Mine

by J. L. Butler

  ‘Her mum is on a cruise and didn’t make it back in time. They filmed it at her sister’s house. Jemma and her husband practically ignored me. As you can imagine, it was awkward.’

  I could imagine how difficult it must have been for him and appreciated it was a smart move by the police. I imagined myself as a perpetrator, filming an appeal in some anonymous hotel room, a blank canvas, and how much easier it would be for me to lie to the cameras on such an empty stage. Doing the same thing in a relative’s house, a personal space, would be a different story, unless you were as cold as ice.

  ‘Did the police say why they wanted you to speak?’ I said, feeling guilty for even thinking of Martin as a perpetrator.

  ‘I offered. I’ve got nothing to hide. Nothing except us,’ he said after a moment, his green eyes looking darker.

  I shifted in my chair and when I looked up, Martin was still watching me.

  ‘No one can know we’ve been seeing each other, Fran,’ he said. His tone was blunt but his words smarted like a paper cut. I knew right then why he was here. When Vivienne McKenzie had said he was in reception, I had wondered, for one exquisite moment, if Martin had been desperate to see me, desperate for my presence, my wise, reassuring words. But now I knew he was here to clear the decks, get his story in order, and he was doing it all in plain sight.

  ‘This doesn’t look good for me either, Martin,’ I replied, pulling myself up straight.

  He nodded. ‘I know. That’s why you need to erase every text on your phone from me. Any email that might sound inappropriate.’

  ‘We’re protected, Martin. It’s legal privilege. Any communication between lawyer and client doesn’t have to be disclosed and is inadmissible if it is—’

  ‘I don’t want to take any chances,’ he replied, cutting me off.

  I glanced behind him and saw Paul still standing there. I felt hot under his gaze and my hand was trembling.

  ‘Donna is missing and the spouse is always a suspect. If the police and the press aren’t already out to crucify me, they will have plenty of ammunition when they find out I’ve been seeing my divorce lawyer.’

  ‘Martin, I don’t know what you’ve said to the police already, but you can’t lie to them,’ I said, feeling a small pulse under my right eye. ‘There’ll be a hundred things you won’t have thought of and if they start digging around your whereabouts over the past week, chances are I’m going to turn up.’

  ‘So you don’t mind being open about our relationship?’ he challenged me.

  I thought about my silk application, about the Burgess Court merger, about my friends in chambers who I had let down.

  ‘Not unless we have to,’ I whispered.

  ‘You’re my lawyer,’ he said, with reassuring authority. ‘I’m in the middle of an expensive divorce, so it’s only natural that we’ve spent time together. We went to the coast together, but that was simply so I could show you my assets.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ I said, remembering our time in the oyster shed, the taste of his cock in my mouth, and the bristle of his hair against my skin.

  He didn’t smile at the suggestion of our intimacy.

  ‘You were evaluating the house,’ he continued, as if I hadn’t even spoken. ‘We drove to Essex on a Saturday because you work during the week. We stopped for a drink in the pub because the tide had cut us off.’

  ‘Is that how you remember it?’

  I felt his foot touch mine under the table and he didn’t take his eyes away from me. It was a small gesture but it was a complicit one, a sign that told me that we were connected, that we were in this together. My relief was palpable.

  ‘I would give every penny I’ve got for Donna to be OK. But if she’s not, if something has happened to her, I want you to know that I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, not even having to think about it.

  Chapter 23

  Martin didn’t stay long. I went back to my office in the eaves of Burgess Court but found it so hard to concentrate I headed out for an early lunch. It was a cold, grey day, the weather failing to launch into anything resembling fresh spring weather, but I wanted to eat outdoors. I put on my coat, grabbed a sandwich from Pret a Manger on Fleet Street and sat on one of the benches by the fountain outside Middle Temple Hall.

  My phone chirped and I looked at the incoming text. I winced when I saw it was from Clare.

  Can you talk? Just reading about Donna Joy.

  No, I didn’t want to talk, I thought, realizing she had finally connected all the dots. I certainly didn’t want a lecture, and I suspected that would be how the conversation would go if I rang her back.

  I stuffed my phone deep into my pocket, and closed my eyes, listening to the tipple-tapple of the water, enjoyed for a few fleeting moments the sensation of the cold flecks of spray that tickled my face. In the distance, I could hear the sound of a piano recital, and for a second, under the shade of the ancient mulberry trees overhead, I felt a sense of calm and comfort that I had not experienced in days.

  Heels tapped against the cool flagstone of the court. One set was heavier than the others and as I heard them stop in front of me, I snapped open my eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Tom Briscoe as I looked up to see him standing there. He was dressed in a thick black coat, one hand was pulling his pilot case, the other holding a brown paper bag from our local sandwich shop.

  ‘Just tired,’ I replied, embarrassed to be caught by him like this.

  ‘You look like shit,’ he said, sitting next to me on the bench.

  ‘Cheers,’ I replied, giving the nearest thing to a chuckle I’d managed all week.

  He took out a can of Coke and offered it to me.

  ‘Do you want this? You probably need it more than I do.’

  I nodded, realizing that I hadn’t bought a drink from Pret and a shot of caffeine might be some sort of antidote to a sum total of five hours of weekend sleep. Thanking Tom, I took the can, which felt cold and inviting in my hand, tugged back the ring pull and let the fizzy liquid slide down my throat.

  ‘I owe you one,’ I said with a slow, satisfied sigh.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said rummaging through his sandwich bag and pulling out a baguette.

  I was glad of the company, and as I watched Tom take a bite out of his lunch, I wondered why we didn’t do this more often.

  ‘Was that Martin Joy I saw coming out of chambers?’ he asked, casually motioning towards Burgess Court.

  I nodded crisply, feeling hurt. I should have known better than to think Tom wanted my company for its own sake. He was here for the gossip. I shifted in my seat and put myself on guard. Tom was nothing if not ambitious. He’d said it himself: we were in a competition, first one to make silk. And I had no idea how far he would go to win.

  ‘He’s on his way to the police station,’ I said.

  ‘I heard he’s instructed Matthew Clarkson. He’ll sort him out,’ he said with a relaxed confidence.

  Despite Tom’s motives for our impromptu lunch break, despite his obvious curiosity about Martin Joy, I felt reassured by his words. His didn’t need to promise that everything would be all right.

  ‘Are you in court today?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Then you should go home.’

  ‘I can’t go home,’ I said, thinking about the pile of case files on my desk.

  Tom shrugged. ‘There aren’t many benefits to being self-employed. You might as well take advantage of one of them.’

  The sceptic in me thought about all the additional work that was being put Tom’s way: the file that Paul had been holding that morning, and no doubt countless other applications, injunctions and contact orders that our senior clerk thought I was unable to handle. No wonder he was encouraging me to play truant.

  ‘Just go,’ Tom repeated, and as I thought about my empty diary – for the first time in weeks, I hadn’t had a scheduled day in court – I threw caution to the wind and decided to
have the afternoon in bed.

  I honestly intended to go home. I walked down Kingsway to my usual bus stop to take the number 19 north, but when I saw the one that took the southern route I found myself crossing the road to take it.

  Nerves jangled throughout my body with the sense that I was setting off on an adventure. Sitting down on the scratchy fabric of the seat, I wanted to be invisible, but on the half-empty bus I felt exposed, as if the whole world was watching me.

  The bus went south, almost to its final destination, past the soft sparkle of the Ritz, the patrician grandeur of Knightsbridge, down Sloane Street towards Chelsea. I guessed which stop was nearest to Donna’s house and with a tentative finger presssed the bell as we approached the lower reaches of the King’s Road.

  It was another dark and miserable afternoon, grey clouds and drizzle reminding me of the night that I was last here. I pulled my coat around my waist, so tightly it felt I was corseted, and turned the corner on to Donna’s street. Immediately I noticed activity at the house. I crept forward, uncertain steps taking me towards the pub where I had observed her house a week earlier.

  I felt too exposed to watch what was going on from the street, so I stepped inside. The warm hop-scented air was like a blanket, swaddling me from the cold damp afternoon. It was almost empty, although that came as no surprise. It was Monday afternoon. I didn’t suppose there were too many alcoholics in the Chelsea area and although they served lunch in the pub, that crowd had gone, just some empty glasses and a half-eaten burger on a plate, the only evidence of earlier activity.

  I needed a drink. A pretty brunette, washing down the beer-spattered counter with a sponge, stopped what she was doing and asked what I wanted as I approached the bar.

  It was a friendly question, the sort she would have asked dozens of times that day, but to me, it felt like an accusation. What do you want? What are you doing here? I didn’t even know the answer to that one myself.

  I asked for a vodka tonic, my hand shaking as I handed over a ten-pound note. There was a bank of tables underneath the window and I crossed the room to take a seat at the one with the clearest view of Donna’s house. It was the same table, the same stakeout point as the previous week and as I sat down, I could clearly remember doing the same thing the previous Monday.

  I remembered the back of Donna’s pink coat going into the house, the dark blot of Martin’s arm in the small of her back as he ushered her in.

  I could picture a shadow at the window, Donna’s slender silhouette closing the shutters, flat lines of golden light illuminating the slim spaces between the slats.

  The house had seemed so imposing and still that night, but today as I watched, it looked busy and violated. I could see the scene-of-crime officers in their stark white forensics suits, the cheap-suited detectives, and a gaggle of photographers and reporters. I could see the television vans, the police dog vehicles and the rubberneckers, all being told to keep their distance by an officer barely out of Hendon. I couldn’t see any blue-and-white crime scene tape, but it struck me that it was like watching a cop drama with the sound turned off. I’d seen enough of those shows to speculate what was going on inside, SOCO officers on their hands and knees, scouring the floors and carpets for blood, saliva and fibres. There’d be tweezers and evidence bags, areas combed for fingerprints and skin cells as they started to piece together what had happened to Donna Joy. And the scene in front of me told me they didn’t think she was missing. They thought she was dead.

  I took my phone out of my bag and looked at it. Clicking on the Messages icon, I scrolled through the ones from Martin. Texts about dinner and arrangements to meet. Morning-after texts, intimate texts. Texts that said things we sometimes couldn’t say to one another in person.

  I want to taste your cunt.

  Martin had told me to get rid of them all. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to wipe away our history. I didn’t want to pretend we hadn’t existed.

  I closed my eyes to compose myself, to think methodically, logically, like I did when I pored over my case files. If I got back to my flat at around two in the morning, I was probably in the pub until closing time. I imagined a timeline for what went on inside the house that evening. Did Martin and Donna have sex immediately? Did they close the door and start fucking against the wall, happy, heady and oblivious to anything, everything, especially the fact that I was watching them? More fragments of the evening started coming back to me. There was a delay between their entrance into the house and Donna closing the shutters. That suggested no scenes of passion in the hall – not like the night I had first gone back to Martin’s loft, I thought, with a short-lived stab of victory.

  No, this would have been a slower, more subtle seduction. I imagined Donna opening a bottle of wine, sitting on the sofa and kicking off her shoes as they talked and laughed about old times and people they had in common.

  Perhaps she had got up to refill their glasses and he had followed her. I imagined them in the kitchen, a show-home space with a rack for the claret and a cabinet for her cut-glass stemware. I pictured her choosing the wine, her long artistic fingers stroking the bottles suggestively, at which point Martin would have acted on the impulse they had both been feeling all evening. Perhaps he kissed her on the back of the neck, and pushed up her dress.

  The wine would have been forgotten by now. Let’s go to bed, she’d have whispered and he’d have picked her up, light as a feather, and carried her to the master bedroom, their room, a place where they’d have made love hundreds of times before. Then and now.

  Martin said he left her house at 1 a.m., but I didn’t remember any of that. I was probably on my way back to Islington by then. I didn’t remember anything beyond the shutters closing and the soft lights taunting me.

  I glanced across at the barmaid, wondering whether to ask her if she’d been on duty that night. Did the staff have to kick out a lovelorn dribbling drunk and find her a taxi? Had I been an angry, vocal drunk, or did I sit and seethe silently by the window?

  I wanted to know if anyone at the pub remembered me, but suddenly I was too afraid to find out.

  My breath was quickening again and I felt helpless to stop it. Anxiety began to suffocate me, emotions were white-water rafting around my body, a thrill ride I was unable to get off.

  ‘Want another one?

  The barmaid was standing next to me, clearing my empty glass from the table.

  For a moment I couldn’t speak and she put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ she asked and her voice seemed to guide me back to reality.

  ‘Yes. Just feeling a bit dizzy,’ I nodded.

  ‘I’ll bring some water over,’ she replied. ‘The kitchen’s stopped serving, but we’ve got crisps behind the bar if you think that’ll help. It’s probably your sugar levels.’

  I watched her fill a jug from a tap behind the bar and she brought it to the table.

  ‘You watching the action out there?’ she asked, handing me a clean glass.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked as innocently as I could.

  ‘It’s that lady that went missing. We’ve had the reporters in and out of here all day.’

  ‘The banker’s wife? I read about that. She lives on this street?’

  The barmaid nodded. ‘I used to see her around. Beautiful woman, like a model. I hope she’s all right.’

  I was grateful for the water but not her observation about the way Donna looked, which made me feel small and unremarkable.

  I gulped back the water and when I’d drained the glass, I knew that I’d seen enough, knew that no greater clarity on the events of last Monday night would come to me, and that I should go home.

  But as I watched a cadaver dog come out of Donna’s house, I also knew that I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I’d never been a wallflower, always hated playing the victim. Pure grit had taken me from our terraced house in Accrington to Charles Napier and Vivienne McKenzie’s upper-middle class, white-collar
world, and I couldn’t sit back and let those people across the road – the police, the forensics team, the media – turn the screws on Martin. I had to be there for him, I had to help him. Because one glance at Donna’s house was enough to tell me that all those people trying to find her were pointing the finger and blaming Martin. I had to help him and I had to start that moment.

  I picked up my phone, hoping to see a message from him. Some reassurance that he’d only been asked a few perfunctory questions before being allowed to go home.

  But there was nothing, no missed calls or unread texts. So instead of putting my phone away, I sent a message to Phil Robertson, asking him to come and meet me as quickly as possible.

  Phil only lived in Battersea, so within twenty minutes I saw him pull up on his bike outside the pub.

  ‘That was quick,’ I said, giving him a wave.

  ‘They don’t call my neck of the woods Little Chelsea for nothing,’ he grinned as he pulled up a chair. We both knew that Phil’s flat was a world away from this pocket of SW3. I’d never been to his house, but I could imagine it. A rented two-bedder, he’d complained on many occasions that he wasn’t even the tenant, he was the lodger, the consequence of a messy divorce that had seen his unfaithful wife stay in the family home with their six-year-old daughter, while he was forced to pay £700 a month to a chef called Sean to sublet a double room behind Queenstown Road station.

  ‘I thought we were meeting for coffee, but I’m guessing this is a stakeout,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘I thought I’d come over to see what’s going on,’ I told him, feeling suddenly relieved that I had a partner in crime.

  Phil got a beer, I asked for pint of lemonade and I told him that I had seen Martin earlier that day and that he was at the police station for further questioning.

  Phil just sat and listened and took slow sips of his Stella.

  ‘We need to help him, Phil,’ I said feeling fortified by his presence, expecting Phil the divorcee, not just Phil the investigator to jump on board with my idea. But he sat back in his chair unmoved by my appeal.