I Never Lie Page 14

  ‘No. Let me handle it. There’s no point in going to the police if there’s a simple explanation. I’ll talk to him first. Ask him if he knew her. See what he says.’

  ‘Okay. I just feel bad about it. Knowing someone who was murdered, you know.’

  I wonder if I should tell her about my morning at the police station, but before I have a chance, she bursts into tears.

  ‘Oh my God, Alex, I’m such a mess.’

  ‘It’s okay. Come here.’

  I put my arms around her and she holds on for a moment.

  ‘It makes me really nervous, what’s going on with these poor women.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I didn’t really know Maggie. She was just in my club, you know? But ever since Alice Fessy’s body was discovered, I keep bursting into tears.’

  ‘You’re probably just tired.’

  Marlow is stirring from his nap. What I wouldn’t give to hold my own child in my arms. Annabel has it all. A proper family.

  ‘I’m glad you came to me. A producer at work seems to think these women were gay. The drug that was used in the murders is common on the gay party scene.’

  ‘Wow. Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. I wouldn’t worry about Charlie. I just don’t see it.’

  ‘Okay. God, I’ve been such an idiot, worrying myself sick. That’s why I came to talk to you. You never overreact to anything. I love Marlow, but it’s exhausting having a baby. I know it’ll get easier, but I miss my job. I miss being out and about. Doing all the things I used to do. I miss my freedom.’

  So that’s what this is all about. I wish I had her problem, but then I need to get dry to have her problem, which reminds me: it’s now almost twelve hours since I had a drink. Proof that I can control my drinking.

  ‘I’m quite happy to babysit sometimes, if you want a break. You only have to ask.’

  ‘Thanks, Alex. I really appreciate the offer.’

  We hug it out some more.

  ‘I’d better get going. I want to walk back to Dalston before it gets dark and before he needs feeding. Let’s not leave it so long next time, yeah?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  We have one last hug and she heads off down Broadway towards the canal.

  On my way home, I try to recall seeing Maggie Horrocks at the swimming club that night, but I have no recollection of it. My memory is so shot these days. I do remember that her flatmate was interviewed by UKBC shortly after she was killed, though. I text Audrey and ask if she can get the woman’s name and address. I need something to do other than go home. I’m pretty sure Charlie wasn’t seeing Maggie like that, but if he was, I need to know.

  Audrey is such a godsend. She replies within moments and signs off with a winky face. Google Mapping it says it’ll take me twelve minutes to walk there. I’m not sure if it’s such a great idea, but I really need to know now, and besides, my detox needs something to do. My mind is already made up. I hit ‘route’ on my screen and follow the blue dots.

  33

  September 2017

  Dear Diary,

  Today’s session was challenging. The therapist explained that I have created a false perception and image of who I really am. That was a head fuck. He also told me that my brain wouldn’t be happy and healthy again for a while. That the alcohol I have been consuming for the best part of my life has warped the part that makes all my decisions and stunted my emotional growth. It has created a perception of the world that is misguided, and my moral compass is so out of whack it’s amazing I have any empathy for anyone whatsoever. My years of alcohol abuse have created a monster that doesn’t really know right from wrong any more. It’s a physical thing apparently, and the only way to change that is to stay off the alcohol for at least six months. Only then will I really begin to understand the world around me properly and make sense of my own moral principles, transforming me into a much better person.

  I’ve been dry now for almost three weeks and I do feel better. But there is a massive emotional void that I can’t fill. The alcohol used to do that for me. The place is okay really. The rooms are nice, with a view of well-looked-after gardens. The beds are pretty comfy and I’m getting a good night’s sleep, which is a real change. As a drinker, I hardly ever slept properly. I couldn’t really call it sleep. I used to nap between shifts at the pub and shifts on my park bench. I never found the time to properly discharge and allow my body to rejuvenate. I don’t remember ever enjoying sleep until this week. My appetite is also coming back, day by day.

  There’s such a mix of people here. I’m actually really surprised by it. I thought it would be low-lifes. People who were lost in the world, a bit like me. But there are some really successful types in here. Professional people like Alex. I wish she was here with me. We’d have a blast. It’s not too bad, though. There’s this one girl from Leeds, only nineteen. She’s nice. She really didn’t want to come but her family made an intervention. She’s glad of it now. That’s the thing about rehab rather than AA meetings. There are people here who really don’t want to be here. People who have been forced to come by their loved ones. That makes me different, I suppose.

  Tomorrow we start group therapy again while continuing with the one-on-one. I haven’t spoken to my mum since I came here. She is an alcoholic too, I realise that now. I guess I’m slightly afraid of her opinion, which is something I discovered today in my one-on-one session. I feel embarrassed about it. I feel shame.

  My therapist tells me I drink to hide a truth about something that happened to me, but I can’t figure out what that is. I used to think that I drink because I like it, but maybe he is right. He says I’m blocking out the pain with the booze. Blocking out trauma because it’s too disturbing. I hope this rehab thing can get to the bottom of why I drink, so that I can stop completely and have a normal life. I’ve started smoking. I need to stop that too. It’s like replacing one addiction with another, although at least the cigarettes don’t mess with your head the same way drink does.

  I wonder if Alex has experienced the same breakdown in moral codes that my therapist was talking about, her being a long-time drinker just like me. I consider writing to her and telling her I’m in rehab, but then I think again.

  34

  Before long, I find myself outside Maggie Horrocks’ house. It’s a pretty house on a well-presented street. Two-storey semis line up neatly behind tidy front gardens. The thought that Charlie knew her has made me deeply troubled. If he becomes the story, I want to be ahead of it. Annabel is one of the only friends I have, and I trust her hunches.

  Number 32A is a ground-floor flat. I can’t see in because the windows have those French-style wooden shutters, which are not even half open. There’s a selection of herbs growing in the garden: rosemary, mint and lavender. I wish my garden looked like this. It looks healthy.

  I ring the doorbell a few times but no one answers. To the left of the front door is a path that tucks around the back of the property. The voice in my head is telling me to follow it, so I do and soon find myself in an equally well-kept back garden. There’s a gravelled area with a table and two benches, lots of potted plants, and a greenhouse in which tomatoes are growing. There’s a stack of cigarette butts piled up in a plant pot on the table. It looks quite normal. I don’t know what I was expecting.

  I knock on the French doors, a somewhat desperate act seeing as it’s blatantly obvious that no one is in. My hand reaches for the handle, and before I know it, the door is sliding open and I’m standing in the lounge looking for anything that might provide me with a clue as to how Maggie Horrocks lived her life. There are some photos of her and her flatmate. They look happy. There’s also a collection of alcohol on a shelf next to the photos. The voice in my head is telling me to take it, but I’m not going to. I’m not. My heart is racing: I don’t know what I’m doing here. I leave the lounge and walk along the hallway, past a kitchen and a bathroom.

  There’s a faint smell of incense as I peer through an open doorway. I
can see the bed from here; it’s neatly made. I scan the room. There’s no clutter, just a few pictures on the wall, a trunk with folded linens on top and a couple of floating bookshelves where a stack of magazines and design books are arranged with care. There’s a bottle in my hand, so it looks like the voice in my head won and I swiped it. I don’t even remember picking it up. I put it down. I’m not doing this. I’ve just decided to get the hell out when I see a pinboard behind the door.

  There’s a collection of bills on it, which on closer inspection reveal that I am definitely in Maggie’s bedroom. I did wonder for a minute. I have got myself into several precarious situations while under the influence, but this really takes the biscuit. Perhaps I should be drinking. I make more sense when I do.

  There’s a photo of her with a guy. He looks like her brother. I’m surprised the police haven’t taken it. They must have been here. There’s not much else: a few takeaway menus and some flyers advertising upcoming exhibitions.

  Moments later, I hear the jangle of keys outside the window, and through the crack in the shutters I see a woman dressed in black plucking her keys from her shoulder bag before mounting the steps towards the house. Shit. I’m a first-class idiot. I could get arrested here.

  I make for the lounge and slip back out through the French doors, tiptoeing around the side of the building with my heart beating in my throat. I leave through the front garden as quickly as I can and don’t pause until I’ve reached the end of the street, at which point I stop and take stock. I am shocked at what I’ve just done. I really need to get properly sober. This is irrational behaviour of the worst kind. Since that bloody box of Milk Tray arrived, I’ve not been thinking straight. I need to get a grip, but I still need to find out if Charlie knew Maggie.

  Standing in the cold, I weigh up my options. It’s dark now and I really shouldn’t be hanging around out here. I’ve made a complete pig’s ear of it. I decide there’s only one thing for it: go back and talk to Maggie’s flatmate. Do what I came here to do, and see if I can find out if Maggie was having a relationship with Charlie.

  I put my reporter’s hat on and walk back towards the flat. Within minutes, I find myself outside the building again, staring at the front door, wondering what on earth has got into me. My pulse is racing, but I have to do this; I have to find out if what Annabel said has any legs to it. I ring the doorbell. When no one comes immediately, I feel relieved and almost walk away, but moments later, the door opens and the woman I saw jangling her keys stares blankly back at me. She looks like she’s been crying. Her mascara has smudged and run down her right cheek.

  ‘Anne Marie? Hi. I’m really sorry to bother you. My name is Alex South. I’m from UKBC. I wonder if you have a moment?’

  ‘I know who you are. What do you want?’

  ‘Could we talk for a minute?’

  There’s distrust in her eyes accompanied by a look of suspicion on her otherwise pretty face. Her hair is tied in a topknot.

  ‘I’m really worried about what’s going on. I want to help. I don’t know if you knew this, but I met Maggie at the swimming club.’

  She’s weighing up my plea, which takes less than a minute.

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  I follow her through the hallway into the kitchen.

  ‘Tea? Or something stronger?’

  ‘Tea. Thanks.’

  There’s a breakfast bar in the kitchen. I haven’t seen one of these since the eighties. I perch on a leather stool and lean up against it. I’m covered in a cold sweat. My hands are shaking but I’m holding it together as best as I can.

  ‘So you knew Maggie?’

  ‘Not very well, but I met her, yes, at King’s Hall Leisure Centre, at the swim club.’

  ‘She loved swimming.’ Anne Marie has filled the kettle and switched it on. ‘So, what do you want to know?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly. I’m just really worried about what’s going on. I went to Manchester to interview Sarah Wilcox’s mum and I felt really sad. I don’t know, I feel like the police are missing something. Some vital clue. So I thought I’d come and see you. See if you felt the same.’

  ‘What kind of clue?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’re so focused on this online dating angle, I wonder if they’re missing something. Maybe it’s not about meeting people online at all, you know?’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean, but Maggie was going on casual dates with guys she met online, like most women in their thirties these days. I know because we had a drill. She would tell me where and when she was meeting them. She was very sensible. That’s why it’s so terrible what happened.’

  The kettle has boiled and she grabs the milk from the fridge.

  ‘Milk? Sugar?’

  ‘Just milk, thanks.’

  Moments later, a mug of steaming tea in a ‘Lionel Rich Tea’ mug lands next to me on the breakfast bar, and Anne Marie sits down.

  ‘And that night?’

  ‘My phone was dead. I feel so bad about it.’ She looks down into her cup, racked with guilt. ‘She had texted me to say she was going out and that she’d be in touch, but my phone was dead and I never got the message.’

  ‘Did she send you another text?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do the police know about this?’

  ‘Yes, I told them everything.’

  ‘Did she ever talk about anyone else? Someone she didn’t meet online?’

  ‘That DI Brook, he asked me about her personal life, but only about people she met online. Isn’t that where the focus is?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what the police are looking at, but I’m wondering if she met anyone in her everyday life.’

  She takes a sip from her Back to the Future mug.

  ‘Do you use a dating app yourself, Alex?

  ‘Hasn’t everyone? But I’ve always had good experiences… well, until recently.’

  Her eyes widen and she puts her tea down. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Look, I don’t know how to say this, but a friend of mine thinks Maggie was seeing a guy called Charlie. She thinks they met at the leisure centre in Hackney.’

  ‘She never talked about a Charlie. Not that I can recall.’ Her voice starts to wobble and she almost loses her composure, but pulls it back. Her expression returns to one of suspicion. ‘Why are you interested in this Charlie? He mean something to you?’

  ‘Look, I’m just trying to help. There has to be a better investigation, and if the police can’t do it, we can. That’s what I do, investigative reporting. I can pull all these strands together, but I need your help. We need to help each other so that the neighbourhood can be safe again.’

  She says nothing, but her expression tells me she knows exactly what I’m talking about. I think I’ve struck a chord with her at last.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t know what’s happening to me. I miss Maggie and I haven’t had time to just sit and think about that yet.’

  I reach over and squeeze her shoulder with my right hand.

  ‘I can’t imagine how that feels. It must be awful.’

  ‘It is. All I want to do is shut the world out and deal with the fact that Maggie is…’ Overcome with tears, she breaks down. I lean over and give her a proper hug.

  ‘Look, there’s a bastard out there and we need to stop him. Maggie needs justice for what happened to her, as do the other two victims, Alice Fessy and Jade Soron.’

  She pulls away and wipes her face with a tea towel.

  ‘I just can’t get my head round what has happened. Maggie told me only the week before that she’d had enough of online dating for a while. That’s why it’s so unbelievable.’

  ‘Is there anything here that might give us a clue as to who she was hanging out with?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘Shall we have a look?’

  ‘But the police have been through everything.’

  ‘They might have missed something.’


  ‘Okay.’ She has perked up a bit at my suggestion. ‘Where shall we start?’

  ‘The lounge?’

  I follow her into the next room.

  ‘How do you want to do this?’ she asks.

  She’s looking to me for guidance, so I suggest she starts with the chest of drawers behind the sofa, and I’ll sift through the post scattered on the coffee table.

  ‘What are we looking for?’

  ‘Anything that might help us figure out who she went out with that night.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Anne Marie gets on with rooting through the drawers while I tackle the post, which doesn’t shed any light. It’s just a bunch of bills and promotional crap. I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I’m my own worst enemy when my head’s not straight.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here. It’s terrible coming home to an empty flat. Maggie was always here cooking, listening to music. I hate being alone.’

  She starts to well up again. There’s a box of tissues on the coffee table and I offer it to her. As I do, a beer mat falls to the floor. It must have been stuck to the bottom of the box.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Anne Marie carries on with her search. There’s a phone number scrawled on the back of the beer mat. Looks like the kind of thing someone who wanted to keep in touch might do. I slide it into my pocket.

  ‘So, what are you going to do, stay on here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Haven’t thought about that yet.’

  ‘It’s a lovely flat.’

  ‘It is, but it feels weird now, you know.’

  ‘Yes. I guess it does.’

  Just then my phone starts to buzz. Someone is calling me from an unknown number. It doesn’t feel appropriate to pick up, so I don’t, then moments later, I get a text message.

  Hi, Alex. I need to talk to you. I have something important to tell you. I know you are covering the story and I want to talk to you. I can give you a scoop if you want it, but first I’d like to talk to you. My mum’s a liar. Please call me. Sarah x