Tipworth Police Station, 6.30 p.m.
JUST IN TIME, SERENA WAKES UP.
Most generous of her, I must say.
In fact, it is the first time I can recall that Serena has ever done anything that might be remotely advantageous to my prospects.
Beige Hair and Grey Suit are summoned out of the interview room by a superior. For a while, I am sitting there on my own, listening to the sound of raised voices in the corridor. When they come back, they seem annoyed.
‘We’ve been informed that Lady Fitzmaurice has regained consciousness,’ Beige Hair says as she presses the stop button on the unwieldy tape recorder. ‘She’s told us she slipped.’
I smile. Good.
‘As I said: it was an unfortunate accident.’
Beige Hair purses her lips. Grey Suit gives a snort of laughter.
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘well …’
So the police let me go. They have to. I don’t admit anything and without any detail, they can’t possibly know what happened behind those closed doors in the study that night. Ben and Serena are never going to say anything. Of course they’re not. They don’t want the attention or the scandal. They don’t want tabloid journalists sniffing around, making phone calls, asking awkward questions. They’re still hoping I’ll agree to their absurd arrangement and keep my mouth shut. I’ve taken to ignoring Ben’s increasingly urgent phone calls. In his desperation, he’s even cut me into the Montenegro deal. It makes no difference, I want to scream, you’re wasting your time – I’ve seen how little I mean to you and I cannot un-remember it. I refuse.
I glance down at my feet. One of my shoelaces is loose. I will have to re-tie it before leaving, I think. Across the floor, Beige Hair is wearing flat ballet pumps in ersatz leather, the flesh of her plump feet spilling out over the edges.
‘Must be a relief,’ Grey Suit says.
‘Naturally.’
‘Them being such good friends and all.’
He glares at me, the dislike barely concealed. I meet his stare coldly. His collar is too tight for his neck. I wonder how easy it would be to reach across and push the knot of his tie up until it squeezes all the breath out of his oesophagus and how long it would take for his face to turn red, then purple, then lose colour and I imagine how, at first, he would flail and try to get me off him but I wouldn’t relent and then his limbs would get slower and heavier until his only choice was to fall still. How long would all that take? Couple of minutes, probably. The line between life and death is so very faintly drawn.
Not that I’d ever do it.
But I like to picture it. I like to remind myself that I have the capacity to react.
When the interview is over, Beige Hair thanks me for my help. She tells me I’m not to leave the country and she has no doubt they’ll be speaking to me again soon. At this, her nostrils flare. She’s thinking of Ben, I can tell, of arresting him for that tragic yet indubitably glamorous long-ago crime. It’s bound to make the papers. Beautiful young girl. Drunken university poshos. An important family who tried to hush it up.
She shakes my hand briskly. She is like an understudy desperate to get on stage now that the leading lady has been taken ill.
Her fingers are surprisingly small and delicate. I will rather miss her stolid, reliable presence. Grey Suit grunts something unintelligible before leaving the room. Beige Hair is left to gather up the remaining papers from the table, some of the sheets dense with Lucy’s neat handwriting. I’m glad she stuck to our story. My loyal wife.
It’s nearly 7 p.m. by the time I get out of the police station and the sky is streaked silver with cloud. As I walk into the car park, I can hear excitable whoops from schoolchildren who have presumably been hanging around since school ended. A gaggle of them in navy blue uniforms are huddled in the doorway of the fried chicken shop across the road, counting out pound coins in cupped hands. Where are the parents, I wonder?
A car draws up. In the back, a familiar shape. The driver’s door opens and a plain-clothes detective goes round to the passenger side. I see someone shift from the seat and the policeman places a protective hand over the doorframe so that whoever it is doesn’t hit his head on the metal.
The person emerges in gradations: a thatch of curled brown hair; loafers; checked shirt that I know has a small hole in the elbow. Ben.
I step behind a wall. The detective is saying something in a friendly manner. Ben grins and nods and twinkles in his ever-charming way. What self-possession, I think; what casual arrogance. And I can’t help but admire it still even though I know that his confidence will be short-lived, that everything he once thought certain is about to crumble around him once he steps over that threshold and into the police station.
My heart beats out a quickening rhythm and I imagine walking up to Ben and jabbing him in the chest. I know something you don’t know, I want to say. You’re losing. You don’t even realise what’s coming. I will grind your self-satisfaction into dust. You will fall and you will know I have betrayed you and that will be my triumph.
I walk out of the gloom. I take the steps slowly so that he has time to lift his head and register my presence. The smile slips from his mouth.
I stop. I stare. I meet his gaze and hold it. I think of all the times he has made me feel less than him. All those unkindnesses I had tried to convince myself were imagined. All those looks exchanged with Serena, the meaningful suppression of half-conceived sighs. All those offhand jokes made at my expense, until the caricature of me became more believable than the reality, until I became Little Shadow – a person without his own persona, simply a darkening of the imprint left by another, bigger man. I thought of the anxiety it had caused me, the tension I had to pretend didn’t exist, of the effort I had made.
I think of a teddy bear, arcing across a room, and a door opening and the first time I heard his voice. I remember a tiny black spot on the cuff of his shirt where a pen had leaked its ink.
I had loved him.
I force myself to breathe.
Inhale. Exhale.
Across the car park, Ben’s expression shifts from raw anger to a more muted discomfort. He doesn’t even care enough to stay furious with me, I think. As if I am nothing. As if I never meant anything to him.
The detective is talking now and Ben is leaning in closer to hear him and I can hear the murmur of their chatter and it all sounds so easy, so fluid and I realise that Ben is yet again familiar with the unspoken codes of conduct, the unexplained hierarchies of the police station. He’ll be telling them he’s sorry for the inconvenience and he’s sure they can get it all cleared up and yes, thank you, he’d love a cup of tea, white no sugar, and yes, that’s kind, his wife is much, much improved although we had a scare there, I’m sure you understand, and yes, the whole thing was an unfortunate accident and they’re terribly sorry for wasting your time but Serena had been drinking – they all had! It was a party! – and she’d slipped and hit her head against the fireplace and knocked herself out and there we have it, these things happen don’t they and they’re just very lucky it wasn’t more serious and thank you, thank you for taking such trouble to investigate and he was sure they had far better things to do and he was sorry, so sorry, and if there was anything he could do by way of recompense and would they accept a few bottles of wine, maybe, from his cellar at Tipworth, just as a token of his gratitude? No? Well then, another time. They’ll be up here again soon, now that the renovations have been done and Tipworth is such a lovely quiet town, isn’t it? The perfect place for Serena’s recuperation. The kids love it. They can run around in a way they never can in London. Do you have kids? Oh well then you know what we’re talking about don’t you …
The usual patter. Ben does it so well. But he doesn’t know what awaits him on the other side of the police station door. Because no amount of charming chit-chat will save him then.
The pair of them walk past me. I am just fifteen metres away from them, maybe twenty. Ben doesn’t flinch. There is a sharp red shaving nick on his chin. He takes the steps up to the station entrance two at a time. The automated glass doors swish open and they walk inside.
Wordlessly, I follow. Grey Suit is standing in the lobby. He raises an eyebrow.
‘Can I help you, Mr Gilmour?’
‘Uh, yes, yes,’ I say. ‘Would you mind terribly if I used the gents before I head off?’
I can see him dislike me just that little bit more.
‘Right. I’ll take you through.’
His plodding footsteps lead me back down the corridor, past the interview room and the coffee machine. When we get to the lavatories, Grey Suit gestures towards them with a flourish.
‘Here you are, sir.’
‘Martin, please.’
‘Martin,’ he says, flat with disdain.
‘Thank you. I know my own way out.’
He nods, then turns back down the corridor.
I am alone at the urinal. I don’t need a piss but I wash my hands to make it sound convincing, should anyone be listening. The dryer is one of those eco affairs that pushes out powerful jets of air without ever actually drying anything. I wipe my damp palms on my trousers.
I leave the gents and continue further along the corridor. I have a powerful inclination to go upstairs. It’s probably some hangover from my schooldays: the inbuilt knowledge that all the important stuff happens on the higher floors. That’s where the senior staff will have their offices. And if I know Ben Fitzmaurice at all, that’s exactly where he’ll be heading.
I run up the stairs, trying to keep my footfall as light as possible. My mind is filled with a single urge: find Ben, watch him squirm, witness his takedown. I want to see the smugness leak from him as realisation dawns.
The layout upstairs is a carbon copy of the ground floor: a long corridor lined with thin carpet, doors leading off on either side. But these doors have nameplates on the front, each one prefaced by letters intended to denote rank.
I stand, back pressed against the wall, and I see Ben being ushered into one of the rooms by the detective. He is holding a cup of tea. China mug. No polystyrene for him.
‘This way please, Mr Fitzmaurice,’ the detective is saying. ‘We won’t keep you long.’
‘Thank you,’ Ben says and his voice is the special one he uses when talking to traffic wardens or nannies.
I can just about make out another voice from inside the room: low and rumbling, like a wheeled suitcase on tarmac. The door begins to close. I walk rapidly, trying not to break into a run. I catch a glimpse through the narrow opening of the door: a uniformed officer with silver on his epaulettes. He is shaking hands with Ben.
‘Detective Chief Superintendent,’ Ben is saying. ‘Good to see you again.’
Good to see you again?
The words land like a grenade.
Sweat on my back. Dryness in my throat.
Of course, I think.
Of course they know each other. What was it that had first brought them together? Doubles at the tennis club? A shared box at the opera? A cosy seating arrangement at a black-tie charity function?
I start to panic.
I note the smoothness of Ben’s voice, the relaxed bearing of his shoulders, the way the policeman stands to greet him, as if Ben were doing them a favour. And because of all this, I know within the space of a single second that nothing will change.
Not one thing.
And then it strikes me with shattering force what a bloody fool I have been.
All this time, I’ve been playing the cards without remembering the deck was stacked against me. Stupid, stupid Martin, I hear my mother saying. Always forgetting who’s really in charge. Always believing he’s better than he is.
My chest prickles with heat. I allow myself a small, pointless sob.
The door slams shut.
I know, in this instant, that the careful trail I have laid in my police interview will come to an abrupt halt in that room. Dullards like Beige Hair and Grey Suit won’t stand a chance. I was stupid to think they would. You can’t take on a man with such powerful friends. You can’t possibly pit yourself against the power of the status quo. Reputation. Charm. Wealth. The knowledge of how things work.
You’re born into it, if you’re one of the lucky ones.
And if you’re not? You can waste all your life trying.
Or you can end up like Vicky Dillane: cast aside like a piece of junk.
Or you can end up like me.
I turn and retrace my steps. Grey Suit nods as I leave. The doors open into a rush of evening air. A siren blares.
The schoolchildren have all gone now. The lights are on inside Dallas Chicken & Ribs where I can make out a man in a green tabard lifting a basket out of the deep-fat fryer.
I cross over the road to a minicab office. The woman inside is wearing a headset. She asks where I’m going and calls me ‘love’.
I just want to go home.
‘The railway station, please.’
‘That’ll be five, ten minutes. Take a seat.’
I sit on a hard bench and pick up a dog-eared gossip magazine, the pages slightly damp to the touch. It is as I turn the page that I notice my hands are shaking.
It was all for nothing. The whole fucking lot of it.