Remember Me This Way (29 page)

Zach hated these houses. He thought they were twee. I told him they reminded me of my childhood; he told me nostalgia was a weakness I needed to free myself from. What would he be trying to tell me if he were removing them one by one?

I check the shelf again in case it has fallen over, or slipped behind her books – the Georgette Heyers she used to love when she could still read.

But it has definitely gone.

Zach

November 2011

My head pounds constantly. I’ve stopped sleeping again. I’ve upped the dose. It makes no difference. I am still shaky, on edge. The mood swings are worse. I can’t concentrate. I think it’s the temazepam. Those pills from Kulon – I’m not sure about them. My hand trembles when I hold the brush. I have no energy. My eye twitches. I can imagine placing the paint on the canvas, but I’m paralysed by the anxiety of getting it wrong. So, I just sit, or pace, or shag Onnie when she turns up.

‘How’s your painting?’ Lizzie said last night, in the tone in which you might say, ‘How’s that poor dying baby? Still on dialysis?’ She put her head on one side. She used to plead to see my work, beg me to show her round the studio. She thought I was a genius, a giant. She’s lost all faith in my ability. She has no idea what’s happening in my life.

Is she seeing someone else? She talks about Angus and Pat. I’ve dealt with Angus. Who the fuck is Pat?

I go through her laptop when she’s at work. Nothing in her Internet history yet. No revealing emails. I wonder if she has another account at school. I open all her post and regularly search her bag. No clues. She’s too clever.

She was home late again last night. It rose inside, a hotness, a snake licking at the back of my throat. I pretended everything was OK, let her work out for herself what had upset me. At supper, she got up from the table, took her plate with her and left the room.

I counted to sixty before following.

She was at the table in the sitting room – in the bay window where I moved it. Her plate was empty. The dog was sitting under the table, gazing up at her.

I asked her what she was doing. She smiled and said she could tell she had been irritating me, that she saw me wince every time she chewed and as she couldn’t chew any quieter she thought she would chew elsewhere.

I felt trapped,
managed
. Words streamed out of my mouth. I told her she was a disgrace, the way she made no effort with her appearance. Most wives don’t floss in front of their husbands, I said. They shave their legs, wear make-up, wax. The women at the studios have artificial eyelashes. I told her she had a mole at the top of her cheek and she might think she was plucking out the hairs, but there were others that grew around it like weeds.

‘Who’s Pat?’ I said. ‘Tell me who he is.’

‘You’ve been at the booze,’ she said. ‘When did you start? How much have you had?’

I ranted. Who would blame me for having the odd drink, putting up with what I have to put up with? Stronger men than me would have cracked. Is it any surprise, looking as she does, that I’m her first proper lover? What kind of a mother does she think she’d make? She sat there, not saying anything. A tear dropped on the table and she blotted it with the sleeve of her cardigan.

It was new, that cardigan, cashmere; I had bought it for her myself. A pale green to bring out the flecks in her eyes. All I could think was how little respect she had for me if she didn’t mind wrecking it. I spent some time lining up the photographs on the mantelpiece, wiped some dust from the top of the television. Her knife and fork were placed carelessly at different angles to the plate. I corrected that. Then I looked at her. She was trying to stop crying. I leaned across to stroke her face, but tweaked her nose instead, twisted it hard.

She came to me later and perched on the edge of the mattress, not wanting to touch me, but in the end she lay down. She tried to talk but I didn’t let her. Stopped her mouth with kisses, undressed her, promised never to do it again. My childhood. My past. We are made for each other. Just the two of us. A special bond. No one else has ever understood.

‘Don’t ever leave me,’ I whisper in her ear. ‘If you leave me, you don’t know what I’ll do.’

Downstairs, shut in the kitchen, the dog still barked.

Chapter Eighteen

Lizzie

An empty house – it’s both a relief and a disappointment. If Onnie was a block to Zach’s plan, I would expect him now to show himself. Or for there to be broken crockery on the doorstep. Another smashed window. Another dead bird. Another sign. Nothing.

The dog has come to the door. He is well enough to get up at least. He moves his tail when I stroke him and follows me around the house. I check the sitting room first. It’s as Onnie left it. I do my best to mess it up. I rearrange the furniture, scattering the cushions on the floor. I knock over a chair and leave it on its side. And I lay back down the hideous red and blue rug. There is no coffee stain. She must simply have disliked it.

In the kitchen, I move the kettle back to under the shelf where I prefer it. I pour myself some wine and then I go upstairs to the study. I expect Onnie to have left it tidy, but she hasn’t. The sheets and blankets are rumpled on the floor, the pillows piled on top. I collect it all up and put the linen in the washing machine, then fold the bed back up into a sofa. It’s not until it’s all done that I sit down at the desk, with my glass of wine, to have another go at Zach’s password.

It takes a moment for my brain to catch up with my eyes. The desk is empty.

I look on the floor, on the shelves. I open every drawer.

Am I going mad? Imagining things? The china house and now the
laptop
. Have I started losing time again as I did at the beginning? I check the bedroom, under the bed, downstairs, back upstairs. I look under the desk again.

It was plugged into the socket at the wall.

Has he been here? Has he taken it?

The thought swells and changes colour, fills my head. But then I have an image of Onnie as she left – her loaded rucksack clasped to her chest.

I grab my phone and call her. Voicemail. I leave a message. ‘I know you’ve taken Zach’s laptop. Bring it back immediately.’

I hang up, my hands shaking.

A noise. I lift my head. The door. Not the bell, but a knock. The rattle of the letter box.

I run downstairs.

DI Perivale is standing a few feet back from the door, legs apart, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans.

‘Ms Carter?’ he says. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

I hesitate. ‘No. Not really.’

He tucks a lank of hair behind his ears. He has deep furrows on either side of his mouth. It’s as if they’ve been gouged with a pen. They look like scars. ‘Just wondered if I could have a quick chat.’

I pull the door open. He enters the hallway, stooping unnecessarily. I hold out my arms for his jacket, which he shrugs off. In my hands, it smells of cold air and damp and something chemical. I hang it over the bannister as calmly as I can. We go into the front room.

I pick up the cushions from the floor and lay them back on the sofa, then I return the chair I knocked over to its feet. I sit on it, gesturing for him to sit at the one facing me across the table.

Perivale sits down, looks around the room and then at me. ‘Nice decor,’ he says. ‘Monastic.’

‘Yes.’

‘Interesting colour.’ He strokes the wall. ‘I’m thinking of redecorating. What is it? Off-white? Baby blue?’

‘It’s a pale grey called Borrowed Light.’

He pulls down the corners of his mouth, mock impressed. ‘I’ll have to remember that.’

‘Do you live locally?’ I say, thinking,
What are you here for?

‘Not far,’ he says. ‘Battersea. Other side of Clapham Junction. Winstanley Estate, to be precise.’

‘We lived there when I was little,’ I tell him.

‘Really? I’m told the area is “on the up”. Anyway . . .’ he brings his hands together, as if in prayer ‘. . . I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s not a big thing. Just a niggle, if you like.’

A niggle?

‘Yesterday you asked Morrow to look into the death of a young woman. Charlotte Reid.’

‘Yes. Do you know what happened? She was in an accident. Was it in a car?’

‘I’ll get to that.’ He wipes the tips of his fingers along the table and then taps the wood three times. He looks up at the ceiling. ‘Twenty-fifth of December, 2011. Christmas Day. A Sunday. The police were alerted to a disturbance at this address. A neighbour heard loud noises, barking, screams. When PC Evans arrived on the scene, the woman in question claimed to have fallen down the stairs.’

‘Yes.’

After a moment, he says, ‘OK.’

‘OK,’ I repeat.

His eyes roam the room, look everywhere except at me. I’m trying to keep my gaze level. I’m not going to be drawn on this. I promised Zach. This will only complicate matters. The night Perivale is referring to . . . it was between him and me then, and it’s between him and me now.

‘I’ve been sent on a lot of courses this year. My penance. I wasn’t as efficient with a recent case as I should have been. My instincts turned out to be wrong.’ His eyebrows twitch and his lower lip juts. ‘These courses. Applied Criminology. Specialist Firearms. Advanced Database Usage. Waste of time. A brief secondment with Domestic Violence, on the other hand, part of my gender-equality training – that turned out to be fascinating. When I’ve heard about an abusive relationship, I’ve always thought, like most people I imagine, why doesn’t she, or he, just leave? Do you?’

‘What?’

‘Think that?’

‘Probably, yes.’

‘I’ll tell you why they don’t. They’re often under the illusion that the relationship is somehow “special”. The partner may themselves have been the victim of abuse and the victim may make excuses and feel responsible.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘The victim may also not appreciate the inevitability of escalation. They’re sucked in before they realise. They may even feel as if they deserve it, as if they’re in collusion. For one thing, the threat posed by the abusive partner might not be physical from the beginning. It could be psychological, emotional, financial, sexual . . .’

‘I can see the secondment was useful.’

‘But it always ends up with good old-fashioned violence.’

I want him to be quiet now. I don’t want to have to listen to any more. I smile. ‘I don’t know what this has to do with me.’

‘No,’ he says, blinking slowly. ‘OK.’

‘Is that it?’ I shift to release my hands. Shouts of laughter from the street. A car horn sounds.

‘No.’ He studies me thoughtfully. ‘So – Charlotte Reid. The coroner concluded she slipped. A piece of loose carpet, or, rather, not carpet.
Rush matting
. She lived in a top-floor flat. The stairs were steep and she fell head first to the bottom. Cause of death: craniocerebral trauma. Unfortunately for her, she was alone in the building. Had her neighbours not been on holiday, had she been found earlier . . .’

I shake my head.

‘She was pregnant,’ he adds casually.

I’m unable to speak. I’m gripping the table as if I might fall.

‘Not Zach’s,’ I say eventually. ‘It wasn’t Zach’s.’

‘No. Maybe not. He’s not listed as her partner at the time.’

‘I’m not sure where you’re going with all this.’

He throws his head back and wrinkles up his nose, squinting. Then his whole body contracts again, and he crouches across the table. ‘Am I correct in thinking you told PC Morrow you think your husband faked his own death, that he’s still alive?’

I keep my voice steady. ‘At times, I have thought that, yes.’

‘Were you afraid of him?’

Afraid. How simple that word is. ‘I don’t think it’s any of your business.’

‘OK.’ He stands up, gives a fake stretch. I walk ahead of him to the hall and hand him his jacket. He takes it from me and shrugs it on, digging around at the hem to locate the zip. ‘Lucky escape. Your fall down the stairs, I mean.’

‘I suppose so. Yes.’

At the door, he turns. ‘Forgive me.’ He gives another of his mock courtly bows. ‘I thought I might be able to lay some ghosts, that’s all.’

Zach

December 2011

Am I a bad person? I’ve made mistakes in the past. I never meant to hurt Polly, or Charlotte. I had begun to think that was behind me, that I had a chance to be someone different. But perhaps it is too late. I think too much. Thoughts build until I’m not sure what’s reality and what isn’t. I wish I could escape from my own brain.

Last year, we spent Christmas at Gulls. I had to force her, now I think of it. All those excuses she came up with. It was ‘my sanctuary’. I expect she was already seeing someone else. This year I agreed to be in London. See how nice I can be – how kind, how reasonable, for fuck’s sake. I put my foot down about spending it with Peggy and Rob. It was to be just the two of us, I said. A special time. We’ve had a tricky year. The strains of trying for a baby, the pressures of my work, blah blah. We’d wear our pyjamas, make a fire, hunker down, block the rest of the world out.
Lock down
.

She agreed grudgingly. A long dog walk with Jane – an opportunity for a full-length bitch about me. A heart-rending phone call with Pregnant Peg. Promises of midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and mulled wine on Boxing Day. ‘Would that be all right?’ she said when she finally hung up. Oh, I’ll play along. I’ll go. I’ll smile. Muck about with the kids (‘It’s Uncle Zach!’; ‘Uncle Zach will play football’; ‘Ask Uncle Zach!’). I’ll put my arms around Peggy in the hallway, smile at her, enjoy a lingering look. Discuss the rugby with Rob. Pretend I give a flying fuck. But Lizzie will pay for it later. Silent treatment. A ‘withholding of sexual favours’ (you have to say that with pursed lips). She’ll be on her knees. She’ll learn to deserve me.

Christmas morning.

I opened my eyes, and she was already out of bed, getting dressed. She said she was going to take the dog out, did I want to come? No, I didn’t want to come. I tried to pull her back under the covers, but she drew away.