The man scrapes his chair. ‘Oh, so all your exes are the same. They’re all mad, are they?’

  There is laughter in the background. Male voices. Jake shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘Oh no. No, mate, they aren’t all the same. This one is very special. Very, very special. You see…’ He pauses for effect. ‘You know who her mum is, don’t you?’

  The laughter stops. ‘No. Go on, surprise me.’

  He looks up at the camera, and suddenly he is looking right at me.

  ‘Collette Palmer. You know? Murdered her husband? Stabbed him through the eye.’ He looks back at his audience. ‘So you can see why I was worried, can’t you? You don’t know what she’s capable of.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I was cooking Ian’s tea the day they came. The day the police knocked on the door. I’d stopped looking for her years ago, and I’d hidden the remnants of our relationship deep inside me. I even thought I was over it, whatever that is.

  I opened the door, and I could tell from their expressions it was something serious. I expected it to be her they were here to tell me about. I expected it to be her falling over a cliff or from the top of a tall building. I expected them to tell me she was drunk or in a fight or in some other woman’s bed.

  ‘Cathy Palmer?’

  I knew then it wasn’t her that had been hurt. Or died. I knew then that she had sent them. Only Collette would use that name. Cathy. Wild, reckless Cathy. Running through the dark night in search of her lost love. A million miles away from Kate cooking Ian’s tea in a striped apron.

  ‘Kate. But yes, I was.’

  I expected them to tell me whatever it was on the doorstep. I didn’t want this inside the make-believe world I had built for myself. But they stepped forward. The tall police officer bent over.

  ‘Can we come in, please?’

  Ian had found his way downstairs and stood behind me. He placed a hand on each shoulder and spoke. ‘Yes, officers, come in.’

  Once again removing even the last spark of power I had over the situation. They trooped through the hallway and into the lounge. Everything decayed into slow motion as they sat down on the sofa, oversized and awkward. There was a long silence as everyone looked at each other. The smaller officer spoke.

  ‘I’m very sorry to tell you that your father, Harry Palmer, has passed away.’

  I remember thinking that he was reading from a script. Ian spoke next.

  ‘She’s not called Palmer now, by the way. It’s Connor. Kate Connor.’

  I started to laugh. A high-pitched hysteria rang around my head. Had they told her? Had they? I suddenly sobered. I know now this is what shock can do to you.

  ‘Have you told her? My mum? Where is she?’

  They exchanged a look that told me nothing because everyone looked wide-eyed when her name was mentioned. Eye rolls and nods. Yep. Collette. What’s she like? The taller officer licked his lips and took his turn.

  ‘Can you accompany us to the station, Miss… Mrs…’

  Ian finished the sentence. ‘Connor. Mrs Connor.’

  I turned to him. ‘Shut up. Just shut up. Not now, Ian. This isn’t about you.’

  I’d suffer for it later, of course. Not violence. The kind of suffering where someone who annoys you is allowed to go on longer than they should. Not the kind of suffering I am going through now. Not the emotional torture of betrayal. No.

  He did shut up. And he wasn’t allowed to come to the station. I sat alone in the back of the police car. Numb from the shock that my father was dead. I was a small child again, holding his hand. Dancing, him drunk on Christmas Day, swinging me around. Funny how all the good memories come rolling back.

  Watching him walk away each time he left, and then coming back and kissing Collette when she forgave him and he returned. Him round at Grandma’s, like a different person in front of his mum. All table manners and serious face. I found words from somewhere.

  ‘What happened?’

  The police officers looked at each other. ‘Probably best to wait till we get to the station, love.’

  I nodded. I thought I was going to identify him. To be officially informed, but when we got there, all three of my brothers were waiting in the cold reception area on the other side of a Perspex screen. The arrows on the floor told me I was going in as they were leaving. All eyes on me as I was shown through. I listened as I walked by.

  ‘Right then, thank you for coming in and giving your statements. We’ll be in touch if there’s anything else. Give us a ring if you need anything.’

  I turned to see them leave together as I arrived alone. But whose fault was that? I asked myself. Only Flynn looked back at me and smiled slightly. They were so young when he left. They never really knew Dad.

  We turned into an interview room. Two men sat on one side of a table. One of them stood up to greet me.

  ‘I’m Tom Parker. And this is Stan Brookes, our family liaison officer. We wanted to ask you some questions about your mother.’

  I baulked. ‘My mother. But isn’t it my father who died?’

  Confusion reigned as I wondered if I’d heard them correctly. Stan Brookes waved me to a chair and the uniformed officer who had shown me through left.

  ‘I think you should sit down, Cathy.’

  I sat and narrowed my eyes. ‘It’s Kate. Not Cathy. Kate.’

  ‘Kate, sorry. Okay. Our officers have already told you about your father passing away.’ He looks down at a file. ‘So we think he was attacked between 11pm and 11.45pm last Friday. Unfortunately, he died from his injuries at the scene.’

  I stared at them. Attacked? Died at the scene?

  ‘Are you telling me he was murdered? Oh my God. Have you got the person who did it?’

  Even as I spoke the words, I knew what was coming. I saw her eyes and her anger and her crashing through the house and destroying everything in her wake. I saw him shouting at her, calling her insane, demanding that she was committed. Then leaving and her dragging us to search for him. The screaming fights with other women. Her eyes always on him and, even when he wasn’t there, the constant pining.

  It all flashed before me in that split second Stan opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘Look, this is difficult, but we have arrested your mother, Collette Palmer, on suspicion of murder. We wanted to ask you some questions about your relationship with both of them.’

  I snorted. It didn’t sink in. ‘I haven’t seen either of them for years. They left.’

  Tom leant in. ‘Your brothers told us you were sixteen when you left.’

  ‘I was sixteen when she left.’ My voice is much more bitter than I imagined it would be when I finally spoke those words. I had underestimated how the sadness I harboured would look to other people when I finally spoke it. ‘He walked out. She was only interested in finding him. Then she didn’t come back one day. I knew we would be taken into care, and I would be responsible for my brothers.’ I’d looked away, suddenly a moody teenager again. ‘Not that I hadn’t been already.’

  Neither of them spoke.

  ‘Are you asking me if I think she murdered Dad?’ They just blinked at me. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know who either of them are. That’s the first time I’ve seen my brothers since then, out there. I have another life.’

  I remember feeling the old anxiety pour through me, threatening to drown me.

  Stan nodded. ‘Yes, this is very difficult, and we want to give you all the support we can. Your mother has asked to see you.’

  I reeled with the shock of it. After all the searching, she had decided that now she was in deep trouble she needed me. I almost laughed at the irony of the situation. But I didn’t because I felt the anger bubble. The anger at her. The anger that she had finally got her ultimate revenge on the man who she lost everything for.

  ‘No. I don’t want to see her.’

  Stan nodded. He shuffled some papers and arrived at the pages he needed. He looked them over. ‘Okay. Sorry, just a few more things. I know you didn’t see much of your mother for years, but we have a sample of fifteen police reports filed. There are more, but these are the reports we have pulled to try to get a picture. Did you witness any violence between your parents? Please tell us if you don’t want to answer these questions, or if you wish to leave. You have no obligation.’

  All I could hear was my father screaming at her. Bitch. Mad. Insane. And her crying and shouting back.

  ‘I never saw her hit him, if that’s what you mean.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, the reports are filed against your father.’

  He slid a picture across the table. It was Collette’s face and upper body. Her lip bloodied and her shoulders black with bruises. I blinked at the picture and a tear fell. I thought I knew everything. I thought they were as bad as each other. In fact, I thought she was worse, because hadn’t everyone said Collette was mad? Crazy? And her jittery, anxious behaviour backed up this eyebrow-raising description.

  ‘No, I didn’t see any of this. I saw them argue and scream at each other.’ I recalled the sunglasses and the thick make-up and the days she didn’t want to get out of bed. A broken arm once, and that weekend we had to stay at Grandma’s and she had a hospital band on when we got back. But she explained everything away with a wave of her hand.

  It was too much for me to process. My feelings were conflicted. I was panicked and scared as my past fell apart in that interview room.

  ‘How…?’

  They looked at each other. ‘Your father died of multiple stab wounds. One of his neighbours called the ambulance when he knocked on their front door. Sadly, he died at the scene before the paramedics arrived.’

  ‘And did they see… anyone?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, but a woman answering Collette Palmer’s description had been seen several times in the proceeding days.’

  I was already thinking about the flash of silver in her handbag. The way she held that bag close to her, and the look in her eyes when she saw I had seen the cold metal. The faraway look when she got her little notebook out and began to write. Tapping the pen on her teeth as she plotted and planned to find out where he was. Who he was with.

  The staring and blinking when Grandma arrived to tell her she was crazy and asked her what she had done this time. Not responding to her questions. But most of all a determination that she would get him back. That he was hers. That everything would be okay – whatever that was. Tom continued.

  ‘We’ve interviewed your brothers. We understand they were taken into care after your mother left. And you…’ He read his notes. ‘Left. Were you reported missing?’

  I faux laughed. ‘You’re kidding me. By who? No one actually gave a shit where I was. So, no. I just lived with a friend then got a flat.’

  ‘And you never contacted your family?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Well, I tried. I tried to find them through my grandma. Dad’s mum. But she wouldn’t tell me what happened. Then it was too late.’

  They gripped their notes and stared at me. I wanted to ask them if my brothers asked about me. Asked how I was or where I was. Instead, they asked me the million-dollar question. A piece of information I would have sleepless nights over for years.

  ‘One of Mrs Palmer’s friends, someone who has known her all her life, told us that she carried a weapon. And that she had been known to threaten people. Those threats included your father. Would that be an accurate representation?’

  I looked at the speckled table in the interview room. Yes, she had threatened him, but I never saw her harm anyone except herself, or use that knife. I panicked.

  ‘She just had it in case one of the women she was following started something. There were arguments…’

  Stan wrote down my words. ‘So, she followed women?’

  I swallowed hard. ‘My dad would go off. I don’t know for sure, but I think he had affairs. She would take us to their houses and try to find him. I think she was scared someone would…’

  They were nodding. I knew it sounded bad. But it was the truth. All of a sudden it was over. Stan and Tom were standing, and Tom opened the door.

  ‘Thank you for your co-operation. We’ll be in touch if we need more information.’

  I stood. My legs were shaky. They thought she’d killed my dad. They thought Collette was a murderer. I walked behind the two men to the reception area where I’d seen my brothers. I turned to them.

  ‘Do you have any contact details for my brothers, please? I’d like to get in touch.’

  They looked at each other. ‘The best thing you could do is find a mutual relative. Or your solicitor. This might be a tricky time, Kate, with all this going on. We can’t disclose any personal contact details.’

  That was late February. When I got home, I thought about what I had said. How I had condemned her by my words. I’d confirmed she carried a knife. I felt terrible. I rang them and they told me to see my solicitor. I tried to put it a thousand different ways, but each time I ended up at the knife in her bag. Her confronting women she thought he was sleeping with. I didn’t want to, but I started to admit to myself that she had done it.

  By September she had been tried and convicted. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. She had pleaded not guilty, so there was a trial at Manchester Crown court. I wasn’t called as a witness. I was going to go every day, but in the end, I was a coward. I only went a few times, and I sat at the back. I didn’t go to see her, and I didn’t go to see my brothers. I didn’t even speak to them; I left before they stood up to go. I went to see whether there was anything of me there, in that detailed evidence. Anything that could predict the fire that was rising in me and the dreadful place it could end up. She didn’t put up much of a fight. She barely said anything.

  The relative peace of my everyday life drew me back to some kind of normality, but inside I was in turmoil. I read all I could about the trial. About her. The media had a heyday. And the centre of the evidence rested on someone telling the police about a knife and the notebook she always carried with her. I recognised everything they said about her. I’d seen the notebooks. Loads of them, all kept in an old brown suitcase.

  While I waited for the trial to start, I thought more about her. In fact, I thought about little else. I turned over and over in my mind her erratic behaviour and my bitterness when she left, and wondered if she was really a murderer. I couldn’t see it. The more I thought about it, the more I could see that she was scared. Scared of being alone. Scared of not being loved. And scared of him.

  But, in a way, brave, because she never gave up. No matter how it was all turned around on her, she never stopped trying to find him. Trying to find answers.

  Then, one night I woke at 3am. It was dark in the bedroom, and I went downstairs to get some water. I stood in mine and Ian’s home looking out at the neatly manicured lawn. And I realised she wasn’t trying to find answers, she was trying to make him pay for what he had done to her. She left her home and her children to make him accountable. To chase him. Maybe that’s why she had the knife all along.

  Everyone thought she was mad. Crazy. Insane. Affected. Jealous. So what did she have to lose, apart from me and my brothers who, if Grandma had anything to do with it, would have been taken from her, anyway?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Bekah turns off the tablet. She clasps her hands in front of her.

  ‘He’s very convincing, and it looks like he’s going to use everything he’s got here. He’s got most of the bases covered.’

  I am still thinking about the recording. You don’t know what she’s capable of. I’d opened up to him. I’d told him everything. Everything. All about my childhood. All about the trial. All about the insurance money that I was entitled to but chose not to take. He’d nodded sympathetically. He’d agreed with everything. He only mentioned the cheque once when we were considering extending the house, but when I got upset, he apologised. I know now he tried to get it another way.

  ‘I’m not my mother. I’m not Collette.’

  ‘No. No you are not. But I am here to tell you that if you complain and this goes to trial, which it would because he will never admit to what he has done, the jury will hear all about it.’

  I blink at her. ‘Are you telling me not to make a complaint?’

  She looks at the tablet and pauses.

  ‘No, I just wanted to keep you in the loop about things.’ She gets up and shuts the door. Then she sits and speaks in a low voice. ‘Look, we both know what is going on here. He’s set up some elaborate plan to get hold of your bank account. He has form. He did similar with other people. He has absolutely covered his tracks so that either you can’t object because you are married and share money and property, or he set up accounts in your name. Or there is no proof either way. It’s almost the perfect scam.’

  She sips her water.

  ‘But what he doesn’t know is that I arrived too soon. That his instructions weren’t followed. And he also doesn’t know that you found the tracker. He could deny it and say you put it there, but it shows that he has underestimated what has happened.’

  I think about my usual routine as I come in. Shoes off, coat hung up. Open letters. She’s right. He’d been so sure I would go through my usual behaviour. He hadn’t factored in how upset I was and how that would disrupt me.

  ‘So, what will happen now?’

  ‘We’ll question him, give him a chance to make a complaint. Then we’ll have to let him go. What he did, taking the money, it’s not fraud because you have joint accounts and you are married. And the rest of it, although it is a complex set-up, could have been done by anyone; we have no evidence to suggest it was him. In fact, the evidence points at you.’

  Of course it does. Like the evidence pointed at Collette. But I never really believed she did it. And I made it worse by telling the police about the knife.

  ‘So, he’ll get away with it.’

  Her expression hardens. ‘Maybe in court. But I… we need to make sure he doesn’t make a complaint against you. The same goes – if you took the money, it isn’t fraud. But he’s trying to make it look like you’ve lost the plot and are harassing him. That you are in league with his exes. Put that all together and he’s potentially got a case.’

 

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