Marina sighed. Words were tumbling through her brain. She grasped for them, clutching them, hoped she settled on the right ones. ‘I’m… things are going all right. Since we last… since our… since the last time I came to see you. All right.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah.’
She sighed again and a cloud covered the sun. The summer brightness was leached from the walls as they became grey and bleak and the room became what it was – an institutionalised, dying room.
‘No,’ she said, as if the change in the light had also stripped away her false brightness, leaving just a grim honesty. ‘Things are not all right. I mean, Phil and I are good. You know, good. We’ve got the new baby who’s just gorgeous, and the new house. So that’s all positive. That’s good. But there’s… you know. The other stuff.’
She waited for the sunlight to return. It didn’t. She went on.
‘The fear. That’s what they never tell you about. The fear. You’ve got this tiny little infant, this… human life…’ She clasped her hands, looked down at them as if they held her invisible daughter. ‘And you’ve got to, you’ve got to look after her. You’re responsible for her. You’ve given her life, now you have to help her to live.’
She unclasped her hands. Looked up. Back at him.
‘Sorry. You don’t need to hear that. I’m sure.’ Another sigh. ‘Because there’s all the other stuff too. All of… this.’ The words were starting to tumble out now. This was what she had wanted to say. Came here to say. ‘I can’t… can’t… enjoy it. Any of it. There’s this shadow. This… spectre at the feast, elephant in the room. Call it what you like, you know what I mean. And sometimes I forget, and I’m happy for a moment. Just a moment. And I can relax. And laugh. And then I remember. And it starts again. And I just…’ Her hands were out in front of her, fingers twisted, as if grasping in the air for an invisible, intangible solution. Her voice dropped. ‘Sometimes I don’t think it’ll ever change. I think that this is it. This is the way it’ll always be.’
She looked round. The sunlight had returned and with it warmth, but Marina didn’t notice. To her, it seemed suddenly cold. Not light, but dark.
‘And… I can’t live with that.’
She stopped talking. She waited for a reply. None came. Took his silence as listening, as encouragement to keep talking.
‘It’s my fault. I know that. Mine. And…’ Her hands started grasping once more, fingers wriggling as if to be free. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know what to do…’
She paused, looked down at her hands once more.
‘I just feel so… guilty… And I am. It’s my fault. Everything that happened, everything that went wrong. My fault. But I don’t know what to do for the best. I need… I want this hurt to stop. I need to know what to do for the best…’
The tears came, as they always did at this time. She bent her head forward, reached out. Took his hand. He let her. She sat like that until it was time for her to leave.
She wiped her cheeks, took a tissue from her bag, dabbed her eyes, blew her nose. ‘I’ll be… I’ll be back soon. Thanks. For listening.’
She opened her mouth as if to speak once more, closed it again, her thoughts unvoiced, her words unspoken. She shook her head, placed the sunglasses over her eyes, turned, left the room.
‘Ms Esposito…’ A voice down the corridor. Footsteps accompanying it.
Marina stopped, turned. A nursing official was making her way towards her. She knew the woman, didn’t have anything against her, but still felt an irrational irritation bordering on anger at the sight of her. Marina waited until she was level. She looked at her. Made no attempt to remove her sunglasses.
The nursing official looked at the door Marina had just come out of. ‘How was…’
Marina took a deep breath, expelled it. Said nothing. She was glad the nurse couldn’t see her eyes.
The woman’s voice dropped. ‘I don’t mean to… you’ve been coming here for quite some time now. Longer than we would normally allow.’
‘I know.’ Marina’s voice was like old, rusted gears.
‘You have to… I’ll be blunt. This situation can’t continue. You must reach a decision. Very soon.’
Marina nodded, not trusting her voice this time.
‘If you’d like to, we can talk-’
‘No. No. I’ll… I’ll do it.’
The nurse looked relieved. ‘If you’re sure. But we’ll-’
Marina turned away. ‘I know. I have to go. I have to pick up my daughter.’ Her voice caught on the words.
She hurried down the corridor and out of the building. The sunlight hit her but didn’t reach her. Without looking back, she hurried away.
To pick up Josephina.
To make her decision.
To try and get on with her life.
5
‘So… is that it, then?’
‘Nearly.’ DC Anni Hepburn glanced down at her notes. ‘Just a couple of things. Can you just take me through it again from waking up, check there’s nothing I’ve missed…’
Suzanne Perry sat opposite her on the sofa in the living room of her apartment. She was still dressed in the T- shirt she had slept in, a dressing gown over it, pulled tight round her body. The mug of coffee she was holding was down to cold dregs. She swirled the gritty liquid around, her eyes following its progress, clamped to the mug as if scared to look anywhere else. She sighed.
‘But I’ve already…’
‘Please. Just once more.’ Anni’s voice sounded compassionate, tender yet laced with steel, showing she was used to having her requests carried out. It wasn’t something she had consciously worked on, just a skill that had naturally evolved with the job until it was an everyday part of her working identity.
Suzanne’s eyes slowly closed, her head lolling forward. Then she gave a start, her eyes wide and staring, darting round the room as if searching for anything – or anyone – hidden in the shadows. Anni caught the look, tried to reassure her.
‘It’s OK. Just me here.’
A two-person CSI team had painstakingly examined Suzanne’s bedroom, hallway and any potential entrances and exits for possible clues to the identity of her supposed intruder. From the tone of their voices and the expressions on their faces, they didn’t seem to regard those chances as high.
Anni checked her notes. Looked at the woman before her. Suzanne Perry was a speech therapist, working at the General Hospital, first job after graduating from Essex University. She was tall to medium height, with a good figure, dark hair and a slight Mediterranean cast to her skin. But it was her eyes that you noticed first, Anni thought. Beautiful, clear brown eyes. Even through all the tears and redness, the beauty of those eyes came through.
The flat was on the top floor of an old Edwardian house that had been divided up, on Maldon Road. Quite spacious with good period fittings, but with its primary coloured bookshelves, beanbags, throws and sub-Bridget Riley prints on the walls, it had been furnished predominantly in a kind of Ikea version of sixties pop art. But already there were other touches creeping in that suggested the garishness would soon go, to be replaced by a more mature style. Anni had seen this kind of thing before. The first tentative steps taken between student and wage earner. It felt like that had been her, not so long ago.
This case was a natural fit for Anni. A reactive DC working with the Major Incident Squad, she specialised in rape cases, abused children, had been trained for any situation where a male presence might be a barrier to uncovering the truth. This case was clearly one for her. Plus, it would keep her away from Phil, which, given the way things had been between them lately, wasn’t a bad thing.
‘So,’ Anni said, concentrating once more, ‘you woke up…’
‘No, before that.’ Suzanne Perry placed her coffee mug down on a nearby shelf but still kept her eyes on it as if it was a talisman giving out a protective aura. ‘While I was asleep… I thought, I felt… someone in the room with me.’
‘When you were asleep.’
