by Louise Voss
Margaret appeared from Fairhurst House, her narrow frame swamped by a yellow hi-vis jacket. She looked simultaneously appalled and self-important and held a megaphone in her left hand as she strode down towards the pine trees accompanied by a straggling band of students.
Then with impressive speed two fire engines appeared, drawing up outside the house just as Margaret began to bellow at all our confused guests through the megaphone.
‘False alarm, ladies and gentlemen, false alarm! There is no fire. One of the alarms has been mistakenly activated. But please remain at the Fire Assembly Point and await further instructions.’
The fire engines pulled up outside the studio and Sandy went over to speak to the firefighters, which was when more sirens heralded the arrival of a police car with its blues and twos flashing. I groaned.
This was chaos. I was sure I’d be sacked immediately – open days were vitally important in our recruitment drive, and if we didn’t recruit the numbers, then we’d all lose our jobs.
‘I’ll talk to the police,’ Alvin said, so grimly that I visualised my P45. I nodded, steering Ed over to a small grassy bank near the Assembly Point. We sat down – or rather, I dragged him down by the hand. My legs were a feeling a bit wobbly but I didn’t want to let go of him.
The fight had gone out of him, though. He looked lost and almost close to tears. Not that I could bring myself to feel sympathy for him; not right at that moment. In fact, for the first time ever, I seriously considered divorcing him. I did not sign up for this, I thought. The cut on my cheek was throbbing now, and when I took away the handkerchief I saw that it was ruined, almost completely scarlet.
Ed turned and peered at the cut. ‘Tell me I didn’t do that,’ he said, shamefaced.
‘You did.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. What are you doing here, Ed?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t even know how I got here. I just wanted to see you. Then I saw him and felt all upset that you were going to leave me.’
I gave a guilty start that he had articulated the words I’d thought – not that I’d be leaving him for Alvin, of course. I shifted uncomfortably on the cold, damp grass, feeling it safe enough to let go of Ed’s hand.
‘The police will want to speak to you,’ I said. I could see them now, taking notes as Sandy described what had happened, gesticulating towards us. ‘You punched my boss. He fell and hit his head – I thought you’d killed him.’
Ed snorted and I glared at him. ‘I hope you’re not laughing.’
‘I’m not,’ he said meekly.
‘He seems OK now though,’ I commented, watching as Alvin began to usher the prospective students and their parents back into the studio. ‘Show’s over, ladies and gents. A sandwich lunch is served in the studio foyer!’
I could tell he was still livid, though.
‘Come on,’ I said to Ed. ‘Let’s go into my office so I can find a plaster.’
It was mercifully quiet back in the main building. The alarms had stopped. The current students had all gone back into their lectures. All members of staff were either teaching or involved in trying to salvage the open day.
‘Sit there,’ I ordered Ed, pointing at the chair next to my desk while I retrieved the first aid kit and located a plaster large enough to cover the cut.
‘Oh shit, Lynn,’ he said, sinking his head onto his crossed forearms on my desk. ‘I hate this.’
I finished sticking on the plaster, checking its position on my cheekbone in the mirror over the office fireplace. My face was chalky-white and my blonde hair looked ratty, greyish-green. I appeared to have aged about ten years since the last time I’d looked in a mirror, that morning at home when I put on my lipstick. My eyes had gone from green to grey, a sure sign that I was either tired or distressed.
‘I hate it too,’ I said, the pity for him finally flooding in. I went over and hugged him, inhaling the scent of spent adrenaline and yesterday’s deodorant.
‘I’m really sorry. I love you.’
He turned and wrapped his arms around my waist, and it reminded me of coming back from the interview and changing out of my suit – the same suit. I shouldn’t have accepted the job. It was wrong and selfish of me.
‘I love you too,’ I said automatically.
Margaret stormed into the office, face thunderous and her cropped hair in punk spikes from where she’d run her hands through it. She was so angry that she misjudged the distance of the doorframe, and banged her shoulder against the carved wood, almost bouncing off it as she ripped off her hi-vis jacket and threw it onto the floor. For a moment I thought she was going to jump up and down on it, but she just marched over to her desk and slammed the megaphone down.
‘Police, ambulances, fire engines. Brawls, concussion!’ She was shouting, a weird high-pitched tone of strangled fury. ‘On an open day. This is a disaster!’ I didn’t know if she was aware of the cause of the disaster – but I wasn’t about to fill her in. She didn’t appear to have noticed Ed, or perhaps she was just ignoring him. She hurled herself into her chair, her long legs splayed out.
‘Accident report forms, in triplicate. Security complaining. Students complaining. Parents complaining. Staff complaining. I’ve had enough!’
I glanced over at Ed and jerked my head to indicate that he should follow me out – I didn’t want the police to turn up and start grilling him with Margaret there. When he got up, Margaret narrowed her eyes at him in a way that indicated to me that she had in fact already been fully appraised of who he was.
I suspected I might not be working at Hampton Uni for much longer.
10
‘Hello. I’m Martine Knocker from Surrey Police, we met earlier?’ said the petite uniformed woman on the doorstep, smiling at us.
I’d known she was coming, of course. She was the policewoman I’d spoken to on campus. As we were leaving Fairhurst House, I’d asked if they could come and take a statement from Ed at home, as a concession to his illness.
‘Martine Knockers? Is that a joke? Are you a WPC?’ Ed demanded, not even shaking her proffered hand. I’d been the one to open the front door but Ed had loomed up behind me, and I saw a brief look of alarm flit across Martine’s face before her smile immediately returned.
After his brief spell of remorse, anything and everything had been getting on Ed’s nerves. We’d been home an hour waiting for the ring on the doorbell and on top of his irritation, I felt ashamed and on edge, terrified that Alvin or the university were going to press charges. I’d texted Alvin explaining I was taking Ed home and asking if he was OK. He said yes, but his reply had been curt. I wanted to suggest he went to A&E to make sure he didn’t have concussion, but didn’t dare.
‘We don’t use the term WPC anymore,’ said Martine calmly, but a nerve ticked in her cheek. ‘I’m just a PC.’ She was young and slim and sort of attractive, although I realised she was one of those people who smiled constantly, perhaps because someone had once told her she was so much prettier when she smiled and now it was as if she couldn’t stop; she’d trained her muscles to have ‘smile’ as their default. I hoped Surrey police never used her to break the news to families of the death of a loved one.
Ed snorted. ‘You’re a bit short for a WPC,’ was his parting shot before he turned and stalked back into the house, stomping up the stairs. Martine blushed, but continued to smile.
‘I’m sorry about my husband,’ I said, ushering her in. I lowered my voice. ‘As I mentioned on campus, he’s not well. He was recently diagnosed with a form of dementia, and it seems to be having an effect on his inhibitions. Not a good effect,’ I added miserably. ‘He tried to have a pee in the produce section in Tesco’s last week too.’ Luckily I’d spotted him undoing his flies just in time. ‘Thank you for agreeing to come over to us. I’m so sorry this happened.’
Ed’s voice bellowed down from the first floor landing. ‘Don’t you fucking apologise for me!’
I made eye contact with Martine and we both ignored t
he remark. ‘Can I get you a coffee, or tea?’
‘Thank you, tea would be lovely. Milk, no sugar … Sorry to hear about your husband’s diagnosis.’
I checked – yes, she was smiling as she said it. Had nobody ever told the woman that it wasn’t appropriate to smile all the time?
‘It’s a challenge. Do come through.’ I led her into the kitchen and sat her at the table while busying myself with mugs and kettle.
Martine carefully took off her hat – a snazzy-looking bowler-type felt thing – and placed it on the table next to her, before smoothing down her already immaculate dark bob, and I had to take a deep breath and resist a sudden temptation to smash my fist into the hat’s crown. It would be no good to anybody if Ed and I were both this irascible and impatient.
When I turned back with the teas, including one for Ed, Martine had taken out a notebook and pencil and was unfolding an A4 sheet. I recognised this as a printout of an online crime reporting form. Had Alvin filled it out, or someone else? Margaret, I suspected.
‘Could I ask your husband to join us?’ Martine glanced nervously towards the stairs.
As if he’d been listening outside the door, Ed appeared and slid obediently into a chair opposite Martine. He must have sneaked back down the stairs again.
He seemed to be getting good at sneaking around – I kept finding him in unexpected places in the house. Him and the cat. I was half expecting to open the airing-cupboard door and find Ed curled up asleep on the clean towels, or squeezed into the small space between the arm of the sofa and the wall.
I smiled encouragingly at him, placing Martine’s tea on a coaster on the coffee table.
‘Fortunately, Professor Cornelius has stated that he doesn’t wish to press charges,’ Martine said. I exhaled, relief pushing out much of my panic in a toxic cloud. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to leave after all.
‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it, Ed?’
He shrugged and turned away. Martine looked sternly – as sternly as she could – at him, her pencil poised over her pad. ‘I have a statement from Professor Cornelius and from another witness, Dr Sandy Owden. I will still need to take some details from yourself, though, Mr Naismith, and issue you with a formal warning.’
‘Doctor Naismith,’ he corrected her. ‘I’m a doctor too – a proper one, not one of those pony academics.’
‘A what academic?’ Martine smiled nervously.
‘Pony. As in pony and trap; crap. It’s cockney rhyming slang. Ed,’ I said, in my sternest voice. ‘You’re very lucky that Alvin’s not taking it any further.’
He scowled, but allowed Martine to question him for the next ten minutes: no, he hadn’t meant to hurt Alvin, no, he hadn’t gone there to confront him, he wanted to see me, yes, he’d got the bus there … I was impressed that he’d managed that much.
Martine was still smiling away, jotting down notes in her pad, her head bent over it. I noticed that her hair was thinning slightly on top, and felt a pang for the girl. I half expected to see her tongue poking earnestly from a corner of her mouth in concentration, and hoped she had someone at home to look after her. Mum and Dad, probably, I thought, glancing at her bare fingers.
‘If no charges are being pressed,’ I asked, ‘then why do you need to write all this down?’
‘Just to have it on record, for the formal warning. I agree, to be honest. So much paperwork! But hey ho! We have to go through the motions.’
‘Hey ho,’ Ed said, and he and I exchanged glances, sharing a moment’s complicit amusement.
Martine glanced up, her smile dropping, just for a moment. ‘I have been informed, by the way, of your history,’ she commented almost casually.
‘Whose history?’ I wanted to report this stupid tactless girl.
‘Mr Naismith’s.’
Ed waved sardonically at her. ‘Again, WPC Knockers, I am here. And as I just said, it’s Doctor Naismith. Would you care to elborate, I mean – elaborate?’
Martine blushed to the roots of her hair. I could actually see her scalp turn pink. ‘I’m referring to the disappearance of Mrs Naismith,’ she said. ‘In 2005, I believe?’
It had to come out some time, I supposed. ‘Yes. But this obviously has absolutely nothing to do with that. You presumably also know that a homeless guy, Gavin Garvey, eventually confessed to her murder and was jailed a few years later?’
It felt strange discussing it in front of Ed, like skating on thin ice. Neither of us ever spoke about it and nor, to my knowledge, did Ben. Poor Shelagh had been locked away in a metaphoric box, never to be opened again.
I thought back to my first visit to Ed’s house, how there had only been one photograph of Shelagh on display; her, Ed and Ben in a carefully-posed studio-lit portrait printed onto a canvas block. No other pictures, none of her holding Benjy as a baby, no holiday snaps of the three of them. It couldn’t have been healthy for Ben, surely?
He did have a photo of her now in his flat, just a small faded Polaroid tucked into the corner of a mirror, but only the one. I discreetly studied it whenever I got the chance. Shelagh had her head flung back, laughing at something that an invisible bystander was saying to her. There was a full wine glass in her hand, and her throat was exposed, long, creamy, white, like it was inviting the slash of a knife blade. That was how Garvey claimed he had killed her, but he also claimed that he couldn’t ‘remember’ where her body was, so there had never been any proof of this, or any DNA evidence.
Or perhaps it was just the only photo of her that Ben had left. I suspected that, once enough months had passed to make Ed believe that she wasn’t coming back, he’d destroyed most of his pictures of her in a misguided attempt to try and forget her and the pain he was going through. I always wondered if Ben held that against Ed, or if Ed regretted it.
11
Martine Knocker issued Ed with the formal warning – smiling away – and finally left. I escorted her to the front door and hoped that would be the last time we had anyone from Surrey police over the threshold. When I came back into the kitchen, Ed was putting on the coat he’d left hanging on the back of one of the chairs. He was wearing his hiking boots, dropping clots of dried mud from between their treads all over the floor.
‘Where are you going?’
‘For a walk.’
I was immediately flooded with anxiety. I could practically feel it swirling around my feet and bubbling cold up my legs. ‘But … on your own?’
‘I want to clear my head. Stop mothering me, I’ll be fine. I’m just going to walk down the toe … toenail for a couple of miles. I haven’t done any exercise for ages. It’s not like I can get lost, is it?’
He had a point. But it was the thought of him falling in the river that bothered me most. It was a nice afternoon though, so the chances were that there would be a decent number of dog walkers and cyclists using the towpath, too. And I still felt quietly furious with him, even though I knew it wasn’t his fault. It would be nice to have an hour to myself to try and decompress.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘If you’re sure. No need to take keys, I’ll be here when you get back. Alvin’s told me to take the rest of the afternoon off. Is your phone in your pocket? Be back before it gets dark?’
He nodded impatiently and almost pushed past me in his haste to get out, not even a farewell peck on the cheek.
I sat at the kitchen table, my mind racing. I waited ten minutes to be sure he wasn’t going to change his mind and come back, then went into his study and sat on his wheely office chair.
I wasn’t intending to try and snoop or sleuth, not in the way I had when we first met, but I just wanted to try and find out some more details about this mysterious clinical trial. Perhaps there was an email about it that he’d forgotten. I’d have asked him if I could check, but he’d rushed out so fast I hadn’t had the chance to.
Ed’s laptop was closed on the desk, buried underneath a sheaf of paper: bills, circulars from local politicians, a postcard from Ben and Jeanine in South
Africa, a flyer listing last summer’s concerts at Hampton Court Palace.
Wheeling myself gently back and forwards, I switched on the laptop, expecting to get straight in, but in the centre of the screensaver – a photo of Ed dressed as Widow Twanky from a long-ago MADS pantomime, bright-red cheeks, a lopsided wig, flouncy polka dot dress and a wicked expression; that was when Mike first started calling him Edna, if I remembered rightly – I was greeted by a small box requesting a username and password. Ed never used to password-protect his laptop. When had he done that? And why? I racked my brains but couldn’t think of the last time I’d even seen him use that computer. I tried various obvious password options under the username EDNAISMITH, but nothing worked.
After the fifth failed attempt, I gave up and went to find my own laptop, which was next to the bed from when I’d been watching something on Netflix. I switched it on and waited. It was running ridiculously slowly but eventually I was able to get in. I sat on the bed with the cat, grumbling at him about how much I hated technology. I tried logging into Ed’s emails via the Virgin Media website, but that didn’t work either as I failed again to guess the password you needed to access them from outside of Outlook. He had such an old mobile phone that he couldn’t get emails on there, so that wasn’t an option either.
Everything felt frustrating and kind of stale; a niggling unease, like being forced to stay in a windowless room for too long when it was sunny outside. I wondered if Ed felt the same. The horrific event at work, Martine Knocker’s visit, a police warning – and I still didn’t know if I had a job to go back to. Or if I even should go back.
