Black Widow (25 page)

The witness who also said she was going to the garage to get Calpol, Ali thought: the witness we now can't find.

Lynne made a face.

‘Rear-wheel-drive vehicle like this, there's a danger of fishtailing if you over-compensate in a dramatic steering correction. I'd still expect to see
some
evidence of skidding.'

Lynne opened the driver's door, affording Ali a clearer view inside. There was a musty smell, sediment coating the floor, the seats and the material of the deflated airbags. It looked like the dashboard had been sick. Ali now understood why Lynne was in overalls: it wasn't always about protecting the evidence from contamination by the forensic tech, but sometimes the other way around.

‘You couldn't take this one down the local car-wash and expect a full valet job for twenty quid,' Lynne said.

She climbed inside and sat behind the wheel.

‘As you can see, both airbags deployed upon impact with the water. The car flooded and became submerged. The driver may have accelerated this process by opening the door in a panicked attempt to get out. What we do know is that he did get out at some point, either by opening the door once the pressure equalised or through the window, which was rolled down. In the latter case he was lucky that the electrics didn't short out before that, but I suppose under the circumstances “lucky” is not the appropriate word.'

Lynne talked them through some more details regarding the state of the interior. Most of these were obvious to the untrained eye, but that wasn't why Ali had stopped listening. She was looking at Lynne, tucked neatly behind the steering wheel, and was reminded of Rodriguez earlier that day, sliding the seat back to accommodate his greater height.

‘Nobody's adjusted this seat, have they? I mean, could it have been moved as a result of the retrieval process?'

‘No. These things are designed to stay in place even in a crash. They won't move unless you release the lever.'

‘How's the position for you if you were driving? Can you reach the pedals okay?'

‘Fine, yeah. A wee bit close, if anything.'

‘What height are you, Lynne?'

‘I'm five foot three. Why do you ask?'

‘Because Peter Elphinstone was five nine.'

I tried to convince myself to let it go, that I was doing myself no favours by allowing this to grow in significance in my mind. As you're taught in medical school, when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras. This didn't have to mean all that I was worrying it might. Besides, did I really want to admit to myself what the worst-case explanation entailed? Because the moment I did was the moment I had to start living in that reality, that version of my marriage.

I couldn't bring myself to broach the subject with him, partly out of fear of what I might learn and partly because of the arguments we already had over trust. It was eating away at me though, so I called him on the office number the next time he was working late.

‘Hello?' Peter answered, sounding surprised to be disturbed this way, before the caller had even identified herself.

‘It's me.'

‘Is something wrong?'

‘Em, no. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to call. I hit the wrong button on my phone.'

‘Okay.'

I realised afterwards that this gambit was as futile as it was pathetic: Peter probably had the office landline set to divert to his mobile when he wasn't in anyway, so he could have been anywhere. I thought I heard music in the background. Did he play music while he worked? He didn't when he was working at home. Did that mean he was somewhere else? I came close to getting into the car and driving past the office to check he was there, but it felt too overt an act. I told myself this isn't me. This isn't who I am and this isn't what we are.

But not all acts are so overt, or require the level of agency that makes you feel you are crossing a line. Some acts can be a matter of omission. That is where true temptation lies when one is in a state of suspicion, and I did something unworthy, whose dividend was also its punishment.

It was the following Saturday morning when the phone rang. Peter didn't hear it at first because he had headphones on, sitting in his office playing some game on the computer. He usually left the phone for me to answer anyway, as most of the calls to the landline tended to be for me.

I picked it up on a handset in the kitchen and heard a confident, cultured male voice that sounded familiar and yet tantalisingly hard to place.

‘Oh, hello, I assume I'm speaking with Dr Jager?'

‘That's right. What can I do for you?'

‘Well, firstly, you can very kindly forgive me for my rudeness when we were previously introduced. This is Hamish Elphinstone.'

‘Oh.'

‘I was not at my best, given the circumstances, though that is not to make excuses.'

Except you just did, I thought, resisting the easeful temptation to be politely reassuring.

‘Relations in our family have been … a trifle complicated, particularly between myself and Peter. I allowed my feelings to get the better of me that day, and for that I apologise.'

‘It was your wife's funeral.'

I chose my words carefully. It was as much an acceptance as he was going to get, particularly as I noted that he still hadn't acknowledged my status as his daughter-in-law.

‘That's very decent of you.'

His reply inferred a response I hadn't actually given. That was the aristocracy for you: they assume a version of the world and then proceed as if it were true.

‘Now, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to speak to Peter, if that's possible.'

‘I'll go and see.'

I deliberately left the outcome ambiguous. I had absolutely no way of knowing how Peter was going to respond.

I pushed the Mute button with my thumb and knocked on the door. Peter turned in his swivel chair and slipped one headphone off.

‘It's your father on the phone.'

He looked surprised, confused and then rather grim, all in the space of half a second.

‘I'll take it here.'

Peter lifted the handset that sat in a charging dock next to the modem router.

It was as he turned away again, rotating in his chair that I realised what an opportunity was dangling before me. My thumb was still on the Mute button in the handset I held.

‘I'll leave you to it,' I said, closing the door as I withdrew.

I knew I should press the red button to disconnect, but I also knew that as long as I kept it muted, Peter wouldn't be aware that I was listening in.

I justified it to myself in any number of disingenuous and morally contorted ways, but my thumping heart was proof that I knew it was wrong. It was beating hard with anticipation and with the fear of somehow getting caught. I had kept the phone muted so that neither my breathing nor the sound of background echo gave me away, but I imagined Peter would have heard the cadence in my chest if I hadn't gone all the way to our bedroom at the far end of the hall.

Initially I feared the extension had automatically disconnected when he picked up, as I was met with silence. I'm not sure whether Peter was making Hamish wait or preparing himself to speak.

‘Hello,
Daddy
.'

His father ignored the sarcasm. His tone was stiff and formal. He was like a cabinet minister giving a statement about an unpopular but obstinately maintained policy. There was no attempt at small talk, no query after his son's well-being, his new progress into married life.

‘Peter. I feel it's your right to know that Cecily and I are engaged to be married. We are planning our wedding for the spring of next year.'

‘So should I check the post for an embossed invite?'

His father's patient silence said they both knew the answer to this question.

‘Why spring? Do the etiquette manuals stipulate a statutory minimum time after your first wife is cold before you can marry again without anyone's moral disapproval?'

‘I am doing you the courtesy of informing you, Peter.' Hamish sounded stoic and unrattled. ‘I am not looking for your blessing.'

‘I appreciate it. To be honest, I'm surprised you and Cecily didn't announce it at the funeral while you had everyone assembled. I'm sure all Mum's relatives were in no doubt that you were already shagging her, so they'll appreciate this concession to propriety.'

‘Your mother's relatives understood our situation a lot better than you did.'

‘Yes, no doubt it was a great comfort to them knowing that you weren't alone of an evening while she wasted away down the hall.'

For the first time, Hamish sounded a little testy.

‘Well, none of us gets to choose the circumstances under which we fall in love, do we?'

His tone remained measured but the temperature was unmistakably hotter.

‘I didn't think you were interested in who I fall in love with, Father. I got
married
, remember?
I have a wife
. You may recall being an utter thundercunt towards both of us when I introduced you recently.'

‘I apologised to her for that a moment ago, but it was my earlier apology that remains most pertinent. She has no idea what she's got herself into. If you had any honour you'd … well, that's it precisely, isn't it? If you had any honour we wouldn't be having this conversation.'

‘You know nothing about Diana or about who I am these days. There's only two of us – for now – but this is what a real family looks like. We are husband and wife, and sooner or later you'll have to face the truth of that.'

I felt ten feet tall, wanting to go and hug him but aware that I couldn't, as I'd have to confess why.

Then I heard Hamish sigh.

‘This doesn't change anything, you being with this woman: you being
married
,' he added with scornful distaste. ‘It didn't work the last time and it won't work now.'

When you're feeling scared and vulnerable, you go back to what you know, so once again I immersed myself in work. I tried not to dwell on the irony. I used to worry that my job was an impediment to having a healthy and satisfying home life. Now it had become a haven where I could retreat
from
my home life.

I realised that I was spending longer talking to certain of my colleagues than to my husband, and the conversations were more open too. I had a heart-to-heart with Calum, and learned that his marriage wasn't without its complications either. His wife Megan was a registrar too, working in paediatric medicine down in Carlisle. It was a difficult but common arrangement among married junior doctors: spouses often had to take training positions at different ends of the country, particularly after the implementation of the disastrous ‘Modernising Medical Careers' trainee-placement system. It was a matter of toughing it out with their eyes on the long term; the crucial thing was to find consultant posts in the same city when the time came.

As a consultant it is incumbent to take an interest in the trainees' welfare, but to be honest it was a distraction to listen to someone else's worries and preoccupations. Work was the only place where my mind was sufficiently occupied as to keep it from obsessing over the answers I needed to the questions I could not ask.

Had Peter been married before? And if so, why hadn't he told me? Why hadn't
anyone
told me?

I clung on to his defiant words to his father about acknowledging our marriage, about us being a family, but they were constantly undermined by the thought that they were no more than that: defiant words to his father. Why was Sir Hamish so scornful of the very notion of us being married when it was an incontestable fact? And why had he sounded so arch when he made that remark about not choosing the circumstances under which we fall in love?

I was in danger of driving myself mad with this stuff. It was no way to live, and I knew I couldn't go on like this. Either I must have it out with him or I should lay my fevered imaginings to rest, but neither of those seemed an easy or tempting prospect. I couldn't ask him about his conversation with his father because it would be to confess to my own deceit and distrust, yet at the same time, Peter's behaviour remained perplexingly secretive.

Every time I ventured into his den, he would hurriedly pull his laptop closed, concealing the screen from view and automatically putting it into sleep mode.

‘You know, you should really knock before you come in here,' he snapped at me one time.

I had only come in to bring him a coffee and one of the wholemeal muffins I had gone to the trouble of baking so that he wasn't snacking on supermarket cupcakes. This was the thanks I got.

‘Why, Peter? In case I catch a fleeting glimpse of some impenetrable machine code? Who is even going to know? Do the investors have cameras in here? Or is there something else on that laptop that you don't want me to see?'

‘Like what?'

‘I don't know: that's the point. I never see you so much as read your email or browse Facebook if you think I might be reading over your shoulder. Not everything on there can be covered by the fucking NDA. You're acting like you've got something to hide.'

‘Maybe you should take a step back and have a look at what
you're
acting like, Diana. The road from legitimate suspicion to rampant paranoia is very much shorter than we think.'

‘Well I suppose if it's rampant paranoia to wonder why you keep hiding your computer screen, then it must have been legitimate suspicion back at the beginning of the journey when you lied to me about where you'd been all evening.'

It came out before I could stop myself; or maybe I no longer wanted to stop myself.

‘When?'

He stiffened in his seat. I couldn't decide whether he looked shifty or taken aback.

‘A couple of weeks ago. I finished late and came by your building. I was going to take you to dinner, but you weren't there. Then when you showed up back here at about eleven, you said you'd been in the office the whole time. Sorting out a server crash,' I reminded him, my tone dripping scepticism.