‘What information is that?’
‘If I tell you, I’ll lose my marriage, but if I don’t tell you, my wife loses her liberty.’
The police officers leaned towards him gracefully, like synchronised swimmers. ‘What have you got to tell us, Mr Charlton?’
He slipped the USB across the table. ‘You’ll work it all out from this. Well, this and an examination of the car. I think you’ll find it was tampered with. My guess is the brakes will have been damaged or a wheel loosened. A copycat scenario of how her parents were killed. I believe Emma lost control of the car, but that wasn’t her fault. You’re right, it wasn’t an accident. A crime has been committed, but not the murder of Susan Morden. The real crime is the attempted murder of my wife. She was the victim. This is the security footage from our home. It shows who tampered with the car. It was my ex-girlfriend, Becky.’
‘I see.’
There was no going back now. ‘She also happens to be Susan Morden’s daughter.’ The police officers shared a glance. The woman raised an eyebrow. ‘I know, messy.’ Matthew coloured a little, aware that the phrase was inadequate. This wasn’t messy, this was tragic, horrific, cruel. He couldn’t bring himself to admit as much. Doing so was too big. Too much. ‘I’ve emailed Emma’s lawyer with these images too.’ He’d done it as he left the house, so that he couldn’t lose his nerve. ‘She’ll most likely be in touch very shortly. I think you’ll agree this has changed everything.’
Matthew spent several more hours in the police station, giving his statement. He tried to stick as closely to the truth as possible, but obviously, self-preservation meant that it was difficult to admit everything. He told the police that he’d simply met Emma, fallen for her and ended his relationship with Becky, and that she’d taken their break-up badly. He didn’t want to talk about the scam they’d planned. It would strengthen the case against Becky, yes, but it would also obliterate any chance he had of holding onto his marriage. And he found he did want the marriage to survive. He wanted that very much, if at all possible.
He told them about the sustained campaign of aggression against Emma, but he didn’t mention that Emma thought she was being haunted. How could he when he didn’t want to disclose the fact that he’d made up a dead wife? He held onto a sliver of hope that Emma would be too proud to reveal all their personal details to the police. The business about the existence or non-existence of a dead wife was not pertinent to the case; she might decide to keep it to herself. When she heard that he’d saved her, that he’d come forward with the evidence that got the charges against her dropped, she might forgive him. Not straight away, but eventually. She loved him, didn’t she? But first he had to get through this interview.
‘And it’s just a coincidence, is it? The fact that your ex’s mother killed your wife’s parents?’ He could hear their scepticism.
‘The world is full of strange coincidences. It comes down to geography in the end. I very much doubt it’s a coincidence that Susan worked for Emma. Knowing what I do now, I think she always intended to cause trouble for Emma, and that’s why she took the job – to get closer to her, find an opportunity. Maybe she and Becky were jointly responsible for the harassment that Emma has endured recently. I don’t know what each of them knew about the other’s situation and motivation. They never had a close mother-and-daughter relationship, obviously, since Susan Morden spent all of Becky’s formative years in prison. Who knows what secrets they kept.’ He shrugged. ‘I certainly had no idea about any of it. I just met Emma because I lived locally. I lived locally because Becky and I had chosen to live with Becky’s mother.’ He raised his hands, palms open and up to the ceiling, and shrugged dramatically. ‘Would it help if I took a lie detector test or something?’
The two police officers smirked at one another. Silently mocking his naivety. He didn’t care. They could think him foolish, manipulated or even idiotic. He was perhaps all of those things. He just wanted them to believe him.
‘I’m happy to help the investigation in any way possible.’
The police didn’t give much away throughout the long hours of interviewing. He couldn’t tell if they believed him or not. They offered him a lawyer. He said he didn’t need one. ‘I’ve nothing to hide. I’m telling the truth.’ And he was, largely. Maybe not the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but who told that nowadays? They let him tell his entire story, including the fact that when he had checked the security camera footage, he had seen Becky going into the garage and then emerging later with something concealed under her jumper. ‘I’m guessing that was the tool she used to tamper with the car.’
He didn’t know how long it would take the police to digest this new evidence, and whether they would accept it. He hoped they would. Eventually they said he could go. ‘But don’t go too far, Mr Charlton. We’ll want to talk to you again.’
‘My wife is in hospital. I’m not going anywhere,’ he replied.
As he left the police station, it started to pour. Sharp needles rained down on him, pricking his skin. He had decided to do one more thing: a difficult final act, but it was necessary in order to get the police to completely believe what he was saying. He needed a confession from Becky. He headed to the pub.
45
There was a scattering of afternoon drinkers in the pub, relaxing back on their chairs, pint glasses in hand and the remnants of cottage pie smeared on the plates in front of them. It was far from a gastro pub. Graham bought the pies at the local Costco and heated them up in the microwave. Still, Matthew ordered the last two, waited in silence until the microwave pinged, then carried them upstairs to the flat. He put the tray on the floor outside the door, pressed record on his phone and then knocked. He had a key, but that wasn’t a fact he wanted to share with the police if he could avoid it. By arriving with a tray of food, he had a reason for not letting himself in if Becky asked. This wouldn’t be easy. He had loved her once.
She was pleased to see him. Her face lit up. He might have felt guilty, but she quickly asked, with obvious glee, ‘Have they arrested her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whoop!’ She punched the air.
‘Your mother just died. They’ve arrested Emma for her murder. I’m not sure an air punch is the appropriate response.’
‘Obviously I’m gutted about my mum. She had a shit life and I thought things were just about to change for her. I thought I was going to change them for her. The fact that I can’t hurts.’ Becky started to cry. Matthew felt awkward. He shouldn’t have snapped at her. Not on top of everything else he had done, but Jesus, she could be unlikeable. How had it taken him so long to see it? Maybe he had known it for some time but hadn’t done anything about it because he’d been without choice or incentive. ‘I’m punching the air because this is what Mum would have wanted. It’s justice.’
What did she mean by that? She didn’t look well. Greasy-haired, gritty-eyed. She was wearing the same outfit she’d been wearing on Saturday night. Joggers and a T-shirt. The T-shirt had sweat stains under the arms and something spilt down the front – coffee maybe. Not pretty at all. Matthew put the tray down on the small Formica table and moved around the kitchen collecting up cutlery. He filled two glasses with tap water and then sat down. Becky sat too but didn’t pick up a fork. The table was so small their knees touched; he was hopeful that her voice would be clearly picked up on the recording. He decided there was no point in stalling. Better just to dive in.
‘You killed your own mother.’
‘What?’
He spelt it out. ‘This whole plan of yours. This greed, or lust for revenge, or whatever it was. You killed your own mother.’
‘What are you talking about? I wasn’t driving the car.’ Becky looked surprised, shocked even, at his accusation. She obviously wasn’t expecting to be called out for killing Susan.
‘No, but you tampered with it. Made it unsafe, presumably in the hope that Emma would have an accident and die. You planned to kill Emma, but you killed your mother by mistake when Emma ploughed into her.’
She didn’t refute it. She laughed. A short, violent spurt of hysteria; he wondered whether she’d taken something. ‘What are you talking about. Are you mad?’
‘The car was tampered with.’
‘Who said?’ Again she looked stunned.
He shook his head sadly, didn’t answer. He had questions of his own to ask. ‘The thing that bothers me, Becky, is that if everything had gone to plan for you, and Emma had been killed, the police would have investigated the accident and discovered that the car had been messed with. They’d have looked for someone to pin it on. Who did you plan that to be? Me? Was that your ultimate plan, that I went down for murdering the woman I’d fallen in love with, the woman I’d chosen over you?’
‘You’d fallen in love with her?’ Becky asked. She looked panicked, hunted, sweaty, sheeny. Her eyes darted about as though she was crazed or angry or amazed. He didn’t know which. ‘No. No. You have it all wrong. I never did that. How could you think I would want to kill her, let alone pin it on you?’ He’d expected her to deny it.
‘I’m not saying you planned to kill your mother. She wasn’t the intended victim. Emma was,’ he clarified. Becky put her hands to her head. As she lifted her arms, he got a whiff of her body, stagnant, neglected, but also alcohol on her breath. Of course she’d been drinking. She was grieving, on her own, above a pub. He knew she’d have pinched a bottle of spirits. She seemed confused, tearful, unreliable. He wondered whether anyone listening to the recording would recognise as much. ‘Admit it, Becky.’
‘No, no. I didn’t do that,’ she insisted. Despite her drunken, grieving state, her confusion and shock, she was sticking to her story. She’d always been good under pressure. Then she alighted on an alternative theory. ‘If Emma’s car was messed with, that must have been my mother.’
‘My God, you are unbelievable. You’d blame your dead mother for a crime you committed.’
‘She knew about the prenup. I’d told her. She’d have wanted Emma out of the way so you could collect the cash.’
‘That doesn’t make sense. What benefit would it be to your mother if I gained financially from Emma’s death?’
‘Well, you’d have shared it with me,’ Becky insisted.
