Author: Amanda Robson
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/amanda-robson/page,18,560635-my_darling.html
The doorbell rings. I do not feel like answering. If it’s something important, the caller will come back. It’s probably an ex-prisoner selling expensive dusters, or one of those annoying salesmen with a big white tray of smelly fish, lying about how fresh it is. They seem to call here far too often. They pick on well-heeled areas like this.
The bell rings again. Louder, more insistent. Is it a Jehovah’s Witness? I sigh as I pull myself away from the comfort of the sofa. I go upstairs and peer down from behind the bedroom curtain. Panic stabs into me. A police car is slung across the driveway. Have you had an accident, Emma? I see DS Jupiter and a sidekick standing on the doorstep. DS Miranda Jupiter is frowning and pressing the bell again. It reverberates through the house. Shell-shocked, I stand, feet rooted to the ground, listening to it. She bends down and shouts through the letter box.
‘Alastair Brown, we know you’re in there. Let us in or we’ll break the door down.’
Alastair Brown. It’s me they want. Break the door down? Someone as slender as Miranda Jupiter? She must have back-up. Panic explodes inside me. Can I hide in the closet? In the loft? Can I escape via the back door and run? No. No. Running will make things worse.
I walk downstairs, breathing deeply to calm myself. I open the door. The sidekick, a man with a piggy face, small eyes and puffy skin, pushes against me. He clamps my hands behind my back and cuffs me.
‘Alastair Brown, I am arresting you on suspicion of murdering Tomas Covington, and perverting the course of justice by providing false evidence. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence,’ DS Miranda Jupiter spouts.
I’m stupefied. This cannot be happening. I must be having a bad dream. Hallucinating. Pig Face with his invisible cheekbones pushes me into the police car, and sits in the back with me. Too close, breathing my air. Miranda drives, whipping the siren and lights on. The siren lacerates my mind. What evidence have they got? Emma, love of my life, did you do this to me? Did you set me up?
We arrive at the police station. My pockets are searched and my personal effects recorded and confiscated: my wallet, my loose change, my phone, house keys and belt. Then Pig Face escorts me to an interview room. A room with rubbery floors and walls. A room with no windows. It contains a plastic table, four plastic chairs and a recording machine. Pig Face sits on one side of the table and folds his arms. I sit opposite him.
‘I need a lawyer,’ I tell him. He looks through me, as if I’m invisible. ‘I know I’m entitled to one.’
‘I’m waiting for DS Miranda Jupiter,’ he says, staring into the air in front of him.
Obviously not bright enough to think for himself. I grit my teeth and try to be patient.
Miranda Jupiter sweeps in eventually, head held high. Imperious.
‘I want a lawyer,’ I shout.
Lips in a line. ‘That’ll slow things down, if you want to go home today.’
‘Are you trying to deny me my rights?’ I ask.
She tosses her silken black hair. ‘I’m just warning you. Duty solicitors are very overworked. There is quite a queue for one at the moment.’ She pauses. ‘Do you want me to request one, or do you have a private solicitor in mind?’
‘Request one, please,’ I tell her through gritted teeth.
‘OK. I’ll call one. Come on Brian,’ she says to Pig Face. ‘This will take time. Let’s get on with something else while we wait.’
Pig Face follows his sullen mentor. And I’m left alone, hands and mind trembling. What has happened here? How can I have been arrested for the murder of Tomas Covington? I need Miranda and her sidekick to come back and tell me what has happened. What evidence they have.
Time stops. I sit at the table, simmering with dread. Dread of the future, fear of the past. After what seems like forever, the interview room door opens. A middle-aged woman, wearing a dark suit and carrying a briefcase, enters. She has strawberry-blonde hair and freckles. A wide face. Broad nose. Large round eyes.
‘I’m Hazel Brannighan, your duty solicitor. How do you do?’ She pulls out the chair next to me and sits down. ‘Can you run me through what has happened so far?’
I tell her everything. Well, almost. Not about punching you, Emma.
‘I agree with you. It does sound as if you’ve been set up by your girlfriend. But what would motivate her to do that?’
I don’t reply.
‘My main advice to you,’ she continues, ‘is to tell the truth. Truth always triumphs in the end.’
And Miranda and Pig Face are here. Sidling into the interview room. Settling themselves opposite us. Miranda turns on the tape recorder and announces her presence. We all announce our presence.
‘Now,’ I say. ‘You tell me why we’re here.’
‘It’s normal for the police, not the accused, to lead the interview,’ Miranda scowls.
I shrug my shoulders. ‘Sorry. But I’m very confused about what I’m supposed to have done wrong. I would like that to be recorded.’
Miranda Jupiter leans forwards. ‘We have found a wrench with your DNA and the deceased, Tomas Covington’s, blood and hair on it, in the boot of your car.’
A wrench. My heart stops. I know the only wrench I have used was the one I mended your sink with, Emma. But blood and hair? What the fuck? You have set me up. My body screams with the pain of your deceit. My darling, what have you done to me?
‘Do you have any explanation?’ DS Miranda Jupiter asks.
Miranda’s questions twist and turn, again and again. I answer carefully, as before. This time I’m thinking about myself, not you, Emma. My love for you has flowed into a river of hate.
Miranda falls silent for a moment. The interview must be over.
‘Alastair Brown, I am charging you with the murder of Tomas Covington, and for perverting the course of justice,’ Miranda Jupiter says. I can hardly breathe. I gasp for air. ‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence,’ she continues.
114
Emma
I’m in my surgery, where I feel safe, where I feel in control, where I am the alpha female. In between patients. An overdose of fillings today, and a few too many difficult children. Actually it’s not the children who are difficult, it is the parents – the way they react to their offspring. I am so glad not to have kids. Standing, looking out of the window, admiring my garden, my roses, my clematis, my fuchsia, my hydrangeas, when my mobile rings.
‘Miranda Jupiter here. Just to inform you, Alastair Brown has been charged with the murder of Tomas Covington. He has been imprisoned and I’m sure bail will be denied in a case as serious as this.’
Relief floods through me. I’m safe.
‘As we discussed, we’ll need to call you as a witness in due course. I hope that’s still acceptable?’
‘Yes, of course.’
The call ends. I put my mobile in my pocket. Freedom dances in front of me. The flowers in my beautiful garden fade before my eyes and I’m back remembering what I have done. Back using the spare key to Jade’s house. Wearing latex gloves as instructed. Rampaging through Jade’s freezer, looking for Tomas’ blood. It was exactly where she said it was. Between the ice cream and the cheesecake, in the container marked ‘Gravy’. The blood she told me she kept in case she needed to do more to set me up. Back defrosting Tomas’ DNA. Rubbing it on the wrench you used to mend my plumbing.
I smile inside. You didn’t suspect, did you Alastair? You didn’t know I borrowed your car keys before I spoke to Miranda Jupiter. Putting the bloodied wrench in the car boot was so simple.
Alastair Brown, you will never hurt me again.
115
Alastair
Incarcerated. Doors locking behind me as two guards escort me to my cell. Two substantial young men with brick walls for
shoulders. One with a shaved head, a neck tattoo and an earring. One with long wavy brown hair. Pulling me along as if I’m a sack of potatoes; dead with no feeling. Winding along a corridor painted white. The corridor is empty apart from us. No other inmates are being moved right now.
They stop outside a cell, unlock it and push me in. Almost into the arms of my cell-mate, a man of about forty, with thin legs and a long face. Pale skin. Blond hair. The door grinds and clicks.
‘Hey,’ he says as I hold on to the bed to stop myself careering into him. ‘Name’s Fred. Who are you?’
‘Alastair.’
We stand by the bunks. Pinprick brown eyes bore into mine. He blinks. He shrugs his slender shoulders, and gesticulates with his right hand to introduce me to the cell.
‘Well, make yourself at home, mate. As you can see I’ve hogged the top bunk. I find the bottom claustrophobic.’
‘I find everything about being here claustrophobic.’
He grins. ‘You’ll get used to it.’
I look around. Not much to see. The bunks. Two easy chairs. A small TV. A chest of drawers for our clothes. I pad across and open the bathroom door. Cold air and the stench of damp blast into my face, making me catch my breath. The bathroom has a shower cubicle with a white plastic shower curtain peppered with mould, a toilet and a basin. White tiling with mouldy grouting, spreading up the walls. I shiver and step back into the cell.
‘What are you in for?’ Fred asks.
‘Murder.’
He raises his eyebrows as if impressed.
‘You?’
‘The same.’
There is a pause.
‘I didn’t do it,’ I tell him. ‘I was stitched up by my girlfriend.’
He puts his head back and cackles. ‘I wish I could say the same. But my trial’s coming up in a few months and, despite all the odds against us, my QC is hopeful she’ll get me off. Not that much evidence against me, it seems.’
I don’t like to ask him what he did. I’m not sure I want to know. I close my eyes and imagine a knife crime, sudden pain, spurting blood. Or a strangulation, plastic cord tightening around a pretty neck. I open them to find his thin weasel of a face still watching me intently. He looks a bit like Paul Hogan in his heyday. Good-looking and wiry.
‘How long have you been inside?’ I ask.
‘A few weeks, but it’s not my first time.’
‘Can you show me the ropes?’
‘Sure can, mate. But for now I’m watching TV. Watching TV is the only way I can relax in here.’
He flicks it on, with the remote. And sits engrossed in Coronation Street. I have nothing to do. Nothing to read. Nothing to unpack. No possessions with me, only the prison clothing I have been allocated and a few toiletries they gave me when I signed in. So I sit and join him. I’ll have to get Emma to bring me some of the things I’m allowed. My stomach tightens. No. No. Not Emma. My body fragments in pain. Aching as if she has been cut away from me by a knife. Stephen and my mother will have to help.
Coronation Street drones on. A serious issue; a young girl with dark skin buying whitening powder behind her family’s back. The actor playing her father has an empathetic voice.
I close my eyes and turn my mind in on itself. Emma, Emma, how could you do this?
Memories
Back in my swimming pool in Esher, trying to whip up some adrenalin to relax me. Colin arrived home. I heard the patio doors sliding open as I carried on timing my swim. He walked to the poolside, took off his clothes, and entered by climbing down a ladder at the shallow end. He swam up behind me, grabbed me, and pushed me under.
‘Next time, whatever you’re doing when I come home, please have the manners to come and greet me.’
He ducked me again, for longer this time. When he released me, my lungs felt as if they were spitting blood.
116
Alastair
My brief is here, in the meeting room with me. And my solicitor. My brief, Crispin Ward, is a crusty old man with more hairs in his nasal cavity than on his head. Whenever I look at him I think about tortoises. Today as I sit opposite him I realise why. His mouth is straight, cutting a line through his wrinkles, just like the mouth of the tortoise my grandfather used to own. A crack through scaly creviced skin.
My solicitor, Jane Perkins, is a young woman with her hair cut in a bob so severe it doesn’t move when she turns her head. She has large bulging eyes and rosebud lips. The sandy-haired, curvy woman I had to begin with has disappeared.
‘I’ve been stitched up by my fiancée, Emma Stockton. I’m sure she planted the wrench in my car. A week or so earlier she asked me to mend her sink with a wrench, which she wouldn’t touch when I handed it back to her. She asked me to leave it on some kitchen roll. I’m serious. The woman is dangerous.’
My brief and my solicitor exchange glances.
‘What would be her motive to do this? It would help if we could explain why she wanted you incarcerated. Juries and judges like motives. Had you and Emma fallen out?’
‘Nope. I just think she’s a psychopath who is frightened of men.’
‘And you didn’t frighten her?’
‘Of course not, no.’
I lean forwards and meet Crispin Ward QC’s grey eyes. ‘I think she’s the murderer. All the evidence pointed towards that in the first place. She killed Tomas Covington, not me. I knew she did. Like Jade said, she was furious that Tomas had finished with her. I just covered up her crime because I was infatuated with her.’
Crispin Ward QC shakes his head slowly.
‘No. You can’t argue that. You are clutching at straws. The evidence against her is inadmissible because you tampered with it. And anyway, she now has an alibi for the night of the murder. If I were you, Alastair, I would concentrate on telling the truth.’
I clench my fingers together. ‘An alibi? Who from?’
‘Your ex-wife, Heather.’
I exhale quickly. The sound of air rushing from my windpipe slices across the room.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Yes. She was hiding in the garden all evening, hoping to speak to you. She saw Emma come home at seven thirty, switch the lights on, and says she didn’t leave the house. Heather left at about ten forty-five p.m. apparently.’
Heather. Emma. Jade. A female conspiracy. A trio of bitches. And Emma, you are the biggest bitch of all.
117
Jade
It is so good to be home. The golden colours of autumn forming a fresco along the river, tumbling beauty pushing into my life as I walk my new golden retriever puppy, Monty. He is adorable. Easier to love than a man. He never says anything to upset me. Never answers me back. I stroke him for hours, his fur is as soft as silk.
The Stereotype is still pretending to be my friend, not my enemy. But I know what she really is; and she’s admitted it now. A whore who was shagging my husband.
118
Alastair
Fred has lent me the mobile phone that his wife smuggled in for him. The wife he showed me pictures of, with her large eyes and simpering blonde curls. Fred, my champion in here.
I’m standing in our shower room calling you, Emma. Watching a spider crawl across the mouldy grouting, across the shower tray, and disappearing between the cluster of hairs lining the plughole. The bathroom stinks of urine however much we clean it, as the toilet is leaking. We’ve reported it but no one has come to mend it yet.
The phone is ringing. Pick up. Pick up, you bitch. Twenty rings. Your answer machine clicks in. Your honeyed voice melts down the phone line towards me. So sweet and sycophantic, it makes me feel sick. I do not leave a message.
An hour later, I try again.
‘Emma speaking.’ It is really you this time.
‘Alastair here.’
A wall of silence. I know you are there, and after all I have done to help you, you are still ignoring me. Still in your home of privilege, surrounded by crystal and marble and silk, not body odour, locked doors and violence.
>
‘What do you want, Alastair?’ you eventually stutter.
‘An explanation. Why did you stitch me up, you bitch?’
I imagine you standing by your kitchen counter picking up the phone from the wall socket, and then looking through the window, at your professionally tended flower beds as we talk.
‘I didn’t stitch you up,’ you tell me, voice sharp.
‘Who did then?’ I growl.
‘Jade.’
Your emerald-green cat’s eyes will be narrowing as you lie.
My throat tightens. ‘Why should I believe you? You haven’t come to see me. You don’t care about me.’
The line goes quiet. No crackling. No breathing. For a second I think we’ve been cut off.
‘Are you still there, Emma?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Yes. I was just wondering how to explain.’ There is a pause. ‘You’ve just been so cross and violent lately. You know what you did to me. I was frightened.’ Another pause. Longer this time. ‘It was Jade. I can assure you.’
‘Oh Emma, how do you expect me to take this bullshit? You must have helped her. Otherwise how did she get the keys to my car? How did the police know where I was staying?’
I hear you breathing down the phone line. ‘She must have paid someone from in prison. It’s easy enough to break into a car. She’s dangerous. You know she is.’
‘How did she get my DNA?’ I snarl.
‘Maybe she kept some from when we went for dinner.’