Lasting Damage

by Sophie Hannah

  His face tells me everything I need to know. I open my mouth to protest, but I’ve lost my grip on the words I was going to use. Everything has blurred. Sam is a fuzzy pink blob.

  ‘Con?’ I hear Kit say. His voice sounds as if it’s coming from the other side of the world. ‘Do you feel faint?’

  My mind is shrinking, floating in pieces; I can’t feel parts of my body. Can’t speak.

  ‘Shall I get her a drink?’ someone says – Sam, I think.

  ‘Water,’ I try to say.

  You’re supposed to put your head between your knees – Kit is always trying to make me do that – but I feel better if I straighten my back and do nothing but inhale and exhale until it passes. Alice says it’s okay to do that. ‘Listen to your body,’ she says. ‘It’s telling you what it needs.’

  Gradually, I feel myself reassemble, as if someone has knitted me together again. Thank God. Every time this happens, I wonder if I will make it back. When my vision straightens out, I see Sam queuing at the serving hatch.

  ‘Why doesn’t he push to the front?’ says Kit. ‘You need water more urgently than that greasy-haired guy needs that fry-up.’

  ‘I’m not sure water’s going to help,’ I say.

  ‘If Kombo-whatsit had offered us a drink in the first place, you’d have been fine. It’s sweltering in here – you’re probably dehydrated. What’s the point of meeting in a canteen if you don’t even get a drink?’

  ‘Alice thinks the dizzy spells are stress-related,’ I say. I’ve told him this before.

  ‘Great. It’s my fault, then, like everything else.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Connie, listen to me.’ Kit takes both my hands in his. ‘This is a turning point in our lives. Or it could be, if you’ll let it.’

  ‘You mean if I forget about the dead body I saw on Roundthehouses – if I agree to pretend I imagined it.’

  ‘You did imagine it, sweetheart. Come on, you must see that you can’t have it both ways: if stress can make you faint and have dizzy spells, it can also make you see things that aren’t there at one in the morning, surely, when you’re exhausted.’

  He’s right.

  ‘Imagining things doesn’t make you a freak, Con. You’re talking to the man who once imagined that loads of blades of grass turned into a gigantic grass monster and attacked his feet – remember?’

  ‘You were pissed out of your head. And stoned.’ Reluctantly, I smile at the memory. A few weeks after we first met, Kit woke me up in the middle of the night, weeping and demanding that I examine his shoelaces, insisting they were frayed and full of holes from the grass monster’s assault. It took me nearly an hour to persuade him that there was no monster and his shoelaces were intact. The next morning, he declared marijuana the root of all evil. He hasn’t touched it since.

  ‘I’ve been lying to you,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been going to Cambridge. Nearly every Friday.’ I look down at the white Formica table, wishing I could sink into it and disappear.

  Kit says nothing. He must hate me.

  ‘I go by train,’ I say, keen to continue with my confession now that I’ve started. ‘The first couple of times I drove, but then Mum asked me why my car wasn’t in the driveway two Fridays running, when I was supposedly at home working. I couldn’t think what to say, until it occurred to me to tell her to mind her own business.’

  ‘That must have gone down well,’ says Kit. To my relief, he doesn’t sound angry.

  ‘After that, I decided to get the train, which takes twice as long. There’s no direct train – you have to change at King’s Cross. Once, I . . . I only just got back before you. We were both on the 17.10 from London to Rawndesley. You didn’t see me, but I saw you. It was the scariest journey of my life; I knew I wouldn’t be able to lie – if you’d spotted me, I’d have blurted it all out. When you got off at Rawndesley, you were talking on your BlackBerry. I hung back, waiting to see if you’d stay on the platform to finish the call. Luckily for me, you didn’t. You headed for the car park. As soon as you’d gone, I made a dash for the taxi rank. I got home about two minutes before you. Another time, I—’

  ‘Connie.’ Kit squeezes my hand. ‘I don’t care about train timetables. I care about you, and us, and . . . what this means. Why have you been going to Cambridge nearly every Friday? What do you do when you’re there?’

  I risk a quick glance at him, see nothing but unhappiness and incomprehension. ‘You can’t guess? I look for you.’

  ‘For me? But I’m in London on Fridays. You know that.’

  ‘Sometimes I sit on the bench at the Trumpington Road end of Bentley Grove and watch number 11 for hours, waiting for you to open the front door.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Kit covers his face with his hands. ‘I knew it was bad. I had no idea it was this bad.’

  ‘Sometimes I stand at the other end, behind a tree, waiting for you to drive up. Which you never do. Sometimes I wander round the city centre hoping to see you with her – in a café, or walking out of the Fitzwilliam Museum.’

  ‘Her?’ says Kit. ‘Who is Her?’

  ‘Selina Gane. Though I only found out her name today, when Sam told us. Sometimes I stand in the car park at Addenbrooke’s and—’ I stop suddenly. Selina Gane, Selina Gane . . . My throat closes tight as I make the connection. How could it have taken me so long? Instantly, I regret trusting Kit, telling him everything I’ve just told him. ‘Show me your diary.’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you haven’t got it with you. You always have it.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to pretend. Connie, what is it? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Give it to me.’ I hold out my hand.

  He pulls his diary out of his pocket, red in the face, and passes it to me. I flick through the pages. I know it was May, but I can’t remember the exact date. There it is. I spread it open on the table, so that we can both see the evidence. ‘13 May 2010 – 3 p.m. SG.’

  Kit groans. ‘This is your big revelation? Proof that Selina Gane and I must be playing house together at 11 Bentley Grove behind your back? SG is Stephen Gilligan, a lawyer at London Allied Capital. I met him at three o’clock on 13 May, at the office in London. Ring Joanne Biss, his PA, and ask her.’ He hands me his BlackBerry. ‘Now, so that you’ll know I haven’t had a chance to ask her to lie for me.’

  ‘You know I’m not going to ring anybody.’

  ‘You can’t risk being proved wrong, can you?’ Kit leans in front of me, forcing me to look at him. ‘You’d rather cling to your suspicions, the imaginary world you’ve constructed.’

  ‘I didn’t imagine what happened in January, and I didn’t imagine that woman’s body,’ I say shakily.

  ‘You went through my diary. Of all the low fucking . . .’ Kit grabs my arms, pulls me towards him. His fingernails dig into my flesh. ‘I don’t know any Selina Gane,’ he says in a fierce whisper. He doesn’t want anyone to notice his anger – only me. ‘I haven’t been to Cambridge since the last time I went there with you, in 2003. I’ve never set foot inside 11 Bentley Grove. I’m not leading a double life, Connie – I’m leading a very lonely, very unhappy married life with a wife I hardly know any more.’ He lets go of me when he sees Sam coming back with my water. All that time in the queue and it’s a small glass, only half full. If that’s what counts as a glass of water around here, I should have asked for seven. There’s a dry burn in my throat, as if I’ve been screaming for a year.

  ‘Connie? Is everything okay?’

  ‘No,’ says Kit. ‘Things are far from okay. I’m going to work.’

  Once he’s gone, once I’ve composed myself, I say, ‘We had a row. I expect I don’t need to tell you that. You’re a detective, after all.’

  Sam taps his fingers on the table-top, as if he’s playing the piano. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’ he says.

  ‘What aren’t you telling me?’ I fire the question back at him. ‘You could have told me about the stain on th
e carpet over the phone. You must be busy, and yet here you are – wasting time on me and my silly story. Why?’

  Sam looks caught out. ‘Lorraine Turner told me something that bothered me,’ he says.

  I lean forward, my heart racing.

  ‘Selina Gane’s no longer living at 11 Bentley Grove. Immediately after putting the house on the market, she moved into the D— into a nearby hotel.’

  I make a mental note to find out which Cambridge hotels have names that begin with D. Or maybe it was ‘Du’. The Duchess? The Duxford? Isn’t there a place near Cambridge called Duxford?

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’ I say.

  Sam looks away. We’re both thinking the same thing, or at least I think we are. He doesn’t want to be the one to say it.

  Fortunately, I have no such reservations. ‘You’d do it if you knew someone had been murdered in your house. Or if you’d murdered that person yourself.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sam agrees. ‘You would. But, Connie, you must see that—’

  ‘I know: it doesn’t prove anything. Do Cambridge police know?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Probably not. Lorraine Turner happened to mention it to me when we were talking about the map – she was worried about something so valuable being left in an empty house – a house empty of people, I mean. Most of Dr Gane’s belongings are still there, Lorraine says. Her furniture, books, CDs . . .’

  ‘Did she tell Lorraine why she was moving out?’

  ‘No. And Lorraine didn’t ask. She didn’t feel it was her place.’

  I gulp my water down in one mouthful. ‘You’ve got to tell Cambridge police,’ I say.

  ‘It won’t make a difference.’

  ‘If they analyse the carpet, they might find traces of blood, or DNA.’

  ‘They won’t do anything, Connie. There’s no proof. Selina Gane moving out of her house is odd, I agree, but people behave strangely all the time. The guy I’ve been dealing with, DC Grint – he was satisfied with what Lorraine told him.’

  ‘Then he’s a crap detective! Lorraine’s the person who took the pictures for the virtual tour, isn’t she? She’s the last person whose word he ought to rely on. Has he checked with the Beaters, or Selina Gane? What if the Christmas tree story’s a lie?’

  ‘Listen to what you’re saying and think what it means,’ says Sam. ‘Lorraine Turner would have to be a psychotic killer who murders her victims in houses she’s trying to sell, then posts photographs of their dead bodies on the internet. Does that sound likely to you?’

  ‘Why victims, plural? Maybe there’s only one victim: the woman I saw. And you could say that about any crime, in that disbelieving tone, make it sound implausible. “What, so he dissolved all his victims in a bath full of acid?” “What, so he hacked up young men’s bodies and stored them in his freezer?” ’

  ‘Do you read a lot of true crime stuff?’ Sam asks.

  I can’t help laughing. ‘None,’ I tell him. ‘Everyone knows those stories. They’re common knowledge. What are you suggesting, that I’m some kind of morbid blood-thirsty freak? What if Lorraine Turner’s the freak, or Selina Gane, or both of them? Why does it have to be me?’

  Because you’re the one yelling at the top of your voice in a crowded canteen, idiot.

  ‘I’ve answered your question,’ Sam says calmly. ‘Are you going to answer mine?’

  How does he know I’m keeping something back? Because Kit and I had a fight? He can’t have heard the details; he was too far away.

  ‘I spoke to Alice Bean,’ he says.

  I try not to let my anger show. Alice is mine; sometimes I feel as if she’s all I’ve got, the only person I can rely on to have my best interests at heart. How dare Sam poke around in my life? Why didn’t Alice tell me she’d spoken to him?

  ‘You told me Alice advised you to contact Simon Waterhouse, but you didn’t speak to her in the early hours of Saturday morning, did you? You didn’t tell her about seeing the woman’s body.’

  ‘I saw her later on Saturday and told her then.’

  Sam waits.

  ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘I hadn’t told her on Saturday morning, when I spoke to you.’

  ‘So she must have suggested you contact Simon about something else.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘I’d be very interested to hear what that something else was.’

  ‘It’s not really something else. I mean, it is, but . . . it’s connected. 11 Bentley Grove is the connection.’ I take a deep breath. ‘Do you remember the snow we had in January?’

  Sam nods. ‘I was worried it was never going to end,’ he says. ‘I thought it was the beginning of the new ice age that the climate change scientists keep predicting.’

  ‘On 6 January, I went to Combingham to buy ten big sacks of coal. Kit loves real fires and we’d run out, and he couldn’t go – he was in London. If you’re about to ask why I didn’t go to the nearest garage, Kit won’t let us buy coal from anyone but Gummy in Combingham. That’s not his name, but it’s what everyone calls him. I’m a bit scared of him, and having teeth isn’t his strong point, but Kit insists his coal is the best. I don’t know or care enough about coal to argue with him.’

  Sam is smiling, and he shouldn’t be. This isn’t a happy story.

  ‘I took Kit’s car because it’s better in snow than mine – it’s a four-wheel drive. I’d never been to Gummy’s before, not on my own, and my sense of direction’s hopeless, so I used the SatNav in Kit’s car.’

  ‘He didn’t drive to London, then?’ says Sam.

  ‘He never does. Usually he parks at Rawndesley station, but it was too icy first thing that morning to drive anywhere apart from on the main roads. The gritters hadn’t been out yet. Kit walked all the way down to the Rawndesley Road and caught the bus to the station.’

  I wish he’d driven. I wish his car had been in the station car park that day instead of sitting outside our house, looking so much safer and more appealing than mine.

  ‘I bought the coal. I probably could have found my way home, but I didn’t want to go wrong, so I decided I’d play it safe and use the SatNav again. I pressed “Home”.’ I take a deep breath. ‘The first thing I noticed was the driving time: two hours and seventeen minutes. Then I noticed the address.’

  Sam knows. I can see from his face that he knows.

  ‘As far as Kit’s SatNav was concerned, “Home” was 11 Bentley Grove in Cambridge. Not Melrose Cottage in Little Holling, Silsford.’ I start crying; I can’t help it. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t . . . I can’t believe that six months later I’m still telling this story without knowing what it means.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this on Saturday morning?’ Sam asks.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d believe me about the woman’s body if I told you everything. If you knew I was obsessed with 11 Bentley Grove already . . .’

  ‘Were you?’

  Is there any point in my denying it? ‘Yes. Totally.’

  ‘Because Kit had put it in his SatNav as his home address?’

  I nod.

  ‘And you wanted to know why. Did you ask him?’

  ‘The second he walked through the door. He claimed not to know what I was talking about. He denied it, completely denied it. He said he’d never programmed in any home address – not ours, and not an address in Cambridge that he’d never heard of. We had a huge row – it went on for hours. I didn’t believe him.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ says Sam.

  ‘He’d bought the SatNav new – who else could have programmed in the address apart from him? I said that, and he said, “It’s obvious, isn’t it? You must have done it.’’ I couldn’t believe it. Why would I do something like that? And if I had, why would I accuse him of doing it?’

  ‘Try to calm down, Connie.’ Sam reaches over, pats my arm. ‘Would you like another drink?’

  I’d like another life – any life but this one, anyone’s problems as long as they aren’t mine.

  ‘Water, p
lease,’ I say, wiping my eyes. ‘Can you ask them to fill it to the top this time?’

  He returns a few minutes later with a tall, full glass. I take a gulp that makes my chest ache.

  ‘Did you suspect Kit had another family in Cambridge?’ Sam asks.

  ‘That was the first thing that sprang to mind, yes. Bigamy.’ It’s the first time I’ve said the word out loud. Even with Alice, I skirt around it. ‘It sounds melodramatic, but it happens, doesn’t it? Men really do commit bigamy.’

  ‘They do,’ says Sam. ‘Some women do too, I guess. Did you talk to Kit about your suspicions?’

  ‘He denied it – flat out denied it, everything. He’s been denying it for six months. I didn’t believe him, and that became another thing to fight about – the inequality. I didn’t trust him as much as he trusted me.’

  ‘So he believed you when you said you didn’t do it?’

  ‘He moved on to accusing my family – my mum, Fran, Anton. Reminded me of all the times one or other of them had been round when his SatNav was lying around in the house.’

  ‘Who are Fran and Anton?’ Sam asks.

  ‘My sister and her partner.’

  ‘Was Kit right? Could a member of your family have programmed in the address?’

  ‘They could have, but they didn’t. I know my family inside out. My dad’s terrified of anything modern and gadgety – he refuses to acknowledge the existence of iPods and E-readers – even DVD players are too much for him. There’s no way he’d go anywhere near a SatNav. Fran and Anton aren’t imaginative enough or devious enough. My mother can be both, but . . . trust me, she wouldn’t have put that address into Kit’s SatNav.’

  She’d rather swallow fire. I’ve seen her stiffen and change the subject when anything with a Cambridge connection comes up in conversation: the boat race, Stephen Hawking and his black hole theory. She doesn’t even like me to hear Oxford mentioned, or any university, in case it makes me think of Cambridge. At first I thought she was worried about upsetting me, but then I realised her motivation was more selfish than that: she wants me to forget that Cambridge exists, that Kit and I were ever thinking of moving there. Her greatest fear is that I will one day leave Little Holling.