A Poison Tree (Time, Blood and Karma Book 3) (3 page)

I stacked some plates in a cupboard while Claire wiped around the worktops.

“And what type is that, exactly.”

“He’s a
man
, darling.”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“Present company excepted, but most men are selfish bastards. I’m lucky I got a good one.”

“Indeed you are.”

It was after 2.00am when I could bear
the tossing and turning no longer. I put on my dressing gown and went downstairs to the study. I thought perhaps sleep would come if I could release the pressure inside my head and set free the intrusive and repetitive sounds.

I sat at my desk, took up a pen and wrote.

I love to watch you sleeping, Claire. I love it when the night sky is cloudless and the moonlight falls across the graceful curve of your neck. Sometimes I brush away your long hair so I can look at the paleness, the opacity of your skin, and touch you gently with my lips.

You smile when you sleep. Have I ever told you that? I’m sure I must have. It is a smile of innocence, of inner beauty.

Even after twenty years together, I still have an ache in my heart when I look at you. Despite the
difficulties of recent years, nothing has really changed between us, has it? I know for my part that there has never been anyone who can touch me so to the core the way you do. And I do not believe anyone would ever be able to take your place, should I lose you.

I hope I don’t have to lose you.

I read the words two or three times, then I crumpled the paper into a ball and dropped it into the bin.

It is so difficult now to remember the precise order in which things happened. How
life unravelled. The times, the dates.

There are occasions when I muse on Time’s Arrow. Does it always move in the same direction? Or do our minds reassemble events into a sequence that makes sense,
one that gives us some kind of life narrative to hold onto? For it is only if we perceive time as moving in a single direction that the concept of cause and effect makes any sense. Without this structure our actions would carry no moral significance. There would be no consequences, for consequences must follow an event, not precede it.

Without diurnal predictability we would have no gravity to our lives. Everything would float. The Hindu and Buddhist concepts of
karma
– action and its resultant impacts – would be shattered. All human relationships would fracture under the stress. To exist, we need to repeat. We need the comfort of familiarity, even if we may complain on occasion of the boredom of it all.

Time, blood and karma. Unless there is interconnectivity between the three, there is nothing to grasp.
We are lost.

These fragments I have shored against my ruins
.

T S Eliot knew a thing or two
.

Why then I
le fit you

“Mark, we need to talk.”

“I know, David,” said the general manager of our Coventry
showroom. “I’ve been expecting this discussion.”

Mark
Standish bowed his head forward and rubbed his hands together in a slow, deliberate fashion. He looked as dapper as he always did, but there was something rumpled about his spirit.

“You were one of our best salesmen, but recently it seems like you’ve lost all motivation. What’s going on? Are you having trouble adjusting to the new role or is it family issues, or what? Talk to me.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know what it is. All my energy seems to have disappeared. I went to see my doctor the other day for a blood test. He thought it might be some viral thing.”

“And?”

“I haven’t had the test results back yet. They should be back tomorrow or the day after.”

“I see.”

“I’ll turn this around, David, I promise. I realise I was not your first choice for this job, but I will show you I can do it.”

I looked at his eager face.
His words had a trace of bitterness about them, but not enough for me to challenge him on them. There was something frightened about his demeanour, and I didn’t think it was my presence that was causing it. I doubted Mark was being completely transparent with me – his lack of eye contact testified to that – but there seemed little point in pursuing the matter further at present.

“You need to talk to your team, Mark. They’re concerned about you. Harry even phoned me.”

“I will.”

“And let me know the results of your tests. If you need to take some time off, we’ll organise something. We can be discreet about it. Just talk to me
, for Christ’s sake.”

I went into the main showroom in search of Harry Dempsey. It was quiet and I found him in one of the side offices flicking through the sports pages of
the
Sun
. He was wearing one of his trademark check jackets which gave him the air of a bookie’s runner. This was rather appropriate considering the time and money he spent in betting shops.

“Have you
talked to Mark?” he asked without preamble.

“Yes.”

“I’m not trying to sabotage him, you know, David. I don’t play politics. I’m just concerned.” His slight lisp made it sound like
thabotage
.

“
I know. He needs your support, Harry.”

Since Mark had picked up the general manager’s job, Harry’s attitude to me had cooled. He had believed he was in pol
e position to take over as the boss on George’s retirement, and I guess I had encouraged this belief.  I suspected he had not yet forgiven me for what must have been a big blow to his ego. It was to his credit that at least in public he was showing solidarity with management.

Harry examined the oversize gold ring on his left hand.
“Did he tell you he’s moved out? He and Janine have separated.”

Theparated
.

“No, he didn’t. Did he tell you?”

“No. I heard through a mutual friend. He hasn’t mentioned a thing to anyone here. I’ve kept quiet about it. No good would come from everyone here talking about the boss’ private life. I thought I’d better tell you, though.”

Hathen’t
. Botheth
. I have to stop fixating on his
thpeech
impediment.

We had a cordial – if slightly strained – exchange
. Some of the old Harry reasserted itself towards the end and he offered me a couple of betting tips before I took my leave.

As I made my way out of the main door
, I glanced at one of the large showroom mirrors and caught sight of Mark watching me go. His look was the sort you would give an enemy when you think he can’t see you.

But perhaps that was just my guilty conscience giving me a poke.

I reached into my study bin and lifted out a
scrunched-up ball of writing paper. I smoothed it out on the desktop. It read:

Claire

These days I find it hard to speak to you and I know you find it hard to speak to me
– about the things that matter anyway. On the surface we are happy, but there is a deep malaise burrowing its way into us. And it has been this way for a couple of years now. We need to talk, but I don’t know how to begin.

I love you very much and I don’t want to lose you.

This I know I have told you, hundreds of times. But when I have spoken in the past, what I had in mind was losing you to accident or illness, not to some other cause. I never imagined you running off with someone else or my killing you.

I tapped my pen on the desk a few times. Then I tore up the paper until not a word was readable.

This is not working.

I need to be more organised or I will never sort this out.

Deep breath.
Recommence. Expound.

3

DAVID

The Monday following my trip to the Coventry showroom found me in my office having a lunchtime sandwich and drinking my third coffee of the day. I was taking a break from reviewing the pricing of a proposal to one of our customers, with whom I had a meeting that afternoon. Leicester Wheels Auto Limited was not a major client, but they did buy four or five cars a year from us and the owner, Mat Hoggard, was a personal friend of mine whom I’d met through the local Chamber of Commerce. So I wanted to make sure the proposal was right.

A copy of
Madame Bovary
was open on my desk. Like most of my reading it had been recommended to me by my sister-in-law, Anna. Years before she had taken it upon herself to give me a literary education, and to my surprise I had become a voracious consumer of Russian and European novels, philosophical works and, God help me, poetry. If my former rugby-playing friends had been aware of my guilty weakness for books, they would without doubt have felt inclined to squeeze my privates in the scrum by way of a warning. At least my PA was diplomatic enough not to mention it when she found this sort of material concealed among my paperwork. It must be like finding your boss is downloading porn. Only worse.

Outside my office window the depressing vista of Frog Island stretched into the middle distance.
Unlike our Leicester showroom, our HQ was not in one of the more fashionable areas of the city. Like many gold mines, our profitable business concealed itself behind a corporate façade of dirt. The God of Fiscal Prudence had sited us in a road comprising old red brick buildings many of which – like ours – sported small factory windows, the ground floor ones covered with security grills. Sad, tired hoardings advertising insurance and discount retailers clustered around the dusty structures. Some old chimneys, relics of a bygone age of manufacturing, still peppered the skyline.

Behold
ye the land of cheap exhausts, tyre-changing ramps, blackened welding shops, and undercapitalised garages mutating slowly into car washes.

Directly opposite us was a shop whose sign declared
We Won’t Be Beaten on Price
. It was boarded up. Obviously something else had beaten them. Life, maybe.

Ah, Leicester,
mon amour
.

My cell
phone rang. Katie had put an annoying ringtone on it which sounded a bit like ‘The Birdie Song’, and which I had been unable to change thus far.

I picked it up.
It was not a number I recognised.

“David Braddock.”

The phone hissed for a couple of seconds and then a robotic voice said, “Hello, David.”

“Who is this?”

“A friend.”

“A friend wouldn’t talk through a voice synthesiser.”

There was a chuckle at the other end of the phone.

“A friend,” the voice repeated.

“Whoever you are, I don’t know how you got this number but I’m hanging up now.”

“Not a good idea, David.”

I hit the off button. If this was a practical joke, the caller would in likelihood ring back and talk to me properly. Or so I reasoned. I had had a couple of crank calls before – in business this was an occupational hazard – but never one that deployed technology to disguise the voice.

The phone rang again.

I pressed the answer button but said nothing.

“Your wife, Claire,” the voice said, then paused.

I still said nothing.

“Unfaithful. Unfaithful Claire. You might want to look into it.”

“Fuck off, whoever this is.”

“Cheating wife. Not good. I am your friend, David. You c
an bet money on it.”

The caller hung up.

I called back the number but got a message that the phone was switched off.

At that moment,
Sandra put her head around my door.

“Would you like another coffee, David?”

She looked at me with concern.

“Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m OK. It feels a bit stuffy in here. I’m just going out for some fresh air for ten minutes.”

“Fresh air around here? You’ll be lucky.”

I left the office and walked the hundred metres to the nearest convenience store, where I did something I hadn’t done in fifteen years.

I bought a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and smoked one.

Over the next few days I rang the cell number of my mysterious caller at various times of the day and night. It was always the same message:
phone switched off.  I surmised the number was on a Pay-As-You-Go SIM card, a more convenient option than a public phone for weirdoes and stalkers. Untraceable. Cheap. The weapon of choice for the malicious of spirit.

I was beginning to dismiss the episode as a crank occurrence. The pack of Marlboros sitting in my desk drawer was still only missing one cigarette.

Then the letter arrived.

It was delivered to the office and labelled
Strictly Private and Confidential, Only for the Attention of David Braddock, CEO
.

Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper which read

CLAIRE BRADDOCK IS AN UNFAITHFUL BITCH. SHE IS PLAYING YOU.

The words
were made of letters cut from newspapers – tabloid ones by the looks of them – and glued onto the paper. The paper itself was an unremarkable sheet of A4 and the envelope was similarly nondescript. I looked for further clues. The address was on a sticky label, typed with word processing software. The postmark was Leicester.

I considered calling an old public school chum of mine who
was in the police force and with whom I was still in touch. There may be fingerprint or DNA evidence on the envelope and the letter. The perpetrator may have licked the stamp or the gummed flap of the envelope.

I dismissed the idea
immediately.

Bringing in the police would
in all probability make the matter public. Furthermore, the envelope would have been handled by at least two people in my office, including Sandra. The Boys in Blue would therefore want to take fingerprints from all the office staff. And I would have to tell Claire what was going on …

No.

I needed to reason this out for myself. Forget the physical paper evidence. There was little I could glean from that. My focus should be on the motive of the letter-writer.

Someone hated me enough to take all this trouble
to make me feel bad. All I had to do was figure out who. Either that, or do the sensible thing and ignore the whole charade.

I put the letter in a plastic wallet and locked it away for
possible future study. A calm head was needed and my head was far from calm.

I
took the Marlboros from the drawer and told Sandra I was going out for a while.

Claire was late home that evening. She’d been at a business dinner for Jael Construction, the company where she was the Chief Finance Officer.

“Sorry I’m so late, darling,” she said.

“Did you get carried away discussing the latest International Financial Reporting Standards with the other bean counters? I can see how the time would fly by.”

She kissed me on the forehead before looking at me
with a quizzical expression.

“Have you been
smoking?” she asked. “You smell of smoke.”

“I nipped out to
the Bell for a pint earlier. I sat outside and got chatting to some guy who was chain-smoking. I’d guess it’s his cigarettes you can smell.”

“You sat outside in this weather? You must be mad.”

“I am mad. You know that.”

“Has Katie done her
business studies homework?”

“Yes
, all done. I could hear Puff Daddy coming through the floor a while back, but it’s gone quiet now. I haven’t checked on her, but she’s probably asleep.” I consulted my watch. “Christ, it’s twelve thirty. You
are
late.”

“Do you want a drink before we turn in?”

“No, I’m good.”

Claire examined me closely.
“Are you all right, David? You seem a bit funny.”

“Only a
bit
funny? I must be losing my touch. I used to be hilarious.”

“
I’m serious.”

I gave a deep sigh to make the lie more convincing.
“Bad day at work. We almost lost a big contract at the Coventry branch. I had to get involved.”

“Is there still a problem with Mark? You said something a week or so back about him having a health problem?”

“No, he’s OK. His blood tests were fine. I’m not sure what the problem is. Maybe it’s just stress.”

“He doesn’t have your resilience, my darling.”

“Or my happy home life, eh?”

“Obviously not.
He doesn’t have me.”

“This is the manuscript I wanted you to have a look at,” said Anna.

She handed me a sheaf of papers.

“It doesn’t look like a very long book,” I replied.

“I haven’t given you the whole
book, silly, just the opening chapters. Do you want a cappuccino?”

“Well, they’ll throw us out of the coffee shop if we don’t order
something soon. I still don’t see why you want me to read it, though. You’re the literary agent.”

“
I wanted a second opinion before I talk to my colleagues. You have a good eye. Especially since I’ve been supervising your education in literary matters.”

“You mean I have the same tastes in writing as you do, since you’ve brainwashed me.”

“Now don’t spoil it. It’s not often I get to have a private chat with my brother-in-law these days. Shut up. I’ll get our coffees and maybe a couple of naughty cakes.”

While she went to the counter, I
looked at the first pages of
Quiet Betrayal
.

April is not the cruellest month, Eliot got it wrong. For me it is June.

June was the month I found out. What I found out was that I was a – and even now the quaintness of the word makes me
grin – cuckold. Cuck-old. A ridiculous word for a ridiculous situation, is it not? Particularly given that the man in question is almost old enough to be Emma’s father. Or mine, for that matter.

My finding out was not the work of a moment. I did not stumble on them in an act of passion, did not intercept some love missive,
was not informed of the affair by the other man’s distraught wife. Neither was I told by my own wife. Rather it was a slow dawning, an accretion of circumstances, of small details which, finally I could not ignore. I realise now, of course, that I had been ignoring the signs, perhaps deliberately or perhaps in genuine innocence. But the affair had been going on for quite some time, over a year. In all that time Emma had protested their friendship was nothing more than that, that they were close because they were working together, that others’ voiced suspicions were ‘disgusting’ given Aidan’s age.

So I suppressed any half-formed doubts, put aside any unreasonable jealousy and thought no more of it, for a while.

Their closeness was, however, very public. At social gatherings, they were often together, as would befit work comrades. Laughing, flirting and often excluding others from their close circle, they made a sparking couple, and at times I felt glances of sympathy in my direction from our more worldly acquaintances. To these I paid no attention. These people did not understand my wife as I did. She was unusual, outgoing and bubbly, and she loved me. I was the man she came home to after her days and evenings out. And we slept together naked, as we had done for twenty years.

Such was the nature of my blindness.

Anna had returned with the drinks. There was a degree of intensity in her look. And perhaps something more.

“What do you think?”

“Speaking as a car salesman, I’d say the writing is a bit flowery and overdone. Does he keep this up for the whole novel?”

“It’s not a novel,” she replied. “It’s a memoir.”

“Anyone I know?”

“No. Do you think Claire would like it?”

I took a sip of coffee.
“She’s not big on romance these days, Anna.”

Anna put a hand on my arm.

“Not many people are, David,” she said.