“Eat your cake while I think,” he commands, and for some reason, I do as he asks.
Once I’ve eaten my cake, I wash it down with a few big gulps of coffee, then Warrick asks the waitress for more coffee. A man after my own heart.
“How long have you known Sam for?”
“Oh, is it Mr Detective Man now?”
Warrick grins like a nerd, because he is a nerd. We’re both whopping nerds. Hetty’s not a nerd. Joe’s a little bit of a nerd. Jules is so far removed from nerd, she’s the opposite… she’s a culture vulture, but not a nerd. Warrick and I are both top nerds.
“I was very good at what I did. Just answer my question.”
“Probably… around… six years.”
“So, since uni?”
“Yeah.”
“And what was he like at uni?”
“A total slag. Fucking everything. We used to laugh about it. I never thought… one day… you know.”
Warrick’s eyes sharpen. “Okay… and he never, ever…”
“No, he never tried it on. I always had this sense that he found me attractive, but I was with Gage. He knew that. I was out of bounds.”
“But you kept in touch?”
“He gave me his email. I used to send him emails… you know… even after I had the kids. I’d use him as a sounding board, I don’t know… a bit like a Dear Diary… because he always came back with good responses and told me to just keep being myself.”
Warrick flicks one eyebrow up. “And… what is it you’re not telling me?”
I narrow my eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Cop instinct. Top secret skill of mine.” I continue glaring, but he adds, “There’s always something… some way… I mean, there must have been a transitional period, from being just friends… to… what happened this morning.”
“You can say the word sex, you know? It’s just a word.”
“What… sex,” he says, but it sounds more like sexth – the way Miranda Hart says it.
“It was a few days before Gage’s death.”
Warrick looks more than worried, leaning in to hear me speak clearly. “Go on…”
“Things between Gage and me had been bad. It was like we weren’t married anymore, like he was never at home… always away… never even sharing a conversation.” I look up and see I still have Warrick’s avid attention, so I continue, “Well, in the months leading up to Gage’s passing, I’d been meeting up with Sam for coffee and offloading a bit. I have to say, it’s maybe because of Het being with Joe and them two being so happy… it made me see how unhappy I was.” Warrick is wearing an angry face, which makes me want to defend myself. “I did try talking to Gage, but when I told him he’d never made me come, he didn’t take kindly to that. He was offended. It was sort of… I don’t know… it was like after that, I couldn’t say anything.”
“Okay, hold on,” Warrick exclaims. “Never?”
“No. Maybe once, while drunk. Maybe. I don’t know. But it never happened.”
Warrick lifts his pinkie finger up, but I tell him, “No, no. He wasn’t tiny. It wasn’t that.”
Warrick shakes his head. “It’s a gentleman’s honour to make a woman… you know.”
“Yes, so… with all these thoughts in my head, I know it was wrong, but I kept texting and emailing Sam. It was all cordial, friendly, no funny business… until the Saturday before Gage’s death. The weekend he was in Copenhagen.”
I can see Warrick trying to wrap his head around everything. He pushes back his hair, over and over again, even though his wild curls are literally untameable, the same as Joe’s (Hetty’s always telling me so).
“What did the coroner say?” Warrick asks.
“Coroner?”
“Yes, the pathologist who dealt with Gage’s body.”
I’m taken aback he could bring up such a subject at a time like this, when I’m confused and emotional. “Excuse me, I know what a fucking coroner is. Why do you need to know?”
“Liza,” he warns, firm and insistent. I am beginning to feel like I’m on the receiving end of his detective skills.
I pick up my bag off the floor and rummage for the letter. It’s buried between a bunch of other letters that have gone unread, with no response. I really should get my life in order.
I hand the letter to Warrick, who tears it open. He lays it on the counter between us, pointing to certain elements of the summary.
“It says death by misadventure… why would it say that? Shouldn’t it say natural causes?”
“I did have a call from the coroner who explained it all. Apparently, there were traces of Rohypnol… that date-rape drug. The coroner ruled misadventure because of the whole stag weekend thing… that maybe the guys had been partying hard and mixed alcohol with roofies. That’s what he said.”
“Christ,” he exclaims.
“Gage was never that battered, you know? He drank, but he was never usually that ill. The bathroom was gross… faeces everywhere.”
“It must have been the concoction of the two…”
“I wondered if Gage had taken drugs before, because he had life insurance that covered everything, and I started to think maybe he’d dabbled in dangerous stuff before… or maybe it was his job that made him take out cover for everything… but he was never that messed-up before, you know?”
“It’s terrible, Liza.”
He takes my hands between his and not for the first time, I start pouring with tears in front of Warrick.
“It’s likely they may have done roofies, you know? It seems to have become fashionable. However, I would ask his friends to double check… make sure it was taken voluntarily.”
“You mean, because he was a rugby player, the coroner most likely ruled out foul play?”
Warrick shrugs. “Absolutely. But also, there’s the fact he was in Copenhagen all weekend, so it’d be difficult to know what he was drinking, where he was drinking and with whom precisely.”
I don’t know what I’m feeling right now, but it’s not good, and it doesn’t feel right. I feel sick actually. Warrick’s alluding to something, but he’s too scared to come out with it yet.
“When I was a detective, there were no coincidences, Liza. And sometimes… it’s not misadventure. Sometimes, there was a little meddling behind the scenes that nobody can account for and nobody will ever pay for.”
I put my hand over my mouth, dizzyingly shocked. Warrick asks for a glass of water from behind the counter and pushes my coffee to one side. He insists I drink a few sips while rubbing my upper left arm.
“Liza, sometimes, okay… the truth makes no difference. You just have to go with what’s in your heart, instead of chasing ghosts.”
I wipe my eyes and blow my nose on a napkin, still publicly crying my eyes out. I’ve given up caring what other people think, whether I’m an ugly mess or not. Besides, good luck to the person who passes judgement while Warrick’s around.
“Do you know what, though? I think it was coincidence. I honestly do. There were pictures of Gage in Copenhagen… with another woman. Maybe I felt it, in here.” I press my hand to my heart. “And that’s why I jumped with Sam. Maybe Sam was lonely, too. I don’t know.”
“He should know better, Liza. Moving his stuff in so soon? He should know better,” he repeats, shaking his head, that annoyed look in his eye.
“Maybe that’s why I like him,” I gasp, “because he is needy. Needing lots of women to make him feel good about himself. Maybe I needed him to make me feel good about myself.”
Warrick squeezes my hand. “It’s good that you’re talking about everything. You’re only going through the natural process of re-evaluating. It’s a big transition from being married to not. I’ve been there. It was hard. Some days I couldn’t even be bothered to leave my bed.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really. Ask Jules about my haunted house. It was fucking depressing.”
I laugh because Warrick swore, and he never swears. He’s so h
appy with Jules, so much more himself, and it shows. He was a wreck when she went away travelling. I don’t think Jules will ever be able to appreciate how much of a wreck he was without her, because she’s only ever seen him when he’s with her – and the difference is stark, that’s all I know.
“Where are the kids, anyway?” he asks.
“Oh, at my mother’s.”
“For the night?”
“Yep.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“Well, Hetty’s gone with Joe to Derby. They won’t be back until tomorrow. I doubt Sam will come crawling back anytime soon. I don’t know. I might run through some new patterns Hetty’s drawn up. She wants me to test them out because she hasn’t got the time to at the moment. She’s brimming with all the ideas at the moment, but lacking the spare time. Motherhood, eh?”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Warrick looks at his watch and let’s me know, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Call me if you need anything. I mean it. Anytime. Me or Jules. Just call us. Got it?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He squeezes me before leaving a tenner on the table. I shake my head but he leaves with a smile on his face.
I take a deep breath as I watch him walk down the Avenue. Warrick’s led a life. Oh, has he. Jules must love that he’s so experienced and worldly, yet obviously a home bird and a true gentleman. I must stop romanticising what they have. Their love is unique to them. Perhaps my love has to begin with my kids, and right now, Sam doesn’t understand the need for boundaries – and I’m not sure he ever will. Lust is responsible for so many errors I suppose, whereas love is only ever responsible for feeling what is true.
AS I’M DRIVING to the linen warehouse out of town to pick up some material for Hetty’s new dresses, it occurs to me I’m passing Gage’s old training ground. They wanted me to attend a memorial there for him, but I never showed. I think they understood, but I still feel bad.
The car ends up driving itself there, but when I vacate the vehicle in the potholed car park, I realise there’s really only one reason why I’m here.
I make my way to the adjoining rugby club and find most of his teammates in attendance, as is usual for a quiet Saturday afternoon. Everyone puts down their pints and people form an orderly queue to come over and hug me.
I’m inundated by hugs and quiet murmurs of, “We’re so sorry. Are you okay?”
I nod and tell everyone I’m getting there, or I’m better than I was, or I’m just glad he didn’t suffer. Things to comfort them, more than me. I’m not going to tell them I was not long ago crying into my coffee, nor that I was bedbound for three weeks.
A few of Gage’s teammates give me big, longer-than-needed bear hugs, but there’s one person who just keeps to himself, nursing his beer at the bar.
Once I’ve accepted a dozen business cards, all with the offer to help me with anything I want, whenever, wherever – for free – I finally escape the long line of mourners and make it to the bar.
“Anything I can get you?” Derek, behind the bar, asks.
“Cup of tea?”
“Coming right up.”
I sit at the bar by Gage’s best friend, Marvin. He says nothing.
Derek brings me my tea and whispers, “On the house.”
I suppose I had better drink this tea now, hadn’t I? Even though I’ve gone off it, it’s the only thing in here I’ll drink. The pumps are probably in need of a clean, the lemonade always tastes like cleaning fluid and everything else has too many numbers in it.
“I want to talk to you, in private,” I mutter, looking ahead, the same as Marvin is. We’re not addressing one another, even though he knows I’m really only here for him.
“Why not here?” he asks, his voice gravelly. He’s a hulking black man, but even for him, he sounds more husky than normal… sort of broken.
“There are questions… difficult ones. Also, if you have questions, I’ll answer them, too.”
“I think we should just get it over with, then.”
“Okay, I’m glad you agree.”
I drink half the cold tea in my cup and stand from my stool, nodding at Derek as Marvin and I leave as inconspicuously as possible.
“We’ll sit in my car,” I instruct, as we enter the car park.
We climb into my car and I’m immediately assaulted by his scent, trapped together in such a confined space. It’s so familiar because it’s the same smell Gage had – the stuff the club washes the kits in, the smell of grass and mud, a metallic film clinging to his hair from training early this morning, the various factory stenches in the air as they ran about the pitch. The scent of sweat you can never really wash out, not completely.
“I want to ask about Copenhagen, and there’s no need to lie. He’s gone so whatever you say isn’t going to hurt Gage. I just want to know for information, so that I know. So that I can put it all behind me.”
“Before I say anything, all I’m gonna say is that he loved you, all right?”
“Yeah, and I loved him. It wasn’t perfect, but we did care about one another.”
I turn and catch sight of his reddened eyes, possibly a sign of continual crying. Out of all of Gage’s friends, Marvin is the most decent and intelligent. He was like an older brother to Gage.
“There was a lot of drinking,” Marvin confesses.
“And a woman? There was a woman?”
He draws breath and facepalms. “I’m sorry, but yeah.”
“That’s okay. I saw the pictures. It’s just nice to hear it from your mouth, so that I’m sure it wasn’t fake, that’s all.”
He turns in his seat and takes my hand. “Tell me you’re thinking it too, Liz. Tell me.”
“What?” I begin to shake, wondering what the bloody hell he could possibly be thinking.
“It doesn’t feel right. Yeah, there was drinking. We were all drinking. It got messy, I’m not gonna lie about that. But he wasn’t drinking any more than the rest of us.”
I take a deep breath. “Did some of you do drugs? Were they being passed around?”
He blinks over and over, teeth clenched. “Why would any of us do drugs? We’d fail our piss tests, Liz.”
I can feel my heart giving up. It feels like I’m pumping sand around my body, not blood. I let the pain pass and just breathe, just keeping breathing…
“How was he on the flight home? Okay?”
“In good spirits, Liz. Good spirits. That’s what I cannot get my head around.”
“He drove himself home, though?”
“Yeah, well, after dropping me off.”
“So, when you got back to Humberside, he was sober?”
Marvin laughs, like he cannot understand how I could think otherwise. “He was maybe two on the scale, but no more. We didn’t drink on the Monday morning when we were flying back. No way. We’re not that dumb. You can’t fly pissed out of your head anymore.”
I start chewing my nail. “So, he dropped you off? What time?”
“Around eleven. No later. He was going to unpack and then get a few minutes shuteye, he said.”
“This makes no sense. How did he choke on his own vomit if he wasn’t drunk? You’re sure he was mostly sober by the time you landed?”
“Scout’s honour,” he tells me, with a look in his eye as sure as anything.
I sit staring into space, contemplating the whys and wherefores.
“None of you took any drugs?” I demand. “None at all. He couldn’t have… bought it in the toilet… had his drink spiked. Something like that?”
He grabs my shoulders and looks down into my eyes, his bulging with unsuppressed grief. “I am telling you, Liz. He was sober when we got home. Unless you kept a shedload of booze hidden in the kitchen cupboard, I don’t understand what happened. I would’ve known if he’d taken something. He hadn’t. He was completely sober. I promise you.”
I grasp the steering wheel and try to digest all of this. Firstly, I’m disgusted with myself that I believed Gage had no
propriety. I’m annoyed that none of this makes sense. I’m aggrieved that I ever could have thought he’d take drugs – even when, as Marvin said, it’d pop up on a piss test which they seem to be doing more and more regularly these days.
“You were a good friend to him, Marvin. He wouldn’t want you to grieve for him forever.”
“Ah man, c’mon. Don’t say shit like that.”
He presses his fingers into his eye sockets, clearly not coping with his emotions. Six-six of beast sits next to me, brought down by grief and despair – the loss of a friend and teammate.
“Wasn’t I enough for him?” I ask, desperately in need of clarification. “What did he used to say about me? Was he going to leave me? Was that woman the first? Or had there been others?”
“He would never have left you, Liz. That’s the problem. After his dad left him, he would never have left you. But I think you both knew it wasn’t working.”
“We both knew.”
“He did love you, though. He respected you. He just didn’t get you sometimes. And you and that sister of yours, Hetty. He said your relationship with her drove him crazy.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” We share a chuckle over that.
“Naw, man, but listen. He said he saw like what you had with Het and wished he had that with you. How you banter and make each other crazy, but still love each other. He said it felt like there was no room for him.”
“Oh god, that’s a load of…”
However, when I think about it, I guess he’s right.
“Gage and I were so different,” I explain. “He liked sport on TV, I liked serial killer programmes. I read books to chill, he smashed his fists through stuff. His favourite food was Italian but mine was Indian and we always used to end up with different meals on a Saturday night. God, we were so young when we got together. He used to tell me I was the cleverest person he knew.”
“Yeah, he was proud of you. He thought you were amazing. He just wished there was an in, you know? But there clearly wasn’t.”
“I know, and I’m sorry for that.”
“It’s okay, Liz. I think he’s better off,” Marvin says, picking his necklace out of his rugby shirt and kissing the crucifix buried beneath. “God works in mysterious ways, Liz. I just wish we’d been given notice, you know? It sucks so much.”
Guilt Page 17
