“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, clutching my tea towel.
“Are
you
okay?” she asked.
“I will be.”
Kate smiled and reached for my hand. Weirdly, it made me feel stronger. Her touch.
I meant it, though, it wasn’t her fault. With the best will in the world, she was never going to save him. I remember my father talking about self-inflicted gunshot wounds and how thorough the demolition is: when you put a bullet in your head, you definitely don’t want to be rescued. Overdose is different–in with a chance.
“Enough about me,” said Kate, squeezing my hand. “Suzanne wants to catch up with the rest of the news.”
“Yes, what have I missed?”
Cece’s had a little cougar call,” I said.
We all started laughing again.
Chapter Forty Three
The Worst Curse
Cece dropped me off at the front door and waited until I was inside before vrooming off, sending surface water spraying. I closed the door and stood for a moment, forehead pressed against the doorframe, smelling gloss paint, mustering strength to trudge up to the apartment.
It was too quiet. I turned around and saw him standing at the foot of the stairs. Front door biometric security technology comes undone by The Watcher.
We stood looking at each other for a second. I stopped wondering how he managed to enter the building, however, when I saw his hands shaking. He had a gun.
“Lori Warner?”
When I didn’t speak he said, “I need to talk to you.”
I looked at the weapon. I looked into his face, his troubled eyes and reckoned this man wouldn’t be able to produce a firearm certificate and two referees like Kate Moritz could.
“I
need
to talk to you.” He took a step towards me.
Too drained from dreaming in a dark room for a week, I couldn’t scream or run.
He motioned towards the stairs and I moved forward with him behind, uncomfortably close. With a gun to my back, we walked into Ralph’s immaculate flat and shut the door.
Turning to face him, unflinching, I took in his appearance; thickish grey hair and too-protruding cheekbones, hollowed out. He hadn’t shaved in days and stubble aged him. I looked straight into his eyes and saw dilated pupils bleeding into troubled irises; black holes staring back at me, fatigued and expressionless. No flicker of someone inside.
He was well dressed but not laundered; creased and rumpled while a slight sour unwell smell hung around him. I recognised the exhausted insomniac stare I saw in the mirror each day and wondered if I had ever looked as demonic as this. Probably, yes.
Then, suddenly, I knew. I had never met him before but I
knew
him without an introduction. The Watcher. The harmless ghost.
Truthfully, I felt no fear. The waiting was over.
He told me to sit down but I didn’t.
“Put the gun down,” I said, exhausted and washed out, pointing at the coffee table. I turned my back on him.
I couldn’t see his expression but I guessed he realised I’d nothing to lose either. The waiting was over for both of us. Part of me was tempted to tell him I wasn’t afraid of a bullet, through and through or imbedded. I was more afraid of the truth because I know which one leaves the most residual damage.
I returned with two glasses of Laphroaig whisky with its distinct peaty finish, which was my father’s favourite. I had an enormous heart tug when I poured the drink. Three fingers. No water. No ice.
The man accepted the glass with a nod before his knees gave out. He sank into the sofa and sighed.
We sat in silence drinking and, in that second, I knew I would move on. I would recover and get over Harrison’s death, his infidelities, rebuild my life little by little, whereas this man sitting opposite me would be haunted forever because he had outlived his child; the worst curse to inflict on a person, a parent.
“My name is Tom Roberts,” he said.
“I know who you are.”
“I thought you’d returned to London,” he said.
“I’ve been unwell. I was at a friend’s house.” I didn’t elaborate.
There followed more absorbed silence before he said, “My wife sends the letters and photographs addressed to your husband. I’ve tried to talk to–” He ran out of steam.
I thought about the photographs, accusations and threats. “I haven’t received one for a while.”
“She has had health problems.” He didn’t elaborate.
“You’ve been following me?”
He nodded and looked truly embattled. I sip the whisky and feel fear and pain dislodge from the pit of my stomach; it shrinks smaller and smaller until it has gone. Radiation power to kill multiplying lies.
“I wanted to talk to you so many times but I’m not a brave man. You are the person who changes everything. Once the truth gets out…”
“Go on.”
“My wife is a good woman but she is broken. My son has dropped out of his second year at Cambridge.”
“You know my husband is dead?” I asked.
“I do. My wife doesn’t. She won’t listen–”
“You started following me?”
He confirmed this.
“Your wife doesn’t know you are here?”
“We’ve had no contact. I moved out some time ago. It has been–” he sounded short of breath, “–we’ve had a difficult time.”
Vivienne Roberts: Harrison’s golden girl. The one who got away.
Roberts knocked back his whisky. “I had to talk to you.”
I looked at the gun resting beside him on Ralph’s white-brushed linen Snowdrop sofa.
His eyes followed mine and he explained. “I needed you to listen to me.”
Said like a man not used to people hearing him out,
I thought.
“I’m listening now.”
“He was a good man.”
I glance up from my drink. I am expecting vitriol outpouring; accusations from a man blaming Harrison for his daughter’s death. What’s more, if my husband can sleep with my sister, what the hell else did he do?
I leaned forward and poured us another sizeable drink. More truth, I thought, billowing into my life, filling corners. I considered lying down on the floor.
He lunged at the drink. “Dr Warner had nothing to do with my daughter’s death.”
I blinked. It was though 20/20 vision had been restored. I stared at him with such visual accuracy; I wondered how it was possible to miss the signs. I wanted to spare him the agony of a confession but there was no holding him back.
He sat forward, head in hands.
Dear God, I thought. How much more can I take?
“We could accept the diabetes. She was diagnosed with Type 1 when she was five years old. It was a case of learning to live with it.”
He broke into rapid-fire speech. “She was so active. Then she couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs.” His voice broke and he twisted his fists into his eyes. “It was too much.”
I said nothing.
“There were serious diabetic complications–with her heart. That’s when we met Dr Warner.”
I nursed my whisky and let him take a moment.
He continued. “Your husband was such a positive influence on Vivienne–gave her hope. We got off to a good start when he successfully removed a blockage in a blood vessel to the heart.
“Then we discovered she had more hardening of blood vessels. She also had high blood pressure. Her breathing was laboured and she developed a severe cough. It was as though the doctors would fix one thing, then another problem would–”
I could hear the frustration in his voice. I saw Harrison stepping up; doing everything he could to solve the problem.
I can fix this
.
“The final straw was the stroke. Our family has a history of stroke, so it seems she was never going to catch a break. She went blind in one eye, speech was slurred.”
A good minute passed before he composed himself. “There were complications with blood-thinning drugs to prevent clots and I watched her get weaker and weaker.” He threw the last of his whisky down. “So much damage had been done to the heart.”
Tell me about it
, I thought.
He took another gulp of his drink and raked a hand through his hair, distress obvious.
“Your husband did so much for us; so dedicated and involved, telling us about new medical research that might work. We never felt abandoned.”
“Did you not believe him; that he could help?”
“He couldn’t. Even Vivienne knew this. I had to release my daughter from her suffering. It was her wish.” He looked directly at me. “And I would do it again.”
“Harrison didn’t do it?” I whispered.
Tom Roberts shakes his head so vigorously, he upsets my sense of balance. “No, he did not. Vivienne asked him first, though. She wanted him to increase her pain medication to critical levels but he wouldn’t. There was an argument–he wanted to save her not end her life.”
I closed my eyes. “He knew it was you?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t say anything to me or anyone.”
“Dr Warner knew how desperate Vivienne had become. We were watching her waste away. She said she never imagined it would take this long to die. Can you imagine hearing your child say that? Your husband told me she’d talked about going to sleep and not waking up.”
“I
know
she did. One of the nurses overhead a conversation between your daughter and my husband, which didn’t exactly help at the internal investigation. Someone also heard them arguing.” The words slapped him with an accusatory sting.
Tom Roberts couldn’t look at me while he spoke. “Your husband never once implicated me; not even when the hospital officials questioned us. Not even when my wife turned on him–accused him. She was desperate to blame someone and I couldn’t tell her the truth.”
“He didn’t talk to me about it.” Rage dissolves to tears.
Roberts read the tears wrong. “I swear, if he’d been struck off, I would have confessed. I would
never
have ruined his career.”
His career? What about his personal life and the repercussions there? What about
me
? I wanted to wail.
I found my voice. “It was a
terrible
ordeal for him. He left the hospital. It was the reason
we
left London.”
No it wasn’t
, a voice whispers.
Gee was the reason
.
“I know…I know.”
“No, you
don’t
know,” I said, softer now. Exhausted.
“I killed my daughter.”
“You can’t hold on to this. People need to know.”
“Christ, I
wanted
to tell someone, but my wife was falling apart. My son wasn’t much better. I wasn’t afraid for me, I was afraid for them.”
We sat in silence. I knew there was no point tearing him to pieces. Honestly, I didn’t have the heart.
We talked. During which time, I received regular calls: Cece, Suzanne, Kate and Jim checking up on me with high-frequency concern. Tom Roberts flinched each time I answered but I told him it was in his best interest–otherwise we would draw a crowd.
It did beg the question, though, what next? We both had our reasons for wanting to stay in this moment, not move forward. Once we stepped out the door, it would all change. I would have to tell my mother about Harrison and Gee. Roberts had to talk to his wife.
I poured us another drink. At 6.34am, the sun came up.
Eventually, I called time. “You should go home.”
He looked confused so I elaborated in five words: “Go home to your wife.”
“You’re not calling the police?”
“I’m not, because
you’re
going to.” I handed over McCarthy’s card. “Talk to this man–tell him what you told me, but, please, make sure you talk to your wife first.”
“I
had
to do it,” he whispered.
“Give me the gun.”
He slid it across the coffee table. “I was never going to hurt you.”
“I know. Still, best not mention the gun.”
I took it from him and placed it carefully in the desk drawer next to Kate’s and Mrs Thomson’s twinkling silver .7 mini one. I had some serious ammunition going on.
“I’ll tell the police to expect your call. In the meantime, leave the car and catch a flight. Go home to your wife.”
He looked hopeful for a second and I could barely bring myself to look in his face. I didn’t want him to know what I was thinking–how hard it was going to be.
I was almost sad to see him go. I didn’t tell Tom Roberts about the affair between my sister and my husband. At least let one man have an honourable opinion of him–it felt the right thing to do.
Harrison was a bad husband but he was a good doctor, an exceptional one. He was an adulterer not a murderer.
With Tom Roberts walking out my front door to face whatever came next, I had to do the same. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jim, but all at once I had McCarthy figured out: married–with a capital M. And with that life looked less complicated.
I didn’t, I
wouldn’t
, give into temptation but I could have; damn I could have thrown myself at McCarthy’s feet in a heartbeat. Perhaps, over time, this would help me to understand what my sister did. No one is perfect–not even Gee. Definitely not me.
Chapter Forty Four
Head Over Heart
Jim handed in his notice. This was the big upset when I returned to the office, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming. He’d outstayed
Corset
–and me.
I said, “You’ve made your mind up?”
He nodded. “The music doesn’t work out, I’ll be back.”
“It’s already working out.”
“You’ve got it covered at
Corset
. You’ve won over Shaw–nothing short of a miracle.”
I faltered. “I’m not sure.”
We were in the office and it had gone 11pm. Sometimes someone from the newspaper would drift through the office but mostly it was just us. Jim dug out a bottle of single malt from under his desk. “One for the road.”
I raised my glass. “Here’s to Malt–sell-out gigs. The bright lights of London.”
He grinned and leaned back in his chair, comfortable. “Hey, did I ever tell you my mother was a back-up singer for the Eurythmics?”