by C J Morrow
But now I remember.
Robin denied it. He snatched the letter from me and stuffed it into his inside jacket pocket. We were on the way to the funeral, not leaving. I sat through Mads’s funeral knowing about that letter, its contents burning in Robin’s suit pocket. That was why we left in such a hurry, Robin ushering me away before I could cause a scene. That was why he was driving.
And that’s what we were arguing about in the car. I remember. He screamed at me that he didn’t even know about Mads and Stephen until he read the letter himself. He claimed that he opened it in haste as he often opens the post in the car on the drive to work if it comes soon enough. That part, at least, is true. He said he didn’t notice it was addressed to me. Liar.
Why hadn’t he shown it to me? He said he thought Mads must have been mentally ill. He wanted to speak to Stephen first. Stephen had laughed in his face.
I remember Robin’s contorted, angry face, his white knuckles on the steering wheel as I grabbed the letter from him and read it aloud before stuffing it into its envelope and zipping it into the side pocket of my handbag. We were screaming and shouting at each other. I didn’t believe him, I yelled through my tears as Robin made a grab for my handbag.
We hit the kerb on one side, spinning across the road; we were going too fast.
The front door bangs closed; Stephen and Sally are back from the hospital. Stephen calls my name. I push the letter and envelope back into my jeans pocket, lie down on the bed, facing away from the door and wait.
A tentative knock.
‘Yeah,’ I call, my voice weak.
‘Etty, you okay?’
‘Yeah. Just got a bit of a headache.’
‘Okay. Only I thought we might go out for that walk soon.’
‘Yeah. Maybe later. I just need a rest now.’
‘Well, I’m just going to pop out and pick up Mum’s shopping. Is there anything I can get you?’
‘No. Thank you. I’ll be fine after a sleep.’
‘O-k-a-y.’
Stephen closes the door quietly behind him and I wait until he’s outside starting up his car before I ring for a taxi, my second of the day.
Twenty-One
I let myself into my house. This time I’m conscious of locking the door behind me; I try the handle to ensure I have locked it. I’ve brought Robin’s and Mads’s phones with me.
I use Robin’s printer/scanner/copier to make several copies of the letter. They’re colour and impressively like the original. I haven’t planned what I’m going to do with the copies but I want them for back up, just in case. In case of what, I don’t know. I look for somewhere to keep them safe, finally stuffing them into the bottom drawer of Robin’s desk, in among the gas and electric bills.
I fire up Robin’s computer and start hunting through his emails. He only appears to have one account; I go through the sent mail but can find nothing to Mads. He’s either deleted it or had another account somewhere.
On his phone? I flick through it. He must have deleted the email account, because there are none set up. His only account is on his computer.
I check Mads’s phone, she has only one email account on hers. I scroll back through her emails, it takes ages for them to load as it pulls up the old ones. I am at the point of giving up when it catches my eye. A gmail account with Robin’s full name.
That wasn’t very clever Robin.
The language is nasty, the message just as Mads described in her letter to me; a death threat if she continues to see Stephen.
My entire body aches with the horror of it all. Why did Robin even care? How did he find out? I had no idea.
My phone pings. It’s Stephen asking where I am? He’s worried about me, bless him. I’ll reply later.
I still don’t know if I believe Mads’s story about the two of them. Why would she lie? She was a teenager, she could have had an unrequited crush on Stephen. She could have imagined feelings in his actions. Did she kill herself when she realised he didn’t feel the same?
My phone rings. It’s Stephen. I let it ring out then listen to his message: he’s worried about me. Am I all right? Can I ring back as soon as I pick this up?
No, I can’t. I need to absorb everything in Mads’s letter, I need to get to the truth. I need to understand.
Were Stephen and Mads really having an affair? Could it be called that? Mads was only fifteen, yes, nearly sixteen, but still not legal. That would fit with what she says in her letter. Or, is it all a silly schoolgirl crush? A fantasy?
And what about Robin’s part in this? Threatening to kill them both – had I not read his email I would think this was Mads’s fantasy. But why would he bother? Why wouldn’t he just tell me? If any of it were true then just telling me, knowing that I would tell Mum and Dad, would end it. It would be a bigger punishment, especially for Stephen, than killing them.
Yet, Mads is dead. Apparent suicide. But I do not, and I will never, believe she killed herself.
I think about the horrible list of websites Robin had visited, among them the suicide drugs. Why would he do that?
A car pulls up on the drive.
Stephen.
I fumble with my phone. I’m nervous. I shouldn’t be, I remind myself; this is sweet, genuine, dependable Stephen.
He rings the bell. It works this time. I do not answer. I wait. I know the door is locked.
Then the door opens.
‘Etty,’ he calls out.
I don’t answer. I wait.
‘Etty,’ he calls again. From the sound of his voice he’s shouting up the stairs.
‘In here,’ I shout back.
The study door opens.
‘What you doing here? I thought we were going out. I’ve been ringing you and messaging you.’ He smiles at me. ‘You okay?’
‘Still got my headache.’ I offer a weak smile back.
‘Let’s go home. Get something to eat. Get some fresh air.’ He wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulls me in tight.
‘How did you get in?’
‘What?’
‘You rang the doorbell, I didn’t answer, yet you let yourself in.’
Stephen’s comforting arm drops from my shoulder.
‘You didn’t lock the door again.’ He laughs.
‘I did.’
He stiffens and I can tell that he doesn’t know what to say, how to reply.
‘Do you have a key?’ If he lies to me now all is lost.
‘Yes.’ He looks down, like a naughty, little boy.
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘It seemed a bit sneaky. But I thought I could help. You know. Maybe find that letter you’re all so desperate to see. Put all your minds, especially your parents’, at rest.’
I look him up and down; he’s the same old Stephen I’ve always known, and liked, and respected, and maybe been a little in love with. Always.
‘Yeah. I can see that.’ I smile at him. He looks reassured. ‘Where did you get it from?’
‘What?’ He’s frowning now.
‘The key? Your key to my house. Where did it come from?’ I remember the feel of his keys in my hand, the sharp edges of the new one.
I watch a blush travel up his face. ‘You don’t want to know.’ He shakes his head, shrugging off a bad memory.
‘I do.’
‘No.’ He shakes his head again.
‘Tell me. Tell me, now.’
He sighs and begins to pace; Robin’s study isn’t large enough for more than three steps in any direction.
‘Okay.’ He interlaces his hands in front of him. ‘When you had the accident, after I pulled you out and I went back for Robin, I turned the engine off. Obviously, I thought it might be safer. I just stuffed the keys in my pocket and pulled Robin out.’ He grimaces.
‘But I have Robin’s keys, the police gave them to Mum and Dad.’
‘Yeah, I gave them to the police.’
‘But not before you made a copy.’
‘Yeah.’ He looks down at hi
s feet. His naughty little boy act again. ‘I thought if I could find the letter, you know…’
I wait and I watch and I think.
‘But no one knew about the letter then. It was weeks before Mum and Dad became aware of it.’
‘Mads mentioned it.’ He looks sheepish now.
‘Really? Did she tell you what was in it?’
‘Something about Robin threatening to kill her. I told her he was probably bluffing. She said it would be posted by her friend if anything happened to her. At the time, I told her she was being silly. I wish I’d taken her seriously now, I might have saved her life. But I didn’t believe that Robin was stupid enough to put something like that in writing.’
‘Robin? What in writing?’
I watch Stephen’s eyes flicker back and forth. ‘He sent her some nasty emails, so she said. I wish I’d listened, I could have saved her.’ He rubs his face in his hands, pushing back his hair, so much thinner than Robin’s.
‘She says that in the letter.’
‘You found it?’
‘Yeah.’
He spins round looking for it. It’s on the desk. He snatches it up and starts to read. His head shakes rapidly as he scans the lines.
‘Oh my God. Oh my God. I …’ He stops and rereads the letter. ‘None of this is true, Etty.’
‘I remember Robin saying that too. In the car. That day.’
‘Well, there…’
‘It fits though, doesn’t it, with why you and she were so chummy last summer. Every time we were in the garden you popped out too.’
‘Yeah, to see you. It’s always been you. I’ve always wanted you, Etty. Not Mads.’
‘But you couldn’t have me, could you? So you had the next best thing, didn’t you? My baby sister. And you promised her the earth.’
‘No Etty, it’s just her fantasy. I don’t know why she’s said these things.’
‘I found an email from Robin, so that part is true. If it came from Robin, only I can’t find that account on his computer or his phone.’
‘Probably deleted it. Or used webmail.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. I expect the police will be able to find it even if it has been deleted.’
‘You’re not going to the police with this, are you? What’s the point? Mads is dead and so is Robin. He’s had his punishment.’ Stephen offers a grim smile.
‘If Robin did drug her to death, I want to know.’
‘Maybe it was accidental. Maybe he didn’t mean to do it.’
‘Why are you defending him?’
‘I’m not. Just, you know . . .’ he shrugs. ‘Thinking out loud. You don’t want to go to the police. It’ll be in the papers, raked over in public, everyone will know your business. Have you told anyone else? Have you told your parents?’
‘No. I wanted to understand what it all meant before I told anyone.’
‘Think about your parents. What will this do to them? Think about our unborn baby.’
‘Oh, I have been. And I remember that one, drunken night. One night. It was just days before Mads died. You took me to the pub. I’d had a blazing row with Robin over something stupid and you were there, a shoulder to cry on. We drank far too much. Or maybe it was just me who drank too much.’
Stephen shakes his head. His eyes moisten. ‘Don’t, Etty,’ he says. ‘Don’t.’
But I carry on, undeterred. ‘I remember the inept fumbling on the way home, the quick fuck in the back of the car when you’d driven round the back of Sainsbury’s car park, by the recycling bins, because it was darkest there. I remember it all now. Sleazy and tacky.’
‘It wasn’t like that. Not at all. You’re making our love sound cheap and nasty. Stop this insanity now.’ His face is turning puce.
‘I wasn’t leaving Robin, was I? I hadn’t seen him kissing anyone, had I? You planted that thought in my brain-damaged head. Didn’t you?’
It’s odd, because tears are rolling down my face and yet I am not sobbing or wailing. I should be, but I’m not.
‘Etty. What’s wrong with you? Where is this coming from?’ I see a little tremor in his hands.
‘When you thought you had me you didn’t need Mads anymore, did you? So you got rid of her. You. Not Robin.’
‘Rubbish. What about the email from him? What about those websites?’ He folds his arms in triumph; evidence presented. ‘This is all a messy misunderstanding, a mistake.’
‘Was it you who made those searches on Robin’s computer? You who visited those websites? You pretended you were inexperienced on computers, but you fixed Sally’s, you even fixed Mads’s laptop – were you laying trails even then? I bet you changed the password on Robin’s phone too. Didn’t you?’
‘Etty, this is insane. Can you hear yourself? You’ve been very ill. Head trauma. You’re paranoid.’
‘The letter. Parts of it are true. The part about you and Mads is true.’
Stephen is shaking his head. He looks at me with his soulful, doleful eyes.
‘Etty, please…’
‘No.’ I hold up my hand. ‘That letter. It sort of fits. It shouldn’t, but it does. I don’t want to believe it and yet . . .’
He glances around the room, he’s still holding the letter in his hand. ‘Then don’t. It’s all lies.’ He flaps it at me. ‘If this is the problem, let’s get rid of the problem.’ He pushes the letter into Robin’s paper shredder. We both watch it disappear. ‘Cross-cut,’ he says, satisfied. ‘So now there’s no going back. We can only go forward, you, me and our baby.’
‘That would be nice,’ I hear myself say, I sound so reasonable.
‘It will be.’
‘I made copies.’
‘Why?’
I shrug.
‘Where are they?’ His eyes sweep the desk before he drops down and starts opening the drawers and scrabbling around inside them. He finds the copies and feeds them into the shredder. ‘Any more?’
I shake my head. ‘No more copies.’
‘There, that’s done with. We can move on. Forget this nonsense.’ He gives me a shy smile. There he is, Stephen, my best friend.
‘Yeah. Maybe.’
‘I’m afraid Mads was living up to her name.’
‘Why did you have to say that? Even if it was true, why did you have to say it?’
‘I don’t know. Relief it’s all over, I suppose. You’ve found the letter, it’s nonsense and no more harm is done.’
‘It’s not though, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s not over. I’ve called the police.’
He blinks at me, several times.
‘Are you insane? They’ll think so.’
‘Did you threaten Chloe?’
‘What? Who?’
‘Mads’s best friend. You have threatened her, haven’t you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘When did you find out about the letter? When did Mads tell you about it? Or was it Chloe who told you?’
‘Urgh. That stupid bitch.’ He flings his arms out in a dismissive gesture. ‘I doubt the police will be able to piece that stupid, lying letter back together anyway. They’ll see you and know you’re not right in the head.’ He jabs a finger at his own head. It’s a gesture so reminiscent of childhood.
‘They won’t need to piece it together.’ I wonder if my voice sounds as hard and cold as I now feel.
‘You said there weren’t any more copies.’ He looks alarmed.
‘There aren’t. Not paper ones anyway. I emailed it to myself and to you.’
‘We can delete it.’ He folds his arms. ‘No harm done.’ He smiles and I see sweet, genuine Stephen shining through.
There’s no sound when the police cars pull up, just a flash of blue light filling Robin’s study.
‘I don’t believe you’ve done this,’ Stephen says, staring at me. ‘It’s not too late, you can say it’s all a big mistake.’
I shake my head. I’m sobbing now.
‘She was i
n our way. Don’t you see that? I did it for you. For us. What about our baby? Don’t you care?’ His voice comes out in one long babble now before he steps forward and hugs me tight. His mouth comes close to my ear and he whispers. ‘Robin was still alive, lived for ages. I watched him choke on his own blood. I watched a bubble of blood form and pop as he gasped his last. I didn’t turn him onto his side. I let him die. I didn’t ring the ambulance until he’d gone.’ He pulls back and smiles at me, shaking his head as four police officers burst in. ‘Etty, you’re insane.’ He turns to the police. ‘She’s been in a really bad accident, she’s brain damaged. Look at her.’
They do look. And they listen. And, after an hour we both go to the station to help them with their enquiries.
Later that day they search Sally’s house and they take away her laptop, the one Stephen has fixed.
Epilogue
I managed to give evidence at Stephen’s trial. I was nearly nine months pregnant with his child. He didn’t meet my gaze but, sometimes, I caught him staring at me; his look reproachful, resentful and confused. Even now, he still cannot understand why I put my sister and my husband before him.
Stephen was right about the newspapers. They all covered it. To the national dailies it was just another tawdry case, quite minor really; consigned to a side column on inside pages. Only our local evening paper gave it any prominence; dragging our names and his across the front page.
He was charged with perverting the course of justice. The police had hoped for assisting suicide but there wasn’t enough evidence. We wanted him tried for murder, or, at least, manslaughter – realistically there was never any chance of either. The CPS threw out the charge against him for sleeping with a minor; Mads’s letter wasn’t proof enough that it happened and even if it had, her age, her apparent willingness would be in Stephen’s favour.
Stephen denied everything; absolutely everything.
He thought he was clever. He thought he had covered his tracks. But the police digital forensics specialists provided the damning evidence: the planting of website addresses on Robin’s computer after his death; on Mads’s laptop during the time Stephen was fixing it, and, the creation of an email account in Robin’s name. Sally had gasped her horror when she realised it was on her laptop that the vile email had been sent to Mads; the laptop Stephen had fixed for her but used himself.