The Kissing Fence

by B. A. Thomas-Peter

  “Is it normal for you to visit an employee’s home on the weekend?”

  “Not at all, but there was something I had to speak with him about and I thought it better be done outside work.”

  “Why was that?”

  William asked, “Can I ask what this is about, before we go any further? I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Has Dennis said something?” He was being just a little too defensive, too early in this exchange. He checked himself and looked squarely at the lead officer, pulled his hands off the table and held them on his lap.

  “No, no, we’re not accusing you of anything, but there’s been a serious incident and your car was at the scene. You’d expect us to follow up on these things. Do you mind telling us why you went to Mr. Mansion’s home?”

  “It’s delicate.” William lowered his voice. “Dennis and Cathy, my admin person you met, were having an affair. I’d gone to Dennis to ask him to stop.”

  “Would you mind explaining why?”

  “It isn’t helpful to have that going on at work. But I also thought Cathy’s vulnerable right now and can be taken advantage of. She has enough going on in her life and doesn’t need that.”

  “So you were trying to keep the workplace healthy.”

  “Yeah, that sums it up.”

  The officer’s stern face broke into a smile. “And you came to her rescue.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  The stiffness of the officer had gone. “Not many employers would bother to do that on a Saturday. I wish more would be that concerned.”

  “I’ve heard the police have had their problems with that kind of thing.” William knew it was a mistake as he said it.

  The formality returned. “How did your conversation with Dennis go?”

  “It was complicated.”

  “How so?’

  “Dennis had been drinking and there was water everywhere. He had a flood of some kind and the kitchen floor was soaking.”

  “Any idea why there was a flood?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Did you argue?”

  “He didn’t like what I said.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him that he should bring his relationship with Cathy to an end or I would bring his employment to an end.”

  “And how did he react?”

  “He said he was going to resign, today, but I don’t think he’s been in yet. We agreed terms. I would give him three months’ salary and a reference.”

  “When you left, how was he?”

  “Drunk and a little morose, but we shook hands as I left and I wished him luck.”

  “It seems very generous to give him so much when you are about to fire him.”

  “I wasn’t going to fire him if he stopped that business with Cathy. I think he thought he had made a mistake and was doing the right thing. It saved me a lot of trouble. Anyway, he’s got obligations, a family he doesn’t live with. Oh yes, he said that he was thinking of getting back with his wife. I just thought we could make it as easy as possible for everyone. What’s going on? Has he said something different?”

  There was another look between the officers. “Sometime late Saturday afternoon or evening, there was a fire at Mr. Mansion’s home. I’m sorry to tell you that Mr. Mansion was found dead at the scene.” William brought his hand to his face as if to prevent the sudden throb of terror escaping. “I’m sorry if this comes as a shock to you.”

  He was unable to speak or bring his thoughts to order. The policewoman continued. “Do you mind if we just ask a few more questions?”

  “No. Of course. I’m just … shocked.” William remembered a conversation that had troubled him and thought, What did Uri mean by “Then we decide what to do with Dennis”?

  “That’s understandable,” she said. “You may have been the last person who visited the house before the fire. Is there anything you can tell us that will help our inquiries? Anything about Mr. Mansion, or anything you saw that would help us piece together what happened?”

  “No, just that he was drunk and there was water everywhere. Maybe the water got into the wiring. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “Okay, Mr. Koren. Thanks for your assistance. I can see this has come as a shock for you. Our job was just to confirm that the Tesla was yours. Someone might have to talk with you again, and with Cathy, but we can leave it for now.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “We’ll see ourselves out.” They stood and moved to the door. “Is the Tesla here?”

  “Yes, it is, just outside, on the right as you walk out the front door.”

  “Good. We’ll need to see it and confirm the licence number. Okay, Mr. Koren. Thanks again for your help.” Both officers left, nodding at Cathy on the way out.

  The door of his office was open and Cathy waited. He could feel himself trembling and wanted to put off telling her. He recalled Uri being quick to suggest a replacement for Dennis and staying quiet when told that Dennis was about to resign. At the same time the wild-eyed man came crashing down, Dennis’s house was burning with Dennis in it. It could not be a coincidence. Now he’d had a hand in the death of a man—maybe two. The understanding of his daughter seemed a long way off.

  * * *

  The police car backed out of the parking spot and moved into the traffic. The lead officer asked her partner, “What did you make of him?”

  “He seems decent enough. Generous, eh?”

  “‘Generous,’ you’d say?”

  “With his secretary and giving a handout to the guy he’s about to fire, just because he has a family. Most employers wouldn’t bother.”

  “And stopping to help that injured man,” the lead recalled. “He does come to the rescue a lot. Useful info about the flood and the alcohol. That’ll help the fire investigation.”

  “Are we following up on the ambulance call?”

  “We better make sure it happened and pass the information on.”

  It was unusual, the officer thought, for someone to be connected to two unrelated incidents within a couple of hours, each resulting in serious injury, which they just happened to be passing or visiting. Something was not right about this.

  The patrol car stopped at a red light while she thought of the chances of such a coincidence. The light turned green and they set off again.

  It came to her, and she asked her partner, “How does a young and reasonably fit man die in a house fire in the middle of the day?” She recalled that Mr. Koren had been having a conversation with the victim. “Surely he wasn’t so drunk as to be incapable of opening a window and jumping out.”

  “Maybe he took something else,” said the partner.

  “Maybe.”

  11:30 a.m.

  Only the hissing in his ears could be heard above the near silence of the Tesla. Cathy had cried when told of the fire but it was not the flood of tears William had anticipated, and then she was quiet. It was more shock than loss. Consoling words were not needed, and William was grateful for not having to find them. She gazed out the window without focus until they glided to a stop outside her building. William stepped out to help her. She was already out but she accepted the arm he offered.

  “Is there anyone at home?” he asked at the door.

  “No,” she said, opening her bag in search of keys.

  “Let me.”

  She lifted the keys into his open hand, and he pressed the fob against the pad beside the door. It clicked open. She allowed him to usher her into the entrance hall and press the button for the third floor. The elevator arrived; doors separated and drew them in.

  “I’d rather not be alone,” she said, before there was a question of him leaving. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  He would have to go back to the office sometime but he was connected to this in a way t
hat he could not evade. It was like standing beside the wild-eyed man and being unable to get away until someone arrived to deal with the mess. He needed someone else to be responsible but there was only him. William thought she appeared to be on autopilot as she shed her coat and hung it, unzipped her winter boots and shuffled to the kitchen. He removed his coat and followed.

  “Thanks for staying,” she said. “Do you want coffee?”

  “Let me do it.”

  “No, I’ll make coffee,” she said. “You phone work and let them know you’ll be back later.”

  He collected his phone and stepped into the living room, thinking it was an odd and particular instruction. He heard the fridge open and close, water running, the kettle turned on. It was strange to be back in her apartment. As he returned he said, “When is your husband home?”

  “He doesn’t come home these days. Just when he wants something.” She nearly smiled and continued making the coffee.

  “I didn’t know it was like that between you. I’m sorry,” said William.

  She turned two cups off the drainer, heaped four scoops of ground coffee into a glass pot and added steaming water and the silver plunger. He had thought she hoped for something more with Dennis, perhaps a life raft to drift away from a situation that was drowning her. It had appeared that it didn’t much matter in which direction she drifted—just away from the life she had would suffice—but now it seemed the affair with Dennis had been something else.

  “He hasn’t left me. Not really. Since that thing with you, he comes and goes as he pleases. Leaves me money sometimes. This is just a hotel to him. A hotel with benefits.”

  The reminder of their affair came without protection or shadow of disguise. To be exposed to it reddened him.

  He said, “That was fifteen years ago. I didn’t think he knew about it.”

  “Twelve years. Of course he knew,” she returned.

  “Is that why he moved out?”

  “That’s what he said. Maybe he was going anyway. I’m not sure.”

  William grasped at an explanation. “We were younger then. The business was getting off the ground. It was exciting. It was never a long-term thing for either of us, was it?”

  “You could have told me what it was.”

  “Surely you never believed it was.” His appeal was hollow and he regretted being defensive.

  “Did you ever wonder why I stayed with you all these years? Being paid a pittance, putting up with you ignoring me at work, and him turning up whenever he needed me to scratch an itch?”

  “Why didn’t you just divorce him?”

  “Why doesn’t Julie divorce you? Anyway, what would I do? Move in with you? I don’t think so.” The bite in her voice relented. “How do you think I pay for this? Where do you think I would be living on the salary you pay me? This is Vancouver!”

  “I would have helped you,” he said.

  “Really! Well, that’s good to know.” The words lashed at him. “All this time I could have bent over the kitchen table waiting for you to pass by, on the way home to your wife and daughter.”

  He started at the recollection of the times he had done just that. Now pornographic memories arrived without asking, and he struggled to stow them away.

  He said, “That’s not what I meant.” The fucking had been electrifying until the heat dissipated, and then it stopped. William realized it had ended as it had with Julie, suddenly and without ceremony.

  “I didn’t need your money. I could earn extra when my husband brought a friend with him.” She turned away from William. “You men. All you bloody men.”

  “I wish …” William hesitated, not knowing how to finish what he had started. The truth was that he had not wanted to know about her life, how she felt or what was bothering her. He had used every tactic to escape engaging her in conversation about personal things.

  “I didn’t want to cause trouble for you.” His voice softened to share a memory with her. “I thought you enjoyed it as much as I did.”

  The turmoil of the morning seemed to leave her. “I always know what you want. No need to tell me. I always know.” There was confidence in her frankness. “You want what you can take from someone. It’s what you always do.”

  “Do you think I’m as bad as that?” he said, unsure where Cathy was taking this.

  “If you can have it, why shouldn’t you? It’s what makes you successful. It’s what makes you attractive.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t always have what I want.”

  Cathy came to his side and leaned on him. “I want you to have it. You said you’d help me.”

  William held his breath. He had evaded closeness with her since that time years ago. Disdain for her chaotic life meant just touching was getting too close, accepting responsibility. It risked being involved with her intense, meaningless emotions. But this time, he stood like a post for her to scratch and scent, remembering those other times: the hotel afternoons, the furtive shuffles in the office, her willingness to do anything. There was heat and discomfort in the recollection.

  “Look, Cathy, we better not do anything.” Something brazen and uncompromising was coming at any moment. Reason would leave him if he did not move. His head flooded with images of the things he should escape. “Maybe I’d better go.”

  “Not yet.”

  “I should go.”

  The words came without intent. It was too late. Her hand moved quickly under his belt and strangled his cock and scrotum like the neck of a chicken. The shock backed him up against the fridge and he gripped her arm with both hands as if to resist her and hold the sensation alive for as long as he could. She had said the magic words of wanting this: the promise of ecstasy, the hands on skin, abandoning vanity. It absolved him of everything. All resistance left him.

  12:45 p.m.

  William sat on the edge of Cathy’s bed and listened to her make coffee for a second time. A collage of random thoughts streamed in and out of his mind. He grasped at anything that would prevent him from thinking of what he had just done.

  It was good that Cathy was not distraught at the loss of Dennis. The business would struggle with both leaving. He chided himself for the thought. It was pragmatic but too soon to say out loud. If Uri’s colleagues had wanted to kill Dennis, they would have done it after waterboarding him. Once they had all they wanted, the opportunity was there to be taken. The best explanation of the fire was the water getting into the fuse box, or perhaps he had tried to fix the mess and ended up starting a fire. He had drunk enough whisky for that to happen. Nothing else made sense.

  William reached for his trousers, wanting to be dressed before Cathy returned. Sex with two women in two days seemed improbable. Six months ago it would have been impossible. He grasped for something in his memory, something connected to the operation. The surgeon had said the tumour had messed with his hormones over years, and he would see changes when it was removed. Maybe, he thought, this was what he meant.

  “No time for coffee?” she said, returning to the bedroom.

  “I have to get back to the office. There are things to do. Will you be all right?”

  She smirked with a hint of derision and then asked, “What will you do?” She placed the coffee on the side table beside him.

  “There’s nothing I can do, except find a replacement and carry on. He was leaving us anyway.” It was the wrong thing to say. Cathy sat on the bed. “He told me he was going to resign. Family reasons,” said William, standing and doing up his trousers, regretting that he had raised the issue.

  “Is that why you went to see him over the weekend?”

  William heard something coy or distant in her voice. He had said something that may have been hurtful and yet there was no emotion.

  “Yes,” he said, and reached for his shirt.

  “Do you think I’m responsible?”

  “He wan
ted to get back to his wife and kids.” He pulled his shirt on and began buttoning it up. “Not sure what else was going on.” William hoped that would be an end to it.

  “It was my fault,” said Cathy.

  “I don’t think so. People come and go all the time. How many people have we had in the warehouse in the last ten years? I’ve lost count. Everyone has reasons to stay or leave.”

  “No, I meant …”

  William had no wish to fall into the emotional vortex Cathy was capable of, sucking up time and energy, leading nowhere. He could not get away quickly enough. The search for his socks and shoes began as he spoke.

  “It was an accident, just a terrible accident. He wasn’t keeping the house well. It was rundown, it needed paint, he’d just had a flood. There must have been lots wrong with it. Nothing to do with you. Really.”

  The cuffs of his shirt sleeve finally came together and he slipped on his jacket, relieved he was ready to leave. He said, “I really do have to go now.”

  “Just like that,” she said.

  “Cathy, c’mon. It’s the morning of a working day and Dennis is gone. I can’t just stay here. There are things to do.” Cathy nodded in reply to him. “It’ll be all right. We’ll get through this.” William leaned toward her, trying to be sympathetic without having to be intimate. “Take a day or two and when you feel settled, come in and we’ll talk.” Her silence offered a chance to escape and he headed to the hallway to collect his coat.

  At the door something nagged him. It was odd of Cathy to think it was somehow her fault that Dennis had died. Even for someone like her it didn’t make sense.

  She was surprised to see him return to the bedroom. He asked, “Why would you think this was your fault? The fire, I mean.” The question froze her. “I think you should tell me.” A child could see that she was hiding something. “What do you know?” He closed on her and pulled her to face him, but she turned away. “What do you know? Cathy!” He twisted her shoulders square to his and spoke loudly into the side of her face. “Tell me!”

  “What are you going to do?” she shouted back at him, pulling away. “Do you want to hurt me? Is that it? Slap me around. Make me beg.”