The Lives She Left Behind

by James Long

  ‘What did I say to you?’

  ‘If you had said anything I would have stopped you. I wouldn’t have left you alone for a moment.’ She reached her hand out to him and to his surprise he ignored it. ‘You left me nothing,’ he said. ‘You know what the police thought? They thought I‘d killed you both. Can you imagine that? You left me hung out to dry.’

  ‘I didn’t leave you a letter? I didn’t explain?’ She sounded incredulous.

  ‘No you did not. You left me alone to try to work it out.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not right.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’ He found he could not stop himself. ‘You took away my future,’ he said and saw her recoil from his bitterness, but it only spurred him on. ‘When I die there will be nothing left at all, no one to come after me, and all because of you.’

  ‘The spear,’ she said almost to herself.

  ‘What?’

  She closed her eyes. ‘I need to think.’

  Mike sat back and watched her and found that helpful. With her eyes closed and her head still, this girl was someone else. Then she opened her eyes and he knew her and wanted her back again.

  ‘I can’t really believe you’re here,’ he said simply. ‘You and me, sitting in this room again.’

  She looked at him and the pity in her eyes was not at all what he wanted to see. ‘Mike,’ she said slowly, ‘the “me” who met you loved you as completely as I knew how at the time. Nothing changes that, but you know that was only a part of the whole me.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘I didn’t know that then. I didn’t remember anything.’

  ‘You knew your real name was Gally.’

  ‘Yes, but not why and where and for how long.’

  He stared down at the table.

  ‘I have put you through horrible things,’ she said in the end. ‘I know that’s true and I don’t expect you to forgive me for it.’

  ‘No.’ He looked up with a stranger’s eyes. ‘I don’t think I can do that.’

  ‘I’m not surprised you blame me.’

  ‘I blamed myself for letting you believe him, but above all I blamed him. Ferney. That’s who I blamed. I blamed a malicious old man who saw a vulnerable young woman and twisted her brain round to believe a ridiculous truth. I blamed him for leading you up some fantastical garden path all the way to suicide, and do you know what? The days I felt like that were my best days by far. That anger was what got me through. Other days I just sat on top of the hill, staring around, hoping he was right and I might see you coming back. I even took a crappy teaching job down here just so I wouldn’t be away if you ever did come back, and now you are back I can see that was utterly, utterly pointless, because how on earth can I hope to compete?’

  ‘Oh Mike.’

  It would have been easier if he had still sounded angry but his voice had none of the energy of anger left in it. She couldn’t answer him. She sat there with silent tears trickling down her cheeks, looking as young as her body, and he could have tried to let her off but he didn’t. He just stared back at her for a minute or two until she was able to stop crying. She wiped her cheeks with spread fingers.

  ‘And now?’ she asked quietly. ‘Do you still blame him?’

  ‘It’s harder.’

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘A day or two ago he was a troubled kid who needed help. I’ve seen him become himself in just a matter of hours. I know there’s no malice there. It’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  He spoke slowly, as if to make sure each word was exactly right.

  ‘I would say there is a heedless intent in him, in both of you, that knows it has to fulfil its purpose whatever the cost to anyone else. It isn’t his fault and it isn’t your fault. It’s a black joke on a cosmic scale – utterly implacable. It doesn’t exist for love or hate. It just is. There’s no point in wondering at it. The rest of us should turn and run.’

  ‘But you didn’t turn and run. You stayed here.’

  ‘My decision. My mistake. Maybe. Here you actually and undeniably are and that is wonderful, and no, I’m not going to give up easily and just cave in because you did love me once and you owe me that and a whole lot more. There’s time for you and him but you’ve got each other forever. I’ve only got this one time and I think you could give me that.’

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ she asked gently.

  ‘You can try.’

  ‘You could see this the other way round.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘When we first came here, you and me, when he first explained to me who I was, he was shocked that I was married to you. He was deeply hurt. It was as if I’d been unfaithful. I had never been with anyone else before.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Never. You were the only other one there has ever been. I’m still floundering a bit. Can you imagine? Last week I was Jo and I lived a quiet life looking out over a dead river in a city with a hill up to an old cathedral that didn’t reach me in any way, and friends who helped fill the time with nothing much at all. Now there’s this other me and there’s him . . . and there’s you.’

  ‘We weren’t just an accident, you and me,’ said Mike. ‘I don’t want to hear that. I really wish you and I had never come to this place but as it is, I’ve had to live through something that you never have to. When I saw you were dead, it was like tripping over the edge of a cliff and seeing the rocks are coming up to meet you, and you only made a tiny mistake but there’s no way back. It was like a bulb blew in my head and I felt myself go dim. Do you know what it’s like after that? I bet you don’t. I bet it’s different for you. There’s a crazy exhilaration and it burns you out to utter exhaustion and finally you go to sleep, and where does that get you? That gets you to the moment you wake up again and the sun is shining and everything seems fine for just a second, and that’s the cruellest moment of all. You think it was a bad dream, then the horror takes you and you know the bad dream is with you for the rest of your awful life.’

  Gally shook her head. ‘You think it’s so very different for me? It’s like that every time.’

  ‘How can that be? I’ve been by myself for sixteen years because of you and your way of doing things. I’ve missed you every single day. You say you had friends who helped you fill your time with nothing at all? That lawyer, she asked me the other day if I had people to do things with. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about having somebody you can happily do nothing with. That’s what matters. You two have got that forever, for lifetimes to come.’

  ‘It doesn’t always work like that.’ Confronted by his sorrow, his bitterness and her own guilt, she found herself thinking perhaps he was right – that she did owe him some sort of loyalty, some sort of repayment.

  ‘Can we be friends, do you think?’

  ‘You and me?’

  ‘Yes.’ That suddenly felt cowardly to her. ‘And Ferney,’ she added.

  ‘Allies in a common cause?’ To her surprise, Mike laughed. ‘He wants my wife and he wants my house. What could possibly come between us?’

  ‘Well, that’s another thing,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 22

  In daylight, the five-storey concrete block that was District Police Headquarters was more frightening by far than it had been in the dark. As they walked towards the entrance, it brought back all Mike’s memories of repeated visits sixteen years earlier when he had been questioned and questioned and questioned about how and why his wife and daughter died. Those had all been in daylight and the place had not changed. The same phones rang just as faintly beyond thick doors in corridors used to enduring drunken assault, blood and vomit, which still carried the same tang of disinfectant, floor polish and testosterone. What came back sharply enough to sting his eyes again was the bewildering mixture of sorrow and resentment, that she could have gone and that she could have left him to suffer this as well.

  She owed him happiness, he thought as they waited at the desk.


  Mike and Rachel were led to an interview room by a WPC who unwrapped tapes and loaded them into recorders. She sat down opposite them. The door was flung open and Detective Sergeant Wilson came into the room flushed with expectation like an invader coming to pillage a city. He switched on the tapes and recited the words of the formal caution.

  ‘Last time we met, Mr Martin, you denied any suggestion of improper behaviour with Luke Sturgess when he was fifteen years old.’

  ‘That’s because there wasn’t any.’

  ‘Do you recall a pupil called Caroline Oaks?’

  ‘No,’ said Mike, surprised.

  ‘Come on now. You taught her, didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘A pretty girl. I’m sure you would remember her.’

  ‘I don’t think of students in terms like “pretty”.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. You prefer boys, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t respond to that,’ said Rachel. ‘Sergeant, that is disgraceful. Please conduct this interview according to the guidelines.’

  Wilson smirked at the WPC who kept her expression wooden.

  ‘Listen,’ said Mike. ‘I taught three hundred children last year and another three hundred children the year before that. I’m sorry if I can’t remember all their names. Some of them only bothered to turn up once or twice in the whole year.’

  ‘Caroline Oaks has made a statement to the effect that in October last year she saw you and Luke Sturgess in your classroom during the lunch break. She saw you through the window in the door as she walked past. She says that you had your arms round Luke Sturgess and appeared to be interfering with his person.’

  ‘What does interfering—’

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Can you tell me where you were at lunchtime on Thursday, October the eighth last year?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  Rachel Palmer leaned forward. ‘My client cannot be expected to answer that question without notice or without recourse to his diary.’

  Wilson gave her a frosty look and turned back to Mike. ‘Do you deny that you had your hands inside Luke Sturgess’s trousers on that day?’

  Mike glanced at Rachel for support but she was looking down at her mobile phone.

  ‘Hold it there, Sergeant. I wish to interrupt this interview for a private discussion with my client,’ she said.

  They stopped the recorder and Wilson left the room with ill grace. Alone with her, Mike shook his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t know what they’re talking about.’

  ‘I think I do,’ said Rachel. ‘Give me a moment. I just got a text message from someone who might know the answer.’

  She made a call. ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Are you free to talk?’ She listened. ‘No, it will only take a minute. Am I right in thinking you mentioned a girl called Caroline Oaks?’ Mike saw her eyebrows rise. ‘Oh really?’ She listened again. ‘Are you quite sure that’s true?’ she said, then finally, ‘Got it. Thanks a lot. Talk later,’ and put the phone away.

  ‘What was that about?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Wait and see.’

  She opened the door and told the policewoman outside that they were ready to restart.

  Wilson and the WPC came back in. ‘I hope you’ve persuaded your client to be more helpful,’ he said.

  Rachel smiled pleasantly.

  When the tape was running, she said, ‘Before we continue, Sergeant Wilson, I should tell you I have received information from the school where my client teaches and where the girl who has accused him is a student. I hesitate to tell you how you should do your job but I presume you are aware that the girl in question has a history of disturbed behaviour?’

  Wilson looked at her without answering. ‘Specifically,’ she went on, ‘that Caroline Oaks has been excluded from school on two occasions for inappropriate public sexual behaviour, that she is presently undergoing psychiatric treatment and that she has recently told other students that she is pregnant by her own father?’

  Wilson blew out a noisy breath, tapped his pencil on the table and looked at the WPC as if he expected her to step in and say something. The WPC looked pointedly the other way.

  ‘Well?’ Rachel demanded. ‘I wouldn’t like to think that you had some sort of vendetta against my client, that perhaps your judgement has been clouded by personal antipathy. Could it really be that you haven’t made a single enquiry about the character and reputation of this girl before deciding to accuse Mr Martin?’

  ‘We’ll check this,’ said the WPC. ‘I’ll call the school.’

  Wilson gave her a dirty look, said ‘Interview terminated’, stabbed the stop button and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘I’d like you to record my objection to that as unacceptable,’ said Rachel to the WPC. ‘No time of cessation given, no proper logging of the tape details, no check with my client to ensure he is happy with the procedure so far.’

  ‘I’ll write all that down, Mrs Palmer,’ said the WPC, and the tone of her voice said it might even be a pleasure.

  ‘I would like to point out that my client is here voluntarily and that the matter under investigation relates to the alleged downloading of indecent images which he utterly denies, not the ramblings of an unreliable witness concerning something entirely different,’ said Rachel. ‘I require you to sort this out within no more than half an hour, then we shall leave.’

  ‘Noted. If you don’t mind waiting here, Mr Martin, I’ll make some calls.’

  Left to themselves, Mike turned to Rachel. ‘That was amazing,’ he said. ‘How did you find that out? Of course, I remember hearing her name now. Who do you know at the school? Someone on the pastoral team? It must have been to know all that. Was it Jenny Johnson? Dave Matthews? I’m amazed they told you.’

  ‘It wasn’t amazing at all and it wasn’t any of the staff. It was a real expert – my daughter.’

  ‘Your daughter, Lulie? She’s at my school? I didn’t realise.’

  ‘She is and she keeps her ears open. Tales of Caroline Oaks and her wicked ways are apparently legion.’

  ‘Well, say thank you from me, will you? What’s next, do you think? Is this sort of thing going to keep happening?’

  ‘As long as there are pregnant teenagers with fertile imaginations and as long as there are bad apples like our DS Wilson, then yes, I’m afraid it is. You’re a convenient whipping boy for a lot of whips at the moment.’

  The WPC came back into the interview room.

  ‘I’ve talked to the school,’ she said. ‘They more or less confirmed what you said.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Rachel demanded. ‘No apology?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say.’

  ‘Well, it’s not your fault. I take it we can go now?’

  ‘Do you mind waiting a moment? Detective Inspector Meehan would like a word.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Rachel. ‘That will be the apology then.’

  DI Meehan came in with a laptop under his arm. He put it on the table. He was older than Wilson, thin and sandy-haired with a quiet intelligence about him.

  He introduced himself. ‘I have to remind you that you are still under caution, Mr Martin,’ he said. He started the tape again, listed the people present and the time. Rachel looked at him sharply then frowned at Mike.

  ‘As you know, Mr Martin, you were originally arrested on suspicion of downloading indecent images of minors. The investigating officers removed a computer and a large box of photographs from your house. We have now examined both of those. We have copied some of the images on the hard drive of that computer to this laptop to facilitate this interview.’ Meehan pressed a button on the laptop.

  ‘For the purposes of the tape,’ he said, ‘I am now showing Mr Martin images MM thirteen to nineteen copied from the hard drive of the Dell desktop computer removed from his house.’

  He turned the screen to face Mike and Rachel and a slide show of images cycled before their eyes. Mike laughed in reco
gnition.

  ‘You find these funny, do you?’ Meehan asked.

  ‘They’re torture instruments,’ said Mike.

  ‘And that’s funny?’

  ‘Only when the police think a history teacher shouldn’t have them on his computer. They’re medieval. I was teaching my class about life in the fourteenth century – the Hundred Years War.’

  ‘So if we were to ask your head of department, Mr Martin, he would confirm that this was part of the course, would he?’

  ‘Well, my present head of department has only been in the post for six months. His predecessor would have but I’m afraid she had a stroke. She’s in a home now.’

  Rachel held up a hand to silence Mike and stepped in. ‘I don’t think it would take very much to justify a history teacher having historical images on his computer, do you?’

  Meehan shrugged. ‘Maybe. For the tape, I will now show Mr Martin twelve more images scanned from photographs in the box removed from his house. These are numbered MM one to MM twelve in our record.’

  Both Rachel and Mike stiffened a little at his tone. It was clear that what went before had been a sideshow. This was the main event. Mike looked at the first picture. His vision misted over as his eyes filled with involuntary tears. He wiped them, glared at the policeman and then looked back at the screen because he could not do anything else. Gally in the bath at Bagstone, Gally holding tiny Rosie up out of the water, both of them laughing.

  ‘Can you identify the subjects for us, Mr Martin?’ asked Meehan.

  ‘That’s my wife and daughter,’ said Mike.

  ‘Mr Meehan, you should know that both Mr Martin’s wife and his daughter died,’ broke in Rachel. ‘I don’t feel this is suitable for your—’

  ‘I know they did, Mrs Palmer,’ replied Meehan. ‘Mr Martin may have forgotten, but I was one of the investigating officers at the time,’ and Mike did suddenly remember a quiet young man with a dogged politeness about him. He looked at Meehan and nodded almost as if meeting an old friend.

  ‘In that case, why are you showing my client pictures which are personal to him and very upsetting and can have nothing whatsoever to do with the accusations made against him?’