Your Deepest Fear

by David Jackson

  ‘So they say. I hope so.’

  ‘I hope so, too. But . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said it as though it might apply to you, too.’

  ‘Did I? Maybe it applies to all of us, in one way or another. Life isn’t always completely smooth.’

  ‘No.’ She pauses. ‘I’m sorry, I’m being a terrible host. Would you like some tea or coffee?’

  ‘Not for me, thank you. I don’t want to intrude.’

  He realises he hasn’t been forceful enough in his answer when she slips from the sofa and back into her slippers.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she says. ‘The company will probably do me some good. I won’t be a minute.’

  When she has disappeared from the room, Cody thinks to himself, She’s different today. Not the Scandinavian Ice Queen she seemed to be yesterday. There’s more warmth there now, and maybe even a hint of vulnerability.

  And then he shakes himself out of it. He thinks, What the hell am I doing? Why am I being like this? I’m supposed to be giving her hard stares and threatening language, not admiring her soft furnishings and drinking her tea.

  She re-enters the room. Says, ‘Kettle’s on!’

  Cody waits for her to sit down again, then leans forward in an attempt to make himself more confrontational.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he says, ‘but I’d like to ask you a few more questions.’

  ‘I don’t mind. And I’m sorry if I gave you a hard time yesterday. I realise you were only doing your job.’

  He nods, but wishes that she would stop being so nice to him.

  ‘The first thing is about the message that Matthew left on your telephone answering machine.’

  ‘Yes. It’s very strange.’

  ‘Have you given it any more thought? Any idea what it might mean?’

  She turns her head towards the hallway, where the phone is. As though all that’s left of her husband is out there.

  ‘I’ve listened to it a lot. Mainly to hear Matthew’s voice again. But I still don’t know what he was talking about.’

  ‘He was very specific about Victoria and Albert. Very clear about those names. As if you’d know what he meant. Are you sure it doesn’t ring any bells?’

  She shakes her head slowly.

  ‘They aren’t people you know, perhaps?’ Cody asks. ‘Maybe under a slightly different version of the names, like Vicky and Bert? Or do you have relatives with names like that?’

  More head shaking. ‘No. I’ve gone through all possible combinations. Sometimes I wonder if Matthew was trying to prepare me for something.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he wanted me to remember those names for something that’s about to happen, not that’s already happened. Does that make sense?’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘I have no idea. A password? “Victoria and Albert” could be a password, couldn’t it? Or does he want me to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum?’

  ‘Why would he ask you to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. This morning I had the idea that I was going to take a train down to London to visit the museum, just in case that’s what he was saying. All of these crazy ideas are running around my head because I’m trying so hard to work out what Matthew wanted from me.’

  Cody is convinced she is telling him the truth. It’s so easy for them back at the station, he thinks. They look at the facts through their cynical eyes and they say, Of course she knows. She’s lying through her Danish teeth. Shine a light in her eyes, Cody. Get out the rubber truncheon.

  But they’re not sitting here now, in front of this woman. They’re not looking into her fjord-blue eyes and hearing the undercurrents of love and sadness in her words. They can’t see the things that won’t appear in any police report.

  ‘There’s something else I’d like to ask you about,’ he says.

  ‘All right, but first tea, yes?’

  She gets up and leaves the room again, leaving Cody scrambling for the best way to put his next line of questioning. This one is going to be harder, because it’s going to suggest that she could be something other than what she is portraying.

  And yet, isn’t that what makes Sara Prior so intriguing? The way in which she has shifted lives so radically? The way in which she has shed combat fatigues and a bullet-proof vest in favour of comfy sweaters and slippers?

  Sara returns with a tray in her hands. She sets it down on the glass-topped coffee table, then serves the tea from its pot. She hands the bone china cup and saucer to Cody, then puts a plate of confectionery in front of him.

  ‘You must try one of these,’ she says.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘A selection of Danish pastries. One of the things for which we are justifiably famous.’

  ‘What else are you famous for?’

  ‘Oh, lots of things. Lurpak. Sandi Toksvig. The list is endless.’

  Cody laughs. He takes a sip of his steaming tea, but doesn’t pick up one of the pastries.

  ‘Now then,’ she says to him. ‘You were about to ask me something.’

  ‘Yes. Something came up on our computers. Something about you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You haven’t always been a personal trainer, have you?’

  ‘No. But I didn’t say I had.’

  ‘No. No, you didn’t. But you also didn’t tell me that you used to be in the army.’

  She doesn’t appear shocked that he knows this. If anything, she seems faintly amused.

  ‘You didn’t ask about my previous careers.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right. I didn’t. But you did have opportunities to mention it. For example, when I questioned you about climbing the back wall of your husband’s house, going inside alone, searching the place . . .’

  ‘Are we back to that again, Sergeant Cody?’

  ‘Back to what?’

  ‘Your unwillingness to accept that a woman can be capable of such things. Your desperate need for an explanation for behaviour that doesn’t fit your expected pattern.’

  ‘No, it’s not about that.’

  ‘Then what is it about?’

  He has to think about this. Yes, what is it about? So, she was in the army. She knows how to kill – possibly has killed. But she certainly didn’t hammer those nails into her husband. Why would being a soldier make her more likely to get somebody else to do her dirty work?

  It’s starting to irritate him that, yet again, his questioning is being driven by a bunch of people who have already formulated their judgment about a woman they have never seen or spoken to. Their logic seems to be: she’s a wife who’s been dumped, she’s a trained killer, do the maths.

  Well, guess what, guys? Life isn’t always logical.

  Trying to rescue himself, he says, ‘It just seems . . . a significant piece of information you might have mentioned.’

  ‘You mean because I trained to kill people for a living?’

  So there it is. She’s come right out and said it. No beating around the bush here.

  ‘Well . . . when you put it like that, I hope you can see how your reluctance to mention it might have seemed a little odd. To some people.’

  ‘As I’ve already told you, Sergeant Cody, I don’t like to do what people expect of me.’

  ‘No. I’ve learned that about you.’

  ‘And what else would you like to learn about me?’

  ‘How you and Matthew met. I mean, you’re in the army, Afghanistan or wherever. Matthew is working for the tax office in England. How did your paths cross?’

  ‘Actually, we didn’t meet until after I left the army.’

  ‘Did you come on a visit to England?’

  ‘Not at first. This might sound a little weird, but we met on the internet.’

  ‘The internet? Really?’

  ‘Yes. We got talking on a forum. We shared a mutual interest.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Don�
�t laugh. We were huge David Bowie fans. We used to spend ages online, talking about his music and his life.’

  ‘I’m not laughing. I like his music too. Quite a shock when he died.’

  ‘Yes. We played his music endlessly for days afterwards.’

  ‘So Bowie brought you together?’

  ‘He did. Matthew accepted my invitation to come to Copenhagen. I showed him the sights. He fell in love with the place. I fell in love with him.’

  ‘As simple as that.’

  ‘Yes. As simple as that.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Copenhagen.’

  ‘You should go. It’s beautiful, especially at Christmas. That’s when Matthew first came. He wanted to do all the usual tourist things, so I showed him the Tivoli Gardens and the Christmas markets. We took a boat ride at Nyhavn. We drank Gluhwein and ate German sausages. We strolled through the town and admired the shop displays. I bought Matthew a model of Tintin to bring home. You’ll probably find it somewhere in all that mess at his house.’

  Cody tries to picture them together, hand in hand, looking lovingly into each other’s eyes, but he still finds it a struggle. He has seen photographs of Matthew when he was alive. In nearly all of them, Matthew couldn’t look directly at the camera, but stared down at his shoes, or off to one side. Cody has also seen photographs of Matthew’s naked dead body. He was not a slight man, but his bulk was built from flab rather than muscle.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he says, ‘but from what you’ve told me, you seem so very different from each other.’

  She laughs. ‘You think I would have gone for a more macho, sporty type? Is that what you’re thinking?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘I thought so too, at first. In fact, I did.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I fell in love once before. I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He was a soldier too. In my unit. That’s why it was a mistake. You should never fall in love with a work colleague.’

  ‘No. So what happened?’

  ‘We were on patrol in Helmand Province. We were laughing, joking. Svend said something crude, so I punched him playfully. He pretended to be hurt and staggered away. Straight onto an IED.’

  ‘A landmine.’

  ‘Yes. A landmine.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘The bottom half of him was completely gone. We did what we could for him, but there was too much damage. He died after a few minutes.’

  ‘That’s . . . that’s awful. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. I can say that now, but when it happened it affected me greatly. The doctors said I was traumatised. I didn’t stay long in the army after that.’

  Cody cannot help but see the parallels with his own experience. The trauma he suffered, and the way it affected him. He knows he still has a long way to go on his road to recovery, and he wonders if that is true for Sara also.

  Sara takes a deep breath. A cleansing breath. ‘But out of bad sometimes comes good. I changed. I wanted the opposite of army life. Matthew was that opposite. He wasn’t interested in aggression or fighting, except in his beloved computer games. He wanted only peace, and someone to love him and take care of him.’

  ‘That’s not a bad aim in life,’ says Cody.

  She smiles wistfully. ‘No. It isn’t.’

  12

  Only minutes after Cody has left her house, Sara decides she needs to get out of there too. She has had enough of this isolation. She needs people around her. Sights and sounds to take her mind off things.

  She jumps in the car and drives into the city. Parks at the Liverpool One shopping centre. She spends some time there, wandering from shop to shop, looking but not seeing, listening in to random snippets of conversation.

  When she comes out of Debenhams and onto Lord Street, she makes a left turn without even thinking about it and heads towards James Street. It’s only as she passes the railway station there that she realises where her feet are taking her.

  The Mersey.

  One of her favourite things about Copenhagen is the sight and smell of water. She loves the canals, the bridges, the houseboats, the open sea. Here in Liverpool, she makes a trip down to the dock area as often as she can to keep those feelings of her birthplace fresh.

  She crosses the busy Strand and passes the Port of Liverpool Building, one of the ‘Three Graces’ characterising the city’s distinctive waterfront. When she reaches the Naval War Memorial, she ascends its few steps, then leans her arms on the steel railings and stares out across the leaden river. She remains there for some time, her nose streaming as blasts of cold air push at her. She watches a ferry forging its way steadily across to Birkenhead. Overhead, seagulls call mournfully.

  She wonders how long she will stay here. Not here at this precise spot, but here in England. What reason is there to stay, now that Matthew is gone?

  She thinks back to her conversation with Sergeant Cody, when she was telling him about Matthew’s first trip to Copenhagen. The rekindled memories bring a smile to her face. She remembers how anxious Matthew was when she took him on a rollercoaster ride at the Tivoli Gardens. He spent most of the ride clutching her hand tightly in his own, and the photograph of them displayed at the booth showed clearly how terrified he was.

  She remembers also a later Christmas visit, when they went to the Rundetaarn – the round tower – when he proposed to her after they kissed under the mistletoe in one of the windows.

  Yes, they had some wonderful times together.

  Sara steps back, away from the railings. She stares at the inscription on the base of the memorial’s stone column:

  These officers and men of the Merchant Navy died while serving with the Royal Navy and have no grave but the sea.

  Matthew will have no grave either. Not until he provides some answers. Not until he reveals to the world the reason for his death.

  Sara needs that explanation. She will not do anything about leaving this country until it is given to her. And if the police can’t unearth it, she will do so herself. That’s the promise she makes to Matthew.

  She closes her eyes for a few seconds and breathes heavily. Then, slowly, she moves away from the memorial.

  She’s not sure where to go next but doesn’t want to return home just yet. She continues along the riverfront, ending up in the coffee shop at the Tate. She orders a large cappuccino and a chocolate muffin, then takes a seat at a window table.

  She stares out at the water again, calmer here in the dock. The bobbing boats dotted all around the edges. The converted warehouses supported by thick, cast iron pillars painted in salmon pink. A Japanese couple move in front of her, blocking her view while they snap some selfies. She smiles at them, but they don’t seem to notice, and they move on.

  She thinks again about Matthew’s first trip to Copenhagen. There was a choir in one of the market squares. They held candles and sang Christmas carols. She and Matthew stood there for a long time, listening and occasionally singing along. She ventured a glance towards him, and saw how entranced he was, like a little boy.

  It was only about a month later that she made her first trip to England. Newcastle at first. But when the job came up in Liverpool, he brought her along to show her what it had to offer. She instantly fell in love with the place.

  A sudden feeling of déjà vu dances up her spine, and she realises that she sat here in this café with Matthew on that initial visit. His job had brought him here many times, and he knew all the touristy things to see and do. He told her about the announcement of the Titanic’s sinking being made from what used to be the White Star headquarters at the bottom of James Street. He told her about the docklands, and the history of this particular dock. How it was opened during the very first state visit to the city by a member of the royal family. Prince Albert was the dignitary, and the dock was forever named after him. Matthew also told her about—

  The memory scampers away quickly as the questions invade her mind.


  Prince Albert. The Albert Dock. Could it be?

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

  No. It still doesn’t make any sense. What possible connection . . . ?

  She stares out of the window again. Not idly this time, but looking for something – anything – that might complete the circle her brain is struggling to construct. She looks at the shopfronts and reads their signage, tries to make out the names on the boats. Nothing jumps out at her, and so she turns back to her recollection of that day. What did they talk about, here in this café? What did they do?

  She thinks back to the beginning of that visit to the docks. They took the train that time. Got off at James Street. Turned right towards the river . . .

  No. Wait. We didn’t. Not straightaway. We made a slight detour first. We crossed the road, heading towards the crown courts. He wanted to show me something. A monument. A statue.

  Sara’s hand jumps to her mouth.

  The statue on James Street. It’s of Queen Victoria.

  Remember! Victoria and Albert.

  Yes, that’s right. We went to see the statue first. Matthew wanted to show me how, from a certain angle, it appears as though Victoria is endowed with massive male genitalia. Except that, Matthew being Matthew, he couldn’t get the words out. He could only keep pointing and giggling while I struggled to work out what he was trying to tell me, and—

  Victoria and Albert.

  Is that it, Matthew? Is that what you were trying to get me to think about? My first trip to the city? What we did on that day?

  She stares unseeing into her coffee cup, her mind feverishly working to dredge up images from all that time ago. The Victoria Monument, the Albert Dock, and then . . .

  And then?

  The Walker Art Gallery, wasn’t it?

  No. Not quite. There was one other stop along the route.

  And then it all comes together. All the pieces fall into place in a gigantic mental thunderclap that leaves her visibly trembling.

  Sara grabs her bag and gets up abruptly from her chair. She leaves the coffee and muffin unfinished. She has somewhere else she needs to be.

  The place that Matthew was telling her to go to.