Just between us, p.2
Just Between Us, page 2
Outwardly, he’s striving to appear unconcerned. Unruffled. It matters. He dresses in suits when he has to speak with the British police, combined with an impeccably ironed shirt. On more casual days he wears chinos and a polo shirt, never just a T. He wants to look crisp despite the pressure of police interviews, the stress of the global pandemic and the issue of his wife vanishing.
Not his wife at all. The woman he thought was his wife but who is a bigamist. His four-year marriage to her – a stylish ceremony in the Chelsea register office, followed by an oyster and champagne reception at the original West Street Ivy – isn’t worth the paper the certificate was issued on. Apparently. He plays it over and over. She was another man’s wife. She lied to him, betrayed him, repeatedly. And now she is dead but is still going to ruin what is left of his life if he is sent to prison for her murder. He can’t exactly blame her for that, but he can’t exactly forgive her for it either.
It is important he keeps up appearances, retains standards. He will not slump, sag, admit defeat like most of the world’s population. He’s better than the vast majority. Although when the fact comes into his head that he is not under arrest yet, it puts him off the carefully prepared, nutritionally balanced meals made by his private chef. It blasts into his head when he’s playing a round of golf with his father. It puts him off his game.
The tone of his internal monologue continually shifts. Sometimes he is brash, dismissive; other times the fear and dread leak in. Insidious. Threatening. He didn’t kill his wife. He didn’t do it. But Daan is aware that innocent men are sent to prison from time to time. Miscarriages of justice do occur. He is white, privileged, extraordinarily wealthy. People like him are very unpopular right now. It’s a pity; any other time in history he would have been practically worshipped, often above the law. Look, he’s not saying that’s right, you know. Just that for him, personally, it would have been convenient. But now people vilify men like him, which is inconvenient. They want him to be guilty.
But he is not.
He can see that the evidence is stacking up against him. There is motive, opportunity and circumstantial data. Each meeting with the police reveals that there are more and more things to be concerned about.
‘I just want to share the screen for a moment, if that’s OK. I want to show you some photos,’ says the senior policewoman, DC Clements. He thinks of her as senior because she’s a higher rank than the cocky youth who is also in the interview room, but she is still younger than Daan himself. It’s a cliché, but the police are getting younger. He is turning forty this year. It sounds old. He doesn’t want to turn forty in a prison. He doesn’t want to lose years and years of his life. He is too vital for that to happen. He has too much to do, to see, to be.
The police officers are staring at him through a computer screen. Daan is glad he’s on his home turf, back in Holland, where his influential family are known and know everyone. He wouldn’t want to be in that depressing interview room where criminals have sat and sweated. ‘This is the room your wife was kept in,’ says Clements.
The photos turn his stomach. The room is pocked with debris: food packages, empty water bottles, papers, plasterboard; it radiates chaos. They show him close-ups of a radiator that has a chain attached to it. She was chained like a maltreated dog. There is a photo of a plasterboard wall that has a hole in it. ‘We’re assuming she kicked through this wall here. Probably while she was still attached to the radiator. She couldn’t crawl through the hole, but she created debris and then she threw the debris out of the open window in the other room, so that it would land on the street below. Some of it did, some of it didn’t.’ They show him photos of the second room, the open window, the debris that had missed its target.
‘Working theory, she was trying to attract attention,’ says Constable Tanner, laconically. ‘I guess she must have been pretty desperate. This sort of thing comes long after banging on the door and asking for help, I’d say,’ he adds with a sniff. His tone and the sniff irritate Daan. It seems disrespectful, casual. People ought to carry handkerchiefs.
‘Where were you residing between Monday 16th March and Tuesday 24th March this year?’ asks the DC.
‘You know where I was, you visited me there, in my apartment.’
‘Can you state the address?’
‘St Marina Riverview Apartments.’ He rattles off the full address and postcode. He can’t resist adding, ‘The penthouse.’
‘These photos were taken in apartment 1403 St Marina Riverview,’ says the police officer.
Daan gasps. ‘She was held captive in my apartment building?’
‘Yes. Fourteenth floor. Just a few below you.’
‘Six.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Six floors below me; you said a few.’
‘I stand corrected.’
Daan blinks. He can’t understand what they are saying. This is bad. Very bad. The thought of her so close for all that time, and yet completely out of his grasp. He picks up a glass of water, takes a gulp.
‘And during those dates we mentioned, did you go about your usual business?’
‘I was looking for my wife.’
‘Of course, and what did that entail? Did you put up posters to alert the public to her disappearance?’
‘No.’
‘Did you walk the streets looking for her?’
‘No.’
‘Did you visit her friends, ask if they had seen her?’
‘I didn’t visit her friends, no.’
The DC obviously knows the power of silence; she lets his last negative echo. It’s a technique Daan himself sometimes uses in business meetings. He’s made a lot of money by judiciously saying nothing, doing nothing. Today, he counters assertively. ‘I called you. I called the police. You were looking for her.’
‘Did you leave your apartment building at any point from Friday 20th to Sunday 22nd March?’
Daan thinks. Where is this going? What trap is he walking into? He answers honestly, because of course they already know the answer. ‘Yes, I went to the local deli that is just next door. A few times. To buy food and drink.’
‘Alcohol?’
He sighs. ‘Yes, alcohol. I’m over eighteen, it’s not a crime.’ His lawyer coughs quietly. A subtle sign to remind Daan to be careful what he says. No one likes a smart-arse.
‘And when you were popping in and out the deli for your organic vegetables and single malt, did you notice the debris in the street?’ asks Tanner. No one coughs to indicate that he should lay off the sarcasm.
Daan shakes his head. It’s an automatic response. Did he see the debris? He’ll think about it more later.
‘Not even as you left for the airport?’ Daan shakes his head again. ‘Because we noticed it straight away, didn’t we, DC Clements? Awful mess. Practically tripped over it, I did. And we arrived at St Marina Riverview Apartments just a short time after you left there.’ The constable frowns to indicate that he’s mystified as to how that could be.
Daan remains silent. The DC picks up the baton. ‘And when you were up and down the stairs, in and out the elevator and the building, you never saw or heard anything unusual?’
‘No.’
‘And you will have been especially vigilant, I expect.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
The DC pulls her face into an expression of surprised innocence, ‘Well, only that as your wife had vanished, you’d have been keeping your eyes wide open. You’d be alert.’
They show him another photo, of a filthy bucket of shit. He blanches.
‘It’s not pretty, is it, Daan?’
‘No, it’s not pretty,’ he repeats. His lawyer clears his throat again. Taken out of context, that comment might sound dismissive, sarcastic, cruel. He’s been warned to avoid elaboration, explanations and theorising. The thought of Kai being demeaned so – his beautiful, elegant woman – makes his heart beat faster. His heart that is aching, imagining her chained to a radiator. She was a bitch for marrying him when she was married to another man, while mothering another man’s children, certainly that. But he doesn’t want to think of her this way.
‘Thank you for giving us permission to search your flat, Daan.’ As if he could have refused. His lawyers had told him they’d easily secure a warrant; it looked better if he appeared helpful. The lawyers might be regretting that decision. On their previous video call, the police revealed that they’d found both of Kai’s phones hidden at his apartment, the ones she used to facilitate her double life. They also focused on a receipt from Homebase for zip ties and a plastic bucket. Daan told them he had no idea where the receipt had come from. He realises now that they are revealing evidence to him in a particular order. They are trying to trap him. Frame him. He did not buy a bucket. He was rushing to the airport; he possibly stepped over the debris as he jumped into his taxi. He was in a hurry.
‘There was some banging. I recall it now.’ He lights up. Pleased to show that he isn’t careless, negligent. ‘One night. The Saturday night. I thought it was something to do with water pipes. Or at least that’s what she—’ He stops abruptly.
‘She?’
Oh fuck. He has to tell them. It will come out. Someone might have seen her arrive or leave. ‘I had a friend stay over on Saturday night. I slept through the noise, but she said there was clanking, that I should get the concierge to call a plumber. She thought maybe it was trapped air in the pipes. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I had bigger things on my mind.’
‘Your missing wife?’
‘Of course.’
‘And who was this friend?’
Daan turns to his lead lawyer. ‘Do I have to say?’
‘Is there a reason you’d rather not?’ asks Clements, overriding his lawyer’s assurances that he’s not obligated to say anything at all.
‘Her name is Fiona Phillipson.’
‘And how friendly are you exactly?’ asks Tanner with a smirk.
‘Not very,’ Daan asserts.
Clements puts up a picture of Fiona on the screen. It’s a good one. Her profile pic that she used on the dating app, which was how she first reached out to him. She must have used filters; in real life she looks her age, and her eyes are smaller. ‘Is this Fiona Phillipson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, we’ve talked to Fiona, and she says you two are more than friends.’
He doesn’t know why they are talking to Fiona Phillipson. Nor how they might have found her. Is there CCTV in the corridors and hallways of his building? He thought that was limited to the gym and the pool. Perhaps she came forward in response to an appeal for witnesses after Kai went missing. He knows it’s not good news that they’ve spoken to her. Fiona Phillipson is a woman he’s had sex with a few times, a casual hook-up. A way to pass the time when Kai was away. And you know what, he’s glad he did so, considering how things had turned out. When he thought Kai was in the north of England tending to her sick mother, she was in fact living around the corner with another husband. Un-fucking-believable.
He still can’t accept it. All he did in terms of infidelity was bend a few women over his kitchen table from time to time and bang them hard from behind. He never promised them anything. Most of them understood what they were getting. A glamorous night, a fun anecdote, a satisfying orgasm. This Fiona woman was a mistake. The timing of their latest hook-up makes him look bad. He last had her a few days after Kai went missing. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was confused, a total mess. He’d just heard that his wife was a bigamist, for God’s sake. Fiona didn’t mean anything to him, but he let her stay over. Again a mistake. She woke up clingy. She asked him if he was married. He got the feeling she left in a bit of a huff. Hurt. But Christ, is that his problem? He’s got far bigger ones.
‘Have you ever visited Fiona Phillipson’s home in London?’
‘What? No.’ Daan has no idea where the woman lives. It might be Highgate, it might be Brixton, north, south, east, west. How would he know? He never asked. He has no interest. Why would he visit her house?
‘What about her holiday home in Dorset?’
‘No. No.’ He shakes his head. He briefly wonders if this woman has gone missing too. Is there some sort of serial killer on the loose? Did she disappear after she left his? No, that’s not right; they said they were talking to her. He’s not thinking clearly, he’s panicking. Unless she’s vanished since. God, might she have? It’s insane. But is that thought any more or less insane than his bigamist wife vanishing? He feels heat pulse across his body. ‘I hardly knew the woman.’
‘You hardly knew her?’
‘Know her. I hardly know her.’ Fuck, what’s the proper grammar? He’s normally careful on this sort of stuff. He’s tripping up. His words are sounding shaky, imprecise. He doesn’t want to think about serial killers. He doesn’t want to think about Kai crapping in a bucket. He takes a deep breath. ‘It wasn’t that sort of relationship. It wasn’t any sort of relationship.’
‘Is that right,’ says the DC. She looks triumphant, which worries Daan.
‘I don’t want to say anything else.’ He looks to his lawyers, but before they can respond, he hits the button that says LEAVE MEETING and the screen turns black.
3
DC Clements
The lockdown measures, which were just a whisper, a recommendation when Kylie Gillingham disappeared, have bloomed and bypassed the stage of being a threat and are now a fact. Immovable law. Shops, restaurants, cafés and libraries are closed. People are locking themselves behind doors, behaving like convicts serving time, grateful for a permissible hour of exercise. They’ve been instructed to work from home if they can. Something that, for decades, harassed mothers have begged for. Something they’ve argued they need to ease the burden of childcare. The concept of working from home has always been dismissed, seen as a scam for skivers. Now there is no alternative. Bosses everywhere are crossing their fingers, hoping their employees will play fair. Although nothing can ease the burden of childcare at the moment, as schools are closed and teachers are beaming lessons through laptops and smartphones. Parents are going mental.
Clements doesn’t have any of that to worry about. Childcare. She can’t imagine what it must be like. Trying to do your job, trying to get your kids to pick up a pen and tackle some maths. Unlike some of her colleagues, she is not interested in working from home, alone. Maybe she would be safer from the virus, locked in her tiny flat, stuck at the little table under the window, but she couldn’t stand it. She’s always done her best thinking in the field.
She could call Fiona Phillipson, but she decides she needs to see her face. It’s a matter of catching her unawares. People reveal more than they want to in their faces, and the DC has a feeling there is a lot more to be revealed yet. She and Tanner visit Fiona’s house together. A well-kept terrace in Clapham. Victorian black and white tiles, a dark blue gloss door, succulents in oversized stone pots in the tiny front garden; smart, standard for a certain sort.
‘This will be worth a fortune,’ mutters Tanner. A slight hint of resentment in his voice. People in their twenties and thirties unilaterally resent those in their forties and fifties, because a generation ago it was possible to clamber onto the property ladder, even in London. Tanner rents in Woking. It’s a long commute, boring and expensive, but as close to his workplace as he can afford. Clements has arranged for him to have a car at his disposal as they investigate this case; that way he can get backwards and forwards without being held hostage to the reduced train timetable. ‘Very nice,’ he adds, nodding towards the house, but there’s no hint that he’s paying a compliment. He rings the doorbell for a second time. They listen to it echo around the silent building.
Clements peers in through the window. ‘No sign of her.’
‘Taking a walk?’ suggests Tanner.
‘I have a hunch. Let’s call in on Mark Fletcher.’
She only has to ring the bell once at the Fletchers’. As she expected, Fiona Phillipson opens the door. She’s flustered. Her first words are: ‘Mark suggested I move in with him and the boys during lockdown. Probably only going to be a couple of weeks, right? After all, I’ve known him and the boys for ages. I was there the day Kylie met them.’
Clements nods. ‘Nothing illegal about that, Fiona, relax.’ The woman is clearly nervous, maybe even apologetic. People are just getting their heads around the new laws and rules; they don’t want to put a foot out of line. Most of them.
‘Do you want to come in?’ Fiona opens the door a little wider.
‘No, sorry, best if we stay outside. Social distancing and all that.’ Behind Fiona, Clements can see the younger Fletcher boy, Seb, lingering in the corridor. Her stomach contracts slightly in sympathy. He looks exhausted, blue bags hanging under his eyes. His limbs seem angular, awkward. He’s holding himself in such a way as to suggest he is bracing for more sorrow. Clements has been up close and personal with tragedy before; she knows it’s very possible that he will never regain the carelessness and ease that is associated with being young. He’s only twelve years old, but his childhood has been brought to an abrupt halt by the actions of his stepmother and someone else. An unknown other. Adults are bastards to kids. They should take better care. He has been wrenched into a tawdry, brutal, grown-up world, and he’s frightened. He should be. Clever boy.
‘Have you found my mum?’ he asks.
Fiona looks startled. ‘Have you?’
‘No.’ Thinking of Seb, stretched taut, desperate for news, Clements adds, ‘Not yet, but we’re following a lead. Fiona, you can help with that.’
