How I Lost You

by Jenny Blackhurst

  The jump from the office window to the extension doesn’t look too bad, and I silently thank the con man at the conservatory place who convinced Mark to go for the expensive brick option, complete with foundations and planning permission, rather than the four pieces of glass I had in mind. That should take my weight quite comfortably, provided I don’t bounce off the bloody roof.

  As quietly as I can, I open the window and peer out. The extension is directly below, next to the kitchen. It was my laundry room and I loved it. It may seem slightly ridiculous to spend all that money on an extra room just to stick my washing machine and tumble dryer in, but I’m bloody glad now that we did. Moving as quickly as my heeled boots will allow, I hitch myself up onto the desk and push the window open as far as possible. This would be a really bad time for Mark to decide to put out his washing.

  The kitchen door opens—Mark is coming up the stairs. I have to get out fast. I hurl my handbag out of the window, hearing it land with a thump on the extension roof, and swing my leg over the windowsill. A huge heave and I am sitting on the sill, both legs dangling over, as I hear Mark at the top of the stairs. It isn’t much of a drop—the real fall is from the extension to the ground—so I throw myself from the window, landing heavily. I can’t chance a look at whether Mark has come into the study, or gone into the bedroom or simply to the loo. I am standing on the roof of my former laundry room—thankfully all in one piece—and I have to get off before someone spots me.

  Dropping to all fours, as low as possible, I make my way to the edge of the roof. The drop here is around ten feet, which is eight feet more than I am comfortable with, but once again my choice in the matter seems limited. I don’t stop to think about how much the landing is going to hurt. I don’t know how long Mark is going to stay upstairs, and his arrival back in the kitchen will cause me some problems. Wrapping the strap of my handbag around my wrist, I squat over the edge, lower my legs down slowly, and let go.

  I won’t try to sound brave: the impact bloody hurts. As my knees try to recover from the shock, I manage to shuffle my way out of sight of the kitchen window. So far I haven’t cried out in pain and I am feeling pretty pleased with myself when I hear a key turn in the back door. Bad knees or not, I run.

  Gasping for breath, my vision slightly blurred, I’m forced to stop at the end of the street. I lean against the McKinleys’ garden wall to steady myself and check the front-room window for prying eyes. There is no one in and I haven’t been followed.

  I walk the rest of the way back to my car thanking God every step of the way for the hours I spent in the gym at Oakdale, running and reading my only escape. Four years ago I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull my weight up onto the windowsill in the office, let alone drop from the laundry room roof and run for my life. I feel triumphant, more exhilarated than I have in years. The car’s still parked where I left it, no parking ticket or wheel clamp. I let myself in and collapse in an exhausted heap against the steering wheel.

  “How did it go? Did you get caught? Is this your ‘one phone call’?” Nick answers on the first ring and instantly begins a verbal assault.

  “I haven’t been arrested. And I’m not sure if I found anything. I’ll leave you to work that out when I get back to your house. If that’s still okay?”

  “Sure.” Some of the anxiety in his voice has dissipated on hearing I won’t be needing him to post bail. How much does a journalist earn these days anyway? “Drive safely,” he adds, and hangs up. Smiling wryly, I put away my phone and start the car. Feeling somewhat calmer and even smugger than before, I begin the drive back to Nick’s house, both knees throbbing.

  32

  Forty minutes later, I pull into Nick’s street. After the initial adrenaline rush of my daring robbery and resulting escape had worn off, Mark’s words about finding our son had returned to hit me square in the stomach and I had to pull over twice on my journey to regain my breath.

  “Thank God.” Nick’s words are those of relief, but he doesn’t look relieved. My euphoria subsides in an instant. He’s holding an envelope.

  “What’s that? Where did you get it?”

  “It was on the mat when I came to open the door. It wasn’t there ten minutes ago.”

  There’s no child this time. The photographs that have been shoved through Nick’s door show a much more familiar figure. Although my back is to the camera, I recognize myself immediately. Dressed in a loose gray sweater, my hair short and dark, I’m standing at the door of my former home, waiting for my former husband to open the door to me. This photo is recent. This photo is from this morning.

  The next picture shows Mark opening the door to me; another shows me leaving. The fourth shows me returning to the house and the fifth is of me dangling from the laundry room roof. I would laugh if it wasn’t so terrifying; I look ridiculous hanging there, suspended from the roof like a teenager climbing a tree. I thought myself so clever, escaping undetected like the Artful Dodger, but I’m not, am I? I was followed, caught on camera over and over again, then whoever followed me printed the photos and posted them through Nick’s front door. For what? A warning? Are these photographs on the desk of some police station as I stand here congratulating myself on being a free woman?

  A banging at the front door brings me screeching back to reality. The police, already? It’s too late to run; for all I know they are at the back door waiting for another daring escape. I shove the photographs into my handbag and prepare to face the music. Nick opens the front door, both of us wearing our best “Please, officer, I’m innocent” look. Although that failed dismally for me the first time around, and I actually believed in my innocence that time.

  Cassie stands on the front step, holding shopping bags and looking to anyone watching like the perfect Stepford Wife.

  “Jesus, am I glad to see you.” I release the breath I’ve been holding and Nick lets her in. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’ve been looking into the trial,” Cassie reminds me. I’d forgotten that meant her coming here, to Nick’s house, without me. “I went to get some shopping. How did it go?”

  “Not as well as I thought,” I answer darkly. I lamely hold out the photographs. “These just arrived.”

  Cassie looks through the photos and gasps, then passes them back to Nick, whose concerned look scares me even more. He leads the way into the sitting room, where he pulls the curtains closed and switches on the lights.

  “What’s that for?” Cassie asks. Even I agree it’s overkill; we aren’t Bond and Moneypenny, after all.

  “They posted the photographs here. Before she even got here. Which means they knew she wasn’t going home.”

  Cassie immediately checks over her shoulder, as though someone might be standing behind her with a camera or a tape recorder.

  “You didn’t see anyone?”

  “Do you see me waving at the camera?” The stress is making me snappy and sarcastic. “Sorry.”

  “Well, whoever it is, we can’t do anything about it now.” Nick affably ignores my barb. “What did you get out of Mark?”

  I tell them everything. Every detail of our conversation is etched into my brain and I repeat it practically word for word. I tell them about the money and the photos, even the sofa. Cassie is furious when I mention that my ex-husband is actually secretly loaded.

  “What? How did he get away with not revealing that in the divorce?”

  “I didn’t ask,” I reply simply. “His lawyer offered me a decent sum and I took it.”

  “We’ll contest it,” she continues, oblivious of what I’m even saying. I didn’t fight the divorce; I didn’t ask for anything. I was grateful for what I was given.

  “I don’t want to contest anything,” I insist. “The money wasn’t anything to do with me; the payments stopped long before we even met. I just want to know why he never told me about it. Or her.”

  I won’t admit it, but the photos of Mark and the girl have upset me far more than the hidden money. Granted, he ne
ver lied to me about her exactly; he just never told me about her. The fact that the mystery woman is absolutely gorgeous doesn’t help, of course.

  “The question is,” Nick muses, “does any of it mean anything to us?”

  He’s used the word “us,” as though this is his problem as much as mine, when we both know he could just walk away right now if he wanted to. I look from him to Cassie and wonder what they’ve been talking about all day, this odd pair who yesterday hated each other’s guts. I hand Nick my phone with the pictures of the accounts, and an address book I took from the office. He frowns slightly at this, as though he doesn’t approve of my stealing it, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “Did you guys find anything?” I ask Cassie while Nick’s still deep in thought.

  “We got these,” Cassie replies, excitedly pulling out her own sheaf of notes. I see the header “ZBH Solicitors” emblazoned across the top—they’ve been sent from my lawyer’s office. “They’re copies of the case files on your trial. ZBH blocked us every step of the way. Their bitch of a secretary only emailed them over when I pretended to be you on the phone and threatened legal action. Nick had me quoting all sorts of laws that entitle you to your own case notes.”

  I start flicking through, my eyes falling on more and more that I don’t understand. “What do these tox results mean?” I ask, scanning the page. “What’s ketamine? Isn’t that for horses?”

  “It’s a drug that was found in your system when they admitted you the day of Dylan’s death,” Cassie explains.

  That’s news to me and I tell her so. Annoyingly, Nick is poring through the address book and says nothing.

  “We figured as much,” Cassie says. “It doesn’t seem to have been brought up at the trial. Ketamine is used as a date rape drug, rendering the victim dizzy, disorientated, and unaware of what’s happening around them. It can also cause blackouts.” She sounds like a trainee pharmacist and looks proud of her investigative skills.

  “What? How could I not know about this? Why did Rachael not mention it at the trial?” I thought Rachael Travis had done a pretty good job as my defense lawyer. Mark had taken her on when the evidence against me had seemed watertight, but she had still fought my corner. Or so I’d thought. Maybe she hadn’t had access to my medical records?

  “Oh, she had access all right.” Nick speaks at last when I suggest this. “You signed a waiver when you took her on, giving her full rights to all of your records. It’s in there somewhere.”

  “So she knew I had ketamine in my system and didn’t think to bring it up in my defense? Would the police have seen these records?”

  Nick shrugs. “That’s a good question. We only have the statements and details released to the press; we have no rights to the actual police notes, and short of hacking the system we have no way of finding out. Either someone on the case didn’t do a very thorough job, or they knew about the drugs and they were left out of the investigation.”

  My head is hurting. “What does all this mean?”

  “It could mean nothing,” Nick admits. “Matthew Riley was a conscientious doctor and had no reason to lie. The ketamine I can’t explain, but with such an open-and-shut case . . . Sorry”—he apologizes quickly when he sees the look that crosses my face—“but it did seem that way at the time. You were found next to Dylan’s body, the cushion used to suffocate him was still in your hands with your skin cells and his saliva all over it—”

  “I was at the trial, remember?” Immediately I feel terrible. Nick and Cassie are here helping me and I’m just being difficult. “Sorry.” I lean forward and rub a hand over my face and eyes, suddenly tired again.

  “Suze, are you sure you’re up to this?” Cassie asks gently. She reaches over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “You know, dragging up all this stuff over and over must be pretty upsetting for you.”

  “No.” It’s all getting a bit much and I’m not too proud to admit it. “I’m not sure I am.” It’s hard to hear details of the day I lost my son related so easily by an impartial observer. Much to my annoyance, I see Cassie shoot Nick a look. It’s quick but not too quick for me to see what it means. They’ve clearly been expecting me to react like this. I decide I liked it better when they couldn’t stand each other.

  “We thought it might get too much for you,” she says, her tone still gentle, as though she might be dealing with a child. I think it’s the final “we” that tips me over the edge; what is it, the hundredth time since she walked in?

  “Oh, we did, did we?” I snap, rounding on my friend and conveniently forgetting that only seconds earlier I was admitting that I’m not coping.

  “We just thought it might get difficult for you, you know, reliving what happened.”

  “Quite the little couple these days, aren’t we? When only yesterday you wanted to bash his head in with a picture frame. Any more thoughts about my mental state, Dr. Reynolds?”

  Cassie looks shocked and more than a little hurt. Nick just watches me with interest. His lack of reaction pisses me off even more. Which admittedly isn’t too difficult at the moment.

  “Don’t get upset, Susan,” Cassie pleads. “We . . . I mean I’m just concerned, you know, with your history . . .”

  She knows me well enough to know instantly that she’s said the wrong thing.

  “My history?” I practically scream. “What history is that then, Cassie? My depression? Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m a murderer? Well, you should know all about that, shouldn’t you? If we’re going to talk history, I mean. After all, I’m not the one who planned to murder my husband in cold blood because he slept with someone else.”

  Cassie and Nick are stunned into silence. This should make me realize I’m being a bitch, and that Cassie doesn’t deserve it. The knowledge of either of those facts doesn’t deter me, though. Nope, I am on a big, fat roll.

  “So which is it, oh friend of mine? What is it that concerns you so much? Because there was me thinking we’re trying to prove I didn’t kill my son in a depressive rage. Or are you just humoring me?”

  “That’s enough, Susan.” Nick’s deep voice cuts into the middle of my rant and I stop like a naughty schoolgirl chastised by the head teacher. When I see Cassie looking close to tears, I suddenly feel very ashamed of myself.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry, Cass,” I apologize. “I don’t know what got into me. I’m sorry.”

  Cassie reacts in true best friend form and smiles. It’s hard to believe sometimes that this kind, loyal woman has done the thing she’s done.

  “No, I’m sorry,” she replies, coming across to the chair I’ve thrown myself in and putting her arms around me. “It was a stupid thing to say. Would you like to carry on, or should we call it a day?”

  “No,” I say firmly. “You two have gone to a lot of trouble today and I’d like to know what else you found. God knows I’d prefer it to be over, but that’s not an option, so the only thing to do is push forward.”

  Cassie is relieved that I’ve calmed down and Nick remains silent. I wonder if he’s finding it easier and easier to believe I’m a manic-depressive. I’m certainly acting that way. He waits a second, probably to check that I’m not going to lose it again, then he leans over and turns a few of the pages until I’m looking at a report. A doctor’s report.

  “What does it say?” I ask, scanning the page. Nick doesn’t answer, just waits for me to read it for myself.

  It’s a report written by my former GP, Dr. Choudry. It’s dated 13 August 2009, three weeks after Dylan’s death. Certain sentences leap out at me.

  Mrs. Webster showed typical concern with regard to her son’s slow weight gain . . . no suggestion of any depressive symptoms . . . unlikely to be suffering from puerperal psychosis . . . no sign of hallucinations or disordered thought processes . . .

  I look up at Nick. “What does this mean? Why wasn’t this used in court? He’s saying I didn’t have depression.”

  Nick flicks a couple more pages, this time to another doctor’s
report, a name I don’t know, Dr. Ingrid Thompson. A scan of this one makes rather more disturbing reading.

  Patient shows signs of severe postpartum depression . . . she is unresponsive, at times catatonic . . . the patient has no recollection of the incident . . . patient becomes agitated and upset at the mention of her son . . . the patient does not wish to discuss her child . . .

  The date is 30 July, just seven days after the death of my son.

  “What do you think?” Nick probes when I show no reaction.

  “This was given in evidence at the trial,” I reply, remembering now. “She, Dr. Thompson, was there; she gave evidence for the prosecution. Why wasn’t Dr. Choudry called for his opinion? I don’t remember seeing him.”

  “Your solicitor’s notes indicated that Dr. Choudry was an unreliable witness, that the prosecution was likely to suggest his report was covering his own back, making excuses for the fact that he missed your depression at your postnatal checks. It was deemed more likely to hinder than help your case.”

  “I suppose she had a point.” I speak slowly, rereading Dr. Thompson’s report. “But these comments . . . I mean, of course I was in shock, I’d just lost my son. What was I supposed to be acting like?”

  “It doesn’t seem very in-depth,” Cassie agrees. “Those were our . . . I mean my thoughts too. And only one expert diagnosis after one interview. It all seems a bit rushed.”

  “It’s still very circumstantial, though,” Nick warns. “Let’s not get carried away with ourselves. We need to decide what we’re going to do next.”