by Liz Lawler
Tess’s stomach somersaulted. They were thinking he committed suicide. While her own thoughts were going a hundred miles an hour in a different direction. Was he dead for another reason? Was he injured? Or lost? Or confused? A head injury? Or unconscious? Was he on the run? Was there a body? His or the postcard person’s somewhere on the track? Or was he in a different kind of danger from the person he met? Taken? Imprisoned? Unable to escape?
He would not have killed himself.
She was withholding important information. Something that may have put her husband in danger. Be the reason why he was missing. Be the only reason he was missing. He had gone to meet a stranger and she couldn’t tell them that.
She gestured to the furniture in the hallway. ‘Only my husband has a car. This furniture is from his flat in London. He’s just sold it, but I imagine he still has access as I still have the keys in my bag.’
‘Why don’t we sit down somewhere and then we can take a full statement?’ the policewoman now said. ‘You’ve had a shock and could probably do with sitting.’
Tess sat in a daze. Her husband was still missing with no reports of anyone seeing him or speaking with him since after his game of golf on Saturday with Ed. Tess stuck to the same story in her statement. She’d not seen him Saturday evening as she’d gone to bed, but assumed he slept at home because his golf clubs were there in the morning. She’d not seen him Sunday morning and thought initially he’d popped out to the shop. Then after still not seeing him she thought he might be at work. It was only when after not hearing from him all day she started to worry. She didn’t tell them, of course, about the slap she got, about the perfume she was made to wear, about her plan to run away, about his rage when he stormed out. She didn’t tell them about the postcard.
According to the police his phone was switched off. But she rang it anyway. Again and again and again.
Vivien was keeping her company while she waited for news, but Tess was unable to talk. Too afraid to say or hear or think the worst. The police came and questioned her as to whether a letter or note had been found. Vivien quietly told them she’d been tidying around the house all day and hadn’t come across anything like that.
It was now ten o’clock and she told Vivien she should go home and rest. Vivien stopped buffing the silver picture frame she was working on and set it down on the polished table. ‘I can stay, Tess. There’s plenty of beds for me to sleep in.’
Tess appreciated the kind offer, but she wanted to be on her own. ‘Vivien, it might be another long day tomorrow. I’d rather you got a good night’s sleep in your own bed and come back fresh tomorrow. That’s if you’re not too busy, I mean. I’m fine on my own, I promise, so please don’t feel you have to.’
Vivien gave her a motherly stare. ‘I’ll leave on one condition. You do the same and go straight to bed.’
Tess nodded that she would, and meant it as well. She was going straight to bed.
Chapter Forty-Nine
She had thought never to lie in this bed again, but last night when it came to choosing somewhere else to sleep she found she couldn’t. It felt strangely wrong somehow, even cruel, as though she were abandoning the woman after being allowed to read her story.
She was trying not to think of what happened in this room or go down the path of ‘if only’. If only they hadn’t come to this house wasn’t going to change the damage done. He had once been perfect to her, and maybe that was the only positive thing to hang on to.
As her eyes drifted closed she dreamed she was at the seaside. The sea was gently dragging at the pebbles on the shoreline. The rhythmic scraping of pebbles sliding against grit gave a whooshing sound as gentle waves rolled over them again and again… Whoosh… Scratch… Whoosh… Scratch…
Her eyes pinged open. A fist of fear punched straight through her chest. It was not waves or the scraping of pebbles she could hear.
In bare feet she crept along the landing and carefully trod on wooden stairs, making her way down them on tiptoes, keeping close to the wall, pressing her palm against it for balance to lessen any noise. The harsh scratching from the kitchen, steel against steel, set her teeth on edge. Daniel was sharpening his knives. She didn’t want to go in there. She wanted to get past it as fast as she could. At the bottom of the stairs she stopped still, standing in the spot where he’d pinned her up against the wall. Her eyes fastened on the front door. She could get to it in a flash. Turn the latch to the right and press the handle down. Then pull. She readied to make the dash, eyes sweeping the area to make sure nothing was in her way or easy to knock against. She just had to get to the door. Her heart slammed to a halt as her eyes fixed on the bolt at the top of the door. It was locked. Small intakes of breath quickened the rise and fall of her chest. She couldn’t reach it. And now she was panicking because he would hear her soon. She needed to calm down, find another way out. With the noise he was making in the kitchen she could probably climb out of a window unheard, or try the back door. If she acted quickly she could escape without him being any the wiser.
She put one foot forward, one hand sliding over the wall to steady herself. She raised the heel of her other foot and then he spoke.
‘I know you’re there.’
Tess froze. Every muscle in her body paralysed in fear.
‘I know what you did, Tess,’ he called in a sing-song voice. ‘Clever deceitful Tess found someone to send me a postcard, didn’t she? Went crying to someone and shared our private matters. Had someone try blackmailing me. Naughty deceitful Tess ought to say sorry, wouldn’t you agree?’
She remained silent and he called again. ‘Are you going to stand out there for ever?’
Strength was coming back to her limbs, the paralysis turning to hard shakes. She scanned the hallway in desperate search of a weapon. If he had a knife in his hand she wanted something in hers. His golf bag stood near the cloakroom cupboard. Without thought she ran fast towards it and carefully extracted a smooth polished club. Holding the shaft behind her back she stepped slowly towards the kitchen.
He was standing at the counter. Each of the knives lay shiny and sharp. He had the longest in his hand and slowly drew the blade down the length of the sharpening rod.
‘You’ve been clever, Tess. More clever than my mother. You got someone on side to do your dirty work. Who is he? Your lover? I hope you’ve told him about the patient you killed. He may not want to stay around when he knows about that. Though thinking about it now, it may well help my case in this other matter,’ he said in a pondering tone. ‘Surgeon misses vital operation due to caring for suicidal wife. Followed by this headline: Surgeon’s wife takes her own life after causing the death of one of his patients? Two birds with one stone, so to speak.’
Tess stared at her husband. His eyes were lowered so she couldn’t see the madness in them. To think the way that he was thinking was neither sane nor rational. Would he seriously plan to kill her and say it was suicide?
‘I don’t know who sent you that postcard, Daniel. I haven’t told anyone about us. Where have you been? I thought you were dead! The police have been looking for you since last night. Did you stay away to punish me? Do you hate me that much?’
His head rose swiftly at that, and his eyes showed his shock. ‘Why would you ever say that? Why would you think I hate you?’ In the soft light of the kitchen his eyes found hers. ‘I love you,’ he said softly. He tried smiling, raising the corners of his mouth, but the effort along with the smile slid away as sadness appeared on his face. ‘But you don’t love me anymore, do you, Tess?’
Her eyes filled with tears. How did he manage to do this to her? After everything he’d done he could still make her feel she could love him. ‘I know what happened to you here in this house,’ she said softly. ‘I know what your father did to you and your mother. You should have told me, Daniel. I could have helped you. Instead you set out to destroy us. Why did you do that to us, Daniel?’ She started to cry, gazing at him beseechingly.
He stayed wher
e he was, and answered in a listless voice. ‘I went to see my father the other day. He wanted to tell me his important news that he’d be getting out soon.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘I missed an important operation to hear that. Went to see him instead. I wrecked my career. And for what? All the years I’ve been visiting him. All the chats about music and medicine and art. A while ago I bought him a copy of this drawing he liked. For him to have for when he got out, because he told me it reminded him of losing me. Ironically, it’s a drawing of a mother losing a child. Not a father. At the end of the visit I walked away not sure anymore if he’d ever loved me.’ He smiled bleakly. ‘It was hard, Tess, to walk away and feel that.’
She hid her shock at hearing that his father was still alive and that Daniel went to visit him. Though was less surprised to learn that the drawing she found in his flat in London was his father’s choice of art.
‘We can leave here, Daniel. Start again. You can put the past behind you. You don’t ever have to think of him again.’
He shook his head, looking at her sadly. ‘You think it’s that easy. My mother ruined my life. She broke our family with her infidelities. She was going to leave me,’ he whispered.
Tess saw the grief he’d been hiding for so long and her heart went out to him. ‘That’s your father’s version, what he tells you, not what really happened. Your mother wasn’t unfaithful. She was afraid for her life. She was running away with you! It’s in her diary, Daniel!’ He stepped back startled and she nodded her head affirmatively. ‘I have your mother’s account, Daniel. She wrote it in a book. And she loved you more than anything. Your father was the one who destroyed your life.’
His eyes shot open. ‘Don’t say that, Tess. He was a brilliant surgeon. He should have carried on being a brilliant surgeon. She robbed him of his life’s work!’
‘He was a monster,’ she declared emphatically, trying to drive home the truth.
‘Not a monster, Tess. Don’t say that.’ His green eyes implored her.
‘A monster, who was able to leave his three-year-old son to die.’
‘Not true,’ he denied in a husky voice. His expression looked as though she’d betrayed him. ‘He thought I was dead.’
She made a sound of disgust.
‘Why do you find that so hard to believe?’ he asked wearily.
‘Because it’s a lie, Daniel. Your father didn’t think you were dead. He was a heart doctor. He would know if a heart had stopped. Your father knew you were alive. He ignored the cries of his child for three days. Ignored a child who lay huddled against his dead mother. Your father did that to you for three days. He didn’t think you were dead. He left you for dead, Daniel!’
‘Shut up. Shut up, I say. He never left me! He was my father!’ he cried as if desperate to hear it said. His eyes darkened in despair and he breathed slowly in and out of his mouth. ‘He was my father,’ he repeated softly. ‘He would never have left me for dead!’
It stopped her saying any more. She was losing conviction, her energy fading. She was fighting a losing battle. He had chosen to take the side of his father. She was tired of this toxic hold over him, tired from loving and hating him and trying to love him again. She had nothing more to try.
‘I’m leaving you, Daniel,’ she quietly said.
His head shot up and he took an intake of breath.
‘Don’t!’ he said, and her heart sank as she heard the desolate tone.
‘I have to, Daniel. I have nothing left to give.’
‘Please don’t,’ he uttered again, coming away from the counter and towards her. The point of the knife was coming her way. ‘Please don’t leave me here alone again.’
Her eyes darted from the knife to his face.
‘Put down the knife, Daniel.’
‘Please don’t leave me like she did. Don’t make me do this to you!’
‘Daniel,’ she said, when only inches separated them. ‘Put down the knife! PLEASE!’
A flash of movement cut through the air and she managed to turn sideways at the very last second. He smiled goofily as if sorry for making her jump. Then he turned so swiftly her body failed to react and she fell flat on her back. His eyes found her on the floor and Tess watched him come closer, bending and arching right over her, his wide shoulders blocking out light, except the shine of his eyes, and the glint of the blade. His voice floated near her face.
‘Tess,’ he whispered like a soft caress. ‘You should have stayed.’
She got ready. Her arms bent back, elbows tucked tight against the sides of her head, her hands under her neck pulling swiftly at what lay hidden beneath her, working it through her fingers trying to judge length enough to grip. She sensed him ready, her body tingling in anticipation. She could hear his breathing keeping time with hers… in… out… in… out… As he reared back she rolled a little to release the golf club and raised it up off the floor, vertically, looking straight up at its ceramic head. Her hands gripped tight as she swung it backwards first and then forwards as hard as she could. A wheezy sound came from his throat as he sucked air. Confusion filled his eyes as he gazed at splashes of blood falling on her face. Then suddenly, but not from high, she felt his weight against her.
His eyes had closed and his body was still and she knew it was over. This house with all its secrets had witnessed its second unnatural death. First his mother – now her son.
She heaved silent sobs, her mind racked with guilt and anguish and wretchedness for the hopelessness of knowing it was not all a lie. Not always. He had tried to love her. She kissed his temple and rocked him gently. Her tears mixed with his blood on her face. Tears and blood. The battle of love. Ended.
Chapter Fifty
Tess dragged herself off the bed at the sound of knocking on the front door. Daylight. They had come for her. She saw out of the window their vehicle and knew soon she would be sat in the back of it. She could not run from this. She breathed and then opened the door. Dumbstruck, she stared at the two police officers on the doorstep. She put out a hand as if to ward them off but they stepped closer and then stepped over the threshold of her house.
She stared in confusion at the older one, thinking she must be dreaming. Her anxiety had dreamed him up. It was not possible that he was here in her home wearing a uniform. That he was a policeman. She had thought he was just a man on a train with his Bradshaw’s book. Tess was too shocked to speak.
She had to be dreaming.
His face told her he was there on serious business. She could see it in his eyes, in his careful manner as he hovered close.
‘He’s dead,’ she said. Then stared at her hands.
They guided her to the drawing room and helped her to sit in a chair. The older one sat with her while the other went to make tea. Her eyes rested on the three stripes sewn onto the shoulder of his uniform. Her Bradshaw’s book man was a sergeant.
‘Mrs Myers, we’re from British Transport Police. I’m very sorry to have to inform you but a body was found this morning at around six o’clock. A driving licence bearing the name Daniel Myers was found in some clothing. Along with some credit cards with this name.’
She gazed at him white-faced.
‘From a photograph given to us by Avon and Somerset Police we’ve identified a wedding ring worn. Regrettably, a positive identification of the body requires the request of dental records, previous blood tests and obtaining fingerprint information. Under such circumstances viewing the body might cause considerable distress.’
She covered her mouth as she gagged. She had nothing in her to vomit out. The sergeant called out to the other police officer to bring some water. A moment later Tess was given a glass and she swallowed the contents in gulps as if dying of thirst.
‘Easy does it, you don’t want to be sick,’ the sergeant gently advised.
The younger officer carried a tray with three cups of tea, no saucers, and an open bag of sugar with a teaspoon poking out of the top. He placed the tray on a low table and brought it over to where she
was sitting. He hunched down and asked if she took sugar. She shook her head. His cap was off and she saw his hair was a warm ginger. She guessed that when he was a boy it was brighter and he was probably teased.
‘We’ve met before,’ she softly announced. ‘On the platform. You gave me water to take some tablets. And here you are in my home bringing me more water, and tea.’
The red-haired officer smiled at her kindly. ‘You’d burned your hand.’
‘Yes, I’d burned my hand. Daniel made it better.’ She held it up to show him a smaller dressing. ‘Did you see him?’ she asked.
He gave a hesitant shake of his head. ‘You mean Daniel?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Did you see him in the kitchen?’
He looked to the senior officer with concern showing in his eyes and was given a discreet nod to continue. He budged a little closer and rested his hand on the arm of her chair, his movements slow as if anticipating a reaction. He lowered his voice and spoke clearly to answer her question. ‘No. He’s not in the kitchen. He’s not at home, Mrs Myers. He was found by the side of a railway track. He was hit and killed by a train.’
She inhaled sharply. Then stared at her hands again. Where was the blood? The small dressing was clean. Where was all the blood?
Three hours later Tess sat in a daze. He had been identified by his fingerprints. Finger marks, the constable said, from off his laptop and his computer and from diary pages, and from inside his locker at work. She could have told them she could identify him from looking at his hand. It had been uncovered and down by his side. Instantly recognisable from its shape and length and straight-cut fingernails. She had been to see her husband for the last time. The wedding ring on his finger was still new, but she’d not been allowed to touch it. Or touch him. The constable had advised her that he was not medically trained but that injuries to his head and torso were catastrophic, which was why the rest of him was covered in this way.