For a moment, all is still, and Tempe looks at me so expectantly that I contemplate not telling her.
‘I saw Darren Goodall today.’
I expect to see fear in her eyes, but instead I see acceptance or inevitability.
‘Was he angry?’
‘He says you took something from him.’
‘Nothing I wasn’t owed.’
‘What does that mean?’
She shakes her head.
‘If you took something—’
‘I took what belonged to me,’ she says again, more adamantly. Her eyebrows lift. ‘You didn’t tell him where I am?’
‘No, of course not. And he’d be stupid to approach you.’ I’m trying to sound confident. ‘But we have to be careful.’
‘I am,’ she says confidently. ‘And you’ll teach me how to protect myself.’
If only that were enough.
We talk about the flat in Wandsworth. Uncle Clifton is arranging to put the gas and electricity under a company name so the bills can’t be traced back to Tempe.
‘You should avoid registering for anything. Don’t take out a phone plan, or change the address on your driver’s licence. Do you have a car?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Be careful of Uber accounts and delivery services. Pay cash where possible, and avoid withdrawing money from the same ATM.’
‘Why?’
‘It creates patterns that can be traced.’
We’re in the kitchen drinking tea from mugs and sitting on high stools, our knees almost touching. With her hair pinned up and her head tilted at an arrogant angle, she looks almost like a boy, but the roundness of her bosom and long dark eyelashes are unmistakably womanly.
‘Why won’t he let you go?’ I ask. ‘Is he in love with you?’
‘He thinks he owns me.’
Tempe is toying with the tag of a teabag, which is solidifying on a saucer between us.
‘Were you in love with him?’ I ask.
She crinkles her nose. ‘How can you tell?’
I laugh. ‘Oh, you know.’
‘How?’ she asks, and I realise she’s being serious.
‘Surely you’ve been in love?’
‘Me? No. I’m a sucker for romantic movies. I’m a Richard Curtis junkie. Love Actually. Notting Hill. Four Weddings and a Funeral. But stuff like that doesn’t happen in real life – not to me.’
‘One day it will,’ I say, but it sounds too easy and neat. ‘He abuses her too,’ I say. ‘His wife, I mean. She’s been treated in hospital.’
Tempe shrugs. ‘Pain gets him off.’
‘And you accepted that?’
‘Not really, but he seemed to enjoy it.’
She must see the look of horror on my face.
‘I could have stopped him,’ she says defensively. ‘But he seemed to like those things and I wanted to make him happy.’
‘Women shouldn’t have to be subjugated or brutalised to make men happy.’
‘We all make sacrifices.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Really?’ Her eyebrow is raised. ‘Who makes the most important decisions, you or Henry?’
‘We make them together.’
‘Who compromises the most? Who apologises the quickest? Who does most of the housework? Who gets to have the most fun? Whose career is more important?’
‘Don’t make this about me,’ I say, annoyed that she’s twisted the conversation to avoid answering my questions.
I can’t be friends with someone who willingly chooses to be a victim. At the same time, Tempe isn’t looking for sympathy or complaining that life has failed her. She is like an animate riddle; a bundle of contradictions that has to be untangled and rewrapped onto a spool, but it’s not my job to make her whole.
18
Imogen Croker’s parents live in a small village on the outskirts of Cambridge that appears to be surrendering field by field and farm by farm to the encroaching city. A woman answers the door. She is dressed in a simple skirt and blouse with a navy cardigan buttoned once. She opens the door widely and smiles, asking about my journey. I follow her along a hallway into an interior that feels closed up and claustrophobic despite the high ceilings.
‘Are you a detective?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘But you’re with the police.’
‘I’m in uniform, but not today.’
She tells me her name is Lydia and calls me Constable McCarthy even when I suggest first names.
We have reached a sitting room, where the sunlight from the window is so bright it creates a shaft that feels solid where it hits a faded woven rug. I notice a figure in a chair, watching TV, almost unseen. He has white-grey hair and arthritic hands and seems to be dissolving into his armchair or growing out of it.
The volume is turned down on a wildlife documentary where penguins are marching across an icy wasteland.
‘That’s my father. He has dementia. Are you all right, Pop?’
The old man stirs, fixing me with his rheumy eyes. ‘There are no polar bears in Antarctica.’
‘But they have penguins,’ I reply.
He nods sagely, as though we have settled an argument.
Lydia takes me to a darkly varnished dining table where scrapbooks and photo albums are set out for my inspection. She had insisted I come at two o’clock, because her husband would be out, she said.
‘Richard gets upset when I talk about Imogen. He thinks we should move on, but I can’t forget.’ She has a box of tissues at her right elbow, but I see no sign of tears. ‘Imogen was his favourite, you see – our only daughter. I know a parent shouldn’t have favourites, but she was very easy to love. That’s why he won’t talk about her. It hurts too much.’
Without prompting, she begins telling me about Imogen, describing her childhood, her personality, her foibles, using photographs to illustrate her stories. I want to get to her death, but I can see how much pride Lydia takes in telling me about her daughter.
Gently, I nudge her forwards, asking how Imogen met Darren Goodall.
‘She was barely out of school. A babe in the woods. He was a police officer – a grown man. He was working on the door of a nightclub, moonlighting as a bouncer. He took down Imogen’s phone number and called her later. She thought it was romantic – a “meet-cute” story like you see in the movies.’
‘Did you like him?’ I ask.
‘I thought he was too old for her.’
‘Is that all?’
‘He seemed charming. Ambitious. Polite. Imogen was a bit of a wild child and we thought he might settle her down, but he was always quite controlling. I think she found it appealing at first, having a man who wanted to choose her clothes and who treated her like a princess. But after a while he began complaining about her friends and isolating her. He decided where she went and who she saw. Slowly, he undermined her confidence and crushed her spirit. He stole her spark.’
‘The journalist, Dylan Holstein, was looking into her death,’ I say.
‘Such a lovely man. So sad what happened.’
‘Have the police been to see you?’
She nods. ‘A Detective Fairbairn. He took some letters and papers away.’
‘What papers?’