by Simon Lelic
And there was something else, as well. What I said to Syd was, I just couldn’t believe that someone would go to such lengths purely out of hatred. That it was possible to harbor a grudge for so long. It was the only time I can remember when Syd has looked at me with open contempt. If I didn’t understand that, she said, I didn’t understand anything.
“And anyway,” Syd is saying to the inspector, “the house was just a starting point. A stage. A good one for my father’s needs but if Evan had turned him down, say, or if Jack and I had walked away—it wouldn’t have mattered. Wherever we’d ended up, my father would have been there too.”
Inspector Leigh is somewhere close to where I was, I think. She’s not rejecting our story out of hand, but she knows there’s one crucial thing we’re missing.
“Evidence,” she says. “That’s what’s lacking, Ms. Baker. And this, I’m afraid, doesn’t count.” She opens her hand to indicate the objects spread across the surface in the space between us: the shoebox and the things it had inside, the (now bloodstained) photograph from the landing, printouts of the e-mail Syd received and the picture of me getting kissed. There’s other stuff, too—things we found when, after we realized what was happening, we finally emptied out the house. A book that Syd claimed was her sister’s favorite. A necklace that had once belonged to Jessica, too. More of her father’s little taunts, more clues as to what we had coming. Like that cat, for instance. Even that cat, Syd told me, was part of this. It was a signpost, first of all—a pointer to lead us to that box. And it was also a message in itself. Remember that kitten Syd’s father bought her for her twelfth birthday? She claimed it was linked to that, and when I recalled what state I’d found the cat in, I had to wonder whether she wasn’t right. I mean, how else could it have got into our attic if someone hadn’t physically put it there?
“What about all the things my father’s destroyed?” Syd says. “Jack’s career, for example. His friendships. His . . . relationships.” Us, she means, and I remind myself that she’s only saying it for effect. “Doesn’t all that count as evidence too? This stuff we brought with us—these things—they were just props. Reminders. It’s the damage my father’s done that should convince you.”
Inspector Leigh reclines slightly in her chair. “That’s another thing I’m finding confusing, Ms. Baker. All this damage you mention. All the things you say your father has done. It seems to me they’ve mostly involved Jack. Based on what you’ve been telling me, I would have expected them to be aimed mainly at you.”
Anger flares visibly in Syd’s eyes. “They were aimed at me! It all is! He’s using Jack, that’s all. What he wants is Jack—” She pauses, cuts off whatever thought she’s about to express. “What he wants is to hurt Jack because he knows by hurting Jack he’s hurting me. I told you, it’s a game to him. And the more players there are, the greater the fun.”
Inspector Leigh tips her head. “What made you interrupt yourself?”
Syd tucks her chin toward her collarbone. “Excuse me?”
“‘What he wants is Jack . . .’ Out of the way? Is that what you were about to say? What made you interrupt yourself?”
Syd shakes her head in frustration. “Look, I . . . I just don’t want anyone to worry, that’s all.” She glances my way, and I realize by “anyone” she means me.
The inspector notices it, too. “So you do think you’re in danger?”
“What? No. I didn’t say that.” Again, another glance toward me.
I’m frowning now, I can feel it. Is Syd more afraid than she’s letting on? And if so, why didn’t she tell me? On the one hand, I’m worried now on her behalf—more worried even than I was already—but also I’m annoyed at the thought she’s keeping her true feelings from me. No more secrets, that’s what we said when we started writing, and yet here Syd is, doing precisely what we both agreed we wouldn’t.
“You said you spoke to him,” says Inspector Leigh, changing tack. “Your father. When you went to confront your mother.”
“I didn’t speak to him. I saw him.”
“And did he say anything to you?”
“He said hello. And he used my old name.”
“Right.” Inspector Leigh consults her notes. “Margaret Anabelle Robinson.” She lifts her gaze without raising her head. “You don’t look like a Margaret,” she says.
Syd doesn’t even blink. “That’s because I’m not.”
A little parenthesis appears at one corner of Inspector Leigh’s lips. She closes the cover of her notebook.
“So that’s it. This statement, these objects, and one possible sighting of your father. That’s essentially all you have to support your story.”
“There was nothing possible about it. It was him, OK? It was fucking him. Standing in my mother’s hallway as though he owned the place.”
“Yes, but even so. To have engineered everything you claim he has, your father would’ve had to have been watching you for months. One sighting, in my book, doesn’t—”
“I’ve seen him, too.”
It’s the first time I’ve spoken in quite some time. My voice, compared to the others’, sounds thin and unconvincing, but even so both women turn to look.
I clear my throat.
“At the open house day,” I say. “The day we first saw the house. He was there, I think. Watching us.” That older bloke I saw staring at me from across the living room: I’d thought at the time he was just some rich kid’s snooty parent, turning up his nose at my scruffy jeans and battered trainers. But he fitted the description Syd’s given us of her father, and as well as watching us he was lurking near the door, in the perfect spot to slip outside should Syd show any sign of looking his way.
Syd is visibly shocked. I catch the bulge that gets snagged in her throat. “You didn’t tell me that,” she says, her voice a frightened whisper.
I could explain, I suppose. Reassure her that until now I wasn’t 100 percent certain. But to be honest, I’m not feeling much of a need to explain anything right now, not when Syd is so obviously holding back, too. The more I think about it, the more unfair of her it seems. Because it’s like the inspector said: I’m the one who’s lost his job, who’s borne the brunt of whatever game Syd’s father is playing. Who’s sitting here waiting to be accused of murder. What gives Syd the right to keep things from me when it’s my arse that’s on the line?
“You . . .” Syd recovers herself quickly, addresses Inspector Leigh. “You could talk to the family Jack helped. Sabeen. Amira. They saw him too. Right, Jack?” There’s a question mark in her voice when she says my name that has nothing to do with what she’s asked me.
“They saw someone,” I agree, not quite meeting her eye. Because that’s another thing. Amira. Syd’s still not apologized properly for accusing me of being unfaithful. I’m not even sure she’s fully convinced yet that there was nothing going on. That would explain that comment she made about our relationship, for example. I mean, maybe she did only say it for effect, but a little show of solidarity wouldn’t go amiss, even if it’s just a hand beneath the table on my knee.
“Unfortunately we don’t know where Sabeen and her family are,” says Inspector Leigh. “They’ve disappeared.” She catches the concern in my expression when I raise my head. “Under their own steam,” she reassures me. “The Home Office would like to speak to them as much as we would.”
I feel myself relax slightly into my chair. That’s something. As much as it pains me to have lost so many of my friends, at least they haven’t been deported. And the likelihood is they’ll be better off without me.
“My father then,” Syd says. “You know where he is. Why not question him rather than wasting more time interrogating us?”
“You’re the ones who came to me, Ms. Baker. This conversation is taking place at your request.”
“Exactly!” Syd snaps. “Precisely! And yet the fact that we came t
o you willingly clearly counts for nothing. Talk to my father. Question him. Ask him what he was doing on the night of the murder.”
Inspector Leigh watches Syd patiently, then drops the bombshell we should have seen coming.
“We already have,” she says.
Which stuns Syd momentarily into silence. We share a look, the awkwardness that has been growing between us temporarily forgotten. But it’s like I say: Inspector Leigh has had our manuscript for almost twenty-four hours. If she’s already looked into my story about Sabeen, it stands to reason she also would have followed up on our claims about Syd’s father.
“And?” I say.
Inspector Leigh sighs with what I read as genuine irritation. Because she believes our story and is as frustrated as we are? Or because she’s angry that we’re continuing to waste so much of her time? “And he reacted exactly the way you would expect him to,” she says. “With surprise, initially. Indignation.” Syd’s boiling to interrupt and the inspector holds her off with an upraised finger. “And he has an alibi. For the night of Sean Payne’s murder.”
Syd is rigid in her seat. “Let me guess. My mother.”
The inspector offers part of a nod. “She says your father was with her the whole night through. She says she hasn’t been sleeping well recently—something about the pain in her hip—and that she can’t have closed her eyes that night for more than half an hour. She says your father was asleep beside her the entire time.”
Which is not dissimilar to my alibi, it strikes me. It’s better, in a way. More convincing. My story, such as it is, is that I was in bed with Syd and at no point during the night did she hear me leave.
“Of course she’s going to say that!” Syd bursts. “She’s terrified of him. She’ll do whatever he asks her to. Like tell him how to find me in the first place, for example!”
Inspector Leigh looks back at her like maybe that’s so, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing she can do. This is over, her expression says. This interview, the investigation. It’s over.
“You think Jack did this,” Syd says, her voice quieter now but sounding no more controlled. “You haven’t said it yet, you haven’t fucking dared, but you do; it’s obvious you do.”
What the hell, Syd? I feel like blurting—as though she’s the one, by giving voice to it, who’s making it real.
“So why haven’t you arrested him?” she blusters on. “If you’re so certain, why don’t you go ahead and lock him up?”
I’m staring at Syd in outright panic now, powerless as she pokes the tiger that’s got us trapped inside its cage. At the same time, though, I can’t help wondering how the inspector will react. Because what Syd’s saying has occurred to me as well. Of course it has. All this time that’s passed since the murder, all these days the police have spent watching. I’ve been hoping it’s a question of evidence, that they need more than they can find. Hoping, but not quite believing.
Inspector Leigh smiles her little smile. She’s still for a moment, then makes a start on tidying up her things. “May I keep this?” she asks, splaying her hand on the top sheet of our manuscript.
Syd’s expression is one part disbelief, two parts disgust. Her chair screams as she slides it backward from the table. “Knock yourself out,” she says, and when she stands, her chair clatters to the floor. She moves past it toward the doorway, clearly expecting me to follow.
When I linger the inspector stops what she’s doing and turns to face me. Syd is stranded by the door.
“Can I give you some advice, Jack?” says Inspector Leigh. “Ms. Baker” for Syd, I notice, “Jack” for me, as though we’re old friends. Tactics again, and yet I find myself being drawn in. Please. Yes. Advice. Anything.
“Use what time you have to find yourself a good solicitor,” she says, and then she, too, is heading for the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SYDNEY
JACK BARELY SPEAKS on our way back to the house. We get a cab and his knee jiggles throughout the twenty-minute journey. He makes little snapping noises with his teeth too, a habit he has when he’s tense that I’m not sure he’s even aware of when he’s doing it. I offer him a stick of gum from my bag but he shakes his head and goes back to staring out of the window.
“I’ve got it,” he says as we pull up and he thrusts a twenty at the cabbie through the slot in the partition. He’s out before the driver can give him change but a twenty is way too much, so I sit and wait for our six pounds fifty.
When I get inside Jack is drawing curtains.
“Jack?”
We’re in the living room and he moves past me to close the curtain on the other side.
“It’s broad daylight, Jack. What are you doing?”
He ignores me and moves off into the hall. The second curtain he’s pulled has snagged and out of habit I jiggle it straight. When I catch up with him he’s closing the blinds in the kitchen. He pauses first though, peers toward Elsie’s house through the slats, then straightens and twists the blind shut.
“Jack, please. You’re scaring me.”
He stops then and looks at me, darkly. He’s about to say something—something I get the impression he thinks he might regret—but whatever he’s on the brink of voicing he pulls himself back.
“I’m thinking about what the inspector said,” he tells me. “That’s all.”
His eyes dart around the room. There’s another window near the table. It only overlooks the yard but Jack moves across to close the blind there anyway.
“Which part of what she said?”
Again, it’s like Jack has to compose himself before he’ll even speak to me.
“About how we need more evidence.”
He goes back to the window by the sink and pries the slats apart so he can see out again across the garden.
“But what’s that got to do with closing all the blinds?”
A sigh this time, irritated, impatient—as though it’s obvious. “Your father’s been watching us. Right?”
“Right,” I agree, tentatively.
“So what I’m wondering about is where from.” Once again he peers out across the garden. “Like from a car parked on the street? From the alleyway? But if that was the case, how come neither of us noticed him?”
“I don’t know. I mean . . . maybe we did. Maybe we just didn’t realize it was him.”
Jack frowns at that. “But you would have realized. Wouldn’t you? If you’d seen him.”
I don’t like this. The way Jack’s talking to me. The way he’s looking at me. “Not necessarily,” I reply. “Why would either of us, unless we were watching out for him?” I suppress a shudder. It’s dark with the blinds closed and I turn to switch on the light. Jack gives a start, seems about to snap at me. But then he’s moving again, dragging a chair from beneath the kitchen table toward the middle of the room.
“Jack? What are you doing now?”
He climbs up onto the chair and angles his head beneath the smoke alarm. He fiddles for a minute before he answers. “You can get cameras these days. Can’t you? Tiny ones that go basically anywhere.”
Cameras. I hadn’t thought of that. But it sounds too crazy, like something out of a John le Carré novel.
Jack’s struggling to remove the cover. It comes off eventually with a crack that suggests it’s unlikely to go back on. I peer up, in spite of myself, but the only component I can tell apart from any other is the battery.
“Jack, I don’t think—”
“What’s that?”
“What?”
“That. There.”
I can’t tell what he’s pointing at. “I don’t know. It just looks like . . .”
All of a sudden he’s got both hands around the casing and he’s pulling, trying to wrench the entire unit from the ceiling. If it comes away abruptly, or the chair slips from under him, he
’s going to fall and hit his head. “Jesus, Jack. Be careful.” Ordinarily I would move across to hold his hips but I’m not sure how he’d react right now to my touching him.
He’s grunting, tutting. “Pass me the screwdriver, would you?”
I scan the empty space around me. “What screwdriver?”
“In the drawer over there. The bottom one.”
It takes me a moment to find it. When I do I’m reluctant to pass it to him but he wiggles his hand impatiently and I give in.
Half the ceiling comes down when finally Jack pries the smoke alarm free. OK so maybe not half the ceiling but some of the plasterwork anyway and I’m coughing and blinking against the dust. “Jack . . .”
“Look.”
I try but I can’t see anything. I cough and fan my hand to clear the cloud of plaster.
“Look here. What’s that?”
I peer up to where his fingertip is pointing. “It’s just a wire.”
Jack lifts the casing right up close to his eyes. He rips out the offending article and studies it. “Yeah,” he agrees, thwarted, and finally climbs down from the chair. The front of his T-shirt is dusted white. He starts looking around the room again, the gutted smoke alarm dangling in his grip. He tosses it onto the kitchen table.