by Paul Burston
So, the show’s not over yet. I’m back in court again tomorrow, when I’ll be made to answer a few more questions and the judge will return her verdict. My lawyer has advised me to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I’m sure this is the same advice they give everyone – ‘managing expectations’, I believe it’s called. Personally, I think he’s being overcautious. I’ll be very surprised if I’m found guilty of anything, given the weakness of the case against me. It’ll be like the Twitter joke trial all over again. Another wrongful arrest. Another waste of police time and resources.
Will I see you in court tomorrow? I do hope so. It wouldn’t hurt you to take a little more interest in what happens to me, given that our fates are now so intertwined. You do realise that, don’t you? Whatever the outcome, whatever the judge decides, our names are now linked forever. Tom Hunter and Evie Stokes. Tom and Evie. I hope that makes you as happy as it makes me.
Yours, always
Evie
6
FOUR WEEKS EARLIER
‘How was it?’ Emma asked. ‘More to the point, how are you?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Grim.’
He’d come straight from the police station, where he’d spent the last hour and a half giving an impact statement to DI Sue Grant. It was the fourth time he’d been back to the station since giving his original statement seven months before. Familiarity hadn’t made him any fonder of the place. Thankfully, it was only a short walk from the station to Emma’s flat off Brixton Hill. It had taken him less than fifteen minutes and he’d barely broken a sweat.
‘You must be worn out,’ Emma said. She embraced him quickly, giving him a kiss on the cheek. He returned the gesture clumsily and with rather less enthusiasm. She pulled away. ‘Someone’s tense.’
‘Sorry. But I have wine.’ He handed her the bottle he’d bought at the off-licence. ‘It’s nothing special. The choice was pretty limited.’
‘It’s fine,’ she smiled, taking his jacket and hanging it on the coat rack behind the door. ‘A few glasses and who can tell the difference?’
Tom paused to inspect his face in the hallway mirror. ‘Christ, I look shattered! Remember that scene in The Hunger, where David Bowie ages a thousand years in a few minutes? That’s me now.’
Emma laughed. ‘Stop being so melodramatic. Come on.’ She led him through to the kitchen and poured him a glass of white from an open bottle she took from the fridge. Sancerre, Tom noticed.
He took the glass gratefully and knocked back a third of its contents in one slug. ‘Thanks. I needed that.’
‘At least it’s all over now,’ Emma said, watching him carefully.
‘Aside from the small matter of the trial.’
‘I meant, no more statements.’
‘Until the trial. Then I’ll have to go through it all again in court, while the defence try to trip me up.’
Emma smiled reassuringly. ‘You’ll be fine. You won’t be the one on trial, remember. And if there was ever any chance of her being acquitted, she destroyed it the night she turned up at your flat.’
Tom’s pulse quickened. The night Evie Stokes turned up outside his flat was less than a month ago. He still recalled the shock of seeing her – blatantly breaching her bail conditions, begging him to make it stop. He pushed the thought away. ‘What’s cooking?’
The table was already laid. Two large saucepans bubbled away on the hob, lids rattling, billowing steam.
‘Thai green chicken curry.’ Emma went over to inspect the pans. ‘I wish you’d let me come with you. It’s only just up the road.’
‘It was kind of you to offer,’ Tom replied, sneaking up behind her. ‘But there was really no need.’ He leaned over her shoulder and sniffed. ‘Smells good. Who knew you were such a domestic goddess?’
Emma nudged him aside. ‘Less of the domestic, if you don’t mind. It might work for Nigella, but to me it just sounds like drudgery.’
She removed her apron and smoothed down her dress, fingers gliding over the sleek green fabric, which accentuated her narrow waist and skimmed her hips.
‘New dress?’ Tom asked.
Emma laughed. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I may have worn it once or twice.’
‘Very nice,’ he nodded, approvingly. ‘And presumably very expensive?’
‘Let’s not spoil things.’ She tutted and turned her attention back to the stove.
Her flat had often struck Tom as rather small for a woman of Emma’s means – one bedroom, a stylish but somewhat cramped living room and what estate agents would refer to as a kitchen diner, as if they were describing a loft apartment in New York and not a garden flat in south London. Through the kitchen window, Tom could see that the evening sky was still bright blue. He fished in his trouser pocket for the packet of Marlboro Green he’d bought at the off-licence.
‘Okay if I pop out for a quick fag?’
She turned and frowned. ‘I can’t believe you’re smoking again.’
‘I know. Filthy habit.’
‘I don’t know how you can smoke and still go running.’
Tom grinned. ‘I don’t do both at the same time.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I do. But you’d be surprised at the number of guys I see leaving the gym and lighting up.’
‘I don’t care about them,’ Emma said. ‘I care about you.’
‘I know. But it calms my nerves and helps keep the weight off. Those pills are making me balloon.’
Emma cast her eyes over him. ‘Well it doesn’t show. When can you stop taking them?’
‘The doctor says I have to wait until after the trial.’
‘I hope you included that in your police statement.’
‘The pills? Of course.’
‘And the cigarettes?’
‘I may have mentioned them.’
‘Well I hope you did,’ Emma said. ‘You know what I think about smoking.’
‘It’s a form of self-harm,’ Tom replied, quoting her in a melodramatic voice.
She smiled. ‘Well, it is. I know drinking isn’t good for you, but at least it gives you pleasure. Smoking is just poison.’
‘Oscar Wilde said that smoking was the perfect pleasure.’
‘Didn’t he also say that each man kills the thing he loves?’
‘He did.’
‘Well that’s rubbish for a start. You’re a man. You’ve never killed anyone.’
‘Maybe I’ve never loved anyone.’
‘You love me, don’t you?’
‘After a fashion.’
‘There you go, then.’
‘Right,’ said Tom. ‘And on that note I think I’ll go and self-harm in the garden.’ He grinned guiltily and slipped outside.
The garden wasn’t much to speak of – just a bit of decking, some shrubs in pots and a string of fairy lights along the back wall. Emma had many talents but green-fingered she certainly wasn’t.
Tom had been spending a lot of time at Emma’s lately. He didn’t like to cook, and she was glad of the company. Like him, she lived alone. And like him, there hadn’t been another man in Emma’s life for quite some time. If asked, she’d have insisted that it didn’t really bother her. But Tom knew her better than that. Behind that tough exterior was a woman who wanted nothing more than to meet Mr Right and settle down. Sometimes Tom wondered if he was the one preventing her from doing just that. Then he’d remind himself that she was a grown woman who was perfectly capable of making her own decisions. If she chose to devote herself to him, who was he to argue?
Back inside, he watched as she plated up the food and brought it to the table, gesturing for him to sit down.
‘That cigarette didn’t calm you, then.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You look tense,’ Emma said, taking her seat.
‘I was just thinking about the trial. Her defence do have a few things on me. The time I told her to drop dead, for example. Or the time I joked about her mental health.’
Emm
a reached for the wine and topped up their glasses. ‘The woman was harassing you, Tom. What were you supposed to say – “Thanks for all the abuse but please stop bothering me”? I think you’re allowed to lose your temper once in a while. You’re only human. Nobody expects you to be a saint.’
‘And I’ve just sent my halo off to be polished especially.’ Tom smiled. ‘You’re probably right. It just feels as if I still have to prove myself in court, as if I’m the one who’ll be on trial.’
‘The police believe your story, don’t they?’
He frowned. ‘Why wouldn’t they? It’s not a story. It’s what happened.’
‘Don’t be so defensive! I’m just saying that they’re on your side. That goes a long way in court. And most judges aren’t as out of touch as people imagine. They know that even saints lose their rag from time to time.’
‘Indeed,’ Tom nodded sagely. ‘Look at Saint George. He slayed a dragon. Come to think of it, he probably had the right idea. There’s a dragon lady I wouldn’t mind slaying.’
Emma fiddled with the stem of her wine glass. Her face was deadly serious. ‘Promise me something, Tom.’
‘Anything.’
‘Promise me you won’t be like this in court.’
‘Like what?’
She looked hesitant. ‘It’s just that, well, you can come across as being quite arrogant at times.’
‘Arrogant?’
‘Pompous, then.’ She coloured slightly. ‘I don’t mean that in a bad way. I know you. I know what you’re really like. But not everyone does. I’d hate for you to damage your case by giving the wrong impression.’
Tom weighed up her words as he considered his response. ‘I won’t,’ he said finally. ‘I promise.’
‘Good,’ she smiled. ‘Now tuck in.’
He forked some curry into his mouth and declared it delicious.
She thanked him for the compliment.
‘So tell me,’ he said, playfully. ‘What am I really like?’
The first time Tom and Emma met, she’d told him he was vain and egotistical. ‘But if I dig a little deeper, I’m sure I’ll find some good qualities.’
She’d smiled when she said this, and he’d smiled back when he replied, ‘What if those are my good qualities?’
This exchange took place eight years before, at a mutual friend’s birthday dinner. To the casual observer, it might have looked as if they were sparring with one another, or possibly indulging in a strange kind of flirting. In fact, they were simply measuring each other up.
Tom had gone to the dinner out of duty, expecting it to be about as much fun as these things normally were. Finding himself seated next to a glamorous woman with shoulder-length expensively blonde hair and the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen, he made polite conversation and was pleasantly surprised to find that there was far more to her than mere physical attractiveness. Still, he was disarmed when she looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘I think we’re going to be friends for a long time, don’t you?’ In Tom’s experience, people only ever said things like that when they were drunk or high on something, and this woman didn’t appear to be either.
But as he soon discovered, Emma Norton wasn’t like most people. She was incredibly direct and never afraid to admit when she didn’t know something. ‘What does that mean?’ she’d ask whenever Tom used a word that was intended to impress rather than communicate. Like many writers, he had the habit of deploying words as weapons, enjoying the power they afforded him. Nor was she intimidated by the fact that, whenever he took her to book launches or publishers’ parties, she was often the least well-connected person in the room. It was a running joke between them that whenever some snooty PR or posh publisher’s assistant asked her what she did, she’d respond by saying she had a proper job. Not that she thought a career in the financial sector made her any better than anyone else, but it certainly didn’t make her any worse. And as she was well aware, a woman with her looks was never out of place and could get away with saying virtually anything – and often did. Coming from a world where everyone watched what they said and worried about how others perceived them, Tom found her physical confidence and lack of inhibition refreshing.
Theirs was one of those friendships that developed fairly quickly, based on mutual attraction and a shared sense of humour. In many ways they couldn’t be more different. The room they were currently sitting in was a case in point. It was tasteful but lived in, whereas Tom’s kitchen was all high-gloss units and gleaming marble work surfaces that had never seen a chopping board. Emma’s warmth was one of the qualities he valued most in her. She had a career and a social life, but she was also a homebody who loved entertaining. His own flat was more like a show home. Tom rarely had visitors, and when he did they were more likely to be escorted straight to the bedroom than offered a place at his table.
Of course Tom was self-aware enough to know that he and Emma served a need in one another. Both single, neither of them getting any younger, they’d reached a point in their lives when they were the nearest thing either of them had to a significant other. He knew, also, that there were times when he’d taken her friendship for granted – abandoning her in strange bars when some handsome stranger caught his eye. But she took it all in her stride.
‘We’re just like an old married couple,’ she was fond of saying. ‘We know each other’s darkest secrets and there’s no sex.’
There was often an air of embarrassment when she said this, and Tom was reminded of a drunken fumble two Christmases ago, when they somehow ended up in bed together but came to their senses before things went too far. But he’d learned to cover any awkwardness by simply smiling at her and replying, ‘Less of the old, if you don’t mind!’
Dessert was a home-baked blueberry cheesecake. It said a lot about Tom’s current state of mind that when Emma set the plate in front of him, he immediately pictured the cream cheese clogging up his arteries. Even the blueberry coulis seemed sinister, pooling around the edge of the plate in a sticky half-circle the colour and consistency of congealed blood.
The revulsion must have shown on his face.
‘That’s not quite the reaction I was hoping for,’ Emma said.
Tom blushed. ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’
‘You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to. I know you said you’ve put on weight, but it really doesn’t show.’
‘Sorry. This looks wonderful.’ With his dessert fork, Tom cut off a small piece of cheesecake, carefully avoiding the coulis, and popped it into his mouth. Feeling her eyes on him, he smiled and made suitably enthusiastic noises. ‘This is really good, Em. I’d ask for the recipe but we both know I’m about as much use in the kitchen as a nun at an orgy. Just as well I have you, eh?’
Emma coloured slightly and changed the subject. ‘So, how’s the new book coming along?’
‘Must we?’ Tom reached for the bottle and sloshed more wine into his empty glass. ‘You know I don’t like discussing a new book until I’ve broken the back of it.’
‘And are you any closer to breaking the back of it?’
He smiled enigmatically. ‘Possibly.’
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? At least the pills aren’t clouding your mind. When my mum was on them she’d be lost in a fog for months.’
At the mention of her mother, Emma’s voice faltered and her eyes glistened. ‘Sorry,’ she said, blinking back tears.
‘Don’t be,’ Tom replied. ‘I know how much you loved your mum. There are bound to be moments like this.’
Emma’s mother had battled with depression all her life, before finally ending it two years ago with an overdose washed down with half a bottle of vodka. It wasn’t the first time she’d attempted suicide, but it still came as a shock. It was Tom who supported Emma through the difficult months that followed. He helped with the funeral arrangements, listened as she struggled to make sense of her loss and held her as she cried. There was no father figure to help shoulder her grief. Emma’s dad l
eft when she was seven years old and moved in with his mistress and her teenage daughter. Emma hadn’t heard from him since. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this may have had some bearing on her trust issues where members of the opposite sex were concerned. Or that the loss of her mother may have contributed to what happened between Emma and Tom that Christmas.
‘Anyway,’ she continued brightly. ‘I’m pleased you’re still managing to write. Even with the antidepressants and everything you’re going through.’
‘You know me,’ Tom said. ‘Nothing gets in the way of the writing.’
‘And it’s okay for you to drink on them?’
‘In moderation, yes.’
‘I’d hardly call this moderation.’ Emma gave him a questioning look. ‘That’s your sixth glass.’
‘Who’s counting?’ Tom grinned. ‘Well, you are, obviously.’
‘Only because I care about you.’
‘That’s good to know. I care about you, too.’
He took a sip of wine and toyed with his cheesecake.
‘That was great, Em,’ he said finally, pushing the half-empty plate aside and reaching for his wine glass. Then, seeing the concerned look on her face, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I hate seeing you like this, Tom.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like this. The way you are now. Stressed. Smoking. Drinking heavily. I thought those pills were supposed to even you out.’
‘They do.’
‘Then why are you still so agitated? Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘I’m fine, really.’