Tell Me Your Secret

by Dorothy Koomson

  But I’m doing it now, with Ned. And it’s fine. It’s truly fine. He doesn’t have Kobi’s nose, nor the shape of his chin. He is Ned Wellst and it is fine to look at him.

  ‘What’s this conversation really about, Ned?’ I ask.

  He doesn’t speak for long seconds and I can tell he’s assessing the best thing to say. Eventually he opens his mouth: ‘I want to know if there’s anything I can do to get you to forgive me for what I did to you. Anything I can say or do? Anything.’

  I stop looking at him now because what I have to say won’t be easy to hear. ‘Ned, the thing about seeking forgiveness from someone you’ve hurt is that you’re hurting them again by asking for something else from them. If you’re sorry, say you’re sorry, apologise, let them know you’ve realised the enormity of what you’ve done and won’t do it again, but leave it there. Don’t expect anything else from them. Don’t require them to say they forgive you so you can feel better. Or expect them to move on according to your timetable. Or to even give the whole thing any kind of headspace. Apologise and then leave it. Sit with how you feel about not being forgiven despite how sorry you are. Don’t make it worse.

  ‘Leave them to decide if they’ve forgiven you.’ I raise my head to seek out his gaze again. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  He nods.

  ‘Good. I’ll see you whenever.’ I turn to the stairs.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  I lower my raised leg again. And stare at the grey treads that lead out of here while I wait for him to say something else.

  ‘I am so very, very sorry. What I did to you was terrible. You didn’t deserve it. And I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

  I am not that person any longer. All those years ago, when I was in The Before, I would have longed to hear him say those words. I would have listened and then I would have thrown that apology back in his face. I would have reminded him that I was an adult now and I didn’t need him to say anything to know that I didn’t deserve what he did. That I had got there all on my own, by feeling the pain, by learning I didn’t deserve it, by realising there was nothing wrong with me and everything wrong with him and his acolytes.

  In The Before, I found a way to deal with being a bullied child, a tormented young adult; in The After I didn’t need to say anything to his apology. I didn’t even need to acknowledge it if I didn’t want to.

  I stare at him across the gap, and despite how sad he looks, how bereft he seems right now, I know that he has had a good life. My bully didn’t get his comeuppance, he didn’t fail in life and need me to step in and be the bigger person by rescuing him. I think things like that rarely happen. We hear those stories because they’re unusual. In reality, I think the bully goes on with their life and never really thinks about the carnage they left behind; in reality, I think the bullied goes on with their life, but is regularly reminded of what happened, sometimes being crushed by it, but ultimately getting on with life. I think, in reality, the bullied and the bully just get on with it.

  And I have just got on with it.

  ‘I’ll see you in a couple of days.’ I smile at him. ‘All right?’

  He nods, his eyes staring intently at me as he raises his beer bottle. I watch the pale gold liquid disappear into his mouth, his throat bulging and contracting as it slides down.

  ‘Do you want to stay?’ he asks. My leg is hovering over the bottom step again, and I have to lower it again.

  ‘What for?’ I say without looking at him.

  When he doesn’t reply, I rotate again to where he is standing.

  ‘What for?’ I repeat.

  ‘I don’t want to be alone,’ he confesses. ‘I want some company.’

  ‘That’s not why,’ I say. ‘Tell me the truth.’

  Ned moves nearer.

  ‘All right,’ he says after a swallow. ‘I want your company.’ His gaze does not waver from mine. ‘I have feelings for you.’ He shrugs. ‘I didn’t expect that to happen. But I’d like you to stick around for a bit. Well, for a lot longer than a bit. I really like you, Pieta, I’m drawn to you, and I’d love to spend some time getting to know you.’

  Jody

  Saturday, 22 June

  We’re out, out. Winston and I, we are out, out. Which is rare at this point of an investigation. This type of investigation usually consumes me, prevents me from doing anything other than work, but I am taking a time out, a step back to go on a date. Things almost always come to me better when I’m focusing on other things.

  A shortish walk away from the flat is an Italian restaurant called Buon Appetito with red, white and green signage that sits on one of the corners of Western Road, one of the main roads into Brighton from Hove. This whole area where the restaurant is has a villagey feel to it: there are streets with huge regency blocks of flats, there’s a lovely green area in the middle of a couple of busy roads, planted with flowers called the floral clock. I’d spotted this area and eatery the other day and had mentioned it to Winston as somewhere to try.

  It’s a small place with a large spiral staircase that winds downwards out of sight, and it has a nice atmosphere that you can feel the second you cross the threshold. There are several tables placed close together and the lighting is intimate. At the back, there is a small bar in front of a serving hatch. Above the bar hang rows of wine glasses, the shelves behind are lined with spirit bottles, the belly of the bar is filled with wine bottles. ‘Mambo Italiano’ is playing in the background, and there is a low thrum of chatter from the other couples in here. At the back is a large floor-to-ceiling picture of, I presume, the owners on their opening day. There are six people standing in front of the place, smiling at the camera.

  ‘Welcome, welcome, welcome,’ says one of the men in the picture coming towards us. ‘Table for two?’

  I’m about to say yes, when I spot Karin Logan. Detective Constable. Even from here I can see she’s shed the pinch-faced, dour demeanour that she shrugs on when she comes into the incident room every morning – she’s let her brown hair down and she’s put on lipstick and eyeliner, possibly blusher. I bet she’s got heels on, and a nice dress.

  ‘Yes, table for two,’ Winston says when I don’t reply to the man in front of us.

  ‘Come, come, this is our finest table,’ he says and leads us to the table next to Karin and her partner.

  I’m now going to be in one of those situations: do I ignore her or do I make fake nicey-nice? And it would be fake. She still doesn’t know that I know that she went crying to DCI Nugent about me after that first day. With real tears in her pretty eyes, she’d sobbed her way through her tale of how innocent her was being bullied by evil outsider me, who was giving her too much work. And couldn’t she just come back to proper CID? Couldn’t she just be allowed to do her normal job with a superior who respected her abilities and trusted her to find her own way? DCI Nugent had put her straight about a few things – including the fact he thought it was a marvellous idea to link up Disclosure and FLO duties. ‘I told her to go cry on the Chief Constable’s shoulder if she didn’t like my reply,’ he’d said to me. ‘You want to watch her, though,’ he’d added. ‘She’s as sly as they come.’

  And I had watched her: coming to work every day with a bad attitude that she flicked about as often as she flicked her ponytail.

  She clocks me and her face almost disintegrates under the sourness that takes over her features. That makes me smile, makes my eyes light up. ‘Oh, hi!’ I say.

  She forces her face to put together something approximating a smile – it looks painful. ‘Hi,’ she says, her voice a forest of icicles.

  That just pisses me off, makes me want to be extra nicey-nice just to piss her off. ‘Karin, this is Winston, my fiancé,’ I say.

  She looks over the man beside me as a police officer first of all – trying to see if she’s ever encountered him, arrested him, cautioned him – then as a woman who is interested in men – is he good-looking, would she make a pass if she was drunk enough, wou
ld he respond? After assessing from a woman’s perspective, she moistens her lips, sits up a little bit straighter. Yeah, Winston has that effect on women, especially the ones who don’t like me – they often fantasise about taking him off me in the ultimate act of revenge.

  ‘Winston, this is Karin, one of the, erm . . .’ I’m about to say DCs from work when I realise that she may not have told her companion what she does. (A lot of us keep that quiet for a while because love interests often react badly to finding out you’re a police officer.) Hell, she might be undercover on someone else’s case for all I know. Shit, she might have told him her name is something other than Karin. ‘One of the people I know from around Brighton.’

  Winston side-eyes me – hard. Then smiles. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘You too,’ says Karin. ‘Winston, Jody, this is Ross.’ The brown-haired man who has, until now, had his back to us, twists in his seat, smiles uncomfortably and then raises a hand in hello. I take it from the look on his face he has heard chapter and verse about evil old me. ‘Ross, this is the new person at work, and her other half.’

  We all ‘hi’ each other, then slip into an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ Ross asks. ‘It’s great.’

  ‘No, first time, actually,’ Winston replies.

  ‘Try the lamb shank, it’s amazing.’

  ‘Will do,’ says Winston and we all slip back into that silence.

  ‘You know each other?’ the friendly Italian man asks. ‘Shall I put your tables together?

  ‘No!’ Karin and I say at the same time.

  ‘Actually, can we sit over there? I feel a bit of a chilly breeze here,’ I add.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he replies and ushers us to the other side of the restaurant.

  ‘See you later, have a good meal,’ I throw in her direction.

  For the rest of the evening, I glance over at Karin and Ross – they seem to be having a good time, but it’s the kind of good time people post about on social media – designed to show those looking in that they are having so much SUPER FUN, even though the reality doesn’t really match up. I’m fascinated by Karin. She seems so bitter most of the time, no one really seems to be her good friend at work, but clearly Ross likes her. Is that what people think about me? I have no real friends at work and I’m regularly labelled an icicle, but Winston seems to like me. Oh God, I am Karin Logan. Detective Constable. We just look different and have different ranks. How awful is that? I shudder at the thought of it. I don’t want to be anything like her. And actually, I’m not. Because, you know what? When people look at me and Winston sitting in this restaurant, chatting and drinking and eating, they’ll know we actually are having a great time.

  Winston switches off the alarm by typing digits into the cream number panel beside the front door and then shuts it behind us. World out there, us in here.

  Before I can move away from the door, Winston presses me against the wall. ‘We could do this,’ he says. ‘We could become Brighton people.’ He leans his body against mine, moulding himself against me, fitting against me in the way his body does, the way it has done for the ten years we’ve been together.

  ‘Brighton people, us?’ I reply. I love the way Winston smells, it’s a sharp, lemony scent with undernotes of the sea.

  ‘I can sell this place and a couple of other properties. We can buy a big place near the front.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve thought a lot about this,’ I say, and slip my hands under his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders.

  He grabs my waist, pulls my hips towards him, his fingers caressing me there. ‘I’ve had a look at some properties,’ he says. ‘It’s what I do.’

  I unbutton the pearly white buttons on his shirt, tug it open, immediately place my hands on his chest. I love the feel of his warm skin under my palms, the soft, wiry map of his chest hair. ‘What would I do down here?’

  He lifts the skirt of my dress, hooks his fingers into the waistband of my knickers and tugs them down until they fall away. I step out of them and open my legs. ‘I’m sure the people down here would love to have you.’

  I undo his belt, unbutton his trousers, unzip him. I tug the trousers and tight, black underwear over his neat hips, then lick my hand before sliding it over the full length of his now free erection. He groans in response and uses his knee to firmly push my legs further apart. ‘But why would I want to leave London?’

  He stops for a second to get me to look at him in the dark of the corridor. In heels I’m nearly the same height as him and he doesn’t have to dip his head too far to stare into my eyes. His hands are on my thighs, and he pulls me forwards, pushes the tip of his hardness up against me, about to enter me, when he stops. ‘Why wouldn’t you want to leave London?’ His hands are suddenly on my biceps and he drags me towards him, spins me around and then shoves me against the wall, flattening my cheek and pinning my body. In the next instant he’s inside me. ‘Why wouldn’t you want to move here with me?’ he whispers in my ear as he plunges deep into me. ‘Why wouldn’t you want this all the time?’ I groan loudly, my knees weaken at his hard and fast thrusts. With a deep, throaty moan, he starts to pound into me, bringing us closer to the delicious, explosive end. Then his fingers are between my legs, seeking out my centre of pleasure, rolling it between his fingers in time with his thrusts until there is nothing else, nothing but the pleasure gushing through me, the ecstasy escaping into my veins, the orgasm screaming out of me. Then he is coming, too, filling me.

  Afterwards, Winston pulls me away from the wall, gently turns me to face him and kisses me on the mouth, long and slow. We hadn’t kissed before sex and he likes to do that. He likes kissing, he loves cuddling, he favours sessions where we indulge in each other’s bodies. He also loves me. And because he loves me, he knows that the sex I prefer is quick and meaningful; maximum pleasure in minimum time. It’s the type of sex that gives me no time to think about anything, least of all the brutal things people do to each other.

  ‘Do you really want to move to Brighton?’ I call to him as I head towards the bedroom to change into my pyjamas.

  ‘I’m thinking about it,’ he replies. He pauses to switch on the coffee grinder. By the time he’s finished grinding the beans and is filling the coffee pot to go on the stove, I’m in my pyjamas, having had a quick shower, and carrying my laptop. Something occurred to me during dinner: maybe the person has access to anaesthetic drugs because they’re a pharmaceutical rep? They would have to register their supply of drugs because they have to give them out as samples. It’d be very easy to keep a little back from each client.

  ‘Why?’ I ask Winston. ‘I suppose I mean, why now? You’ve had this flat for years but you’ve never once expressed an interest in living here.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s being here for a little bit. It’s got a good vibe. We could get married. We could afford a huge house if I got rid of a couple of properties. We could talk about . . .’ He stops talking to busy himself with taking his silver coffee pot off the stove and pouring it into a cup.

  Adoption. We could talk about adoption. We haven’t properly discussed it, we’ve sort of danced around it as the years stretch behind us and in front of us without me getting pregnant. We’ve both had every test available, I’ve had surgery to ‘fix’ the fibroids and polycystic ovaries and technically after the operations it should be possible. We’ve tried three rounds of IVF and technically it should have happened. But it hasn’t.

  Adoption is there. Adoption has always been there. We’ve just never really discussed it.

  ‘Would they even take us at our age?’ I say.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And would they consider it with my job?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jodes, I haven’t gone that far into it. We can just talk about it. Like we can talk about moving here. Or we can not.’

  ‘Hey, hey, why are you getting snappy with me?’

  ‘Because, Jody, sometimes you don’t seem to understand that we get
one life. We get one life and we have to make the most of it. We have to try things, we have to take chances and accept what happens if we fail. We don’t always need to throw “yes, but” roadblocks in the way of something.’

  ‘I wasn’t—’

  ‘You were. You spend all your time hunting things out, investigating stuff, and you mean to tell me you couldn’t find out the age limit and occupational limits on adoption if you wanted to?’

  He has a point.

  ‘Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, if you don’t want to do it, no problem. But just be honest with me so I know what the future might possibly look like.’

  I get up from my chair and go to him. Slip my arms around his solid torso, gaze up into his big, soppy brown eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I do do that. I look for problems before we’ve even outlined what the plan might possibly be. I’m sorry. We can talk about adoption. We can absolutely talk about adoption. And moving and getting married. We can talk about all of that. I just need to get this case out of the way first. All right? Once this is done, we will absolutely talk about all of that. All right?’

  My fiancé nods slowly.

  ‘All right?’ I repeat.

  ‘All right,’ he replies.

  Even though he’s still a bit narked with me, he lets me kiss him. And pretty soon he’s kissing me back.

  After this case, of course, I’ll have a better idea of whether I’ll be on trial for murder or not.

  Pieta

  Sunday, 26 April, 2009

  ‘Open your eyes, Pieta.’ His voice was softer than normal, gentler. ‘It’s only a few hours now until you can go back to your life, so open your eyes.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  I flinched as he lowered his face until it was touching mine. His skin was warm but clammy against my cheek. Revulsion tremored in my veins like it did every time he came near me.

  ‘Pieta, open your eyes and I won’t kill you,’ he coaxed.