A Wayward Game (28 page)

“Is Frieda all
right?” I ask Neil the following evening, as he sits next to my
hospital bed. He’s here in a personal, not a professional,
capacity, but I can’t imagine that he won’t be fully aware of what
his colleagues have been dealing with in the past few hours.

“Yes.” He gives
me a faint smile. “She’s very calm, in fact. Really quite helpful.
She’s given the police a full and thorough account of what
happened, and has gone to great lengths to stress that you weren’t
in any way responsible.”

Sallow is dead,
just as I suspected, and Frieda has been charged with his murder.
It could hardly be otherwise, I suppose, when the first thing she
did when the police arrived was to tell them exactly what had
happened. By now, I think, she’ll be sitting in a cell or interview
room, drinking weak tea and seeing the remaining doors of her life
swing shut before her eyes. The thought of it gives me a cold,
hopeless feeling. After all these years of being imprisoned by
grief, she now faces being imprisoned in earnest. It’s too
cruel.

“Of course,”
Neil continues, “you’re in this up to your neck, Katherine. You’ll
be interviewed again when you’re feeling better, and if there’s a
trial you’ll be called as a witness. Still, there’s no suggestion
that you have any personal responsibility for Sallow’s death. If
you tell the truth, you’ll be fine.”

“What about
Frieda, though?”

“Impossible to
say.” Neil frowns. “She has no criminal record, not even a parking
fine. She confessed fully and freely, which will go in her favour,
and of course she had a strong motive to behave as she did. She’ll
certainly go to jail, though.”

“They’ll go
easy on her, won’t they?”

“There doesn’t
seem to be any great appetite for retribution.” Neil shrugs. “Most
people at the Met, if you spoke to them, would tell you that they
personally believed that Sallow was involved in Diane’s
disappearance. That he tried to kill
you
really almost
proves it. No one’s keen to see Mrs Meath get a harsh
sentence.”

I lie back
against the hard hospital pillows, trying to ignore the pounding
pain in my head. I’m sick and miserable, and I haven’t had a shower
or touched my hair or make-up for over twenty-four hours. I must
look terrible, and I’m afraid that Neil, looking at me now, will
see what I really am beneath my facade: just another
thirty-something woman with only average looks, whose tough, sleek
glamour is as transient and unreliable as everything else. I glance
at the flowers he brought me, a basket of pink roses and yellow
lilies. They bring a splash of colour and beauty to the sterile
ward. The hospital is situated on the outskirts of one of London’s
satellite towns, and when I lift my head I can just about glimpse
the street outside. It’s virtually interchangeable with almost any
other urban British street on a Saturday evening: people reeling
from one pub to the next, buses and taxis crawling by, and a dirty
night sky. Just another night in a town where people laugh and cry
and love and die all the time, and no one can afford to be too
concerned about it. Or so I think, anyway, until Neil looks at me
and says:—

“You know, this
is shaping up to be a huge media story.”

“Oh God,” I
croak.

“There are
camera crews camped outside the police station where Frieda’s being
held. There are even a couple of journalists hanging around outside
the hospital here.”

“Jesus,
no.”

“Well, you can
hardly blame people for being interested. The Diane Meath-Jones
case was a huge story, and now – well, it’s the perfect ending, in
a way. The bad guy dead, a mother’s revenge, the brave journalist
who dared to seek the truth. It’s perfect, you must admit.”

“God, Neil,
this isn’t a film. I just want to go home and forget about all of
this.”

“I don’t think
you’ll be allowed to forget about it. Not for a while, at least.”
Neil frowns at me. “Personally, I think that what you did wasn’t so
much brave as downright stupid. If you’d told me what you were
planning, I’d have bloody stopped you, you know. I’d have bound you
hand and foot, if that was what it took.”

I smile. “I
might have enjoyed that.”

“Really? I
thought you liked being the dominant one.”

“I’m prepared
to be flexible.”

“That’s good to
know.” Neil smiles, and then grows sombre again. “God, though, why
the hell did you agree to a meeting like that?”

“He told me he
had some information about Sallow. Potentially explosive
information, he said. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not,
but I had to find out. I had no idea that Lurker was Sallow, of
course.” I frown. “Well, the idea crossed my mind, perhaps, but it
just seemed so unlikely. I mean, he was convincing.”

“He’d learnt
how to be convincing. Lurker was an appropriate name, you know.
Officers have already had a look at his home and office computer
records, and they’re pretty revealing. He liked to loiter in
various places on the internet, just to keep tabs on what people
were saying – about the case, and about him. And, of course, he
took a particular interest in
you
, for obvious reasons. It
wasn’t that difficult for him, either, given the anonymity of the
internet, and the aliases he used. Speaking of which—” Neil pauses,
and shakes his head. “
Kittyminx
? It isn’t even that far
removed from your real name. Why the hell did you choose that as
your username?”

“I didn’t think
anyone would make the connection.”

“Well, it
certainly wasn’t too hard for
me
to make the
connection.”

I stare at him
uncomprehendingly, and for a second he looks awkward and
embarrassed.

“I was there
too,” he admits at last. “I spent quite a bit of time on that
forum. You probably remember chatting to me. Phillip. The
newbie.”

“God,” I
mutter. “Why
Phillip
, exactly?”

“
Great
Expectations
. Phillip Pirrip.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.
But why?”

“You always
knew that I was interested in the case.” He sighs. “I should tell
you, Katherine, that I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”

“No?”

“I was a
constable at the time Diane disappeared,” he says. “I was involved
in the initial investigation, albeit in a rather small and humble
way, and my personal opinion was that Sallow was involved. I was
furious when he got away with it. That wound festered over the
years, and I never quite forgot about it. That was why I talked to
you about it so often; I wondered if you might have some
information, anything, that might shed some new light onto it.”

“Why didn’t you
tell me?”

“Because we
hardly even knew each other at the time. Because you’re a
journalist, and nobody with an ounce of sense says anything of any
great importance to a journalist. Besides, I was interested in what
you might say, just as I think you were interested in what I might
say. We were both playing the same game, I think. A pretty wayward
and dishonest game.” He looks at me apologetically. “I felt bad
about deceiving you, of course, but I had to be careful. I couldn’t
just spill confidences to you, especially knowing your interest in
the case. And I expect that was how you felt about me sometimes,
too.”

“Yes, it
was.”

“One thing I
don’t understand, though,” he says, “is why you didn’t tell me
about Lurker wanting to meet you.”

“You’d have
tried to stop me. You said so yourself.”

“Damn right I
would have. But if I couldn’t talk you out of it, I’d have gone
along with you. I think I’d have been able to do a better job of
looking out for you than Frieda, and with far less serious
results.”

“I didn’t know
if I could trust you.”

“Why not?”

“Oh God.” I
look out of the window, so that I don’t have to look at him. “You
know, I didn’t know who to trust anymore. The problem is, once you
start to look beneath the surface, you start seeing plots
everywhere. Sallow was rich and well-connected; he was in with the
Establishment. For all I knew, he might have had friends
everywhere, in government, in the police. For all I knew,
you
might have been on his side.”

There’s a
moment of silence, during which I don’t dare to look at Neil.
Outside, a thin and sullen rain begins to fall, and the street
lights grow blotchy. The people on the street scatter, running for
buses and shop doorways.

“You don’t
think much of me, do you?” he asks at last, and his voice is quiet,
sad.

“Try to see it
from my point of view, Neil. I couldn’t afford to trust anyone. You
know what Sallow was like. He lived a charmed life; he seemed
untouchable. He had influence far beyond what most people ever
expect or achieve. How could I know whether that influence extended
to the Met – to you? And when you talked with me about the case, I
often found myself wondering whether you were keeping an eye on me.
And when Lurker – Sallow – spun me a story about a web of
corruption that stretched all the way to the top, I found it all
too easy to believe him. God, how could I trust anyone in those
circumstances?”

In the
corridor, a gaggle of nurses chatter and laugh – the sound of
normality, a sound I cling to. God, what an almighty fuck-up this
whole thing has been. Trust lost and betrayed, everyone weaving
their own little web. I glance across at Neil. He is sitting with
his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor. He looks up,
and raises one eyebrow.

“It’s funny,”
he says, “but from the time we started seeing each other, I thought
I
was the one who had to trust
you
. It was the other
way around, though, wasn’t it? You were the one who had to learn to
trust. Did you really think I’d have betrayed you? I love you.”

“I love you,
Neil.”

“Then for God’s
sake have some faith in me. I told you before: there was no
conspiracy, or at least none that I’m aware of. And I was certainly
never on Sallow’s side. Look, I always believed that Sallow killed
Diane. We’ll probably never know for certain, especially now that
he’s dead himself, but it seems very likely. The problem was, we
just couldn’t get anything to stick; there wasn’t enough evidence.
Do you want to know why I remained interested in the case,
Katherine? I think it was for the simple reason that I don’t like
being beaten. It’s vanity as much as professional commitment. I
don’t like to think that someone got away with it. And this case
continued to nag at me; it just wouldn’t let go. I spent a fair
amount of my free time working on it in my own way, in my own time.
I went through the evidence, examined the timelines, kept trying to
see it from new angles and find something that I hadn’t noticed
before. It didn’t do much good – in fact, I was really just going
around in circles – but it did give me something to focus on, which
I needed, especially when my marriage started to come apart at the
seams.” He smiles. “The thing is, if we’d put our heads together
instead of wasting our time suspecting each other, we’d have been
much better off. We might even have found something on Sallow
without
you almost getting yourself killed.”

I remember how
close I almost came to dying, and shiver. “God,” I mutter. “Sallow
must have hated me so much.”

“You were
getting too close for comfort. You were making yourself very
inconvenient from his point of view. The fact that you were seeing
a policeman probably put him on red alert. He felt that his back
was against the wall. And so he put together a little plot to get
rid of you. A crude plot, I suppose, but it might have worked.”

“It almost
did
work. If Frieda hadn’t come with me—”

“If Frieda
hadn’t been with you, you’d probably be another missing person by
now. That stretch of the Thames has strong currents. A body that
went in there would probably never be recovered, especially if
nobody was looking.”

“Jesus,” I
mumble, feeling sick. I remember something else that has been
bothering me while I’ve been lying in hospital. “Do you think
Martin Stevenson talked to Sallow after I visited him?”

“It seems
rather likely, yes. And a quick internet search would be enough to
reveal that Lucy Lowry was dead, and a former colleague of yours.”
Neil smiles again, grimly. “You know, most people have their price,
and Sallow knew that. Flash some money around, and most people
become altogether more accommodating. It’s a nasty business.”

Outside, the
rain has strengthened. Neon signs flash through the night, luring
people in with their false glamour. I think of Diane, who fell in
love with that world of illusory glamour when she was still too
young to see beyond it, and who paid the price. I think of Sallow,
who lived in that world all his life, and I almost feel sorry for
him. Perhaps sometimes he wished it could be otherwise; perhaps
sometimes he almost, almost, saw something beyond, until his eyes
or his imagination failed him, and the vision vanished.

The nurses in
the corridor giggle, and a telephone squeals, but otherwise all is
quiet. This is not an awkward silence anymore, but a comfortable
one; the kind of silence that often arises between two people who
feel at ease in each other’s company, and don’t need to smooth
things over with empty chatter. My head hurts, but the drugs given
to me by the nurses flow through my veins, soothing my nerves and
dulling my senses. Everything seems distant, not quite real; only
Neil is immediate and definite. In a few minutes, though, he’ll get
up, walk out, and drive back to London, where he’ll spend another
night alone. And I realise that I don’t want him to leave, now or
ever.

“You told me
you loved me, Neil,” I say.

“Yes.”