Weycombe

by G. M. Malliet

  By this point I’d realized there was a good chance Will had been reading my stuff. That my assumption he didn’t care enough to bother looking was risky. Every once in a while he’d refer to something he shouldn’t have known about—something he couldn’t have known otherwise than by snooping. For a long while I’d been a little too open in writing down my thoughts, which was foolish of me. It was particularly foolish to continue operating under conditions of trust when trust was gone. Where Will was concerned, I had been far too naïve.

  Then there was the problem of my computer itself. I worried Will may long ago have figured out my passcode—which would be easy to do, as I used the same code at the ATM. He may have been looking over my shoulder as I withdrew cash from the bank. So I started changing the MacBook password daily, and I changed my phone so it could only be accessed with my fingerprint. I supposed he could still drug me and wait until I passed out and use my print that way, but hey. You can’t control for everything.

  I only needed to control the story.

  I needed to be in charge of how it ended.

  The last time Will and I had had a romantic getaway was when we’d gone hiking in the Lake District, staying at night in one of the rustic, fire-lit inns that dotted the area, roughing it yuppie style. We’d hired a Sherpa service to carry our bags ahead so we didn’t have to carry much and we weren’t rinsing the same clothes out in a stream at the end of the day. Leave that for the back-to-nature diehards.

  Had that been the start of the troubles? Because Will had not wanted to go, and I’d had to talk him into it. Normally I’m not one to nag, but this seemed like the only chance, the best last chance for us to make a go of it, late in the spring.

  “Would you really like us not to go?” I finally asked, exasperated by yet another winding conversation on the subject. Will could be crablike in his approach to things, so polite you barely knew what he was saying. I was always the more direct of the two of us. Well, not always:

  “Yes,” he said. “I would really like not to go.”

  “Fine, then.”

  Of course, I sulked the rest of the day. I mean, he’d promised and I’d made all these deposits, some of which were nonrefundable. In the end, I wore him down. I hated it when he didn’t just agree in the first place and save us all the fucking drama.

  The last time we’d really been together before that had been when he’d been promoted. We’d had dinner to celebrate at our favorite place on Walton Street near the V&A, and rented a hotel room. That night he grabbed me before the door had even shut behind us—just like in the old days. We were out-of-body drunk on champagne; when we made too much commotion some old codger actually called downstairs to the desk to complain. It was a very good night; Will had picked up a few new moves from somewhere, I noticed. It may have been the last of what I would call a good night for a while. After that, he was gone more often, the new job “bringing new responsibilities.” And then I lost my job, and the contrast (no responsibilities, unless you count coping with his insecurities) became too much. Perhaps that was it. I try not to think about it.

  So the walk in the Lake District was a big deal. A chance for us to be alone and make a fresh start.

  But there had been one incident during that trip that, looking back, was a major crack in the ice. It happened the last night of our trip: We’d walked the route full circle, having left the car at the first inn, staying at other inns as we looped our way back. We felt fit and hearty, our legs on fire from the unaccustomed tromping over uneven terrain, and by day three we’d quit the testy squabbling over trifles that had become our standard mode of communication. The dead silence was only broken by bird and squirrel chatter and the sound of our shoes on the leaf-strewn path. The green hush reminded me of my weekends roaming the woods in Maine, gun at the ready. You never ventured into those woods back then without a gun, and even now, with developers moving it, a gun was a good idea.

  The one useful thing my father had taught me was how to shoot. He loved to fish and hunt and kill things, skin and gut what had been living moments before. One time he killed a bear cub and was overjoyed. Who does that? Me, I could never kill, except to save my own life.

  That last night in the Lake District we ate in the inn’s dining room: candlelight, firelight, gleaming glasses and pewter. We were too full and tired afterward for sex—nothing new there—but this was a good tired. I was happy in this Camelot, for one brief shining moment. I thought Will was, too.

  As I headed out to the car after breakfast, backpack slung over one shoulder, I saw him talking to the inn owner, pointing at the bill.

  “Two drinks, not three,” said Will. The men put their heads together, scanning the lines on the paper. The man got out a ruler so the items could more easily be seen as they lined up with the costs.

  “I guess that’s right,” said the man. “Hard to be sure now.”

  “I only had two drinks,” Will had insisted, politely but firmly. “I know my wife didn’t have any.”

  “I’ll get it fixed, no worries.”

  I asked him as we drove away, “What was that about?”

  “He’d overcharged us,” he said briefly.

  “I had water at dinner.”

  “I know that,” he said. He had the “not amused” look on his face so I said no more.

  The thing was, Will had started noticing when and what I drank, literally keeping tabs, and I guessed he’d figured out it had something to do with when I was ovulating. I wouldn’t drink for the two weeks spanning just before, during, and after. And when it all came to naught and the home tester turned the wrong color, I’d be so depressed I’d binge until I was on my face.

  In other words, he’d begun to suspect I was trying to get pregnant. I’d started pretending to drink wine when I was only having grape juice; that worked for a while. I could get away with it at home, but not when we ate at a restaurant. So we stayed home more and more. At least, I did.

  This probably sounds bad, right? Dishonest and underhanded. But I was desperate.

  Will was no longer my friend and partner, coparent of my future child. He had slowly become the enemy, him and his fanged mother. But all the more reason I was determined to take something away with me from the marriage, should it come to that. I set my heart on getting pregnant, on carrying the titled legacy of the Whites into the future. Will was … on the fence, let’s say. From once being an active participant in the whole process he had become undecided, then opposed, then outright surly whenever the subject came up. I stopped bringing it up.

  At first I thought he only needed a little nudge into fatherhood. Most men are like that. Then I would take over. Nothing for him to worry about.

  So what right did he have to deny me what is every woman’s birthright?

  The love I once had felt for him, which had beat through the very heart of me, had gone. I was married to a control freak, a man who had the nerve to monitor what I drank, and when. To monitor my every move.

  31

  The next day came the call from Rashima.

  I had just returned home from a walk in the freezing cold and was boiling water for green tea when my mobile buzzed.

  “Hey, Jill.” I should have realized from the tone of her voice—straining high and nervous, without her usual warm singsong notes. “I was wondering if you’d like some tea. If you’d like to come over for some tea.”

  Well, that was nothing if not clear. I started to invite her over instead, but she added that she was making a Swiss roll using Chetna’s recipe from the Great British Bake Off, and I could not resist a little stress eating. A Swiss roll might be exactly what the doctor ordered to take my mind off things, if only for a few blessed moments.

  “I’ll be right over.”

  “Give me ten more minutes to let the cake cool so I can frost it.”

  It sounded just like a normal visit.

&n
bsp; The cardamom, pistachio, and coffee Swiss roll was beyond perfection. Rashima knew that woman doesn’t live by bread alone: cake is what makes it all worthwhile.

  I’ll always remember her doing that, making the roll especially for me, to soften the blow. Not everyone in the village was up themselves. Rashima was one of the good people.

  The sweet, lovely aroma hit me as I walked in the door. I sat at her kitchen island as she worked, flipping through one of her magazines (“Six Ways to Tell He’s Lying”; I dunno, is he breathing?) as she made the icing of double cream, sugar, instant coffee, and chopped pistachios. She didn’t talk as she worked, but she was an artist and I dared not disturb her.

  Suddenly she put down the spreading knife, a look of dismay on her face.

  “I forgot to make the little chocolate flowers to decorate.”

  “Well, that’s it,” I said. “I’m leaving.” Rashima could be a bit literal-minded, so I was always careful to smile to make sure she knew I was kidding. She returned the smile but it was not her usual sunny offering. More like the smile you get when you’ve made a joke in poor taste. I wondered what could be the matter.

  “I can never tell when you’re joking,” she said.

  “No kidding.”

  She cut two generous slices of cake and poured the tea before leading the way into her living room, where we settled on a sofa in front of a glass-topped bamboo coffee table. Her home was like a sanctuary, all light balsam wood and wicker, with plants on every surface. From one corner came the soothing drip of an outdoor fountain. The Khans’ place was a refuge from the relentlessly tartan-or-chintz-covered horsiness of the rest of the village.

  “I think I can always tell when you’ve got something on your mind,” I prompted her.

  “Please,” she said with a small laugh. “It’s bad enough being married to an all-seeing shrink. I don’t need one for a friend, too.” She hesitated, then said, “It’s because I’m your friend, you see, that I … ” She began to separate the icing from her slice, shoveling it with her fork to the edge of the plate. I supposed she was trying to save calories but what a waste.

  “That you what?” I prompted.

  She began stabbing at her slice of cake distractedly. I was busy discovering it was the most delicious Swiss roll ever made.

  “I put myself in your shoes,” she answered obliquely in her honeyed voice. “If you knew something, something like what I know, something that affected your whole life, would you be obligated to tell? As a friend? Or would it be a true act of friendship never to let you know, and to hope the whole thing would blow over and you none the wiser?”

  “Rashima, I—”

  “Let me finish. If I don’t say this in my way, I’ll never get it said.”

  I nodded solemnly. Reluctantly, I put down my fork.

  “But now the situation is so serious. I mean, it was always serious, but … now there is a sort of—well, I can’t say a moral angle. There was always that.”

  For God’s sake.

  “With Anna dead, you see … I can’t not tell you. I can’t see a way to not telling you. And I can’t not tell the police.”

  I thought I could see for sure now where this was going. “Will,” I said.

  And her face crumbled into what I can best describe as a mashup of gratitude and wretched misery. Those theater masks depicting comedy and tragedy? Rashima managed to achieve both simultaneously. Gratitude that she hadn’t had to say the name of the villain aloud, or to spell out his crime. She knew I meant Will as in William, my husband. And I knew that she knew that I knew—and how she knew that, I don’t know. Except Rashima was one very savvy lady. It probably helped that I didn’t reel back in disbelief, that my shoulders sagged with unhappiness, and that there were tears at the corners of my eyes. There was that.

  “Jillian—Jill—I am so sorry. How did you find out? When did you find out?”

  I could have asked her the same questions, but I said, “Not long ago. Quite recently, in fact. I found some credit card charges that couldn’t be accounted for in the normal way.”

  “For her?” I nodded. “He bought her presents?” This seemed to horrify her—to horrify her even more than the thought of my husband shagging Anna every spare moment God sent. The presents elevated it to the status of a love affair for the ages. Bless her simple little heart, she got it: that was the real betrayal. The whole time he was making small talk about the stock market, and giving me vague answers to inquiries as to how his day went, and putting celery in the vegetable drawer, he was probably fantasizing about how his life would have been better if only he’d met Anna first, his head stuck inside some porno fantasy only Anna could fulfill.

  “Well, yeah. But not roses and perfume and books of poetry, at least not that I’m aware. He bought her some things from Intime.”

  At that she, God bless her further, screwed up her little face into a moue of disgust.

  “He bought her knickers?” She didn’t ask the question so much as spit it out. “What a creep. I’m sorry. Should I have said that? He is your husband, but—”

  “For heaven’s sake, Rashima. He’s a dishonest, lying, sneaking fuck. Creep is probably one of the nicer terms you could use.”

  She nodded, agreeing almost happily. Her husband would probably approve of the appropriate display of anger as a healthy release.

  “How long?” she asked. “How long were they … ?”

  “How long were they at it, my dear friend and dearer husband? I’m not actually sure. I only noticed the receipts about three months ago. It might have been going on a year or more—I can’t say without access to his account.”

  “Wow,” she said. “That really sucks. I’m sorry.”

  Anyone else saying that, I might have gone all prickly. I can’t bear to have anyone feeling sorry for me. I got my fill of that when my brother died, and my mother, and when my father married Tralee. But since it was Rashima, the empathy was like a balm. The tears began flowing in earnest now, on both sides. She went out of the room and returned with a box of tissues.

  “Thanks. I thought I was all cried out, but … You’re so kind. Always so kind.”

  “Never mind that,” she said, suddenly all business. “We have to decide what and when to tell the police.” Notice she didn’t say “if.” “I don’t want to push Will in front of a train,” she continued, “no matter how much he deserves it, but they will surely see this as important. They must, however, keep in mind that ‘unfaithful’ and ‘murderer’ are two different things.”

  I felt I could debate that, but I let her go on.

  “I just can’t, you know, withhold evidence.”

  This was what I had been afraid of. While she was out of the room retrieving the tissue, I’d been busy thinking what to say to her. Rashima was the most ethical person I think I ever knew. God fearing, authority fearing, a believer that the police were just doing the best gosh-darn job they could in an evil world full of hijackers and terrorists. It was a wonder she hadn’t rung the station already; I knew only her sense of loyalty as a friend and neighbor had stopped her. As well as a certain fear of the unknown: there would be no way to stuff this particular genie back in the bottle.

  “No,” I said. “You can’t. But you can let me tell them, in my own way.” Whatever that way was. I only knew that I would be shut out from the case entirely once the police knew how close to it I was—how the case was actually in my basement, in a manner of speaking: I had finally realized it was Anna’s perfume I had detected there on a few occasions.

  I wasn’t ready to have all the avenues of information closed to me. Heck, they might decide I was a suspect in killing Anna—what more logical leap could they make, after all? Except the logical leap to Will’s having done it.

  “How did you find out, by the way?” I asked.

  She actually hung her head and would not meet my e
ye, as if she were ashamed for me of the dirty rutting scoundrel that was my husband.

  “It was Dhir. Dhir saw them, you see.”

  I sat back, the image of what Dhir must have seen splattering across me in a dark spray of tangled memories.

  “Really?” Was there no end to the number of people who knew what my faithless husband got up to? Did the police know already? “When? When did he see them? Where? Come on. Spill, Rashima.”

  “This is so awful. I am so sorry, Jill.”

  “Never mind that,” I said, all business in my turn now. “Just tell me, okay? It can’t hurt any more than it does already.”

  Well, it could, but I’m a great believer in pulling the plaster off in one rip.

  “He saw them on the train together.”

  “Really? Were they snogging or something? In public?”

  “Yes, actually. And holding hands. I’m so, so—”

  “Honestly, if you tell me again how sorry you are, Rashima, I will scream the house down around our heads.”

  “Sorry.” She was crying—I’m furious, raging within and without, and she’s crying. Typical. But I softened my voice in case my anger made her retreat into silence. I needed to know what she knew, and, as she lived by some byzantine code of honor I could not for a moment begin to understand, I was afraid she’d clam up.

  “What else did he see? What did Dhir see?”

  “Will got off before she did. The train, I mean—oh, God, I didn’t mean … anyway: he got off the train at the station just before Weycombe. I don’t know how he got home—cabbed it, I guess. I suppose the idea was that they couldn’t be seen arriving in the village together.”

  I didn’t give a shit how he got home, of course, but it was curious. Just a curious sidebar in the action-packed romance of Bond, James Bond.

  “So,” I wondered aloud, “while Anna was busy owning her sexuality and being brought to fullness as a woman, where was her husband? Where was Alfie?”