by Unknown
‘He went out to lunch with you at the little Italian place round the corner from the office, and he ate spaghetti with clams, which he didn’t finish, and drank a glass of tap water, because he had just decided that bottled water was immoral. He probably told you that.’
‘Yes, he did,’ said Fergus.
‘You also talked about running, compared times. You went back to work and he went into his office and shut the door. The phone rang and it was Milena. She asked if he had received the page of signatures in the post and he replied that he had. She said she was sure that an intelligent man like him must have grasped its implications and Greg responded sharply that he didn’t deal in suspicions and implications and put down the phone.’
‘Is this all true?’ asked Fergus.
It was starting to rain and the drops felt cold and good on my face.
‘Most of it,’ I said. ‘Some of it’s the sort of thing that must have happened. The rest of it is what I tell myself in the middle of the night.
‘After he had put the phone down on Milena he sat for a while, pondering. Then he went into Joe’s office to ask him about it, but Joe still wasn’t there and he wasn’t answering his mobile. So instead he called up Marjorie Sutton’s files and went through them carefully. After he’d done that he rang her and made an appointment to see her the following day. He said it was urgent.
‘He was going to go home after that. He’d promised me that we’d have a proper evening together. I was going to make risotto and he was going to buy a good bottle of red wine. We would make love and then have a meal together. But as he was preparing to leave the phone rang and it was Joe, saying something odd had just happened concerning Marjorie Sutton and they needed to talk. Greg was relieved to get the call: in spite of himself, he’d been worried about those signatures. He told Joe he’d been trying to reach him about the same subject, but perhaps they could do it the next day. He had a date with his wife. Joe insisted. He said it wouldn’t take long, could Greg pick him up at King’s Cross?
‘Greg rang me. He said, “Ellie, I know I said I’d be home early, but I’m going to be a bit delayed. I’m really sorry.”
‘And I said, “Fuck, Greg, you promised.”
‘And he replied, “I know, I know, but something’s come up.”
‘And I said, “Something always comes up.”
“‘I’ll explain later,” he said. “I can’t talk now, Ell.”
‘And I should have asked him if everything was all right, and I should have told him to take care, and that it didn’t matter if he was late, and I should have said I loved him very, very much. Or no, no, that’s not it, that’s not it at all. I should have told him to come home at once, to cancel whatever arrangement he had made. I should have shouted and insisted and said I was upset and I needed him. I could have done. I nearly did. A whole other story unwinds from that, the story that never happens and which I’ll never get to tell, which is about a long life and happiness. Instead, I said goodbye rather coldly and slammed the phone down, and that was the last time I heard his voice, except on my answering-machine. And sometimes I wake at night and think he’s talking to me. He’s saying, “Good morning, gorgeous, did you have nice dreams?”
‘You heard the argument, anyway, or at least his end, because you came into his office halfway through. He put down the phone and turned to you, saying I was a bit pissed off with him, and you told him you were sure it would blow over.
‘When he was alone again, he sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. I don’t know that, but I can see him doing it. I see exactly the way his head was tipped, the small muscle clenching and unclenching in his jaw. He closed his eyes and thought of me feeling downcast about not getting pregnant, and suddenly his irritation seeped away and he simply felt tender. So he sent me a text. “Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. Im a stupid fool.”
‘He stood up. He put on his jacket. He put his head round Tania’s door and said he’d see her tomorrow. He waved at you as he went. He ran down the stairs two at a time, the way he always did. He got into the car and drove to King’s Cross. Five minutes, and he’d drive home and barely be late.
‘He pulled up and Joe opened the passenger door and climbed in, carrying a bag. He said there was something he needed to show Greg. Of course Greg knew he could trust Joe. He loved Joe, after all, looked up to him and often turned to him for advice. In many ways, Joe was the father figure Greg had never really had. So Greg innocently followed Joe’s instructions and they drove east, towards Stratford, towards Porton Way. He would never have suspected anything was wrong. Why should he? How could he have done? In the boot of the car, Milena Livingstone lay bundled up and dead.
‘Greg drove Joe to the disused wasteland. It was dark and cold and there was no one around. He kept asking Joe what this was all about, but he wasn’t anxious, just a bit puzzled and slightly amused by the hush-hush air of it all. Joe, being Joe, would have come up with something plausible as they drove along, lots of details. It didn’t matter. It would never be checked. Just so long as it kept Greg from becoming suspicious.
‘Greg stopped the car when Joe told him to. He looked out of the window, to where Joe pointed. He didn’t see… what was it? A spanner? Maybe one of the tools from the boot of the car? It’s the sort of thing that’s called a blunt object. It caught him just above his eyebrow, once and then again. He didn’t know that Joe was his murderer – oh, Fergus, I hope he didn’t know, and that the last few seconds of his life were not utter confusion and terror. No. He didn’t. I know he didn’t. Joe’s aim was good and death came quickly.
‘Joe drove to the spot where he had hidden Milena. He lifted her body into the passenger seat. He undid Greg’s seatbelt. He pulled off the handbrake, and because the car was facing downhill, it didn’t take much effort to push it a few feet until it picked up speed, careered off the bend and over the drop. He watched it hurtle to the bottom. Then Joe – who was crying by now, fat tears running down his face because he was always a great sentimentalist, Joe was, and he did love Greg, in his own fashion – Joe clambered down the hillside, slipping and sliding as he went, and he set fire to the car and then he stood back while the flames consumed his partner, his beloved partner and friend. He was probably still crying. No, he wasn’t. He didn’t have time to cry. He had to get away before the fire attracted attention. The plan worked perfectly. He left two corpses, total strangers lying together like lovers.
‘The question is, did he walk away? That sounds a bit awkward to me. It would have been better to drive.’
‘What in?’ said Fergus. ‘He’d set fire to the car.’
‘Someone must have picked him up.’
‘Who?’
‘Tania, of course. But she says she doesn’t know anything about it. And, anyway, she was in thrall to him. That’s what the police think. Apparently that makes it all right.’
I hadn’t been looking at Fergus while I spoke, but now I turned to him. A single tear was running down his cheek. I reached up and, with the tip of my finger, wiped it away.
I prised the lid off the box and we crouched under the oak tree and, very slowly, I tipped the box until Greg’s ashes flowed over the rim and on to the green grass. We didn’t move, but Fergus held out his hand and I gripped it.
You were my best friend, you were my dear heart, my love. A small breeze stirred the pile. Soon it would be scattered by the wind and rain. It wouldn’t take long.
Fergus wanted to walk me home but I told him that today I preferred to be alone. Sometimes being alone is not so lonely as being with other people and, anyway, my heart was full of memories of happiness.
I walked back slowly through the beautiful blue morning, the sun on the nape of my neck, the air soft and warm. People flowed past me on their own journeys. When I unlocked my front door and stepped into the little hall, I almost called out that I was home. I went into the kitchen and stood in the silence that lay all around me. While I was waiting for the kettle to boil, I ste
pped into the sun-filled garden. I tipped my head back, closed my eyes and saw your face, the smile that was meant only for me. When I opened my eyes again, I noticed that a young blackbird was lying dead on the grass just a few feet away, beneath the old rosebush. I went into the house and collected an empty shoebox. Then I lifted the bird, with its damp body and yellow beak, into it and closed the lid.
I didn’t want to throw it into the bin for the dustmen to collect, so I dug a hole in the soil and put in the miniature coffin, then scraped the earth over it until you wouldn’t have known anything was there. But I knew, and although it was only a bird, I sank to my knees, put my head in my hands and cried bitterly, because it had sung so beautifully through the winter months and now it was gone. Then I stood up, wiped the earth from my hands, went back inside, and still you were not there.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
What To Do When Someone Dies
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three