The Carrier (25 page)
Authors: Sophie Hannah
Tags: #Fiction, #Psychological, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Thriller, #Mystery
‘So she set about portraying herself as the winner,’ said Kerry, frowning. ‘The strong woman, better off without her mentally ill husband. Wow. I think you might be on to something there.’
Charlie smiled. Would she repeat her insight to Simon later? It was always hard to predict what would impress him. Sometimes she shared details of what she imagined to be an achievement and he launched into a lecture about how wrong she was.
‘I said to Dan at the time, it’s lucky Tim broke off contact with us too when he disappeared. What if he hadn’t, and he’d asked how Francine was taking it?’
Charlie waited, unsure where this was going.
‘We’d have had to lie. If I’d said, “She’s totally fine: going to work as usual, not falling apart at all, not asking after you—”’
‘He’d have kicked himself for not having left her sooner?’
‘Hard to say, Tim being Tim. I certainly would have, in his position. All those years, wasted.’ Kerry shuddered. ‘Course, Francine couldn’t have been fine deep down, whatever gloss she may have put on it. And everything I heard was second-hand anyway, via our only mutual acquaintance, and she didn’t know Francine
that
well. I preferred to think of Francine as secretly falling apart. She deserved to be.’
‘Kerry, what happened here on 16 February?’ Charlie asked, as if it were a natural continuation of what they’d been discussing. ‘From your point of view, not Tim’s. Tell me how it was. Everything you can remember. If you don’t mind, that is.’ She made a point of looking at her watch. ‘And then I’ll have to go. Let me just . . .’ – she pulled her phone out of her bag and started to key in a text to Sam – ‘. . . summon my chauffeur, DS Kombothekra.’ That should be enough to put Kerry at her ease; if Charlie was making plans to leave, they couldn’t be about to have the most important part of the conversation. ‘Right. Done. Sorry, go on.’
‘I was in here cooking supper,’ Kerry said. ‘It was a recipe I hadn’t tried before: spinach and asparagus crepes, béchamel sauce. I was excited. That must sound stupid.’
‘Not at all.’
Rather a lot.
Nothing bored Charlie more than people pontificating about food.
‘Tim was in Francine’s room. I knew that. He’d come in to tell me he was going to see her. He always told me and Dan beforehand, so that we wouldn’t come in and interrupt him. We’d tell Lauren, make sure she didn’t barge in either.’
‘Tim wouldn’t tell Lauren himself, then?’ Charlie barged in verbally.
Kerry shook her head. ‘No. We were his conduit. He’d talk to Jason, but not to Lauren if he could avoid it.’
‘Why?’
‘He found her irritating in all kinds of ways: mainly her lack of intelligence, I think. Also . . .’
‘What?’ Charlie watched as Kerry silently debated whether or not to answer the question.
‘Tim and Lauren had a bit of a power struggle going on. Both wanted to be . . . sort of in charge of Francine.’
‘Did they share the day-to-day care?’
‘No, Lauren did all the intimate care. And any moving and lifting – with Jason’s help, usually, mine once or twice. Tim went in every day, though, to talk to Francine or to read to her.’ Kerry looked up at Charlie suddenly. ‘Make sure everyone knows that, will you? The police, the press. The judgers and the haters. Whatever the problems in their marriage, even though he’d left her and thought he’d left for good, when Francine had her stroke, Tim was straight back here to look after her. That’s why we all came back.’
From where?
Charlie would ask later. ‘Going back to Tim and Lauren’s power struggle . . .’ she prompted.
‘It wasn’t really a struggle.’ Kerry shifted in her chair. ‘Nothing was ever said. It was a territorial thing more than anything. Dan and I hardly ever went into Francine’s room. Jason never did, unless he was looking for Lauren, or she needed him to help lift Francine. Lauren and Tim both did, and each found it annoying when the other was in there. It wasn’t much more than that, really. One of them always seemed to be waiting outside the door, impatient for the other to come out so they could go in for a chat. Well, not a two-way chat, but . . . you know what I mean.’
‘So Tim still cared about Francine?’ Charlie asked.
Kerry looked distracted, as if she was thinking about something else. ‘No. Not in the way you mean, not at all. But . . . It’s hard to explain. Francine was his wife. He’d come back to look after her, and I don’t think he wanted Lauren taking her over.’
Why not?
Kerry’s explanation almost made sense, but not quite.
‘Going back to 16 February,’ said Charlie. ‘You were here in the kitchen. Alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
Kerry’s eyes glazed over. ‘I heard Lauren scream,’ she said in a monotone. ‘It . . . it didn’t stop, the screaming. I ran to where the noise was coming from.’
‘Which was?’
‘Francine’s room. Jason was with me. He came out of the lounge as I came out of the kitchen. The doors are opposite each other. We nearly collided. We ran to Francine’s room together and, well, we saw her. She looked . . .’ Kerry stopped, pressed her eyes shut. ‘We could tell straight away.’
‘Go on,’ said Charlie.
‘There were pillows on the floor. Tim was standing by the window, looking out, and Lauren was screaming, holding a pile of clean washing, clutching it against herself. Some had fallen on the floor. She’d been in the utility room when it happened, next door to Francine’s room. Tim went in there and told her what he’d done, and then—’
‘Kerry, sorry,’ Charlie cut her off. ‘Just tell me what you saw and heard. Francine’s room: you, Jason, Tim, Lauren, clean washing. Pillows on the floor.’
Kerry nodded. ‘Dan came in then, wet, with a towel wrapped round his waist. He’d been in the bath upstairs. I hugged Lauren until she stopped making a noise. Tim said, “I’ve killed Francine. I smothered her with this.” He lifted up one of the pillows.’
‘How long did he hold it for?’ Charlie asked. ‘Or did he drop it, once he’d shown you which one he used?’
‘I . . .’ Kerry swallowed and looked away. ‘I don’t remember. I think he . . . no, I don’t remember, sorry.’
A lie.
‘When you say he lifted up the pillow, you mean he lifted it over his head? Or did he hold it at chest level?’
‘He . . . he held it at chest level?’
Charlie had met plenty of people – usually younger than Kerry Jose – who made everything sound like a question. Something very different was going on here, something that felt a bit like:
I haven’t thought about this part of my story and I’m not sure what I ought to say. I know you’re the person I’m lying to, but please can you help me?
‘What was Jason doing in the lounge?’ Charlie asked, picturing the collision as he and Kerry had rushed out into the hall at the same time. She wasn’t sure why this detail had snagged in her mind. And then she had it. ‘Lauren was in the utility room sorting out the washing,’ she said. ‘Was that one of her normal jobs?’
Kerry nodded. She was pulling her hair again, yanking her head to one side. It looked painful.
‘Dan was in the bath, you were cooking,’ said Charlie. ‘Tim was busy with Francine. I know what everyone was doing except Jason. DS Kombothekra told me he’s the handyman here as well as the gardener. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there’s no garden in the lounge. Was he fixing something?’
‘Yes,’ Kerry said breathlessly. Too quickly.
‘What was he fixing?’ Something in this house needed fixing, that was for sure; Charlie thought it was unlikely to be anything a handyman and his tool-box could easily resolve.
Silence from Kerry.
‘You’re sure Jason hadn’t finished work for the day?’ A lifeline or a trap; Charlie was interested to see how it would be received.
‘No, he . . . I’m wrong, sorry. I must have . . .’ Kerry inhaled unevenly. ‘He was
outside
the lounge, at the front of the house.’
‘What? But you said he came out of the lounge as you came out of the kitchen. You nearly collided, spilling out of your opposite doors – that’s what’s you said.’
‘We
did
nearly collide. In the hall, as Jason came inside after cleaning the outsides of the lounge windows. I was running from the kitchen and—’
‘Was Jason also running?’
‘Yes. We both panicked. Lauren was screaming.’
‘Sorry, Kerry, let me get this straight.’ Charlie feigned confusion. ‘A minute ago, I asked you if Jason was fixing something in the lounge. You said yes.’
‘Sorry, I got confused. No, Jason was
outside
cleaning the lounge windows when Tim killed Francine.’
‘And then when Lauren screamed, he ran inside and nearly bumped into you in the hall?’
Kerry nodded.
‘Where, exactly?’
‘At the foot of the stairs.’
Charlie picked up her phone and her bag and stood up. She felt dizzy after sitting in the same position for too long. ‘Would you mind participating in an experiment?’ she asked Kerry. ‘I’m going to go and stand at the front of the house, outside – by the lounge windows. Can you go to Francine’s room and scream at the top of your lungs for about ten, twenty seconds? I want to see if I can hear you. I’m assuming the lounge windows were closed while Jason was cleaning them. What about the front door – was that closed too? It’d be good to reproduce the conditions as closely as we can.’
Kerry’s mouth hung open. Her face had drained of all colour.
‘It might help you as much as it helps me,’ Charlie told her. ‘Nothing releases tension like a good screaming session.’
Seated at the kitchen table, Kerry opened her mouth and screamed her husband’s name.
POLICE EXHIBIT 1434B/SK – TRANSCRIPT OF HANDWRITTEN LETTER FROM KERRY JOSE TO FRANCINE BREARY DATED 4 JANUARY 2011
Hello, Francine.
This is the first chance I’ve had to write to you since Christmas Eve. I’ve been wanting to say that I’m sorry I had to take away the Christmas present Tim gave you. He left it in your hand, but I had to put it where it wasn’t visible. I had no choice. Hopefully you didn’t mind. It was only a poem. A mightily depressing one, too. You hate poetry and can’t see the point of it, right? Anyway, I didn’t destroy it. It’s under your mattress, with Dan’s and my letters to you, so it’s safe and still yours as far as I’m concerned.
Did you have a wretched Christmas, stuck in here with no company apart from Lauren’s fleeting practical visits? I imagine the festive season must be unbearable when you’re bedridden and incapable of enjoying life. I can’t bring myself to feel sympathy for you, Francine – for which I’m sorry, believe it or not – but I can sympathise with your situation when I remove you from it. Maybe that counts a bit. I’m not sure it does.
Did I have a good Christmas? Not especially. I was tense the whole time. My shoulders are so rigid, they’re like a concrete vice round my neck. Which is pretty stiff and sore too, come to think of it. It’s true what that poet wrote in the poem Tim gave you: ‘the body is a record of the mind’. Dan thinks a deep tissue massage will sort me out, but there’s only one thing now that can make me feel any better and that’s for this horrible situation we’re all in to end. And, at the risk of being greedy and asking for too much, I would so love it to end in a way that doesn’t involve anyone going to prison for murder. So, once again, Francine: are you sure you still want and need to be here? If you don’t, please can you switch yourself off somehow?
Lauren spent the whole of Christmas Day telling us all rather frantically what a fantastic and lovely time we were all having, in between popping into your room to see you. She seemed on the edge of hysteria, to me at least. I suspect she was thinking, and trying not to think, about the contrast between your miserable experience of Christmas and our designed-to-look-jolly one, with its crackers, Port, music and board games. You know she and Jason only spent Christmas with us because of you, Francine? She told me she could see her family any time, but she couldn’t bear to leave you, not on Christmas Day. She’d asked me at the beginning of November if you could be part of the festivities. I had to tell her no. Tim insisted: no to your bed being brought into the lounge, no to us moving several chairs and all the Christmas paraphernalia into your room so that you could be included in that way.
Were you confused in the run-up to Christmas? Lauren put decorations up in your room, only for Tim to rip them down as soon as he saw them. He was outraged, and wondered why Lauren was suddenly making an effort this year. I told him that she had probably wanted to make you part of Christmas last year too, but hadn’t dared ask. ‘It’s none of her business,’ Tim said. ‘Explain to her what we know and she doesn’t: there was never any point trying to make Francine happy, and there’s even less point now. Do you know what she’d say if she could speak, if we included her in Christmas? She’d accuse us of rubbing it in: parading our fun in front of her, with the sole aim of making her feel worse!’
I didn’t need to explain anything to Lauren. She was standing behind Tim, listening to every word he said.
I’d love to know how you feel about Lauren, Francine, assuming you feel anything for her. I wish I could make her life and role here easier for her, but what can I do? She’s a kind-hearted girl, but Tim’s right: she’s an employee. I hired her to look after you, so that neither Tim nor I would have to do the hands-on stuff. I can’t take her side against him. I don’t want to. I hate to sound as if I’m pulling rank but I suppose I am: Lauren didn’t know you before the stroke, and Tim, Dan and I did. That matters.
So, we didn’t ‘parade our Christmas fun’ in front of you, as Tim put it. If we had, would you have been sensitive enough to spot that it wasn’t fun at all, not for any of us? Or, post-stroke, are you still only sensitive to your own feelings? Perhaps that’s a sensible way to be. I’d certainly have had a more relaxing Christmas if I hadn’t been acutely aware of everyone else’s emotional agitation. Jason was in a bad mood because Lauren was so hyper. He spent most of the day giving her foul looks that had the opposite of a calming effect on her. Tim stiffened with irritation every time Lauren announced what a wonderful Christmas we were all having. He has always treated her as if she were invisible (‘and, more importantly, inaudible,’ as he might say), but recently he’s seemed less able to block her out. That reached its peak on Christmas Day. Dan and I were terrified all the way through dinner that he might explode and say something horrendous to her, and then Jason would punch him. Unlike Dan or Tim, Jason is the sort of man who would punch anyone who insulted his wife in his presence.
Lauren couldn’t have known or anticipated the effect it would have on Tim every time she told us all that our Christmas was one we’d remember forever as having been perfect (clue: nails scraped down a blackboard). Lauren doesn’t know about Making Memories Night, does she, Francine? You’re not in a position to tell her anything, are you? That’s assuming you even remember (oh, the irony!).
Seriously, though: even before the stroke, your memory had something wrong with it. So often you said, ‘No, that didn’t happen,’ about things that had unquestionably happened, and in front of reliable witnesses. After a while, Dan and I started to collect the didn’t-happens. Here are some of my favourites: