Into the Darkest Corner (35 page)
Caroline and I have finally started the process of interviewing for the warehouse operatives at the new distribution site. The interviews, yesterday and today, were going well, until about ten o’clock when Caroline went downstairs to fetch the next candidate.
I was scanning his application form—Mike Newell, age thirty-seven, little previous experience with warehousing, but his application form was legible, well written and considered, which was more than most of them that we’d had to discard. No children, lived in south London, gave his interests as world history and electronics. The reason we’d invited him in for an interview was the sentence in response to the question “Why do you think you would be able to fulfill this role with Lewis Pharma?”—“Although I have limited experience in warehousing, I feel I would be able to bring enthusiasm and a willingness to learn to the role, and I would be able to offer my full commitment to the organization”—enthusiasm, commitment, willingness—all things we could do with more of.
Caroline was talking to him as the door to the interview room opened, and I stood, preparing my welcoming smile, ready to greet the fifth person we’d interviewed that day.
My heart stood still.
It was Lee.
He gave me a warm smile and shook my hand, Caroline told him to take a seat and make himself comfortable, while I stood there with the blood drained from my face and my mouth dry.
Was I seeing things? He was here, wearing a suit, wearing a comfortable, friendly smile, and his eyes had barely met mine. He was acting completely as if he hadn’t recognized me. As if his name was Mike Newell and not, actually, Lee Brightman.
I considered bolting for the door. I wondered whether I was actually going to throw up. Then I thought about his demeanor here, how he was acting completely normally, and I wondered if I’d actually flipped, gone completely mad, and this was some sort of peculiar hallucination.
“So, Mr. Newell,” said Caroline briskly, “I’ll just explain a bit about the organization and the role, and then we’ll ask you a few questions to get to know you a bit better, and at the end if you have any questions for us, we’ll be able to answer them then. Does that sound all right?”
“Yes, sure.” It was Lee’s voice, but the accent was different—Scottish? Northern somehow, anyway.
Was it him?
While Caroline went through the practiced explanation about Lewis Pharma and the current period of expansion, I watched him with a sort of fascinated horror. His hair was darker, slightly, and shorter; he was paler—well, that would figure—and he had aged a bit, wrinkles around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. That would make sense, too. He was watching Caroline closely, nodding at the right moments, looking as though he was taking everything in. I’d never seen him wearing a suit like that before, either—it didn’t really fit him properly. He looked as though he’d borrowed it. I couldn’t imagine Lee wearing something that didn’t make him look immaculate. Unless of course he was undercover, in which case he’d wear those filthy clothes that smelled like he was homeless.
I felt a momentary doubt that it was him.
It had been nearly three years since I’d seen him, in the dock, listening to the evidence. I hadn’t been there for the sentencing, of course. Three days before the end of the trial was the second time I ended up in the psych ward. While he was being sent down, I was dosed up with tranquilizers and spending most of my day staring at a stain on the wall.
I tried to summon up a picture of his face back then, and it was confusing. I’d tried so hard to block him out. In my nightmares, even in those moments when I caught sight of him, out on the street, in the supermarket, he was a faceless shape now.
Was it him?
Caroline was coming to the end of her speech, and any minute now it was going to be my turn.
I realized that, without meaning to, I’d been breathing deeply and slowly, calming myself with every breath, coping, because I had to. I tried to think about my anxiety levels. At least sixty, possibly seventy. I couldn’t fall apart here. I needed this job badly—they’d taken a chance on me, and I couldn’t blow it. I waited for the fear to subside. It was going to take a while. I was going to have to deal with it.
“So,” I said, realizing that somehow I was working on some kind of autopilot, “Mr. Newell.”
He looked across at me and smiled. Those eyes—they were wrong. They were too dark. It wasn’t him, it couldn’t be. I was imagining it, the same way I’d imagined seeing him all those other times.
“Can you tell us a bit about your last role, and why you decided to leave?”
I found myself listening to the words and not taking them in. Caroline’s pen scratched across the surface of her notepad, which was good, because I wasn’t going to be remembering anything about what he’d said. Something about him working overseas for the last couple of years, running a bar in Spain. Helping out a friend. Of course we’d check his references, but if it was Lee, he could fake something like that easily enough.
Internally, I was veering away from complete utter horror that I was sitting here opposite the man who’d nearly killed me, who’d beaten me and raped me. I was listening to him telling me about his career, how he’d moved from various jobs having been in the army—surely we could check that? There would be records, wouldn’t there? And he was telling us his name was Mike Newell; that he’d grown up in Northumberland—not Cornwall—but spent most of his working life in Scotland. There was no mention of Lancaster. There was no mention of a criminal conviction for assault. No mention of a three-year prison sentence.
Caroline took over again and offered him the chance to ask us any questions.
“I just wondered,” he said, in that voice, that curious mixture of accents that I couldn’t place, “if there was anything you’d be looking for in your ideal candidate that I haven’t been able to demonstrate for you today?”
Caroline looked across to me, trying not to let the amused smile show. “Cathy? Could you answer that one?”
It was one of the best questions I’d ever heard anyone ask in an interview. “Of course,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “it would have been preferable if you’d had experience in warehousing, but it isn’t essential. We’ve seen a number of very strong candidates in the last few days and we are hoping to reach a decision on the roles available by tomorrow lunchtime.”
He gave me a smile. His teeth were different from Lee’s—whiter? More even? Now I looked at him again, really he was quite different. It wasn’t just the eyes. The teeth, the hair—the build; he was certainly less muscular than Lee had been. Even with the badly fitting suit, I remembered the way his biceps had filled the sleeves of whatever he wore. It was all just slightly, off-puttingly different.
“Thank you very much for coming in, Mr. Newell,” I said, shaking his hand. His grip was firm, warm, not sweaty—the perfect handshake for someone you’d want to employ.
Caroline took him back downstairs, leaving me alone in the interview room, my thoughts racing. Was it him? I scanned the application form—neat handwriting, capitals—it didn’t look like his handwriting, although he could have had someone complete it for him, for heaven’s sake, that didn’t mean anything. He could be wearing contact lenses. He could have had his teeth fixed. He hadn’t been able to work out while he’d been inside. And as for the last job, two years in a bar in Spain? He had friends out there; anyone on the end of a phone would provide him with a reference and we’d be none the wiser. And he wasn’t exactly tanned.
From outside the door, I could hear Caroline bringing the next candidate in for interview, and I prepared my welcoming smile. Behind my temples, the mother of all headaches was preparing its sting.
As soon as the interview was finished, I told Caroline I was going to get a drink and some aspirin. We had a break after this one, and then three more interviews before home time.
Caroline wouldn’t stop talking about Mike Newell.
“I think he’s easily the best one today, don’t you? Even though he’s not worked in warehousing before, he’s clearly intelligent and willing to learn, isn’t he? And that question at the end—I’m keeping a note of that one for the next time I’m an interview candidate. You gave a brilliant answer—I had honestly no idea at all what I was going to say. And I know it’s unprofessional, but my God, he’s a bit easy on the eyes, too, isn’t he? And really charming . . .”
“I’ll see you in a minute, okay?” was all I managed in response, grabbing my bag from my desk drawer and heading out toward the rear doors of the building.
I got my phone out, and the scrap of paper with DS Hollands’ phone numbers.
The cell was turned off, so I tried the other number. “Public Protection, DC Lloyd speaking, can I help you?”
“Er—hi. I was hoping to speak to Sam Hollands?”
“DS Hollands is in a meeting at the moment. Can I help?”
“Yes, yes. I need someone to help.” Oh, God, how to explain all this in just a few sentences? How to tell someone how urgent this was, and yet not give them a reason to think you’re a complete nutcase?
“Hello? Are you in any danger right now?”
“No, I don’t think so.” I could feel the tears starting. Please, I thought, don’t be kind to me, I don’t think I could take it.
“What’s your name?”
“Cathy. Cathy Bailey. I was assaulted by a man called Lee Brightman, four years ago. He got three years for it, and I was told he was released at Christmas. This was up north, in Lancaster.”
“Okay,” said the voice.
“DS Hollands told me he’d been released. I thought I saw him a few days ago, here in London, and I spoke to DS Hollands, she got Lancaster to check on him, and they said he was still there.”
“And you’ve seen him again?”
“I work as a personnel manager, and I think I’ve just interviewed him for a job at the company I work for.”
“You think . . . ?”
“He looked different, but not much. He was calling himself Mike Newell, but it looked so much like him—same voice, everything. I was wondering whether someone in Lancaster could check on him, like, right now? Because he’s only just left here, about half an hour ago. So if it was him, he won’t be in Lancaster.”
“Do you have an injunction, a restraining order, anything like that?”
“No.”
“Do you know if he has license conditions not to contact you?”
“I don’t think he does.”
“Right. But he was claiming to be someone else?”
“Yes—he’s put in an application form for this job, as though he has a whole career history, but all of it could have been faked. I mean, he’s claimed on this form that he’s been working in Spain for the last few years.”
There was a long pause. I checked my watch—another five minutes and we’d need to start thinking about going back into the interview room.
“Did he threaten you at all?”
“What, in the interview? No,” I said.
“Did he give any sign that he recognized you, or that he wasn’t who he was claiming to be?”
“No, he played along with it.”
“But you’re certain it’s him?”
I avoided the question as best I could. “He used to do this. He used to enjoy turning up unexpectedly, scaring me. He used to watch me when I was out shopping, and if he thought I’d taken too long he would beat me when I got back home. He loves mind games, and I know he would just love turning up at my place of work and pretending to be someone he’s not, just to see my reaction.”
Another long pause. I wondered if she was taking notes.
“Okay. Can I call you back on this number?”
“I’m going back into interviews until after five, but I’ve got voice mail.”
“Leave it with me, I’ll call you back.”
I ran back into the building, into the ladies’ room. Washing my hands, I cast a glance at my reflection in the mirror. I looked a lot more together than I felt. My hair was growing, and I’d just had it cut in a neat bob, the ends swinging gently against my jawline. I looked pale and a little tired, the dark plum-colored jacket giving my skin a faintly greenish tinge, but nothing a quick bit of powder wouldn’t fix.
Caroline was already in the interview room. “Ready for round three?” she said.
“Sure.”
“Are you okay?” She looked concerned, as though she’d just noticed I was starting to look flaky.
“Yeah,” I said. “I have a pounding headache—all that concentrating.”
“Oh,” she said. “When I brought that last one in—Newell—you looked as if you’d seen a ghost. I thought you were going to pass out.”
It was my turn to do the fetching. I gave her a smile that I hoped was bright enough to satisfy her, and went downstairs to collect the next candidate.
When the last interview was over, Caroline and I had a short break before meeting up to discuss the candidates and make a decision on who we were going to employ and who was going to be rejected.
I went outside to get some fresh air, my headache still pounding. The aspirin I’d taken had done no good at all. I turned the phone on and left it for a moment until the beep signaled that I had a new message. I dialed the voice-mail number.
“
Yeah, this is a message for Cathy Bailey. It’s Sandra Lloyd at the Camden PPU. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been in touch with Lancaster and they are going to send someone out to check up on Mr. Brightman. I haven’t heard back from them yet but I’ll let you know when I get an answer. All right, bye for now
.”
I knew it was no use—by the time they located him, enough time would have passed for him to make it back to Lancaster.
As I walked slowly around the parking lot, enjoying the sunshine, and wondering what time Stuart would be home from work, my phone rang. “Hello?”
“Cathy? It’s DC Lloyd here. Did you get my message?”
“Yes, thank you. Have you heard any more?”
“Lancaster just called back. They’ve been to check on his home address but there’s nobody there. The woman I spoke to said she saw him yesterday, though, and he didn’t mention that he had any plans to go to London. Were you certain that it was him that you saw?”
How could I answer that? No, I wasn’t sure, but at the same time I’m not mad either. I wasn’t seeing things.