Your Deepest Fear

by David Jackson

  ‘You found him hard work, then?’

  ‘Not at all. I found him very easy to be with. And actually, I believe he appreciated what I brought him.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘A life. I know that sounds very dramatic, but Matthew had no real life before we got together. He was so used to his own company. Apart from work, he didn’t go anywhere or do anything. He’d never had a long-term girlfriend. His only social activity was computer gaming.’

  Cody chews this over and tastes the bitter familiarity. His own life now is not so different from what poor Matthew’s was.

  ‘But you changed all that? You made him happy?’

  ‘Yes. It may sound conceited, but I think I did. We were opposites in many ways, but that’s what brought us together. I wanted someone who wasn’t pretentious or ambitious or arrogant. Matthew wanted someone to bring him out of his shell and show him that life can be fun if you’re willing to take a few risks.’

  ‘Sounds like a perfect match. So when did it go wrong?’

  ‘I suppose about the start of last year. He became very . . . morose. Very withdrawn. He stopped talking to me. He stopped wanting to spend time with me.’

  ‘But you don’t know what might have caused it?’

  ‘No. I have no idea. I tried to get him to explain, but he refused to speak about it. I offered to go to marriage guidance counselling with him, but he didn’t want that either.’

  ‘Did you argue?’

  ‘Not really. Sometimes I lost my temper with him, but mostly I was just upset that I couldn’t help him. He could see how unhappy it was making me, and that’s when he told me he was moving out.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘What could I say? He told me he needed time to sort himself out. I had to go along with it. I wasn’t given a choice. I always hoped he would come back.’

  ‘After he left, did you continue to see each other?’

  ‘Yes. I went to his house every couple of days. I bought shopping and gifts for him. I tried talking things over with him.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  She blinks. ‘I . . . I wish I could say yes, but it wouldn’t be true. He seemed to get unhappier each day.’

  ‘But he never gave you any clues as to what was wrong?’

  ‘No. Now I wish I’d pushed harder. I think if he’d told me, I could have done something about it. But now . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Now it’s too late.’

  6

  Cody thinks there’s something wrong here. Something about the way Sara Prior is acting.

  He’s seen it all in rooms like this, talking to bereaved family members. The full gamut of emotions. Some wail; some go into shock or denial; some faint; some rant or become violent.

  Sara does none of these things. She seems so relaxed in her chair, sipping her water and answering his questions. Cody has seen people in job interviews who are more nervous than this. She claims to have been devoted to her husband, so why isn’t her severance from him causing her more distress? What is she holding back?

  ‘Tell me about what happened today. How did you find out about Matthew?’

  ‘There was a message on my telephone answering machine. I—’

  ‘You’d just returned from the airport, is that right?’

  ‘Yes. Manchester.’

  ‘Where had you been?’

  ‘Copenhagen. I’m from there originally. I was visiting family. My maiden name is Olsen.’

  ‘Ah, you’re Danish. I was trying to place the accent. Your English is excellent.’

  ‘Almost everyone in Copenhagen speaks some English. My father insisted we speak it as much as possible. He had grand ideas of a future for me in global financing.’

  Cody notices how she doesn’t even seem to register his compliment. Not so much as a nod of appreciation.

  ‘Okay,’ he continues. ‘So you got home . . .’

  ‘Yes, and I saw that I had messages. I ignored them at first. I made a cup of tea and just forgot about them. But then I went back to the hall for my suitcase. That’s when I listened to the calls.’

  ‘How many calls were there?’

  ‘Three, but only one from Matthew.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It was . . . It was very strange. He was clearly anxious about something. He said something like, “They’re here.” He said it a couple of times. But he also said . . .’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’m finding it hard to believe now, but he said something like, “Remember Victoria and Albert.”’

  Cody pauses with his pen in mid-sentence on his notepad. ‘Can you repeat that, please?’

  ‘Yes. He said, “Remember Victoria and Albert.” I’m sure it was that.’

  Cody frowns, but jots it down. ‘What else?’

  ‘Nothing, really. He said he had no more time to speak, and then . . . and then it was like somebody took the phone off him, and . . .’

  Cody says nothing. Just lets her find the words.

  ‘And then he screamed. I heard the start of a scream. That was all.’

  Cody observes her for a few long seconds. Waits for tears that don’t fall, a quivering lip that doesn’t happen. All so matter-of-fact.

  ‘It must have scared you,’ he says. But the prompt goes unanswered.

  He says, ‘This thing about Victoria and Albert. Do you know what he meant by that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Something to do with the Victoria and Albert Museum?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve never been there, and as far as I know, neither had Matthew.’

  ‘People, then. Do you know anyone called Victoria and Albert?’

  A slow shake of the head. ‘No. That doesn’t ring any bells with me.’

  ‘Can you think of any other reason why he’d ask you to remember those names?’

  ‘None at all.’

  Cody taps his pen on his chin. ‘The phone message. Any idea why he left it on your landline instead of calling you on your mobile?’

  ‘He was terrified. I think he just panicked and picked the first number on his speed dial.’

  ‘Is the message still on your answering machine? You didn’t delete it?’

  ‘No. It’s still there.’

  ‘Good. I’d like to send someone over to make a copy of it, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Yes. That’s fine.’

  ‘All right, so you listened to the call from Matthew. Then what?’

  ‘I went straight over there.’

  ‘That was your first impulse? You didn’t call the police?’

  ‘I didn’t know what was happening. Matthew had changed so much since he moved out. I thought perhaps he was having some kind of breakdown. And anyway, do you think the police would have been interested? What would you have done if I had called you and said my husband rang to say something about Victoria and Albert before screaming down the phone at me?’

  Cody smiles. ‘When you put it like that . . . Okay, so you drove to his house, yes?’

  ‘Yes. I confess I broke the speed limit a few times. You might find me on one or two of those traffic cameras of yours.’

  ‘I think you had a pretty good excuse. How did things look when you got to Matthew’s house?’

  ‘You mean inside?’

  ‘No. Before then. When you got out of your car.’

  ‘It looked normal. No sign of anything strange.’

  ‘Was the front door open?’

  ‘No. It was closed. I rang the doorbell, and I tried shouting through the letter box, but nobody came.’

  ‘Do you have a key to the house?’

  ‘No. Matthew would have hated the thought of someone coming into his home without his knowledge. I once asked him what I was supposed to do if he had an accident or something, but he still refused.’

  ‘So how did you get inside?’

  ‘I went round to the back of the house.’


  Cody consults his notes again. ‘We checked the yard door. It was locked.’

  She seems unfazed. ‘Yes. I climbed the wall.’

  ‘You climbed the wall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a pretty high wall.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  Cody almost expects her to break into a laugh, to tell him that she’s pulling his leg. But she’s deadly serious.

  ‘All right, so you climbed over the wall. Then what did you do?’

  ‘I looked through the windows. I could see all the mess in there. And then I saw that the glass in the back door was smashed. Someone had broken into the house.’

  ‘Yes, that’s how it looked to us.’

  ‘So I went in.’

  Cody tries to take her answer in his stride. Fails miserably.

  ‘You went straight in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you have your mobile phone with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you didn’t try calling the police?’

  ‘I didn’t want to wait. Matthew might have been hurt. In his call he sounded in pain.’

  ‘The house had been broken into. There could have been intruders still in there.’

  ‘I picked up a knife in the kitchen.’ A thought suddenly occurs to her. ‘There’ll be a knife with my fingerprints on it. You should probably know that.’

  Cody is dumbfounded. She keeps surprising him. He would have been satisfied with an answer like, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing. I was in a state of shock.’ But she seems to have known exactly what she was doing, and had no hesitation in doing it.

  ‘What did you do after you picked up the knife?’

  ‘I searched the house. The back bedroom was the last one I went into. That’s where I found Matthew.’

  ‘That must have been a hell of a shock.’

  Again no response. No confirmation that she experienced emotions of any kind.

  Cody still senses he’s missing something here.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Prior,’ he says. ‘Forgive me if this sounds a little insensitive, but I don’t quite get the sequence of events as you’ve described them.’

  ‘What is it you don’t get, Sergeant Cody?’

  ‘I don’t get why it took you so long to call the police. I don’t get the fact that you climbed a brick wall and went alone into a house to face possible intruders.’

  And then she hits him with the question that floors him.

  ‘Is it because I’m a woman?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m asking you whether you would find my account as difficult to believe if it came from the mouth of a man.’

  Cody considers this carefully. He thinks, Is she right? Am I just being sexist?

  ‘To be honest,’ he says, ‘I don’t know many people, male or female, who would do what you did today. I have to take my hat off to you for your bravery.’

  ‘I did what was necessary. But I would like to see some bravery in return. I want you to be brave enough to believe me. I can see in your eyes that you have your doubts. I didn’t do what you expect women in my position to do, and I’m not acting now in the way you expect women to behave.’

  ‘Mrs Prior, I really hope you don’t think—’

  ‘I’m not going to cry, here in front of you. I’m not going to fall to pieces just to satisfy your preconceived notions. I won’t do any of that, Sergeant Cody. I will grieve in my own way, if that’s all right with you. If that’s something you can’t accept, then we may as well terminate the interview right now.’

  Cody wants to laugh out loud. He realises he has just been told off, and that he thoroughly deserved it. He also realises that he likes this woman. Likes her a lot, even though he doesn’t fully understand her.

  ‘I can accept that,’ he tells her.

  ‘Good. Then please continue.’

  ‘Tell me a little more about Matthew. What was his job?’

  ‘He worked for the tax office. When I met him he was based in Newcastle, but then he was offered a promotion. It meant transferring to the Bootle office, so that’s when we moved to Liverpool.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About two years ago.’

  ‘Did you make many friends here?’

  ‘A few. Not many.’

  ‘What about enemies? Did Matthew ever fall out with anybody? Anyone ever threaten him?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Matthew didn’t get into fights. He hated confrontation. He was nice to everyone he met.’

  ‘Any money problems?’

  ‘No. He had a good job, and so do I.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a personal trainer.’

  ‘Really? I could do with one of those myself.’

  She eyes him up. ‘My rates are reasonable.’

  Cody clears his throat again. He would have preferred an answer along the lines of, You look in pretty good shape already.

  ‘You saw the house,’ he says. ‘Somebody searched every inch of it. Any idea what they might have been looking for?’

  ‘No. He had nothing valuable. His money went on books and CDs and computer games.’

  ‘What type of games?’

  She shrugs. ‘I didn’t take much interest. They had lots of people shooting at each other. It’s how he got his thrills.’

  ‘What else did he use his computer for?’

  ‘I don’t know. The usual, I suppose. Email, the web – that kind of thing.’

  ‘The reason I ask is because there’s no sign of his computer in the house. Can you think of any reason why someone might have wanted to steal it?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Sergeant Cody, I don’t think you have fully understood what I have been trying to tell you about my husband. Matthew was kind and gentle and shy. That wasn’t a disguise. He wasn’t really a spy for MI5 or an assassin or whatever. He was just a normal man who had a few problems coping with life. I loved him deeply. And you know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He loved me too. He told me so. You said something earlier about my bravery in going into his house. It wasn’t because of courage; it was because of something else he said in his phone message. He said he loved me. I hadn’t heard those words from Matthew for a long time, but he said them then. He was scared for his life – perhaps he even knew he was about to be killed – but his last thought was to let me know he still loved me. If you have ever been in love, Sergeant Cody, you will understand that that’s the only explanation you need for my actions.’

  7

  The house seems so empty.

  Even though Matthew hasn’t lived here for months, Sara feels his absence more keenly now. She has always clung to a thread of hope that he would return one day – that he would fill the Matthew-shaped hole in her life and her home.

  But now that hope has gone. Matthew has been snatched away from her. And so cruelly, too.

  The violence makes it so much worse. If he had died in an accident, or perhaps even taken his own life, she believes she might have come to terms with it more easily. But this! Why would anyone treat him so sadistically? What could he possibly have done?

  She feels sorry for that policeman. Cody. He was doing his best, but she really couldn’t help him. She told him the truth: Matthew was a lovely man who just needed someone by his side.

  I should have been there, she thinks. I should have protected him.

  She is standing in the hall. Her suitcase is still open on the floor, her dirty washing still heaped in the doorway to the kitchen. Cody brought her home, along with a technician who took a copy of Matthew’s phone message. They have gone now, leaving her in the emptiness.

  She expects that they will look into her background. They will treat her as a suspect. It’s only natural, and she’s not worried about it. Let them think what they like.

  Perhaps I should have acted more like a distraught widow, she thinks. Perhaps I should have screamed and pulled out my hair in clumps. Maybe then they would
have believed me.

  No matter. I’m not a performing seal. Crying won’t fix a thing. It didn’t fix Svend and it won’t fix Matthew.

  She decides she won’t ever love another man. It always leads to too much pain – for them and for her.

  I must be cursed, she thinks. There’s a spell on me. I am a – what is the English word? – a jinx, that’s it.

  They couldn’t have been any more different from each other, Svend and Matthew, and yet the outcome was the same. Svend she can understand – the danger was always hovering on the horizon in his case. But not Matthew. Matthew was the stereotypical mild-mannered public servant. Matthew was a man whose definition of risk was shelling out for a lottery ticket, or opting for a pizza topping he’d never tried before. Matthew’s only exposure to violence prior to his death was in the form of animated pixels on his computer screen.

  So it must be me, she thinks. I’m the link. I’m the reason why those around me get killed.

  And yet . . .

  The message. On the phone.

  She looks at the phone again now. It sits there, defying her to listen again to the closing words of her now dead husband.

  She steps across to it. Commands it to replay the last message.

  ‘Sara! Remember! Victoria and Albert. All I can say. They’re here! They’re— Sara, I love you. I—’

  His terror is almost tangible. It infects her. She feels the familiar surge of adrenaline as it readies her to fight for her life.

  She takes a few deep breaths. I’m safe, she tells herself. I’m at home. Nothing can get to me here.

  She plays the message again, forcing herself to focus on the words rather than the emotion.

  Remember! Victoria and Albert.

  What the hell does that mean?

  She wracks her brain for conversations – snippets of conversations – anything that might have related to those two names during her brief time with Matthew.

  Nothing comes to mind.

  But what if it’s associated with the future rather than the past? What if Matthew wants her to bear the names in mind for some event that is yet to occur?