by Dylan Young
A small square of video appears on the screen. Keely clicks it and it expands. I see Haldane sitting in an interview room, viewed from an angle looking down from above. I recognise DS Keely in that room too. The third person, a man I don’t recognise, but he looks intense and stern. Keely asks the questions.
‘What was your reaction when Emma Roxburgh rejected you?’
Haldane laughs. ‘She didn’t reject me. It was me that rejected her. That’s why she got antsy.’
‘At the tribunal when you were struck-off, Emma Roxburgh’s barrister had witnesses who said she had warned you off, explained that she had a boyfriend. And yet you persisted.’
‘She wanted me. It was obvious. I know the signs. It’s happened too often for me not to recognise a come-on. She was all for it. It was her boyfriend who stirred the pot. He couldn’t take it. But Emma… she wanted a piece of the pie.’ He points both index fingers towards his chest. ‘This pie. I was moving up. My career was stratospheric.’
‘Hardly,’ Keely says. ‘You’d applied but not been shortlisted for half a dozen jobs. You were a locum.’
‘Temporary. I was getting experience. Until the actual job offers came in. I had to tread water because otherwise I’d be the youngest ever consultant and the establishment don’t like that.’ His grin is vulpine.
‘Where were these job offers coming from?’
‘London, Birmingham, Manchester. All the big units. I was toying with going to the States for a year or two. Squeeze in a fellowship at Johns Hopkins.’
‘The tribunal chairman said that this conviction you had that you were about to be promoted was pure fantasy.’
Haldane has his legs straight out, lounging in the chair with his arms folded. ‘I know what I know.’
‘Were you bitter about Emma?’
‘Why should I feel bitter about a woman? She’s gone. My overriding concern was that the NHS, and this country, had lost such a talented doctor.’
‘You mean Emma Roxburgh.’
‘No. I mean me. It’s bloody tragic.’
In the video, Keely slides another page of A4 paper across the desk towards Haldane.
‘These messages are taken from Selena Burridge’s phone. They’re text messages. Exchanges between your phone and hers. Recognise them?’
‘Fake news,’ says Haldane.
‘No, not fake. Verifiable digital records. In September 2018, a month before Emma Roxburgh died and Cameron Todd was attacked, you wrote: You can be my weapon of choice. They ruined me. It’s time I ruined them. Emma fucking Roxburgh and everyone and everything around her. You can be my atomic bomb, Selena. One bang and the fallout does all the rest. And then we can do majestic things. I’ve got plans for us.’
Keely looks up. ‘Can you explain that?’
‘Ask Selena,’ says Haldane. And then he smiles. ‘Oh, I forgot. You can’t because she’s jam on a pavement.’
Keely freezes the video.
Rachel has a hand over her mouth.
‘Jesus,’ says Stamford. He speaks for everyone.
‘We’re charging him with the attempted murder of Harriet Roxburgh. She is making a good recovery and will, I am sure, make a great witness. There’s also enough here for a charge of conspiracy to murder in Emma’s case.’ Keely finds me on the screen and looks right at me. ‘And attempted murder in yours, Cameron. I’m preparing a file to the Turkish authorities as we speak.’
I hold her gaze. Nod. It’s enough.
‘There are several things Haldane does not, as yet, understand,’ Keely continues. ‘I’m telling you because I think you, of all people, deserve to know but on the clear understanding that this goes nowhere else for now. The CPS would demand my head on a silver platter if they ever found out I’d shared this evidence. But I’m a softie.’
I wait. DS Keely seems to me about as much a softie as Attila the Hun, but I don’t tell her that.
‘We’ve confiscated all Haldane’s digital records. He’s smart, but not half as smart as the geek squad we have working for us in the Met tech vaults. In Haldane’s deleted search history is an entire day’s worth of him trying to find out how much it would cost to hire a car in Antalya a month before you and Emma got there. Don’t ask me how he knew you were going. But it’s clear he made enquiries.’
‘Oh my God,’ says Rachel, emphasising each syllable. She’s grinning.
‘And in a toolbox in his attic, we came across a dog collar with a tag still attached. That tag has the Roxburghs’ address and phone number. We think it is likely that it belongs to Peter Roxburgh’s missing dog.’
‘The one never found after Roxburgh hung himself?’ Stamford asks.
Keely nods. ‘Only now I’m wondering if throwing a rope over that tree was Peter Roxburgh’s idea at all.’
No one speaks because the implications in Keely’s words are unspeakable. I glance around. Everyone is thinking what I’m thinking.
It’s time I ruined them. Emma fucking Roxburgh and everyone and everything around her.
‘Right.’ Keely is suddenly all business. ‘I’ll be in touch, Cameron. God knows how long this will all take given the circumstances, but at least we have Haldane in custody, and he’ll stay on remand. Meanwhile, I have to interview two thugs about a stabbing.’
There’s a volley of goodbyes and thanks. ‘Stay safe, everybody,’ Keely says, and her face flicks off.
I turn to Stamford. ‘I don’t remember thanking you for getting to Haldane when you did.’
‘Impeccable timing. I’m known for it.’ He shakes his head. ‘Harriet hadn’t wanted me along at all. I couldn’t stop her. No one could. She’s a force of nature. This thing with Emma has screwed her up. The most she’d let me do was be her backup. She followed you into the building. Saw the lift stop at the seventh floor. She knocked on lots of doors. But at least I made her stay on the line with me all the way through. I heard everything. And the one perk of having been in the force is that one acquires some kit. I had an enforcer in the boot.’
‘Enforcer?’
‘A mini battering ram for forced entry.’ He pauses, pins me with a look. ‘It’s a shame you were drugged otherwise you and I could have chucked the bastard over the edge to join his friend.’
I glance up at Rachel who is still on-screen, expecting her to be shocked. She isn’t. Instead, there’s an expression on her face that tells me she’s thinking much the same thing.
‘Did you find out what they drugged you with?’ she asks.
‘Flunitrazepam,’ I say. ‘Otherwise known as Rohypnol. I don’t know what camomile tea is supposed to taste like. But I should have guessed because it was bloody awful.’
‘How could you?’
It’s a rhetorical question. I shrug and stand up. ‘What about the office? Cogni-Senses?’
‘Fake,’ Stamford explains. ‘Burridge had been clever. The place is an executive Airbnb. She’d booked it but used your credit card, nicked or cloned from her time in your flat. That way it looked like you’d booked the place yourself for the sole purpose of jumping off the balcony. No one would question it. Everyone who knew you suspected you were sliding off the rails by then. The penthouse balcony was not overlooked. It had a river view. No one could see the struggle.’
‘What a cold-hearted bitch,’ says Rachel.
No one argues. Rachel signs off and I tell her we’ll chat later.
Then it’s only me and Stamford in the room. Keely has searched my flat. They found flunitrazepam tucked away in a kitchen drawer. And Burridge had substituted my quetiapine with a bigger dose. If I’d fallen from the balcony with no witnesses, it would look like I had all the tools that a disturbed mind needed at my disposal. A functional delusional personality that was modifying his own drug regimen and organising his own elaborate suicide.
‘I haven’t shaken your hand,’ I say to Stamford.
‘I’m up for that. Got the ultra-strong sanitiser for that very reason.’
I walk across the room. We shake hands.
Stamford slathers on the sanitiser and so do I, both of us grinning as we do so. What we haven’t talked about is how Burridge fed me all that rubbish about Emma. When I told Keely about the selfie she had of her kissing me, her response was almost pitying. She said it was easy to doctor photos these days. The telling thing was that she had just the one. And, she suspected, Haldane or Burridge had forged Emma’s writing on the notebook.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
I felt stupid when she explained it. But she didn’t let me wallow. She’d said simply, ‘Burridge had no chance once she was in his grip. I don’t expect you to forgive her but remember who it is that’s the real monster here.’
All this flashes through my mind as I’m standing with Stamford in his office. He sees me zoning out and looks worried. To deflect him, I ask, ‘What were you whistling when I was standing on the viaduct?’
‘I was doing an impression of a police siren with four fingers in my mouth.’
‘Did the job.’
‘Yeah. I just love the taste of sanitiser at dusk.’
57
I speak to Rachel twice a day now. FaceTime video chats. If I don’t, she threatens to drive up from Cardiff, self-isolation or no self-isolation. She’ll risk arrest and argue that her journey qualifies as essential travel. Under normal circumstances she’d insist I stay with her. But these are not normal circumstances.
Easier to use the phone and keep her happy. Keep me happy too.
I’ve parked the car up and hung the keys behind the door. I walk everywhere. Along eerily empty locked-down London streets, keeping as fit as I can. I watch the news only occasionally. So many people are dying I’m grateful people are taking the isolation seriously. What else is there to do?
I stand two metres behind a man queuing to get into M&S Simply Food. There’s someone two metres behind me. Strange, but I don’t feel alone. Not anymore. I walk back to my flat along the river like I always did. Now I walk with earbuds in, listen to music. I’ve discovered a track that almost guarantees I can drift into a fugue. I first heard it on one of Josh’s film recommendations.
‘An everyday tale of split personality with Jim Carrey.’ I see reflections of my own life in Me, Myself and Irene. But only faint ones, thank the Lord.
But the version of the Hootie and The Blowfish track ‘Can’t Find The Time’ I prefer is the original by Orpheus from the sixties. When I listen to this, I’m transported.
If I think about it, the maid-statue and the gasman-wraith made of black smoke that haunted my fugues must have been products of my worst imaginings. Nicole had dressed as a maid to approach Emma on the night of the murder. She was still dressed like that when she saw me approaching on the beach. All part of my twisted recall played out in the fugue world. There’s reason enough for her to have inveigled her way into whatever section of my damaged brain is designated casting director. After all, she did exactly that in real life.
As for the gasman, he’s not so easy to rationalise. Could it be that somewhere in my head I knew about Haldane? Emma must have told me about him at some point BT. Had hearing his name woken him up like summoning a sleeping demon?
And then, when I let my imagination gallop, there’s the Josh interpretation. The sci-fi, supernatural, scary movie version. That what I was hallucinating was a warning. Emma’s way of telling me who was behind all this.
Who knows? Maybe he’s right. Perhaps when I get the chance, I’ll ask her.
On the rooftop bar Cameron chats with Ivan about zombie films. Ivan is on the Dom Perignon tonight. His two regular girlfriends are dancing to Justin Timberlake. The place is filling up, the sun is setting. It’s still warm.
‘What I do not understand is how in these apocalypse films the infected always want to eat non-infected. But if they do, if they chow down, how come that the now newly infected end up being zombies too? I mean, how much of them is left after a hundred zombies have buffet?’
‘I get what you mean, Ivan,’ Cam says. ‘A zombie paradox.’
‘I think people only want to see blood and gore, right?’
‘Exactly.’
Cam looks up. A girl is walking towards him. Ivan grins. ‘Here she is.’ He turns to Cam. ‘You are lucky man, Cameron.’ Both men get up. Old-fashioned rules in this place.
She’s about five-seven, dark hair cut short, tanned from the Turkish sun. She wears a flouncy knee-length summer dress with a bold flowery pattern.
‘Hi,’ she says.
Ivan responds. ‘You look stunning.’
‘Thank you, Ivan.’ Then she turns to Cam.
‘Amazing,’ Cam says.
She tilts her head, pleased. ‘Fancy going over to the edge of the roof to watch the sunset?’
Cam shakes his head. ‘Seen it all before.’
She snorts. ‘What are you after?’
‘Sit with me.’
She does, shuffling around the small table so that they can both people-watch. There’s a candle flickering. It throws dancing light on her face. Cam looks at her and takes in the straight nose, the generous mouth, the bright, merry eyes. All the delightful features he hasn’t been able to see for so long.
‘What?’ she says, adding a tinkling laugh.
‘Who needs a sunset when I can look at you.’
Emma looks up at Ivan, eyebrows raised. ‘Any more of that champagne left? I may need two glasses.’
Ivan stands and pours the bubbly. There is no maid statue tonight. Hasn’t been for weeks. Nor is there a foul smell from the drains, or a smoky shadow skulking under the tables.
‘I’m glad we don’t have to walk to the edge of the roof anymore,’ says Emma.
‘I, too, am glad that I do not have to watch you do it.’ Ivan grins.
‘I’m sorry for you falling all those times,’ Cam says.
‘Why? They had nothing to do with you.’
‘So you forgive me?’
‘I do. So long as you forgive yourself.’ She leans across and kisses Cam on the cheek before raising her glass.
‘To us,’ Emma says.
On a rooftop bar with garish lights strung from poles and cocktail waitresses in catsuits, a breeze with a seaweed hint of the ocean on its breath catches her hair. She tosses it away.
Cam raises his glass, touches it to Emma’s and says, in return, ‘To us.’
58
September 2020
Life is very different. We’re no longer in total lockdown, but local quarantines spring up sporadically and a second spike is a real threat. People adjust as much as they can. Leon’s back in the gym. But it has limited entry and every day there’s a fresh debate over mask-wearing. He’s fully recovered and didn’t need to go to hospital. But now we do a virtual workout with me at home. There’s no slacking even online. Leon does some of his best sarcasm via the internet. I try to rope in Josh. One day I’ll succeed.
Sometimes I wonder what things would be like if someone broke the world wide web. Then it truly would be like 28 Days Later. People would write letters to one another. Read books. Use their own imaginations. That’s why I’m glad I have the new and improved fugues. At least there I can see and talk to Emma.
The news is preoccupied by the virus. I had hoped that Selena’s death and Haldane’s charade in the penthouse might go unnoticed. I was wrong. The press went to town. At least with lockdown I didn’t have reporters turning up at my door. They turn up in my inbox instead. And on my phone. How they get my number is a mystery.
Still, not all publicity is adverse publicity. And not everything is doom and gloom. For a start, there’s Zoom.
So now, every Friday, we all go to the pub after work. Except we do it in our own living rooms. There’s me, Josh and his girlfriend, and Rachel and Owen come sometimes after the kids go to bed. Stamford has even had a pint with us. But tonight is what I’m looking forward to.
Almost 6.30, so I open a beer, fill a bowl with some mixed nuts, and log on. Josh is the first up. He displays the IPA he’s drinking. The elabo
rate decoration on the can looks like it’s come straight off a wall at the Tate. Then Leon appears wearing a beanie hat and grinning.
‘Peeps!’ he announces.
‘Hi, Leon,’ chirps Josh.
‘Nice hat,’ I say.
A fourth panel appears on the screen, empty. All we see is an image of a door.
‘Hey, Vanessa,’ Leon calls out. ‘You need to move your laptop so that we can see you.’
But nothing happens.
‘Where is she?’ Josh asks.
‘She’ll be along,’ I say.
I watch Josh’s face frown. See Leon’s grin falter. What I’ve said sounds a bit odd. Cruel, possibly. After all, Vanessa’s in a wheelchair.
On the screen, the door to Vanessa’s room at the rehab centre swings inwards to reveal someone standing there, leaning forward with two sticks as support. On the outside of both of the person’s legs are metallic struts and panels, jointed at the knees and hip, connected at the waist by a reinforced belt. The figure walks slowly and mechanically towards the camera that’s angled up such that the face only slowly comes into shot.
Vanessa’s face.
‘Holy crap,’ says Josh.
‘Go girl,’ says Leon. Or rather, shouts Leon just before he erupts in whooping laughter.
‘Like it?’ says Vanessa. She’s grinning too. ‘I’ve just been out for a walk. Two thousand steps.’
‘Man, that’s more than Josh does in a day,’ Leon quips.
Vanessa presses a button on a wrist remote and the machine eases her down into a sit on a chair.
‘How long has this been going on?’ asks Josh. His mouth stays open and he can’t stop ginning.