Beautiful Losers: A Novel of Suspense (31 page)

seventy-nine

Hair freshly cut and
coloured, Detective Superintendent Niven sat at the table with a clipboard in front of her. She wore a sober pale grey suit with a white shirt that made her look like a conference official. She offered Chadwick and me a brief smile and gave a limp wave of her hand, indicating for us to take a seat.

“Thanks for coming in, Kim.”

Interesting use of Christian name, I thought—could be a softening up tactic or, wildly optimistic, I was viewed as less of a suspect.

“We've had detailed analysis back on Chris's car. Bloodstains were found in the engine compartment. It would seem that he was bending over as one does to check the oil …”

“He wouldn't need to check the oil. It was a new car,” I pointed out, clearly ruining her opening gambit.

“I'm simply giving an example.” Niven's smile was cold. Her teeth glittered like specks of ice. She waited a beat. “You don't really like women, do you? You find them tricky, difficult to connect with.”

Winded, I opened my mouth, but no words emerged. Fortunately, Chadwick did the talking for me.

“I really must protest.”

Niven continued unabated. “You're quite a spiky individual, Kim. Would it be true to say that you are a woman who lives on the edge?”

“I don't …”

“Presumably, you muzzle your anger while at work.”

“That's not true,” I choked, only too aware that Niven's incisive assessment contained more than a grain of truth. It wasn't that I disliked women—my close circle of female friends proved otherwise—but I knew myself well enough to know that I had issues with trust after what my mother had done to me.

“I fail to see how your barbed opinion of my client is connected to the case,” Chadwick said.

Niven ignored him, her full attention on me. “As you are aware, Kim, we've already established Chris was hit from behind. The initial blow would have been enough to knock him off his feet, pitching him forward. The second and third blow would have rendered him unconscious. Do you know what happens to people with head injuries?” She inclined her head, a thin smile on her pale
coral-coloured
lips, the question rhetorical. “The brain swells and, as it expands, it pushes down on the brain stem, shutting down the mechanisms that control breathing and heart function.”

Without waiting for me to digest it, Darke fired a question.

“You were born and brought up here, weren't you?”

“Yes.”

“Would you say that you have a fairly good geographical grasp of the area?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the area around Sittaford Tor?”

“Not intimately.”

“But you've been there?”

“Yes.”

Niven leant forward. Her hands were clasped, not tightly, but in a relaxed fashion. “I understand that Charlie Lidstone is a friend of yours.”

“That's right.” This was a hell of a switch in the conversation.

“Known him for long?”

“About …” Goodness, I thought, was it really that long? “Fifteen years or so.”

“Good friends then?”

“I'd say so.”

“Yet only days ago you threatened him with a car jack.” Niven cocked an accusing eyebrow.

Chadwick twitched beside me. “That's not strictly true,” I said. No wonder Claire was edgy.

“Which bit isn't true, Kim?”

Sod, I wish she'd stop calling me by name. “I didn't threaten him.”

“You deny it?”

“Strongly,” I protested. “He was in my house, uninvited. I was protecting myself. He could have been an intruder.”

“Ah, back to the stalker.”

“You make it sound as if I'm making him up.” My voice shook. I wanted to get up and flee and never come back. Sensing it, Chadwick shot out a steadying hand.

“You were afraid?” Niven said evenly.

“Yes.”

“Because you've been stalked?”

“Yes.”

The coral lips twitched into a nasty little smile. “Did you get the stalking idea from your friend Alexa Gray?”

My eyes shot wide. “I'm not sure I follow you.”

Niven looked to Darke, who spoke. “We understand that you know Alexa Gray.”

Had they been checking my phone? I supposed they must have. “Well, yes.” Dizzy, I thought the floor might suddenly rush up to meet me.

“Did you know that a friend of Mrs. Gray's went missing?”

“Gaynor Lassiter, yes, I know about that.” I looked helplessly at Gavin, who looked as perplexed as I felt.

“Mrs. Lassiter was allegedly stalked before her disappearance,” Darke said.

I shot forward. “That's it then. It can't be a coincidence.”

“It was never established.”

“But don't you see,” I said, Robert Fallon's words ringing in my ears. “There has to be a connection.”

Niven frowned. “A connection?”

“To me,” I said exasperated. I looked from Niven to Darke, begging them to grasp what I was saying.

“There's no evidence, whatsoever, to suggest a link,” Niven said, stony.

I viewed her with real dislike. Whatever I said, she'd twist my words. They had me down for a fantasist.

“Do you approve of taking the law into your own hands?” The barbed smile returned. We were back to my alleged threat to Charlie.

“No, of course not,” I said, exhausted, “but, last I heard, it's perfectly acceptable for a householder to defend himself from intruders.”

“I was referring to your conduct with Kyle Stannard.”

I took a breath, trying to resist rising to Niven's bait. “It wasn't like that,” I said as pleasantly as I could.

“We understand you were quite zealous in your pursuit of Mr. Stannard. You went to his parents' home, isn't that right?”

“No comment.”

Niven paused for effect. “Would it surprise you to know that we've identified the weapon used on Chris?”

Clever switch of emphasis, I thought. “You've found it?”

“Not yet, but we know from the type of injuries what was used.”

“You said it was a hammer.”

“Did we? I thought we said it was something
like
a hammer.”

I felt Chadwick's eyes bore into the side of my head. “Maybe,” I said, bullish. “I don't remember for certain.”

“Are you sure you don't remember? You see, it was a car jack, Kim, exactly the type of weapon with which you threatened Mr. Lidstone.”

Chadwick immediately asked for a break and whisked me off to a side room.

Once inside, his gaze hardened. “They're giving you an opportunity to change your story.”

“I don't want to change my story,” I said, desperate not to cry.
“I used my jack to change the wheel on my car. I grabbed it when I thought I had an intruder. I did
not
use it to kill Chris.”

Chadwick's cool eyes fused on mine. “Tell me more about Gaynor Lassiter.”

“I hardly know anything about her. She's a friend of a woman I used to go to boarding school with. Until today, I'd no idea that the missing woman had ever been stalked.” Made me wonder why Alexa had failed to mention it.

Chadwick nodded in the way people do when they dismiss a theory.
Sledge-hammered
with new information, I was on a knife edge and dangerously close to slipping into a fugue state.

“And Charlie?”

Surprised, I told him what happened.

“Do you reckon Charlie laid it on thick to the police?”

“It would seem so.” I really didn't want Charlie getting into any more trouble. “I had coffee with Claire this morning,” I explained.

Chadwick tapped the side of his nose, a perplexed expression on his face. He didn't say anything immediately. “What was Charlie doing in your house?”

“He came to sit in when I had a viewing. I'd no idea he was going to show up, so it was rather a shock.”

“Did he have a key?”

“The door was open.”

“Who said?”

“He did.”

Then I gabbled on about Simon, his reference to my car as a nice heap of metal, how it fitted with the anonymous note. Before I ran out of steam, Chadwick had a strange expression on his face, as if he were saying
All these men, all these red herrings
. “Sounds as if you're grasping at straws.”

“You don't think his choice of words significant?” I was practically pleading with him.

The way he was looking at me, it was a distinct possibility that a psychiatrist would rock up and spirit me away under the auspices of the Mental Health Act.

“They won't find anything incriminating in the car, will they?” he said, slicing through my thoughts.

“You already asked me that,” I said. “Not unless someone's planted evidence.”

Chadwick's eyes darkened. His voice was sharp. “This is real life, Kim, not an episode of
Murder She Wrote
.” He opened the door, popped his head round, intimating that we were ready to resume. “Leave me to handle this,” he hissed as we walked back inside.

“My client feels there's nothing to add to or retract from her original statement,” Chadwick said, like a QC summing up for the defence. “I think it's fair to say that my client's professional life is exemplary. Her work, specialising in eating disorders, is highly regarded both by her peers and patients alike. She has a livelihood and a reputation at stake.”

With a rush of guilt, I remembered Kirsten Matherson.

“I would also point out that she has roots in this community and is therefore not likely to flee.”

He's persuading them not to detain me, I realised, my eyes trained on Niven's inscrutable face.

Darke looked at Niven, who looked at me. “Surrender your passport and you're free to go,” she said with a deadly,
self-satisfied
smile.

eighty

I asked Fiona to
drive me to an off-licence. In preparation for the following evening, I bought a mixed case—South African white, French and Chilean red—and a pack of lager because Andy preferred it to wine. A concession to responsibility, I also bought two litres of water, one still, one sparkling. I hardly spoke on the drive back to the cottage, deflecting any question with a monosyllabic answer.

I carried the case of drink to the door. With one foot on the step, I stopped. Fiona, behind, barrelled into me.

“What's up?”

“Listen.”

She took a step forward, put her ear to the door. “Music playing.”

“Yes.”

“You must have left it on.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certain.”

“You wait here. Give me the keys.” Fiona unlocked the door and walked inside. I rested the box down and sat on the step, waiting for something but not sure what. Seconds later, the cottage fell silent. Fiona reappeared. “Coast's clear.”

I followed her in.

“It was on a loop. Do you recognise it?” Fiona held up a CD.

Of course I did. U2. “Love Is Blindness.”
Three-in
-
the-morning
-drunk, lyrics sucking me in, sexy riffs epitomising a dark, obsessive theme. I didn't know my stalker's identity, but I knew now what drove him. Therein lay the fear and the anger. And I knew about that, too. Mine.

I looked at Fiona squarely. “Dead men don't stalk.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's back. He's here. Like I always knew he would be.”

“But Chris …”

“
Not
Chris,” I hissed. “Here, let me show you.” I led Fiona to the dining room and showed her the photo album.

“We've already looked at it,” Fiona said.

“But you didn't know what you were looking for because it wasn't there. You didn't realise its significance.” I told Fiona about the missing photograph, what it meant. “This is the real Chris. Don't you see, psychologically speaking, this can't have been the man stalking me.”

I watched Fiona's pensive expression. “Maybe it's the impression he wanted to create,” Fiona said. “To come across as the attentive, caring lover, but underneath something else was at play.”

I shook my head, vehement. “
What
was at play?
What
motivated him? He had an affair. He had an exit strategy already lined up and then changed his mind and decided to stay.”

Neither of us spoke. Fiona touched the photograph lightly with her fingers. There was hesitation in her manner. I picked up on it. She was weakening and coming round to my point of view. I pressed home my advantage.

“Chris was already dead when someone entered my flat in Cheltenham and left a revolting calling card. Now this.” I glanced in the direction of the CD player.

“You say your brother, Luke, can verify that Chris called him?”

“Yes.”

“How do you explain the letters?”

“The computer can't tell you the identity of the letter writer.”

“What about the dates? What about his signature?” The blue eyes filled with concern.

“They must have been forged.” To my mind, Fiona was outgunned, but she still didn't look convinced.

“Would you like me to stay?” she said as if to appease me.

“No, I want you to go.” It won't end unless you do.

eighty-one

I checked my phone,
noticed I had three missed calls, put the lager and two bottles of white wine in the fridge, and exchanged my sandals for a pair of sturdy ankle boots, my thin jacket for leather. I scrunched back my hair into a ponytail. It wasn't a style I liked because it exposed too much the damaged side of my face, but it was practical.

Snatching my crash helmet from the cupboard, Chris's keys from the drawer, I went outside and crossed the gravelled drive to the garage. Chris's
metal-grey
bike sat inside, ready for a fast exit. I let out a low moan and a rush of grief stormed me as I remembered better times. I don't know how long I stayed, shoulders shuddering, my face hot and wet with tears, head splitting. Could have been a couple of minutes. Could have been more. When the worst was over I pushed aside the illegality of what I was about to do and, with both hands on the high handlebars, I swung onto the saddle. Flicking the kickstand up with my boot, I stabbed the key into the ignition. Immediately the dashboard lit up, the neutral light glowing green. As Chris's ghostly voice whispered the moves in my ear, I punched the kill switch, pulled the clutch in, pressed the starter button to fire up the engine, then flexed the twist grip and
short-shifted
through the gearbox, as Chris had shown me. One down and five up through the
six-speed
gearbox, the accompanying growl from the nonbaffled exhaust providing the bass rhythm for the roar in my heart. I'd no idea if I could handle such a powerful machine. I'd only ever
test-ridden
the Tiger on lonely country lanes; a motorway was a very different story.

Before I lost my nerve I shot out onto the drive and headed straight to Kingsbridge, concentrating hard on not taking the bends too fast. Once there, I stopped at a payphone near Dodbrooke Church, where I called Alexa.

“Kim,” she exclaimed on hearing my voice. “I've been trying to get hold of you. I've had a visit from the police.”

“I know.”

“They said that Chris has been murdered.”

“Yes,” I said dully.

“My God, so that's why they were asking all sorts of questions.”

“About me?”

“And Gaynor. I'm not sure I follow the connection.”

My wits sharpened. The police maintained that there was no link. Niven had been adamant. Was her intention to use the information about Lassiter to discredit me, or was she genuinely following a lead?

“Do you remember the names of the officers who talked to you?”

“A guy called Darke, and a woman whose name I forget. I got the impression that she was senior to him. I didn't like her, actually.”

“Alexa, I don't remember you ever saying that Gaynor had a stalker.”

“What?” The pitch of her voice was so high she couldn't be faking it.

“You didn't know?”

“I had absolutely no idea. Is that what the police told you?”

“Yes.” I scratched my nose, trying to assemble my thoughts. It wasn't so strange that the police had another agenda because they thought I was responsible for Chris's death. Then it hit me. “Gaynor's husband would know his wife was being stalked, wouldn't he?”

Maybe the stalking element was deliberately held back from the public and press so that it wouldn't elicit a load of calls from cranks and hoaxers. Either that, or the police lacked concrete evidence. The very nature of stalking meant things often happened in secret and only held significance for the victim. Perhaps the police had been as sceptical of Gaynor's stalker as they had of mine. “Does Gaynor's husband still live in Bristol?”

“Ivan moved to Exeter.”

“Do you have an address, a phone number?”

“He won't talk to you.”

“You don't think so?” I failed to hide my dismay.

“He had a rough ride with the media. The press practically camped outside his door for twelve months.”

“Give me his number and address anyway.”