To have any chance of suppressing this vile pornography, Martha needed to know who the man in the pictures was. At one time she could have clicked her fingers and Alex would have identified him within minutes. But …
She needed to be resourceful.
So she picked up the phone, spoke to Curtis Thatcher and described the man in the pictures, without giving away any detail. ‘Do you know of anyone fitting that description?’
‘No.’ He sounded puzzled. ‘It certainly doesn’t sound like Lewinski.’
‘I didn’t think it fitted his description.’
‘Do you think it’s important? Does it have any bearing on Gina’s …’ His voice tailed off.
‘It might. I think so. I have some photographs of them together.’ No need to enlarge.
He was hesitant for a moment, as though thinking. Then he added, ‘She did have a couple of funny phone calls in those last few days. She’d shut the door so I couldn’t overhear. But that’s not unusual. Clients have a right to privacy. I didn’t intrude.’ And Martha could hear his regret, that maybe he should have done, that maybe that intervention could have saved her life.
How?
The word stumped in angrily and clumped away down the corridor of regret.
When she had seen the pictures Gina had known, as Martha understood now. Her life was over. It wasn’t just the pictures – it was that lascivious look of relish, captured so graphically, that had made her face look so dissolute, so debauched. Yet recognizable. The horrible, tacky scraps of material, a bra with holes for the nipples, a G-string. Cheap, nasty. The barrister’s wig. Those pictures, she knew, would have flashed around social media quicker than the speed of light, circumventing the world in the time it took to blink an eye, making her a pariah to everyone. The Have you seen …? which lasts for a minute and the 100,000 shares which ensures it lasts a lifetime.
Her mood was sober as she put the phone down. It immediately rang again. And the voice was so familiar it made her heart skip.
‘Martha.’
‘Alex?’
They spoke simultaneously.
‘How are you?’
‘I’m sorry about your wife.’
It was Alex who put the conversation back to one-to-one rules. ‘I’m all right, thank you.’ But there was a distance in his voice that had never been there before – even in their early days of working together. It was as though moss had grown over a wall, concealing the stones and the cracks between, smoothing over rough surfaces with polite exchanges.
‘I understand that you made a suggestion to Mark Sullivan.’
‘I did.’
Silence.
‘It appears you were right.’
One of the times when she could feel no joy in being right.
‘I …’ He couldn’t say it, instead switching subject. ‘The funeral’s next Thursday.’ A pause. ‘I don’t suppose many people will attend. Erica didn’t have many friends.’
And because Martha had so much she wanted to say to him she continued on the same vein. ‘No family?’
‘Her mother, of course. Her father left years ago. I don’t have contact details for him. A sister who couldn’t stand her and two elderly grandparents who are so demented they probably wouldn’t know whose funeral they were attending.’ It was an attempt at a joke. ‘Erica was tricky, you know.’
‘Yes – you’ve said.’
‘It wasn’t her fault.’
‘No.’
Alex briefly cleared his throat. It sounded an apology for what he was about to say next. ‘This is so difficult. I wish we could speak face-to-face. I’m no good on the phone.’
Martha paused before responding. She had so much to say to him and similarly felt she could not speak. When she did find the words they were the wrong ones. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to meet up, Alex. Not right now, anyway. I mean, our …’ She stumbled over the word but blundered on regardless: ‘Friendship. That was the reason I asked David Steadman to look into Erica’s death and handle the inquest. It wouldn’t have been fair.’ It burst out of her then. Unrehearsed, spontaneous, heartfelt. ‘I couldn’t have been impartial, Alex. You must know that.’
The silence on the other end was thick as velvet.
And now she didn’t know what to say. Oh, fuck, she thought. When did life and relationships get so bloody complicated?
Finally he spoke. Or at least cleared his throat. ‘Umm. This is difficult for me, Martha. I wish …’ His voice was gruff.
What do you wish, Alex? Could she have coaxed it out of him?
She sensed whatever it had been, he was not going to say it. Maybe never would now.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘sorry about everything.’ And he put the phone down, leaving her reflective. She couldn’t pretend there was nothing between them, nor did she want to. It had been a long time since Martin had died and she had largely been content on her own, focusing on bringing up the twins. But now she felt a fierce longing to be with Randall, and it hurt because the murky waters that lay between them were never going to clear.
And if, as he seemed to have hinted, her hunch was indeed right and Mark Sullivan had proved it, those waters, murky as they were, could get a whole lot murkier.