by Jane Casey
‘I think I’m going to go to bed.’ I said it gently, making it clear that I wasn’t going off in a huff. ‘Don’t stay up too long.’
‘Okay.’
I lay in bed and listened to the TV burbling. Rob had kept the volume low but I could guess what they were saying as the news cycle churned. Headlines, reports, interviews, sport, weather, repeat. I don’t know how many times I heard the same portentous music. I couldn’t sleep, knowing that he was sitting there, suffering. I heard his phone beep now and then as a new message came through and I tortured myself by wondering who was texting him and why.
Eventually the sound of the television cut out. I heard footsteps come towards the bedroom but at the last minute they veered away towards the front door. I was out of bed and into the hallway before he had finished putting on his jacket.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘I don’t want to be here.’ He was by no means drunk but his movements were a little larger and slower than usual. As he patted the pockets in his jacket I congratulated myself on having removed his car key, and the spare, before I went to bed. He frowned. ‘Shit.’
‘Look, there’s no point in going out. Please, Rob. Stay here. Stay with me.’
I coaxed and wheedled and begged him until he took off his coat and followed me into our room. He lay down on the bed and threw an arm over his eyes. I lay beside him, my hand just grazing his, to let him know that I was there if he needed me. He didn’t move to hold it, but then he didn’t move away either. It was small comfort, but comfort nonetheless. I listened to him breathing, wondering if he was asleep, and at some stage I must have drifted off myself.
I came awake knowing instinctively that it was the early hours, guessing that it was around two in the morning. I had enough experience of being roused from a deep sleep to be alert instantly, but I couldn’t sit up. It was cold air on my skin that had woken me, and Rob’s weight on top of me.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, and got a noise in response that I translated for myself: yes but stop talking.
He kissed my neck, one hand squeezing my breast, and there was something desperate about it rather than passionate. After a few seconds I pushed him off so I could scramble out of my nightclothes, as if everything was normal. When I was ready I turned back to him, leaning towards him to kiss him. Instead he pushed me back down on the bed and carried on where he had left off. I knew he wanted to escape his thoughts for a while, but I was too preoccupied with worry to respond to him. This wasn’t about me and him. It was functional and joyless. From what I could see in the dim light his expression was remote. Uninterested, almost. And Rob was the most attentive, generous lover usually. But now, it was like being with a stranger.
This was what I was supposed to do, I thought, panic and guilt swirling in a toxic haze. This was all I could offer him. He’d done so much for me and I loved him so much. I owed it to him to be willing but I wasn’t ready; it wasn’t right.
He leaned on me then, crushing me. He caught both of my wrists and held them above my head as with his free hand he pushed my knees apart. I felt panic flare inside me as he touched me and couldn’t think why until my mind flashed up an image: the stairwell in the Maudling Estate. I could smell it, all of a sudden, and taste the coppery fear I thought I’d left behind there. The probing fingers felt the same: intrusive. Unwanted. I had made myself forget about it and told myself I didn’t care but now it seeped back through my mind and body like oil spreading through a puddle. There it was, the feeling that I was powerless. I tried to move and couldn’t and felt helpless, vulnerable. Violated.
‘Wait.’
He didn’t listen. He was focused on himself, not on me. I winced as he moved over me. He was leaning on my hair. His arm was pinning mine to the bed, which was agonising. The way he touched me was rough, not tender or even passionate. I caught my breath and he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Rob, wait.’ I turned my head, trying to make eye contact with him, but he wasn’t looking at me and my heart just about broke. His face dissolved in a blur of tears as he pushed himself into me with a sharp, stinging pain. ‘Rob, please, stop. Just stop.’
I don’t know if it was the word or the note of panic in my voice but he pulled away and sat back, staring down at me. He looked angry, and hurt, and confused.
‘What’s wrong?’
I couldn’t answer him. I put my hands over my face and cried, close to being hysterical. I couldn’t seem to stop, or speak. I was aware of him sitting down on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. Eventually I got it together enough to say, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What’s the problem?’
I wondered where he had been for the previous few minutes and how he could have missed it. He was waiting for an answer, though.
‘I just wasn’t ready.’
It was the best I could do. I hadn’t told him about the Maudling Estate, about being cornered and threatened. I hadn’t wanted to hear about how stupid I’d been. Now didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up. ‘I’m sorry. I feel as if I’ve let you down. I’m so sorry.’
‘Stop apologising.’ He got up without even looking at me and started to pull his clothes on.
‘What are you doing? Why are you getting dressed?’
No answer. He was the quickest person in the world at getting ready anyway, and by the time I’d sat up and focused on what he was doing he was halfway out the door. I went after him, throwing on a T-shirt of his that he’d left on a chair.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I can’t do this now. I can’t be here.’
‘It’s the middle of the night.’
‘I know.’
‘Stay here. Stay with me.’ I rubbed the back of my hand across my cheeks, smearing the tears away.
He shrugged his coat back on, picked up his phone and went out, shutting the door behind him.
I let him go. I had to. There was nothing I could say or do to keep him, no matter how much I wished there was.
Chapter 23
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’ Derwent hummed happily to himself, driving his car, in control. I sat in the passenger seat and seethed. It was two days since Rob had left, two endless days, and if anything my mood had worsened over time.
‘I don’t like magical mystery tours.’
‘Tough.’
I wasn’t quite at the level of a black-cab driver but my mental map of London was pretty good after years of criss-crossing it to do my job. I guessed where we were heading as Derwent headed south-west.
‘Richmond Park?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘Why?’
‘Wait and see.’ The humming got louder. It was his way of forestalling conversation, and a bloody irritating way it was too. I gritted my teeth and tried not to listen, which was difficult in a small space. It was even more difficult when you were trying not to think about a really substantial number of things, so you couldn’t even drift off into your own thoughts.
An eternity later, Derwent pulled into the Pen Ponds car park and stopped the car and the humming simultaneously.
‘Why are we here?’
‘I’m not telling you yet. Come on.’
With bad grace I followed him up to the side road to where Terence Hammond’s car had been parked. The sunshine was watery, Turner-quality, and there was no heat in it. Fortunately, Derwent set a cracking pace so I was warm and out of breath by the time we got to the scene.
‘So?’
‘Come on.’ Instead of stopping he struck off through the woods, towards the sniper’s site. I thought evil things about footwear, adequate warnings and dry-cleaning bills as I picked my way after him, trying not to get left behind.
I caught up with him in the little clearing he’d found. He was leaning against a tree, his expression giving nothing away.
‘Can we stop walking now?�
� I asked.
‘Yeah.’
I took a minute to get my breathing under control. ‘Right. What are we doing here?’
‘Two reasons,’ Derwent said. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Your desk is three feet away from mine.’
‘Not in the office.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I won’t get anything out of you in the office.’
I frowned at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve been a zombie for the past two days. I want to know what’s going on.’
‘Ugh.’ I turned and started to walk away.
‘Kerrigan, you’ll get lost.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Come back and face the music. I am going to have this conversation with you sooner or later.’ His voice got louder as I got further away. ‘It’s a long walk back to the office.’
And he wouldn’t drive me there unless I cooperated. Shit. I trudged back. ‘You’ve basically kidnapped me to make me talk to you.’
He shrugged. ‘The end justifies the means. What’s going on?’
‘Remind me why you care?’
‘Because you’ve been going through the motions and that doesn’t work in this job. Emma Wells doesn’t deserve it, does she? She should be getting the best investigation we can manage, not you being half-hearted and snappy.’
He always knew how to get me. ‘So?’ I said, but the fight had gone out of me and he knew it.
‘So talk. Tell me what’s going on.’
I sighed. ‘Why would I confide in you?’
‘You don’t have anyone else to talk to. You’re missing Liv.’
‘I have other friends,’ I pointed out.
‘And you’d have spoken to them by now if you thought they could help. Either you did speak to them and they didn’t help, or you need someone who understands your world. Someone who does the job.’
He was right, annoyingly enough. I kicked at a fallen log, considering my lack of options. Obviously I preferred to keep Derwent at arm’s length. Even more obviously, this was a delicate conversation about matters that were highly personal. But Derwent had been open with me in the past, when he needed to be. He hadn’t held back. And with his background – his experience of being the one responsible for a dead colleague in the army, his years in the police and his slightly disturbing familiarity with the ins and outs of my private life – he was just about the best person I could talk to. I knew what my friends would say; they would be solidly on my side, even before I’d finished telling them what had happened. Derwent wouldn’t hold back. He’d tell me what he really thought.
Derwent fidgeted, impatient. ‘Think of it as going to confession.’
‘Okay, definitely not. I can’t believe I was even contemplating it.’
‘I’ll absolve you of your sins.’
‘What makes you think I have sins?’
‘Just a guess. You’re usually harder on yourself than on anyone else. If someone had done something to you, you’d have shrugged it off by now. You haven’t got over it. You feel guilty about something.’
‘You are making some pretty big assumptions.’
‘Come on, Kerrigan.’ Derwent’s voice softened. ‘Talk to me.’
I would regret it, I thought. I should run as far and as fast as I could.
‘This doesn’t go any further,’ I said.
‘Cross my heart.’
‘And I don’t really want to talk to you about it so don’t push me, okay? None of your interview tricks.’
‘Would I?’
‘Yes, you would.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Right. The thing is, I think Rob and I have broken up.’
‘You think.’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t know.’
‘I don’t know.’
He folded his arms and settled himself against the tree trunk, getting comfortable. ‘This is interesting. Go on.’
‘Yesterday morning, before work, I went around to Deborah Ormond’s flat.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘How did you know the address?’
‘I am a detective,’ I said loftily. ‘Rob walked out in the middle of the night. At that hour there was no public transport to speak of and I had his car keys so I knew he’d have to walk to wherever he was going, or get a cab. I went to our local cab office and made some enquiries. They told me where they’d taken him. I actually got the same driver so he was able to show me exactly where Rob had gone.’
‘Did you tell them you were a cop? Did they think you were asking for work?’
‘Of course. They wouldn’t have done it otherwise.’
Derwent shook his head admiringly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d do that, Kerrigan.’
‘Well, I did. I didn’t know it was Debbie’s flat, obviously, but I wasn’t surprised.’ I felt the slow swell of nausea that had been affecting me since the previous morning and tried to suppress it. I hadn’t eaten anything. I couldn’t.
‘Did she let you in?’
‘Of course. She was delighted. She couldn’t have been more welcoming. She was very keen for me to see Rob sleeping in her bed.’
‘Whoa.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Sleeping, though. That doesn’t mean shagging. You’ve slept in my bed.’
‘I wasn’t naked and you didn’t sleep in the same bed with me,’ I pointed out. Thank God. ‘It was completely obvious what they’d been doing. I’m not an idiot. I’m not jumping to conclusions.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. She admitted it. I barely had to ask before she told me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘I left before he woke up.’
Derwent whistled soundlessly. ‘Does he know you know?’
‘If she told him. I haven’t heard from him.’
‘Fuck.’
‘That is a really helpful comment. Thanks for getting me through this difficult time.’ I started back towards the path again.
‘No, come back. You’re not finished.’
‘I think I am.’
Derwent was too shrewd for that. ‘You’ve left out a big chunk of the story. The last time I saw you, you were on cloud nine because he wasn’t dead. You were going to take him home and look after him. You’re in love with him and he’s mad about you. How did he end up in Debbie’s bed a few hours later?’
‘Don’t ask,’ I said, using my I-mean-it tone of voice, which, of course, didn’t work on Derwent.
‘I just don’t believe it. I don’t know why you’d take Debbie’s word for it. She’s lied about it before. Maybe it was all innocent.’
I shook my head, annoyed at the tightening in my throat that told me I was getting close to crying, again. I wasn’t going to tell Derwent about the way the flat had smelled of stale sweat and wine dregs, or the condom wrappers on the bedside table, or the scrapes on Rob’s back from Debbie’s long nails.
‘So now you hate him, is that it?’
‘No. I want him to come back. I don’t blame him. They’d had most of three bottles of wine, by the looks of things. She got him drunk and took advantage of him. I know he was upset when he left our flat. He wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘Why did he leave?’
I looked at Derwent with pure loathing. ‘You came back to that one.’
‘Trained interrogator. I can’t switch it off.’
‘Try.’
No chance. ‘Why did he leave? Did you have a fight?’
‘No.’ I hesitated, trying to find a neutral way to put it. ‘I let him down.’
He tilted his head to one side, intrigued. ‘How?’
‘I can’t talk to you about this,’ I said flatly. ‘There’s no way.’
‘Who else are you going to talk to? Come on, this is the thing that bothers you. You talked about Rob shagging Debbie like it was nothing and now you’ve clammed up again. Get it out.’
I walked around in a tiny circle, feeling trapped.
‘Whatever it is, it’s not as bad as you think it is.’
‘You don’t know that,’ I said.
‘You hold yourself to a high standard, which is something I happen to appreciate in a woman. I’m interested to hear what counts as letting your boyfriend down.’
‘Stop joking about it,’ I said hopelessly. I turned my face away so I could blot the tears away against the back of my hand. When I turned back again, it was as if I’d flipped a switch. Derwent had been relaxed, leaning back, amused and curious and infinitely mocking. Now he had straightened up and he was watching me with the focus of a hunter.
‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t want anyone to know what happened.’
‘Why not?’
‘I think people might misinterpret what happened and it wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Fair to whom?’ Derwent’s patience never lasted all that long. ‘For God’s sake, Kerrigan, I’d get straighter answers from a Jesuit. Just tell me what happened.’
I wavered. On the one hand, hideous embarrassment. On the other, getting a man’s perspective might not be such a bad idea. Derwent was nothing if not experienced, after all, and brutally frank. He would tell me what he thought without sparing my feelings.
I sat down on a tree stump, folded the skirt of my coat around my knees and told him everything, without looking at him once. In short terse sentences I described how Rob had been that night, and how I had tried to do and say the right thing, and how I had failed. Then I told him what had happened in the middle of the night.
‘And I got upset. It wasn’t … It wasn’t what I wanted, or how I wanted it.’
‘Did he rape you?’ he asked. It was a policeman’s question, trying to define what had happened in a technical, legal sense. There was no outrage in his voice and that made it easier, somehow, to answer the question I’d asked myself.
‘No. Definitely not. He’d been drinking a lot and he was really upset. He wasn’t being rough with me deliberately. He stopped the second I told him to. It was just bad.’ I went back to looking at the leaves in front of me. ‘It was my fault. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I got panicked. I felt trapped.’