The Night Book (24 page)

Seb couldn’t read any more. Not for the moment. He stood up, swaying slightly, and walked unsteadily back into the house. He needed water, he needed the lavatory – urgently –
and he needed time to think.

But five minutes later he was back outside. He was horribly drawn to the breakfast table with its innocent-looking pile of paper, still weighed down on each corner by the jolly tea mugs.

Meriel had written this.
His Meriel
. And what he had just read was only a tiny fraction of the whole. What other nightmarish, quasi-pornographic fantasies were scrawled across all the
other repulsive pages?

Breathing deeply, he picked up the dozen or so photocopies from the table. Thus far he had looked at about half of them.

He realised he simply couldn’t bring himself to read the rest. With deep reluctance, Seb slid the very last page from the bottom of the pile, and sank back in the chair with it.

Good Christ. Enough.
Enough.
Seb groaned aloud and threw the page onto the table in front of him.

What did this mean? What did it say about the woman he loved; her marriage; her mental state . . . and what had happened that day out on the boat?

More to the point, what the hell was he going to do now?

Seb sat there for a long time, staring out at the lake. He felt paralysed, mentally and physically. Once or twice he tried to stand up but the effort was simply too much for
him.

He almost felt bereaved, as if he’d just received the stunning, crushing news of Meriel’s death.

Meriel, capable of writing the sickest material he’d ever seen. He simply couldn’t take it in. Was she mentally ill, he wondered, did she suffer from some form of schizophrenia? If
so, it was deeply buried. Seb trusted his instincts with people and he’d never sensed the presence of such darkness in Meriel. He loved her, for God’s sake – or he had done. Now
he didn’t know what he felt, other than this horrible tight band of pain around his chest.

It was no good. His thoughts were ricocheting around inside his head like a savagely struck billiard ball. He had to focus, work out what to do for the best.

It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he should try and treat it like a breaking news story. Distil everything down to the essentials; make a conscious attempt to distance himself from this
nightmare. Maybe then he could see his way forward.

At last he managed to stand, and walked slowly to his car where it was parked at the front of Cathedral Crag. He fetched his reporter’s notebook from the glove box, pulled a cheap
ballpoint out of the ring-binder at the top, and went back to the breakfast table. He drew a deep breath. He had to force himself to be logical, methodical, inquiring. It was a story, remember?

‘Except I’m a part of it,’ he muttered. Suddenly, without warning, a sob shuddered through his body and he dropped his head into his hands, tears spilling from his eyes.

He’d never felt so disoriented, never felt such heartache.

Eventually Seb brought himself under control. He took his notebook from the table and flipped open the pad’s shiny cover. The first thing to greet his gaze were his scrawled notes from two
days earlier: Cameron Bruton’s inquest. He flicked through them impatiently until he found a clean page. After a moment’s thought, he quickly scribbled down a series of questions.

Why make photocopies?

Why hide them?

Why hide them in the fuse box
?

Where is original manuscript now?

Does M have specific fantasy about C drowning? (Must read ALL pages to check for this)

M almost certainly lying re C’s watch for some reason. Why? Is there link to ‘night book’ maybe?

He closed the pad.

This was no news story. This was his life, his love, his heart, his flesh and bones intertwined with another’s. His Meriel.
Their
story.

He closed his eyes.

And it had just turned into a nightmare.

‘Bob Merryman.’

Seb paused. He didn’t have to do this. He could just hang up. Now.

When he spoke, he was surprised by how normal his voice sounded.

‘Hi Bob,’ he said, ‘it’s me, Seb. Sorry to bother you in the middle of a sunny Sunday afternoon.’

The news editor groaned.

‘You’re not bothering me, you’re rescuing me. We’re having a barbecue. My sister and her husband, David bloody perfect, have been banging on and on about Maggie Thatcher
since I put the fucking sausages on. She loves her, he hates her. He says if she’s the next prime minister he’s emigrating. I’ll tell you what, that guarantees Maggie my vote and
I’ve been Labour all my life. David is
such
a prick. Anyway, what can I do you for, Sebbie old chap?’

Seb smiled faintly. Merryman always grounded him.

‘Just a sniff of your contacts book, Bob. D’you happen to have the address – that is, the private address – of the county coroner?’

‘Timmy Young? Sure. He lives up at Bassenthwaite, doesn’t he? Hang on.’

Seb heard his boss’s phone banging against the wall as Merryman went in search of his contacts book, an ancient Moleskine, battered and torn and much-repaired with Sellotape, and stuffed
full of twenty years’ worth of phone numbers and addresses.

A minute later he was back.

‘Yeah, here we are. I thought so. Dr Timothy Young: The Grove, Mirehouse-under-Bassenthwaite. Nice place. It’s about halfway down the A591, up into the fells below Skiddaw.
You’ll want the phone number too?’

‘Please.’

When Merryman had dictated it, slowly repeating himself to be certain, he chuckled.

‘All right. Come on then, Seb. Why couldn’t this wait until tomorrow? What’s going on?’

His reporter was prepared for this.

‘It’s nothing really, Bob. It’s just that I’ve been reading through the Sundays and I started to wonder if there might be a feature in the coroner’s angle: what
it’s like to preside over all these drowning inquests, especially a high-profile one like Cameron Bruton’s. I’ve got nothing better to do this afternoon so I thought
I’d—’

‘Bollocks.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Bollocks. You’re up to something.’

‘Bob, I’m only—’

‘By all means talk to the coroner, Seb. About whatever this is
really
about.

‘And then, dear boy, you can talk to me.’

He stared at the note he’d just written. He
did
love her, still, didn’t he? He hated lying to her like this.

But he was in complete turmoil and he needed to get away and think. He’d forced himself to flick through the other pages in the manuscript and from what he could see they were equally as
disturbing as the ones he’d first read. He couldn’t see anything specifically about drowning – although there was one repellent passage involving boiling water – but without
exception they were murderous chapters, steeped in extreme, sadistic violence and undiluted homicidal intent.

And Meriel had lied at Cameron’s inquest. He
knew
she had. It was something to do with that bloody watch. The coroner had spotted it too.

Had she crossed the line from fantasy to reality out there on the boat that afternoon? Had she somehow managed to contrive her husband’s death? He couldn’t think how, but his vague
sense of unease after the inquest had now crystallised into an unmistakable misgiving.

Suspicion.

He suspected Meriel. He genuinely did. He believed there was an actual possibility she had somehow murdered Cameron that day. And got away with it.

What if back then the police had somehow got their hands on a copy of
The Night Book
? Their subsequent questioning of Meriel would have been completely different in both tone and
direction, that was for sure. They would definitely have organised a forensic search of the boat, too, and probably sent divers down at the spot where Cameron had drowned.

In fact – and Seb started at the thought – that’s exactly what they’d do now if they were given these pages to examine. They would see them as potentially circumstantial
evidence in a criminal investigation. They’d have no choice.

For the umpteenth time, he asked himself what he was going to do. He’d got as far as dialling the first few digits of Dr Young’s phone number before hanging up again. He just
couldn’t go through with it. He’d thought that contacting the coroner to ask for an off-the-record meeting might be somehow less significant than going direct to the police, but
betrayal was betrayal.

So was murder.

Seb felt like tearing his hair out. He had to talk to someone about this. Someone he could trust. Someone older and wiser in the ways of the world: someone who could tell him what to bloody
do
.

Suddenly, a name came to him.

Of course.
Of course.

The engineer was in when Seb phoned. He’d been intrigued by the reporter’s suggestion that they meet within the hour at a riverside pub near his home.

‘This sounds urgent, Sebbie,’ Jess said. ‘Everything as it should be?’

‘Far from it,’ Seb replied. ‘I’m in a hole, Jess, and I need advice. You’ve been incredibly kind and helpful to me since I arrived here. I honestly can’t
think of anyone else I can talk to about this.’

‘Blimey. I might not be quite the wise old bird you take me for, Seb, but I’ll do my best. Look: we’re just about to sit down for Sunday lunch at this end, so I can’t
quite do the hour. But is three o’clock at the Swan OK for you? You know, the place down on the Eden near Armathwaite. I know them there, they’ll serve us a drink outside
hours.’

‘Of course. See you there. And – thanks, Jess.’

Seb propped his note to Meriel against a vase of flowers on the kitchen table. Then he carefully furled all the photocopies back into their cardboard tube and locked it in the Spitfire’s
boot. Five minutes later he was on the road heading for the Eden Valley.

As he drove, he found himself wondering exactly when he would see Meriel again.

Meriel was astonished at the sheer size of her postbag. Peter Cox hadn’t been exaggerating; there must be close to a couple of thousand letters, postcards and sympathy
cards. There were the inevitable crank ones too, from men who made lewd and sometimes downright disgusting suggestions about what they’d like to do to her now she was ‘free’.

But the vast majority of those she had looked at were kind and thoughtful and she was genuinely touched. There was no way she could read them all, still less answer them personally. She’d
have to write a general reply in her next column.

There was hardly anyone else in at Lake District FM today; the place was deserted. All the station’s programmes were pre-recorded on Sundays, except for the news bulletins. Even those only
went out at the top of every other hour and stopped completely after six o’clock.

She looked at her watch. Almost three. There wasn’t much more she could do here. She’d made some notes for future programmes and left them for her secretary to type up. She
couldn’t be bothered writing memos to her producer and Peter; she’d call them in the morning to tell them she’d be back next week.

Meriel looked around her office. She felt at ease here, and suddenly a profound feeling that everything would be all right washed over her. She really would be able to pick up the threads of her
old life. Better than that, she would improve on it. No more Cameron to bully and torment and control her. No more stupid
Night Book.
Just lovely Seb to build a future with together.

They’d have children, she was certain of that. Lots of them. And however their careers developed, she and Seb would always keep a home in the Lakes. They belonged here. They’d
discovered each other here.

She walked quickly to the lift. If she hurried, she could probably get back to Cathedral Crag before Seb had to leave for work. There might even be time to make love.

‘Christ almighty, Seb, this is
bloody
serious.’

Jess hadn’t touched his pint and now it was too late to start: it had been sitting in direct sunshine in the Swan’s pretty rose garden and had become so warm it was virtually
undrinkable.

He’d listened to the younger man’s story with increasing incredulity, only occasionally interrupting to ask a brief question. For the most part, he simply sat there staring out at
the ducks splashing in the slow-moving sunlit river while Seb told his tale.

‘I know,’ Seb said miserably, wiping perspiration from his forehead with the back of one hand. ‘
Christ
, it’s hot . . . I keep wishing I’d never loaded that
sodding dishwasher, fused the place, and ended up finding . . .
that.
’ He gestured at the cardboard cylinder on the picnic table in front of them. ‘I wish to Christ I’d
never seen the bloody thing, and it was still down there in the cellar.’

Jess gently picked it up, weighing it for a moment in his hand.

‘Feels heavy. How many chapters are there?’

‘Oh God, I haven’t counted . . . about fourteen or fifteen, I suppose.’

‘Hmm. Well, as it’s here, can I take a look at it?’

‘Be my guest. Be warned, you might throw up.’

The engineer grunted. ‘I doubt it,’ he said, easing the tightly scrolled papers from the tube.

A few minutes later he had turned pale.

‘Fuck me. She’s mad.’

Seb shook his head, almost violently.