Last Place You Look Read online

  ‘I hear you’re leaving me,’ Robin whispers to Freya.

  She turns, her mouth open. ‘Baker called,’ Robin continues. ‘Some admin assignment he wants you to work on?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ she mumbles. ‘It shouldn’t be for long.’

  Robin protested down the phone that morning, but Baker was insistent. ‘A few days,’ his DCI said. ‘You’ll cope.’

  It was going to be tight, Robin knew, but what could he say? Directive from on high, Freya was only obeying orders. But even though it’s only been just over a week, strangely Robin feels slightly bereft at the thought of her not being around. Like someone else has abandoned him.

  ‘There’s the sister,’ Freya says, changing the subject and nodding towards the back of a woman in a flowing grey dress, tall and elegant. Robin’s breath catches in his throat.

  ‘Whose sister?’ he croaks.

  ‘Amy’s. Olivia Cross, her name is.’ Freya stares at him. ‘Her alibi for Monday night.’

  Shit. It all makes sense now. Liv is Amy’s sister. How could he be so stupid? Robin thinks, a bad feeling growing in his stomach. How could he have allowed a suspect’s sister to get so close to him? To come to his house, steal confidential case files out of his bag. Of all the mistakes to make, this is a fucking bad one.

  Liv walks down the path towards them but doesn’t stop, just acknowledges Robin with a small smile.

  Freya catches it and turns quickly towards him.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘She’s the tom I was telling you about. The one from the bar? Works for Frankie?’

  ‘Oh!’ Freya stares at Liv as she goes into the church. They follow. ‘I didn’t realise.’ Then she clicks. ‘You didn’t realise.’

  ‘No,’ Robin says, and leaves it at that.

  He remembers their funeral. Georgia and the twins. Two tiny coffins, next to their mother’s at the front of the church. The cruel irony haunted him: that the twins, who had been together their entire lives – in the womb, in the same cot, holding hands – were separated when dead. But everything about that day was wrong. Friends Georgia hadn’t seen in years, ones he knew she didn’t even like, dabbing at their eyes. Liam, grey and crying next to him, Robin unable to muster the emotional reserve to comfort his brother-in-law. And life continuing, when his whole world had ended.

  But then Robin notices people turning, the low, murmured conversation coming to an end, dragging him back to the death at hand. Robin looks behind him: a long procession of people in black is filing into the church.

  Amy Miller has arrived.

  31

  Freya’s just about holding it together. She’s not thinking about Jonathan. She can’t. If she associates the man she loved with the people in this church, with the things they’re about to say, she’ll lose it.

  And if she starts crying, she won’t be able to stop. And then Butler will know.

  She watches as Amy Miller walks down the aisle. She’s dressed completely in black – pencil skirt and a loose silk blouse, tucked in at her tiny waist. People reach out and comfort her, and she smiles gracefully. Her heels make sharp clip-clop noises on the stone church floor. Her make-up is minimal, her hair tied back in a small ponytail at the nape of her neck. The perfect epitome of a grieving widow.

  An older couple walks next to Amy, arm in arm, their faces ashen. With a flash of pain, Freya recognises Jonathan in their features. His father is an older version, the same eyes, the same curly hair, his now thinning and grey. Her throat tightens as she thinks about what Jon would have looked like as he grew older. Not now, she tells herself, clenching her hands into fists and looking up at the roof of the church. Don’t cry now.

  A hush falls across the crowd. The vicar walks up to the front and talks about God, then reads a passage from the Bible. Jon wouldn’t have given a shit about this, Freya thinks. He was apathetic about religion, agnostic at best. He wouldn’t want to be remembered in this church.

  Freya feels a curious detachment from the proceedings. She knew Jon better than many of the people here, yet she’s right at the back, and nobody has the faintest idea who she is.

  Kal stands up, walking to the front and clearing his throat. He starts to talk, slowly at first, telling a story about their university days. How they met, a drunken brawl, Jonathan trying to break up the fight and getting punched in the process, nearly arrested by the police. Kal calls him Jonny, almost too casual for the persona that Freya knew. People laugh at the story, but it’s restrained. A noise made because they think they should, rather than an expression of real humour. What story would Freya tell, given the opportunity? What would she say?

  Maybe she’d tell them about the time he broke into her house. A crash from the living room, in the middle of the night, her hand hovering over her phone. And then a recognisable voice: ‘Oh, shit.’

  She went downstairs and switched the light on, to find Jon blinking in the middle of the room.

  ‘I broke your lamp,’ he said apologetically, looking at the pieces in his hand. ‘Your window was open,’ he added, as if that was a valid excuse.

  He looked so comical, so completely unthreatening and unlike any burglar she’d ever seen, that she couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘I nearly called the police,’ she replied. ‘Why aren’t you at the conference?’

  ‘You are the police! And we finished a day early. I couldn’t wait to see you. I…’

  ‘What? You stupid man!’

  ‘I love you.’ He looked at the floor as he said it, bashful. ‘I just wanted to tell you that.’

  She was so caught off guard, standing in front of him in her pyjamas, that all she could do was utter, ‘And you couldn’t have rung the doorbell?’

  She would tell everyone here, this congregation who don’t know her, how she loved him, more than anybody else. How she eventually told him she loved him too, that night, and how she bunked off work the next day and they spent a blissful twenty-four hours doing nothing more than enjoy each other’s company. Because that was the pleasure of being with him: she felt no pressure to put on airs, to try and be interesting or fun, or some other version of herself that she’d been with other men. He liked nothing more than to sit, her legs rested on his on the sofa, and read a book, him absent-mindedly wrapping her hair round his fingers.

  She smiled more with him, laughed more. She loved the creases round his eyes, the curls in his hair when it dried after a shower. Even the way he bit his nails when he was thinking.

  But she can’t say any of that, because she doesn’t exist.

  To take her mind off Jonathan, she starts looking around the church at the other mourners. Most of them are Jonathan’s age, she assumes from school, or university or his job. Some are older, maybe relatives. She knows he was an only child, but maybe some are cousins. It’s a good turnout, and she’s pleased. Jon was loved, and not only by her.

  A different air falls across the church. Everyone is silent; nobody moves as Amy gets up and stands at the front. She doesn’t have anything in her hands, unlike the other speakers. No crumpled piece of paper, no soggy tissue. She stands straight and tall.

  ‘She’s so strong,’ Freya hears the woman in front whisper to her friend.

  The friend nods. ‘So beautiful.’

  Freya looks forward at Amy Miller. And she is. Beautiful. Even she has to admit it. She has a fragile, china doll quality – slender arms, slim waist, high cheekbones.

  She takes a deep breath in, then starts to talk.

  ‘I met Jonathan at a nightclub. I didn’t like him at first.’ She looks out to the church, and smiles. People laugh. ‘He knocked into me, spilling my drink. He apologised, offered to buy me another. I was about to say no, but then his friend came over, and I fancied his friend.’

  Heads turn, looking at Kal. Kal smiles, shrugging.

  ‘But Jonathan soon won me over. He wasn’t like the other guys – he did what he said he was going to do. He was solid, reliable. He was my rock.’

/>   She looks downward, suppressing a tear, then takes a shuddering breath and continues.

  ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without him.’ She looks out to her audience, a single solitary tear rolling down her cheek. She brushes it away with long, delicate fingers. ‘As you all know, Jonathan and I weren’t blessed with children. He would have made a wonderful father—’ murmurs of assent from the room ‘—but it wasn’t meant to be.’ She looks skyward. ‘God obviously had other plans for us. For him. But now, I just can’t understand what that plan could be.

  ‘Except I know what Jonathan would say.’ She smiles, beaming. ‘Be happy, Amy. Go on, live a happy life. And never forget me.’

  She looks at the huge photo, displayed at the front of the church. ‘I’ll never forget you, Jonathan.’

  Amy finishes, then steps down from the podium. Freya suppresses an urge to slow clap.

  There are more murmurs from the room. ‘That was wonderful,’ the friend whispers in front of Freya.

  Butler leans close to her. ‘Laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?’ he whispers into her ear.

  Freya frowns. She knows what Jon would say, and it wasn’t the pious, trite words coming from Amy’s mouth.

  Catch the bitch, he’d tell her. Catch the bitch that killed me.

  32

  Amy feels eyes on her as she walks out of the church, Jonathan’s mother on her arm. His parents have aged markedly since she last saw them, the effects of their only son’s death clear on their faces. She feels a pang of sympathy, but it quickly fades as she basks in the attention. It’s all gone as she planned. The flowers, the hymns, the speeches: all perfect.

  After, they eat crustless salmon sandwiches and soft, delicate pastries. She murmurs words of thanks to the people who come and talk to her, sharing their stories, saying how much Jonathan will be missed, how wonderfully she did today. But she doesn’t need their affirmation; she knows how brilliant she was.

  The detectives have gone. They leave without a word, and she feels a certain impermeability. They can’t touch her at his memorial. They can’t ask their ridiculous questions, not today. But she felt their stares, their judgement.

  She walks into the kitchen to instruct the staff to pass round more bottles of wine, and stands there, watching the mourners through the door.

  For a while Amy suspected Jonathan had been having an affair. But he’d been careful, never leaving his phone unattended, always shoved in his back pocket, always locked. But it would beep, and he’d smile. She’d ask why and he’d say it was Kal, but she knew. The response for the detectives when they told her was no more than an act. Perfectly executed. She knew there had been another woman.

  And what better time to work out who it was than at his memorial.

  She knows she will be here. Amy posted the time and date on social media. She even put a notice in the paper, wanting to ensure everybody attended. She looks at the women in the room, feeling anger beginning to grow, tensing in the bottom of her stomach. But nobody stands out.

  None of these people looks sufficiently upset to have been in love with Jonathan. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he had been faithful to her. She glances back into the room where mourners are starting to move away and Amy hates them all. Who are all these people, these friends? Where have they been for the past ten years? Not in Jonathan’s life, she knows that.

  ‘Babe?’ Liv comes out into the kitchen. ‘You okay?’

  Amy forces a smile. ‘Fine.’

  ‘I noticed the cops were here. Did they say anything to you?’

  ‘No.’ Amy glares at her. ‘Your plan obviously hasn’t worked,’ she growls bitterly. ‘The only thing I could see while I was up there was that detective’s ugly face staring at me.’

  ‘I can think of worse people to stare at you,’ Liv says. ‘He’s not bad-looking.’ She’s trying to make Amy smile, but it’s a wasted effort.

  ‘Not every guy is there for you to screw and make some extra cash, Olivia,’ she snaps back.

  Liv recoils. ‘People are starting to go, they want to say goodbye,’ Liv says quickly, then leaves Amy alone.

  Amy stares after her, then looks out into the room. She pushes down the bile, the feeling of hatred towards the people eating her sandwiches, drinking her wine. Gawkers, that’s all they are. No better than the people who rubberneck at the scene of a road accident. They’re just here for the misery, to make themselves feel better.

  But she pulls a smile back on her face and goes out. Soon, this will be over. The detectives will realise there’s nothing to find. The body will be released, and they’ll be able to bury Jonathan properly.

  And she’ll move on. To her new life. To the next part of her plan.

  33

  Robin and Freya part ways outside the church, Freya saying she’s going to start on this new assignment from home. He wonders briefly what Baker’s got her working on, and watches her walk back to her car, her head bowed, shoulders slumped. She seemed more downcast than usual today, and he remembers her comments at the beginning of the case. Freya knew Jonathan Miller, didn’t she? And he realises he never asked how.

  He gets in his own car, but he doesn’t drive towards the police station. Jonathan Miller can wait. There is somewhere else he needs to be.

  * * *

  Robin hasn’t been back here for over a year. In that time the trees have grown, the paths have been tidied and a smart oak board has been erected at the entrance to the woodland.

  West Downs Natural Burial Ground, it says, in large carved letters.

  He zips up the front of his coat, then walks down the path. He knows where he’s going.

  Twenty years ago, this area was no more than a large field. Small saplings had been planted at regular intervals and he remembers standing there, dew seeping into his trainers.

  ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ he said to his sister.

  Georgia nodded. ‘I remember Dad mentioning it. He said it was a good idea. Of course, he didn’t meant it for himself, but…’ Her face crumpled and Robin leaned over, putting his arm tightly round her shoulders, pulling her close.

  Their mum was already dead. He doesn’t remember much of her – a woman with long straight brown hair and a broad smile. He struggles to distinguish the images of her in his head: genuine memories or ones taken from the many photos their father had shown them. Robin had been eight when she’d died. Ovarian cancer, and the aggressive kind.

  And from then on it had been the three of them. His sister, only ten, forced to grow up fast, cooking and looking after him while their dad was at work. He’d done his part, working in menial jobs to pay his way through sixth form and university. Until a gasping call late at night from Georgia told him their father was dead. Heart attack. Nothing anyone could have done.

  And they buried him there. Ashes in an easily decomposable cardboard box, a small wooden plaque noting his spot.

  Robin stands here now. The oak marker has aged with time, dirty and worn, and Robin bends down, running his fingers over the carved lettering. Gordon Butler. Died August 2000.

  And Georgia was right, of course. The woodland has grown into a beautiful spot. Even in the grey drizzle, the leaves provide a dappled canopy of greens and browns. It’s peaceful, only the gentle rustling of the wind in the trees, and the flap of a disturbed pigeon. Robin has always had the intention to move his mother’s ashes from the more formal graveyard in their hometown, but he’s never got round to it. He makes the resolve anew in his head. They should all be together.

  Robin hears footsteps and turns towards the sound. A tall man is walking towards him, head bowed, a small blue flowering plant in a pot in his hand.

  ‘I hoped you’d be here,’ Liam says when he’s closer. Robin notices he doesn’t reach out a hand or offer a hug as he would have done in the past. Robin doesn’t blame him.

  His brother-in-law walks past him to the next tree and places the pot plant at the bottom. He takes a trowel from his pocket, digs a small hole, the
n pulls the plant from its pot, placing it in the dirt. He pushes the mud back down hard with his hands.

  Robin knows what words are written on the sign there. Georgia Riley. James and Alex Riley. Died Sept 2015. Five years ago today.

  Liam stands up and dusts the mud from his hands. He looks across at Robin.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m alright,’ Robin replies, although he knows what Liam is thinking. He looks like shit. And has for a while.

  In contrast, his brother-in-law seems well. His narrow face is lined, but he has colour, a tan left behind from the summer. Robin remembers something about cycling, a hobby picked up after Georgia’s death. A holiday to Majorca, photos on Facebook of Liam standing in Lycra at the top of a big hill.

  ‘Work okay?’ Liam asks.

  ‘Hmm,’ Robin replies, non-committally.

  It’s the most the two have spoken in a friendly tone for nearly two years.

  ‘You look good,’ Robin throws back. ‘Single life treating you well.’

  ‘Rob…’ Liam starts. ‘Not now. Not here.’

  Robin shakes his head, his jaw clenched. It was a ridiculous comment, one he regretted the moment it left his mouth, designed to keep the wedge between them. He turns before he can say anything else and starts to walk away.

  ‘Robin!’ he hears Liam call to his back. ‘Please.’

  But he doesn’t stop. Liam’s right. Georgia’s grave is not the place to start a new argument. And what would it solve? Robin doesn’t begrudge Liam any sort of happiness; he knows how much Liam loved his sister and the boys, of that he’s in no doubt. But the other… that’s the bit Robin can’t understand.

  As Robin gets into his car his phone rings, and he answers it.

  ‘Butler? It’s Greg from the lab. The results from those beer bottles are back. West told me to call you.’

  ‘Beer bottle?’ For a moment, Robin can’t make sense of what Greg’s saying. Then he realises. The ones from his house, after his supposed hangover.