What to do When Someone Dies Read online

  ‘You had an argument about that?’

  ‘All our arguments were about trivial things. Oh, for God’s sake, I’ve still got the text he sent me afterwards.’ I picked up my mobile phone and scrolled down to one of the messages I hadn’t been able to delete. I handed the phone to Ramsay. He extracted some reading glasses laboriously from his top pocket and put them on.

  “‘Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. Im a stupid fool.” That’s a lot of sorries. Do you mind if I take this?’

  ‘It’s my phone. I need it.’

  ‘It’ll be returned to you. Pay-as-you-go phones are available in the meantime.’

  ‘What do you want it for?’

  Ramsay put the phone in his pocket. ‘A cynical person would say that your husband doesn’t say what he’s sorry about. He could be sorry that he’s been unfaithful.’

  ‘He wasn’t unfaithful.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

  ‘Your wine will be getting warm.’

  ‘I’m not cynical,’ he said. ‘I’m on your side. I know you’ve worked hard to incriminate yourself, but you haven’t done a good enough job. That crash, with your husband and Milena Livingstone. You couldn’t have done that on your own.’

  ‘Why do you say on my own?’

  ‘No reason. Besides, who would you do it with? I’ve talked to her husband as well. Her widower. We don’t really say “widower”, do we? I’ve always wondered why. He didn’t seem like someone to arrange a murder. He seemed more like the tolerant type. If you see what I mean.’

  ‘If you mean do I agree that he didn’t kill his wife, I do.’

  ‘And your husband.’

  ‘Well, of course.’

  ‘And then there’s Frances Shaw.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Frances!’

  ‘I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, trying to construct the sort of theory that a hostile person might. It might be seen as an unfortunate coincidence that you worked for the company run by your husband’s lover.’

  ‘It wasn’t a coincidence,’ I said. ‘And she wasn’t his lover. I was working there to prove that. Or to find the truth.’

  ‘I mean, how would you really do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kill two people and make it look like an accident.’

  ‘I thought you were talking about Frances Shaw.’

  ‘We’ll come to Frances Shaw. I was thinking about the car. How would you do something like that? Tamper with the brakes, the way they do in films?’

  ‘How do you tamper with brakes?’ I said. ‘Anyway, what would that do, driving in London? You don’t kill two people driving along at thirty or forty miles an hour. At least, not reliably.’

  ‘Sounds right,’ said Ramsay. ‘So what do you do?’

  I broke the promise I had made and made myself think about the event once more as I had hundreds of times before.

  ‘They would have to be already dead. And you drive them to somewhere quiet…’

  ‘Like Porton Way,’ said Ramsay.

  ‘That would be a perfect choice,’ I said. ‘Where you can steer the car over the edge, set fire to it and then get away.’

  ‘Making sure you don’t leave any traces,’ said Ramsay. ‘Or drop anything.’

  ‘Do you think I’d have left my scarf behind if I’d committed the murder?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe what people leave at murder scenes. False teeth. Wooden legs. I’m sure it’ll never come to this, Ms Falkner, but if you’re ever called upon to construct a defence, I wouldn’t stress the point that leaving evidence at the scene is an argument that you weren’t there.’

  ‘I was there. I went later.’

  ‘Obviously the case with Frances Shaw is very different. Traces of your presence were found everywhere at the scene, including on the body.’

  ‘I worked there,’ I said, ‘and I pulled the body clear. I wasn’t sure she was dead.’

  ‘That’s what the emergency services are for,’ said Ramsay. ‘They can revive people who might seem completely dead to civilians like you and me.’

  ‘She was dead.’

  ‘I believe this argument has been had before. My point was that there’s no doubt you were there, even though you fled the scene. But while there’s obvious motive for you to kill your husband and his lover, even though you couldn’t have done it, there’s no motive at all for you to kill Frances Shaw, is there?’

  There was a pause because I didn’t know what to say. I wondered if he knew something and was waiting to catch me out once more. If there was damning evidence – more damning evidence – it was better coming from me. And now was the time to give it. There was a moment when I thought, Why not? I had this feeling that somehow everything was closing in on me, everything was turning out bad. Why not go along with it? What if I was blamed for it, convicted and imprisoned? How did that matter, really? But I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of the words with which to say it.

  ‘We got on well,’ I said. ‘She thought of me as a friend. I felt bad about deceiving her. I meant to tell her but…’

  ‘So you’re sticking to your story that you didn’t know about your husband’s affair and you had no problem with Frances Shaw…’

  ‘I didn’t say no problem.’

  ‘Nothing that would be a motive for violence, I mean.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Although you accuse her husband of having an affair with your husband’s lover.’

  ‘He did have an affair with her – and she wasn’t Greg’s lover. And his wife was also having an affair, don’t forget.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He scratched the side of his nose. ‘You can see why we’re so confused, can’t you? The problem is that it’s all these negatives, proving that someone didn’t know something, that they didn’t have a motive. I’m not clever enough for that. A knife with blood and fingerprints. Preferably caught on CCTV. That’s what I like.’

  He looked around. ‘Do you ever make new furniture?’ he said.

  ‘I have, as a sort of hobby. It’s more expensive than old furniture.’

  Ramsay seemed disappointed. ‘I can’t afford either on my salary. I’ll stick with Ikea.’ He paused and appeared to remember something. ‘You’re not playing any more of your games, are you?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Pretending to be someone else.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It wasn’t even funny the first time.’

  ‘I’ve got an alibi.’

  ‘Ah, yes. It seems we’re going to have to look into that.’

  I told him about the delivery on the day of Greg’s death. I even went into the house, found the name of the solicitors’ office, then wrote out the address and the phone number for him. ‘You can check yourself.’

  ‘I will,’ he said.

  Chapter Thirty

  When Detective Chief Inspector Ramsay came to see me on the Monday morning it wasn’t anything at all like his previous visit. Even his ring at the door sounded different, more insistent and uncompromising. A younger colleague had come with him, awkward in his shiny new suit, as if Ramsay needed someone to protect him from any hint of flirtatiousness, of informality, of special treatment. There was no jovial suggestion of watching me work. He insisted on going through to the living room, where I felt out of place in my smelly, dusty work clothes. Worst of all was his expression, closed off, almost glassy-eyed, as if we hadn’t met before, as if he was only going by a first impression and it wasn’t good. When I offered them tea, he began speaking as if he hadn’t heard.

  ‘I thought you might be interested to know. We sent an officer round to Pike and Woodhead to check your alibi. Unfortunately they didn’t have the receipt.’

  He stopped and looked at me, his expression still and unyielding, as if waiting for some justification.

  ‘I’m sorry about the waste of time,’ I said. ‘I remember signing for it but they must have thrown it away.’

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ said Ram
say. ‘But someone had collected it and taken it away before we got there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You.’

  For a moment, my vision went dark, dark with little golden speckles, like it does when you’ve looked at the sun by mistake. I had to sit down. I couldn’t speak. When I did, it took an immense effort. ‘Why do you say it was me?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ said Ramsay. He took out his notebook. ‘Our officer talked to an office manager at the firm. A Mr Hatch. He checked the file, found the piece of paper was missing, but there was a note saying it had been taken by a Ms Falkner. By you.’

  For a vertiginous moment I let myself wonder whether it was possible that I really had gone over to the office, collected the docket and suppressed the memory of it. Perhaps this was what being mad was like. It might explain everything. Part of my mind had known about Greg’s infidelity, had been responsible for other terrible things and had hidden them behind a mental wall. Hadn’t I heard about that? About people who had suffered traumas and buried them so they wouldn’t have to confront the implications? People who had committed crimes, forgotten them and truly believed they were innocent? It would almost have been a relief to yield to that, but I didn’t.

  ‘Where is it?’ said Ramsay.

  ‘I don’t have it,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Ramsay. He held up his right hand, the tips of his first finger and thumb almost touching, as if he was holding an invisible match. ‘I’m this close – this close – to arresting you now. Ms Falkner, I don’t think you realize the trouble you’re in. Perverting the course of justice is not like crossing the road when the little red man is showing. Judges don’t like it. They see it as a kind of treason and they send people to prison for a surprisingly long time. Do you understand?’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I said.

  ‘Of course it was you.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense in any possible way,’ I said. ‘If it was me, why would I tell you about the company, give you the address and then take away the evidence before you got there?’

  ‘Because it didn’t say what you said it said.’

  I stopped for a moment, confused. ‘But getting rid of the evidence doesn’t help. It just makes it worse. Why would I do that? And give my name while I was at it?’

  Ramsay gave a snort that was almost a laugh but then his expression turned serious and when he spoke it was quietly and deliberately. ‘If a jury was informed of everything else you’ve been up to, I don’t think they’d have difficulty swallowing one extra piece of insanity.’

  There was more before the two of them left and none of it was very pleasant. Ramsay said that in the near future I would be interviewed under caution, which meant there was the possibility of an imminent criminal charge, and that I ought to have a lawyer present. He also muttered about having a psychological evaluation and that it might be my best hope. As they were about to leave he regarded me with a mixture of bafflement and pity. ‘I felt sorry for you,’ he said, ‘but you don’t make it easy. I don’t understand what you’re up to. But we’re on your case. Don’t piss us around.’

  As soon as they were gone, as soon as the car had pulled away, I changed into more businesslike clothes. Half an hour later I was at the office of Pike and Woodhead, whose entrance was in a small road, almost an alley, just off Lincoln’s Inn Fields. A middle-aged woman was sitting at a desk just inside the door. I asked her if a Mr Hatch was in.

  ‘Darren? Yes, he’s around somewhere.’

  I asked if I could see him and a few minutes later he appeared, not, as I had expected, in a pin-striped suit but in jeans and a Fred Perry T-shirt. I hadn’t met him when I had delivered the chair. I had left it at Reception, signed a piece of paper, taken a copy and left.

  ‘You deal with deliveries?’ I said.

  ‘You got one?’

  ‘Not today. My name’s Eleanor Falkner. I delivered a chair here a few weeks ago.’

  His face became suspicious. ‘A policeman was here about that this morning.’

  ‘I wanted to check up on it.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘When I delivered the chair, I signed a receipt. They said I collected it from you. But I didn’t.’

  He walked over to a filing cabinet against the wall and pulled open the top drawer. He took out a file and flicked through it. ‘We have a slip for everything that’s collected or delivered. Here we are. It’s just a note saying, “Docket retrieved for Ms Falkner”.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘That would be yesterday.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Who wrote it?’

  He examined it more closely. ‘Looks like my writing.’

  ‘So was it me who collected the docket?’

  ‘That’s what it says here.’

  ‘But can’t you remember the woman who collected it?’

  ‘What I mainly do is sort out deliveries. Twenty, thirty, forty a day. That’s why I need the pieces of paper.’

  ‘But why did you let someone take a piece of paper away just like that?’

  ‘Because it wasn’t important. The receipts for documents go upstairs and we keep those. This is just office stuff, you know, pens, photocopying fluid. Every couple of months we chuck it out.’

  ‘So anyone could have walked in off the street, asked for the docket and you would have given it to them?’

  He looked back down at the file. ‘It says Ms Falkner here.’

  ‘Yes, but…’ I stopped. I’d realized the futility of pushing it any further.

  Eight hours later, or thereabouts, I was drunk. In the afternoon I had phoned Gwen and Mary, left messages and assumed they were busy, out of town or understandably sick of hearing from me. Of hearing about me. Of even knowing I existed. But later in the afternoon, Gwen rang and said that the two of them were taking me out. I had that infallible sixth sense when you know that people have been talking about you and making arrangements for you without your knowledge. I told her it was very kind of her but it was a Monday night and they had lives to lead. Gwen said that was nonsense. I had to put a dress on and they would pick me up at eight.

  They took me to a new Spanish bar in Camden Town where we ate tapas with little glasses of dry sherry, then had more tapas and more sherry, and then we got into a discussion about what our favourite drink was. Someone said a dry martini and Mary said it should be served with a twist of lemon peel and Gwen said it should be with an olive. So we had one with the lemon followed by one with the olive. I was given the casting vote as to which was the winner, so I chose the lemon peel and we had to have another of those to celebrate.

  It was at that point, as I was taking a delicate sip of my third dry martini, that Gwen asked how I was. Even in my alcoholic stupor, I realized that this was what the whole evening had been leading up to. My messages on their mobiles must have sounded terrifyingly abject and they had clearly decided something needed to be done.

  ‘I’m all right,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Mary. ‘This is us.’

  I thought for a moment and I – or perhaps it was the gin on my behalf – saw things with a new clarity.

  ‘I am, really,’ I said. ‘In a way. There was something wrong with me, but now it’s different. It’s the things around me. I know you’re getting tired of Widow Falkner and her endless tales of woe, so I’ll give you the short version.’

  Well, fairly short. I told them the events of the previous days in as compressed a way as I could manage. At the end of it, Mary and Gwen exchanged an alarmed, confused glance. I drained my glass. ‘I mean, what would be the point of giving the police an alibi that I knew wasn’t true, then removing the evidence before they could check it? I mean, what’s the point of that? How would you explain it?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘There must have been a mix-up of some kind,’ said Gwen.

  I was now having to concentrate very hard to speak, let alone think. ‘I keep trying to think of logical explanations,’ I said
, ‘but all I come up with are illogical ones. For example, I thought that maybe one of you went down there to check whether the alibi was right, found it wasn’t and took it away to protect me. But you wouldn’t do that, would you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mary.

  ‘We should have had margaritas,’ said Gwen. ‘Martinis are too dangerous.’

  ‘You can’t have margaritas here,’ I said. ‘Margaritas are Mexican. They’d be offended.’

  ‘But martinis are even foreigner,’ said Mary. ‘More foreign.’

  We came out of the bar as it was closing and the cold air seemed to clear my head immediately. I hugged my friends and thanked them.

  ‘You don’t think the police will arrest you, do you?’ Gwen said. ‘They can’t. Not really.’

  I pulled my coat tightly around me to protect me from the wind whistling up Camden High Street. Suddenly things came into focus.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure if it all fits together. If suddenly I was found dead and it looked as if I’d killed myself, it would be good enough. A grief-stricken widow, a guilty murderer who felt the net closing over her and couldn’t take the pressure any more. They would be able to close the files on three cases at the same time. If the pieces didn’t quite fit, if it didn’t make complete sense, well, life’s messy, isn’t it? But it would be good enough for the police.’

  ‘Ellie,’ said Gwen, horrified, ‘you mustn’t say that.’

  I saw a taxi and raised my arm to hail it. ‘But if anything happens to me,’ I said, ‘you’ll remember I said it, won’t you?’

  I went to bed exhausted, but my nerves were jangling, my mind racing and I knew that sleep was impossible. I tried every trick I could think of to make my brain forget about trying to go to sleep so that it could just go to sleep. I relaxed, I concentrated, I mimicked a supposedly sleep-like regular breathing, eyes closed. I opened them, stared into the darkness and said to myself, That’s what blind people see. I tried to think of something boring, I tried to think of something interesting. I began to wonder how I had ever managed to fall asleep in the past. How can you manage an action that isn’t an action, but instead just a letting-go? I became obsessed with the idea that you can never observe yourself going to sleep, in the same way – I supposed – that you can never experience yourself dying. So I began to think that there must be an earlier falling-asleep you do before you fall asleep, like the pre-med before an operation, so that you don’t observe yourself falling asleep. But you’re not conscious of that either, so that must be preceded by another, and another, so that actually it’s impossible ever to fall asleep.