The One You Love (6 page)

‘But you’re afraid of the parallels?’

‘Dan is different to Stuart,’ Emma replied. ‘I know what you mean – the fact that Stuart and I were going out for a long time and then he just upped and left. But it’s such a different situation, Lizzy. When Stuart left me, it wasn’t a surprise. It was more of a relief really. I could see it coming for months – ever since we moved down to London. Dan is different. He never showed any signs of wanting to end our relationship.’

‘Who do you think it was that saw Dan running away?’ Lizzy asked.

‘Could have been anyone. Maybe it was someone passing by on the street, someone who lives in the apartment, a visitor?’

‘It would be good to know who the witness was, and exactly what they saw, wouldn’t it?’

‘It would,’ Emma said. ‘It would be good to know anything that could help to explain all this. Maybe then I’d be able to start thinking straight. Lizzy, will you come over there with me?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Will you come over to the apartment with me? I think I need to go over there. We might find something to explain what happened.’

‘But haven’t the police already searched the place?’

‘They have, but they might have missed something. There might be something personal that only I know is important.’

‘You sure you’re ready to go back there?’

‘I can’t say I’m looking forward to it,’ Emma admitted, ‘but if it helps to find Dan, and hopefully clear his name, then it’s worth it.’

***

‘This might be harder than I thought,’ Emma said, as they arrived at the apartment. It seemed much longer than two days since they had been standing on the pavement, wondering where Dan was.

‘We don’t have to do this,’ Lizzy said, standing by her side. ‘We can still leave and come back when you feel ready.’

Emma mustered up some courage. ‘No, it’s okay. If I don’t go in there now I’ll regret it later.’ She looked up at her window, and noticed the curtains twitch on the floor below, which was Mr Henderson’s flat.

‘Looks like we’re being watched,’ said Lizzy, who had also noticed.

‘Looks like it,’ Emma agreed, steeling herself for the journey inside.

They made their way up the stairs, memories still fresh in Emma’s mind of how they had run up there two days previously, with music blaring out in the background and adrenalin flowing more than it had ever done in any of her karate competitions. She was so lost in reminiscence that the sight of Mr Henderson waiting on the landing, just like last time, was a real shock.

‘Hello,’ he said, looking noticeably sheepish. He looked down at his battered brown shoes, a small hole visible in the front, before meeting Emma’s gaze. ‘I want to apologise about the other night,’ he continued, clearing his throat nervously, ‘about what I said. It’s just that I was upset, about Edna. I’m not usually so forthright, but it had been a long day – we’d just got some bad news from the specialist, you see. He says that she hasn’t got long left – I don’t really understand everything he told me, but that was the sum of it. She’ll be gone in months, maybe weeks.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Emma said. ‘It must be really difficult.’

Mr Henderson just stood there, biting his lip. For a moment Emma thought he was going to break down, but he seemed to steel himself.

‘I should have done something,’ he said. ‘I jumped to conclusions the other night.’

‘It’s okay,’ Emma said, ‘really.’

‘If I’d thought that something was wrong,’ he lamented, ‘I would have tried to help. I should have known something was wrong. I know it’s not like you to play such loud music. I should have done something when he didn’t answer the door. I just keep wondering if I’d done something sooner, whether it might have made a difference.’

‘Really,’ Emma said, trying to think how to reassure him, ‘I don’t think there was anything anyone could have done.’

If only she really believed that about herself.

‘Edna only told me what she’d seen last night,’ he said through tear-drenched eyes, ‘while we were watching television. At first I wasn’t sure whether to believe her. Sometimes we can be sitting in front of the TV and she starts telling you stories about what she’s seen or heard that day – but it’s just all part of the TV programme she’d been watching earlier. So when she told me, I thought she’d just seen it on television.’

‘Sorry,’ Emma said, ‘I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.’

‘Sometimes she’s quite lucid,’ he said, continuing his monologue as if he hadn’t heard Emma’s remark. ‘You wouldn’t think anything was wrong with her. She talks about things that happened when she was a child, and about when we first met. All those memories are still fresh for her, you see. When she’s talking about old times I forget about the dementia, and I just enjoy talking to my wife again. I have her back with me. Not just a hollow shell; the real Edna. The woman I fell in love with and married. But then it’s like a light inside her head has been turned off, and she’s gone again, lost in her own world, talking about the television.’

‘What did Edna see?’ Emma said, trying to curb her enthusiasm for answers in the fear that to press harder might scare him away.

But it was already starting to make sense.

‘Did she see Dan?’ she pressed. ‘Did you tell the police that you saw Dan running away from the apartment?’

‘We didn’t tell the police to try and get your boyfriend into trouble,’ he protested. ‘Please believe that. But when Edna told me what she’d seen, we felt we had to tell them everything we knew. I was going to talk to you about it, but I didn’t know how to get in touch with you.’

‘It’s fine. I understand, you had to tell them anything that might be able to help.’

‘I am sorry,’ he said.

‘What did Edna say she saw?’ Lizzy said, joining the conversation.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘not a great deal really…’

‘Harry, where are you?’

They heard a frantic shout from within Mr Henderson’s apartment and Emma knew at once that the chance for explanations had slipped away.

‘Harry?’

‘I’d better go and see what she wants,’ he said, glancing back towards his front door. ‘Won’t be a second, love!’

‘Is she sure that it was Dan she saw?’ Emma said, trying to recover the situation.

‘Harry, where are you?’ shouted Mrs Henderson again.

‘I really had better go,’ he said. ‘She needs me.’

‘Please, Mr Henderson,’ Emma begged, ‘it’s really important. The police came to see us before. They think that Dan was the one who attacked his brother. They think he tried to kill him. And it’s mostly because of what your wife told them. Is she certain it was Dan? Or could it have been someone else? You said that she gets confused. Maybe she did see someone, the person who really did this, but just not Dan.’

‘I really don’t want to talk any more about it,’ he said, backing towards the door, now avoiding her gaze as if embarrassed by his actions. ‘I’ve told you all I know, and I really don’t want Edna to be bothered about it. She can’t take this kind of upset in her condition. I’m really sorry for your fiancé, and his brother. I’m sorry. I’ll pray that his brother gets better.’

‘Mr Henderson, please.’

But he turned and shuffled back into the apartment. Emma moved up to the doorframe, but resisted stepping inside the apartment and violating his personal space. ‘Please, if there’s any doubt about what your wife saw, then we really need to know about it. The police need to know.’

He ignored her pleas and as he went to close the door Emma’s first reaction was to put a foot in the doorway. But she decided against it – the last thing she wanted to do was to alienate them with such threatening action.

She let Mr Henderson close the door.

9

This was going to be a special meal, a new start. Once they had been so close, but they hadn’t even spoken in the past few years, not since he had just upped and left, without even a goodbye.

But now he was coming home.

She had made a special trip to the butchers in the high street, to pick up a quarter of best quality steak. It had been so long since she had cooked him a meal. The house had been so empty since he had left.

But no matter, because he had returned when she needed him the most. When she’d first heard his voice she cried. He’d apologised for just disappearing like that, said that he had to get away, get his head sorted. He’d been having problems with his girlfriend; she knew that, although he’d never confided in her about those sorts of things. But she’d never realised that things had got so bad – that the girl had driven him away from his loved ones.

What gave her the right to drive a boy away from his mother?

At first he had called her on the telephone, ringing in the early hours. She didn’t mind being woken at two or three in the morning, not for the chance to speak to him. She would have stayed up all night if that’s what had to be done. He said that he missed home. And although he was still far away – though she didn’t like to ask him where he was, in case it scared him off – he promised her he would be home soon. But she had wondered where he had spent all those years. What job had he been doing? Had he met another woman?

Then, after numerous phone calls, he announced that the time had come for him to return home. And that was today.

She looked at her watch; he was now fifteen minutes late. What if he’d changed his mind, decided that he could do without his mother? She pushed that thought aside, bending down to the oven, checking that the meat was not overdone. She then turned the gas down on the hob and reached for the glass of wine.

She never used to be a drinker, but this was a celebration.

She emptied the glass and poured herself another, again glancing at her watch.

Where was he?

She moved out of the kitchen, through the drab, darkened living room and across to the bay window. She scanned the street, half expecting him to be standing there, just waiting to be invited in. But there was no one there.

‘Please come back to me,’ she mouthed. ‘I love you so much.’

She stared out of the window for a few minutes, imagining what life would be like in the house, totally alone. Then she remembered the meal, dashing back into the kitchen. The pans had boiled dry, ruining the vegetables and potatoes. And the meat was crisping up. How long had she been daydreaming?

Where was he?

She grabbed an empty pan from the draining board and hurled it across the kitchen, sending it slamming into the wall and bouncing across the floor. The sound of steel against floor-tile reverberated around the room, hurting her ears.

She finished another glass of wine and then reached for the knife block, pulling out a six-inch blade. She watched her own reflection in the knife, warped like in a fairground House of Mirrors, wondering what the hell she was doing. As if shocked into sense, she suddenly placed the knife back into the block.

He wasn’t coming, and it was that stupid girl’s fault.

10

‘What are you thinking?’ Lizzy asked, as Emma stared at the closed door. She’d knocked a couple of times, but didn’t want to risk antagonising him too much.

Emma turned and stepped away from the door, beckoning Lizzy to the other side of the landing, out of earshot. For all she knew, Mr Henderson could have been standing on the other side of the door, trying to listen.

‘I think he might be hiding something.’ Emma lowered her voice. ‘I might be wrong, but it just didn’t seem like the full story.’

‘You really think so?’ Lizzy replied in a whisper, glancing over at Mr Henderson’s door.

‘Look how he reacted when I started asking him whether it was definitely Dan. He looked like he was hiding something – protecting his wife.’

Lizzy thought it through. ‘Maybe that’s all he’s doing, protecting his wife. You heard what he said, about her being ill. He might just want to be left alone.’

‘Maybe,’ Emma conceded. ‘But I can’t just let things go without trying to find out for sure.’

‘So what are you going to do? Kick down the door?’

‘Very funny,’ Emma said, meeting her smile.

‘Sorry,’ Lizzy said. ‘Not the time for a joke.’

‘Don’t be silly. The day you lose your ability to make me laugh, I’ll know that life isn’t worth living.’

‘So? What are you going to do?’

‘Well, I know we can’t just force our way in there. I’ve had enough contact with the police to last me a lifetime – I don’t want to get arrested.’

‘How about speaking to Mrs Henderson directly? Maybe she’ll be prepared to speak about what she saw.’

Emma mused on that possibility. ‘Could be worth a try. Obviously we’d have to wait until Mr Henderson goes out. But even if we do get to talk to her, she might not make much sense. I guess we’d have to hope that we catch her at a good time. But the other problem is that if Mr Henderson found out that we’d spoken to her behind his back he’d go crazy.’