Black Widow (37 page)

‘No. I was just wondering about family background.'

‘And thereby hangs a tale. My mum is originally from Birmingham. She got pregnant after a one-night stand and her family pretty much disowned her. She decided that suited her fine and moved about as far away as she could, raised me here on her own. I know how hard it was for her, and she'd hate to think of me ending up in the same situation.'

‘It doesn't sound like she'd judge you harshly for it.'

‘I know, but I would feel like I'd let her down.'

‘My sister was almost a full cycle late once. More than once, in fact. Same kind of thing: she had a little accident, with a married man too. She later reckoned it was actually the stress of worrying about being pregnant that was messing with her body. Apparently when you're under extreme strain, your uterus can suspend normal service.'

‘So you're saying the more I worry, the later my period is likely to be?'

‘Quite possibly, yeah. But the important thing is that the reason for the lateness doesn't have to be pregnancy.'

‘Though acting hormonal by bursting into tears probably isn't a good sign.'

‘Same rules apply. The cause is as likely to be worry as it is pregnancy.'

She let it sink in, a comforting thought flowing through her like the buzz from that first gulp of white wine.

‘Thanks. That helps. Though just as an aside, if you're going to be a polisman in Scotland, you should probably avoid ever saying “same rules apply”.'

‘Why?'

‘Never mind. I feel better now. A million times better than I would have thought possible two minutes ago, anyway.'

‘It's nice to be actually of some use to a woman for a change.'

‘Ooh, now that sounds like a harsh judgement. Are we talking about your previous relationship here?'

Rodriguez glanced away, an awkward wee smile on his face, like he didn't want to go there but had to be polite about it. Fair enough. Just because she had opened up to him didn't mean he had to reciprocate, or that he should feel he could trust her.

‘Hey, do you know where that photo is,' she asked him. ‘The one Jager gave us of her and her husband?'

‘Sure. It's in the case folder back inside.'

‘Can you nip in and get it?'

‘Why?'

‘Because fuck Bill Ellis, that's why. I'm going to take another pass at Jager, and returning the picture can be my excuse: routine follow-up visit, nothing to raise her suspicions. Or are you not going to “reinforce my daft notion”?'

Rodriguez opened the door of the patrol car.

‘Speaking as a frustrated CID wannabe, I'll be right back.'

I don't think anybody would ever describe me as a sexually wanton individual. I had certainly never behaved like that with anyone else. Who knows how far it would have gone in that cramped little room, yards along the corridor from the nurses' station, if his bleep hadn't gone off.

We didn't speak as he composed himself and reached for the phone to find out who was paging him. I don't think either of us knew quite what to say. It didn't feel like something we had been doing so much as something that had overwhelmed us.

I headed for home, feeling light-headed to the point of faint. It was around two thirty as I undressed and climbed into bed alongside my already sleeping husband. I was jangling with adrenaline and other hormones, and I knew there was so little chance of sleep that I might as well be back in theatre all night.

I had never been unfaithful, in any of my relationships. I wasn't used to deceit; wasn't used to wanting someone else. I didn't know yet what I felt for Calum, but I was sure what I felt for Peter. It had come out in that on-call room: something I was able to tell another person but had been previously unable to admit to myself.

It's not merely that I think our marriage is finished: it's that I don't think it was ever real in the first place.

I thought back to the man I fell for. Where did he go? My mind kept returning to my irrational suspicions that he had always known I was the detested Bladebitch, and his interest in me had stemmed from that. I knew this still sounded crazy: who would be so hell-bent on payback over some internet postings that they would make it their whole life to punish the perpetrator? But I couldn't escape the notion that the Peter I had met and married was a fiction. In which case this meant I was lying in bed every night with an impostor, and anyone prepared to engage in that level of deceit had to mean me harm.

I must have nodded off eventually, and as my bleep didn't go off, I slept so long that Peter was awake before me. He was sitting up in bed fiddling with his mobile when I came round.

He scrutinised me as I blinked into consciousness.

‘So, anything exciting happen last night?' he asked, his gaze intent and curious.

It took me a bleary moment to recall the events of the previous evening, but when I hit the highlights I felt my cheeks flush and I sharpened up fast. I suddenly feared he knew something about last night; that he could somehow see through me. I knew this was ridiculous and that he was only making conversation by enquiring as to whether some dramatic case had kept me at the hospital, but the impact of my initial fright was already manifest.

I realised I would have to get better at lying. I intended to get practice. I intended to give myself reason to lie more often.

I had no lists the next day, the rota allocating me two non-clinical admin sessions, so I didn't need to go into the hospital. This was for the best, as it was the last place I wanted to speak to Calum. I did desperately want to speak to him though, and I guessed he would feel the same. We couldn't let this hang.

I knew I could be wrong, however. He might be freaked and mortified by what had happened, and in need of a few days' distance before he could possibly face me. Ordinarily I might have let this kind of worry tether me, but that evening, when Peter rang to say he'd be home late, I acted immediately.

In the recent past I'd have consumed myself with wondering what Peter was really up to; instead I didn't care. I was too occupied by plans of my own.

I got Calum's mobile number from switchboard at the hospital.

‘Are you at home?'

‘Not long in, yes,' he replied cautiously. ‘Why?'

‘I need to talk.
We
need to talk.'

‘I can meet you in town whenever. I'm just out the shower, so I'll throw some clothes on. Name a pub.'

Yes, I was picturing him. And why would he offer that detail, if he didn't want me to. I think we understood each other.

‘No, I'll come to you. This is delicate and I don't want to risk being seen by prying eyes.'

It sounded like a plausible reason for coming to his flat. Much like there was no subtext to him saying he was just out of the shower.

I've never had sex like I did with Calum that night. I frightened myself. It reminded me of whatever Peter had been doing to me when we had sex after his mother's funeral. I was lost, consumed by a mix of lust, abandon and ecstasy, but there was rage, hatred and violence in it too. However, unlike what I felt when Peter was doing it to me – used and alienated from whatever was going on in his head – Calum was as consumed by it as I was.

After sex like that, when the passion is spent and the clouding mists of need and desire have cleared, that's when there comes shame, embarrassment, regret. I felt none of these things. I felt this had been my right. I felt this
was
right.

We found something in each other. We
unleashed
something in each other.

We did it in my office –
in my office
– late on a Friday afternoon when there were still people working nearby. We started kissing, pressing into each other as we stood next to my desk. I could feel his erection through his trousers, pushing against my stomach. I reached inside his waistband and—

‘Jesus. You can't do that here.'

‘Never tell me what I can't do.'

Giggling, I made him shag me at my desk, next to the computer that had been the occasion of my first meeting Peter. We heard voices in the corridor, which spooked Calum more than a little, but I made him do it: as much as you can, I insisted. I told him I wouldn't let him do this again if he didn't do it right there, right now. We both knew I didn't mean that, but it added something. My command, his compliance.

I had to bite my arm to keep the noise down as I came. I came so intensely I wanted to scream down the building.

Does it need to be said how un-me this all was? I guess not. After what Peter had duplicitously brought out in me, I had learned to be analytical of my own behaviour.

Was I ambivalent about getting caught? Perhaps I was looking for a way to precipitate a blow-up, to bring things to a head because I couldn't prove any of Peter's deceptions. Perhaps I reckoned that if I had an affair, it would help bring our marriage crashing down. Was I just angry, just needy?

But what did it matter? Even if my reasons were wrong, I could never have believed the outcome would be so right. However I fell into this, it caused me to finally discover something that had been in my sights the whole time. And that is why I wasn't lying when I told you how that dreadful, fateful Friday was the day I first met the man who would change my life for ever.

It's just that the man concerned was not Peter.

Ali stopped the car right in front of Jager's cottage this time. She glanced towards the photograph Rodriguez was holding delicately in two hands and told him to pocket it. It was cover for why they were there, but they didn't need to simply walk up and hand it over.

There was a car in the drive that she didn't recognise from before: a black two-seater Porsche 911 with nineties plates. Jager drove a silver Audi A5, which was presumably in the garage.

As they stepped through the front gates a man emerged from the house, pulling on his jacket as he made for the Porsche. He was saying polite cheerios to Jager as she stood on the doorstep but there was something flushed about him that gave Ali the instinctive feeling that he was leaving in a hurry. This was compounded when Jager strode forward to engage them, as though distracting the cops while her visitor got away.

‘It's PC Kazmi, isn't it? And PC Sanchez, right?'

‘Rodriguez, ma'am.'

‘Sorry. What can I do for you?'

‘It's just a routine follow-up, Dr Jager,' Ali told her. ‘Do you mind if we come in? Or is this a bad time?'

‘No, not at all.'

She led them to the living room again. All the other doors in the hall were closed, but Ali could smell roast potatoes, pastry and something dark and rich, like a wine sauce, wafting from the kitchen. She doubted Diana was cooking for one.

‘Who was that?' she asked casually.

‘Oh, that was Calum. He's one of the surgical trainees. He popped in to ask how I was doing. All of my colleagues have been very supportive.'

Some more than others, Ali thought. The bloke who just left had smelled of shower-gel and aftershave. He was all scrubbed up as though for an evening out, but maybe it was an evening in that she and Rodriguez had interrupted.

They sat opposite her on a sofa, Rodriguez with his notepad out. He had the photo tucked underneath it, sitting on his left knee.

‘We want to bring you up to speed on our investigation,' she said, then went through a deliberately dull breakdown of procedure since the futile search-and-rescue operation. Jager nodded with stoic patience throughout, like this was some kind of mourning rite she was obliged to observe but wasn't feeling.

‘Obviously we're still fumbling in the dark for an explanation. And I'm sure the uncertainty's been a source of much difficulty for yourself. If it's not too painful, can you maybe give us some insight into your husband's state of mind in the days preceding the accident?'

‘Sure. He was stressed. That's the one thing there's no uncertainty about. He was under pressure from work, putting
himself
under pressure. He had his own company: it was a one-man show, but there were investors and he was always fretting about them. He was working extremely long hours. I was getting worried about him, to be honest; though in retrospect maybe not worried enough.'

‘How about your own relationship with him? Was he happy at home?'

‘When he
was
home, sure. When we actually saw each other and he wasn't exhausted, it was fine. His work was a major source of tension, though. That was the only thing we ever really argued about, if you could call it arguing. Neither of us was much good at confrontations.'

As Jager spoke, Rodriguez subtly drew Ali's attention to what he had written, lifting the notepad and thus bringing the photograph into view. It said: ‘Spot the difference.'

Ali glanced at the fireplace then back to the picture. In the photo, there was a large knife in a glass case sitting right in the centre of the mantelpiece. She couldn't remember whether she had seen it there on their last visit, but it definitely wasn't there now.

‘We've brought back your photograph,' Ali said. ‘Thank you for the use of it.'

‘No problem.'

Rodriguez stood up and walked a short few paces across the carpet to hand it to her.

‘Out of interest, what was the knife in the display case?' Rodriguez spoke with deliberately boyish curiosity. ‘Was it a surgical thing?'

‘It's a Liston knife. It was named after the nineteenth-century Scottish surgeon Robert Liston, whose proficiency with it was such that he could amputate a leg in two and a half minutes, and was said to have once amputated an arm in twenty-eight seconds.'

‘Sharp, then.'

‘Indeed. Given that anaesthetics at the time usually consisted of a stick to bite on and a bottle of whisky if you were lucky, the speed facilitated by this implement's sharpness was quite a mercy.'