The Bad Things (20 page)

A door slammed and Sasha froze for a moment, gripped the worktop with both hands.

‘Sash? Are you there?’ Kate recognized the voice of Jez Clements and all at once she didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to have to see this man again. ‘I’ve brought you some food, in case you didn’t have any in.’

‘In the kitchen.’ Sasha’s face was strained and her voice was reedy. ‘I think you ought to go.’

‘Are you frightened of him?’ Kate asked quickly.

Sasha shook her head. ‘No, no, nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. Just go.’

Too late.

‘What are you doing here?’ His voice was hostile as he dumped two carrier bags down on the floor.

‘She was only seeing how I was, that’s all Jez.’ Sasha didn’t move.

Jez narrowed his eyes. ‘You’ve never bothered about us before,
Detective Inspector
,’
he almost spat out her rank, ‘so I’m not sure why you are now. Unless you just wanted to poke around.’ His voice shook and Kate regretted giving him the brush-off just before the press conference.

‘No, Sergeant. I wanted to see how Sasha was doing.’ He looked a mess. His hair needed a good wash and there was a couple of days’ stubble on his face. His clothes looked as though he’d snatched them off the washing pile.

‘Well she’s doing fine, no thanks to you lot. No thanks to the help you don’t give us. Can you tell me now how things are going? Or do I have to find out again from the tittle-tattle in the office?’

‘Look, I know this isn’t easy for either of you—’

‘Isn’t easy? No it bloody well isn’t easy and you’ve been no help. You might think that officers would stick together.’

Kate gazed at him steadily. ‘What do you mean by that, Sergeant?’

Jez met her gaze. ‘I mean we should help each other, support each other.’

‘Is that right? I heard you liked doing that, though I didn’t realize you called it “help” and “support”.’ Kate heard her voice getting angry so she took a couple of deep breaths. This wasn’t the time or place for that discussion. ‘Anyway, I was concerned about Sasha.’

‘So am I,’ he retorted, seeming to ignore the anger and sarcasm in her voice and not reacting to what she had just said. ‘But I don’t see why you think it necessary to come and poke around. Unless you think we’re responsible for putting that bitch down.’

Kate winced at his choice of words. Sasha was still gripping the worktop. ‘I’m just trying to piece together what happened the night Jackie Wood was murdered. Where were you, as a matter of interest, Sergeant?’

‘Me?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Sitting in front of the TV with a microwaved meal, I expect. That’s how I spend most evenings.’

‘Come on, Jez.’ This from Sasha. Wearily. ‘You’re not on your own very often, are you? Not these days.’

‘Don’t do this Sasha. Please.’

Kate watched the interplay between the pair with interest. Sasha’s face was set hard; Jez looked almost pleading.

‘Why not? You tossed me aside like I always knew you would.’

‘I did not “toss you aside” Sasha…oh, what’s the point?’ He turned to Kate. ‘If you must know, I was with someone that evening, but I’d rather not say who.’

Now Kate was interested. ‘Why not?’

‘Because.’ He crossed his arms looking belligerent.

She sighed. ‘You know the way it goes, Sergeant. You’ll have to tell us eventually.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Because she’s married, I expect’, said Sasha with a sneer. ‘That’s the usual thing for you, isn’t it, Jez? No complications, no involvement, no worry. That’s how he likes it, Detective Inspector.’

Kate didn’t want to be in the middle of an argument between this unhappy couple a moment longer. She looked at Jez. ‘I think we need to talk again, don’t you? I’ve got a few things I want to ask you about, okay?’

He looked defiant. ‘Fine.’

Somehow Kate didn’t think it was fine at all.

20

Another early morning and Alex’s office was beginning to feel like a prison. Every time she went up there the guilt would rise in her throat. It was either about leaving Gus to his own devices over the half-term or knowing that she should write the article about Jackie Wood. That was what she was feeling most guilty about at that moment, because there, sitting in her inbox, was yet another email from her editor.

Alex
–
no preliminaries there then
–
I know it’s a difficult time for you but I need your copy asap. I want to put the magazine to bed and you’re holding it up. Plus Fran wants to put a tease in the main paper so we can be the first to break it. Let me know if you can’t deliver
.
If you can’t I shall look the fool. I’ve trusted you on this, Alex.

No signature. Not a good sign. And, ‘can’t deliver’, not good words for someone who was essentially freelance. If she couldn’t deliver on time, then she wouldn’t get paid – obviously – but, more importantly, she would lose trust and probably wouldn’t get any more work.

It had been hard enough to get Liz onside with the article. The phone call she’d made to her editor late the day after Jackie Wood’s murder had been difficult, to say the least. Although, as Alex had expected, she was extremely interested, she’d had her management hat on when going through the ethics of the interview: the effects on Sasha, how Alex would feel seeing the interview in print. Alex explained it was all above board and all parties had agreed to the interview. And, she pointed out, you can’t libel the dead. Eventually Liz had taken it higher and had got the okay.

‘I want it quickly, Alex,’ she’d said when she phoned back to tell her to go ahead. ‘There’ll be a lot of interest in the murder over the next few days and we can hit it at its peak if we get it in next week’s magazine. I can hold it for you.’

But Alex had found it harder to order her thoughts than she thought she would.

She dropped her head into her hands. She still needed the money for Gus’s skiing trip, not to mention the bills that needed to be paid. She rifled through the envelopes that had dropped through the letter box that morning. An ominous-looking one from the bank. Would be about a couple of direct debits she hadn’t been able to pay. Her mobile phone bill. A credit card bill that she would have to shell out money for in the next couple of weeks.

There was always Ed Killingback’s offer. She could spill her guts to him for an enormous fee. He would love that. But there was no way she was going to give him that satisfaction, especially as there was no reason why Killingback should even suspect anything about her relationship with Jessop. And besides, by writing it herself, she would have control over the content – she wouldn’t trust Killingback not to put his own spin on it. And her work for the
Saturday Magazine
had been paying the bills for some years now and it needed to continue.

It had been three days since she had found Jackie’s body and it was clear Liz would not wait any longer. Alex shook herself. Enough. She had to get on with it. Taking out her notes, she opened a new document file on her computer and began to type.

Three hours later Alex pressed the ‘send’ button and was grateful for the whoosh that accompanied the email leaving her computer. She sat back in her chair and breathed a sigh of relief, hoping it would be okay.

She had written about the lonely woman she had found in that bleak caravan; how Jackie Wood was friendless with no idea how the world worked any more, how she couldn’t even experience the simple pleasure of going out for a coffee and a cake in case she was recognized. She wrote about the effect Martin Jessop’s crime had had on Sasha and the family, and how Jackie Wood had denied her part in it. She wrote about how she had hoped to get her to reveal where she and Jessop had buried Millie, despite her protestations of innocence, and she wrote of her shock at finding her dead. She wrote from her head, not her heart, and hoped it would satisfy Liz. She could see her editor’s lips pursing in disappointment that she hadn’t bared her soul enough. Tough. She had other things to worry about.

But in writing the article she had begun to feel almost sorry for Jackie Wood. She’d been a sad figure. Perhaps she’d always been like that? Alex pushed the thought away, and thought about Martin Jessop instead. How he had taken his own life, denying Sasha justice. At least, that’s how the papers put it at the time. There was some truth in that. She’d certainly wanted to see him rot in jail for what he’d done to the family. How had his wife coped with it all?

His wife. She stood by him throughout the trial. Even spoke to the papers; protesting his innocence. Said they would be launching an appeal. Said she would be there for him when he got out.

Opening the drawer in her desk, she took out her old contacts book from the days when the computer didn’t rule her daily life and flicked through its pages.

There it was. Martin’s Cambridgeshire address where his wife and family had lived fifteen years ago. The village of Harpen. Did they move away? Or did they stay and brazen it out? Did she ever know about the affair she, Alex, had been having with her husband? She leaned back in her chair. The telephone number was familiar – mainly because, for days after the trial, Alex had been tempted to ring up Angela Jessop, just to have some sort of contact with Martin. But she never had. How could she? How could she still have had feelings for the man who had murdered her niece and nephew?

She drummed her fingers on the desk. Angela Jessop could have the diary. Did she phone or should she just turn up, not giving Martin’s wife the chance to give her the brush off? If Angela Jessop had read the diary and Martin had written about his affair with her, about how they crept around, seeing each other without anyone else knowing, about how she’d had no compunction about taking up with a married man, what would his wife’s reaction be on seeing her? Or had enough years gone by to soften the encounter? How would she feel about seeing Martin’s wife? How would Martin’s wife feel about seeing her? Round and round these thoughts went, until she wanted to drop her head onto the desk and sleep.

But she didn’t. She got onto Google Maps and looked up Harpen. She reckoned it would take her a couple of hours to get there.

She clicked on Street View, and images of the road started unfolding. She wandered virtually through Jessop’s village. It was not a chocolate-box place, and she liked that. There was a row of council houses, and at the end of the row, a village hall. A telephone box nestled in the hedgerow just passed it. She wondered if it still worked or if it was now some sort of art installation or library or just a piss box. She turned left by the war memorial and found herself in a country lane bordered by hedges. The Google car must have been making its journey in early summer as the verges were thick with cow parsley – she could almost smell the vanilla scent – and the farmer’s tractor had not yet made its way along the lane brutally hacking back the brambles and the trees and the nettles.

The Jessops lived along this road somewhere. She moved the mouse forward to a wooden gate on the right. Whitehouse Farm. She willed Google to let her see over the hedge, through the gate, anything, anything so she could see Jessop’s wife in the garden, perhaps deadheading some roses, the children playing a game of tag, shouting happily. It would be summer because the pictures looked bright and sunny and the family would be happy because nothing bad had happened to them.

She rubbed her forehead. What the fuck was she doing? Constructing a fantasy life for a family who’d had the heart ripped out of them. And there wouldn’t be any children playing happily, not least, because they’d probably grown up and moved away from the shadow of their father being a murderer. She was losing touch with reality here. She had to get a grip.

‘Hey, Mum? Are you there?’ Gus called.

Reluctantly she put the computer to sleep and went downstairs.

‘Hi darling,’ she said, walking into the kitchen.

Gus was making beans on toast and a mess and Carly (Alex tried not to show surprise) was sitting at the table, her chin in her hand, auburn curls gathered in a messy bun on top of her head.

‘Mum, I’m just making Carly and me something to eat, then I thought we might go into Norwich to the cinema or something. Can you give us a lift to the station?’

If she went to Cambridgeshire she could drop them there on her way. ‘Yes, that would be fine. Are you meeting Jack or anyone?’

‘No, just us Mrs Devlin.’ Carly’s voice was quiet and assured. ‘I hope that’s okay.’

Alex smiled, trying not to be unnerved by the poise of the girl – no, young woman. ‘Of course it is, Carly. It’s no problem at all. I have to go out myself anyway.’

‘More interviewing, Mrs Devlin?’

Alex looked at her. Carly gazed back, a cool look in those almost violet eyes. She was beautiful, she had to commend Gus on his taste, but for some reason, Alex didn’t immediately warm to her. There was something a bit – what? – calculating in her manner. Something. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Maybe she was just plain jealous. Carly was wearing black leggings and a lacy frill for a skirt. She had on a sheer chiffon blouse with some sort of tee-shirt underneath and long sparkling pendants in her ears and Alex wished she’d had the confidence to develop her own style at that age.

‘Something like that, Carly. And do please call me Alex. Mrs Devlin makes me sound so old.’

‘And you’re not a Mrs anyway, are you?’ she said, a slight smile on those enviable lips.

‘No. No I’m not. Never married, Carly. I find it an overrated state.’

Gus was merrily slopping Worcestershire sauce over their beans and seemed unaware of the sudden tension that had permeated the atmosphere.

‘I’m sure you’re right. Alex.’ She got up from her chair and went over to Gus, winding her arm around his waist, other hand cupping his bottom. Staking her claim. Alex’s hackles rose, and jealousy surged through her. Then she told herself not to be so stupid. This was her son growing up, and she should be glad that a girl had taken an interest in him and she should not be jealous of that curvy figure. Carly nuzzled Gus’s neck, which immediately blazed red.