The Other Side of the Door Page 20

  ‘On the morning of August the thirtieth the car was driven down the M11 towards London, west onto the North Circular and then immediately off.’ Joy Wallis looked down at her file. ‘But then the car was simply left, with the key in the ignition, as I said.’

  ‘Sounds weird.’

  I heard Sonia’s voice in my head: You idiot.

  ‘Doesn’t that seem strange? Can you think of any explanation why the car should be parked for a week at the airport and then moved?’

  ‘Maybe it was stolen.’

  ‘I think that’s extremely unlikely. I’ve seen the car. There may have been something in the car that needed delivering. Something valuable.’

  ‘Was anything found?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing at all. When did you last see Mr Booth?’ asked DI Wade.

  ‘I told you before. It must have been at the rehearsal. The Wednesday, I think. You can check that with the others.’

  ‘And where were you, Bonnie?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Where were you between the morning of August the twenty-first and the morning of August the twenty-second?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ I said, ‘I was with Neal. Neal Fenton.’

  ‘All day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And all night?’

  ‘Yes. He’s my boyfriend, you see.’

  I was kept at the police station for just over six hours. We went over and over my account, and then I was taken into a different room where a woman took my fingerprints and then stuck a cotton bud into my mouth for a DNA sample. Only then was I allowed to leave. I walked out into the sunny, late-afternoon street. I wanted to stop and curl up in a ball on the pavement and howl, but I thought someone might be watching me, so I kept going, trying to impersonate a normal person, an innocent person, until the station was quite out of sight. I took out my mobile and found the number with clumsy fingers.

  ‘Neal. Don’t go anywhere. I’m coming round now.’

  Before

  ‘I’m about two minutes away. I’m coming round.’

  ‘No, Neal.’

  ‘I’ve got something to say to you.’

  ‘There isn’t any point.’

  ‘Two minutes,’ he repeated.

  And two minutes later, there he was, standing at the front door.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can I come in?’ His expression hardened in comprehension. ‘He’s there, isn’t he?’

  I didn’t pretend not to know who he was talking about. ‘Yes.’ I looked at his face, stiff with misery. ‘Look, I’m sorry – about everything. Really.’

  ‘What I came to say,’ he began, as if he hadn’t heard me, ‘was that I don’t think you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ He started to reply but I interrupted him. ‘Or maybe I like not knowing.’

  ‘And when it’s over I’ll still be there.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t work out if this was creepy or touching; probably it was a bit of both. Or perhaps, I thought, this was just what love was like when it wasn’t returned – oppressive, inappropriate, with something embarrassing and almost shameful about it.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Right.’

  I shifted from foot to foot, feeling hot under his gaze.

  ‘So remember, Bonnie.’

  After

  When I arrived at Neal’s I felt as if we were two fearful, panicking strangers who didn’t know how to deal with each other. Neal asked me if I wanted a drink but I refused. I felt dizzy already, with a queasy sense of unreality that made it hard to stand steadily and speak evenly. I just wanted to get this over with and be gone.

  ‘I was just going to have one myself,’ he said. ‘A glass of wine or a beer.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s almost six. Maybe you need something stronger. I’ve got whisky and there’s vodka I bought in Cracow.’

  ‘A glass of water would be fine,’ I said. ‘Just from the tap.’

  He filled two large tumblers and handed me one. I drained it without any effort and still felt thirsty. I passed it back to him. He gave me the other tumbler and I drank half of it. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve been talking to the police,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘No, they interviewed me again. I’ve just spent the day with them.’

  Neal’s expression was completely impassive. ‘Is there a problem?’

  I took a deep, shuddery breath. ‘When I first talked to them, I was a bit evasive about my . . . you know, connection with Hayden.’

  ‘You mean the fact that you were sleeping with him?’

  I was tired after my hours of talking to the police, hours of having to think all the time and keep my story consistent. I didn’t feel I could manage any more of it. ‘They asked me if he had a girlfriend and I said he didn’t – because, you know, I wasn’t, not really – and then they talked to other people who mentioned me, so they thought I was lying and I had a reason to be lying, and so they’ve asked me a lot of questions. They were pretty aggressive about it. I’ve come straight from the police station.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Neal. ‘What do you want me to do, Bonnie? I mean, you did have a reason to lie, didn’t you?’

  The way he phrased his sentence unsettled me. It took me a few moments to reply. ‘We haven’t talked about what happened. I understand that. Neither of us wanted to. There are some things it’s best to leave unsaid. But now there’s something important I’ve got to tell you and I needed to tell you before you talked to anyone else.’

  There was a pause. I was on the verge of speaking the words that I had stopped myself uttering for days and days, but I was going to be forced into it now.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The police were suspicious,’ I said. ‘They were particularly interested in the evening of August the twenty-first. They even asked me where I was.’

  ‘I’m sure they did. And what did you say?’

  I wanted to sit down, bury my head in my hands, block out the whole loud, violent world. My legs were shaking under me. ‘That’s why I came here. I said I was with you. I said you were my boyfriend.’ I looked closely at Neal, his cold, blank face. ‘Do you understand, Neal? I gave you an alibi.’

  Neal turned away from me and brought one hand up to his head. I could see him thinking, as if it was an immense physical effort to be wrestled with. Finally he turned back to me. When he spoke it was slowly and deliberately. ‘You want me to be your alibi? Is that it?’

  ‘No. Why are you doing this? I know, Neal. You know and I know, and the great charade is over at last. You can stop pretending and so can I.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘Neal?’ Everything seemed to be happening in a murk of incomprehension. ‘Are you listening? I gave you an alibi for the evening Hayden died.’

  ‘You gave me an alibi?’

  I held up a hand to ward off any words. ‘You don’t need to say anything. I don’t really want to talk about it. I want it all to go away. Just accept it, OK?’

  ‘I think I’m going to regret asking this, but why did you give me an alibi?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Neal, you know why. Don’t make this even more difficult.’

  ‘No, Bonnie, I don’t know. What the fuck are you trying to say?’

  ‘You want me to say it out loud?’

  ‘Go on.’

  I took a deep breath and held his gaze as I finally said the words: ‘Because you killed Hayden.’

  There. I’d said it. I thought Neal would get emotional, angry. Perhaps he would break down and cry and tell me he hadn’t meant to, it was an accident, a moment of violence that had turned his life into a nightmare. But he simply stared at me, his face slack and wiped of all expression.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You forced me to say it. I wasn’t going to.’

  ‘I killed Hayden?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he said. ‘I didn’t
kill Hayden.’

  ‘I know you did, Neal. You don’t need to continue with this.’

  ‘No. No, Bonnie. This is – well, this is just the most –’ He stopped and gave a loud and shocking bark of laughter. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Come on, Bonnie.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What?What?’

  ‘This is just so – Of course you know I didn’t kill Hayden, because of course I know who did.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘No. But I don’t – I don’t know what you’re doing. Are you trying to send me mad?’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

  ‘Neal. Stop. Stop now. It’s over. The lying is over, the pretending is over.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Neal held up a hand to silence me. ‘Just shut up for a moment.’ He stood up and started walking around his room aimlessly, apparently not seeing where he was going. He was like a man I’d once seen climbing out of his car after an accident and reeling across the road, drunk with shock.

  ‘You really didn’t kill him?’ The force of what he had said hit me. Suddenly it was as if the floor had given way beneath me, and there was nothing to hold on to. I sat down abruptly on the armchair and put a fist against my mouth.

  ‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Let me think. Why were they interviewing you? What do they have on you?’

  ‘They don’t have anything on me,’ I said. ‘I mean, not as far as I know. But as I said, they think . . . I mean, they know I was involved with Hayden. And on that night his car was photographed with a woman in it. So they’re suspicious.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘Just at the moment,’ said Neal, ‘I feel like you and I are two people blundering stupidly around in the dark. I don’t even know what question to ask. But here’s one: what I don’t understand is, how or why did Hayden’s body end up in a reservoir seventy miles north of London?’

  ‘No. First, I want to get back to the question of killing Hayden. You can tell me. I’m the one person in the world you’re safe with.’

  He leaned across and grasped me by the shoulders so that it almost hurt. ‘Listen, Bonnie, and I’ll say it again, loud and clear: I did not kill Hayden.’

  ‘You must have done. I even saw you walking away.’

  ‘I did not. Of course not. And you know it, so stop this now. You’re the one person in the world who knows I did not kill Hayden. You’ve got it the wrong way round.’

  ‘What does that mean? I don’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ he echoed. His face seemed older and softer; he looked almost stupefied, as if he’d been punched and was still reeling. ‘You have to answer my question.’

  ‘But why are you even asking it?’ I said, or perhaps I shouted it. ‘Isn’t that what happens with the bodies of people who’ve been murdered? They get dumped in canals and rivers and reservoirs. And sometimes they get found. I’m not the world’s greatest detective, but it seems to me that the only reason you’d be asking that question would be if you’d killed Hayden in his flat and left his body there. In that case you might be quite surprised if the body wasn’t found there.’

  ‘No,’ said Neal. ‘It’s not the only reason.’

  ‘I’m not thinking at my clearest,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking at my least clear. So, tell me, what other explanation could there possibly be?’

  ‘You really want me to tell you.’

  ‘Jesus, let’s get this over with. Yes.’

  ‘All right, Bonnie. The charade is over at last. The reason I was surprised when Hayden’s body was found in Langley reservoir is because I saw his dead body lying on the floor of his flat.’

  ‘You saw it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of course you saw it! It was you –’

  ‘No. I didn’t kill Hayden.’ He stopped as I made a long, low whimper into my cupped hands. ‘I came and found his body. That’s all.’

  ‘I don’t understand. You found his body and you didn’t call the police?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I knew you’d done it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I knew you’d done it.’

  ‘And how did you know that?’

  ‘I knew he’d hit you again, and I knew you were going to see him. You told me. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I felt I’d go mad if he got away with it. So I went to see him first to warn him off, to tell him what would happen if he ever touched you again. I mean touched you like that. I had a drink first, to get my nerve up – he always rattled me, Hayden, and I was determined to be the one in control that day; I wasn’t going to let him get to me. When I got there, about half an hour after I’d left your flat, the door was open so I walked in. I could see at once what had happened. You’d gone round as soon as we’d all left after that awful rehearsal and you’d got into an argument. Maybe he lashed out at you again. You reached for something, grabbed a bronze ornament, a heavy bronze ornament. One blow would have been enough. It looked to me as if he’d been hit twice. Was the second out of revenge for what he’d done to you? Or was it to finish him off? It sounds terrible, but part of me was pleased. That was my first reaction. I hated him, that’s the honest truth. I even hated him enough to want him dead. He’d stolen you from me and then he’d treated you like dirt and me with – what? Amusement, maybe, as if everything was just a big game. I wanted him dead and there he was, dead. And you’d killed him. Then I started to think. You’d killed him and now you’d have to pay for it, and I didn’t want that. It wasn’t really like a decision, more a realization that this was what I was going to do. I’d make it look more like there’d been a violent scu?e, the kind there would have been if there’d been another man there or a couple of men. I knocked some things over, moved stuff around. Then I went round the flat and took everything I could find that belonged to you. You got your satchel, did you?’

  The bag. So it hadn’t been a threat. It was from Neal. To help me. I could only stare at him. ‘But I didn’t kill him.’

  He took hold of my forearm in a hard grip. His face looked strange to me, full of shadows and planes. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to lie to me.’

  ‘I didn’t. I swear. I thought you did.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you, Bonnie. I even thought you were right. Then after, when you looked at me as though you hated me . . .’

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ I said. ‘I was going to see Hayden but I arrived after you did. I found Hayden and I . . . I guess I found what you’d done.’

  Neal looked dazed. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘We . . .’ I stopped myself.

  ‘Why didn’t you just leave?

  ‘You’d done it for me,’ I said. ‘It seemed like my fault. I couldn’t just leave you to it.’

  ‘But I didn’t do it.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  Neal had the expression of someone hearing bad news followed by even worse news, a boxer at the end of a fight being hit and then hit again. ‘Then who did?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘Who did kill him? Oh, fuck.’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more. Shit, there’s a killer out there. I didn’t think of you as a killer, it was just an accident – but this. This is something else.’

  ‘Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie.’ Neal’s voice was a groan. ‘When the body wasn’t found, I thought I was going completely insane.’ He looked at me. ‘And that was you?’ I didn’t reply. ‘You thought I’d killed him and you wanted to protect me?’

  ‘I felt responsible.’ I leaned forward and put my hand on his.

  ‘You protected me, I protected you. Someone’s got away free.’

  ‘Yeah. I know. But the police are going to think it was me. Or you. Or both of us together.’

  He put his head into his hands and rocked to and fro slightly. I could hear him mutteri
ng. Finally he looked up. ‘OK, we have to talk about the alibi. I interfered with a crime scene and you did a hell of a lot more than that. I mean, you haven’t killed someone so I guess that’s something, but God knows what laws you’ve broken. And I don’t know how long your plan will hold together. The car, his car, what happened to it?’

  ‘It was found in Walthamstow.’

  ‘How did it get to Walthamstow?’

  ‘I left it there.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I don’t know – I thought it might confuse things.’

  ‘What a brilliant idea,’ said Neal.

  I don’t think he meant it. We gazed at each other and I had the dizzy sensation that I was looking into a mirror. I heard myself laughing, a snorting giggle that didn’t sound like me. Neal’s face broke into an appalled answering grin, although he had tears in his eyes. I wanted to cry as well but instead this dreadful snickering mirth spilled out. I felt as though I was breaking up with the hilarity and terror of it all, the sheer farcical horror of what we had done.

  ‘And meanwhile,’ said Neal, ‘there’s someone out there who really did do it and one after the other we covered up for them and now they must be wondering what the hell happened and what they ought to be doing about it.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. I hadn’t thought.’

  ‘So tell me, Bonnie, what do we do now? Have you got another master plan?’

  ‘Can I try some of that vodka first?’

  Before

  I put on the Hank Williams CD I’d brought and we sat and drank a glass of the white wine I’d also brought, and Hayden had a smoke, but after the fifth or sixth track about being lonesome or lovesick or divorced or rootless it didn’t seem such a good idea. I asked him if he wanted me to put something else on.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit depressing? It’s just song after song of different kinds of misery. My baby done left me and I’m so lonesome I could cry.’

  ‘If something’s that good,’ said Hayden, ‘it can’t be depressing. He’s the daddy of us all. Forget Dylan and Buddy Holly. Hank was the first great singer-songwriter. He sang about his own experiences. He went out on the road and lived it and then he wrote beautiful songs about it.’