Deep Water

by Christine Poulson

  He was struggling to keep his eyes open.

  “One thing that I can’t get straight,” he sighed. “Please…”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The inventory…”

  “Someone else can do it,” she told him.

  “Are you sure? Oh… OK.” He was drifting away. “Still haven’t found that mouse… have to find that mouse…” There was something else that she couldn’t make out. Then he was asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Katie drove back to the lab as fast as she dared. The wind had almost stripped the trees of their leaves and they lay in drifts across the road. On the long stretches of Fenland road, the wind buffeted the car.

  She signed into the late book and ran up the stairs two at a time.

  In the back of the top drawer of the desk in Ian’s office was an unmarked phial of transparent fluid, just where he’d said it would be. She pressed it to her chest, then held it to the light, and gazed at it. She felt almost tearful. One last chance.

  Now that there was hope, she was filled with new energy. If she got her starter culture into the shaking incubator this evening… As she set about the routine task, her thoughts returned to what Ian had said about the explosion in the lab. But if it wasn’t Ian, who was it? A chilling thought occurred to her. What if it hadn’t been an accident that it was Ian who was injured? What if someone knew that Ian was sleeping there and would be first in the lab next morning?

  She couldn’t think about that now. She pushed on and had just finished with the starter culture when Minnie came into the lab.

  She looked relieved to see Katie. “Oh, good, you’re still here.”

  Katie looked at her watch. She was surprised to see that it was nearly ten o’clock. “You don’t mean to say that the party’s still going on?”

  “Everyone’s gone now. Thing is, though, Will’s had too much to drink and I was wondering if you’d help us to get him home.”

  “Sure. I was about to leave anyway.”

  They went along to the common room. Will was asleep in a chair. Minnie and her friend Sam woke him, hoisted him up, and slung his arms around their shoulders. He swayed but managed to stay upright as they staggered along the corridor and went down in the lift. Katie signed them all out, while they waited with Will propped between them.

  Katie opened the door so that Will could be guided through, and a blast of cold air hit them. Will uttered an incoherent protest. He tried to shake off their arms and turn back into the building.

  Minnie and Sam got a grip on him. He leaned into Minnie and said something to her. Katie heard a note of complaint.

  “What’s he saying?” she asked.

  “I think he said he has to see to the mice.”

  “Mice? What mice?”

  “Exactly.” Minnie put her mouth to Will’s ear. “You’re not working on mice,” she told him, enunciating slowly and clearly.

  He squinted at her. “No mice?”

  “No mice.”

  “Thass alright, then.”

  “Yes, come on, let’s get you home.”

  Inside the lab, Katie hadn’t been aware of the worsening weather. The wind whistled round the building and dragged at their hair and clothes. It was an effort to walk upright. They propped Will against the car, Minnie supporting him, while Sam helped Katie to wrench open the door against the wind.

  Will was docile enough as they got him into the passenger seat and strapped him in.

  Minnie and Sam got in the back.

  As Katie drove off she glanced in the rear-view mirror. Sam was pulling Minnie close. She rested her head on his shoulder. The sight made Katie feel old and lonely. She wished there was someone apart from Rachel to console and comfort her when she got home.

  The wind tugged at the steering, and the car swerved. Katie gave her full attention to driving.

  Minnie’s flat was on the way to Will’s, so Katie stopped there first.

  Sam said, “I could come and help you get Will up the stairs…”

  “No, I can manage. He’s not that bad. You go on.”

  Sam didn’t need telling twice. He scrambled out of the car after Minnie. Katie sighed.

  She drove off alone with Will snoring gently beside her. She pulled up outside his house. He protested when she shook him awake. She got up and went round to the passenger door. She struggled to hoist him up. He slumped against her, reeking of beer. She got him half way out of the car, only for him to collapse back onto the seat.

  “Come on, come on,” she murmured, hooking her arms under his armpits again. This time he hung affectionately round her neck while she hauled him to his feet. She had to search his jacket pockets to find his keys.

  It was only half past ten, but the house was in darkness. Marjorie had probably gone to bed. She leaned him against the wall while she found the right key and opened the front door. She got him up the stairs by pushing him from behind and then at last they were in the flat. He stood swaying in the centre of the room. She worked his arms out of his jacket and, as soon as it was off, he staggered to the bed and collapsed onto it.

  She followed him and he looked up at her with unfocused eyes. He mumbled something. She leaned down to listen. “The mouse,” he was saying. “If it hadn’t been for the mouse…” He looked at her imploringly. “But it’s alright now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, yes, it’s alright,” she said.

  “Good, thass good,” he muttered. Seconds later he was snoring.

  She rolled him over onto his side so that he wouldn’t choke on his own vomit and sat down by the side of the bed to get her breath back. Her eyes strayed to the bedside table. She leaned over and gently eased the drawer out. It contained nothing but the packet of condoms. She wasn’t surprised that Will had moved the notebook. Maybe he had even destroyed it?

  She tried the drawer in the desk. It was locked. Last time it hadn’t been. Will’s keys were still in her pocket. She got them out. Just three: his car key, the key to the house and the key to his flat. So where was the key to the drawer? It was probably somewhere in the flat.

  She got up and walked around, opening cupboards and drawers, going back every few minutes to check on Will. He was breathing stertorously, but he seemed to be OK. She looked in all the obvious places first. She thought of the movies she had seen where the cops or FBI agents searched for hidden documents. She looked in the freezer compartment of the fridge and behind the books on the shelves. She looked at the back of a photo of Will’s rowing team in case the key had been taped there. She was just putting it back on its hook when the theme tune to The Wire blared out. She gave such a start that she almost dropped the picture. She looked over at Will. He was still dead to the world and didn’t stir.

  She traced the mobile to Will’s coat and looked at the screen. The call was from Honor. It seemed late for her to be calling. She switched the phone off and put it back in Will’s pocket.

  Finding the phone had given her an idea. She checked the pockets of the coats and jackets hanging on the back of the door. But no…

  Unless she started unscrewing the panels in the bathroom or taking up floorboards, there was nowhere else to look.

  She shivered. It was eleven o’clock now and the heating had gone off. The wind was slipping in through the chinks in the old building and a cold draught was playing around her ankles. Before she went, she’d better check on Will one last time. She touched his hand and it was cold. She ought to try to get him under the duvet. She unlaced his trainers and eased them off. He shifted and muttered something, but didn’t wake up. What was the best way to do this? She began with his legs. She lifted them up and tugged the duvet out from under them. But she couldn’t get it out from under his hip. No, it wasn’t going to work. Instead she folded the duvet back so that half the bed was exposed. Then she pulled and pushed at him, until, with a whimper of complaint, he suddenly rolled over, trapping her hand under his hip. As she eased it out, she felt the outline of a key in the pocket of
his jeans.

  She sat back on her heels by the bed. Will opened his mouth and muttered something that she didn’t catch and turned his face into the pillow.

  “Will?” she said to check that he was still asleep, her voice sounding horribly loud in the silent flat. “Will?”

  There was no response. He started to snore. She climbed onto the bed next to him and laid her head on the pillow so that she could see his face. She slid her hand under his hip and felt about for the opening of the pocket. She got her fingers inside and touched the edge of the key. Will’s weight made it hard to get a purchase on it. She twisted her fingers and burrowed deeper. Her face was so close to Will’s that she could see pinpricks of blond stubble glinting around his mouth. And then yes, she’d got hold of the key and was easing it out.

  There was a heaving beside her and Will flung out an arm across her neck, pinning her to the pillow. She gasped and let go of the key. For an awful moment she didn’t know if he had come round or not. Then he buried his face in her hair, muttered something, and was still. She lay there, her heart hammering, waiting until she was sure he was really asleep. She counted to sixty, then felt about until she found the key. As gently as she could, she lifted the dead weight of his arm and slid out from under it. She lowered it onto the bed. He groaned, but he didn’t wake up.

  She backed away from the bed, her eyes never leaving his face.

  Then she was out of sight behind the screen. Her fingers were trembling and it seemed to take forever to get the key in the lock of the drawer, but at last she did it and pulled the drawer open. There was a litter of papers, bills, a passport. At first she thought the notebook wasn’t there. But then she found it, right at the back, concealed by a sheaf of bank statements.

  She hesitated. If she read it here and put it back, he need never know that she’d seen it. If she took it away, she was burning her bridges. But there was no way she could read this here – not with Will so close, drunken stupor or not.

  She put the notebook in the pocket of her coat and locked the drawer. There was a sound from the other side of the screen. She gasped – she couldn’t help it – and looked round it, to see that Will had flopped over onto his back. As she watched, he turned over onto his other side, and snuggled his head into the pillow. She went and stood by him. It seemed to her that his breathing had got lighter. He wasn’t as deeply asleep as he had been. He was lying twisted round with his hips pressed into the bed. How was she going to get the key back into his pocket? She considered rolling him over onto his back, but she didn’t want to leave him like that – he might choke on his own vomit – and anyway, she was afraid of waking him up.

  She got on the bed and laid down beside him. She pushed her hand with the key in it under his hip. Will sighed and murmured, “Darling.” Katie felt an almost overwhelming urge to giggle. She bit her lip hard until it passed. She managed just to push the key into the top of his pocket and carefully extricated herself.

  It was only as she was going down the stairs from Will’s flat that she realized she had put the key back in the wrong pocket.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Soon after the in-flight meal, Daniel fell into a shallow sleep, moving in and out of confused dreams. Someone grabbed his hand and he woke with a start, not knowing where he was – and then an announcement about turbulence came over the tannoy and he knew he was on a plane.

  His hand was released. He looked to see who had been holding it. His neighbour was a woman – he was no good at guessing ages, but somewhere in late middle age. She was laughing and blushing.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’d dozed off and I thought you were my husband. Actually, I’m on my own this time – been visiting my daughter in Maine and – ”

  The plane bucked again. Her eyes widened.

  His mouth was dry and he had a hollow feeling around his eyes, but he roused himself to say, “It’s alright. We’re really not in any danger. You said you were visiting your daughter?”

  After that it didn’t need much more than the odd sympathetic nod or comment to get her talking. It was a welcome distraction for both of them. He heard about the twice-yearly visits and the grandchildren –“we keep in touch on Skype” – and twenty minutes later the announcement came that they were about to land at Stansted.

  He looked at his watch. One o’clock in the morning. There would be a car waiting for him and with any luck he’d be home in not much more than an hour.

  He said goodbye to his new friend and she went off to the baggage retrieval area. All he had was his briefcase and a small leather holdall. He headed for passport control.

  He was exhausted, spent, but he had done what he had set out to do. And yet, though he had finished Jennifer’s work and won the case, he could take no satisfaction in it. He’d managed to put the quarrel with Rachel to the back of his mind, telling himself that he’d deal with it when the case was over. Well, now the case was over and he didn’t know what to do, how to make Rachel see sense. But maybe there wasn’t anything he could do, until the DNA results came back and he knew for sure.

  As he walked through the automatic doors into arrivals, he scanned the waiting crowd for his driver. It would probably be Gemma – the company usually sent her – and yes, there she was. His eye had passed over someone else who looked familiar. He looked again. It was Nick. Daniel stopped dead. A man bumped into him and Daniel muttered an apology and stepped over to the side so that he wouldn’t impede the flow of people arriving. Nick was obviously looking for someone and hadn’t noticed Daniel. A child was clasped to his chest, the little boy’s legs round Nick’s waist, and his head on Nick’s shoulder. One arm encircled Harry, and with the other hand he was stroking the child’s glossy fair hair. Harry was bigger than Chloe, past the age really to be carried like that. Nick’s legs were braced to take his weight.

  As Daniel watched, Nick gave Harry a little shake to get his attention. He let the child slide down his body and set him on his feet. Now Harry too was looking towards arrivals and his face brightened in recognition.

  A tall willowy woman was waving. Daniel remembered that Nick’s sister lived with her American husband and their children in New York. His heart beating fast, he walked on, averting his gaze. But he couldn’t resist glancing at Nick, and at that very moment their eyes met. Daniel felt the contact like an electric shock and he saw that Nick did too. Now Daniel was past the barrier, only a metre or two away from them. Harry was tugging at Nick’s hand, trying to go forward to meet his aunt. Nick was still staring at Daniel as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. He let go of Harry, who ran to his aunt. She squatted to receive him into her arms.

  There were many things that Daniel had thought of saying to Nick if he ever encountered him.

  What he actually said was, “Why aren’t you still in custody?”

  “They released me this afternoon,” Nick said.

  His eyes were bloodshot. His lank hair fell over his face. He raised a trembling hand, still wearing a wedding ring, to push it back, a gesture so familiar to Daniel that it seemed to summon up all their shared past. They had been such good friends: Scout camp, cycling holidays, travelling around Europe together.

  Nick said, “I wasn’t in the car. Not when it…” He looked away. “Not when…” He was struggling to control himself. “It was my fault all the same. I was with her just before. We had a row. About Harry. I was so angry I told her to stop the car and let me out. That was the last I saw of her – the car screeching off down the road.”

  Nick had been so handsome once. Now he looked old and gaunt. Daniel caught a whiff of something sour on his breath.

  “If only we hadn’t argued,” Nick said. “Or if I hadn’t got out of the car.”

  If only… What if… The eternal and unanswerable questions that everyone asks themselves. He thought of saying, “Yes, it is all your fault. If you hadn’t stolen my wife, she’d be alive now.” But suddenly it all seemed a long time ago, the marriage, the betrayal, all o
f it. That was then, this was now, and he was on his way home to Rachel and Chloe. He couldn’t wish any more suffering on someone who was already a broken man.

  Daniel said, “If you hadn’t got out of the car, you’d probably be dead, too. Jennifer always was a terrible driver.”

  A flicker of something – amusement? Affection? – crossed Nick’s face. “Yeah, she was that all right.”

  Nick’s sister – her name came to him now – Donna – was coming towards them, holding Harry by the hand.

  “Well…” Daniel indicated that he should go.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said, with a gesture that encompassed it all.

  Daniel nodded and turned away.

  When he looked back, Donna was embracing Nick and he was resting his head on her shoulder.

  “You’re soaked!” Rachel exclaimed.

  “It’s raining stair rods,” Katie said, as Rachel helped her off with her coat. “And blowing a gale. There are leaves and twigs and branches all over the roads. I wondered if I was going to make it home OK.”

  Orlando had come in with her. He gave a chirrup of greeting and shook himself like a dog, spraying water over them.

  “Were you waiting up?” Katie asked.

  “Not really, I couldn’t sleep, but I was wondering. I didn’t know if I should ring you – here, you’d better dry your hair.” She handed her a towel.

  Katie was contrite. “I didn’t think – but look…” She took the notebook out of her bag.

  Rachel stared at it. “You don’t mean… that’s it?”

  Katie nodded. They sat down together on the black leather sofa. Rachel leafed through the notebook, while Katie towelled her hair and told her everything that had happened. Rachel’s face shone when she heard that Katie was having another stab at producing a western blot, but she shook her head when Katie told her how she had got the notebook.

  “Katie – how you had the nerve… Sooner or later he’s bound to realize that the notebook’s gone.”

  “Let’s just hope it’s later.” Katie gave a stupendous yawn. “Oh, I’m tired. It’s all catching up with me.”