by Paula Daly
At this point he hadn’t seen me. His head was down, and I wondered briefly whether I should duck inside ICU to avoid confrontation. But by the time I had pressed the buzzer and waited for a response, he would see me.
It wasn’t that I wanted to avoid him. I was desperate to talk to him, to apologize, to try to begin to make amends. But something in the way he walked made me want to flee. His ordinarily erect posture was absent; the confident, sure-footed way he moved not there. And, for the first time since Nadine had driven her car into my child, I felt an intense rush of guilt over something other than George.
My child was still here, and Henry’s was not.
I turned to face him and, when he caught sight of me, he stopped in his tracks. I offered an ineffectual, wan kind of smile and waited for him to come nearer.
For a moment he didn’t. He stayed where he was and regarded me in the way you might a rotting creature, blocking your path. Something to be sidestepped, avoided.
A porter pulling a wheelchair backwards along the corridor asked Henry to move over slightly so he could pass. This seemed to startle him, and he resumed walking my way.
‘Hey,’ I said.
‘Hey,’ he said back, not meeting my gaze.
‘How are you?’
He dodged that question and answered with, ‘I heard George was in a bad way. How is he doing?’
‘Just come around. He wanted to know how Foxy was so …’ I let my words hang, holding up the mobile to indicate I’d called Celia to find out.
He nodded, and tried to smile as though to say, Yes, that sounds like something George would do, but his face couldn’t really work in that way today. He kicked at the floor with the toe of his boot.
‘So—’ I began, but he cut me off.
‘I really need to get on.’
‘Henry, wait. There’s something I need to tell you.’
He sighed and looked beyond me along the corridor. In a moment of foolishness I reached for him, but he moved away quickly, as though he’d been stung. ‘Apologies,’ I said. Apologies – that was a mistake.
‘It’s a bit late for all this, Roz,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’m really sorry about what happened to George. And I’m so glad he’s on the mend. But I’m really not interested in listening to what you have to say. You’ve wrecked Nadine’s life. You made me look a complete fool. I’d rather not be around you, if that’s okay.’
‘Henry, listen. I appreciate you don’t want to see me right now, but I need to tell you this. I was not having an affair with Scott. It simply isn’t true. That thing he did at the party? Well, I don’t know what that was all about. But we were not in a relationship and we were certainly not in love.’
He didn’t respond. After a minute of silence he said, ‘Is that it? That’s what you wanted to say?’
‘I really liked being with you, Henry.’
He lifted his eyes to the ceiling.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Really. I wasn’t stringing you along—’
‘So you’re saying you weren’t sleeping with Scott, is that it?’
I lowered my voice. ‘We had an arrangement,’ I said.
‘An arrangement,’ he mirrored, flatly.
‘Whereby Scott would pay me. This is not an excuse in any way, but I need you to know that I was not doing what I did willingly.’
‘You’re saying he forced you?’
‘No,’ I stammered, misunderstood. ‘I was forced through circumstance. You left the party before I had the chance to explain any of this. And, if you recall, I did try to back out of our dates, because I didn’t want you to—’
‘What? Find out? You were with him that time I saw you at the hotel near Lancaster, weren’t you?’
I nodded. ‘That was the first time,’ I admitted. ‘Listen, I didn’t want to hurt you. I never expected to feel anything for you. I thought we could go out once, pacify Nadine, and then call an end to it.’ I paused. ‘I didn’t expect you to be you, Henry. I didn’t expect to like you as I did.’
I thought I saw his jaw relax a little at this, so I gestured to the paperback, saying, ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ trying to diffuse the situation a little.
‘Anna Karenina.’
‘Any good?’
‘I’ve read it before. Far less adultery and a lot more farming than I remember.’
I smiled. ‘Henry, listen, I know you’re hurt. I know you’re deeply hurt and humiliated. But I need you to know that the arrangement with Scott started before I met you. And I did it for the money. Pure and simple. You said yourself that one could do practically anything for money if it was only for two days a week. I’m not excusing what I did. But once my money problems started to ease I called a halt to it. And I was desperate. I was being evicted. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.’
There was a tense moment of quiet when Henry seemed to be weighing my words and I thought he may have softened towards me.
Finally he said, ‘That’s what he said you’d say.’
‘What?’
‘Scott,’ he explained. ‘That’s what he said you’d say.’
‘Henry, I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Scott came to see me before he left—’
‘Before he left for where?’
Henry shrugged. ‘No idea. The Galápagos, for all I care. Nadine certainly doesn’t want him around. He took off yesterday.’
‘What did he say, Henry?’
‘He said this story you were peddling, about him paying you for sex, was exactly that. A story. He said you had instigated the affair during the first treatment session for his elbow. He said he’d gone along with it because he found you attractive and couldn’t say no.’
My mouth dropped open.
‘Scott said you were a gold-digger,’ he went on. ‘He said you pestered him for gifts – earrings and jewellery and suchlike, and perhaps saw him as a way out of your financial mess. He said you asked him for a loan.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘Why shouldn’t I believe him? It’s been lie after lie with you, Roz. And it certainly makes more sense than you being some sort of escort. Sorry, but I just don’t buy that.’
I stood there, gaping.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘no hard feelings. But I’ve had enough shit happen to me in the last few years, and if it’s okay by you I’d rather avoid any more.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Please wait, Henry. I know you wish it could have been anyone but Scott, anyone but him that I got involved with—’
And he stopped me.
‘No, Roz,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t care what Scott does. Never have. It’s you. I didn’t want you to get involved with another person. Anyone but you. I was falling for you, and now I need to stay away if I’ve got any chance of getting my head together.’ He took off. And I was left staring at his back as he became smaller and smaller the further he advanced along the corridor, before disappearing from view.
40
THE FOLLOWING DAY George was off the ventilator, his chest drains were removed and he was transferred to the paediatric ward, where he would stay for the remainder of his time at Furness General. He would need a series of operations on the crush injury to his leg, to close the wound, to alter the external fixator, but as things stood right now, he was in better shape than we could have predicted. The fracture site was infection free and his lungs were fully inflated. He was in good spirits. Again, I marvelled at the resilience shown by children. You looked around the ward and you saw fear, worry, exhaustion displayed on the face of every parent. But the kids? They all looked pretty chilled, as though it was their latest adventure. George made a friend called Lucas, who was also rather keen on Pokémon, and I was able to leave him in the hands of Winston for a few hours while I made an appearance at Kendal police station to give prints and a swab. This was voluntary, you understand, but the emphasis was that if I failed to provide samples then I would automatically be considered a suspect.
The results of
the post-mortem were back, and it was now known that Wayne had been strangled.
I felt sick at the thought of his last moments, but I no longer felt frightened. Almost losing your child will do that to you. Instead, I felt numb. I relinquished my DNA, my demeanour calm and unruffled, because the worst had already happened. If I got hauled back to the station when they matched the prints, found evidence of me all over Wayne, so be it.
Does that sound like I was trivializing? I suppose I was, to an extent. Perhaps I was burying my head, but it did feel as though Wayne’s death was at the bottom of a very long list of things that needed my attention. So I did as requested, again keeping to my story of never setting foot in his house, and wished them well with their inquiry. Told the detectives I hoped they found his killer and got some justice for Wayne. If they came back with evidence of my lying, I would hit them with the truth. But not before. The hours of interrogation I would have to face were not possible, not with George still bedbound and in the condition he was in. He needed me. I needed to be with him. I did not need to be arrested.
Lie after lie, Henry had said.
Yes. That just about covered it. Scott had also commented once that I lied easily.
It’s not easy to look at your life and know that you are in every way at fault for the way it turned out. All those untruths were no doubt responsible for what put Nadine behind the wheel, what put George in front of Nadine’s car, what made Henry head off before I was able to screw up his life any further.
And, now, no one believed anything I had to say. You could hardly blame them.
Two days later and George was doing well. He was still in a substantial amount of pain but was bravely managing without complaint. On receiving a ‘Get Well Soon’ card from his classmates, he declared that he no longer wanted to leave his school and relocate. He missed his buddies and so we arranged for a couple to visit him in the hospital the following day.
Along with the card from his classmates, there was also a letter of apology from the school, saying that they had mistakenly accused George of taking the Pokémon figures.
Apparently, after George’s accident, a distressed boy had come forward and owned up to planting them inside George’s rucksack. This was in revenge for George having declared his lunchbox babyish and the matter had now been dropped.
Winston and I decided that George was well enough to be left alone overnight, so we returned to Hawkshead, where I booked my car into the mechanic’s. Winston and I would travel to Barrow in his van each day for however long it would take for mine to be fixed. And since HQ had granted me a two-week leave of absence from work, I didn’t need a vehicle for anything other than visiting George.
On the second day I received a call. They wanted me to call into the garage to discuss something. ‘Sounds expensive,’ I said, and there was a stony silence at the other end.
Brian, the owner of the garage, was an old schoolfriend of my dad’s. He had four boys, three of whom worked with him. The other had been hit by a drugged-up driver fifteen years ago on the A590 whilst changing a pregnant woman’s tyre. Brian now drank surreptitiously throughout the day from an old hip flask he kept inside the pocket of his navy overalls, and though still seen to be safe enough to tinker with engines, he was never allowed behind the wheel of a car. His sons would be seen ferrying him about, from place to place, dropping him wherever he needed to be.
‘How’s your dad doing these days?’ Brian asked when I walked in. The office was strewn with paperwork, bulldog clips and empty mugs. A Cliff Richard calendar hung on the wall and had been defaced to give Cliff an Amish-style beard, the type without a moustache.
‘He’s okay,’ I answered.
Brian knew about the money I’d lost and the reason my parents moved away. But if he had an opinion, he didn’t air it. ‘Not seen him in a good while,’ he said.
‘I heard you got another grandchild, Brian. A girl this time?’
He went pink with pride, put his hands in his pockets and sat back on his heels. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Tiny little thing. Got a good strong grip on her, though.’
‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘What did they call her?’
He frowned. ‘Summat foreign. I can’t bring it to mind right now.’
He shook his head, smiling either at his inability to remember, or else at his daughter-in-law, who was making his life more complicated than it needed to be.
‘So what’s the damage, Brian?’ I asked.
He riffled through some invoices, held up the paper and squinted. ‘Two-eighty-seven, including VAT.’
I winced. ‘What did I do exactly?’
He shot me an amused look. ‘You really want me to explain?’
‘Not really.’
‘Just damaged the mid-section of the exhaust. But that’s not why I hauled you in here.’
‘Oh?’
He nodded and was silent for a second whilst gesturing to a mud-splattered thing about the size of a pocket calculator. It was resting on a greasy rag on his desk.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘You tell me,’ he said.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘How long you had that car now, Roz?’ he asked.
‘Four or five years, why?’
‘When did we last service it?’
‘You changed the timing chain around three months ago. And you fitted two new tyres.
‘We’d have spotted it if it was there then,’ he said. ‘I’m certain of it.’
‘Brian, you’re worrying me. What’s going on?’
‘It’s a tracker.’
I frowned, confused. ‘As in?’
Brian shrugged. ‘As in a tracker. Can’t think what else to call it. It tells someone who wants to know your whereabouts your whereabouts.’
‘Is it legal?’
‘Do you know what?’ he said. ‘I don’t know the answer to that, but my best guess says not. You had someone following you around?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Well, that thing’s working and sending out a signal, so…’ His words trailed off. He watched my face as I processed what it was he was telling me.
‘You might do well to tell the police about this,’ he said eventually.
I drove to the lakeshore to consider my options. It was still early, so I could park easily enough. There weren’t many people around, save for a few dog walkers and pale-looking mums with toddlers on reins, pushing prams, carrying bags of duck food. Their faces were drawn from lack of sleep and appeared to border on tearfulness at the prospect of filling another whole twelve hours. As I watched, I was transported back to the time in my own life when I would be alone for days on end with George, Winston having disappeared off somewhere.
We had entered a destructive cycle by then that we couldn’t seem to get out of. I would nag at the frequency and duration of his absences, which Winston would deal with by not coming home at all, which caused me to nag some more, and then suddenly, almost overnight, I’d been replaced by a woman I never thought I’d be.
But I digress, because I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking: how could she not have known?
Until I saw that tracker, I knew of only one instance of Scott following me: George’s swimming lesson at the hotel. Thinking about it now, I realized that Scott tracked me there with the aid of the device.
Of course, I was speculating. But it had to be Scott. Who else would do something like that?
I glanced down at my hands on the wheel and saw they were trembling.
What kind of weirdo follows women around? What kind of weirdo tracks their every move, watching from their home computer?
My stomach folded in on itself.
If what I thought was true was true, Scott was capable of far more than I could have imagined. I was in danger, and I needed to do something.
I withdrew my mobile from my pocket. Scrolled through the list of callers, took a steadying breath and pressed the dial key.
&
nbsp; When the call connected, I said, ‘We really need to talk.’
41
‘MRS TOOVEY, WOULD you like to come this way?’
I stood and followed the young man. ‘Lovely morning, again,’ he said, and I replied, yes, it was. ‘We’ve been so lucky with the weather this year, haven’t we?’ he said, and again, I agreed.
He stopped a little further along and asked me to wait inside the last office on the right. ‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked. ‘Tea? Some water?’
‘Water, thank you.’
‘Right you are,’ he said, and he did an about-turn on the spot, making me wonder if he was once in the cadets.
I was forced to wait for over an hour. The minutes ticked by and the room became stuffy. My palms grew greasy, my scalp hot and itchy, and my general demeanour became that of a skittish cat. I was just about to exit, leaving my excuses at the front desk, when the door opened and in walked a very collected DS Aspinall. She was accompanied by another plain-clothes officer whom I had not met, who was introduced as Detective Constable Hannah Gidley.
DC Gidley was late twenties, red-haired, milky-skinned but with patches of high colour on her cheeks, earlobes and the tip of her nose. There was a softness to her flesh, a kindness in her eyes. She was more nursery nurse than CID, and when she smiled my way I immediately felt less jumpy.
‘You’re here to make a statement,’ began DS Aspinall.
‘That’s right,’ I replied.
‘Mind if I ask, why now?’
‘Something came up,’ I said. ‘Something that … it’s probably easier if I just give the statement.’
DS Aspinall nodded accordingly. If I had piqued her interest at all, she hid it. She exchanged a few quiet words with the other detective and made like she was ready for me to start. When I hesitated, she said, ‘I’m all ears, Mrs Toovey,’ in the manner of someone who was jaded, world-weary, and I wondered if they’d had many timewasters in here. Perhaps I was just one in a long line of many.