by Gytha Lodge
She asked if you were behaving. I tipped back some of the cheap crap and shrugged at her. ‘Niall’s fine. Back tomorrow.’
She fixed me with a very grey stare. ‘And do you miss him these days? When he’s away?’
‘We’re married,’ I told her. ‘We don’t do missing each other any more.’ And it was so deliberate, that comment. It was one of those things I say to pretend. To make out that I’m in the kind of relationship where we can joke about our marriage and not mean it.
And then, in my memory, it was later. We were no longer in the house, but in a club I didn’t remember going to. It didn’t worry me, because I was no longer me. I was Her. I could tell because of the warmth in me. Because of the satisfaction I felt with myself and my life.
For some reason Drunk Louise was telling April that she’d made a decision. That she was just going to get goddamn pregnant, whatever it took, and you, Niall, would have to deal with the consequences.
‘We still have sex,’ I was telling her. ‘I’ll just manufacture an accident. Once it’s done, he can’t force me to get rid of it, and then he’ll realise it was all I needed to motivate me to stop drinking.’
It seemed like the best plan I’d ever had. I was so convinced it was going to sort my life out for good. I felt fantastic. Powerful.
Which all vanished when April leaned towards me and said, ‘Honey, I saw Niall with his ex-wife.’
I don’t know how I would have reacted if I hadn’t been fairly merry already. As it was, even with the shield of a few glasses of wine between me and this truth – even with Drunk Louise ready in the wings – I wanted to be sick.
‘What do you mean, saw?’ I was wondering if she could have walked in on the two of you having sex, and at the same time I was thinking she must have made a mistake. The power of denial is strong, isn’t it?
‘I saw them drinking wine at Domo and they were … It was obvious something was going on.’ She gave a long, frustrated sigh, and jabbed at her drink with her straw. ‘Look, I’ve had suspicions for a while. But I do actually like Niall and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I know they work in the same field, and it’s good if they can get on, but this is clearly not right. If you’re genuinely going to have a child together … You can’t go into that blind. It’s too important.’ She gave me a very serious look. ‘Did he tell you they were meeting up?’
I actually hated her a little bit in that moment, for making me admit that you hadn’t told me anything. Isn’t that the worst? That the person I hated was not the person who’d been lying to me?
I couldn’t admit to her, either, that I’d long, long suspected that you were seeing Dina again. Worse, that I was certain you’d been seeing someone, and just put my head in the sand and hoped your affair had died a death.
‘When was this?’ I asked her.
‘Last Saturday,’ she said.
I’d been away all weekend, at a concert in Edinburgh. One of those rare occasions when I’d travelled and you’d stayed at home. You’d gone to meet Dina while I was away overnight, when you must have thought you were safe.
‘You said it looked wrong … Wrong how?’ I could hear how tight and stupid my voice had suddenly become. How shrill I sounded. I hate that word, but it’s still the best description for it.
‘They looked like a couple,’ she said, simply. ‘I came in and stood at the far side of the bar, and I could see them across from me. They had a table by the wall, one of the high-up ones, and she was all coiled round this high stool, wearing a jumpsuit that was slit real low down the front. She was laughing a lot and touching his arm all the time. You know.’
I remember that shivers started to run through me. And fucking Drunk Louise, who I needed so badly right then, was nowhere to be found. She’d clearly scampered away to the bar and left me to deal with this shit.
I didn’t want to know any more, but I felt unable to stop asking questions.
‘How did he look?’
April shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess like he was enjoying it.’
‘Did they … kiss?’
‘Not that I saw, but it was all there in the body language.’ April gave me a look that was full of sympathy and anger in equal measures. ‘What you need to know is that he’s a fucking idiot, OK? You deserve so much more, and he deserves hell. She’s the vainest person I’ve ever met.’
I nodded, and folded my arms round myself. ‘Do you think she wants him back? You know … properly?’
‘For now,’ April said, ‘yes. But only so she can win. She feels like she lost.’
‘How?’ I asked. I could feel myself getting tearful, and I decided to swallow it down with vodka, which was what we seemed to be drinking now. ‘How did she lose? She left him.’
‘She lost because he moved on,’ April told me. ‘She lost because her fantasy of him pining after her for years got overturned in a few months, and she didn’t like it.’
‘She got married,’ I said.
‘That doesn’t matter a damn,’ April said. And actually, April’s pretty good at weighing people up, something I think even you would admit. I trust her on Dina. ‘Winning is everything. She didn’t want to actually be with her new guy. He was a rich married man, and she wanted to prove she could break apart his marriage. And now she wants to prove she can break yours apart, too.’
All of it chimed with everything I’d always thought about your ex-wife, Niall. The stuff I’d never wanted to let on to you. If you’ve ever doubted why April has always meant so much to me, you could put a lot of it down to her taking my side. Mine. She sees through your ex-wife like she’s transparent.
Something bubbled up in me, then. A huge feeling of resentment, all of it directed at you, not her.
‘She didn’t force him to go for a drink and – and whatever else …’ I shook my head. ‘He’s a fucking arsehole, too.’
April lifted her glass. ‘I’ll drink to that.’
After that, I tried not to think about you, or the fantasy of our happy family that had well and truly died. I tried so very hard. But there was a burning feeling in my stomach, and I spent the next hour or so checking my phone constantly, to see if you’d looked at WhatsApp recently. Whether you might be messaging her instead of me.
And I drank. I drank to dampen that feeling, and to welcome my drunk self back. To let her take over and stop me from feeling anything.
So this time, it wasn’t actually an accident that I ended up obliterated. I did it with a sense of grim purpose. I wanted to destroy myself with drink and turn into Her. And then I wanted, actively wanted, to become that pathetic wreck you always get so angry with, as a huge fuck you. I even thought about finding some guy and screwing him in the toilets. About finally, totally ending our marriage. Not by waiting for you to leave me, but by doing something unforgivable and then telling you all about it.
I half remember a little more, from later on. I remember the moment I realised April was gone. It was definitely Sober Louise who realised, and not the other one. I know because of how frightened I suddenly felt. So afraid of being alone that I thought about calling you. I really thought about it, despite how drunk I was and how much worse I’d feel about myself.
I remember pulling out my phone and finding your name. I remember staring at it and wanting so much to have you there with me. Caring about me instead of Dina. Taking me home and looking after me.
And then nothing.
Well, nothing I’m certain about. There is a memory that hit me while I was trying not to doze in a chair between interviews.
It began with me walking through a tiny garden. But that garden turned quickly into an endless, awful forest, and there was someone behind me. I knew for a long time that there was. I kept turning round to look at him, but every time I did, he was smiling at me like he was innocent and trustworthy. And every time I turned away and then looked back again, he was closer, without ever seeming to move. His smiling face seemed to float somewhere in front of his body, which h
orrified me.
I tried to run, but my legs felt limp. Out of my control. I kept tripping over. Time after time, I found myself on the grass or the frozen earth, and he caught up more quickly each time, until he was right behind me. I was screaming and trying to run, and then falling again.
And I don’t know why I didn’t wake up at that point, because that’s what should have happened. I should have woken up when I fell and he’d got me, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I could only lie there, and feel him on top of me. Then he was pressing something sharp into my back, further and further, until I knew I was dying.
I had to wake up, because if I didn’t, I would die in that dream. I knew that. I would die for real.
And somehow I dragged myself back. I woke up.
I’m glad I’d been left on my own for a while. It took me a long time to stop crying. I could still feel that pain in my back, and I remembered suddenly that it had stung when I showered that morning, along with all the other grazes I couldn’t identify. So I stumbled to the reflective glass at the side of the interview room, feeling like I might be sick. I pulled my top up a few inches and turned my back, craning my head to see my reflection.
And there it was, on my back, right where I’d felt it in the dream. A scab where a cut had been, and around it dark, purplish bruising.
I felt like I was falling.
17
The conversation with Issa was, from Hanson’s perspective, hard going. He had sobbed his way through an angry, hurt, grief-filled account of Alex’s past infidelity, while she and the DCI had begun to shiver in the unheated studio.
‘She was one of his clients,’ he told them. ‘The daughter of a baronet who’d grown up in all-girls’ schools riding ponies. She was a Plaskitt family sort of person, and it felt like – like the worst kind of betrayal. I couldn’t believe that was the kind of woman he would go for.’
‘Was Alex bisexual?’ the DCI asked.
Issa had nodded. ‘Essentially yes. But he told me he’d only ever fallen hard for men. Just me and a boyfriend at school. It would have been easier for him to have married a woman, and I know it got to him sometimes. If he’d just decided on a nice young girl, it would have meant reconciliation with his parents. Grandkids for them to dote on. Seeing his sister more often. Mummy and Daddy would have approved and come to visit, and probably bought them a nice big house. Who knows?’ He made a lunge for a drawer of the desk, and after some rifling pulled out a packet of tissues. He blew his nose into one, before saying, ‘I knew that part of him was there, and it drove me mad. He wasn’t the one whose family hasn’t spoken to him in eight years. He wasn’t told he was an abomination.’
‘Is that what your family did?’ Hanson asked, quietly. ‘Cut you off?’
‘You bet they did.’ Issa’s mouth set into an angrier line. ‘I was raised an Ahmadiyya Muslim, with all the preaching of how forgiveness is everything. That we must be tolerant, and seek peace, because those are the true teachings of Islam.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘It turned out that there are exceptions, according to my parents. Tolerance is only for those of other faiths, not those of other sexualities.’
Hanson winced. ‘I’m so sorry. That’s a terrible thing to go through.’
Issa gave another one of those not-quite-smiles. ‘It goes on being pretty rough, but I’ve made my peace with it.’ He gave a very long sigh. ‘I suppose it was hard to feel sympathy towards Alex for what was a much easier situation.’
Hanson nodded, and let the DCI take over again to ask, ‘When he cheated, was it a one-off? Or a … relationship?’
‘He said it was a one-off,’ Issa said, a note of doubt in his voice, ‘and I didn’t have any reason to think … They hadn’t been working together that long, and he seemed devastated by it. He really did.’
‘Do you recall her name?’
‘Yes.’ He gave her a defiant look. ‘I sometimes look her up, just to make sure she’s really, you know … moved on. She’s called Sarah Lang. But she lives in Monaco now. I doubt she’s going to be of any interest to you.’
Hanson pulled her notebook out and scribbled the name down anyway.
‘Did you ever get the impression he might be pursuing other young women?’ the DCI threw in.
Issa gave a strange shrug. ‘I got angry with him a few times for staying out later than he’d said he would. I didn’t – I didn’t like him hanging around with Step.’
‘You felt he was a bad influence?’ Jonah asked.
‘Maybe.’ He looked upwards, the expression of a man trying to stop himself from crying. ‘Whenever they went out together, Alex seemed to want to party for longer. I had this – this feeling that he was flirting with girls.’
Sheens took out a glossily printed photo of Louise Reakes from his pocket. It had been taken after her arrest. She looked pale and slightly sick-looking. The lighting wasn’t exactly flattering, but she looked like someone who knew she was in big trouble.
‘Do you recognise this woman?’ the DCI asked.
Issa took the photo, and glanced at it before shaking his head. Hanson caught a twist at his mouth, and asked, instinctively, ‘Does she look anything like the woman he slept with?’
‘Yes,’ Issa said, in what was almost a whisper. He looked up at her. ‘There’s quite a similarity.’
Sheens pulled out another photograph. It was the murder weapon in all its gleaming glory.
‘What about this? Might this have been Alex’s?’
Issa’s face grew visibly paler. It wasn’t something Hanson had seen very often, a draining away of blood. One of those often-described and rarely experienced occurrences.
‘No, it’s not his.’ He swallowed. ‘Why are you showing me this? Was this what killed him? Of course it wasn’t his. Of course it wasn’t. Why would he have a knife?’
‘It’s surprisingly common for people who carry knives to end up killed by them,’ the chief said in a sympathetic tone.
‘He’s never carried a knife in his life,’ Issa said. ‘He was a hardcore pacifist.’
‘He wouldn’t have bought it just for the look of it?’ Sheens asked. ‘It’s a beautifully made piece.’
‘That isn’t beautiful,’ Issa said, his eyes gleaming and his jaw set. ‘That’s a monstrosity.’
Lightman managed to get through to the DCI some fifteen minutes after leaving Niall Reakes in a relatives’ room with a cup of black coffee. The call was picked up quickly this time, and he could hear background engine noises. He explained that Mr Reakes was demanding to see both his wife’s solicitor and the DCI.
‘Let him talk to Patrick Moorcroft,’ the chief said, after a moment of thought. ‘But inform him that any conversation between them will not be protected under client–solicitor confidentiality, as the solicitor is not, in fact, representing Mr Reakes.’
‘And presumably you’d like me in the observation room while they talk?’
‘You bet I would,’ Sheens confirmed. ‘We’ll be back in twenty or so minutes and I’ll probably talk to him then. And keep me posted if the super calls through to the office. I want to know if we have our thirty-six hours. Thanks, Ben.’
Louise Reakes and her solicitor were sitting in what seemed to be a strained silence. The solicitor was reading something that presumably pertained to her case, while Louise was brushing a strand of hair back and forth across her mouth, her eyes wide and unfocused.
‘Mr Reakes has arrived,’ Lightman said, and Louise immediately stood, her chair making a loud, low-pitched screech across the lino floor. ‘He’s asked to see you, Mr Moorcroft.’
Patrick looked up at Lightman, his brow creased. He glanced briefly at his client, and then said, ‘In what capacity?’
‘An unofficial one.’
Louise stared at her solicitor while he reflected. As he moved to rise, she said, ‘I need to see him. I’m the one who needs to talk to him.’
‘I can explain the details of your case to him,’ Patrick said, soothingly. He lifted his briefcase on
to his chair and began methodically sliding his papers back into it.
‘That’s not the same,’ Louise countered. ‘He’ll think … I need to explain it all to him.’
The solicitor looked up at her for a moment, and then said, gently, ‘It would be extremely unusual for contact to be allowed between you while you were in custody on such a serious charge. I know how concerned you are about his reaction, but I really will put forward everything you’ve said, and I’m sure he’ll understand that you are as bemused as the rest of us.’
Lightman listened to this in faint surprise. He hadn’t expected sympathy from the hotshot lawyer. He might have anticipated a cheerful dismissal of her concerns, but the quiet, soothing voice was unexpected.
It seemed unexpected to Louise, too, who gazed at him, blankly, and then said, ‘All right. Thank you – so much – Patrick.’ And then she turned away, her hand over her eyes.
The lawyer said nothing as Lightman took him to the relatives’ room. His expression looked pensive, and Lightman wondered what he was working through in his mind.
There were still traces of tears in Niall Reakes’s eyes as they entered. His reaction to the solicitor was somewhere between relieved and angry.
‘The chief has agreed to let you speak to Mr Moorcroft,’ Lightman said. ‘But he remains your wife’s solicitor.’
Niall Reakes, who had been in the process of getting up, looked sharply at Lightman. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that we can speak, but without the privilege of solicitor–client confidentiality,’ Patrick Moorcroft explained.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Lightman said. He caught the solicitor’s wry look. He was clearly aware that their conversation would be listened to.
By the time Lightman had shut himself into the observation room, Niall Reakes was saying, heatedly, ‘… why in the hell she called you. You’re my friend, not hers.’
‘I’m also the only solicitor you both know,’ Patrick said in a measured tone. He placed his briefcase upright on the table. ‘She probably didn’t know who else to call.’