Kiss Her Goodbye

by Allan Guthrie

  She lit her fag. She was coughing up a pile of crap in the mornings. It was disgusting. She inhaled deeply, comforting herself with the thought that at least she wasn't a junkie.

  Jesus. As if she didn't already have enough reasons to hate herself. She'd just given a murder suspect an alibi. For money. What next? She'd be giving freebies to policemen.

  Well, maybe not the pair that had interviewed her. They were both young. One was skinny. Looked like he was flapping around inside his uniform. The other was okay. Nice hands. Soft face. Put him in a fireman's outfit and, well, that freebie might just be a possibility. Ah, frigging mother of Christ. She couldn't remember when she last had sex for fun. Had she ever?

  Her car was at home. That was nice, that was. Take her to the nick, grill her for an hour, then dump her outside without any transport. Buggers.

  She glanced down at her feet. Mules. Pretty damn sexy, even if she did say so herself. But could she walk home in them? More to the point, did she want to? The sky was clear. She could walk a bit and if she spotted a taxi, fine. She didn't take buses. Not without a baseball bat. Some things you never got over.

  It had been raining hard that day and her hair was plastered to her forehead. She must have looked a right state, but, then, obviously not, or what happened wouldn't have happened. Sitting upstairs, scuffed schoolbag resting on her dirty grey skirt. She was twelve years old.

  A man sat down next to her, smiled. She noticed a mole in the center of his left cheek. He was slim, good-looking, nice hazel eyes. And tanned. Like he'd just returned from a beach holiday.

  "Finished school?" he said.

  "Looks like a chocolate chip."

  "What does, sweetheart?"

  She pointed at his face. "That. Like a chocolate chip in a chocolate chip cookie."

  His hand went up to his cheek, fingers covering the offending mole.

  "It's cute," she said. "Looks good enough to eat."

  "My, you're precocious."

  She frowned. "I don't like words I don't understand."

  "I'm sorry." He lowered his hand. "A little bit cheeky, is what I meant. In a good way. An amusing way."

  "Mum says I'm cheeky."

  "She does?"

  She gazed into the man's dark brown eyes. "Not in a good way." She pulled the strap of her schoolbag. Tightening it.

  The man ran the heel of his hand over his short, brown hair. His hair was dry. Hers was still wet. How come? Rain pelted the window on her right, great gobs slithering down the glass. The window was starting to steam up. She was going to ask him how he'd managed to dodge the rain when she spotted the peak of a cap sticking out of his jacket pocket. A baseball cap. Naff. Instantly, she stopped liking him.

  When he leaned over to point at something, she caught a whiff of his breath. It smelled like the rubbish bin at home on Thursday night. By the time she took it downstairs for collection on Friday morning, it was really honking. The man's hand was resting on her shoulder. She didn't like it there. She squirmed. Wriggled towards the window. What was he doing? He'd angled his body towards her. The hand that had been pointing out the window dropped onto her knee.

  "I've got a knife," he whispered. "You scream, you little bitch, I'll cut your throat. All the way from one pretty ear to the other." His hand slid up her skirt. "Move your schoolbag."

  She moved it and his hand slid up her thigh. "Put the bag down again." She put the bag down. He touched her where he definitely shouldn't. Nobody had touched her there. Not even her mum's old boyfriend, Davie.

  The sides of the bus seemed to close in on her. The ceiling pressed down on her head. Something inside her expanded. She filled with it, whatever it was, until she thought she'd burst. It pressed behind her eyeballs, against her chest.

  "That's it," he said. "Keep quiet."

  She didn't want to keep quiet. "Get off me," she said. "I don't like it."

  His fingers stopped moving, but his hand remained in place. "Shhh," he said. "You want to see the knife?"

  Her shoulders turned to lead. Her thighs turned to lead. She felt cold. No, she felt hot. Her head floated miles above her neck. He whispered in her ear, but the buzzing in her ears prevented her from hearing him. His breath stank. She felt dizzy. She was going to be sick. For a minute she thought he'd stabbed her. But his hand was under the schoolbag, under her skirt, inside her knickers. The pain was just the tightening of her stomach muscles. She was twelve, she wanted to tell him. She was only twelve. It wasn't right.

  His finger started probing. It hurt. He whispered again. This time she made out his words. "Stop wriggling," he said.

  "Sore," she whispered back.

  "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry." He removed his hand and, without a word or another glance, got off the bus at the next stop.

  Tina never saw him again. She could picture his face, though. The chocolate chip embedded in his cheek. And she could still smell him. Every time she put the rubbish out.

  NINETEEN

  DS Grove asked the first question. "Mr. Hope, we'd like you to reveal your whereabouts on the evening of Tuesday, October 27th."

  "You know where I was."

  "I'd like you to tell me."

  Joe told him.

  "Would you like to refer to the young woman as Tina?"

  "That's how I know her."

  "For the record, Mr. Hope requests that we refer to Miss Ruth Shaw by her…by her working name. At what time did you arrive at Tina's flat?"

  "It was early."

  "How early?"

  "Between eight thirty and nine."

  "And what did you do at Tina's flat?"

  "We drank chamomile tea and ate cucumber sandwiches. We listened to Beethoven's late string quartets while discussing the relative merits of various Jacobean dramatists. You think we did? We fucked."

  "And when did you leave?"

  "Mid-morning."

  "Can you be more precise?"

  "About eleven."

  "So you, em, performed sex acts for about fourteen hours?"

  Joe remembered the lawyer's advice. He wondered if answering this question might incriminate him. He didn't see how. He smiled at Monkman. The twat had obviously been instructed to keep his mouth shut. His lips were twitching, though. "We fucked till about four in the morning," Joe said. "Until Tina got tired."

  "Very impressive, Mr. Hope. Did you leave the flat at any time during the evening?"

  "No."

  "Can anyone other than Tina corroborate your presence there?"

  "No visitors, if that's what you're asking."

  "What did you have for breakfast, Mr. Hope?"

  "I don't eat breakfast."

  "Did anyone see you leave?"

  "I didn't notice."

  "You didn't pass anyone in the stairs?"

  "I didn't notice."

  "What time did you arrive home?"

  "About half eleven, I suppose."

  "Facts please, Mr.. Hope. Not supposition."

  "You think I spend all day looking at my watch? I don't fucking know. If I left Tina's at eleven I was home by half eleven. Twenty past, probably, depending on the traffic."

  "When you arrived home, at twenty past eleven" — DS Grove raised his eyebrows — "didn't you worry that your wife wasn't there?"

  "Why would I?"

  "How would you describe your relationship with your wife?"

  "Personal."

  "Mr. Hope, I'm trying to establish whether there was any ill-feeling between yourself and Mrs. Hope."

  "Motive, in other words."

  "Possibly. Part of the process involved here is one of elimination. Believe it or not, I would just as soon find a reason to eliminate you from our enquiries." Grove pushed his glasses back into place. "Would you answer the question?"

  "My relationship with Ruth is none of your business. Next question."

  "You can understand why I ask, can't you? Most successful marriages don't involve extra-marital sex."

  "It's a bit late for marriage guida
nce."

  "How did Ruth feel about you using prostitutes?"

  "The truth?" Joe paused. Then he said, "She found it convenient."

  "Convenient?" Grove took off his glasses. "Would you like to explain what you mean by that?"

  "She didn't like sex." He lowered his voice. "I think maybe because of what happened to her a couple of years ago."

  "And what was that?" Grove put his glasses back on.

  "It's a tragic story." Joe shook his head. "She was at the zoo. An ape broke out of its cage and, well, you know, it did its business with her."

  "All right," Grove said.

  "It was in all the papers."

  "All right," Grove said. "I'll ask again. How did your wife respond to the idea of you sleeping with prostitutes?"

  "It's really none of your business."

  "You may be right, Mr. Hope," Grove said. "May I ask, did Ruth enjoy having sex with anyone else?"

  Yes, you bastard. Joe stood up. Grove grabbed his arm and said, "Hey." Joe shrugged him off, thoughts like shrapnel in his head. I heard her. Yes, she fucking did enjoy having sex with someone else. She doesn't know I heard her. Didn't know. Past tense. Fuck. She's dead and you're slagging her. Fuck. I hate remembering this. I hate… Wouldn't I love to know who she was shagging? No, that's the amusing bit. Tickles me bright fucking pink. You'd like that. Don't want to know, do you, Joe? I heard their voices. Well, to be precise, I heard her voice. I heard him groan. Before we were married. I heard them. Stood outside the door. Listening to them. Shocked. Couldn't believe it. Her and some twat of a student. Fucking. She was telling him it was good. His grunts, muffled. She was wailing the word, "Goooood," like she'd never done with me. Howling. Like a fucking wolf. Howling. "Goooood."

  Joe said nothing.

  "Touched a nerve, there," Monkman said

  "You shut the fuck up," Joe told him.

  TWENTY

  Adam placed Gemma's diary on the bedside table, swung his feet off the bed and padded to the door. "Yes?"

  "I have to talk to you." Dotty's voice.

  "Just a minute." Adam leaned back towards the bed and smoothed the cover. After straightening the pillows, he opened the door for Dotty. She looked at her feet. Could be looking at his feet, come to think of it. Which were bare. Where were his slippers? He really should trim his toenails. A hot flush crept up the back of his neck. God, he was embarrassed. Like a schoolboy. "What is it?" he said, curling his toes, praying that now she didn't look up. He'd rather she carried on looking at his feet than see him blush.

  She looked up. "It's warm in here."

  "I like it ... warm's how I … it is."

  "You're letting the heat out."

  "What am I thinking?" He gave her a tight-lipped smile, which no doubt looked like the crack in a smacked arse. This was all going wrong. "Come in."

  She walked past him, head bowed.

  "Have a seat." Instantly he realized there wasn't one. "On the bed," he added. "I'll stand." The shake of her head was almost imperceptible. Had he not been watching her so closely he might have missed it. "No? Maybe we should go to the office. Maybe, yes, what do you think?"

  "You sit down. I don't want to make you stand."

  "I couldn't." For a moment, his breath wouldn't come. "The bed's yours. Please."

  "Not if you're standing. It's your room."

  "But you're the guest in my room." He scratched an imaginary itch above his right eyebrow. The heat was finally leaving his face. "If we go to the office we can both have a seat. Would that be more appropriate?"

  Her voice was so quiet he had to make sense of her next sentence after she'd spoken it. From the fragments he heard, he was pretty sure she'd said, "We could both sit on the bed."

  His stomach knotted. "Oh," he said. "That makes sense." Neither of them moved. "Yes." Dotty stared at the floor. Adam stared at Dotty staring at the floor. She was standing directly under the overhead light, the sleeve of her cardigan rolled up slightly, exposing a slender forearm jewelled with tiny blonde hairs.

  Adam crept towards the bed. Lead by example, he was thinking. And for God's sake don't reach out and stroke her arm. The moment he sat down Dotty sprang towards him, eyes wide.

  "You found it," she said. Adam followed her gaze. She picked the diary up off the bedside table. "I'm glad. It's what I wanted to talk to you about."

  "You know about the diary?" Adam asked.

  "Gemma gave it to me." Dotty looked at the floor. "She wanted me to read it." She looked up, eyes shiny. "I tried. I tried hard. I couldn't." She was silent for a while. Adam resisted the temptation to reach out and put his hand on her bare arm. He stared at his feet. After a while she continued, "I didn't want the burden of her secrets." Her eyes sought Adam's. "It's hard enough living with your own."

  "I think she just wanted to share her feelings with somebody."

  She shook her head. "She gave this to me the day she died. In the morning. She didn't need to share anything. She must have decided already she was going to…" Dotty took a step towards the bed, turned and sat down. Her thigh brushed against Adam's. Both her hands gripped the diary. "She gave it to me because she didn't want the police to find it. I didn't know that then, but it's obvious now. I gave it back to her. Told her to give it to you."

  "I found it in my desk. With a note asking me to give it to her father."

  She nodded. "I have to tell you something, Adam. Something I haven't told the police."

  Adam turned his body towards her and tried to smile encouragingly.

  "I went to Gemma's room that evening. When I got there, the door was closed and…" She swallowed. "I knocked. She didn't answer. Other times when she hasn't wanted to talk, she's told me to go away. This time there was only silence. I thought about trying the door."

  "Was it locked?"

  Dotty turned her head away. Her hand plucked at the corner of the pillowcase.

  "You didn't try it?"

  "You don't get it." She faced him. "It wasn't a cry for help," she said. "Gemma wanted to die. She took paracetamol, not aspirin." Adam shook his head. She explained, "Anybody who's seriously considered swallowing a lethal dose of pills knows that paracetamol is the most efficient. I never touch the stuff. Not since I discovered how dangerous it was." She paused. "Your body goes into systematic shutdown. If you're discovered in time, a liver transplant might save you." She looked at him. "But there aren't too many spare livers around and very few hospitals are equipped to perform the operation."

  Adam shivered. He felt as if he'd been throwing up for the past couple of hours. "Maybe Gemma didn't know. Maybe—"

  "She knew alright. We talked about it. More than once."

  Adam tried to make sense of what she was telling him. "I'm not sure," he said, stopping, uncertain of what he was saying. "Are you suggesting—"

  "I advised her," she said, "on how to commit suicide."

  "Of course you didn't, Dotty."

  Dotty's fingers tightened around the diary. "I told her what happened to me. I thought I was putting a positive slant on it. Trying to explain that there's a way out of depression, however unlikely it seems at the time."

  "So how can you possibly—"

  "I lied."

  "About what?"

  "Some things you never recover from."

  "I don't believe that."

  "I wouldn't expect you to." She took a deep breath, then blew the air out noisily. "I knew with Gem, though. I've seen it before. That look she had in her eyes."

  Adam said, "What are you talking about?" Dotty sprang to her feet, dropping the diary onto the pillow. He grabbed her hand. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't understand. I shouldn't have — I'm sorry. Please sit down." His fingers circled her wrist. Her blood pulsed against his thumb. "I want to know what happened."

  She drew her hand away from his grasp and he let his arm fall. "She wanted to die, Adam."

  "I can accept that. But I can't accept that it was your fault. If that's what you're telling me."


  "I made the wrong choice." Dotty turned and faced the door. She spoke quietly, her back to Adam. "I went to her room. Knocked. She didn't answer. I tried her door. It was open." She rubbed her wrist with her thumb. "I poked my head into the room. She was on the bed. I thought she was sleeping and I didn't want to wake her." She turned her head slightly. "Maybe she could have been saved. If I'd seen the bottle of pills…"

  "Don't blame yourself, Dotty. How were you to know?"

  Dotty yelled at him. "I was there." She clenched her jaw and squeezed the words out for a second time. "I was there. I should have realized what she'd done.."

  "It's not your fault."

  "I couldn't even read her diary, Adam. I couldn't even do that!"

  Adam picked the book off his pillowcase. "You know what's in here?"

  "Gemma wanted her father to know something." Dotty lowered her head. "But she couldn't tell him. That's why she wrote it down." She looked up at him. "I told her to give it to you. Said you'd do the right thing." She took a step towards the door. "I'll pack now. I can't stay here any longer. I'll leave in the morning." Another step. And another. Her fingers closed on the handle.

  Adam said, "Did you know about her father?"

  "That he was the one human being she truly loved?"

  "She loved him? But she couldn't have done. The diary…"

  "That's what she told me. Not only did she love him, but she liked him, too. She loved her mother, she said. Sort of. But she didn't like her. Not in the slightest. That was the difference." Dotty's eyes were wet with tears.

  Adam looked away. He opened the diary.

  "You know I could have saved her," she said.

  "And what about me?" He didn't look up. "I promised her father I'd take care of her." He flicked through the pages, searching for those passages about Joe.

  "We both screwed up, then," Dotty said. "I'll go pack."

  "Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?" His heart hammered against his ribcage. "Just the two of us?"