One Under (40 page)

Faraday was thinking hard about the times on the billing. He had them open on his lap now. Jenny couldn’t take her eyes off them.

‘He’d phone you during the day,’ he suggested.

‘Of course. We could talk, then.’

‘But you met as well? You saw each other?’

‘Occasionally, yes. But that could be difficult. I didn’t want the kids involved.’

‘In what, Mrs Mitchell?’

‘In this thing of ours. You make it sound sordid but it wasn’t. That was the whole point. It was something
apart
from all this. The last thing I wanted was Mark here - with me, with the kids, with all that.’

‘So you met somewhere else?’

She didn’t answer. Faraday put the question a different way.

‘You say he was obsessed. Obsessives need physical contact. They need to be close. He’d have suggested places you could meet.’ ‘Of course.’

‘Like his bedsit? The place in Salisbury Road?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you go there a lot?’

‘For a while, yes. To be honest, I didn’t like it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not? Because it made me feel dirty. Mark knew when people wouldn’t be around, like the other tenants. He’d try and make it easy for me. He was good that way, kind. But I still felt, you know,
dirty
. I was a married woman. I had a husband, kids, a wonderful life. What was I doing there, creeping up and down those horrible stairs? Trying to make sure nobody set eyes on me? Mark used to tell me to pretend. Make believe I was a secret agent or something. He’d talk about occupied territory all the time. He’d tell me I had to evade the enemy. Some of that was funny, and it could be exciting too, and romantic, but deep down I just knew it was wrong. Wrong was a word he had no time for. He said it was bourgeois.’

‘And did you agree?’

‘Women can be very feeble-minded sometimes, Mr Faraday. It was easy to agree with Mark, at least it was to begin with, because, you know, he was just all over you.’

All over you
. Faraday thought of Sally Spedding again.
He crowded you
, she’d said.
He wanted to shut out the daylight
.

‘Tell me something, Mrs Mitchell. Did you ever go swimming together?’

The question took her by surprise.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Once. Mark swam a lot. Salisbury Road is near the beach. He did it in all weathers, all seasons. That’s the kind of person he was. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t confront. I like swimming, too, but not in April.’

‘That’s when you went in with him?’

‘Yes. It was a lovely day, warm. He talked me into it and in the end I said yes. Christ knows why because it was freezing.’

‘Did you say yes to everything?’

‘I resent that question. Of course I didn’t.’

‘Let me put it another way, then. Would Mark have had grounds for thinking that you -’ Faraday shrugged. ‘- Were as keen as he was?’

‘Was I in love with him, do you mean?’

‘Whatever.’

‘Then the answer’s no. Of course we fucked. He was an attractive man. He had a lovely body. He was good in bed. I loved his mind, his conversation. But not for one moment would he ever have thought that, you know, it was for real.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I told him. Every time it came up, I spelled it out. I’m married, I used to tell him. I’ve got kids I adore. This is a fairy tale, you and me. It’s brilliant for both of us, it does it for both of us, but never
ever
mistake it for real life.’

‘He had nobody,’ Faraday pointed out.

‘You’re wrong. He had himself. I’ve never met anyone so self-sufficient.’

‘So why all the phone calls?’

‘Because he was in love with me and that was his way of showing it.’

‘Do you think he meant it? Believed it?’

‘I … ’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know. We all kid ourselves sometimes. Mark’s problem was that he was bloody good at it.’

‘You’re saying he’d talked himself into falling in love with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Obsessively?’

‘Yes.’

‘He wrote you letters?’

‘Yes.’

‘Lots of letters?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he had a name for you, a special name?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was it?’

‘He called me
Querida
.
Mia Querida
. It’s Spanish. It means loved one.’ She paused. ‘He was always speaking to me in Spanish. He made love in Spanish. If you want the truth, that was a turn-on too.’

Faraday nodded, glanced across at Barber.

‘What did you do with the letters?’ Barber wanted to know.

‘I burned them.’

‘When?’

‘When things got difficult. Mark had been away. He’d gone to the Caribbean.’

‘Do you know why? Why he went to the Caribbean? ’

‘No, except that he expected to make a lot of money. That was the problem, really. He … ’ she faltered ‘ … wanted to take me away.’

‘Where to?’

‘Spain. He said he had friends down there, in Andalucia. He said he could make the kind of money that could buy us a place up in the hills. It was a fantasy.’

‘You told him that?’

‘Yes. But he didn’t believe me. In fact I don’t think he even listened.’

‘Didn’t that bother you?’

‘Of course it did. And there was another thing too. There was someone else in Respect who’d, you know, cottoned on. They’d seen what was happening and they were nice enough to … I dunno … have a word.’

‘Daniel George,’ Barber said softly.

‘You’ve talked to him?’ She looked shocked.

‘Of course. And he said absolutely nothing. But he knew, didn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘He told me to be careful. He knew I was married. He knew Mark could be over the top. The word he used was intense. He thought I might be getting in too deep.’

‘And you listened?’

‘Of course I did. And in my heart I think I knew Danny was right. Mark never knew where to draw the line. In fact he never knew there was a line to draw. He lived in another world. Like I say, that can be attractive. To begin with.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Mark came back from Venezuela. He’d been phoning me lots from this island. That was a problem too, because he was hopeless with the time difference.’

‘Your husband found out?’

‘No, thank God. But it was close, sometimes.’

‘No suspicions?’

‘No. He’s a busy man, Andy. And like most men he sees what he wants to see.’ She ducked her head a moment and buried it in her son’s tummy. Milo squealed with delight.

‘So Mark came back from Venezuela?’

‘That’s right. And I told him it was all over. Finished.’

‘He accepted that?’

‘No. But then I knew he wouldn’t, not to begin with. He kept phoning and phoning. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. I tried blocking his calls. I even thought of changing mobiles.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Because … ’ She looked Barber in the eye. ‘You want the truth? Because he threatened to come round if I did that.’

‘Come round here?’

‘Yes. In the evening. When Andy was in. And so I kept the mobile, and I even answered the odd call. He said it was his lifeline. He told me those calls kept him going.’

‘Did he threaten suicide at all?’ It was Faraday this time.

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘Not once. Mark wasn’t like that. He could be dramatic, of course he could. And Danny was right, he was always intense. But he was never, you know, pathetic.’

Faraday nodded. Duley’s calls to Jenny’s number had slowly tailed off through June. Then, towards the end of the month, they’d talked again.

‘The twenty-eighth of June.’ Faraday glanced down at the billing. ‘He phoned you. The call lasted fifteen minutes. What was that about?’

‘He wanted to meet me. Nothing heavy, he said. Just a chat.’

‘And you?’

‘I said no. But then he told me he’d got into trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Physical trouble. He said he’d been beaten up.’

‘Who by?’

‘He wouldn’t say. He just wanted to talk to me about it.’

‘And you agreed?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, I did. It was difficult. That was the day the Queen came down for the Fleet Review, all that. Andy had fixed for us to watch it all from a friend’s yacht. The kids were really excited. I was too. Then in the evening there was this amazing firework display, the Trafalgar celebrations, son et lumière. You may have been there, I don’t know.’

Faraday shook his head. ‘Go on.’

‘Well -’ She frowned. ‘- We were with friends in the evening too, just local mates from Old Portsmouth. They had kids as well. We all went along to the Common. The crowds were huge and I knew I could slip away for half an hour, before it all started, and I knew the kids would be OK because Andy was there. So I told Mark to meet me.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Outside the Queen’s Hotel.’

‘And?’

‘We met.’ She shut her eyes again, shaking her head. ‘He was a mess. I don’t know what I was expecting but he looked awful. His face was swollen, one eye was closed, he’d lost a couple of teeth. I felt really sorry for him.’

‘But what did he want?’

‘He wanted to take me to Spain.’

‘He could do that? He had the money?’

‘He said so.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I said no.’

‘Did he accept that?’

‘I … ’ She ducked her head. ‘I don’t know. He was just … different - not the Mark I knew at all. The old Mark, all that energy, had gone. He just kept looking at me. To be honest, I felt awful about it. I wanted to get back to the kids, to Andy, and time was moving on, but somehow I just couldn’t. He was holding my hand. He was like a kid, like a child. He just kept squeezing and squeezing. Then the fireworks started.’ She tipped back her head, felt blindly for a box of tissues on the other end of the sofa, blew her nose. ‘It was terrible. I was looking at his face in the light from the fireworks. He was staring up at them. And he was crying. Horrible. Just horrible. I couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear to see him like that.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I stayed with him until the fireworks ended.’

‘And then what?’

‘I said goodbye.’

She started to cry. Milo wriggled off her lap in alarm. Freya just stared at her. Tracy Barber was on her feet. More tissues.

‘I’m sorry.’ Jenny gulped. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

There was a long silence while she slowly composed herself. At length Faraday wanted to know what had happened afterwards. With her husband. With the kids.

Jenny stared at him, her face still shiny with tears.

‘I told them I got lost.’ She blew her nose and then struggled to her feet. ‘In a way I suppose it was true.’

 

She made them fresh coffee. Faraday could hear her out in the kitchen, putting the kids’ minds at rest. Mummy had a little pain. Mummy’s better now. When she returned with the tray, she was colder, more distant.

Faraday wanted to know about the calls the following day. Midweek, she said, her husband was at work. Mark had called twice. The first time she’d told him to phone back while she took the kids next door to her neighbour. Then they’d talked.

‘For nearly an hour,’ Faraday pointed out.

‘Really? It felt like even longer. It was a bit of the old Mark again. He wanted to tell me how good we would be together, how he could get it all sorted, how I owed myself a better life.’

‘With him.’

‘Yes.’

‘And he still had the money?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Did he tell you any more about the beating?’

‘Only that some guys had been waiting for him outside the place where he lived. He’d been away for the weekend.’

Faraday nodded. Winchester, he thought, the Writers’ Conference.

‘And what happened? Did he tell you?’

‘Only that they took him off somewhere.’

‘No details?’

‘No, he didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘And you didn’t ask?’

‘Of course I did. I’d seen the state of him. It was criminal what those people had done. But he just dismissed it all. He said it was the price he’d had to pay.’

‘For what?’

‘I never found out. He never told me.’

‘But he still had the money?’

‘So he said, yes.’

‘Did he say how much?’

‘No.’

‘Enough for a house in Spain, though.’

‘Obviously.’

Faraday nodded, made a note. Barber was sipping her coffee.

‘How did this call end?’ she asked.

‘By me saying goodbye. I asked him not to call again. He said he wouldn’t.’

‘But he did.’ Faraday had his finger anchored in the billing. ‘Six days later he was in touch again.’

‘I know. And the day after, and the day after that.’

‘Why?’

‘The usual - we could go to Spain, all that. We owed it to each other. I was cruel, I’m afraid. I just put the phone down.’

‘And Sunday?’ Faraday was still watching her. ‘The day he died?’

‘That was the last call.’

‘Forty-eight minutes.’

‘Really? I can’t remember. To be truthful, it’s all a bit of a blur. I think I was frightened by then, frightened by what had happened to him, frightened by the difference it seemed to have made. I thought he was capable of anything. He was like a stranger. And yet … I don’t know … there was still a bit of me … ’

‘What?’

‘ … that cared for him, I suppose. Maybe that’s why he kept calling. Maybe he recognised it in my voice. To be honest, it was just all such a mess.’

‘The call was at midday.’

‘That’s right. The kids were in the garden.’

‘And your husband?’