by Jane Holland
‘Not yet.’
‘You want to talk about this on the doorstep? In the dark? In this bitter weather?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, if you insist.’ Logan puts down his briefcase, but there’s a ripple of impatience in those last two syllables that tells me he’s unhappy. ‘What is this exactly? The Spanish Inquisition? I take it Ruby told you what happened at lunch.’ He grimaces. ‘I knew I could hear her eavesdropping on us, bloody nosy woman.’
‘Excuse me? If it wasn’t for Ruby, I wouldn’t have known what happened.’
‘Fair enough.’ Logan shrugs, shockingly casual about his behaviour. ‘So I raised my voice to your mother. I lost my temper. I’m sorry. But do we really need to make such a big deal out of it?’
‘When I came home, I found my mother crying.’
‘Oh, Christ.’ He runs a hand over his face, and then nods. ‘In that case, I’m genuinely very sorry. I’ll go and apologise. It won’t happen again.’
‘What exactly did happen, Logan? Because before I let you put so much as a toe over this threshold, you’re going to tell me the truth,’ I say through my teeth. ‘All of it, please.’
He sighs and folds his arms. ‘Right, you want the gory details. Well, we were sitting at lunch together, and your mother just flipped, with no warning. She glanced up at me from her soup and said something bizarre like “Who are you?” As though she’d never seen me before. I was surprised, as you can imagine. But I know she has dementia, so I replied simply that I was Logan, and your boyfriend, and she started shouting at me, claiming I was an intruder, an imposter, and insisting that David was your boyfriend.’ He swallows, looking away suddenly. ‘I was unnerved, I admit it. So I told her…’
‘Go on.’
He looks guilty. ‘I shouted back at her. I’m sorry, I know it was incredibly wrong of me, but she caught me off-guard and I… I lost my temper.’
‘What did you tell her, Logan?’
‘That David was dead. That he was never coming back, and I was your boyfriend now, and she needed to come to terms with it.’
I realise that I’m trembling, possibly with cold, but also perhaps through shock. I fold my arms and stuff my hands under my arms to keep them warm. ‘And then?’
‘And then… nothing. I left.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ I stare at him, disbelieving. ‘You did nothing else? You just left the house?’
He hesitates. ‘She called me a murderer, Kate. She said if David was dead, then I was the one who killed him. And she was going to make me pay. It was awful.’ His voice is uneven. ‘I know I ought to have stayed calm. But it really hurt me, you know? David was my best friend.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Just what I’ve said. I yelled back at her. And then I walked out.’ He pauses, looking embarrassed. ‘I may have knocked my chair over on the way. It was all a bit childish and melodramatic, and I’m very sorry that I upset her. Now, will you let me go inside and apologise properly?’
I wait, unmoving. ‘I think you left something out of that story.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Your cigarette?’ I nod towards the bushes where he flipped the lit one he’d been smoking when he arrived. ‘You didn’t, in fact, light a cigarette at the lunch table and then stub it out on my mother’s shoulder?’
His face seems to be carved from stone. ‘What? Are you serious?’ When I say nothing, his eyes widen. ‘Did you just accuse me of…’ His voice is hoarse. ‘I don’t believe this. You must be crazy.’
‘One of us may be crazy, but it’s not me. Now tell me the truth, Logan. Did you give my mother a cigarette burn?’
‘No, of course I didn’t.’ His expression is incredulous. ‘Why would I? This is insane.’ He seems to catch himself on that word. ‘Wait, you’re saying she has a burn on her shoulder? For real?’
‘Yes, Logan, that’s precisely what I’m saying. As if you didn’t know how it got there.’
‘Well, I bloody don’t. Were her clothes burnt too?’ He frowns. ‘She was wearing that blue dress today. Was it damaged?’
I think for a minute, then shake my head slowly. ‘No. But maybe that was deliberate on your part. To throw me off the scent.’
‘So, what?’ His eyes are incensed. ‘You think I pulled her dress off her shoulder in order to burn her, and she didn’t struggle or call out to Ruby while all this was happening?’
‘I don’t know; I wasn’t there. Maybe she was too scared. Or maybe Ruby was banging her pots and pans in the kitchen at the time, and didn’t hear her.’ I want to cry; I feel so cold and hollow inside at his lies and betrayal. ‘Look, I’ve had enough of this conversation. We’re just going round in circles. It’s obvious you’re never going to admit it—’
‘Because I didn’t do it,’ he exclaims.
‘Fine, if that’s your story. I’m going inside now to call the police. Mum doesn’t want me to. She’s terrified someone will take her away if I do, maybe put her in a home. But this is abuse. I have to report it. I can’t turn a blind eye to what you’ve done.’
He grabs my arm as I open the front door. ‘Wait, Kate. Please don’t.’ His voice is urgent. ‘You know I could never do something like that, right? Torture your old mum? For God’s sake, I don’t have it in me.’ He fumbles for his packet of cigarettes in his jacket pocket and throws it away. ‘See, I’ve given up. No more ciggies. Christ, I didn’t do this, Kate. It wasn’t me.’
I stare at him, wishing I could believe him, and then shake my head. ‘Then who did? Because there’s still a burn on her shoulder.’
‘I don’t know. Ruby? Mr… Mr Adeyemi?’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous. Ruby is her carer. And Mr Adeyemi wasn’t even here today.’
‘Wasn’t he? I thought Ruby said she’d had a visitor earlier… or was that the day before?’ He looks confused. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure. Work has been so demanding these past few weeks, I’m barely holding it together.’ He sees my expression and shakes his head. ‘Not in that way, though. You have to believe me. I’m not cracking up. And I would never, ever hurt a woman.’
I don’t know what to think, but stare at his face in the semi-darkness. I badly want to believe him. And I did smell a faint whiff of cigarette smoke on Mr Adeyemi when we met in his office. It’s possible Mum did get another visit from the solicitor today and that Ruby forgot to mention it, or perhaps didn’t know, if he only popped in and out while she was busy elsewhere.
There’s also an outside chance that Mum got that cigarette burn the day before, when Mr Adeyemi was alone with her, and none of us noticed it when she was undressing at bedtime. Yesterday, she’d been wearing a short-sleeved top with a loose fit under her cardigan. If she’d taken off her cardigan at any point, which she sometimes does when the electric fire is on next to her chair, it would have been the work of a few seconds to lift her sleeve, touch a lit cigarette to her skin and put a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream.
The mental image sickens me. I sway, and put out a hand to steady myself.
Has Mr Adeyemi grown impatient with waiting for my mother to die and is trying to force the situation by terrorising her? Or maybe his plan goes deeper and involves discrediting me as her carer too. Well, he’s certainly doing a good job so far…
‘Kate? Are you okay?’
‘I don’t know what to do anymore.’ I close my eyes and feel his arms close about me. I just want to lean back into his strength, to trust him implicitly, as I always trusted David. To rely on him as I relied on my father and brother. Gone now, all of them gone, my world stripped down almost to nothing. Life is so unfair… ‘You swear to me you didn’t do this?’
‘I swear it on my life.’
I let him into the house, and listen while he apologises solemnly to my mother, and to Ruby too for having stormed out the way he did, and then I help my mother take a shower.
About half an hour later, Ruby comes into my mother’s bedroom, her curious gaze on my face. ‘Did you ask hi
m? Did he do it?’
‘He says not.’
‘And you believe him?’
I shrug helplessly, and sit my mother on the edge of her bed while I dress the tiny red wound on her shoulder again. It seems to be getting better.
Ruby lays out a clean nightie for my mother and brings over her woolly pink bed socks. ‘So you won’t be telling the police, then?’
‘I should do, by rights. She’s been assaulted, for God’s sake.’ I see the panic in my mother’s face, and shake my head quickly. ‘But I won’t. Not if you don’t want me to, Mum.’
My mother’s lip quivers but she says nothing. I suspect she’s too exhausted, poor thing.
After I’ve finished with her shoulder dressing, and she’s tucked up in bed with her eyes closed, I take Ruby aside. ‘Listen, I’ve been thinking. I really must inform the police. I’m as guilty as whoever did this if I don’t. But I’d like to tell them without getting Mum involved, if that’s possible.’
Ruby looks dubious. ‘Won’t they want a police doctor to examine her?’
I realise she’s right.
My shoulders sag in defeat. ‘This is intolerable. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.’
‘Here’s an idea,’ Ruby says softly, steering me out of the room and clicking off the light. ‘Why not think about it overnight, and then report it tomorrow if you still feel you should? I’ll cover for you if the police come round asking awkward questions.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll say we only noticed the burn tomorrow morning. Then nobody can blame you for waiting a few hours before ringing the police.’
I can see the sense in that little white lie, though it makes me uneasy. ‘Okay,’ I agree, too bone-tired to make a report right now and be forced to sit through a long and difficult interview, not to mention deal with Mum’s hysteria when she realises what I’ve done. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight,’ Ruby says, and collects a hot drink from the kitchen before heading up to her room.
The living room feels warm and cosy. My bare feet ache as I pad across the fluffy white rug and collapse on the three-seater sofa. I hear the clink of glasses behind me, and accept with silent gratitude the large gin and tonic with a slice that Logan has poured for me.
‘Yes, it’s been one hell of a day,’ he says in a weary voice, sinking down beside me with his own glass. His arm comes about my shoulder, and I don’t resist, though I know our budding relationship has been horribly mangled by today’s events. ‘Thank you, by the way.’
‘For what?’ I sip at the gin with my eyes closed.
‘For believing me earlier. For not throwing me out into the night and calling the police.’
I open my eyes and peer at the clock on the mantelpiece. It’s a little after ten o’clock.
‘Oh, don’t get too comfortable. There’s time yet.’ He laughs, but it’s not funny and we both know it. ‘I’m going to have to call the police about it tomorrow. I can’t just pretend I didn’t find a cigarette burn on my mother’s shoulder.’
‘I know,’ Logan says, in a voice so flat and emotionless there’s no telling what he’s thinking.
I realise I haven’t even told him about Calum.
But that’s another conversation that can wait until tomorrow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
When I come downstairs early the next morning, having spent a dreadful night unable to sleep, there’s a white envelope lying on the mat.
I stand there a moment, just looking at it. Then I pick it up and tear it open, my hands shaking with anger.
It’s not a poison pen letter. It’s a bundle of bank statements, folded together. I stare at the top one blankly, then realise the name on the account is Logan’s. I check the envelope again, thinking I’ve opened his mail accidentally. But it’s addressed to me.
I blink, confused, and slowly my gaze focuses on the figures. Which are very bad. According to the top statement, dated only a few weeks ago, Logan is more than ten thousand pounds overdrawn.
One of the other statements seems to belong to his savings account, which shows a steady withdrawal of funds over the past three months, leading to a balance of zero. And a third sheet lays out lending terms for a massive loan taken out a few months ago, to be repaid over five years at very disadvantageous terms. That one’s not from a bank but what looks like a dodgy loans company.
Ten thousand overdrawn at the bank, with a massive unsecured loan on top. It has to be unsecured, as I know he only rents his town flat; he doesn’t own it.
Ten grand isn’t a huge amount on its own. I myself have quite a sizeable overdraft, though not quite at that level. And if his salary is substantial, then a few months’ payments would easily cover that overdraft. Except that I can’t see funds going into his current account, only out. And with the loan on top, which still has almost five years to run, it’s clear he’s in a heap of financial trouble.
Logan is coming down the stairs, yawning, still in his dressing gown. He stares at the papers in my hand. ‘What’s that? More trouble?’
I hand them to him silently, and watch his face.
‘Jesus Christ.’ He looks blank at first, and then furious, a dark flush coming into his cheeks. ‘Where the hell did you get these?’ When I point to the torn envelope on the mat, Logan stoops and retrieves it. But it can’t reveal much, being plain and having only my first name on the front. ‘I don’t believe this… These are my bank statements. I keep them at my flat. Someone must have broken in and stolen them.’
‘That’s a fairly hefty overdraft.’
‘I have a few money troubles, it’s true. But that’s nobody’s business but my own.’
I say nothing.
He rubs his forehead, staring at the envelope. ‘My God, someone’s trying to… What is this? I don’t understand.’
‘I think someone’s trying to tell me you’re in need of a large amount of money,’ I say slowly, working it through on my own. ‘The same person who’s been sending me the poison pen letters, at a guess.’ A thought hits me, and I take a step backwards, catching my breath. ‘That’s why you asked me to marry you. I thought it was incredibly sudden. But if Mum goes into a home, and I sell the house, that would free up so much capital… If we got married, you could ask me for that cash, and wipe out your overdraft and loan in one payment.’
His mouth works silently, as though he’s trying to come up with a counter-argument or an excuse, and then he bows his head. ‘I did think about that possibility, yes. But only for a second, I swear it.’ He looks up at me, his face haggard. ‘That’s not why I asked you to marry me, Kate.’
I go into the kitchen and start automatically putting on the kettle and laying out the breakfast things. I don’t want to think about it. But it feels like I’ve been cut inside and am bleeding out silently.
‘Besides,’ he points out more firmly, leaning against the door frame and watching me, ‘you said no, remember? I haven’t tried to force you to change your mind. I accepted your rejection. So this…’ He scrunches up one of the statements in a ferocious gesture. ‘This means nothing. It’s someone’s idea of a sick joke. And whoever did it is a criminal. They’ve been in my flat.’ He looks grey-faced. ‘I’ll have to go round there before work today. See what else they’ve taken. What they’ve touched.’
‘Are you actually still working?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Those statements… I didn’t see any income for this month.’
He says nothing for a moment, then swears under his breath. ‘Look, I was going to tell you. They let me go.’
‘When?’
‘A few weeks back. Just after we first started dating. It was a shock. A real shock. But things hadn’t been good there in a while.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I don’t know. At first, I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought you’d cut me loose if you knew. Who wants to date a bloke who’s unemployed? And I
figured if I kept going to job interviews, I’d soon land another post. But it’s proved a little harder than I thought.’ He laughs without humour. ‘Plus, the longer the charade went on, the harder it was for me to be honest with you. If you’d said yes to marrying me, I would have found a way. But you didn’t, so I thought…’
‘You thought you’d lie to me a bit longer.’
He flushes more darkly. ‘I deserve that, I suppose. That was never my intention, for what it’s worth. But it’s how things ended up.’ He closes his eyes, and exhales heavily. ‘I’ll go and pack.’
‘Yes.’ I turn away to fiddle with the kettle. A tear rolls down my cheek, yet somehow I control the shake in my voice. ‘That’s probably a good idea.’ When he moves away, I call over my shoulder, ‘Is that why you did it, Logan?’
‘Did what?’
‘Is that why you moved in here with me? Why you pretended to be in love with me? Why you gave my mother that cigarette burn? To force us into a situation where Mum might have to go into a home and this house would get sold?’ My voice is shaking now, uncontrollably. ‘Did you do it for the money, Logan?’
He comes back and grabs me, dropping the bank statements. His face is dark with emotion, a hard red along his cheekbones. ‘How dare you? You think I’d do something like that? To you and your mother? For money?’ He glares down at me, and then forces his mouth against mine in a cruel mimicry of a kiss before pushing me back against the sink. ‘Fine, do your worst.’
Dazed, I rub a hand across my mouth. My lips feel bruised. ‘Wh-What?’
‘You’re going to the police today, aren’t you? And I suppose you’ll try to pin everything that’s happened onto me.’
I say nothing, staring at him.
‘You can tell the police whatever you bloody well want,’ he continues. ‘I didn’t do any of it. And I certainly didn’t move in here so I could… what, intimidate you? Control you? Or whatever it is you think I came here to do.’ He strides out, knocking a tall gin tumbler off the surface with one flailing elbow; it smashes on the floor behind him and I jump, giving a tiny cry as glass shards spatter my bare legs. He turns briefly to see what’s happened, and then keeps going. ‘I never want to see you again, Kate. But something tells me I will. In court.’
