The Life I Left Behind

by Colette McBeth

  He has a point, of course. She wasn’t honest with him. Funny, that. She didn’t fancy telling him she spent her days locked in the house. Therefore, the argument goes, she can’t blame him for lying. Except she can. This is his fault. Just because she can’t explain the logic behind her argument at this precise moment doesn’t mean it isn’t true. She knows it in the same way she knows the sky is blue. It is not yellow. Never has been.

  ‘I didn’t want to push you, darling.’ He strokes her arm. It’s like an insect crawling on her. She flicks it away. ‘Think about it, Mel, I wanted you to work it out for yourself. Why do you think I found Julia, drove you there every week? I thought she would help. I kept on hoping it was working.’

  He’s using that plaintive voice of his, dipping his eyes dolefully as if he is Princess fucking Diana at the Taj Mahal. You have to believe me because it’s the truth.

  ‘Do you know what I think, Sam?’

  ‘I do.’

  Did he just say that? Pressure builds in her head. She can hear whistling in her ears. ‘No you don’t. You do not know what I am thinking. I think you are a coward. See, I know I am a coward, I’ve known for a long time now, but you, you’re just as bad and you don’t even see it. You’re like one of those enablers, you know, the people who live with alcoholics and think they’re helping but really they’re just allowing them to carry on their destructive behaviour, pussyfooting around them, too scared to stand up and say what’s really happening.’

  He’s shaking his head. ‘No, no, no,’ he says, as if the truth is simply a matter of repetition. ‘All I wanted was to make you feel secure. I thought all this would help, the house, the wedding, the baby.’

  The baby.

  How did he think that would help?

  She had made Sam promise not to tell anyone at first. Twelve weeks, she’d said, not before. We don’t want to jinx it. Then, after the scan, when they walked away with a grainy image of a foetus the size of a pea pod, she’d begged him to wait a little longer. There was no bump to speak of and it wasn’t as if her social diary was crammed. He’d agreed. At eighteen weeks he’d gone to Stockholm on a week-long conference. It coincided with David Alden’s release but she assured him she would be fine, plus there was Patrick, who had insisted on coming round for dinner that evening to keep her company. He was working in Guildford the next day and it wasn’t unusual for him to stay overnight if he had an early start.

  Over dinner he remarked that she looked peaky, off colour. Sometimes she hated doctors and their unsolicited diagnoses.

  ‘David can’t get to you, if that’s what you’re worrying about,’ he said, though quite how he could promise this she had no idea. He insisted she sit down while he tidied up, made them both a cup of the special Night Time tea. It was as good as useless at getting her to sleep but she decided to drink it anyway to keep Patrick happy and ward off any more unwanted questions about her welfare. He might be right this time, she thought; she felt like she was coming down with something. Her head was light, waves of tiredness crashed over her. ‘I think I might go to bed after all.’

  For once there was no need to coax herself to sleep. It was already waiting to welcome her. She couldn’t even remember undressing and getting into bed.

  It was the pain that woke her the next morning. White hot. Like someone was clawing deep into her belly, gouging out her insides. She stumbled out of bed into the hallway. The house was silent. Patrick had already gone, must have left before she got up. She went to walk downstairs to make a cup of tea but a cramp doubled her over. She cried out, not that anyone could hear her. The baby. She knew it. She hadn’t believed she could create another life. Now she was being proved right.

  She called the hospital. ‘Are you bleeding?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ she said, as if it was inevitable.

  ‘You need to come to the ward so we can assess you.’

  ‘My boyfriend isn’t here to bring me.’

  ‘Well get a taxi then,’ she said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world to get in a car with someone you’d never met before and travel five miles to the hospital. Melody hung up, called Sam’s mobile and listened as his phone went straight to voicemail. Quite how she thought he could be of assistance when he was in Sweden she didn’t know. Water will help, she remembered reading that in one of those pregnancy books Sam had bought. She ran herself a bath, eased herself down into it as another band of pressure clenched around her stomach. She screamed. Fuck the water. The water was no help. She got out of the bath again, struggling to move, and then saw the blood. Drip, drip, drip on the white tiles. The brightest red pooling at her feet. She knew what she had to do and she knew she couldn’t do it. She was failing the test. Get yourself to hospital and save your baby, give it a chance at least. All those stories she’d heard about women who would do anything for their children, lay down their lives, and here she was unwilling even to walk out of the front door and get into a taxi because she was pitiful and weak and feeble. She didn’t deserve to be entrusted with another life. And the fact that she couldn’t hold on to it told her what she had long suspected. There wasn’t enough life inside her to sustain another.

  Reaching for her mobile, she called Patrick. There was nothing else for it. She would have to tell him. Three calls, two messages. Third time lucky, he picked up.

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  She wipes her eyes but it’s useless. The tears won’t stop coming. Sam has rarely seen her cry since the day of the ladybirds. She thought she could stop the flow of her emotions but this was just another deceit. They have collected in a dam that has now been breached by one single truth. They come at her with such force she can’t find the air to breathe. She lied to Sam, to herself. He lied to her. Nothing is fixed or anchored in reality; say what you want people to hear, see what you want to believe. None of this should come as a surprise. The deceit can be traced all the way back to the beginning. They’ve built their relationship on lies.

  ‘I could have saved it.’

  Sam has his arm around her, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘It would have happened anyway, Mel. It was a miscarriage.’

  What would he know? It wasn’t his responsibility to carry that baby around. It was a girl; she didn’t even give her a name. The only task entrusted to her in years and she wasn’t up to it. She hadn’t been feeling well the night before, she could have done something then, and those lost hours in the morning, the window of time before Patrick arrived and took her to hospital, if she had acted then, the outcome could have been different. No one will persuade her otherwise.

  Eventually she speaks. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had met her?’ Her eyes are intense on him. She wants to gauge his reaction, draw it out of him.

  ‘Met who? Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Eve,’ she says. ‘Eve Elliot.’

  Panic forces his eyes wide open. She can see him making the calculation. Should he feign ignorance? How much does she know?

  Don’t lie. Her eyes are drilling into him. Don’t dare lie.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how I know.’

  He exhales, a deep, weary sigh. ‘So you’re thinking I’ve lied to you again. I can see how it looks but … Oh God,’ he throws up his arms in surrender, ‘I’ve cocked up. Right. I get it. But I wasn’t trying to deceive you. She approached me. I told her I didn’t want to go over old ground, I knew the evidence against David Alden was convincing. And I didn’t see how telling you would help.’

  ‘Have you told the police?’

  ‘Of course I’ve told them.’

  ‘So it was only me who you didn’t think to tell.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’

  She’s not listening. What does sorry mean anyway? Does it mean he will never lie to her again?

  ‘We can’t get married,’ she says.

  He takes hold of her, a hand on each of her arms. ‘Don’t talk like that, you’re just up
set …’

  ‘Why would you want to marry me? Why would you want to marry someone who can’t go out alone, who needs you to take her out? Surely there are plenty of women out there you could have. They’d be impressed by all of this, you know, the house … they might appreciate the architectural fucking integrity of it. Why stick with me? What is it I can offer that they can’t? It’s not my conversation, that’s for sure. I haven’t had an interesting thought in years. Is it the sex? The blow jobs? I mean, I’m not good at much but I play to my strengths. It’s not a reason to marry me, though.’

  ‘Mel, stop it. Stop it. I want to marry you because I love you. I know that now and I knew it when I first met you, when I wasn’t allowed to love you, when you were wearing that ridiculous beanie hat.’

  ‘It was a ushanka hat,’ she cries, ‘a Russian trapper hat. I have never worn a beanie in my life. You can’t even remember the hat correctly.’

  ‘A trapper hat, a beanie, a fucking fedora.’ He’s shouting now. His eyes spark. ‘Listen to me, would you? I don’t care what hat it was. The hat is not the point, Mel. The point is that I remember you looking ridiculous and beautiful and intriguing all at once and I couldn’t stop staring at you.’ He takes her hand, holds it tight in between both palms. ‘I want to marry you because I still love you and I want to make this better.’

  ‘It’s not your job to fix everything. You didn’t do this, you don’t have to punish yourself by trying to make it better.’

  ‘You think I don’t feel guilty? You think you are the only one who’s been shattered by this? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve run it over in my head.’ His eyes water, a tear spills out, cuts down his face. ‘I don’t know what to do any more, I don’t have the answers.’ She’s close to his body, feels it shake in an attempt to contain his emotion. He can’t. ‘It was my fault and I’m sorry.’ He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Just tell me what I can do to make it better.’ He starts to sob, bawls in a way that makes his body judder. She can’t stand to see him like this; her anger dissipates.

  Melody draws him in towards her, holds him tight. Inhales. It is Sam, she thinks. The same Sam she fell for; it’s always been him but they lost each other, themselves. Her body relaxes, unfurls. A calm settles in her head. Her defences slip, the deceit stripped away. There is such relief in it, the relief of searching and searching and believing something precious is lost to you for ever only to find it again. ‘You don’t have to pretend you have the answers,’ she says. ‘Maybe the answers will find us.’ She kisses him where she used to, her favourite spot, on his neck, tracing the line down from his ear, tastes the oil on his skin.

  This time they keep the lights on. Eyes open.

  The alarm sounds too soon. She’s woozy from lack of sleep, but giddy too. They’ve been so removed from each other, the new-found closeness invigorates her. It’s not perfect, it’ll take time, but she knows there is a foundation now. She gets up with Sam and dresses in her sports clothes, tells him she is going for a run. His face springs into alarm, then a smile. ‘Not far,’ she says, ‘a little further every day.’ He kisses her hard on the lips as she leaves the house.

  The air is chilled, autumn is settling in. The sky stretches out as far as she can see, the lightest blue bleached by the sun. She searches for a cloud, even the smallest wisp, but she can’t find one. Down the hill she runs, slowing her speed so her legs won’t buckle beneath her. She breathes deep into her lungs, allows the breaths to power her body. Each morning it gets easier. She passes through town, reaches the river without incident. It’s a beautiful morning to be out running. Her eyes feast on the colours, the sharpness of them. It’s autumn but she feels a sense of renewal. There’s a long way to go, she knows this. Sam loves her. She loves him. They’ve allowed themselves to become entangled in lies. Last night, she believes, they started unravelling them, getting back to what brought them together in the first place.

  She stops for a few minutes to catch her breath. Close by a toddler throws bread on the path to the geese, and retreats giggling as they flock around her. Melody turns to head back home, unusually contented, when his words flood her mind.

  It was my fault and I’m sorry.

  Chapter Twelve

  DI Rutter

  IT’S HER OWN fault so she can’t complain, wouldn’t dare to within earshot of Stuart Stirling, or anyone else for that matter. The press appeal for information on the chain has generated the usual response from loonies and crank callers and well-meaning old men reporting that they once gave their wives something similar but it was just a bird, it wasn’t in a cage. It’s why she only ever makes these appeals as a last resort. What she is hoping is that amongst all the crap something will shine, the sparkle of a proper lead. ‘He’s just playing with us,’ DCI Stirling told her. He’s been cruising the incident room, disapproval seeping out of his skin with last night’s half-bottle of whisky. ‘There doesn’t have to be a story behind it. You’re looking for something that’s not there.’ Maybe she is, but if she doesn’t look, she has no hope of finding it.

  Ideally she’d ask for more manpower, but that would mean admitting that they are swamped, and she won’t do that. In her pep talk this morning she told the team that the next couple of days might be frantic but it would be worth it. She was talking rubbish of course and they knew it. From the looks on their faces, the refusal to smile, Victoria could tell they were tired and overworked and they wanted to believe her but couldn’t quite make the required leap of imagination.

  Now she sits in her office dissecting a sandwich she bought for lunch two hours ago, attempting to plough through Eve Elliot’s file. The more she reads, the more she admires Eve and her single-mindedness. Victoria gets the impression she would have liked her, could have happily shared a bottle of wine in Eve’s company and talked, amongst other things, about their mutual suspicion of crushing handshakes.

  This case is unique in Victoria’s experience. Never before has she been able to look back on the last six months of a victim’s life in such detail. She wouldn’t be so crass as to claim she knows Eve, but the sense of her coming out of the pages is so strong she can almost feel her in the room. So far Eve and her observations have made Victoria smile, laugh out loud even. To keep banging on doors when no one answers, to plug away, alone, when everyone is telling you it’s useless; that takes some guts, some spirit.

  Eve managed to summarise all of Victoria’s reservations about Sam Chapman way more eloquently than she ever could. They interviewed him a few days after Melody had come in, when he called with ‘a rather delicate matter’. He’d met Eve, he said, only briefly you understand. In his statement he elaborated, telling DS Ravindra where the meeting had taken place, and when, and recalling with some precision what he had said.

  ‘I offered to help as much as I could but I asked her not to contact Melody. I didn’t want her to get upset.’ He qualified this, somewhat unnecessarily in her view, with an explanation of a miscarriage earlier in the year. ‘She’s still shaky,’ he said.

  Victoria listened to the recording of his interview with some amusement, sitting as she was with Eve’s own verbatim notes in front of her.

  Funny how two people can interpret the same meeting entirely differently. Every word in this file, every line she reads, serves to strengthen her resolve to find out what really happened.

  What a waste. What a terrible shitty waste of a life. If Eve was right – and Victoria has a growing suspicion that she was – and the police got it wrong, then they all have blood on their hands. Yes, they’re only human, everyone makes mistakes, blah blah blah. She knows all the excuses, but it doesn’t detract from the cold facts that she now sees emerging: they didn’t investigate it properly, they didn’t follow the leads. Stirling, helped by his officers (she includes herself in this), went for the easiest option.

  This is the reason she hasn’t been home before midnight for three days. She might not have seen her kids in that time but she’s always thinkin
g of them. What if it was Bella who was dead and dumped in woodland? All those crazy ambitions and eccentricities and dreams stored up in her little string-bean body, gone for ever? What if she herself was the mother whose heart had been ripped out, who woke up every day not understanding life, the way the sun could shine but she couldn’t feel it, not even the faintest touch of heat? What if Oliver had been accused of a crime he didn’t commit – who would stand up for her son and fight his corner when the police were thinking of targets and clear-up rates and pleasing their superiors to grease their way up the pole?

  Eve and David might not be her children but she will investigate the case as if they were. They deserve that much at least.

  She is extracting a round of tomato from her sandwich when there’s a rap on the door. Why do sandwich-makers persist in adding tomato? All they do is leak and make the bread soggy. If she had the time, she’d wait in the queue and buy a baguette made to fit her requirements, no tomato, but the queues for the bespoke lunches are hideous, snake all the way out on to the pavement, so she always has to make do with one off the shelf.

  Taking a bite, she feels the bread wet and spongy and flings it to one side in disgust. ‘Come in,’ she says. DC Rollings’ face appears from behind the door.

  ‘If it’s a day off you want, I’m afraid the answer is no.’

  He looks bemused. ‘Nope. I’m still paying the summer holiday off the credit card; trust me, I need the overtime.’

  ‘Well what is it, then? Tell me something that’s going to make me smile. I’ve had people coming to me with shit all morning and half of the afternoon.’