by Emily Koch
Megan tried again, clearing her throat. ‘Bea said I should talk to you. Directly.’
Haven’t the doctors told you what’s happened? You need to get a message to Bea. Tell her.
‘I left her at home with Rick,’ she said. ‘Oh, I don’t know if I can do this.’ She sighed.
Tell her to come in and see me, I have to try and show her.
‘Do you know what’s been happening, Alex?’ Her speech wobbled. ‘Bea was arrested on Monday. They kept her for three days. They think she tried to k-kill you.’
Megan blew her nose again.
‘She said your father might have already told you. So I’m to tell you that she didn’t do it. She would never have wanted to hurt you, Alex.’
I know that.
I was impatient. She seemed oblivious to what had happened in this room earlier today. It didn’t sound like anyone had told her.
‘She can’t come here,’ she continued. ‘They’ve given her bail conditions.’
Of course.
Bea wouldn’t be able to visit. I couldn’t show her my finger moving. I was going to have to be patient. Maybe Quiet Doc was consulting with Mr Lomax. They wouldn’t want to get my family’s hopes up until they knew I was definitely aware of my surroundings.
‘She’s been in such a bad way,’ Megan said. I tried to focus on what she was saying and put my anticipation to one side. ‘She won’t eat; she has to take sleeping tablets. She’s not working, we’ve had to lend her some money for rent again so she doesn’t have to move out of the flat.’
Thank you for taking care of her.
‘Rosie came over, and Bea’s friend Cameron.’
Friend, is it?
‘But she’s in a state. The police really went at her. So many questions. Rick’s furious.’
My Bea. I hated thinking of her going through that.
‘They said she’d been making things up to make herself look l-like,’ Megan stammered, ‘a victim in all of this. Someone smashed her car up the other week and they accused her of doing it herself.’
No wonder she’d felt they weren’t listening, if that had been their attitude all along.
‘They’ve been following her, watching her. They knew everything about her, everywhere she’d been for the last few weeks.’
So that’s who her ‘stalker’ was. She wasn’t imagining it.
Megan broke down and started sobbing. ‘And they found the – the ring.’
The ring …
Under the loose floorboard in the living room. They showed Bea?
She blew her nose again. ‘They tore the flat apart. Then they – poor Bea.’ She gulped the tears down. ‘They threw this plastic bag in front of her with the ring inside, when they were interviewing her.’
That wasn’t how I planned to propose. Bastards.
‘She didn’t know anything about it,’ Megan sobbed. ‘She had no idea.’
It was meant to be a surprise.
How dare they do that? I was overcome with the urge to throw something at the wall. Hit something. Break something.
‘Then they asked all these questions about your relationship. They taunted her with the ring. Wh-why didn’t Alex propose? they asked her. Why would Alex hide the ring?’ Megan breathed in and out quickly, in a stutter. ‘Wh-why did Alex change his mind about marrying you? they asked her. You were arguing, weren’t you? they said.’ She blew her nose. ‘Th-they said she had found out something about you, that you’d had an affair, and she was a-angry.’
They’re twisting everything.
‘But she told them you weren’t arguing. Everything was fine.’
My brain stirred. Had we been arguing?
The scent of Megan’s perfume was filling my mouth and turning bitter. She sat there a little while longer, blowing her nose, weeping.
Had we been arguing?
Finally, I heard the sound of her smoothing her clothes over her legs, and the click of her knees as she stood up.
‘I’d best be getting back to them,’ she said. ‘Rick isn’t himself, he’s worried to death about her.’
I could imagine. My anger with him for not approving of me seemed petty now – irrelevant. He adored her. How would he cope if they convicted her?
‘But if you can hear me, you’ve got to believe her,’ Megan said. ‘She didn’t do this to you. They’ve got it all wrong.’ Tentatively she put a hand on mine, just fingertips at first, as if she was testing the temperature of a bowl of hot water. Then, committing to it, she grabbed me hard. Squeezed until my bones ached. Her skin was warm, soft, fleshier than Bea’s. ‘If they’re so sure she did it, why haven’t they charged her?’
She released me. Her footsteps moved slowly towards the door, it creaked open, and she walked out.
Something nagged at me; something Megan had said. Were Bea and I arguing? I asked myself, over and over, as I waited for Quiet Doc to come back and tell me what the plan was for getting me out of here.
And every time I thought about Bea now, a new memory trickled back to me from our last weeks together. She was lying to the police. Everything hadn’t been fine.
I thought again about what she said she had done that final day: gone hiking alone and turned her phone off. The Bea I knew might have done those things, if she was angry enough with me. Only now was I properly recalling how bad things had been between us back then.
There’s a saying, about not having to go to every argument you’re invited to. We didn’t play by that rule in those few weeks. Everything became a difficult conversation. I couldn’t remember many details – only the feelings of frustration, exhaustion and sadness.
We might as well have sat there every evening, writing detailed invites, listing our complaints, and then cheerfully RSVPing to each other that yes, we were available to yell and wail and spar all night long.
Darling Bea,
Would you care to join me for a three-hour debate on whether we should redecorate the kitchen? On the agenda would be funds, who should organise quotes, what we think should be done. I suggest we aim not to agree on any point and descend into a slanging match, probably resorting to an argument over something completely different which happened about six months ago which you are still angry about.
It really would be awful to have you there.
Love/hate
Alex
x
Alex,
Sounds like fun! Let me cancel my other plans.
Why don’t we round it all off with really nasty comments about each other’s personalities, and then go to bed exhausted but fuming, only to wake up tomorrow morning broken and shattered but ready to do it all again?
See you there,
Bea
x
Could it be true that the letter was behind the arguments? Had she really found it all that time ago? No. She would have confronted me about it. But the police were right: we had been at each other’s throats.
Another memory that came back to me, suddenly and clearly, was the morning of that Saturday in September, two years ago. The day I went climbing. We were arguing about something particular, weren’t we? It wasn’t just another bickering row. What was it? She wouldn’t say goodbye. She refused to kiss me. That was the last thing I remembered.
No. She couldn’t have done this to me. There was no way.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the rows, now that I had remembered them. Was it just a rough patch, or would we have split up if it had continued like that?
Maybe Bea had been thinking about ending it with me. Maybe that’s why she went walking that day, to work out what to do. If she had wanted to finish with me then, what did that mean for us now? I couldn’t be sure if she would even want to be with me, if I ever recovered – especially with her new man on the scene. Had she only stayed by my side for the last two years because my fall had forced her to?
A loud sneeze announced Eleanor’s presence at my bedside. I must have fallen asleep, and hadn’t heard her come in.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, before sneezing again. ‘Excuse me.’ She was close to me, on my left-hand side.
‘It wasn’t Bea,’ she said.
Nothing from her, either, about what Quiet Doc had seen earlier. When were they going to examine me again?
‘I saw her afterwards, when you were in intensive care,’ Eleanor said. ‘She was a mess. She wouldn’t have been so upset if she’d done that to you.’ She sneezed again, three times. ‘Bloody pollen,’ she muttered, touching my arm.
Please don’t do that.
‘Did you see her there, that day?’ she asked. ‘Rosie told me what they think she did. But you would have called out if you’d seen her at the top of the pitch.’ The words gushed out. ‘You would have shouted her name. I would have heard.’
I couldn’t remember.
‘I mean, I can see how she could have done it.’
No. You’ve got to believe her.
‘There’s that slab section at the top of Transgression, isn’t there?’
Transgression. So we’d been on Transgression that day? It fitted with what Philippa had said, about the police tip-off. Transgression finished on that ledge, the one that was visible from the area where birdwatchers liked to stand.
We had done that climb loads of times. About eighty metres, completed in four pitches. I could see the top pitch – not at all steep, so you could scramble up those final nine metres and over the fence at the top.
‘I wish you’d got some protection into the rock after you left me.’
I never bothered with any there. It was an easy climb up that final slope, you could almost walk it. Whoever did this to me must have known I never put protection in there, they must have watched me before. We did that route almost every time we went out in the Gorge – it would have been easy to see us there.
‘You must have been at the top, because I’d let out about nine metres when it happened.’
Which means I fell eighteen metres – nine back to you and then another nine on the rope. A long way to fall.
‘I can’t believe she’s strong enough to overpower you and push you, but …’
Exactly.
‘I suppose she could have thrown something at you, like they’re saying.’
I could see every move on that piece of rock. Why couldn’t I remember leading that day?
‘But then I would have seen something fall.’
And you didn’t?
‘The police got me in, asked me to describe the climb to them. They kept asking if I saw Bea there. If I noticed anything unusual.’
But you didn’t?
‘They said she had been back there a few weeks ago, to the spot on the path along the top. They asked me how she would know where it was, so precisely, if she hadn’t been there on the day,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell them.’
Hadn’t Tom taken her there? Didn’t she tell me he had done that? That’s how she knew.
Eleanor changed tack. ‘I’m worried I’ve made things worse for her.’
You could only tell them what you knew.
‘They tricked me into it. I didn’t know until it was too late. They asked me what I made of your arguments.’
And? I couldn’t see where she was going with this.
‘I told them what had been going on – I told them it wasn’t major, but that you weren’t getting on. And then they said, “So they were arguing.”’
No, no, no.
That was it.
That was why Bea hadn’t kissed me, the day I fell.
It was coming back to me.
I had let slip that I’d told Eleanor about us fighting.
‘That’s our private business,’ Bea had said. It was the night before I went climbing. Or a few nights before? I was in bed, she had jumped out when I’d told her that Eleanor thought we should take a weekend away, try and patch things up.
‘And you haven’t told Rosie that we’ve been arguing, I suppose?’ I asked.
‘That’s different,’ she had said. ‘It would be different if you told Tom. But Eleanor—’
‘Eleanor what?’
‘I just don’t feel comfortable with her knowing our business. You spend so much time together.’
‘We’re just friends. Get a grip.’ I’d said that. I’d really said that. I felt like such a shit. Had she known that Eleanor had a thing for me?
If we hadn’t had that particular argument, would we have been on better terms that morning? Would she have kissed me goodbye?
Why wasn’t she telling the police the truth? Could she have blocked it from her memory, like I had – some kind of reaction to the trauma of all she had been through? Or was she trying to protect herself? She must have known it would make her look bad. But it would make her look worse if they could prove she was lying.
Eleanor’s voice brought me back to my hospital room.
‘I thought they already knew about it, but they didn’t. They were just guessing, trying to find out.’
She sighed.
‘But there’s no way Bea would have done this to you, I told them that. Even after everything with this guy – this Cameron guy. I don’t believe she’d want to hurt you, would she?’
As I tried to make sense of my day, later that evening, I kept coming back to Bea.
I’m so sorry.
I desperately wished we hadn’t been arguing. I wished we had sorted things out before all of this had happened. But I knew, I absolutely knew it couldn’t have been her who did this to me. I refused to believe it. If I had little trust in the police before, I had even less now. They’d tricked Eleanor into giving them the information they wanted. They’d used cheap tactics to upset Bea – what did the engagement ring prove? Just that I wasn’t ready to get down on one knee. It said nothing about her. I hoped she’d had a lawyer when they questioned her. Megan hadn’t mentioned one.
Please tell me they didn’t make you admit to anything, Bea.
I had to find a way out of here, I needed to help her. When was Quiet Doc going to come back? I couldn’t believe I had managed to move; even when I felt at my most determined, I didn’t think I was actually going to do it.
But what was taking him so long? Surely they’d be in to see me first thing in the morning. The tune Quiet Doc had been whistling continued to keep me company as it had done most of the day, an earworm I didn’t stand much chance of shifting, not without some other music to replace it. What I needed was Bea’s iPod. I’d even listen to some of that terrible hip-hop if it would just give me something else—
Bea’s iPod.
Suddenly I felt very much awake, my heart rate accelerating.
That music Quiet Doc was whistling was really catchy. Repetitive.
A Manc accent crept into my head, adding lyrics to Quiet Doc’s wordless melody. ‘“You begged me to stay when I had to go, and you told me your name so I’d always know.”’
It was the song Bea had played me. The one Cameron had chosen.
What was it that she had said when she brought her iPod in? She was excited, because this band was relatively unknown.
It was a coincidence, I told myself, trying to calm down. Just a coincidence. It was absolutely possible that two different people, in the very small circle of people I had contact with, could be into this emerging indie rock group.
Just a coincidence.
31
I WAS BEING paranoid.
This was ridiculous. It was just a song. Maybe the band were more popular than Bea thought. There was a better explanation – a more reasonable explanation than –
Than –
It was Cameron’s favourite song.
Quiet Doc had been whistling Cameron’s favourite song.
I’m being ridiculous. Quiet Doc can’t be Cameron.
I’ve got more important things to be worrying about.
Bea’s the police’s prime suspect. I’ve got to help her.
I ignored myself, and racked my brains, trying to go over everything I knew ab
out both of them.
I didn’t know Quiet Doc’s real name. It could be Cameron.
But Cameron wasn’t a doctor, was he? Did I know that? Bea had hardly ever spoken about him. She’d never mentioned what he did for a living, had she? Had Rosie and Tom? Someone would have said if he was a doctor.
And if he was my doctor, they’d definitely have told me. He’d have had to declare it or something.
Something doesn’t make sense.
If Quiet Doc was Cameron, had he met Bea here? Was the story about grief counselling just a big lie?
My mind was working overtime, making connections and breaking them, trying to piece together something that was remotely logical.
What did she say about him, when she first met him?
He had spun her that story, about his wife dying six years ago. She’d said he was well-built, no – what were her words? ‘Strong-looking’. And then I remembered – she had mentioned a job. He had to be strong in his line of work, she’d said. He was a builder.
I was just getting wound up over nothing.
He was just a builder. Fixing up people’s extensions, knocking through walls. Painting flats in Clifton in shades of Farrow & Ball. Not operating on people’s brains, not doing ward rounds, not checking people like me for eye movement.
I was embarrassed, even though no one had been privy to my crazy thoughts. As my heart rate slowed again, I tried to laugh at myself. Would it even have mattered if Bea had started going out with Quiet Doc? It wouldn’t have made any difference, I lied to myself. It wouldn’t have mattered if the man sleeping with my girlfriend was also one of the doctors messing around with my weakened body. That wouldn’t have been humiliating, or degrading.
It was a stupid thought to have had. Bea wouldn’t have lied to me like that. She wouldn’t have made up the grief counselling. She would have just told me the truth. And when Eleanor and Rosie saw them together they would have recognised him as one of my doctors.
Unless … was it possible none of them had ever seen Quiet Doc? He wasn’t one of my main team. He wasn’t here every week. He wasn’t part of the big briefings they would sometimes have around my bed. He always seemed to work alone. Whenever he was with me his scent was uncontaminated by anyone else’s. That memorable smell of white spirit –