by A J Waines
She’d cried out to me and I’d ignored her. I couldn’t forgive myself for that and I’d been trying for nearly twelve months. Stick to the boundaries – that’s what my supervisor had said. You don’t go running to them every time they say they can’t cope. You must teach them to look after themselves. He was trying to make out I wasn’t to blame, but I knew the truth. I’d practically left her to die all on her own. She’d reached out to the one person she trusted and I’d failed her. How could I ever be forgiven for that?
I could never, ever let that happen again.
I plumped up my pillows and set my phone to play a soothing Chopin nocturne next to my bed. I closed my eyes and tried to let the tinkling piano melodies sweep away my perpetual guilt over Joanne, my blistering row with Miranda, my singular ability to mess everything up.
Before the music could work its magic, my landline rang. Grudgingly, I dragged myself out of bed in search of the handset. I could see from the little screen that it was a London number, but sure enough when I answered there was nothing but silence. I reached for the whistle I’d left on the coffee table and couldn’t find it. Bloody hell! I slammed the receiver down, kicked the door of my bedroom shut and flung myself onto the bed. I gave my pillow a thorough beating, and between clenched teeth, yelled to my four walls, ‘Leave me alone!’
Chapter 23
Sam
After my last patient of the afternoon at St Luke’s, I felt that surge of triumph and relief that always comes with a job well done, forgetting that my day wasn’t over. Rosie was due at my flat in two hours’ time. I groaned inwardly at the thought.
I finished my second cup of tea and headed over to the bike shed. I’d been waiting for the rain to stop, but it looked like it was getting worse; one of the perils of being a cyclist in winter. It was generally too dark, too cold, too wet, but at least the bike got me from A to B without traffic jams or signal failures.
I remembered Rosie telling me she’d never had a bike as a child.
‘It was on every Christmas list I ever made,’ she’d said, ‘but Santa never came good.’
I’d never met anyone like Rosie before. I found my feelings for her hard to describe, mainly because I didn’t feel I knew her at all. She seemed to switch from one emotion to another in the blink of an eye; disconsolate one second, on cloud nine, the next. She was like a tiny fruit fly that, just as you think you’ve caught it, dodges out of your grasp and floats away.
Now that I was seeing Rosie in my personal space, I was constantly having to keep her focused. She was forever trying to turn our sessions into chats about the books I liked, the TV programmes I watched, the food I cooked. Or she’d get up and wander around, pick up my belongings, always asking questions. It was flattering, in a way, but she wasn’t paying me to be her friend.
Rosie turned up on time clutching a DVD. Visions of her pulling a bag of crisps from her pocket and suggesting we catch up on an episode of Scott & Bailey flashed into my mind. As it turned out, she’d brought something far more relevant to her therapy. She’d been in touch with the Hinds’ family and managed to get hold of footage of the original party, from fifteen years ago. Smart thinking.
‘We can do this, can’t we? It’s in the rules?’
I nodded, hiding a smile.
‘The party was originally on video, but Mr Hinds transferred it to a disc when I told him I was seeing you – so we can see if it jogs anything.’
‘That was thoughtful of him,’ I said.
It seemed somewhat unorthodox to spend our session watching TV, but she was right, something on the DVD could trigger memory recall. I set it up and we sat side by side on the sofa, with Rosie taking charge of the remote.
The footage was wobbly and jumped around; from a grand hall to stairs, corridors, various parlours and drawing rooms. There was no editing to link up the sections and no sound.
‘This is the ballroom where we played,’ she said as the camera settled in one spot. It was steadier now, perhaps fixed on a tripod.
‘Is this before the guy who’d messed up your viola fell to his death?’
‘Yeah…Mick Blain,’ she said pensively.
The camera panned out to reveal sweeping stairs and a balcony. It was certainly a majestic setting, with bone-white columns reminiscent of a fancy wedding cake. Guests in morning suits and ball gowns were mingling, while others attempted to waltz across the polished floor to music we couldn’t hear.
‘Posh, isn’t it?’ she said, her voice brightening up. Rosie’s quartet was positioned in a corner surrounded by sprawling parlour palms. I spotted Max straight away from his posture. Dressed in black tie, he was brandishing his violin bow like a sword. While the others had their heads buried in the music, Max was looking around him, casting his trills and arpeggios into the audience with the panache of a bullfighter.
The camera settled on the quartet for a while and I watched each player in turn. Richard, playing second violin, his blonde fringe so long and heavy I didn’t know how he could see the music. Stephanie was on the cello; her long, slim legs curling around the instrument while her fingers leapt about the fingerboard as if it was red hot. She was the only one we knew for sure was dead.
Rosie looked completely different then. The flesh under her arm wobbled as she slid the bow across the strings and she didn’t look comfortable in the sequinned dress, which was too low at the neck and too short at the hem. She was far plumper and her bright red hair was completely untamed. It made me realise how much she’d changed, not only since her old college days, but since she’d first starting seeing me. She was slimmer, darker haired and much more attractive now; like a different person.
As we watched, Rosie pointed out Cameron Hinds, pristine and regal, greeting guests with his second wife, Ambrosia. She wore a shimmering evening dress that exposed her bony shoulder blades, with matching tiara.
‘Look, she’s the one Richard had a thing with,’ Rosie said, with a chuckle. Ambrosia looked at least twenty years younger than Cameron; stepmother to his children, but closer to their ages.
Karl Hinds was looking furtive; he wore his tuxedo like a hired conjuror. He was talking grimly to his father, before walking away to find a waiter and knocking back two glasses of champagne, one after the other. He looked about him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, seemingly unaware of the camera.
‘Who shot the film?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know. That’s Jennifer, Karl’s girlfriend, and there’s Columbine, his sister…she looks older than fifteen doesn’t she?’ She pointed to a man in a navy blue suit. ‘And there’s Greg, Richard’s older brother. I’d forgotten about him until Richard’s sister mentioned his name on the phone, recently. He came along for the ride.’
We kept our eyes on the screen as Greg stood with his hands in his pockets, rocking from one foot to the other. He didn’t seem to have anyone to talk to. ‘And that’s Ambrosia’s sister. I can’t remember her name.’
The picture popped and fluttered for a second. Rosie straightened up. ‘I’ve been through it twice already, trying to see if there was anything going on between Richard and Ambrosia. What do you think?’
I’d been looking out for that too, but from what we’d seen, Richard had clearly been preoccupied with getting the notes out in the right order. It was hard to tell if any meaningful glances had been exchanged between them.
‘Karl is looking rather grave and edgy, don’t you think?’ she said, putting the film on pause. ‘Do you think he knew more about Mick than he let on? He does seem nervous, he keeps looking at his watch...’
‘And knocking back far more champagne than anyone else…’
‘As far as I can remember, it was just after this that all hell broke loose, you know, when Mick charged up the stairs?’
‘The film doesn’t show that?’
‘No – it stops a few minutes before Mick appeared.’
I pointed to a man and woman standing near the quartet. ‘Who are these two?’ I asked.<
br />
‘No idea.’
‘And the bloke standing at the bottom of the stairs?’
‘Nope – don’t know.’
‘Does this bring anything back that you think is important?’
‘Obviously, it was fifteen years before the crash, but I know – I just know – it’s connected in some way. I’m just not seeing it.’
‘Do the police have a copy of this?’
‘I asked Cameron about that, but he said the police had looked at it during the investigation over Mick’s death, but didn’t think it was relevant to our crash. I think they’re just assuming the crash was an accident and are waiting for all the bodies to turn up before they close the case.’
We ran the footage through another time, but other than her conviction that there had to be a link between their first visit and the second, Rosie didn’t pick up on anything else.
She clapped her hands together. ‘Shall we take stock?’
I ejected the disc and handed it to her.
‘According to the victim’s relatives, Cameron could have had a grudge against Richard and Karl might also have had it in for Max,’ she began. ‘Let’s say both Richard and Max were guilty. Do you think father and son might have got together and arranged the accident, without caring who else got caught up in it?’
‘It’s possible, but pure speculation, Rosie. And why would they wait so long after it happened?’
‘Unless they’d only found out recently?’
‘What? Just happened to find out that not only did Max steal something, but Richard had a one-night stand with Ambrosia Hinds?’
‘I know…’ she admitted. ‘It’s too weird. And they’d hardly decide to tie in some sort of payback with the anniversary bash, would they?’
‘Do you know what happened once the Hinds found out about the crash?’
‘They cancelled the party as far as I know.’
At the end of the session, true to form, Rosie’s phone rang.
‘It’s the Cumbrian police,’ she said, holding it out to me as if asking permission to take the call.
‘Go on – take it,’ I said, sitting back.
She had a brief conversation and slipped the phone into her pocket before she stood up, looking pale and shaken. ‘The police have found the van,’ she said, watching my face for a reaction.
My eyes were wide in anticipation.
‘It was empty – well, apart from music stands and stuff.’
‘No…body there?’
She pressed her lips together, not registering my words. ‘They did find something, though,’ she went on. ‘Tiny scraps of cardboard and a glue-like substance inside the three seatbelt mechanisms in the front of the van.’
‘Cardboard?’
‘They think it was some kind of crude attempt to jam the seat belts.’ Her chin began to quiver. ‘You know what that means don’t you?’
My hand went to my throat.
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ she whispered, reaching out to hold the door frame. ‘I knew it…I knew it…’ Her breathing was noisy, irregular, running away with her.
‘Are you okay?’ I said, worried about sending her out into the night with that earth-shattering piece of news. Selfishly, my first thought was that this was another drawback of working from home. If a patient was ill or distraught, there was no nurse on hand to take over and offer cups of sweet tea. I quickly discounted the inconvenience and turned my attention back to Rosie.
‘I think I need a hug,’ she whispered, nipping her lips together.
I hesitated. With anyone else it would have been the most natural thing to offer, but with Rosie? It would be too easy for her, deprived of affection as she was, to read more into it. Nevertheless, to hold back at a moment like this would have been cruel. She’d just had a very nasty shock. I opened my arms and let her come to me, giving her a gentle squeeze, as though she was a child who’d fallen and scuffed her knees. When, after a second or two, she showed no sign of letting go, I took hold of her arms and gently stood her upright in front of me.
‘Do you have anyone you can talk to, Rosie?’ Surely there had to be someone. ‘What about Dawn, where you live?’
‘No. There’s no one. I thought I’d told you that.’
A muscle twitched on the back of my neck. I didn’t like the way this felt; she was far too attached to me for her own good.
‘We will need to talk about the impact this has had on you, next time,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, perhaps you could write down some of your thoughts. Could you try that?’
‘All right,’ she sniffed, wiping her nose on her hand, trying to hide her tears.
‘Do you need me to call you a taxi?’
‘No. I’m fine, thanks. I knew, really. I knew it wasn’t an accident. I’m just in shock now there’s actual proof of it.’ She headed towards the door. ‘The police will have to turn it into a murder hunt now.’
Despite her distress, I couldn’t help noticing a touch of triumph in her voice.
After Rosie left, I sat in the kitchen, staring blankly at the grain of the wood on the table top, swirling into a pattern like wind-rippled sand. I traced the lines, following the smooth tracks that always ended in a knot.
A murder enquiry.
Rosie had been involved in an accident until now, yet all along there’d been something ominous about it. Rosie’s intuition had been right. She must be wondering who the target had been. I certainly was.
The police were saying all three seat belts at the front had been sabotaged, so they’d take longer to unclip. It meant any one of them could have been the target. Perhaps they all were. It appeared to be sheer luck that Rosie had been in the back – it hadn’t been planned that way. Or had it?
It seemed to me that only the Hinds had obvious motives, but the reasons were weak to say the least. Would you wreak that level of havoc if you found out your wife had been involved in a one-night stand fifteen years ago? Or if one of the musicians had stolen something? It seemed too extreme.
Did the business with Mick at that first party have any relevance? What was it that Mick had stolen, and did he have some secret accomplice? Had Max and Mick been in something together?
Going over and over the possibilities in my mind wasn’t getting me anywhere. I didn’t have any answers.
But maybe Rosie did.
Perhaps the answers were right there, locked inside her head. Maybe all I had to do was ask the right question or find the right trigger and there they would be.
Chapter 24
Rosie
Sam’s been amazing. And she has feelings for me, she really does. I’m sure now. I was thunderstruck when I got the call from DS Fischer about the seat belts. I’m so relieved he rang before I left Sam’s flat. It meant we could both experience the drama together.
I’m not sure how I feel, now the crash has been turned into a murder hunt. I suppose the police will take everything more seriously. They might even find my viola. On the other hand, it means there was malice involved. Someone planned it, with a motive and everything. Having that thought in my head is like carrying around a festering wound, not knowing if it’s going to heal or poison my blood and finish me off. The big question is, if I was one of the targets, won’t they try again?
Piles of other questions tumble into my mind. Were they after one of us, or was it just the violin? Is the violin in the lake or is the killer richer already – two million pounds richer?
I knew the crash wasn’t an accident and I’m actually quite pleased to know the truth, because it makes everything that bit more urgent. And, best of all, Sam knows I was right!
Without any prompting from me she gave me a huge cuddle at the end of our last session. It took me completely by surprise, but I loved every second of it. I was the one who had to pull away in the end, she didn’t want to let me go! I know she’s not supposed to show any kind of favouritism, but it’s obvious. She gives herself away all the time now. The way she looks at me – those big grey-flecke
d eyes. She’s my rock. My soul sister. Despite the shocking news, I’m just so happy, I barely know what to do with myself.
Portia, at work, said that therapists can afford to look like they’re interested in you, because they only have to keep it up for an hour at a time and then they get shot of you. Plus, they get paid for being nice. I don’t agree. I know Sam has a soft spot for me. I can tell. She’s probably really confused about how things should go between us from now on. She wants to help me, but she also wants us to have a proper friendship and that can’t be easy for her.
There are too many rules and regulations in therapy. You’re not supposed to step over the line into your therapist’s personal life. But I must be patient. My first task is to make sure I can get more sessions with her. I won’t be ready to pack up when we’ve only had twelve. After that, who knows?
The thing is, I want to find a way to show her she can depend on me, too. Call on me if she ever needs help. Anything. Anytime. I’ll need to be careful, though; I don’t want her thinking I’m one of those sickly eager-to-please types. I’ve got to be prepared to play the long game.
I left the music store after lunch, because on the spur of the moment, I decided to take the afternoon off. I knew Sid wouldn’t be bothered. The run up to Christmas isn’t as busy as it should be and I always have bags of annual leave, because I never go away. Trips aren’t much fun on your own.
I take the Tube from London Bridge to Waterloo and walk along the Thames, but it’s too cold to enjoy it. I consider going back to Oxford Street in the unlikely chance of spotting Max again, but I can’t face the Christmas crowds. I’ve always hated the entire festive season. Goodwill, generosity, luxury and presents – I had none of that. I did the soup kitchen last year, but ended up catching a nasty stomach bug – from the food or one of the clients, I’m not sure which. I don’t fancy it this year.
I’ve been wondering what Sam will be doing on Christmas Day. Having a cosy family gathering no doubt: a real tree brushing the ceiling, cascades of expensive baubles, holly branches draped over the picture frames arranged by an adoring mother, gifts glittering with bows and ribbons from a doting father. It makes my heart shrivel up; I don’t want to think about it.