The Stranger You Know (Maeve Kerrigan Novels) Read online

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  For Kerry Holland

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1992

  Thursday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Friday

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  1992

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Saturday

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Sunday

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Monday

  Chapter 21

  Tuesday

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Wednesday

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Thursday

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Friday

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Monday

  Chapter 38

  One Week Later

  Chapter 39

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Jane Casey

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Some flying from the thing they feared, and some

  Seeking the object of another’s fear …

  … And others mournfully within the gloom

  Of their own shadow walked, and called it death …

  “The Triumph of Life,” Percy Bysshe Shelley

  1992

  The garden was quiet, the air still. As still as the girl who lay under the tree.

  So still.

  Her eyes were closed. Her hands lay by her sides, palms up. Her hair spread across the grass like yellow silk. And the flowers under her were like the stars above her.

  He put out his hand and felt the heat radiating from her skin, even now. Even in the moonlight he could see the blood on her face, and the bruises around her neck, and the way her eyelids sagged, empty. Her eyes—her forget-me-not blue eyes—were gone. Her lip was split. Her face was swollen.

  She was beautiful. No one would ever be as beautiful. She was perfect.

  It surprised him, but he didn’t mind that she was dead. He could look at her, really look at her, without being interrupted. Without being afraid that she would say something, or do something, that might hurt him.

  He could touch her. He reached out, but stopped himself.

  He could never touch her again.

  His breath came faster. He wanted to touch himself but he couldn’t do that either. Not here.

  It was just because he loved her so much. More than anyone. More than anything.

  Forget-me-not.

  “I won’t forget,” he promised. “I’ll never forget.”

  He almost thought she smiled.

  THURSDAY

  Chapter One

  I’d seen enough dead bodies to know they can look peaceful. Calm, even. At rest.

  Princess Gordon was not that sort of corpse.

  It wasn’t her fault. Anyone would have struggled to look serene when they had been battered to death, then shoved into the boot of a Nissan Micra and left to stiffen into full rigor mortis.

  “I’m going to need to get her out to give you a proper cause of death, but from a preliminary examination she was beaten with something hard but rounded, like a pole, sometime within the last twenty-four hours.” The pathologist stood back, touching the back of one gloved hand to her forehead. “I can’t narrow it down for you yet, but I’ll have a look at stomach contents during the post-mortem and make an educated guess.”

  “I can make an educated guess for you now. It was her husband.” The voice came from beside me, where Detective Inspector Josh Derwent was taking up more than his fair share of room in the little ring of officers and crime-scene technicians that had gathered around the back of the car. The garage door was open but it still felt claustrophobic to me to be in that small, cluttered space. The air was dusty and the lighting cast long, dark shadows. I felt as if the piled-up junk was reaching out to grab me. Derwent had his hands in his pockets, with his elbows jutting out on either side. I had already inched away twice, to get out of range, but there was nowhere left to go.

  “She wasn’t married,” I said.

  “Partner, then. Whoever that bloke is in the house.”

  “Adam Olesugwe.”

  “Him.”

  “What makes you say that?” The pathologist was new, earnest and heavily pregnant. I wished she would just ignore Derwent. She had no idea what she was dealing with.

  “Bound to be him.”

  “If you’re basing that on statistical probability—”

  Derwent cut her off. “I’m not.”

  One of the response officers cleared his throat. I thought he was going to raise his hand and ask for permission to speak. “He said he came back and she was missing. He said someone must have come into the house and attacked her.”

  “Yeah, he’d know. He was the one who did it.” Derwent waved a hand at the body. “Say this wasn’t a domestic. Say it was a burglary gone wrong or a random murder. Why bother putting her in the car? Why not leave her in the house?”

  “To hide her,” the response officer suggested.

  “Why, though? It’s hard work, moving a body. And she’s a big girl, too. Look at that arse.”

  “Sir.” I didn’t usually try to manage Derwent’s stream of consciousness but I had seen the look of shock on the pathologist’s face. Dr. Early, who had arrived late and made a joke about it. Derwent hadn’t laughed.

  “What is it, Kerrigan?” He glared at me.

  I didn’t dare say why I’d actually interrupted. It would only provoke worse behavior. “Just—why would Olesugwe move the body?”

  “He was planning to get rid of the body but then her sister came round.”

  It was Princess’s sister, Blessed, who’d found the body and called 999. Last seen in hysterics being comforted by a female officer at the kitchen table, she’d been too incoherent to interview.

  “Why would he want to kill her?” Early asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. She was having an affair, or he was, or she didn’t do the ironing.” He looked down at the pathologist’s rounded belly. “She was four months pregnant, according to Olesugwe. Women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence when they’re up the duff.”

  “That’s a myth.” Dr. Early put a protective hand on her stomach, as if she was trying to shield her unborn child from Derwent’s toxic personality. I personally felt lead-lined hazard suits should have been standard issue for anyone who came into contact with him, pregnant or not.

  Derwent shook his head. “They did a study in the States. Murder is the third most common reason of violent death for pregnant women.”

  “What else kills them?” I asked.

  “Car accidents and suicide. W
omen drivers, eh?”

  “Well, this lady didn’t die in a car accident and she certainly didn’t beat herself to death.” Dr. Early folded her arms, resting them on top of her bump.

  “That’s my point. He killed her,” Derwent said. “He gets angry about something, he beats her up, it goes too far, he dumps her in the car, starts to clean up, gets interrupted by the sister and all bets are off.”

  “There was a smell of bleach in the kitchen,” I remarked.

  “And no sign of a break-in. Wherever she died should look like an abattoir but I didn’t see a speck of blood in the house.” Derwent pushed past a couple of officers and peered into the back seat of the car. “Bags. If you forensic boys would like to do your jobs and get them out for us, I bet we’ll find blood-stained clothes in Olesugwe’s size.”

  Dr. Early looked down at Princess’s body. “I’ll need some help to get her out of the boot.”

  “Nice to hear a woman admit she needs some help,” Derwent said, and walked out without waiting to hear what Dr. Early had to say in response, or, indeed, offering any assistance.

  The doctor’s lips were pressed together and her eyes were bright. I recognized the signs of someone trying not to cry. I’d been there, many times. “Is he always like that?” she asked me.

  “Not always. Sometimes he’s worse.”

  “I don’t know how you can stand it.”

  “Neither do I,” I said.

  * * *

  The reason I could stand it was because in addition to his numerous personality defects, Derwent was a brilliant copper. He left the SOCOs to their work and took both Olesugwe and Blessed to the nearest police station, Great Portland Street, where Blessed confessed to the affair she’d been having with Olesugwe, and Olesugwe admitted that Princess had found out about it. The murder weapon—a metal pole that had been used as a clothes rail in the couple’s wardrobe—turned up in a shed in the garden of the small house, stuffed in a bag behind a lawnmower. Olesugwe had the key to the shed’s padlock on his key ring, as well as the only set of keys for the Nissan. When I pointed out that neither the padlock nor the car boot was damaged in any way, he admitted moving the body and hiding the weapon.

  “But he still won’t admit that he killed her,” I said to Derwent as we left the police station, heading back to the office to get the paperwork underway. I shivered as the cold hit my face. We were on foot because Derwent had flatly refused to drive through central London to Somers Town, where Princess had breathed her last, when our new offices were in Westminster and it was twice as fast to go by public transport.

  “He’s still looking for a way out. I bet he’ll say it was Blessed who attacked her and he was just trying to help her.”

  “Do you think that’s what happened?”

  “Nope. Doesn’t matter, though. He’ll still lie about it.”

  “I don’t think Blessed would have called the cops before they were finished tidying up if she’d been involved.”

  “She might have. She might be thick. Most criminals are.”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said. I was only a detective constable but I had seven years of experience behind me. Derwent tended to forget that.

  Instead of answering me, he sighed. “What a waste of fucking time.” It wasn’t my imagination: Derwent’s mood was darker than usual.

  “We got a result,” I pointed out.

  “Anyone could have got it. Even you.”

  “We did a good job.”

  “The local murder team could have handled it.”

  “They were too busy.”

  “Is that what the boss told you?” He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and walked faster. I lengthened my stride to keep up.

  “Why else would he send us up there?”

  “Why indeed?”

  I realized I wasn’t going to get an answer out of Derwent. Besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted one. There was a chance he was referring to the fact that I was out of favor with the boss, and I couldn’t imagine that Derwent would be pleased if he knew about it. Especially if he knew why.

  I’d have been sensible to keep my mouth shut and walk in silence, but there was something I wanted to know. “You were a bit off with Dr. Early. What was the problem?”

  Derwent’s jaw clenched. “She shouldn’t be doing that job in her condition.”

  “She’s more than capable of doing it.”

  “If you say so. She probably won’t even be able to reach the table to do the PM.”

  “I’m sure she’ll manage.”

  “She shouldn’t have to.” Derwent flipped up the collar of his coat, hunching his shoulders as a scattering of rain spat in our faces. “It’s no job for a woman anyway. But when she’s got a baby on board, she shouldn’t be near dead bodies.”

  “You are so old-fashioned it’s untrue. Are you worried her unborn child will see the corpses and be upset? Wombs don’t come with much of a view.”

  “It’s just not right.” His voice was flat. No more arguing.

  I held my tongue until we got to the tube station and discovered that two lines were closed, just in time for the evening rush hour. We forced our way onto a packed Metropolitan line train to Baker Street, switched to the Bakerloo line and suffered as far as Charing Cross. It was a positive pleasure to resurface from the super-heated, stale depths of the Underground, even though the cold autumn air made my head ring as if I’d just been slapped.

  Even with the inspector as a companion it wasn’t a hardship to walk through Trafalgar Square and on down Whitehall as the lights came on. It had rained properly while we were on the tube, a short but sharp cloudburst, and the pavement had a glassy sheen. Fallen leaves were scattered across the ground, flattened against it by the rain, looking as if they had been varnished to it. The going was slick and my shoes weren’t designed for it. Opposite the Cenotaph I slid sideways and collided with Derwent, clutching his arm for support. He bent his arm so his biceps bulged under my fingers. I snatched my hand away.

  “Steady on,” Derwent said.

  “It’s the leaves.”

  “I know you, Kerrigan. Any excuse to cop a feel.” He crooked his arm again. “Come on. Hang on to Uncle Josh. I’ll look after you.”

  “I can manage, thank you.”

  “It’s not a sign of weakness, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s good to recognize your shortcomings. Look at Dr. Early. She knew she couldn’t shift that body on her own so she asked for help. You could take a lesson from that. Accept help when it’s offered.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  He laughed. “I don’t need any help.”

  “Of course not. The very idea.”

  “Seriously, if you need to hold on to my arm, do it.”

  “I would if I did, but I don’t.” I would rather take off my shoes and walk barefoot than reinforce Derwent’s ideas of chivalry. He would see it as proof of what he’d always thought—women need looking after. And I was junior to him, as well as being female, so he was totally comfortable with patronizing me.

  It made me want to scream.

  We turned the corner into Parliament Square and I gazed across at the Houses of Parliament, not yet tired of staring at them even though I saw them every day on my way to work. They were a Victorian idea of medieval grandeur and there was something fantastic about them, something unreal about the delicate tracery, the honey-colored stone, the soaring gilt-topped towers. From here, Britain had ruled the world, temporarily, and the buildings remembered. They were a physical manifestation of the superiority complex that was bred into the British, my father had said once. He had little time for the Empire and less sympathy for the country he lived in. I didn’t think you could characterize a whole nation that way, but then I wasn’t in the comfortable position of being foreign. Nor could I count myself as British. I was born in London of Irish parents, bred and raised as an Irish girl, despite the fact that we lived in Carshalton rather than Killybegs. I’d learned to dance the Walls of Limerick an
d played “Down by the Sally Gardens” on the tin whistle and struggled into thick, sheep-smelling Aran jumpers knitted by relations and swapped the soda bread in my packed lunches for my friends’ white crustless sandwiches. I’d played camogie, badly, at weekends, and played hockey equally badly at school. I was Irish by blood and English by accident and I didn’t belong to either tradition, or anywhere else. I’d grown up feeling as if I’d lost something and it was only now I was starting to wonder if it mattered.

  Derwent threw out an arm. “Look at that. What a disgrace.”

  “The Houses of Parliament?” I asked, surprised. I should have known Derwent was unlikely to be experiencing post-colonial guilt.

  “Those fuckers. Shouldn’t be allowed.” He was referring to the protesters camping on the grass in the middle of Parliament Square, occupying the space where the anti-war crowd had maintained their vigil, and where the demonstrations against globalization had raged. There were regular police operations to clear the lawn, but somehow the campaigners came back in ones and twos, and it was rare to see it empty.

  I tried to read the banners but it was hard to see them in the dusk, especially since they were rain-sodden. “Capitalism is evil?”

  “Dads Matter.”

  “Oh, them.” The Dads Matter group was the militant alternative to Fathers for Justice, a pressure group for men who felt they had been victimized by the family courts. Dads Matter was small but growing and prone to extravagant publicity-seeking. Its leader was Philip Pace, a handsome, charismatic forty-year-old with a background in PR. He was a smooth talker, a regular interviewee on news and current affairs programs and had made the Top Ten Most Eligible Males list in Tatler the previous year. I didn’t see the attraction myself, but then I wasn’t all that keen on zealots. As the public face of Dads Matter, he made it his business to be reasonable and moderate, but as a group they were neither. “What’s their new campaign? Twenty-Twenty?”

  “Someone hasn’t been paying attention to briefings,” Derwent said. “It’s Fifty-Fifty. They want the courts to split custody of children equally between parents. No exceptions.”

  “Oh, that sounds reasonable. What about abusers? What about protecting children from that?”