The three of us were invited to take a peek at Julia in intensive care and although we had been warned of her condition it was still a terrible shock. Julia lay with tubes sticking out everywhere, her face, particularly around the eyes, was badly swollen and discoloured and her head was swathed in bandages. I could barely recognise my dear old friend. Rachel and Ronald both had a bit of a weep, and I didn’t blame them. For myself, I think I was past crying.
That night the hospital found a bed for Rachel. Ronald, who did something or other in the city and was married with a young family, returned to his home not far away in Chiswick, and I booked myself into a nearby hotel. In the morning when I returned to the hospital I was at least cheered to learn that Julia was coming round, and overjoyed to be told soon afterwards that the prognosis was perhaps surprisingly good. The surgeons now thought there was an excellent chance that she would make a full recovery eventually.
Julia drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the day during which her mother, brother and I took it in turns to sit anxiously by her bedside.
I checked my messages at home and on my mobile every couple of hours, waiting for Todd to call. All I picked up was message after message from Robin in Ireland which I ignored – if indeed he were in Ireland, I thought with my now customary disloyalty. I wasn’t slavishly following Todd Mallett’s instructions, I just would not have known what to say to Robin. There was a distinct note of anxiety in his later messages, but merely about my welfare. If he knew what had happened to Julia – either from first-hand knowledge, which of course was my dread, or had learned of it in some other way – he said nothing in any of his messages.
Eventually in the early evening Todd did call and I got back to him at once.
Typically, I thought, the first thing he did was to enquire about Julia’s welfare.
‘We’ll be up to see her as soon as the docs give us the say-so,’ he said.
I knew that Julia’s ability to remember was going to be crucial, but it only became apparent just how crucial when Todd related to me the progress he and his team had made in their investigation. Or lack of progress almost, it seemed. But that could be very good news for me, I thought, in the state of confusion which now passed for my normal frame of mind.
If the Natasha Felks letter had been in Julia’s flat, it, along with almost everything else, had been completely destroyed. The London Fire Brigade had already discovered that a gas burner had been left turned slightly on in the kitchen and they suspected there may have been a candle alight on the dining-room table. The gas had gradually filled the room and burst into flame.
‘Simple but effective way of doing someone in,’ said Todd.
I gulped.
‘Only thing is there’s no sign of any forced entry. The flat was securely locked. It seems incredibly careless but to the fire brigade it looks as if your mate quite simply went to bed and fell asleep leaving the candle burning and a gas tap not properly turned off. Nothing yet to prove anything different anyway.’
Todd hadn’t wasted any time. He had sent a team to interview Jeremy Cole who claimed that the letter from Natasha Felks which Julia had described to me in such detail, had never existed. The interview with Julia, which he at least admitted had taken place, had been totally about his new TV show, he said, and Natasha Felks had not even been mentioned.
‘Problem is he already knew about Julia Jones and that her flat had been virtually destroyed,’ said Todd. ‘Heard it on the news like you did, so we couldn’t bluff him. And, while not exactly denying it, he played down his relationship with Natasha, couldn’t even remember her ever writing him letters, and so on.
‘I reckon he had one brief moment of humanity or even guilt when Julia confronted him and probably regretted it immediately. What’s happened now is a reprieve for him if you ask me. He certainly doesn’t want to face the music in public. All that matters to him is his career and his public standing, and he’s quite capable of looking you in the eye and lying through his teeth if it will save his bacon.’
‘But Robin couldn’t have known Cole was going to deny everything,’ I ventured.
‘Desperate men take desperate risks,’ said Todd obliquely. ‘Robin Davey had damn all to lose. And he would have had a fair idea that the letter Julia had acquired was the only halfways hard evidence of anything. Trouble is I still can’t prove a thing. Robin is in Ireland by the way – we confirmed that he was on the Rosslare ferry passenger list and he arrived on schedule at his hotel in time for breakfast yesterday. We haven’t approached him yet, I was hoping to have something more solid to chuck at him, but I’m having somebody check out his movements over there.’
An alibi as well. Could I begin to hope again that Robin was in the clear? This time I really had to know. Julia was the only remaining hope, and I just prayed that she would make a fast and complete recovery, and that her memory of the events leading up to her accident, which was what I so wanted it to have been, would return just as swiftly.
I spent another night at my hotel and in the morning was astonished and delighted to discover that Julia, although very sleepy, was more or less fully conscious and able to talk and even hold a limited conversation. I knew from professional experience how quickly recovery can be made from successful brain surgery – but seeing it happen to someone you love is different. Her rate of recovery seemed like a miracle to me.
She remained distant and confused even during her most awake moments that day, but Julia was returning to us, at least partially, and it seemed like the only good news I had had in a very long time.
‘Can you remember what happened?’ I asked her during one of my periods alone with her – far more quickly, no doubt, than I should have done, and certainly long before Todd’s team were going to be allowed to formally interview her.
Julia looked at me blankly through her poor bruised eyes and raised one shaky hand tentatively to her bandaged head. Obliquely it occurred to me that her lovely red hair had almost certainly been shaved off. She wouldn’t like that.
When she spoke her voice seemed to come from a long way away, and her words were slurred.
‘God, my head aches,’ she said.
‘I’m not surprised,’ I responded, and reached out to hold her hand. I did love her. It was so terrible to see her like this, and not to know, in spite of the optimism of the medical team, if she would ever really be the old Julia again.
She managed a smile, albeit a wan one. She had never been short on courage had Julia.
‘Can you remember what happened?’ I asked again.
The blank look returned. Fleetingly it occurred to me that she may not even know who I was, let alone anything else, and I didn’t like the thought of that at all.
She tried to shake her head then winced painfully.
‘Nothing at all,’ I continued to question.
She was still fiddling with the bandages around her head. I wondered if I should try to stop her, or at least tell somebody what she was doing.
‘Did I crash the car?’ she asked.
Although it was not the answer that I had hoped for, I was pleased that she could already be so logical. It had to be encouraging, surely, that she had considered her injured head and then come up with perhaps the most likely cause of all. I considered if a little prompting might help jog her memory.
‘There was a fire,’ I said.
The blank look returned.
‘In my car?’ she asked shakily.
I shook my head. ‘In your flat. A gas leak. The fire brigade think you may have left a candle burning and not turned one of the burners on your cooker off properly.’
Her expression was one of complete bewilderment. ‘Is that what I did?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, Julia, I was hoping you would be able to tell me. I mean do you remember going to bed on the night of the accident?’
She barely reacted. ‘The accident?’ she repeated hesitatingly. ‘When was that, then?’ She sounded weary and she kept opening
and shutting her eyes.
I could see that she was thoroughly confused and in some pain and that I was upsetting her. Her memory or lack of it was so vitally important that I could not stop myself from continuing with one last track of questioning.
‘Julia can you remember what you took from Sir Jeremy Cole?’
She licked her lips as if she was thirsty. ‘W’who?’ she stumbled.
It was the answer I had been dreading. I backed off then.
Julia, it seemed clear, could not remember anything about the candle or the gas, she could not remember going to bed that fateful night. She could not even remember having interviewed Cole, let alone taking away that vital Natasha Felks letter. And it was highly unlikely, as far as I could gather, that her memory of any of these events would ever return.
Twenty-One
My conversation with Todd Mallett had left me with a new niggling doubt about Robin which I decided I must sort out for myself as swiftly as possible.
I drove back to Bristol that evening just after the heaviest of the rush-hour traffic had subsided. The clear bright weather continued, and although it was very cold there was no ice or frost and my journey home, even after dark, went as swiftly and smoothly as journeys out of London ever do.
As soon as I got into the house I went straight to the cupboard where we hung all our keys on hooks. The spare key to Julia’s flat, which she had given me years previously, was still there. Of course it was still there, I told myself irritably. I did not even know whether or not Robin had ever been aware that I had a key to Julia’s flat. There was no reason for him to have been – although that key, alongside all of ours, did wear a label clearly marked Julia. In any case, the key was safe. Neither Robin nor anyone else had used my key to Julia’s flat to gain entry on the night of the fire. So that was the end of that. Yet again the finger had pointed at Robin, and yet again he really did seem to be in the clear.
I went to the phone and called him on his mobile. He replied at once and sounded relieved at first, and then anxious and a bit irritated – which was understandable enough, I suppose. We hadn’t spoken for three days.
He bombarded me with questions. ‘Where on earth have you been? Why haven’t you returned any of my calls? I’ve been worried sick.’
‘I’ve been with Julia,’ I said obliquely. I was still testing him, I suppose.
‘Well fine, but surely you could have called me to let me know.’
‘You haven’t heard, then?’
‘Heard what? Rose, do stop talking in riddles and tell me what’s going on.’ He sounded exasperated now.
So I told him. About the fire and about being with Julia in the hospital.
‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘Rose, I had no idea. I do wish you had called me. I’d have come back straight away. I’ll come now, of course I will.’
‘Robin, there’s no need,’ I began. I wasn’t sure I could cope with him yet.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ he said. Why was everybody telling me I was ridiculous all of a sudden?
‘Julia may have some bizarre bloody ideas about me, but I know what she means to you,’ he continued. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
I said nothing. There was a pause.
‘By the way,’ he asked casually. ‘Can she remember what happened?’
‘Not a thing,’ I replied.
Did I imagine the quick intake of breath. ‘How absolutely terrible,’ he said.
I replaced the receiver and tried to tell myself, with mixed success, that I was being stupid. Robin was in Ireland. He could not possibly have had anything to do with the fire in Julia’s flat. And in any case, how could I really think that the man I loved could be capable of that, or of the death of Natasha Felks, come to that. How could I even consider that Robin was that wicked?
Sometimes, as I veered from believing or fearing one thing to accepting the complete opposite and back again, I came to the conclusion that the only really wicked person around was me.
Good as his promise, Robin arrived home the next morning. He flew this time, from Cork into Bristol. And when he walked into the house the first thing he did was to take me into his arms. But I was determined at least to confront him with every detail of my terrible anxieties. I was quite possibly even more confused than poor Julia, I reckoned.
Resolutely I shook myself free of him, struggled to collate my muddled thinking and endeavoured to speak calmly and clearly.
‘I was on my way to visit Julia when I heard on the car radio the news of the fire,’ I began.
‘Poor darling,’ he said, his voice full of concern.
‘You haven’t asked why I suddenly decided to go to see her?’ I said bluntly.
‘Rose, she’s your best friend, I was going to be away for several days, why should you have to have a reason?’ he asked reasonably.
I persevered. ‘Julia had a letter to show me, a letter from Natasha to Sir Jeremy Cole,’ I said.
He looked almost as blank as Julia had in her hospital bed.
‘Rose, why do you want to tell me about a letter my late fiancée wrote to her former lover?’ he asked. ‘I’m not interested.’
I made myself not be put off. As succinctly as I could I told him about Julia’s pretend interview and about the letter and how Julia had taken it away with her.
When I had finished Robin’s face seemed to have paled considerably.
‘You can’t ever forget you are a police officer, Rose, can you? Not for an instant?’
I could see that he was hurt. More than that I could not fathom.
‘Not the investigating officer,’ I said. ‘There is one again though.’
His eyes opened wide in wonderment. ‘You’ve reported it all, haven’t you?’ he said, and there was absolutely no expression in his voice. ‘All this nonsense. And you’ve pointed the finger at me. How could you, Rose?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I responded, and I was too. Although I would have done the same thing all over again, it is impossible to describe the torment I had caused myself by doing so.
‘Surprising then that I haven’t been arrested yet, or at least given the third degree by the new national crime squad,’ he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
‘Todd Mallett has already checked up on your whereabouts,’ I replied quite formally, almost as if I really were on duty and dealing with a suspect. ‘And I am sure he or one of his team will question you sooner or later.’
‘Really,’ Robin said, still sarcastic. ‘Good job I have such a perfect alibi, then. Or do you think I beamed myself off the train or over from Waterford to London in order to despatch your barking mad bloody friend? Is that it? Have you gone quite barking too?’
He had raised his voice almost to screaming pitch, something I had so rarely known him to do. I said nothing. His eyes narrowed.
‘Has this letter been found?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘Julia’s flat was almost totally destroyed along with everything in it,’ I told him.
I was aware of Robin watching me closely, as if my behaviour were somehow curious.
‘What does this Jeremy Cole chappy have to say about it all now, then?’ he continued. ‘I presume he has been questioned.’
I nodded. ‘He says there was no letter and his interview with Julia was entirely about his new TV show,’ I said flatly.
Robin smiled, and for once I did not find his smile attractive at all.
‘So the allegedly incriminating letter no longer exists if it ever did, poor Julia cannot remember anything about it nor even interviewing Cole, and he denies everything,’ he finally remarked coldly. ‘Bit of a cock-and-bull story, wouldn’t you say?’
For a fleeting moment I almost hated him. It was the first time I had ever felt like that. Great passion and great loathing are often not far apart, I suppose. But I couldn’t really hate Robin. Not even now.
He stood up, strode across the room and caught hold of me by the shoulders. Not roughly, not even then, but firml
y, as if by physical contact he might emphasise his point. And he spoke to me in the way that an exasperated parent might address a silly child. Not the first time he’d done that I remember thinking, and I wasn’t sure which of us that said most about.
‘Rose, I didn’t even know Julia had gone to see Cole. How could I have known? I went to Ireland. I was on the overnight train on the way there when her flat caught fire. You know that.’
He wasn’t being so patient now. After all this was the second time that I had confronted him with the unspeakable.
He was angry. He still had hold of me by the shoulders and just very slightly shook me. I could feel the frustration in him. For a moment I thought he was going to lose control. But he didn’t. Instead he let go of me and stepped back. When he started talking again his voice was by then quite quiet and somehow very chilling.
‘I can’t believe I am being interrogated by my own wife,’ he said. ‘And I can’t believe what you seem to be trying to accuse me of.’
I bowed my head. I’d had to have this out with him, I remained consumed with doubts and fears, but he had already succeeded in making me feel a bit ashamed of myself.
‘Are you determined to destroy our marriage?’ he asked even more coldly.
‘No, no, oh, I don’t know,’ I stumbled. ‘I don’t know what I think, or what I’m doing any more. I am so confused.’
I saw his face soften.
‘You don’t really believe such awful things about me, do you, Rose?’
He just sounded sad then. I looked into his eyes. All I could see was pain, the so familiar pain.
‘No, I suppose I don’t, I can’t really, can I?’ I heard myself say. And yet such a short time previously I had half-convinced myself that he really might be guilty of almost unimaginable crimes. What I told him next was the absolute truth. ‘If I believed it, I couldn’t stay with you.’
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