Not all questions have answers
Simon Pruit placed down the documents which he had been cradling in his arms like a baby and beamed with pride. Less than a week had expired since the Deputy Prime Minister personally assigned him the task, and here he was, days before the deadline, delivering the results. Simon felt exhilarated by his own success.
He regarded the neat pile of papers, now sat upon the desk which belonged to Charles Lloyd, and allowed his mind to briefly fantasise about how his hard work could ultimately benefit him. Simon scanned the dated office, mentally noting the changes he would make if his dreams managed to somehow come true and one day he was settling himself into the seat of power.
Time was not on Simon Pruit’s side. He was already on the wrong side of thirty and far from settling down in either his private or professional life. In the mornings, he would notice how his hairline had begun to recede, and the hair that remained was thinning rapidly. Lines had appeared beneath his eyes which deepened day by day. Simon did not embrace these signs of aging, going to great lengths to hide them. His ritual every Saturday morning was to browse the local supermarket and surreptitiously purchase male hair dye in order to disguise the shades of grey which had started to flash beneath his naturally dark hair colour.
To Simon, the whole world felt youth obsessed and it was a race in which he was no longer eligible to enter. His job was good, but not great. At his age, social expectations meant that he should either be married with children in tow, or at least divorced, or almost at the pinnacle of his career. Simon Pruit was none of these. His infrequent rendezvous with rent boys dismissed the notion of a family, and his professional life seemed to have stalled.
But Simon trusted Charles Lloyd. He found the current Deputy Prime Minister to be enigmatic and sincere. It was these qualities which drew people to him and helped him retain his position amongst the party. Simon knew that if he aligned himself to Charles, he was protecting his own future. Behind his back, people mocked his loyalty, cruelly labelling him as ‘Charles’ spaniel.’ Simon was aware of the malicious comments but ignored them for they did not matter. He respected Charles and enjoyed working for him. His loyalty would not waver.
Simon cast one last cursory eye over the documents he had just bought in. The continuing focus on youth seemed to taunt him, yet Simon was certain of the Deputy Prime Minister’s true intentions for the investigation. Simon Pruit was many things, but he was no idiot. His power of perception only sharpened with age, and whilst Lorna Thomas had not been to his personal taste, there was no denying her beauty. The colour had flushed to Charles’ cheeks ever so slightly when Simon had mentioned her name, confirming what the loyal aide had long suspected. Simon recognised the shame of sexual deviancy when he saw it, as it was a look he had been forced to wear for many years.
Satisfied that his documents were in decent order, Simon left the office, giving a polite nod to Faye as he left, not noticing the petite blonde who was typing away on the computer beside her.
When Charles returned to his office later that day he was careful not to make eye contact with Laurie. He could make her out, just at the edge of his peripheral vision, working diligently, but he chose not to address her for fear of drawing unwanted attention to her. He had strictly instructed Laurie to talk to as few people as possible; ideally she would liaise only with himself and Faye.
‘Oh sir, Mr. Pruit left some documents in your office for you,’ Faye called after Charles. His quickened step past her work station had almost completely removed her opportunity to relay messages to him.
‘Right, great.’ Charles did not turn as he responded but was surprised by Simon’s efficiency. He had clearly underestimated just how determined the man could be.
The pile of documents loomed large on his desk, cutting a foreboding shadow across his floor. Charles sat down behind them and lifted the first half of the pile towards him. The papers were heavy with their morbid knowledge. Simon was renowned for being meticulously organised and he had not disappointed; the police reports were arranged alphabetically, making it easy for Charles to locate the file for Lorna.
As his fingers picked through the pile of paper, Charles felt his heart become weighted. There were so many names, so many methods of self-elimination:
John Callows, 22, overdose
Sarah Danbridge, 24, slashing of the radial and ulnar arteries
Dan Eastham, 23, asphyxiation
When did the youth of his nation become so disenchanted? Charles couldn’t help but feel as though he had failed the people whose final moments his eyes now scanned over. To feel so utterly desperate that the only release was to take your own life, the thought made Charles sick to his stomach. And to attach that mentality to Lorna was even worse. Lorna – who entered a room and bought the sunlight with her. To imagine such a self-destructive darkness within her was unbearable.
Towards the bottom of the pile, Charles found Lorna’s file.
Lorna Celia Thomas, 22
An officer with the Kent Police Constabulary had filed the report. When the emergency services arrived on the scene, Lorna was already dead, having crashed her car straight into a tree. She was declared dead on the scene and a preliminary examination of her car ruled out a malfunction of the vehicle, yet the full report from this was missing.
Charles read and re-read the report until his eyes stung, each time failing to absorb the facts. The coroner predicated that from the extent of the damage, Lorna had been travelling at least 60 miles per hour when her car collided head on with the great oak tree. Her small body had smashed against the steering wheel with such force that it had entered and punctured both her lungs instantly, as her head smacked against the dashboard and then ricocheted back, snapping her neck and disabling all her motor skills. Her death had been instant, and by all accounts, deliberate.
The words were there but Charles did not want to believe them. Lorna was his angel. Why would someone so wonderful and so precious want to cease to exist? And the thought which furthered his despair was that, possibly, his own actions had caused her to turn to such desperate measures. Had the pain of their affair ending made her want to end her life?
The report sat on Charles’ desk, refusing to change. It pained Charles how the description of events was so clinical. Lorna had been a person, yet here she was referred to as a thing, in the same way a child would recall the internal organs of a frog they had just dissected in a science lab. Charles was far too close to the case to be able to decipher the report clearly; his last ounce of common sense told him that. He needed someone else to review the report, someone more knowledgeable than him about the police and the systems they used.
He had a contact – most politicians did – who ran on the other side of the law. Charles’ man was an ex-policeman who had been stricken off for nearly beating to death a man accused of raping a ten-year-old girl. Charles could still remember the case and sympathised with the man in question, for he was only doing what felt natural. It was everyone else who suppressed their urges and somehow treated a monster civilly. It was out of this empathy that a clandestine friendship was born. The contact now lived his life beyond the law; having turned his back on a system which he felt had failed. But occasionally he assisted in certain matters, for a fee.
Charles placed the document in his fax machine and typed in the familiar number. No cover note was required; the recipient would immediately know what was asked of him. All Charles would receive in response would be a coded response and an invoice. The only time the two men met socially was when Charles visited Switzerland, where his contact now resided. His life and his money were untouched by the government he felt had left him down. Since becoming Deputy Prime Minister, Charles rarely found the time to make the visit, but their contact remained.
As he pressed send, Charles tried to suppress the niggling feeling of doubt which clung to the nape of his neck. He needed answers and there was no other way of getting them. It felt almost dirty to use this route for Lorna, who was so pure. But Charles was determined to uncover the truth, even if he had to use the back door to get there.
Removing the file from the fax machine, Charles knew he had to share its content with one last person.
‘Faye,’ he picked up his internal telephone and addressed his assistant. ‘Can you please send Miss Thomas in?’
Faye rolled her eyes at the instruction and shook her head. Even though she knew she should be obedient and follow orders, she couldn’t fight the urge to intervene.
‘What do you need her for?’ she asked the Deputy Prime Minister through the receiver, blatantly challenging his motives, aware that this subtle act of deviance could easily cost her her career but unwillingly to stand idly by whilst the man conducted yet another affair.
‘I need some help on the project Simon was working on, just basic filing. I’d ask you to do it, Faye, but I’m sure you have more pressing tasks to deal with.’ The response came automatically to Charles. He reconciled himself with the fact that it was only a half-lie. If he was annoyed by Faye’s behaviour, it wasn’t evident in his tone.
‘Right, I’ll send her in then,’ Faye scowled in annoyance as she hung up the receiver.
‘He wants to see you,’ she informed Laurie who was still typing at the other computer.
‘Oh, okay.’ Laurie stood up and smoothed down the pencil skirt she was wearing which felt tight and obstructed her movement in a way she wasn’t accustomed to. She missed the freedom her favourite pair of jeans gave her. The concept of dressing up for work bemused Laurie as it was hardly a cause for any sort of celebration. In her mind, comfort mattered more than aesthetics. But Lorna adored fashion and tolerated all the discomfort that came with it and so Laurie felt obliged to currently abide by her dead twin’s rules.
Of the entire outfit, Laurie’s least favourite article was the black stiletto shoes which had almost landed her a ride in an ambulance that morning. She precariously placed one foot in front of the other, trying to not let the veil of gracefulness she had so carefully applied slip.
Faye pitied Laurie. Not only had she lost her sister but now she was voluntarily walking straight into the lion’s den.
‘Do yourself a favour,’ Faye called to Laurie as she about to enter the Deputy Prime Minister’s office, ‘and don’t be as stupid as your sister.’
Whilst Faye’s words were unnecessarily harsh the meaning was not lost on Laurie. She nodded solemnly in acknowledgment and opened the door.
For a moment, Charles had to remind himself the Lorna was dead and buried, for had he not known this, he would have believed that she was now standing in his office. Laurie had completely morphed into her deceased twin. From the smart shoes, to the tailored clothes and the blonde hair neatly stacked in to a tight bun on the back of her head, Laurie was every inch Lorna. Even her mannerisms now mimicked her sister more, like the way her head titled to the side in awkward embarrassment as Charles looked her over.
‘I’m sorry,’ Charles tried to gather his senses, remembering that he should be behaving with more decorum. ‘It’s just, you look so much like her, even more than normal!’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s freaking me out too.’ Laurie shifted uncomfortably in her heels. She didn’t like how all her life she had tried to create an identity of her own, and yet here she was in this costume, becoming Lorna. It all felt so false and wrong.
‘Please, sit down.’ Charles sensed Laurie’s unease and pulled out a chair for her.
‘You don’t have to dress up every day if it makes you uncomfortable,’ he suggested as Laurie settled herself, instantly kicking off the shoes which were already turning her delicate feet red and sore.
‘But then I’ll stick out more. Everyone here dresses like they are attending a wedding, it’s so creepy. This morning, a girl asked me who my shoes were. She’s like, “who are your shoes?” What is that? My shoes are shoes, inanimate objects which protect my feet as I walk!’ As Laurie spoke she became impassioned and flung her hands around, just as Lorna had.
‘She’d have been enquiring after the designer. Some women are really in to that sort of thing. My wife, for example, won’t wear anything that isn’t couture.’
An odd hush fell over the room at the mention of Elaine. Charles had spoken of the elephant which sat between them, making him and Laurie instantly feel awkward in one another’s company.
‘I’m just saying relax, dress how you like,’ Charles backpedalled, hoping they could bypass the mention of his wife without encroaching upon the topic of his marriage. Laurie already resented him, he sensed that, and he did not intend on giving her further reason to hate him.
‘I feel like a monkey in a goddamn suit.’ Laurie tugged at the bun on her head and an instant later her blonde hair fell down her back and shoulders, perfectly framing her beautiful face.
‘Don’t worry; I’ll tie it back up before I leave. Don’t want your assistant getting ideas.’ Charles looked at Laurie in surprise, the thought not having crossed his mind that the removal of her shoes and hair now loose would imply that they’d had relations in his office. For a moment, the image of Lorna sprawled naked upon his desk flashed through his mind. Would Laurie be identical to her twin in the flesh? Charles physically shook the thought from his mind.
‘She knows about Lorna, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes, she does.’
‘Do you think she’ll go to the papers?’ Laurie frowned, scrutinizing Charles’ face.
‘No.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I trust her.’
‘Like your wife trusts you?’ Laurie said bitterly, her words penetrating Charles like tiny darts.
‘I’ve got Lorna’s police report.’ He slid the file across to Laurie, still reeling from her cruel jibe. Clearly, she held him responsible for Lorna’s death which was why she was so hostile towards him. In helping her see the files, perhaps she would warm to him more. But then that could be dangerous. Even now, Charles could barely take his eyes off her as she picked up the file and began to read through its contents.
As Laurie read through the report her face began to contort from confusion into anger.
‘This is bullshit!’ she declared vehemently on completion, smacking the report down on to the table in protest.
‘I know it isn’t what you were hoping for,’ Charles said gently.
‘My sister would not kill herself! Jesus Christ!’ Laurie threw her arms up in despair, a mixture of rage and anguish coursing through her veins. ‘You know this is bullshit, right? I mean, who drives a car into a tree? It makes no sense. She was fine. Everything was fine. She’d come home for the weekend, we watched a movie that afternoon, she was good. If something was wrong, I’d have known!’ The anger gave way to sadness and Laurie felt the all-too-familiar sensation of tears falling down her cheeks.
A part of her was terrified that perhaps she was wrong, that Lorna had ended her own life and she had just been too stubborn to see it. But she refused to accept, couldn’t accept, that. There had to be another explanation and she was determined to find it.
‘There was no way you could have known,’ Charles said soothingly.
‘The car. Where is the report on the car?’ Laurie ignored the Deputy Prime Minister and began to eagerly leaf through the report once more.
‘There must have been something wrong with the car,’ she theorised aloud.
‘Potentially, I guess,’ Charles agreed, aware that he too was clinging on to that same glimmer of hope. ‘I admit it was odd that the information on the vehicle was missing.’
‘This isn’t Lorna.,’ Laurie smacked the document down and then wiped her hand across her damp eyes, blackening her porcelain cheeks with mascara in the process. ‘Lorna would not have done this. She loved life. She had a million dreams for the future. People who wish to die do not dream. You knew her; you can’t believe she’d do this.’
‘No, I don’t.’ Charles felt relieved to vocalise the admission.
‘The stigma of Lorna having committed suicide is tearing my family apart. My parents blame each other. My mum is a wreck; she can’t handle the thought that she let Lorna down, that she couldn’t take care of her own. I can’t let them go on suffering like this. They need to be at peace, we all do. And the only way we can find respite from all of this is with the truth.’
‘I’ve called a guy; he’s looking into it for me.’
‘A guy?’ Laurie uttered with contempt.
‘He… he’s not in politics, or even with the police force anymore. But he knows his stuff. I use him a lot. He’s got contacts.’ Charles knew that he didn’t need to explain himself but felt compelled to. He yearned for Laurie’s approval with the single-mindedness of a child seeking sweets. She was becoming the centre of his world; the position Lorna had once held.
‘So you believe me? You don’t think that Lorna killed herself?’
‘I don’t know if I don’t believe it or that I don’t want to believe it. Either way, I think it’s worth looking into,’ Charles said cautiously, aware how dangerous it would be to raise Laurie’s hopes only to crush them to dust.
‘Thank you. Knowing that you are on my side, it helps.’ Laurie smiled at him and it was genuine. She looked so hopeless with her makeup smeared and her hair loose and free. Charles felt something stir deep within him as though it were awakening after a period of lying dormant; it was desire.
‘I just … I feel so lost without her,’ Laurie confided, her eyes trained to the floor as she spoke. It was out of character for her to make such a vulnerable admission. Perhaps it was being in the office where Lorna would have been, wearing clothes which she would have chosen, that suddenly made Laurie aware of just how desperately she missed her sister. ‘Until this is resolved I can’t move on. I need to know what happened because a part of me died that day too.’
The compassion Charles felt towards Laurie as she opened up to him welled up inside of him to the point where it felt as though it would come bursting out of his chest.
‘I’m going to look into this as much as I can, I promise you that.’ Charles liked playing the role of the hero. The ability to potentially wade in and rid Laurie of her tears made him feel more powerful and important than his role as Deputy Prime Minister ever had. Her heart was breaking and he was determined to mend it; in his mind there was no greater call to arms.
‘I really do appreciate you helping me.’ Laurie looked up now, locking eyes with Charles, which made his flesh prickle with heat as though his entire body had just caught aflame. ‘I forget that this must be hard for you too.’
As much as Laurie had initially harboured negative feelings towards Charles, he was the only person who was willing to listen to her talk about Lorna. Everyone else, her family, her friends, found it difficult. The resemblance she bore to her deceased sister meant that many people now kept their distance from her, leaving Laurie feeling isolated in her grief. When Charles looked at her, she saw warmth in his eyes, not sadness and pity. Being in his presence was a pleasant respite from the carousel of grief Laurie felt she had been riding upon for the past six months.
‘You just need to be prepared that I might find nothing, that perhaps Lorna did kill herself.’ The words felt bitter, leaving a sour aftertaste in Charles’ mouth, but he felt that he had to say them. He needed to protect Laurie. He felt he had failed one twin, he wasn’t about to do the same thing again.
‘No, you’ll find something. You have to. There is no way Lorna would do something like that. Just no way.’ Even as she spoke, Laurie was aware that she was pinning all her hopes on what was possibly an admin error. Even so, it was hope. And hope was something that Laurie had feared had left her life for good.
Sat across from the Deputy Prime Minister, Laurie began to nervously knit her hands together over and over, the movement distracting her from her own sorrow and from the awkwardness of being in the same room as the man whom her dead sister had indulged in an affair with. Lorna’s weakness had always been men. She had been reluctant to confide in Laurie about the affair, avoiding her twin’s probing questions and lying about her whereabouts.
But Laurie had seen the signs. Lorna was even more cheerful than ever, and would go days without being in touch which was unusual. The only time Lorna was ever not in contact was when she was in the first flushes of love. The real indicator of a man in her life was the designer clothes. Laurie recalled how she had rushed to greet her sister when she had returned home for a weekend from London. She barged into Lorna’s bedroom; the girls had always employed a no-knocking policy, often weaving between one another’s rooms freely, even when the other was away.
Suspicious of a blossoming relationship, Laurie had already scoured Lorna’s room for potential clues but found nothing of note. She felt that she had no choice but to interrogate her sister on a one-to-one basis. There were never any secrets between them; she knew it was only a matter of time before Lorna divulged all the juicy details.
Hindsight is a dangerous thing. Laurie saw now how she liked to live vicariously through her sister. Lorna was the more glamorous, more daring twin. Laurie would hover around her, like a hummingbird over nectar, waiting for the sweet details of gossip beyond the world of their home town.
It was the clothes which Laurie noticed originally. Lorna was busy unpacking, carelessly flinging the contents of her suitcase out onto her bright pink bedspread when Laurie noticed the designer label and squinted in bemusement.
‘Since when can you afford couture stuff?’ Laurie had the garment in her hands and was examining it before Lorna had the chance to retrieve it.
‘It’s a fake,’ Lorna lied, sneakily shoving the few other designer clothes she had with her under the bed.
‘No, it’s not,’ Laurie said after closer inspection. ‘I’m no fashionista but this is real. I’m sure of it.’
‘Honestly, it’s not.’
‘Maybe I’ll go check with mum; she loves labels, she will know.’ Laurie threatened parental intervention, knowing that it would make Lorna confess the origin of the blouse. The twins existed in their own world, without their parents. They once even had their own language. Any arguments they had, they settled themselves. They were a partnership, it was the way it had always been and their mother and father admired and respected the closeness between their two girls and as such always kept their distance.
‘Fine. It was a gift,’ Lorna conceded, the colour already rising to her cheeks.
‘A gift? From who?’
‘A guy.’
‘A guy? Ha! I knew it! I knew you were seeing someone!’ Laurie revelled in her victory, still eyeing the blouse with interest.
‘He must be bloody loaded! How much would something like this cost? Over three hundred pounds I bet!’
‘He’s got money,’ Lorna admitted.
‘Good for you! Who is he?’ Laurie was smiling, enjoying teasing her sister but her face fell when she looked over at Lorna who was staring at her hands, her beautiful features suddenly soiled by sadness.
‘What’s wrong?’ The designer blouse was now discarded as Laurie leapt across the bed and cupped her sister’s hands in hers.
‘I can’t tell you.’ Lorna bit her lip in an attempt to hold back the flood of tears threatening to wash down her face.
‘You can tell me anything.’
‘I know but … this is bad. I don’t want you to judge me.’
‘Lorna I’m your twin sister. I would never, ever judge you. I love you, remember?’
‘I love you too. But please, look, I never meant it to happen. But it did. And I wanted to tell you, more than anything, but I didn’t want you to hate me.’
‘Hate you? Don’t be ridiculous! I could never hate you!’ Laurie wrapped a reassuring arm around her sister, their blonde hair falling together to create one golden mass.
‘I’m sleeping with the Deputy Prime Minister,’ Lorna blurted out, before she lost her nerve.
The silence hung heavy between the two sisters as Laurie absorbed the shocking revelation. She kept her arm around Lorna, not wanting to break their embrace.
‘You know he’s married, right?’ she asked quietly after a few moments had passed.
‘Of course,’ Lorna answered, her cheeks now wet from tears which had stealthily fallen.
‘I hate myself, so much. But I care about him, I really do. If I didn’t, I would never have let things go this far.’
‘Okay, don’t cry,’ Laurie let her sister cry into her shoulder, absorbing her hurt and pain and making it her own. Her love for Lorna was as strong as it ever had been. Whatever mistakes they each made, they had each other to support them through it.
Laurie looked at Charles sat behind his desk and pondered on what Lorna had said that day. Perhaps she really had been devastated when he called off their affair. Maybe there was a possibility that she had been so lost over it all that she had taken her life. No. Laurie would not think like that. She couldn’t. Lorna would never leave her like that; someone must have taken her from her.
‘Did you love my sister?’
The question shot through the air between them, piercing Charles’ skin and stabbing him in the heart. He sat frozen in a shocked silence, unsure how to respond.
‘Lorna – did you love her?’ Laurie asked again, more insistently.
Charles sighed as he attempted to assemble his thoughts. Of course he had loved Lorna, and still continued to, there was no denying that. But he had never declared his love to her, leaving him with no idea how deep her feelings had once run. So now, to admit to her twin the words which he had failed to say to Lorna when she was alive, it felt wrong, like a betrayal. But a part of him resented himself for having never had the courage to tell Lorna how he truly felt. Perhaps now, if he admitted the truth to Laurie, he could start to make peace with that.
‘Yes,’ Charles said quietly. ‘I did love Lorna but …’ his jaw clenched, trying to contain the emotion which was threatening to blurt out all over Laurie. ‘But I never told her that.’
He watched Laurie digest the information, her eyes flitting all over the room, her hands still interlocking with one another.
‘I guessed as much,’ Laurie said at last. ‘To be helping me like you are, you must have really cared for her.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Why did you never tell her?’ Laurie had an innate ability to be incredibly direct with people, not caring for social etiquette or personal boundaries. It was a quality which made some people uncomfortable. As a child, her parents had attributed her constant, often inappropriate, questioning to a mild form of Asperger’s, rather than recognising that their child was just extremely inquisitive.
‘I guess, I guess that the time never felt right. I didn’t want it to be tainted when I told her,’ Charles was voicing feelings he had never even fully addressed with himself and it felt good, cathartic even.
‘So you were planning on leaving your wife for her?’
Charles looked up in surprise at the blunt delivery of such a heavily-loaded question. Laurie was still a stranger to him, despite appearances. But he did trust her; perhaps he was blinded by her resemblance to Lorna, or perhaps he was just in dire need of someone to talk with openly.
Laurie’s eyes were wide and expectant as she patiently awaited a response.
‘I never, I never really thought too much about it,’ Charles stumbled through his answer, the silver-tongued politician replaced by the shy and awkward boy he had been during his school days. ‘But I guess, had I not ended things, that potentially maybe. But I’d have left Elaine naturally, not because of Lorna.’
‘Even though Lorna is gone, are you still going to leave your wife?’
‘Yes, I plan on doing so.’
Charles was shocked by his own honesty. For a long time the thought of leaving Elaine had lurked at the back of his mind but he suppressed it for so many reasons; morality, public image. But within Laurie’s presence he felt freed from those restraints. His marriage was not a happy one and in his heart, he knew that it had to end. Elaine would not take the news well but she would be more than taken care of financially. They both deserved the opportunity to find happiness before it was too late. Charles only wished he’d had the courage to divorce her earlier in his life; it pained him to imagine how different his life might have been, the happiness he might have had.
‘Did your wife know about Lorna?’ Laurie continued to interrogate Charles.
‘No, she did not.’
‘I’m glad that you loved my sister. It means that we both want the same thing.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Thank you for helping me,’ Laurie smiled nervously at the Deputy Prime Minister. She did not enjoy being vulnerable or revealing too much of her own emotions.
‘Everyone else just believes that Lorna killed herself. It’s as if they never knew her at all.’
‘We will get to the bottom of it all, I promise.’ Then, despite the voices in his head screaming at him not to, Charles reached across his desk and grabbed Lorna’s hands. They were cold to the touch yet smooth and soft. The moment their bodies connected he felt his senses once more ignite. But when he looked in Laurie’s eyes, there was not the lust and the longing as there had once been in Lorna’s. Instead, Laurie looked fearful, and Charles realised that a part of him was also afraid, as they each considered just how far they were willing to go to uncover the truth.