Black Widow (14 page)

‘So you'll be spending all your spare time on it from here on in, starting now?' I suggested, putting on a pretend frown and mock absent-mindedly tugging open the top button on my nightie.

‘Well, maybe not all my time. And maybe not starting right this second.'

‘Don't park in sight,' said Rodriguez. ‘I need a moment.'

Ali pulled in short of the cottage, a picture-postcard place on the Culloden Road. The nearest neighbour was quarter of a mile away, so if the patrol car was visible from the house through the trees, there would be no ambiguity over who they were here to visit. For that reason, a moment was all she could give him. This woman's husband hadn't come home last night, so seeing a cop car outside would be a very bad sign, and they couldn't leave her hanging.

Hell of a way to end a shift, right enough. They were tired and should have been home hours ago. Ali had stayed on to see it through, and she figured Rodriguez followed suit because he was the new guy. She felt a little sorry for him, that being the case. She could easily have farmed this out to someone else and been home asleep by now; except that if she farmed it out to someone else, she wouldn't have been
able
to sleep. Sometimes it worked that way. There were incidents she dealt with that were merely process, gone from her mind as soon as her involvement was over, and others that she couldn't help but feel a personal connection to.

It was searching Elphinstone's name that did it. She would have been fine if she hadn't done that. She wanted to check whether the man on the driving licence was indeed related to the landowning family the diver mentioned, because that was bound to bring down greater attention on the whole thing and so forewarned was forearmed.

The search results threw up a number of articles about his wedding, which at first she took to be confirmation of his gentrified background, but that turned out not to be the reason his marriage was considered newsworthy by several tabloids and other gossipy sites. It wasn't so much about him as about his wife. She was a surgeon who had been a controversial blogger until running into career-damaging trouble when she was hacked, apparently as revenge for disparaging remarks about hospital IT personnel.

Ali knew the story was being framed in simplistically romantic terms to make it clickbait, but there was an undeniably heart-warming element to Jager subsequently falling for and marrying a hospital IT guy. Making it all the more poignant, she was described as having frequently written about the clock running out on her chances of finding love due to the demands of her career. Friends and colleagues of both were quoted, saying what a miraculous whirlwind romance it had been, and how perfect they seemed for each other.

They had been married less than six months, and now Ali had pulled up a few yards short of their fairytale cottage with news that was going to devastate this woman.

‘You could have said if you wanted to duck this.'

‘I don't. I need a second or two to suit up, psychologically, that's all. Need to get my head in the right place, you know?'

Ali nodded, putting the car in neutral but leaving the engine running. It was good that he had such a firm grasp of the gravity of what they were about to do. Some people could be very distant from it, whether out of self-defence or becoming inured to the whole thing. The worst you could be right now was disengaged.

‘My mum has a friend whose wife got a really late-presenting cancer diagnosis,' she told him. ‘She was only given a few months. What I'll never forget is him saying that sometimes it would temporarily slip from his mind for a few seconds, due to some distraction. Then he would remember again and it was like being punched in the face every time. We're about to punch this woman in the face.'

Rodriguez gave a dry little laugh.

‘I've been literally punched in the face on the job. And I've given the death message before too. If I had the choice of which one to go through again, I'd take the punch.'

‘So why did you volunteer?'

‘Why did you?'

‘Good answer.'

Ali drove the car the final few yards and stopped it in front of the cottage. The front of the plot was bordered by hedges tucked tight behind a low stone wall. At the centre, a small iron gate opened on to a garden path bisecting a tidy lawn on its way to the front door. To the left, a larger set of electronically operated gates barred a driveway leading to a substantial stone-built garage abutting the house.

Ali imagined the thing drawn in coloured pencils on a primary-school desk, curly loops of white smoke emerging from the chimney, curtains with tie-backs on the windows. Wee girls always drew those, even if their own houses had blinds. The flat she grew up in with her mum never had curtains, but blinds never looked cosy in a picture.

Ali rang the doorbell with a firm press, hearing it chime somewhere deep inside. There was no response for a few seconds, no sounds emanating from anywhere within. She was about to press it again when finally she heard footsteps.

The woman who opened it was in a dressing gown. They had called the hospital when they found out where she worked, and been told she had phoned in sick. Ali recognised her from a photo posted online. She was shorter than Ali was expecting, her expression understandably more defensive and severe than in the wedding snap. Her dark hair hung down over the left side of her face, partially obscuring one eye, but from what Ali could see of her features, she looked like she hadn't slept.

‘Dr Jager?'

‘Yes? Can I help you?'

‘I'm PC Ali Kazmi and this is PC Ruben Rodriguez. Can we come inside, please?'

Jager didn't ask what it was about. She stepped away from the door with a certain weary resignation, waiting to close it behind them like she didn't trust Rodriguez to remember. She gestured to a door on the right of the hall, following them into what turned out to be her living room.

It was bright and tasteful but a wee bit spartan to Ali's eyes. She wondered how long Dr Jager had lived here, as it looked like she had only recently moved in. Possibly it was a rental: when Ali first got a place of her own, the landlord was this totally anal creep whose terms barred her from so much as putting a nail in the wall to hang a picture.

Jager stood next to an armchair, her posture shyly self-conscious. Her body was turned sideways and her head drooped, that lock of hair still draped over part of her face.

‘Dr Jager, you should take a seat. We have some bad news.'

This was when you found out who they most cared for, or most feared for: when they asked who you were talking about. Jager, however, still said nothing. She stepped rather awkwardly around to the front of the chair and sat down, still tilting her head. It reminded Ali of half her pals when they were about fourteen, but it didn't seem at all right on a successful professional woman.

‘Your husband's car was found submerged in the river near Ordskirk a few hours ago. We believe it came off the road sometime around two forty this morning. We have had divers searching the river and officers working the banks, but we haven't been able to find him.'

Jager put a hand to her head, a look of confusion on her face. She rather absently brushed the hair briefly clear of her eye, long enough for Ali to notice that there was a mark and some swelling beneath it.

‘You're saying … you think he's dead?'

‘We don't know anything for certain at this stage. Just that his car was at the bottom of the river, and that his phone and wallet were inside it. We haven't given up the search, but it is looking increasingly unlikely that we will find your husband alive.'

Jager fixed Ali with a stare, as though looking right through her. For a moment she thought she was about to be accused of lying.

‘His car came off the road?'

‘That's right. It appears he lost control, according to the witness who called us out.'

Jager stared a moment longer, then something in her seemed to give. Her posture slumped and she let out a soft sigh, as though resigned that this was making sense now.

‘This happened at Widow Falls,' Jager said.

Her tone was odd: Ali couldn't decide whether it was a statement or a question. Either way, she and Rodriguez traded looks. They hadn't told her this.

‘How do you know that, Dr Jager?'

Jager stiffened in her chair, suddenly that bit more alert.

‘You're saying
this
happened at Widow Falls?'

‘Yes, ma'am. How did…'

‘No. I mean, it happened before, nearly: that's what I'm saying. Peter almost lost control of the car on the hairpin bend at Widow Falls. I just … I spent so many times wondering about what might have happened that night, and now you're saying…'

She sighed again, shaking her head. Ali was reminded of a mother who has told off her kid for something and then watched him hurt himself doing it again. It was as though she hadn't quite taken in the scale of this. It wasn't a skinned knee. Nobody could kiss it better.

‘I believe you called in sick today. You look tired. Have you been up all night waiting for him?'

‘No. I thought he was working.'

‘Working? Where?'

‘He has a company … he's working on a software project. Sometimes he likes to work late, occasionally through the night. That's where I thought he was.'

‘And are you all right physically?'

‘I'm okay. I wasn't feeling so good this morning, and when you're a surgeon you can't afford to be spreading infection around theatre.'

‘And what about…' Ali touched her own cheek by way of alluding to the mark. ‘Have you had an accident yourself?'

Jager rolled her eyes in faintly embarrassed self-reproach.

‘Oh, this? So stupid. I hit myself in the face opening a parcel. I was tugging and tugging at this piece of packing tape when suddenly it snapped and I … Never mind. Last night it was the biggest thing I had to worry about. Jesus.'

Rodriguez offered to make tea. Jager seemed reluctant at first, but acquiesced as if she didn't have the energy to argue. Ali couldn't help but develop the impression that she just wanted them out of her house.

‘Is there someone you can call?' Ali asked, once Jager's barely touched tea was way past drinkable. ‘Someone who can sit with you?'

‘Not right now. Maybe later.'

‘You shouldn't be alone.'

‘Looks like I'd better get used to it.'

Ali made a further attempt to insist she contact a friend or relative, but she was rebuffed again, and Jager didn't seem like someone who could be easily prevailed upon, even under these circumstances.

They both got to their feet, Ali stating her reluctant intention to leave.

Rodriguez surprised her by walking over to the window and lifting a framed photograph from the table in front of it.

‘This is quite recent, yeah?'

Jager nodded, like she was barely paying him attention.

‘Do you mind if we take it? We'll scan it and bring it back. It's helpful to have a picture we can give out, to the press or whoever. Saves you from being pestered.'

Jager waved her hand dismissively by way of assent, like it couldn't be more trivial. Ali reckoned they could have asked for the telly and been given the nod if it got them out the door.

In science, they call it the null hypothesis: the search for all the reasons you might possibly uncover that
you are wrong
. They tell you ‘never want it to be true'. Instead, test the evidence to destruction, especially when you have actually found yourself asking: ‘Is this too
good
to be true?' It applies to medicine as it does to any other field, which makes my gullibility all the more embarrassing. My downfall was that I wanted it to be true.

Though it's small consolation, I was far from the first. We do not, cannot, and perhaps should not apply scientific and empirical principles to matters of the heart, other than those matters falling within the magisterium of cardiology. Let's be realistic: who wants to go looking for proof that they are wrong when they think they have found love?

Nonetheless, there is a difference between seeking out contrary evidence and ignoring it when it is right in front of you. There must have been signs there all along, I'm sure everyone will say, employing that unfailingly accurate instrument we surgeons call the retrospectoscope.

It looks very different at the time, particularly when the time is past your fortieth birthday and you fear you're running out of chances. Don't judge unless you've seen it through that perspective for yourself. Even now I can't fully comprehend the dynamic that is at work there. Do you edit things out when you find a decent prospect at this stage in life because you desperately want to convince yourself it will work? Or do you see the problems with your partner but simply decide that they're not deal-breakers? Do you tell yourself that perhaps these are the compromises people learn over time in successful marriages, and you are exercising the wisdom to fast-forward?

I still don't know, but I do know this much: one classic mistake I
didn't
make was telling myself that if there were things about Peter I wasn't happy with, I could change him once we were married. He made me believe I had already changed him. My folly was not in thinking that the person who proposed to me was perfect, but in believing all the apparently perfect things about him were real.

They were the best days of my life. Who wouldn't want that to go on for ever? I kept waiting for it to fall apart, or for it to at least show signs of strain somewhere, but they never arrived. I'm sure there were many ways in which we were on our best behaviour, anticipating the things that might cause friction, but there has to come a point when that gives way and you either become comfortable with each other's foibles or it's the beginning of the end.