Marianne’s nothing if not thorough.She’ll never forgive me for any of it. If I thought I was in danger from her before …
‘Lottie’s fine,’ DS Kombothekra says. ‘Safe and well.’
‘What?’ A knot tightens in my stomach. ‘How do you know? Why would you … how …?’
‘When people come in to confess to murders, even ones they haven’t committed yet and hope never to commit, we check on their loved ones as a matter of course,’ he says.
That makes sense.
Of course she’s all right. She’s safe and healthy and perfectly okay. Why wouldn’t she be?
Why do I have the irrational fear that she’s with Marianne at this very moment, having been swept up, in my absence, under that malignant wing?
‘Did you see and talk to her yourself?’ I ask. ‘Did … did you tell her about my … about why I came here?’
‘Yes to the first, no to the second.’ DS Kombothekra smiles again. He’s tall and handsome with olive skin and green eyes, immaculately dressed in a grey suit and tie. His voice sounds like velvet, and it makes no sense that I feel so much worse than I did an hour ago, but I do. I almost wish I was back in the ugly room with the offensively disengaged DC Waterhouse. I felt more in control then.
I just need to get home. Soon as I can.
Is it strange that a detective sergeant handled a routine safety-check trip himself?
Wouldn’t he send a uniformed PC to check on Lottie? Unless …
He said Lottie was safe, though. He wouldn’t lie about that.
‘You seem jumpy, Jemma. We don’t have to talk now if you’d rather not.’
‘No, I …I need to tell you.’
‘About your plan to murder Marianne Upton?’
I nod. ‘You’ll turn the recording into a statement, right? For me to sign?’
Kombothekra nods. He pressed record a few minutes ago, and then the first thing he asked me was if I was sure I didn’t want a lawyer to be present. That freaked me out. I’m not trying to get away with any dishonesty here. All I want is to tell the truth and be heard, properly.
‘Marianne’s my stepmother,’ I say. ‘I’ve never loved or even liked her, and I thought I hated her, but I didn’t. Not really. Not until 7 July this year, when she … she did something that turned my dislike to hatred, and … fear. The kind I couldn’t ignore.’
Predictably, DS Kombothekra asks what she did.
‘Can we come back to that later?’ I say. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story, but the plan to kill Marianne is more important. I need to say all the details and you need to record them.’
‘Why is it so urgent that you tell me your murder plan?’ asks DS Kombothekra.
‘Because … every second that I’m not telling you is a second I’m actively consideringnevertelling you,’ I blurt out. ‘Even now, I could decide to lie. I could feed you some rubbish, then kill Marianne in the exact way I’ve planned, imagining I might get away with it.’
I’ve never been more tempted, knowing she’s read every word of my diary file. To think of her even opening it is like spiders crawling all over me, underneath my skin. Since I found out, I’ve been fighting with the same thought that won’t leave me alone:You stupid idiot, Jemma. If only you hadn’t come here and opened your big mouth. If only you could still do it …
DS Kombothekra looks unperturbed by what I’ve told him so far, but he’s much more put together and harder to read than Waterhouse. Who knows what he’s thinking? Will he understand if I tell him that the murderer part of me is now, once again, in the ascendant?
I decide an analogy might work better. ‘Do you know any alcoholics?’
He starts to shake his head, then converts it into a nod. Evidently an alcoholic acquaintance came suddenly to mind.
‘That’s what it’s like. My murder plan is like an unbearably tempting, full, sealed bottle of—’ I stop, wondering what an alcoholic’s drink of choice would be. Nothing as girly and frivolous as any of my favourite drinks, probably. ‘The strongest vodka in the world. Telling you every detail of my plan is the equivalent of opening that bottle and pouring the vodka down the sink. Gone forever, no longer available to me. By telling you, I remove the chance that I’ll ever try it. If anything happened to Marianne, you’d know it was me. You’d know I’d paid Tom, how I’d hidden the payments—’
‘Tom?’ DS Kombothekra cuts me off.
I’m going to have to give his surname too. There’s no way of keeping him out of this.
