Die of Shame (30 page)

‘It was ten years ago, maybe a bit more… I was in my last year at college, anyway. Trying to make up for the lack of work I’d done in the first two years, same as most people, I suppose. Trying to salvage something.’ Heather aims for a smile, but it’s there and gone; the blaze of headlights speeding past, then only darkness again. ‘I don’t think I would have, mind you, even if things hadn’t turned out the way they did and I’d stuck at it… but there was no chance, in the end.’ She shakes her head. ‘Some people always manage to shoot themselves in the foot, right?

‘I met this man.’ She says it quickly, like it’s the hardest bit; the step over the edge. ‘And I’m deliberately saying “man” because back then I certainly wouldn’t have thought of myself as a “woman”. I was still a girl, still felt like a girl anyway, and I normally knocked about with lads. So, I met this man… older, but you’d probably worked that bit out already. You know, a
lot
older, twenty-odd years, but all I can tell you is that it didn’t feel like it, because we clicked, simple as that and it never seemed to matter. He was married, and you’d probably worked that out as well.’

She pulls a face –
how stupid was I?
– but when she turns her head in the direction of the other group members, she is unable to look directly at anyone. She fixes instead on the spaces between Robin and Caroline, Chris and Diana. ‘That did, matter, obviously, even if I told myself back then that it didn’t. He said that it didn’t and I believed him. Even though he always went back to his wife and kids every night, I thought that he was basically just waiting for the right time to make the move, you know? I never doubted for one second that we’d end up together, that one day I’d be the wife and we’d have kids and all the sleazy stuff was just a process we had to go through to get there. Afternoons in hotels, the back of his car, the usual.’

She searches for words. ‘A necessary… evil.

‘I swear that none of that stuff
felt
sleazy though, not back then. Because I was in love with him. You really need to believe that if what happened later on is going to make any sense. It had never been like that with anyone before, never has been since. Wherever we had to meet, it was perfect, you know?

‘I’d’ve done whatever he wanted, fucked him in shit, it didn’t matter.’

She closes her eyes for a second or two; momentary regret or some remembered excitement that still shocks her, it’s impossible to tell. Her fingers are wrapped around the edge of her seat by the time she opens her eyes again and says, ‘Now, you’re all pretty smart and at least this bit of the story is fairly predictable, so you won’t exactly be gobsmacked to discover that he didn’t leave his wife and we didn’t ride off into the sunset. He didn’t love me as much I loved him, simple as that.’ She hesitates. ‘Well… maybe he did, who knows, but he certainly wasn’t brave enough to be with me long term. At the time it just felt like he’d had his bit of fun then ended it and settled for an easy life.’

Her eyes narrow. ‘The path of least resistance.

‘And I was… destroyed.’ She shrugs, helpless. ‘I know that sounds stupidly melodramatic, like maybe I was just immature and maybe I was, but God’s honest truth, there isn’t another word for how it made me feel. What he’d done to me.’ She winces as she swallows. ‘I didn’t eat, I didn’t wash, I didn’t… get out of bed for Christ knows how long. I thought about doing all sorts of stupid things, you know? I emptied pills into my hand and stared at them. I froze my tits off standing on bridges. I looked at all those freaky websites that tell you exactly how to make a noose and what to do so you won’t be found in time… and then one day something inside just shut down.’ She clicks her fingers, studies the chewed-down nails. ‘Like a switch had been turned off… or on, maybe.

‘So, I went another way.’

She leans forward slightly and begins to talk a little faster. ‘There was someone else,’ she says. Another big step and now she has momentum and it can’t be stopped. ‘And this one
was
a lad…

‘He wasn’t at college, he already had a job, but he was the same age as me and we’d been seeing each other quite a bit before all this. He was great, you know, sweet and all that… but the truth is I always knew he liked me more than I liked him. All the same, I was happy to let him take me out, buy me stuff, you know? Happy enough to shag him when I felt like being generous, and let him take me on holiday… and then, when I met my married man, I dropped him like a hot brick. I was a selfish cow and I chucked him, and I know he felt every bit as awful then as I did when the bloke I dumped him for finally dumped me.

‘So… when that switch was thrown, I called him. I called my lovely, dependable ex-boyfriend, and he told me to come round and I knew straight away that he still felt exactly the same. He was just so happy I was there, that it was his shoulder I wanted to cry on.’

Heather takes a breath and holds it, and it looks as if she would welcome that shoulder,
any
shoulder now, but she keeps pushing forward.

‘I cried, because it was easy enough…

‘… and when I’d finished I told him the man I’d been seeing had raped me. I told him that I’d been trying to leave and he’d raped me… and I couldn’t go to the police,
please don’t make me go to the police
, because I didn’t want everyone to know, and I felt dirty, and there was nobody else I
could
tell except him. I told him every sick detail, and I made it as nasty as I could, to where I could see it was like punches landing, and he was pretty much in bits by the time I’d finished.

‘By then, it was almost like I believed it myself.

‘I pressed the button, then I sat there and watched him get angrier, working himself up until he was kicking at the walls and smashing stuff in his flat. Telling me he’d sort everything, that he was going to make the bastard pay for it, and I’m going,
No, you can’t, don’t be stupid
, but only because I knew that’s what I was supposed to say. I knew he wasn’t really listening and that he’d already made his mind up to teach the bloke a lesson.

‘Which of course is exactly what he did.

‘He beat him to death two nights later outside a pub.’ She gnaws her bottom lip for a few seconds. She slides her feet forward until her training shoes are perfectly parallel. ‘He had an iron bar or something in his coat pocket, and the man I’d falsely accused of rape, because he’d had the nerve to go back to his family, had an abnormally thin skull. Shitty luck for all concerned, as it turned out.

‘Well, everyone except me.

‘He never mentioned my name, not once. Never told anyone why he’d done it. Never said a word, even after they’d sent him to prison.’ Now she looks at Tony, the first member of the circle with whom she’s made eye contact since she began. When she speaks again, her voice is steady and low; drained of colour. ‘He’s still in prison, while I sit here every Monday night feeling sorry for myself, because my benefit money’s a day late, or I want a better flat, or I didn’t have any real friends to come to my stupid birthday party.’

There is one more half-hearted attempt at a smile, but it’s not even close. She straightens in her chair and one hand flutters up at her knee, just for a second or two.

She says, ‘That’s it.’

Tony leans to lay down his notebook. He takes a long swig from his water bottle, then sits up and looks around. Nobody seems keen to speak, but the circle is crackling with energy and none of it is positive.

Shock, condemnation, fury.

Even Tony is struggling to formulate the simple and standard
thank you
, to acknowledge the courage necessary to say… what Heather had said, but he is saved the trouble when Chris lurches from his chair.

The others watch as Chris moves slowly across the circle towards Heather; casual, deliberate. He looks a lot steadier than he did when he first came in, though the aimless smile is nowhere to be seen.

Tony stands up, says Chris’s name.

Heather shakes her head and lifts a hand to let Tony and everyone else know there’s no need to step in. That she’s been expecting whatever is coming and is fine with it. It’s only when Chris is standing over her, his legs pressed against hers, that she turns her face away just a little and closes her eyes. Flinches.

The circle holds its breath.

There seems no real effort involved, no obvious movement of the head or neck, and it’s only when Robin emits a groan of disgust that Tony sees the thin string of brown spittle dropping from Chris’s mouth on to the sleeve of Heather’s jacket. Now he moves across, but Chris is on his way out before Tony can get there; walking towards the door as though he’s simply noticed he’s in the wrong room. Raising a hand to waggle his fingers
goodbye
, without turning round.

Tony fetches a tissue from the box beneath his chair. He hands it to Heather, then sits down again and looks at his watch, pretending to ignore the sound of the front door closing. Nice and gently, this time.

‘I wouldn’t normally do this,’ he says. ‘But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have a short break. Just a few minutes.’

Diana says, ‘No,’ as she gets to her feet. ‘I think I’ve had quite enough for one night.’

‘You’re not the only one.’ Robin stands too.

‘Well, it’s up to you,’ Tony says, though he is not particularly happy at the group’s choosing to cut the session short.

Caroline is reaching for her bag and umbrella, the coat on the back of her chair. She looks across at Heather who is still trying to remove Chris’s spittle from her jacket; wiping and wiping. ‘You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?’

‘We should definitely carry on with this though.’ Tony stands up. ‘Next week, OK?’ He watches Diana and Robin as they move together towards the kitchen, Caroline as she hurries to follow them. ‘Plenty to talk about, I think…’

When Heather finally looks up, she doesn’t seem surprised or disappointed to see that the others have gone. She hugs her jacket to her chest.

‘That went well,’ she says.

Tony says, ‘I need to talk to you.’

Tanner could see that Tony De Silva was enjoying his morning; engrossed in the Saturday
Guardian
at a table outside the Crocodile café, a cigarette on the go, an espresso in front of him. He didn’t see her until she was close enough to smell the coffee, pulling a chair across from an adjacent table, and it was clear from his expression that he wasn’t enjoying himself any longer.

‘I only need five minutes,’ she said.

He folded his paper and laid it down. He reached for his coffee cup.

‘Do a lot of you smoke?’ Tanner asked. ‘Ex-addicts?’ She nodded towards the ashtray which contained three or four butts. ‘I always thought you had to give up any kind of drug.’

‘I don’t really,’ De Silva said. ‘It’s just a treat. A ritual, that’s all.’

‘Harder to give up than heroin, I heard.’

‘Like I said, I don’t really smoke.’

A waitress stopped at the table to ask Tanner if she wanted anything. Tanner asked for a glass of tap water. ‘I tried cigarettes once,’ she said. ‘Didn’t like them. Not much of a drinker either. I suppose some people just aren’t wired that way.’

‘You’re close to someone who is though, right?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The last time we spoke. I got the impression you were asking certain questions on someone else’s behalf.’ De Silva laid his cup down and leaned forward a little. ‘Your partner, maybe? Wife? Girlfriend?’

Tanner smiled, though something had begun to jump in her gut. She guessed that De Silva was not in the habit of dispensing therapy free of charge outside cafés on a Saturday morning. It was an assertion of a certain sort of power, she understood that; an attempt to gain control of his situation.

She wondered if she’d make a decent therapist herself…

‘I wanted you to know that we’re almost there,’ Tanner said. ‘With the Heather Finlay case.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘I gather you’re starting the group up again.’

‘Yeah, I thought it was about time, and my other clients are keen to carry on.’

Tanner nodded. ‘Good. Well, I’d like you to do me a favour and imagine that group sitting there in a circle again. The five of you, next week or whenever it is. Chris Clemence, Robin Joffe, Diana Knight, Caroline Armitage and yourself. All of you sitting around in that lovely conservatory of yours, sharing and caring and supporting one another… and I want you to think about Heather Finlay rotting in her flat. I want you to think about her father laying what’s left of her to rest. Will you do that?’

De Silva shook his head. ‘Do you seriously think we won’t remember Heather? That we won’t talk about her… honour her memory and the place she had in the group?’

‘That sounds very nice. Very… spiritual.’

‘You don’t think we care?’

‘Up to a point, yes.’

‘I’m not sure why you’re being so sarcastic.’

‘I just want you to know that when I
picture that group, it’s because I’m certain that somebody in that circle is responsible for Heather’s death. One of those people who’ll be sitting there “honouring her memory”.’

‘Sorry, but I must have missed something,’ De Silva said.

‘It was all here in your notes.’ Tanner removed the sheaf of papers from her bag. ‘When we eventually got them.’

‘What was?’

‘Well, I should start by saying that they were a bit vague, but perhaps you were in a hurry, or distracted.’ De Silva started to say something. ‘Never mind.’ She flicked through the pages. ‘Funny that you hadn’t mentioned anything about asking Heather to look for another therapist.’

‘Sorry?’

‘That’s in your notes, too,’ Tanner said. ‘But you never said anything about it when we first talked about her.’

‘I was rather more concerned with the fact that she was dead.’

‘Why was that? I mean, why did you not want her to come to the sessions any more?’

De Silva pointed. ‘As you said, it’s all in there. I felt that by the end of that final session there were certain… tensions within the group that could only be eliminated if she wasn’t part of it any more. That’s all.’

Tanner nodded. ‘Never needed to in the end though, did you?’

‘Never needed to what?’

‘Ask her to leave.’

De Silva hesitated. Then: ‘Sadly, no,’ he said. ‘I didn’t.’

Tanner went back to looking at the notes. ‘So, as I understand it, in that last session Heather confessed to being responsible for one person’s death and for somebody else being sent to prison.’ She put the papers down and looked at him. ‘That’s two lots of brothers, sons, fathers, husbands. That’s a lot of people who might have wanted Heather to pay for what she did, even after all this time.’

‘And it just so happens one of them is in my Monday night recovery group. Is that what you’re saying? It’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t think we haven’t been looking elsewhere,’ Tanner said. ‘She wasn’t killed by a stranger.’

‘Maybe I could start the next session by just asking everyone.’ The therapist stubbed out his cigarette and immediately drew a new one from the packet. ‘“Nice to see you all again. Now, as we’re all being honest with one another, hands up if any of you killed Heather.” Would that be helpful?’

‘Now who’s being sarcastic?’

De Silva sat back in his chair, hard. ‘Well…’

Tanner took her water and thanked the waitress. She took a drink. ‘It’s funny, you getting so irate at the idea that you might not care. The fact is that up to now you’ve had a strange way of showing it.’

De Silva broke off lighting his cigarette. ‘For God’s sake, do you mean my reluctance to divulge information?’

‘It certainly wasn’t helpful.’

‘Do we really need to go over this again?’

Tanner shook her head. ‘Listen, obviously you care about Heather, I know that. I mean how could you not?’

‘Thank you.’ He threw up his arms and lit his cigarette, relieved at finally getting blood from a stone.

‘All that stuff you told me about empathy,’ Tanner said. ‘Listening to your clients,
guiding
them. I’d say it would be almost impossible not to get close to some of them. Or for them to get close to you.’

‘There are boundaries, obviously.’

‘Of course, but there must be… infatuations. Flirtation, I should imagine.’

‘I suppose.’

She looked at him. ‘More than that, sometimes?’

De Silva turned away, used the moment to catch the eye of the waitress and signal that he was ready for the bill. He said, ‘Look, I’m really not sure where you’re going with this, but I know it’s got nothing to do with your investigation.’ He smiled and licked his lips as he leaned across the table. ‘Maybe you’re borderline voyeuristic. I should imagine a lot of police officers are.’

Tanner smiled back, said he was probably right, then waved the notes. ‘All right, let’s get back to these.’

De Silva sat back; bored, or pretending to be. ‘If we must.’

‘Well, as I said, they’re a bit vague, unfortunately. So, bearing in mind where we are with the case, it would be enormously helpful if you could tell me anything that Heather said that night that isn’t in these notes. I’m sure there are things that weren’t particularly relevant from a therapeutic point of view, that you never even thought of putting in your notes, but which would really help me a lot.’ She waited. ‘Look, I think we’re way past the whole confidentiality thing, considering everything I’ve been told by members of the group already.’

‘Well, I don’t know what you’ve been told —’

‘On top of which, look how easy it was for me to get these. Now, bearing in mind my genuine suspicions, I don’t think I’d have any trouble persuading a judge that you telling me what you know was in the interests of public safety.
Making
you tell me, see what I mean? I’m sure you’d rather we had that information quickly, Mr De Silva.’ Tanner reached into her bag for her notebook. ‘Considering how close you were to Heather.’

De Silva waited until the waitress had handed him the bill and left. Enough time to look as though he was considering it.

Then he told her.

‘That’s as much as I can remember, anyway. It was a while ago.’

Putting her notebook away, Tanner thanked him and said she’d let him know if she needed anything else. He hadn’t given her all that much in the end, but she felt like it might be enough. A name, a time frame. A detail or two that gave her somewhere to start.

When Tanner stood up, she said, ‘Just so you know… the someone else, those questions I was asking.’ She waited until he was looking at her. ‘I’m dealing with it.’