by Anna Legat
‘You see, I wouldn’t – couldn’t – be so certain. I would hang on to hope, irrational as it may be. Why didn’t you? That’s what I can’t get my head around. That certainty. It makes me think that you knew because you had been expecting it to happen, and you could’ve only been expecting it if...’
'If I planned it?’ he smiles again. It seems to Gillian that his smiling has nothing to do with joy but is akin to a nervous tic. It is wholly defensive.
He stands up, puts his hands in his pockets, clearly to conceal the fact that they are shaking. He looks out into the garden, with his back to Gillian, and with his dog by his side, wagging its tail. He says, ‘I didn’t plan it, but I knew it’d happen one day. I just knew Emma. I loved her but I knew her nonetheless. As for hope,’ he shrugs, ‘I abandoned it a while ago. It was Emma who persuaded me to abandon it. She made me understand that all hope is irrational. No point hanging on to it. That’s when I stopped.’
‘You take a very pessimistic view.’
‘You would too if you had to go through what we went through. Especially Emma. She tried damn hard. Sure, she put on a brave face, pretending – for my benefit pretending that it didn’t really matter. She was quite good at that. Couldn’t fool me though. I knew how much it hurt her. Each time... In the end, she got a dog. A dog! It made me angry that she gave up. We had been trying for a baby, and she brought in a dog. I really wanted... It was important to me. You can’t imagine how important. But there was no hope. She knew that... It doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt her, but she knew. Perhaps that’s why she was so reckless...’ He shakes his head, turns to face Gillian and throws his arms in the air. ‘So there! Make of it what you like.’
And then he turns away. He can’t hold her gaze, and that is a sure sign of lying. Gillian learned that on one of her forensic psychology courses.
A girl runs out from beyond bushes at the far end of the garden. She grins and waves to him; he waves back. The girl trots on, back into the bushes. She disappears into a hole in the wall of greenery, Alice in Wonderland.
‘You have relatives staying with you?’ Gillian ventures a guess.
‘Yes, I do. Relatives, you can say that.’
‘I shouldn’t be keeping you. Thank you for talking to me. And I’m sorry I had to bring back painful memories.’ Gillian is truly contrite. Ninety per cent of the nasty memories she is duty-bound to bring back to people turn out utterly unnecessary, but at the time of evoking them she cannot possibly know that.
Rydal seems to read her mind. ‘It goes with your job,’ he says, and smiles once again.
*
As drop dead gorgeous as Ben Rydal is, he should not be trusted, Gillian reminds herself. His motives are illogical; his account of events full of holes and contradictory; his demeanour evasive. Yet, somehow, for some obscure reason, she believes him. It cannot be his smouldering looks that sway her, surely! There is something human, something sadly human in what he says, and even though it doesn’t make sense, it appears perfectly plausible to Gillian. The moment he had given up hope, all manner of misfortune and loss gravitated towards his person – a human Black Hole. Except that Gillian wouldn’t be able to put it this way to Scarface. She is too short on facts and too rich on gut feeling and empathy to eliminate Rydal from her investigation. But she has to put him on the back burner for now. In an hour she’ll be seeing Alison May, the daughter of Margaret and Victor Adams. And again she will have to ask gut-wrenching questions. Because if what Jon says is true and if Giacomo Vitoli had driven his van off the road to avoid a head-on collision with Margaret speeding towards him, then what was Margaret doing charging at him like that, and why was she doing it? A seemingly docile, elderly lady with her defenceless senile husband in the passenger seat... Did she indeed have a death wish?
A week into the investigation, the office is uncannily quiet. The first wave of activity has subsided, levels of adrenalin have gone down, the phones are silent. Ms Pennyworth has gracefully departed, leaving the unglamorous pit of lowly police work to ordinary mortals. She has put on her Mother Teresa hat and is rumoured to be lending her expertise to the Victim Support Unit, liaising with families, coordinating volunteer organisations and occasionally attending charitable functions. Good riddance. Gillian could never stomach the woman – the very sight of the poodle gave her instant acid reflux.
At last she has access to Margaret Adams’ medical records. Jon sent them over this morning. Apparently, by his own account, he had to jump through hoops to obtain data protection waivers in order to get hold of the patient’s files. The fact that the woman is dead was of little assistance. Paperwork had to be completed to prove the police had valid interest in accessing the records. Jon jumping through hoops, not an image Gillian wants lingering in her head. Especially not on a full stomach.
Gillian’s suspicions are confirmed. A tragic story of cancer unfolds before her eyes. The appointment letter with Dr Vineshi gets the ball rolling. A diagnosis follows. It reads like a death sentence. That’s how it must have felt for the seventy-year-old woman. Burdened with the day-to-day care of her senile husband, fighting their daily battles, bearing their daily crosses, she had to muster faith and energy to combat the new enemy at the gate. She went for it with gusto: undergoing surgery to remove the cancer-infected section of the lungs and bone, followed by a series of radiotherapy sessions. Margaret Adams was deemed too weak to submit to chemotherapy. How weak was she – emotionally?
PC Miller calls to let Gillian know Mrs May has arrived. This time she is alone, bereft of her offspring, wearing a well-tailored suit, looking much more in control – clearly a business woman. There is a faint whiff of cigarette smoke about her person, disguised by a strong scent of perfume. Did her mother know?
Gillian extends her hand. Mrs May is the type of woman you shake hands with. ‘Thank you for taking the time to come to the station. I was happy to visit you at home...’
‘No, not at home. No police visits, thank you. The boys are traumatised as it is. They’ve just lost both their grandparents. In case you forgot?’
Suitably chastised, Gillian leads her to the interview room. She was going to hold an informal chat in her office, with a cup of tea and a biscuit to show a human touch, but Mrs May doesn’t need that. She is in a hurry and doesn’t hesitate to inform Gillian of the fact.
‘When will their remains be released?’ she asks before Gillian can ask any of her own questions. Mrs May is used to being in charge. ‘I want to get on with the funeral. Put it all behind us.’
‘I understand. We’re still investigating the causes of the collision. The inquest won’t take place until we can offer the coroner some answers. One of the reasons I asked you here was to answer a few questions.’
‘Fire away! Except, I can’t imagine how I can help you. I wasn’t there.’
‘It’s the intentions of people who were there – that’s what I want to establish.’
‘Their intentions?’
‘Your parents were driving to your house in Sexton’s Canning, to look after your sick child?’
‘My mother was, yes. My father, as I told you once already, wasn’t driving, couldn’t have been driving. He was suffering from Alzheimer’s. He couldn’t drive, couldn’t look after a sick child, couldn’t look after himself. We talked about it, really! I wish you’d stop insinuating it was my father who was driving that day. He was not!’
‘That is not what I was trying to say,’ Gillian attempts a conciliatory tone, which doesn’t come naturally to her. As, in all likelihood, it wouldn’t come naturally to Mrs May. Great minds think alike, sadly. It is going to be a tedious conversation – a minefield of misconstrued messages. ‘I accept your mother was driving. In fact, we know it was your mother – she was in the driver’s seat. Your father was seen trying to free himself from the passenger’s seat.’
‘Is that so?’ Her tone becomes gentler.
‘Yes, a witness saw him just before the car’s petrol tank exploded.’
/> Only a soft, halted sigh escapes Mrs May to mark her trepidation.
‘I’m sorry.’ Gillian gives her time to compose herself. It doesn’t take long. Mrs May throws her head back and looks Gillian boldly in the eye. An invitation to get on with it. Gillian doesn’t have to be asked twice.
‘So we know your mother was driving. We also know she made an unfortunate attempt to overtake the lorry in front of her, blindly... You could say, recklessly. Is that something your mother would do?’
‘No, never. She was a very careful driver.’
‘That is exactly what you told us, and that is where I’m confused. She was overtaking a huge, long lorry, downhill, at speed, facing onward traffic. It doesn’t make sense if what you say is true, that she was a careful driver.’
‘Well, she was. She’d never go any faster than forty miles an hour.’
‘Then why that day –’
Mrs May slams her hand on the table and draws her face close to Gillian’s. She hisses, ‘I don’t know why. The only reason I can think of was that she was in a hurry to come to mine, to look after Matty so that I,’ she pauses on the word I and puts a furious stress on it, ‘so that I could go to work. I’m haunted by this possibility, I feel guilty as hell, but that is the only answer I can give you. Happy?’
Gillian observes that it is anger rather than guilt speaking. She won’t be intimidated in any event. She says, ‘I don’t think you should feel guilty. I don’t think that was your mother’s motivation for speeding.’
‘Whatever do you mean! I have to be going soon. I’ve got the boys to collect from their childminder by six. Let’s get to the point.’
‘Your mother must have seen the traffic coming towards her. She knew she wouldn’t make it and yet she pressed on. I’m sorry to say this but it looks to be like she wasn’t in a hurry to get to you. She was aware of what she was doing. She knew that she could not overtake that lorry in the face of the oncoming traffic, and make it to you.’
‘What are you saying? That my mother was trying to kill herself? And she tried to kill my father? You’re off your head! My mother would never ever do that. It’s ridiculous to imply that! You didn’t know her. How bloody arrogant!’
‘You said your mother was looking after your father, his sole carer, is that correct?’
‘Yes, precisely! That is one of the reasons why she’d never have killed herself. She couldn’t bear the thought of Dad going into a home.’
‘But what if she was no longer there to look after him? What if the cancer beat her in the end? What would then happen to –’
‘What cancer?’
Gillian didn’t expect that. Alison May is gawking at her – her face a blank sheet. She didn’t have a clue...
How is that possible? Margaret’s own daughter knowing nothing of her mother’s illness? Who was looking after Victor when Margaret was in hospital, undergoing the surgery? Who looked after him every time she went for radiotherapy? How is that possible?
‘Your mother’s cancer,’ Gillian reminds the woman. ‘Your mother suffered from lung cancer, did you not know? It spread. It was operated on, removed. She was –’
‘Lung cancer?’ Mrs May scowls and involuntarily reaches for her handbag. Her hands fumble inside it as she speaks, ‘It’s a mix-up. A total fuck-up, if you don’t mind me saying. My mother never smoked. She couldn’t have lung cancer. I smoke!’ She pulls out a packet of cigarettes and waves it in front of Gillian’s face, taunting her. ‘I smoke, and I don’t have lung cancer!’
‘Her medical records are quite clear on that. There is no mix-up. I’m sorry if you didn’t know...’ She watches the woman take out a cigarette, which trembles in her hand – the culprit, the real guilty party. ‘You can’t smoke in here. The smoke alarm would –'
‘I am NOT smoking! Just holding it, okay? Is that okay – just holding it?’ she sounds plaintive now, subdued and defeated. ‘I am just holding the damn thing. It makes me feel better.’
‘Okay, no problem.’
‘I can’t believe she kept it from me...’
It isn’t Gillian’s place to comment.
‘What was she going through? On her own. Why didn’t she tell me?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps she didn’t want to worry you. Perhaps she thought she could deal with it on her own?’
‘That she did! You see,’ Mrs May points her unlit cigarette at Gillian, ‘she thought if I knew, Dad would have to go to a home. I’d put a stop to all her heroics, I’d told her that once or twice before. She needed to take a break, couldn’t handle it long-term, I told her that in so many words. She knew I meant it. In the end, she couldn’t trust me. My own mother...’
‘Perhaps that’s what made her drive into the oncoming traffic? A way of dealing with it?’
‘My mother wouldn’t do that.’
‘How well did you know her?’
Her face is twisted in pain, her lips pressed tightly as she pulls herself together there in the police interview room, in front of a stranger. Her voice is small when she finally says, ‘I didn’t know her at all.’
*
The Goose and Egg is a pleasant enough pub. It has a lovely garden at the back, with a pond that has orange fish swimming in it. Tables with open umbrellas are sparsely dotted around the garden so that drunken conversations and foul language can disperse into thin air before reaching the tiny playground. Clearly, The Goose and Egg is a family-friendly establishment.
Gillian thought that the least she could do for Webber after his wild goose chase in the Highlands was to bring him here and buy him a glass of orange juice. Of course, she had an ulterior motive as well. According to Melanie Brown, the joint-wielding know-it-all, The Goose and Egg was Luke Orwin’s watering hole of choice. The bartender confirmed Luke was a regular (of late) and kept company with Stu and Ron. Gillian is waiting for Stu and Ron to turn up, while listening to Webber’s account of his meeting with Tanya Orwin in Glasgow.
‘She said he was a hopeless drunk, but she would’ve said that. Looking at her I’d become one too, just to wipe the picture out of my mind.’ Webber is relishing his juice and wincing at the memory of Orwin’s ex-wife.
‘Whoa! That could be construed as sexist, DC Webber!’
‘It’s nothing to do with her being a woman. Well, maybe some... A Hydra, you know? As in the myth. If looks could kill – that sort. Hard as nails. I can’t imagine any bloke getting one over on her. Example: she knew nothing of Orwin’s death. When I told her, commiserations and all, she goes, "Stopped paying maintenance for the girls months ago. Makes no difference to me, dead or alive." Cold as ice.’
‘Did you ask her about the allegations of child molestation?’
‘Did too. She didn’t want to talk about it. Not at first. Said it was in the past. The girls were safe from him – that’s what she said. She said, "I made sure of that!" When I press her on that subject, she goes, "Young girls should be kept away from him." "What do you mean?" I say. So then she goes into this bedtime story tale. She said, drunk as he was every night, without fail, he’d always remember to go and read a bedtime story to the girls. One night he didn’t come out of their room, and it was midnight, so she went to check. "There he was," she says, "fast asleep, face down on the bottom bunk, trousers round his ankles. Wet himself all over the mattress. The girls asleep next to him, soaked in piss."’ Webber shrugs and adds, ‘If you ask me that’s not exactly child molestation. It’s a bloke who’s had a bit too much to drink, passed out and lost control of his bladder.’
‘Obviously that’s the conclusion drawn at the time. Charges dropped, understandably. But hey, that doesn’t make the woman a monster. How would you react if someone peed in your child’s bed?’
‘I wouldn’t overreact. I’m not a woman.’ Mark is definitely a man and whether he admits it or not he will always show solidarity with a fellow man. He is on Orwin’s side and his mind is made up about his ex-wife: a nasty bitch.
‘What puzzles me, Mark, is th
is. Maybe you can help me, considering you’re a man yourself.’ That comment raises Webber’s eyebrow. Gillian smirks. ‘No offence!’ she adds. ‘But explain to me, as a man, what would have made Luke Orwin start again, after fifteen years of sobriety. Fifteen years ago, several charges of drunken disorder, accusations of alcohol-infused domestic violence. Then nothing. Clearly, the man had seen the light. Fifteen years isn’t a flash in a pan. Then suddenly, six months ago, he’s back to his old tricks. Why? It wasn’t his wife filing for divorce that had started him on the downward spiral. He was off the tracks by then... It looks like the divorce petition was the aftermath of his drinking and disorderly behaviour. So why would he go and destroy his new, perfect family life? Just like that!’ Gillian clicks her fingers. ‘Explain that to me, because you are a man and you can get into a man’s head, which I couldn’t possibly dream of.’
Webber beams. He is still a boy, easy to butter up. ‘Maybe I can explain that.’
‘Go on then. I’m all ears.’
‘Hang on, are we on duty here?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘I need something stronger than a blinking orange juice. And you?’
‘Small glass of red.’ Gillian pulls out her purse.
‘Don’t be daft!’ Webber is walking towards the bar with a swagger. Typical man! Paying for drinks he can’t afford because what he really can’t bear is a woman paying for him. Even if that woman is his superior. So be it, Gillian doesn’t mind being treated like a woman when it suits her. She doesn’t mind doors being opened for her; what she would mind would be Webber usurping her job. She knows he’s keen, and one day it will come to it. For now, he’s only buying her a drink.
The barman is waving to her and, when he catches her attention, nods his head towards a pair of misfits who have just rolled over to the bar. Both are wearing overalls, and one of them, the taller, skinnier, stooping one, has an entire workshop hanging around his hips by way of a leather belt with deep pockets, loops and compartments filled with all kind of man’s tools. If he weren’t so obviously male, you could take his portable workshop for a suspender belt. Gillian gathers the two YMCA specimens are Stu and Ron. She mouths a thank you to the barman.