by Julie Corbin
I go back into the bathroom and tell Phil the kids have said yes, but with reservations. ‘They want to stay at home tomorrow. And also . . .’ I take a breath. ‘Robbie is hoping that now you’ll forget about the counselling.’
‘Have you spoken to him about it?’ Phil says.
‘The counselling? Not really, no.’
‘But you haven’t been positive?’
‘Well, no because . . . He doesn’t want to go, Phil. And as this proves he wasn’t lying about the GHB, surely you can drop it?’ Silence. ‘Don’t get me wrong, the graffiti on the wall was horrible to come home to, but the silver lining is that it proves Robbie’s innocence.’
‘I still think it would be beneficial for Robbie – and Lauren – to talk to someone about the divorce.’
‘Well, they don’t like the idea of that.’
‘They could be persuaded. Some things have to be experienced before one realises the benefits.’
‘I suppose so but—’
‘Olivia, being a parent is not a popularity contest.’
‘And I’m not making it one!’
‘You need to think more carefully about the best way to support our children.’
As usual the conversation is going nowhere, and I’m too tired to get into an argument with him, so I move it on, reminding myself to talk to the children later. I give Phil the name of the hotel we’re in and he says he’ll be along in half an hour. We’re all packed up and downstairs inside of the time. It’s another lovely day, and outside on the forecourt, sun streams through the leaves on the chestnut trees that border the pavement. Benson has a quick sniff around the tree trunks, then sits at our feet and waits with us.
‘Will you be okay going back to the house on your own?’ Robbie asks me.
‘Yes. Thank you, love. DI O’Reilly will be there and then I might pop out for a bit.’
To Trevor Stewart’s. I want to get there as soon as possible so that I can rule him out as a suspect.
Listen to yourself ! the voice in my head says. You’re just going to turn up at this man’s door after eighteen years and say what?
I don’t know what I’ll say, another voice replies, but I do know that I have to pursue this. I have to satisfy myself that MURDERER wasn’t referring to me.
Phil pulls up in his car and climbs out. Erika’s in the front seat. She looks as she always does: perfectly composed and regal in her demeanour, like an old-fashioned princess or duchess looking down on the lowly commoners. She doesn’t get out of the car, but she does lower the window to say, as if addressing one of her subjects, ‘May we offer you a lift, Olivia?’
‘No, thank you.’ Like hell! The leftover wife in the back with the kids. I give a broad smile. ‘It’s a beautiful day. I can walk.’
I leave the bags with Phil, say goodbye to the children and to Benson and start the walk home. It’s all downhill and won’t take longer than fifteen minutes, plenty of time before I said I’d meet O’Reilly. It’s just after one and the sun is high in the sky. Warmth seeps into my muscles and within minutes I’m heated through and it feels like balm. The writing on the wall has receded to another world, a sullied place where danger festers and people hurt one another. Me, on the other hand, I live out here, in open grassy space where blackbirds sing and grass grows tall and all is right with the world.
I’m about half an hour early when I round the corner into my street and spot O’Reilly, sitting in his car at the front of the house. His eyes are closed and I realise he’s fallen asleep. His jaw is relaxed and his hands are resting on his lap, defenceless as a baby. I feel my own tiredness well up in my skull, making my brain feel dense. My head grows heavy on my neck and my eyes want to close like his, but I don’t let them. I stand by his car and stare down at him, remembering my thoughts last night, when I was drunk and enjoying myself and O’Reilly seemed like the most attractive man I’d met for ages. And he’s still attractive now, but after last night’s events I feel as romantic as a cold kipper.
I’m about to tap on the window when I change my mind. The least I can do is let him catch up with the sleep he lost because of my troubles. I leave him be and walk up my garden path to the front door, but of course my house key doesn’t work because the locks have been changed and the locksmith will have given O’Reilly the keys. I contemplate lying on the grass out front to wait for him to wake, but I’m anxious to get to Trevor Stewart’s house. I sincerely hope I’m wrong about the connection and I want to put my mind at rest.
I go back to O’Reilly’s car and tap lightly on the window. He jerks out of sleep immediately, looks up at me with half-closed eyes and opens the car door.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t want to wake you but Phil has taken the kids and I have a lot to do before they get back.’
‘No problem.’ He climbs out and stretches his arms up above his head. ‘Forensics have finished and I have your new house keys.’ He reaches back into the car and brings out a bag from the back seat. Inside are four sets of keys. ‘Front, back and patio doors,’ he tells me. ‘The bill will come in the post. You might be able to claim the cost on your house insurance.’
‘Thank you.’ I take them from him. ‘I’ll make sure Robbie keeps hold of his keys this time. And I’ve been thinking . . .’ I stop. O’Reilly watches me expectantly. I was about to launch into my theory about Trevor Stewart – but then what exactly will I tell O’Reilly? A long-ago tale about a junior doctor making a mistake? It’s not something I’m proud of and the thought of going into all the details makes me baulk. Better to see what I find and then tell O’Reilly only if I have to.
‘Have you thought of something?’ He closes his car door and initiates the central locking.
‘No.’ I shake my head and begin walking up the path. ‘I just wondered where the investigation will go now? What will you focus on?’
‘Now we feel confident that the drink spiking is linked to this, we’ll see whether we can confirm one person at both scenes.’
‘Tess Williamson?’
‘She’s the obvious choice. I went round to her house this morning. She doesn’t have an alibi but she’s denying any involvement in this.’
‘Do you think she’s telling the truth?’
‘No I don’t but I don’t think she has the wherewithal to have committed either of the crimes herself, so she may well be protecting the person who did. She’s a jumpy, nervous sort of a girl, and it may come down to whether she’s more afraid of whoever has committed both these crimes than she is of the police.’ I unlock the front door and O’Reilly follows me inside. ‘We’ve spoken to your neighbours on all sides but nobody saw or heard anything.’
‘Do you think we’re safe living here?’ I ask him.
‘Now that the locks are changed, yes, I do. It’s important to take sensible precautions, though.’
‘I’m keeping the children close,’ I say. ‘Neither of them is allowed out in the evening anyway, at the moment. Myself or another trustworthy adult collects them from school. They keep the doors locked; know not to answer the front door. And they would ring nine-nine-nine immediately if they suspected anything.’
‘Great,’ he says. ‘Sounds like you’ve covered all your bases.’
We go through to the living room where MURDERER assaults me again, like a hard slap on the face, stark and shocking. It has all the drama of a Hollywood film and all the menace of a real-life threat and is completely at odds with our lives. Or at least it was.
‘Can I tear this down now?’ I ask him.
‘Absolutely. Let me help you.’
‘I think it will come away fairly easily,’ I say. ‘It’s quite thick wallpaper, the sort that has two layers.’ I approach the corner low down, just above the skirting, and scrape at it with my fingernail until I have hold of the edge. When I pull back, the whole strip tears upwards in one piece, taking half of the M away with it.
‘Bravo!’ O’Reilly shouts, and we smile at each other. ‘We’ll have this off in no tim
e.’ He begins at the opposite end of the wall and it’s not long before we meet in the middle. Most of the strips have come away in one easy piece but occasionally we’ve had to tear off smaller pieces that have been left behind. Within minutes we’re able to stand back and survey our work: a blank wall in front, heaps of discarded paper lying behind us.
‘I never liked that paper anyway,’ I say.
‘You didn’t put it up then?’
‘No. I haven’t had the time, or the money, to redecorate – and anyway,’ I laugh, ‘it’s a horrible dingy colour. You think I would have chosen that?’
‘I’m a man. I don’t know what goes with what.’ He smiles some more and I’m reminded that he’s got the sort of throwaway macho charm that makes my knees threaten to buckle. Suddenly I feel awkward, on my own in the house, with a man, whom only last night I imagined having sex with. As the thoughts come tumbling back to me – his hands up my dress, his mouth on mine – to my horror, I feel myself blush.
‘Everything okay?’ he says.
‘Fine.’ I walk over to the window and look out, give the fire in my cheeks a chance to die down before I turn back to him. ‘You must have places to be on a Saturday.’ Embarrassment makes me brisk. ‘Don’t let me keep you.’
‘I can help tidy up this lot?’ He gestures towards the discarded wallpaper.
‘No.’ I almost run ahead of him to the front door and hold it open. ‘You’ve given up enough of your weekend.’ I try to relax my face into a smile but find I can’t because I want to start crying. I want to lean up against his chest and I want him to tell me that everything will be fine. I don’t know where this ache has come from – Dredging up the past? My recent, prolonged loneliness? Or just too many films where the man comes along and fixes everything for us poor, defenceless women?
Goodness knows, I, of all people, should be disillusioned by the pull of romantic love, but there it is and my heart is sounding louder than Big Ben.
‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow, then.’ He looks both puzzled and disappointed. ‘In the meantime you know where to reach me?’
‘Of course. Thank you.’ As soon as he steps outside, I close the door. Shit, shit, shit! This is not a good time for me to lose control. I need to stay focused, keep my eye on what’s important, not cloud the issue with misguided thoughts of romance. First things first – pull myself together and head off to Trevor Stewart’s house.
I march up and down a few times, my feet making purposeful contact with the floor, but it does nothing to diminish the build-up of feelings inside me. During these last few weeks I’ve been pulled every which way and, scared as I’ve been, I haven’t allowed myself to cry. Now, though, I’m going to have to let it all out. I sit down on the sofa, wrap my arms around myself, and cry until I’m done. I let it all pour out – my fear for what could have happened to Robbie, my loneliness, my worry that my past may have erupted into the present – and then, when I’m finished, I go through to the bathroom and splash my face with cold water. The mirror confirms what I expect; I look awful – runny, red eyes, blotches around my mouth and mottled, angry cheeks. I’m going to have to give my face time to return to its normal state before I approach Trevor Stewart, and so I spend the next hour picking up the discarded wallpaper in the living room and then I clean the kitchen, clearing away debris, wiping the worktops and putting laundry in the machine. When I look in the mirror again, I still don’t look great, but with a touch of blusher and some mascara I’m good enough to go.
My doctor’s case is always by the front door and I carry it to the car with me then set off to Trevor Stewart’s address. I’m not sure what I’ll say if he answers the door, but imagine that I might want to pretend that I’m doing a house call and searching for a patient. And if he recognises me . . . ? I’ll deal with that when it happens.
Like me, he lives on the south side of the city but further out towards the boundary. My hopes that he might have remarried and be in a loving relationship are dashed as soon as I see the house. It’s midway along a well-cared-for street where the gardens are tended and the windows gleam. The Stewart house is the exception. The grass is as high as my knees and there are broken clay pots and a soggy cardboard box full of empty whisky bottles dumped under the bay window at the front. Giving myself no time to hesitate, I grab my doctor’s bag, go through the squeaky garden gate and up to the front door. A dog in the adjacent garden starts to bark and I hear a woman’s voice shout to him to stop. The front door is opaque glass and I can just about see through into the hallway. It appears as if letters and colourful circulars are piled up on the mat inside. I ring the doorbell and wait, not really expecting an answer.
‘Were you needing any help?’ It’s a woman’s voice. She’s leaning over the hedge, her arms folded in front of her. The archetypal busybody neighbour. Nothing gets past her. The sort of person who can be useful when you’re a locum doctor looking for a patient.
‘I’m looking for Trevor Stewart,’ I say. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know where he was?’
‘Are you an estate agent?’ It’s another voice, a man’s this time. His head pops up alongside the woman’s.
‘No, I’m a doctor, actually. Not Trevor’s regular doctor,’ I add, in case they’re registered at the same practice as he is.
‘Locum, eh?’ he says. ‘We all need the extra money now.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I reply, neither confirming nor denying the locum assumption. I move closer towards the hedge. ‘Doesn’t look like he’s been around for a while?’
‘You must have got your wires crossed somewhere, Doctor. Trevor’s been in the Royal Ed for –’ he looks at his wife – ‘how long is it now, Margaret?’
‘Must be three months, minimum, because I remember there was frost on the ground when the ambulance came for him.’
‘Sectioned under the Mental Health Act,’ he says. ‘Completely lost it, poor bugger.’ He shrugs, his heavy stomach rising up and then down again. ‘Not even that old either.’
‘He’s a danger to himself,’ Margaret continues. ‘He’s been quite a drinker. There isn’t one of us in the street who hasn’t met him coming out of the off-licence or rolling back from the pub late at night, falling into the gutter.’
‘He never got over Sandy, of course,’ her husband says. ‘Love of his life, she was.’
‘Brain tumour.’ Margaret answers a question I have no need to ask. ‘Horrible death by all accounts.’
‘I was hoping you were an estate agent,’ the man says. ‘Could do with selling the place.’ He glances back over each of his shoulders then leans in to the hedge. ‘Listen, Doc, if you see a social worker and you can put a word in the right ear, Trevor won’t be coming back here and the place needs selling before it falls to rack and ruin. Looks bad, you know.’
‘Will do.’ I make a show of checking my watch. ‘Crikey! Is that the time? I should be off.’ I smile at them both. ‘Thank you for your help.’
‘Don’t forget about the house, Doc,’ the man shouts after me, and I give him a wave.
I feel their eyes watching me as I climb back into my car. They’ve given me a lot to think about – and none of it heartening. It sounds as if Trevor’s life never picked up after Sandy’s death. Their love for each other was special; I know that. There was no doubting the strength of feeling they had for each other, but I always imagined that he would remarry and go on to have some more children.
Would it have made a difference if he’d had Sandy for a few months longer? Without my blunder, she would have lived another six months, maybe even a year. But, there again, as the disease advanced, her death could have been protracted and painful and I know how upsetting this can be for both the sufferer and their relatives. She would have lost function down one side. Chances are she would have been unable to swallow. She might have gone blind. Almost certainly, she would have developed epilepsy. All of this would have been extremely traumatic for Mr Stewart when he was also trying to manage a new baby.
&nbs
p; Perhaps, either way, he would have turned to drink. The truth is, I’ll never know.
And now he’s a patient in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital – Phil’s domain. It’s the city’s psychiatric hospital and is only five minutes’ walk from my house. Although Mr Stewart was initially sectioned, the order lasts for two weeks, and if not reapplied for, he could have agreed to be an in-patient, in which case he will be allowed out for periods during the day to walk around the shops, get some fresh air . . . spike Robbie’s drink? Come to my house?
But both of these events occurred in the evening and surely he wouldn’t be allowed out then?
There is such a thing as an overnight pass, I remind myself.
I drive home, my thoughts going round in a loop, mulling over possibility and probability, and I come to the conclusion that I should go to the Royal Edinburgh to visit Trevor Stewart. I didn’t get the chance to face him all those years ago, but I am prepared to do so now.
I arrive outside my door just as Phil’s car is also pulling up. We say our hellos on the pavement and I give the children the new keys. They go inside, leaving me with Phil and Erika, who has climbed out of the car this time. They stand very close together in front of me and Phil glances at Erika before saying, ‘Why don’t you let the children come and live with us for a while?’
I take a step back. ‘Why?’
‘It will be safer for them. The flat is secure; the entry system adhered to. One of us can collect them from school and make sure we’re always home when they are.’
‘It’s safe here too. I’ve had the locks changed.’
‘Lauren is too young to be left on her own.’
‘Lauren’s never in the house alone. If Robbie or I aren’t here, she goes round to Amber’s.’
‘And you think that’s adequate?’
‘Look, Phil.’ I feel the familiar irritation simmer in my stomach. ‘We’ve already worked out the terms of our child custody agreement.’
‘True. But I’ve had second thoughts about it. Erika and I would like shared custody.’