The Other Passenger

by Louise Candlish

  ‘That would be a good slogan for the Met: You tell us.’ I decide it’s time to take this interview by the scruff of the neck and show my winning card, if you’ll excuse the run of clichés. After all, it’s not as if they won’t see it soon enough when they requisition my – and Kit’s – phone records. ‘I know you’ll be checking the cameras on the route, but I want to show you something that proves I couldn’t have seen him after we got off the boat.’ I pick up my phone and display my last text to Kit.

  Parry reads the words aloud – ‘ “Just YOU wait” ’ – before turning a baleful eye my way. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’

  ‘It was a response to what he’d said to me. He threatened me, said he knew people I had no idea existed. “Just you wait, Jamie”: that was the last thing he said to me, I swear to God. I sent that text because I had to show him I wasn’t intimidated. I had to get the last word.’

  There’s an unwelcome sinister edge to this last phrase, given the context, but I can’t take it back.

  ‘What did he mean by people you had no idea existed?’

  ‘I assumed he meant criminals. His drug buddies, men he could ask to hurt me. He said they were animals.’

  While Parry scans the previous messages between Kit and me, Merchison watches me with a certain scepticism. ‘Maybe “threaten” is too strong a word,’ I correct myself. ‘I’m not scared of Kit, it was more low-level harassment. But the reason I’m showing you is the timeline.’ I take the phone from Parry to remind myself. ‘I sent this when I got home. See the time? Eleven thirty-eight. The boat docks at eleven thirty. I was texting as I walked through the door, Clare can confirm I was home at that time.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand your point,’ Parry says.

  ‘My point is, he’s opened it, see? It’s marked as read. Since he couldn’t have opened it before it was sent, he was obviously still alive and kicking after I got home.’

  I wish I didn’t keep saying ‘obviously’; if I were a police officer, it would make me think a lie was being fed to me. ‘Then, at seven a.m., Clare and I got a taxi to Kings Cross for our train to Edinburgh. She’ll tell you we were on the eight-fifteen train together or, if you don’t believe her, check the station’s CCTV – and the train’s.’

  Parry raps the nails of his right hand against the knuckles of his left. ‘You seem very confident of the cameras. Almost as if you’ve gone out of your way to be seen.’

  I hold my nerve. ‘There’ve got to be some advantages to living in a surveillance state.’

  ‘So that was your last communication with Mr Roper. What about Mrs Roper? You said you hadn’t had a chance to return her calls: it’s quite a coincidence you were so distracted during the same period your friend went missing.’

  I’ve been expecting this to come up. ‘I was at my partner’s parents’ house, so I was hardly likely to phone my secret girlfriend, was I? I mean, I saw she’d left voicemails, but I just assumed that she was, you know, on my case.’

  ‘About not being in contact over Christmas, you mean? The ignored mistress?’

  ‘Yes, if you want to put it like that. And since I didn’t know Kit was missing, it wasn’t much of a coincidence to me.’ If my gaze is firm, his is granite-hard. ‘Why don’t you get hold of his phone activity from Monday night and find out when he opened this text? Find out if he made any calls after that, talk to the people he phoned. It will help your timeline more than talking to me.’

  Really, I’m the one who should be a detective here.

  ‘Thanks for the tips,’ Parry says. As the din of voices in the hall suddenly rises, his, almost capriciously, grows very quiet, causing me to lean in to hear. ‘Here’s a timeline for you, Jamie: you stalk off after this row on the boat and wait somewhere out of sight for when Kit walks by. You lure him to this blackspot you told us about, where you continue your argument. Things get out of hand and you kill him, maybe using something you took from your place of work, which I assume contains catering equipment. Sharp knives.’ There’s a significant pause. ‘Maybe you cut yourself while you’re at it.’

  All three of us lower our eyes to my bandaged hand and I know what they’re thinking. If I really had just burned it, wouldn’t I unwrap the dressing and prove it? As if from the scrutiny, the wound begins to throb.

  ‘You take his phone, so you can open the text you’re going to send to him afterwards, to make it look like it’s been read by him, then you dispose of his body over the river wall,’ Parry finishes.

  The pull of my breath is audible. ‘Over the river wall? You’re kidding, aren’t you? It’s pretty high – what am I, the world’s strongest man?’

  ‘He doesn’t weigh that much. Not even eleven stone. Any fitness expert would agree it could be done.’

  Merchison watches his colleague with undisguised admiration. Whatever theory they came here with, Parry has developed it. A horrible notion occurs: what if I haven’t cleared myself with this eleventh-hour seizing of momentum, but helped him fill in the details that might incriminate me? What the hell have I done? ‘Prove it,’ I say, my voice returning to the growl of early morning, the animal protest at being singled out. ‘Prove that someone could do all that between when the boat docked at eleven thirty and when I was witnessed arriving home at eleven thirty-eight. Eight minutes! There’s no way, no way on earth. Check the cameras, how many more times do I have to say it?’ I stand, agitated. ‘I think it’s time I got a solicitor involved here. You can’t accuse me like this, it can’t possibly be legal. I’m not answering any more questions until I’ve taken advice.’

  Merchison stands too, hands raised in appeal, gaze warm with fellow feeling. ‘No need for that, Jamie, we’re only thinking aloud. This is all completely informal, none of it is on record. And no one’s accusing you of anything. We’re grateful for your help, aren’t we, Ian?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Nodding, even managing a smile, DC Parry taps his pen on the open page. ‘All we need now is for you to talk us through Monday evening and then we’re finished.’

  I stare at him. Petty to glory in that rare smile, but I do. ‘Five more minutes,’ I say. And I sit back down.

  25

  December 2019

  Now I think about it, maybe it was Gretchen who suggested our little festive celebration. ‘Do you realize we’ve never had a drink together when we haven’t had life jackets under our seats?’

  ‘Don’t forget Kit’s wedding,’ I said. ‘We were on terra firma then. How about the last day we’re all in work? When is that?’

  All of us but Gretchen had booked Christmas Eve off work, which made Monday the 23rd the natural date and everyone plugged it into their calendars.

  ‘Are you bringing partners?’ Steve asked Kit and me, hopefully, and I hid a smirk. He must fancy Melia, just like Clare said he would.

  ‘No, don’t,’ Gretchen said, firmly.

  In a strange – or perhaps inevitable – parallel to the breakdown in friendship between the Ropers and Clare and me, there was a strong sense that our days as a commuter quartet were numbered. Every morning now I looked forward to the short stretch of solitude after the others had left the boat. Through the red-and-gold arches of Blackfriars Bridge I’d go in glorious silence, past the north bank barges with their cranes and groaning construction machinery and, on the south, the tiny sandy beach and wooden piers so picturesquely exposed by the low tide; then on past the magnificent Brutalist National Theatre, without risk of reopening Kit’s thespian wounds about not being a contender. No, it seemed to me there was more to avoid now in my fellow commuters than there was to seek out, but I didn’t feel sad about it, not like I did about the loss of friendship between the Ropers and Clare and me. A time to weep and a time to laugh – we all know the line.

  *

  The bar was insanely busy and horrifically loud, thanks to a polished wood interior and little in the way of soft furnishings to absorb the clamour of three hundred-plus binge-drinkers (this close to Christmas, every night
in Central London was a Friday). Owing to that early-morning train to Edinburgh, I’d promised Clare I’d go easy on the booze, but somewhere around the fifth drink I lost sight of that.

  Gretchen, having banned partners, brought along a colleague killing time before a date, a girl in her mid-twenties whose degree of attractiveness was wildly out of step with her self-importance; she presented herself as a celebrity graciously taking questions from a roomful of eager press. Within an hour, Gretchen had sloped off, followed by Kit, and Steve had been waylaid by a colleague he hadn’t expected to run into, so I was saddled with the girl – what was her name? Maybe Yaya or Yoyo, some nickname she thought cute enough to foist on strangers. She made no effort to hide her lack of interest in a senior citizen like me and the dynamic of interviewer/interviewee continued. (‘When did we lose the art of conversation?’ I asked Clare once. ‘When Instagram told ordinary people their lives were extraordinary,’ she said, and I wasn’t unkind enough to cite Hayter Armstrong’s social media, which dangled the prize of star-worthy homes several times a day, like we all had an equal chance of winning.)

  ‘Sending Yoyo to sleep, are you?’ Kit said, when he and Gretchen finally reappeared. His expression was full of arrogance and I snapped.

  ‘Fuck you, Kit.’

  ‘Nice,’ Yoyo said, and at last she peeled away to share details of living her best life with her unfortunate date.

  To celebrate our liberation, I bought tequila shots, spending a good twenty minutes waiting to be served before rejoining the others and crashing the tray down with a drunken flourish. ‘Christmas! Season of goodwill to all men – or so all men hope!’

  ‘You won’t find that on any Christmas card,’ Steve said.

  *

  We left it late to catch the last boat eastbound, the four of us racing through the streets to Blackfriars Pier, cheering as the lit boat emerged under the railway bridge and skimmed towards us. In the sleek glass swathe of train station above, there was the fleeting, hideous illusion of impending collision as two trains crossed, before dark figures began mobbing the open doors. As we reached the onboard bar for more drinks we were still panting and wheezing, joking about heart attacks. There was another group, tourists or students, I judged, fanned across a couple of rows at the front of the cabin.

  ‘Who the hell was Little Miss Self-absorbed, Gretch?’

  ‘She’s the insufferable assistant who just joined the team,’ Steve said. ‘Don’t you listen to anything, Jamie?’

  We were still competing to make the most lacerating denunciation of our gatecrasher, when Gretchen began shrieking that she’d almost forgotten, she had presents for us, and she was fishing from her shoulder bag three flat items wrapped in gold paper. They were Mr Men books: Mr Grumble for Steve, Mr Fussy for me, Mr Wrong for Kit.

  Hardly the most flattering trio, but Steve and I took ours in good spirit, unlike Kit, who reacted sulkily, barely saying goodbye to Gretchen when she left at Surrey Quays. Even in my own state of intoxication, I could tell he was the most wasted of the lot of us. I don’t actually remember seeing Steve leave the boat a few minutes later, but he must have, along with the other party, because the next time I noticed Kit and I were alone on an empty boat, torn gift-wrap on the seats beside us. He flicked Mr Wrong to the floor, muttering into the neck of his beer.

  ‘Why did you do that? What’s going on with you and Gretchen?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know.’ His tone was antagonistic, making me prickle with annoyance. He was so fucking childish.

  ‘Nothing Melia needs to know about, I hope?’

  ‘Piss off.’ For a few seconds there was just the thrum of the engines, the strains of the Christmas soundtrack over the PA, and then he said, ‘I read something interesting the other day: people who accuse others of playing away are almost always the ones doing it. And here you are, accusing me.’ Thanks to the alcohol, his glare was more glazed than provocative, but there was no mistaking the tightness in his upper body, the tensing of his fists. ‘You can stop faking, all right, Jamie. I’ve seen the way you look at her.’

  ‘What are you talking about, look at who?’ Our raised voices filled the cabin and I was sentient enough to wonder what the crew thought. I had a sharp picture of how we must appear: the feral two, the last to leave.

  Kit tipped the beer to his mouth and, on discovering it empty, picked up Gretchen’s half-finished bottle and drank that instead. ‘You must know by now she’s a total slut, yeah? You said it yourself tonight: goodwill to all men – that’s Melia.’

  I hit him then, causing him to drop the bottle, which rolled away, pumping foam onto the floor. Even mid-grapple, I registered the dynamic as warped, the lover defending the wife’s honour to the husband. As the boat lurched in a sudden swell, we continued to trade slurs.

  ‘You think you’re so clever, but you haven’t got a clue in your posh bubble on Prospect Square,’ he sneered. ‘I know the kind of people you wouldn’t even know existed. They’re animals. You’d be shitting yourself if they so much as looked at you.’

  Though I was taller and broader than him, he was becoming hard to contain, headbutting me freely, bruising me with the sharp pinch of his fingers. Seeing a crew member approach, I called out, ‘Excuse me? This man is bothering me!’

  ‘“Bothering” you? Why d’you always have to sound like such a twat?’ Kit said through clenched teeth.

  ‘Let’s break this up, please,’ we were told by the crew, and a second member of staff – the barman – helped prise us apart and keep us on opposite sides of the cabin. ‘Gentlemen!’ he cried, and the word caused a disorientating flashback to the horror of the Tube tunnel incident, a slicing sense of self-loathing I had not felt since.

  ‘Of course, sorry,’ I said, and when we docked at St Mary’s, it was clear that I was to be allowed to disembark ahead of Kit. It pleased me that though I’d struck him first, he was the one being restrained, singled out as the agitator.

  I could still hear him on the jetty behind me: ‘You’ll wish you never met me, mate!’

  ‘Took the words out of my mouth,’ I growled. ‘Mate.’

  ‘Just you wait, Jamie! I fucking mean it!’

  I staggered onto the street. Cold and rage blocked my ears so my footsteps vibrated through my body, a monster’s stomping. I didn’t look to see if he was following. Mariners was still open, music and overloud voices pouring through the doors into the night. Smokers stood in a cluster in the alley, kicking their heels, restless in the cold, and I wished I could join them to scrounge a fag and draw the delicious toxins into my lungs. I longed to phone Melia, to see her, to take all the reassurance and calm I needed from her voice, her touch. Instead, as I reached the house, I texted him:

  Just YOU wait.

  Not waiting for a reply, already regretting my own message, I left my phone on the hall table to run out of charge. Upstairs, Clare had had an early night and was not overjoyed to be roused by the clatter I made hunting for paracetamol in the cabinet in the en suite. She reminded me of our horrifically early start, but I was in no mood for a teacher’s telling off.

  ‘That’s why I’m back so early – it’s not even quarter to twelve!’

  ‘The cab’s coming at seven and you haven’t even packed.’

  ‘I’ll do it in the morning.’

  ‘There’s no way we’re missing that train, Jamie. I’m not having you let Mum and Dad down.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, we won’t miss the train and I won’t let anyone down. Go to sleep.’ I didn’t want to get into a second row, my nerves were roasted. All I could think was how sick I was of Kit. Sick of being with him, sick of thinking about him.

  Navigating my way to the bed in near darkness, I swallowed a couple of paracetamol, drank a pint of water, and tried to steal a few hours’ respite from my churning imagination.

  26

  24–26 December 2019

  If I’d been anywhere else but the Armstrong household over Christmas I might not have been
able to compose myself, but Clare’s parents, Rod and Audrey, were a balm for my inflamed pride, my animal wounds. Like their Georgian apartment in Edinburgh’s New Town, they were elegant and patrician: there was little chance of a raised voice here, much less a raised fist.

  The four hours’ kip I got on the train helped. Clare had booked first class and it was comfortable enough for me to rest properly, even if she did toe me a couple of times from the seat opposite to try to jolt me from snoring.

  ‘Three whole days without clients,’ she told her parents, luxuriating in the first fireside drink of Christmas Eve. The tree was hung with dozens of wooden figures from The Nutcracker, all with movable joints and golden chains. ‘I turned my out-of-office on last night.’

  ‘Well, I hope you don’t die of heartbreak,’ Audrey said. She couldn’t have known, of course, that her de facto son-in-law did have reason to pine – for his young, married lover, with whom he was unlikely to be able to connect over the Christmas break. As Clare talked about the freefalling London property market and an asking-price offer on a house in Blackheath she was hoping to receive on Friday, I realized how out of touch I’d become with her work news. I knew more about the lettings arm.

  ‘What happened to your hand?’ Audrey asked me.

  ‘He burned it on the coffee machine at work yesterday,’ Clare said. ‘He didn’t even notice it till this morning.’

  ‘I did,’ I corrected her, ‘I just hadn’t bothered bandaging it. I had to run out to meet people for drinks.’

  ‘Enough drinks to kill the pain, presumably,’ Rod said. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘It did when I woke up, but I’m maxed out on paracetamol now, so I can’t feel a thing.’ The same went for the bruising to my collarbone caused by a savage headbutt from Kit. I wondered if I’d marked him in our squalid little tussle.

  ‘Careful about mixing the painkillers with the booze,’ Rod warned, but he needn’t have worried: I intended Christmas to be an exercise in moderation, right down to the pleasing economy of the single call I would make to my family on Christmas morning (never more than a few feet from an Armstrong, I would not be making one to Melia). On Monday night, I’d resented the lack of interest shown in me by Gretchen’s young colleague, but now I relished sharing as little of myself as I could get away with, concentrating gratefully on my hosts. I could tell Clare was pleased with me. In the weeks since our argument after that unpleasant last drink with Kit and Melia, she’d not sulked – that was not her style – but I’d been aware of a withdrawal on various counts: physical affection, humour, the benefit of the doubt. In no position to object, I’d lain low and we’d co-existed peacefully enough.