The River House (31 page)

Roger waits for me, just sits there patiently. I know he will wait forever.

“Could I give my evidence anonymously?” I say. “You know—behind a screen?”

“Ginnie, I wish I could say that I could make that happen for you. But it’s up to the judge. And judges
have
done that occasionally, but only in terrorist cases, when there are lives at stake.” He smiles at me a little. “Which we
couldn’t really argue in this case.”

I feel ashamed that I asked.

“The person I was with,” I say slowly. “You know about that, don’t you?”

A slight nod.

“I know what you told Karen,” he says cautiously.

“Would I have to say who I was with? Why I was there?”

“It would make your evidence more solid,” he says. “But of course I quite understand that there are reasons why you might
not want to talk about it. …”

He’s staring down at his hands, which are clasped on the table in front of him, as if he’s studying his skin for flaws.

“Ginnie, there’s something I need to tell you,” he says. Setting the words down carefully in front of me, as though afraid
they could hurt me. “You need to know there are rumors in the office—I mean, people do talk, you know how people are.”

He leaves a silence, for me to ask the question.

My voice is thin, reluctant.

“And what do they say exactly?”

“The rumors are that it was Will Hampden—that you were involved with Will.”

My mouth dries up. I shake my head.

“We just had a drink together. We had a case in common. We were talking about a case.”

I try to think back to that moment in the wine bar, when I first met Roger. Were we sitting too close together? Did we have
a hungry look? Roger would have been able to read us: I know that.

“Anyway, Will’s a family man,” I tell him. “I certainly had that impression. I don’t imagine … I mean, it wouldn’t be like
him, surely, to be involved with someone. His family matters too much to him.”

His eyes on me, the slightest knowing smile.

“That’s much what he said about you,” he says.

My heart lurches.

“So Will knows this—that this is what people are saying?”

“Ginnie, he works there. … I felt you ought to know.” Gentle, as though he’s seeking to protect me.

I don’t look at him, though I know his eyes are on me. I would like to be anywhere but here.

“We all have something unsatisfied in us,” he says. “There’s no shame in that, Ginnie.” His voice is very quiet: I can only
just hear him above the sound of the guitar. “Most of us have been there, or somewhere pretty close.”

He sits there for a moment, waiting for me.

“Tell me where you are now,” he says then. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t know what’s right,” I say.

“I’m no philosopher, Ginnie,” he says. “That isn’t where I’m coming from. I deal with what’s in front of me. I’m here to try
and get justice for people who’ve been silenced, and for their families.”

“I know that.”

“A woman has been killed, Ginnie. Doesn’t that take precedence over everything?”

“I just need to think my way through this,” I tell him.

“I know you do,” he says. “I know you’re a thoughtful person.” He’s relaxed again, as though he has all the time in the world.
“Let me try and tell you where I’m coming from, Ginnie. While you think it through. You know, I’m a romantic, in a way. Hard
to believe, perhaps.” He shrugs, with that self-deprecating smile. “But I’m passionate about our criminal justice system—with
all its failings. That we seek to get justice for wrongs done to strangers—isn’t that a wonderful thing? That excites me still.
That’s a hell of an achievement, don’t you think? To seek justice on behalf of strangers …”

His words hang in the silence between us.

“If I do this, people will get hurt,” I say in a small voice.

“Yes,” he says. “I can’t protect you from that. I would if I could, but I can’t.” And when I don’t say anything, “Think it
over, Ginnie.”

He hands me his card, closing my fingers down over it in one of those intimate gestures he likes, his smooth, cool skin against
me.

He pays. We part on the pavement.

I walk down the road to my car. The wind is stronger now, banging at the awning outside the café. I pass under a blossoming
tree, white petals sleeting down. Glancing back, I see how briskly he walks, as though he has made himself late for something
important, though when he was talking to me he seemed to have forever. Maria’s image burns into my mind.

I turn. I have to run to catch up with him.

“Roger.”

He turns sharply to face me.

It’s hard to talk. The wind keeps pushing my hair into my mouth, and I’m out of breath from running. White blossoms fall on
us.

“I’ll do it. I’ll go to court. I’ll give evidence.”

He puts his hand very lightly on my shoulder; I sense how everything eases in him.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you.”

“There’s something else I wanted to say. The person I was with. He didn’t see anything. It’s stupid, but I just can’t remember
if that came out in our conversation. He had his back to the path, I know he didn’t see.”

“It’s OK, Ginnie. You told us already,” he says. He keeps his hand on my shoulder, as though afraid if he lets me go that
I will change my mind. “Now, remember. Any doubts or worries, you ring me. I’ll always be happy to hear from you. Any time,
it doesn’t matter, day or night, just ring.”

I
’
M SITTING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE
when I hear Greg come through the door. He comes straight into the kitchen. He puts his briefcase down on the table.

“I’ve got something for you,” he says. He’s smiling.

He opens his briefcase.

“Your book,” I say.

I recognize the pattern on the cover—the tangle of branches, the dragons. But now it’s richly colored, blue and purple and
green, the colors of forests and seas. There’s a fragment of pattern on the spine to catch your eye on a bookshelf. I take
all this in at a glance, everything sharp, clear. I wish this hadn’t happened today.

He’s about to hand it across to me. But he sees my face, pulls back. He puts the book down on the table between us.

“Ginnie. What’s going on?” A thread of alarm in his voice.

“Greg, I need to talk to you.” My voice is slow, dull.

He has that wary, beaten look I’ve noticed before on his face. He sits down heavily at the table. The wind has dropped. It’s
very quiet.

“Someone rang me today,” I tell him. “The detective who’s leading that murder case. I had to go and talk to him.”

His mouth is set in a hard line.

“You told me that it was all over,” he says. He stares at me. His pupils seem tiny and needle sharp through the lenses of
his glasses.

“They said my evidence was crucial to the case.”

He has his hand in front of his face, as if he’s shielding himself from a blow.

There’s a moment you can’t go back from. Everything will change with what I am going to say.

“Greg—what I need to tell you … When I said I was there on my own, that was a lie.” My throat is thick, clogged up. “I wasn’t
there on my own. I was with a friend.”

He’s just looking at me, not saying anything. I wish he would say something. He makes a little gesture with his hand, as though
to ward this off or push it away.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” I say, “and it’s over now.”

“Who is it?” he says then. His voice sounds different—thin, clipped, as though he’s forgotten to breathe.

“It isn’t anyone you know.”

He’s turned away from me.

“It’s Max, isn’t it?” he says. A knife edge of anger in his voice now. “I’ve often wondered about you and Max. I can’t stand
the guy. He’s so fucking full of himself. I should never have let you go off on those weekends with him. I trusted you, I
suppose. I’ve been a bloody fool.”

“It isn’t Max,” I say. “It’s nothing to do with Max.”

He stares; he’s trying to take this in.

“Who is it then?” he says.

“It’s someone I knew through work—you’ve never met him.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while. The silence between us is like water rising, as though the room is filling up with it.
Behind him on the wall I can see Ursula’s picture, the Little Mermaid, diving down through the blue translucent water. I think
of Molly when she was little, staring at the picture, her eyes dark and wide-open and troubled. But won’t she drown, Mum?
So deep down under the sea. Anyone would drown, Mum. Under all that water.

“Do you love him?” he says then.

I had planned to say, “It was stupid, it didn’t mean anything,” wanting to find some crumb of comfort for him: but I can’t
quite say the words.

“I suppose so. Yes. I suppose I did love him. … Greg, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He raises his eyebrows slightly, as though this doesn’t even warrant a reply. He looks different to me, someone I don’t recognize:
as if saying the things I’ve said and doing the things I’ve done have made him into a stranger.

“So exactly how many other people did you tell before me?”

“Only the police—well, I didn’t say who it was. … I didn’t want to tell you,” I say. “It’s over, and I didn’t want you to
know. I didn’t want to hurt you like that. But they’re asking me to give evidence. So it’s possible some of this might come
out in court—you know, why I was there.” I feel so tired now: It’s an effort to drag out the words. “And I didn’t want anything
to come out in court that you didn’t know about me. I didn’t want to put you in that position.”

“It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?” His voice is hard and dry. “To worry about what I think?”

“It’s a weird time of life for us,” I say. “So much is changing—Molly going and everything. I know that’s no excuse. But I
guess it panicked me a bit. There’s just this feeling so much is coming to an end.”

He’s looking straight at me now, with a quiet, controlled dislike.

“I’ve wondered, of course,” he says. “There’s this expression you have sometimes. This secret smile. Closed-in. But I’m not
a mind reader, Ginnie. And most of the time I thought you were happy enough. You’ve seemed so much more relaxed recently,
over the past few months. Happier in yourself somehow. …
Fuck
.” He screws up his face, realizing what he’s saying. “So, what was wrong with us exactly?” he says.

“It’s not like that. It’s not that anything’s wrong. That isn’t why …” What I’m saying isn’t true. I think how he moved out
of our bed. My voice fades.

“This friend of yours—has he gone to the police too?”

“He didn’t see anything.”

“Maybe not. Or maybe that’s what he’s saying. But has he gone to the police?”

“No.”

“So he’s just left you on your own with this thing? This is the person you gave your love to—someone who could do that to
you?”

“He’s in a difficult position.”

“Ginnie, I don’t begin to understand you.”

He stands up and closes his briefcase. His face is composed, but I see that his hands are shaking.

“What I don’t get,” he says dryly, “is why on earth you were by the river anyway. I thought people usually found a proper
room somewhere. In a hotel or something. You could at least have behaved like adults.”

He walks out quietly, his briefcase in his hand. But he trips as he goes upstairs. There’s a torrent of curses. I hear the
raw anger in his voice: I’ve never heard him swear like this before. The study door slams.

His book is still on the table. I pick it up: It has a new, crisp smell. As I flick through, it falls open at the dedication.
There’s a fragment of Celtic pattern, and below it: For Ginnie, who showed me the meaning of Findabhair.

I have a feeling like when you’re about to weep, but no tears come.

I
LIE AWAKE FOR HOURS
. My pulse races as though I’ve had too much coffee; a pointless, febrile energy surges through me. I feel as though I will
never sleep again.

Eventually I get up. My alarm clock says three o’clock. I push the curtains wide, open the window, hoping to be soothed by
the immensity of the night. For once it isn’t raining. I breathe in the rich night scents of flowers and earth. There’s a
moon, almost full, its cold white washing over everything. I glance down into the garden: I can see the palest glimmer from
the narcissi under the pear tree, absolutely without color in the moonlight. I start, seeing somebody there, a dark bundled
shape on the bench beneath the tree. It’s Greg, in his dressing gown. It must be cold in the garden; I can feel the chill
of the damp air on my skin: but he doesn’t move, just sits there. He’s hunched over: He looks so old and alone. I’m frightened.

I grab my dressing gown and go downstairs. He must have heard me opening the door, but he doesn’t turn. I haven’t put anything
on my feet; the grass is drenched with dew.

I walk across to the bench. Once your eyes adjust, you can see a lot in the light of the moon, all the detail of the garden—the
heavy, dense mass of the hedge; the silvered leaves of the pear tree, where the moon is caught in the woven nets of its branches.
There’s a bright scattering of stars. The world feels vast and hollow.

I go to stand by him. He doesn’t look at me.

“Greg. How long have you been out here?”

He doesn’t reply. Little sounds scratch the edges of the stillness—a siren, the high percussive bark of a fox.

I sit beside him on the bench.

“You ought to come in,” I say. “You’ll get so cold.”

I put my hand on his arm. He tenses at my touch. His quietness frightens me, and the way he doesn’t look at me. I see the
raw grief in his face. I’m numbed by how much I’ve hurt him.

“Greg. You can’t stay here.”

“I need to think,” he says.

“You need to get some sleep,” I say. “You can’t think if you don’t sleep.”

He says nothing.

I feel dizzy out here without walls, under the huge night sky and the spill of silver over everything. I breathe in the chill
sweetness of the air.