Natalie felt blood thundering through her head. She was thinking how they’d last spoken on Friday night, the first of November. They’d made up from their argument and he’d promised to call again on Saturday. But he never did. And it was Wednesday now.
“No. That’s not right. That can’t be right.”
“I’m sorry Natalie. I understand your friend with the helicopter is continuing to search, but I’m afraid it’s no longer part of a search and rescue operation.”
Natalie stared at her, she couldn’t process the words. She could hear them, but it was as if their meaning was separate to the sound, and it had somehow slipped away.
“I don’t understand,” she said at last, as if this might make a difference.
“I’m so sorry Natalie. But he’s gone. Your husband has gone.”
twenty
SHE DROVE THERE in Jim’s car, the smell of leather from the seats so powerful a reminder of him that it seemed impossible he could really be gone. The garage had done something to one of the filters, or perhaps a valve, she hadn’t cared, hadn’t been interested in how much it might cost, it was all she could do to thrust her credit card at them and get out of there as fast as she could.
But now she drove slowly, putting off the time when she would arrive. She’d run through her mind how this meeting would go over the last few days. Now it was close, she wasn’t sure anymore. She pulled onto the old airport road, past the curved, corrugated iron roofs of the old wartime airman’s accommodation now converted into offices and little industrial units. She remembered the last time she’d driven here, just a week ago. And how it had been a different person that drove away.
She parked down the side of the building, where the curved roof flowed windowless into the ground. But she knew Dave was there, she’d seen his black BMW parked out in front, where it always was. Dave had claimed he should get the better space because he was in the office more. He was the one who handled the paperwork, stayed on top of the maintenance schedules, the ever-changing regulations. That was never Jim’s strength. But Jim, being Jim, liked to try and park in Dave’s space, just to annoy him. Just for the hell of it, even after Dave had put up signs up with their names on in front of each space. It didn’t matter now of course, Jim wouldn’t be parking anywhere now. She felt the thought nearly crush her, and it took all her effort to pull the handle on the car door and step out.
She walked around to the front of the office, passing the window and glancing in. Dave hadn’t heard her arrive. He was sat behind his desk, sleeves rolled up, a frown of concentration on his face. But then something made him look up and their eyes met. She forced herself to smile a sad hello as he got up to open the door.
Inside he said nothing, but held his arms open. She hesitated at first but then let herself lean into him and he pulled her close. They stood together in silence and he stroked her hair, until she pushed herself away and sat down in front of his desk.
“I ran out of flying hours,” Dave said. “I already flew more than I should, the coastguard said they’d have to report me if I went up any longer.”
“I know,” Natalie said.
“I can fly again tomorrow. Do you want me to get back up…?” She was shaking her head and he stopped.
“He’s gone Dave. Jim’s gone.”
He nodded slowly, like he knew this was the case, but hadn’t been sure if she had accepted it yet.
“I’m so sorry Natalie. So sorry.”
They stood there for a long while neither knowing what to say until Dave went on in a sensitive voice that Natalie was starting to recognise.
“How are you holding up?” He asked.
It took her by surprise, not the question, but her response. It nearly broke her composure and it was all she could do to nod, her chin crumpling up as she tried to hold back tears. He went to hold her again but she pushed him away.
“No.”
“No. I need to talk to you. I’ve come here to talk.” Her voice was firm, a little cold.
He rubbed his hand across his face, seemed surprised at the extent of the growth on his cheeks, but he said nothing. Instead he nodded, went back to his own chair behind the desk and sat down facing her. She sat down too, and took a deep breath. But now that the moment had come, Natalie lost her nerve.
“Has it caused problems, you being away from the business I mean?” She said at last.
He answered slowly, he knew this wasn’t what she wanted to discuss, but he answered her anyway.
“A bit. I mean, Christ, it’s hardly important, but…” He gestured to his desk. “I’ve called in some favours. It’ll be all right.”
She nodded, and tried to work out how to go on. But he interrupted her thoughts.
“The guy from the coastguard said that this happens sometimes. It doesn’t matter how good a swimmer someone is, or how many years they’ve been surfing. It’s rare, but it happens.” He stopped and looked at her, but she didn’t respond.
“I know the timing’s… awkward.”
Her eyes flicked to his up from the desk, then slowly she lowered her eyes again.
“What a difference a week makes,” Dave said, changing the tone of his voice, seeing where she was looking. She got the implication but she pulled her eyes up again at once and glared at him.
“I lied to the police Dave. I lied to them.”
She watched the colour fade from his face.
“What do you mean?”
“They found empty paracetamol packets in the car. Lots of them. They thought he took an overdose before he went into the water.”
“What? Why the hell do they think that?”
“Well I thought perhaps you could tell me?” her nostrils flared and she stared at him, daring him to reply, but he said nothing.
“Perhaps someone told him his wife screwed his business partner last week. What do you think? That might do it.”
It was only the two of them there, but Dave’s head swivelled wildly from side to side, as if checking they weren’t being overheard.
“Jesus Natalie,” he said. “There’s no need to shout. Just calm down a little will you?”
In reply she just stared at him over the desk.
“Well, have you got anything to tell me? Cos I sure as hell can’t think of any other reason why Jim might take an overdose.”
“Natalie… Are you suggesting I told him? Because I didn’t, I swear to you. Why would I tell him?”
Natalie didn’t answer at first. She didn’t have an answer for this.
“I don’t know.”
“It would ruin everything. The business, my marriage…” he glanced at her and added: “Us. Whatever that is now.”
Natalie was breathing hard still, but now that her anger had broken free, she felt unsure what to do next. She said nothing and after a moment Dave continued.
“How do you mean you lied to the police?”
She let her breathing slow before replying.
“I told them the pills were mine. I made a statement saying I kept them there in the glovebox, and I hadn’t thrown away the empty boxes. That meant they weren’t connected to Jim’s death. It meant he didn’t kill himself. But they weren’t mine. I’ve no idea how they got there.”
Dave ran his hands through his hair, as if the thought that was forming inside his head just couldn’t make sense.
“But hold on. Jim wouldn’t kill himself. Even if he did find out… I mean I don’t know what he’d do, but he wouldn’t do that. There’s just no way.”
It was the same thought that Natalie had been having for the last three days. In the six years she’d known Jim she’d hardly ever seen him worried or stressed. And he’d sounded fine on Friday when they spoke on the telephone. He seemed to have almost forgotten their argument when he left, he talked about taking her out to dinner later that week, his way of making it up to her.
“And anyway,” Dave went on. “There’s just no way he could have found out.”
He interrupted h
er thoughts and she looked at him in surprise, sitting just across the desk from her. The desk that now had such a history, such meaning. The desk on which she had been unfaithful for the first, and now only time, in her marriage.
From the moment Jim introduced her to Dave she knew he liked her. It was obvious in the way his eyes avoided her until he thought she couldn’t see them, and then how they followed her around the room. She’d felt flattered at first, it was harmless, a nice boost to her ego. Both these men were catches, Jim better looking, more flashy perhaps, but Dave could hold his own. And here she was, apparently able to captivate one, and still attract the attention of the other. Jim completely missed it of course. He was more excited about how she got on with Elaine, Dave’s wife. Jim had grand plans for how the four of them would become best friends, god parents to each other’s children. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be funny how clearly he saw all their futures, especially now, that he’d got it all so horribly wrong.
And then last week. When Jim had buggered off on his surfing trip he’d left an important folder in his car, which Dave needed. But of course Natalie had the car, she was putting it in the garage for Jim while he was away. Luckily Dave phoned her about it before she dropped the car at the garage. Or perhaps that was bad luck, the way things turned out. She’d driven down to the office then too, in the darkness. Dave was working late again. While Jim had his fun. Bloody Jim.
She didn’t usually drink coffee this late, but he talked her into it. He said he had a long night ahead of him and needed the caffeine. Perhaps he implied a little how this wasn’t helped by Jim’s carelessness in driving off with the papers. Perhaps that gave them both a reason to be a little irritated with Jim, and they were both a little more critical than was normal in discussing him. But Dave didn’t talk about Jim for long. Instead he asked about her, something he’d rarely done before. He asked her how her new role was going at the university, and she talked until she’d exhausted the subject, him listening all the while. It seemed like it was the first time that anyone really took an interest. She thought, not for the first time, how Dave was such a nice guy. Jim was lucky to be working with him. She was lucky to know him. Dave wasn’t exciting like Jim, but he was handsome, she would still notice him if he walked into a room, and he was reliable, dependable. Everything that Jim wasn’t. For some reason they weren’t sitting down, but leaning against the front of his desk, their sides nearly touching. The coffee’s long finished. And in that moment her mind started playing crazy tricks on her as she wondered how it might feel to slide across a little, so that her thigh pressed up against his. What might he do if her shoulder brushed his?
And at that moment she knew it was going to happen. She could have stopped it, but she didn’t. They looked at each other and Dave lifted his hand and brushed the hair out of her face. She tried to stop him in only the most half hearted way, and he caught her hand and held it close to his face. Then he leaned across and she knew he was going to kiss her. She leaned in too and their lips came together. He turned around to press against her and his hands came down from her face to her breasts, cupping them through her bra. And she broke away from him, desperate to let nothing interrupt, to let no moment of fumbling allow her mind to halt this madness she reached behind her back and unclipped her bra and then threw her arms around him and sought out his lips. And then everything that was on the desk, the papers she had brought, it was all suddenly on the floor, Natalie’s dress was hitched up around her waist, his hand pushing her knickers down, Dave’s urgency to enter her both scaring and thrilling her.
“I just don’t see how he could have found out,” Dave said, it ripped Natalie back to the present.
“How about Elaine? Did you tell her? Is there any way she could have known?”
“Of course not. Why would I tell her?”
They were both silent for a while, and then, suddenly, she remembered.
“The window.”
“What?”
“The window. Remember I made you…”
She didn’t finish the sentence, she didn’t need to, there was no way he could have forgotten. With her bare back on the wood of the desk her head had fallen sideways and she’d seen the empty blackness of the night outside the office, the blinds up, the way Dave usually had them. And then a flash of red, the rear light of a car, driving away down the road.
“Stop. Stop.”
With an effort he did so, his weight pressing down on her, his trousers open at the fly.
“You’ve got to shut the blinds. Someone might see.”
She could sense him hesitate, and wondered if he might tell her not to worry, that no one would be about this late, but instead he pushed himself up and padded to the window, panting all the way. Then he released the cord to let the blinds rattle down across the glass and turned them so the night was shut out. Then he took a long look at Natalie, her legs apart, underwear still caught around one ankle, before turning off the lights. She heard rather than saw him come back to her, still breathing heavily, gently tugging at the cotton of her knickers to free them and kissing the insides of her legs, moving ever upwards.
“You left him a message about the papers didn’t you? The ones I dropped off that night. What if he drove back here as well that night, to help with whatever the work was. What if he saw us through the window before you closed the blinds?”
Now it was Dave’s turn to stay silent for a long while. She could see on his face his mind working. Eventually he spoke.
“Why would he come back? He didn’t have the papers, there was nothing he could do.”
But Natalie hardly heard this, with a flash she remembered the red tail lights she’d seen that night.
“I saw a car. Driving away, before you shut the blinds. It must have been him. He must have seen us…” Natalie’s hand flew to her mouth, stopping her from going on, but the horror was clear in her eyes. But Dave was shaking his head.
“No. You’ve got to stay rational. Jim didn’t see us. He couldn’t have done. There’s no way he would have come all the way back from Cornwall to help with a few papers. This is Jim we’re talking about.”
Natalie didn’t move, her hand still clamped over her mouth.
“OK. The light you saw, this car. How close was it?”
Slowly Natalie brought her hand down, and concentrated on her breathing. She looked at the window, the thought that Jim might have stood outside there watching her was almost overwhelming - she remembered with a another layer of misery how she had beckoned to Dave to come back to her just before he turned off the light. But no, Jim couldn’t have seen that - the blinds were already down by then.
“Look. Look. Out the window. We’re the last unit on the estate. But you can see the corner of the main road. That’s what you must have seen. A car driving out on the main road, but they wouldn’t have been able to see in here.”
She tried to calm her breathing and focus on what he was saying. The light hadn’t been close she remembered.
“No one saw us Nat. They couldn’t have.”
Suddenly she got up and went to the window. Outside everything was quiet. Like normal. Most of the other units around them were empty. She saw the main road, some way away, and then a car drove along, slowing for the corner, its brake lights coming on for a moment or two. She began to relax a little.
Natalie went and sat back down. Dave had put a coffee in front of her and she took a sip. The bitterness helped.
“So if you you didn’t tell him, I didn’t tell him, and he didn’t see us through the window, then how the hell did he find out?”
“We don’t know that he did. There was no note or anything? Nothing else to suggest…?
“No. Nothing the police have found.”
“And you spoke to him after… On Friday night? On the phone?” Dave said. They both knew what he meant. Friday was two nights after their encounter.
“How did he sound? Was he suspicious? Angry?”
She shook her head, remembe
ring the call now.
“No. It was… Good. I think we both felt guilty. Him because we’d had this row about him going off surfing again. Me because of… Well.” She shrugged sarcastically, and felt in danger of losing her composure again, but Dave carried on as if he didn’t notice.
“So the only suggestion it wasn’t an accident is these empty paracetamol boxes.”
Natalie considered for a second or two.
“I suppose.”
“And they definitely weren’t yours? I mean, I’ve seen your car. It’s often quite a mess. They couldn’t actually have just been left there?”
Natalie felt herself reddening at this. It was bizarre. She was suddenly feeling more guilt for keeping a dirty car than being an unfaithful wife. “No…” she stopped. “I mean there may have been one packet there, I’m not sure. But not three.”
He took a deep breath before replying.
“Then maybe there is a simple explanation. Maybe Jim got a headache. Pulled a muscle or something. That can easily happen when you’re surfing. And maybe you had an empty packet or two in the car and forgot to throw them away. And he bought another packet, and used them for something. I mean for something real.”
Natalie’s face stopped him. Her eyes were wide and pleading. He felt an overwhelming urge to protect her.
“Nat you did the right thing telling the police those tablets were yours. Imagine how much worse this would be for Jim’s mum, for everybody if they thought Jim took his own life. And there’s no way that happened. This was just a tragic accident. You did the right thing.”
Natalie looked away. She tried to look back at him and say something but her nerve failed.
The Wave at Hanging Rock: A Psychological Mystery and Suspense Thriller Page 12