Tony sat on a large couch under the bay window in the kitchen, remembering last Sunday when he’d been short with his wife in front of his friends. He didn’t know if what he felt was grief or guilt.
Hunt found him and crouched down.
‘Right, Tony. Your friend has gone. It’s a bit fast to be fooling around, isn’t it? So soon after your wife disappeared. Unless you knew she wasn’t coming back, eh?’
Hunt rested on his bent knees and clasped his hands together. He was at eye level and Tony peered at him. He saw that the DI had huge sweat patches on his chest and under his arms.
‘Carrie’s gone?’ he asked.
DI Hunt nodded. ‘Did she have anything to do with Monika leaving? Did Monika know what you two were up to?’
Tony shook his head, trying to make sense of his reality. It had assaulted him without leaving him time or space to assess it. Now he was sobering up on a cognisant level, though chemically it would take much longer. He looked down to his body, as if it belonged to someone else, and realised that he was still in his swimming trunks. The velvet sofa that Monika had chosen for the huge bay window in the kitchen was wet, and he shifted uncomfortably. He began to shiver and rubbed his face in his hands.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ he said.
Vomit heaved out of him, right at the DI’s feet. The copper moved out of the way and swore angrily, just avoiding the mess. Tony puked again and the DI shouted for help.
‘Get him cleaned up, for fuck’s sake,’ Hunt said. Somebody grabbed cloths from the sink and Tony was helped upstairs.
‘Don’t compromise the scene!’ Hunt reminded everyone.
‘The scene?’ Tony asked.
Hunt smiled at him but Tony knew it wasn’t genuine. Then he realised what the instruction meant. His house was being searched, and he vaguely remembered being shown a warrant. Jesus, he thought in horror. Images and memories came flooding back to him; seducing Carrie, their embraces, the police at the door, and them trawling through the house.
Then he remembered his wife. She was dead and her body had been found at the edge of a field, near the river, close to Grantchester, by dog walkers. She’d been murdered. She wasn’t just gone, but brutally attacked and dumped. And he’d been shagging Carrie. He paused on the stairs, holding on to the handrail, which, he saw, was covered in plastic. They were turning his house over and he remembered what Carrie said to him before she left more clearly now. She’d called her lawyer and urged him to do the same. Now she was gone, and he’d been a gibbering wreck, not listening to her sound advice. He rushed to his room, but was stopped at the door. The young PC escorting him told the officer that the gentleman was allowed to freshen up, if the bathroom had been processed. The uniform said he’d go and check. Tony waited in the hallway of his own home, freezing his nuts off, wrapping his arms around his body in an attempt to warm up. His house was crawling with police.
‘Where is my wife?’ he asked the young officer. The present caught up with him and he realised the stupidity of the question.
‘I’m not on the case, sir. You’ll have to ask the DI.’
Tony nodded.
‘If you were to have knowledge of where dead bodies, possible homicides, were kept, then could you tell me?’
The officer looked at him and lowered his voice.
‘I would say that the body would be stored at the hospital mortuary, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ Tony leaned against the wall. He looked around the hallway and saw his wife everywhere: the chandelier, the chaise longue, the paintings and the femininity. He turned away from the young PC, put his hand up to his mouth and cried silently. Hot tears warmed his chilled face and he rubbed his eyes.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the young uniform said.
Tony knew how it looked: like he didn’t care, like he was a callous husband who’d clearly got bored of his young shallow wife, and got rid of her to make way for his mistress. It wasn’t supposed to have gone like this. He wondered what Carrie was discussing with her lawyer. He needed to speak to her: they had to get their stories straight. The prospect of a plan forming calmed him, and he was able to bring himself to his senses and list in his mind what needed to be done next. Alex would know what to do.
The officer returned and said he could go into his own bedroom. ‘Forensics have finished in this room,’ he said.
Forensics? Jesus. He felt like a tiny fish on a huge reef, being watched by predators, which at any moment could strike from above to kill and feed. The sensation was a new one. He’d lost the initiative, if he’d ever had it, and cast his mind back to what he’d told the police so far. He scrabbled around for titbits of information about Monika’s last day inside this house. Her house. He saw her new ring on the side of the jewellery stand by the window and picked it up. He hadn’t even noticed it when he and Carrie had staggered in here earlier, giggling like school kids, searching for his stash of coke, which allowed him to get it up for a third time.
The emerald glistened deeply and he turned it this way and that, mesmerised by its beauty. Specimens like it were rare, and that was what made it so valuable. It was a one off.