Reader, I Buried Them and Other Stories

Gaslighting

To say that Luther was unprepared for what he found when he switched on the stage lights is an understatement. He was the first to arrive for the final dress rehearsal and he had the worst shock of his life. Upstage left, a body was hanging from the end of a rope.

An overturned card table was beneath, evidently kicked aside. It was part of the set for the Manninghams’ first-floor living room. The Matchless Theatre production of Gaslight was due to open on Friday.

His heart thumping, Luther hurried from the control room down the centre aisle to the stage. He was overweight and unfit, but he got there as speedily as he could and hauled himself up. The suspended figure was motionless.

He knew who she was — Georgia, who was playing Bella Manningham, the lead role. She wasn’t in costume. She wore the white jeans, black top and boots he’d got used to seeing at rehearsals. But her copper-coloured hair was still drawn up and pinned in Victorian style, leaving no doubt who she was, even though her face was angled away from him, forced upwards by the tension on the rope, which made an inverted V-shape under her chin.

It seemed she had rigged up this gallows herself. The rope looked thick and solid, probably a hand-line normally suspended from the fly loft and tied out of sight on a pin-rail.

Luther’s first impulse was to cut her down and try resuscitation. People who hang themselves generally die from pressure on the arteries. But he’d need to get up to her head level — eight or nine feet above the stage — and he’d want a professional cutting tool for rope that thick. Most of the ropes used in rigging systems are steel-reinforced. A hand-rope may have been solid hemp, but it would be a devil to cut. Maybe the best plan was to find a set of steps from somewhere, climb up to the level of her head and try to loosen the noose. Even so, this couldn’t be a one-man task. He’d need someone else to take her weight while he worked on the knot.

He’d already taken out his phone when a voice hailed him. ‘Up bright and early as usual, Luther. Oh, Jesus!’ Stuart, who was playing the husband, Jack Manningham, had come from backstage and was standing in the wings, taking in the horror of the scene. ‘Is she...?’

Luther took hold of Georgia’s right hand to feel for a pulse. There wasn’t the faintest flicker. The hand was limp and cold. He shook his head. ‘Some hours ago, I think. She must have done it last night after we left. Looks like she moved the table here and kicked it away to leave herself hanging. God knows why. I had no idea she was suicidal.’

‘Nothing we can do for her, then?’

‘I think not. I was trying to work out how to get her down, but now I’ve changed my mind. We should leave things exactly as they are and call the police.’ He dialled 101 and jammed the phone to his ear.

The rest of the cast arrived soon after. Oscar, who was playing Rough, the ex-detective, shook his head and went silent. Sally, cast as Elizabeth, the Manninghams’ housekeeper, sank into a chair with her hand across her mouth. And Muna, with the part of the teenage maid, Nancy, turned very pale and outstared anyone whose eyes met hers. Wardrobe, makeup, lighting and stage management, four individuals who did other jobs in the production as well, hadn’t known Georgia so closely, but the spectacle on the stage horrified everyone.

When the police officer arrived, he treated the gruesome scene with calm, as if he was well used to actors hanging themselves onstage. He was PC Lilywhite, a uniformed constable with the air of a chief inspector. ‘Is anyone in charge here?’

‘Me, I suppose,’ Luther said. ‘I’m the director and I was the first to find her.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Her name is Georgia Flanagan and she had the leading role.’

‘She’s wearing a ring. Is that for the play?’

‘She’s married in real life to a guy called Anton, who has an IT business, a very successful one. You’ll need to inform him, I expect.’

‘Only if you’re certain it’s her.’

‘It can’t be anyone else.’

PC Lilywhite took the details and made a call to the police station. He told the actors a patrol car would be on its way to Anton Flanagan’s address and the officers would break the news to him and bring him to the theatre. ‘Any idea what time she did this?’

‘It must have been last night,’ Luther said, as an ugly possibility gnawed at his brain, ‘after I gave notes on yesterday’s rehearsal. I think she was the last to leave.’

‘But she didn’t leave, did she? She’s still here.’

Luther felt the blood rise in his cheeks.

‘What time did you leave?’

‘About ten-thirty. It was a long day. We had a tech rehearsal first and then a break for a meal and then the dress rehearsal. Then they got out of their costumes and sat in the audience seats for my notes.’

‘Was Mrs Flanagan distressed in any way?’

‘I didn’t notice she was.’

‘These notes you say you gave... can I see a copy?’

‘“Notes” is a theatrical term, officer. Sometimes they’re written down, sometimes not. It just means I mention points from the rehearsal that need extra work.’

‘In short, you don’t have a copy.’

‘Most of it was off the cuff.’

‘Could she have been upset by something you said?’

‘I can’t believe she was.’

Oscar, the member of the cast with enough years of acting behind him to challenge a statement like that, butted in. ‘That isn’t quite right, Luther. She ended up in tears.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Luther said. ‘You’re not blaming me for this.’

‘Each rehearsal call I attended, you told her she wasn’t getting it right.’ Oscar turned to the other cast members. ‘Isn’t that true?’

After a stunned silence, Sally said, ‘But she needed telling. She wasn’t much good.’

‘Doesn’t matter anymore what a rotten actor she was, does it?’

‘How did she get the main part, then?’ PC Lilywhite asked.

Embarrassment descended like the safety curtain.

The constable looked Luther up and down. ‘Casting couch?’

‘Nothing like that,’ Sally said.

‘If you want the truth of it,’ Luther said, ‘her husband Anton is our principal sponsor.’

‘He put up the money?’

‘Yes. And when Georgia wanted to audition for the part, I could hardly refuse. Sally would have done it better.’

‘I’m her understudy,’ Sally said. ‘I play the housekeeper.’

‘I see,’ PC Lilywhite said. ‘You’ll take over the leading role now.’

‘I haven’t given that a thought.’

‘You’d better, ma’am. The show must go on. Isn’t that the rule? And my show goes on as well. I must invite the police surgeon to take a look at her.’

After making his call, PC Lilywhite asked for a stepladder, saying he wanted to inspect the noose. One was fetched from the wings and he climbed up. ‘I’m thinking the average woman — no insult intended, ladies — doesn’t get much practice at tying knots.’ He put his hands on Georgia’s shoulders and rotated her for a better look. ‘Now this is remarkable, as good a noose knot as any of your stagehands could tie. Where did she learn that?’

A question nobody could answer.

He stepped higher and seated himself on top of the ladder, a position of authority. ‘Has anyone found a suicide note?’

‘We haven’t looked for one,’ Luther said.

‘It would help me if you made a search now. Why don’t you take a section each? There’s a lot of clutter here.’

‘It’s a Victorian living room,’ Sally said. ‘They loved their ornaments.’

The search got under way with PC Lilywhite directing the operation from the top of the ladder. ‘So there’s only one scene, is that right?’

‘Three acts, in point of fact,’ Luther said, ‘but they all take place on the same set.’

‘What’s the play?’

‘Gaslight. The one about the poor woman almost driven out of her mind when her husband plays on her fears, hiding things and claiming she must have hidden them and dimming the lights and telling her she must be going mad.’

‘Not nice. Not nice at all.’

‘But in the end, she comes out the winner.’

‘With the help of my character, Sergeant Rough, a police detective,’ Oscar chimed in from where he was looking for the suicide note.

‘One of us. That is nice. I like that.’

‘A retired cop, I’d better add,’ Oscar said, ‘but famous in his day. It’s a plum part for a mature actor.’

‘Obviously. Do you know anything at all about the real police?’

‘Quite a lot, in fact,’ Oscar said without hesitation. ‘Luther makes sure we prepare for our parts by researching them. Before we did the first read-through, I studied a book called Scotland Yard Casebook. I visited the Black Museum with a neighbour of mine who kindly got me in. He worked as a detective for twenty years.’

‘We all did our homework. It’s supposed to help,’ Sally said from upstage where she was opening drawers in the bureau. ‘I researched Victorian servant life and all the duties a housekeeper carried out.’

Muna, the youngest of the cast, said, ‘And I learned how to light the gaslights and lay a fire.’

‘And lay the master of the house,’ Oscar said.

‘Don’t be so coarse,’ Sally said.

‘It’s in the script, you know it is. The maid flirts outrageously with her boss.’ Oscar smiled at Muna. ‘You did some role-play with Stuart and I thought he rather enjoyed it, what we saw of it. What you got up to in private is anybody’s guess.’

Muna stared him out and said nothing.

Stuart tried to make light of the comment. ‘I’m sure the officer doesn’t want to hear about the finer points of method acting.’

‘Finer points!’ Oscar said, laughing. ‘I’ve heard it called a few things in my time. That’s a new one.’

‘I only want to know why this lady hanged herself,’ PC Lilywhite said. ‘How did she prepare for the part of this unfortunate wife? Was she unhappily married?’

‘Far from it,’ Luther said. ‘She has a very supportive husband.’

‘As she kept reminding us,’ Oscar said. ‘He’s our angel.’

PC Lilywhite blinked.

‘A bit of theatrical jargon,’ Luther explained. ‘An angel is an investor who backs a production.’

‘The money,’ Oscar said.

‘Right. I understand. Coming back to the question I asked, how did this happily married lady prepare for her part?’

‘She didn’t,’ Oscar said. ‘She was still bumping into the furniture.’

‘That’s so unkind,’ Muna said, seizing her chance to get back at Oscar.

‘But true.’

The search for the suicide note came to an unsuccessful end.

Luther was making a huge effort to remain coherent. Inside, he was mired in desperation. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said, officer, about the noose. She may not have needed to tie the knot herself. The previous production here was an Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None. I wasn’t involved in any way, but I came to see it. All the characters die and one of them, a woman called Vera, is hanged. Not literally, of course. This is theatre. The actress will have been wearing a body harness unseen by the audience, but the noose goes round her neck and is real. It’s the end of the play.’

‘I suppose it would be, with everyone dead,’ PC Lilywhite said.

‘But it fitted the title. That’s how the novel ended. When it was first adapted for the theatre, Agatha Christie wrote a happy ending which doesn’t work with a modern audience. Most productions since have used the book version with the hanging.’

‘So you think the noose was left over from the Agatha Christie play?’

‘Quite likely. Tied to the pin-rail with other ropes not being used.’

‘That would explain the knot.’ PC Lilywhite had a way of stating the obvious and making it sound like a brilliant deduction.

Luther couldn’t keep down the guilt that by now was piercing his soul. ‘I’d like to get something off my chest.’

‘What’s that?’ PC Lilywhite said from the top of the ladder.

‘When Oscar said I gave her a hard time, there may be some truth in it. Where possible, we try to bring realism to our acting, from personal experience, as Sally was saying, and I felt from the beginning that Georgia had nothing to draw on. She was happily married to a good man. Her character is supposed to be “haggard, wan, frightened, with rings under her eyes which tell of sleepless nights and worse” — I’m quoting Patrick Hamilton, the playwright, here — and she just wasn’t cutting it. Makeup can put the rings under the eyes, but she needed to find the despair in herself. When I gave her my note, I wanted a response. If I’m honest, I thought it would help her to know how it feels to be on the receiving end of some criticism.’

‘Gaslighting,’ Muna said.

‘Nothing so mean as that.’

‘You’re losing me,’ PC Lilywhite said.

‘It’s a buzzword these days,’ Stuart said.

‘It’s much more than that,’ Muna said, glaring at him. ‘It’s real and horrible. It happens in personal relationships, or at work, or in the theatre. Psychological manipulation. I despise it in any form.’

‘That goes for me, too,’ Sally said.

Muna told PC Lilywhite, ‘Our play was written in 1938, but the same emotional abuse goes on, when a person deliberately makes someone else, generally a woman, doubt herself. Her confidence goes and she becomes more dependent, more malleable. It’s cruel, insidious manipulation.’

‘Sick,’ Sally said in sisterly support.

‘Gaslighting,’ PC Lilywhite mouthed the word again. He seemed to enjoy speaking it.

Muna now turned her contempt on Luther. ‘Are you telling us your note was intended to help Georgia?’

‘Something drastic was needed,’ Sally said, suddenly switching to Luther’s defence. ‘She was way off beam in the rehearsal. She wasn’t lacking in confidence and she knew the words, but none of it was coming across as it should. She sounded more like Mary Poppins than Bella Manningham.’

‘So she had to be humiliated in front of us all and driven to suicide,’ Muna said. ‘That’s the ultimate in gaslighting. I’ve never liked method acting and I wish I’d said so before this.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Sally said. ‘It was nothing like so bad as that. I’d rather have a critical note from Luther than a bad press review that the whole world can read.’

PC Lilywhite asked whether anyone could remember the actual words Luther used to Georgia.

‘I can’t remember verbatim,’ Luther said. ‘The gist of it was that she should show more emotion when she spoke the lines. I remember saying she’d done well to remember them, because hers is the main part with some long speeches, but acting was more than a feat of memory. It was about becoming the character speaking the words. She hadn’t fully embraced the role.’

‘If that’s all that was said, it doesn’t sound like grounds for suicide,’ PC Lilywhite said.

‘You’re not an actor, so you wouldn’t know how she felt,’ Muna said. ‘Those words told her she was a failure. Her dream was over.’

The tension among the actors was threatening to ignite. PC Lilywhite checked his watch. ‘The police surgeon should be here any minute.’

‘Oh, my God.’

The voice from the auditorium caught everyone off guard. Instead of the police surgeon, it was a guy with thick black hair to his shoulders, about thirty, in a black leather jacket and white chinos, standing in the aisle with his hand clapped to his face.

‘Georgia’s husband, Anton,’ Oscar told PC Lilywhite in a lowered voice.

The policeman got down from the ladder.

Anton was striding towards the stage. ‘I didn’t believe it when they told me. Why have you left her like this? Can’t you cut her down?’

‘We’re waiting for the police surgeon, sir,’ PC Lilywhite said. ‘That’s the way things are done. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll come and speak to you?’

‘No need,’ Anton said. ‘I’m coming up.’

Under the stage lighting, the scene that was now enacted was either touching and tragic or overplayed and mawkish, depending on one’s point of view. Anton crossed the stage, wrapped his arms around the legs of his dead wife and pressed his face into her thighs. ‘Georgie, darling, how could you do this? What possessed you?’

Most of the cast looked away in embarrassment.

‘Better leave her alone, sir,’ PC Lilywhite said, putting a hand on Anton’s shoulder.

The grieving husband didn’t seem to have heard. Moaning loudly, he was pawing at her hips under the loose T-shirt.

‘You’re dragging on her,’ PC Lilywhite said. ‘I must ask you to stop.’

Persuasion didn’t work. In the end, the policeman took hold of the grieving husband’s arm and managed to detach him.

And now Anton’s despair turned to rage as he faced the actors. ‘You people are to blame for this. She wanted so much to make a success of her acting and you ganged up on her and destroyed her confidence. You knew she was inexperienced and you hounded her to death with your sarcasm and your spite.’

‘That isn’t true,’ Sally said. ‘We treated her kindly. She was a part of our team and we all wanted the play to be a success.’

‘She couldn’t sleep,’ Anton said. ‘Couldn’t eat properly. Couldn’t think straight. She was in turmoil and got no support from any of you. I was getting texts from her saying everyone wanted her to fail.’

Surprised looks were exchanged among the cast.

‘Why would we do that?’ Stuart asked.

‘You tell me,’ Anton said. ‘What was the hidden agenda — force her out of the play so that someone else could take over?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Sally said, flushing scarlet. ‘That was never our intention.’

‘The rest of you know each other well. You’ve done scores of plays. She’d had a couple of walk-on parts and now she was top of the bill. That was tough.’

‘She wanted the role,’ Oscar said.

‘You’re telling me she did. She learned the words perfectly. And she could have triumphed if she’d been treated right and given some support.’ He pointed an accusing finger, first at Luther and then each of the others. ‘You’d better examine your consciences, each of you. There’s sure to be an inquest and I intend to speak out and say where the blame lies.’

With that, Anton turned away and quit the stage, as dramatic an exit as any ever made in this theatre.

Georgia’s body was eventually seen by the doctor, cut down by two attendants he brought with him, removed from the stage and driven to the mortuary. The police left and the company did their best to regroup.

‘I feel dreadful,’ Sally said. ‘I’ve got the shakes. What do we do now?’

‘We go for a drink,’ Luther said.

In the pub, they tried to process what had happened and been said. Stuart made the reasonable point that Anton had been in shock and was looking for an outlet for his emotions. ‘We happened to be there, so he turned his anger on us.’

‘I didn’t notice her sending texts yesterday,’ Sally said. ‘She was on stage most of the time.’

‘Later she did when Luther was giving his notes,’ Muna said. ‘I was sitting next to her. She had her pink phone out and was texting right through.’

‘To Anton?’

‘I didn’t look. I’m not that sneaky.’

‘Let’s move on from all that,’ Luther said. ‘What are we going to do? I don’t suppose anyone feels any more like rehearsing this afternoon.’

‘But we’re due to open on Friday,’ Oscar said. ‘Do we cancel out of respect?’

‘The respectful thing is to carry on,’ Sally said.

‘Show of hands,’ Luther said. ‘All in favour of cancelling.’

No hands went up.

‘Like the policeman said, the show goes on,’ Oscar said. ‘But can you handle the part, Sally?’

‘I damned well should. I understudied it.’

‘I can find someone to play the housekeeper,’ Luther said. ‘What if we run the dress rehearsal tonight and take this afternoon off as a mark of respect and get our heads right?’

It was agreed that Sally and whoever played the housekeeper would bring their scripts on stage and otherwise it would be a full-scale rehearsal. Sally left for home straight away.

‘How are you feeling, Luther?’ Stuart asked. ‘That was a tough few moments when Anton turned his fire on you — well, on all of us.’

‘It bothers me, of course. I obviously came down harder on Georgia than I intended. I really felt after yesterday that she hadn’t got into the role. Nowhere near. I decided some strong words were needed and then she might get an inkling of what it means to be under criticism. In a month of Sundays I didn’t think what I said would drive her to hang herself.’

‘Don’t be hard on yourself,’ Stuart said. ‘All of us who were there agree she had to be told. There could be some other reason none of us knows about.’

‘Like what?’ Luther said.

‘Like her marriage was on the rocks.’

‘That’s absurd. We all know they were fine together. You only had to see the state Anton was in. He was devastated.’

‘He would be, wouldn’t he, if his wife hanged herself, even if they had been fighting.’

‘Personally,’ Oscar said, ‘I thought his reaction was overdone, almost as if he was play-acting, all that hugging of her legs and groaning. We could have been watching some third-rate melodrama.’

‘Weren’t you convinced by it?’ Luther said.

‘He’s no actor.’

Muna spoke. ‘Actually Anton has done some acting. Georgia told me. As a child, he was sent to a crappy stage school.’

‘Pushy parents?’

‘Yes, but he loved every minute of it and did some commercials and got into drama school.’

‘Really? A wannabe actor?’

‘Only he thought he knew it all already and was kicked out after a couple of months, so he did a crash course in IT and the rest is history.’

‘Can’t knock him for being filthy rich,’ Oscar said. ‘We all benefit. I hope he isn’t having second thoughts.’

‘We banked the cheque two weeks ago,’ Luther said.

‘Nice work.’

‘For God’s sake, this isn’t about money,’ Muna said. ‘Georgia killed herself and we’re responsible.’

‘You mean I’m responsible,’ Luther said.

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘If any of us needs to shoulder the blame, it’s me.’

‘Think about what Stuart said a moment ago, then,’ Oscar said. ‘What if their marriage wasn’t all we were led to believe? What if Anton was jealous she’d started acting and wanted her to fail big-time. He puts up the money for our production, making sure she gets the plum part and will screw up.’

‘That’s evil,’ Muna said. ‘Only a twisted mind could come up with something so horrible.’

Oscar didn’t rise to that. He seemed to have inside knowledge. ‘Jealousy can make anyone evil. We’ve only got Anton’s word that she was texting to say we all expected her to fail. He could have been gaslighting her himself, texting her to say she was no good and ought to face up and pull out.’

‘I don’t know where you get these vile ideas.’

‘I’ll tell you where, Muna. Some of you were too embarrassed to look when he tried to embrace her, carrying on like that with a dead body, but I wasn’t. I watched the entire performance and when the cop pulled him away I saw something the rest of you seem to have missed. Anton had a pink object in his hand — her phone. He must have removed it from her back pocket when he was fumbling under the T-shirt.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘You tell me. I’m thinking he plans to wipe the messages he sent her. He didn’t want that phone being taken away by the police and having his texts read out at the inquest.’

Everyone had gone quiet, digesting this.

‘Can you do that — delete everything?’ Luther said.

‘Right back to the factory settings. He’s an IT expert.’

Stuart said, ‘I heard that even if you think you’ve deleted everything, it isn’t really removed. It’s marked for deletion by the operating company, but it’s still in there somewhere. Anton would know that.’

Oscar shrugged. ‘So he destroys the phone, hammers it to bits and chucks it in the river.’

‘He’d have to do the same to his own phone,’ Luther said.

‘He will if he wants to shift the blame on to you.’

‘Why didn’t you speak out when you saw the phone in his hand?’

Oscar spread his hands. ‘You were there. You saw the state he was in. Would you have spoken out?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘If PC Lilywhite had been any use, he would have noticed and got suspicious,’ Oscar said.

‘He had no reason to be suspicious,’ Luther said. ‘Besides, he isn’t a detective. He was an ordinary bobby sent to deal with an incident.’

‘We should report this as soon as possible,’ Muna said. ‘Whatever texts were sent, they’re evidence and the phone must be handed to the coroner.’

‘Is it a crime to undermine someone’s confidence?’

‘In its extreme form it is. It’s called coercive and controlling behaviour.’

‘Leave it with me,’ Luther said. ‘I’ll see that it’s investigated.’

After the first night of Gaslight the reviews were generous enough to ensure full houses for the rest of the run. Nothing was written about the late changes in the casting. Sally was widely praised for her playing of Mrs Manningham, ‘a rich reading, with all the heart-rending bewilderment of the exploited and abused wife developing into self-awareness and confidence through the support of the ex-detective Rough, played robustly by Oscar Smith.’

Another drama was played out a week later when Luther called unexpectedly at the country estate where Anton Flanagan lived in a Lutyens mansion with a modern annexe at the back. As soon as he set eyes on the woman who opened the door, he suspected a secondary motivation for the gaslighting of poor Georgia. It was obvious that this was the new lady of the manor, dressed in a figure-hugging cream-coloured outfit. She looked Luther up and down, took stock of his wrinkled shirt and faded cords, and asked if he had an appointment.

‘No,’ he said, ‘but I think he’ll want to see me.’

‘Yeah?’ She made it sound like a rebuke.

‘Tell him it’s Luther, from the Matchless Theatre. Say I’ve found something of interest.’

She sighed and used her phone.

Then she gave an even heavier sigh. ‘He has a few minutes to spare. I’m supposed to show you to his office — as if I’m his receptionist.’

Teetering on high heels that made her movement laughable, she led him through the main house and into the annexe, much of which was open plan, with banks of computers manned by geeks with beards and ponytails.

Anton ran his empire from a large office upstairs adjacent to a board room, where Luther was told to wait. Pictures of cityscapes lined the walls. He recognised Sydney, Hong Kong and New York. He could hear Anton speaking on the phone next door.

He was kept waiting almost twenty minutes and there was no apology from Anton when he appeared. ‘This had better be quick. I’m expecting another call from the coast.’

The coast wasn’t Southend-on-Sea, Luther decided. ‘I’m doing you a favour,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you’re familiar with the law. I was told you trained as an actor.’

‘That’s immaterial,’ Anton said.

‘Immaterial to what? I haven’t started. I’m talking about what will emerge when the inquest is held. I don’t know if you still intend to blame me and my colleagues for Georgia’s suicide.’

‘I most certainly do,’ Anton said. ‘I was emotional at the time for obvious reasons, but I haven’t changed my opinion.’

‘Interesting,’ Luther said, ‘because I have a different take on it. I know Georgia was troubled by a series of texts she got while she was rehearsing. Anonymous texts. They really got into her head and affected her acting.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘Georgia did.’ Untrue, but justifiable, Luther had decided.

Anton reddened and frowned. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘She didn’t say anything to me, I admit, but you know how it is when women get together and share their secrets.’

‘She spoke to one of the others in the cast?’

‘It doesn’t matter who,’ Luther said.

‘You can’t prove this.’

‘Another of the cast saw you take Georgia’s phone from her pocket while you were hugging her.’

‘So?’ Anton said, less troubled, as if he’d expected this and had his answer ready. ‘She wouldn’t have wanted her private messages being read by the police. As her husband, I had a right to take it back.’

‘I thought you would say that,’ Luther said, ‘so I went to see them.’

‘The police?’

‘I told them there was a danger you would destroy the phone to hide vital evidence.’

‘I don’t buy this. I don’t buy it at all. They haven’t been to see me.’

‘So are you willing to hand it in?’

‘Too late.’ Anton produced a smile. ‘I carelessly dropped it and accidentally drove over it.’ The smile became a laugh. ‘Crushed it completely.’

‘That’s what the police said you would do if you had something to hide. Did you do the same with the phone you used to send the thirty-four messages she received from you on the day she died?’

The hilarity was over.

‘It turns out that Georgia knew how to deal with nuisance texting. As an IT man, you’ll know better than I do that all text messages have to go through a gateway at the carrier’s.’

‘True, but they don’t store them all. The sheer number of texts going through the system would defeat them.’

‘Your wife was smarter than you think. When the texts started, she called the carrier and asked them to put a trap on any further messages she got. They were able to tell her the messages were coming from you.’

He’d turned white. ‘How do you know this?’

‘The police did what they do in these cases, issued a subpoena and now they have transcripts of all the messages she received in the twenty-four hours before she hanged herself.’

Anton’s face was a mask, petrified by guilt. ‘Have you seen them?’

‘No, but the coroner will. And so will the court that deals with you.’