Page 103 of The New House

I’m stunned. ‘Felix wanted you tochain him in the cellar?’

‘Not exactly,’ Stacey says. She perches on the chest freezer, gently swinging her legs. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

She laughs. ‘Fair enough. Would you be surprised if I told you it was all about money?’

I think as rapidly as my aching head will allow. ‘Copper Beech,’ I say, after a moment. ‘Felix was siphoning off funds. And you knew about it? Of course you did: Felix never did anything without you. Except you wouldn’t be able to access the money,’ I add slowly, working it through. ‘Not if they thought Felix had absconded with it. They’d be watching you too closely. But if he was dead, that’d be a different matter. If he was dead, and someone else was arrested for his murder, no one would be looking at either of you. You’d just have to wait for the fuss to die down, and you could disappear and start again. By the time anyone figured it out, you’d be long gone.’

‘This is why I like you,’ Stacey says admiringly. ‘You get it. Going after the pension funds was Felix’s idea. His plan was to leave the country and have me follow him later, but it’s not that easy to slip abroad these days, not with all the facial recognition software out there. Do you know how hard it is to avoid cameras these days? We needed the police to think he was dead, and one single image on CCTV at an airport or train station would have sunk that idea, so Felix came up with the plan to hide down here until things blew over.’

The police aren’t stupid: they’d have been watching Stacey either way. But she and Felix created afalse narrative of marital problems that threw all of us off the scent, and I played my part for her perfectly. Who’d suspect them of collaborating in a scam together when they were living apart and consulting divorce lawyers? The physical abuse on both sides: perhaps that was all part of it, too.

Although, I think, casting a glance at Felix’s motionless form on the bed beside me, perhaps not.

‘So what happened?’ I ask, indicating Felix. ‘He can’t have planned forthis.’

‘He was never supposed to be down here this long,’ she says. ‘We only meant for him to be here a week or two at most, and then, once everyone stopped looking for him, he was going to slip quietly out of the country. I’d join him later. There’s no future for me here. They want to move me tomorning television.’ Her expression darkens. ‘But then Harper stirred everything up with that ridiculous campaign of hers to find him. There was too much attention: from the press, from the police, from that ridiculous Kyper Nation of hers. Felix got impatient. He wanted to call the whole thing off. We … disagreed.’

I can’t hear him breathing. He hasn’t moved once in the entire time Stacey’s been talking.

‘He’s dead,’ she says, matter-of-factly. ‘He died a few hours ago, while you were still unconscious.’ She sighs. ‘I suppose it’s for the best, really. He was in a lot of pain.’

She sounds almost regretful.

‘What happened?’ I ask, keep my voice level.

‘Drain cleaner,’ she says carelessly. ‘Terrible way to die.’

She could be talking about the weather.

‘I really am sorry I had to involve you, Millie,’ Stacey adds honestly. ‘This was never part of the plan. I told you, Ilikeyou. You were just supposed to bea distraction – the police would never have had enough evidence to convict you, not without a body. I told you on Saturday we had a deal, and I meant it. But then when Peter came over this afternoon—’

‘He found Felix,’ I say flatly.

‘Oh, he knew Felix was here,’ Stacey says. ‘He’s known since the very beginning.’

chapter 62

millie

I should be more surprised. My ten-year-old son has known Stacey had her husband handcuffed to a pipe in the cellar and he’s kept it secret for five weeks. But I understand better than most the secrets children are capable of keeping.

‘Was he … was he part of it?’ I say. ‘Did he help you bring Felix here?’

‘No, I told you. That was Felix’s idea. I told Peter about Felix because he deserved to see what he could do, what he couldbe, given the chance.’ A note of admiration colours her voice. ‘You really should be proud of your son, Millie. He was an extraordinary kid. The way his mind worked—’

She isn’t making any sense. It’s clear to me, even if it isn’t to her, that she intended to kill Felix all along. That’s why she involved Peter: as her acolyte, her disciple. Maybe she needed him to help her finish what she’d started. An unholy, homicidal alliance.

Twenty years ago, a forty-one-year-old man killed seventeen people in a series of sniper attacks across America with his young accomplice, who was just seventeen at the time. An unequal partnership, but a partnership nonetheless: psychopaths brought together by a sinister kinship that transcends age and defies definition.

Just like my son and StaceyPorter.

‘Why did you have to drag him into it?’ I say. ‘He’sten.’

‘A ten-year-old who tried to drown my son. Hardly an innocent, Millie.’

‘So this was, what? Revenge?’

---