Still small voice, p.12
Still Small Voice, page 12
‘Well, thanks, Miss Meyer. You’ve definitely given us food for thought. I think that’s everything for the time being, but we may need to speak to you again if there are any developments.’
‘Of course, that’s fine. But I really can’t believe Alex would have done something like this. For all his faults, he’s not a violent person.’
‘You’d be surprised by what people are capable of,’ John says, holding the door open for her.
6
Emma sits in the kitchen with her sister Kate. The thought of being on her own terrifies her. Here she is, eight and a half months pregnant and about to be a single mother of two children under the age of three. She reaches her hand down and gently strokes the soft head of her Jack Russell and the repetitive motion soothes her.
Whatever Alex has done, it is inconceivable that he hurt Nicky Scott. Emma is absolutely convinced of that. In all their years of marriage, Alex has never even lost his temper, let alone hit anyone. Sometimes Emma finds it frustrating that he is so laid back, but it is also part of his charm. She remembers once being in a queue at a supermarket when he accidentally bumped into the man in front of him with his trolley. The man had turned round and starting swearing, but Alex, mild as ever, had just said, ‘Sorry, mate, it was a mistake.’ The man had then jabbed his finger at him and said, ‘So you’re a posh fucker as well as a clumsy idiot.’ A few minutes later the two men were chatting away like old friends and it turned out they had served in Germany at the same time. Despite herself, Emma smiles to think of it.
‘Listen, Em, I really think we should call Mum,’ says Kate, interrupting her sister’s daydream. This isn’t like before. Alex is in really serious trouble and he may need a lawyer.’
‘I don’t care,’ Emma replies. ‘He’s got himself into this mess, he can deal with it.’
‘You know you don’t mean that. Whatever he’s done, he’s always going to be the father of your children.’
‘I know, but I’m just so tired – I can’t deal with this.’
‘So that’s why we should call Mum. She and Dad will handle everything and you can look after yourself.’
‘But then the whole thing with Alex will come up again. Mum and Dad always said I shouldn’t have gone back to him after the second time, but I really believed he had changed, and then I got pregnant.’
‘It’s going to come up at some point, so you might as well get it over with.’
‘Maybe, but I just can’t face that disappointed look on Mum’s face.’
‘It’s not disappointment, Em, it’s worry. She loves you. I know she may not be very good at showing it, but she really does and they always say how proud they are of you and the success you’ve had with your painting.’
Emma sighs, and then looks towards the window, listening.
‘That was a car, wasn’t it?’ She puts her hands to her face. ‘Oh my God, it might be Alex.’
‘You said he was going to the police station,’ says Kate, standing up to take a look.
‘That was hours ago.’
‘It’s not Alex. It’s a police car.’
Emma clamps her hand to her mouth. She is on the verge of tears and finds it hard to speak. ‘Kate, what’s happening?’
‘Don’t worry. I’m here – it’ll be okay.’
Emma is panic-stricken.
‘What am I going to say? Should I tell them what Alex said when he rang me? They might not even know he saw Nicky last week. I don’t know what to do – I might make things worse.’
‘Sssh, calm down, it’ll be fine. You can’t lie, Em – just answer the questions but don’t tell them anything unless they ask for it.’
When the bell rings, Emma takes a deep breath and goes to the door. Two police officers are standing outside.
‘Hello, can I help you?’
‘Mrs Worthington?’
‘Yes, is something wrong?’
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Barker,’ the officer says, showing his badge, ‘and this is Detective Constable Groves. I need to speak to your husband, if that’s alright.’
‘He’s not here. He’s at work.’
‘Actually, he’s not at work, madam. Apparently, he was feeling ill and left first thing this morning. He told a colleague he was going home and I would have expected him to be here by now.’
‘Well, he hasn’t come back yet. What’s happened? Why do you need to speak to him?’
‘Unfortunately, I can’t give you any details at the moment. Have you heard from him at all?’
‘Er, yes. He rang me this morning, but he didn’t say what time he would be home.’
‘Whose car is that in the driveway?’
‘That’s my sister’s car, she’s inside. Can’t you give me some idea of what’s going on, detective? Is my husband in trouble?’
‘I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can say just now. Are you absolutely certain your husband isn’t here?’
‘Of course he’s not, I told you he wasn’t here,’ Emma snaps, her panic evaporating and anger taking over.
The officer’s radio crackles into life. ‘Excuse me one minute, I need to take this.’
Barker walks over to the car, talking into his radio, but Emma can’t hear what he’s saying. The other officer gives her an embarrassed smile.
‘You can go inside in the meantime, madam. If we need to ask any more questions, I’ll give you a shout.’
Emma leaves the door ajar and goes back into the kitchen.
‘What did they say?’
‘They just said they wanted to talk to Alex but they didn’t say why.’
Emma winces and holds her hand against her stomach. ‘I have to go to the loo and check on Ben – I won’t be long.’
*
John has just finished talking to Peter Byrne, the pathologist, when a light blinks on his phone, indicating an internal call. It’s Adam Newman, one of the three detective constables on his team.
‘There’s a call for you, guv, from one of the Andover boys. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch his name.’
‘No problem, put him through, thanks.’
When he replaces the receiver a few minutes later, he thumps his fist on the desk. The officer had told him that Alex Worthington had not gone home after all.
‘I wonder what’s happened to him,’ Lucy says when he tells her. ‘Maybe he really has absconded.’
‘Assuming he’s guilty, that is. Or maybe he didn’t want to go home to face the music from his wife and has holed up somewhere else. By the way, I spoke to Pete and he’s got the preliminary report. I want to go over there now – can you be ready in a few minutes?’
7
Emma stands at the basin and closes her eyes for a minute. There are no tears this time, just a terrible feeling of dread. While washing her hands, she looks in the mirror and sees the same old face looking back at her. How can she look the same when everything has changed?
She looks in on Ben, who is sleeping peacefully, then goes downstairs to join her sister. They sit waiting in the kitchen for about ten minutes and, although they know there is no possibility of being overheard, they talk in hushed voices.
When Emma hears a light tap on the door, she gets up and says, ‘Here we go again. I think you’re right. You’d better call Mum.’
Detective Sergeant Barker is on the doorstep.
‘We’ll be off shortly, Mrs Worthington, but I just need to check a few things.’
‘Okay,’ Emma says.
‘How does your husband get home from the station?’
‘He leaves his car there in the morning and uses it to drive home.’
‘What car does he drive?’
‘It’s a dark-green Golf.’
‘Would you know the registration number by any chance?’
‘I don’t remember it offhand, but I’ve got a file somewhere.’
‘That’s good. And there’s one other thing. Can you think where your husband might have gone to after he left the office? A friend’s house, perhaps, or a relative, if he was feeling ill?’
‘He has friends in London but I have no idea where he would have gone.’
‘If you could give me some names and numbers that would be very helpful. We just need to cover all the bases. By the way, does he have a mobile phone?’
She nods.
‘I’ll need your husband’s mobile number as well.’
Emma looks across at her sister.
‘Can you show the officer out? I’ll just find these numbers.’
She goes through to the study and closes the door. She has never hated Alex more than at this moment, but he is in trouble and she has to do something. She picks up the phone and dials. It goes straight to a recorded message.
‘Alex, the police have been here looking for you and I had to give them this number.’ She hangs up without saying anything further. There is nothing more to say.
*
Alex looks at the other people in his carriage, normal people going about their daily business, and the enormity of his situation finally begins to dawn on him. In all likelihood he will be in a cell tonight. If only he could turn the clock back three weeks, he would never have called Nicky after Lisa’s party. He can’t really understand why he did. When they had first met all those years ago, she had intrigued him – there was a sense of mystery about her – but, if he was being honest with himself, he actually found her a bit serious. Not his usual type. But there was something about her that night at Lisa’s. He had heard that she wasn’t very happy with James and he always found vulnerable women attractive, but it wasn’t that. Nicky had been glowing and he felt himself drawn to her like a moth to a light.
Alex had had absolutely no intention of calling her – he was on best behaviour and Emma was due to have their baby at the end of September – but her face kept popping into his mind. A few days later he was browsing in a bookshop in Piccadilly and, as he wandered through the children’s section looking for something for Ben, he saw one of Nicky’s books prominently displayed on a table. Daisy Gets Lost. He flicked through it and on the inside back cover was a black-and-white photograph of Nicky with a short biography. She had hardly changed since those days in Cyprus and, as he looked at her picture, he was reminded of that long-ago party when he had told her about his affair, and how ever since that night there had been an unspoken bond between them. When Alex got back to the office, he dug out his address book and found the Scotts’ number. Even as he dialled, he knew he was making a bad decision and when the phone started ringing he nearly hung up. She answered almost straight away, and then it was too late.
It takes a few seconds for Alex’s eyes to adjust to the sharp light outside. It is probably a twenty-minute walk to the police station, but he has started to feel quite hungry and thinks it might be a good idea to eat something. He buys a sandwich and a Coke at a kiosk on the edge of the common and finds a bench to sit on. He eats slowly, being careful not to drop any food on Jerry’s trousers, and looks around him. Normally, on a beautiful day like this, he would have taken a packed lunch into St James’s Park and sat in the sun for a while, or he might have met a friend in one of the many cafés or restaurants near his office.
He has never felt so alone. It is pathetic that there is nobody he can call on to help and advise him. He is virtually estranged from his parents, doesn’t get on well with his sister and, although he has lots of friends, many of them are what you might describe as good-time friends, not the sort of people you can turn to in a crisis. Emma is the only person he can truly rely on and now he has destroyed everything. He envies Emma her close family. He can just imagine her now, sitting with her two sisters and her parents discussing what an appalling person he is, and who can blame them? He takes his mobile phone out of his pocket and turns it on. There is a message from Emma and two missed calls from a withheld number. For a moment he hopes she might have been ringing to find out how he is, but it is a short, cold message to tell him that the police have been to the house.
Alex feels a stab of alarm. That can only mean they have found out where he was on Thursday night.
8
‘That must be a record: fifteen minutes to Horseferry Road,’ John says. ‘We didn’t have one red light.’
Lucy smiles. There is something about men and cars, she thinks.
Pete is waiting for them downstairs and takes them through to the lab where Nicky Scott’s body is laid out on a metal trolley. He pulls back the sheet. He isn’t one for small talk and gets straight to the point.
‘Okay, so, cause of death. Acute epidural haematoma caused by two blunt force injuries to the side of the head.’ He points with his pencil. ‘Her skull was fractured in two places. She would have been knocked unconscious straight away and probably dead in less than an hour. Sometimes with this type of injury the victim regains consciousness briefly, but I don’t think this would have happened in her case as the injury was too serious and there were no signs of her having moved about.’
‘Jim said you have seen the torch,’ John says.
‘Yes, I’ve compared the indentations in the skull and it is very possible that it was used to hit her.’
‘“Very possible” seems a bit vague.’
‘Well, as you know with this type of injury, it’s impossible to be one hundred per cent sure, but there is absolutely no way she fell down the stairs and hit her head. Traces of blood were on the post but there were no marks or injuries on her body consistent with a fall like that, no internal injuries, and her position was wrong.’
‘So, you think the body had been moved and blood smeared on the post in an attempt to give that impression?’ says Lucy.
‘Yes, I do, but it was a very amateur attempt.’
‘What else?’ John asks.
‘I suppose the most significant thing is that she was pregnant, about six weeks, I would say.’
John looks grim and Lucy’s hand goes to her mouth.
‘Yes, I’m afraid it’s always very distressing to hear that,’ Pete says.
Lucy looks at John. ‘She can’t have known or there would have been no need for the condoms.’
Pete raises his eyebrows.
‘Shall I go on?’ he says.
John nods.
‘You wanted to know if she’d had sexual intercourse prior to her death?’
‘Yes. Had she?’
‘There was no trace of semen. Even if a condom had been used, we would have picked up other indicators such as unrelated pubic hair and we didn’t. On that basis, I think it is very unlikely that she had penetrative sex. However, there is something which may or may not be relevant.’
‘What’s that?’ John says.
‘I’m sure you know what I mean by “arousal fluid”?’ Pete asks, looking from one to the other.
Much to her annoyance, Lucy feels herself blushing. John clears his throat but says nothing.
‘I assume it’s the fluid that’s produced in the vagina when a woman is aroused,’ she says, rather too briskly.
‘Exactly, yes. But there are two types of fluid you might find in the vagina – cervical fluid and arousal fluid. The purpose of the arousal fluid is to lubricate the vagina for the possibility of intercourse. However, unlike cervical fluid, which is around all the time, arousal fluid dissipates quickly so it is difficult to ascertain if a woman has been sexually aroused unless the body is examined immediately after the event. But, if there is a significant amount of arousal fluid, it can leak out onto the woman’s pubic hair and underwear, which is what happened in this case. We also found traces on her fingers.’
‘So, you’re saying that she might have been very aroused but probably didn’t have full sexual intercourse?’ John said.
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
‘Hmm. That’s surprising but interesting.’
‘That’s about it really. She had a small amount of alcohol in her blood, nothing significant. No evidence of any other substance.’
‘Great, Pete. Thanks. We won’t keep you as I expect you’re flat-out. I hear there was another incident in Brixton last night.’
‘Yes. In fact, I’ve got to rush,’ Pete replies, checking his watch. ‘They’re waiting to move the body.’
‘No rest for the wicked, eh?’
‘Or the overworked.’
They walk upstairs together and as they part company on the pavement John says, ‘I won’t say “see you soon”; that would be tempting fate.’
‘Please don’t. I want a quiet weekend for a change.’ Pete smiles. ‘I expect you do too.’
‘I wish.’
As they walk back to the car, John’s phone rings.
By the expression on his face, Lucy can tell that something momentous has happened.
‘No, don’t do that, just put him in the interview room. We’ll be back in about fifteen minutes— Well, fuck me,’ he says as he hangs up.
‘Why, what’s happened?’ Lucy asks.
‘Alex Worthington has just presented himself at the station. I certainly didn’t see that happening.’
On the way back, John and Lucy discuss the best course of action.
‘I think we should caution him and see what he has to say. That will give us more time if we decide to arrest him,’ John says.
‘I agree, unless he has come in to confess, that is.’
‘When was the last time that happened? That would make our life far too easy.’
Lucy smiles. ‘We can always hope.’
9
The scene that Alex had conjured up of Emma’s family is almost accurate, apart from one absent sister, Zoe, who lives in London and won’t be able to get to Hampshire until later that afternoon. Her parents had arrived less than an hour after the officers left and, despite her earlier misgivings, Emma is grateful that Kate had called them and done all the explaining in advance. When her mother, Liz, gives her a hug, Emma bursts into tears, and they stay like that for a minute with the older woman stroking her daughter’s hair until her crying subsides.
