A Wayward Game

by Pandora Witzmann

  I find, somewhat to my surprise, that narrowly escaping death can be a calming experience. As I lie in the hospital bed, hovering somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, I feel a rush of serenity and wellbeing such as I haven’t experienced since childhood. I close my eyes, and for a moment I might be ten years old again, lying in my narrow bed in my parents’ house, listening to the rain beating at the window and the wind screaming down the chimney and knowing that I am safe. I go back to a more innocent time, before Diane or Neil or Sallow, before domination and submission and loss and death all came into my life. I close my eyes and slip into the welcoming darkness, and am aware of nothing else for hours.

  When I open my eyes again, the light is grey, as it is at dawn or dusk. The sterile hospital ward gradually comes into focus, with its whitewashed walls and rows of beds. It is quiet and empty; there are no doctors or nurses nearby and, as far as I can tell, no other patients. Then I see that there is someone there, after all: a woman who is standing at the window with her back to me, looking out. I assume that she’s a nurse. Then she turns her head and looks at me, and I see that it is Diane.

  She looks different, older: as she might have looked now, perhaps, had she lived. A few faint lines mark her pale face, and she looks a little heavier, with a slightly rounded stomach. She smiles at me – a sad, but serene, smile.

  “Diane,” I whisper.

  She doesn’t reply, but continues to look at me. Her expression speaks not simply of suffering, but of transcendence, and I feel that she is finally at peace. And then I feel peace too, and simply close my eyes and drift off to sleep again.

  I don’t believe in ghosts in a literal sense, of course. But perhaps our thoughts of those we love can gain such power that they are almost projected out into the world, where they can sometimes be seen and experienced as if they were real. It is what might, I suppose, be termed a spiritual experience.

  Or so I think at the time. Later on, I will learn that this experience probably owed its existence to the drugs that the doctors had pumped into my system to dull the pain. Confused perceptions and even hallucinations are apparently amongst the side effects of such medication. But still, I treasure the memory of that experience. It reminds me that there is perhaps more to this world than can be seen with the eyes alone.

  ~

  “Is Frieda all right?” I ask Neil the following evening, as he sits next to my hospital bed. He’s here in a personal, not a professional, capacity, but I can’t imagine that he won’t be fully aware of what his colleagues have been dealing with in the past few hours.

  “Yes.” He gives me a faint smile. “She’s very calm, in fact. Really quite helpful. She’s given the police a full and thorough account of what happened, and has gone to great lengths to stress that you weren’t in any way responsible.”

  Sallow is dead, just as I suspected, and Frieda has been charged with his murder. It could hardly be otherwise, I suppose, when the first thing she did when the police arrived was to tell them exactly what had happened. By now, I think, she’ll be sitting in a cell or interview room, drinking weak tea and seeing the remaining doors of her life swing shut before her eyes. The thought of it gives me a cold, hopeless feeling. After all these years of being imprisoned by grief, she now faces being imprisoned in earnest. It’s too cruel.

  “Of course,” Neil continues, “you’re in this up to your neck, Katherine. You’ll be interviewed again when you’re feeling better, and if there’s a trial you’ll be called as a witness. Still, there’s no suggestion that you have any personal responsibility for Sallow’s death. If you tell the truth, you’ll be fine.”

  “What about Frieda, though?”

  “Impossible to say.” Neil frowns. “She has no criminal record, not even a parking fine. She confessed fully and freely, which will go in her favour, and of course she had a strong motive to behave as she did. She’ll certainly go to jail, though.”

  “They’ll go easy on her, won’t they?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be any great appetite for retribution.” Neil shrugs. “Most people at the Met, if you spoke to them, would tell you that they personally believed that Sallow was involved in Diane’s disappearance. That he tried to kill you really almost proves it. No one’s keen to see Mrs Meath get a harsh sentence.”

  I lie back against the hard hospital pillows, trying to ignore the pounding pain in my head. I’m sick and miserable, and I haven’t had a shower or touched my hair or make-up for over twenty-four hours. I must look terrible, and I’m afraid that Neil, looking at me now, will see what I really am beneath my facade: just another thirty-something woman with only average looks, whose tough, sleek glamour is as transient and unreliable as everything else. I glance at the flowers he brought me, a basket of pink roses and yellow lilies. They bring a splash of colour and beauty to the sterile ward. The hospital is situated on the outskirts of one of London’s satellite towns, and when I lift my head I can just about glimpse the street outside. It’s virtually interchangeable with almost any other urban British street on a Saturday evening: people reeling from one pub to the next, buses and taxis crawling by, and a dirty night sky. Just another night in a town where people laugh and cry and love and die all the time, and no one can afford to be too concerned about it. Or so I think, anyway, until Neil looks at me and says:—

  “You know, this is shaping up to be a huge media story.”

  “Oh God,” I croak.

  “There are camera crews camped outside the police station where Frieda’s being held. There are even a couple of journalists hanging around outside the hospital here.”

  “Jesus, no.”

  “Well, you can hardly blame people for being interested. The Diane Meath-Jones case was a huge story, and now – well, it’s the perfect ending, in a way. The bad guy dead, a mother’s revenge, the brave journalist who dared to seek the truth. It’s perfect, you must admit.”

  “God, Neil, this isn’t a film. I just want to go home and forget about all of this.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be allowed to forget about it. Not for a while, at least.” Neil frowns at me. “Personally, I think that what you did wasn’t so much brave as downright stupid. If you’d told me what you were planning, I’d have bloody stopped you, you know. I’d have bound you hand and foot, if that was what it took.”

  I smile. “I might have enjoyed that.”

  “Really? I thought you liked being the dominant one.”

  “I’m prepared to be flexible.”

  “That’s good to know.” Neil smiles, and then grows sombre again. “God, though, why the hell did you agree to a meeting like that?”

  “He told me he had some information about Sallow. Potentially explosive information, he said. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but I had to find out. I had no idea that Lurker was Sallow, of course.” I frown. “Well, the idea crossed my mind, perhaps, but it just seemed so unlikely. I mean, he was convincing.”

  “He’d learnt how to be convincing. Lurker was an appropriate name, you know. Officers have already had a look at his home and office computer records, and they’re pretty revealing. He liked to loiter in various places on the internet, just to keep tabs on what people were saying – about the case, and about him. And, of course, he took a particular interest in you, for obvious reasons. It wasn’t that difficult for him, either, given the anonymity of the internet, and the aliases he used. Speaking of which—” Neil pauses, and shakes his head. “Kittyminx? It isn’t even that far removed from your real name. Why the hell did you choose that as your username?”

  “I didn’t think anyone would make the connection.”

  “Well, it certainly wasn’t too hard for me to make the connection.”

  I stare at him uncomprehendingly, and for a second he looks awkward and embarrassed.

  “I was there too,” he admits at last. “I spent quite a bit of time on that forum. You probably remember chatting to me. Phillip. The newbie.”

  “God,” I m
utter. “Why Phillip, exactly?”

  “Great Expectations. Phillip Pirrip.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see. But why?”

  “You always knew that I was interested in the case.” He sighs. “I should tell you, Katherine, that I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”

  “No?”

  “I was a constable at the time Diane disappeared,” he says. “I was involved in the initial investigation, albeit in a rather small and humble way, and my personal opinion was that Sallow was involved. I was furious when he got away with it. That wound festered over the years, and I never quite forgot about it. That was why I talked to you about it so often; I wondered if you might have some information, anything, that might shed some new light onto it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because we hardly even knew each other at the time. Because you’re a journalist, and nobody with an ounce of sense says anything of any great importance to a journalist. Besides, I was interested in what you might say, just as I think you were interested in what I might say. We were both playing the same game, I think. A pretty wayward and dishonest game.” He looks at me apologetically. “I felt bad about deceiving you, of course, but I had to be careful. I couldn’t just spill confidences to you, especially knowing your interest in the case. And I expect that was how you felt about me sometimes, too.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “One thing I don’t understand, though,” he says, “is why you didn’t tell me about Lurker wanting to meet you.”

  “You’d have tried to stop me. You said so yourself.”

  “Damn right I would have. But if I couldn’t talk you out of it, I’d have gone along with you. I think I’d have been able to do a better job of looking out for you than Frieda, and with far less serious results.”

  “I didn’t know if I could trust you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh God.” I look out of the window, so that I don’t have to look at him. “You know, I didn’t know who to trust anymore. The problem is, once you start to look beneath the surface, you start seeing plots everywhere. Sallow was rich and well-connected; he was in with the Establishment. For all I knew, he might have had friends everywhere, in government, in the police. For all I knew, you might have been on his side.”

  There’s a moment of silence, during which I don’t dare to look at Neil. Outside, a thin and sullen rain begins to fall, and the street lights grow blotchy. The people on the street scatter, running for buses and shop doorways.

  “You don’t think much of me, do you?” he asks at last, and his voice is quiet, sad.

  “Try to see it from my point of view, Neil. I couldn’t afford to trust anyone. You know what Sallow was like. He lived a charmed life; he seemed untouchable. He had influence far beyond what most people ever expect or achieve. How could I know whether that influence extended to the Met – to you? And when you talked with me about the case, I often found myself wondering whether you were keeping an eye on me. And when Lurker – Sallow – spun me a story about a web of corruption that stretched all the way to the top, I found it all too easy to believe him. God, how could I trust anyone in those circumstances?”

  In the corridor, a gaggle of nurses chatter and laugh – the sound of normality, a sound I cling to. God, what an almighty fuck-up this whole thing has been. Trust lost and betrayed, everyone weaving their own little web. I glance across at Neil. He is sitting with his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor. He looks up, and raises one eyebrow.

  “It’s funny,” he says, “but from the time we started seeing each other, I thought I was the one who had to trust you. It was the other way around, though, wasn’t it? You were the one who had to learn to trust. Did you really think I’d have betrayed you? I love you.”

  “I love you, Neil.”

  “Then for God’s sake have some faith in me. I told you before: there was no conspiracy, or at least none that I’m aware of. And I was certainly never on Sallow’s side. Look, I always believed that Sallow killed Diane. We’ll probably never know for certain, especially now that he’s dead himself, but it seems very likely. The problem was, we just couldn’t get anything to stick; there wasn’t enough evidence. Do you want to know why I remained interested in the case, Katherine? I think it was for the simple reason that I don’t like being beaten. It’s vanity as much as professional commitment. I don’t like to think that someone got away with it. And this case continued to nag at me; it just wouldn’t let go. I spent a fair amount of my free time working on it in my own way, in my own time. I went through the evidence, examined the timelines, kept trying to see it from new angles and find something that I hadn’t noticed before. It didn’t do much good – in fact, I was really just going around in circles – but it did give me something to focus on, which I needed, especially when my marriage started to come apart at the seams.” He smiles. “The thing is, if we’d put our heads together instead of wasting our time suspecting each other, we’d have been much better off. We might even have found something on Sallow without you almost getting yourself killed.”

  I remember how close I almost came to dying, and shiver. “God,” I mutter. “Sallow must have hated me so much.”

  “You were getting too close for comfort. You were making yourself very inconvenient from his point of view. The fact that you were seeing a policeman probably put him on red alert. He felt that his back was against the wall. And so he put together a little plot to get rid of you. A crude plot, I suppose, but it might have worked.”

  “It almost did work. If Frieda hadn’t come with me—”

  “If Frieda hadn’t been with you, you’d probably be another missing person by now. That stretch of the Thames has strong currents. A body that went in there would probably never be recovered, especially if nobody was looking.”

  “Jesus,” I mumble, feeling sick. I remember something else that has been bothering me while I’ve been lying in hospital. “Do you think Martin Stevenson talked to Sallow after I visited him?”

  “It seems rather likely, yes. And a quick internet search would be enough to reveal that Lucy Lowry was dead, and a former colleague of yours.” Neil smiles again, grimly. “You know, most people have their price, and Sallow knew that. Flash some money around, and most people become altogether more accommodating. It’s a nasty business.”

  Outside, the rain has strengthened. Neon signs flash through the night, luring people in with their false glamour. I think of Diane, who fell in love with that world of illusory glamour when she was still too young to see beyond it, and who paid the price. I think of Sallow, who lived in that world all his life, and I almost feel sorry for him. Perhaps sometimes he wished it could be otherwise; perhaps sometimes he almost, almost, saw something beyond, until his eyes or his imagination failed him, and the vision vanished.

  The nurses in the corridor giggle, and a telephone squeals, but otherwise all is quiet. This is not an awkward silence anymore, but a comfortable one; the kind of silence that often arises between two people who feel at ease in each other’s company, and don’t need to smooth things over with empty chatter. My head hurts, but the drugs given to me by the nurses flow through my veins, soothing my nerves and dulling my senses. Everything seems distant, not quite real; only Neil is immediate and definite. In a few minutes, though, he’ll get up, walk out, and drive back to London, where he’ll spend another night alone. And I realise that I don’t want him to leave, now or ever.

  “You told me you loved me, Neil,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “What about your marriage?”

  “I’ve had a few eventful days of my own, Katherine,” he says. “On Thursday evening, while you were driving back from your first little trip to Essex, I was talking to my wife. We’ve agreed to divorce.”

  I see a momentary flare of sorrow in Neil’s eyes, and believe I understand. It can’t have been an easy decision. They did love each other once, and if that love slowly died it is hardly their fault. How does it feel
, to follow a road for so many years, only to come to a dead end?

  And then I remember his call to me on Thursday evening.

  “Oh God,” I say dully. “You called me because you wanted to talk about it.”

  “I wanted to hear your voice, see you perhaps.”

  “And I brushed you off.”

  “I was a bit taken aback. But, of course, I had no idea what you were up to.” He smiles, and takes my hand. “Anyway, I won’t be a married man or much longer. So if you want me, I’m available.”

  “Of course I want you,” I say, and squeeze his hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone so much in my life.”

  “It won’t be easy, you know. I get the feeling that you and I just aren’t very good at making our relationships work. We’ll have to deal with each other’s baggage, as well as our own. But we can try. We’ll see if we can make it work. Frankly, given what you’ve been getting up to lately, I think you need someone to keep an eye on you.”

  “You’re probably right,” I say, and smile. “You know, that little flat of yours doesn’t sound very comfortable. I know it’s early days, and you don’t want to make any big commitments, but perhaps you could spend a little more time at my place. I’ve got more space, after all, and it’s more convenient for your work. Just a couple of nights a week, maybe, and then – well, we’ll see how it goes.”

  “I’d like that.” He leans over and kisses me. “I might as well make myself useful while you’re in here. Can I do anything around the place? Get some shopping in, do some cleaning?”

  “No, nothing like that. The keys are in my bag, though, and if you take them you can go there as often as you like. It looks like I’ll be stuck in here for a couple of days yet, so one of us might as well make use of the place. And make yourself at home. Come and go as you please, do whatever you want to do.”