Until You're Mine (18 page)

‘She’s really lucky to have found you,’ Pip says, and I believe she means it. She stares unwaveringly at me with an almost longing smile, as if she wants one of me too.

‘I hope to make her life a lot easier.’ I take another sip of tea but almost choke. I hate lying, but it has to be done.

‘I’m very fond of Claudia, although she’s one stubborn woman. I don’t think she realises just how much stress she’s under. I’ve tried to tell her.’

‘My mum was a bit like that. Everything had to be perfect. She expected everyone else to be, too. I was a huge disappointment.’

Pip laughs. ‘Nonsense. I’m sure your mum is very proud of you.’

‘Was,’ I correct. ‘And she wasn’t.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

I shrug, inwardly kicking myself for talking about my personal life. ‘I’m over it.’ I imagine my mother examining my scrawny, un-pregnant body, tut-tutting at my love life, narrowing her eyes with disdain every time I mentioned my work.
No grandchildren for me then
. I still hear her mocking laugh reverberating through my dreams.

Pip takes my hand. She’s being very nice to me. In fact, that’s Pip all over. Plain nice. She cares about Claudia and she cares about me. I bet she hand-knits scarves and hats for everyone at Christmas and makes oodles of homemade jam for the school fête. As a teacher herself, she’s done the sensible thing and taken a full year’s maternity leave. She’s the kind of woman to get things right in life, the type to follow ‘Ten Ways To Please Your Man’ magazine articles to the letter, the sort who sends hand-stamped thank-you notes following dinner parties; and I’d bet anything that she digs a small veggie patch in the spring, is saving up for a hybrid car, and washes on thirty degrees just to show she fucking
cares
.

‘Parents, eh?’ Pip says as a tactful closer to the subject. She rubs her bump. ‘What am I letting you in for?’ she says sweetly to her unborn baby.

‘They have a knack of screwing you up,’ I say, harsher than I’d intended.

‘Just promise me one thing,’ Pip says. She rummages in her bag and pulls out a pen and notebook. ‘If you get worried about Claudia at all, day or night, promise me you’ll call me. I always have my phone with me. You know, in case.’ She taps her bump again. She jots down her number and rips out the page. ‘I was hoping perhaps you could have a word with her, maybe persuade her to finish work now.’

‘Me?’ I doubt she’d listen to anything I have to say. I glance at the note and stuff it in my jeans pocket. I feel the key against my fingers. ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Of course.’

We finish our tea and walk to the primary school. The playground is humming with wrapped-up mothers, grizzling toddlers in pushchairs and pre-schoolers hanging from the ice-glazed climbing frame. Pip introduces me to some of her friends, but there’s no point in me remembering their names or getting to know them. It won’t be long before I’m gone, just a nasty memory, a bad taste, rumours flying.
How shocking! How did she get away with it?

Back home, I settle the boys in front of a DVD. I give them a glass of milk and a slice of cake each. That should keep them quiet for half an hour at least. I click the sitting-room door shut and, across the hall, insert the key into the study door.

Once inside, I begin my meticulous, methodical work. I soon discover this could take a very long time. Dozens of files need to be inspected, pored over, read. At every stage, photographs need to be taken and everything logged. How else am I going to build up a clear picture? How else will I get what I want from them?

The telephone rings. The extension on James’s desk emits a shrill echo of the main bell in the hall. The caller ID tells me it’s Claudia. ‘Hello,’ I say brightly even though my hand is shaking and my banging heart is making my throat close up. The timing of her call – it makes me wonder if she knows exactly what I’m doing.

AMANDA SIMKINS LIVED
in a brand-new house on an estate where roads ended in gravel tracks with juddering JCBs and half-built houses. Flags drooped in front of corner-plot show homes as Adam and Lorraine drove in what seemed like an interminable loop before finally locating the correct cul-de-sac within the warren-like development.

‘Number thirteen,’ Lorraine said, changing down into second gear as they peered at the house numbers. In truth, neither of them believed that speaking to Amanda would prove particularly fruitful, but they had to go through the motions.

Adam was sipping on a Starbucks coffee. He’d been late back the previous night, by which time his entire family was asleep. He’d only had about four hours in bed, Lorraine worked out as he readily accepted the strong coffee she’d made him at breakfast. She grinned inwardly at his resignation to caffeine, to the crash he would no doubt suffer by lunchtime now that he was on his second – a large Americano with an extra shot. So much for healthy living.

Lorraine wrenched on the handbrake and they got out of the car. Adam slugged back the remaining coffee and chucked the empty cup into the footwell.

‘A well-cared-for front garden,’ Lorraine noted as they approached the door. Even in winter, the small area was spotted with colour from pansies perfectly arranged either side of the gritted path. A basket of trailing ivy and bright red cyclamen hung to the left of the door; still dusted with the night’s frost, it reminded Lorraine of Christmas. Her stomach lurched. Would everything be normal again by then?

She rang the bell.

A woman in a pink dressing gown answered the door. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and she had yesterday’s mascara smudged under her cheeks. There were red marks –
bruises
, Lorraine wondered? – on one side of her neck. She appeared the antithesis of her tidy front garden. ‘I’m not religious, sorry.’

She made to close the door, but Lorraine already had her ID out. ‘CID,’ she said. Door-stopping words. ‘Amanda Simkins? I’m Detective Inspector Lorraine Fisher and this is Detective Inspector Adam Scott.’

The woman stared at them. Her eyes became as frosty as the garden. She swallowed.

‘Could we have a word?’

Suddenly, she reanimated. ‘Yes, yes, I’m Amanda. Sorry, please come in. You must be freezing.’ She held the door wide and wrapped her gown further around her. ‘Sorry I’m not dressed. I’m not feeling well.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Lorraine said. They were shown into a living room with two cream sofas. The floor was wooden, shiny and immaculate. Lorraine was conscious that her thick-soled shoes might leave marks. ‘We’ll try not to keep you long.’

‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ Amanda asked.

Lorraine accepted on behalf of them both before Adam could protest. He twitched at the thought but didn’t say anything. It would give them a moment alone at least.

They studied the framed photographs set out on the white mantelpiece. A large group of children stood in an awkward arrangement, a couple of the older ones, teenagers, holding a baby each. There were toddlers, school-age kids and young adults. Some were grinning, some looked fed up, and one clearly needed a wee. Judging by the smart clothing they were all wearing, it was a wedding or christening or similar gathering.

‘Happy families,’ Adam commented sourly. He picked up another photograph and turned it over. It was a baby in a lilac dress lying on a sheepskin rug with a cloudy blue background. ‘Bit cheesy.’ Once their girls had left pri-
mary school, they’d given up on the annual guilt purchase of the school portrait. ‘Nothing we couldn’t do better ourselves,’ Adam had griped, though he’d never followed it up with the digital SLR Lorraine had bought him for his next birthday.

‘Here you go,’ Amanda said, returning with a tray of mugs. ‘Sugar and milk here if you want it.’ Lorraine added both, while Adam took neither. He eyed the mug suspiciously.

‘Well,’ Amanda continued, ‘I never thought I’d be entertaining two detectives this morning.’ She’d let down her hair, which covered the marks on her neck. Lorraine also noticed she’d wiped under her eyes while in the kitchen because the old make-up wasn’t as obvious now. ‘I hope it’s nothing too serious.’

Most people, Lorraine thought, would want to know what was wrong
before
they bothered making drinks.

‘We’ve come to chat with you about Sally-Ann Frith,’ Adam began. Lorraine wanted to scowl at him but didn’t. His voice was choppy, accusing, not right for Amanda. Already Lorraine could see that she was the type of woman who liked to be in control, to have her thoughts and ideas accepted without question. It was obvious from her perfect house – the neatly tied-back curtains, the combed fringe of the small rug beside the fake fireplace, the dust-free surfaces – that she didn’t accept chaos well. Apart from her own appearance this morning, it would seem.

‘Oh yes, Sally-Ann.’ Amanda smiled fondly. ‘Is she OK?’ Her face gradually crinkled into a worried expression. ‘She’s going to have a baby soon.’

‘No, she’s not OK at all, I’m afraid.’ Lorraine got in before Adam could deliver a coffee-fuelled blow. ‘There’s bad news.’ She paused. Had Amanda really not seen the newspapers, the television? ‘Sally-Ann was discovered dead several days ago. I’m so sorry. We assumed someone would have told you, or that perhaps you’d have seen it on the telly.’

Amanda immediately turned a very pale colour. Lorraine watched her intently, almost convinced her white-grey pallor meant she would faint. ‘Oh . . . my . . . God,’ she whispered. Her cheeks suddenly burned scarlet and then she broke down into fits of sobs. Any remaining clumps of mascara on her eyelashes coursed down her cheeks again.

‘I know it’s shocking. Just take a moment if you need it,’ Adam said, surprisingly sympathetically.

‘She was in your antenatal yoga group, I believe,’ Lorraine added. ‘Were you very good friends?’

Amanda broke off from weeping. She wiped her face on her gown sleeve. ‘Yes, kind of,’ she whimpered. ‘We used to spend time together, usually after the class. She is . . . was . . . lovely. Such a good person. How did it happen? Was she ill?’

‘That’s what we were hoping you could help us find out,’ Lorraine said. ‘Had you known her long?’

‘Since the first time she came to Mary’s classes about five or six months ago. I’d already been going for eighteen months. We really hit it off.’

Adam cleared his throat. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, but why would you attend antenatal classes when you’re not actually pregnant?’

‘You don’t know I’m not pregnant,’ Amanda snapped in defence. ‘You don’t know that at all.’

‘Sorry,’ Lorraine added on Adam’s behalf. ‘It’s just that we understand you’ve been attending the classes for some time now and haven’t actually ever been preg—’

‘You’ve been checking up on me? A woman’s been murdered and you’ve been finding out about
me
?’ Amanda began to shake. She splayed her fingers out over her conspicuously flat stomach.

‘It’s just routine. We need to talk to as many people as possible who knew Sally-Ann. I’m sure you under—’

‘What do you want me to say?’ she spat out. ‘That I killed her? Yeah, well that’s about as likely as me being preggers, I’d say.’ More tears followed.

Adam put down his cup. They’d both noticed Amanda’s accent had dropped several notches as if suddenly she didn’t belong on this pleasant middle-class estate but rather the council one a mile away.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling a tissue from her pocket. ‘It’s just really upsetting news.’

‘You’ve had difficulty conceiving then?’ Lorraine asked. Or was it a statement? It didn’t come out with much empathy, either way.

‘Yes.’ Amanda blew her nose. She balled the tissue and looked up. ‘You got kids?’

Lorraine’s stomach swam, as it had the last couple of mornings when she woke up, remembering Grace and her ridiculous plans. ‘I have two.’

‘You?’ Amanda directed the same question at Adam.

‘Two also,’ he replied.

‘You’re lucky then. You don’t know what it feels like to want a baby so badly it’s an actual pain in your soul, a gaping hole in your very existence. It’s the true meaning of heartache.’ There was a pause as Amanda Simkins seemed to draw on a reserve of resignation and strength. She was evidently used to feeling this way; used to never giving up hope.

‘Did Sally-Ann ever mention anyone who might want to hurt her? Did she have any enemies that you know of?’

Amanda took time to think. Her eyes rolled upwards to stare at the ceiling then dragged down the pastel walls to the fireplace, over the polished coffee table, across the shiny floor and then back onto her lap where her fingers were nervously knitting an invisible garment. ‘If anyone was going to kill anyone then it’d be Liam taking a swing at Russ, or even . . .’ She trailed off. ‘Do you know about them?’ she asked, suddenly excited, as if she was the keeper of a great secret. ‘Sally-Ann confided in me.’

‘Go on,’ Lorraine coaxed. She was taking notes.

‘Russ has always loved Sally-Ann. He’s a weird one, all right, but his heart is in the right place. He and Sally-Ann went to school together, did the teen romance thing, and have been on and off ever since. She’s tried to get rid of him loads of times. Shit to a blanket, was what she told me.’

‘And Liam?’ Adam asked, trying to move things on. It was becoming clear that Amanda was the type to swathe herself in other people’s misfortunes to blanket her own. What was it Mary Knowles had said about her?
A wormer-inner
.

‘He was her teacher at the college,’ she said. ‘They had this really passionate affair. Clandestine meets late at night in the park, dirty weekends with Liam pretending to his wife that he was away on work conferences, secret gifts, everything. Sally-Ann phoned me once from the bed-and-breakfast place they were staying in. She said it was all fish, chips and shagging. No wonder she got preggers.’

Amanda said it as if ‘preggers’ was something you bought at a seaside shop. Lorraine thought it bore little relation to the serious business of creating another life.

‘Anyway, apparently Russ was crazy jealous. But then he found out some big secret about Liam and all hell broke loose.’

‘Secret?’ Lorraine said, feeling as if she was suddenly in a soap opera.