So why had she? Sam had asked and shed answered, but he hadnt understood, and had been too polite to tell her that her explanation clarified nothing. Why were the Joses so willing to relocate every time Tim Breary changed his mind about where he needed to be? Kerry had found work in the Cotswolds, helping out on a nature reserve-"the only genuinely fulfilling job Ive ever had," shed called it-and Dan had been in the middle of a Ph.D., which required him to go to London once a week during term time. By car or by train, Kemble was half an hour nearer to London than Spilling was. This was the part Sam didnt get: having moved once for Tims sake, why did the Joses agree to do it again? When Francine had her stroke and Tim decided he wanted to go back to the Culver Valley to look after her, why didnt Kerry and Dan say, "Sorry, but we cant come with you this time"? Instead, Kerry gave up her dream job and the home that she loved, and uprooted herself a second time.

Did she think that Tim wouldnt survive without her and Dan close by? Was it as simple as that? That was the only explanation that satisfied Sam, who knew he would willingly move to somewhere inconvenient, dragging his complaining family behind him, to save Simons life. Or he would have.

No, he still would. Another thing never to mention to Kate, who was a firm believer in the rule of reciprocity, and took great pleasure in deleting from her Christmas card list the name of any friend or acquaintance who dared to send an e-card instead of a real one. "Its worse than sending nothing at all," shed said when Sam had challenged her, without offering a reason for her declaration.

Reasons were important. For many aspects of Tim Brearys behavior, Sam could find none: why did he tell Gaby he would never leave Francine, then change his mind almost immediately afterward and leave her? Why, having done so, did he not contact Gaby to tell her things had changed and he was available? And why, suddenly, after her stroke, was Tim prepared once again to share a home with Francine, when previously hed been unwilling to share a county with her?

Actually, Sam could see himself doing that: if hed left a wife-any wife, however ill-suited and unappealing-he would return and do his husbandly duty in the event of illness or disaster. And he could all too easily imagine himself married to a woman he didnt love, but too scared of change to leave her.

He sighed, and wished not for the first time that he had less self-knowledge. It was depressing to be so aware of his own shortcomings. Hed rather be clueless like Sellers, who believed he was a s.e.x G.o.d poised for the greatest adventure of his life every time he checked into the Fairview Lodge B&B with a woman too drunk to know who he was or feel much of what he did to her.

Sam unlocked his car, shielding his eyes as another car turned into the police station car park, its headlights on full beam. In spite of the glare, Sam could see that there was no registration plate at the front; someone had removed it. Before coming to the nick? Most s.c.r.o.t.es in the Culver Valley werent quite so brazen.

Nothing happened, for too long. Sam felt a tightening in his gut. He could think only of guns, and took a step back as one of the cars back doors opened. Something started to come out horizontally. A person, climbing out? No, no feet touched the floor. More like . . . a big parcel, inclining downward as more of it emerged.

It fell to the ground with a thud. Once it was out, the door slammed shut and the car reversed out of the car park and screeched away at speed. No number plate on the back either.

Sam was aware of how still he was standing, holding his breath. No more than a second had pa.s.sed between the shutting of the back door and the car swerving out onto the street again: not enough time for one person to jump from the backseat to the front. So, a driver and at least one pa.s.senger.

It couldnt be what it looked like from where Sam was standing. Not delivered to the police station. Who would do that?

What else could it be? Just because it had never happened before didnt mean it wasnt happening now.

Sam walked over to where the large, heavy thing had landed. Oh, Jesus Christ. It was; there was a foot sticking out of the end of the wrapping. Bubble Wrap, lots of it, around a bulky, unevenly covered tubular package.

A whole human body. A dead one.

POLICE EXHIBIT 1436B/SK-

TRANSCRIPT OF HANDWRITTEN LETTER FROM KERRY JOSE TO FRANCINE BREARY DATED 10 FEBRUARY 2011.

h.e.l.lo, Francine.

Do you know what day it is? Probably not. You dont need to know about dates and times anymore, so why would you? I dont need to as much as I used to either. When I was a full-time care worker, I was constantly looking at my watch. Now I tend to judge the pa.s.sing of time by how hungry I am. Which isnt always reliable-Im not exactly known for my tiny appet.i.te!

Anyway. Its Dans birthday, and the anniversary of Making Memories Night. Ive been meaning to write to you about this for a while, and what better day than today? Youll have to pardon my tipsiness. Dan, Tim and I went out for lunch at Pa.s.saparola and I had two Kir Royales-and that was before we got started on the wine.

Does the name mean anything to you, Francine? Obviously, youve never heard it described as Making Memories Night. Do you even remember what happened? If your reactions seemed reasonable and ordinary to you, perhaps the evening didnt stick in your mind. It certainly stuck in mine. Over the years, I missed many chances to make clear to Tim how urgently I thought he needed saving from you, but that night was the first time. It only takes one incident to start a pattern, and Making Memories Night set the tone.

It was a few months before your and Tims wedding. You were still living in your separate flats, house-hunting, bound together by neither marriage nor mortgage. If Id waved a metaphorical red flag that night, Tim might have listened. He might have escaped your clutches.

Regrets are pointless, I know, but facing up to mistakes youve made is a valuable use of anyones time. I was weak and indecisive that evening, and on many subsequent occasions. I allowed you to storm to power, Francine. You were better prepared than I was, with your detailed plan for every aspect of Tims life, and your manifesto-like birthday and Christmas card messages: "Happy birthday, darling Tim. No one in this world could love you more than I do." "I will love you come what may, until my dying day." You had a knack for picking endearments that sounded like threats.

Dan and I loved Tim too, but we couldnt marry him. We were married to each other. And Tim needed someone in his bed every night to prove to the world that hed been chosen, that he wasnt a reject. Its common for the children of severely neglectful parents to mistake a desire to control for love.

Thats what I should have told him on Making Memories Night, after youd stormed upstairs in a rage. Ive always wanted to ask you, Francine: at what point did you decide to turn Dans and my bedroom into your tantrum headquarters? Halfway up the stairs? Did you stop and think about it? The bathroom or the spare room would have been a more appropriate choice. We heard the door slam, and Dan mouthed, "Our bedroom?" at me.

Wherever youd chosen to locate your protest, it would have been inappropriate. All Tim did was criticize a hotel youd asked him to look at in a brochure-possible honeymoon accommodation. It wasnt as if your parents were the owners, or the place meant something to you emotionally. Your only connection to the Baigley Falls Hotel (I will never forget its name) was that you had seen a picture of its swimming pool and terrace and thought it looked nice.

The blurb beneath the picture said, "The minute you arrive at Baigley Falls, youll start making memories." "What if we dont?" Tim asked. "Do you think theyll throw us out? What if they insist we bring each new memory we make down to reception, so that they can inspect it?" Dan and I laughed, but you didnt get the joke, did you, Francine? "Why would they do that?" you asked. "How could they? You cant see a memory." I wondered how you managed to hold down a job as a lawyer, deaf to nuance as you so manifestly were. Tim ditched the lighthearted approach and explained that memories, if they happened, ought to come into being without any strain or effort on anyones part, or else there was something false about it. You stood your ground, determined to misunderstand. "So you dont want to try to remember any part of our honeymoon," you said quietly. "I wont need to try," Tim said. "Trying to remember is for shopping lists and exam crib sheets, not honeymoons." Dan and I made things worse by joining in. I said, "They probably take photos of you when you arrive to sell you when you leave." Dan said, "The blurb might as well say, 'Dont live in the moment; do everything you do in order to look back on it later."

You shut down at that point, Francine. Shut us all out. You got up, left the room, marched upstairs. The next thing we heard was the slamming of our bedroom door, so loud it shook the house. Tim ran up after you. I should have tried to stop him, but I didnt. Dan and I heard him saying your name over and over again, trying to reason with you. We heard what sounded like him straining, pushing against the door. Ten minutes later he came back down and stood in the middle of the lounge, looking more baffled than Ive ever seen anyone look. "Whats going on?" Dan asked. Since nothing had happened to warrant your storming off, he a.s.sumed hed missed something. Tim shrugged, a defeated gesture that said, "You know as much as I do." I told Tim there was no lock on our bedroom door, and he mouthed, "Shes leaning against it." "Did she think we were taking the mickey out of her?" I asked, going over the conversation again in my mind, feeling guilty before Id even worked out what Id done wrong, if anything. "She cant have. We werent."

Tims mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. He read the message, and, with both hands, started to key in his reply. I turned to Dan, incredulous; Francine had sealed herself away in our bedroom, and Tim was replying to a random text message? The look Dan gave me, casting his eyes upward, set me straight: of course the message wasnt random. It was from on high. That much was obvious from the expression of intense concentration on Tims face as he jabbed away with his thumbs. Youd refused to open the door and talk to him face-to-face, Francine, but youd sent him a communication from upstairs. Even though I knew it had to be true, I couldnt believe it. "Tim?" I said. "Are you replying to a message from Francine?" He nodded. "Whats she said?" I asked. He wouldnt tell me, just moved farther away with his phone to the other side of the room, as if he thought I might s.n.a.t.c.h it from his hands. That was the first time he protected you, the first of hundreds.

Did you appreciate his trying to shield you from the condemnation you deserved, Francine? Long after there was any point, he still made the effort. He knew that Dan and I knew exactly how unreasonable and vicious you were, yet he hid as much of your atrocious behavior as he could, from everybody. To spare himself the public humiliation, yes, but it wasnt only that. My theory, for what its worth, is that he never stopped believing you had a good side to your character, Francine. I think he thought that to tell us about all the awful things youd done would actually be misleading-it would make us latch on to the badly behaved you and imagine that was all there was to you.

How many messages did you and Tim send each other while you were shut in Dans and my bedroom? Ten? Fifteen? There was quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing by text before you deigned to emerge. You didnt come back into the lounge to say good-bye or sorry. Dan and I didnt figure in your calculations at all: we were the suckers whod provided the stage for your scene, nothing more. Not people with feelings who mattered, not Tims friends who had been looking forward to spending a fun evening with him. On Dans birthday too-not just any old evening.

You waited for Tim outside the house. Having spent a good hour and a half standing in our lounge jabbing at his phone, he was suddenly in a desperate hurry to leave, on your orders. He apologized to us-not on your behalf, but as if he were the one whod ruined the evening. I said, "No need to apologize," then regretted it once hed left, in case he thought Id meant no need on anyones part rather than no need on his.

I never found out what was in those messages, Francine. Id still love to know. Was it out-and-out sweary aggression and accusations from you, and fawning contrition from Tim for having offended you? I bet it was more subtle and pa.s.sive-aggressive: "You claim you love me, but then you mock me in front of your friends. Im sure youre having more fun laughing at me among yourselves than you would if I were there."

Once you and Tim had gone, Dan turned to me and said, "What was that all about? Pre-wedding nerves, do you think?" It was such an absurd and inadequate justification that I burst out laughing and started crying at the same time. Youll probably think me a wimp for crying, Francine. All I can say in my defense is that until you embedded yourself in my life, I wasnt used to having my evenings wrecked by random acts of emotional violence. (I never saw you cry, not once, no matter how allegedly upset you were.) Dans "pre-wedding nerves" comment quickly became one of our regular jokes. Its still one that never fails to make us laugh, even now, years later. Whenever someones reported on the news as having done something unspeakable, Dan and I turn to each other and say, "Pre-wedding nerves, do you think?" and laugh uproariously.

If I could turn back the clock to Making Memories Night, I would say, "Tim, you cant marry her. Shes twisted. Her reactions and her behavior are too abnormal to brush aside. If you stay with her, sh.e.l.l make you suffer every day. Sh.e.l.l start by canceling the honeymoon-to punish you for questioning her choice of hotel."

Okay, I admit it: Im cheating. Shocked as I was by your behavior that night, Francine, even I wouldnt have predicted that youd take it out on your honeymoon. Tim was back at the office two days after the wedding, trying to pretend it was actually quite useful not to have to go away when he had such a backlog of work.

I said nothing. I let him believe that I still liked you, understood that you were sensitive and p.r.o.ne to stress, could see what he saw in you. I consolidated my cowardice into a position, which I laid out for Dan. "We have to be clever here," I explained. "Tims inviting us to join him in the lie hes choosing to live. If we make an issue about Francine, well draw his pretense to his attention in a way thatll make him too uncomfortable. h.e.l.l feel guilty for staying with her, guilty for inflicting her on us. Well drive him away. We have to pretend we dont notice any of it and just go along with it, or well lose him."

Ive started to wonder, Francine: what would Tim say if I were to kill you, and if I then told him Id done it? Instead of writing letters in which I speculate about who else might do it and when, I could do it myself. In an ideal world, Id do it purely to experience the feeling, then undo it immediately afterward. Im not sure I want you gone, from a personal point of view. Having you here like this protects Tim, and hes all I care about. But, as contradictory as it might sound, that doesnt mean I wouldnt enjoy putting an end to your life.

Would I ever have the courage, Francine? Would I be brave enough to make your last memory of all?

19.

SUNDAY, 13 MARCH 2011.

"Im going to show you the first photograph," says DC Simon Waterhouse. "I want you to tell me if youve seen this man before."

Im in a police station. There are police everywhere. He cant hurt me here.

"Its only a picture," Charlie Zailer says quietly next to me. "Youre totally safe in this room. And you dont have to look till youre ready. Simon wont turn it over until you say the word."

I nod. Nothing happens. Is he waiting, literally, for a word rather than a gesture?

Should I tell him to go ahead? I dont want to try and identify the man who attacked me anywhere near as much as I want not to have to see his face again, but DC Waterhouse set out the order of events when he came in and took over: first the photographs, then some questions, then h.e.l.l take me to see Tim.

I would rather drive to HMP Combingham myself, or have Charlie drive me. If she and I were alone, I might be able to persuade her to tell me whats changed. She left the room to take a call, and when she came back she looked rattled and had DC Waterhouse with her. Now shes moved round to my side of the table. Either she cant stand to be near him or she thinks I need protecting from him. She has seemed nervous since he joined us, and its making me want to get away from her, from both of them. I thought Id feel safe in the same room we were in yesterday, but everythings wrong today: the hard table and chairs are where the armchairs should be, the blinds not down, the grilles of the ventilation units are visible through the window; I can see their multiple slat-mouths, hear them breathing at me.

Im struggling to get my own breathing under control, and my body temperature. My feet are painfully cold, as if Ive been planted in ice.

What if Im like this in front of Tim? I cant be. Somehow, I must leave this room with more strength than I brought in here.

"Gaby?" says Charlie. "You okay?"

"Show me the photograph."

Waterhouse turns it over and places it on the table in front of me. Its all there: the same short hair, small square forehead, thin lips; the same brown skin tags on the neck. I couldnt think of the name for them on Friday, but thats what theyre called.

I lunge for the picture and rip it in half, and again. I carry on tearing until I cant anymore because the pieces are too small. "Sorry," I say, not meaning it.

"Have you seen him before?" Charlie asks. Clearly a non-verbal answer wont do.

"On Friday, outside my house."

"He was the man who warned you to keep away from Lauren? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Charlie sweeps the fragments of the photograph across the table, away from me. Id like to be able to set fire to the disconnected parts of his face. Together, they still add up to him. Burning would sort that out, but its not allowed in a police station.

"Gaby? Is there anything youd like to ask us?"

"Is Lauren all right? Where is she? Tell me you havent left her at the Dower House." Why am I the only person who cares about her safety?

"Why are you so worried about Lauren?" Waterhouses question is a mirror image of my unspoken one.

"Because shes married to Jason, whos a killer, and who sends his heavies round to peoples houses to . . ." My throat closes, choking off the end of my sentence.

"To what? What did he do to you, the man in the picture? He did more than warn you, didnt he? Or else why did you tear up his photo?"

I could say that I object to being given orders by strangers, which is true. Or I could say nothing.

"You havent asked us anything about him," says Waterhouse. "Is that because you already know who he is? Gaby?"

"How could I know?"

"Dont you want to know his name? Most people would be curious."

"Would they? Im sure Jason Cooksons got lots of thuggy friends, any of whomd be willing to intimidate a woman on his behalf. I dont care what Thug Xs name is-he could just as easily have been Thug Y or Thug Z."

"Do you care about us finding and punishing X, Y or Z for what he did to you? You dont seem to."

"Its not illegal to warn someone to stay away from someone else, is it? No, I dont care about you punishing him." Whatever you did wouldnt be enough. Id rather not have to know his name.

"Please, Gaby, can you seriously consider telling us what really happened on Friday?" says Charlie. "It would help us so much, and it might help Tim. If youd rather speak to me in private, DC Waterhouse can leave us alone for a bit."

Is this how the police make people talk when they dont want to: by misrepresenting them until they feel they have no choice but to protest and set the record straight? "The reason Im holding back has nothing to do with embarra.s.sment or an inability to utter the word 'v.a.g.i.n.a in front of a man," I say. "I told you: I wasnt s.e.xually a.s.saulted."

"Then why not tell us exactly what happened?" Charlie asks.

"How do I know you wont tell Tim? He cant find out."

"Why is that so important?"

"Im worried h.e.l.l see me as damaged goods if he finds out that Jasons thug friend violated my honor-thats what Id say if I were a simpering cliche, right?"

"And if you were you?" Charlie asks.

No idea, sorry. I havent been me for a long time. In order to be me, I need Tim. Which makes me a different kind of cliche.

Waterhouse is trying to cut the plastic surface of the table with his thumbnail; he has absented himself without leaving the room. Was it my reference to the female anatomy that sent him into automatic shutdown mode, or doesnt he know how to handle women who behave like men? Ive met that before: I meet it nearly every time I leave the house. Until Friday, I met it when I returned to the house as well, but not anymore, not since I left Sean.

Never again in my own home.

It would be dishonest not to acknowledge the downside: that I no longer have a home.

"I dont want Tim to feel guilty, and I know he would," I tell Charlie, who is a better interviewer than Waterhouse even when he isnt ignoring me. He makes me feel as if everything I say is the wrong answer; Charlie does the opposite. "What happened to me wasnt Tims fault any more than it was mine. It was Jasons fault and the man who . . . did what he did to me, but Tim wouldnt see it that way. Hed trace it back to himself and feel responsible: if he hadnt confessed to Francines murder, Lauren wouldnt have turned up in Dsseldorf and said what she said to me. I wouldnt have gone to the Dower House on Friday and met Jason, who wouldnt have decided he needed to keep me quiet by whatever means necessary."

"What means?" Waterhouse asks.

"Give me a cast-iron guarantee that whatever I tell you will go no further than this room."

"You care more about Tims feelings than you do about your own," says Charlie. It doesnt sound like a question. "So do Kerry and Dan Jose."

"You wont understand, not knowing Tim, but however much he matters to us, itll never be enough to compensate for how little he matters to himself. Were his ego: me, Kerry and Dan."

And I wish I didnt have to be. I wish he were stronger. I wish I could say for certain that hed drop everything for me as I have for him.

I crush the thought in my mind, tell myself Im being unreasonable. I cant expect everyone to be as bold and reckless as me.

"You need to tell us what happened to you on Friday." Waterhouses deep voice has the force of an unexpected blow. "This is about a whole lot more than Tim Breary, his ego and his dead wife, as of last night."

"What? What do you mean?"

His flat stare contains no willingness to compromise: if I want to be told, I first have to tell.

I direct my answer to Charlie. "Jasons emissary put a plastic bag over my head and taped it round my neck. I thought I was going to suffocate, but then he tore a hole in the plastic near my mouth so that I could breathe. Hed taped my wrists together behind my back. I dont know when he did that. I think I must have blacked out from the shock. I know he put his arm round my neck and squeezed. That was his first move when he came up behind me: crushing my windpipe."

"I should have insisted on taking you to the hospital," says Charlie.