I Choose You

by Gayle Curtis

  ‘Can you tell us where the café is and the name of your friend?’ DS Brand was rearranging some paperwork on the table, distracting Nathaniel slightly. His heart was beginning to race. Something was wrong here.

  ‘I can’t remember the name of the café, but it’s a greasy spoon on the Eastleigh Road. I hadn’t seen him for years, so we decided to go for coffee.’

  ‘What is the name of this friend, Mr Munroe?’

  ‘Steven. Steven Bridges. Am I in some sort of trouble? Has he accused me of something?’

  DS Brand removed some photographs from a folder and slid them across the table. ‘Can you tell me who the man in the picture is?’

  Nathaniel looked at the photographs of himself sat in the café with Steven. He swallowed hard. ‘That’s Steven Bridges.’

  ‘Can you tell me who this man is?’ DS Brand removed another photo from the folder, a mugshot. Things were getting serious and Nathaniel was now wishing he’d mentioned his suspicions about Steven earlier. The police had asked him for a list of people, anyone they’d known over the years that they might be worried about. Nathaniel had put Steven’s name forward but hadn’t told them about the fight they’d had.

  ‘That’s also Steven Bridges. When I said he was an old friend . . . Well, what I meant was, he was an old friend years ago, but we had a disagreement. He disappeared, we haven’t seen him for years, until Wednesday when I spotted him at the group.’

  ‘What did you have a disagreement about?’ DS Brand closed the folder.

  ‘It might be something and nothing. I caught him in Ida’s bedroom when he was over at ours one night. He was standing in the doorway and told me he just wanted to watch her sleep. We’d all had a lot to drink and I lost my temper and threw him out.’

  DC Aster looked at DS Brand.

  ‘Mr Munroe – can I call you Nathaniel? Do you know a James Caddy?’

  ‘No. I only know he’s a client of Ray’s and might have something to do with Ida’s murder.’

  ‘Have you ever seen James Caddy?’ DS Brand removed the photos of Steven from the desk.

  ‘No. But my son, Miles, gave a good description of him.’

  ‘Nathaniel, you were seen at a café yesterday morning with James Caddy. He’s currently being questioned in connection with your daughter’s murder.’ DC Aster placed some different photos in front of Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel looked at the pictures. It was unmistakeably the same man – one of his eyes was as black as the depths of the sea – but it was Steven, not this James Caddy. Nathaniel and Steven had known each other for years.

  ‘What? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nathaniel, can you tell us why you were seen drinking coffee with James Caddy, who you claimed you didn’t know, at the time of your daughter’s death?’

  ‘I thought it was Steven. It’s Steven Bridges. I’ve known him for years.’

  ‘Nathaniel, this is not Steven Bridges, this is James Caddy.’

  Nathaniel looked through the photos again. ‘I don’t know what to say . . .’

  ‘Mr Munroe, the laptop we retrieved from your home was searched. We found a locked file containing images of teenage girls. We also found correspondence from your computer to James Caddy’s email account. Can you explain this please?’

  Nathaniel had had a feeling that document was going to get him into trouble. He’d deleted it, but knew he’d have to get rid of the entire laptop for it to disappear. Something he hadn’t been able to do because the apartment was a crime scene and out of bounds.

  ‘No, you’ve got that all wrong. I can explain it. I’m a journalist. I was setting people up for a story. I had no idea who I was talking to on there. Speak to Tolek Nowak, our neighbour at the apartments, he’ll corroborate my story – we were going to meet these paedophiles and secretly film a documentary. I promise, the only reason we accessed those sites was to make those disgusting perverts think we were like-minded.’

  DS Brand nodded but he could see she wasn’t buying it.

  ‘Your daughter, Nathaniel, had been happily chatting to James Caddy online. He was the one who hacked her account and posted the photographs of her, along with the email messages.’

  ‘Ida wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t stupid.’

  ‘Nathaniel, your friend James took those photos. She must have met him at some point.’

  ‘No. You’re lying.’ Nathaniel was letting his arrogance get the better of him; he was tired and pissed off.

  ‘Mr Munroe, you have pornographic images of teenage girls on your computer. Can you tell us how they got there?’

  ‘I’d like a solicitor please.’

  ‘Did you download them?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Mr Munroe, did you conspire with James Caddy to groom your daughter for sexual gratification?’

  ‘That’s disgusting. No comment.’

  ‘Nathaniel Munroe, I am arresting you on suspicion of downloading illegal images. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  There are many days when I spend vast amounts of time in the compartments of my mind. Where else would I be? It has very little bearing on my life, being in the physical world. I much prefer being internal. It’s a practice not dissimilar to meditation. I am still perfecting it, but I have become quite good at entering my head whilst still focusing on the present. The only way I can describe it to you is like a library filled with thoughts, memories, sentences – anything I might want to recall at any time. My mental records, I suppose.

  Yes, I do talk to people in my head, but I am not a schizophrenic, you understand. They do not guide me, rule me or dictate how I think. They are individuals I call on for conversation. Intellectual stimulation, if you like. There is a lounge area within my library, and occasionally I invite a participant to sit and converse about various topics.

  It must be interesting talking to me. I’d like to be able to do that from an objective point of view. I’ve tried it several times and it will take practice, a further advancement of my mental training. Try imagining you’re sitting opposite yourself, and then, when you’ve completely detached yourself from yourself, you may be able to have a conversation. Training myself to talk to my subconscious self is quite difficult, and it is one of my more intriguing challenges.

  One of the psychiatrists I used to see asked me to do this. They don’t listen, just take notes that are of no importance. Why would they be? I don’t want to be fixed. I like myself; even my objective inner being likes me. There, I made a little joke – quite an achievement for an alleged psychopath.

  Strong emotions for anything are usually connected to a conscience. Apart from, I think, the passion to love. Love in its true sense is for my pleasure; I have no care whether it is reciprocated. We come, we go, we love one, we then love another, that’s just the way it works. It’s not complicated, it never has been. It’s the deniers that encase these emotions and then wonder why they corrode and erode as though some ethereal force was raining down on them. Oh, the deniers are very good at blaming everything on each other. And if that fails, they make excuses; blame it on their circumstances or surroundings.

  Why do we talk of love? Why can we not just be? Because deniers, if they were to be truthful, want to share their mistakes with another. ‘Let’s mess it up together, then I can pass most of the blame on to you.’ And they call me the psychotic one . . . the irony is killing me.

  Briefly, I’d like to return to Gerald, the man on the train. He was such an important factor in a concentrated period of my life. I learnt things from him, you see. Then the teacher became the pupil for a short time. The information I imparted to him seemed to flourish within him, like a growing bulb; I watched that transition, the knowing which appeared in his eyes. Everything suddenly made sense to him and his approach to life changed – a quite astonishing transformati
on.

  One such day, he didn’t get off at his usual stop; he remained in the seat beside me. I noticed he’d removed his shoes and socks. I made no comment; after all, it was no concern of mine. When the train moved away from the platform, the large station sign passing the window, he breathed a deep, satisfying sigh. I’m not sure whether it was relief or pleasure. Perhaps these two emotions are the same? There shouldn’t have been anything remarkable about the fact he’d disposed of his shoes and socks, but that day it felt different, like the end of something, moving into a new era.

  I continued reading. We had grown used to our comfortable silences; mostly everything had been said that needed to be. He was a travelling companion, one whose company I quite enjoyed. There was no denying I was intrigued to see if he was going to get off at the same stop as he usually did. He didn’t. When I stood up, he remained seated. I offered the novel I had just finished. He took it, thanking me with great pleasure, as though I’d given him an item of enormous worth. I suppose it was, depending on your desires.

  ‘Aren’t you getting off?’ I enquired.

  ‘No,’ he said, quite calmly.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . wherever it stops at the other end, I suppose.’

  Sitting back down in my seat, I removed a flask from my holdall and offered him a cup of coffee. I travelled with him for the entire journey. The man with no shoes or socks.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  NOW

  The church was almost full, apart from a couple of empty rows at the back. Magda’s family was small, but she had many friends and acquaintances. Some of the people from the support group were there. Ted, one of the long-time members, whom Nathaniel got on particularly well with, was there, and put his hand up in greeting.

  After the service, everyone stood outside, making small talk, discussing whether they would go to the wake, which was being held at a local pub near to where Magda had lived. Suicides were always the same. Nathaniel could see people were torn between wanting to celebrate the life lost and an underlying feeling of anger and disappointment that she took her own life. No one knew what had caused Magda to commit suicide. Liam, Magda’s husband, had called Nathaniel, trying to make sense of it all. He said she’d been a bit edgy a couple of days before. He and Nathaniel had then had a very uncomfortable conversation – Liam was so desperate to know what had happened with Magda that he asked Nathaniel all sorts of questions about his own mother’s suicide, given the similar circumstances.

  Nathaniel couldn’t stop thinking about Magda’s death and the argument they’d had not long before she died about her brother, Gordon. He found himself listening for gossip amongst the congregation about the fact that it appeared the two siblings had both ended their own lives. The police were still investigating Magda’s case, and hadn’t ruled out the Suicide Watcher.

  ‘It seems a bit ironic, don’t you think?’ Ted had joined Nathaniel and was busy buttoning up his coat and pushing his hands into his pockets.

  ‘Ironic how?’ said Nathaniel.

  ‘That Magda ran a group for victims of suicide and then she . . . well, you know.’

  ‘Yes. I was thinking just the same thing. Have you seen Elise?’

  ‘No, can’t say I have. Are you staying on for the wake?’

  ‘No. You?’ Nathaniel was distracted, searching through the crowd of people for his wife. He’d moved out a few days ago to give them both some space and he’d tried to ring her several times to check she was okay, but she hadn’t returned his calls. Arriving late for the service, and therefore being the first one out of the church, Nathaniel assumed he would see her when everyone spilled out.

  ‘No, lad,’ Ted replied. ‘Not my thing – pubs. I’ve paid my respects, I’m off home.’

  ‘Sorry, Ted, I’m just trying to find Elise. She should be here, and she hasn’t returned my calls.’

  Ted frowned. They’d talked before about Nathaniel’s troubles at home, so Ted knew things were a bit fraught. ‘Could she have gone away for a few days?’

  Nathaniel focused on Ted, suddenly realising he wouldn’t know about the recent events because he hadn’t seen him that week. ‘No . . . Well, not that I know of. I’ve left her . . . I’m staying at my dad’s for a bit.’

  Ted nodded. ‘I see.’

  Nathaniel knew what Ted was thinking. Ted’s wife had taken her own life – another suspected victim of the Suicide Watcher. It was one of the stories in the group that had had quite an impact on Nathaniel.

  Ted had no relatives left, apart from distant ones he’d never met; a few good friends kept him company and he them, but some of them had recently died. Every day Ted would walk his dog around the local park; ablutions and necessities aside, this was the only activity he repeated daily. Recently, he had begun to calculate his life, almost hour by hour – the times all mapped out, lists pinned to his kitchen wall, but each day different to the previous one. Tuesdays were the same every week but different to Wednesdays, and he followed this schedule rigidly. Nathaniel found it all quite fascinating. Ted felt it offered him enough variety to urge him from his bed each day; something he’d previously struggled to achieve. That was all he wanted out of life – to feel at least a small amount of anticipation; enough to make him want to exist.

  Nathaniel recalled when Ted had first told him about his wife, who had killed herself when their daughter was just a baby, in much the same way as the others: the signature bullet in the side of her head, her fingers awkwardly clasping a handgun, distinguishing her, attaching her to the Suicide Watcher. Ted had become aware very quickly that he had to formulate a routine so he could be a father to his daughter, of whom he was understandably very protective. Until she turned fifteen, he had barely let her out of his sight. Just after her fifteenth birthday he agreed she could go and stay with an old school friend who had moved away many years ago but had remained in touch. Ted drove her to the station, saw her safely on to the train and waved goodbye to her from the platform. About halfway through her journey she died; her heart just stopped beating. An undetected defect, adult cot death – or as it’s more commonly known, sudden adult death syndrome. Nathaniel had felt sick when Ted had told him, and guilty that he should think he was the only one who’d ever suffered. He could see now that Magda’s funeral had drained Ted.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift home if you like.’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you, if you’re staying for a bit.’

  ‘No. I want to get back . . .’ Nathaniel hesitated, wanting to tell his friend he had a visit with Buddy at his foster home, but he felt too embarrassed and ashamed.

  ‘Let’s swing by your place on the way to mine. Check Elise is okay.’

  It was dark when they arrived at the house. Not one single light illuminated the windows and Nathaniel began to feel nauseous. Something was very wrong, and he wished now that he hadn’t assumed she’d gone on a bender. Normally, these heavy excursions resulted in her calling him – or, on a particularly bad night, the police, because she’d been arrested. But he hadn’t heard anything from anyone.

  ‘Have you still got a key?’ Ted stared through the windscreen at the dark building, its dirty white render illuminated by the sparse street lamps. ‘I’ll go in, you stay here.’

  ‘No, I can’t let you do that.’

  ‘It’s fine, Nathaniel – better I see what’s inside than you. I’ve seen it all before, and, trust me, it’s much harder when it’s personal.’ During Ted’s working life he’d been a coroner, so grim scenarios didn’t faze him.

  ‘I’m going in and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘I’m coming in with you, then.’

  They both got out of the car, Ted insisting on leading the way. As soon as they unlocked the front door and opened it, there was a faint putrid smell that reached their nostrils, as though they’d released the lid on an out-of-date can of food.

  ‘Oh shit.’ Nathaniel turned and went outside to empty his stomach.

&nb
sp; ‘Stay there.’ Ted closed the door on Nathaniel so he couldn’t go back in. Once the nausea passed, Nathaniel paced the driveway, watching the windows light up throughout the house. His mind was frantically searching through the last few days. What conversations had taken place between him and Elise? How had they left things? Why hadn’t he bothered to check on her? Where had the days gone?

  After what seemed like the passing of another day, Ted appeared. ‘It’s okay, Elise isn’t in there and neither is your son.’ Ted had assumed Buddy was still at home, not knowing about the foster care. ‘But there’s someone in your sitting room. A man. It looks like he’s shot himself. You’re going to have to call the police.’

  Nathaniel frowned. ‘A man? I need to see who it is.’

  ‘It’s not good, lad. The contents of his head are decorating your sitting room wall.’

  Nathaniel went through into the lounge, where he indeed found a very unpleasant scene. Even though he’d blown the back of his head out, the face was intact and Nathaniel recognised him immediately – Mark Paton sat in one of the armchairs, a bottle of whiskey at his feet, a glass by his left hand and a gun in his lap.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  THEN

  After Nathaniel was questioned, he was taken to a cell where he eventually lay down on the hard, thin mattress and tried to get some sleep. DS Brand’s voice ran through his head, the sound merging with the underlying smell he couldn’t identify, beyond the harsh whiff of urine and disinfectant.

  Due to exhaustion, he finally managed to get a short, concentrated window of sleep. He dreamt he was in a restaurant, quite an ostentatious place. It was full of square tables for two and they were all empty apart from one situated in the corner, where Ida was sitting waiting for him. She looked older, like she’d grown up since he’d last seen her. He knew it was her, but he couldn’t be completely sure. There was a natural wave in her chestnut-brown hair, which was longer now, reaching her shoulders, and a sparkle in her brown eyes. But there was a sadness hovering in the background. She was wearing a long gown, a dress he hadn’t seen before, a creamy white colour that reminded Nathaniel of a meringue – it had that kind of sheen to it. She was beautiful. Had always been beautiful. It reminded him of the better times they’d all shared, when the three of them would go to a posh restaurant to celebrate a birthday or a milestone and she would feel so grown up, excited to be going out for a proper meal. Nathaniel suddenly realised it was just the two of them – no Elise, Miles or Buddy.