The Half Truth (13 page)

‘What about if he comes up here while we’re down there? We could be chasing him backwards and forwards.’

‘Which is exactly why I’m going to put some of those house bricks on the loft hatch. He may be able to lift it if he pushes hard enough, but we will certainly hear it.’ John edged back towards her. ‘Pass some bricks over.’

After a few minutes a significant stack of bricks had been placed on top of the hatch.

‘What about the hole in the wall?’ Tina shuffled back through to her side of the roof space.

‘Shouldn’t we fix that up?’

‘No point if he can’t get up here,’ said John. ‘Today I’ll get a catch and padlock to put on your side of the hatch. That way, even if he does get up there, he won’t be coming into yours that way.’

They made their way down the ladder and onto the landing. John put his hands on Tina’s shoulders and turned her round to face him. She was doing a pretty good job of keeping it all together, but not good enough that he couldn’t see the angst in her eyes. ‘Don’t worry, you’re safe. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you or Dimitri.’

He pulled her in for a reassuring hug and felt her squeeze him tightly before pulling away. ‘Thank you, John. I’m not sure how I’d manage all this without you.’

‘You’re a very brave and strong woman. Stronger than you think. You would manage, I have no doubt. However, since I’m here, I aim to make it much easier for you.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘Come on, let’s pop next door and speak to Mr Cooper.’

Standing on Mr Cooper’s landing, everything looked as it should.

‘Whoever it was must have been quietly creeping in and out without Mr Cooper noticing,’ said John.

‘Well, Mr Cooper is as deaf as a post. You saw how easily we let ourselves in and came upstairs. He wouldn’t hear a thing. I’m always nagging him to lock that back door.’

‘Tomorrow I’ll get up in the loft and rebuild that hole. I’ll also have a chat to Mr Cooper about locking the door.’

‘I don’t want to alarm him, but I think he needs to know.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll handle it. I’ll tell him that it’s something we suspect rather than have any hard evidence.’ John ushered her out of the room.

Mr Cooper hadn’t been overly alarmed, but he had agreed to be more vigilant with locking his back door.

‘I’m an old dog,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to teach me new tricks, but I’ll do my best to remember.’

Tina knew it was the best compromise she was likely to get from him.

‘So, what happens now?’ asked Tina as they went back into her house.

‘We’re going through local CCTV to see if we can see who was hanging around the café the other night.’

‘I didn’t realise there was CCTV,’ said Tina. She didn’t meet John’s look, she knew the look of guilt would speak louder than any words.

‘Is there anything you want to tell me about the other night?’ said John, his voice was gentle. ‘Anything you may have remembered?’

Tina stared at the coffee cups she had taken from the cupboard. Her back was to John.

‘Tell me a bit more about the Moorgate robbery and what happened there. Who was involved?’ She needed to know for certain it was only Pavel.

‘What’s this, some sort of trade-off?’ His tone was tetchy.

‘I need to be clear who was involved and to what extent.’

‘So you can protect people?’ He was angry. ‘You’re not judge and jury, you don’t decide who gets caught, who gets punished. If you know something and you’re not telling me, then that’s withholding information. A serious offence.’

She spun round to look at him. ‘If that’s what you think, then arrest me.’ She knew as well as he did, he couldn’t prove loss of memory.

‘Look, Tina. Let’s cut the bullshit,’ said John. ‘Someone came to your rescue the other night. Who would want to protect you? Who doesn’t want the local police to know they were there?’ He paused and looked out of the window as if in some sort of internal fight. ‘Pavel. He’s over here, he wants to spoils of the Moorgate job and you, whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, are the link.’

She thought he was going to say something else. Did he know about Sasha, if indeed it had been Sasha she had seen? She was even less convinced it was him now. Wishful thinking on her part. Hearing the Russian voices and getting the bump on her head had caused her imagination to go into overdrive. Adrenalin and fear fuelled all those subliminal connections, surging at the same time, making her see things she wanted to. Reality suspended. No, she didn’t really believe it was Sasha.

Tina could see the anger and frustration in John’s face, the gold flecks in his hazel eyes burned, reflecting the flames of guilt which flickered and glowed from deep within him. There was something he wasn’t telling her. She needed to know one thing before she could tell him the truth.

‘Was Sasha involved in the death of your partner? Was he involved in any of it? I need to know.’

He looked her straight in the eye when he answered. He didn’t blink. He didn’t shift his gaze for one second. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, he wasn’t.’

‘Thank you.’ Relief flushed through her. Now it was her turn to level. ‘Pavel was there. He came to my rescue.’

‘Just Pavel?’

‘No. There was someone else with him. At first I thought it was Sasha, but I didn’t really see him properly.’ She bowed her head, embarrassed at her behaviour. ‘I think I wanted it to be him. I thought he had come back.’

‘Are you certain it wasn’t him?’

‘Yes. I had been attacked. I’d taken a blow to the head. I was petrified.’ She rubbed her temples with her fingers. ‘I was mistaken.’

John exhaled. ‘Mistaken is fine. We all make mistakes.’

The rattle of the letterbox and faint thud of mail hitting the floor was a welcome distraction. At the same time, John’s phone began to ring. Tina left John in the kitchen answering the call and padded down the hallway to collect the post.

It didn’t look like anything very exciting; a couple of bills and a bit of junk mail. The postcard amongst them, though, was rather more interesting. Who sent postcards these days?

She looked at the picture realising it was of Brighton Pier. Her heart gave a heavy beat. Brighton Pier was where Sasha had proposed to her. It had been a wet and windy, supposedly, summer’s afternoon. A Sunday. The day was engrained in her memory. They had sat on the wooden bench, looking out over the English Channel, sharing a portion of fish and chips wrapped in white paper. As Tina had put her hand in to get a chip, her eyes watching the waves chase up the pebbled beach, she had felt something square and hard.

It had been a small ring box and inside was a beautiful diamond engagement ring. She had looked at Sasha, who had the most serious look on his face that she had ever seen and then, without saying a word, he had slipped to his knee and was asking her to marry him.

Brighton Pier had always been their place after that. Their special place. It didn’t matter that thousands of tourists every year trod the boards of the pier, it was always hers and Sasha’s place. No one else had the connection with it that they did.

She picked the postcard up and flicked it over. The message was short. She read it again, the words swimming in front of her eyes. The air in her lungs disappearing making her gasp for breath.

Dear Chris

Wish you were here.

X

Tina dropped the card and backed away, her eyes hypnotised by it. She collided with the hall table, knocking over the photo frame, which clattered to the floor.

The postcard remained on the mat within a few feet of her.

This couldn’t be happening. It was impossible. She must have read it wrong.

She waited a few moments while her breathing settled back to a more normal level. Taking slow steps as if the postcard was going to out-manoeuvre her somehow, Tina stalked it like a lion creeping up on its prey.

She stopped in front of it. The tips of her black court shoes were now a centimetre away. Steeling herself, Tina crouched down and tentatively reached out, her fingertips picking at the corner of the card. Securing it between her finger and thumb she slowly stood up and looked at the message again.

This time the words were clear. The message was clear, the impossibility of its meaning still knocking the wind from her. The tears took her by surprise and she swiped at them with the back of her hand as the anger ignited from deep within her.

How dare he do this to her? She hadn’t been mistaken. Sasha had been there the other day. These past five years she had cried an ocean of tears for her dead husband. And now … now, he clearly wasn’t dead.

Tina looked back down the hall. She could hear John ending his call. He called out to her to see if she wanted a cup of tea. Somehow she managed to answer.

‘Yes please.’

Her thoughts were running riot, rattling around inside her head like a Roman chariot race, thundering so fast she couldn’t focus on a single one of them, they came and went so furiously.

Tina gathered up the letters. She folded the postcard in half and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. The sounds of John moving around in the kitchen were magnified in the silence of the house.

The kettle rumbling to the boil. The chinking of cups. The opening of the fridge as the suction released the door from its hold. The milk trickling into the cups and the clank of the teaspoon as he swirled the tea bag in the hot liquid. She imagined the dark streaks of the tealeaves, colouring the milky water, staining it to a shade of Mediterranean tan.

‘You okay?’ John called down the hall to her.

She coaxed a cheerful expression to her face and turned. ‘Yes, fine.’

Another lie.

‘Anything exciting?’ asked John, nodding to the letters in her hand.

‘No. Bills, junk mail. That’s all.’

Liar!
The word echoed around in her head.

‘I’ve got a meeting with Martin this morning,’ said John. ‘Will you be all right on your own for an hour or so?’

‘Of course.’ She hoped she sounded convincing. ‘I’ve got my new phone now, so I can easily get hold of you if needs be.’

‘I won’t be far away.’ He dropped a kiss on her head and held her for a moment in his arms.

It felt good. It was comforting. It fed her need to feel safe. The world around her was collapsing. It wasn’t a new thing. It had collapsed once before, when Sasha had … had died. Yes, he had died then. The Sasha she loved, and was married to, had died five years ago. The Sash who was alive now had been reborn into a world she wasn’t part of. And now he was back destroying her new life. Anger licked at her heart, curling the edges of once-cherished memories – ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Her belief in her past, her history, flaky and charred.

Tina checked both the front and back doors after John left, ensuring they were locked. She hated this new routine that she had been forced to adopt, but until all this mess was sorted out she needed to take extra care.

She looked at the side of her head in the mirror. The swelling had gone down and a yellow and purple bruise was blooming in its place. She acknowledged that it could have been a whole lot worse had Sasha and Pavel not turned up.

Taking the postcard from her pocket, Tina went about making herself comfortable in the living room. She had intended to lie down on her bed, but from the sofa she could watch TV. Not normally one for daytime TV, Tina hoped it would be a welcomed distraction.

It was chilly in the north-facing living room – autumn was definitely upon them. Tina gave a small shudder. She’d borrow John’s sleeping bag to keep her warm. It was folded on the floor at the end of the sofa, near the window. Tina pulled it out. The faint smell of John’s deodorant lingered on the fabric and she lifted it to her nose, breathing in the familiar and comforting scent.

As she gave the sleeping bag a final tug from down the side of the sofa, it pulled John’s briefcase out too. She hadn’t seen it tucked down there. As she went to pick it up, Tina noticed that one of the locks was open. She went to flick it shut, but paused, her thumb hovering over the latch.

Tina placed the briefcase on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa. The leather around the edges of the case was worn and the shine had long gone from the handle.

There might be papers relating to the investigation of Pavel inside. Should she look? No, she had no right to go rummaging through his briefcase. But, if she did, she might find answers to questions John wouldn’t answer. She might find out if he knew about Sasha or not.

She was torn between the two men. Loyalty and trust, where did hers lie?

It didn’t matter. She needed to know the truth. Tina flipped the left-hand catch and it sprang open. With trepidation about what she might actually find, Tina lifted the lid. There were two manila files and a brown envelope, plus an assortment of pens, sheets of paper, a small notebook and a mobile-phone charger.

She lifted the first file out. The name-tag caught her attention first. It was dog-eared and partially missing, but unmistakably the end part of her surname was still intact. It was quite bulky and the folder itself showed signs of being manhandled many a time. A coffee-cup stain marked the bottom corner.

Tina’s hands shook as she held the file. The word ‘confidential’ was stamped across the front in red ink. A label with a case number and title ‘Porboski Investigation’ was stuck on the front.

Tina opened the cover. A passport-sized photograph of Pavel was paper-clipped to several sheets of paper. Another pile lay underneath, this time about Sasha. Tina scanned the documents. The front cover was like a summary: date of birth, physical description, where he was born, where he went to school, his address. Then Tina gulped. It was the address of their flat above the deli.

Tina looked at the second page. An account of what Sasha had been doing at what time and on what dates – a log of his daily routine. She riffled through more pages. Some events were highlighted in yellow. There were scribbled notes in the margins. Each page relayed everything Sasha did, every place he went, every person he came into contact with, her own name cropping up time and time again.

The folder slipped on her lap and out slid several black and white photographs. Her heart thundered in her chest. Her stomach churned and she felt the pulse in her neck throb. She reached down and picked up the photographs.

Herself and Sasha walking arm and arm down the street. Taken from a distance through a long lens. They were looking at each other, laughing at a shared joke. They were young, happy and clearly in love.

Another photograph was taken through the deli window. Sasha at the counter serving a customer. Another was of them both locking up the shop for the night. Another of her and Sasha talking to a man in a suit in the doorway of the deli. She didn’t recall the conversation but it had obviously taken place.

And so the photographs went on. There were about twenty of them, taken over a period of time. The last one choked her. She cried. Silently. She rocked back and forth. Memories and pain hurtled towards her, coming back to torment her as they had done five years ago. The picture was of her alone in their flat, curled up on the sofa, surrounded by opened photo albums. She knew exactly when that had been taken: two days after she had heard about Sasha’s death. She had spent three days huddled there – not answering the phone or the door to anyone, alone and in the deepest pit of grief. In the end her dad had forced the lock and her parents had scooped her up and taken her home with them. She hadn’t wanted to go. All she wanted was to be with Sasha. She didn’t know if she would be able to make it alone.

Tears spilled as she thought back to those dark days. If it hadn’t been for her parents and the knowledge she was carrying Sasha’s baby, she wasn’t sure she would be here today.