A Bad, Bad Thing

by Elena Forbes

  ‘What about the estate? Surely it’s worth a lot of money, even if the business wasn’t going well? He could have sold it, or rented it out, couldn’t he?’

  ‘Not an option. He’d have seen it as a complete failure and disgrace. Racing really was everything to him. Nothing else mattered. When he died, he left a load of debts and we discovered the property was heavily mortgaged. Luckily, Harry and Melissa managed to sell off quite a lot of land and some cottages and turn things around gradually, but it was a very difficult time.’

  She looked at him, surprised. It was a very different picture to how it appeared from the outside, or at least to how Harry had briefly painted it that morning, although ten years was a long time.

  ‘But it’s OK now?’

  ‘It appears to be. I’m not sure how good Harry is as a trainer, but unlike Tim he’s great at schmoozing the clients, which goes a long way in this business.’

  ‘Were you close to Tim?’

  He shook his head. ‘He wasn’t a man who was close to anybody. He also didn’t approve of Melissa and me getting married.’

  ‘Really?’

  He sighed. ‘He thought we were too young, for starters. But the main reason was, I guess, he dreamed of his only daughter marrying someone very different, someone who understood and fitted in to his world.’

  ‘Why does that matter?’

  He smiled. ‘The racing world’s a bubble. If you’re in it, it’s all-encompassing. It’s all that’s important. It’s difficult for anybody like you or me, on the outside, to understand.’

  She felt instantly sorry for Gavin, a man who, in every respect, should be a son-in-law to be proud of. Then she rebuked herself. He didn’t need her pity, although maybe it explained his decision to go into politics. Perhaps he was trying to show the Michaels, or the world around them, that he was good enough. At least Melissa went up in her estimation several notches, for standing up for what she wanted. Or maybe, like most women where Gavin was concerned, she just couldn’t help herself.

  ‘Take Harry, for instance,’ he continued. ‘Both his marriages failed because the women couldn’t hack it, or didn’t want to. It’s quite typical, from what I hear.’

  ‘Going back to Tim, were there any doubts about the verdict?’

  Gavin frowned. ‘Suicide, you mean? No. I don’t think so. Tim left a note. Harry found it beside his body. It wasn’t entirely coherent, but from what I understand, it was all to do with the money problems and his shame.’

  ‘You saw the note?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But Melissa did?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know. If she did, she never said.’

  ‘But she accepted the verdict? There was nothing open to question?’

  He looked troubled, as though a dark cloud had passed across his face. ‘I assume not. I mean, it was a difficult time. We didn’t really talk about it.’

  What he said seemed so odd. Surely he should know everything Melissa had been thinking and feeling? Wasn’t that what marriage was supposed to be about, the sharing of everything, your worries, your fears and deepest secrets? It was another good reason to avoid it, she had always thought. There was a large part of herself that she would never disclose to anyone. But if there was ever a man a woman could unburden herself to, share everything with, it was Gavin, she decided, wondering what had held Melissa back. Did the Michaels family have a secret they couldn’t share with anyone, not even him?

  ‘OK. This may seem another odd question, but is there any way Tim could have been having an affair with Jane McNeil?’

  Gavin rocked back in his chair and laughed. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  She wasn’t, but at least the question had lightened his mood again. ‘Maybe her murder and his suicide are nothing to do with one another but …’

  ‘You think maybe there’s a link?’ He shook his head, still smiling at her. ‘Oh, Eve. You didn’t know my father-in-law. He cared far, far more about horseflesh than female flesh, plus if he had been that way inclined, he would never have dared carry on with anyone on home turf, forgive the pun, under the eyes of my mother-in-law. You’ve met her. She’d have flayed him alive.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I had to ask.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. I said you could ask me anything, and I meant it.’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t believe in coincidence and I find the timing of the two events very odd.’

  He rubbed his forehead. ‘I’d never thought of it like that before. The weeks and months after Tim’s death were a God-awful time and we had so much else to sort out, let alone think about. I’m afraid what happened to Jane was – it has to be said – peripheral.’

  ‘The police never brought it up?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. It’s such an extraordinary idea. Melissa would’ve told me, I’m sure. She idolized Tim and she’s quite old-fashioned. She’d have been very, very upset at the thought of him having an affair.’

  Again, Eve had the sudden impression of distance between Gavin and Melissa, as though he were on the outside looking in. Tragedy made people close ranks and she imagined the wall of grief around the Michaels family. Maybe they had used it to hide behind, as well. Although it was an obvious lead for the investigation to follow, the police had Sean Farrell clearly in their sights at the time and possibly weren’t looking at other avenues.

  ‘Even so, what do you think?’

  He shook his head thoughtfully. ‘Jane and my father-in-law? Some sort of late-night office romance? It just doesn’t fly. If anything, between you and me, I’d have said Tim was a closet queen. Like many of his generation, he was a very repressed man in all sorts of ways.’

  ‘I picked up something between Harry and Melissa at dinner last night, when we were talking about Holly Crowther. What was that all about?’

  ‘No idea, I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.’ Gavin put his head to one side and looked at her quizzically. ‘It’s funny. Part of me expects you to be the same Eve I used to know, yet I also know that can’t be. But you do seem just the same, in so many ways. I have to keep reminding myself that twenty years is a hell of a long time. There’s so much I don’t know about you.’

  ‘It certainly is.’ In more ways than one, she wanted to say. It was a lifetime. In a parallel universe, if things had been different, she might have been sitting there, married to him. It was a strange thought.

  ‘Here, I’ve got something to show you.’ He took out his wallet and pulled out a photograph. ‘Do you remember this?’

  The edges were a little dog-eared and the colour had faded, but she saw the two of them together sitting at a table somewhere. He was leaning in towards her, his arm around her, and they were both smiling at the camera. They looked so incredibly young, so happy. Yet she knew she hadn’t been.

  ‘Where was this?’ she asked, handing him back the photo.

  He tucked it away again, looking a little disappointed. ‘Don’t you remember? When you came to see me in Oxford the first time. Some American tourist took it for us with my camera.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Some pub out in the country. It had really good food. You drove me there in your Dad’s old blue Fiat. We nearly went into a ditch on the way back.’

  He smiled. ‘If I remember correctly, I was trying to kiss you. You say you’ve never married. Why?’

  She could give him all the platitudes about not meeting the right person, but it wasn’t the truth. She felt she owed it to him to be direct. ‘I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Any serious relationships?’

  She hesitated. There were all sorts of excuses she could make. The intensity of her job, the long hours, the emotional wear and tear. It all precluded anything long-term, particularly with someone on the outside, who didn’t have a clue what being caught up in that sort of world was like. Also, in the feverish atmosphere of each new case, thrown so closely together for such long hours, it was easy for relationships to spring up, blaze briefly, then die down again when it was all over
. It was almost a means of getting through it all. The truth was that it also suited her. She didn’t need, or want, any ties. She wondered if Gavin had any idea from what he’d read in the papers that Jason had been her lover. Maybe that was what lay behind the question and he was worrying about the impact Jason’s death had had on her, and what she might be feeling.

  ‘Not really,’ she replied. ‘I’m perfectly happy as I am.’ Certainly as happy as she ever could be.

  Gavin seemed a little relieved and she realized her guess had been right. ‘Well, I’m pleased to hear it. You certainly look very well.’ Then he shook his head. ‘I’ve often thought of you, you know. I remember that time so vividly. I often wish we could go back and …’ He paused, then sighed. ‘And do things differently.’

  ‘But we can’t.’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘But I’m still sorry we ever lost touch.’

  She said nothing, shocked by the polite dishonesty of the phrase. It was Gavin all over. They hadn’t simply lost touch. The break had been sudden and violent and entirely her fault. She had been staying with him for a long weekend in his room at Oxford. He had seemed odd and uncharacteristically out of sorts, as though something serious was wrong, although she had no idea what was behind it. She remembered the feeling of silent, unexplained pressure building over the two days, like the change in atmosphere before a big, electrical storm. When he finally blurted out that he wanted to marry her, it took her completely by surprise. It didn’t matter how young they were, he knew his own mind, he kept insisting. He wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. She could still picture herself, speechless, gasping for breath, the sense of panic rising inside, as images of what it all entailed flooded her mind. She had never given even a moment’s thought to the possible consequences of their relationship before. It struck her that she had been sleepwalking all the way through it until Gavin said those words. She couldn’t cope. Everything was closing in on her. She was being suffocated. She had to get away. She pushed past him and rushed from his room, almost falling down the narrow staircase. She ran blindly out into the sunlit quad and didn’t stop until she finally reached the river at the back. She paused for a moment, staring out at the water, wondering if she should throw herself in. Then she sat down under a tree, put her face in her hands and wept. Gavin had eventually found her. Seeing him, standing over her, his face full of emotion and concern, panic took hold again. She didn’t want him to touch her, or come near her. She had been living a lie and she couldn’t carry on. She couldn’t explain; she didn’t even totally understand herself. She just needed him to leave her alone. She had quickly packed up her things and left. He had tried over and over again to contact her, but she had managed to avoid him, going out of her way to make sure she never crossed his path. She had then travelled abroad for a year to put some distance between them, before going to university. When she eventually returned, she heard he had got engaged.

  She thought of A.E. Housman’s lines from A Shropshire Lad, which had been a favourite of her foster-mother, Clem, a retired English teacher: ‘Into my heart an air that kills, from yon far country blows, what are those blue remembered hills, what spires, what farms are those? That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.’ The land of lost content. The air that kills. Clem had thought she was far too young to understand the concept. But she was so wrong. Nostalgia was pointless; it poisoned everything it touched. Also, what Gavin was romanticizing about was something that had never existed in the first place. It had all been a sham.

  From nowhere, she had an image of him from twenty years before. They had been drinking in the pub near where they lived in Lymington and he had walked her home. It had started to rain and they had stopped for a moment under a bus shelter. She had felt quite high, happily so for a change, and before she knew it, he had pulled her towards him, bent down and kissed her. The feeling of that kiss had never left her, the desire, coupled with revulsion. ‘Am I the first person you’ve kissed?’ he had asked a few moments later, taking her hands in his and studying her closely, face flushed, emotion bright in his eyes. He wasn’t making fun of her. She could feel the intensity of her teenage embarrassment and confusion even now. ‘I hope I am,’ he had said, not waiting for a response. ‘I want to be the first for everything with you.’ He was full of hope and enthusiasm and decency.

  How could she explain? He hadn’t been the first. She pictured the long-haired man dressed in leather, with the heavy, dark brows and piercing, deep-set eyes, the smell of stale sweat and tobacco that lingered around him, his fingers stained yellow with nicotine. He had sat down beside her on her pink Princess bed, pressed his hard, dry lips to hers and briefly slid his hand between her thighs before they were interrupted. His face, the look in his eyes, were burned on her mind, along with the tattoo of a hooded skeleton on his muscled bicep. He had caught her staring at it. ‘It’s the Grim Reaper,’ he had said, in some strange, foreign accent. ‘You like him?’ He was grinning. ‘It’s why they call me Dr Death.’

  Even after so many years, she felt the involuntary sting of shame, as though what had happened was in some way her fault. She shuddered, exhaled sharply and closed her eyes, hugging herself for a moment as she remembered the earthquake that had ripped apart her life, separating her two worlds. The BEFORE and the AFTER. She had managed to keep the two worlds precariously separate for so long, but the fault line between them was fragile and Duran’s questions about her past had reopened all the old fears.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Gavin asked.

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him, putting her hands to her mouth for a moment as she struggled to focus, then hurriedly swept the hair off her face. She felt hot and sick. Pushing the sleeves of her shirt back to her elbows, she took a gulp of water.

  ‘Eve?’

  ‘It’s just something I remembered. Something I’d rather forget.’

  He looked alarmed. ‘Nothing to do with me?’

  She reached out her hand to reassure him. ‘No. Of course not.’

  He took hold of her hand and turned it palm upwards, examining the inside of her forearm and tracing the long, pink groove that marked her skin with his finger.

  ‘I remember your scar,’ he said. ‘You always said you’d had an accident, but I never dared ask if it was true. What really happened? You can tell me now.’

  She withdrew her hand and pulled down both of her sleeves.

  ‘You had one on your shoulder too, quite a deep mark.’

  ‘It’s still there. It was an accident.’ She could see he still didn’t believe her.

  ‘But you can’t have been very old, if it was before I met you.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I was twelve.’

  He looked at her for a moment as though he wanted to say something else, then glanced down at his watch. ‘Christ, I didn’t realize how late it is,’ he said, getting quickly to his feet. ‘I’m sorry. I’m late. There’s so much more I want to talk to you about, but I’ve got to go. Melissa’s out with her book club this evening and I need to collect the boys from a friend’s house in twenty minutes and give them their tea. What are you doing later?’

  She picked up her bag and coat and stood up. ‘I’m having dinner with Harry.’

  ‘Harry?’ Although he covered it well, she saw the flicker of surprise.

  ‘I want to pick his brains about a couple of his clients who were in touch with Jane the week before she disappeared.’ Even as she spoke, she realized she didn’t have to explain anything to anyone, not even him.

  ‘Maybe another time, then,’ he said affably. ‘I’m afraid I’m heading back to London tomorrow night. I’m on a Commons select committee and there’s an important meeting first thing Monday morning. I probably won’t be back here until Friday. I guess you’ll have left by then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Melissa tells me you’re coming to the Christmas party tomorrow.’

  ‘Again, all in the i
nterests of the case.’

  ‘Good. It’s always a scrum, but maybe we can find a quiet moment together there.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Dan checked his watch. It was well past eight in the evening. He had been hovering for quite a while outside the entrance to the Apple Store in Covent Garden, where the man on the phone had told him to wait. People came, people went. The store seemed to be a popular rendezvous point. But there was no sign of the man – the younger man, Mickey’s so-called friend, who said his name was Hassan. Dan searched the faces around him, but other than a dark-skinned teenage boy in a navy-blue anorak, who glanced at him suspiciously before going inside the shop, nobody made eye contact. They were all doing their own thing, having fun, window-shopping, drinking and eating and not remotely interested in him. He felt like some sort of sad loser on a blind date standing there, and he was freezing, water seeping up from the cobbles through the soles of his boots where the leather had worn thin. There were so many people milling around, he wondered how Hassan was going to spot him. He ought to be wearing a green carnation pinned to his lapel, or have a copy of Time Out magazine tucked into his jacket pocket, or something similar. But in broken English Hassan had said it wasn’t necessary, that he would find him. He said Mickey had shown him a photo of Dan on the 4Justice website. All Dan had to do was to keep his phone switched on and to come alone. Dan had been nervous about going there, knowing that it was probably a stupid thing to do. He ought to call the police and leave it to them. But something about Hassan’s voice, in particular the way he said ‘I am very sad’, sounded genuine. He kept replaying the sentences over and over again in his mind, trying to hear a flaw or a false note, but there was none. He should trust his instincts, he kept telling himself. If the man really had been Mickey’s friend, they should talk. There might be a simple explanation why he had Mickey’s phone and maybe he knew something that could be of help.