‘Hey, you’re back.’ Terry, the person well-known throughout the office and, I guessed the city at large, for his ability to state the obvious. ‘How long have we got you for this time?’
I smiled. ‘I’m meant to be hitting Nottingham next month but I’ll be in Birmingham until then I should think. It’s nice to be on your own stomping ground for a while, isn’t it? No place like home and all that.’
‘Yeah.’ He sipped his own drink and I downed what was left of mine. ‘Must be nice to spend some time with Cassie as well, I’ll bet. She must miss you while you’re out and about all over the place.’
‘I don’t know about that. I sometimes think it’s what keeps us together.’
We shared a laugh, then, in the way that men often laugh about their wives.
He nodded at the screen behind me. ‘Did you know her?’
I tried to make a show of looking flummoxed. ‘Oh, shit, no I didn’t. I must have clicked into it by mistake.’
‘Well,’ he took another sip, ‘don’t let me keep you, fella. See you at lunch?’
‘I’ll be there.’
When he was a clear distance from my desk I turned and faced the screen again. Sarah had written the obituary herself, which I imagined to be both a crushing and cathartic experience. She’d picked a picture of Madison that looked to be at least ten years old. She was laughing, with her arms flung around an equally happy looking companion – Evelyn. I wondered why Sarah had done that.
Madison Hewitt passed away aged 50. She is survived by her foster daughter, of sorts, Sarah Wainwright, who Madison took under her wing at a young age. Madison was the only daughter of Harry and Olive Hewitt; she never married and had no children of her own. Although after taking in Sarah, she became a mother to a motley crew of teenagers, all of whom will miss her dearly.
Madison was a kind and gentle individual with more friends than she realised. These were friends she acquired during years of varied careers and free time that was spent volunteering. During her life, she worked as…
The entire obituary was written with the fondness of someone who had known her. It would have been difficult, but I imagined Sarah piecing the article together with her so-called motley crew of friends. The boys would have contributed little but the other girl – the mother – she would have been helpful. I skimmed through the details of Madison’s life and felt my own weight of sadness form somewhere in my larynx. When people around me continued with their ‘Good morning’ routine, I could only bring myself to nod by way of replying for fear of the noise that may come out otherwise. When I saw that I was nearing the end of the announcement – one paragraph at most left to read – I felt a notable relief. Until…
From the author to the deceased: Madison, it’s been a lifetime of experiences. Thank you. I can only hope that one day I’ll be seeing you. But until then,
Sincerely, yours –
I wondered why Sarah had done that.
Part V
44
2018
Tina had had the opening chapters of my new book for nearly a month when she sent me a late-night email. I’d kept as busy as possible – with the paper, with the podcast, with the impending arrival of another Jessie–Tyler offspring – but when my editor emailed me nearing midnight one evening, asking for a phone call, I replied straight away: Are you free now?
She said she wanted to talk with a clear head: Can I call you tomorrow?
I agreed in record time and told her to call whenever she could; I’d make myself available. Sleep was out of the question after that. I sat cross-legged on the floor of my makeshift home office, with my laptop in front of me. There was a green dot next to Landon’s name on his social media page so I knew he was also flirting with the wrong side of midnight.
Free? I asked him.
He replied: What for?
So I called him.
‘I might have been in the middle of someone,’ he answered after two rings.
‘It can’t be very good if you’re answering the phone to me.’
‘Well, maybe it is good, and I just prefer talking to you all the same.’
I laughed. ‘Then it must be really bad if you prefer an after-midnight crisis with me.’
‘Oh, if it’s a crisis you’re having then I might reconsider.’ There was a hum of music in the background. I heard Landon shuffle around, then the sound cut dead. ‘I’m all yours.’
‘I don’t think Tina liked the chapters.’ There was a long pause, as though he was waiting for more information. ‘She emailed me earlier tonight asking if we could talk over the phone about it all.’
‘And that must be a bad thing?’
‘Does it sound like a good one?’
‘I mean…’ I heard him shuffle around again. ‘As I haven’t read the chapters–’
‘Nice try.’
‘I’m just saying.’
No one had read the chapters. In the months after Madison’s death I’d started to compile everything I had: theories; hard and soft evidence alike; and, most importantly, the letters. There were copies of them everywhere: on my laptop; home computer; even the work desktop. The closer I got to a finished manuscript the more I worried about something happening – not to it, but me. Tina only had the first few chapters because I’d resolved to take it to another publisher entirely if she decided they couldn’t represent the work. It wasn’t finished, but it was close enough that I could sell to another house if I needed to.
I heard Landon spark up and speak through a mouthful of smoke. ‘Is it a sequel?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean, Sarah.’
‘It’s about violent crime. But I didn’t talk to the same victims or anything.’ It was the same party line I’d given to everyone: Landon; Marcus; even Tina for a time. I’d given the book a mythical status and convinced myself that talking about it was a way of making the entire story collapse in on itself. But now it was a living, breathing near-formed thing – and I was going to have to think of a new lie to describe it.
Landon exhaled hard to empty himself of the toxins and then spoke slowly, as though addressing a child – or an idiot. ‘Is it about him?’
Tina called at nine thirty the next morning. I crossed my work office and closed the door.
‘Sarah.’ She pulled in a mouthful of air. ‘How are you?’
‘Oh, I’m fine, you?’
‘No, Sarah, try again. How are you?’
Since Madison people had done this, leaned hard on asking how I was. Since Madison, I hadn’t known how to answer. ‘Can I have a question on sport instead?’
She laughed. ‘I understand. I’m fine, thank you. Although we’ve got a real shitstorm brewing here with an author who’s– well, I shouldn’t be telling you this, really, but there we are. With an author who’s making claims to have had intimates with a celebrity; the celebrity is denying it, which they would because they have a spouse.’ She sighed. ‘Remember when literature was literature and not… hearsay?’
Tina never told a story unless there was a moral. I wondered where she was going.
‘That sounds difficult.’ I pulled the emergency cigarettes from my top drawer and moved to the windowsill. ‘Will you drop the book?’
‘Christ, honey, who knows. But that’s why I needed to talk to you about this opening. These chapters you sent over, Sarah, they’re damn good writing.’
I paused with my lighter midway to the cigarette end. It felt like a waste of an emergency stash, if Tina were about to give me good news. ‘Yes?’
‘You’re claiming this killer is still active.’ She took a long pause and when I didn’t confirm or deny the claim – she had the chapters; she knew – she carried on with her worried tones. ‘But do you have hard evidence of it? Evidence that will make its way into the book, for instance?’
‘I’ve got all the evidence I think I need.’
There was a long pause. ‘Then I’m going to need to see it.’
‘
I can bring down an external hard drive with copies of the letters on.’
‘You’re not storing this stuff on the cloud?’ Then, before I could answer, ‘Oh.’
‘I’m just trying to be careful about where I’m storing information, Tina. You know what us writers are like,’ I said, trying to brush off the beginnings of her concern. ‘I’ve got copies saved on different machines, but I’d prefer for the letters themselves to stay off the internet for the time being.’
‘As long as you’re being safe, Sarah. I don’t just mean with– you know.’
It was impossible for me to tell her I was being safe without telling a blatant lie or two. For the sake of her conscience, though, I knew she needed to hear it. In my experience, people hated the thought of knowing someone else was being reckless; they felt as though they were somehow liable. But in the years since Mum – more so, even, in the year since Madison – people had concerned themselves with my safety. I wondered whether, after losing not one mother but two, there was a covert rota drawn up between the grown-ups in my life, where they’d all agreed to do their best not to die and to make sure I didn’t either.
I pulled in a greedy amount of air. ‘I’m being as safe as I can be.’
‘Mhmm.’ Tina had a string of thinking noises she’d made during previous meetings; I recognised this as one of them, so I held my quiet. ‘I’ll need the letters, or a sample of the letters, for my own peace of mind. And I need a timeline. How close are we to having a finished draft of this?’
‘I’ve got everything apart from the last few chapters.’
‘And you’re still working to the outline you sent me?’
‘I’m hoping to.’
In Tina’s inbox there was a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the book, as it read, alongside chapter plans for the remainder of the story. The final portion, then, was subject to change. But everything else had happened: canonical victims; unofficial ones; ones that he’d planned at the time of me drafting. I’d be handing the police a gift-wrapped manuscript, half-written by one of the most prolific serial killers they’d ever seen.
‘Sarah, how can you be sure about all this?’ Tina asked. Her voice was full of worry. ‘How are you sure you’ll catch him?’
I thought back to the first letter he’d sent after Madison. I’d make sure that it was included in the batch that went to Tina. But to pacify her until the hard drive of documents was handed over, I simply explained, ‘Because he needs me to.’
45
Sarah,
I didn’t take kindly to you using my words against me like that. I’ve never done anything to hurt Madison, Sarah, you must understand that. I think you’ve misjudged me so much to date. How could it have been at my hand? I can even go as far to tell you where I was, Sarah, when Madison fell ill, so you know for certain that I wasn’t with her: I was outside your building. You rushed from the front door and down into the car park. You pulled out into busy traffic without a thought. You broke the speed limit on the way to the hospital, although I didn’t know your reasoning at the time. Then, when you arrived, the boy appeared to support you; the one from your show. He stayed with you the entire time and he tried to get the girl, and the other boy, to come to visit you but they couldn’t, or wouldn’t. I didn’t hear enough to discern their reasoning for it. But there you are, Sarah, now you know for certain I wasn’t with her because I’d been spending all my time with you – like I have been for years now, and I’m only just seeing it.
The weekend when we missed each other, when we should have been in Oxford together, my spouse was ill and I couldn’t leave the city. Does that surprise you, Sarah, that I have someone? I wonder whether it makes you sad at all, or angry, even. There are times when I feel guilt over them – not because of the other women, Sarah, but because of you. There have been so many hours whittled into minutes for them, when I should have been present with them, but instead I was finding a way to be with you.
After Madison, Sarah, I stuck to my original plan: to Leicester. I knew you wouldn’t be there, though, or that you were unlikely to be. I pursued a nice woman, who I’ve spent a little time with over the last six months or so, and I was close, Sarah, so close to spending an evening with her – and someone else, too, for bonus points. Then, quite unexpectedly, I found myself crouched outside her kitchen window wondering what the point of it all was. It was nearly an existential crisis, Sarah, so I found what I thought might be my crisis trigger: your absence. What is the point, I asked myself, if she isn’t here to see it? In that moment I realised we’d tipped into a strange kind of relationship, Sarah, and I’ve spent some time sitting with that before writing this. The last letter I sent will have alerted you to my visit to Leicester. There won’t be another visit out of the city for a month now – despite what the tour schedule says. So I’ll be here; breathing the same air and treading the same streets as you. Which brings us back to the topic of fair and unfair and – it’s always been unfair on you, Sarah. But I’m going to level the playing fields now. I’m going to find a way for you to find me…
Until then, Sarah, please do take care. I’ll be in touch.
Sincerely, yours –
46
Marcus escorted a heavily pregnant Jessie into my office. He walked closely behind her with his arm outstretched, as though she might give birth right there in my open doorway. I was midway through a phone call with a source – ‘Let me call you back in thirty minutes or so, would you?’ – to discuss a robbery at an art gallery in the city centre, but it was nothing that couldn’t wait. I pulled out the visitor chair to an angle, to make it easier for Jessie to back into. She settled down with the discomfort of a woman who’d been carrying a heavy load for too long. I nearly laughed. Haven’t we all, though? I thought as I stepped back around to the right side of the desk.
‘This is a surprise.’ I sat opposite her. ‘Drink? Birthing pool?’
She laughed; a tired laugh, though, which made me wonder whether the pregnancy jibes were wearing thin, eight months into the gestation. ‘Can I get a tea?’
Marcus leapt into action. ‘I’ll get that.’
‘Make it a decaf,’ I instructed him, and flashed a tight smile at Jessie.
‘I’ll skip the drink,’ she answered flatly.
‘I’ll get you one anyway, just in case.’ Marcus fluttered out of the room without awaiting further instruction, and I thought he was likely grateful for something to do. He’d lived through three pregnancies with his own wife and, from his entrance with Jessie, I thought he must remember first-hand how testy these final weeks were. I hadn’t seen much of Jessie in the last few weeks, admittedly, but from her frosty entrance it was clear she was a mother on the edge.
‘How are the twins?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. They’re fine. It’s…’ she trailed off, as though uncertain whether to continue. ‘It’s Tyler that’s the bloody problem. Not the problem, it’s just – Christ.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘Sometimes it’s like having three children already. And when it isn’t like that, it’s like having my mother living with me.’
‘I see.’ I leaned back in the chair. ‘Difficult daddy issues?’
‘I think he’s finding it hard to tread a line between being involved and– I don’t know, something else. Not being involved enough, I guess.’
Marcus reappeared with a takeaway cup. ‘Decaf, skimmed milk, in a takeaway in case you change your mind but also want to leave.’ He rushed the explanation out and then gave a curt nod. I wondered whether he’d recited the drink details from the kitchen to my office, to make sure he got everything just right – with minimal potential for offence.
Jessie smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘No bother at all. You take care now.’
I waited for Marcus to hurry from the office before I asked, ‘So, here about Tyler?’
‘Actually, here about the party.’
I threw her a quizzical look.
‘I thought as much,’ she added.
> ‘Did I miss something in the group chat?’ I was reaching for my phone as I asked the question. But I saw Jessie give a shake of the head. ‘Ah shit, has the party already happened?’
‘I went to your flat before I came here.’ Ah, shit indeed. Whatever face I made was telling enough for Jessie to continue. ‘The doorman let me in, because I didn’t know your code. Actually, I thought I knew your code, but apparently you’ve asked for it to be changed more regularly now? He recognised me, though.’ Each flat had an individual passcode for the building – plus the generic ‘deliveries’ button that was available to any old intruder. I’d requested some time ago that my personal code – that was logged in a system somewhere every time I used it – was changed more often. The new code was text through to me whenever the system generated it. But I couldn’t exactly stop the deliveries coming.
‘He did say he was surprised to see me, though,’ Jessie continued with her monologue. ‘Given that you haven’t really been around much. He wondered, maybe, whether you’d moved out completely. And I thought, no, Sarah wouldn’t move without saying something.’
Landon knew. So, I pacified myself with that knowledge. But given the growing flare in Jessie’s tone, I decided it was information best kept to myself. I hadn’t moved out of the flat, and if all went to plan then I wouldn’t. But I hadn’t been sleeping there for the last few weeks either. I went back often enough, I thought – to check the post and any voicemails – but there was an anonymous place on the other side of the city where I’d been spending my time outside of work. Landon knew I wasn’t at home, but even he didn’t know the details of where I was sleeping – or rather, where I was working, and occasionally passing out. But the last three letters before the move had been hand-delivered to the flat, and the closing proximity had felt too much at last.
Sincerely, Yours Page 18