Suspicion

by Leigh Russell

  ‘What’s your conference about?’ I asked, with a pretence at enthusiasm.

  Jen told us, but I wasn’t really listening to her answer. As a doctor she must have come across many dead bodies. I had just encountered my first. No one else knew about Sue’s death or the horrific circumstances in which she had died, and I was entirely alone with my distress. I struggled to maintain a calm exterior until, at last, Jen had to leave. For the first time in my life I was pleased to see her go.

  ‘Don’t stay away so long in future,’ Nick urged her as we stood on the doorstep watching her go. ‘Louise loves seeing you.’

  Chapter 14

  Determined to get past my horror and spend a normal evening with my husband, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, I prepared a casserole and had just finished cooking it when he came into the kitchen, a look of horror on his face. A sick feeling hit me in my stomach as his words sank in. The body had been found. The words had been spoken aloud, and I was no longer alone with the terrible truth.

  ‘Suicide?’ I stammered. ‘Sue’s committed suicide?’

  ‘Apparently so. It seems she took an overdose of sleeping pills washed down with half a bottle of whisky. A neighbour found her, because her front door was left open and they went in to check that everything was all right.’

  ‘It sounds like she wanted to be found.’

  Nick sighed. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘In any case, they can’t be sure she meant to kill herself, can they? She might not have taken too many pills intentionally.’

  My interest in what had happened was a sham; I did not care whether the police thought Sue’s death had been an accident or suicide. All that mattered was that they believed she had taken her own life, meaning my husband was in the clear, even if his affair came to light.

  ‘She left a note of sorts,’ he said, ‘scribbled when she was clearly too drunk to write.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘Just one word: sorry.’

  ‘But suicide? How is that possible? Suicide?’

  ‘Can you please stop repeating that,’ he said, sinking onto a chair and reaching for the bottle.

  Hoping I hadn’t overdone my shocked reaction in my effort to conceal my relief, I sat down opposite him at the table.

  ‘I spoke to her yesterday,’ I said. ‘She seemed all right,’ I added uncertainly.

  The lie slipped out, quite unintentionally, but there was no point in admitting how upset Sue had been about the emails. I didn’t want to remember our last conversation, or her tears. Soon everyone would know that she had killed herself but I didn’t want to think about her at all, because I knew it was my fault she was dead.

  She must have been depressed when she had invited me to her house. Clearly she had been confused, not to say deranged, and I could only assume she had wanted to take some kind of revenge on me for Nick’s refusal to leave me for her. But I had done nothing to initiate the situation, only reacting to her behaviour. If she hadn’t chosen to have sex with my husband, none of this would have happened, so I felt justified in fighting off any feelings of guilt over her death. I was as much a victim of his deception as Sue. He had lied to me too. But I still had a chance to work out my problems with Nick and rebuild my shattered life. For Sue it was all over.

  Given the circumstances, Nick’s conduct was impressive. He gave dignified speeches to the whole school, and to the staff, expressing his sorrow and offering them comfort in theirs. Many of them had known Sue far longer than we had, and he paid respect to their feelings, as well as giving a fittingly glowing tribute to Sue’s work. He also had the difficult task of writing a letter to her parents expressing his personal condolences. He discussed with me how to approach this, before consulting the senior staff about a suitable response from the school. Only I could have appreciated how hard Nick must have struggled to bear his grief in a manner appropriate to a boss who had lost his secretary, when their relationship had meant so much more to him than that. Like mine, his solemn demeanour hid a secret which he could never share.

  Even at home, he expressed anger rather than grief.

  ‘A suicide hardly fits with the image of a happy school community where everyone is cared for,’ he fumed. ‘How could this have happened without any warning? Did no one have the slightest inkling she was so unstable?’

  ‘If anyone knew, surely it would have been you.’

  He raised his eyebrows, looking straight at me, and I bottled it. ‘What I mean is, you worked so closely with her. You saw her every day. Didn’t you spot any signs?’

  ‘What signs? What are you talking about? I’m not a mind reader.’

  Just as well, I thought, but I kept that to myself.

  ‘She was upset by those emails, but they were hardly something to be taken seriously...’ He shook his head, baffled. ‘She had no history of depression. I just don’t understand how this could have happened.’

  If I hadn’t known how he had betrayed me, I might have felt sorry for him, a powerful confident man reduced to casting about helplessly, unable to make sense of the darkness that had unexpectedly descended on him.

  ‘There must have been something else going on,’ I said. ‘Something we don’t know about. Perhaps she was having an unhappy love affair.’ I watched him closely as I spoke, but he didn’t flinch. ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’

  He shrugged, as though that was unimportant. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You worked with her for nearly a year and you don’t know whether she was seeing anyone?’

  ‘We didn’t discuss personal matters. I was her boss, not her confidante.’

  That was an outrageous remark from a man who had been so intimate with her.

  ‘I wonder what will happen to her cat,’ I said, changing the subject before my feelings became obvious.

  ‘What cat?’

  ‘She had a cat,’ I said, thinking that either he was a better liar than I had given him credit for, or else he had never been to Sue’s house. ‘I wonder what will happen to it.’

  ‘How do you know she had a cat?’

  ‘She mentioned it.’

  He shook his head. ‘I dare say a neighbour will feed it. I think her cat is the least of our concerns.’

  Nick and the senior management team agreed that Sue’s death should be referred to as “a tragic accident”. They felt there was no need to go into any more detail than that. Before any serious questions could be asked, the term would finish.

  ‘By September, Sue will hopefully be buried and forgotten,’ Nick told me.

  I struggled to conceal my revulsion at his coldness but, on reflection, I supposed there was nothing else he could do, unless he broke down and openly confessed he had been having an affair with Sue. And, after all, there was no point in putting his career at risk for a woman who was dead. Even so, his words struck me as callous, and I wondered how he would react if I were to die. His ambition, and his determination to hold onto his position, seemed to have stamped out any vestige of humanity in him.

  Chapter 15

  It was hardly a surprise to learn that the Gala Dinner to celebrate the end of the school year was to go ahead as planned.

  ‘No one wants to rock the boat,’ Nick explained, with a composure I found hard to forgive.

  The deputy head’s secretary, Mandy, took over the running of the evening, and outwardly life continued as before, but without Sue. The nature of her job had meant she was in contact with everyone who worked at Edleybury and, as far as I could tell, she had been universally liked.

  Angela and I discussed what had happened, and we agreed that Sue’s popularity only made her suicide seem the more tragic. Among all the people she had communicated with on a daily basis, not one had offered her the support that might have saved her life. No one had known about the depression that was generally assumed to have led to her death.

  The staff room was subdued and everyone walked around looking miserable. Sue’s death had touched us all. Although we we
re not allowed to mention the word “suicide” in front of the pupils, it had been impossible to conceal the truth from her family, who were understandably distraught. Nick and I both dreaded having to meet them.

  The next morning, on my way to Nick’s office to meet Sue’s family, I nipped into the ladies’ toilet to prepare for this ordeal. Coming out of a cubicle, I yelped aloud in shock. Sue was standing in front of me, staring at her reflection in the mirror, tears trickling down her cheeks. For a few seconds I stood, paralysed with shock. The room spun around me and the neon lighting overhead quivered. Catching sight of my shocked face behind her in the mirror, she turned, wiping her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I know I look like Sue. I’m her sister, Judy.’

  She spoke in Sue’s voice, but I saw that her hair was longer than Sue’s had been, and she was plumper than her sister, and looked older.

  ‘I’m– I’m Louise Kelly,’ I replied, taking a deep breath and fighting to regain my equanimity. ‘I wish we could have met in different circumstances. I’m the head’s wife.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ she replied, her voice suddenly cold.

  Her expression told me quite clearly that Sue’s family blamed Nick for what had happened. No doubt they believed he had bullied her into ending her life. Sue’s eyes stared at me from her sister’s face in silent accusation. I could almost hear what she was thinking: ‘Sue was perfectly happy at this school before your husband came along.’

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. We’re all devastated. Sue will be missed. I don’t know how we’re going to manage without her.’

  Judy’s silence reverberated in my head. She had no desire to grant me a reprieve from my misery. Without another word, I led her into Nick’s office, where he was seated with a middle-aged couple who were both in tears.

  ‘If there’s anything we can do,’ Nick was saying as I entered the room, ‘anything at all.’

  ‘Bring our daughter back,’ the woman sobbed. ‘We just want her back.’

  ‘How could this happen?’ Sue’s father asked in a helpless appeal.

  ‘There was nothing wrong with her, nothing at all,’ Judy added. ‘They’re trying to make out she was depressed but that’s an out-and-out lie. Something must have happened to make her do this. I don’t know what she was even doing with those pills. She never had any trouble sleeping.’

  Nick dealt with them in a masterful way, speaking soothingly, assuring the grieving family that he had grown very fond of Sue in the short time we had known her, and stressing how much he had appreciated her excellent skills and strong work ethic. Her death, he said, had come without any warning. Haltingly, her parents expressed their gratitude for his kind words, but Judy continued to glare at him as though she considered him personally responsible for her sister’s death. I wondered whether Sue had told her sister about her ill-fated love affair.

  After they left, I broke down in tears. Nick mistook my unrestrained weeping for an expression of grief. I could hardly explain that I was crying tears of relief that Sue’s family had gone.

  Later, in front of the whole school, Nick gave an impeccably worded tribute to Sue and the work she had done for Edleybury, in which he referred to the tragic illness which had ended her life. There was no mention of suicide, and no suggestion that she might have been suffering from mental illness. The staff had been instructed to remain discreet about the nature of her death, and her suicide was skilfully glossed over. So much so, that when a member of the parents’ association asked me whether Sue had died of cancer, I realised no one had given me an official specific cause of her death. All I knew was that she had taken her own life, and I could hardly say that to the inquisitive woman challenging me for the truth.

  Heaving a sigh, I shook my head. ‘I’m not quite sure. Something like that.’

  It was a clumsy response. The woman looked riled, as though I was giving her the brush off which, of course, I was. But not in the way she thought.

  All the following day, I felt Judy’s accusatory eyes on me, even though she and her parents had gone.

  ‘Nick, as soon as the Gala Dinner’s over, let’s go away,’ I suggested. ‘Even if it’s just for a few days. Let’s go somewhere completely different.’

  ‘That would be wonderful, but we can’t book anything until we hear about the funeral.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard anything yet?’

  ‘I spoke to her family again today, but they still haven’t released the body.’

  ‘What do you mean, they haven’t released the body? Who hasn’t released it?’

  I had a horrible vision of Sue’s body still lying on her bed, open-eyed, while her family insisted no one move her.

  ‘The police. Apparently they’re looking into the circumstances of her suicide.’

  Luckily, Nick was lying back on the sofa with his eyes closed when he said that, so he didn’t catch the expression of fear on my face. By the time he opened his eyes, I had recovered myself. He reached out to me with one hand.

  ‘I could never have got through all this without you,’ he said.

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Come on,’ he went on, shifting in his seat, ‘let’s go to bed.’

  It was hard to sleep with a heartless monster like my husband, but my cyber bullying was far worse than anything he had done. Within the limited world of Edleybury, the power Nick’s position bestowed on him had gone to his head, and he had simply indulged in a fling, as many men did when they encountered temptation. His transgression had been to sleep with the wrong woman. I should have been pleased that Sue’s death hadn’t broken his heart. What he had done was thoughtless, perhaps the result of a moment’s weakness. I, on the other hand, had carefully planned out a series of actions that had very possibly led to her death. Of all people, I was in no position to condemn my husband for making love to her when I had helped to kill her.

  Chapter 16

  The day of the Gala Dinner and Ball dawned, and Nick and I were up early. Nick left the house before breakfast to eat in the school dining room and talk through the plan for the evening with the rest of the senior management team. I promised to follow him over to the school soon and offer my help to the secretarial staff. I didn’t tell him I had another task to carry out first. Nick had mentioned the police were investigating the circumstances of Sue’s death. While it was highly unlikely that anyone would come across Sue’s diary hidden beneath my underwear, I could not risk discovery. The diary had to be destroyed. Ashes told no tales.

  Stuffing the diary into the pocket of my jeans, and armed with a box of matches, I strode into the garden. No one was around to see what I was doing, but even so I went to the very end and squatted down in a small clearing in the bushes. The diary proved unexpectedly difficult to burn. When I held it by one corner and put a match to it, the flickering flame went out before the pages caught fire. Every attempt was foiled by the breeze extinguishing my lit matches. I couldn’t spend too long fiddling around with it, and was worried that Nick might return.

  After a few minutes, I gave up and went back inside.

  Flustered, I hurriedly switched on the shredder in Nick’s study, tore off the diary’s cover and destroyed the pages, a few at a time. On its own, the cover was unidentifiable so I shoved that in the bin outside the front door to be reduced to pulp by the refuse collectors. The rubbish was due to be collected the following day and that would be the end of it.

  Trembling with a mixture of fear and relief, I put the box of matches away and went over to the school.

  For the past seven years, Sue had overseen all the practical arrangements for the Gala Dinner and Ball. It now fell to Julie, the admissions secretary, and David’s secretary, Mandy, and the other staff on the administration team to pick up the many threads, and run the event without Sue. Juggling so many balls at short notice, and still suffering from shock at the news of their friend and colleague’s suicide, th
ey were under almost unbearable pressure.

  The sun was beating down, and the air was already warm with the promise of a beautiful summer day, but no one was relaxing at Edleybury. On the contrary, the place was buzzing with an air of feverish activity. A huge white marquee had been erected on the grass between the cricket pitch and the built-up area of administration and teaching blocks. A procession of men in overalls were rolling round wooden tables and carrying stacks of gold-painted chairs into the marquee, followed by another tranche of delivery men laden with neatly folded white table cloths, and boxes containing gleaming cutlery, glasses, napkins and other dining paraphernalia, while a group of carefully selected sixth form pupils were in attendance to run errands and help set out chairs, ten to a table. Whistling and joking, the delivery men were cheerfully ignorant of the circumstances of Sue’s death. It was hard to believe there were people in the world, living and working so close to us, who were continuing with their normal lives untouched by the tragedy that had struck the school.

  The interior of the marquee resembled a scene from Dante’s Inferno, with bodies manoeuvring their way around one another in an atmosphere of frantic activity. Rush matting had been laid on the grass, dense enough to protect the turf beneath from the high heels of hundreds of women dressed to impress. Even with the side flaps of the tent pinned open, the atmosphere inside was muggy and warm in the growing heat of the day, but by evening the temperature would become more comfortable in there. Leaving the marquee, I made my way past queues of delivery men unloading from a line of vans, and went into the administration building where I found Julie in the corridor haranguing a man in a blue overall. Her voice was raised and she looked agitated.