Lasting Damage

by Sophie Hannah

  Mine is that I won’t.

  ‘Kit programmed in the address,’ I tell Sam. ‘He must have. That’s what I think at the moment, anyway. That’s what I’ve thought a thousand times, and then I accuse him again and he persuades me again that he’s not lying about anything, and he’s so . . . convincing. I want to believe him so much, I end up wondering if maybe I did it, then wiped the memory from my mind. Maybe I did. How do I know? Maybe I programmed 11 Bentley Grove into Kit’s SatNav, and hallucinated a body that wasn’t there. Maybe I’m some kind of deranged lunatic.’ I shrug, embarrassed suddenly by how strange and pathetic my story must sound. ‘This is what my life’s been like since January,’ I say. ‘Round and round: believing, not believing, questioning my sanity, getting nowhere. Not much fun.’

  ‘For you or for Kit,’ says Sam. Does that mean he believes Kit’s telling the truth?

  ‘He even tried to say once that maybe someone in the shop he bought it from had programmed in the address.’ I thought I’d finished, but I can’t leave it alone. ‘He wanted us to go down there together, ask all the staff.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ Sam asks.

  ‘Because it was bullshit,’ I say angrily. ‘I wasn’t prepared to let him play games with me. I nearly agreed, but then I had a flash of clarity. I have those, sometimes, where it dawns on me that I don’t need to torment myself speculating, wondering. I know the truth: it wasn’t anyone in the shop, or me, or a member of my family. It was Kit. I know he did it.’ As soon as I’m out of here, I’m going to ring London Allied Capital and ask to speak to Stephen Gilligan’s secretary. Maybe he had a meeting with Kit at 3 p.m. on 13 May; maybe he didn’t. I need to know.

  ‘For six months, Kit’s been telling you that he didn’t programme in that address,’ says Sam. ‘What makes you so sure he did?’

  Sure? I wonder who he’s talking about. Will I ever again be sure of anything?

  ‘Three things,’ I say. Exhaustion sweeps over me; it’s hard to summon the energy to speak. ‘One: it’s his SatNav. He had no reason to think I’d be using it, no reason to think I’d find out.’ I shrug. ‘The simplest explanation is usually the right one. Two: when I first asked him about it, before he had a chance to arrange his face into a puzzled expression, I saw something in his eyes, something . . . I don’t know how to describe it. It was only there for a split second: guilt, shame, embarrassment, fear. He looked like someone who’d been caught. If you’re about to ask me could I have imagined it, sometimes I think yes, I must have. Other times I’m certain I didn’t.’ I want to tell Sam how frightening it is to have the narrative of your life shift and lurch and change its contours every time you look closely at it, but I’m not sure any words can accurately describe it. Could Sam even begin to understand what it’s like to inhabit such an unstable reality? He strikes me as a man firmly embedded in a consistent world, one that retains its shape and meaning from one day to the next.

  I feel as if I have two lives: one created by hope and one by fear. And if both are creations, why should I believe in either? I have no idea what the facts of my life would look like if I stripped away the emotions.

  Better not to say any of this to Sam. I’ve caused him enough bother already without drawing him into a debate on the nature of reality.

  You think too much, Con. Fran’s been telling me that since we were teenagers.

  ‘What’s the third thing?’ Sam asks.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The third reason you’re sure Kit programmed in the address.’

  I’m going to have to tell him – peel away another layer, go back even further. I have to, if I want him to understand. It’s all linked. What happened in the early hours of Saturday morning can’t be separated from what happened in January; what happened in January is connected to what happened in 2003. If I want Sam to help me, I have to be willing to tell him all of it, just as I told Simon Waterhouse.

  ‘Cambridge,’ I say. ‘I’m sure because 11 Bentley Grove is in Cambridge.’

  Chapter 8

  17/07/2010

  Olivia Zailer flicked through her diary, sighing loudly at the sight of each new page. She’d made too many appointments for the next few weeks, most of which she knew she would at some point cancel. Lunch with Etta from MUST magazine to discuss a column about famous books and which meals they would be, in the unlikely event of their being turned into food – Wuthering Heights equals Yorkshire Pudding was the example Etta had given; aerobic walking on Hampstead Heath with Sabina, Olivia’s personal trainer; tea at the British Library with Kurt Vogel, who wanted her to judge an Anglo-German journalism prize in which all the entrants would be between the ages of eleven and thirteen.

  Olivia wondered if she was the only person in the world who, with great gusto in the moment, made plans with almost everyone she came into contact with, knowing full well that she would email to cancel in due course. Why was it so hard to say straight out, ‘I’m sorry, Kurt, but no, I can’t be a judge’? Why did it feel so right to say, ‘Oh, God, I’d love to,’ and then sneak in the ‘can’t’ bit later on? Olivia would have liked to ask Charlie; she knew no one else who’d be willing to discuss it with her. Dom certainly wouldn’t. She suspected it had something to do with being eager to please others, but even more eager to please herself.

  Her mobile phone rang, and she picked it up, determined not to make an arrangement with whoever it was, even an arrangement she wanted to make and would not cancel. She needed to purge her diary of all the fake appointments before she made any more real ones.

  ‘It’s me. Chris Gibbs.’

  ‘Hello, Chris Gibbs. Oh, my God, that proves it! A watched pot really does never boil. You’re only you because I was expecting you to be Kurt Vogel from the Dortmund British–German Society. All the times I was expecting it to be you, it wasn’t – and now here you are.’

  ‘Have you still got a spare key for Charlie’s place?’

  ‘Why, has something happened?’ Olivia was immediately anxious.

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Then why do you need a key?’

  ‘I thought it’d be a good place to meet,’ said Gibbs.

  ‘You and me?’

  ‘No, you, me, Waterhouse and Charlie, when they get back. For their wedding reunion evening.’

  What the hell was she supposed to say to that? ‘Wouldn’t that be . . . a bit awkward?’

  She heard a snort. ‘Joking,’ said Gibbs. ‘Yeah, you and me. I haven’t seen you for . . .’ There was silence as he worked it out. ‘. . . about forty-four hours. I’m thinking of making it my new mobilising grievance.’

  ‘You usually don’t see me for forty-four hours,’ Olivia reminded him. ‘You’ve spent most of your life not seeing me, and you’ve been fine.’

  He made a joke, a whole joke. And he’s quoting me. Again.

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ said Gibbs.

  She couldn’t meet him at Charlie’s house. Have sex in the bed Charlie shared with Simon? It didn’t bear thinking about. She reached for a pen and wrote ‘Olivia Gibbs’ next to where it said ‘Name’ in her diary, on the personal details page. It looked good, well balanced: the roundness of the two capitals, O and G . . .

  Should she scribble over it? She’d wanted to know how it would feel to write it, that was all. She ought to cross it out now. On the other hand, Dom would never look, not even if someone held the diary in front of his nose. The great thing about Dom, from a deceiving him point of view, was that he was interested in almost nothing.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ said Gibbs.

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’ If only she could be so forceful with Etta from MUST magazine.

  Olivia had no willpower, and thought people who had it and used it on themselves were weird. Luckily, she had fear and anxiety in abundance. She couldn’t have agreed to what Gibbs was proposing without feeling as if she’d crossed a line she was terrified of crossing, even with the safety net of pos-sible future cancellation in place.<
br />
  ‘All right then, a hotel,’ he said.

  ‘What about your work? What about Debbie?’ She turned to the ‘Notes’ section at the back of her diary and wrote ‘Olivia Gibbs’ again, in neater handwriting. She wrote it underneath in capital letters.

  ‘My problem, not yours,’ said Gibbs. ‘If you don’t want to come to Spilling, I’ll come to London.’

  ‘If you want a . . . a girlfriend, you should find one closer to home,’ Olivia told him, praying he wouldn’t take her advice. Why give it, then?

  ‘Why should I?’ said Gibbs. ‘There are only two people I’ve ever met who don’t bore me: Simon Waterhouse and you. I don’t want to shag Waterhouse – that leaves you.’

  ‘I thought I did bore you,’ Olivia felt obliged to point out, in case he’d forgotten. ‘You said I was like a colour supplement.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know what to make of you, that’s all.’

  She heard a crunch. Was he eating an apple? ‘That Los Delfines place,’ he said. For a worrying moment, Olivia feared he was about to suggest they meet and have sex at Charlie and Simon’s honeymoon villa. ‘I need to tell Stepford that’s where Waterhouse is. Something’s come up.’

  ‘What? No way, Chris. If you tell him, I’ll . . .’ She couldn’t think of anything to threaten him with. ‘What’s come up?’

  More crunching. Then, ‘You let me tell Stepford, I’ll tell you what’s come up.’

  ‘No! You’re not going to ruin Charlie’s honeymoon by telling Sam where they are so that he can drag Simon home. I’m feeling sick just thinking about it.’

  ‘He won’t have to come home – Stepford wants a quick chat with him, that’s all. I’ll give him the caretaker’s number from the website – Domino’s Pizza, or whatever he’s called. Stepford’ll ring, it’ll all be over in five minutes – Waterhouse can go back to his deckchair.’

  Olivia made a screaming face at the phone. ‘How important is it, exactly?’ She couldn’t resist adding, ‘Luxury villas have sun loungers, not deckchairs.’

  ‘A murder might be involved.’

  ‘Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why did I tell you where they are?’

  ‘You really don’t want me to say anything?’

  ‘How can you not, if someone’s been murdered?’

  ‘Whoever it is’ll still be dead in two weeks’ time, when Waterhouse gets back,’ said Gibbs.

  Olivia could hear the shrug in his voice. ‘What kind of attitude is that?’ she snapped. ‘Are you trying to impress me by being a maverick? If so, that’s not how it works. Tearing up the rule book and going it alone is cool. Not caring about the random slaying of innocent civilians is just plain unacceptable.’

  ‘I don’t even know for sure anyone’s been killed. You’re fucking with my plan.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You were supposed to beg me not to say anything,’ Gibbs explained. ‘I was going to end up agreeing, on the condition that you agreed to meet me.’

  ‘Of course you were,’ said Olivia. ‘If you haven’t got a bunch of flowers to hand, there’s always blackmail.’

  Silence.

  She hoped she hadn’t offended him, though there was no doubt that he deserved to be roundly offended. Eventually he said, ‘Talking to you’s different to talking to other people. With other people, I say what I mean, they say what they mean. With you, it’s like . . . I don’t know whether I’m being a bastard, pretending to be a bastard, or reading out some lines from a play I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s called pre-sex banter.’

  ‘Right.’ A pause. ‘I’ll make sure not to call it a deckchair, then,’ Gibbs said.

  Olivia sighed. That was the second joke he’d made – in his entire life, probably. How could she say no? ‘You come to London,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay for the hotel. That way we’ll both be . . . contributing something.’ Given the choice between expending energy and spending money, Olivia opted for the latter every time.

  ‘I’m setting off n—’ said Gibbs, ending the call before he’d finished saying ‘now’.

  Olivia stared down at her never-to-be married name in her diary, all the different versions of it. She swore under her breath when she realised what she’d done: she’d left out her own surname, after all the fuss she’d made about changing her name to Dom’s, her insistence that she must be Zailer-Lund instead of simply Lund, because of . . . she couldn’t remember the reason she’d given him.

  Was she less than a hundred per cent sure about committing herself to Dom?

  If she was marrying someone else – not necessarily Chris Gibbs, but . . . well, she might as well use him as a random example, even though the idea was utterly ludicrous, they had nothing in common, he was obviously a deckchair sort of person – would she feel differently?

  Olivia told herself firmly that she wouldn’t. Her diary seemed to think otherwise.

  *

  Subject: 11 Bentley Grove, CB2 9AW

  From: Ian Grint (iadgrint@cambs.police.uk)

  Sent: 19 July 2010 00:10:53

  To: Sam Kombothekra (s.kombothekra@culvervalley.police.uk)

  Sam,

  I keep ringing you and keep getting told you’re in the canteen. And your mobile’s going straight to voicemail. Can you pull your nose out of the trough and ring me? Soon would be good.

  Cheers.

  Ian (Grint)

  *

  POLICE EXHIBIT REF: CB13345/432/22IG

  Important - You will need this to tax your car. Please keep it in a safe place.

  Wheel Women

  Wayman Court, Newmarket Road,

  Cambridge, CB5 9TL

  Date of issue: 08/11/2009

  This Certificate is evidence that you have insurance to comply with the law. It is not valid if changed in any way. For full details of your insurance cover, please also see your Car Insurance Schedule and your Policy Booklet.

  Certificate of Motor Insurance

  Certificate and Policy number: 26615881

  Registration Mark of vehicle: MM02 OXY

  Name of Policyholder: Elise Gilpatrick

  Insurance commencement date: 06/11/2009 at 00:00 hours

  Date of insurance expiry: 06/11/2010 at 00:00 hours

  Persons or classes of persons entitled to drive: Elise Gilpatrick,

  Donal Gilpatrick

  (providing the person driving holds a licence to drive the vehicle or has held and is not disqualified from holding or obtaining such a licence)

  The policyholder, Elise Gilpatrick, may also drive with the owner’s permission a motor car that they do not own and that is not hired or leased to them under a hire purchase or leasing arrangement.

  Limitations as to use: Social, domestic and pleasure purposes

  I hereby certify that the policy to which this Certificate relates satisfies the requirements of the relevant law applicable in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Island of Jersey, the Island of Guernsey and the Island of Alderney.

  Rosemary Vincent

  Rosemary Vincent, Authorised signatory

  Chapter 9

  Monday 19 July 2010

  I start to tell Sam Kombothekra about the first row Kit and I ever had. It was about Cambridge. We’d been together for nearly a month.

  Kit didn’t mean to start a fight; he was trying to pay me a compliment. Technically I was probably the one who started the row, though it didn’t feel that way at the time. We were walking back from Thorrold House to Kit’s rented two-bedroom flat in Rawndesley; we’d been to Mum and Dad’s for lunch. It was about the fifth or sixth time Kit had met my family. It took him nine years to pluck up the courage to ask if he might sometimes be excused from the several visits a week that he could see were required of me.

  My father, wanting to impress Kit, had suggested opening a particular bottle of wine that had been given to him two years previously by a grateful Monk & Sons customer. I know nothing about wine, and neither does Dad, but the customer had led h
im to believe that there was something special about this bottle – it was either very old or very valuable or both. Neither of my parents could recall the precise details, but whatever the customer had told them had been sufficient to impress on them the foolhardiness of opening the wine and drinking it, so instead they had consigned it to a safe place – so safe that when Dad decided that the arrival of a well-spoken Oxbridge-educated potential son-in-law at his dinner table was an occasion that merited the unleashing of the antique wine’s magic powers, neither he nor Mum could remember where they’d put it. Kit tried to tell them it didn’t matter, that he’d prefer water or apple juice, as he was driving, but Dad insisted that the special bottle must be found, which meant that Mum had to leave her food to go cold while she ransacked first the cellar and then the house. The rest of us followed Dad’s lead and carried on eating. ‘If you don’t tuck in while it’s piping hot, Val’ll have your guts for garters,’ Dad told Kit, who felt uncomfortable starting without Mum. Fran, Anton and I were used to it. Dad often decides he needs Mum to go and get something for him just as she’s about to sit down to eat. I think he looks at the food on her plate, panics slightly about how long it’s going to be before she’s next available to attend to him, and decides he might as well get his most pressing requests in early.

  As we ate, we heard loud panting and a series of small groans coming from beyond the kitchen; Mum wanted us to know exactly what it was costing her to search for the sacred plonk. I could see that Kit was tense, feeling responsible even though he wasn’t. Then Mum called out, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Cotton-wool brain strikes again. I know where I put it.’ We listened as a door creaked open. It was a creak Fran and I knew as well as we knew each other; it had been part of Thorrold House’s soundtrack since we were children. Dad laughed and said to Kit, ‘The cupboard under the stairs – I don’t know why she didn’t look there straight away. That’s where I’d have started. It’s the obvious place.’