by Ali Knight
Portia takes several quick steps towards us, her face hard. ‘Jessie. You may be aiding and abetting a criminal. That is a serious offence.’
My old friend turns to me as the sound of a door being battered with something heavy ricochets up the stairwell. She grabs me by my elbows, squeezing them tightly to my sides, more in hope of my innocence than having evidence to back it up. ‘No compromise,’ she whispers fiercely, and then I’m running with a final backwards glance at Portia’s astonished face, taking the stairs five at a time before I burst out of the fire door and pedal away down a back alley filled with rubbish, Jessie’s bike helmet bouncing in the broken plastic basket as I rattle over uneven paving stones.
39
I cycle so hard that after ten minutes I have to pull up under a railway bridge, my heart clamouring to get out of my chest. Sweat is trickling down my back and gathering at my knees. A heavy-goods train begins to rumble down the track above me, and I scream over and over and over at what I have unwittingly uncovered, at what Portia so casually mentioned that was so full of meaning to me. Bloodhound. Lex left his sign. For me. I see him now, pinned to the bed, blood seeping into his freshly laundered sheets as in his desperate final seconds he thinks of how he can lay a trap, strains every creative sinew to conjure a way to not let this stand. Lex saved his most imaginative act for last, used his last breaths to transmit that message, hoping it would be carried to me and I would understand its significance. Oh I do, Lex, I do. I won’t let you down. I howl anew with the pain and the loss, for Melody and for Lex and for myself. He gasped that final word for me because he knew I wouldn’t let it go. Bloodhound. I know the how, but I don’t know the why, and I scream with the energy and the rage needed to act, to find that why, to follow that path Lex uncovered and see where it leads.
I swing my leg back over the bowing metal of Jessie’s ancient Raleigh, spin the pedal to eleven o’clock. Why Raiph? Why? O’Shea is no nearer the answer than I, she’s got computers and access to databases and forensics and the law on her side. But all the systems, processes and protocols are no help here. There’s flamboyance, an arrogance at work. Raiph silenced Lex, but that scarf ended up in my house. The knife ended up in the canal. I’m going home and Paul is going to tell me what he knows if it’s the last thing he does.
Thirty-five minutes of fast cycling later and things don’t seem so clear-cut. I roll to a stop five streets away by some garages. I can’t just walk into my house, the police will be waiting for me there. I’ve made sure my phone is off, the SIM in my back pocket. I have no email access. From melodramatic thoughts of vengeance I’ve shifted to the strictly practical: I’m a fugitive with nowhere to spend a cold night. It’s a risk that’s probably stupid, but I can’t resist the pull of home; the void in my chest where my children sit needs to be filled. I blow on my freezing hands and pedal to a bridge over the canal about half a mile from my house where I can access the water. I lug Jessie’s bike down the steps of a nearby house and out of sight of passers-by, locking it to a sapling, ducking down behind a hedge when I hear a car coming. There’s a low-rise apartment complex on this corner and I skid down the bank past an electricity substation to a high steel fence at the back of the flats. I prowl about, looking for something to help me over, and find a broken chair by the communal bins. I may be three feet taller but scaling the shiny metal is harder than it looks. I make a huge effort and get nowhere before anger resurfaces in me and I heave myself over, ripping my top and scratching my abdomen painfully in the process. Once I’m over it’s a long and arduous journey clinging to the canal bank and inching forward past the garden strips of my neighbours. I daren’t approach from across the canal, I’d be too visible. I freeze for a long time at one point as I trip a jittery householder’s security light. I cut my hands on spiky bushes as I push through thick vegetation. After a long time I see the outline of the Marie Rose in the gloom. It’s dark back here for London and very quiet; a hidden, abandoned spot that’s idyllic in the sunshine but takes on menacing overtones at night. The canal is a pool of oil next to me. I crouch motionless until my legs are numb. I surprise a roaming fox, who scuttles off past a neighbour’s beehive. Water slaps lazily against the wooden slats of the narrowboat, its blank portholes showing that no one is aboard. Max and Marcus aren’t back until next week, they won’t mind me borrowing it, and in my bag is the key that fits that thick padlock on the door facing me: landlady’s privilege.
When I’m sure no one’s around I inch forward until I see my house. Josh’s bedroom curtains are closed, the light off. He’ll be asleep now, his duvet a tangle round his legs, his hair matted to his forehead. The window along glows with light, from this angle I can see the pictures on my bedroom wall and a pile of Paul’s clothes on a chair. The kitchen is dark. I wonder if the police are watching the garden from there.
I move behind the shed and can now board the boat without being seen from the house. I unlock the door and slip inside, putting my palm over the glass of the torch I’ve had in my bag since breaking into Paul’s office. The portholes are small but I daren’t turn on the light. In the gloom I check the tiny kitchen by the door: a two-ring cooker and a small fridge. Beyond is a fold-away table with benches and through an archway there are two interconnecting bedrooms with a curtain serving as a wall. At the back is a shower room, a storage space in the stern with a washing machine, and another door to the back deck. The place bears witness to the organisational skills of the M&Ms, the beds are covered in clothes that didn’t make the cut in their holdalls, beer bottles are stacked on a crowded kitchen surface, and a brand-new pair of ski gloves has been accidentally forgotten on the table next to a laptop.
I turn on the electric fire and am suddenly aware I’m starving and a poke about in the fridge turns up a dried piece of Cheddar and half a tub of yoghurt. I find two crackers in a cupboard and console myself that I’ve eaten worse. With a cup of black tea to warm my hands I sit down at the table and half-heartedly punch a key on the laptop. To my amazement it jumps to life, the blue light from the screen throwing gloomy shadows round the room. Max or Marcus never bothered to turn it off, and there’s no security code. Now I have things I can do. I take Melody’s ‘Neat Feet!’ CD-Rom from her file and put it in the computer. When it starts playing it’s so absurd I want to laugh. The film is taken on a small camera attached to the front of a foot. There is a sequence with someone walking along a brown rug, spiky carpet fibres claw at the lens before the camera swivels and a pair of platforms crunch past. I see a hairgrip, a pen lid kicked against a table leg. The microphone is working too well, picking up every squeak and groan of the shoe’s leather sole, but the voices in the room are muffled and indistinct. Someone laughs and a woman’s finger is waved in front of the lens. Suddenly the camera lurches skywards and shifts forty-five degrees. The wearer has sat down and put their foot on their knee and Astrid is sticking her tongue out into the tiny camera, the plants in Forwood’s offices visible behind her blonde halo. ‘Flipping hell, Lex, you pointing that thing up my skirt?’ she laughs to camera. There’s a rumble and a scrape and the scene goes blank. Lex has turned the camera off, his foot-level filming one of his many ideas that are tested and discarded.
A moment later another video starts, this time his shoe is under a table. He’s out of the office now, the floor is cracked white tile and the acoustics are echoey and institutional. The camera swings wildy as Lex bounces one leg up and down before slamming it back down to the floor. Opposite him are a pair of purple ballet pumps placed squarely on the floor. The wearer has bare legs and elegant ankles, I can see the bones spanning out across her feet as they run down to her toes. Lex shifts in his chair, it may well be a swivel, and at the end of the table are expensive, calfskin stilettos and nude stockings on a pair of crossed legs, one of which is being twirled meditatively. It’s impossible to hear what’s being said, but the film is arresting enough; the body language is very revealing.
On the left of the ballet pumps are a pair of m
an’s black lace-ups, one of which is stretched across Lex’s camera and instantly I know its Paul’s shoe, the way his foot scrapes back across the broken tiling. There’s about five more minutes of bum-shifting and leg jiggle as Lex’s camera stays trained on the wearer of the stilettos and she coquettishly crosses her legs and leans sideways. I’m beginning to tire of Lex’s flirting when he seems to swing his body and his foot round, and there, hidden under the table away from prying eyes, a secret moment no one is supposed to share, is the purple ballet pump entwined around Paul’s ankle, as clear a sign of a hidden passion as it is possible to have. And as the ballet pump disappears up the back of my husband’s trouser leg, I know where I’ve seen that pair of shoes before: sat neatly under the retro British Rail sign in Melody’s bedroom, tidied up and presented to me by her mother.
Fifty per cent of married men cheat. Or seventy per cent. Or all of them in the end, no one really knows. More images of chair legs and knees scroll past but I’m no longer paying attention. I was arrogant enough to assume I could defy those odds. That I was special, that we were the special ones. I thought I was lucky. But I’ve just seen the brutal evidence, the hard truth that I’m just like everybody else, the happiness of my life built on a fiction. Eloide was right – we share a bond, you’ve cheated on both of us, Paul. How could you do that to me? You knew what you were doing. And, more importantly, Lex knew. His experimental film unwittingly captured it all. How he would have gloated as he handed it over to Melody, a toxic little present.
A burning rage starts to fill me for the complacency I had sunk into, the career opportunities I never took, the way I put Paul’s needs before my own, the lazy assumptions into which I had drifted. I slap myself just for the hell of it, slam the CD Rom back into my bag and pull out Lex’s camera. ‘We’re in a media world, Kate,’ I whisper sarcastically to no one. ‘Smile! Cos you’re on camera . . .’ I read the instructions cover to cover, my mind sharper than it’s felt in years despite my exhaustion. I could memorise every word. I set the machine on a kitchen shelf to get the right angle and start the night-light function. It’s time to start turning tables . . .
I begin nervously, my voice croaky and too low. I stumble and begin again, stronger this time. ‘My name is Kate Forman and I am on the run from the police. I am wanted for the murder of Melody Graham and Lex Wood. This may be my last opportunity to set the record straight, to prove to you that I am innocent.’ The longer I talk the more confident I become. I begin with how I found Paul in the kitchen, that the scarf with Melody’s blood was in my house; that I found Lex’s body. I am mid-flow when my voice dies in my throat. A clunking is coming from the back door of the boat as it is pulled open and heavy steps descend the short ladder.
40
I have time only to sink down under the trestle, cursing silently that I was stupid enough to think the police wouldn’t come here. Long shadows are cast across the floor as a light goes on in the stern and I hear cupboards opening, a bag being dumped on the floor. It doesn’t sound like the police. I inch forward on my knees, peering round the corner into the corridor. My angle is restricted but the cupboard door under the stairs is open and an outstretched male arm is pulling at something. There’s an old green metal filing cabinet in there, left over from the days this was a Forwood office. Someone’s rooting around, and a cold hatred fills my heart. I reckon it’s you, Paul, and you’re up to something. It’s the middle of the night, a long way from the hour anyone needs to check financial transactions or old personnel records. The arm picks up a file, its Milk Blue colour looks green under the strip lighting. The heavy drawer is slammed back into its holder with a screech. The arm careers out of my field of vision and the cupboard door closes with a thud. Yanking my head back, I crouch next to the table as several long strides bring a tall figure into the room, but it’s not my cheating husband, it’s John.
My astonishment is not mirrored in his face. ‘So this is where you are. Are you OK?’
‘No. What are you looking for?’ He waves his head vaguely, avoiding the question. ‘Are there police in the house?’
‘Of course.’
‘They must have found Paul very persuasive, given the blood test results on the scarf, for him to be in there with the kids while I’m on the run out here,’ I say venomously.
John stays silent for a long moment before adding, ‘He’s worried about you. The kids were crying for you.’ My heart feels like its tearing a little from my body. John senses this and adds, ‘But they’re asleep now.’
He places several files down on the table. ‘I haven’t got long.’ He sits down opposite me, within the range of my camera, which is still recording. ‘You’ve caused quite a stir—’
‘I didn’t kill them,’ I snap.
John looks at me from under his thick eyebrows. ‘Why did you break into Lex’s flat?’
News travels fast, I think; maybe my 999 call wasn’t so anonymous after all.
He doesn’t believe me so I push on to try to convince him. ‘I thought there might be something there that could help me. What I found was his dead body’ – John looks away – ‘and no clues at all. But I found my clue later. What I didn’t know was that Lex had given me the answer a long time ago, but neither him nor I realised it – until now.’ John has turned back towards me and is staring so intently in the half-light that I involuntarily say, ‘What?’ like a dumb teenager.
‘Lex gave you the answer.’ It’s not a question but a statement, and a frown creases his forehead. ‘Jonah and the Whale . . .’ he tails off and starts flicking through one of the files. He is so perfectly suited to the night as he bends close to sheaves of paper, after dark the pallor seems to leave his face, it’s as if the dull struggle to stay on the wagon drains him more during the day. But then evening always was when John would come alive, be the life and soul, extreme and flamboyant and always the last one to leave. By the time the addiction had really taken hold there was no leaving to go home, just a transition from danker and grottier hangouts in ever-increasing frequency. Now his eyes are bright, a quick, nervous energy pulsing through his shoulders. From this angle, with his forehead bent towards me, he looks a lot like Paul. They have the same hands. I push from my mind with considerable effort the image of where Paul’s hands have been. ‘Jonah and the Whale. What’s that parable mean to you, Kate?’
‘Do we have time for this?’ I reply tetchily, craning round to see what he’s reading, all the while aware that across the garden wait the forces that could stop my searching for ever.
‘Is your phone off?’
‘Of course.’
‘The little guy gets eaten by the big guy . . .’ He’s flicking through pages. ‘Forwood gets gobbled up by CPTV, all’s right with the world . . .’
‘Tell me what you’re talking about!’
John slams the file down so hard on the table that it shakes. He looks straight at me, challengingly. ‘Only when you tell me what you know.’
I stare into his face, knowing I’m going to have to take a risk. ‘Lex and I had our differences but we both wanted to find out the truth. Lex had a special name for me – it was a private joke at my expense. I think he told that name to his killer, to Raiph—’
‘Jonah’s going to swallow the whale.’ John places his hands gently on top of his head and breathes slowly in his Eureka moment. ‘So Lex did know!’ John leans forward in his seat, knees splayed far apart as he’s too tall to fit properly under the table. ‘Two years ago when CPTV was buying Forwood Lex would joke we were Jonah being consumed by the whale. Last week I got a text from Lex saying, “Jonah’s gonna eat the whale.” It was the last message I ever got from him. But how can we eat the whale? We’re a tiny company and they’re big. Then this morning, I got a letter from CPTV’s lawyers regarding the final payment that CPTV is giving us. They’re trying to delay, they’re trying to get the payout date put back. So I began to ask myself why. One of the reasons would be if they couldn’t pay. And if they can’t pay, it wou
ld have to be because they’re bust; one of the biggest media companies in Europe would be bankrupt.’
I shake my head, confused. ‘I’m not really getting this. As you said, they’re huge.’
‘Yes, but being big doesn’t mean that they’ve got a lot of cash. This is a deep recession, banks aren’t lending money. Even big companies are having trouble getting extra funds, particularly old-style TV companies like CPTV. And something else: Forwood was valued the way it was two years ago because we rode the boom in telephone voting and texting, it was very profitable for us. But since then there’ve been TV-voting scandals and the income all programmes and channels make from that has dropped a lot. There aren’t the huge amounts of money to be made that way now – another reason banks won’t lend.’ John’s nodding now, warming to his theme. ‘A small company like Forwood can bankrupt a big company and no one realises—’
‘Except Raiph and Lex.’
John rises to his feet and I mirror him. We’ve got it now. ‘Jonah would have eaten the whale.’
‘Raiph loses the company he founded and built for forty years.’ I stare at John as he skim-reads paragraphs.
He looks so like Paul at this moment, an almost boyish enthusiasm reflected in his arms and shoulders. He’s still fit and healthy, no squidges of fat are starting to droop over his waistband. Raiph is old, more used to conference-table pastries and the comfy leather armchairs of a gentlemen’s club. Would he have the strength to catch a twenty-six-year-old in trainers who cycled? Maybe. Or maybe not.
John is running a finger across lawyers’ jargon. ‘I’ve got to show this to Paul—’
‘No!’
John doesn’t have time to reply as a noise from the stern brings us both up short. The door has opened and someone’s coming down the steps. John wheels round into the corridor, alarm crossing his face as his rangy frame blocks the door.
