‘Tom Tulloch,’ I say. ‘Middle name Ellis. Address: 9 Fore Street, Little Holling. Look, let me tell you everything, okay? And then I’ll answer all your questions.’
He nods.
‘Paddy and I – that’s my husband – we were at school with Tom. The three of us were really close, for years, until Tom treated us pretty shoddily, which ended the friendship. Then he got in touch again about three years ago, wanting to get together, being all cheerful and “Hey, guys, let’s hang out”, as if nothing had ever happened. He and his girlfriend had split up, and …well, the reason we’d lost touch was because of her, indirectly. But now they weren’t together any more and Tom wanted to pick up where we’d left off. Paddy seemed to want that too, but I didn’t. I didn’t think I could. Tom had behaved badly, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to think well of him again, so I said so in the most tactful and least hurtful way possible. I didn’t expect we’d ever hear from him after that, but he messaged last year, out of the blue, to ask for …’ I stop suddenly. ‘You probably don’t need all this background.’
‘Please, go on,’ says DS Kombothekra. ‘I’m curious to know why you’d hire someone you think so poorly of to carry out a task that involves extreme violence and high risk.’
‘You’d understand if you knew the full story. It’s really not that relevant or interesting. The important part is what happened when Tom reappeared in my life. He messaged me last year, asking for help. His life had fallen apart, he said. He’d been made redundant and been booted out of a flat by whichever woman had got sick of him most recently.’
In response to DS Kombothekra’s raised eyebrows, I say, ‘I’ve never known Tom’s love life to be anything but a disaster. He had nowhere to live and no money, and wanted to know if I could lend him some cash, put him up, do anything to help. Oh, and also forgive him for being the shittest friend ever. I told him that of course I forgave him, but sorry, there was no way he could live with us. I didn’t want him in my space every day. That would have been awful. Paddy, Lottie and I had only just moved out of Marianne and Dad’s house and into our own place. But … I did genuinely want to help Tom – mainly just to ease my conscience, knowing I didn’t really want him as a friend any more – so I said I’d pay him to house-sit for us while we went on holiday for a fortnight.It was August 2022 when he got in touch, and we were just about to set off to the Italian lakes, in, like, three days’ time. I offered to pay him to live at ours while we were away and just keep an eye on the place. I pretended our burglar alarm wasn’t working and that I was worried about leaving the house empty for so long. Easiest job in the world for him, and normally I’d have offered maybe five hundred quid. I mean, he hardly had to do anything – just live in our house for two weeks, that was literally it. But I offered him two grand.’
‘That’s … generous,’ says DS Kombothekra.
‘Deliberately so. I felt guilty for the extent to which I just … didn’t want to be around him any more. I suppose, also, I’ve got quite a bit more spare money than a lot of people.’ I shrug. ‘Anyway, Tom said yes, and our house was still standing and immaculately clean and tidy when we got back, so … no problems there. And then this year, beginning of August, he texted again, asking if I want the same again this summer: two weeks house-sitting for two grand. I didn’t, but I did want something else by that point.’
‘Someone to kill Marianne for you?’ Kombothekra says.
I nod. ‘I knew I’d never be able to do it myself. All the ways of killing people I could think of, I just … I knew I couldn’t. And they all seemed so risky. If I bought a gun illegally, the police might find evidence of me doing that. Plus I’d have to learn how to use it. If I stabbed Marianne myself, I’d probably leave DNA traces, and I’d need to be right next to her to do it – frighteningly close.’
It feels strange to be saying out loud to a stranger all the things that for so long have been no more than an anguished refrain going round and round in my head. ‘If I poisoned her, I’d need to buy poison, and, like the gun, that might bea traceable transaction. Eventually I realised: the only way to leave no trace of myself was to get someone else to do it for me – someone whose DNA had never been … taken and stored anywhere official. Someone who had no connection at all to Marianne. No one investigating her murder would be likely to suspect Tom any more than they’d suspect any of Paddy’s or my other acquaintances who had never met her.’
I sit forward in my seat, nervous tension bouncing inside me exactly as it had before I told DC Waterhouse. ‘The official story would have been that Paddy and I had hired Tom to house-sit for us again. We’d paid him two grand, again. Nothing about that would have looked suspicious – we’d done it before, after all. And I’ve got a history of overpaying for stuff. I’m not short of money,’ I explain, in case Kombothekra is wondering. ‘When Mum died, she left a trust fund for me that cashed out a couple of years ago. That’s when I was finally able to move out of Dad and Marianne’s house and buy me, Paddy and Lottie a place of our own.’
‘So you could afford expensive house-sitters – and the services of a killer.’ The way DS Kombothekra says it, it sounds like the most reasonable thing in the world, though I know that’s not what he’s thinking.
‘I could afford it, yes. I was going to pay Tom five grand to kill Marianne, and the payments would be hidden inside the house-sitting fees. He’d house-sit for us once this year and once next year, each time for a fortnight, and then the year after he’d house-sit for a week. At the same rate as the last year house-sitting, that makes five grand. See what I mean?’
Kombothekra gives me an encouraging smile that makes me want to cry. I know I don’t deserve the approval of anyone inthe business of crime prevention. He must be hating me, whatever his face looks like.
‘All Tom had to do was agree to receive most of the money after he’d done the … task. He had to be happy to wait and get the money in stages. I told him almost before I said anything else: if he didn’t want to do it, that was absolutely fine, but in which case there’d be no more house-sitting and no more money from me. I knew he’d say yes. He’d have done almost anything to get his hands on that five grand – he’d always been terrible with money and obsessed with it at the same time – and I knew how desperately he wanted to be my friend again. He’d have done anything. I’m not proud of it, but I hinted that it might be possible for things to go back to the way they’d been between us before if he’d help me out with this one thing.’
‘I take it he agreed to your … proposal?’ Kombothekra asks.
‘Like a shot. Didn’t even have to think about it.’
‘And what about the murder itself? Was that up to Tom to improvise?’
‘Absolutely not,’ I say. ‘I worked out every detail. On Mondays at six, Marianne has a yoga class in Silsford. She always sets off in her car at 5.15. It’s really secluded where Dad and Marianne park their cars in the grounds – a bit of a walk from the house. Dad grumbles about it all the time when Marianne’s not there to tell him off. She doesn’t want to be able to see cars from any of the windows. She’s obsessed with windows and what you can see out of them.’ I’d lost count of how often I’d stood in her garden and stared up at the round window of her study, craning my neck until I couldn’t bear the ache any more, wondering what was inside that room that Marianne was so determined to conceal from everyone.
‘The murder would have happened on a Monday,’ I say. ‘Today. I decided a few weeks ago that today was going to be the day: 30 October. Both Tom and I would arrange rock-solid alibis for ourselves. Mine would be genuine, his would be a lie: his brother, Lucas, who would agree to cover for him no matter what, Tom assured me. Tom would wait in the wooded part of Dad and Marianne’s garden, having climbed in over the high wall, from Sleatham Forest – the part so dense with trees that no one’s ever there. I mean, it’ssoconvenient. Would have been so convenient, if it had happened. Tom would have been in position from quarter to five or so, hidden in the trees. When Marianne came along at quarter past and was standing with her back to him, facing her car, about to get in and drive to yoga, he’d run forward and stab her from behind. He’d have worn some kind of protective suit to avoid leaving his DNA at the scene. Said he’d order one online, and a big hunting knife for the violent part. Then once it was done, he’d have disappeared, via Sleatham Forest again, and driven miles away to dispose of everything: the suit, the knife, anything else of his that had Marianne’s blood on it.’
I let out a long, slow breath.There. It’s done. Finally. All safely recorded on a police device.
DS Kombothekra taps his thumbs together. ‘Is that everything?’
I can’t think of anything I’ve left out.
‘So, are we your rock-solid alibi, then?’ DS Kombothekra asks. ‘Me, Sergeant Zailer, DC Waterhouse? You being here at exactly the moment that Marianne gets stabbed to death?’
‘What?’ The size and importance of his obvious misunderstanding makes me weary. How soon will I be on my squashy sofa at home, taking the mickey out of a stupid TV programme with Lotts?Please let it be soon. ‘No,’ I say. ‘By the time Idecided I had to come here, I’d changed my mind about …’ I break off. ‘What? What is it?’ Something’s not right. I can see it on his face.
‘Jemma, Marianne Upton was murdered today.’
Smooth, calm and clear. No mistaking what he said.
Jemma, Marianne Upton …
Murdered. Today.
