The Carrier

by Sophie Hannah

  “That’s nothing to do with anything,” Gaby cut her off abruptly.

  Charlie felt her inner antennae twitch as the mood in the room changed.

  “I’m just saying, you must have known there was a very good chance—”

  “Kerry, for fuck’s sake, can we drop it?”

  This role reversal was unexpected: suddenly Gaby was the cagey one and Kerry the big-mouth. The whole Swiss . . . what? Tax avoidance was all Charlie could think of.

  “Tim wasn’t as honest with you and Dan about your investment as you think he was,” Gaby muttered into her cup of tea.

  “You and Dan invested in Gaby’s business?” Charlie asked Kerry.

  “Three hundred thousand pounds,” said Gaby.

  “Everything we had,” Kerry confirmed. “Aside from our earnings from work, which weren’t much. Dan was an accountant, so he had what seemed like a decent salary at the time. I was earning peanuts as a care assistant.”

  “You invested all your savings, the lot?” Charlie allowed her incredulity to be obvious.

  Kerry looked at Gaby as if she wanted her to take over the telling of the story.

  “Dan’s mother died, left him the money in her will,” Gaby said. “He didn’t want it. He and his mother hadn’t spoken for years before she died. She was a bitch—always threatening to cut him out of her will.”

  “She threatened to do it when he wanted to marry me,” Kerry contributed. “We both thought she had. That’s the last time Dan spoke to her, just before we got engaged. She refused to come to the wedding. I wasn’t good enough for her precious son, I was just a home carer. From tainted stock.” Kerry started to cry, wiping the tears away discreetly as if she imagined she could hide them.

  A look from Gaby warned Charlie not to ask. “Nice woman,” Charlie said. To say nothing would have seemed heartless.

  “So then she dies, and Dan finds out he’s got all this money,” Gaby picked up the story again. “But it’s hers, the same money that was used to bribe and blackmail him for most of his life, so he doesn’t want it. Kerry didn’t see it that way.”

  “No, I didn’t. What kind of fool gives away three hundred thousand pounds on principle? We argued about it. Endlessly.” Kerry shuddered. “It’s the only time we’ve ever come to blows about anything. I couldn’t bear for Dan to give the money away, wherever it came from, but he wouldn’t listen. He said we were fine as we were, and how could he live with himself if he accepted an inheritance from Pu—” A deep flush spread across Kerry’s face. “From his mother,” she corrected herself.

  Gaby grinned. “I forgot you used to call her Pue. PUE,” she told Charlie. “Pure Undiluted Evil. Didn’t Tim coin that one?”

  Kerry nodded.

  Charlie sipped her tea. “So when Tim came along suggesting you invest the three hundred thousand in Gaby’s company . . .”

  “It was the perfect solution.” Kerry’s eyes lit up, as if she’d just this second worked it out. “We could give away the money—all of it—and the money we’d get back wouldn’t be hers. It’d be different money, money from whichever company bought up Gaby’s. Keegan Luxford, as it turned out.”

  Inheritance laundering, Charlie thought.

  “Different money, and a hell of a lot more, if things went according to plan—which, thankfully for all of us, they did,” Gaby said. “Meanwhile I’d have spent Dan’s mum’s money getting my product to trial stage—about which I had no moral qualms, I have to say. She wasn’t my bitch of a mother.” Gaby and Kerry exchanged a smile; they’d clearly had a version of this conversation before, probably many times.

  “Tim and Francine couldn’t invest,” Kerry told Charlie. “They didn’t have a lump sum like we did, so Tim couldn’t benefit from his own brilliant life-changing advice. That’s another reason why Dan and I will always look after him.”

  “They could have had lump sums coming out of their ears,” Gaby said quietly. “Francine wouldn’t have let Tim invest a tenner in GST. Not even a fiver.”

  Kerry’s mouth twitched. She shuffled in her chair, looked nervously from Gaby to Charlie. What was it that she didn’t want Charlie to know? That Francine and Tim hadn’t had the best marriage in the world? That Francine had been a controlling cow who’d made Tim’s life a misery? If it was true, Charlie couldn’t work out why it should be such a big secret, when Tim Breary had confessed to killing his wife weeks ago and confirmed his guilt in every conversation he’d had with the police ever since.

  “What’s GST?” she asked, struggling to keep up with all the sequences of initials: PUE, GST. Guilty Smothering Tim?

  “The company I sold: Gaby Struthers Technologies.”

  Charlie said to Kerry, “So you moved Tim and Francine in with you, paid for full-time care for Francine . . .” She lost her thread. Gaby had pushed back her chair and stood up suddenly, as if she’d remembered something urgent.

  “Gaby?” Kerry stood too. Follow the leader. “Are you okay?”

  “I want to see Tim’s room. His room here. I need to see it.”

  Kerry stared at her, blinking as if she hadn’t understood the words. Charlie waited.

  “I’m not sure I should. God, Gaby, I hate saying no, but without Tim’s permission . . .”

  “You’ll have to physically stop me,” said Gaby, halfway to the door.

  Kerry made as if to follow, then hesitated. She looked at Charlie, a plea in her eyes. “Is there something in Tim’s room that you don’t want Gaby to see?” Charlie asked.

  “No,” Kerry said too quickly. She twisted her hair around her hand.

  “Let her go, then. Tell me about the day Francine was murdered. What exactly happened?”

  11

  FRIDAY, 11 MARCH 2011

  I run upstairs and nearly crash into Dan on the landing. I’d completely forgotten about him. he doesn’t seem to be on his way anywhere; he’s just standing there. His guilty eyes tell me everything I need to know. “So, you’re up here skulking, are you? Avoiding the cozy chat with the cops? You’re not a natural liar, Dan. You must be sick of lying about Francine’s death.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Gaby.”

  “Don’t you trust yourself not to blurt out the truth?”

  He turns away from me, takes a couple of steps toward the top of the stairs.

  “Go on, then, down you go,” I say. “Except you won’t, will you? You don’t want to end up in the kitchen with Sergeant Zailer. Has Kerry told you to stay out of sight in case you give something away?” As soon as I’ve said it, I have a better idea. “She’s playing the martyr, isn’t she? You both hate lying, but Kerry would rather put herself through it than you. You’re being spared the ordeal.”

  “Gaby, please stop and think,” Dan whispers forcefully.

  “About what?”

  He looks over my head. I turn. There’s nothing there apart from a long corridor with five doors on either side and another one at the end. Upstairs at the Culver Valley Door Museum. A window somewhere would have been a good idea. Is everything gray-brown up here, or is it the lack of natural light that makes it look that way?

  When I turn to face Dan again, he still isn’t looking at me. “I’d love to stop and think,” I tell him. “I’d love to think about exactly what you’re thinking about right now, but I can’t, can I, unless you tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

  “Gaby.” He places his hands gently on my arms. “I’m not your enemy.”

  “Great. Now tell me who is.”

  “I’m Tim’s friend. His best friend. Remember that.”

  I’d like to scream the roof off this house that my work made it possible for him to buy, but it wouldn’t do any good.

  “Do you know what, Dan? I’d rather you told me nothing at all than things I already know. The meaningful look on your face isn’t adding an extra layer of sig
nificance, not for me—it just makes you look stupid. Yes, you’re Tim’s best friend. I know that. But in this context, the way you said it just then, I have no idea what you mean. Whatever I’m supposed to be getting, I’m not getting. Tim’s your best friend, so . . . what? That makes it okay for you to lie about him killing Francine?”

  “Tim’s confessed, Gaby.” Another meaningful look. “He’s confessed.”

  Okay, calm down, Gaby. Think about this. What’s he trying to tell you? “Okay, so you and Kerry aren’t plotting against Tim to send him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Or, rather, you are, but he is too. He’s plotting against himself. It’s his lie, not yours—you and Kerry are supporting him. Right?”

  Dan says nothing. He’s switched off his intense stare. I interpret that as meaning I guessed right; the message he was trying so hard to transmit with his eyes has been safely received.

  “All right,” I say quietly. “I can’t think why Tim would want to go to jail for a crime he hasn’t committed, but . . .” I leave a gap, so that Dan can correct any faulty assumptions I’ve made so far. He says nothing. Confirms nothing, denies nothing. “But who cares what he wants?” I hiss. “Tim’s never had his own best interests at heart. You know that as well as I do. Has it occurred to you that backing up his false confession might not be the right thing to do? How can it be good or right for him to go to prison for the rest of his life if he’s innocent? Lauren doesn’t think it’s such a great idea. How come she feels worse about it than you do? Because her husband killed Francine? Is that why? Tell me, Dan. If we all have to lie for Tim’s sake, explain to me why and I’ll lie too! I’d do anything, for him—you know that!”

  Dan’s breathing as if he’s been running, sweating from the effort of saying nothing.

  “You won’t tell me because you know I wouldn’t go along with it,” I say. “Tim’s taking the blame for Francine’s death for some stupid, crazy reason, and you’re letting him. And you know I wouldn’t. You know how much I love him. Or maybe you don’t—in which case, you do now!”

  Does Dan think it strange that I still love Tim? Yes, it’s been years, but it’s excessive proximity, not separation, that wears love away. And I never really had Tim; he wasn’t mine. My craving for him was never satisfied.

  That’s not love. That’s need. Addiction.

  I push the thought away. Moving will help.

  “Where are you going?” Dan calls after me as I run along the corridor of doors.

  “Which room is Tim’s?”

  “Gaby, you can’t just—”

  “Stop me, then. This must be Lauren and Jason’s room.” I stand in the doorway and stare at the pictures on the wall opposite the bed: two framed black-and-white photographs of Lauren glammed up: full makeup, a clumpy retro hairstyle like a forties film star, a floaty evening dress and a fur wrap over her shoulders. This must be Jason’s idea of tasteful. “Lucky she’s got the wrap to cover her ‘Father’ tattoo,” I say to Dan, blinking away tears. Have you lost it, Struthers? Getting sentimental over a couple of pictures of Lauren Cookson, a virtual stranger, and the thickest care assistant in the Western Hemisphere?

  The only one brave enough to speak up. Even if she changed her mind as soon as she’d said it.

  Was that why Lauren followed me to Düsseldorf? Had she given up on Kerry and Dan and decided I was Tim’s only hope?

  Why didn’t you tell me, Lauren? I’m sorry I was so rude and horrible to you. Really sorry, but . . . why didn’t you trust me, instead of following me all the way to Germany only to lose your nerve?

  “Gaby? You okay?”

  I tell Dan I’m fine and focus on the physical details of the room. I don’t expect it to tell me anything helpful, but I look anyway. A wall of built-in wardrobes, two bedside tables, a lamp on one of them. No books. A pine bed with a pale pink flowery bedspread; drawers underneath, built into its frame, all open. Three cuddly toys—a bear with a heart for a nose, a duck and an owl—are sitting on the pillows, leaning against the headboard. There are clothes scattered on the floor on both sides of the bed, mainly thongs in various colors on what must be Lauren’s side. On Jason’s, there’s a white T-shirt, a pair of jeans, a few socks and a ripped silver condom packet.

  “I don’t think Lauren and Jason would want you in here, Gaby.” Dan approaches me tentatively, as if we’re at the zoo and I’m a lion on the loose.

  “You all sleep within a few feet of one another? How cozy: you and Kerry, Tim, Lauren and revolting Jason, all sleeping symmetrically behind your symmetrical closed doors. And Francine, before she died.”

  “Francine had a room on the ground floor,” says Dan. “Not that it matters. What do you care where we all sleep?”

  “I don’t,” I tell him. “Convenient for you, though. Do you all meet on the landing at midnight every night, make sure you know all your lies by heart?”

  “I think you should leave, if you’re going to be like this.”

  “I’m not leaving until I’ve seen Tim’s room. Where is it?”

  “No.”

  I assume that the door Dan has hurried over to block with his body is the one I want.

  “Kerry and I don’t go in there and it’s our house. Our cleaners don’t even go in there. Tim prefers to clean it himself. That’s how much he values his privacy.”

  “Sometimes,” I say. “Other times, he’s happy to sign up for a lifetime of shitting in front of his cell mate, in a shared toilet with no door, and having prison warders stare at him through bars whenever they want to, as if he’s a monkey in a cage.”

  I see the effect my words are having on Dan and press home my advantage. “I’d say I value Tim’s privacy a whole lot more than he does at the moment—and his happiness, and his freedom. Haven’t you let the police into his room since all this happened, come to think of it? How many times?”

  Dan sighs and stands to one side. “Don’t touch anything,” he says.

  I swear under my breath and open the door. Soon as I’m in, I pick up a book from one of the piles on the floor beside the bed and wave it in the air, to show Dan that I intend to ignore his no-touching rule. Having made my point, I’m about to put the book back when I notice what it is: e. e. cummings’ Selected Poems 1923–1958. A strong jerk-back sensation takes hold of my body, as if my blood vessels are reins and someone’s tugged them taut, pulling me away from the brink.

  i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

  Did Tim first read the poem in this book? If I look at the index of first lines, will I find it?

  I mustn’t look. If I read that poem now, in front of Dan, I’ll fall apart.

  “Are you okay, Gaby?” His voice seems to come from a million miles away.

  Why do people ask that? It’s such a pointless question. What’s “okay”? I’m still able to stand up and breathe; I think that’s pretty good going. I think I’m doing better than okay.

  “I need to take this book,” I tell Dan.

  “No!”

  I recoil at the sound of his raised voice. Dan Jose doesn’t yell. Ever. Then I realize it’s himself he’s angry with, not me. He’s embarrassed by his inability to take control of the situation. He has given an inch, several inches, and now I want to take a poetry book.

  “It’s Tim’s book,” he says.

  “I’m taking it. Tim wouldn’t mind. You know he wouldn’t.”

  Dan stares out at the view that was Tim’s before he had himself moved to HMP Combingham: a vast expanse of green and then Lower Heckencott Hall beyond, in the distance. It’s impressive, but that’s not why Dan’s looking at it. He doesn’t want to have to see what I’m doing. He’s used up all his arguing energy and decided the best thing he can do is avert his eyes and let me get on with it.

  I look around the room. I am in Tim’s bedroom for the first time. Only Tim’s; nothing to do with Francine.
I want to stay in here forever. I want to examine each of his possessions in detail, but I’ve frozen. This is too important. I’m looking but not seeing; my mind’s too jittery to process the visual data.

  Calm down, for fuck’s sake.

  It’s smaller than Lauren and Jason’s bedroom, though still a large room. There’s a single bed pushed up against one wall. The sight of it makes me angry. “Single beds are for children,” I say. “Tim’s a grown man in his mid-forties.”

  “His choice,” says Dan. “Kerry tried to persuade him to get a double, but he insisted.”

  The pillow and duvet are white. There’s no headboard, no bedside table, two tall piles of books by the side of the bed. A wardrobe, a desk and an office-style swivel chair, a leather armchair in the corner. I walk over to the desk and look at the spotless stack of notepaper, the pile of matching envelopes, three pens that look expensive. It all looks brand-new and untouched. I flinch, thinking that Tim might have bought these things because he wanted to write to people who aren’t me.

  Or he bought them because he wanted to write to me. Desperately. But didn’t know how, or what to say, and so never did.

  My scientist’s mind points out that there is no evidence to support my preferred theory, so I mustn’t allow myself to believe it.

  On the wall there are poems—unframed, Blu-Tacked—that look as if they’ve been cut out of magazines: George Herbert, Yeats, Robert Frost, Wendy Cope, someone called Nic Aubury. His poem—or hers, if Nic is short for Nicola—is only four lines long.

  “THE SOMMELIER AND SOME LIAR”

  Knowledgeable-nonchalant,

  I tell the waiter, “Fine,”

  When really what I’m thinking is,

  “I’m fairly sure it’s wine.”

  I smile. Tears snake down my cheeks from the outer corners of my eyes.

  What’s going to happen to me, without Tim? With Tim in prison for . . . how long?