The Other Passenger

by Louise Candlish

  *

  I try not to calculate the exact fraction of attention my case will occupy in the solicitor’s mind over the next few weeks. I try not to think about the myriad variables – both professional and private – in his and his unnamed junior colleague’s lives that might have a bearing on the act of looking into my lead. Waiting is both my occupation and my goal, after all, my raison d’être.

  Oh, but there is something of note to tell you during this fallow period: news from Debs in an otherwise dry and guarded letter, the same one she writes to me every other month:

  I thought I ought to let you know, in case you hear it in a more upsetting way, that Clare is getting married. Her fiancé is your friend Steve . . .

  Well, how about that? Clare and Steve. She used to complain all the time about there not being enough relationships between older women and younger men. It was always the other way around (and look where that got us). I’m not at all upset. Just glad to hear someone’s had a happy ending.

  Bodes well for my own, eh?

  *

  Finally, my brief is back in touch and a second meeting arranged.

  He looks weary this time, even a little seedy. His suit jacket is a bit shiny around the lapel – not nearly as dapper as your work clothes, Kit. There is a sense that he doesn’t expect our conference to last long, and my nerves flare: it must be because the news is good – he needs to get on with the official application for permission to appeal!

  ‘Did you speak to Simon Whiting?’

  ‘We did. As you know, when we originally examined footage from the Royal Festival Hall security cameras, we were not able to make a positive ID of your companions. Well, when our investigator approached Mr Whiting, we didn’t exactly spell that out.’

  ‘You mean you let him think you’d got the ID somehow?’

  ‘Let’s just say he was friendly and helpful. Said he remembered the occasion well because it was just after Christmas and he wasn’t working. He and the other friend bumped into you by the London Eye, recognized you from the Ropers’ wedding and the three of you had a coffee together.’

  I shake my head, emphatic, impatient. ‘No, no, that’s a lie. They weren’t at the wedding. And why would I go with them unless I thought I had to? I was on my way to work, same as usual. Melia must have told him what to say if someone came asking. She’d have briefed both of them, she’s totally thorough.’ I think for a moment. ‘Can you get the CCTV video from the pub? The big one on the river at Greenwich. The Stag, it’s called. That will prove they weren’t at the wedding. It was August 2019, a Saturday. I can let you know the exact date.’

  He looks singularly unimpressed by this suggestion. ‘I’d say that’s highly unlikely after so long, Jamie. And even if they failed to appear on the footage, that wouldn’t be proof that they weren’t there.’

  I glare at him, feeling my temper rise. ‘So it doesn’t help me when they are on camera and it doesn’t help me when they aren’t?’

  ‘In this instance, no.’ He holds my eye. ‘And it’s likely Mrs Roper would vouch personally for their attendance.’

  There is a moment of stillness, of pure understanding. My voice sharpens, then breaks: ‘You don’t believe me, do you? You never have.’

  Sensing the force of my emotion, he adjusts his tone. ‘We are post-conviction here, Jamie. It’s not a question of believing your account: that has already been judged. The only thing that’s of any relevance is whether I believe you have grounds for an appeal.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  His chest rises and his chin tucks into his neck. ‘I don’t, no. Everyone else involved has credible explanations that are consistent with one another’s, including this Simon Whiting’s.’

  Only mine is inconsistent. Only mine is incredible.

  He closes his laptop and slides it from the table, holding it to his chest like a clipboard – or perhaps plate armour. ‘You want my advice?’

  Not really. ‘What?’

  ‘Make a structure for yourself here. This is your life now. There are opportunities here, take them. Apply for a role of some sort. Make the experience count for something, because you will be out, one day, if you follow the rules and behave. Make your peace with it, Jamie.’

  He’s on his feet now, looking down at me with eyes that will soon see the cars on the road, the dogs in the park, the schoolkids in the playground. The pint of lager on the pub beer mat. ‘I wish you luck,’ he says.

  As if luck has any more of a shot against deviousness, against wickedness, than the truth ever did.

  47

  Finally

  You’ve been drifting from my thoughts, Kit. It’s inevitable, I suppose; we can’t cling on for ever. Even in places like this, there are new friends, new lifelines. Did I tell you I have a job in the health unit now? I’m working towards enhanced status, which means a cell to myself. There is responsibility and there is reward.

  You know, I’m not sure I ever really linked the two before. I know you didn’t.

  Today is my fiftieth birthday. In an alternative version, we might have had a few drinks together after work. If we’d gone to the Hope & Anchor, you could have nipped out to meet your dealer while I got the drinks in. And when you came back, I might have accepted a birthday line, just one, mind you, to your five or six or however many you needed by the end to get the engine turning. So it seems as auspicious a date as any to let you go. It’s the right thing, the sane thing (I’ve been reading about mental health a lot, lately).

  But, before I do, I thought you might like to accompany me to the visits hall one last time. We have a VIP guest, you see.

  That’s right, she’s coming. Your siren and mine. Our shared sorceress.

  It’s been proposed to me as part of some victim’s family support initiative for which she volunteered and I agreed.

  Why?

  Because I’ve still got things to say, Kit. I’ve still got things to say.

  *

  Though the meeting with Melia takes place in the main visits hall during standard hours, it is supervised by a dedicated guard in case I take it upon myself to assault her. And my animal instincts are engaged, I admit, even before I see her, even before I know she’s arrived on site. I’m a black bear who’s scented his next meal in a bin far away.

  Except I’m her meal, aren’t I? I always have been.

  She doesn’t look me in the eye at first when I take my seat opposite her. I can see she has dressed with care so as not to attract the convict’s eye. Every inch of her is covered, but for her fine, pale hands and smooth heart-shaped face. Her hair is pulled from her forehead and twisted at the nape over a high-necked black jumper. She has some coins in her hand, has obviously been briefed that she can buy tea or coffee, but she makes no attempt to do that, remaining in her seat with her knees jammed together, her gaze lowered.

  We are not allowed to touch, of course.

  ‘Hello, Melia.’

  Only now does she look up. She looks up as if mesmerized and there’s a collapsing sensation inside me – frightening because I don’t know what it is that’s collapsing. My resolve? My pride? My lunch? The realization that no matter what words and images I’ve learned to remember her by, she is still breathtaking, she is still luscious, and I may still be in her thrall?

  If I hadn’t been transfused with blackest loathing, that is.

  ‘Hello, Jamie,’ she says, and her voice – like her beauty – is just the same. A low murmur, intimate, undivided.

  I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought long and hard what my first question would be. ‘Has your insurance cheque come through yet?’

  She answers politely. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Two million pounds: in the end, not the value of one man’s life, but two. A million apiece for me and you, Kit. I wonder if she’s stayed in St Mary’s, upgraded her accommodation, somewhere closer to the river, perhaps, because she’d want the wow factor. I wonder if, when she passes the spot where you bled to death, if
she pulls up, face raised to the heavens, says a little prayer in your memory. ‘I hope it’s worth it,’ I say.

  ‘Jamie,’ she says, with a tut (as if she is in any position to upbraid me!).

  I hold her gaze and search for shame, self-reproach, anything real. ‘Why are we doing this, Melia? And don’t give me that crap about victims’ families because I don’t believe it for a second.’

  ‘I know you don’t.’ She checks her volume, casts a glance towards the guard. We are speaking as quietly as possible without being inaudible, we conspirators of old. ‘I came because I hoped we could . . .’

  She can’t say it, it seems, but I see it in her eyes: a plea for forgiveness. And a plea with the faintest eroticism to it, like she is seducing a priest. It’s still a game to her, a game to be won.

  Well, I’m not playing. I pluck the first thing that comes into my head: ‘You heard about Clare and Steve, did you?’

  A flicker of dismay suggests she had hoped to tell me that news. ‘I heard, yes. They met at our wedding, of course.’ She glances about her then, her eye lingering on the drab furnishings and the locked doors. A faint flinch crosses her face and I sense she is considering the limitations of prison life for the first time. No wine, no sex, no fun. No dancing by the river in the afternoon sun with friends and lovers.

  I wonder who she’s sleeping with now. It will be a different sort of worship, a different balance of power, now she has money.

  ‘Must be upsetting for you,’ she suggests.

  ‘Not at all, good for them,’ I say. ‘Though I always thought Steve might get together with Gretchen.’

  She shrugs, displeased with that suggestion.

  ‘What? I’m not allowed to mention her? Obviously it came out in court, but did you know at the time that Kit was shagging her? Was that why you did it? It wasn’t just the money, was it? Wasn’t it enough that you were doing the same yourself?’ It has been obvious to me for some time that this has been a more traditional story than I credited it; I simply failed to spot its classic theme in time. Sexual jealousy. The jury bought it as a motive, they just weren’t permitted to see whose jealousy it was.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jamie.’ Melia speaks with the degree of disappointment that might meet the discovery of a chipped fingernail, but I am as familiar with her body as anyone ever will be and I spot the stretch in the tendons of her neck when she is angry, the thrust of her jaw. Those amber eyes seethe and brighten and I feel a rush of pleasure that I still have an effect on her.

  ‘Anyway, I don’t want to talk about them,’ she says. ‘I want to talk about us.’

  I snort. ‘What is there to talk about?’

  ‘Just that . . .’ She bites her lower lip, touches the end of her pretty little nose with her fingertips, as if to check her assets are still intact. ‘I want you to know that I’ll still be here. Later.’

  ‘Later?’ I can’t believe I’m hearing her correctly. She’s put me in jail, she’s destroyed my life, and she wants me to still want her: that’s narcissism, that’s Melia. ‘You remember I got a fifteen-year sentence? Fourteen still to go? You want to put a date in the diary for a drink? No, thank you.’ The ‘no’s are flowing freely today. If only I’d said no to her more often before. ‘If you’re running out of buddies out there in the free world, what about Parry and Merchison? Oh, hang on, they’re not their real names. I know it’s Simon Whiting, not Ian Parry, but you’re going to have to help me out on the other one.’

  There’s a splash of shock in her eyes and she lifts her chin. I’ve rejected her and now she’ll want to punish me. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand who you’re talking about? Oh, yes, your imaginary friends. Do you know how desperate you sounded when you tried to talk about them in court? People were embarrassed, even your own lawyers.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ I’ve broken the rules and sworn, but, helpfully, a couple of tables away a prisoner and his visitor have raised their voices in sudden argument and the staff’s attention is diverted from us, including that of our designated guard. I take advantage of the interlude to say the only thing I truly want to say in this meeting: ‘You’re a cunt, Melia. And don’t think Kit didn’t know that too. He probably thought he’d let you do the hard work and then take his half and be on his way. No wonder he was always off his head, staying out all night. He should’ve left you for Gretchen at the first opportunity – she’s worth a thousand of you.’ All of this is said in a gritted, cheerful tone so as not to alert the guard to the presence of anger. Anger pure as rapture. ‘Money is never going to buy you a soul, so don’t think it will.’

  Outrage transforms her face, turns it ugly. The tears come slowly, seeming to suspend. A single facial convulsion and they’ll fall. It makes me remember other tears, other convulsions. In bed, the way she screamed and groaned, right from the first time, in the apartment with the planes flying in, the view of the cable cars, twinkling like charms on a chain.

  ‘I want to go now,’ she says, blinking, resetting her beauty. ‘This was a mistake.’ She signals to the guard, who summons our volunteer. The volunteer reminds me that the visit has been a gesture of forgiveness on the part of the victim’s family, an act of courage.

  Shame on you, Jamie.

  Melia is on her feet, casting about, trying to remember which door she came in. I’m not sure how many doors there are between here and the outside, it is probably in double figures, but what is certain is that every key will turn in her favour until she gets back to the visitor centre to retrieve her phone, find her car, drive away. Or maybe she’ll walk to the train station with the other sorry visitors, tense with the strain of their day’s errand, the vapours of incarceration rising from their clothes.

  Then I hear the volunteer say to her, ‘We’ll just let them know you’re leaving earlier than planned and they’ll arrange for someone to drive you back to the pier.’

  The pier? Without thinking, I call out: ‘Melia? Did you get the river bus here?’

  She spins, responding instinctually to my urgency. ‘Yes. I was in town and I saw there was one due and I . . .’ As she pauses, the volunteer signals to the guard to wait. A raised finger, one minute. ‘I realized I’d never taken it and I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to picture you and Kit. Before . . . before everything.’

  As we stare at each other, the guard at my side tipping closer, poised to remove me, something honest and sorrowful passes between us, something neither of us could have planned: love. Not for each other, but for you.

  For you, Kit.

  *

  There is an unscheduled spring in my step as I leave the visits hall. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that kind of ending, there’s no plot twist seeded, no comeuppance for the devil yet to be delivered – at least not by my hand. What there is is acceptance.

  I accept that just because Melia should be behind bars and isn’t doesn’t mean I’m not right where I deserve to be.

  I accept that just because friends of hers lied about their collusion with her doesn’t mean I should be excused mine.

  I accept that when I’m released, years from now, there’ll be no one at the gate. I’ll be alone in my future, every step, every misstep, my own.

  As I walk past the chapel, alongside the little green where visiting kids are encouraged to play, I hear seagulls. And you know what? Until this encounter, until that parting exchange with Melia, until those seagulls, I haven’t given our hours on the river a single thought. Not the happy ones. But now I’m picturing it, I’m picturing it so clearly.

  Down the jetty and over the gangway we go, through the open cabin doors. You and me in our cream leather seats, with our coffees and our phones, our beers and banter and folded-up copies of the Standard. Our entourage, our crew.

  Oh, Kit. If someone had told us then that within a year one of us would be dead and the other set to be convicted for his murder, we’d have laughed him out of town. We’d have leaned back in those seats, watched our majestic, heartless city glide by,
and we’d have said, ‘This is the life, right?’

  Get us.

  Epilogue

  It’s his voice she notices first. Amid the mundane chatter of the other passengers, it is patient and affectionate. He’s on the phone, reassuring someone who’s rather anxious, by the sounds of it. ‘No, I’ll be all right, I promise. I’ll find somewhere more central as soon as the divorce is final. I’m fine, Mum, I don’t need any help. What? No, on the boat into town to meet someone from work. It’s actually quite relaxing.’

  Instinctively, her fingers go to the knot at the nape of her neck to release her hair. She can see from the ghost of her in the window that she has a pretty blush to her cheeks.

  He’s right, travelling by river is relaxing. She wasn’t really in the mood after that awful experience at the prison, but the staff went beyond the call of duty to return her to the pier and she didn’t want to appear churlish. She was there, after all, as a victim, and it was important to stay in character right to the end. Call it her professional training. Besides, she already had the all-day ticket and it had been a serious extravagance to buy it.

  At least Jamie believed her about the money. Okay, so maybe he’ll find out another way, from his solicitor or whatever grapevine he has in that terrible place, but she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that the insurance claim was rejected. A technicality to do with the number of sick days Kit took, a requirement to consult the company doctor that he’d failed to meet. Small print, but basically the work-shy fucker had invalidated the policy.

  Invalidated everything.

  She has two more weeks in Elodie’s spare room before Elodie’s cousin comes back from working overseas. It’s the cousin’s flat, not Elodie’s, so there are no negotiations to be had there. Then she is homeless. Which means she has two weeks to find a job, because you can’t get a job without an address, even if you can’t get an address with the kind of debts she has – Kit’s, too, of course. What was his is now hers.

  She’d thought seeing Jamie would remind her how lucky she was, how free. That was why she took part in that stupid support initiative, he’d never have agreed to see her otherwise. But what’s the point of freedom if you can’t afford to experience it in style? Jamie probably eats better in that hellhole than she does out here.