The Carrier

by Sophie Hannah

  Kerry nodded. “Dan came in then, wet, with a towel wrapped round his waist. He’d been in the bath upstairs. I hugged Lauren until she stopped making a noise. Tim said, ‘I’ve killed Francine. I smothered her with this.’ He lifted up one of the pillows.”

  “How long did he hold it for?” Charlie asked. “Or did he drop it, once he’d shown you which one he used?”

  “I . . .” Kerry swallowed and looked away. “I don’t remember. I think he . . . No, I don’t remember, sorry.”

  A lie. “When you say he lifted up the pillow, you mean he lifted it over his head? Or did he hold it at chest level?”

  “He . . . he held it at chest level?”

  Charlie had met plenty of people—usually younger than Kerry Jose—who made everything sound like a question. Something very different was going on here, something that felt a bit like: I haven’t thought about this part of my story and I’m not sure what I ought to say. I know you’re the person I’m lying to, but please can you help me?

  “What was Jason doing in the lounge?” Charlie asked, picturing the collision as he and Kerry had rushed out into the hall at the same time. She wasn’t sure why this detail had snagged in her mind. And then she had it. “Lauren was in the utility room sorting out the washing,” she said. “Was that one of her normal jobs?”

  Kerry nodded. She was pulling her hair again, yanking her head to one side. It looked painful.

  “Dan was in the bath, you were cooking,” said Charlie. “Tim was busy with Francine. I know what everyone was doing except Jason. DS Kombothekra told me he’s the handyman here as well as the gardener. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there’s no garden in the lounge. Was he fixing something?”

  “Yes,” Kerry said breathlessly. Too quickly.

  “What was he fixing?” Something in this house needed fixing, that was for sure; Charlie thought it was unlikely to be anything a handyman and his toolbox could easily resolve.

  Silence from Kerry.

  “You’re sure Jason hadn’t finished work for the day?” A lifeline or a trap; Charlie was interested to see what Kerry would make of it.

  “No, he . . . I’m wrong, sorry. I must have . . .” Kerry inhaled unevenly. “He was outside the lounge, at the front of the house.”

  “What? But you said he came out of the lounge as you came out of the kitchen. You nearly collided, spilling out of your opposite doors—that’s what’s you said.”

  “We did nearly collide. In the hall, as Jason came inside after doing the outsides of the lounge windows. I was running from the kitchen and—”

  “Was Jason also running?”

  “Yes. We both panicked. Lauren was screaming.”

  “Sorry, Kerry, let me get this straight.” Charlie feigned confusion. “A minute ago, I asked you if Jason was fixing something in the lounge. You said yes.”

  “Sorry, I got confused. No, Jason was outside cleaning the lounge windows when Tim killed Francine.”

  “And then when Lauren screamed, he ran inside and nearly bumped into you in the hall?”

  Kerry nodded.

  “Where, exactly?”

  “At the foot of the stairs.”

  Charlie picked up her phone and her bag and stood up. She felt dizzy after sitting in the same position for too long. “Would you mind participating in an experiment?” she asked Kerry. “I’m going to go and stand at the front of the house, outside—by the lounge windows. Can you go to Francine’s room and scream at the top of your lungs for about ten, twenty seconds? I want to see if I can hear you. I’m assuming the lounge windows were closed while Jason was cleaning them. What about the front door—was that closed too? It’d be good to reproduce the conditions as closely as we can.”

  Kerry’s mouth hung open. Her face had drained of all color.

  “It might help you as much as it helps me,” Charlie told her. “Nothing releases tension like a good screaming session.”

  Seated at the kitchen table, Kerry opened her mouth and screamed her husband’s name.

  POLICE EXHIBIT 1434B/SK—

  TRANSCRIPT OF HANDWRITTEN LETTER FROM KERRY JOSE TO FRANCINE BREARY DATED 4 JANUARY 2011

  Hello, Francine.

  This is the first chance I’ve had to write to you since Christmas Eve. I’ve been wanting to say that I’m sorry I had to take away the Christmas present Tim gave you. He left it in your hand, but I had to put it where it wasn’t visible. I had no choice. Hopefully you didn’t mind. It was only a poem. A mightily depressing one too. You hate poetry and can’t see the point of it, right? Anyway, I didn’t destroy it. It’s under your mattress, with Dan’s and my letters to you, so it’s safe and still yours as far as I’m concerned.

  Did you have a wretched Christmas, stuck in here with no company apart from Lauren’s fleeting practical visits? I imagine the festive season must be unbearable when you’re bedridden and incapable of enjoying life. I can’t bring myself to feel sympathy for you, Francine—for which I’m sorry, believe it or not—but I can sympathize with your situation when I remove you from it. Maybe that counts a bit. I’m not sure it does.

  Did I have a good Christmas? Not especially. I was tense the whole time. My shoulders are so rigid, they’re like a concrete vise round my neck. Which is pretty stiff and sore too, come to think of it. It’s true what that poet wrote in the poem Tim gave you: “the body is a record of the mind.” Dan thinks a deep tissue massage will sort me out, but there’s only one thing now that can make me feel any better and that’s for this horrible situation we’re all in to end. And, at the risk of being greedy and asking for too much, I would so love it to end in a way that doesn’t involve anyone going to prison for murder. So, once again, Francine: are you sure you still want and need to be here? If you don’t, please can you switch yourself off somehow?

  Lauren spent the whole of Christmas Day telling us all rather frantically what a fantastic and lovely time we were all having, in between popping into your room to see you. She seemed on the edge of hysteria, to me at least. I suspect she was thinking, and trying not to think, about the contrast between your miserable experience of Christmas and our designed-to-look-jolly one, with its crackers, Port, music and board games. You know she and Jason only spent Christmas with us because of you, Francine? She told me she could see her family anytime, but she couldn’t bear to leave you, not on Christmas Day. She’d asked me at the beginning of November if you could be part of the festivities. I had to tell her no. Tim insisted: no to your bed being brought into the lounge, no to us moving several chairs and all the Christmas paraphernalia into your room so that you could be included in that way.

  Were you confused in the run-up to Christmas? Lauren put decorations up in your room, only for Tim to rip them down as soon as he saw them. He was outraged, and wondered why Lauren was suddenly making an effort this year. I told him that she had probably wanted to make you part of Christmas last year too, but hadn’t dared ask. “It’s none of her business,” Tim said. “Explain to her what we know and she doesn’t: there was never any point trying to make Francine happy, and there’s even less point now. Do you know what she’d say if she could speak, if we included her in Christmas? She’d accuse us of rubbing it in: parading our fun in front of her, with the sole aim of making her feel worse!”

  I didn’t need to explain anything to Lauren. She was standing behind Tim, listening to every word he said.

  I’d love to know how you feel about Lauren, Francine, assuming you feel anything for her. I wish I could make her life and role here easier for her, but what can I do? She’s a kindhearted girl, but Tim’s right: she’s an employee. I hired her to look after you so that neither Tim nor I would have to do the hands-on stuff. I can’t take her side against him. I don’t want to. I hate to sound as if I’m pulling rank, but I suppose I am: Lauren didn’t know you before the stroke, and Tim, Da
n and I did. That matters.

  So we didn’t “parade our Christmas fun” in front of you, as Tim put it. If we had, would you have been sensitive enough to spot that it wasn’t fun at all, not for any of us? Or, post-stroke, are you still sensitive only to your own feelings? Perhaps that’s a sensible way to be. I’d certainly have had a more relaxing Christmas if I hadn’t been acutely aware of everyone else’s emotional agitation. Jason was in a bad mood because Lauren was so hyper. He spent most of the day giving her foul looks that had the opposite of a calming effect on her. Tim stiffened with irritation every time Lauren announced what a wonderful Christmas we were all having. He has always treated her as if she were invisible (“and, more importantly, inaudible,” as he might say), but recently he’s seemed less able to block her out. That reached its peak on Christmas Day. Dan and I were terrified all the way through dinner that he might explode and say something horrendous to her, and then Jason would punch him. Unlike Dan or Tim, Jason is the sort of man who would punch anyone who insulted his wife in his presence.

  Lauren couldn’t have known or anticipated the effect it would have on Tim every time she told us all that our Christmas was one we’d remember forever as having been perfect (clue: nails scraped down a blackboard). Lauren doesn’t know about Making Memories Night, does she, Francine? You’re not in a position to tell her anything, are you? That’s assuming you even remember (oh, the irony!).

  Seriously, though: even before the stroke, your memory had something wrong with it. So often you said, “No, that didn’t happen,” about things that had unquestionably happened, and in front of reliable witnesses. After a while, Dan and I started to collect the didn’t-happens. Here are some of my favorites:

  “I didn’t ask for a dry white wine. I asked for a Bacardi and Coke. You could try listening to what I say for once in your life.” (You asked Tim to get you a dry white wine. We all heard you.)

  “Tim, why’s the heating on? It’s boiling. What? No, I didn’t. Why would I turn the heating on when I’m boiling?” (Dan, Tim and I had all seen you adjust the thermostat, turning it up from twenty to twenty-five.)

  “I didn’t say that Valentine’s Day was a meaningless commercial waste of time. I was probably being tactful, so that you wouldn’t feel you had to go to great trouble and expense to surprise me—which you clearly had no intention of doing anyway, because you don’t give a toss about me, obviously.” (When were you probably being tactful, Francine? When you didn’t say the thing we all heard you say?)

  Dan reckons you’re not so much dishonest as unable to think clearly when you’re angry or hurt, which I refuse to accept. If everything that was wrong with you pre-stroke was the result of a psychological flaw that you couldn’t help, I would have to make allowances, and I can’t. I want to hate you, awful though that sounds.

  That’s why I always found it so unsettling when something happened that seemed to support Dan’s theory. Remember when you went apoplectic at Tim over the twist at the end of that film? I can’t remember its name—it was a schlocky TV movie, your favorite kind. For a technically bright person, you had such stupid taste in everything, Francine. Favorite TV program: Hollyoaks. Books: you only ever read fantasy goblin nonsense—you weren’t interested in reading about human beings, were you? Favorite song: “That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain. I suppose it was apt, at least. Nothing impressed you. Do you know, I don’t think I ever heard you say in a restaurant that your food was nice, or lovely, or even okay. Tim always asked you, “How’s yours, darling?” afraid of being accused later of failing to care about the quality of your dining experience, and the answer was always pursed lips and a disgusted shake of the head: the pizza crust was too thin, the curry too spicy, the beef too underdone, the vegetables too soggy or too dry.

  When the schlocky film finished, we turned off the telly and had the discussion that everyone who watched it had: did we guess the twist or not? “I guessed,” you said proudly, expecting universal admiration. “Did you?” Tim asked. “How early on?” Poor sod, he thought it would be an opportunity to praise your intuition, boost your ego. “I guessed as soon as she opened the filing cabinet in the garage and saw what was in there,” you said. “It was so obvious.”

  Dan, Tim and I looked at each other, baffled. If only we hadn’t. You caught the look and demanded to know what it meant. Dan made things worse by denying there had been a look. Tim decided to cut his losses and be honest, hoping to win points for full disclosure. “I don’t think that counts as guessing the twist, darling,” he said as mildly and good-naturedly as he could. “That was the moment of official revelation, when she opened the filing cabinet.” “What do you mean?” you snapped at him. “‘Official revelation’—what are you talking about?” Tim went on as if he hadn’t noticed your sneery mimicry of him. “That’s when the filmmakers showed the viewer the truth.” He stressed the word “showed.” “You know: the ‘ta-da!’ moment.”

  You’d think Dan and I would have been laughing by now, wouldn’t you? We weren’t. We were perched tensely on the edges of our chairs, awaiting social Armageddon. “No,” you said indignantly. “No one revealed anything. No one said anything. It just showed her opening the drawer of the cabinet and seeing what was inside.” “That was the reveal,” I told you, thinking Tim shouldn’t have to carry the burden alone. “Everyone watching the film knew the twist at that point.” Yes, I’ll admit it: as I aimed those words at your utterly uncomprehending face, Francine, I wondered if Dan might be right and there might be something structurally wrong with your brain—something a neurologist could point to on an X-ray and say, “You see that knobbly nodule there with an impossibly long Latin name? That’s what’s been causing all the problems.”

  I’ve never seen anyone storm out of a room so quickly. Tim, Dan and I didn’t have a chance to exchange any words before you marched back in with a hammer and stood with it beside the TV, gripping it so hard that I could see a muscular bulge in the sleeve of your top. “Francine, please don’t—” Tim started to say. You interrupted him, jabbering too fast, as if you’d necked a bottle of speed: “Please don’t what? Please don’t put up the picture I’ve been meaning to put up for ages? Why not?” You then insisted Tim get up and hunt everywhere for a hideous painting of two sheep in a field, which you’d bought from a craft fair for thirty pounds nearly a year earlier, I later found out from Tim; this was the artwork you suddenly, urgently needed to put up, despite having completely forgotten where you’d put it. While Tim searched, you stood next to the TV, staring at the screen, swinging the hammer dangerously close to it. You wanted us all to be scared of what you might do, didn’t you—to the TV, to us? You wanted us to fear what might happen if Tim didn’t find the painting, and the tin with the nails in it. Luckily, he did. I remember thinking, For God’s sake, get the hammer off her and don’t give her the nails.

  That painting’s up on the wall just outside your room, in the hall. Shame you can’t see it.

  I wish I’d kept a diary, Francine. Perhaps one day I’ll collate all the letters Dan and I are writing to you and make them into something—I don’t know what. I am growing increasingly certain that it’s important to remember the bad things that happen as well as the good. You inflicted suffering on a scale that ought to be remembered, Francine. I truly believe that. It bothers me that I can’t remember when the hammer horror evening was, chronologically. Six months after Making Memories Night? No, later. You and Tim were living in the Heron Close house by then.

  And now I don’t have time to write about Making Memories Night because I’ve got to drive to the tip with all the empty Christmas bottles. Which, having written this, I feel more like smashing over your head, Francine.

  13

  FRIDAY, 11 MARCH 2011

  I stand in front of my house and stare at the key in my hand. It proves that my life must be inside this building—my real life. Sometimes I feel as if it isn’t firmly located anywhere, b
ut constantly sliding out of sight as I race to catch it up.

  After everything I’ve been through to get back, I wish I felt happier about being here. The sound of football rushes out from the single-glazed windows to greet me; the ever-present backing track to my evenings at home. West Ham could play Liverpool in my lounge and invite all their fans and I don’t think I’d notice; I’d walk straight past the closed door on my way to the kitchen, assuming it was the TV making the god-awful noise as usual.

  I take off my Saint Christopher and slip it into my jacket pocket before letting myself in. Sean hasn’t seen it since I first unwrapped it, when it provoked a row that ruined Christmas Day. Correction: when Sean provoked a row that ruined Christmas Day. He accused me of buying the medallion for effect, to make a point: that I planned to do even more traveling in the coming year and he’d better get used to it. It’s one of the few times I’ve burst into tears instead of fighting back. I couldn’t bear to explain that I’d bought it for my sake—that I was someone who had a sake all of my own; Sean clearly wasn’t thinking of me and didn’t plan to anytime soon.

  I forget the details of most of our rows soon after they happen, but that non-row was a landmark that led to the introduction of new policies: I decided that Saint Christopher and I would only get together when Sean wasn’t looking, and that in future it would be sensible to keep my soul safely out of reach.

  I open the front door, feeling like a teenager who’s ignored her curfew and must now face the consequences. Sean’s standing in the hall with a bowl of something in one hand and a fork in the other. Steam from the food rises in the air between us. I smile at the man I have lived with for eight years. If I want this conversation to surprise me by not instantly degenerating into acrimony, smiling is a sensible first step.