Apple Tree Yard

by Louise Doughty

  I know that you are not asleep any more. I say softly into your chest, ‘Know what I really want…?’

  ‘Mmm…?’ you murmur.

  ‘I want you to kill him,’ I say. ‘I want you to smash his face in.’

  You tighten your grip on me, without replying. I push myself in closer to you. After a while, your breathing becomes heavy again.

  Eventually, after some time, even though your breathing is still deep and I don’t want to wake you, I try, experimentally, to shift a little, to move my head down and slip your fingers from my hair. I tip my head back ever so slightly to look at your face as I move.

  You don’t even open your eyes. You frown slightly. The arm across my waist pulls me into you, tightens its grip, the hand in my hair moves its fingers, reasserts itself. ‘I don’t think so…’ you murmur.

  I smile to myself as we twine a little tighter. I am smiling at my folly, at yours. We both know that I could get up if I wanted to, that it is a game we play, this claiming you like to do, a game that flatters us both. For a few minutes more, we will pretend – I am yours and you mine, and neither of us has any choice in that, and if we have no choice then we have no responsibility either. If we are the victims of our desires, our overwhelming desires, then none of this is our fault, is it? No one will get hurt. We are free from shame, from guilt. We are innocent.

  Acknowledgements

  This book in its current form would not have been possible without the access I was allowed to a murder trial at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, during the summer of 2011. I am greatly indebted to Judge Stephen Kramer for giving me special permission to sit in the well of the court, to Lorna Heger of the Crown Prosecution Service for applying for that permission on my behalf and to Detective Sergeant Mark Whitham for introducing me to Lorna. I would also like to thank Detective Inspector Nick Mervin and all the officers on his Murder Investigation Team for the coffees and sandwiches and endless patience with my questions. Thanks are also due to Vincent Zdzitowiecki of Police Operations at the Palace of Westminster, to Dr Sarah Burge of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, to Dr Ruth Lovering of University College London, and to Glenn Harris of 33 Bedford Row Chambers. I hope all of the above will forgive the moments in this novel when I have bent factual details to my own purpose – or plain got things wrong. Thanks are also due, as ever, to my agent Antony Harwood and my editor Sarah Savitt.

  I am, yet again, deeply indebted to the Arts Council England for their support of this book.

  LD

  About The Author

  Louise Doughty is the author of six novels, most recently Whatever You Love, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has won awards for radio drama and short stories, along with publishing one work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year, based on her hugely popular newspaper column. She is a critic and cultural commentator for UK and international newspapers and broadcasts regularly for the BBC. She lives in London.

  By The Same Author

  fiction

  Whatever You Love

  Stone Cradle

  Fires in the Dark

  Honey-Dew

  Dance With Me

  Crazy Paving

  non-fiction

  A Novel in a Year

  First published in 2013

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London wc1b 3da

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  All rights reserved

  © Louise Doughty, 2013

  The right of Louise Doughty to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–27865–7

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  part one X and Y

  part two A, T, G and C

  part three DNA

  Acknowledgements