by Amanda Fleet
Penny nodded, her pen still hovering over her notebook. ‘Shall I get Douglas on the line for you? Or have you already spoken to him?’
Kate’s heart sank. ‘Yes, please could you get him for me? That would be very helpful. I haven’t managed to speak to him yet.’
Again, Penny nodded. ‘Anything else?’
‘Er. No, not right now. Let me brief Douglas and then we can run through what’s happening today.’
Penny rose to go. At the door, she turned back. ‘I’m sure he’ll come back, Kate.’ She smiled sympathetically.
Her kindness almost brought tears to Kate’s eyes. She nodded in return.
‘Oh, I bloody hope so.’ She tried to laugh, but was unable to believe her own reassurances.
‘I’ll get Douglas for you.’
Kate collapsed back in her chair once Penny had gone, fighting her tears and trying to compose what she would say to Douglas Rae, the party leader who had built his reputation on decency and moral probity. She hadn’t had time to form coherent sentences before Penny told her that Douglas was on line one.
She swallowed, pressed the button on her phone and tried to sound bright and honest. ‘Douglas. Good morning.’
‘Good morning, Kate. What did you need to talk to me about?’
She coughed. His soft highland burr was low and soothing. A voice that had wooed the public into voting for him. One that oozed honesty and uprightness. Would Paul come back? If Paul came back, she wouldn’t have to tell Douglas that she’d had an affair. At least, not until after the election results were in. Then he could reshuffle her quietly out of the Cabinet and on to the back benches and everything would be fine.
‘Kate?’ A tinge of impatience was creeping into his voice.
‘Sorry, Douglas. I’m sorry. It’s a difficult morning. I have to tell you that Paul and I had a row last night… and that Paul has moved into a hotel for a few days, just while we sort things out. The papers have got hold of it, though goodness knows how, and have been doorstepping me this morning. I hope it won’t affect the election coverage.’
‘What was the row about?’
‘Something and nothing. It’s nothing.’
‘Kate, husbands don’t move out to hotels over nothing. Did he leave or did you throw him out?’
‘He left.’ Her mouth was dry. Could she really keep her affair from Douglas for another week?
‘So what have you done? To make him move out?’
‘Worked too hard. Not spent enough time on him or our marriage.’
‘I see. And that’s all, Kate? Nothing else? You’ve not had an affair?’
He sounded like a kindly priest who, once she confessed, would absolve her of her sins. If only it were that easy. She took a deep breath.
‘No. No, I haven’t. I just haven’t spent enough time and attention on Paul and he feels he doesn’t want to be with me any more. The electioneering hasn’t helped—brought it to a head, I guess.’
Once she started down this line, the words seemed to flow easily. Yes—blame it on work, getting home late, not having enough energy to focus on Paul. The lies and the half-lies slid out effortlessly and by the time she’d finished speaking she’d almost convinced herself. There was a pause on the other end of the line.
‘Please be honest with me, Kate. If you have had an affair or done something foolish, it would be better to have it managed than for it to be revealed by the press.’
Kate swallowed. ‘Paul thinks that I have, but he’s wrong. When would I have the time?’ Her voice sounded unnaturally high.
‘Well, let’s try and keep you out of the headlines, shall we? It’s only eight days until the election. Can we keep this under wraps until then? Are there skeletons hiding in closets that could leap out at the last minute and derail us?’
‘I don’t think so.’ She grimaced to herself.
‘Good. Then keep saying “no comment” until you can sort things out with Paul. What’s your schedule for today?’
Kate glanced down at her diary. ‘I’m canvassing in Edinburgh this morning then over to Glasgow for the afternoon, taking in Stirling and Perth on the way back.’
‘No wonder Paul thinks he doesn’t see enough of you. Give me a few minutes and let’s see if we can lift a bit of that schedule for you. I’ll call you again in a moment.’
He rang off. Kate placed the phone back in its cradle and shook her head slowly. Penny popped her head around the door.
‘How did it go?’
Kate didn’t respond, still deep in her musings over what she hadn’t said. Would it backfire spectacularly on her?
‘Shall we get on with our meeting?’ Penny hovered by the chair.
Kate looked up finally. ‘Er, Douglas is going to get back to me. He’s going to try and lighten my load for today so that I can try and patch things up with Paul. Let’s wait until he calls back? Penny, I could murder a good cup of tea.’
Penny nodded and retreated, leaving Kate to think. What had she done? She should have confessed all. Douglas would have been furious but nowhere near as irate as he would be if he found out she’d lied to him. He would have managed the situation, had a chance to employ damage limitation. If everything came out now, the shit would really hit the fan.
If only Paul would come back. Maybe if Douglas could lighten her load, she and Paul would manage to talk and patch things up tonight? Then the paparazzi would back off, there wouldn’t be a story and even if everything about Patrick came out, she would still manage to weather the storm politically. Could she manage to talk Paul round?
Penny disturbed her thoughts by returning with a cuppa. She smiled kindly at Kate and looked as if she was about to speak when Kate’s phone rang. It was Douglas. Kate waved Penny out of the room.
‘Douglas, thanks for getting back to me so quickly.’
‘Good news, Kate. I’ve managed to shift the Stirling and Perth meet-and-greets to Phil, so you’ll have to be nice to him for a few weeks, but you should be able to get back from Glasgow at a reasonable time now.’
‘Thank you. That’s enormously kind and helpful of you.’
‘It’s fine. I know how tough on a marriage this job can be. You get things sorted out with Paul tonight and then the story dies.’
Beneath the kindness in his voice was a current. Kate swallowed, recognising instructions when she heard them.
‘Absolutely, Douglas. Thank you again for being so understanding.’
‘Sort things out with Paul. Marriage is a blessing.’
He ended the call and Kate breathed deeply. She glanced up as Penny re-entered.
‘Perth and Stirling are off the agenda today.’
‘Oh, excellent. The day was bloody awful with that much crammed in!’ She sat down opposite Kate, her notebook still in hand. ‘Good on Douglas. I know he can be a bit…’ she hunted for the right word, ‘traditional at times, but he will always back his team.’
Kate smiled thinly. She felt like a complete Judas.
Penny worked briskly, briefing Kate on the remains of the schedule—who she was meeting, a short biography and key points on each of them, where they’d each be and so on. Kate nodded, although little of it was sinking in. With a sigh, Penny handed Kate her briefing notes.
‘Here. You can read them in the car. The team’s all here now so we can debrief yesterday and then I’ll call your driver and we can be off.’
Kate smiled and followed Penny through to the outer office where her team was gathered. Her press officer oiled his way to the front of the group and Kate shuddered over the thought of having to tell him about her affair. She stood back while he went over the previous day.
‘Right, everyone, gather round. Okay, the opening of the hospital went well. Kate, you did a great job talking to the patients and taking time to talk to the nurses rather than just the consultants. Showed a personal touch—that the party has commonality with Joe Public. Good stuff. Not so great in the afternoon with that old lady haranguing you about not being
able to get an appointment with an NHS dentist. People, come on. We need to have answers for when this happens.’
Kate zoned out. There would always be old ladies with a personal hobby-horse who needed the limelight. There were no solutions for them. You smiled nicely and pretended to listen and escaped as fast as you could. No one was happy and the press made a meal of it. Move on. She glanced at Penny and indicated she’d had enough. Penny nodded, waited for a break in the flow and swiftly ended the team talk.
‘Must move on, everyone. Busy day ahead. Thank you, Thomas, for your debrief, excellent as ever.’
She shepherded Kate out of the room and down to the car. Kate was surprised to find Thomas at her heels.
‘Are you coming too?’
‘Yes. Douglas called and said there might be some adverse press today. You can brief me in the car.’
Kate sucked in a long, deep breath. How the hell had she ever, ever got herself into this? Today was going to be hell.
***
Had she done everything she could?
The call sounded like it had been made at his flat.
She could go and see for herself.
Summer downed the rest of her coffee and headed for the cluttered room upstairs which she called her study, even though it was little more than a glorified spare room. The room overflowed with stuff even more than the rest of her house: shoeboxes full of receipts perched on reams of printing paper, folders of orders rubbing shoulders with bundles of packing materials and her laptop clinging to a scrap of clear desk. The only pristine spot was the area around an expensive printer that could print photographs up to A2 size. She went straight for the top drawer of her desk, which was full of bits of string, labels for the printer, scissors and other odds and sods. Where better to keep the keys to the flat of an ex-lover? She yanked the drawer open and rummaged around until she found them. She sat back in her chair, keys in her palm, staring at them. Could she really go to his flat? What if there was someone there? Someone new in his life?
There had only been his name on the answerphone message.
She rolled the keys back and forth in her fingers. What if the police were there?
Good. Then she would have done everything she could and could go to that new camera shop she’d seen advertised.
What if they weren’t?
He had called her. He’d asked her for help. She breathed deeply, flicking her index and middle fingers across the knuckles of her other hand, her thumb through the key ring. The call with Patrick reverberated through her, burning orange flames and making up her mind. She closed her hand around the keys and picked up her notebook. At the threshold of the study she hesitated for a moment, and then picked up her camera bag too. Who knew what she’d find when she got there.
The drive to Edinburgh gave her mind time to run wild. Would whoever had attacked Patrick still be there? Would the place be crawling with police? What had Patrick got himself into?
By the time she turned into Patrick’s road, tangerine orange was percolating through her and her palms were slick from fear. She turned off the engine, grabbed her camera bag and let herself into the block, still wondering what she would say if someone challenged her.
She’d hoped to see police tape at the very least but there was nothing to indicate there was any investigation going on. Patrick’s flat was on the ground floor, the last door on the right. Her nerves taut, she padded softly past the first flat, her eyes scanning the floor for anything untoward. Nothing. She reached Patrick’s door and tapped on it, her heart pounding. No answer. No sound from inside. She tapped again then eased the key into the lock, her hands trembling. The door squeaked loudly as she pushed it open but the flat was empty. Very empty. She pushed the door closed behind her, flinching at the noise, and tiptoed towards the kitchen. Something ginger leaped down and scampered past her to batter through the cat-flap. Oscar. Patrick’s hostile, semi-feral cat who treated the place like a hotel. She breathed out, shaking her head at herself, her heart hammering, orange fear colliding with damson apprehension.
Summer frowned as she looked around. Maybe it was because she was used to her own place with the floor-to-ceiling books and clutter, but this place looked monastic. She pulled a pair of thin rubber gloves from her bag, put them on and started to make a thorough, methodical survey of the room. She scanned the walls, doing a mental check of the African masks hanging there, feeling that there were several missing. His beautifully carved bao board was still there, as were other cheap carvings that had been bought from the flea-market in Blantyre, Malawi, but very little else. Cautiously, she retrieved her camera and took pictures of everything, trying to cast her mind back to when she and Patrick were together. Surely he’d owned more things than this? Maybe he’d been burgled? But then, where was he? Burglars stole things, not people. And although it was empty, it hadn’t been ransacked.
Her photos complete, she walked over to the small desk with the phone on it. The answerphone had a flashing light to indicate new calls and a ‘6’ in the message count window. Next to the phone was a scrap of paper covered in figures; some numbers crossed out, question marks next to others, circles around the rest. Next to that was a to-do list. Summer photographed both of them before heading through to the bedroom. She nosed through the wardrobe and drawers. It didn’t look as if he’d packed to go away and a quick glance into the bathroom confirmed it. Patrick was vain and meticulous about shaving but both his personalised silver razor and his shaving oil were there, along with his toothbrush, designer cleanser and moisturiser. The sight of them was not reassuring.
She walked back to the kitchen and rummaged about. Unwashed dishes next to the sink, a half-made cup of coffee next to the kettle, new milk in the fridge—it certainly didn’t seem as if he’d planned on being away. She glanced at the back door, her heart skipping a beat when she realised it was unlocked. She opened it gingerly. It led to a small backyard where the recycling bins for the flats were. She stood on the threshold, scanning the area. Three things caught her eye and she returned to the kitchen. Patrick kept old plastic bags under the kitchen sink and she pulled out two—a supermarket carrier and a clear, flimsy bag that had probably held fruit or vegetables. Back in the yard, she photographed the three items from every conceivable angle and then used the bags to pick up two—the carrier bag to collect a shoe and the see-through bag for a smashed phone. She felt sick. Although she couldn’t swear to the shoe, she was sure that the phone was Patrick’s. She hoped that the horrible crunching sound she’d heard when he called had been the phone and not him. She looked at the third item—a yellow crate next to the bin for glass—but couldn’t be sure it was Patrick’s and left it where it was. She had several photos of it and no room in her bag to take it away.
Back in the flat, she locked the back door, placed the wrapped shoe and smashed phone in her bag and packed away her camera. She looked at Oscar’s empty bowl but couldn’t tell if he’d been fed recently or ten weeks ago. She shook dried food out of the box, filling the bowl to the brim. It would hopefully last several days, just in case.
She turned her attention to the desk, pulling open the top drawer and using a pencil to poke through the papers there. Towards the bottom, under some letters, was a bundle of leaflets for abortion clinics. Summer’s eyebrows shot up but she left them where they were. She pushed the letters around, looking at the postmarks—Edinburgh—and eventually decided that it was an invasion of privacy too far to read them and closed the drawer. She pulled her phone out of her bag, set it to record and then used the end of the pencil to press play on the answerphone.
‘You have one, new message,’ an electronically synthesised voice said. ‘New message…’
The message was silent.
‘Tuesday: 11.29 p.m.,’ broke in the electronic voice.
Summer thought for a moment then realised it must have been the call she’d made after she’d phoned the police. She scrolled to the caller log on the phone and confirmed her suspicion. The answe
rphone had stopped blinking, but still had ‘6’ glowing in the message count. She pressed the play button again.
‘You have six, old messages… Hi. I can get away tonight if you can. Text me? … Tuesday: 4.35 p.m.’
Summer jotted down the day and time and that the caller was a woman. The next message started automatically. Another female voice, not the same woman as the first.
‘Hey, it’s me. I don’t suppose you want to come, but maybe it might change your mind. The appointment’s at eleven on the twenty-sixth. I hope you’ll be there. … Thursday: 9.21 a.m.’
The next two callers were male.
‘I’ve not been joking, Patrick. Full amount, plus what you owe from last time. No excuses. … Monday: 3.15 p.m.’
‘You leave us alone or I will fucking kill you! Do you hear me! … Saturday: 10.05 p.m.’
Summer’s eyes widened but there were still another two messages to go. The first was a woman and sounded like the voice on the very first message.
‘Patrick, you little shit! How could you do that? How could you do that to me? God, I will kill you! … Sunday: 7.01 a.m.’
The final message was her silent call from the day before, and then the machine clicked off. With shaking hands, Summer stopped recording on her phone. She looked at Patrick’s phone again, but only the ID of the last caller was stored—hers. She put his phone back in its cradle and swallowed. Patrick had certainly been mixed up in something. Maybe lots of things. She’d vaguely recognised the voice on the first and final messages but couldn’t place it with any certainty. She hadn’t recognised any of the others.
She wondered how old the messages were. When she’d been with Patrick, he’d tended to screen all his calls and keep messages until the memory was almost full, so ‘Tuesday’ could refer to this week or several weeks ago. She wished his machine was like hers and would record the date as well as the day and time.