asking if I’m angry … what would be the point?’ Adam indicates left. ‘It was a shock, I’m not denying that, but …’ He sighs. ‘We’ve been together for twenty years. It’d be too much to expect that you’d
never
be tempted by anyone else.’ After a pause, he adds quietly, ‘I have been.’

‘Really?’ I hope I don’t sound too eager. ‘Tell me. Who? Did anything happen?’ I’d give anything for it to turn out that Adam’s as bad as me. I would forgive him anything.

‘Nothing’s ever happened, no,’ he says decisively. So decisively it makes me wonder. I don’t think he’d lie, but … how tempted was he? How many times?

I’d forgive you. Whatever you’d done.
Words I say to Sophie and Ethan often. Words no one has ever said to me.

That must be real love, mustn’t it? Knowing you want to share the rest of your life with someone whatever they’ve done, knowing they’re perfect for you whatever mistakes they’ve made. I hope that’s how Adam feels about me.

‘And nothing happened between you and this Gavin guy, did it?’ he asks.

‘If nothing had happened, I wouldn’t be on my way to the police station to humiliate myself,’ I say, nearly gagging as I contemplate the ordeal that lies ahead.

‘I mean nothing physical.’

‘No. Nothing physical.’

‘Good. If you’d slept with him twice a week for the last six months, that I’d find harder to forgive, but you said yourself – when you think about it now, it seems like a kind of madness came over you.’

‘Yes.’

‘I can understand that. I’m not saying I’m thrilled it happened, but … I don’t know, maybe it’s unrealistic to expect no obstacles ever in a marriage.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, wondering what exactly Melissa told Lee. She doesn’t know about Gavin or King Edward, thank God, but she does know about two one-night stands I had when Adam and I were first married, two incidents that now seem so trivial and far away it’s as if they happened to someone else – or perhaps they didn’t happen at all. The case for their being real is no more persuasive than an episode of some old soap opera I watched decades ago.

I have to hope that if Melissa or any member of the Redgate family says anything to Adam, it will be in general terms.

So Nicki’s told you, has she?

Yeah, she’s told me.

My mother would be talking about the two one-night stands, and Adam would be talking about Gavin. No one would be indelicate enough to go into detail, surely.

‘I read something once,’ I tell Adam. As soon as I’ve said it, I regret it.

‘What?’

‘You’ll think I’m trying to make an excuse.’

‘No, I won’t. Even if I do, it might be quite a relief. I’m not sure I can take extreme hair shirt for much longer.’ Adam grins at me. When I look at his face, I see that he is upset – more so than he’s willing to admit. He’s trying to protect me from his pain, because he can see mine growing in me and it scares him.

‘I read that people who have judgemental, controlling parents … that they kind of …’ How I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. It’s a daft theory. Adam will laugh. ‘That they sexualise bad behaviour, in their minds. They grow up being criticised for everything they do, because it’s not what the parents would ideally like them to do, and … it’s hard to live with the daily attacks of a parent determined to improve you. Hard for a child – even an older teenage child – to cope with that kind of onslaught when their only crime is just trying to be themselves.’
Even an adult child.
‘So their minds sort of warp, to defend against too much pain. They twist their perceptions so that they get pleasure from the idea that they’re being bad and that people would disapprove. They sexualise wrongdoing. They become the people who get kicks out of illicit affairs. But … it’s just a theory. One that’s obviously hugely convenient for sinners like me.’

‘Sounds plausible, I suppose,’ says Adam. ‘Look, on the subject of difficult parents … I know yours can be irritating, but you didn’t mean what you said, did you? About never seeing them again? I hope you didn’t.’

‘No.’
Yes.
But without Adam’s support, I won’t be brave enough. So, no.

‘Good. Because they’re Sophie and Ethan’s grandparents.’

I laugh weakly. ‘Yeah. Lucky old Sophie and Ethan. You don’t think they picked up that anything was wrong, do you? Between us?’

‘No. Definitely not.’

We’ve left them with a babysitter – the teenage daughter of a neighbour. I had to fight the urge to say, ‘If by any chance someone rings up or calls round saying they’re a member of my family, don’t let them in. Don’t let them speak to the children.’