Page 69 of The Stranger in Her House

I look away before I can take anything else in and cover my own mouth with my hands. I’m immediately struck by the metallic smell of Walter’s blood and I begin to retch before I back away, just as Oscar scampers into the room. I bend over to scoop him up in my arms and run down the stairs as fast as my legs will carry me, ready to scream the street down for help. But as I fling open the front door, someone is already there waiting for me.

CHAPTER 57

CONNIE

They’re standing at the front door, one hand raised as if to ring the bell, when I dash across the threshold and almost knock them to the ground in my desperation to escape. I scream at the figure in the darkness before I recognise it as Krisha.

‘He’s dead,’ I blurt out. ‘Paul killed him.’

Her teeth and the whites of her eyes are illuminated by the hall light as she glares at me, like she thinks she’s misheard. ‘Who is?’

‘Walter, my friend, he’s upstairs,’ I gasp. ‘He’s in his bed. Paul has cut his tongue out.’

She doesn’t know which part of what I’ve just said to unpack first. ‘Are you sure?’ she asks and I nod frantically.

‘This is all my fault,’ I say.

I’m crying properly now and I feel a thick line of snot dripping from my nostrils and on to my lips. I wipe it off with my coat sleeve. My legs weaken and I can no longer hold myself up. I fall heavily to my knees like a bag of rocks but I’m still clutching Oscar. Krisha helps lift me up and escorts me to the end of Walter’s drive.She lowers me on to the lawn, holds my hands and encourages me to follow the pattern of her breathing.

Then comes her switch to police mode. ‘Connie, I need you to wait here while I go inside,’ she explains. ‘Don’t talk to anyone, don’t let anyone in, and shout if you need me.’

‘Please don’t leave me!’

‘I’m sorry, but I’ll be as quick as I can.’

The door partially closes behind her and I grab a whimpering Oscar so tightly he yelps. I’m sure he’s sensed something in his world has irretrievably shifted. I try in vain to calm myself as I wait for Krisha to reappear. But with every noise, light and rustle of a tree, I’m convinced Paul is about to grab me. I think back to how I started the day trying to do the right thing by visiting Meredith. Now it’s ended like this, with my friend’s murder. And I am to blame. I didn’t kill him with my own bare hands, but I might as well have. He has paid the ultimate price for entry into my shit-show.

Through the dappled glass in the door, I spot Krisha coming down the stairs. She pushes the handle with an elbow while holding her phone to her ear. I assume she’s talking to colleagues. She returns to me and confirms what I already know. But listening to it coming from her somehow makes it more undeniable and I cry even harder. She tells me that she can’t offer me a hug because I was inside a crime scene and that forensics officers will need my clothes as evidence.

I don’t know how much time passes before three marked police cars, an ambulance and two plain white vans pull up outside, but we haven’t been waiting for long. Then it’s like I’m watching a fly-on-the-wall TV documentary as officers slip into their roles, sealing off paths and roads and keeping back the neighbours who have left their homes and are craning their necks to see what the commotion and blue lights are about. I don’t catch the name of the officer whoquestions me, but I give him what he calls a ‘first account’ of what happened.

Next, I’m helped into the back of the ambulance and am briefly checked over by two paramedics, then driven to a police station where I’m asked to strip out of my clothes and given a white, plastic forensic suit to wear. I’m no stranger to making a police statement but this isn’t like the others when I’ve lied to protect myself and to make their jobs harder. Two detectives help me to retrace my footsteps inside Walter’s house as accurately as I can and recount what I saw. Then later, they want me to tell them everything I know about Paul.

Hours pass, and when I feel as if I’m only being held together by caffeine and nicotine, I’m driven home. The first thing I see from the car window is the forensics team wearing the same plastic suits as me, leaving the bungalow, having searched and fingerprinted it. I hear neighbours’ voices from behind the tape asking me what’s happened. But nothing leaves my mouth when I try to give them answers.

Back in my bedroom, I change into some sweatpants and a jumper. The uniformed officer who brought me back makes me a cup of tea and sits with me until Krisha appears. She explains how she was on her way to see me to discuss our earlier phone conversation when she received my hurried message. She knew I was staying at Walter’s house which is how she found me there. I repeat what I told her colleagues at the station, about how I only recently discovered Paul had been watching me through cameras fitted throughout my bungalow but I can’t show her the videos because her colleagues took my phone as evidence.

I tell her that I’m convinced Paul wanted me to be the first to find Walter’s mutilated body and that I don’t know if it’s a threat or a promise of something to come. My train of thought meanders and I’m suddenly concerned about Oscar. I can’t remember whoI gave him to. Krisha assures me he’s safe and is also being treated as evidence.

‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’ I ask her. ‘If I hadn’t told you what I’d learned about Paul or talked Jon Brown into getting his mum’s blood tested, Paul would’ve left us alone.’

‘I think it’s more complicated than that,’ she replies.

‘How? It all comes back to me.’

Krisha shifts in her seat and lowers her voice. ‘What I’m about to tell you is completely off the record, okay?’

‘Yes.’

‘The evidence you said was stolen and that later came to our attention by email, well, we believe Walter sent it.’

‘Walter?’ I gasp. ‘How?’

‘We traced the IP address of the computer through the internet provider, which was legally obliged to give us the sender’s details. They belonged to Walter.’

‘But I never told him where I hid them.’

‘Maybe he saw you putting it in the dovecote, and when you weren’t around, then he made copies of what you found?’

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