Lasting Damage

by Sophie Hannah

  Bad enough? No, not bad, exactly. Hard, though. And if the embryos didn’t take, if Debbie still wasn’t pregnant after all the hassle they’d had and all the cash they’d handed over, that would be even harder. The worst thing was having to talk about the lack of a baby endlessly, when it bored Gibbs so much and he wasn’t allowed to say that it did. He didn’t care any more. He’d agreed that a baby was a nice idea when he’d thought it would be straightforward, but if it wasn’t straightforward, if it was a never-ending nightmare, as it was proving to be, then why bother? What was so special about his or Debbie’s genes that they needed to be passed on?

  Olivia plonked herself down next to him. ‘He’s left the bottles on the bar in case we want a top-up, said we can settle up in the morning. What a lovely man!’

  Earlier, Gibbs had wished she would stop gushing and lower her voice. Now that they were the only people left, it didn’t matter. The music had stopped more than an hour ago. The wall-candles had been put out at the same time, and the bright overhead lights switched on. There was a morning-after feel to the hotel bar, even though, as far as Gibbs was concerned, it was still the night before.

  ‘So, are you going to tell me, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘Where they are. Waterhouse and Charlie.’ If Olivia knew, Gibbs figured, then he had a right to know too. As the two witnesses, they ought to have equal access to all relevant information.

  ‘If I wouldn’t tell you at ten o’clock, or eleven, or midnight, or one, why would I tell you now?’

  ‘You’ve had more to drink. Your defences are down.’

  Olivia raised an eyebrow and laughed. ‘My defences are never down. The downer they seem, the upper they are. If that makes sense.’ She leaned forward. Cleavage alert. ‘Why do you call him Waterhouse?’

  ‘It’s his name.’

  ‘Why don’t you call him Simon?’

  ‘Dunno. We call each other by our surnames: Gibbs, Waterhouse. Sellers. We all do.’

  ‘Sam Kombothekra doesn’t,’ said Olivia. ‘He calls you Chris – I’ve heard him. He calls Simon Simon. And Simon calls him Sam, but you don’t – you still call him Stepford. That was your original nickname for him and you’re sticking with it.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You fear change.’

  Gibbs wondered what had happened to the inebriated airhead he’d been drinking with a few minutes ago. Obviously she wasn’t as far gone as he’d thought. ‘It’s a good nickname,’ he told her. ‘He’ll always be Stepford to me.’ He’d go to bed after this drink, bottle on the bar or no bottle on the bar. A woman like Olivia Zailer couldn’t possibly be interested in anything he had to say. Knowing that made it hard to talk to her.

  ‘Aren’t you surprised that I know who calls who what, and I don’t even work with you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Hm.’ She sounded dissatisfied. ‘Why do you think Simon chose you and not Sam? To be a witness.’

  Gibbs was careful not to give himself away by looking as if it mattered to him. ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ he said.

  ‘It’s obvious why he didn’t choose Colin Sellers, a dedicated adulterer,’ said Olivia. ‘Simon’d think it was a jinx on his and Charlie’s marriage to have a lowly fornicator involved in the proceedings.’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ said Gibbs. ‘It’s up to Sellers what he does.’ The Fornicator, starring DC Colin Sellers. DC Colin Sellers is back in Fornicator II. Gibbs smiled. A whole new world of piss-taking possibilities had just opened up. He wished he’d thought of it himself.

  ‘With Colin out of the picture, Simon’s options were you or Sam,’ said Olivia. ‘At first I wondered whether he didn’t want Sam because Sam’s chatty. He knew he and Charlie would be jetting off mid-evening and leaving us alone together – me and the other witness. Simon would hate the thought of Sam and me gossiping about him.’

  ‘Stepford doesn’t gossip,’ said Gibbs.

  ‘Maybe not normally, but he would with me, especially after a few drinks. And he’d tell himself he wasn’t gossiping, just discussing, you know how people do.’

  ‘You reckon I was chosen because I don’t gossip?’

  ‘Gossip?’ Olivia chuckled. ‘You barely speak. You make a point of saying as little as possible. Anyway, no, that was only my first theory.’ She sipped her drink. ‘My second was that Simon ruled Sam out on the grounds of his superior rank – asking his skipper to be a witness at his wedding might have looked like sucking up, even though it wouldn’t have been – Simon’s the least suck-up-y person I’ve ever known, and he’d hate for anyone to think otherwise.’

  So Sellers was a non-starter and Stepford was a non-starter. Which had left only Gibbs.

  ‘Then I decided – my third theory – that Simon chose you because he has more respect for you than he has for Sam, even if he thinks Sam’s nicer. He thinks you’re more intelligent. Or more like him, maybe. You’re a puzzle, whereas Sam’s an open book.’

  Gibbs couldn’t understand why she cared. She seemed to have given it as much thought as he had, and made more progress: three answers to his none.

  ‘I couldn’t bear the suspense, so I made Charlie ask him,’ she said.

  Gibbs’ hand tightened around his glass. ‘And?’

  ‘Simon told her he feels closer to you than to Colin or Sam.’ Olivia laughed. ‘Which I thought was just hilarious, given that I bet the two of you have never had a single conversation about anything other than work.’

  ‘We haven’t,’ Gibbs confirmed. He downed the rest of his drink and went to pour himself another one, unwilling to notice or reflect on the sudden improvement in his mood. ‘If you’re so keen on talking, why don’t you tell me where the happy couple are?’ he said. ‘I’m not going to give the game away to Waterhouse’s mum.’

  Gibbs had met Kathleen Waterhouse only once, at the engagement party. She’d seemed timid, unassuming – a fade-into-the-background sort of person. Gibbs couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been allowed to attend her son’s wedding, why it was so crucial that she shouldn’t find out where he was going on his honeymoon.

  ‘I’ll answer any question but that one.’ Olivia sounded apologetic. ‘Sorry, but Charlie made me swear.’

  ‘I’m not asking any other questions. That’s the question I’m asking, and I’m going to keep asking. Though I reckon I know where they are. It doesn’t take a genius.’

  ‘You can’t possibly know, unless you’re psychic.’ Olivia looked worried.

  ‘You mentioned them ‘jetting off’ before, to put me off the scent. They haven’t jetted off anywhere, have they? They’re still here.’ Gibbs grinned, pleased with his theory.

  ‘Here? In Torquay, you mean?’

  ‘Here: the Blue Horizon Hotel – the last place I’d expect them to be, after they made a big show of leaving a few hours ago.’

  Olivia rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. Or maybe it was the real thing. ‘They’re not here, and this isn’t the Blue Horizon Hotel,’ she said. ‘It’s Blue Horizon.’

  Was she taking the piss? ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘No, you called it the Blue Horizon Hotel.’

  ‘It’s called Blue Horizon, it’s a hotel,’ said Gibbs impatiently. ‘That makes it the Blue Horizon Hotel.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Olivia was inspecting him as if he was from another planet. ‘Blue Horizon is the name of a top-notch establishment, which is what this is. Call it the Blue Horizon Hotel and it morphs into a shabby seaside B&B.’

  ‘Right. I guess I’m too shabby to know the difference.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean . . . Oh, God, I’m such an idiot! Now I’ve offended you and you’ll clam up again, just when I’d got you warmed up.’

  ‘I’m going to have to go bed,’ said Gibbs. ‘I can’t listen to you any more. You’re like a Sunday colour supplement – full of all kinds of shit.’

  Olivia’s eyes widened. She stared at him in silence.

  Fuck. Talk about ending the d
ay on a high note.

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean . . .’

  ‘It’s okay. I probably deserved it,’ said Olivia briskly. ‘Typical – the man who doesn’t speak manages to say one thing, and it turns out to be something horrible about me that I’m going to have to carry around with me and feel rubbish about for at least the next year.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way,’ said Gibbs. ‘It was just an observation.’

  ‘You want to know where Simon and Charlie are? Fine. I can do better than tell you – I can show you a picture of their villa.’ Olivia pulled her mobile phone out of her handbag and started to press buttons. Was she expecting Gibbs to say, ‘No, forget it, it doesn’t matter’? If so, she’d be disappointed. If he’d wanted to know before, why should that have changed now, just because she was upset and angry with him?

  After a few seconds of finger-jabbing, Olivia thrust her phone in front of his face. ‘There you go. Los Delfines – the honeymoon villa.’

  Gibbs looked at a small photograph of a long, white two-storey building that might have been designed to accommodate twenty people. There were balconies at most of the windows. Landscaped gardens, an outdoor bar and barbecue area, a swimming pool that looked big enough for an Olympic contest, all glowing in bright sunlight.

  ‘Spain?’ Gibbs guessed.

  ‘Puerto Banus. Near Marbella.’

  ‘All that for just the two of them? Not bad.’

  ‘Insurance against unhappiness,’ said Olivia. She still sounded annoyed. ‘Fifteen grand’s worth. No one could possibly be unhappy in a place like that, right?’

  ‘Why would they be unhappy? They’re on their honeymoon.’

  Gibbs didn’t think she was going to answer. Then she said, ‘For years, Charlie’s mobilising grievance has been not having Simon, in any and every sense. Now that they’re married, she’s got him. Sometimes, when you get something, you stop wanting it.’

  ‘Sometimes you stop wanting it before you get it,’ said Gibbs.

  ‘Do you? I don’t.’

  ‘My wife Debbie’s – what did you call it? – mobilising grievance is not being able to have a baby. I’ve stopped wanting one.’

  ‘Has she?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘No.’ If only.

  ‘There you go, then. And you probably didn’t want one all that much in the first place.’

  ‘Come upstairs with me,’ Gibbs said.

  ‘Upstairs?’

  ‘To my room. Or yours.’

  ‘Why?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘Why do you think?’ What are you playing at, dickhead? Don’t you know a bad idea when you have one?

  ‘Why?’ she asked again.

  ‘I could say, ‘‘Because for once, just for a change, I’d like to have sex with someone who isn’t obsessed with getting pregnant.’’ Or I could say, ‘‘Because I’m drunk and horny’’, or ‘‘Today’s a special occasion and tomorrow it’ll be back to normal life for both of us.’’ How about, ‘‘Because you’re the most beautiful, sexy woman I’ve ever met’’? Risky – you might not believe me.’

  Olivia frowned. ‘Ideally, you ought to be going through your answer options in silence, in the privacy of your own head. Not out loud to me.’

  In the privacy of your own head. It was because of the things she said. Not that he’d ever tell her that.

  He took her glass from her hand and put it down on the table. ‘Say yes,’ he said. ‘It’s easy.’

  Chapter 3

  Saturday 17 July 2010

  ‘Why did you want to speak to Simon Waterhouse?’ the detective called Sam asks. His surname is something long and unusual beginning with a K – he spelled it for me when he introduced himself. I didn’t take it in, and didn’t feel I could ask again. He’s tall, good-looking, with black hair and a dark complexion. He’s wearing a black suit and a white shirt with thin lilac stitched stripes, like perforated lines. No tie. I can’t stop looking at his Adam’s apple. It looks sharp enough to break skin. I imagine it slicing through his neck, an arc of blood spurting out. I shake my head to banish the morbid fantasy.

  Does he want me to tell him again? ‘I saw a woman lying face down—’

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ he interrupts, smiling to show that he doesn’t mean to be rude. ‘I meant why Simon Waterhouse in particular?’

  Kit is in the kitchen making tea for us all. I’m glad. I’d find it harder to answer the question with him listening. If I didn’t feel so horrible, this might be funny, like a weird sort of pantomime: The Policeman Who Came to Tea. It’s only half past eight; we ought to be offering him breakfast. It’s good of him to come so early. Maybe Kit will bring some croissants in with the drinks. If he doesn’t, I won’t offer. I can’t think about anything apart from the dead woman. Who is she? Does anybody know or care that she’s been murdered, apart from me?

  ‘I’ve been seeing a homeopath for the past six months. I’ve got a couple of minor health problems, nothing serious.’ Was there any need to tell him that? I stop short of adding that the problems relate to my emotional health, and that my homeopath is also a counsellor. My desire to evade the truth makes me angry – with myself, Kit, Sam K, everyone. There’s nothing shameful about needing to talk to somebody.

  Then why are you ashamed?

  ‘Alice – that’s my homeopath – she suggested I talk to Simon Waterhouse. She said . . .’ Don’t say it. You’ll prejudice him against you.

  ‘Go on.’ Sam K is doing his very best to look kind and unthreatening.

  I decide to reward his efforts with an honest answer. ‘She said he was like no other policeman. She said he’d believe the unbelievable, if it was true. And it is true. I saw a dead woman in that room. I don’t know why it . . . why she wasn’t there any more by the time Kit went and looked. I can’t explain it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation. There must be one.’

  Sam K nods. His face is unreadable. Maybe he makes a point of encouraging mad people. If he thinks I’m mad, I wish he’d say it straight out: You’re a nutter, Mrs Bowskill. I told him to call me Connie, but I don’t think he wants to. Since I said it, he hasn’t called me anything.

  ‘Where is Simon?’ I ask. When I rang his mobile last night, his recorded voice told me that he was unavailable – not for how long, or why – and gave a number to ring in an emergency: Sam K’s number, as it turned out.

  ‘He’s on his honeymoon.’

  ‘Oh.’ He didn’t tell me he was getting married. No reason why he would, I suppose. ‘When will he be back?’

  ‘He’s gone for a fortnight.’

  ‘I’m sorry I rang you at 2 a.m.,’ I say. ‘I should have waited till the morning, but . . . Kit had gone back to sleep, and I couldn’t just do nothing. I had to tell someone what I’d seen.’

  A fortnight. Of course – that’s how long honeymoons are. Mine and Kit’s was even longer: three weeks in Sri Lanka. I remember Mum asking if the third week was ‘strictly necessary’. Kit told her politely but firmly that it was. He’d made all the arrangements and didn’t appreciate her picking holes in the plan. The hotels he chose were so beautiful, I could hardly believe they were real and not something out of a dream. We stayed a week in each. Kit dubbed the last one ‘the Strictly Necessary Hotel’.

  Simon Waterhouse is entitled to his honeymoon, just as Kit is entitled to his sleep. Just as Sam K is entitled to deal with my concerns quickly and early, so that he can enjoy the rest of his Saturday. It can’t be the case that everyone I come into contact with lets me down; it must be something I’m doing wrong.

  ‘He didn’t mention your name in his voicemail message – only the phone number,’ I say. ‘I thought it might be some kind of out-of-hours service, like doctors have.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Really. It made a nice change to get an emergency call that wasn’t from Simon’s mother.’

  ‘Is she all right?’ I ask. I sense it’s expected of me.

  ‘That depends on your point of view.’ Sam K smiles.
‘She’s phoned me twice since Simon set off yesterday, crying and saying she needs to speak to him. He warned her that he and Charlie weren’t going to be taking their mobiles, but I don’t think she believed him. And now she doesn’t believe me when I say I don’t know where he is, which I don’t.’

  I wonder if the Charlie sharing Simon Waterhouse’s honeymoon is a man or a woman. Not that it makes any difference to anything.

  Kit comes in with the tea things and a plate of chocolate biscuits on a wooden tray. ‘Help yourself,’ he says to Sam K. ‘Where are we up to?’ He wants progress, solutions. He wants to hear that this expert has cured his wife of her lunacy during the ten minutes that he was in the kitchen.

  Sam K straightens up. ‘I was waiting for you, and then I was going to explain . . .’ He turns from Kit to me. ‘I’m happy to help as much as I can, and I can put you in touch with the right person if you decide to take this further, but . . . it’s not something I can deal with directly. Simon Waterhouse couldn’t deal with it either, even if he wasn’t on his honeymoon, and even if . . .’ He runs out of words, bites his lip.

  Even if it weren’t the most far-fetched story I’ve ever heard, and bound to be a load of rubbish. That’s what he stopped himself from saying.

  ‘If there’s a woman lying injured or dead in a house in Cambridge, then it’s Cambridgeshire Police you need to speak to,’ he says.

  ‘She wasn’t injured,’ I tell him. ‘She was dead. That amount of blood can’t come out of a person and them not be dead. And I’m willing to speak to whoever I need to – tell me a name and where I can find them, and I will.’

  Did Kit sigh, or did I imagine it?

  ‘All right.’ Having poured himself a cup of tea, Sam K gets out a notebook and a pen. ‘Why don’t we go over a few details? The house in question is 11 Bentley Grove, correct?’

  ‘11 Bentley Grove, Cambridge. CB2 9AW.’ You see, Kit? I even know the postcode by heart.

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened, Connie. In your own words.’