James Carol - The Quiet Man

‘But you suspected that something wasn’t right about him?’

‘Again, not at first, but later on, yes, there was something. That’s why I left him.’ She paused. ‘I still can’t imagine him killing anyone, though. He’s just not capable of doing that.’

‘Isn’t he?’

‘No, he isn’t.’ There wasn’t much conviction in her voice. It was as if by saying it aloud, she would be able to convince herself of something that she knew was a lie.

‘How did you meet him?’ Anderton asked.

Cathy smiled sadly. ‘This is going to sound pathetic but I met him on a dating site.’

Anderton returned the smile. ‘That doesn’t sound pathetic at all. A lot of people use dating sites nowadays. I mean, it’s tough meeting a decent man, right?’

‘Except there are no guarantees that you are going to meet a decent man. There are just as many assholes on the internet as there are in bars and clubs. More, probably.’

‘You thought that Billy was one of the good ones, didn’t you?’

Cathy nodded. ‘I was convinced of it. On our first date we went out for coffee. There was an instant connection. We had so much in common. He had a great smile, too. I remember getting home and convincing myself that he wouldn’t call. I had his number and I decided that I’d give it three days. If he hadn’t called by then, I’d call him. He phoned the next day and asked me out to dinner. Four months later we were living together. Six months after that we were married.’

‘Tell me about the wedding.’

‘There’s not much to tell. We got married at City Hall. It was just the two of us. Well, us and some random guy we pulled off of the street to act as a witness. No family because neither of us really had any. You probably know what happened to Billy’s parents, and his foster parents had retired to Florida. He doesn’t have anything to do with them these days. There was some sort of falling out, but he wouldn’t talk about it. As for me, my dad walked out before I was born and my mom died of ovarian cancer when I was twelve.’

‘And after you were married you went to live in Argyle Street?’

‘That’s right. The first six months were great. The house needed decorating so I was focussed on that. And I was in love with Billy so I chose to ignore the danger signs.’

‘What signs?’ Winter asked.

‘He started getting clingy. Little things to start with, but after a year or so it started getting worse. He’d want to know what I was up to and where I was going. If I went out he’d want to come with me. There would be times when I’d be watching TV or reading a magazine, and I’d turn around and catch him staring. At the start of our relationship I liked it when he paid me attention, but this was getting weird. I felt like I was being suffocated.’

‘He took photographs of you, didn’t he?’

Cathy grimaced and rolled her eyes. ‘Like I already said, the attention was nice to start with. And he was a photographer. It’s what he did for a living. To be honest, I would have been more upset if he hadn’t taken my picture. I mean, why would he take pictures of everyone else and not me? But it got to the point where there was always a camera pointing in my face. Obviously it wasn’t all the time, but that’s what it felt like.’

‘He hung the pictures up in the house,’ Winter said. ‘Lots of them.’

Cathy’s eyes widened. ‘How did you know that?’

‘We were there earlier. There were marks where the picture hooks had been.’

‘The first time he put up one of my pictures I was flattered. It was the best photograph anyone had ever taken of me. And then another one appeared, and another. It eventually got to the point where they were in every room of the house. Do you have any idea how creepy it is to have your own eyes following you wherever you go?’

‘You clearly weren’t happy in the relationship,’ Anderton said. ‘Why didn’t you just leave?’

Cathy laughed but there was no humour there. ‘Believe me, I tried.’

‘What happened?’

‘One night we had a big argument. I can’t even remember what it was about. Something stupid and unimportant, no doubt. Anyway, we were in the kitchen and I suddenly had this moment of clarity. What the hell was I doing here? I wasn’t happy. So I told Billy I was leaving. His response was to tell me he was going to kill himself. And then he grabbed a knife. Before I could stop him, he ran it up his arm. There was so much blood. It seemed to be everywhere. I couldn’t believe what he’d done. I mean, how crazy is that? I grabbed some towels and used them to stem the bleeding. By the time the paramedics arrived Billy was unconscious. I really thought I’d lost him. When he came back around, he told me that he loved me and couldn’t live without me. He didn’t come out and say that he’d do it again if I left, but the implication was there.’

‘But you did manage to leave him.’ Winter nodded to the boots lined up neatly beside the porch door. ‘Does that have anything to do with the second pair of boots?’

Cathy smiled the first genuine smile that they’d seen. ‘It has everything to do with them. They belong to Brett. He doesn’t take photographs, and he doesn’t hang them up in every room of the house. He works for the Forestry Service. He is one of the good guys.’

‘Did you meet him online too?’

She nodded. ‘I was looking at dating sites one day and something about his profile picture made me want to know more, so I sent him a message. He messaged me back and we started chatting. He’s so laid-back and open, the complete opposite of Billy.’

‘So how did you manage to get away from Billy?’ Winter asked.

Cathy didn’t answer for a while. She was staring at the top of the Douglas firs that ran along the edge of the lake, watching them wave gently back and forth in the breeze. There was sadness in her eyes, a wish that things had turned out differently.

‘Billy bought me a kitten for my birthday, a cute little silver-grey tabby. I called her Sprinkles. Weird name, I know, but it suited her. Anyway, one day I woke up and found her lying dead at the back door. It turned out that she’d been poisoned. The most likely explanation was that a neighbour had put down some rat poison and she’d eaten it. That’s what Billy thought had happened.’

‘But you were never convinced.’

Cathy shook her head. ‘I couldn’t shake the feeling that Billy killed her. I didn’t have any proof, just a feeling. He was actually really nice about the whole thing. He couldn’t do enough for me. Those doubts still nagged away at me, though.’

‘How long had you had Sprinkles for?’

‘About three months.’

‘Long enough to get attached, then?’

Cathy smiled another genuine smile, this one tinged with sadness. ‘I was attached from the word go. I’ve always been a sucker for animals.’ She pointed to the sty. ‘Take those piglets, for example. Brett thinks we’re going to eat them. That is so not going to happen. They’re way too cute.’

‘Was Billy still taking photographs of you around this time?’

‘Actually, he stopped for a while.’

‘Do you think he might have been photographing you secretly?’

Cathy sat up straighter in her chair. Even though the temperature was in the mid-seventies, she had her arms around herself like she was suddenly cold. ‘It’s possible, I guess.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Jesus, what a freak. I can’t believe I stayed with him so long.’

‘So how did you get away?’ Anderton asked.

‘Brett drove up to Vancouver to rescue me. This was a couple of weeks after Sprinkles died. All I took was some clothes and a few personal belongings.’

‘And Billy didn’t kill himself.’