Page 79 of Don't Let Him In

“And can you tell me what happened exactly?”

The woman shuffles slightly in her seat. “I, er… it’s very sensitive. It’s… I mean, I need a lot of what I’m about to tell you to remain confidential. Otherwise, I’m not sure I can go through with this.”

“Well,” says DC Langtry gently, “why don’t we start at the beginningand then see where we end up. But certainly, for now, everything you tell me remains between us. If you choose not to pursue your allegations, then that is your prerogative.”

The woman sighs and grimaces slightly, then inhales hard and says, “I have been having a casual relationship for many, many years with a man called André. I do not know his surname—as I say, it has been incredibly casual. Last week, he came to my apartment and said that he was homeless, had nowhere to go, could he stay with me, just for a few days. In all honesty, I wanted to say no. But soft touch that I am…” She sighs again. “Anyway, it seemed fine at first. He was pleasant company. A good houseguest. We had dinner together every night. I felt very much that he was readying himself to leave. And then two nights ago, he…”

Jessica puts a hand to her throat and touches it softly.

“He got very angry, very suddenly. I’d never seen that side of him before. He had always been such a gentleman, so polite, so charming. But it was like these doors came down and a new version of him appeared. He was asking me for money, and I said no, I’m sorry, I can’t give you money, and suddenly his hands were at my throat. I thought, I genuinely thought he intended to kill me. I thought it was the end.”

DC Langtry sees the marks now: soft brownish pink spots in the flesh of her neck, the size and shape of fingertips. He makes notes.

“And then just as suddenly as he attacked me, he let go of me, and this is where, I’m afraid, this is where it gets murky, and frankly, I’d wondered if I could tell you about this without mentioning all the facts, but really, I don’t think I can because it wouldn’t make any sense, not without the full picture. Because the thing is, you see, André was slightly more than a friend. He was a friend with benefits. And the benefits were—well…” Jessica’s face contorts with discomfort. “Paid for,” she says finally. “André was a male escort and I had been paying him for many, many years for his occasional company, and, well, I have grown children, I’m a respectable woman, and André knew that and used it as a weapon to blackmail me. He blackmailed me into giving him all mycash, every penny of it. There’ll be CCTV footage of me visiting two banks over the course of a day, emptying out my accounts for him, in cash.

“Twenty thousand pounds. I gave that man twenty thousand pounds and I tried to be pragmatic about it, I really did try so hard. But as time went by, well, I just got crosser and crosser and more and more disgusted with him. Yes, that’s the word. Disgusted. And I thought, No. What’s more important, your bloody reputation—or stopping this horrible man doing this to somebody else? And I really, really, really don’t want him to do this to anyone else, because believe me, as he held his hands around my neck, I knew without any shadow of a doubt that this was not his first rodeo. Oh no. Definitely not. I knew then that he was evil and that he hurt women and that stopping him was more important than saving my reputation. And I’m sorry that I don’t know more about him, I don’t know his surname, I don’t know where he lives, and I don’t know who he is. But I have this…” She pulls out her phone and plays a small video of a man on a Ring app, the familiarding-ding-dongringtone playing in the background. The man is tall and has a thick head of silvery white hair and a neat silver beard.

“This is him. This is André at my door when he first arrived, just over a week ago. It’s pretty clear, I think. And hopefully, maybe, you can use it to track him down. And at the very least, might the notes I gave him from my bank accounts be marked and traceable?”

DC Ian Langtry makes another note in his pad and sighs.

“I’m very sorry,” he says, “that you have experienced this. If it’s OK with you, I would like to take you now to have your injuries photographed. Would you agree to that?”

Jessica nods. “Yes,” she says. “Please. Anything. Whatever it takes to get this creep off the streets.”

SEVENTY-THREE

The cottage is quiet and sweet when I arrive. There are fresh flowers in a vase on the dining table, lots of shades of pink and cream. The Christmas tree is still up, looking sad now, too many days past Twelfth Night, branches drooping heavily toward the floorboards, a solitary bauble on the floor, sitting on a bed of dead needles. There is condensation on the kitchen window, the lasting impression of the family who were here this morning, eating breakfast, boiling the kettle, chatting, living and breathing, without me. But now I’m back, and we will be complete again.

I place my bag full of money under the settle in the hallway, I take off my coat and then my shoes, and I step quietly and slowly up the tiny central staircase to the landing, where I see that the door to our bedroom is closed. My heart sings with anticipation. My darling wife. I knock gently and then I hear her footsteps. She pulls open the door and she is wearing a simple lawn nightdress, her hair tied back loosely, no makeup, no jewelry, she is completely unadorned, and I scoop her up in my arms and I carry her to the bed and she wraps her arms and legs around me and she kisses me back and presses her fingers into my flesh and pulls at my hair and groans into my ear and I know, all the way through, I know she is acting. I can feel it. She is acting. And now, so am I…

Afterward, we lie together in each other’s arms, me and my beautiful wife, and I put my nose into her hair and smell her, the scalpy essence of her, and there, deep down, I smell her fear. What is she scared of? What has happened in the days since she came to Nina’s house and peered through the windows, looking to find me in the arms of my lover? She glances up at me and smiles, traces her fingertip across the hair on my chest. I can feel the emotional weight of the words she is about to say.

“You know,” she says, her finger making tiny circles against my skin, “Grace said she’d collect Nala from the childminder’s today. I’ve closed the shop. The boys are with their dad. You and I could take a drive down to Bangate. Have another look at our pavilion. Maybe have dinner somewhere. What do you think? I’ve had so many ideas about the new café. I’ve got mood boards. I’ve filled in all the forms to apply for a business loan, extend the mortgage. And I thought… since you’re getting the money from your mum’s house… I’m sorry if that sounds insensitive, I know she’s only just moved out and I know you’ve been through such stress these last few weeks. But I just want to move on now, Al. I want us to get the dream rolling. Finally. You and me. And look.” She turns slightly and points toward the window. “It’s a sunny day. What do you think? It would be nice?”

I stare down at her and I see that she has softened. The fear has left her eyes. She was just nervous, I think, nervous to ask me about spending the money from my mother’s house, scared I would be cross with her for her insensitivity. And the sex, I see now, was some kind of attempt to butter me up, to reassure me, and I suddenly feel myself relax.

“Yes,” I say, kissing the knuckles of her hand. “Yes. It would be lovely.”

She wears a soft pink sweater and loose-fitting jeans, with a padded coat over the top. I smile at her in the hallway, where she’s lacing up her trainers.

“Are we bringing Baxter?”

“No,” she says. “Let’s leave him here. Just in case we want to go somewhere they don’t allow dogs.”

I smile and nod, and I take my coat off the peg and slip it on. As I do so, my eye is caught by the bag of money under the settle where I left it. I could show it to Martha now, a sign of my grand intentions.Look, I could say,we’re starting with this. But then I think, No, that money is my safety net. My escape fund. Should I ever need it. Which I won’t. Not now that Martha and I are back together.

But then a question mark of doubt pops into my consciousness. I am never complacent, I cannot afford to be, and while Martha goes to put the dog in the kitchen, I lean down quickly and slot as many stacks of notes into my jacket pockets as I can. I also fish out my escape pack, the one I carry with me everywhere. Then I push the bag back under the settle with my foot, hold the door open for Martha, and we leave.

SEVENTY-FOUR

Martha glances at her husband in the driver’s seat of the car. He looks, she thinks, so carefree. He looks happy, unburdened. His blue eyes gleam in the January sun through the windscreen, and he turns when he notices her gaze upon him, and smiles.

“You look so beautiful,” he says. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” she says.

They are halfway to Bangate and Martha’s gut roils and churns as the coast gets closer and closer. Twenty minutes, she thinks, twenty minutes and then… but no, she can’t bring herself to think of it, of what happens in twenty minutes. Right now, she is in the moment: the sunshine, the road ahead, the road behind, this moment of nowness and calm. She absorbs it, holds it inside, ignores the voice in her head that says,You idiot, you idiot, you idiot; the voice that says,How could you be so stupid, so stupid, so stupid?

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