Lasting Damage

by Sophie Hannah

‘No. It’s yours,’ she told him. ‘Mine’s out by the pool – I’ve been using it as a bookmark. You stuffed yours in your pocket when we boarded the plane – I saw you. At some point between Friday night and now, you must have taken it out, written this address on it, and left it there on the sideboard.’ How could he not remember?

  He was shaking his head. ‘No. I didn’t. Did you?’

  ‘Did I?’ Charlie laughed. ‘Well, obviously I didn’t, or I wouldn’t be asking you why you did.’

  Simon looked unconvinced. He looked the way he looked when he was interviewing a suspect, Charlie realised uncomfortably: guarded. Distant. ‘Who lives at 11 Bentley Grove?’ he asked.

  ‘Simon, this is the most insane conversation we’ve ever had – and, let’s face it, there’s stiff competition. I know nothing about that address. You do, because you wrote it down, so why don’t you tell me who lives there?’

  ‘Cambridge. You used to teach at Cambridge.’

  ‘Don’t dare to sound suspicious! Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll—’

  ‘I didn’t write this, Charlie. I don’t know anyone in Cambridge.’ He didn’t look guarded any more; he looked angry. ‘What the fuck’s going on? You heard me coming downstairs and you knew you couldn’t get to it in time to hide it, so you dreamed up some stupid elaborate double bluff – you decided to accuse me of writing it. Clever. But you must know it’s not going to work. I know I didn’t write it, remember? Which only leaves you. Unless you want to bring Domingo into this – maybe he wrote it.’

  ‘Hey, hey!’ Charlie held up her hands. ‘Simon, this is crazy. Calm down, okay? I didn’t write it. Domingo didn’t write it – he can hardly speak English. You wrote it. You must have done.’

  ‘Except that I didn’t.’ The expression on his face chilled her. ‘If something’s going on that I don’t know about, you’re better off telling me now. However bad it is.’

  Charlie burst into tears. She could feel the panic starting to churn in her stomach, goosebumps all over her skin. If you told the truth and weren’t believed by the person who mattered most, what were you supposed to do next? ‘I didn’t write it!’ she shouted in his face. ‘All right, if you say you didn’t either, I believe you – you ought to believe me too.’

  ‘You want me to search the house for intruders with blue-ink pens in their hands?’ Simon asked coldly. ‘Or would I be better off searching your handbag for a blue pen?’

  ‘Search my . . . ?’

  ‘The ink would be a perfect match, I reckon.’

  Oh, God, make this stop. How could Charlie put an end to it, before it spiralled out of control? She did have a blue pen in her bag, and if Simon found it . . . But she hadn’t done it. And he was just as capable of taking a pen from her bag as she was. If he knew precisely which pen had written those words . . . No, she couldn’t let herself think like that. They had to trust each other. ‘Domingo must have written it,’ she said. ‘English or no English – he must have . . . I don’t know, taken a message from someone – maybe from the owners, maybe they’re English. Maybe they live in Cambridge, or they’re staying there or something.’ Was it possible? It had to be, if Simon was telling the truth.

  ‘Find him. Ask him.’

  ‘You find him and fucking ask him,’ Charlie snapped. ‘And if he says it wasn’t him, then he’s fucking lying!’

  ‘You’re shaking,’ said Simon, walking towards her. She steeled herself for another verbal assault, but all he did was pat her arm and . . . was that a grin on his face? ‘All right, game over,’ he said. ‘I wrote it.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Charlie felt as if she’d been turned to stone.

  ‘I wrote it, and left it there for you to find.’

  Words that made sense. And yet didn’t make sense.

  ‘Are you . . . experimenting on me?’

  ‘I knew I’d have to spend the rest of the day grovelling, and that’s what I’ll do.’ Simon smiled, proud of himself. He had it all worked out.

  ‘This is something to do with work, isn’t it? It’s our honeymoon, and you’re fucking working! I knew something was on your mind.’

  ‘It’s not exactly work,’ he said. ‘You can tell me later what thoughts are and aren’t permissible on a honeymoon, but I need to ask you while it’s fresh in your mind . . .’

  ‘It’ll be fresh in my mind in twenty years’ time, Simon.’ Like all the times you’ve hurt me in the past: fresh as a field of daisies, one flower for each wound.

  ‘Did you believe me? That I hadn’t written it? Did you start to wonder if there was any way you might have done it and not remembered?’

  Charlie shuddered; the adrenaline was still coursing round her body. ‘I hate you,’ she said. ‘You scared me.’

  ‘You believed me, but only because you were desperate for me to believe you,’ said Simon. ‘You offered me a deal: reciprocal immunity from doubt. Which might have worked, thanks to Domingo. He’s the only other person here, and he means nothing to us. If he’d said he hadn’t written it, we could have dismissed him as a liar and it wouldn’t have mattered to us, because we have no relationship with him. What if Domingo wasn’t here, though? If you knew you hadn’t done it, and I kept swearing I hadn’t either, what would you have thought? Would you have started to wonder if you were going mad? Would that have been preferable to concluding I was a liar – one you couldn’t force the truth out of?’

  ‘You’d better tell me, right now, what all this is about,’ Charlie said shakily. ‘I’m not spending the rest of our honeymoon—’

  ‘Relax,’ said Simon. ‘I was always going to tell you.’

  ‘Then why not just tell me – at the airport, on the plane? Why drag it out, why torture me? I knew you had something on your mind. You denied it. You are a liar.’ Was she making too big a deal of this? Should she laugh it off?

  Simon was trying to. ‘I thought I’d make you wait a bit,’ he teased her. ‘Build up suspense, get you really interested . . .’

  ‘I see – so the same principle you apply to our sex life, then?’

  The smile vanished from his face.

  Chapter 7

  Monday 19 July 2010

  Kit holds my hand under the table as Sam Kombothekra turns the laptop round to face us. I flinch; I don’t want to see that room again. ‘Don’t worry,’ says Sam, as I turn away and lean into Kit. ‘You’re not going to see anything unpleasant – only an ordinary lounge that you’ve seen before, with nothing in it that shouldn’t be there. But I do need you to look. I need to show you something.’

  ‘Do we have to do this here?’ I ask. It doesn’t feel right. Sam should have come to Melrose Cottage again, if this is the best alternative he can offer. We’re in a canteen the size of a school assembly hall, hemmed in on all sides by the sound of trays clattering, dishwashers whirring, loud conversations on both sides of the serving hatch, as well as across it – two elderly scarecrow-like dinner-ladies, if that’s what they’re called, giggling uncontrollably at a joke made by a young, shiny-faced policeman in uniform. Along one wall there’s a row of arcade-style machines, flashing their lights and bleeping.

  I feel invisible. My throat is already sore from shouting to make myself heard; the combination of the intense heat in here and the sausage and egg smell is making me nauseous.

  ‘Connie?’ Sam says reasonably. Everyone is oh-so-reasonable, apart from me. ‘Look at the picture.’

  Do you want only part of the truth, or do you want all of it? What if it was all or nothing?

  I force myself to look at the laptop’s screen. There it is again: 11 Bentley Grove’s lounge. No dead woman on the floor, no blood. Sam leans over and points to the corner of the room, by the bay window. ‘Do you see that circle, on the carpet?’

  I nod.

  ‘I don’t see it,’ says Kit.

  ‘A very faint brown curved line – almost a circle, but incomplete,’ says Sam. ‘Within it, the carpet’s a slightly different colour – see?’

  ‘The line,
yes,’ Kit says. ‘Just. The colour looks the same to me, inside and out.’

  ‘It’s darker inside the ring,’ I say.

  ‘That’s right.’ Sam nods. ‘The mark was made by a Christmas tree.’

  ‘A Christmas tree?’ Is he joking? I wipe sweat from my upper lip.

  Sam lowers the lid of the laptop, looks at me.

  Just say it, whatever it is. Tell me how you’ve managed to prove I’m wrong and mad and stupid.

  ‘Cambridge police have been very cooperative,’ he says. ‘Far more so than I expected. Thanks to their efforts, I hope I’ll be able to allay your concerns.’

  I hear Kit’s relieved sigh. Resentment hardens inside me. How can he do that, before he’s heard anything, as if it’s all over? Any minute now he’ll whip out his BlackBerry and start muttering about having to get back to work.

  ‘The owner of 11 Bentley Grove is a Dr Selina Gane.’

  So that’s her name. Sam has found out more useful information in forty-eight hours than I have in six months.

  ‘She’s an oncologist, works at Addenbrooke’s hospital.’

  ‘Know it well,’ says Kit. ‘I did my undergraduate degree at Cambridge. Addenbrooke’s relieved me of a putrid appendix, about an hour before it would have killed me.’

  Kit’s undergraduate degree is his only degree. He could have said, ‘my degree’, except then Sam Kombothekra wouldn’t have assumed it was one of many.

  If the University of Cambridge offered an MA course in Thinking the Worst of People, I’d graduate with distinction.

  ‘Dr Gane bought the house in 2007, from a family called the Beaters. They bought number 11 from the developers when it was first built in 2002. Bentley Grove didn’t exist before then. The Beaters’ sale of the property to Dr Gane was handled by a local estate agent called Lorraine Turner. Lorraine is also the agent marketing the property now, coincidentally.’

  ‘Not coincidentally at all,’ Kit corrects him. ‘If you want to sell your house, why not put it on with the person you know sold it successfully last time – to you? That’s what I’d do, if I were selling Melrose Cottage.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be selling Melrose Cottage,’ I can’t help saying. ‘We would be selling it.’ I want to apologise to Sam for Kit’s interruption; I hate it when he shows off.

  ‘Cambridge police spoke to Lorraine Turner yesterday. I spoke to her on the phone this morning. I think you’ll be reassured when I tell you what she told me. In December 2006, the Beaters decided to put 11 Bentley Grove on the market – they wanted to move out to the countryside.’

  Why, for God’s sake?

  ‘The day they made their decision was also the day Mrs Beater sent Mr Beater out to buy a Christmas tree.’

  ‘Shall I get us each a mug of cocoa?’ says Kit. ‘This sounds like the beginning of a bedtime story.’

  ‘You’ll see why it’s relevant shortly,’ Sam tells him.

  In other words, don’t interrupt again.

  ‘She wasn’t in when he got back, and so wasn’t able to remind him to put something down to protect the carpet before setting the tree down on it, in its pot. The pot had holes in the bottom, the earth in it was wet . . .’

  ‘What a fool.’ Kit laughs. ‘I bet Beater wife gave Beater husband a tongue-lashing he’ll never forget.’

  ‘I’d say that’s likely.’ Sam smiles.

  Why is everyone having a good time here except me? I can’t take this seriously, any of it – all this trivia about Christmas trees and people who mean nothing to me; at the same time, I can’t see anything to laugh about. My mind fills with a disgusting image: scratching my face until the skin comes off, until there’s nothing left but a red-raw featureless bulb where my head used to be.

  ‘When Lorraine Turner turned up to value the house, the first thing Mrs Beater showed her was the damaged lounge carpet. She had a lengthy moan about her husband’s incompetence: “Typical useless man – the very day we decide to try and sell the house . . .” Et cetera. You get the idea. Mrs Beater hired a professional carpet cleaner, but the stain refused to disappear completely. A brown ring-like mark was left that couldn’t be shifted.’

  Sam turns from Kit to me. ‘Last Monday, Lorraine went to value 11 Bentley Grove for Dr Gane. Three and a half years after she first set foot in the house, the stain was still there. She made a joke about it, apparently, then regretted it because Dr Gane seemed to take it the wrong way – as if Lorraine was implying she was slovenly, not having replaced the previous owners’ ruined carpet. Lorraine said it was a bit awkward.’

  Am I expected to feel sorry for an estate agent I’ve never met? Kit is chuckling: the perfect audience.

  ‘She filmed the house and garden for the virtual tour, took photos to put in the brochure and on the agency’s website,’ Sam goes on. ‘One was of the lounge, with the Christmas tree mark on the carpet clearly visible – that’s the photograph we’ve just looked at.’

  ‘So what?’ I say, more rudely than I intended. ‘What does any of this prove? What’s it got to do with the dead woman I saw?’

  ‘Connie,’ Kit mutters.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sam tells him. He feels sorry for him, I think. Can’t be easy, being married to a mad woman. ‘This Saturday afternoon just gone, so nearly twelve hours after you saw the dead woman on the virtual tour, Lorraine Turner showed a young couple round 11 Bentley Grove. She told them the Christmas tree story, showed them the mark. It was the same mark, Connie – Lorraine says she’d swear to it. The rest of the carpet was immaculate. No blood.’ He waits for this to sink in. ‘Do you see what I’m saying?’

  ‘You’re saying it means that the carpet can’t ever have had blood on it. Are you sure that’s true? I’ve washed clothes with bloodstains on them, and the blood’s completely disappeared.’

  ‘Connie, do you really have to . . . ?’ Kit tries to shut me up.

  I talk over him. ‘It’s easy to get rid of blood: cold water, soap . . .’

  ‘Believe me, if someone had bled to death on a beige carpet, you’d see a mark,’ says Sam. ‘However much soap and cold water and Vanish was applied afterwards.’

  I run my hands through my unbrushed hair, fighting the urge to lie down on the sticky canteen floor, close my eyes and give up.

  ‘Connie, when you saw the woman’s body, was that mark there in the corner of the room, in the same photograph?’ Sam asks. ‘The Christmas tree mark?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ No. I don’t think it was. ‘I didn’t notice it, but . . .’ I cast around for a likely explanation. ‘Maybe the photograph of the dead woman was taken years ago, before Mr Beater put his Christmas tree down on that spot. Have you thought of that?’

  Sam nods. ‘You described a map on the wall – do you remember?’

  ‘Of course I remember. Why wouldn’t I? Saturday was only two days ago. I’m not senile.’

  He pulls a notebook out of his shirt pocket, opens it and starts to read. ‘“Comitatus Cantabrigiensis Vernacule Cambridgeshire, 1646. Jansson, Johannes.” Otherwise known as Janssonius.’ He looks up. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard of him?’

  ‘Is he a friend of the Beaters?’ I say snidely. I can’t help it.

  ‘He was a famous Dutch cartographer – a map-maker. The framed map above Selina Gane’s fireplace is a Janssonius original, worth a packet. Lorraine Turner admired it when she went to value the house for Dr Gane. Oh, and you mentioned the crests – they’re the crests of the Cambridge colleges: Trinity, St John’s . . .’

  ‘Don’t miss out the best one,’ says Kit. ‘King’s.’

  ‘Don’t you get enough opportunities to boast to your adoring minions in London?’ I snap at him. ‘Do you have to turn this into a boast-fest too?’

  ‘The empty crest was left empty deliberately – so that whoever bought the map could fill in their own family crest,’ Sam continues as if I haven’t just lashed out at my husband. ‘Dr Gane told Lorraine all about it. It’s one of her treasured possessions, understandably. A
pparently it was a house-warming present from her parents when she moved to Cambridge from Dorchester, where she’d lived previously.’

  Lucky her. Some people get antique Dutch maps, others get revolting home-made tapestries. Evidently Selina Gane’s mother has better taste than mine. I dread to think what the Monk family crest might look like, if we had one. A picture of Thorrold House’s kitchen; generations of provincial nobodies chained to a knackered old Aga.

  Sam’s eyes meet mine. I know what he’s going to ask me.

  ‘Connie, when you saw the dead woman on the virtual tour, did you also see the map? Did you see both things in the room at the same time, in the same picture?’

  ‘Yes. That doesn’t prove I imagined the woman’s body,’ I add quickly, afraid that it does. I need time to work out what this means, without Kit and Sam watching me.

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ says Sam. ‘Assuming you’re right, when was the photograph of the dead woman taken? Before Selina Gane bought 11 Bentley Grove? Then what’s her map doing up on the wall? After she bought the house? In which case, the blood would have ruined the carpet and she – or someone – would have had to replace it. And we know, thanks to Lorraine Turner, that that hasn’t happened, because the mark from the Beaters’ Christmas tree is still there.’

  ‘Come on, Con, you can’t argue with that,’ says Kit, keen to hurry things along.

  ‘Can’t I?’ Can I? Plausibly? Why do I want to, so badly? Why aren’t I happy to be proved wrong? ‘You can cut carpet, presumably,’ I say in a monotone. ‘If there was a line across the room where one section of beige carpet finished and another one of exactly the same colour started, would Lorraine Turner have noticed? Did you ask her?’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Kit mutters. ‘Next you’ll say what if Selina Gane laid another beige carpet over her original one, murdered someone, then removed the blood-soaked carpet and found the one underneath still in tip-top condition, miraculously unstained.’

  ‘That’s one definition of ridiculous, I agree,’ I fire back at him. ‘Another is pretending something didn’t happen when you know it did – disbelieving your own eyes.’ I turn to Sam. ‘What are Cambridge police planning to do?’