‘Seventeen.’ She winces. ‘Me and my girlfriends were chatting to Darren afterwards. I guess we were flirting with him. He started flirting back and asked me if I ever did any babysitting. I asked him if he had a baby and he said he’d like to make a few. Corny, I know.’
‘Are you saying … ?’
‘No, not then,’ she says, half-laughing. ‘I didn’t meet him again until three years later. He asked to “friend” me on Facebook.’
‘How did he remember your name?’
‘He said it stuck with him because I was so cheeky. We started messaging each other. And he took me on a date.’
‘He’s quite a bit older.’
‘Eleven years, but he’s always looked younger.’
We are caught in traffic on Finchley Road.
‘When we first hooked up, it was like being love-bombed. He was so thoughtful. Flowers. Messages. Presents. Romantic dinners. I was besotted. We moved in together within a month and got married that summer. Darren wanted me to get pregnant straight away. He didn’t really like me working.’
‘When did the problems start?’
She is toying with a loose thread on the cuff of her blouse. ‘I don’t know. A year maybe.’ She half turns to face me. ‘What I thought was cute – the clothes he bought me, the hourly phone calls and messages – after a while they seemed …’ She struggles for the word.
‘Suffocating?’
‘Mmmmm. He doesn’t like any of my friends. I used to think he did, but then he started to bad-mouth them, or make up stories. He told me that one of my girlfriends had a drug conviction, but it made me wonder why he looked that up. She was eighteen and at Glastonbury and got caught with a few pills.
‘Darren used to get angry if I mentioned that I’d taken drugs.’ She laughs and glances nervously at me. ‘It was only ecstasy – two times … well, maybe five. I’m hardly Amy Winehouse.’
‘I’m not judging you.’
‘Another of my girlfriends left her husband and filed for divorce. Darren wouldn’t let me see her. He blocked her calls. That’s how I discovered that he could access my phone and read my texts. When I say it out loud like this, it all seems so clear, but when it was happening, I didn’t realise. It was like …’
‘Boiling a frog.’
‘Yeah. After Darren was stabbed, I tried to blame it all on PTSD. I thought counselling would change him – make him the man he used to be. But things only got worse.’
Traffic is moving again. Alison asks about Tempe. ‘He hit her too, didn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that why she left him?’
‘Yes.’
‘She must be stronger than me.’
‘No.’
‘Would she help me now? Would she make a statement? They might believe us if we both …’
‘I can ask her,’ I say, but I already know the answer.
Fifteen minutes later, we pull up outside her parents’ house. Keith is in the front garden, watching over the children, who are playing under a sprinkler. A French bulldog is keeping a safe distance.
‘Betsy doesn’t like water,’ explains Alison, giving them a melancholy smile.
Chloe tries to aim the spray at Nathan, who keeps dodging out of the way. ‘I won’t wet you,’ she says, sweetly, hoping to lure him within range.
‘Did Darren ever talk about Imogen Croker?’ I ask.
‘I know they were engaged. I looked her up online and found a photograph. She was very beautiful.’
Opening my phone, I pull up the image of Imogen’s sapphire ring.
Alison gasps softly. ‘That’s my ring. Darren gave it to me.’
‘When?’
‘Years ago. It was after an argument. He could be very sweet sometimes.’
‘Where is the ring now?’
‘I stopped wearing it when Chloe was born because my fingers swelled up and I didn’t want to scratch her. To be honest, it’s too blingy for me.’ She shows me her simple wedding band. ‘Why do you have a picture?’
‘Imogen Croker was wearing that ring on the day she died. It was given to her on her eighteenth birthday.’
Alison takes a moment for the information to register and then her entire body shudders. ‘Are you saying he gave me a second-hand ring?’
‘When they found Imogen’s body at the bottom of the cliff, the ring was missing.’
She blinks at me, still struggling to comprehend what I’m saying.
‘Where is the ring now?’ I ask.
‘In my jewellery pouch. The suitcase was too big to fit through the window. Remember? I put it under Nathan’s bed.’
‘If we could get that ring—’ I say, but before I can finish the statement, Alison is shaking her head.
‘I’m not going back to the house.’
‘You’re right. Stupid idea.’
‘It must be a different one,’ she says tentatively. ‘He wouldn’t give me a dead woman’s jewellery.’ The statement is almost a question.
Mentally I’m considering my options, holding them up to the light, as though looking for the flaws in a glass. Even if I could convince the police to investigate, there isn’t enough evidence for a search warrant. And if Goodall gets wind of this, he’ll destroy the ring or hide it until people stop looking.
‘Darren keeps a spare set of keys in his car,’ says Alison, trying to be helpful. ‘He locked himself out one day and I wasn’t home. God, he was angry. He broke the downstairs window and then complained about the cost.’
She steps out of the car and the children run to her, clinging to her legs. I feel something tug and almost break inside me. Nothing crucial or vital. A single thread, attached to my heart.
46
Finbar whistles through his teeth and slowly walks around the Fiat, examining the ruined paintwork. He’s wearing bib and brace overalls, work-boots and a baseball cap.
‘It needs a respray and new seals around the windscreen.’
‘My insurance will pay.’
‘Don’t worry. A guy owes me a favour.’
‘What sort of favour?’
‘The sort that you don’t ask about.’
We’re at a garage in Shoreditch, one of those places built beneath railway arches where trains rumble overhead every few minutes, shaking the walls.
‘What colour?’ he asks.
‘The same red.’
‘It’ll fade.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Is this why you needed a lawyer?’
‘No.’
Finbar makes a note. ‘I’m gonna need it for a few days. In the meantime, you can borrow the bug.’ He points to a VW Beetle which is just visible beneath a tarpaulin. ‘Hope you can drive a stick-shift.’
He is walking around the Fiat again. ‘Did you report this to the police?’
‘I’m going to.’
‘You’d better take some photographs. What about the brake light?’
‘Fix that as well. I have a defect notice.’
He looks surprised. ‘You got pulled over?’
‘It’s a long story.’
I take some pictures with my phone while Finbar fills out the paperwork. He starts talking about the number of acid attacks in London, most of them gang-related.