In her office, she sat and took a deep breath. One dreadful step over. Many more to get through before the end of that day.
There was still no word from Nathan by the time the agency temp arrived on the dot of 8.45. He was someone who’d done a day in reception only a couple of weeks before when Roy had taken a day off for a friend’s wedding. Only a day, but it meant Keri was spared having to show the temp around.
‘It’s Luke, isn’t it?’ She remembered thinking when she saw him the previous time that the young man bore a resemblance to Tom Cruise. Short dark hair, charismatic smile, a little shorter than average. Now it was the kindness in his eyes she noticed. ‘The agency filled you in, I assume?’
‘Yes.’ He then shook his head. ‘I never met Roy but he left me a helpful note when I came a few weeks ago. Seemed to be a nice guy. A sad loss.’
‘Yes.’ She would no doubt hear that sentiment expressed a million times that day. ‘It’s going to be a difficult morning for us all.’ She looked along the desk and frowned. ‘You’ll need a computer. You can use Nathan’s for the moment.’
She unlocked his office, switched on the laptop, and waited for it to power up before entering his password. When Nathan arrived, he’d have to share her computer. She left the door unlocked. Surely, he’d be in soon. Not leave her struggling alone with this hideous morning.
‘Here you go.’ She put the laptop on the reception desk and plugged it in. ‘I have no doubt the phone will be hopping. Do the best you can. Any business calls you can put straight through to me until Nathan gets here, then share them as appropriate. Okay?’
Luke pulled a chair over, sat, and moved the phone closer. Making himself at home. In Roy’s kingdom. Keri took a step away. ‘I’ll leave you to it, shout if you have any problems.’
She sat behind her desk and pressed her fingers against her eyes. How could Nathan leave her to cope alone? The selfish bastard.
It was by sheer willpower that she managed to set her expression into a professional one before the first of the staff arrived, their shocked faces lingering on the reception desk. And each of them called into Keri with words of sympathy, sorrow, loss.
By mid-morning, she was exhausted. From their sadness, from her own, from the constant stream of phone calls. Some genuinely upset, some simply wanting the gory details. She handled them all with the same standard phrases of loss, how much they’d miss Roy, how much he meant to her, to the company, how shocking it had been. She didn’t tell callers it was a nightmare, that she was afraid she might know the killer, that everything seemed to be falling apart. That fear seemed to have taken up residence and she couldn’t shake it away.
Luke, thank goodness, seemed to be coping. A quick call to the agency reassured her that he could stay with them for as long as necessary. She’d have to advertise for the position eventually. It wouldn’t be an easy job. How could she replace the irreplaceable?
At least with Luke manning the desk, she could put that off for a while.
She was grateful when Chris Dolan knocked on her door at midday and offered to get her something for lunch.
‘I’m not hungry, Chris, but I’d kill for a coffee.’ The words were out before she considered what she was saying. She lifted a hand in defeat. ‘You know what I mean. Yes, please, a large cappuccino would be great.’
When he returned she accepted the disposable mug from him with thanks, grateful when he left her to have it in peace. She took her phone off the hook and sat back. Through the glass walls, she was able to watch Luke. She’d no idea what he was doing about lunch. Roy used to have it at the desk. Occasionally he’d grab one of the accountancy team to cover for him while he nipped out for coffee, always returning with one for her too.
Luke seemed sensible. No doubt he’d cope.
The way she was having to.
She wanted to put her head down and weep. Instead, she drank the coffee and came to a decision. As soon as her world returned to something resembling normal she was going to do a major redecoration. The first thing that was going to go was those damn glass walls.
By early afternoon, worry vied with annoyance at Nathan’s continued absence. She’d left voicemails, saying the same in each, Nathan can you ring me, I’m worried, and checked compulsively for replies, slamming the mobile down on the desk when there was nothing from him.
It might have been a good idea to ring the police station to enquire about the return of their computer, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Fear of what they might have found on it combined with worry that she’d reached the limit of what she could deal with alone.
Abbie and Daniel rang to ask how she was. ‘Just getting through the day,’ she said giving the same answer to each. ‘The agency sent someone for reception who was here before so that’s been a help.’ She didn’t mention their father’s continued absence knowing they would be worried and distressed that she was on her own.
A day that felt like a year finally ended. At five to five, she went out to reception to speak to Luke. ‘Would you be able to lock up and open again in the morning?’ She waved to the offices at the back. ‘Most of the staff are usually gone by five, there might be a couple who are late but we’ll pay you till five thirty to cover that, if that’s all right with you?’
‘Sounds fine, Mrs Metcalfe.’
‘Good, thank you.’ She handed over the two keys she’d removed from Roy’s key ring. ‘Here you go. You’ll need to put the alarm on too. The panel is to the right of the door, the code is 0078.’
‘That’ll be easy to remember.’
‘Yes, it was Roy’s idea.’ She slipped her arms into her jacket. ‘Right, I’ll see you in the morning.’ She moved towards the door, then turned again with a final word for him. ‘Thank you, by the way, you managed well today. It is much appreciated.’
The Uber she’d ordered was idling outside. She climbed in and sat back, shutting her eyes, grateful the day was over.
She got through it. She’d get through everything else.
But first she had to find Nathan.
29
The traffic on the journey home was horrendous and Keri regretted her decision to take a taxi rather than the train. But like most things, it was too late for regrets. She kept her eyes shut and longed for a few minutes’ sleep envying those people who could catnap. It didn’t work for her and she opened her eyes and gazed listlessly out the window.
It was almost an hour later before the taxi pulled up outside her home.
Beyond weary, she trudged up the steps to the front door and unlocked it. In the hallway, working on autopilot, she went to the alarm panel to key in the code. Only then did she realise it wasn’t on. She turned from it, the silence unnerving, then looked towards the door wondering if she should run outside. Her mobile was in her pocket, she took it out, flipped the cover open and held her thumb hovering over the emergency key.
It brought her enough reassurance to allow her to move further along the hallway. Maybe one of the children had come home. ‘Hello? Abbie? Daniel?’ When there was no answer, she tried a less assured, ‘Is there someone here?’
With every step forward, she stopped to listen and she was halfway to the kitchen before she heard someone’s voice. A low mumble. She tilted her head one way, then the other, trying to hear what was being said, or where it was coming from. Convinced it was from upstairs, she took a step backward, cocking her ear to listen for sound drifting down the stairway, then convinced she was wrong and it was from the kitchen, she retraced her slow steps in that direction.
The kitchen door was shut. Keri rested her hand against it and looked back down the hallway to the front door. She should have left it open for a quick getaway. Perhaps it would be wiser to leave and call the police. Instead, she rested her ear against the door, pressing it tightly when she heard the murmur again. Impossible to make out what was being said but there didn’t appear to be anything threatening about it… in fact, it sounded sad.
Her hand moved to the
door knob and slowly, quietly, she turned it and pushed the door open an inch, peering through the gap to see who was there. It wasn’t until the door was almost fully open that she saw who it was and her breath came out in a noisy gust. ‘Nathan! You idiot! You scared the bloody wits out of me!’
He was seated at the breakfast bar, his head resting forward on his arms. The sound, that sad rhythmic murmuring, was coming from him. But with his face buried in his arm, she still couldn’t make out what he was saying.
‘Nathan? Nate?’ When he didn’t respond she wondered if he was talking in his sleep. She put a hand on his shoulder and shook it slightly, then harder until finally he lifted his head to look at her.
Her gasp was automatic and came as a bolt of terror shot through her. This man with his blotchy face and defeated reddened eyes was barely recognisable as her handsome husband. ‘Nathan, for God’s sake, what’s wrong?’ When he didn’t answer, anger replaced the terror. She’d been abandoned that day, left to deal with all the ramifications of Roy’s death. ‘Where have you been? I needed you today, what the bloody hell happened to you?’
He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her waist, burying his face in her chest. She wanted to pull away, demand answers, but this was so unlike her usually rather devil-may-care husband, that the terror returned and ratcheted up a notch. It had to be something beyond serious to affect him in this way.
She couldn’t think of anything else to do, held captive as she was, but to murmur words of endearment and stroke his head as if he were a baby.
It was a long time before he pulled away. Snuffling, he wiped his nose and eyes with his arm leaving a snail-trail of snot and tears on his navy shirt.
Keri reached behind for a stool and sat. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ When he stayed silent, she reached for his hand. ‘We always used to talk about everything. It’ll make things easier. And whatever it is, whatever’s wrong, I can help you fix it.’
‘Oh yes, the great Ms Fix-it.’ Sarcasm laced his voice. ‘Not everything is fixable, Keri. You’re bloody superwoman, but even you would be beaten by this.’
Hurt by the words, she kept a grip on his hand and a tighter hold on the impatience that was threatening to explode. There didn’t seem to be any point in replying that he wouldn’t know till he told her.
After a few seconds of uneasy silence, he turned to look at her. ‘Do you remember the early days? The time when we took every job that was going, desperate as we were to make a go of the company?’
It wasn’t the time for a trip down memory lane but she kept a rein on her exasperation. ‘Of course.’
Nathan snuffled again and used his free hand to brush tears from his eyes. ‘Every damn job. Even ones we shouldn’t have taken.’
Keri remembered it all. Counting the pennies, the long hours, the exhaustion, the faith that they’d make it. And they had. But those days had been tough. She remembered that Nathan had grown progressively more depressed by the type of work they were accepting, the below-minimum-pay jobs on dodgy sites for even dodgier people. ‘We stopped as soon as we could, didn’t we? We came up with that new philosophy and only took work we believed in. It was a success, too, we never looked back.’
‘It was too late though.’ He jerked his hand away from hers and dropped his face into his cupped palms.
Too late? ‘If you don’t tell me, I can’t–’
He lifted his head at that. ‘Can’t? Can’t what? Fix it? Not everything is fixable. You’re not God, you know. Keri the almighty fixer.’
She reeled at the scathing anger in his voice and felt the sudden wash of tears at the unfairness of his words. He had always been happy to leave things to her… hadn’t he? He sounded resentful, had he always begrudged her ability to sort things out?
It was all so unfair on top of the horrendous day she’d had but there was no point in crying. Not yet. She got to her feet and walked across the kitchen to the sink, took a glass from the draining board and filled it with cold water. It gave her time to get back in control. Because like it or not, she knew whatever was wrong, it would fall to her to make right. It always did.
With the cold glass between her hands, she turned back to glare at him across the room. She loved him but would be the first to acknowledge he was a weak man. If there was an easy road, that’s the one he’d take.
‘You’d better tell me what’s going on.’
He lifted his face. ‘Nothing you can fix, not this time. You see, years ago, I killed someone.’
30
The glass slipped from Keri’s hands and hit the tiled floor with a loud crack, shards of glass flying across the surface, the water making rivers in the grouting between the tiles. In the silence that followed, she wondered if she could rewind the clock to the minute the taxi had taken her home, then she could have stayed inside and told the driver to take her somewhere else… anywhere where she didn’t have to face this nightmare. She stepped across the mess on the floor and using the breakfast bar for support, she reached the stool and climbed onto it.
‘Not what you expected to hear, eh?’
‘No.’ It was the only word she could find. She lifted a hand to wipe her eyes and held it there, pressing her fingers into the sockets as she gulped back the tears. Nathan reached over, pulled her hand away and held it in his, looking at her across the breakfast bar with such sorrow in his eyes. This man that she loved, a man she’d known forever. ‘You wouldn’t hurt a fly, Nate. I don’t understand.’
He kept her hand in his, rubbing it gently. ‘It was one of those jobs we did as a sub-contractor. For DS Construction. Remember them?’
Keri frowned, then nodded slowly as she remembered. ‘Run by Dexter Sylvester. A bit of a shady guy, we stopped doing business with them a long time ago.’
‘We weren’t so fussy in the early days.’ Nathan wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘They were doing renovation works on a manor house and needed a specialist stonemason to repair a Gothic window that had been damaged. It was the kind of thing we wanted to specialise in so I was delighted even though…’
‘Even though?’ Keri encouraged when the silence continued.
‘I’d heard the company had a poor safety record. They cut corners and took risks to maximise profit. I didn’t think it mattered, I knew I could keep myself safe.’
Keri couldn’t remember the job Nathan was talking about, there were so many small ones in the early days. But if it was for a company with a poor safety record, it had to have been before they’d developed their business philosophy about twenty-three years before.
‘The manor house was a 12th century sandstone construct,’ Nathan said. ‘A delivery lorry packed with scaffolding had reversed into the Gothic window and the poles had hit it dead centre, breaking the tracery and cracking one of the supporting columns. The driver, instead of leaving the lorry where it was and going for help, decided to pull away and the poles dragged some of the tracery with it.’
Keri had picked up enough knowledge over the years to know that the tracery he was referring to was the thin stone frame that supported the small panels of glass in the window. ‘I assume the lorry belonged to DS Construction. No wonder they wanted it fixed as quickly as possible.’
‘The driver shouldn’t have been there, he was taking a shortcut. The window was a mess with bits of the tracery everywhere. I needed to do a lot of sanding down to effect a repair. Because of the intricate design of the window, it was a fiddly job. I told them it was going to take time.’ Then softly, he repeated, ‘I told them.’ He pressed his lips together. When he was able to continue his voice was thick with tears. ‘The company wanted the job done in a hurry, I think they were afraid the owners would find out and sue. They sent a young apprentice to help me and speed up the job.’ He looked at her with tear-filled reddened eyes. ‘Sandstone, Keri.’
A chill swept over her. Sandstone was one of the more dangerous of the stones they worked with. It contained seventy per cent silica and the wear
ing of a proper respirator was essential. Otherwise, silica dust could enter the lungs and cause inflammation and scarring… silicosis… it was a hideous progressive disease. ‘I’m guessing the apprentice didn’t have a respirator.’
‘He didn’t have a mask of any kind. I should have refused to allow him to work but–’ Nathan shook his head slowly. ‘–they offered me a bonus if I got the job done quickly and having him help me made that doable. I thought since it was for such a short time, that he’d be okay.
‘But it was an incredibly difficult job requiring a lot of sanding down between mortar applications. Usually, I’d have used masonry clamps to hold the pieces of tracery in place but they were unusually fine and ornate which made using clamps awkward and slow.’ Nathan took another drink. ‘To speed up the process and get the bonus we desperately needed at the time, I asked the lad to hold each piece while I sanded. It didn’t take long before his face and hair were coated in white. I remember he laughed and brushed it off with his hand.’ Nathan gulped. ‘He thought it was funny, and all I could think about was the bonus I was going to get for having the work done quickly.’
Keri pictured the young man, white silica dust on his face, in his hair, in his lungs and racked her brain for all she had read about silicosis. As far as she could remember it could take up to thirty years after exposure to develop. Was that it? Perhaps the man had died recently and the family was looking for someone to blame. ‘DS Construction should be held accountable. They should have ensured he had the proper safety equipment. He wasn’t your employee, after all.’
The Couple in the Photograph Page 11