It’s remarkable how quickly she’s regained her composure. ‘There’s a recent loan for ten thousand that she and this guy thought looked suspicious,’ I tell her. ‘What was that for?’
‘For everything.’ Melia motions with both hands, fingers tightly arched, as if all the strain she carries is in them. ‘To keep everything going until pay day.’
It’s warmer in the flat, I notice. The heating’s on. Now is not the time to discuss her rent arrears. ‘The point is it doesn’t matter what theories anyone comes up with about Kit, so long as they don’t act on them till the New Year. After that, they’ll be starting from scratch, won’t they?’
We look hard at each other. If everything goes to plan. I feel my pulse steadying. ‘You’re right. Yes. Okay. I just wish they’d issued some sort of appeal or involved their missing persons unit. Make it officially known that he disappeared last Monday.’
She nods. ‘That’s what I thought, as well, and I’ve asked them so many times to do a press release. I even threatened to do it myself. But they got their boss to call me, some kind of inspector. She said it was crucial we let them handle it their way, doesn’t want it encroaching on some other investigation they’ve got going on. She said my personal safety could be at risk.’
‘Seriously?’ This is far more than has been shared with me.
‘I actually think it’s a good thing, Jamie. It sounds like they’re considering something a bit more underworld. I told them I was worried about his coke habit and you mentioned the drugs, as well, right?’
‘Of course, exactly as we rehearsed.’ That was my MO for when the cops came calling: no matter where their questions led me, I was to find a way to get the drugs angle on the table, ideally with a mention of the stretch of the river where druggies and the homeless fraternized. Even if they didn’t leap on it – which they didn’t – it would be seeded.
‘Good. So the only thing that matters is they know he was last seen on the twenty-third. It’s all on record and his disappearance is being investigated in a low-profile way. They’ve checked CCTV material, interviewed witnesses – that’s more than enough. A media appeal might have made things worse. We don’t want journalists and the public poking around, noticing things tomorrow night.’
‘You’re right.’ That reminds me of the other fly in our ointment. ‘There’s something else. Not big enough for me to have busted out the code red, but I have to admit it’s been on my mind.’
‘What?’ She’s by my side, her hand on the back of my neck, thumb tracing the bumps of my spine. ‘Tell me.’
‘There’s some other passenger from the boat home that night who’s giving the police information. I haven’t got a clue what they’ve said, but the police implied it’s something incriminating, something beyond what they saw themselves on the security video.’
‘What other passenger?’ she says, sharply.
‘I don’t know, but I’m worried someone might have been following me that night.’
‘Following you? Who?’
‘I think it’s a woman. Maybe someone I’ve pissed off in the past.’
‘If you don’t know who they are then you can’t have pissed them off that badly.’ Her gaze shrinks to a narrow strip of amber. ‘It sounds like paranoia. And even if you were followed, how can what they say possibly be incriminating? The police must know you went straight home from the street cameras.’
‘They haven’t actually confirmed that with me,’ I point out.
‘They will. Jamie. You didn’t do anything, they can hardly fake evidence. Come on, babe, we knew there might be a few difficult questions, we can’t control what the police ask, what everyone thinks they’ve seen. All things considered, it’s going really well.’ She pauses. ‘When did you last hear from the police?’
‘This morning, first thing. Merchison came round. Warned me to leave you alone.’
A small smile slides across her lips. ‘Bless them. They’re very protective.’
‘Little do they know they’re protecting the wrong person.’
‘They certainly are.’ Sensing my exhaustion – or is it fragility? – she says, ‘It’s not long now, we’re almost there. I doubt you’ll hear from them again. It’s down to me now.’
I feel inadequate then, a fraud, leeching strength from her when I’m the one who should be supplying it.
‘Stick to the plan, Jamie. We’ve been through it a hundred times, we’re word perfect.’
She steps towards me and we kiss again. My last doubts roll away and my mind dares consider the next thirty-six hours.
‘Who’ve you got staying here tomorrow night?’
‘Elodie.’
‘The girl you were with yesterday?’
‘Yes. She’s very concerned about me. She knows I just want a quiet night in, so there’ll be no persuading me to go out and party. She’ll be out for the count by twelve thirty with the sleeping pill, won’t wake up till late. How about you?’
‘Clare’s going to be home.’
‘You definitely don’t need a pill for her?’
‘No. Once we’ve gone to bed in our separate quarters she won’t come looking for me – unless it’s to hold a pillow over my head.’ I’m recovering my confidence now, my humour. My arrogance.
‘Separate quarters,’ Melia echoes. ‘So she really knows we’ve been seeing each other, wow. Should I be fitting extra locks to my doors?’
I grimace. ‘She found out on Friday, so if she was going to kill you, she’d have done it by now.’
‘Friday? Are you serious?’ Melia nuzzles me. ‘Tell me everything she said. Can you stay a while?’
She leads me into the bedroom, a tiny room heaped with shoes and bags and books and chargers and myriad other possessions. The small wardrobe overflows, the mantelpiece holds an ugly tangle of fairy lights either dead or forgotten. I wonder if the bedding has been changed since Kit last slept here. Between stretches of kissing, I describe Clare’s discovery of our affair, unsure what to make of the obvious arousal it causes in her, and soon too absorbed in my own pleasure to care.
*
Thirty minutes later, I surface from Melia’s sheets as if from under a mask of fresh oxygen, renewed, recalibrated. Disgracefully, since I’ve just been wrapped around his wife in his bed, it’s only as I leave that I remember to ask, ‘How is he, by the way?’
‘He’s okay,’ Melia says. ‘Not great at killing time, but that’s Kit.’
I picture him, sullen in his solitude, restless for playmates, stewing in his own resentment.
Just you wait, Jamie.
Just YOU wait.
We’re not so dissimilar in the end, Kit and I. We’re both happy to sell the other down the river.
The only difference is, one of us knows the other is doing it.
37
31 December 2019
New Year’s Eve in London, city of nine million. A day and night of mindless drunkenness, of emergency departments split at the seams with the survivors of pub bust-ups and party mishaps. Of carnival and carnage.
A perfect night to bury a crime.
Every minute of today must be accounted for. The Comfort Zone closes inconveniently early, at 4.30 p.m., and knowing Clare will likely stay at work till at least 6.30, I head from St Mary’s Pier to Starbucks on the high street, laptop bag heavy on my shoulder. I’ve chosen the venue both for its security camera and its array of perky staff, at least one of whom will remember our banter about my unusual order: Earl Grey with steamed almond milk on the side. No one ever orders that. I tell the server I work in a café myself and have never been asked for it.
Something DC Parry said bubbles to the surface and gives me momentary trepidation: You seem very confident of the cameras. Almost as if you’ve gone out of your way to be seen. In other words, an innocence too ostentatious might easily be construed as guilt.
The Wi-Fi was playing up at home this morning, I rehearse. Following a change in circumstances, I wanted to start applying for ne
w jobs, had a quick look in my break. My search history backs this up, including a browse of the website of a big chain of coffee shops, and in my sent folder is an email to the manager of a café in Greenwich, enquiring about a weekend manager’s vacancy. Even so, there’s a chewing sensation in my gut, like parasites devouring me from the inside.
Arriving back home at the same time as Clare, I’m on tenterhooks in case she’s had some mercurial change of mind and decided to escape me for the night. I am trading on the power of association by having a bath mid-evening and putting on pyjamas, nice brushed cotton checked ones that her parents bought for me a few Christmases ago. I wonder what Melia imagines I wear in bed; would she think pyjamas only for old men? We’ve never spent the night together. If you add together the hours we’ve been together, does it qualify as long enough to love? Long enough to trust?
I ignore these questions and concentrate on Clare. The pyjama ploy works and by nine o’clock she’s dressed for bed too; we’re sitting together in front of the TV watching ancient episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Anyone looking through the window would think us a normal couple opting out of the party scene in favour of an intimate night alone, not a pair trapped by their estrangement, by the undisclosed machinations of one of them and the misplaced beneficence of the other. Clare’s drinking chilled Chablis, but I’m alcohol-free. Even sobriety may not be enough for me to navigate tonight.
During a scene on TV in which two characters break up, she suddenly clenches. I wonder if she’s thinking how much she hates me. The sheer audacity of my still sitting here in her house, abusing her generosity, disrespecting her.
She sighs and I dare ask: ‘What?’
‘I’m just wondering when that detective of yours is going to pull his finger out.’
So it’s not her hatred of me that consumes her. I should have known. She is a woman of great focus, Clare, and her focus has turned away from her own humiliation and towards crime fighting. But I have no doubt that it will return and when it does I will need to be ready to go.
‘The moment he’s back at his desk, I’ll be on to him,’ I assure her. ‘The day after tomorrow, his office said. Then I’ll send Kelvin’s report. I’ve already drafted the email with our theories. All in my name, as we agreed. You’re not mentioned.’
She nods, satisfied. ‘I went to check on a few flats on our rentals roster today. The ones that haven’t had any viewings over the break and I reckon Melia might think are safe to squat in.’
‘You did?’ Jesus, even at the eleventh hour, she’s blindsiding me with her resourcefulness. ‘Any signs of habitation?’
‘No.’ She groans. ‘Not that I would have known what to do if I had found him. It was silly to think I could take him on on my own. He’d have killed me, probably.’
‘Of course he wouldn’t!’ I protest.
‘Why not? If he doesn’t mind destroying your life for monetary gain, he’d probably be happy to destroy mine while he’s at it. Happier, probably, since I represent the land-owning elite he hates so much.’
I smile but she doesn’t reciprocate. ‘I really hope you’re not right about all of this, Clare.’
‘So do I. But in a way, if I’m not, then it’s more than likely he’s already dead, which is hardly a great alternative, is it? Better that we prevent his crime and save your skin. None of this is worth losing a life over.’
As her attention returns to the screen, a chill passes through me, exactly like you read about in stories of the paranormal. Something deeper than bodily; a recognition in my soul of the wickedness I’ve allowed to take residence.
Astonishing, really, that it’s taken this long for it to happen.
*
2020 has a sci-fi ring to it, I feel, like it might be the year of alien landings or the one when the gamma rays get us. We don’t bother waiting for the countdown to midnight: we’ve each experienced almost fifty of these before, after all. Instead, just after eleven thirty, I tell Clare I’m heading to bed. To my surprise, she follows closely after, intercepting me on the first-floor landing, outside the door of the spare bedroom.
I wait politely for her to say whatever she wants to say. Something to emphasize the mistakes I’ve made: I hope you know what you’ve thrown away. Yep, if I had to put money on it, that’s what she’ll say.
‘Do you think it’s completely impossible . . . ?’ she begins.
I feel my brow pucker. ‘Impossible to what?’
‘To rewind.’
‘Rewind what?’
‘Life. Just a few months. Pretend none of this happened.’
Both the sentiment and her expression are oddly childlike for her, reflecting a rare rawness of emotion, a leap of faith she seldom allows herself to make. Reflecting also, perhaps, the whole bottle of Chablis she’s drunk. I choose my words with care: ‘If I had a superpower that’s the one I’d choose.’
She takes her time absorbing this piece of diplomacy. ‘Do I even want to myself, that’s the question.’
And yet she doesn’t make a question of it, and that’s what saves me, that missing question mark. I hover in my doorway and watch as she goes up the stairs to the master bedroom on the second floor, the room where we slept together for ten years. She closes the door behind her, spends a few minutes in the en suite, and then her lights are off. I can hear the faint drone of her radio: she likes to fall asleep to audiobooks, used to listen through earphones so as not to disturb me, but now she can play her stories out loud.
In my bedroom, as fireworks crack and whistle in the distance, I check a few news sites online, text family and friends: Happy New Year from us! Establish that I am here, at home, with Clare. Then I select a radio drama from the iPlayer, one with a running time of almost two hours, and hit ‘Play’. I turn the volume down and slip the phone under my pillow so I can’t make the mistake of taking it with me.
At 1.20 a.m., I pull on trainers and a hoodie, both items too big for me and purchased with cash. I creep downstairs in the dark and leave the house.
There’s not a soul on the street, though I can see party lights in several houses where gatherings continue into the night, well-dressed silhouettes at the windows, wineglasses raised. Drunk people make poor witnesses, I remind myself – I was one of them myself on 23 December. I’m as confident as I can be that no one is watching as I move, soft-footed, towards the eastern exit of the square. Melia is right: my little visit from Merchison yesterday was the end of it. I’ve considered Kit gone since I was notified by the same officer on the 27th and, come tomorrow, I’ll be exonerated on those very grounds. Meanwhile, word will reach police ears of my clashes with Melia, designed to emphasize that we are foes, as far from coconspirators as you could imagine. It will all be on record, incontrovertible, both our alibis for the night of the killing as airtight as each other’s.
As for any thoughts I’ve had of this other passenger having some historic grievance against me, following me, waiting for me to trip up, Melia was right about that, as well. Paranoia, nothing more.
I take a left onto Pepys Road and head down to the river. As expected, I pass no one, only a skinny fox scavenging for food. A year from now, when the St Mary’s Wharf flats are completed and their buyers installed, it would be a different story. There’s a smell of sulphur in the air, of spent fireworks, stirring memories of childhood bonfire nights, Debs by my side, both of us in scarves knitted by our mother. Never, not for a nightmarish second, would my mother have imagined her son capable of doing tonight what he’s about to do.
I reach the river path. There’s no lighting on this stretch and no passing vessels, so I hear the water before my eyes adjust sufficiently to see it, the slap and squelch of high tide. When I draw to a halt, I realize I’m shaking badly. Maybe because I know that where I’m standing is a blackspot and I’m entirely alone and unguarded, hunter become hunted. The bar manager at the Hope & Anchor first drew it to my attention after my bike was nicked from where I’d locked it to the nearest bench. Their camera ra
nge didn’t extend that far, he explained. It’s I who told Kit and Melia about the spot, unaware, then, of their future uses for it.
My night vision is sharpening; I’m about twenty feet from the bench. Whatever celebrations were hosted by the Hope & Anchor are over, all its windows dark. There’s a sudden gust of high spirits from a party boat on the far bank and I’m reminded of when I told Kit about the Marchioness disaster. I feel a lurch of grief for the victims that terrible night, for all the dead who fall from memory with the passing of their own generation.
The innocent deserve better.
Without my phone, I can’t check the time, but it must be close to our agreed rendezvous of 1.30 a.m. Minutes tick by and I start to think they’re not coming. I’m shocked by the depth of my disappointment, by the phrase that rears in my mind: I’m ready. I’m ready to leave my home, my life. I’m ready to bundle every last possession into a sack and sink it in the Thames. To start my life again with the woman I love.
And then, quite suddenly, there they are, approaching from the same direction I came from myself.
Kit and Melia. Husband and wife.
Victim and killer.
On Melia’s back, a small, stuffed backpack. In Kit’s hands, nothing but a cigarette, which, as I watch, he tosses suddenly to the ground, too cool to extinguish it, like he thinks he’s James Dean.
It’s three, perhaps four, weeks since I last saw them together and, watching their advancing forms, I’m reminded of our first meeting, of their reflective, twinlike qualities. If Melia and I fit, they match, each an impression of the other. And it feels, for an instant, unimaginable that they should be parted, as they have been these last days, Kit holed up in the kind of cheap and nasty hostel that he of all people would consider far beneath him. Accommodation arranged with every effort to avoid detection. False name, false address. False dawn.
Because Clare’s deductions are spot on, in case that’s not yet clear. What she thinks Kit and Melia are doing is exactly what he thinks: a disappearance to lead to an insurance claim, a fall guy to expedite its payment from seven years to one. The perfect fraud.
The Other Passenger Page 22