Where There's Smoke (1997)

by Simon Beckett

  There was a pause. She could hear him breathing, reliving it. His voice when he continued was low, close to breaking.

  "And then when I'd finished, he said, 'You've c-caused quite a mess, haven't you?' And then he said it'd got to be sorted out, and he was going to have to t-tell you. I said I'd tell you myself, but he said he c-couldn't let me, it had gone too far for that. He w-wouldn't l-listen."

  His stammer had grown worse, like a machine shaking itself apart.

  "He started telling me to c-calm down, but how c-could I when he was going to spoil everything? If he'd just let me tell you it would have b-been all right, but he wouldn't, he told me to sit down, and started saying everything w-would be okay, but I knew it wouldn't be, I kn-knew he was l-lying. Then he told me not to push him, but I hadn't, I—I'm sure I hadn't, and then he started going towards the d-door, and I knew he was going to f-fetch them to come and get me, and I'd n-never see you again, so I—I tried to stop him. I just wanted to explain, to m-make him see, and then -"

  He stopped. Kate was rigid, every muscle tense. She could hear his breathing, rapid and laboured.

  "I didn't m-mean to," he said. "It was only because he was g-going to tell you, but there was so much blood. I just didn't want him to t-tell you, that was all, I couldn't stand the thought of what you'd think about me, Kate, I…"

  Don't. She wasn't sure if she'd spoken it or not. "…I l-love you, Kate…"

  No.

  "P-please, Kate, I'm s-sorry -"

  "No."

  "- Please don't h-hate me, I didn't m-mean to hurt anyone -"

  "Shut up."

  "- Don't be upset, I wouldn't hurt you -"

  "Shut up!"

  "- I only did it because of the b-baby -"

  "There isn't any baby."

  It was a reflexive cry. There was a silence. "What do you m-mean?" His voice held a barely suppressed panic. "K-Kate, don't say that!"

  "I mean there isn't any baby!"

  "There is, I saw your f-fax, you s-said it -"

  "It's dead! I've had an abortion!"

  Distantly, she felt herself recoil from the words, but there was a savage exultation in lashing out, hurting him back.

  "No."

  The denial was hushed. "I had it this morning."

  "N-no, I d-don't believe you!"

  "They killed it."

  The words ran away with her.

  "You're lying!"

  "They cut it out -"

  "Oh. God, no, oh, G-God, no -"

  "and then they threw it in the incinerator and burnt it!"

  She stopped, appalled with herself. She heard him moan.

  "Don't," she said. "I didn't mean it."

  "No, no, God, no, oh, no -"

  "Listen," she began, "I haven't -"

  "No, no, no, no, no, no, no -"

  The sound of his pain cut through her own. "Please, don't! You were right, I was -"

  "Bitch!" The word hit her like a fist.

  "M-murdering fucking bitch!"

  "No, listen to me -"

  "I'll kill you. I'll fucking k-kill you, you murdering BITCH!"

  The line went dead. The receiver hummed in her ear. Slowly, Kate lowered it.

  She became aware of a weight on her lap. Looking down, she saw that at some point Dougal had come and sat on her knee without her noticing. A noise from the phone made her start, and she almost dropped it as a recorded voice pipingly instructed her to replace the handset. She dislodged Dougal and climbed stiffly to her feet. Her neck and shoulder muscles ached as though she had overworked them in the gym. She replaced the phone in its cradle and looked around the hallway as if she didn't recognise it. But it appeared no different from how it had ten minutes before.

  From the lounge, the quiz show still buzzed with gleeful laughter. Kate walked away from the sound. She went downstairs and checked that both doors were locked. Then she came back up and phoned the police.

  CHAPTER 16

  It was nothing like the clinic at Birmingham. For one thing, she was fully clothed, sitting on a hard plastic chair instead of lying on a couch. The room was a dull cream colour, NHS instead of private, and lit by a harsh strip light that buzzed like a trapped fly. The doctor was short and plump, and the nurse's uniform nothing like so crisply ironed. But for all that, Kate couldn't help but be reminded of the other place. Perhaps it was because one had been a beginning while the other was an end.

  She had come a full, futile circle. Her hand went instinctively to her throat, feeling for the gold locket that was now in a drawer in her flat. She lowered it again.

  "The procedure for an early medical termination's quite simple," the doctor said, and again Kate was faced with a ghost of that other time, the other clinic. "Effectively, what we're doing is inducing a miscarriage. The drug we use is called Mifegyne, and what it basically does is stop the lining of your womb forming. You'll have to stay here for an hour after you've taken it to make sure there aren't any side effects, but there rarely are."

  The doctor gave a reassuring smile. She was a pleasant-faced woman in her fifties. "After that you can go home again. Then you'll have to come back in a couple of days, and we'll give you a pessary to make you pass what's in your womb."

  "Will I be able to see anything?" Kate could hear the tremor in her own voice.

  "You'll probably see what you pass, yes. But it won't be much different from a heavy period. There won't be anything recognisable, if that's what you mean. At this stage it's still only cells."

  Cells. Kate pushed the image out of her mind. "What…what happens to it? Afterwards, I mean. What do you do with it?"

  Her eyes went to the yellow cardboard cylinder on the window-ledge. It had stylised drawings of flames on it. The doctor saw where she was looking and gave an understanding shake of her head. "That's only for wipes."

  She gave Kate a small plastic container, like a miniature cup. In it was a single white pill. Kate looked down at it. The tiny object seemed bland and innocuous.

  The nurse held out a glass of water for her. Kate took it. The tremor in her hand caused a faint rippling of the water's surface. She raised the plastic cup with the pill in it to her lips. Over its rim she could see the doctor and nurse watching her. She held it poised, tensing herself. One swallow and it would be done. Seconds passed.

  Kate lowered the cup. "I can't." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I just can't."

  She held out the container, suddenly wanting to be rid of it. The doctor took it from her.

  "That's all right, you aren't under any pressure to go through with this."

  Kate felt her eyes begin to swim. "I'm sorry. I should never have come."

  "Don't worry. You're not the first one who's got this far and then changed her mind." The doctor gave her a smile and patted her arm, although the nurse was stony-faced as she emptied the glass into the sink. "Better to find out now than later."

  Kate felt weak and washed out as she went out into the corridor and down to the waiting area. Lucy looked up in surprise from a magazine.

  "That was quick."

  "I haven't had it."

  Lucy lowered the magazine. "Why, what's -?"

  "Please, let's just go."

  Kate glanced at the other women in the waiting room. They looked away, but were obviously listening. "I'll tell you outside."

  A thin skim of brown mush lay on the pavement from the snow that had fallen that morning. A few flakes still drifted down. They expired against Kate's cheeks like cold sparks.

  "What happened?" Lucy asked, as they walked away from the hospital.

  "Nothing. I just couldn't go through with it."

  "You mean you just walked out?"

  Kate nodded. Lucy made an exasperated noise in her throat. "Kate, what are you thinking of? Look, perhaps if you went back in and -"

  "I'm not going back."

  "Don't be silly. I know it's difficult, but you've got to face up to it sooner or later."

  "I have faced up to it. I'm going
to keep the baby."

  "Oh, come on, Kate, be reasonable!"

  "I am."

  "I thought it was all decided! You said yourself it was the best thing to do!"

  "I changed my mind."

  They had stopped. The falling snow crystals had turned to sleet, speckling their hair with glistening beads. Lucy brushed a damp strand from her forehead. "Look, let's get out of this muck and talk about it."

  "There's nothing to talk about. I've told you, I'm keeping it."

  "You can't keep it! Just think about what you're doing! The father's a raving lunatic who's on the run for murder, he's already threatened to kill you, and you're still going to have his baby?"

  "It isn't the baby's fault. The doctor was right, I can't blame it for what its father's done."

  "And what if it turns out like him? And it might, I don't care what the doctor says. What will you do then?"

  "I'll have to risk it. But it'll be as much me as him, and I'll do everything I can to make sure it has more chances than he did."

  "And it's that simple? You think it'll thank you when it's old enough to understand who its father was? What will you say?"

  "I don't know, all right? I can't even think about what I'll be doing tomorrow, let alone God knows how many years from now! I just know that I'm not going to kill this baby!"

  "For God's sake, Kate, it isn't even a baby yet! Don't be stupid!"

  "I'm not being stupid."

  "No?"

  Lucy cast her eyes skyward. "This is just so typical of you! You won't listen to anybody, will you?"

  Kate's own anger had only been waiting for a focus. "If I'd listened to you I'd have been married to him by now!"

  "I admit he fooled me as well, but I said from the start this was a bad idea. But you wouldn't take any notice! You were hell bent on doing things your way, and look where it's got you!"

  "So you think this is my fault, then?"

  "Since you ask, yes! Nobody made you do it, it was what you wanted. God, I could shake you sometimes! I'd have thought you'd have learned your lesson by now!"

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Lucy's cheeks had flushed an angry red. "Nothing. Forget I said it."

  "No, come on, I want to know what you mean."

  "You know what I mean. I mean Paul Sutherland. You should have walked out on him months before you did, but no, you'd got to wait until he threw you out. I swear, I don't understand you, Kate! It's like when things get bad you go out of your way to make them worse!"

  "This is nothing like that!"

  "Yes, it is, it's exactly the same."

  Kate's face was hot. "Except this time only one of us has slept with him."

  She knew, as she said it, that she was moving the argument on to a different level, but by then it had developed a momentum of its own. Lucy glared at her, white-lipped.

  "Oh, now we're getting to it! I wondered how long it would be before you threw that one back at me!"

  "I'm not throwing anything back at you. I'm just reminding you that you're not as perfect as you think."

  "Perhaps not, but at least I'm capable of having a relationship without it turning into a disaster!"

  "Oh, fuck off!"

  They stared at each other, wide-eyed at the suddenness of the breach. Their breath steamed in a cloud around them. All at once neither could meet the other's eye.

  Lucy spoke first. "All right, I will. But just don't come running to me and Jack in future."

  "Don't worry, I won't."

  They began walking in opposite directions. Kate half expected to hear Lucy shout her, and half wanted to turn round and do the same herself. But Lucy didn't shout, and Kate kept on walking. When she reached the corner and glanced back, Lucy had gone.

  Morning sickness was a joy Kate hadn't counted on. She'd known, intellectually, that she could probably expect it, but she had found out that expecting it and experiencing it were two different things. She had put her attack of nausea in the library down to shock at first, until it happened again the next morning. Since then it had been a regular part of her daily routine; along with showering, getting dressed, going for the tube, she knew that at some point she would also have to incorporate vomiting into her schedule.

  It wouldn't be so bad, she thought, if it came along at the same time every day. She knew that Lucy (although she tried not to think about Lucy) had been as regular as clockwork, making sure she was near a bathroom between eleven and quarter past each morning. But Kate's own attacks were sporadic. The queasiness she would wake up with could linger all day, like a low-grade hangover. Or it could send her running for the bathroom before she left her flat in the morning. It was just something else she couldn't predict.

  She felt the nausea begin to build as she sat on the tube. Anxiously, she counted the stations still to go. King's Cross was still several stops away. She sat perfectly still, trying not to dwell on it. The train lurched and whined to a halt in the tunnel. The sudden jolt made Kate break out in a clammy sweat, a sign she had come to recognise as meaning that vomiting was imminent. She prayed for the train to move again, trying to think if she had anything in her bag to be sick into. There was nothing except the bag itself.

  She closed her eyes, but that only made her feel worse. The train jerked forward, and with relief Kate saw the lights of a platform appear outside the windows. Without caring which station it was, she hurried off and pushed through the crowd waiting to board. Breathing as steadily as she could through her nose, she ran up the escalators, eyes scanning desperately for a toilet sign.

  There was one on the upper concourse. She had a bad moment when she couldn't find a twenty-pence piece for the turnstile, but then she was inside and bolting the cubicle door behind her.

  The only thing to be said for it was that it was over quickly. Feeling wretched, but less so than before, she rinsed her mouth out at a sink and dried it on a paper towel. She looked at herself in the mirror above the taps.

  Her face looked pale, the skin under her eyes bruised. You wanted this she told herself. Too late to feel sorry for yourself now.

  The sickness left her blood sugar screaming for renewal.

  She debated whether to call Clive and tell him she would be late, but decided he would work that out anyway, and went into a coffee shop just outside the station.

  She ordered a croissant and jam, and a weak, milky tea. The coffee smelled wonderful, but she'd found that she had no stomach for it anymore. She wondered what else she would be giving up before the nine months was over.

  She felt more like herself when she came out and went back down the escalator to catch a train. As if the break in her journey had set a precedent, she was in no rush now to get to work. It was almost eleven before she turned into the row of Georgian terraced houses. The light was on in the downstairs office of the agency, and through the window she saw Clive clutching a bundle of papers to his chest. She had time to notice the harried expression on his face before she opened the door and her greeting died on her lips.

  The office was a shambles. The desks had been tipped over, and the filing-cabinet drawers had been pulled out and emptied onto the floor. Paper was strewn on the carpet like snow. Clive turned at the sound of the door opening, the armful of papers still held to his chest.

  Josefina and Caroline were both kneeling down, gathering up more sheets.

  Kate found her voice. "What's happened?"

  Clive set the papers down onto a chair. "We've been burgled. Well," he amended, "we've been broken into. There doesn't seem to be much missing." He looked around, wryly. "So far as we can tell, anyway."

  She closed the door and walked inside, picking her way carefully through the turmoil. "Have you called the police?"

  "Yeah, they've been. For what it's worth. They want us to make out a list of anything that's been taken. They're sending somebody around to fingerprint, so we've got to try to avoid touching anything. But I thought we might as well start sorting out some of the mess."
r />   Kate just stared at it.

  "Looks like they forced the toilet window at the back," Clive went on. "The police say there was another break-in at the newsagent's further down the road, but they don't think there's any connection. The alarm from there might have frightened off whoever did this, though, because there doesn't seem to be much missing. They just trashed down here and in your office."

  "How bad?"

  "You'd better see for yourself."

  She went upstairs, Clive following her. If anything, the chaos there was even worse. She reached out for the broken fan, lying smashed on a shelf, then remembered she wasn't supposed to touch anything and let her arm drop to her side.

  Clive pushed the door shut. "Look," he began, uneasily, "I don't know if I've done the right thing, but…well, the police were asking if I knew of anyone with any grudges against us, so I told them about Paul Sutherland."

  Kate looked around at the wreckage of her office. "I don't think he did this."

  "If he was drunk he might have. He's got a big enough chip on his shoulder."

  Kate kept her doubts to herself.

  "The other thing is, did you take your Filofax home with you?" Clive asked. "The big one you keep on your desk?"

  It was an unwieldy, black-leather thing, the size of a small briefcase. Lucy and Jack had bought it for her when she had first started the agency. She took it home occasionally, when she was working from her flat, but the rest of the time it stayed in her office. "No. It should be here."

  "Well, I suppose it might be hidden under a pile of papers somewhere, but I can't see it."

  Kate went over to where the desk lay on its side. The paraphernalia from its top was scattered on the floor in front of it, lying where it had spilled off when the desk had been tipped over. The heavy black Filofax wasn't among it.

  "I thought it was the sort of thing Sutherland might have taken," Clive went on. "Being as it's got all the clients' addresses in it. I can't see it being much use to anyone else."