That Night

by Gillian McAllister

  Tom is wearing white trainers and dark skinny jeans. He gives his half-smile, his face almost childlike in the surrounds of his fur-lined hood. Maybe he’s nervous.

  Next door, she hears Joe’s television through an open window. She can almost always hear what he’s watching with Lydia. Sometimes she can hear Frannie too. She wonders if they notice how late she stays up working. If they judge her for it, working alone in the spare bedroom she converted to an office.

  Frannie bought the first cottage when she was pregnant with Paul. Their parents helped her. Later on, her neighbour talked about selling, moving closer to the centre of Birmingham, and Joe made her an offer. And then, when the next house came on the market, Frannie got the Rightmove alert and sent it to Cathy. They couldn’t believe their luck, the fortuitousness of it. They’d congregated at Frannie’s while Paul was in bed. They’d sat around her kitchen table and drunk Indian tea – Frannie was going through a phase of drinking only this, and insisting the same of everybody else, Cathy seems to remember – and laughed at how wild it was that they were all going to try to live together, all three of them in a neat little row. ‘Oh, we’ll be able to do our toenails, and you’ll be able to do bed and bath with Paul,’ Frannie had said, her eyes alight with something. She wanted Cathy near her. Not as much as she wanted Joe, but it was enough. She looks back now and wonders how much of Cathy was involved in that decision, and how much was her following her siblings’ lead.

  They live on a track road. It has no tarmac and no road markings. The hay the nearby farmers use to put the animals to bed at night scents the air, together with flowers, somewhere, wet roses, the kind of homemade perfume she, Frannie and Rosie used to make.

  ‘Where to?’ Tom says, falling into step beside her. She walks him quickly past Frannie’s and Joe’s windows. She’s not ready for them to meet him. Not while she’s feeling like this, wondering about their motives. Wondering about everything, really. If they’re too close. If it’s dysfunctional.

  ‘This way – there’s a public footpath,’ Cathy says. ‘It goes over some fields.’

  Tom’s shoulder very deliberately bumps against hers. No, not bumps, that’s the wrong word, Cathy thinks. Grazes, brushes. The softest of touches. There is something delicious about his proximity, as though somebody has just struck a match in the air between them. It hums and sings with heat.

  ‘So, wait, all your siblings live in these houses?’ Tom says.

  ‘Yep,’ she says lightly. Something in her is embarrassed by it, though she doesn’t know why. Is he a bit too interested in this set-up? What if Frannie was right about him?

  ‘Wow – that’s intense,’ he says. ‘You must really like each other.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Cathy says wryly.

  She appraises him, his calm facial expression. What would he even be doing, trying to get her to confess?

  ‘What have you done today?’ Cathy says, trying to ignore her racing brain.

  ‘Hmm, hard to say,’ Tom says. ‘Eaten four mint Aero yoghurts.’

  She laughs in surprise and he glances down at her. ‘No, really,’ he says.

  ‘Four?’

  ‘They come in four packs,’ he says, shrugging.

  ‘What else?’ Cathy says.

  The thing is, she thinks, as she looks at the off-white skies, it is all just too lovely. Even this, in the summer twilight. It is too lovely for her. She is frightened to enjoy it. She’s never told anybody that. She’s aware of it, but she can’t change it, can’t seem to.

  But here she is, trying, trying, trying again. And something feels different this time.

  ‘I did do four lessons,’ Tom says, Cathy thinks reluctantly. They turn down a bridleway, thick with overgrown grass, barely a single-person path through it.

  ‘You?’ he asks. He is completely oblivious to her awkwardness, she thinks, turning her head to look at him. ‘How many mint Aero yoghurts did you have today?’

  ‘None,’ she says. ‘Operated on a cat,’ she adds. ‘Thyroidectomy.’

  ‘Wow,’ he says. They go over the stile and into the fields. Something cracks just behind her. At first she thinks it’s something falling on to the road, but then Tom says, ‘Thunder.’ He pauses for a second, then adds, ‘That is so interesting that you know how to do that.’

  ‘Oh,’ Cathy says, laughing shyly. ‘No, really. It’s so normal.’

  ‘Do you know how to operate on a cow?’ There are cows in the distance, but Cathy is not sure that is what made Tom ask. He seems kind of random, which she loves; his questions get her talking.

  ‘I could have a go,’ Cathy says, laughing again.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ Tom says. ‘I’ll hold the head.’ He flops down on to the grass, sitting with his knees bent, his weight on his hands, just as he did at the baggage claim. She sits down next to him and looks at the sky above. Bluish-grey clouds are gathering. It’s going to rain again.

  ‘Where would you even start?’ He leans towards her. ‘Like – say, that one.’ He points to the largest one.

  ‘That’s a bull,’ she says.

  ‘How do you know?’ He laughs and looks sideways at her, and she thinks suddenly that he is goading her to say it. His smile spreads as he looks at her, that lopsided smile. ‘Horns, right?’ he says.

  ‘Not horns – they can both have horns.’ She leans towards him and points, making sure his eyeline is with hers. ‘No udder,’ she says, laughing.

  Tom tips his head back and laughs. He lies down properly then, his bald head in the grass, and closes his eyes. ‘So you’re operating on one of those cows,’ he says. ‘Are any of them cows?’

  ‘Four of them are.’

  ‘Right. Okay. Go,’ Tom says, his hand flapping up into the air and accidentally – Cathy thinks – touching hers. Her stomach swoops again. She can’t think about anything except his slim, tanned arms. His bare feet in his trainers. The way his t-shirt is riding up again as he replaces his hands behind his head, the archetypal image of a relaxed man. She shifts closer to him. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about what Frannie said. She doesn’t care how she thought she should be the one to hand herself in, about how she doesn’t have anything to lose.

  ‘You really want to know this?’ she asks.

  He opens his eyes. ‘Of course!’ he says. ‘For starters, I think you’re fucking hot. And as it goes I think this is pretty fucking interesting too. So that’s perfect,’ he says happily.

  Cathy is thankful he’s closed his eyes again, because she can’t look at him. Her cheeks feel like they do when she has a fever. I think you’re fucking hot. I think you’re fucking hot. Round and round it goes in Cathy’s mind, in Cathy’s stomach, in Cathy’s groin. What if she lay right down there next to him? Her eyes rove over him. That tight waist. That white t-shirt. She creeps towards him. Somehow, he knows, without his eyes being open, and he does the rest. One strong arm pulls her down, down, down, until her body is lying along the length of his, her head on his chest. That greenhouse smell all around her, finally, finally, finally.

  ‘So – first step,’ he says, and Cathy’s glad that he has cut through some of this tension with a surgeon’s skill, that he has guided the conversation back.

  ‘First step – the cow is nil by mouth,’ Cathy says. Tom rolls on to his side, looking at her, so she does the same, both propped up on their elbows. They could be in bed. Her eyes feel wide as dinner plates. What is she doing, lying in a damp field with a man she hardly knows? ‘Administer NSAIDs,’ she says, with a laugh. ‘You really want me to go on?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Okay, so next you cover it in chlorhexidine,’ Cathy says. Tom widens his eyes, and she says, ‘Like iodine. I mean – I think. I’m pretty rusty on farm animals.’

  ‘The cow needs this C-section, Cathy,’ he says. ‘Or the calves will die.’

  His hand drifts on to her hip. When she meets his brown eyes, he bites his lip and shifts his body on the grass.

  ‘Next is an L-lin
e block,’ she says. ‘A local anaesthetic. And fit the sterile drapes around it, so you have only the abdomen available.’

  ‘You’re so smart,’ he says. ‘It’s so cool.’ He looks into the distance, at the cows. ‘I hope they make it.’

  Cathy drops her gaze, unable to stop smiling. ‘You want more?’

  Tom tilts his head, looking at her.

  A fat drop of summer rain strikes him right in the crown of his head, and Cathy isn’t sure she’s ever wanted to cup the back of somebody’s head so badly as she does now. She shifts closer to him. Their torsos are pressed together. Cathy raises her head to look at him, and he isn’t ridiculing her, or backing away, or laughing. He’s just waiting, that half-smile quivering, eyes smiling. Just waiting for her. She leans towards him just as the rain really begins. Their lips meet, a soft, careful brush just at first. He opens his mouth immediately. It’s warm and then hot. His hand moves from her hip, coming around the small of her back to encircle her completely, pulling her towards him. Even though Cathy’s eyes are closed, she can tell there was just a flash of lightning, like a photographer’s bulb. Two seconds later, the thunder. They break off. Their faces are wet from the rain Cathy can’t feel. She looks into his eyes.

  ‘Well,’ Tom says after a beat.

  ‘It’s very rainy,’ Cathy says.

  ‘And we were talking about operating on cows.’ Tom raises an eyebrow. ‘Isn’t that kind of – a crime?’

  Cathy giggles into his chest. ‘Maybe depraved,’ she says.

  ‘Call the vet police. Call the cops,’ Tom says. He pulls her even closer to him. His chest is firm. Her hands find their way in, inside the warm parka, and underneath his t-shirt and – she lets out a breath – finally. To that skin. She glances up at him and says something she’s never once said, not ever: ‘Want to come to mine?’

  48.

  Now

  First Day of Trial R. v. Plant

  ‘By the woodland, yes,’ the barrister says. ‘And, as we understand it, he was put there immediately?’

  ‘Yes,’ I croak, in the witness box. Immediately, I think of exploring the countryside with Tom, and feel a pang.

  Joe is staring steadfastly ahead. I wish Frannie were here. She understands exchanging glances, she understands a loaded look in a way that Joe doesn’t.

  I am distracted momentarily by just how many participants there are in a trial. The judge, the solicitors and barristers, the jury, but the press too, the clerks who bring the Bible for the oath, the stenographer. They must all have their opinions of me, though they hide them well, beneath professional veneers.

  ‘And you did not actually own that woodland, did you, Ms Plant? It was not your land – is that correct?’

  ‘Yes. None of it is, now,’ I say. We sold the Verona house. We would never go back, of course we wouldn’t, even if we weren’t estranged. We sold it at a grotesque undervalue to an ex-pat couple who apparently went around it without saying a word and, at the last second, asked to see the spot in the woods, which they photographed, later selling the images to an Italian newspaper.

  ‘Yes, you sold the villa last year, didn’t you? And the profits went to –’

  ‘We divided them up.’ I can’t look at Joe as I say it.

  ‘Right. And so going back to the day after, say, after the body burial in July. Was there any indication that was where Will was? Or was he very well buried?’

  ‘I …’ I say.

  ‘Ms Plant,’ the barrister says, like I am being difficult. Jason reaches to touch my barrister on the shoulder, who rises to his feet immediately, like he’s mechanized, a slow jack-in-a-box. I didn’t realize how powerful Jason was until recently, when I googled him properly: the Midlands’ most successful criminal solicitor. No wonder Frannie chose him initially, even though she now can’t use him.

  ‘Your Honour,’ the barrister says, ‘the witness is being asked the most difficult questions, and I rather struggle to see where they are headed.’

  The judge looks wordlessly to the other barrister, who says, apologetically, ‘I am merely trying to ascertain how well hidden the body was.’

  ‘Then proceed,’ the judge says. The barrister turns his gaze back to me, expecting me to answer.

  ‘No, you couldn’t tell,’ I say softly. ‘You couldn’t tell at all.’

  ‘Thank you, Ms Plant. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ he says, so exasperated that he turns and pours a cup of water so he can get in a few more shakes of his head in the time he buys himself.

  ‘Your Honour,’ Jason says, getting to his feet. ‘While I am aware this is not convention – our witness is … she is in a difficult position with the –’

  ‘Mr Granger,’ the judge says, his tone surprised, ‘whatever betrayal or otherwise is going on in the Plant family, I am afraid it is imperative that your client must answer the questions given.’

  Jason sits back down and throws me a helpless look, an apologetic look. I try to smile at him, but the line of my mouth will be wobbly, I know it will, through barely contained tears and emotion; a child’s carelessly drawn smile.

  ‘No, no,’ I say, trying to be stoic in the witness box. ‘Please just carry on. Just get it over with. Ask them all.’

  49.

  Then

  Joe

  Evan is in Joe’s consultation room when Joe walks back in after surgery on Friday night to get his wallet and phone. Joe has nowhere to be. Lydia isn’t speaking to him. Carina hasn’t returned his latest call asking for an update on the woodland search. And now this.

  Evan is just standing there, doing nothing except waiting. He’s got changed out of his Vets 24 tunic and into jeans and a t-shirt, a jacket slung over his arm. He looks like he’s waiting for a bus.

  ‘Got the wrong room?’ Joe says to him.

  ‘Glad you’re still here,’ Evan says. He glances at Joe, an unreadable expression on his face.

  ‘Only just,’ Joe says tightly. ‘On my way out. Shall I just lock you in here for the night, or –’

  ‘I was thinking.’ Evan glances upwards, with all of the time and confidence of a man with the upper hand. He’s standing next to a poster about the appropriate weight for dogs, the royal-blue wall of Vets 24 behind him.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what you and Cathy told me.’

  ‘Right …’ Joe says, and he feels the words die on his lips, he really does.

  He can see exactly where this is going. He’s not an idiot. Just when they think it can’t get any worse, it does, like a disease progressing relentlessly through a body. He stares impassively back at Evan.

  Joe suddenly wonders if he could defend himself against Evan. Evan is shorter than him. Stockier, but it isn’t strength. Yeah, he could probably win a fight with him, he finds himself thinking, especially with the weight he’s put on. Jesus. Where is this coming from? ‘Look. What’s the situation here?’ he says to Evan.

  ‘I think this practice could benefit from some non-Plant input.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Right? New blood on the board.’

  ‘There’s no board,’ Joe says tightly. ‘It’s a partnership.’ He turns off the cat scales and screws the lid tight on the glass dog-treat jar, just for something to do.

  ‘Look,’ Evan says with a loud laugh, and all Joe is thinking is that he should have seen this coming. Evan is mercenary. Evan is an opportunist. Evan is broke. Joe winces as he thinks of it. How obvious it is.

  Evan is acting completely in character, only Joe was expecting him not to. Why? He has been so foolish.

  He turns away from Evan. It’s too painful to look at him right now. He concentrates on switching off his computer. Are you sure you want to quit? it says.

  ‘Well?’ Evan says.

  ‘You’re threatening me.’

  Evan laughs again. ‘I mean – Joe. I’d be mad not to use this, wouldn’t I?’ he says. He’s genuinely asking, Joe thinks, looking at him in astonishment. Would he use it? No, he would
n’t. He would try to fucking forget the knowledge he’d been given, if he were in Evan’s position, he thinks darkly.

  ‘I’ll let you think on it,’ Evan says. He reaches behind his back without turning around and opens Joe’s door, then walks across the dimly lit empty reception and out the front without looking back. ‘Am looking forward to quitting the second job that you never cared I had, though,’ he adds softly.

  ‘I did care,’ Joe shouts.

  He forces himself to stop. He’s got to breathe, to let his heartbeat slow. He had a panic attack last night in bed, thinking of Paul waking up one morning without his mother if they fuck this up, if he fucks this up.

  He feels like he’s going to explode some days. He stares out the front of the practice. The windows of the reception are steamed up, the relentless summer rain marking them on the outside like a thousand fingers tracing their way down the glass.

  He’s got to get out, get out into the rain and away from the oppressive anaesthetic smells, the dim lights. He wrenches open the door and gets in his car.

  He leans his head on the steering wheel, which feels cool and waxy. God, he wishes he could call Lydia.

  He dials Cathy’s number instead. Lydia won’t speak to him until she’s ready, he knows it. ‘I need to see you. Now.’

  ‘Now? Joe, I’m in bed.’

  Joe checks his watch. ‘It’s eight o’clock.’

  Cathy doesn’t dignify that response with an answer.

  ‘When can you see me?’ he says.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I need to speak to you.’

  He hears her say something, muffled beyond the reaches of his phone, and he frowns. ‘Is someone there?’

  ‘No,’ Cathy says. A beat. And then, her voice wet: ‘Joe.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t make me come.’

  ‘Evan is going to blackmail us.’

  The pause stretches so long Joe pulls the phone away from his ear to check the call hasn’t disconnected. And then, her voice imbued with something heavy, like a raincloud ready to burst, Cathy says: ‘I’ll come now.’