‘I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m sorry about what’s happened,’ Charlie told him. ‘With your’s and Sam’s jobs.’
‘Something is happening to many more people than me and Sergeant Kombothekra,’ said the Snowman. ‘By the time you’ve worked it out, it’ll be too late.’
He started to walk away, then thought better of it. ‘Waterhouse won’t be able to blind himself in the way you can,’ he said. ‘He’s already having trouble pretending. And you have to live with him, don’t you? So don’t expect an easy ride.’
With that, the Snowman stalked off at a pace so regular that it seemed almost automated. No one could have called it fast or slow.
Charlie shuddered, cleared her throat and put her phone to her ear. ‘Sam? You still there?’
‘I am. Charlie, I’m really worried about him.’
‘You heard it, then? You’re going to need to back me up, that he really said all that.’
‘I think he might be having a full-scale breakdown,’ said Sam. ‘Trouble is, I’m not sure anyone’s noticed, given … well, what he’s like normally.’
‘I’m actually shivering from that crap he just spouted. If you tested my blood now, it’d be ten degrees down from where it was before he opened his gruesome gob. What’s wrong with him?’
‘You haven’t heard the half of it.’ Sam sighed. ‘It’s all mad, but … it’s also intricate and well thought out. He’s inventeda whole made-up world in which everyone’s out to get him and—’
‘Sergeant Zailer?’
Charlie jumped at the sound of a shaky female voice she knew she’d heard before.
Jemma Stelling.Thank God. Anyone but Proust.
‘I need you to listen to me, before I do something I’ll regret forever.’ Her face was pink and she was shaking. Fleetingly, Charlie wondered if she too had been accosted by the Snowman.
‘What’s happened, Jemma?’ Charlie held her phone at an angle so that Sam could hear. Plainly, something was wrong. This wasn’t a woman on her way out of the building after an interview that had gone smoothly. How the hell had she ended up all the way over here, anyway? The canteen was nowhere near either the interview rooms or the entrance to the building. ‘Is DC Waterhouse okay?’ Charlie knew she should have asked if Jemma was all right, not Simon, but at this precise moment she couldn’t bring herself to care about this woman she was pretty sure had colluded in a murder.
‘I don’t think he is, no,’ said Jemma. ‘He’s either evil or he’s lost it. He’s just told me I should murder Marianne if I want to. Do you have any idea how easy I’d find it to … to just go and do that, right now? To kill her?’ She’d started to cry.
‘He said what?’Please let this be a joke.
‘I’m glad you’re shocked.’ Jemma looked relieved. ‘I half thought you’d say the same thing: “Kill her if you want to.” Thought I might be trapped in a mad world where all the cops encourage you to murder people. Because that’s what’s just happened. I didn’t imagine it. He really said it, all of it.’
‘Where is he now?’ Charlie asked her. Her suspicions in relation to Jemma Stelling had shrivelled to nothing. This was too good an act to be an act.
No. Your resistance is lower now that it was before; that’s the only change. Your trust in Simon’s taken a dive and you’re desperate to plug the gap by trusting someone else.
‘He said he was going home. Seemed to think his work for the day was done. He even … He praisedme.’ Jemma shook her head. ‘I told him how I’d planned to kill Marianne and he … made a suggestion. Look, can you please take down my statement, since your husband obviously doesn’t care?’
‘What suggestion did he make?’ Charlie asked.
‘He advised using a gun instead of a knife,’ said Jemma. ‘To avoid the risk of getting too close and leaving physical evidence. Said I’d be less likely to end up in prison for murder if I changed that one bit of my plan.’
4th June 2006
Heard from my friend Rosie today for the first time in years. She rang out of the blue this morning and asked how I was. Obviously I couldn’t tell her I feel as if my heart’s been ripped out and stamped on. She wouldn’t have listened even if I’d told her – she’s still as obsessed with the Royal Family as she’s always been, and I could barely fit in the words ‘I’m fine’ before she started ranting on about poor Prince Charles and poor Camilla and all the horrid people who don’t understand their great love, as if she knows them personally and can speak authoritatively on their behalf.
Ridiculous. But it reminded me of a conversation she and I had years ago, about love and the restrictions that are imposed on it sometimes. Again, the bloody Royal Family was the topic of conversation, as it pretty much always is when you’re talking to Rosie. I’ve no idea why or when she decided that Charles and Camilla being kept apart by family expectations is the world’s biggest ever tragedy, but that’s definitely what she thinks. ‘We’re so lucky, aren’t we?’ she said wistfully. ‘I mean, we can choose for ourselves, marry whoever we want.’
I probably agreed at the time. Because yes, if you’re not the heir to the throne, you probably do assume you’ll have complete freedom of choice when it comes to love. And yet my love for Ollie must remain mute, gagged and silenced. And do you know what? I don’t feel in the slightest bit sorry for the Royals, with their immensewealth and many beautiful homes and castles. They know from birth that they’re part of a structure in which duty and family are valued more than individual freedom. If you’d grown up as a Royal, you’d surely mind less when you couldn’t have what your heart wanted; it would be the norm. Everyone around you, all your relatives, would be thinking not only of themselves but of the greater good. Sacrifices, when they were made, would be recognised and valued – whereas I can’t even talk about mine. As a non-Royal, I’m supposed to be ‘so lucky’ because there’s nothing stopping me loving whoever I want, with no family restrictions whatsoever.
What an infuriating lie. The truth is that only some of us have the benefit of that supposed freedom of choice. Others, like me, have hearts that we’re expected to switch on and off depending on a tyrant’s whim.
6
Monday 30 October 2023, 6.20 p.m.
