‘No, of course not,’ she finally said. ‘You’re out of line. This feels like an interrogation and I’m not having any more of it.’ And with that she turned on her heel and walked towards the door, wrapping her hand around the knob and opening it forcefully. A gust of air blew in, taking her by surprise. She walked outside. Behind her she heard the sound of nails clicking on the computer keys but she didn’t stop. She needed to keep going until she was safe. From Dr Burns. From her past. From her memories. One step after the other she distanced herself from the office, staring straight ahead in the lift, trying to keep her head clear, not allow herself to fall into the abyss of her memories.
The cold outside jolted her back to the present. She looked at her watch. She had time to kill before her meeting so could catch up on her work. Wrapping her coat tightly around her, she hurried towards the junction and hailed a taxi, shivering as she nestled against the leather seats.
‘Excuse me, miss.’ The voice startled her and she lifted her head to see the taxi driver had turned to look at her. ‘Where do you need to go?’
‘Oh, yeah, sorry. Charing Cross, please.’
The taxi jerked forward into traffic and she sat back and tried to clear her mind, forget the uncomfortable interaction that had just taken place, focus on the upcoming client meeting.
‘Here we go,’ the driver said.
Bea hadn’t noticed the car stopping. She rummaged in her purse and handed him some money and got out of the car. As she started walking towards the office, she saw a tall figure turning the corner. Marcia. She could not handle her, not right now. Turning round, she walked towards a coffee shop and straight inside, ordering a coffee and sitting at a table in the back, away from the windows and away from prying eyes.
Sip after sip she drank her coffee. She had to alert the others, make sure that they knew about Dr Burns. They shouldn’t be taken by surprise, as she was.
Taking her phone out, she started typing a message, then deleted it, and started again. The minutes ticked by and she stared at her phone, unsure what to say. Her coffee was getting cold by the time she’d managed to find the right words.
Draining her cup, she, stood up and walked outside, towards the nearby office. After a few minutes going through her emails, she undocked her laptop and headed towards the conference room, putting a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. As she closed the glass doors, she saw Marcia’s searching gaze, but chose to ignore her.
An hour later Bea felt completely drained. Luke seemed committed to his idea and didn’t want to give it up. He’d talked and talked about it, but Laurence was right. It was a non-starter. So bad that even Bea couldn’t really understand the concept despite Luke’s insistence and attempts to explain it. Finally, when she knew that she no longer had the energy to argue with him, she told him that she would think about it and try to figure out a way to make it work. ‘But I have to be honest here, it doesn’t look promising.’ It was the best she could do. Laurence wasn’t going to be happy, but she didn’t know what else to say.
Needing some more time to herself, she stayed in the conference room while she typed up her notes from the meeting, shooting an email to Laurence. She was glad he was not around this afternoon. Her head was throbbing and the last thing she wanted to do was listen to him complaining about Luke and trying to come up with some new strategy. Normally she’d be all for their brainstorming sessions, but not today. She just wanted to get through the rest of the day and head home, put on her pyjamas and sit in front of the TV.
An hour later she collected her things. As soon as she walked out of the conference room, she spotted Marcia hovering over her desk. She seemed to be looking through some papers. Discomfort mingled with irritation, but, despite her increasing anger, she walked slowly towards her desk, not wanting to alert Marcia. The intern was bent over Bea’s chair, her too-tight skirt riding up her thighs. Her head was down, her long hair falling over her face, covering whatever she was doing.
‘Can I help you, Marcia?’ Her tone did not sound as severe as she was hoping.
Marcia turned around, her long hair fanning across her face in a large circle. She straightened up, her limbs unfurling gracefully. ‘Oh, hi,’ she said. There was not the least bit of discomfort in her voice or fear at being caught doing something she shouldn’t. Instead, her lips curled into a smile and she raised an eyebrow. ‘Your mobile phone kept ringing so I came to answer it.’ She looked Bea up and down, chidingly. ‘You must have forgotten to take it with you.’
Bea didn’t know why but she felt herself cringe. ‘I guess so,’ she responded, suppressing the urge to apologise. ‘You could have left it ringing. It’s not that loud and your desk is on the other side of the office anyway.’
‘I know, but I didn’t want to risk you missing an important call.’ Marcia’s chin lifted up slightly and she looked down towards Bea, making her feel small, like a little child.
‘Did you leave a note?’
Marcia looked down at the paper in her hand, slowly bringing it up and narrowing her eyes. ‘A DCI Hawking.’
The thumping in her chest scared her. It felt as if her heart were going to escape her body, jump out through her mouth. She nodded at Marcia, urging her to continue, but the intern didn’t say anything. She seemed to be savouring the moment. ‘It’s DCI Hawkins.’ Bea could not resist the correction. ‘Did he say what he needed?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Marcia answered, her cheery tone grating. ‘He said something about a meeting you walked out of and needing to reschedule.’
Bea’s face burned with embarrassment. ‘OK, thank you,’ she told Marcia, taking the sheet of paper she was offering. ‘If you don’t have any more work, you can go home.’
For a while she remained standing next to her desk, staring at the piece of paper in her hands as if it contained the answer to her problems. A minute or so later she heard the door opening and closing and knew Marcia had left. It was only then that her legs gave in and she fell into her chair. Leaning forward, she buried her head in her hands.
41
The day had started on a bad note. It was barely past midnight and Sandra had just fallen into a fitful sleep when she heard the screams over the baby monitor. Even before Louis had opened his eyes, she had jumped out of bed. She could hear the ear-piercing shrieks coming through Julia’s closed door. She sprinted across the corridor and burst into her daughter’s room, switching on the light, terrified of what she was going to find.
Julia was standing up in the cot, her eyes red, her face scrunched up, her cheeks wet with tears. She jumped up and down as soon as she saw Sandra, reaching her arms out for her mother. ‘Up! Up!’ she screamed.
Picking her up, Sandra held her close, putting her hand against her daughter’s skin, checking whether she was feverish. Not the case. ‘What happened, baby?’ she asked in a singalong voice. ‘Are you hurt?’
Julia didn’t respond, just clung to her mother, her hands grabbing at Sandra’s satin nightshirt, still sobbing softly.
Despite Sandra’s best efforts, she wouldn’t go back in her cot, wrapping her legs around her mother’s waist whenever she tried to put her down. She attempted to take her daughter to her bed, let her sleep between her and Louis, but Julia would not have any of that. She wanted to be held, walked around with, talked softly to. For more than an hour Sandra paced the upper floor, her back hurting, her arms smarting, until Julia finally fell asleep.
When she returned to bed, Louis was snoring loudly. She touched him, gently at first, then, when he didn’t budge, more forcefully. He grunted and rolled to his side. ‘Thank you for coming to help!’ she mumbled.
For hours she lay in bed, her eyes closed but her ears pricked for any sound from Julia’s room. She kept thinking about the message Bea had sent the day before. Why would DCI Hawkins set her up with a psychologist? What was his end game? But perhaps it was just Bea. She was, after all, the one who had been most badly injured, aside from losing her brother.
And yet, despit
e how many times she tried to convince herself, Sandra still felt uncomfortable. DCI Hawkins had, after all, said ‘we’ in his last call. She didn’t want to speak to a psychologist. She was scared she’d slip up, say something that she shouldn’t, be caught in a lie.
Sleep evaded her. As it often did. Finally, she got up and went downstairs, making a beeline for the coffee machine. She switched it on and stared at it impatiently as it warmed up. When it finally did, she pressed a button and watched in horror as the machine made a grating whirring noise and stopped. She tried again, but the same happened. ‘Not today!’ she exclaimed. But try as she might, she could not get the machine to work. Getting a chair, she climbed up and rummaged in one of the upper cabinets for the French press.
‘What are you doing?’
Sandra turned back with such force that the chair wobbled. She clung to the cabinet door, trying to maintain her balance, then, as she felt the chair give way under her, quickly sat down on the counter. The noise of wood hitting the tiled floor echoed around the kitchen.
‘Don’t sneak up on me like that!’ she scolded her husband.
‘Why are you so jumpy?’ It was so like him not to apologise. ‘You’ve been like this for days now.’
Climbing down, Sandra picked up the chair. She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t tell him how one wrong turn on her end, and their seemingly perfect life would fall apart.
*
The vein at Sandra’s temple was pulsing as she approached the police station. She felt her right hand tremble and wrapped her fingers tightly around her handbag strap, hoping that the shaking would stop. But with every step she took, she felt her nerves become more tattered.
Just outside the station, she closed her eyes tightly, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She squared her shoulders and set her jaw. Ready or not, it was time.
There was a man speaking to the receptionist. As she waited, her anxiety increased. Her palms starting to sweat, the hairs at the back of her neck pricked up. A voice inside her head urged her to turn back, leave the station, call the detective and tell him that something had come up, that she wouldn’t be able to make the meeting. She’d just keep cancelling every time he tried to reschedule. He couldn’t force her to answer more questions, to relive her past. In fact, that was what she’d say. That this was too painful for her to talk about, that she wanted to move on. Perhaps she’d even call a lawyer, have them draft an official letter.
But before she could turn round, the man moved to the side and the receptionist nodded towards her. ‘I’m here for DCI Hawkins,’ she said, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible. ‘It’s Sandra Sullivan.’
Five minutes later she was sitting in an empty conference room. Her throat was parched, but she didn’t want to reach out for the jug of water in the middle of the table, scared that her trembling hands would drop it and make a mess.
It felt as if she had been waiting for ever. Every now and then she’d hear voices outside and think it was DCI Hawkins, but whoever it was would keep going. She looked round, trying to pass the time by taking stock of the room. Not that there was much to see. Just a round table with chairs around it and a table with a vase of flowers against one of the walls.
Finally, she saw the doorknob turn. ‘Hello, Mrs Sullivan, thank you for coming in.’ DCI Hawkins didn’t close the door as he walked into the room and sat down right across from her. Before Sandra could say anything, an extremely thin woman in a dark blue dress walked in. Her heels made a staccato sound and Sandra noticed the Tory Burch pumps, part of the new season’s collection.
‘Hello,’ the woman said, approaching the table and holding out her hand to Sandra. ‘I’m Dr Emma Burns. I’m here to help with the preparations for court.’
Sandra nodded her head in acknowledgement and took the woman’s hand in hers. It was cold and somewhat limp. This had to be the woman Bea had warned them about. Despite the forewarning, Sandra still felt rattled. She formed her hands into fists, closing them tightly, forcing herself to focus, make sure that she didn’t say anything she shouldn’t.
‘How can I help?’ She remained sitting upright in the chair, her hands clasped together on her lap, looking straight at DCI Hawkins and Dr Burns, determined not to allow her true feelings to show, reveal how intimidated she really felt.
DCI Hawkins cleared his throat, breaking the silence in the room. ‘Dr Burns has kindly agreed to help us. We know the accident was a long time ago, so we brought her on board to make sure we make the most out of your memories, ensure that your stories are aligned. Time sometimes can play tricks and certain details about what happened might be hazy. We don’t want to have conflicting stories.’
Despite her discomfort, Sandra nodded her understanding. Her throat was dry and again she longed for a glass of water. But she clasped her trembling hands in her lap.
Dr Burns placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward. ‘Can you tell me about that day? Perhaps start from the morning, before you left the house.’
Sandra shrugged. ‘It was just a normal day. We woke up, had breakfast, then got into the van to go to school.’
‘Did you eat breakfast together?’
‘Yes, we all sat in the kitchen.’
‘Do you remember what you had for breakfast?’
‘Oatmeal.’ Sandra looked over at the detective. ‘I’m sorry, but why is what we had for breakfast relevant?’
He opened his mouth but before he could say anything Dr Burns interjected. ‘I know all these questions might sound useless, intrusive perhaps. But I’m trying to recreate the scene, make sure that every detail is correct.’ She paused but continued looking straight at Sandra, making her increasingly uncomfortable. She could feel her armpits getting damp and her palms start to slide against each other.
‘And did Miriam eat with you?’ Dr Burns continued. ‘Or had she already had breakfast?’
Images from that morning flashed in front of Sandra’s eyes. Miriam’s red face as she hit Bea over and over. Sebastian trying to deflect attention. Miriam’s rage when she suspected someone had touched her food.
‘Sh…’ She cleared the lump in her throat. ‘I think she ate with us, but can’t really remember.’ She needed to avoid being too specific or risk making mistakes.
‘Did she eat the same food as you?’
‘Uhm, yes, I think so.’
Dr Burns leaned forward, clasping her hands in her lap, her long fingers entwined around one another. ‘Did you ever think that there could be something sinister in the food? Something that should not have been? Perhaps something to help you remain calm, quiet?’
The gasp escaped before Sandra could stop it. ‘What are you talking about? Do you think Miriam could have hurt us?’
‘We’re covering all the bases, making sure there are no surprises,’ DCI Hawkins interjected.
‘But what does this have to do with the trial?’
Dr Burns cocked her head to one side and smiled weakly. ‘Well, you never know. Any piece of information could be beneficial. The important thing is that we have this information, then we decide whether or not to use it.’
‘But why are you asking this question?’ Sandra felt the need to know more, to help her determine whether the web was closing in on her, if she was about to get caught.
‘It’s just something Miriam said as she was regaining her memory. She talked about poison. We thought that perhaps she knew that something was happening in the house, that someone was trying to poison her, perhaps you as well.’
The hairs on the back of Sandra’s head stood up. She felt beads of sweat form on her upper lip. Dr Burns was getting too close to the truth, digging so much that Sandra was sure she was soon going to hit the jackpot.
‘Uhm, I’m pretty sure you have this all wrong. Nothing of the sort ever happened.’
Dr Burns glanced down at her notebook, turning the pages and looking attentively at the word-filled sheets. ‘It’s just that I find it strange that all five of you were so th
in.’ She paused and looked up. Sandra felt the woman’s gaze go right through her. She knew she was turning red and had no way to control herself. ‘The hospital records show that all of you were underweight, pretty badly too. I know Bea was a ballerina, and perhaps if it had been just her, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. But all five of you were well below the averages for your age.’
‘No, you have it wrong, there was always food. Miriam always made sure we ate. Perhaps we were all genetically inclined to be thin.’
‘Hmmm.’ Dr Burns kept looking at Sandra, staring right into her eyes. She moved her head slightly up and down. ‘Yeah, maybe.’
Glancing down at her wrist, Sandra checked the time. She’d only been there for ten minutes. Far too early to say she needed to leave.
‘Did you play any sports at the time?’
The change in direction took Sandra by surprise. She squinted her eyes and her brow furrowed. ‘Sport?’
‘Yeah. Were you active? Perhaps at school or some club?’
‘No. Just PE at school, I guess. And I sometimes ran during break.’
‘So, you didn’t get the bruises playing sports?’
The gasp escaped before Sandra could help herself. How could she be so stupid not to realise the question was not as innocent as it seemed? She remembered how just days before the accident Miriam had pinched her arm so hard that her nails had drawn blood. The black and blue marks had looked angry against her fair skin. Helen had snuck into the kitchen and brought her some ice cubes wrapped in a tea towel, but it hadn’t really helped.
‘What bruises?’ She raised her eyebrows, trying to act surprised.
‘You had quite a few, all over your body,’ Dr Burns said. ‘You all did.’
‘We’d just been in a bad accident.’ She looked towards DCI Hawkins. ‘What are you trying to insinuate?’
‘Please don’t take this the wrong way.’ Dr Burns leaned across the table and reached out for her hand, but Sandra quickly pulled it away. ‘We’re just doing our due diligence.’
We All Fall Down Page 24
