Ask Me No Questions

by Louisa de Lange

  He leaned down, took the paper and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said.

  ‘What about Thea?’

  ‘I’ll come by and check on her later.’

  Gabi followed him through the house, making no argument. She had no wish to stay. She pulled the door shut behind them and watched Harry leave. Gabi looked down at the new ring on her finger, picked up from her drawer that morning, discarded in anger weeks before. It felt odd and uncomfortable but the right thing to do – a symbol of her commitment to Mortimer.

  She knew she had no right to these feelings towards Harry. She should feel happy for him, that he had someone to care for him in the way she couldn’t. But it didn’t stop the slow burn of envy. The regret, the part inside of her that wanted to scream, he’s mine, leave him be.

  Thea was right, she couldn’t keep them all. But it didn’t stop her wanting to.

  Sunday

  34

  Kate wiped the steam away from the mirror. Her face was slightly pink from the shower, her eyes bloodshot. She looked as awful as she felt; her mind full of feathers, her stomach queasy. ‘What are you doing today?’ Kate shouted from the bathroom.

  ‘I’m busy,’ she heard Harry call back.

  ‘What with? Can I come too?’ She hated herself for asking, for being so embarrassingly needy, but she couldn’t hold back. She was enjoying it too much; another night spent wrapped round Harry, immersed in cigarette smoke and an inebriated haze.

  Her head hurt, and she opened the bathroom cabinet. She pulled out a packet of aspirin, and in doing so another bottle of pills fell into the sink. She swore under her breath and picked them up.

  The bottle was half-empty, and she looked at the label. Paroxetine, it said, take one pill once a day.

  ‘You don’t want to come,’ she heard Harry shout, and she hastily put the pill bottle away.

  Kate took the aspirin, bending her head down for water from the tap, then went back into the bedroom, where Harry was in bed, sitting up on the pillows. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  He reached for the packet of cigarettes on the bedside table and shook out the last one. ‘I’m going to visit my mother,’ he mumbled as he lit it.

  ‘Your mother?’ Kate asked. ‘I thought she was dead,’ she added, gently.

  Harry took a deep drag from the cigarette. He blew out a plume of smoke, then offered it to Kate.

  ‘She is,’ he said.

  Kate looked up at the massive iron gates, the high stone wall. Measures she was more used to seeing to keep people in rendered unnecessary here. She looked at Harry – his face was blank. She took his hand but he didn’t respond, his fingers staying limp as they walked through the gates to the graveyard.

  It was another depressing winter’s day, drizzle gently falling around them, settling on her coat, in her hair. It crept under her sleeves and down her collar and she shivered. She was starting to regret coming along; she could have been tucked up in bed with a newspaper and cup of tea, but no. Despite the damage this could do to her career, despite the fact he hadn’t said a word since they’d arrived at the car park – here she was.

  For Kate, this was no more than the latest in a long line of bad ideas. She was starting to get used to the constant sinking feeling; it was at least congruent with the way her face looked when she saw herself in the mirror: grey, tired, beaten.

  They came to the end of one of the rows and stopped, Harry turning to face the grave, his mouth serious. He hadn’t brought flowers. He hadn’t made an effort for the occasion, wearing jeans and trainers, his coat layered over the top.

  It was a simple stone, nothing elaborate about the carvings. No angels, no cross, no wiggly borders or embellishments. Ellen Marie Becker, it said. 1960–1997. Wife and Mother.

  ‘How often do you come here?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Last Sunday of the month,’ Harry said, still staring at the grave. ‘My dad used to do the same.’ He bent down and touched the words on the stone. ‘Ironic, really.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That being a wife and mother is what she’ll be remembered for. When she wasn’t good at being either.’

  This was a side of Harry Kate hadn’t seen before. Normally he exuded an air of overconfidence: he stood straight; he didn’t seem to care what the world thought of him. But today he seemed unsure. Softer somehow.

  He stayed crouched next to the grave, his hand resting on the stone. Kate wasn’t sure what to do. Despite what they’d been up to in bed, she’d still only known him for less than a week. She hesitated, not sure whether to give him space, or wrap her arms round him. If it were her, what would she want? She didn’t know, but then her parents were alive and well in Devon, rather than locked away in prison and buried in the ground. Her own experience didn’t equate.

  ‘Can you give me a moment alone, please,’ he said without looking up, his voice hoarse, answering the silent question for her.

  Kate turned quickly and headed for the gate. When she reached the stone archway, she looked back. Harry was knelt next to the grave, his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking.

  Kate waited by the car, pulling her coat tighter round her as the drizzle evolved into full-blown rain. Her head was thumping; she was desperate for something to eat, her hands shaking from the onslaught of wine from last night. Just as she was considering looking for proper shelter, she saw Harry coming towards her, his head bowed, the collar on his coat pulled up. He didn’t apologise as he opened the car and they both climbed in.

  They drove in silence, taking a different turn towards the centre of town, Harry’s eyes firmly fixed on the road, his face stern.

  He parked the car and walked resolutely away, not waiting for Kate to catch up. She scurried after him, coming to stop at the door to a pub. Unlike the bar where they had first met, this place was old-fashioned. There were no sleek chrome lines here; just worn-out velour sofas, a roaring log fire and tattered old tables. Harry walked straight to the bar, where the bartender nodded at him and reached for a bottle of whisky, pouring Harry a generous shot. He’d obviously been here before. The barman looked at Kate and she held up her fingers.

  ‘Two,’ she said, and he poured her the same.

  Harry downed his whisky as a pint of beer appeared in front of him. Kate took her cue and tossed hers back, then asked for a large glass of white. She didn’t care what she got any more. House would do the trick.

  They took their drinks and sat down at a table on the other side of the room.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Kate finally said, gently. He glanced up quickly, as if remembering she was there. He shrugged, and rubbed the side of his nose with his finger, screwing up his face.

  ‘Sorry, you shouldn’t have come today. I’m never great company.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Kate wanted to give him a hug, anything to take away the look of misery on his face, but she sensed it wouldn’t be welcome. She put a hand on his arm instead. ‘What happened to your mum?’

  He didn’t reply at first, picking at the frayed edge of the bandage on his hand. ‘She was ill as long as I can remember,’ he said eventually, taking a large gulp from his pint, then placing it back on the table, staring at it intently. ‘When I was little, she was always different to the other mums. She was sad most of the time and didn’t come out of her bedroom, and sometimes when she talked, she didn’t make sense. She’d just say random patterns of words, like word association games. If she was coherent, she wouldn’t be able to get to the end of the sentence, just stop halfway through. She said they were sucking the thoughts out of her mind.’

  ‘They?’ Kate asked. ‘Who were “they”?’

  Harry didn’t look at her, hunched over the table and moving his pint glass around in front of him. ‘She said she was a puppet, that the machines were controlling her. That was her delusion.’ He shook his head. ‘As a little kid I didn’t understand. She always looked confused and sad. I thought it was because of me.’ He laughed, a short sharp nois
e. ‘Eventually it got so bad that she tried to kill herself, and Dad had to hospitalise her.’ Harry glanced at Kate for the first time. ‘She got out, she seemed happier, but then …’ His voice tapered off and Harry took another swig, pulling the pint closer to him. Kate took a sip of her wine.

  ‘I found her.’ He shrugged to himself, the sides of his mouth turned down. ‘She’d obviously realised slitting your wrists didn’t do the job, so she …’ He paused. ‘I found her, hanging there, in the bedroom. It worked that time.’

  ‘How old were you?’ Kate asked, her voice coming out in little more than a whisper. She felt guilty; while she wanted to be there for Harry, a large part of her was relishing the additional details about the case. Was she really this callous? Taking advantage of his emotional state to find out more about a suspect?

  ‘Eleven,’ Harry said, and Kate gasped. ‘It’s okay. I mean, it wasn’t, obviously, but I had Thea and Gabriella, and Dad seemed happier. For years. Then it all changed. Gabi told Robert about the affair, they all started shouting. A week later everyone was dead, the police were there and Dad was being taken away.’ He looked at Kate. ‘Have you read the file?’ he asked, and she nodded.

  Harry took a long swig from his pint, then rested it back on the table, staring into it.

  ‘Fucked up, isn’t it?’ He looked at her properly for the first time since they’d left the graveyard. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean for things to get so serious. But there we are.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Kate said. ‘Really, it’s fine, Harry.’

  ‘Except it’s not, is it?’ he said.

  They finished their drinks in silence. Harry went outside for a cigarette and in his absence Kate picked up her phone and stared at the empty screen. It was the weekend, but nobody had contacted her; since the separation things had got a bit tricky. Friends had taken sides, and not with her. Dinner parties were awkward without a plus one. Was that what Harry was now?

  Is that what this was? she wondered. A relationship? It was ridiculous to even think that way, given how they had met, but wasn’t this what a relationship was? Mutual support, sharing their lives? But this was nothing like she’d had with Sam. The two of them had always been a partnership, solid and supportive, while with Harry she felt uneven and wrong-footed. She missed Sam. She hadn’t heard anything, despite having deliberately not sent the divorce paperwork back.

  She was hoping Sam would call her and they could talk. But she knew they were beyond that. It hadn’t just been about the drinking, that was true. Early in their relationship, Sam had said he’d admired her determination. But later, that wasn’t a good thing. They’d argue and she was right, that was it, end of story, no matter what he said, no matter who got hurt. The last argument Kate remembered was over one of Sam’s work colleagues. A female work colleague. They’d gone on a business trip together, and he’d mentioned her, of course he had, he’d spent the week with her, but Kate couldn’t accept they were no more than friends. She’s married, Sam had said, she’s not interested in me and, more to the point, I’m not interested in her. But Kate didn’t believe him. She knew she was right, and that was all there was to it. She’d searched his belongings, checked his emails, broken every single rule of trust between them and for what? She’d found nothing, and he’d not bothered to argue any more.

  Harry swept back into the bar in a fug of cigarette smoke and drizzle. He sat back down at the table, and downed the whisky in one.

  ‘Do you want another drink?’ Kate asked.

  He nodded, taking a final swig from his pint. ‘Why not? But it’s my round, take this.’ He reached into his pocket awkwardly with his left hand and swore. ‘Bugger this thing,’ he muttered, poking at the bandage on his right. Kate looked at it. Running accident, he’d said, but it looked to her like the sort of injury you got from being in a fight. She’d seen enough men with their fists broken; she knew what happened when you punched someone.

  Harry pulled out an assortment of change and screwed-up notes, dumping them on the table in front of him. He stirred them with his finger then pulled out a crumpled twenty, passing it to her.

  She got up to go to the bar when a flash of purple caught her eye. She reached over and picked it up.

  ‘What’s this?’

  He took it and hurriedly put it back in his pocket. ‘It’s nothing. Just a button. I found it at Thea’s, it got jammed in the hoover last week.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ she asked, forcing herself to sound relaxed.

  Harry looked at Kate. ‘Why?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s pretty, that’s all,’ she said, and he dug around in his pocket again, passing it to her reluctantly.

  She picked it up between her finger and thumb and looked at it in the dim light of the pub. It was the same one, she was sure of it, same as the one she had found on the common. Bright silver, with a purple stone in the centre. Harry watched her closely, then held out his hand. ‘I need to give it back to Thea,’ he said.

  Kate’s brain was jumping with excitement but she didn’t want to give anything away. She couldn’t take it now; if it was vital to the case it needed to be found on him, while on proper police business. Seizing it while getting drunk in a pub after spending the night in bed with the suspect was hardly going to stand up in court.

  Kate handed it back grudgingly. Harry gave her a funny look and put it back in his pocket.

  She hesitated, then picked up her coat. Harry looked up, his face confused. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’ She waved her mobile at him, by way of an excuse. ‘Work,’ she muttered, then ran out of the pub.

  After all, she was telling the truth: she was heading to the station. She had to check now, while the memory of the button was fresh in her mind. She didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

  35

  Thea dreamt of hospitals and white sheets, of rainy nights and cold pavements. She struggled to stay asleep, her body wanting to get away from the unknown demons, but her mind desperately needing the rest. When she eventually fully woke, daylight pouring in through the curtains, she couldn’t remember the dream – it fell like sand out of her grasp, an unconnected collection of images and feelings, all confusing.

  Her head was pounding and she reached over to her bedside table, fumbling with the pills and the glass of water. She swallowed them down then lay back on the pillow, wincing. Not for the first time she regretted leaving the hospital and the sweet surrender of knowing someone was looking after you, however busy and noisy the nurses were.

  But now she knew what Gabriella was up to, she knew she had to be here. She couldn’t have her sister digging around in her house unchecked, undertaking some sort of crusade.

  Thea rolled over in the bed and groaned. Where was Harry when she needed him? She picked up her mobile and turned it on – a few text messages flashed into view.

  Gone to see Mum, the first one said. Will be by later. Call if you need me. Hx

  Then another. Pissed gone home need zzzz. See you tomoz. Hx

  Typical, she thought, turning her phone off again in frustration. Nothing from Gabi. Feeling sorry for herself, a tear escaped and ran down the side of her face. She wiped it away angrily. Why couldn’t Gabi be here, by her side, like she’d always been?

  As teenagers, the three of them would have done anything for each other. Thea remembered them walking home after school, probably no more than thirteen or fourteen, the usual bullies trailing them, taking the piss.

  When Harry’s mum had died, they were the ones that sniggered in class. There were the boys who called them freaky clones, who nicknamed them the Grady twins, after the ghosts in The Shining. But that day they were taking it a step further, the one at the front miming hanging himself, his hand pulling up an imaginary rope, his head to one side, tongue lolling out of his mouth.

  Harry’s eyes had narrowed.

  ‘Ignore them,’ Gabi had whispered, trying to pull them along, until Thea felt the first stone hit her. She t
urned, then the second hit her forehead, hard. She’d felt the sting, and a trickle run down to her nose. She’d touched it and looked at the blood on her hand, surprised.

  That had been enough for Gabi. With a cry, she’d launched herself at the group of boys, kicking and screaming, landing a punch square on the side of the ringleader’s head, flattening his ear. The boy had howled in pain and the others had tried to pull Gabi off him.

  But then Harry was there, and he was substantially bigger than the twins. He pulled the ringleader away from Gabi and focused a blow square on his nose. The boy ran away crying, clutching his face, blood pouring from between his fingers, the others not far behind.

  Thea raised her hand to her forehead at the memory, running her finger down the faint silver scar she knew was there, hidden in her hairline. Their parents hadn’t cared when they got home, their uniforms torn and bloody. Their mother had been more concerned about what the PTA mums would say than the wounds on her daughters, but the three of them had felt safe knowing they could take on anything, anyone, together.

  Thea wished it was the same now. She’d been ecstatic when Gabi had got in contact to say she was home. They could be a family again – the three of them – but then Gabi had kept her distance. Once, she knew exactly what her sister was thinking, but now she didn’t understand her in the slightest.

  Thea felt herself fade, her mind hazy as the painkillers kicked in. When she was better she’d fix this, she thought as she sank back into nothingness. She had to. Because the alternative wasn’t a future she could bear at all.

  36

  Kate sprinted out of the taxi and into the police station, ignoring the curious stares from her colleagues.

  She skidded into the chair next to her desk and dug around in the pot of paperclips on her desk. There it was – the silver button. She placed it on the desk in front of her. There was no doubt in her mind it was the same as the one Harry had, the one he claimed to have found at Thea’s.