Death Rope Read online

  Eddy remonstrated with his wife, accusing her of winding his stepmother up.

  ‘You’ll only make a fool of yourself if you go to the police about this. I mean, what are you going to say? That you’ve seen a black van?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Mum, don’t you think you’ve got enough on your plate right now without getting the police involved?’

  ‘I’m not getting them involved –’

  ‘Once they start poking around, who knows what they might turn up?’

  Charlotte was startled by her son’s aggression. ‘Eddy, is there something you’re not telling me?’

  But he protested that he was only thinking of her. ‘This isn’t about me. The police can be a real pain and I just don’t think you need that in your life right now.’

  Luciana protested that he was wrong to dismiss his stepmother’s concerns so readily, but when Eddy asked who on earth might be following her, she had no answer. Listening to them, Charlotte had to admit her fears sounded silly. Who on earth would want to follow her home from the supermarket? She was hardly a celebrity. Right now she didn’t even have much money, only a house and an inheritance due when the lawyers got their act together. Why would anyone be interested in her? Sitting chatting with Eddy and Luciana, Charlotte could acknowledge that she was being foolish. But once she was alone again, everything felt different.

  She would have preferred to sleep at Eddy’s house that night but they hadn’t invited her to stay, and she didn’t like to ask. In any case, there would be the next night to get through on her own, and the one after that. The fact was, she needed something to take her mind off her husband’s suicide. It was a terrible experience for anyone to undergo and, although she knew she would never fully recover, she had to find a way of getting her own life back on track. In addition to prescribing her pills which she wasn’t taking, the doctor had suggested bereavement counselling might help her, adding that there were therapists experienced in supporting people in her situation. She found it depressing yet selfishly reassuring to know that she wasn’t the only woman whose partner had taken his own life.

  ‘I expect you’re right,’ she admitted. ‘I’m just all over the place at the moment. Forget I said anything. And don’t worry, I’ll go back to the doctor. You just concentrate on looking after yourself, and Luciana.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Eddy asked.

  He looked so worried that Charlotte was almost overwhelmed with guilt. Eddy had just lost his father in the most horrible circumstances imaginable and now, instead of comforting him, Charlotte was causing him to suffer further distress. Not only had she been the most terrible of wives, she was a dreadful stepmother, focusing only on herself and not giving a thought to how her stepson must be feeling. With an effort, she forced herself to smile as she reassured him that she was going to be fine. There was no point in upsetting him any further. Whatever was happening to her, she would have to deal with it by herself. She was alone now, for better or worse.

  Leaving Eddy’s, she drove out to the shopping centre in Monks Cross, more to delay returning to her empty house than because she really wanted anything. She spent a while wandering around the stores, and bought herself some shoes she didn’t need. It was late and the place was nearly deserted by the time she left the shops. Crossing the car park, she heard footsteps close by. Glancing over her shoulder she saw a tall man striding towards her. With a tremor of fear, she walked faster. The man’s pace quickened, closing the gap between them. It was hard to believe he would attack her in a public car park, but it had begun to rain and there was no one around to help her. She began to trot.

  ‘Stop!’ a deep voice called out.

  She broke into a run. Looking back, she saw the man was sprinting after her. There was no way she could outrun him but she kept going, her breath coming in short painful gasps.

  ‘Wait!’ he called out.

  As she turned her head, she saw him raise his hand. It was difficult to see clearly while they were both moving, but it looked as though he was holding a gun. It took a conscious effort to force her legs to keep moving. Ahead of her she could see her car, but she didn’t think she would be able to reach it before the man caught up with her. Whimpering from the effort, she kept going. Her heart was pounding and her chest hurt from struggling to breathe.

  13

  Geraldine frowned. The scrap of handwriting in Mark’s suicide note being too small to yield any information, Geraldine’s next task had been to investigate the rope from which Mark had been suspended. By contrast to the report on the suicide note, the forensic report on that was very detailed. The rope had been brand new, a traditional flexible three strand Manila rope marketed for decorative use in gardens, but easily strong enough to hold a man’s weight. Geraldine checked through Mark’s credit card statements for the past year, but there were no purchases from any garden centre or DIY store that might have included payment for a length of rope. If she had been able to prove Mark had bought the rope himself that might have been suggestive, although not conclusive. The fact that she found no trace of any relevant transaction proved nothing. Had he been planning to hang himself, he could easily have paid cash for the rope.

  Remembering that Charlotte had summoned help when she had discovered her husband’s body, Geraldine had called at the widow’s house once more, and asked for her gardener’s phone number. On the doorstep, Charlotte replied that Mark used to deal with him. She had no idea where to find his contact details.

  ‘Can you remember what your husband called him?’

  ‘His name’s Will. That’s all I know about him. I’ve no idea where he lives or what his other name is.’ She started to close the door.

  Geraldine stepped forward and asked to see Mark’s mobile phone. Not sure whether she still had it, Charlotte left Geraldine waiting impatiently outside while she went to look for it. At last the front door reopened and Charlotte appeared, clutching a smartphone.

  ‘I don’t know his passcode,’ she said. ‘He never told me what it was. But here’s the phone, if it’s any use to you.’

  She thrust the phone at Geraldine and slammed the door before Geraldine had a chance to thank her. She wanted the number of someone called Will, or possibly ‘gardener’. She was soon back at the police station and within a few minutes one of the technical officers had unlocked the phone and given her a mobile number listed under the name Will. After thanking the technician, she returned to her desk and checked for any calls or messages between Mark and his gardener. There was a text from Mark which had been sent a week before his death, saying: ‘Same time next week?’ and a response from Will that had been received an hour later: ‘OK’. That was all.

  Geraldine called the number.

  ‘Is that Will?’

  ‘Yeah, this is Will. But – is that Mark’s wife calling?’

  There was a pause after Geraldine announced herself. She was afraid Will was going to hang up, but instead he asked her what she wanted.

  ‘I’d like to come and speak to you about Mark. Are you able to give me a moment?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  When Geraldine asked to meet him, he told her he was very busy. ‘I’ve got a big job just started,’ he added apologetically.

  ‘This won’t take long,’ she assured him. ‘I need to speak to you about the incident you witnessed recently.’

  ‘You mean the hanging?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can ask me anything you like.’

  Aware that people’s faces sometimes revealed more than their words, Geraldine didn’t want to question him over the phone. When he refused to meet her, she hinted that he would have to come and speak to her at the police station if he wouldn’t tell her where she could find him. People usually capitulated when threatened with the prospect of having to visit the police station but he repeated that he didn’t have time, and she hesitated to insist in case he became uncooperative.

  ‘I know this can’t be easy for you,’ she s
aid gently, ‘but I want to ask you about Mark Abbott.’

  ‘I barely knew the guy. I just did some digging for him. He liked to fiddle about in his garden, but digging over is physical. So he called me in to do the heavy work. That’s all it was.’

  ‘How long have you been working for him?’

  ‘I’ve been there a few times. I don’t keep count. It’s just –’ he hesitated, ‘just casual like. I only make a few bob here and there.’ He paused. ‘It’s more of a favour, really, because I don’t get much more than money for a few beers out of it. Nothing to write home about.’

  Geraldine understood that he didn’t want to admit his undeclared earnings. Quickly she reassured him that her questions had nothing to do with him or his income.

  ‘Did you know Mrs Abbott?’

  ‘You said it was Mark you wanted to ask about,’ he growled, becoming surly. ‘I don’t know his wife and I didn’t know him. There’s nothing more to say. All I do is dig over his garden and see to the weeds and that. I just happened to be there when his wife found him. I don’t know what you want me to say. What was I supposed to do? I just tried to help the poor woman.’

  ‘We’re investigating the possibility that he was murdered.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I’m sorry to hear that. But I didn’t know him and I can’t help you. I thought he topped himself.’

  ‘We’re looking into the possibility that he was murdered and his death was set up to look like suicide. It’s tricky to investigate now, as the scene of the crime has been cleaned up. His widow had the hallway redecorated as soon as her husband was buried. But you were there when he was cut down, weren’t you?’

  Will didn’t answer straight away. She did her best to reassure him that she only wanted to find out what he could tell her about the discovery of Mark’s body hanging in the hall.

  ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

  ‘Can you describe what you saw?’

  ‘She came running out into the garden, flapping about, and screeching at me to get him down…’ He paused and cleared his throat. ‘He was just hanging there, dead. It wasn’t… it didn’t seem real. It was horrible.’

  ‘How did you know he was dead?’

  ‘His face was all – swollen and dark. I was holding him up, just to support him, you know, although I knew he was a goner, and I tried to get the rope off his neck, but it was way too tight. I couldn’t get my fingers inside it. Anyway, I tried, but there was no way I could get him down on my own and she was screaming and yabbering at me and I was yelling at her to get an ambulance and then your lot turned up and that was it. They asked me a few questions and said I was free to go. They never said anything about having to answer more questions,’ he added, surly again.

  However hard she tried, Geraldine couldn’t prise any more information out of him.

  ‘I told you all I know,’ he insisted.

  Geraldine reread the report that had been filed at the time Mark’s death had been logged. It bore out what little Will had told her. There was nothing more to be gained from questioning him or Charlotte again about Mark’s death. She had spoken to everyone who might have been able to shed light on the suicide, without learning anything new.

  14

  The man raised his hand and Charlotte ducked instinctively, nearly losing her footing. As she regained her balance, he drew level with her.

  ‘You dropped this back there in the shop,’ he said, holding out her phone. ‘Didn’t you hear me calling you?’

  As he was speaking, a woman trundled past with a loaded trolley, a small child at her heels. A car drew into a parking space nearby and two more people walked by. Stammering her thanks, Charlotte muttered an apology.

  ‘I didn’t hear you,’ she lied, embarrassed to admit that she had been running away from a stranger in a busy car park in broad daylight because she was afraid. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  The man gave her a curious frown and turned away. He must have seen her glaring at him over her shoulder and been baffled by her response. She didn’t care about that. She just wanted to get away from there. Thoroughly unnerved, she checked her rear view mirror repeatedly on her way home. There was no sign of the black van she had noticed the previous day, but when she reached her house she spotted a man standing motionless on the pavement opposite her house. Just the sight of him sent a cold thrill down her back. His face was almost completely concealed by a hood that shielded him from the light rain that had begun to fall, and he had wound his scarf around his mouth and chin. There was nothing to suggest he was interested in her, but at the same time there was no obvious reason for him to be standing out there in the street, doing nothing. Convinced he was watching her, she didn’t know what to do. Although she was reluctant to make a fool of herself by going to the police and making a fuss, the trouble was she had no way of knowing whether she might actually be in danger. It really did look as though someone had discovered she was on her own and was planning to rob her.

  Trying to decide what to do was tricky, but she couldn’t ignore her pursuer, if that was who he was. As a woman living on her own, her life could be in danger. The more she thought about what had happened, the more frightened she became. There was no denying she felt threatened, and it was the job of the police to protect people like her. It could do no harm to report her concerns to them; it might even save her life if someone really was after her. Instead of taking her shopping into the house, she set off for the police station in Fulford Road.

  She struggled to hide her trembling as she approached the desk. The sergeant she spoke to was very sympathetic, and wanted to know how the police could help her.

  ‘It’s difficult,’ she hedged, overcome by an unexpected reluctance to admit her reason for coming there. ‘I want to speak to someone privately.’ Her voice wavered as she spoke.

  The sergeant appeared to neither notice her nerves nor be surprised by her request. He just asked her to take a seat and she waited nervously, until a very young-looking girl in uniform appeared and invited Charlotte to accompany her. She followed the young policewoman through a door with a glass panel, into a small room where three grey chairs stood around a low table. She hoped she wasn’t going to have to report her concerns to the constable who looked little older than a teenager, but the girl assured her that someone would be with her imminently and then left her. After a few minutes the door opened and Charlotte recognised the tall black-haired sergeant who had questioned her about Mark’s suicide.

  The sergeant greeted her in a low voice that seemed to encourage confidence. Charlotte took a deep breath and launched into her account, and the detective listened intently.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who might be stalking you?’ she asked when Charlotte finished speaking.

  Charlotte drew in a breath on hearing the word ‘stalking’. It sounded terrifying.

  ‘I don’t think –’ she began, and broke off in confusion.

  She had come to the police station resolved to do everything she could to persuade the police that she was being followed. Now that the detective seemed to accept her claim without question, she began to backtrack.

  ‘That is,’ she resumed, ‘I want police protection. I don’t feel safe. I think my life may be in danger.’

  The detective gave a sympathetic smile, as though to say she was taking the matter seriously.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  Awkwardly, Charlotte described how she had been followed, several times, by an unidentified van.

  ‘Are you sure it was following you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘If you give me the registration number, we can look into this for you.’

  When Charlotte admitted that she hadn’t got the number the detective’s expression didn’t change, but Charlotte knew she had lost ground. Having agreed to make a note of the number if she saw the van again, she was shown out. The police sergeant had been very kind, and had made a show of making detailed notes on everything she said, but h
er account had sounded questionable even to her own ears. Sitting in the safe claustrophobic atmosphere of a police station, her fears seemed groundless. The sun was shining, and for the first time since she had seen Mark hanging in the hall, Charlotte began to feel that perhaps everything was going to settle down and she would manage to create some sort of new normality in her life.

  Although the detective had seemed sympathetic, when she returned home, Charlotte wondered whether she had been too hasty in asking her son to redecorate the hall. The police might suspect she had something to hide. Unable to walk into the house without remembering the sight of Mark hanging there, she had been pleased when Eddy had agreed to get on with the job straight away. Mark had never acted so quickly when she had asked him to do something for her. But it was done now, and there was nothing she could do to change that, and she had felt better about entering the house since the banister had been painted. It made no real difference, but somehow knowing the rope that had killed Mark hadn’t touched the actual surface of the banister made the memory of it seem slightly less real. Gradually she thought she might go round the whole house, redecorating, until there was nothing left that her husband had touched. She had already put everything in the kitchen through the dishwasher, to remove any trace of him. The thought of eating off a fork that had traces of her dead husband’s sweat or skin cells on it made her feel nauseous.

  As well as asking Eddy to paint the hall, she had made a start on the rest of the house by removing any photographs of Mark, and taking down the picture he had put up in the living room. She had never liked that picture. There were quite a few changes she was going to make to the house, after a decent interval of mourning. But right now it was only a few weeks since Mark’s death. She still found it hard to believe he was really gone, for good. She felt as though at any moment he might come in through the front door, yelling at her that he was home and demanding to know where his picture had gone. But that was never going to happen. What did happen from now on was going to be her decision and hers alone. There was no one to tell her what to do.