Ask Me No Questions

by Louisa de Lange

  Gabi remembered their childhood, but the bits and pieces seemed skewed now. She remembered them always together, the three of them. Sometimes she’d go round with other friends; she’d push Thea and Harry away, wanting her individuality. But they’d always be there when she returned, waiting for her.

  She flicked over another page and took in the photos. All of them older now. One of her mother sitting alone in the garden – she remembered Thea had taken that one – then a close-up of her mum and Harrison. She studied the photo. They looked like a couple: Harrison looking down into her mother’s eyes, their arms locked around each other. Gabi frowned. She remembered her devoted love for her mother, and then the shattering realisation that her idol was flawed. It was all here, captured in Polaroid so she could see for herself.

  She closed the book and stood up, placing the albums back in the boxes. But as she moved them, another book fell into view. She hadn’t noticed it before, wedged down the side of the box, and now falling flat. It was a basic notebook, bought from the local supermarket, with lined pages and two holes punched down the left-hand side of the spiral binding. It looked worn, as if someone had turned its pages a thousand times. It was thicker than it should have been, and scraps of newspaper stuck out of the sides. She rested it on the cupboard next to her and opened it up, then gasped, her hand over her mouth.

  Every page screamed murder. Every page declared infidelity and bloodshed and deception. Every page showed a photo of their parents. She turned them one by one, horrified but unable to look away. Her mother, looking young and beautiful. An old photo, taken long before it happened. Her father, old and haggard. And finally, Harry’s father, Harrison himself, being taken away in handcuffs, looking behind him to the house.

  House of horrors, a headline declared. After the murders Gabi hadn’t wanted to stay here, and that had been fine. By that point they were eighteen, all of them ready to leave the nest. But of course she was the only one to go. She’d run, and hadn’t been home in fifteen years.

  The newspaper articles continued, documenting Harrison’s trial, the guilty plea, the sentencing. The lover’s revenge, they screamed in black and white. Even now Gabi couldn’t look at a photo of Harrison’s face without seeing the kind, sad man she remembered visiting their house for so many years. Sometimes he’d come round and their mother wouldn’t be there, so he’d pause, then make supper for the girls and Harry. He would sit at the old wooden table, a mug of tea never far away, and listen to them all chatter and argue. Egg mayonnaise sandwiches with cress, Gabi remembered. She found it hard to reconcile that man with the cold-blooded killer the newspapers claimed he was.

  She heard a key in the lock, and quickly closed the notebook, pushing it under a pile of albums. She heard heavy footsteps and looked up, guiltily. The door to the studio was open and she saw Harry walk past, then stop and turn back as he noticed her.

  ‘I thought you had given up on this game,’ he said, his face dark.

  ‘I had, I have. I just wondered about something. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Thea wants some spare clothes. Pyjamas and stuff.’

  ‘She’s feeling better?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Harry bent down and picked up one of the albums, the one covering the notebook. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, flicking through the pages.

  She watched in silence, the album balanced on one hand, Harry skimming pages with the other. His forehead furrowed as he caught a glimpse of his father. He looked up at her.

  ‘Why were you looking at these?’ he asked, but before she could answer he saw the notebook. ‘What’s that?’

  When Gabi didn’t reply he picked it up and opened it, turning the pages. His face remained expressionless.

  ‘Is this yours?’

  ‘No,’ Gabi replied. ‘It must be Thea’s.’

  He paused, his eyes stopping at the photo of his father.

  ‘Do you visit him at all?’ Gabi asked, tentatively.

  Harry didn’t reply, taking so long that Gabi wondered if he had heard her. Then: ‘No.’ He hesitated again. ‘He wrote to me for a long time, one letter a week. I didn’t ever open them, then I started writing ‘Return to Sender’ and putting them back in the post box. He stopped after a while.’

  ‘You know he’s …’ Gabi started.

  ‘Dying. Yes. I know.’ Harry shook his head, his mouth clamped shut, his forehead bent to the floor. He stood very still, and Gabi could see the tension in his jaw.

  ‘He had an affair with your mother,’ Harry said quietly, closing the notebook decisively and dropping it to the ground. He looked at her, his blue eyes narrowed. ‘He destroyed this family long before the shooting. He did that without a thought to me, or you, or Thea. So no, I don’t think about him, the same as he didn’t think about what would happen to me.’ He kicked the book with the toe of his shoe. ‘I have all the family I need – same as I ever did. My dad’s dead to me. I am not going to go through this again.’

  With a waft of his coat, he strode out of the room. ‘Now come and help me tidy up this house,’ he shouted from the kitchen. ‘You’ve left it in a fucking mess.’

  Gabi stood up and brushed the dust from her jeans. She picked up the photo album and replaced it in the box, sealing the lid shut again. The notebook lay where Harry had dropped it, fallen open to the last page, the headline screaming out in black block capitals.

  GUN NEVER FOUND, it said.

  27

  The police were back at the house, and the woman was blunt from the get-go.

  ‘Gabriella Patterson?’ she asked, and Gabi nodded.

  ‘How do we know?’ the woman continued.

  ‘Well, since my sister is in the hospital, you’ll have to assume I’m telling the truth.’

  ‘Can we come in?’

  In line with Harry’s demands, Gabi had been tidying the house, hanging Thea’s shapeless black sweatshirts and torn jeans back in the wardrobe, throwing whatever seemed dirty in the washing machine. She had heard Harry downstairs, and the sound of an ancient hoover jumping into life.

  Gabi held the door open reluctantly, and the police officers pushed past her. In the kitchen the vacuum cleaner was now silent. She showed them into the living room, and the one she remembered from the interview, DS Munro, sat down on the sofa while the other one hovered next to the front door. Gabi perched opposite her, waiting.

  ‘Why did you lie, Gabriella?’

  Gabi forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry, but I needed some breathing space. You gave me an opportunity.’

  ‘You mislead us, you delay our investigation by nearly a week so you could have a holiday? You realise it’s an offence to waste police time? I could arrest you right now.’

  ‘Don’t you ever fancy a break, DS Munro? Wouldn’t you take the chance to hide from your own life, see how the world views you from the outside?’ Gabi met her gaze, determined not to be intimidated on her own turf. They had fucked up, these police officers, and they knew it. She would be damned if they were going to make out it was her fault.

  The detective shook her head, resigned. ‘So where were you the night Thea was attacked?’ she asked.

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘At home with your husband, or at your flat?’

  ‘At my flat.’

  ‘Did you know your sister was pretending to be you? Going to nightclubs, sleeping with your boyfriends?’

  ‘I assume you’re talking about Ryan Holmes.’ Gabi stopped, taking a moment to still herself, knowing the detective was desperate for a reaction. ‘He’s never been my boyfriend. And I didn’t know, no. Not until you knocked on the door.’ She was lying again, but she didn’t like the police sniffing around. Something about it made her sneaky.

  ‘And what do you think your husband feels about Mr Holmes?’

  ‘He doesn’t know anything about Ryan.’

  ‘He does, Gabriella,’ the detective said with a small smile. ‘And he thought Ryan was with you. Do you think it made him angry? Angry enough to try and ki
ll you?’

  ‘Mortimer’s not like that.’

  ‘No? Are you sure? You haven’t known him for long. We know he was in the area that night. We know he was following the person he thought was you. Men do strange things sometimes, Gabriella. When someone they love pushes them to the edge.’

  Gabi cleared her throat, tears threatening behind her eyes. The guilt of what she had put Mortimer through nagged at her; she felt shit enough without these blundering detectives reminding her. She shook her head, refusing to say any more.

  DS Munro paused. ‘Why are you still here, Gabi?’

  ‘I was just leaving. We were tidying up, ready for when Thea comes home.’

  ‘We?’ The detective stopped abruptly as Harry moved into the doorway from the kitchen. He dried his hands on a tea towel then put it over his shoulder, leaning against the doorframe. He was stooping slightly, a mocking smile on his lips. Gabi recognised the stance from their teenage years; his perfected façade of coolness and poise, designed to throw off the most confident of women.

  The detective cleared her throat and looked away quickly. ‘Do you mind if we look around?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Gabi said. ‘As you said, this isn’t my house – I’m not comfortable with you snooping. I think it’s time you left.’

  The detective nodded and, with one last glance towards Harry, went back into the hallway, her colleague opening the front door. Once outside, DS Munro turned and held out her hand, offering a small white business card.

  ‘My contact details, in case you ever want to talk,’ she said. Gabi took it, then watched them leave, closing the door behind them.

  ‘You should be pleased they didn’t arrest you,’ Harry said. He moved to the window and peered through, watching their grubby Skoda pull out of the driveway. ‘Try not to piss them off next time.’

  ‘I’m hoping there won’t be a next time,’ she replied.

  ‘You should know better than that by now, Gabriella.’ Harry pushed past, picking up his coat and opening the front door. He looked back at her. ‘With our history, there’s always a next time.’

  Gabi watched him go, climbing into his blue estate. She knew he was right. The police were never far away, especially now. Gabriella stared at the card in her hand, embossed with the logo of the Hampshire Constabulary. Despite herself, Gabriella was beginning to have a grudging respect for DS Munro. She was determined and perceptive; all the more reason to keep her at arm’s length, Gabi thought, ripping the card into four small pieces.

  She peered into the corridors of the house; it was getting dark and the dim light threw unfamiliar shadows across the walls. She was sick of being here. This game was over; she’d had enough. And there was someone else she needed to talk to.

  Gabriella walked out into the cold winter’s air, pulling the front door closed behind her. She didn’t look back; she wouldn’t. But at the same time as she stepped away from her childhood home, she stacked the four pieces of ripped white card into a pile. Then carefully pushed them into the back pocket of her jeans.

  28

  The taxi drove away. Gabriella slowly walked up the driveway. A black BMW was neatly parked on the left, perfectly parallel to the front door.

  None of the lights were on, but Gabi could see a dim glow at one of the front windows. She knew where he would be, and what he would be wearing. Her husband had a quiet life: minimal, both in activities and possessions. In their last argument she’d told him it was boring, but in truth she liked the predictability. She was tired of surprises.

  She let herself in as quietly as she could, closing the front door with a perfectly designed click behind her. She slipped her boots off, leaving them in the middle of the massive hallway, walking in her socked feet towards the kitchen.

  He looked up as she opened the door, his shoulders sagging when he saw her. He was sat at the kitchen table, laptop open and papers scattered around him, hair a mess and glasses perched on his nose. This and the fact he was dressed in his trademark black made him look like a wise crow. It made her smile.

  ‘Hi Mort,’ Gabi said.

  ‘So it is you,’ he replied. He reached up and took his glasses off, deliberately closing his laptop and laying the glasses on top. ‘You called me that, at the hospital. Only you call me Mort.’

  Gabi walked over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of white. With her back to him, she opened it and poured a fishbowl-sized glass. She took a sip.

  She turned round and he was watching her, waiting. He seemed calm, so fucking calm. She wanted him to shout, to scream at her, to make her feel something other than guilty. Especially when she had such a lot to feel guilty for.

  Gabi took a seat in front of him at the table.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  He paused. ‘For walking out the other week, for pushing me away? For pretending to be your sister? Or for kissing me on Tuesday night?’ He shook his head. ‘You made me think I’d cheated on you, Gabi. With your twin, of all people. How do you think that made me feel?’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Gabi took a deep breath. ‘For all of that. But mostly for the last few days. It was unforgivable, I’m sorry.’

  Mortimer sighed and put his hands flat on the lid of his computer. His wedding ring shone in the overhead light. ‘What do you want, Gabi?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He looked at her. ‘You walked out. You pretended to be someone else so you didn’t have to talk to me. Nobody knows who I am. You don’t seem to want to be married, period. But yet you’re here in my house, our house, today.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘So, what do you want?’

  Gabi sagged in her seat. What did she want? She had no idea, not really. But she was tired of being alone, tired of pushing back from the people who seemed to love her, to spend time in the company of people who didn’t. She was scared of what had happened with Thea. But she couldn’t say any of that. She felt hot, embarrassed tears on her cheeks, and covered her face with her hands, letting her shoulders rise and fall with her sobs. This wasn’t what she did; this weakness, this wasn’t her. But she couldn’t help it. The disguise fell, and he was there with her. She felt Mortimer’s arms round her and rested her head on his chest, feeling reassured by him pulling her in.

  After a while, he slowly pulled her to her feet, then cupped her face in his hands. With his thumbs he gently wiped the tears from her cheeks, then kissed her softly. She let him guide her upstairs to their bedroom, where he took off her jumper, her jeans. She undid his shirt, all the time feeling his eyes on her, his lips on her face, her neck, her body. He pulled her onto the bed and she lay back, relaxing for the first time in what seemed like months. It was time to let go, she told herself. It was time to stop running.

  The initial flash woke Gabi, and she lay in bed for a moment, waiting to see what would happen next. She could hear the rain pelting the window, the wind rushing round the walls.

  She saw it again, lighting up the room for an instant, and in an automatic reaction started counting. After five, the rumble came, a shockingly loud break through the silent night, starting quietly, then growing into a huge bang, shaking the whole house.

  She remembered at age eight or nine, lying in bed with Thea. They were both terrified of the storm, so they would play a game.

  ‘Ask me a question,’ Thea would say. ‘Then I have to tell you the answer as soon as the thunder strikes. And it has to be the truth, or the lightning will get you. Make it a hard one.’

  Gabi would think for a moment. ‘Who’s your favourite, Mum or Dad?’

  ‘Dad,’ Thea blurted out as the crack echoed round the house.

  A new flash: ‘My most annoying habit?’ Gabi giggled.

  ‘Biting your nails,’ Thea laughed as they heard the thunder. Then the storm didn’t seem as scary any more.

  Gabi got out of bed, leaving Mortimer, and pulled one of his jumpers over her head. She walked into the hallway and stood at the window, looking out into the soaking landscape, waiting for the n
ext bang. The lightning lit up the trees, followed instantly by thunder, enough to rattle the windows. She jumped, then laughed at her own skittishness.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it,’ came a voice behind her.

  She didn’t turn around. She took in his body heat as he stood against her, his arms round her middle.

  Another flash lit up the sky, the lightning bolt snaking to the ground in the near distance. The crack came seconds later.

  ‘It’s getting further away,’ she said, pulling the sleeves from the jumper over her chilly hands. Her legs and feet were bare, and she could feel the cold night air starting to seep under the jumper.

  Mortimer pulled her in tighter and she leaned into him.

  ‘I didn’t cheat on you, Mort. You know that, right? It wasn’t me.’

  ‘I realised that,’ he whispered into her hair. He rested his mouth against the back of her neck, and she could feel the gentle rise and fall of his breathing.

  ‘We could leave, you know,’ he said, his voice deep and quiet. ‘We can go anywhere you want, just say the word.’

  She didn’t turn around; she didn’t dare look at him and risk him seeing the uncertainty on her face. ‘But you have a life here, you have a home.’

  ‘It’s only a house,’ he replied. ‘They’re only things.’ He paused as another lightning bolt lit up the sky.

  She turned to face him, and put her nose against his. It was cold. She kissed him. Shadows from the window cast Mortimer’s face into odd angles. ‘Come to bed,’ he said, pulling her away from the window.

  She climbed under the duvet, leaving the jumper on and curling her knees into her chest. Mortimer lay next to her, on his front, his face turned towards her. In the darkness, she could only make out a few of his features: his eyes looking at her, his hair messy and falling over his face.