I’ve told Alice that the bag I’m taking up to Tyneside contains Patricia Gill’s ashes. It doesn’t, of course, because Patricia is – for now – very much alive. I know this because she’s texted Dominic to tell him she’s just arrived home after her cruise and she hopes to see him soon. Out of respect for her dead mother-in-law, Alice gives the bag a wide berth.
I arrive at Newcastle Central dressed in my funeral suit and the black tie I bought on my last-minute shopping trip. In between buying the tie and picking up a takeaway from Alice’s favourite Chinese, I went to the chemist and bought syrup of ipecac, which I loaded into her red wine. Predictably, it caused a fit of uncontrollable nausea and vomiting and ensured she had to stay at home. When she claimed to feel a bit better the next morning, I tipped a bit more into her tea just to be sure she couldn’t come with me, then slipped the bottle into the bag containing the ‘ashes’.
I take it out now and sling it into a bin. Also in the bag is a set of work overalls and a branded baseball cap from a few days’ work I did for a private security firm, along with some other bits and pieces. A couple of tools I might need if things get tricky, but I sincerely hope it won’t come to that. I go to the gents’ toilets at the station and change out of my suit and tie, folding them up and putting them into the bag for later. Then I set off to Ponteland, to visit my dear old ‘mum’.
Patricia Gill looks surprised and a little confused when she answers the door; a short, somewhat overweight woman with her hair neatly styled and a fresh Mediterranean tan.
‘Can I help you, pet?’
‘I’m here from Betasafe Securities,’ I say, pointing to my cap. ‘We’re doing a trial of a new security system in your area; totally free, no financial commitment.’
She looks doubtful.
‘Can I come in a second?’ I invite myself over her threshold, giving her my most winning smile. ‘All it is, is a small piece of equipment installed in your loft space, like a sensor, which sends a signal to our head office in the case of a break-in. It’s a new technology we’re trialling.’
She still looks doubtful. ‘There isn’t a loft space; this is a dormer bungalow.’
I hadn’t thought of that but extemporise quickly. ‘I can still find somewhere on the top floor to put it… You won’t even know it’s there; it’s only tiny and it all works using infrared signals.’
‘And it’s free, you say?’
I nod.
‘Well, I suppose so. As long as it doesn’t make a noise in the middle of the night.’
‘Shouldn’t do, if it’s working properly. But don’t worry, we’ll check that together… any chance of a cup of tea?’
I actually much prefer coffee, but it’s early afternoon and she’s an elderly lady, so I reckon tea would be her usual option.
‘I was just about to put the kettle on,’ she says with a smile. ‘I’ll make a pot. How do you take yours?’
‘Milk and two, please.’ I go up to the top of the stairs with my bag, take out the tools and pretend to be fitting something. When I come down again, Patricia has set out two mugs of tea on the kitchen worktop and is stirring sugar into both her drink and mine.
‘Now,’ I say with a grin, ‘you go up there and tell me if you can notice anything different.’
While she’s upstairs, I whip out a screw of crushed Nembutal tablets that I bought online and empty the powder into her drink. About 150mg – not enough to suggest poisoning, but enough to render her very sleepy. On the countertop, I notice that she’s already taking statins and a drug called metoprolol. I make a mental note of the name.
‘It’s very clever,’ she says, when she comes downstairs again. ‘You can’t see a thing.’
We drink our tea and make small talk about the weather. She comments on my Scots accent and I tell her I’ve moved down to the North-East for work, like many of my fellow countrymen. After about fifteen minutes, her speech slows and her pupils constrict slightly.
‘Before I go,’ I suggest, ‘why don’t we go upstairs and I’ll run a live test? That way you know that the equipment isn’t going to make any sound.’
She follows me up the steep staircase, stopping a few times to hold on to the banisters.
‘Are you all right?’ I enquire.
‘I’m just a little light-headed. Maybe I’ll have a bit of a lie-down. You’ll let yourself out, won’t you?
‘Of course,’ I say smoothly.
When we reach the narrow landing, she stumbles.
‘Whoopsie!’ I say, as she loses her footing, and I reach out an arm. With a swift, single movement, I make as if to grab her but instead bring up my elbow and knock her backwards. She tumbles down the staircase with three rhythmic thumps, bangs her head hard against the wall and lands in the hallway at a strange angle. I wait, but there’s no movement. No one could survive their neck being in that position; I’m quite sure of it. But I step over her and press my fingers to her wrist just to be sure. No pulse.
I go into the kitchen, put on her rubber gloves and wash out the mugs and teapot, placing them back in the cupboard. Then, shouldering my bag and with the peak of my cap down over my face, I let the front door deadlock behind me and walk quickly back to the main road. A bus for the City Centre passes me, and I flag it down and jump on, my cap still pulled firmly down over my face.
In a way, I’ve done the woman a favour, I tell myself as I catch the train back to London after first changing back into my suit and slinging the contents of the bag into a dumpster. I’ve googled metoprolol and it’s a beta blocker, used to treat high blood pressure and angina. Ironically, just as I told Alice at the time of her wedding, Patricia clearly had some sort of cardiac problem and could have succumbed to a stroke or a heart attack at any moment. All I’ve done is save her years more of infirmity and ill health.
Patricia’s blessed release is one major problem dealt with. Little do I know that another, even bigger problem is about to rear its ugly head.
It happens in the summer, a few months after Patricia Gill’s sad demise. Things are going fine with Alice. Sure, she wouldn’t be my first choice given an open field, but we’re getting along well enough, and she’s not a bitch; not controlling or unreasonable. She’s happy to stop dyeing her hair and tone down her wardrobe, so she doesn’t draw attention. She’s not even much of a sticky beak, leaving me to largely do my own thing. So much so, that I set up an account in a fake name and venture back onto a dating app. Seems I just can’t help myself. Straight away I start exchanging messages with a super-attractive girl called Lara, and we meet up a few times.
And wouldn’t you know it: on one of our meetings Alice spots us from a taxi when she’s heading to Heathrow. What are the bloody chances? I fob her off with a story about the woman being a party planner and pluck from the air the first name that comes into my head: Nicola Mayhew. Nicola Mayhew is an old dear who works at the office, but Alice doesn’t know that. It does mean I have to throw her a birthday party now, but that’s hardly the worst thing that could happen.
After a relaxing summer break in Sardinia, things are back on track and I pick up with Lara again. After everything that’s happened, I’m extremely careful not to push things physically. I can’t risk her turning bunny-boiler. She plays hard to get and gives me the runaround for a few weeks, then she knocks me back. Little tease.
I’m just about to log onto Furnace again when it happens. The problem that’s potentially as bad as my wife introducing herself to my ‘mother’.
I hear from Holly again.
Holly was the lawyer turned call girl who went feral and had me blocked from Sydney’s online dating apps. And suddenly here she is, emailing me at Ellwood Archer. When I see her name pop up on my work PC, I instinctively know that this can only be bad news.
Her email contains no text, just two attachments. The first is a report from the Sydney Morning Herald, concerning the death of Pearl Liu. It names me as a person of interest after I immediately flew to Europe, having been in the Bondi bar that night. It also says that detectives from the Serious Crime Directorate travelled first to Berlin and then on to London after examining CCTV images from Berlin Tegel airport. They hoped to bring me back for questioning but were unable to trace me.
This is news to me. I haven’t dared google the case for fear of leaving a digital crumb trail, but here it is in black and white. The cops came looking for me but went away empty-handed. Of course they did. Because they were looking for an Australian citizen, or possibly someone using a fake ID they picked up in Germany. And I’m an Englishman called Dominic Gill. Holding down a good job and living with my lovely, respectable wife Alice.
But the point is, Holly has made the connection between Dominic and me. And there’s worse to come. I know this without even opening the second attachment, because she’s sent her email to my work account. By which I mean, Dominic Gill’s work account. The file is a JPEG, taken at Ellwood Archer’s latest development in Abu Dhabi. I flew there for a site meeting and a photographer took a picture of us all for the client’s in-house newsletter. There I am on the far left of the group, grinning away in a suit and hard hat, with ‘From left to right: Dominic Gill, Ellwood Archer London…’ as the caption below.
Shit.
Holly leaves me sweating for a couple of days before she emails again.
Hi… Dominic!
Well, isn’t this interesting? A mate of mine was working on a job in Abu Dhabi and he posted this picture on Facebook. The joys of social media, eh?
So: you’ve been a naughty boy again. Can’t help yourself.
Speak soon!
I email her one curt line.
What do you want?
She replies after another forty-eight hours.
I’ve broken my pelvis in a car accident, and I can’t work. So if you want me to keep quiet, it’s going to cost you. $10,000 AUS per month should do it.
I think about this for a while. After all, she doesn’t know for sure that I killed Pearl Liu. Nor does she know anything about the real Dominic Gill, or how my connection to him started. I call her bluff.
No can do. I simply don’t have that much money.
She must be going through a lean patch on the game, because it doesn’t take her long to lower her expectations.
$5,000 a month.
She adds details for a Commonwealth Bank account.
On the one hand, this represents something of a break. I’ve got a way to keep her off my back. On the other hand, that’s going to take a large chunk of my salary. Alice covers the domestic costs, and there’s no mortgage to pay, but it’s going to eat heavily into our joint savings fund. But, in reality, when are we ever going to get to spend it? There’s going to be no joint retirement for Alice and I; I’ll be long gone before then. It’s just a question of diverting some of my escape-plan money.
So I start transferring funds from my salary payments to Holly, via an offshore account that I open for the purpose. I tell myself I’ve dealt with the problem, but, of course, I haven’t. The murky world of blackmail is never that simple.