by Paula Hawkes
“Have you still got this card.”
Surprised, China realized she did still have the card. She retrieved it from her bag and laid it on the table. The two officers looked at it and nodded. It remained there in front of them.
“Go on,” said the man. “You were telling us how you came to take this stranger on as a lover.”
“It sounds bad when you say it like that,” China tried to joke and then realized the inappropriateness of this.
“Three girls are dead, Mrs Black,” the woman’s words cut through China’s conscience.
“I’m sorry. I know, and I am really sorry. It’s difficult for me. I never thought I would be this woman. This isn’t me, or rather this wasn’t me. I’m learning to live with this one step at a time.”
“Go on,” said the woman a little more gently, but there was still no hint of understanding in her stony gaze.
“I didn’t contact him,” she said, nodding at the card. “He walked past me a couple of days later. I was in the local café where I always drink coffee just before lunch. He didn’t notice me at first, but I recognized him from the train. I don’t know what came over me. I followed him and saw where he worked. He didn’t see me, I’m sure. After that I saw him walk past the café a few more times, and then he did recognize me from the train and spoke to me. It sort of all happened from there.”
China went on to explain, in more detail than she originally intended to, her developing relationship with Mark. In a perverse way she enjoyed telling the story. She wanted to shock these people, who led normal lives and struggled to appreciate the lifestyle she had chosen to lead. When she had told them all about her story, up until when she and Philip had left for their Italian vacation, she halted. She didn’t think they needed to know about Leandro, but if asked she knew she would tell them, relishing the shock that would no doubt result.
“So,” asked the woman. “When did you first guess that Philip suspected what was going on?”
“Well, the first inkling I had, and it disappeared as fast as it came, was when Philip said something on holiday. He was watching me get ready and then said that I could be a lap dancer. That may not sound particularly suspicious, but it was the way he said it, like he knew that I had been thinking about it, which I hadn’t. But as I said, I forgot that fairly quickly, until we came back. The state Philip was in when he came in with that newspaper showing Esta. I’ve never seen him like that before. There was no way that was normal. The only way he would have reacted like that was if the news was more… er… personal. Do you know what I mean by that?”
“Yes, actually I think I do,” she answered. The policeman just nodded, saying nothing more. Maybe he felt he had already said too much and had decided to play it safe by keeping quiet.
“Anyway, that’s when I checked his laptop, after he had gone to work, and found the videos. I decided to confront Mark, to see how those films had ended up on my husband’s PC, and the rest you can work out by taking a look.”
“And all this happened yesterday?”
China knew where this was going. “Yes. But I needed to see for myself. I wanted to know what Mark and my husband had been up to before I handed over the computers to you. I had a right to know. One was my husband, the other my lover.”
“You realize that this might be construed as obstruction?”
“Until I saw the evidence for myself, and put the pieces together, I couldn’t have known this was related to the killings. And anyway, I have done you a favour here. You didn’t have any of this before. What I’ve provided you gives you some pretty strong links between Mark and the girls.”
“And what about your husband?”
Despite the abhorrent way that Philip had behaved, she still felt the urge to defend him. “He couldn’t be the killer. I know my husband. He couldn’t kill anyone. And before you say, everyone says that but they don’t always know their husband as well as they think, and I can see that point given what I have found out about Philip, but the simple fact is that Philip was with me when Esta was killed. We were in Italy. I think you need to talk to Mark.”
“Oh trust us, Mrs Dark, we will be talking to everyone involved. We will need to talk to you again, after you have signed a statement detailing this conversation.”
She looked at them demurely. “Of course,” she sighed. “Is there anything more? I’m really quite exhausted. Discovering this kind of thing about the man you love can hit you for six.”
“And which one are you referring to when you say ‘the man you love’?” the female police officer asked with a sharp, bitchy tone.
“My husband. I only ever loved my husband. I started all this for him.”
“Did you? Are you sure about that?”
But she wasn’t. Not really.
Chapter 43
China went back to the hotel, ready to ignore any phone calls from her husband. She expected desperate pleas for her to permit him to explain, and she would require that explanation at some point, but she needed to get her head straight and just wanted to focus on her mother’s funeral. She guessed that he would be receiving a visit from the police very soon and wondered how he would explain the content of the laptops she had given to them.
The funeral took place the following Tuesday. The weather stayed respectfully grey and wet and there was a solid turnout of people paying their respects. China stood in the doorway to the church after the ceremony, contemplating her relationship with her mother. A few of the things the priest had said during the ceremony had made her wish that she’d been able to completely patch up their differences before her mother had died.
She was beginning to work out that the distance between them had been as much her fault as her mother’s. After her father had died, China had been outraged over a perceived lack of emotion from her mother. When she had suspicions about her father’s extra marital affairs, she had naturally wanted to blame her mother. She must have driven him to it, was China’s first reaction. Her father was China’s world, and any faults he had must be justifiable in some way that continued to cast him in a good light. After that last revealing phone call, still recalled with watery eyes, China had started to doubt her own part in the breakdown of the relationship with her mother. It was quite possible, China now thought, that her mother’s apparent coldness towards her, was the result of her feeling betrayed by her own daughter, someone she hoped she could rely on when she needed support, but who had picked another side and had stubbornly resisted any bridge building.
Looking around the half-full church, China could see the genuine grief from many of her mother’s relatives and friends. People who were crying at the loss of someone who meant a lot to them. China wanted to cry herself, felt the initial sting of tears several times during the long service, but nothing would come. Her mind was resisting any strong emotion other than just being strongly resistant to any emotion. She needed to get through this period of her life, the loss of her mother, her marriage, her husband and her lover. She didn’t know whom to blame yet, but suspected that she, herself, was near the top of the list of likely candidates.
As the ceremony came to an end, and all the attendees marched solemnly out into the rain, opening vast black umbrellas as they exited the church, China waited until all had gone before leaving her seat. No one came up to her to enquire about her feelings, or to encourage her to join them, and she suddenly felt extremely lonely. Her vision blurred and her eyes started to sting again, but then she felt very selfish. She hadn’t been able to cry at her mother’s death, but here she was almost in tears because she felt a little hard done by. She sniffed back the tears and left the cold interior of the church to join the sea of black around the grave outside.
As she looked up across the mourning crowd she could see a lone figure between the trees, watching the ceremony. It was unmistakably Philip. She hadn’t actually seen him since she had left home. He had respectfully kept his distance, although he had tried calling her once a couple of days after she had depart
ed. Recognizing his number she had sent the call straight to voicemail. He hadn’t left a message. Since then there had been no contact and she suspected that the police may have told him to not contact her given the investigation underway.
Standing at her mother’s grave she refused to make eye contact with him, and looked back to the priest standing at the head of the dark, earthy hole in the ground, waiting to swallow her mother. She wasn’t really listening to the final words spoken over the coffin. Religion had no part in her life now. It had been such an important part of her childhood, in forming who she’d grown up to be, and now she felt that she’d thrown that China aside and emerged as a new person who was the result of nothing but her own thinking, reasoning, instincts and desires. For better or worse, whether she was a ‘good person’ or not, at least she was her own person. She would happily stand or fall on this, knowing that she was in control of who she was.
These thoughts flowed through her head as the coffin was lowered into the ground, and she was shocked when the tears finally came. She would never see or hear her mother again and she knew that she had things she needed to say to her. Questions she needed to ask. Apologies to make. Those opportunities were lost forever in life and death’s harsh merry-go-round, and she started to sob. She felt an unsteady hand on her shoulder and looked up to see her Aunt beside her, looking at her with sympathy, the tracks of her own tears apparent on her face. This made China breakdown, the sympathy finally shared, compassion she was unworthy of, from someone who cared so much to someone who didn’t care enough when it really mattered.
Chapter 44
The weeks following her mother’s funeral passed by in a whirlwind of organization. She had handed in her notice to quit at work, and was co-ordinating the transfer of her work to her replacement. She could afford not to work now, and as she didn’t really know what she wanted to do she had decided she needed some time to sort herself out, without the day-to-day distractions of her job. She had retrieved most of her belongings from the house when she knew that Philip was at work, and she moved much of her stuff, including all of the larger items like furniture, into storage. With a certain amount of difficulty, and a few minor transgressions, she mustered the self-discipline to identify the everyday items that she really needed, and moved most of her wardrobe and accessories into the large hotel suite she had made her temporary home. She knew that Philip was still hovering in the background of her life. She had seen fleeting glimpses of him once or twice outside work, but he had kept his distance. She was well prepared to confront him now, but she didn’t wish to seek it out. When he was ready, she would be waiting.
As she approached her last few days at work, she decided to revisit her once favourite café. She had been avoiding it since finding out about Mark and Philips’ subterfuge, but she wanted to put that particular demon to bed. Why should she miss out on her much-loved coffee because of their behaviour?
It was just as she remembered it, and the sight of the simple metal and glass tables, each with just two chairs, under the chocolate brown awning, made her breath catch in her throat. Today Devak had placed a lilac metal pot on each table, containing a small bunch of purple heather which had a pleasantly subtle spicy aroma. She went straight to her preferred table and sat down. No one came out for a few minutes, and she wondered if Devak was giving her a few moments. He could have guessed what she had been through.
She became aware of a shadow beside her, and looked up to order a latte. It wasn’t Devak standing there but Philip.
“Can I sit down, China? Please.”
“Go ahead.” Although she knew she was ready for this there was still a fluttering of nerves. The things said here, today, would be decisive. Neither of them could take back what had happened or what they were about to declare. Caution was needed.
He sat next to her and looked down at his hands. He couldn’t look her in the face although she was staring at his in expectation. She did feel sad, looking at his handsome features furrowed with his own wretched despondency. A sentimental corner of her heart still loved him but she would not forgive him for putting her in danger, and sordidly watching her without her permission or knowledge. He may have been instrumental in shaping the woman she was now proud to have become, but his intentions had most definitely not been honourable. What he had set her up for had been done to satisfy his own sordid desires and for no other reason. There was still anger in her, but it was now a finely honed, well-controlled resentment that she would channel to help her through this conversation, which would be a difficult one she knew.
“What do you want, Philip?”
“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Is that it? You’re sorry? Somehow that doesn’t seem quite enough?”
“I know. I don’t know what else to say. I was stupid.”
“We can agree on that.”
“I was obsessed with my fantasy. At the time, nothing else seemed to matter.”
“Not even the woman you loved.”
“That’s not true. It was because I loved you, because I love you, that my urges were so powerful. I didn’t force you to fuck Mark. I just set up the situation where you had the choice.”
“You set up the situation with someone who may very well be a killer.”
He coughed out a sob. “Yes. I know. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I know you’ll never forgive me for that either, and I don’t blame you.” He looked up at her for the first time since he had sat down. She saw genuine remorse in his eyes, as well as a forlorn hope that despite what he said she would find some way to forgive him.
“No, Philip, I can’t. Yes, I did choose to sleep with Mark, but I did it because I thought you wanted me to have a lover and then tell you about it. I was doing that for you.” She knew that was only a part truth, but she wasn’t going to let Philip off the hook that easily.
“You didn’t look exactly reluctant,” Philip responded, a little irritation creeping into his tone. “I admit I was wrong to go behind your back to set you up with Mark, but look at yourself, what you have become. Tell me you didn’t enjoy the journey. Tell me you don’t love who you are now.”
China didn’t know what to say to that. Philip had awakened desires in her that she had nourished, and with the greatest of pleasure. No way could she go back to the old China now, and it was true that she would never have found her new self if Philip hadn’t placed Mark directly on the path of her destiny. However, she could not ignore the danger that Philip had invited into their lives. “But you set me up with a killer.”
“We don’t know that,” Philip said, more calmly now. “It looks bad for him I admit, but there’s no proof it was actually Mark. There are connections, I know, between Mark and all of the victims. The police have spoken to me too about all of this. They even thought I was involved at one point. I think I’ve convinced them that despite me being a scumbag of a husband I was not involved. And there’s no proof yet that Mark was the actual killer, just that he knew all of the girls.”
“Even if he wasn’t, his connection to the killings are enough evidence that I was in danger.”
Philip looked down sadly. “Yes. That’s true, and don’t think I haven’t thought about my monumental stupidity every day since you left me. I’m so sorry, China. I love you. I only ever wanted you to be happy.”
“And for you to enjoy your very own, personal porn with your wife as the star. Don’t forget that.”
Philip stood up, suddenly very angry. She could see a rage in his eyes that had not been there before. “Stop acting as if this was all against your will. Yes, you may have started out doing this for me, but you made the choices. No one forced you. I just helped you on your way.”
“Ok. Calm down Philip.” She wasn’t scared that he’d hit her. He would never do that, but she didn’t like the aggressive way he was looming over her, fists clenched. “I know I made those choices. But you were my husband…”
Her voice faltered as she caught sight of Tony on the other s
ide of the street, not hiding the fact that he was staring straight at them. Despite the confrontation with Philip her mind was momentarily distracted by this new arrival on the scene. “Just perfect,” she thought. “That’s all I need.”
“I am your husband.”
His angry declaration brought her thoughts back into focus. “You were my husband, and you betrayed me. You set me up just to satisfy your sleazy fantasies.” China was standing herself now. She was only a little shorter than Philip so they were face to face. She could feel his fuming breath on her cheeks.
“I still am your husband, and I still love you. I want you back.”
“Well I’m not coming back, Philip. I don’t know how you could possibly think I’d forgive you so easily.”
“You had the affair. Not me. I just engineered the situation where you could choose to do so. If anything I should be the one needing to forgive you.”
China was exasperated. “I can’t believe you just said that,” she screamed. Hot tears started to flow down her face, and this loss of control, despite her strength through all of the tribulations of the last week or so, spiked her rage even more. Her breathing came fast and she was near speechless.
Neither of them had noticed that Devak had emerged from the dark recesses of the café and was now standing beside them. “Please calm down,” he said. “You are making a scene. I must ask you to leave.”
They both looked in surprise at this newcomer, and realized that Devak was looking directly at Philip.
“I must ask you to leave. You are upsetting my customer.” It was said politely but there was real steel in the voice. Philip looked like he was about to respond but then, deflated, he sighed and turned away.
