Critical Incidents. Lucie Whitehouse
into a wedgy quiff that reminded Robin of Emeli Sandé. Masculine-feminine. Got my shit together, was the message.
‘Come in.’
They followed her to the sitting room where Robin watched the woman look around, taking in the three-piece suite, a patterned aqua monstrosity whose curved backs and fluted arms recalled Botticelli and his giant scallop. It was too big for the space and so the sofa could only go against the wall, making the room look even more corridor-like than it was. Opposite was the tiled fireplace, a vase of dried grasses in the hearth, the Spode figurine of an Edwardian lady with a stupidly large hat on the mantelpiece. The least offensive thing was the gilt-framed watercolour of the Lickey Hills that had been Granny Lyons’.
‘My parents’ house,’ she said, and saw the flicker in the woman’s eyes: at her age? Robin gestured at the furniture. ‘Please, have a seat.’
They took the sofa, leaving her the armchair. If you were curled up in it, feet tucked under, it was okay, shell-like in a good way, even, but sitting properly, Robin was dwarfed by it, shrunk down like Alice in Wonderland, her feet barely skimming the floor. It added to the disorientation, the sense that everything was off-kilter. Unreal.
‘Thanks for talking to us,’ the woman said, pulling out her notebook. ‘As I said on the phone, DI Nuttall gave us your name. Maggie Hammond told him you and Corinna were close.’
‘She was my best friend. Since senior school. She saved my life, I think.’
The woman’s eyebrows went up.
‘Not literally. Maybe literally. I’m a single mother – I got pregnant by accident in my last year at university and she moved down to London, moved in with me. She cooked dinner so I could work, changed nappies, did one of the night feeds if I was about to go insane from lack of sleep. Made it all seem like less of an unholy fuck-up. I don’t know how I would have done it otherwise – I might have lost my mind. I definitely wouldn’t have finished my degree.’
‘Losing her must be tough for you.’
It was a statement but also a question. Unlike her mother, who’d burst into tears the moment she’d heard, she hadn’t cried. There was a fierce pressure in her chest but she couldn’t get to it mentally, couldn’t translate it. ‘I haven’t begun to process it,’ she said. ‘I know but I don’t know. I saw her three weeks ago – I was texting with her yesterday. Lennie – that’s my daughter – we were supposed to go over there tomorrow night for dinner.’ As she said it, she realized that even that, that small bright spot on the immediate horizon, had been extinguished. And there would be no more.
‘What time were you texting?’
‘Afternoon.’ Robin checked her phone. ‘Just after four – eight minutes past. My last reply to her at four ten.’ Last.
‘What were the texts about? How did she sound?’
‘Fine, normal. Herself. I mean, she didn’t mention herself. She was checking in on me – I only moved back here yesterday, she knew I … had reservations.’
‘You moved yesterday?’ Patel looked up from his notebook.
‘Yes. From London.’
DS Thomas nodded, glanced at him: Make a note. ‘How much do you know about what happened?’
‘Almost nothing. That there was a fire at their house. Corinna’s dead.’ She heard herself say the words as if from across the room. ‘Maggie said Peter’s badly injured. And Josh’s missing – what does that mean? Are you waiting for a formal ID?’ She felt a wave of nausea at the thought of dental records, a body so badly burned that they couldn’t be sure it was him – or even a man. She’d seen those: blackened, pink-shiny lumps of flesh, the features, genitals burned away.
DC Patel – Baby Cop – shot a sideways look at Thomas, who leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees. ‘It’s very early, obviously, but as things stand, our priority is locating Mr Legge.’
‘Locating?’
‘We’ve only found Mrs Legge’s body. And Mr Legge’s car is missing,’ said Patel.
It took her a moment but then relief flooded through her: Josh hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been at the house. If Peter recovered – when he did – he’d have at least one parent. Thank god – thank god. ‘He wasn’t there?’
Another sideways glance from Baby Cop, missed or at any rate unacknowledged by the woman, whose eyes were trained instead on Robin’s face. ‘Again, to be clear, it’s early,’ she said. ‘Lines of enquiry are wide open and we’re still waiting on the Fire Investigator, SOCO, but even without their reports … There’s evidence of an accelerant at the scene. The fire was almost certainly started deliberately.’
‘What?’ An electrical fault, the iron left on – she’d imagined a malevolent spark spitting from the fire, nestling deep among the fibres of Corinna’s sheepskin rug, glowing, taking hold as they slept unwitting upstairs. But – arson?
‘Mr Legge may have killed his wife then set the fire to destroy evidence.’
A sort of bark escaped her. She almost laughed. ‘Josh? You think Josh killed Corinna? That’s … No. There’s no way. No way.’
‘His car is missing,’ said Patel again, as if that settled it.
‘So? He’s a businessman – he travels. He’ll have been away for the night.’ Oh god – it dawned on her that if that was the case, Josh didn’t know. If he was out of contact, no one had reached him, he still had to find out. Rin dead, Peter in hospital – she closed her eyes.
You moved yesterday.
Suddenly Robin stiffened. The floor seemed to shift beneath her chair.
‘We’ve spoken to Mr Legge’s secretary.’ Patel’s voice reached her from a distance. ‘There were no plans for him to be away. But more importantly, the neighbours on both sides reported seeing his car on the drive yesterday evening. Monday is bin day over there – he took their rubbish out after ten last night, spoke to one of them.’
Could it …? Could someone …?
She pressed her hands against her knees to try and stop them shaking. Focus, she told herself, focus. ‘In the extremely unlikely event that Josh, who loved Corinna beyond all reason …’ She faltered, seeing Patel scribble in his pad. ‘I don’t mean literally beyond reason. Just – he loved her. He really loved her. In the event that he had some sort of mental breakdown or psychotic episode – again, extremely unlikely – and killed her in a moment of madness, there’s no way he would have hurt Peter.’
‘Do you know how Peter sustained his injuries?’ Thomas this time.
‘No. But fire – smoke inhalation, burns?’
‘Inhalation, yes, but actually the worst of his injuries came from the fall.’
‘He fell?’
‘He jumped. Into the back garden from a skylight on the second floor. Broken legs, pelvis and three ribs, one of which punctured his left lung.’
Robin covered her mouth.
‘We haven’t been able to talk to him, he’s unconscious, but he was wearing pyjamas so our guess is he was asleep and woke to discover the fire, jumped to escape.’
She thought of him at Christmas the year before last. They’d spent it in Edgbaston with Corinna and Josh. It had worked really well; they’d all had proper time together, and Len had made trips over here to see her grandparents. In the evenings, after Josh had got him into his PJs, Peter had come to the dining table to say goodnight. Those legs – in tight jersey bottoms printed with aliens and flying saucers, they’d been long and spindly as breadsticks. She’d looked at Corinna, who’d folded her lips together to contain the laugh, the I know, it’s too much