Painkiller (24 page)

‘I want to go and sit. And talk.’

‘And eat.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Oh, do I have to spell it out?’

‘I think you should. I think you should come with me to a restaurant and spell it out.’

‘I’m not ready to sit. I feel fine. I want to go back and see the Keats-Shelley House.’

‘Well I don’t.’

‘If it hasn’t got a fucking cross above the door and a dying man hanging inside you don’t want to know.’

This hurts him. He looks enraged, but he calms down with a huge effort, but I feel like goading him some more. I tell myself I don’t know why, but I do.

‘You know what? Forget the poets. Let’s go to the Colosseum. Come on, Mr God-botherer. I dare you. The Colosseum. Don’t worry, it’s fine for Christians now. They got rid of the lions years ago.’

‘I want to go somewhere so you can calm down.’

‘I’m already calm.’

‘No you’re not.’

‘Stop watching out for me, Dominic. I’m not you, and you’re not Jesus.’

And, much to my own surprise, I stride off.

I realise – with great surprise – that I don’t have to walk. I don’t have to wait for him to come and grab my arm, and tell me to grow up, or tell me to get a grip, like he usually does.

I start to run. It is a strangely exhilarating experience, running through the tiny streets, watching trattorias and ristorantes flash by, knowing that I can run, and run fast, and realising, given the excess weight Dominic’s acquired over the last couple of years, that I can outrun my own husband.

I take left turns and right turns at random, down winding cobbled streets. I half expect to hear Dominic’s wheezing behind me, and feel his hot breath on my ear as he gains on me, but there’s nothing. I wonder if he even started to run after me.

When I’m satisfied I’m alone, I sit on a bench and catch my breath, giggling slightly. I’m already feeling guilty. I decide to go to the Colosseum; partly because I said the words and it was a point of principle that I should go, and partly because I hoped Dominic would try to intercept me.

It’s 12.47, and Geoff still hasn’t rung. I’m beginning to think the policeman was just part of my deranged imagination.

I wander around and through the Arch of Constantine, taking snaps, and soon I’m in another queue, and heading into the huge amphitheatre. Huge smudges of shadow hit me as I skip around the perimeter and through the cells and cages; light, dark, light, dark, like I’m a running figure in a Kinetoscope.

This is more like it.
I think.
This is much better than a church. It’s open, I can see the sky. The sense of claustrophobia is gone.

And there’s Dominic. Looking around in a desultory fashion, mooching and shading his eyes against the sun. He has forgotten his sunglasses, of course. He would be lost without me.

I decide to skirt round the amphitheatre and surprise him. If I jump out and say ‘boo!’ or something I can laugh off what just happened as a joke; a game; an irrational giddiness brought on by the lack of pain.

I’m halfway round and I’ve lost sight of him. Surely I should have met up with him by now? Is he going round clockwise too, and we’re following each other?

Oh, there he is. I can see his back. His shirt is decorated with rings of sweat.

I start to stalk him, and am just about to creep up on him, when my phone goes.

Of course
,
I realise.
Twelve o’clock in England is one o’clock in Rome. I should have thought of that.
I retreat into the shadows and take the call.

‘It’s me again,’ Geoff says.

‘So it is.’

‘So you don’t remember anything about me, or how we met?’

‘No,’ I say, and I start to laugh. And cry. I’m not sure which is weirder. It takes me a while to stop – too long – and by the time I regain my composure, I wonder if he’s disconnected the call. He hasn’t.

‘No. I told you. I just saw your face in a dream. Just your voice saying “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”’

‘Right,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘Well I certainly said that to you, as I left your house. Are you sure you can’t remember anything else?’

‘No. What did you mean by that?’

‘Ah… Now it’s my turn to say “It’s a long story”. Are you sure you want to know about this?’

‘More than anything.’

‘I met you when I came to your house. I had come to your house to arrest your husband for attempting to murder you.’

Then there is a stabbing pain in the small of my back.

‘Mrs Wood? Hello?’

It is deep. And angry.

(Et tu, Brutus)
 

My Angry Friend has returned.

Then Dominic walks through. I click the phone shut without another word.

He’s not looking that hard
, thank God. His head is bobbing left and right, searching for me. He’s squinting, and he’s not peering too intently into the shadows.

Then my phone goes again. It must be Geoff, wondering why we just got cut off. I fumble with the phone, kill it, but it’s too late.

He must have heard my ringtone
. But he seems not to hear, and he lumbers on through the arches, and the darkness swallows him up.

I stay there, unmoving, in the shadows. I don’t know how long I stay, but I know it is longer than I should. The cold stone is soothing on my back after the knife. The pain is solitary, a single blade lancing into my back, but I know that there’s more to come. The phone vibrates again. This time, DI Geoff Marks doesn’t even say hello. He says, ‘Are you OK?’ and his voice is heavy with concern.

‘I just dropped the phone.’

‘Right.’

I say nothing. It’s up to him to talk.

‘I’m sure this might be a shock for you, if, as you say, you’ve lost your memory.’

‘How did he try to kill me?’

Geoff Marks is suddenly coy. ‘Allegedly. We didn’t prosecute.’

‘OK. How did he allegedly try to kill me?’

‘We had a tip-off that this bloke was pestering the regulars in a pub. It turned out it was your husband. One of the regulars confirmed that your husband was intending to hire him to kill you. So we went to your house and arrested him. That’s when I first met you. You were lying on the floor with cold cups of tea and dirty plates around you. Your husband informed me you were in extreme pain from an accident, which tallied with what our witness said; the witness claimed that your husband told him that he couldn’t take any more, and that you were too much of a burden to him.’

Burden.
That word again.

‘Mrs Wood…’

‘Do go on,’ I say. ‘It’s absolutely fascinating.’

‘We took him in for questioning and he said it was a joke.’

‘A joke?’

‘That’s right. And you confirmed that it was a joke, and that was that, really. There wasn’t really a crime.’

‘I see. Right.’

I don’t know how a woman like me, who’s experienced so much pain, can feel so numb. But I do feel numb. Tears are struggling their way onto my face.

My husband has been so loyal to me. He’s stood by me, through everything.
 

Everything I ever knew was wrong.
 

‘And I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but your name came up last month. We got CCTV footage of two men having a fight in a car park. One of them looked like he was buying a gun. It looked a lot like your husband.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m sure it might be a lot to take in. I’m sure you might not believe me, but I can show you the original incident report. Can we talk when you get back to the UK?’

‘My holiday finishes in six days…’

‘OK, I’ll see you in —’

‘But I’m getting the next flight out today. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

The corridor to the hotel room goes on for ever, and I feel very exposed as I pad along it. My sandals make
sh-lip sh-lop
noises on the lino and they sound incredibly loud.

This is crazy.
 

Dominic?
 

My Dominic?
 

I must be mad. That’s the only explanation. The other explanation is that I am sane, and the rest of the world has gone mad.
 

Once outside my door I listen intently for signs of Dominic moving about. Nothing. He’s not inside. Probably still looking for me at the Colosseum, panting away as he trots round and round like an overfed hamster in a wheel.

As I cling to the wall, a memory flashes into my head:

‘You got arrested trying to kill me? Why, Dominic, why?’
 

‘Guess,’ he shouts. ‘Just take a wild guess!’
 

Was it a real memory or just imaginary? An image created by what the policeman just told me?
 

I am. I’m going mad. It’s the only logical explanation.
 

Once I get in the room I dash about like a mad thing, pulling dresses out of the wardrobe, scooping underwear from the edge of the bath, and throwing them in the direction of the bed, a shower of pants, stockings and knickers forming a puddle inside the yawning mouth of my suitcase.

Soon I’m packed and ready. And then I realise that our passports are in the room safe, and Dominic set the combination.
Fucking bollocks
. Just be calm.
This shouldn’t be too hard
, I think.
He can’t have been trying to be too clever. Not like with the computer password.

I try his date of birth, day and month. No luck. Then I try mine. Nothing. Finally, with a twinge of regret, I put in 2005 (the year we got married) and sigh as I hear a whirr, a clunk, and feel the door vibrate in my hand. It swings open and I grope inside, feeling the comforting shape of the passports on my fingertips. I take my passport, tuck it into my coat, and wheel my suitcase to the door. Then I have a thought. I go back and take Dominic’s passport as well.

Then I’m out of the hotel and hailing a taxi. As I watch the car veer across the lanes and head towards me, I tip Dominic’s passport into one of the litter bins near the main entrance; and then I force it down, down, down, as far it will go, embedding it like a fossil deep in the crust of the Earth.

That should slow down his return.
 

I’m lucky. The smiling lady at the check-in desk tells me there are seats available on the first flight back to London, and I’m in the air within the hour. As the great metal beast climbs into the clouds I feel two more twinges in my back; deep lances of agony. The pain of that flight to Spain floods into me.

He’s coming back
, I think.
My Angry Friend is waking up, and he’ll be stronger, because I’m not going to take any painkillers to stop him this time. I want to know if my whole life has been a lie.

I want to remember everything.
 

(
Everything
)

Dominic mooched around the Colosseum, looking for Monica. Stupid. He felt such a fool.

He handled it so badly. Obviously God didn’t want him to talk to his wife.
Perhaps that’s it
, he thought.
My punishment.

Perhaps it was a test, like challenging Moses to kill his only son. Perhaps that was it.
 

He should have persevered.

It was only as he went back to the hotel, and found the door resting on the lock, Monica’s missing suitcase, his missing passport, and the empty safe, door yawning open like the cave of Golgotha, that he realised what the test was, and that he had already failed it.

DI Geoff Marks and I decide to meet in a place that’s mutually convenient for both of us, which turns out to be a rather nice coffee shop in Kensington High Street, not far from the hospital car park. I get a sudden urge to go up there again, look out on the skyline.

Not today.

I’ve come straight from the airport, I’ve parked my little wheeled suitcase in the corner, and I’m nervously drinking a cappuccino and shredding sugar sachets into tiny strips. Fantasies flash through my mind with lightning speed; weekly coffees with Geoff, regular assignations in Kensington discussing cases. Me being his guru, my detective brilliance combining with his flat-footed copper’s instinct to become an unstoppable crime duo.

It’s about ten minutes before he turns up. He sits down, shaking his umbrella and unwinding a scarf from his neck, and I can’t help staring at him. Despite the lack of moustache, he is literally the man of my dreams.

‘Sorry I’m a bit late. Been knocking on doors all day, trying to find witnesses to a homicide, and it took me a bit off my patch.’

‘That’s OK.’

He smiles at me, an unthreatening grin. He gets straight to the point. ‘As I said, we brought in your husband about four years ago.’ He pushes a folder towards me. ‘Here’s the incident report. Everything.’

I flip it open and stare at the squiggles on the pages, but that’s all they are. Squiggles.

‘There’s the witness statement in there. And three others. All the same. “Make it look like an accident,” he said. “Like some robber was going to break in and get startled, and shoot my wife.” He was very specific.’ He paused, looking at my face, then continued, slower, trying to ration the flow of information into my ears. ‘He said his wife was a cripple, and he was tired of looking after her. He said it wasn’t much fun living with a cripple.’

‘He said that. You’re certain he said that.’

He nods.

‘So what happened…’ My voice comes out as a dull, fuzzy rasp, so I try again. ‘So when you arrested him, he told you it was a joke?’

‘That’s what he said. Some kind of weird in-joke between you. Like a sex game.’

I giggle, and I keep giggling. I can’t stop. My laugh takes on a life of its own. Geoff Marks looks around him, nervous, at the other customers, who are all flicking their eyes in our direction. But I still can’t stop.

He offers me his paper napkin, to try and staunch the tears of hilarity pouring down my face – and hopefully staunch the bubbles of laughter coming out of my nose and mouth. But still I just can’t stop.

This is what I forgot
, I think.
This is what the drugs repressed. They didn’t make me forget my husband was going to kill me. They made me forget that the pain had driven me insane.

My giggles finally subside, and all that’s left is an occasional honk from my nostrils.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s the thought of Dominic playing sex games.’

‘And we rang you up from the station to confirm this, and you did.’ He leans forward. ‘But this is all news to you.’

‘The only thing I remember is you. Your sceptical face in the doorway, you saying that line…’

‘“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”’ He smiles. He sips his coffee and flashes a sympathetic smile. ‘So…
is
there anything else you want to tell me?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I have to think.’

‘OK.’

‘I don’t remember any of this. I just remember pain, and hopelessness. Events are just a blur.’

‘I see.’ He looks disappointed.

‘Dominic… He could be telling the truth,’ I say at last.

‘Would you like to see the CCTV footage?’

I don’t want to, but he’s already pulling his laptop out of his bag.

The footage is silent, and black and white, and I watch a man who looks exactly like Dominic having an argument with a smaller man. The man who looks exactly like Dominic has a gun pulled on him, and fights off the smaller man. Even as I watch it, I get tense, rooting for my husband.
Come on, Dominic!
I’m thinking.
Get out of there! He’s dangerous!

‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ says Geoff. ‘That’s definitely your husband.’

‘I don’t know. I really can’t be a hundred per cent sure…’ I lie. ‘It’s all so confusing… If I could remember what happened before… I promise, if anything comes back…’ I tap my head. ‘Leave it with me. I’ve got a plan to help me remember…’

And the plan is, I come off the drugs and plunge myself into an inferno of agony.
 

‘… and if it works, I’ll let you know.’

‘OK…’

He can feel I’m getting cold feet.
He’s probably seen it with a thousand rape victims, a million battered women who’ve had time to sleep on it. Is this all real? they ask themselves. Am I just making trouble for the sake of it? Has there really been a crime here, and even if there has, isn’t it somehow my fault anyway?

‘You have a life insurance policy, don’t you?’

I’m still thinking about the CCTV footage, so it’s a few seconds before I respond.

‘Yes.’

‘Pretty big life insurance, I must say.’

‘Yes. My dad took it out for me; when he got diagnosed with cancer, he got a bit obsessed by the idea of protecting his family. So, because he was dying, and of course the insurance companies wouldn’t touch him, he took out policies for the whole family instead; Mum, Jesse and me. When Mum died my sister and I got huge payouts; she was able to open up a restaurant – which went under during the crash – and I was able to set up my own agency. Which doesn’t exist any more. A bit of a waste of money all round. I’ve been adding to the policy every year, in case…’

‘I know. If you die, he gets almost half a million.’

I don’t contradict, or pretend to resent the inference. He reaches out to hold my hand. I don’t take it away.

‘Just look after yourself,’ he says at last. ‘I’m going to make enquiries.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘You don’t have any choice. I have enough evidence to bear out a reasonable suspicion that your husband is planning your murder.’ He pats his laptop. ‘When he returns from Rome I’ll want to interview him to find out his whereabouts when this incident took place.’

‘OK.’

‘And I don’t want you putting yourself in harm’s way. No trying to contact him, or talk to him. Not until I’ve interviewed him.’

‘OK.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Good,’ he says, but his face shows he doesn’t believe me for a second. Neither do I.

‘I’d better go,’ I say.

The pain is coming back.
 

I can feel it growing inside me, like a malignant child waiting to be born. It’s been building since Rome, and the flight back to England nudged it awake.

But no painkillers; even though my body is screaming at me to put my dose back up to what it was before. Not this time.

The amitriptyline is the hardest to give up; it helps me sleep.

It’s tough, but…

I want to remember. I want to know.

I’m back, standing outside our house. The house has changed again. This time, it’s not my house. It’s a relic, an empty house, like the Keats-Shelley House. The photos and pictures and objects inside are exhibits of a life that’s long over, that’s coughed and wheezed to a grisly end in a backstreet in Rome.

No more tears. Please. Not now.
 

I know I don’t have a lot of time, because it’s not just the pain that’s returning. It won’t take long for Dominic to get a new passport. I need to get some more clothes. I need credit cards and my driver’s licence. I need that box of morphine tablets in the kitchen drawer that Dr Kumar prescribed for me. I need to lie down.

So much pain.
 

I feel for the keys to the front door. They’re not in my jacket, not in my trousers, and I’m about to excavate the contents of my suitcase on the front door when an image pops up in my head. I can (
see the keys on my bedside table in the hotel room
)
and I left them there because my subconscious mind took the fact I was returning from my holiday with my husband as read. (
Idiot
)

Don’t panic. There are keys in the shed. I put them back. I smuggled them off the kitchen worktop where Niall left them. (
Idiot
) And put them back where they belonged. They’re in the barbecue. I just have to go around the back, get in the shed, and
oh, God so much left to do
.

I twist the lock to 1969 and it snaps open, and I’m standing in half darkness; the light from the gaps in the wooden walls casts glowing beams across the floor. There is a thick smell of wood varnish that suddenly makes me dizzy.

My Angry Friend is so powerful now. More powerful than he’s been for years.

My vision clouds, there’s roaring in my ears, and I’m scrabbling at the air for a handhold, and I know it, I bloody know it, here I go, I know damn well I’m going down

(
the
)

(
rabbit hole
)

And there’s a musky smell, a prickly coarseness on my face, and something hard is pressed into my cheek. I’m finding it hard to breathe. I don’t know where I am. But I can’t move my body to find out.

Through a slow process of easing my face to one side, I realise I’ve fainted head first into one of those plastic bins Dominic bought. Once, when he was really depressed about his job, he had a manic phase of going self-sufficient; making his own manure and growing his own food. Now the plastic bins are just used to store any old rubbish.

Slowly, I lift my head to avoid the hard thing sticking into my cheek, and fumble under the potato sacks. My hand closes on something cold, heavy and metallic. The shape feels very distinctive. My fingers close around it, take it out, and I can see what it is, and I’m pointing a gun into my own face.

But at that moment I don’t care about why, or how. I can barely register shock. There is just agony. I can see the light beams are now slicing me into tiny bits. I fall off the plastic bin and land into a fetal position so the beams don’t hit my body.

Somehow, I get the key and get back into the house, holding the gun in the crook of my arm, like a baby. I gather some odds and ends into a bag, and then I sag and lie on the carpet, staring at the ceiling, the gun resting on my chest.

The fear and tension is letting my Angry Friend in.

Faster and faster.

I used to look at this ceiling for so long. I used to tell myself I was lucky.
Lucky!

After all, there are people in the world who don’t have ceilings at all
…
 

‘Hello? Meeses Moaneeka?’

It’s Wednesday. I didn’t hear the door go for the roaring in my ears. Agnieszka’s here. And I am helpless, stranded like a beetle on its back.

‘Meeses Moaneeka? You here? You back from holiday?’

I can see the table moving its legs in a slow jig, and I can see Agnieszka, holding her coat against her hip, heading for the study, looking for me. I shake my head, gasping, trying to control my breathing.
She can’t see me holding a bloody gun!
I thrust the gun in the cabinet under the television, thrusting it behind the DVD box sets.

And then she’s here.

‘Meeses Moaneeka? You OK?’

‘Yes, Agnieszka. I fine.’

‘You on floor. Is not fine.’

‘I’m just doing my exercises. The doctor, he say to do them.’

‘Exercise. OK… I leave. I am here if you need…’

Up I get. Bit by bit. On the sofa. Then sitting on it. Then sitting on the arm, then up on my feet. Pick up the bag. I move one foot, then, the other, slowly, slooooowwwlly. Left. Right. Left. Hold onto the door. Left. Right. To the front door. The front door.

The front door.

Door.

Everything is a shimmering swirl, a dust cloud. The car is in front of me, on the drive, but it might as well be ten miles away. Left. Right. One leg into the well of the driver’s side.

Slide across.

Slowly.

Grab the other leg. Pull it into the car.

The pain from the exertion is overwhelming.

Almost.

Now is not the time to go down the rabbit hole. Keep going. I snatch at the car door and try and pull it closed. It bounces off my dangling seat belt. I scramble to drag it inside, like I’m pulling in the ropes and getting ready to leave in my hot air balloon.

‘Meeses Moaneeka!’

She’s behind me. Wondering where the hell I could be going in my condition. I’m wondering too.

‘You not well! Very sick. Please to come inside. Meeses Moaneeka!’

Moaneeka. Moan. Eeek. Ah. Three sounds of pain.

She taunts me every time she says my name. No more. I can’t stand it. I buzz the window down.

‘Stop saying my name like that, you bitch! Get away!’

I stupidly add: ‘You’re fired!’

I trundle out of the drive. In the rear-view mirror, Agnieszka looks at me in the doorway, not upset, more confused and concerned.

I watch as Angelina locks the art gallery, whistling as she pulls the shutters. Thank God she’s shutting early.

I can’t wait any longer. The unseasonal cold is eating into my bones, and the edges of my vision are rippling like everything is a mirage.