‘I have to kill you, you know that, right?’
‘Erm, no, I don’t know that, actually. Why would you do that? Who are you?’
‘It should have been you. I should have killed you instead of him. If you were gone, I could have supported him through it and been there for him. He would have fallen in love with me. We would have been together properly, then.’
‘I thought he already did love you. That’s what you said in your letters. You were lovers.’
‘He did love me.’
‘He just had no clue that he loved you or that you were lovers, right?’
Her body jerks forwards, ready to cross the kitchen and use the knife on me, but she restrains herself, holds herself back because she has more to say.
Time is almost up, I think. Aunty Betty will be calling Fynn and the police any second now.
‘This is all your fault. He would be alive if it wasn’t for you.’
‘That’s what his parents think,’ I say. ‘They think if he hadn’t met me he would have gone on to marry some nice woman who would have made him become a doctor or something and he’d still be alive. I feel sorry for you thinking like his parents.’ I hear Phoebe say in my head, ‘Do you even know what you sound like when you say things like that?’
‘You don’t think I’m going to kill you.’ She snarls a smile at me and I know she’s going to do it. I’ve run out of time. This wait is over.
‘You’re not going to,’ I say. ‘I don’t think you killed Joel, and I know you’re not going to kill me.’
‘How did I get his back door key, then?’ My heart jerks to a standstill, my breath snags in my chest.
She takes a small but definite step forwards. ‘How do I know the knife was twisted before it was dragged across his stomach?’
I clamp my painful teeth together as a barricade against her words, I don’t want to hear this.
Another step. ‘How do I know that he was left on Montefiore Road because there is no CCTV on it or any of the surrounding roads?’
‘I don’t want to hear this,’ I state through my gritted teeth, my eyes aflame with dry, outraged tears.
Step. ‘How do I know that he thought he’d lost his phone? But really, when he took his daughter into the school, he left it in my car. So I turned it off and kept it.’
‘I don’t want to hear this.’
Step. ‘You don’t want to hear that I wanted him to come to my house and I even drove us there? But he didn’t want to come in, just wanted to pick up his car.’
‘No. I don’t want to hear it.’ I cannot hear this.
Step. ‘You don’t want to hear that I dropped him off to pick up his car but I knew he’d work out where his phone was, so he’d come back to my house to get it?’
‘I … I don’t want to hear this. Please stop talking.’
Step. ‘You don’t want to hear that even though we were alone he still wouldn’t admit there was something between us? He was still saying what you told him to say.’
Step. She is almost at the blackberry stain.
‘Please. Just stop. I don’t want to hear any more.’
Step. ‘You don’t want to hear any more? You don’t? What about me? What about how much he hurt me by saying all those things to me because you told him to? We could have been so happy but he had to keep saying those things to me.’
Step. ‘I wanted him to understand how much I hurt. How it felt to be humiliated once in public and then again in my own home. So I showed him. With this.’ A brief wave of the knife.
Step. ‘He understood all right.’
Step. And she is there on the stain; she is where it all started for me. ‘It would have been fine, he’d be alive right now if it wasn’t for you. He persuaded me, even when he was bleeding all over the place, to take him to the hospital, saying he wouldn’t tell them what I did.’
Step. She is closer to me now. So very close. ‘And in the car he tried to send you a message. That’s why I stopped and dragged him out. Left him there with his mobile out of reach because he didn’t deserve to live if all he’d want was you. What’s so special about you?’
‘I can’t hear any more of this,’ I tell her. It’s enough. What she has told me is enough. Any more and she will not be able to go for me because I will go for her. I will kill her.
Step. Three more steps and she will be close enough to stab me – and I’ll be close enough to put my hands around her neck. ‘The last thing he did was to type a text to you saying “Love you xxxxx” that he never got to send because the thought of him doing that when I was the one trying to save his life was one insult too far.’
‘You didn’t have to do that to him.’ The words tumble out through my clenched teeth. ‘You didn’t have to kill him.’
‘No, I didn’t. But I do have to kill you.’
Her hand gripping the knife comes up, her face twists with a type of rage I’ve never seen before and the back door explodes as it is kicked open. Suddenly, brutally, the world around us is alive with an unsynchronised chorus of voices shouting, ordering, screaming at the same time: ‘STAY WHERE YOU ARE!’ ‘PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!’ ‘DROP YOUR WEAPON, NOW!’
All at once, Trainee Detective Clive Malone is in front of me, putting himself between me and the woman who is wide-eyed, shocked and furious at what is happening around her. He wants to be a barrier between us in case she decides to ignore all the warnings and lunges for me.
She won’t, though. This has taken her too much by surprise. ‘PUT THE KNIFE DOWN! NOW!’ someone screams again, and her eyes scowl her hatred at me as she slowly raises her hands above her head like they do in the movies and then drops the black-handled chef’s knife. It clatters as it hits the floor and creates a small nick, not far from the stain, on one of the tiles – another scar on the skin of my life. Another mark to remind me, this time, of where it ended, where this circle came around to meet and complete itself.
We stare at each other as they handcuff her.
‘Did you really think I’d let you get away with what you did to Joel, to me, to Phoebe, to my family?’ I say to her. ‘Did you really think that I’d let you come into my house, my home, to destroy me and not fight back? You really are deluded, aren’t you? Pathetic and deluded.’
She surges forward but is held back by the small male officer to her left and the tall female officer to her right. We continue to glare at each other as the officers inform her of her rights and take her away. Even as she is led out of the door she continues to twist her head to glower at me until her head will not go any further around to finish visually eviscerating me.
‘You did so well,’ Clive Malone says to me, now able to face me because I am safe from her. ‘We’ve got a full confession which, as I said, means Phoebe probably won’t have to testify. If we can get her to plead guilty, it’s unlikely anyone will ever know about Phoebe seeing her that day. That must have been an awful experience for you to go through, but you got us exactly what we needed. You’ve done so well.’
4 days ago (May, 2013)
‘Mrs Mackleroy, can you tell us for the tape in your own words what happened?’ Clive Malone said. He sat beside another, older uniformed police officer who could not look more bored if he tried.
‘Eighteen months ago my husband was murdered,’ I began. ‘Everyone thinks I’ve been coping so well. But they have no idea of the things I have done to keep myself going. And then six weeks ago my fourteen-year-old daughter asked her headmaster to tell me she was pregnant. A boy she knew confessed that he was the father, but I knew it had to be someone older, more worldly wise who had manipulated her to not use contraception. And that week, I got the first letter from my husband’s killer. She’s been writing to me for six weeks now. I know who she is because my daughter saw her with my husband on that day. The day my husband was killed.
‘She’s been watching me, I don’t know how long for, but she tried to break into my house, she’s vandalised my car more than once and started to spread rumours
about my daughter.
‘I found out today who the man who has been sexually grooming my daughter is and I knew what I had to do. I had to get myself legitimately and publicly arrested so that I could tell you this. That’s why I smashed up his car and made some over-the-top speech – every word I believe, by the way – so I could get here. I couldn’t tell you this in the cells because I don’t know who could be listening. I don’t know who she knows. I’m taking a risk even with telling you this, but I have no choice. I think she’s going to try to kill me in the next few days because when I’m not at the hospital, I’ll be alone in the house.
‘I am begging you to do nothing to investigate her for the next few days. I am begging, begging, begging you to let me carry on as normal so she thinks I haven’t said anything and she won’t disappear and she won’t try to hurt anyone else in my family. Maybe when I’m at the hospital you could get someone to watch my house to see if you can spot her going there to leave a letter and then you’ll be able to arrest her.
‘That, in my own words, is what happened. I wouldn’t normally behave violently, but I don’t want to die and leave my children and I do want her to leave me alone and to be put on trial for killing my husband.’
They were both silent after I finished speaking. That wasn’t what they expected to hear and because of that, they had nothing to say. And neither did I. So the three of us sat in silence for a full five minutes before Clive Malone uttered, ‘Oh.’
*
‘He’s not coming back, is he?’ I say to Clive Malone. I knead the base of my thumbs into the inner corners of my eyes, the site of my pain, the place where I am about to cave in. ‘All this time I’ve been trying to keep him alive, I’ve been clinging on to every little thing of his that I can because I convinced myself he was coming back. And he’s not. He’s not coming back.’ My legs refuse to hold me upright now that I’ve been struck with this news, this reality. ‘He’s not coming back. I’m never going to see him again.’
No matter what I do, what I say, how I behave, I’m never going to see him again.
Clive Malone stands in front of me and acts as a shield to the police officers who are slowly leaving the room. The realisation continues to rise up from my cells, my bones, my blood where I’ve always known and accepted this and starts to diffuse into my muscles, into my organs, into my mind, into my memory.
I am never going to see him again because he is never coming back.
When I am alone except for Clive Malone, my human shield, I start to scream. Real screams, the kind I’ve never been able to do because I’m usually surrounded my colleagues, or children, or friends or the world.
I can do this now. I have to do this now.
I have to empty all of the silent screams out into the air, I have to make them real and loud because the love of my life is never coming back.
XII
WOMAN ARRESTED FOR MURDER OF BRIGHTON FATHER OF TWO
A woman has been arrested in connection with the 2011 fatal stabbing of Joel Mackleroy. The thirty-five-year-old woman from Ramonant Road in Hove was detained yesterday morning on suspicion of murdering the popular father of two from Brighton. A police spokesman confirmed that the woman will also be facing multiple other charges including harassment, criminal damage and attempted murder. ‘We have in custody the person we believe to be responsible for this crime as well as several others. We will be able to reveal more as our investigation continues,’ the spokesman added.
From the Brighton & Hove Evening News
LXIII
‘Please don’t do that again, Saff,’ Fynn says to me at the front door. He has borrowed a friend’s people carrier to drive us back from the hospital, one day later than intended because forensics were still working on our house the day we were meant to return and I needed to buy a new back door.
Fynn still won’t look at me. He’s been visiting Phoebe every day, he insisted on driving us all home, but I am a trigger for his pain and because of that, he won’t look at me. He doesn’t realise how awful it is when a person you love purposely refuses to see you, even if you’re right there in front of them they pretend that the space you occupy is blank. Vacant. He doesn’t realise that literally blanking me cuts me up inside as much as his refusal to be around me.
‘Don’t do what?’ I ask.
‘What you did with the police and didn’t tell any of us. The woman killed Joel, she’s incredibly dangerous. If she’d … Just don’t, OK? I’ll wring your neck if you put yourself at risk like that again. Is that clear?’
‘Crystal. And, Fynn?’
‘Yes?’ he replies.
What I want to say is: Did you know Joel isn’t coming back? ‘Don’t call me Saff any more,’ I say.
His gaze focuses on me now, a mass of confusion beneath the ridges of his frown. ‘Why not?’
‘Only my friends call me Saff. You don’t want to be my friend any more, so stop doing things only a friend would do.’
I watch Fynn swallow at a lump in his throat and he lifts his head slightly as examines me, scrutinising my face to see if I’m serious.
What I want to ask is: When did you realise he wasn’t coming back? Do you feel as hollowed out as I do now that you know it’s for ever? ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask. ‘Aren’t I playing this role properly? Am I supposed to quietly accept you ending our friendship and put up with you blanking me?’
‘It was you who—’
What I want to utter is: Does this desolate feeling get any better? Because you said I’d learn to live around the pain and I am, but what about this desolate, hollowed out barrenness? Will that ever go? ‘It was me who wanted to talk but you refused,’ I utter.
He lowers his tone: ‘Talk about what? I’m just a friend to you. What we shared was just sex. What is there to talk about?’
What I want to beg is: I just need to know this will get better and that everything is going to be all right again. ‘Please, you know it’s not that simple,’ I beg.
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ he tells me.
‘There is.’
He shakes his head. I know why he won’t talk. It’s for the same reason that I won’t verbalise all of those feelings: the thought of the pain the answers will bring is too much to withstand; and I’m not the only person who will go out of their way to avoid pain, Fynn does it too. ‘I won’t call you Saff again,’ he states.
‘Fine,’ I reply. ‘That’s perfectly fine.’
I have to walk away before he steps out of the door and clicks it shut behind him. I can’t watch him walk away again. He keeps doing it and it hurts a little more every time, especially now it is certain I can’t rely on him any more to be the one to tell me it’ll all be OK.
*
Phoebe is installed on the sofa under her seaside scene duvet, plump white pillows propped behind her and the silver remote control firmly in her hand. Zane, who has barely left her side since his return two days ago, sits with his back against the sofa by her head, so they’re as close as possible. Aunty Betty is dozing in the armchair in the bay window. It’s been a very tiring few days in the hospital, I don’t think she knew she had it in her. She’s now volunteered to become a hospital visitor and to find funding for and to run a mobile book-lending service. She’s planning on starting it with the books she has in storage but it essentially means I’ll be funding it and taking her to and from ‘work’, as she calls it.
For the first time since I’ve known her she has gone several days without wearing a wig. Even when she was in hospital with a broken hip, by the time visiting hours came around she had her wig in place and some basic make-up on. Now, her chin-length hair is combed out and frames her face like wispy grey-streaked black clouds. She looks like a different person, even though she still has her eye make-up and lipstick. She’s stopped hiding behind her make-up, I’ve realised these past couple of days, now she wears it to enhance her features, not to disguise them. Aunty Betty is finally ready to face the world, it seems.
/> At this moment, her head is thrown back, her mouth is wide open, her teeth with their patchwork of grey-black fillings are exposed to the entire room. She doesn’t quite fill the brown leather seat, not like Joel used to. That was ‘his’ chair and once upon a time I would have encouraged her to move by saying she would be more comfortable elsewhere. Now, I simply leave her. It doesn’t matter if she sits there now, he’s not coming back. He won’t sit there again. He really is gone.
‘Who wants a cup of tea/hot chocolate/coffee/apple juice – delete wet substance as appropriate?’ I ask.
A resounding silence is my reply.
‘Fine, I’ll take care of myself,’ I say.
‘OK, Mum,’ Phoebe says.
‘It’s going to be all right, you know, Mum?’ Zane says suddenly and unexpectedly.
I frown at my son.
‘It is, you know,’ Phoebe adds with a nod.
‘Right.’ I glance at Aunty Betty, expecting her to add something equally poignant. She snorts a little snore at us.
The kids crack up and I find my own smile.
It’s going to be all right, you know, Mum. I hear those words for the rest of the day. And when I climb into bed that night, I don’t simply look over at Joel’s side of the bed, I spread myself over it, I try to touch both sides of the bed by stretching my arms right across.
It’s going to be all right, you know, Mum.
My fingers don’t come anywhere near each side, but I keep at it, I pull myself apart as far as I will go because I am desperate to touch the sides. I am desperate to do the impossible. Because it seems impossible that it’s going to be all right. That life will work when he’s not coming back.
I finally give in, stop stretching myself, stop attempting the impossible and I am still.
I am still and listen to those words again: