The Darkness Visible

by Tori de Clare

‘What do the police think they’re doing?’ she asked, level-toned.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Where’s Dan?’

  ‘I don’t know that either. It’s all too weird.’

  There was a sudden noise outside. Naomi looked over her shoulder.

  ‘It’s nothing. Kids coming out of school,’ Siobhan said.

  ‘I can’t tell my mum that Nathan is on the loose. She’d flip. This whole thing has brought out the worst in her. She’s badgering me like you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Eat properly, unpack my clothes, find something constructive to do.’ Naomi swiped speech marks with her forefingers. ‘She expects me to just put Nathan to one side and get on with my life. At the same time, she won’t let me get on with anything. She’ll be flapping now because I’ve left the house. She’s smothering me. I wouldn’t mind if we were talking things through and sharing feelings and stuff. But no. It’s just the same old, same old. Taboo subjects and barriers and no one really being open or honest. I tell you, if it weren’t for Annie, I’d have topped myself by now.’

  Siobhan lowered her head. ‘Do you want to call your mum and tell her you’re here?’

  Naomi shook her head. ‘No. She can sweat.’

  ‘Listen, Naomi, I’m not taking sides or nothing, but being told someone has died, you know, it’s not the best news ever.’

  Naomi sighed. ‘I know.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she said, slotting her long fingernails inside each other. ‘It feels like someone has taken an axe and chopped you down at the root. You lie there, toppled over, so you do – all broken up and disconnected. Then someone comes along and tells you to get up. That it’s all been a mistake. They heave you up and try to slot you together again, but there are little bits missing and you don’t quite fit anymore.’

  Siobhan twitched her lips and broke eye contact.

  Naomi sat, thinking. ‘I know it’s hard for her, but it’s impossible for me too. Being home isn’t what I expected.’

  She paused to think.

  ‘What did you expect?’

  Naomi shrugged her shoulders. ‘I feel as though I’ve regressed into a little kid again. I’m having nightmares. I climbed into bed with my sister last night. Thing is, my mum doesn’t really respond to me. She inflicts what she wants on me rather than asking me what I need,’ Naomi said, covering her face. ‘I was so much stronger when I was alone with Dan.’

  ‘Because there was no choice. You had to be strong. Plus you couldn’t very well climb into bed with Dan for comfort.’

  ‘I wanted to.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ Siobhan said. ‘Fact is you didn’t. Give yourself a break would you? You solved things, did your best.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve solved anything, Siobhan. Everything is an almighty mess and d’you know what? There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t wish I was back at the cottage with Dan, hidden from everyone. Is that mad?’

  Siobhan sighed. ‘How should I know? You definitely haven’t regressed though.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When I first met you, you hated being away from home. You’d spent your entire life at home. You ended up at college, desperate to please your mammy. She held you to phone calls every freaking Friday at six.’ Naomi had to smile. ‘You were almost ready for giving up your course until you met that tosser you married.’

  Naomi chuckled.

  ‘I’m not kidding,’ Siobhan said.

  ‘That’s why it’s funny,’ Naomi replied, suddenly feeling better.

  ‘So look at you now.’

  ‘Yeah – a wreck with short hair and bad clothes.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m seeing,’ Siobhan said, scrutinising Naomi carefully with her tiny eyes.

  ‘What are you seeing?’

  ‘You’re different.’

  ‘Good-different or bad-different?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She paused to brush her bushy hair off her shoulder. ‘Point is you’re in no mood to be pushed around, I can see that.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘There’s an energy about you that you didn’t have before.’

  ‘Siobhan, I’m lost. I don’t know what I’m doing.’

  Siobhan puffed out all her breath. ‘You’re not lost. Look, it’s been a few days since you confronted your rotten husband and put your neck on the line. How do you expect to feel?’

  Naomi rubbed her eyes. They were heavy. She was tired. She sat in silence a few moments and couldn’t find an answer.

  ‘Has anything helped?’ Siobhan asked.

  ‘Yes. Annie, and – strangely – music. I thought I’d had enough of music, but evidently not.’

  ‘How has it helped?’

  ‘It’s been in my head at key times. It’s weird. I’ve remembered music I didn’t know I knew. I’ve been putting my headphones on and going to sleep with music playing. Chopin, mainly. Nocturnes. Cliché, or what?’

  Siobhan fingered her throat. ‘Where’s your necklace?’

  ‘I gave it to Dan as a gift.’

  ‘OK,’ she said as if she didn’t get what Dan would want with it. ‘Praying, are you?’

  ‘I can’t really. I feel disconnected, confused.’

  ‘Want to know what I’d do?’ Naomi waited for the answer. ‘Why not come back to college?’

  ‘College?’ Naomi considered the word and all it meant.

  Siobhan sat waiting, allowing Naomi time to think. ‘The term only started ten days ago. You haven’t missed much. You’re still a student here.’

  ‘I think I might have been crossed off the list when I drowned in the Caribbean.’

  ‘So get yourself back on the list. Ring the Head of Keyboard. It will get you away from home. You’ll be independent again. Music is helping you. So get a fresh start. It’s better to be distracted.’

  ‘I have nowhere to live.’

  ‘Move in here with us. I can’t offer you a room, but I have a spare set of drawers and you can crash on the camp bed in my room or get yourself a bed. My room’s big enough. The lads won’t mind. Buy yourself a car, you know, so you can keep safe.’

  ‘Vincent Solomon promised to leave me alone.’

  ‘You gonna take his word for it?’ Siobhan asked. The question hung while they fell into a few moments of quiet. Birds tweeted on the back lawn. ‘Look, you want to see Dan again, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘You won’t be seeing nothing of him unless you leave home.’

  ‘What about the trial, Nathan and Lorie? There’ve been journalists hanging around wanting to interview me. There’s so much going on. I can’t just leave.’

  ‘Fine,’ Siobhan said, finally leaning back, squashing her hair against the chair back. ‘Let Nathan and Lorie keep wrecking your life. Put it on hold for them and lose everything. Stop playing the piano and become a full-time victim. Job satisfaction might not be great.’

  Naomi folded her arms and glared at Siobhan. Siobhan absorbed it for a while then looked away.

  Eventually Naomi said. ‘I can’t face people. I feel such an idiot.’

  ‘So you married the original psycho. And?’ Siobhan shrugged. ‘You won’t be a celebrity for long.’

  ‘I’d about decided I was done with music and stress. Then look what happens.’ Naomi groaned at the thought of being in crowds and standing out for all the wrong reasons. ‘I might regret this,’ Naomi said, hand outstretched.

  ‘Regret what?’

  ‘Pass me your phone. I’m going to call the college,’ Naomi said, feeling slightly queasy but more alive than she had in a while. And for the first time that Naomi could remember, Siobhan’s face relaxed into an actual smile.

  7

  Naomi didn’t worry about returning home until she approached the final turn into the driveway. Then she started to get palpitations. There were four cars cluttering the house near the gates, leaving just enough room for her to make the turn.
A woman in a grey coat jumped out of a nearby black Range Rover armed with a huge camera and started to click furiously.

  Naomi shielded her face and rattled down the drive to find Camilla peering from a downstairs window. At about this point, she noticed the white car on the drive which told her they had visitors. A brief mental fumble identified it as a police car.

  ‘Oh great,’ she muttered. Camilla had called a search party.

  So, all hopes of sloping in unnoticed through the back door having died, she pulled up in front of the house to be met by Camilla, who’d opened the front door and was waiting impatiently in the hall.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  Naomi walked forward and fired a question right back. ‘Have you called the police?’ She hoped it wasn’t the same pair as last time. One of them had strayed into her thoughts since the last visit. She didn’t like him.

  ‘Of course not. They’ve come to speak to you.’

  ‘To me?’ Everything flipped. They weren’t here for information, they were here with bad news. Dan?

  Turning her back on Camilla, Naomi returned Annabel’s keys to the hall table and walked down the hall towards the sitting room. Annabel was the first person she saw. Henry was sitting down clutching a brown envelope, looking baffled.

  Two plain-clothed policemen rose and shook her hand in turn. They were definitely the same two as last time.

  ‘DC Pete Bailey, if you remember.’ She didn’t, at least not his name. His handshake was limp and brief and slightly damp. He sat down.

  The other one lunged at her, hairy hand outstretched. DC Desmond Watt. She hesitated, remembering that he had an iron-clutch, like shaking hands with a gorilla. When she held her hand out, he didn’t speak, just violently shook. His grip was too firm, and almost painful and lasted longer than necessary.

  Watt finally released her. He was mid to late fifties with thinning hair laced with grey. Dandruff peppered his shoulders. He was cold-mannered, business-like.

  He said, ‘We’ve come to ask a few questions, Naomi. Would you prefer to do this by yourself, or with the family here?’

  I don’t want to hear their names mentioned in this house. Your loyalties lie with this family now.

  ‘There are no secrets between us,’ Camilla chipped in, and everyone looked at her. ‘I’m not having you grill my daughter –’

  ‘By myself,’ Naomi said, asserting herself for the first time that week.

  Watt flicked a glance between Camilla and Naomi through steel-grey eyes.

  Camilla said, ‘Naomi?’

  Naomi looked at the floor, ‘Don’t make a scene, Mum. Please. I’ll tell you everything afterwards, OK?’

  ‘But I need to –’

  ‘Mum.’ Naomi paused. She could feel her heart beating furiously for no reason. Her hands were clammy. ‘I need to do this by myself.’

  Henry moved first. ‘Your choice, petal. You know where we are if you want us.’ He extended his hand to take hold of Camilla’s arm, but she moved ahead of him, unwilling to be shown out.

  Annabel trailed behind, but Naomi grabbed her hand and after a moment of eye contact, Annabel dropped down beside Naomi. Camilla glanced over her shoulder before filing out ahead of Henry. Bailey got up from the sofa, a little pink around the cheeks. He gently closed the door behind them and the tension eased.

  No one said anything while Watt took a small notebook out of his pocket, plus a pen that was latched on to his shirt and was reluctant to let go. He made an unhurried show of licking his thumb and carefully flipping the pages until he’d found what he was looking for. Bailey sat beside him and smiled at Annabel while they waited.

  Watt drew a long and noisy breath. ‘OK, so you’ve given us a full statement on the events leading up to your abduction by Mr Daniel Stone in early September, which led to the arrest of Nathaniel Stone and Loretta Taylor. We can now inform you that Dan Stone has also been arrested on several charges relating to your abduction and detainment.’

  Naomi’s intellect stalled a moment. ‘What?’

  Watt fired straight back unsympathetically, ‘Dan Stone is in custody. He’s being questioned about his involvement in this crime.’

  ‘But Dan’s innocent.’

  Des Watt looked at her intently. His forehead creased. ‘Well, the fact of the matter is that charges have to be brought when a citizen abducts another individual and holds them against their will for any period of time. We’re talking about a serious offence. The police can’t waive it.’

  ‘He didn’t hold me against my will.’

  ‘That isn’t what your statement says.’

  ‘You’re twisting my words. Look, I’ve already explained that he did what he did for the right reasons.’

  ‘It isn’t for you to judge whether or not Mr Stone did what he did for the right reasons. He’s currently being interviewed to ascertain whether or not a case needs to be brought against him.’

  Annabel took Naomi’s hand. Naomi was speechless for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t understand what’s going on here.’

  Bailey, who’d said almost nothing so far, took over. His tone was gentle and apologetic. ‘Look, Naomi, Dan has been extensively questioned and held for thirty-six hours now. That’s almost as long as we can hold him for. He should have been released today, but something has come up.’ He paused to glance at Annabel, then spoke to both of them. ‘You need to prepare yourself at this stage for the possibility that Dan may end up with a sentence.’

  ‘What? No!’ The room seemed quite cold. Naomi felt a tightening inside her chest. ‘Dan? Prison?’

  ‘Dan has pleaded guilty, Naomi.’

  ‘Guilty?’ The word lost all meaning for a moment.

  ‘Of what?’ Annabel asked. ‘Naomi wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Dan Stone.’

  Watt was looking down and had started to scribble notes in his pad.

  ‘In the eyes of the law, he’s still guilty of the charges we’ve already mentioned. Obviously, the intention to commit them will be taken into account.’

  ‘Where is Dan now?’

  ‘He’s still at the station.’

  Naomi glanced at Annabel. So that kind of explained why Dan hadn’t called.

  ‘How soon can I see him?’

  Watt balled his fist and held it to his mouth while he cleared his throat. ‘What kind of a relationship do you have with Dan Stone?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Do you need me to repeat the question?’

  ‘How is it relevant?’

  Des Watt looked at Naomi, mouth tightly sealed. Eventually he opened it and drew breath. ‘You see, whereas Dan has pleaded guilty, Nathan Stone denies all charges against him. Loretta Taylor is also denying all charges.’

  ‘What?’ Naomi and Annabel said in unison.

  Annabel stood up, then without finding words, sat down. ‘How is that even possible?’

  Des Watt was studying Naomi as if he was trying to discern her state of mind. ‘It’s our job to uncover the truth.’

  ‘We’ve told you the truth,’ Naomi said, palms held out to him.

  Watt was infuriatingly calm. ‘You’ve told us your point of view. We have to take an impartial view until we have a clearer picture. Nathan is pleading innocent. He says he’s not guilty of attempted murder and that he’s been set up. He claims you went on your honeymoon with him then disappeared. He said he was devastated and had no idea that you’d flown back by yourself. He believes you wanted him to think that you were dead to punish him. He says he still loves you despite what you’ve done to him.’

  There was a knife twisting inside Naomi’s gut again. Annabel’s mouth had fallen open.

  ‘Punish him?’ Naomi spluttered. ‘For what?’

  ‘For having a relationship with your best friend. He said he confessed everything to you before the wedding and that you and Dan planned your revenge on him and Lorie.’

  Naomi dropped her head into her hands and sunk her hands into what was left of her hair. ‘This is
madness. Crazy,’ she said in a whisper. No one had anything to say. Eventually she looked up. ‘Is this some kind of a sick joke?’

  DC Watt raised an eyebrow. Does it look like one?

  ‘So you’ve let them go?’ Naomi said, raising her voice. ‘I know you have because I’ve just seen Nathan.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At his flat.’

  ‘What were you doing there, Naomi?’

  ‘Looking for Dan.’ Watt and Bailey exchanged a look. Naomi said, ‘Why did you free them?’

  ‘Because without evidence, we couldn’t hold them any longer,’ Watt said.

  ‘What more evidence do you need?’

  ‘I suggest you calm down.’ Watt said, slightly aggravated. Bailey shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. ‘The thing is, even though Lorie and Nathan have been detained completely separately, there isn’t a single detail of their story that doesn’t match up.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Annabel said.

  ‘Her version of events is that she was abducted after the wedding by Dan Stone and was tied up in a bedroom in a cottage in the Lake District until you came back to England, after which you came to the cottage in her car and stayed one day with Dan. She claims that Dan Stone sedated her while he held her there. We did a blood test and found traces of a sedative in her bloodstream. She said she was taken to a cemetery and tied up with Nathan until the police arrived. What’s your response to that?’

  ‘It’s a heap of crap,’ Annabel snapped.

  Watt was still watching Naomi. ‘Naomi?’

  ‘Dan did sedate Lorie because she was yelling the house down.’

  ‘So you admit to detaining Lorie –’

  ‘She came to visit Dan when she flew home. She didn’t know I was with him because she thought I was dead. She even went to my parents’ house to see them.’

  ‘She said that Dan forced her to talk to your parents, to keep up pretences. That he threatened to kill her if not.’

  ‘This is crazy.’

  Watt came straight back in. ‘Nathan insists you paid a man called . . .’ he consulted his pad, ‘Vincent Solomon to help you to get revenge. Is this true?’

  ‘No,’ Naomi lowered her head. A long pause followed. Her voice dropped. ‘Not revenge.’