Sister: A Novel (27 page)

William came back with the milk. I wanted to confide in him, it would have been a relief to share what I knew, but instead I stirred my coffee, and saw my ring. I should have given it back to Todd.

William must have noticed it too. ‘Quite a rock.’

‘Yes. Actually I’m not engaged any more.’

‘So why are you wearing it?’

‘I forgot to take it off.’

He burst out laughing, reminding me of the way you laugh at me, with kindness. No one but you ever teases me that way.

His bleep went off and he grimaced. ‘Usually I have twenty minutes to get to the emergency. But the juniors on today need more hand-holding.’

As he got up his gold wedding ring, hanging on a chain around his neck, swung out from beneath his scrubs top. Maybe I signalled more than I intended.

‘My wife’s in Portsmouth, a radiologist,’ he said. ‘It’s not easy finding jobs in the same city let alone the same hospital.’ He tucked the ring on its chain back inside his top. ‘We’re not allowed to wear a ring on a finger - too many germs can fester underneath. Rather symbolic, don’t you think?’

I nodded, surprised. I felt that he was treating me differently than I’d been treated before. And I was suddenly conscious that my clothes were a little crumpled, my hair not blow-dried, my face bare of make-up. No one from my life in New York would have recognised me as I furiously sang the lullaby in Dr Nichols’ consulting room. I wasn’t the slickly presented, self-controlled person I’d been in the States and I wondered if that encouraged other people to let the untidy aspects of themselves and their lives show in return.

As I watched William leave the café, I wondered, as I still do now, if I’d been wanting to meet someone who reminded me of you, even a little bit. And I wondered if it was hope that made me see a likeness to you, or if it was really there.

I have told Mr Wright about my visit to Dr Nichols, followed by my conversation with William.

‘Who did you think had played her the lullabies?’ Mr Wright asks.

‘I didn’t know. I thought that Simon was capable of it. And Emilio. I couldn’t imagine Professor Rosen knowing enough about a young woman to torture her like that. But I’d got him wrong before.’

‘And Dr Nichols?’

‘He’d know how to mentally torture someone. His job guaranteed that. But he didn’t seem in the least cruel or sadistic. And he had no reason to.’

‘You questioned your opinion of Professor Rosen but not Dr Nichols?’

‘Yes.’

Mr Wright looks as if he’s about to ask me another question, then decides against it. Instead he makes a note.

‘And later that day Detective Inspector Haines phoned you back?’ he asks.

‘Yes. He introduced himself as DS Finborough’s boss. I thought, to start with, it was a good thing that someone more senior was calling me back.’

DI Haines’s voice boomed down the telephone; a man used to making a noisy room listen to him.

‘I have sympathy for you, Miss Hemming, but you can’t simply go around indiscriminately blaming people. I gave you the benefit of the doubt when Mr Codi lodged his complaint, out of sympathy for your loss, but you have used up your quota of my patience. And I have to make this clear - you cannot continue crying wolf.’

‘I’m not crying wolf, I—’

‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘You’re crying several wolves all at once, not sure if any of them are actually wolves at all.’ He almost chortled at his own witticism. ‘But the Coroner has reached a verdict about your sister’s death based on the facts. However unpalatable the truth is for you - and I do understand that it is hard for you - the truth is she committed suicide and no one else is responsible for her death.’

I don’t suppose the police service recruit people like DI Haines any more: superior; patriarchal; patronising towards other people and unquestioning of himself.

I struggled to sound self-possessed, not to be the irrational woman he thought me. ‘But surely with the lullabies you can see that someone was trying to—’

He interrupted. ‘We already knew about the lullaby, Miss Hemming.’

I was completely thrown. DI Haines continued, ‘When your sister went missing, her upstairs neighbour, an elderly gentlemen, let us into her flat. One of my officers checked to see if there was anything that might help us find her whereabouts. He listened to all the messages on her answerphone tape. We didn’t think the lullaby was sinister in any way.’

‘But there must have been more than one lullaby, even though only one was recorded. That’s why she was scared of the phone calls. That’s why she unplugged the phone. And Amias said there were calls, plural.’

‘He is an elderly gentleman who readily admits that his memory is no longer perfect.’

I was still trying to seem composed. ‘But didn’t you find even
one
strange?’

‘No more strange than having than a wardrobe in the sitting room or having expensive oil paints but no kettle.’

‘Is that why you didn’t tell me before? Because you didn’t think the lullaby was sinister or even strange?’

‘Exactly.’

I turned the phone on to speaker and put it down, so he wouldn’t realise that my hands were shaking.

‘But surely together with the PCP found in her body, the lullabies show that someone was mentally torturing her?’

His booming voice on speakerphone filled the flat. ‘Don’t you think it far more likely that it was a friend who didn’t realise that she’d already had the baby and was unintentionally tactless?’

‘Did Dr Nichols tell you that?’

‘He didn’t need to. It’s the logical conclusion. Especially as the baby wasn’t due for another three weeks.’

I couldn’t stop the shake in my voice.

‘So why did you phone me? If you already knew about the lullabies but had dismissed them?’

‘
You
phoned us, Miss Hemming. As a courtesy I am returning your call.’

‘The light is better in her bedroom. That’s why she moved the wardrobe out, so she could use it as a studio.’

But he had already hung up.

Since living there, I understand.

‘And a week after you heard the lullaby it was the college’s art show?’ asks Mr Wright.

‘Yes. Tess’s friends had invited me. Simon and Emilio were bound to be there, so I knew I had to go.’

And I think it’s appropriate that it was at the college’s art show - with your wonderful paintings on display; your spirit and love of life visible to everyone - that I finally found the avenue that would lead me to your murderer.

18

The morning of the art show your friend Benjamin came round looking businesslike, his Rasta hair tied back, with a young man I didn’t recognise and a beaten-up white van to take your paintings to the college. He said it wasn’t the end of year one, which was a big formal affair, but it was important. Potential buyers could come and everyone had family attending. They were solicitous towards me, as if I was fragile and could be broken by loud noise or laughter.

As they left your flat with the pictures I saw that both of them were near tears. Something had prompted it, but it was a part of your life I didn’t know; maybe they were simply remembering the last time they were at the flat and the contrast - me here and not you - was painful.

I had packed up your paintings myself, but when I walked into the exhibition I think I literally gasped. I hadn’t seen them on a wall before, just stacked on the floor, and put together they were an explosion of living colour, their painted vibrancy arresting. Friends of yours who I’d met at the café came to talk to me, one after another, as if they had a rota of looking after me.

I couldn’t see any sign of Simon, but through the crowded room, I saw Emilio on the far side of the exhibition hall. Near to him was the Pretty Witch and by her expression I knew something was wrong. As I went towards him I saw he had the nude paintings of you on display.

I went up to him, livid, but I kept my voice quiet, not wanting anyone to hear, not wanting him to have an audience.

‘Does your affair with her carry no penalties for you now she’s dead?’ I asked.

He gestured to the nudes, looking as if he was enjoying this spat with me. ‘They don’t mean we had an affair.’

I must have looked incredulous.

‘You think artists always sleep with their models, Beatrice?’

Actually, yes, that’s what I did think. And using my first name was inappropriately intimate, just as displaying the nudes of you were inappropriately intimate.

‘You don’t have to be a woman’s lover to paint a nude of her.’

‘But you were her lover. And you’d like everyone to know about it now, wouldn’t you? After all, it reflects pretty well on you that a beautiful girl twenty years your junior was prepared to have sex with you. The fact that you were her tutor and you’re married probably doesn’t count for much against your macho posturing.’

I saw the Pretty Witch nod at me, approving and a little surprised, I think. Emilio glared at her and she shrugged and moved away.

‘So you think my paintings are “macho posturing”?’

‘Using Tess’s body. Yes.’

I started walking back towards the display of your paintings, but he followed me.

‘Beatrice . . .’

I didn’t turn.

‘There’s a piece of news you may find interesting. We’ve had the results of the cystic fibrosis tests back. My wife isn’t a carrier of the CF gene.’

‘I’m glad.’

But Emilio hadn’t finished. ‘I’m not a carrier of the cystic fibrosis gene either.’

But he had to be. It didn’t make sense. Xavier had cystic fibrosis so his father had to be a carrier.

I grabbed at an explanation. ‘You can’t always tell by a simple test. There are thousands of mutations of the cystic fibrosis gene and—’

He interrupted. ‘We’ve had all the tests there are, the whole works - you name it, we’ve had it and we have been told, categorically, that neither of us are carriers of cystic fibrosis.’

‘Sometimes a baby can spontaneously have CF even when one of the parents isn’t a carrier.’

‘And what are the chances of that? A million to one? Xavier was nothing to do with me.’

It was the first time I’d heard him say Xavier’s name - in the same expelled breath to say the words to disown him.

The obvious explanation was that Emilio wasn’t Xavier’s father. But you’d told me he was and you don’t lie.

I sense an increase in Mr Wright’s concentration as he listens closely to what I am saying.

‘I knew that Xavier had never had cystic fibrosis.’

‘Because both parents need to be carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene?’ asks Mr Wright.

‘Exactly.’

‘So what did you think was going on?’

I pause a moment, remembering the emotion that accompanied the realisation. ‘I thought Gene-Med had used gene therapy on a perfectly healthy baby.’

‘What did you think their reason was?’

‘I thought it must be fraud.’

‘Can you elaborate?’

‘It was hardly surprising Gene-Med’s “cure” for cystic fibrosis was so successful if the babies had never had it in the first place. And it was because of Gene-Med’s supposed miraculous cure that their value had skyrocketed. They were weeks away from floating on the stock market.’

‘What about the regulatory bodies who’d monitored the trial?’

‘I couldn’t understand how they’d been so misled. But I thought somehow they must have been. And I knew that the patients, like Tess, would never have questioned the diagnosis. If you’ve had someone in the family with cystic fibrosis you always know that you might be a carrier.’

‘Did you think Professor Rosen was involved?’

‘I thought he had to be. Even if it hadn’t been his idea he must have sanctioned it. And he was a director of Gene-Med, which meant he stood to make a fortune when the company floated.’

When I’d met Professor Rosen at Gene-Med I’d thought he was a zealous scientist who craved admiration by his peers. I found it hard to replace that image with a money-grabbing fraudster; that instead of being driven by that age-old motive of glory he was driven by the even older one of avarice. It was difficult to believe he was that good an actor; that his speech about eradicating disease and a watershed in history was no more than hot wind designed to throw me, and everyone else, off course. But if it really was the case, he’d been disturbingly convincing.

‘Did you contact him at this stage?’

‘I tried to. He was in the States giving a lecture tour and wouldn’t be back until the sixteenth of March, twelve days away. I left a message on his phone but he didn’t reply.’

‘Did you tell DS Finborough?’ asks Mr Wright.

‘Yes. I phoned and said I needed to meet him. He set up an appointment early that afternoon.’

Mr Wright glances down at his notes. ‘And at your meeting with DS Finborough, Detective Inspector Haines was there too?’

‘Very much so.’

A man who infringed the subtle boundaries of personal space, as if it was his right to invade.

‘Before we move on, I just want to get one thing clear,’ says Mr Wright. ‘How did you think the fraud was linked to Tess’s death?’

‘I thought she must have found out.’

DI Haines’s jowly face loomed across the table at me, his physique matching his overbearing voice. Next to him was DS Finborough.

‘Which do you think more likely, Miss Hemming,’ DI Haines boomed, ‘an established company with an international reputation, complying with a myriad of regulations, tests out a gene therapy on perfectly well babies or a student is mistaken about the father of her baby?’

‘Tess wouldn’t have lied about the father.’

‘When I last spoke to you on the phone I asked you, courteously, to stop indiscriminately apportioning blame.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘On your phone message just a week ago, you put Mr Codi and Simon Greenly at the top of your list of suspects.’

I cursed the message I’d left on DS Finborough’s phone. It showed me as emotional and unreliable, damaging any credibility I might have had.

‘But now you’ve changed your mind?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘But we haven’t, Miss Hemming. There is nothing new that brings into question the Coroner’s verdict of suicide. I’ll state the bald facts for you. You may not want to hear them but that does not mean they don’t exist.’

Not just a double but a triple negative. His oratory wasn’t as impressive as he believed it to be.

‘An
unmarried
young woman,’ he continued, enjoying his emphasised words, ‘who is an
art student
in London, has an
illegitimate
baby with cystic fibrosis. The baby is successfully treated by a new genetic therapy in utero,’ (I thought how proud he was of this little bit of knowledge, this smidgen of Latin thrown into his monologue) ‘but unfortunately it dies when it is born of an unrelated condition.’ (Yes, I know - ‘it’.) ‘One of her friends, of whom she apparently had many, leaves her a tactless message on her answerphone which drives her further down her path towards suicide.’ I tried to say something but he continued, barely pausing for the breath needed to patronise me. ‘Suffering hallucinations from the
illegal drugs
she was taking she takes a kitchen knife with her into the park.’

I noticed a look between DS Finborough and DI Haines.

‘Maybe she bought the knife specially for the purpose,’ snapped Haines. ‘Maybe she wanted it to be expensive and special. Or just sharp. I am not a psychiatrist, I cannot read a suicidal young woman’s mind.’

DS Finborough seemed to flinch away from DI Haines, his distaste for him clear.

‘She went into a deserted toilets building,’ continued Haines. ‘Either so she wouldn’t be found or because she wanted to be out of the snow, again I cannot accurately tell you her reason. Either outside in the park or in the toilets building, she took an overdose of sedatives.’ (I was surprised he managed to hold back ‘a belt and braces suicide’ because that was the kind of thing he was itching to say.) ‘She then cuts the arteries in her arms with her kitchen knife. Afterwards it transpires that the father of her illegitimate baby isn’t her tutor as she’d thought but someone else, who must carry the cystic fibrosis gene.’

I did try to argue with him, but I might as well have been playing the triangle on the hard shoulder of the M4. I know, one of your sayings, but remembering it comforted me a little as he shouted me down. And as he patronised me, not listening to me, I saw how scruffy my clothes were and that my hair needed cutting and I was no longer polite, or respectful of his authority, and it was no wonder he didn’t pay attention to me. I didn’t used to pay attention to people like me.

As DS Finborough escorted me out of the police station, I turned to him. ‘He didn’t listen to a word I said.’

DS Finborough was clearly embarrassed, ‘It’s the accusation you made about Emilio Codi. And Simon Greenly.’

‘So it’s because I’ve cried wolf too often?’

He smiled. ‘And with such conviction. It doesn’t help that Emilio Codi made a formal complaint against you and Simon Greenly is the son of a cabinet minister.’

‘But surely he must be able to see that something’s wrong?’

‘Once he has arrived at a conclusion, backed up by facts and logic, it’s hard to dissuade him. Unless there are heavier counterbalancing facts.’

I thought DS Finborough was too decent and professional to publicly criticise his boss.

‘And you?’

He paused a moment, as if unsure whether to tell me. ‘We’ve had the forensic results back on the Sabatier knife. It was brand new. And it had never been used before.’

‘She couldn’t have afforded Sabatier.’

‘I agree, it doesn’t fit when she didn’t even own a kettle or a toaster.’

So the last time he’d been in the flat, when he’d come to talk about the post-mortem results, he’d noticed. It hadn’t just been, as I’d thought at the time, a compassionate visit. I was grateful to him for being first a policeman. I worked up the courage to ask my question.

‘So do you now believe that she was murdered?’

There was a moment while my question was static in the silence between us.

‘I think there’s a query.’

‘Are you going to answer your “query”?’

‘I’ll try. That’s the best I can offer.’