The First Cut Read online

  Greg’s elbow slipped off the edge of the bar at the Crown in Cricklewood and he had to make a bit too much of a bum-shuffling adjustment to stay on the stool. How the mighty fall, he thought. The fiasco of a reunion with Nicky was not what he had planned. His temper had got the better of him, but then it wouldn’t be the first time. Anger and managing it had been a problem all his life. He just hid it better now that he was older and slower, presumably with lower testosterone. What was testosterone? Where did it live? In the balls? In the glands? He should have paid more attention in biology, but he knew why he hadn’t: he would have been trying to chat up some girl or other, back in the days when he was cocky and sure of himself and so, so young. There was an irony there, if he cared to search for it. And he didn’t care, not tonight; he didn’t care at all. Desire was brought on by what hung between his thighs: his need for love; his failure to keep it.

  He slugged back a shot of Jim Beam given to him by the barman, who looked about fifteen and had a silver name tag on his uniform. The lettering was too small for Greg to read and he was too drunk; things were beginning to slide in and out of focus.

  ‘What’s yer name?’ He managed to get that out in what sounded like English to him.

  ‘Vladek,’ the fifteen-year-old replied and turned away in pity from the old soak drowning his sorrows.

  The bar was so empty it wasn’t like there was a dishwasher to stack or lemon to chop. Greg realized with a shot of drunken clarity that the guy wanted nothing to do with him. ‘You and my wife,’ he said. Vladek didn’t turn. Music he didn’t recognize played from the walls. What a homecoming – just what he’d spent twelve hours on the red eye for: a bunk-up in fucking Cricklewood. He could have gone central, marched into the Hilton or the Dorchester, binned cash and had them fawning, but he wanted to indulge his moroseness, caress it, and that would have been harder in a place where he might have bumped into someone he knew. He leaned his head forward and wiped the sheen of sweat from the back of his neck. Christ, it was hotter here than in California. At least there the breeze off the Pacific cooled him at night, or the air conditioning shouted its efficiency. This heatwave had given London a stench reminiscent of Tangier; the council needed to sort out their bin policy.

  He swilled his ice cubes and burped. He should be thinking about Nicky, about how they had drifted apart, about how love can flourish so strongly and then wither – but he was worrying about Camden’s environmental waste issues. It was a sign, as if he needed it, that he’d hit middle age. He’d slammed right into it like a rubbish truck into the bollards on the Kilburn High Road. But he knew what Tangier smelled like because he’d been there with Francesca.

  He saw some peanuts in a silver bowl further along the bar and pulled them towards him. What the heck. He tried to throw one skywards and catch it in his mouth but he never even saw it come back to earth. Peanuts probably grew in Tangiers. Film catering trucks didn’t offer peanuts: too many allergy lawsuits waiting to happen, too calorific for the talent. Were there six types of wee on LA peanuts and, if so, was it a better class of wee than Cricklewood’s? He shouted at Vladek for another shot. He wasn’t in California any more. He’d bailed from a film shoot! Liz’s terse message and Maria’s worried one had sent him walking right out! After that stunt he’d probably never work again. You’ll never eat lunch in this town, buddy . . . After what had happened to him, was it any wonder he was paranoid and superstitious and difficult and – he hardly dared say the word but it reverberated round his drunken skull anyway – cursed. Cursed, contemptible Greg, trying to keep the demons at bay with underhand tactics like having his wife followed by his own sister and hiding his hurt and anguish behind a wall of silence. He crunched down on an ice cube. Maybe Liz took a little too much pleasure in playing the guard dog.

  So, here he was, alone, in Cricklewood. The old anger flared brightly within him. Good fucking riddance to all of them, Nicky included. He drank another slug of whiskey and found his hand was shaking. He was teetering on the abyss, but he had stood on that abyss many times, too many times; it was as if he could feel the hands of those dead women trying to pull him over!

  We live our lies, Greg thought. They are our defence mechanism. Tell a lie for twenty years and it turns into the truth. He had created his own truth, however twisted. He had only done what any man would have done. What had to be done. He refused to feel guilty for that.

  Why did he have a thing for blondes? Maybe if they had been redheads his life would have turned out differently. He would be married with a couple of kids and living in Essex, and his neighbours’ wives would be the hotties. But real or bottled, there was something about a blonde. All his girlfriends had been that honey colour. It was the colour of desire, a symbol of his drive and ambition and he wasn’t going to apologize for that.

  The whiskey burned his throat. He did have things to apologize for, but he blocked those thoughts from his mind. The whiskey would tear down the barrier later that evening, and the fear and guilt and recrimination and pain would flow unhindered and unwitnessed through him, but with considerable mental effort he got the barrier to stay upright for now.

  ‘Vladek, leave the bottle.’

  Vladek gave a nod. ‘I’ll charge it to your bill and you can take it to your room, if you wish, sir.’

  There it was, the polite ‘Get lost’, issued by a fifteen-year-old. Oh my, he was a lush to be hidden away in shame. His elbow slipped off the bar again and he stood up and managed to weave his way through some rather complicated seating arrangements to the stairs. They were curved and he felt ridiculously pleased that he got to the top without a stumble.

  Occasionally there were nights when the memories took over, when the guilt visited him, worse than the worst acid trips he’d had as a student. He gave into the feelings that crashed over him, let them soak through him. He was not a religious man but these were the nights that the terrors stalked him: the what ifs, the what might have beens, the how close he came to walking a different path. In the past he’d used Liz as a crutch to get him through, but their relationship had been tested and had worn away over the years until only a bitter shorthand of it remained. He sometimes had dark thoughts about his sister, wondered if her increasing bitterness and distance towards him was because she thought he didn’t suffer enough. Her support had helped make him more successful, had stretched the gap between their respective lives to a greater degree than she’d ever expected, and maybe this had made her bitter. She had Dan to worry about and an ex-husband to hate. For Liz hate had been a cleansing passion. He was under no illusions that his dear sister would have killed her ex-husband if she’d only known how. If only she’d had the guts. No, there was no Liz tonight. He was middle-aged now; he was on his own.

  He didn’t have children, the ties that hold a person to a place or a routine; he had dead bodies, memories he tried to blank out, regrets that never lessened, hopes that had been crushed, over and over again. And now Nicky had gone and done it all on her own . . . she had found his way of being wanting.

  He swayed along the corridor to his room and fumbled with the card key to open the door. The room was as stuffy as the bar. ‘Welcome to London,’ he said to the walls and sank back onto the bedspread, Jim Beam slopping over his hands. ‘Come on, then! Come and get me! All of you!’

  40

  After Greg had stomped off Nicky had assumed he was coming back. The first hour had dragged by and when he hadn’t appeared she was angry – she’d jumped on his travel bag and kicked it across the corridor, she’d paced up and down, swearing at her husband in his absence; ninety minutes later she’d phoned and pleaded on his voicemail with him to come home. Two hours later she’d collapsed on the sofa and let the love she felt for Greg course through her veins. It was painful. She loved him so much, but he seemed ever more separated from her. The revelation of an entire story before Grace had sent dark shards of suspicion deep within her.

  When the doorbell had rung and she had run to the front door, she had
told herself that she wouldn’t accuse, she would fold herself into his arms and they would work it out. Her fear and panic at the hospital had been a psychosis brought on by her experiences at Adam’s hands. How could Greg possibly have seemed suspicious on the phone? She’d disturbed him in the middle of the night. She would sit Greg down and she would tell him everything. And he would forgive her. They could start anew.

  She had been so sure it was Greg that she had opened the door without looking through the spyhole.

  It hadn’t been her husband. And the rock that had formed in her throat as she had opened the door had grown in the hours since and was still growing. It was now so big she didn’t know how she could continue to breathe.

  Inspector Broadbent was sitting across from her now but the interview was being led by a big man called Martin Webster.

  ‘You have no idea who Louise Bell is?’ Martin was repeating all his questions for emphasis.

  ‘I’ve never heard of her, and this picture doesn’t help. I’ve never met her.’

  Martin had a box file in front of him. He pulled out a plastic bag with something inside it, turned it round and laid it in front of Nicky. ‘Is this your necklace?’

  Nicky instinctively put her hand to her throat. Her necklace. It really did look like hers. She picked up the bag. The weight felt right, the thickness was as she remembered, but when had she last seen it? She couldn’t remember. ‘Yes . . . I guess so. Or one very similar. Where did you get it?’

  ‘The clasp is broken.’

  ‘It wasn’t broken when I last had it.’

  ‘This necklace was found clutched in the hands of Louise Bell when she was shot dead in her flat.’

  ‘That’s not possible. I . . .’ She saw the lawyer turn towards her, waiting. They were all waiting for her. She was the centre of attention. She had been wearing that necklace when she first went to Hayersleigh. She remembered with a vividness that was painful spending time getting ready in the bathroom before they left for the country that day. She had thought through her outfit, played out scenarios in her mind. So many different outcomes, except the actual one. She had put the necklace on because it made her feel young; she had put it on because Greg had given it to her, and she thought maybe it might stop her straying too far from the righteous path. She took a little bit of Greg with her on her day’s escape to the country—

  ‘Nicky?’

  And the contrast between her arrival there and her exit – barefoot, injured, scared half to death, scaling walls and crawling on hand and knees in the dust like an animal – could not have been greater. Had she been wearing the necklace then? She had no idea. But it seemed pretty clear now what had happened. ‘I wore that necklace when I first went to Hayersleigh House.’ She couldn’t bear to even say his name. ‘I think it was taken off or I lost it there.’

  ‘Where were you on Thursday, twenty-fifth of August?’

  ‘Two days ago? I went to see my sister-in-law in Brockley.’

  ‘What time were you there?’

  ‘I went in the morning. I left there about midday.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘All day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anyone with you then? Anyone call on you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ll need your mobile phone to corroborate what you say.’

  ‘I didn’t have a mobile then.’

  ‘You don’t own a mobile?’ Martin was looking sceptical.

  ‘I had lost it before that and I didn’t get a replacement till I went back to work the next day.’

  ‘Do you own a gun, Nicky?’

  ‘A gun? Of course not.’

  ‘A shotgun?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are there guns at Hayersleigh House?’

  Nicky paused. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Two. They were locked in a gun cabinet.’

  ‘Did you ever see Adam using a gun?’ She paused, thinking of the moment he had looked down the gun sight at her. ‘Did you ever see Adam firing a gun?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Louise Bell is Struan Clarke’s girlfriend.’ Jenny saw the shock on Nicky’s face. Impossible to hide, but possible to fake? If she was faking, she was bloody good at it.

  Nicky shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Martin snorted. ‘When you were interviewed by DI Broadbent only a few days ago you went to great lengths to change your statement, wasting hours of police time. Juries don’t like women who change their minds. What’s the real story here?’

  ‘I don’t know this woman!’

  Martin got angry. ‘I don’t think you realize how serious a situation you’re in. This is being treated as double murder! Struan’s death could be taken as the result of an intruder break-in, but Louise? She was gunned down in her living room holding your necklace!’

  Nicky felt fear then: a great immovable alarm. She was completely out of her depth, a piece of flotsam that events tossed from one disaster to the next before she could draw breath.

  ‘Your husband is Greg Peterson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whose former wife was Grace Peterson. Murdered.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Martin paused. ‘How long after her death did you and Greg get together?’

  Nicky leaned back in her chair, sensing something particularly unpleasant was coming. ‘I don’t understand.’ But she did, completely. Now she was on the receiving end of the insinuations, the puffed cheeks of scepticism, the glances and pauses.

  ‘Oh, it’s quite simple. How long was it before you got together?’

  ‘Six months.’

  She saw Jenny making a note. ‘Grace’s brother says it was four and a half.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘How soon after she died did you get married?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘What’s it feel like to spend your dead friend’s money?’ Nicky gasped but Martin didn’t let up. ‘Greg got the lot, didn’t he? And it was quite a lot.’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘Patterns of behaviour are my point. Transgressions from what most people think of as decent. For example, your best friend is barely cold in the ground, but you go off with her husband. Did you always want him? Were you always jealous of her?’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Now you’re carrying on with Adam Thornton – husband knows, doesn’t know, who cares? You obviously don’t. Most people would think that a transgression from the norm. See the picture I’m painting for a jury? A woman not to be trusted. A cheat and a liar, doing things others find offensive.’

  ‘I am not and never have had a relationship with Adam Thornton. I went to his house to look at photos for a newspaper obituary. Not a bit of what you say is true.’

  Jenny watched Nicky carefully. It wasn’t her investigation now, but she was sitting in anyway, because she was intrigued and part of her wanted to know how the supposed big shots at the Met handled a murder investigation. So far she wasn’t too impressed. She didn’t believe you got the best results by throwing your weight around, something Martin seemed keen to do.

  ‘As a member of the public do I have a right to see police notes on an investigation?’

  And here she was, thought Jenny, straight back atcha.

  ‘Get real!’

  ‘Does my husband, Greg Peterson, have a criminal record?’

  Martin slammed his hand down on his files. ‘I’m the one asking the questions here!’

  ‘Where’s my motive? I’ve got no reason to kill her! I’ve got no reason to kill him! I don’t understand how my necklace ended up at the scene!’

  ‘It doesn’t look good, Nicky, it sure doesn’t look good.’

  ‘We’ve been going a long time,’ the lawyer said. ‘Let’s have a dinner break.’

  Jenny rose sharply and exited the room. She found Sondra waiting for water to drip into a small plastic cup from the gurgling wate
r cooler in the corridor. ‘What’s happening?’ Sondra asked.

  ‘She’s giving as good as she gets. She’s a toughie, this one,’ Jenny said.

  ‘I just phoned the station. Adam was taken in for questioning from the house. He was still digging up that damned lawn. He’s got no alibi for the time of Louise’s murder. He’s being questioned now.’

  ‘Did he go willingly?’

  ‘Apparently so. Stunned, was the word I heard.’

  Jenny leaned in closer to Sondra. ‘Why are you whispering?’

  Sondra looked around guiltily. ‘I didn’t realize I was.’

  Jenny smiled. ‘Don’t be intimidated by this lot.’

  Sondra nodded and finished her water. ‘Do you think she did it?’ She was still whispering.

  ‘I think she’s capable, but there’s still no reason as to why. Struan could have been lured to the house, but Louise?’ She shook her head and pointed at the water cooler. ‘Can I have some of that?’ Sondra extracted a half beaker of water from the partially blocked machine and gave it to Jenny. She drank it as she watched Martin walk down the corridor humming an R&B tune. He handed Jenny several bits of paper and began rocking from side to side and circling his arms slightly as if dancing to a tune only he could hear.

  ‘I’ve got the details from Louise’s flat.’

  ‘OK, what have we got?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Nothing, so far. We know the necklace was wiped clean, and we found no fingerprints we could identify apart from Struan’s, Louise’s and the mother’s. The bullet hasn’t given us anything either. We’ll have to wait for fibre samples. Either they’ve been watching a lot of CSI—’

  ‘Or they weren’t there.’ Jenny scanned the papers and handed them back to Martin.

  ‘Two steps forward, one step back.’ Martin smiled as he moved his feet forward and back. ‘We’ve got a warrant to search her house so we’ll see if we find anything interesting there.’

  ‘Let us know what turns up,’ Jenny replied. ‘It’s been a long day.’ She turned to Sondra. ‘I think we need to be getting back.’