Matthew was glad to leave the police station. As he stepped into the fresh air, he took in a deep lungful. He didn’t quite feel relief – he was far from allowing himself something so clean-cut and definitive – but certainly he felt an awareness that it was better being outside than in. That thought wasn’t just in his head; it ran through his blood, pulsed around his body. What the hell had he got himself into? This was out of control. He looked about him, trying to appear discreet and casual while checking he wasn’t being watched or followed. He decided not to call an Uber but instead to walk to the Fox and Crown. He didn’t want to leave an electronic trail of his whereabouts. He had learnt from Becky how much of a person’s life could be tracked, traced, distorted, even ruined that way.
He slipped along the narrow, overgrown footpaths. Long grasses whipped his legs; he walked quickly, with his head down. He did not want to be seen, but inevitably he was, as soon as he arrived at the pub. ‘All right, Mattie.’ The greeting was casual, thrown out without much thought by Graham Cadd, the landlord. Matthew felt nauseous, hit as usual by the smell of hops and barley rammed up against the incongruous smell of bleach and other cleaning fluids, as the toilets had just been swilled. He managed to nod in response.
Not for the first time, he regretted the fact that this scam had to happen so close to home. Not that the flat here was his home as such; it was Susan’s, or had been, he acknowledged grimly. However, as he and Becky had frequently stayed there, he was known by the locals as Becky’s partner. They didn’t know Emma – she wasn’t one for pubs – but from the moment this car crash had happened, Matthew had worried that the story would be covered in the local paper and people would start getting curious about the wealthy local woman. Any journalist worth their salt would report that she was recently married. A woman’s marital status, along with her age, always seemed to be part of the story. What if he was named? Becky always called him Mattie, Emma used the more formal version of his name, but the link could easily be made. His surname was fairly unusual. If the paper ran a photo of Emma’s husband – and that was a very real possibility – then he was screwed. The world was closing in. Worse yet, if the police decided this wasn’t an accident, that it was a crime, then there was every chance that the story would make it into the national papers, and his connection to both women would inevitably be uncovered. The scam of him marrying Emma Westly for her money would be revealed, as that sort of scandal sold papers. Where would he run then? Getting out of Hampshire wouldn’t be enough. The panicked thoughts of this inevitable exposure circled his head, round and round again, not so much gathering momentum as creating a frenzy, becoming tangled and terrifying.
‘Your Becky OK?’ Graham asked.
Matthew wondered what he knew. Was he aware that Susan was dead – Becky’s mother, his tenant? It would be the normal and usual thing to explain this. But nothing about Matthew’s life was normal or usual, so he didn’t know what to say. He suddenly longed for his own mother and father, the solid regularity of them. But in the same instant that their simple dependability came into his mind, so did the claustrophobia of their overheated sitting room in the winter, their caravan holidays in the summer. His resolve stiffened.
‘Yeah, she’s fine, thanks, mate.’
‘Only I saw her run upstairs yesterday, looked upset, hasn’t come out of the flat since.’
‘Just PMT,’ said Matthew. He knew that would most likely shut down the conversation. It did. Graham picked up a tea towel and began polishing glasses.
Matthew bounded up the stairs and knocked loudly on the door to the flat. When Becky opened it, he was shocked. It would be going too far to say he barely recognised her – of course he did – but she was changed. So altered from Saturday night when he’d seen her last. She had aged and diminished. Sort of shrivelled. Her face was grey and wrinkled; she looked like paper that had been crumpled up and tossed away. She’d always been slim, but now she looked skinny. Fragile. He stepped into the flat and closed the door behind him; she fell into his arms. Her hair smelt greasy. Emma’s hair always smelt of shampoo. Wow. That was inappropriate. He felt a sting of guilt. But he found he did that a lot. He didn’t mean to, it just happened. He drew comparisons. Of course he did. It was impossible not to.
‘I’m so sorry about your mum.’
Becky nodded, sniffed. She must have been crying hard, as her eyes were pink. He thought of a guinea pig his brother had had when they were kids; Matthew had never taken to it. A tear slipped down her face. She didn’t wipe it away; he got the impression she’d stopped noticing them. She moved towards the kitchen table, sat down heavily. The kitchen was about the same size as the police interview room he had just come from. Small. It was about the same size as Emma’s shoe cupboard. ‘Where’ve you been?’ She sounded sharp, angry. Nothing new there.
‘I went to the hospital to see Emma.’ Becky scowled and looked away from him. ‘You said I had to act normal. Isn’t it normal that her husband goes to see her?’
‘Suppose. It’s not like you can have a chat with her, though, is it?’ Matthew stayed silent, didn’t bite, but this just caused Becky to demand, ‘You can’t, can you? She hasn’t come round?’
‘No, she hasn’t. She’s still unconscious.’ He tried to read her expression, but she had a good poker face and it was never easy to know her thoughts. Could she be actively pleased that Emma was lying in a coma? Was she that ruthless? He reminded himself that she was grieving, not thinking clearly. He tried to stay on track. ‘Anyway, they wouldn’t let me in. The police were guarding her door.’
‘The police were. Why?’ Becky was instantly alert. Her entire body seemed to freeze with tension. Even the tears on her cheeks stopped rolling.
‘They wanted to bring me up to date with new developments.’
‘Like what?’
There was something in her voice that made him uncomfortable. A catch. Not quite eagerness, not quite panic. Something that settled between the two. He didn’t trust Becky any more. He hadn’t for some weeks now, months, maybe years. He used to think that not entirely trusting her meant their relationship had a bit of an exciting edge. Having to always second-guess her was, in some ways, fun. Now he was exhausted by it. The edge didn’t look as attractive as it used to; now it was perilous. More of a cliff edge, and people toppled over cliff edges, fell to their deaths. ‘The police wanted to tell me about your mum.’
‘You acted surprised, right?’
He hadn’t needed to act. What they’d told him had been a surprise. He nodded. ‘Again, I’m sorry that I couldn’t come with you to identify her. That must have been an awful thing to do on your own.’ He really was genuinely very sorry, because going with your fiancée to the morgue when she had to look at her mashed-up mother was what a decent man would do. He wanted to be a decent man, but it was out of the question.
‘They haven’t linked us, have they?’ Becky asked tersely.
‘No. No nothing like that.’ He paused before adding, ‘But they have linked your mum and Emma.’
‘She was her cleaner. Hardly Poirot-level detection uncovering that.’
‘Yes, but there’s more.’ He stumbled, wondering how to tackle what he had to say next. How could he explain what her mother had done? What she was. Becky was so fragile right now. She’d had a terrible childhood, very little to hold onto, but she’d gone all-in with her mother these last couple of years. It was obvious that she wanted to believe Susan was a good person. What would this news do to her? Before he could find the right words, Becky interrupted.
‘Do they know that my mother killed Emma’s parents?’
It was as though she had kicked him behind the knees. ‘You knew?’ His voice sounded like a fourteen-year-old boy’s. High. Unsure. The shock had made him an adolescent.
Becky shrugged. ‘Not until recently.’
‘When did you find out?’
‘Just a couple of days ago, maybe a week.’
He didn’t believe her. It wasn’t that she had a specific tell to give away when she was lying. If only. It was more that he had started to doubt what she said to him every time she opened her mouth. That was the thing with trust, it was like one of those soapy bubbles kids made by blowing through a hoop on a plastic stick. Iridescent and magical, wildly pretty, but incredibly delicate, and once popped, there was nothing to salvage. ‘Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you found out? What the hell is going on? It’s obviously not a coincidence.’
‘Why are you shouting at me? She killed my mother. You’re married to a murderer. Don’t shout at me.’ Becky was yelling quite loudly herself, immediately on the attack. Matthew was aware that the pub below them was empty, no chatter or music or clink of glasses to drown out their noise. Graham would be able to hear them shouting, might be able to hear the specific words. ‘I am the victim here. I am the one who is grieving,’ Becky continued. She looked harried, tiny, desperate.
Matthew sighed and turned to put the kettle on. He spotted three Red Bull cans in the bin, a half-empty bottle of vodka next to the sink. She needed a non-alcoholic drink; he needed time to think.
He suppressed the thing bouncing loudly in his head, which was that Susan had been a rubbish mother, that she was barely worth grieving for. It would be unforgivable to say that out loud. To date, they had got past a lot in their relationship. They had waded through a quagmire of complexity, shaken off anger and endured poverty, but he couldn’t risk stamping on the memory of her mum. Personally, he’d thought Susan was a fairly hopeless sort of a mother when he’d believed that she had been to prison for killing Becky’s violent father, because she’d left a toddler to the perils of the social care system. He’d often wondered, couldn’t she have just got out from under him some other way? Run away, called the police, found a refuge? But he’d tried not to judge. He had never been in her position, couldn’t really imagine it. Besides, he’d thought her crime was because she’d temporarily lost it, couldn’t take one more moment of abuse. Awful, with disastrous consequences, but not her fault exactly. Everyone had a snapping point.
But now he knew that she hadn’t gone to prison for killing Becky’s dad. Where was Becky’s dad? Had Susan even known who he was? There was a chance that she might not have, he thought with some judgement. Susan had not been sent to prison for a tragic crime of passion, she had been sent to prison for a premeditated double murder of strangers. She had sacrificed her daughter for what? Why did she kill the Westlys? Money? Was it a robbery? Must have been; that made sense, because Emma’s family were rich. Susan had recently demonstrated that she was prepared to go horribly far for money. He thought of Emma being pushed off the ladder, and shuddered.
Another reason Matthew doubted Susan’s mothering credentials was that she had barely kept in touch with her daughter while she served her time – even the minimal tokens of Christmas and birthday cards failed to land with any regularity – but she wouldn’t give her up for adoption. That was a selfish move. Becky could have been adopted as a baby, slipped into a stable family who yearned for a child; she’d have been loved, settled, grounded, instead she’d had a tumultuous upbringing, being passed around, unwanted, continually disrupted and disturbed. He had lost count of how many homes she said she’d lived in. Becky romanticised this act of her mother’s, said it was because Susan had hoped that one day they’d have a relationship. Bullshit. Matthew guessed it was that Susan knew her chance of parole was more likely if the board were reminded that she had a child on the outside. Even when she was finally released, she hadn’t immediately rushed to build bridges with her daughter. She only showed up when she heard that Becky was making good money as a model, and disappeared again when the opposite was true. Matthew wished she’d stayed hidden, far away from them.
He thought about when she had reappeared in their lives. She’d offered them a home, of sorts; at least a bed settee in her tatty flat. That had been a couple of years ago, when she’d started working for Emma. Was that just a coincidence? The policewoman had said she didn’t believe in coincidences, and nor did he. He wondered now whether Susan had planned to embroil them in scamming Emma two years ago. Had he been used? Becky had been delighted when her mother had got in touch. It had been a bit awkward to stomach. Becky presented as someone who was so independent, sorted and comfortably autonomous, yet as soon as her mother was back on the scene, she’d transformed into this desperate people-pleaser. At least she had around Susan. She rarely bothered to please Matthew.
‘Are they going to arrest Emma?’ she asked. She ignored the tea he put on the table in front of her.
‘Yes, I think they are.’
‘What for? Dangerous driving, drunk driving? Murder?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose any of them are a possibility.’
