'Anything you want to talk about?'
'Nothing I should burden you with.'
'Go on, I'm a good listener. Besides, after an experience like that we're a minority of two. We have to stick together.'
It would have been easy to bat her questions away, but there was something in her which made him feel like unburdening himself; a warmth, an understanding. He took a deep breath, surprised he even felt like talking about it. 'I had a girlfriend. Marianne Leedham. She was a graphic designer-magazine work, some book covers, that kind of thing. We met soon after I'd left university. I had a seedy flat in Battersea, just off Lavender Hill, and Marianne lived round the corner. We'd see each other in the local Spar or in the newsagents. You know how it is when you see someone and you know it's inevitable that sooner or later you're going to get together, even if you haven't spoken?' Ruth nodded, her eyes bright. 'I felt like that, and I could tell she did too. The local pub, the Beaufoy Arms, used to hire a boat to go along the Thames each year. It was an overnight thing, lots of Red Stripe, jerk pork and dancing, up to the Thames Barrier and then back again for dawn. I went with my mates and Marianne was there with hers. We both knew something was going to happen. Then just before sunrise we found ourselves on deck alone.' He smiled. 'Not by chance. We talked a little. We kissed a lot. It was like some stupid romantic film.'
Ruth watched his smile grow sad. 'What happened, Church?'
His sigh seemed like the essence of him rushing out. 'It was all a blur after that. We saw each other, moved in together. You know, people think I'm lying when I say this, but we never argued. Not once. It was just the best. It was so serious for both of us we never even thought about getting married, but Marianne's mum was getting a bit antsy, as they do, so we started muttering about getting engaged. Everything was fine, and then-' His voice drifted away; the words felt like heavy stones at the back of his throat, but somehow he forced them out. 'Two years ago, it was. I'd been out for the night. When I came back the flat was so silent, I knew there was something wrong. Marianne always had some kind of music on. And there was this odd smell. To this day I don't know what it was. I called out for her-there was nowhere else she could have been at that time of night-and my heart started beating like it was going to explode. I knew, you see. I knew. I found her face down in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. She'd slashed her wrists.'
'Oh, God, I'm sorry,' Ruth said in dismay. 'I shouldn't have pried.'
'Don't worry, it's okay. It doesn't hurt me to think about her any more. I've got over all that grief thing, although sometimes I feel a little …' His voice trailed off, but her smile told him she understood what he was trying to say. 'It's how she died that I can't cope with. There hasn't been a single day gone by since then when I haven't tried to make sense of it. There was no reason for it. She hadn't been depressed. We'd never, ever argued. As far as I was concerned, everything in our lives was perfect. Can you imagine what that's like? To discover your partner had this whole secret world of despair that you never knew existed? Enough despair to kill herself. How could I have been so wrapped up in myself not to have even the slightest inkling?' He couldn't find the words to tell her what it was that had soured his life since that night: not grief, but guilt; the only possible explanation was that he, in some way, was complicit.
But Ruth seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. She leaned across the table and said softly, 'There could be a hundred and one explanations. A sudden chemical inbalance in her brain-'
'I've been through them all. I've weighed it up and turned it inside out and investigated every possibility, so much that I can't think of anything else. To answer your original question, that's why I always seem so preoccupied. Nothing else seems important beside that.'
'I'm sorry-
'No, I'm sorry. It's selfish of me to be so wrapped up in myself. We've all got problems.' He looked out into the puddled street. Briefly he considered telling Ruth about Marianne's appearance outside his home, but to give voice to it would mean he would have to face up to the reality of the experience and everything that came with it; besides, it was too close to his heart right now. 'I wish I could put it all behind me, but there are so many things about it that don't make sense. Only hours before, she'd been making plans for the wedding.' Church grew silent as the waitress came over to pour more coffee; it broke his introspective mood and when she left it was obvious he didn't want to talk about it any more. 'This is a good lunch. Thanks.'
Ruth smiled affectionately. 'My philosophy is eat yourself out of a crisis.'
'Yet you stay so thin!' he said theatrically. They laughed together, but gradually the conversation turned to what they had seen beneath the bridge, as they had known it would. 'So whose face lies behind the Devil?' he asked.
Ruth's expression darkened. 'I don't know. Why should our reactions in the trance have been so extreme, and identical?' Church understood her confusion. 'But it's strange. For the first time in months, I feel like I've got some kind of direction. I really want to keep going until we get to the heart of it.'
Church was surprised to realise he felt the same way. 'How ironic can you get? It takes a brutal murder to give us some purpose in life.'
'Of course, there's also the danger that if we let it drop now that awful memory will start its destabilisation again, and I could really do without wrecking my career at this stage in my life.' She called for the bill and paid it with a gold Amex.
'So where do we go from here?' Church asked.
Ruth smiled. 'Elementary, my dear Watson.'
Maurice Gibbons had lived in a three-storey terrace in a tree-lined avenue; not too imposing, but certainly comfortable; it looked like it could have done with a lick of paint and a touch of repointing here and there. The lights were already ablaze in the twilight as Church and Ruth opened the front gate and walked up to the door, shivering from the chill; the night was going to be icy. They'd spent the afternoon quietly at Ruth's flat, drinking coffee, talking about comfortingly bland topics, but now they were both feeling apprehensive. Susan Gibbons was a quiet woman who looked older than her years. Her grief still lay heavy on her, evident in the puffiness of her eyes, her pallor and her timidity as she led them into the lounge where condolence cards still gathered dust on the mantelpiece. She accepted at face value Ruth's statement that they were looking into her husband's murder and sat perched on an armchair listening to their questions with a blankness which Church found unnerving, if only because he recognised something of himself in her.
'I know you've probably been through all this before, Mrs. Gibbons, but we have to go over old ground in case there's anything we've missed,' Ruth began.
Mrs. Gibbons smiled without a hint of lightness or humour. 'I understand.'
'Your husband had no enemies?'
'None at all. Maurice wasn't what you would call a passionate man. He enjoyed his job and he did it well, but he didn't really have any ambition to move on, and everyone recognised that and accepted it. No one felt threatened by him.' Her hands clutched at each other in her lap every time she mentioned her husband's name.
'I know he told you he was going to the pub. Do you have any idea how or why he ended up south of the river?'
'No.'
A look of panic crossed her face, and Church moved quickly to change the subject. 'Had your husband been acting any differently in the days or weeks leading up to his death?'
There was a long pause when Mrs. Gibbons appeared to have drifted off into a reverie, but then she said quietly, 'Now that you mention it, Maurice was a little … skittish, perhaps. He was jumping at the slightest thing.'
'He was frightened of something?' Church pressed.
'Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Not frightened, just … uneasy.' She let out a deep sigh that seemed to fill the room. 'He went to church on the Sunday before he passed on. That was so unlike Maurice. Do you think he might have sensed something, wanted to make his peace with God?'
'Perhaps he did,' Ruth said soothingly. Church was impressed with her manner; her caring was from the heart, and he could see Mrs. Gibbons being visibly calmed.
'Would you like to see his room?' Mrs. Gibbons asked. 'Maurice had so many interests and he had a room where he could be alone to think and read. That's where he kept all his things. You might find something of interest there. Lord knows, there's nothing I can tell you.'
She led them up two flights to a little box room lit by a bare bulb. It was quite tidy, uncluttered by any kind of decoration; just a cheap desk and chair, a filing cabinet and a bookshelf. A pair of plaid slippers were tucked in the
