Two dead wives, p.26
Two Dead Wives, page 26
Her back and neck resist as she moves to reach for her phone. It’s Tanner.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“Spent the night in my car. I’m about halfway between London and Lyme Regis.”
“Sleeping on the job. Slacker.” His tone is buoyant. She doesn’t mind his teasing, but she really wants a coffee. She glances around the car; the only sustenance she can see is a dusty packet of mints. Not exactly a nutritious breakfast. She’s glad of them all the same, and pops one in her mouth.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Just got the results from forensics.”
“The bottle?”
“Yup.”
She rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand and rotates her head to bring movement to her neck. “And?”
“Two sets of prints.”
“Known?”
“Damn straight.”
“Okay, Tanner, stop being a tease.”
He waits a beat. “Kylie Gillingham and Fiona Phillipson.” The two names come out in a triumphant rush, and Clements’s mind bangs into focus. “That means—”
“Yeah, it does, Tanner.” Clements rarely interrupts anyone, always mindful that in her job it’s better to listen rather than speak, you learn more, but this time she can’t resist. “It means that most likely Kylie and Fiona were together at some point on that clifftop. And there were no other prints?” She can feel her heartbeat. She has to rule out the possibility that Daan Janssen, or anyone else, took the wine bottle from the house and left it on the cliff. The science never lies. People, though, well, they’re unreliable buggers.
“No. None.”
“Well, that’s interesting.” She wants to punch the air.
“What do you think, boss?”
“Well, it’s possible this wine bottle was left on that clifftop eight months before we found it.” Fiona and the Fletchers confirmed that the last time they visited the holiday bungalow together, with Kylie, was July 2019. “Possible but not probable.”
“Very unlikely,” agrees Tanner. “Pre-COVID there was a group of volunteers who spent every Saturday afternoon picking up rubbish in the area. I found a website. They are quite vocal about litter being left behind. They photograph big piles of the stuff they collect, and post about it to try to embarrass the tourists into being a bit more careful.”
“Genius.”
“Yeah. I imagine it has a bit of an effect.”
“No, I mean genius police work, Tanner. Well done.”
“Right.” She can sense his delighted smile down the phone, even though he appears to have taken the compliment in his stride.
“And when did they last post?”
“The last time this group formally got out to clean up the area was Saturday the fourteenth of March 2020. They comment that they had a lot of volunteers, that everyone did a good job. It seems unlikely this bottle was left there before then. If it was, it would have most probably been cleared away.”
“I think we need to talk to Fiona Phillipson.”
“Should I go and bring her in? Meet you at the station.”
“Try it, but I don’t think she’ll be in London. Not if my instinct serves me right.” Clements turns the engine on, slips into gear. Mirror, signal, maneuver. “I think I’ll carry on toward Lyme Regis after all.” She’s about to pull away when her phone starts to beep. “I have another call waiting. Got to go.” She doesn’t bother with niceties. Tanner doesn’t expect them. They are both focused. Close. Bloodhounds on a scent. She picks up the second call.
“It’s Mark Fletcher here. There’s something I need to tell you. It’s about the boys. I’m not sure I was totally honest with you last night, and I’m worried.”
42
Kylie
Time passes. I have no idea how much or how little. I can’t see if I’m making any progress with sawing the rope, which is discouraging, but I have no choice but to push on. Suddenly my hands flop to my sides. The rope has finally snapped. For a moment I’m so shocked I don’t have the capacity to move. My hands are numb and my arms are dead weight. Then I wiggle my fingers as I do in yoga when I come round from Savasana, and run my hands up and down my arms, encouraging feeling back into them. As soon as I have control over my movements, I start to untie the rope around my legs.
In just a few more minutes I am able to stand up. I wiggle my toes and resist crying out as a pins-and-needles sensation shoots up my legs. I straighten, and then try the door. I’m expecting it to be locked or barricaded. It isn’t. Slowly, silently I edge it open. I expect to see Kenneth Jones sitting guard outside, maybe even with a weapon in his hand. He is not. Clearly he had confidence in his bindings. The door creaks as I carefully close it behind me. I don’t want to leave it gaping, which he might notice from the kitchen window if he is keeping a lookout. And then I run.
Silently, swiftly. I don’t think about where I am going. I just run. Somehow my legs seem to know where I must head even if my mind is still struggling to catch up. Fiona has a house here. We holidayed together. I remember that now. That’s why I recalled Lyme Regis in such detail. I feel drawn toward the house. I am needed there.
43
Kenneth
Kenneth watches Kylie Gillingham run down the path. She has made her choice then. She is refusing to be his darling Stacie. Refusing to give him a second chance. He isn’t that surprised. Women are always running away from him. He doesn’t deserve it to be so, but it is. That’s life. Lots of people don’t get what they deserve. He thinks about the women he’s loved. Who have left him.
First there was his wife. Terrible, ungrateful woman. He loved her so much. He was very devoted. Admittedly not in an overly romantic way; he might not have been one for the big gestures. He was not the sort to send Valentine’s cards, and he was more likely to buy a slow cooker for a Christmas gift than a sparkling piece of jewelry, but he consistently provided for her; gave her a comfortable home, worked around the clock to do so. That wasn’t enough, apparently. She fell in love with some bloke from Exeter. All those trips to the city to attend art classes were just a cover for their dirty little affair. Yes, she did go to the art classes, but so did he. That was where it started. They got into a habit of going out for a drink together after class. Initially coffee, which progressed to a glass of wine; soon they were sharing a bottle and then, inevitably, a bed. She gave Kenneth most of this detail when she was packing. Spitting out her thoughts as she filled her suitcase. She didn’t hold back. She seemed to want him to know how completely and utterly in love she was with this middling would-be artist; she was insistent that Kenneth should know that she just couldn’t live without this new man, that she had no choice but to leave him and Stacie and her home and go with this waster to Paris.
There’s nothing as selfish as a person in love.
She said she hadn’t been looking to fall in love but she was powerless to prevent it. She simply couldn’t resist. He let her reel out all the tired clichés. Nodded when she asked him if he understood that it was simply beyond her control. But he didn’t understand. Surely there must have been a point when she could have said no. A moment when she might have recalled Kenneth at home taking care of little Stacie. A moment when she could have refused the second glass of wine, fastened up her blouse, got up from the bed.
Whore.
But as the years have passed, he has come to understand love bigger than reason. Love bigger than logic. Love bigger than anything. Not romantic love, but parental love. The love he felt for Stacie was everything.
His wife recognized that he was a devoted father. That was why she was able to just walk away without so much as looking back. She said the art scene in Paris wasn’t a stable place to bring up a child and that Stacie would be happier here in Dorset with him. Stacie liked the local school; she had friends here. The whore didn’t want to be too disruptive. Kenneth thought that most likely she simply didn’t want Stacie cramping her style. So she left with barely a backward glance. Her subsequent contact was limited to the occasional phone call, postcards and birthday presents. Within five years, even that measly effort at parenting dried up. Stacie became entirely Kenneth’s concern. Kenneth’s responsibility.
He embraced being a single parent better than most. He was a devoted father before his wife left; after she left, he was practically a martyr to his role. He somehow managed to juggle his work as a GP with bringing up a child, prioritizing Stacie’s well-being above everything. He never so much as glanced at another woman, let alone dated. He focused entirely on his daughter, poured all of his love into her. He made jokes during dentist appointments to ease her fear, he saw to it that she joined Brownies and Girl Guides and learned to play tennis and swim. He hand-stitched costumes for school plays along with the mothers of other kids, he turned up to every sports day and cheered on the sidelines with the fathers. He set up playdates with Stacie’s little friends. He challenged teachers who said she was a chatterbox, basked in the praise of those who said she was particularly creative and talented. He cooked, cleaned and shopped for her; talked, listened and read to her. And he did all of that with joy, never resenting the sacrifices he made. They were happy. Or so he thought.
But it turned out Stacie was more like her mother than he could have anticipated. Nature overwhelmed nurture in the end. He’d thought that after all his loyalty, devotion and sacrifice Stacie would turn out like him. Dependable and dedicated to him. That seemed fair. But life isn’t fair. Stacie went to art college and came back altered. A different person. Discontented, dissatisfied. Like her mother. He used to catch her staring longingly out to sea, a faraway look of yearning in her eyes. It was as though she was forever imagining escaping, leaving. He remembers her commenting once, “Funny, isn’t it, how the foaming sea sometimes looks like blue dragons are firing out white fire, while other days it looks like soapy suds in a plastic washing-up bowl.”
“I’ve found it best not to over-romanticize,” he replied stiffly. Scared for her.
He pretended not to notice her restlessness, hoped it was a phase, and indeed he thought she was going to be okay when she started dating Giles Hughes. For a time she seemed more settled, calmer. It was the happiest day of his life when she accepted Giles’s proposal. He imagined her living just down the road. He dreamed of a brood of grandchildren waiting in the wings.
But then that wasn’t enough for her either.
Before he knew it, she wanted more. She wanted to follow her mother to Paris. They hadn’t seen each other for nearly twenty years; it didn’t make sense. It was an insult to him. Stacie was basically spitting in his face when she called off the wedding and declared that she was running away, after all he had done.
She turned out to be just another woman who did not appreciate him or want him. He loved her so much and she patronized him. Implied that he and his life were small, not enough. Another woman running from him was unbearable.
He didn’t mean to kill her.
God, no! Never. He loved her more than he loved himself. It was an accident. The worst, most horrific accident imaginable. He would never get over it. Never forgive himself. She slammed the door behind her, and my God, he wished he’d just let her run. He has wished that a thousand times over. Hundreds of thousands of times, probably. But he didn’t let her run. He yanked open the door and started off down the path after her. He was just reaching for her shoulder, trying to get her to turn around. To face him. He was perhaps heavy-handed. He hadn’t intended to be. He simply wanted her to pause for a second. Think about her decision. But he unbalanced her. How many times had he seen her fall over then get back up again when she was a kid? Dozens, hundreds. How many times had he washed her grazed knee, kissed it better, popped on an Elastoplast? But this time she fell backward over her suitcase and he didn’t catch her. His reflexes were just too slow. He was worked up. Not thinking clearly. She fell awkwardly down the garden steps. There were just three steps, but he knew the moment she hit the paving stone that it was not going to be something he could put an Elastoplast on. Not something she was going to get up from. He heard her head crack, her neck snap.
She was dead.
He tried everything to resurrect her. Obviously as a doctor he knew all the proper procedures, but to no avail. No matter how many times he compressed her chest he couldn’t get a wisp of breath from her. He was just a doctor, not God. The difference had never been so starkly apparent. He saw her spirit leave; her energy drifted upward and he was left with a husk. Nonetheless, all night, he continued to try to resurrect her. He probably broke her ribs doing so. She wouldn’t have been able to feel that, of course. Still, he wept.
He should have called the police. Explained what had happened. He knows that now. He’s often thought that in these past ten years or so. He wonders how different his life might have turned out if he had. There would have been an investigation, an autopsy. It might have gone to court, but a judge and jury with any sense would have realized he wasn’t a killer. It was an accident. He didn’t call the police, though. It was not because he was afraid of facing justice, it wasn’t that; he just couldn’t bear her being taken away from him, taken to a fridge in a morgue. He couldn’t stand the idea.
He stayed up all night with her as she turned cold and stiff in his arms. He wasn’t thinking clearly when he started to dig. He just dug and dug. They say six feet under, but no one has any idea how deep that is until they try to dig a grave. He dug the whole of the next day and late into the evening; even so, he doubts it was ever quite six feet. He thought someone might come along. A neighbor, perhaps, who had heard that the wedding was canceled, or Heidi and Ian Hughes, Giles himself. He thought someone would come looking for her, for him, and if they had, they would have stopped him. Helped him make a healthier choice.
But no one came. No one stopped him.
She lies under the pretty sea glass. The mermaid tears.
When, after a week, Heidi Hughes finally showed her face, he told her Stacie had gone to find her mother in Paris. It was what he wished had happened. It offered him some comfort, pretending she was still alive. The weeks turned into months, into years. No one looked for Stacie. Kenneth was initially concerned that Giles would grow a pair and decide to follow her to France, try to track her down, but he never did. He married someone else within two years. A young woman from the next village. The wedding was held in the church that Giles and Stacie had been planning to marry in. Kenneth was invited but didn’t go. He heard it was lovely, very traditional. Pink flowers on the pew ends.
No one missed Stacie as much as Kenneth. As much as they should have. He resents that.
He does sometimes wonder: Would it have been so bad if it had gone to court and they had sent him to prison? He imprisoned himself anyway. He gave up his general practice after she died. He just couldn’t find it in him to care, to try, to listen to other people’s problems. Shingles, arthritis, sore throats all seemed so trivial to him. He no longer went to the pub or mixed socially. He became a recluse. He didn’t deserve to be happy, and besides, he didn’t like going out and leaving her alone in the garden. He preferred to stay close to her. From time to time he allowed himself a trip to Lyme Regis, if he needed something specific, like chicken wire or a new pair of glasses, something he couldn’t get locally. Whenever he was there, he popped into the library.
A few years ago, he told the librarian that Stacie was ill, that she had cancer. It wasn’t a pre-planned lie. It was just something that popped into his head. The librarian had never known Stacie, but she was a nice woman, chatty, and so she always asked Kenneth a question or two, just to be polite, just to make conversation. One time she asked if he had children or grandchildren. A natural enough inquiry. He admitted to having a daughter and stuck to the story that she lived in Paris. There was something about how she nodded her head when he mentioned Stacie that revealed it wasn’t the first she had heard of her. No doubt she’d heard the gossip about his beautiful daughter jilting Giles Hughes nearly a decade before, and she probably wanted to know if Stacie had moved on, if Stacie thought the decision she’d made was the right one. There was little you could do about the perennial nature of idle gossip, the scourge of a small town, other than lean into it. The problem was, Kenneth couldn’t imagine the grandkids that the librarian was expecting to hear of. He wanted to gift them to Stacie because she deserved a dignified happy-ever-after, but he just couldn’t picture little chubby babies or boisterous grandchildren kicking a football about. So he told the librarian that his daughter was ill, gravely ill, with cancer. He wasn’t sure where the lie came from, but once he’d told it, he realized it was the right route. Maybe it was time to let Stacie rest. He could allow her to die in Paris; a tragic early death. But not as tragic or early as her death had really been.
Over the next eighteen months, whenever he spoke to the librarian, he gave a fictional account of Stacie’s illness. He implied that she wasn’t responding to treatment, that her decline was accelerating, her demise inevitable. He was on the cusp of letting her go. Allowing her to rest in peace.
Then Kylie came along.
He’s tried to explain it to her. That he was so alone, so lonely. That he missed Stacie so much that he sometimes wished his heart would stop. Kylie was his second chance. Sent so he could redeem himself. Mend her, keep her safe. He isn’t a bad man.
But he saw her face when he was honest with her. She was scared. Terrified. And now she’s running from him too. Why do the women he loves always run away?
Well, he isn’t going to let this woman escape. He can’t. He’ll have to bring her back.
44
