(2013) Four Widows (29 page)

“I read her text messages, always did. I thought it would burn out, but it didn’t.” He looked bewildered. “It didn’t stop so I had to
make
it stop.”

I still couldn’t speak and this seemed to anger him more.

“He moved to Edinburgh to be nearer
her
, don’t you see?” He circled me. “
You
were never part of the plan.”

People who disappear, run from something or towards something. From someone or to someone. To someone… to someone…

I watched Chris continue to move round the room, dangerous and stealth-like.

“Shocked the hell out of him when I turned up at the pub. Coincidence, eh? I said I was waiting for a friend who never showed. Bet that hit home. We ordered beers–”

“THAT’S ENOUGH,” screamed Gee, coming up for air.

“NO! It was
never
enough, was it?” Chris laughed, dead sound. “It was never enough for
you
.”

Jim took over. “What did Harrison say when he saw you?”

“Not much.
She’d
obviously phoned ahead and said she had to look after Ben. I tell him I’m in the doghouse because I’d arranged a night out without telling Gee.”

“You had some drinks?” questioned Jim.

“Yeah. Cool as you like.”

“You left the pub at the same time?”

“Told him I’d give him a lift back to the hospital. We took his car.”

“You didn’t go to the hospital?”

“Didn’t quite make it. We went… offroad.” He smiled.

There was a grim silence. Gee slid down the wall, hugging her knees.

Chris pushed on. “I had it out with him in the car.”

“You had a fight?”

“We had… words.”

Jim started to ask more questions but was silenced by Chris, who was done with interrogation. “I wasn’t going to let him walk–even if it meant me ending up dead, too. I hated him. I’d rather die than see him break up my life. Take my son. My
wife
.”

I thought about McCarthy’s report
: no brake marks when the car left the road.

“He called her, you know? Screaming down the phone to warn her. You see me, I believe timing is everything–I wait until the car crashes
before
calling my wife. “I need you to pick up the pieces,” I said. “Come and see what you’ve done–”

“Gee?” I found my voice.

“We tried to make it stop,” she whispered, hands over head.

And with that, boom, I detonated.

Nearly all pain can be eliminated
, my father once told me.
The advances of pain control are significant
. Yet, father dearest, despite such pioneering progress, it still hurts so much.

Words explode around us. The sound carries violence: ground-to-cloud lightning strike and it burns hotter than the surface of the sun. Hot enough to fuse sand into glass. There is a forcible change–and my surgeon sociopath sister finally breaks down; years of tears washing into the room. “I tried to resuscitate him,” she cried, thin reed wail.

“You were
there
?
You
dragged him from the car?”

“I dragged him out. To make sure he was dead,” spat Chris.

“Gee.” I demanded her full attention. “You
left
him there?” Bile hit the back of my throat.

“Lori, he was dead.”

“You should
never
have left him. You should have called an ambulance,” I cried, still loving Harrison at this point. “Perhaps…”

“HE WAS DEAD,” she roared. “HE DIED ON IMPACT.”

“But you tried to resuscitate—”

She cut me off. “I had to,” she gasped. “I couldn’t let him go–”

“You let me think it was an accident.”

“It
was
an accident. Chris wanted to intimidate him; make him back off.”

Chris cut in, resolute. “No I didn’t. I wanted him dead. Justice is done.”

“Stop it. Stop lying to me,” I screamed at Gee. “How could you
not
tell me?” I let go of Jim and crossed the room, dragging her to her feet, shaking her ferociously. “How could you let
him,
” I spin round to face Chris, “get in the car with you after… what he did; take him home as though nothing happened?”

Gee didn’t look at her husband. “I did it for Harrison. He never wanted to hurt you. He,
we
, never wanted this. You didn’t need to know–you could have gone on loving him …”

I turned to Jim, helpless. “This is not happening.”

Gee grabbed me by the shoulders, fingers biting into my skin. “Chris threatened to tell you;
that
was the only reason I let him get in the car. I
wanted
to leave him there…” She looked at her husband with such inferno hatred I’m surprised he didn’t burn out before our eyes. “Of course I did.”

“Did you take Harrison’s phone?”

She nodded, head down. “I couldn’t…let you…” I watched her twist her fingers together.

“Tell me you didn’t. Gee?”

“I could have made it go away had
he
not…not…”

“Told me the truth?”

“I wanted to protect you.”

“NO! Don’t you
dare
. You weren’t thinking about
me
… you…” At this point, I couldn’t connect my brain to my mouth; the thousand things I wanted to scream remained in an oxygen bubble above my head.

Chris looked at me. “It was a sign,” he said. “Don’t you see? He died. I lived–a broken collarbone is small price to pay to see justice done.”

I returned his stare. He walks away from a high-impact crash whereas Harrison was killed outright. It was a miracle he survived–I saw the wreckage. But did Chris think this made him the better man? All I see, looking at him standing there, is how there are different kinds of dead.

And why confess now? Questions queued up in my head.

“Did you know she is taking my son away from me?” he roared, on cue. “She steals your husband then she plans to take
my
son.”

He refocused his rage on Gee. “Fuck who you like but you can’t take my son.” His voice broke but he continued, “You think you can go back to London and shut me down–shut me out. I won’t let you.” Flecks of spittle fired out on the tail end of the words. “I will take you down with me–tell the world what we did because you were there, too. You are as much a part of this as I am.” He thrust a fist in her direction, looking as though he wanted to throttle her. “You did this.
You
did. This is
your
fault.”

The roar deafened us, but I had one question that needed to be heard over the noise.

“How long?” I asked.

Gee didn’t answer, instead pointing a finger at Chris, rushing her words. “He phoned me from the bar, told me he was with Harrison.”

She threw Chris a flammable look. “I knew something terrible was going to happen. I grabbed… grabbed Ben from bed and drove…I tried to warn Harrison but he wouldn’t answer his phone.”

“How long?” I persisted.

She paused, breathless. “Harrison was drunk. Didn’t have a clue what was going on; just thought Chris was going to give him a lift back to the hospital. He should
never
have got in the car. What the hell was he thinking?”

It wasn’t a drunken moment of madness on Chris’s part. It was a planned takedown.
There has been an accident
.

Chris shouted her down. “You wanna see a man’s face when he knows it’s game over.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Said he wanted to
talk it over
with me–” He choked on the words.

Gee turned, frantic. “I tried to get there–and almost made it. I saw… I saw the headlights, I saw the lights. Harrison phoned me from the car, told me what was happening, and then Chris was shouting. I stayed on the line, I could hear
everything
,” she gasped. “Harrison was shouting, trying to talk some sense into him–slow down… slow down…”

She sunk to the floor and turned to Chris. “You killed him. It should have been
you
who died, not him.”

“I loved you more than he ever could,” sobbed Chris, covering his face with his hands. “So much it hurts.”

“HOW LONG?” I screamed, feeling Jim’s hand come to rest on my shoulder.

Gee had one last frantic look around the room, possibly to mark out an escape route or call an anaesthesiologist to put her under. I wanted to see her suffer.

“Tell me.”

“Six months,” she said, realising there was no way out.

Ab ovo
. And so we have our beginning.

Silence settles in soft sootiness. I turn into my own shadow; there is nothing to me but darkness. I want to run but remain still, turned to stone, knowing I can crumble like over-fired clay in a moment. One false move and I will be dust.

Chris, arms hanging at his side, seemed to find no comfort from revenge.

Six months.

I had been married to Harrison for one year. Gee had been with him half this time but did he love her twice as much? With this thought,
I wondered if my lungs had collapsed; decreased amounts of oxygen in the blood cause me to feel short of breath. I take smaller breaths and stroke a finger down the zip of my bag–the bag with the gun. Guns. Not one but two. I am broken hearted; armed and dangerous. I am a bullet firing faster than the speed of sound.

Gee refused to look at me and I wanted to blow her apart; I wanted to scream:
“He was mine to love. You had no right to him–he was trying to fix you, not love you
.”

What more might have been said or done, I honestly just don’t know. We heard the front door open as the childminder returned with Ben.

This is what goes through my head: I was almost right for my husband but not quite; whereas my sister nailed it: taller, blonder, better, doctor. The subtle shift in genetics is all it takes. We are the same but we are different.

I wanted to say,
You didn’t even like him
. Then realised how naive this would sound.

We never liked the same guys. Never. These thoughts drilled into my brain.
How did this happen? Why?

Maybe he was trying to fix her, make her happier. Maybe he simply loved her more than he could ever love me.

My supernova sister, an exploding star: once a billion times brighter than the sun, starts to fade before me and I turn my back on her before the lights go out. We walked quietly out of the living room and through the front door without bumping into my beautiful nephew who is asking for apple juice in the kitchen. I couldn’t.

Jim steers me onto the street and I start to shake violently, almost putting cracks in the pavement. He wraps his arms around me and I drag him onto his knees, such is the dead weight inside me. Heartbreak heavier than sandbags, it is strong enough to bring down two grown people on a street. I sound like a wolf howling but can’t stop–God knows what people think. Jim’s arms tighten their grip and he buries his face in my neck, whispering words until I am eventually silent. He misunderstands me, though. I don’t want to be rescued this time: I want to be wrapped in a sailcloth with one, two, three, four cannon balls for weight and given a burial at sea. More weight so I never have to see the surface again. More weight.

How many times, Jim? How many times can you save someone who keeps on falling apart? Sometimes the shipwrecks on the horizon overshadow the sun.

Ab ovo, Ms Walker
. I guess the professor knew Harrison’s personal life was imploding, made worse by the death of Vivienne Roberts.
We are not just surgeons
.

We are not just running away.

The drive back to Edinburgh took forever, perhaps, I guess, because I’m used to Jim driving at breakneck speed whenever I’m in crisis. This time, though, he took his time, careful, cautious with mirror-signal-manoeuvre procedure. He wanted to get me home in one piece–futile exercise when someone is already broken. We didn’t speak although he glanced at me often. I could feel his eyes on me. I kept doing this to him: dragging him into chaos and I didn’t know how to stop.

He didn’t tell me that I was going to be okay, but he did put a call through to Cece. He was bringing me to her house. Didn’t want me to be alone. I wanted to be alone but couldn’t muster protest.

I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t fight. Could only feel a colossal freeze set in; a deep chill running through me for the first time in six weeks of relentless sunshine. I preserved energy and took short shallow irregular breaths. There was numbness in my head I have never experienced before and I can’t even describe what was happening to my heart. On the upside, I had two guns in my bag and didn’t use them. Enough damage done. I thought about it though. Pull the trigger—boom and be done with it.

Chapter Forty Two

Do Not Resuscitate

Jim told me the plan. “You’re not going back to the office. Cece’s waiting for us.”

“Work?” I croaked.

“I’ll cover for you.”

When Harrison died, my reserve generator kicked, ensuring me sufficient power to see me through the crisis. This was different. Chemical pathogens had shut down my nervous system, rendering me useless–I couldn’t go through the motions and pretend I was going to be okay.

Cece took me in, ushered me into her home and granted my one request: a dark room.

I couldn’t eat, and could barely hold down water, pleading with Cece not to force me. I vaguely remember her talking, telling me that she wasn’t going to leave me.

“Go to Ribbons,” I said, weakly. “You need to be at the restaurant. I need to sleep.”

Eventually, we compromised: her housekeeper would be around whenever Cece wasn’t. I wasn’t to be left on my own.

I nodded, numb, knowing that once I got to that spare room, I was never going to leave.

Cool darkness was such a welcome contrast to the churning heat outside. The bedroom at the back of the house looked over a communal garden square, rose-bloomed and quiet. With the blinds pulled right down, no splinter of light could scratch me. I completed the blackout with the sheet pulled over my head.