Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

It seemed it had not, but it also seemed Dr Malik had gone out first thing after breakfast. Who was this speaking? Oh, Amy Haywood. Well, in that case, they could tell her Dr Malik had mentioned going out to one of the villages. Something to do with his research, seemingly – a nearby church, the receptionist thought he had said. He was going to check on something he had found a couple of days earlier. Was that any help?

‘Yes, it is,’ said Amy. ‘Thank you very much.’

She put the phone down. It was just on half-past ten and Gran would probably be at the police station for another hour at least. Amy went upstairs to dry her rain-soaked hair and combed it more or less into shape, her mind still going over what she had found.

Back downstairs, on the message pad Gran kept by the phone she scribbled a note saying she had borrowed Gran’s car and was going out for an hour or so. She would pick up something for their lunch. After a moment, she added a note to say Gran must of course call her if she needed to. She would leave her mobile on. As she drove off the drive she found she was already feeling better at the thought of talking to Jan.

By the time Ella reached the police station she was already feeling better. She knew how she must play this. The brave wife, determined to help her errant husband through an ordeal, but, just under the surface, a hint of bitterness and anger – the kind of anger that might let an unguarded, potentially damning remark slip.

The duty sergeant took her to see Derek. He unlocked the door and Ella paused before going in, taking in the bleak tiled walls and the squalid lavatory arrangement behind a half-screen.

Derek seemed fairly composed. Ella had wondered if they were going to have embarrassing or emotional scenes, but he was neither embarrassing nor emotional. He thanked her for coming, and said he was very sorry indeed that she had found out about his fling with Veronica. That was all it had been, he said, very seriously. Nothing more, nothing deeper. It had been a lapse, a brief weakness, snatching at his vanishing youth, wanting to feel he was still attractive.

‘You do understand that, don’t you?’

‘I understand everything,’ said Ella, sitting primly on the edge of the narrow bunk bed. ‘Have they charged you with the murder yet?’

‘No, but I’m told they’ll have to do so in the next few hours, or let me go. They can’t hold anyone for more than about twenty-four hours without making a formal charge. Habeas corpus, you know.’

It was like Derek to show off his stupid pointless knowledge at such a time. But Ella only said, ‘I see. Have you got a solicitor? Do we need to arrange that?’ This would be the normal thing to ask, although the only solicitor they knew was the man who had done the conveyance of their house fifteen years ago, and he had probably never seen the inside of a magistrates’ court, let alone a criminal one.

‘The police said they can arrange that if I want,’ said Derek. ‘There’ll be a duty solicitor they can call in.’

‘We don’t want legal aid,’ said Ella sharply. ‘I hope you made that clear. We’ll pay whatever fees are necessary.’

‘Let’s not worry about that yet,’ said Derek. ‘I expect it won’t come to it anyway. Clearly some mad house-breaker got in and killed her. It’ll all be sorted out quite quickly, I dare say. I’m just glad to think my parents didn’t live to see this. You haven’t phoned Andrew, have you? Well, don’t – not yet, at any rate – and don’t let Amy phone him either. There’s no sense worrying him unnecessarily.’

Ella agreed she would not tell Andrew and went out. The duty sergeant showed her into CID to go through her statement with the inspector. Ella was not particularly worried about this because the story she had told was so very near the truth it was unlikely she would be caught out.

She was not caught out. The inspector took her through the details once again, then thanked her and said everything seemed clear. The statement would be ready for her to sign later that day. They would bring it out to the house, if that was all right? By then they would know if they had enough of a case to charge Mr Haywood. Would she be all right on her own?

‘I’m not on my own,’ said Ella. ‘My granddaughter’s with me. And I have very good friends – although I’d rather not tell anyone about this until I know what’s happening. My husband might be back home tonight and this sorry business over.’

The policewoman drove her home. It was still raining, although not as hard as it had been earlier. Ella went into the house to find the note from Amy, saying she had gone out, taking Ella’s car, which Ella found annoying; Amy might at least have waited in to hear how her grandfather was.

It was almost twelve o’clock. She went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and look what they might have for lunch, and it was then she saw the tiny pieces of mud on the kitchen doorstep and the small, still-damp footprint next to them.

Ella stood looking at the marks for a long time, all thoughts of lunch gone. Probably the footprints and the mud were not in the least sinister. Most likely Amy had gone into the garden for some perfectly ordinary reason and had not wiped her shoes thoroughly enough on coming back inside. But Ella could not think why Amy would need to go into a rain-sodden garden at all. There was no washing to take in or hang out, and no rubbish to be emptied. Milk was delivered to the front of the house and had been brought in first thing.

She opened the kitchen door and looked out, trying to persuade herself she was being neurotic because she knew what was buried out there. Amy would not know about that, though. Or would she?

Ignoring the rain, Ella went down the paved path to the potting shed, and opened the door. It was dark in here. For years she had asked Derek to fix up some kind of light but he had never got round to it. Too busy, he always said. Now Ella knew what he had been busy with, the cheating adulterer.

Last night she had used a trowel to scoop out the earth and pat it back in place. The trowel was where she had left it, slightly muddied but dry. But alongside it was the small spade Derek used for borders, the spade that was seldom called into service. Somebody had called it into service recently though, because it was wet and smeary, and clumps of soil clung to the edges.

With the feeling that she was moving through a nightmare again, Ella closed the shed and went down to the place where she had buried the sweater, handbag and diaries. She could remember exactly how she had left the ground in the small hours: the ground patted flat and smooth, the hedge clippings so carefully arranged over it.

The ground was no longer flat and smooth. It was churned up, the wet earth scattered around, the hedge clippings in an untidy heap.

Amy. It must be. Somehow Amy had found out what Ella had done – perhaps she had even seen last night – and had investigated. Amy knew. She knew . Ella felt sick and dizzy at the realization.

But where was Amy now? Had she gone to that man, that academic she had become so friendly with?

Ella went back to the house, locked the kitchen door, then, glancing at the steadily falling rain, put on her waxed jacket, and wound a scarf round her neck. It was Veronica’s scarf, the one Ella had taken to hide the bloodstains after killing her. It was a very nice scarf, silk and cashmere, and she might as well make use of it. She picked up the keys to Derek’s car and set off.

She went first to the Red Lion. She had no idea what she would do or say if they seemed to know about Derek and Veronica – news travelled so fast in a small place like Upper Bramley. The receptionist, whom she knew slightly by sight, was not at the desk, but one of the barmen wandered out and asked if he could help. He was ordinary and friendly and Ella was fairly sure he had not heard.