by Tina Seskis
‘Hi,’ she said to the officer on duty. She tried to rein in her East Coast drawl. ‘I’m here to see PC Moffatt.’ The policeman, who was large-faced and pasty, immediately stopped smiling and appeared mildly annoyed for some reason.
‘Who shall I say wants to see him?’
‘Er, my name’s Eleanor Jackson. He’ll know what it’s regarding.’
The policeman lumbered off, and the way he walked it was as if he had one leg shorter than the other. Perhaps he’d been shot, Eleanor thought, and then she remembered that this was England, and the police never got shot here, not even in the roughest parts of the capital. They didn’t even have guns, just truncheons, which was laughable really. It must be an odd feeling, she thought, on the one hand to feel so safe that guns were not deemed necessary, and yet on the other to be left so vulnerable. As she sat down on one of the plastic chairs in the waiting room, she noticed a trace of body odour and lavender in the air, and although it was musty it wasn’t wholly unpleasant.
After a few minutes the limping police officer returned and sulkily beckoned Eleanor through to the rear of the station, where the policewoman she’d seen on her first visit was waiting for her. Her name was Gillian something, Eleanor remembered – the same as her auntie – and she felt a sudden pang of homesickness again. She swallowed, hard.
‘Oh, I thought I was seeing PC Moffatt,’ she said as she was ushered down a pale-green corridor that had scuff marks all along it at waist height, as if a bike had been ridden down it.
Gillian looked amused. ‘He’ll be along in a minute, love.’ Did she just raise her eyebrows at her, Eleanor wondered. Was she laughing at her? That wasn’t cool. Being stalked wasn’t funny.
‘OK, now let’s see,’ said Gillian. ‘You received this package when?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘By post?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you opened it?’
Eleanor looked at the policewoman. Was she deliberately being obtuse? She nearly said, ‘What does it look like?’ but refrained.
‘No.’ They stared at each other, and the atmosphere was fraught for a second.
Henley. That was it. WPC Gillian Henley. ‘Shall we open it now?’ WPC Henley said encouragingly, and Eleanor realised that she wasn’t being mean at all – it was just that her natural tone was ironic and a smirk was never far from her lips. It seemed to be an English thing. It was disconcerting.
‘OK,’ Eleanor said. As she stared at the package, she was filled with an odd sensation. It wasn’t hatred as such – it was far more complex than that. There was pity there, definitely, for the trouble that Gavin Hewitson had gotten himself into. And there was sadness too – that it seemed Gavin wanted to be loved by her, and she wanted to be loved by Rufus, and Rufus had run back to some unknown other girl, and the world was full of unrequited love and loneliness and fucked-up heads that even the most expensive shrinks in the world couldn’t fix, because of course they were fucked up too. She pictured her father in his Upper East Side consulting room, with his high-end clients and his ever-expanding wealth and his estrangement from his second wife and now seemingly his daughter too, and she wondered what it would take, whether it would ever be possible, to make the world roll on by, everyone giving and receiving love in perfect proportions. There being enough love in the world for everyone.
As Eleanor watched WPC Henley pull on a pair of blue surgical gloves it almost felt as if they were about to embark on a weird mash-up of Russian roulette and pass the parcel. The Formica top of the table was scratched, and she could make out the word ‘wank’ engraved in it. The parcel was wrapped in brown paper. The label was typed. The post code was Camden. WPC Henley tried to pull at the packing tape, but because of the gloves she couldn’t find an edge and Eleanor felt tempted to lean over and help her. Next, the policewoman tried with a pair of scissors that she appeared to retrieve from her cleavage, like a magic trick. They both held their breath.
WPC Henley pulled out the items by her fingertips and dropped them on to the plastic sheet on the table between them.
‘Oh,’ said Eleanor. The panties – black, crotchless, cheap – lay there with all the appeal of roadkill. A novel entitled Revenge of the Wronged with a bare-chested man on the cover was its accomplice. The final item was a bullet. WPC Henley was definitely not smiling now.
‘Oh, Lord,’ she said, as the bullet bounced and clattered, before finally coming to a standstill next to the underwear.
‘Yeah, and to think it all started with a ride home from the park,’ Eleanor said, and she gave a high little laugh. She could feel her fingers shaking and so she clasped them together, gripped her knuckles, held them in front of her mouth. She gnawed at her left forefinger. The pain seemed to ground her somehow.
‘Well, thanks for bringing the package in,’ WPC Henley said. ‘I’ll, er, book the items in.’
‘What should I do now?’ Eleanor asked.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, is that a threat on my life? The bullet, I mean.’
WPC Henley looked uncomfortable, and Eleanor could tell that she didn’t know what to say. Suddenly Eleanor needed something. Someone. She wasn’t sure where things were meant to go from here. She pictured herself walking out on to the litter-strewn street, pushing past harried mothers and loping sullen-faced men who would eye her up, as if she were a foreign object, or a possible target. She visualised negotiating the road junctions, making sure she remembered to look the other way. She imagined Gavin jumping out at her, grabbing her from behind, smothering her screams. She pictured Rufus, naked, entwined in someone else’s limbs. She thought of her family, thousands of miles away. She remembered the policeman who had first taken the report, the cute one with the sandy hair and bright blue eyes. Everything felt too much.
‘I thought you said PC Moffatt was coming,’ she said, staring beseechingly at the older woman. ‘Is it possible for you to go get him?’
21
ALEX
Alex sat opposite his sergeant, a sparky second-generation Indian woman who, despite barely reaching his shoulder, was as tough as they came. He and Manisha had gone down to the canteen together for once, and Manisha was just finishing up her fish and chips, which had been as disgustingly greasy as the rest of the chef’s offerings. Alex had made do with a coffee, as he felt too nervous to eat. He made his request just as Manisha put down her knife and fork, and then he sat back on the black plastic bucket chair, dabbing at his mouth with his fingers, waiting for his boss’s response.
‘But you took the original report,’ Manisha was saying now in her flat Leeds accent. Her eyes slanted upwards, and she had dimples in her cheeks and lustrous skin, and he was curious whether she wore traditional or Western clothes when she wasn’t in uniform. Even though they got on well at work – in fact she was the best skipper he’d had – he’d never liked to ask.
‘And seeing as you’ve now interviewed the suspect too,’ Manisha continued, ‘it makes sense for you to carry the case through. What’s the problem?’
‘It’s just that . . .’ Alex didn’t know how to broach it. It sounded ludicrous. He could feel himself blushing, but this felt too important to risk screwing up. His future snaked away ahead of him, with a strawberry-blonde vision of loveliness at the heart of it.
‘I’ve got feelings for the victim,’ he said now.
‘You what?’ Manisha looked like she might laugh, and then she didn’t. ‘For God’s sake, Alex, this isn’t an episode of The Bill, you know.’
‘I know, but I didn’t want to risk compromising myself. I thought it was better to be honest.’ Alex decided not to mention that he was actually planning on asking the victim out, just as soon as he found an opportune moment. It was as if the American girl had cast a spell on him, and he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. It made life feel more exciting somehow. More vivid. It made him feel more alive than he ever had. It seemed she saw him as some kind of saviour now, which was a start, but h
e had no idea whether she would be romantically interested in him. It didn’t help that she already had a stalker, of course, and perhaps an ex-husband, so it was clear that she had quite enough on her plate for the moment. He would certainly have to play it carefully. But it would be worth it. She would be worth it. An unfamiliar feeling made its way into Alex’s psyche as he sat and watched Manisha take a slurp of her coffee and shake her head at him fondly, as if he were an errant little boy. He wasn’t sure exactly what this new emotion was, but when Manisha finally said that, all right then, Gillian could deal with it, he felt his heart jump, and he gave his boss his most impishly twinkling grin of thanks.
22
CHRISTIE
Something bad had happened, Christie could tell. It was early Friday evening and the signs could no longer be ignored. When Paul had first come home, she’d felt so guilty about how miserable and moody she’d been since having Daisy, and the effect it must have had on her husband, she’d decided to ignore the fact he hadn’t called her the previous night, as he’d said he would. But now she wondered . . .
‘So . . . you never actually told me how the conference was,’ she said. She was lying along the length of the couch, propped up against the pillows, Daisy in her arms in a state of post-feed milky bliss, the fading slanting sunbeams having rendered her daughter’s mood unusually woozy and content. It had been good having Daisy to herself last night, and it had surprised Christie – and although she hated admitting it, somehow it had felt easier without Paul there. Daisy hadn’t been nearly so colicky. She hadn’t felt quite so useless.
Yet Paul’s demeanour now was sending Christie’s stress levels rising again. It was almost as if there had been a ‘before’, when she’d still had trust issues, for sure, but deep down she’d known that Paul was rock solid. (After all, wasn’t that partly why she’d married him? Good old steady Paul, who would never ever betray her. And wasn’t having been betrayed partly why she’d come back to Manchester in the first place?) And now this was the ‘after’, where she had no fucking idea what was going on.
Christie didn’t know why she was acting so calmly, but perhaps she was simply buying herself time. She wondered just what had happened at Paul’s work do, and whether it might even be her fault. Maybe, ever since she’d seen that ridiculous gypsy woman, she’d unintentionally been transmitting her doubts on to him, and so he’d decided he might as well go ahead and transgress if that was how little she thought of him. Or perhaps she simply hadn’t tried hard enough to keep him. She’d spent the last two months dressed in slack-kneed leggings and sloppy sick-encrusted sweaters. She’d had leaking breasts and a screaming baby she hadn’t been able to manage. She’d let her hair grow wild. Before this week she hadn’t put on make-up in ages. The irony. At last she’d made an effort, and maybe it was too late.
Christie pulled herself up. This wasn’t her fault. She was a new mother. She was struggling. That was quite normal. It didn’t give her husband carte blanche to go off and do whatever. But what was ‘whatever’ in Paul’s case? Weirdly, Christie decided she didn’t want to know at the moment. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Denial was the key to this right now, she was sure of it. And besides, it was probably nothing. Maybe she just needed to give the poor bloke a break.
Paul still hadn’t answered her, and so she ignored him. Daisy started cooing and gurgling, and Christie gazed into her daughter’s eyes with a love she wasn’t sure she’d felt before. This love was unconditional, and it felt more manageable somehow. After all, she knew she would always love her daughter, whatever happened, whatever she did. It was in the blood. Romantic love could never be that. Not even the most devoted of partners could guarantee undying love, no matter how much they believed in it. There were too many opportunities to screw it up. In fact, if anyone did ever manage lifelong devotion, it was seen as almost a miracle. Sixty years of marriage was lauded as an achievement, in the same vein as climbing a mountain or something. She was surprised she hadn’t thought of it like that before.
‘Christie, I’ve got something I need to talk to you about,’ her husband said at last. He was sitting on the leather chair by the fireplace, although normally he would sit at the end of the couch, her feet pressing against his legs.
Christie carried on gazing at her baby, noticed the little crinkle between her eyes, the exact one Paul had. She noticed the way her skin was blue-tinged at the temples, how her ears were so perfect and pointy, her eyelashes like a dolly’s, and she realised she’d never stared at Daisy before. Not like this. Before she’d only ever looked at her daughter with despair that she wouldn’t stop crying, or disbelief that she really was here, that she belonged to her, and that Christie was responsible for her – for her very survival. It had been terrifying. Or else she’d peered from the doorway of Daisy’s bedroom, to check if she truly was asleep, and then once satisfied would make a swift relieved exit, so as not to wake her.
‘Christie!’
The baby jumped at her father’s tone, her plump arms and legs startling into a comedy star shape, her little dark eyes widening with fear. It was possibly the first time she’d ever heard a man’s voice raised.
‘I said, I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.’
Eventually Christie turned to her husband, and she felt pity for him then, for what he was about to do to their little family.
Never trust never trust never trust.
She felt dangerously calm now, as if the pin had been pulled out of a grenade, and the whole world was waiting for it to detonate.
‘What?’ she said.
‘I . . . I got really drunk last night.’
‘I know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You look like shit. Your breath still stinks of booze.’
‘But it’s not just that.’
‘I know.’
Paul looked stunned. ‘You know what?’
‘I know that you slept with someone.’ She couldn’t believe that she was being so unemotional about it. Is this what betrayal felt like, when it was the second time around? Just a dull sense of inevitability? Proof that you’d been right all along?
‘You WHAT?’ If little Daisy had been disgruntled about her father’s tone of voice before, she most certainly objected to it now. The baby erupted into a tirade of howling that belied her size. Paul’s fists were clenched, and his brow was lowered, making him look almost Neanderthal. ‘What did you say?’
Christie got up from the couch and turned away from Paul, took Daisy over to the window and gently shushed her, tried to rock away her tears. Miraculously, Daisy responded almost instantly. A car passed by on the street, slowly, and it was an old midnight-blue Rover, like her father used to have. She felt blank, on the edge of hysteria perhaps. ‘You heard,’ she said.
‘No, Christie, please.’ Paul stood up then, and when she turned from the window at last, he was standing in the middle of the room looking as if he were about to cry. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. Look, yes, I was drunk, and overwrought, and knackered, and worried about you. And then the boss kept ordering shots, and I decided to go to bed, and then this girl from HR persuaded me to have a dance . . .’
‘Paul, I don’t need to hear this. What is wrong with you?’
‘But you do need to hear it. I can’t live with myself without telling you.’ Paul really did have tears in his eyes now. ‘And I let my hair down and got gloriously, horribly trashed. And it was because I realised that I do want to be a father, and I do love Daisy, and . . . ’ Paul’s voice faded to nothing. Even he didn’t seem to know how to take the conversation from there.
Christie found her thoughts drifting, somewhere on the edge of her consciousness. Thin foggy images floated past. Flowing hair, billowing sheets, another girl in her student bed. Disbelief. Rage. Madness. The old clairvoyant with her beady eyes and golden hoop earrings, her gleeful proclamations. Her sister, Alice, smiling serenely. Her baby, Daisy, bellowing lustily, her face scrunched up like a popp
ed balloon. And now her husband, Paul – until today the most buttoned-up man in the history of the universe – weeping. She couldn’t make sense of what was going on. All she knew was that she lived in Whalley Range, and she was married, and a mother, on maternity leave from her job as a history teacher, and she’d had her heart smashed to pieces once already, and now her supposedly doting husband had just told her he’d only just decided he liked being a father. Only just decided he loved their daughter! My God, no wonder they’d all been struggling.
‘Fuck off, Paul,’ Christie said, and then she walked steadily out of the room and shut the door, the baby in her arms quiet still, but dangerously so, almost certainly on the cusp of apoplexy.
Is it any excuse that this all started because I was treated so badly? It’s comforting to think that in a way. I don’t want to have to ponder it, but I need to do something, here in the empty air of my prison cell. I spend twenty-odd hours a day in here, and there’s only so much TV I can watch, only so long I can stare at the cracks in the walls. I have to live inside my head at least some of the time. I so longed and wanted and needed to be loved. I was so determined to make the best of what life had thrown my way. I made things happen – for my betterment, yes, but for others’ too. My kids, for a start. I wanted to be the very best version of myself that I could possibly be. And it worked. For a while.
But now everything is ruined, and I only have myself to blame. The crimes that have been committed are mine. The world has shrunk, and the future feels oppressive, the vacant seconds and minutes weighing down on me, unnerving me. It’s ironic that before this there was never enough time. It was life crammed full to the gunnels; busyness writ large. And now there’s nothing but time, stretching out and away, to infinity and beyond. I’ve never thought of it before, but that must be why they call it ‘doing time’. I’m doing time, here in this dark empty room, because there is simply nothing else to do.