by Louise Voss
April had taken a tranquilliser and was now curled up in the corner of the sofa in a glassy-eyed catatonia. Ed wasn’t much better, sitting across the room from her in the Pembroke chair, his arms hanging uselessly at his sides. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet for the past few hours although his face was still pink with distress. I’d hoped the dementia might shield him a little; act as an anaesthetic on his emotions in the same way that April’s Temazepam was doing, but he seemed to know what had happened.
‘I’ve changed the sheets on the bed in the front spare room.’
I laid my hand on April’s forearm as she sat gazing into space. It was only 8pm, but frankly, I thought, the day couldn’t end soon enough. I saw myself that day as if in a speeded-up film, running around after the two of them as they sat in grief-stricken – or dementia-confused – silence.
‘Thanks,’ April said without looking up.
It was the room Ed had been sleeping in, the one with the lock on the door, but I decided that I couldn’t make April sleep in the smaller of our two spare rooms. That one only had a single bed so narrow that it was like a child’s bed, and it was as hard as rocks. Every time I looked at it, it reminded me of the tiny box room in Salisbury – and then, of Adrian. Ed and I had been meaning to get rid of that bed for ever but it was used so seldom, since Ben always slept in the double if he stayed over.
So I would have to take my chances sleeping with Ed tonight. I wondered if I could persuade him to take a Temazepam too, or even slip one in his drink – and then had a word with myself. I couldn’t drug my husband … Could I?
‘Let’s all go to bed,’ I said. ‘I think we’ve all had enough of today, haven’t we? Ed, will you make us some hot milk?’
Ed lumbered obediently out into the kitchen. He still seemed OK to use the cooker and had only left the gas on once, but I would follow him in in a minute and check on him.
April turned her head slowly, like a tortoise, and peered up at me. For the first time ever I thought that she looked all of her forty-five years.
‘You’re right,’ April said. ‘I’ve had enough of today. But do you know what? Mike won’t be back tomorrow, so that won’t be any better. Or the next day, or the day after that, or any day, ever again…’ Her face crumpled up again and her voice rose to a howl. ‘Because some bastard … cunt … has killed him … Oh Lynn, I’m never going to see him again. I can’t bear it!’
She had barely finished speaking before she dissolved again into heaving sobs that vibrated through her chair and into the floorboards, making me feel as though my own heart was rattling in my rib cage. I hugged her tight, crying myself again at the loss of vibrant, stroppy, larger-than-life Mike, who’d been a part of Ed’s life for so many years. It seemed unthinkable that he was no more.
I half-carried April up the stairs and into the spare room, helping her get undressed as if she was a child, tenderly pulling her sweater and t-shirt over her head and feeding her arms into the sleeves of a pair of Ed’s old pyjamas. I had already left a hot-water bottle in the bed, and April wordlessly clutched it to her belly as soon as I pulled back the covers and lifted her legs into bed. ‘The pill will make you sleep,’ I said, kissing her forehead.
I wanted to add something else, like Tomorrow’s another day, or You’ll feel better in the morning, but realised that neither of these platitudes was remotely helpful. Instead I closed the door quietly and went back down to check that all was in order before we turned in, that Ed hadn’t left any milk boiling over, that the doors and windows were locked, the cat in and the cat flap secured for the night. I felt like a zombie, staggering round the kitchen, deadened with shock and stress.
By the time I came up for bed five minutes later, Ed was already lying there with the duvet drawn up to his chin. A single tear rolled down his cheek.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know.’
When I got into bed with him, I realised he was still fully dressed, minus his shoes. I was about to get out and help him into his pyjamas but was suddenly overcome with a wave of exhaustion so debilitating that all I could do was sink into the mattress and close my eyes. Before I could even articulate the thought, So what if he wears his clothes in bed for one night? I was already asleep.
I woke up some time later and squinted through the dark at the digital clock. 3am. I reached out for Ed – but his side of the bed was cold and empty. Alarmed, I sat bolt upright and switched on the bedside light. The door to our ensuite bathroom was open and he wasn’t in there, but the main bedroom door was shut. Then I remembered he’d gone to sleep fully dressed, and felt even more concerned. What if he thought it was daytime and had left the house?
I jumped out of bed and slid my feet into the tatty Uggs I wore around the house. The heating had gone off and the air was chilly and still. I dragged on my dressing gown and opened the door quietly, not wanting to disturb April, but my heart was pounding so hard that I thought the ducks on the river could probably hear it. I was halfway down the stairs, treading silently, when I heard voices. I stopped, one foot in mid-air. Definitely voices, not the radio, a low rumble coming from the kitchen. I listened harder. Silence, then a higher reply.
Relief flooded over me. Ed wasn’t AWOL, he was talking to April in the kitchen. How the hell had I not heard either of them get up? I was sleeping so heavily these days. Perhaps it was my hormones.
I carried on down into the hallway, no longer trying to be quiet. The kitchen door was closed and I hesitated outside it – I didn’t want to barge in on April if she was finding it easier to grieve with Ed, as Mike’s oldest friend. Or perhaps April was counselling Ed? That thought caused a small sour churning in my belly. I loved April, but I wanted to be the one that Ed confided in, not April.
When I pushed open the door, they both looked up. Each was clutching a tumbler of Scotch, with the open bottle of Glenfiddich on the pine table next to them. Ed was doodling on the corner of the local free newspaper. Every single kitchen drawer was pulled out and all the cupboard doors were swinging; a regular occurrence as Ed could never find what he was looking for, or remember what he wanted to find in the first place.
‘Hi,’ I said, going round and automatically closing everything again. ‘Neither of you able to sleep? I can’t believe I did – I went out like a light.’ I frowned at April’s glass. ‘Not sure you should have that, not with the Temazepam.’
April just shrugged.
I got another glass down from the dresser and held out my hand for the Scotch bottle. ‘Give me some. What were you talking about?’
April stared down at the table. ‘Nothing much,’ she said. Her eyes were pink and so puffy that she looked as if someone had punched her.
Ed’s mouth was set in a small cross line, probably because he’d been woken up and was disorientated, I thought. He never liked his sleep being disturbed. I went across and kissed the top of his tousled head.
‘Are you OK, darling?’
He stood up, frowsy in his crumpled clothes, a single sock on his left foot, the other one bare, one point of his shirt collar sticking skywards. ‘Fine. Going back to bed.’
‘Your PJs are under the pillow,’ I said pointedly. ‘I won’t be long.’
Ed traipsed back up the stairs, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. All he needed to complete the picture was a blankie trailing from one hand and a teddy pincered by the ear from the other.
‘Not like Ed to wake up in the middle of the night,’ I said when he’d gone, sipping my Scotch.
April’s elbows were on the table and her chin rested heavily in her palms. Fresh tears came to her eyes.
‘He just came on to me,’ she said bluntly. ‘I’m sorry, Lynn.’
‘What?’ I was so taken aback that I choked on the whisky, coughing and spluttering as it burned my windpipe. April got up and filled me a glass of water, with infuriating slowness, as I made hurry up I’m dying gestures with my hands. Gulping at the water with streaming eyes, I gradually got my breath back.
I’d always kn
own that Ed, on an aesthetic level, fancied April – who wouldn’t? She was gorgeous. But he’d always complained about how high maintenance she was. He used to come back from pints at the pub with Mike, marvelling indiscreetly at Mike’s latest story of April’s demands and quirks, her knack for spending his money, her hairdressing bills. ‘Couldn’t be doing with all that nonsense,’ he used to say. ‘Silly vain cow.’
I remembered chiding him for those sorts of comments. ‘She’s our friend!’
He’d grin. ‘I know. But I’m glad I’m married to you.’
I remembered the warm glow of those words.
‘What happened?’ I asked, not sure if I wanted to know.
April ran her finger around the top of her glass as if she wanted to play a tune on it. ‘I couldn’t sleep, not even with the pill. Well, I dozed off for a bit but woke up again about an hour ago. Then I heard a noise, Ed on the stairs, and came out to check he was OK. When I got down here he was just standing in the middle of the kitchen looking a bit … lost. I wasn’t sure he even knew where he was at first, or who I was. I said, Ed, it’s me, April, shall we have a cup of tea? I put the kettle on and next thing I knew he had his arms round my waist and was sort of nuzzling my neck. At first I thought he’d remembered about Mike and was just giving me a cuddle – or maybe that he was upset about him and needed a cuddle himself, I don’t know – so I turned round and hugged him back, but then he … he…’
Tears filled April’s eyes. I put my hand on top of hers.
‘It’s a symptom, you know that, don’t you? Inappropriate behaviour, loss of inhibitions. The consultant warned us it was likely to happen. He’s so fond of you, he probably just got mixed up.’ I paused. ‘I sort of don’t want to know, but at the same time I do – what did he do then?’
April bit her lip. ‘He, um, pressed himself against me and tried to snog me. I pushed him away and he seemed to get it, that it was the wrong thing. I’m sorry, Lynn. But I want you to know that I didn’t do anything to encourage him.’
I came round the table and hugged her. ‘Of course I know you didn’t. Forget about it. He tried to kiss a Jehovah’s Witness who came to the front door last month. It’s just part of the disease.’
April gave a watery smile. ‘Poor bastard,’ she commented, and it was my turn to fill up – again.
‘I know.’
‘At least Mike’s ordeal was over in seconds,’ she said. This was perhaps more blunt than I could usually have tolerated; a reminder of the long years of suffering that lay ahead. But if it made April’s loss feel in any way less devastating, even for a moment, I supposed I could let her say it. I poured us both another whisky and took a deep swallow, feeling it spin filmy cobwebs in my brain, temporarily muting the pain.
‘Will he remember he did it, in the morning?’ April asked softly. ‘I don’t want it to affect our friendship. And I don’t want him to feel awkward.’
I smiled ruefully at her. ‘I don’t think he will, or at least, if he does, he won’t see it as anything to be embarrassed about. It’s so weird, this loss of inhibition. I really hope it’s just a phase in the illness and won’t stick around for long.’
I had a flash of a memory: ‘Did I ever tell you about his dad, when he was in a nursing home? He used to say the most outrageous, inappropriate things to this black male carer who worked there. I never witnessed it – I only met him a few times – but Ed said it was horrendous. Whenever the guy came near Victor would shout out things like “Let me suck your huge black cock!” Even though he’d been completely PC and heterosexual when he’d still had all his marbles. Awful.’
We pondered this for a moment and both managed to giggle, briefly, even while tears still pricked in our eyes.
‘God,’ said April. ‘Can you imagine?’ But then her face settled back into lines of devastation again. ‘I think Mike once told me that story, about Ed’s dad.’
I sighed. ‘Well, anyway, please don’t worry about what Ed tried to do. Hopefully he won’t do it again, and if he does, just be firm and tell him it’s not appropriate.’
‘Bonk him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper,’ said April, but she wasn’t smiling. She drained her glass. ‘I’m going back to bed, too. Hopefully I’ll sleep a bit now. Got so much to do tomorrow, all of it horrible. The police want to talk to me again. I have to register Mike’s death and find out when they’re likely to release his body. Funeral arrangements, notice in The Times, the boys are coming down…’
‘That’ll be nice for you though, won’t it?’
I didn’t tell her that it might be months before they released Mike’s body for a funeral. They’d almost certainly want to do a second autopsy when and if they charged someone with his murder. It was so hard on the families, not being able to have the closure of a funeral. I made a mental note to suggest a memorial service if nothing had happened within a couple of months.
April shook her head, then nodded, her voice trembling. ‘No. Yes. I suppose so. But they’re so destroyed and I’ll have to be strong for them when I just feel like curling up in a ball and crying…’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do, you promise? We’re here for you, any time, day or night.’
27
‘I love my husband,’ I said, running my hand slowly over Adrian’s bare chest. We were lying naked on the bed in his flat – the blandest rental property I’d ever set foot in, everything in shades of magnolia and beige, no pictures on the walls or photos on the shelves. Nothing major had happened between us … yet – just a bit of ‘fiddling and interfering’, as my girlfriends and I always referred to it – but then, I hadn’t ever thought things would go this far.
It was my day off, two weeks after Mike had been killed. Ben was with Ed; April was with her boys. I’d told them I was going for a spa day with a friend from work – ‘Linda’. Adrian and I had gone out to lunch near his place in Ewell, and I’d badgered him to see his apartment. I’d only had two glasses of wine but then we’d kissed for the first time in ten years and, in what seemed like two minutes flat, we were sliding around naked on his beige sateen bedspread. I’d called a brief halt to try and process it all.
‘I know. It’s OK.’
‘Well, it’s not really, is it?’
‘Don’t think about it. And don’t feel bad about it. You need an outlet. The pressure you’re under … it’s massive.’
I wasn’t convinced. That sounded like a cheater’s justification. I wondered how many times he cheated on his wife, when they were married. I didn’t ask, as I suspected there might have been quite a few.
I couldn’t shake an intuition that his premature departure from the police may have had something to do with a woman, but he wouldn’t be drawn whenever I tried to quiz him about it. I wondered if he’d shagged the wrong colleague’s wife, or some such transgression.
‘I’m worried about you, Waitsey,’ he continued. ‘You don’t look well. Gorgeous, obviously – but not well. Are you coping OK?’
I rolled onto my back and thought about it. Was I?
‘I don’t know. Most of the time, yes. But I just feel so uneasy about Mike’s murder. I mean, of course I would do – an old friend’s been murdered. But I can’t get rid of the thought that Ed…’
I couldn’t say it.
Adrian looked shocked. ‘You think Ed killed him?’
‘No! No. Of course not. Ed would never do something like that. And, anyway, he was definitely home with me. It’s just … Might he have said something to someone – something ill-judged about Mike, and they didn’t realise Ed’s sick and can’t know what he’s saying? Or worse, he’s got in with some people and because of his dementia he wasn’t able to judge that they were using him – I don’t know, for information about Mike’s finances or something. I can’t even articulate it; it’s just a feeling. I told you about seeing someone outside our front gate in the middle of the night a couple of months ago, didn’t I? And that other time – I think it was t
he day of Ed’s diagnosis – I heard someone creeping about. Footsteps on the gravel. Weird stuff … At the time I just assumed I was imagining things and having vivid dreams – because of all the stress, you know? But now…’
Adrian propped himself up on an elbow and reached for his e-cig, a concession to my hatred of smoking. ‘Don’t you think you should tell the police?’ He exhaled a huge cloud of vapour out of the side of his mouth.
I sat up, grimacing at the thought. ‘Sometimes I think I probably should. But then I think, I can’t, not with the state he’s in. I can’t imagine what it would do to him, having the police poking around again, asking more questions. It was bad enough after Mike was killed, and the open day debacle.’
I was going to say ‘it was bad enough after Shelagh was killed’, but I didn’t want Adrian to know about that, in case he worked out that Ed was the guy I’d been sent in to investigate. He had asked me about my undercover assignment and how it had gone, of course, and I’d told him briefly that I hadn’t found anything to suggest that ‘my target’ was guilty of anything, and indeed that someone else had later confessed. And then I’d changed the subject. I really didn’t want him to know. If I was honest, it hurt a little that he didn’t know, hadn’t bothered to find out what situation I was being transferred into. Still, that was all in the past.
‘Would he even understand?’
‘Probably not. Give us a puff?’
Adrian handed me his vape. Whilst I loathed actual smoking, I quite liked the pretence of vaping, the satisfaction of an exhalation. I only ever did it with him. Having said that, I was feeling so wrung out these days, so harried by the wreck my life had become, if he’d had a pack of real cigs on him I’d probably have chain-smoked them.
‘So you don’t really think he was involved in Mike’s death, do you?’
I shook my head. ‘No, I really don’t. It’s impossible. Mike was a very rich man, and pissed off a lot of people when he sold his business. I’m sure it’s to do with that. The most obvious explanation is the most likely – we both know that…’ I knew I sounded unconvincing; I wasn’t convinced myself.