His & Hers

‘You just drank my piss!’ said Rachel, an enormous smile on her face once more.

Everyone laughed, and news of what had happened soon spread from our table to the next, until the whole school seemed to be pointing and laughing at Catherine Kelly.

She didn’t say a word.

She just stared at me.

Then she got up and left the canteen, without clearing her tray or looking back.

Him

Wednesday 07:45

‘I need you to come back with me.’

Anna and Priya both turn to look in my direction, but it’s my ex-wife that I’m talking to.

‘Please say she hasn’t touched anything in here?’ I say to Priya, who looks strangely sheepish.

‘Only the phone.’

I close my eyes. I think I knew she was going to say the words before she said them. It was my idea to ask Anna to wait in the secretary’s office, so I can’t really blame anyone else. I turn to face her, keen to see her reaction.

‘The call to your mobile – the alleged tip-off about the latest murder – was made from the landline in this room.’

Anna stares at the old-fashioned phone.

‘Well, you can still dust it for fingerprints, can’t you? Or whatever it is that you do?’

‘I expect the only prints we’ll find now are yours, and there is no way of knowing whether they were there before this morning.’

‘Of course my fingerprints weren’t on that phone before now, how could they be?’

Priya steps forward.

‘Sir, I’m so sorry. I—’

‘Are you suggesting I called myself with the tip-off?’ Anna interrupts.

‘I’m not suggesting anything yet. Still gathering evidence. Can you come with me, please? Priya, I want you to stay here and wait for the team. Make sure they check every nook and cranny of this office. Whoever killed Helen Wang was in here.’

I hold the door open for Anna – gentleman that I am – and she offers me one of her unimpressed looks in return as she passes. I got quite used to those in the last few months of our marriage. We walk along the school corridors in silence at first, but she doesn’t need to say anything for me to know that she is fuming. Husbands and wives develop a silent and private language. They don’t forget how to speak it – even if they separate – still fluent in each other’s expressions, gestures, and unspoken words.

‘Where are we going now?’ she asks eventually.

‘I’m escorting you off the premises.’

‘I’m still going to cover the story.’

‘That’s up to you.’

‘You think I shouldn’t?’

‘Since when do you care what I think?’

She stops and I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m so tired of fighting about everything except the thing that broke us, the thing we should have but never did properly talk about.

‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ she asks.

The thirty-six-year-old woman standing in front of me morphs into the shy and scared teenager I knew twenty years ago. The quiet girl that my sister and Rachel Hopkins befriended, for reasons I never knew or understood. She was nothing like them. Girls were even more of a mystery to me then, than women are to me now.

‘You say that you got the call at five a.m. on the dot this morning.’

‘Yes.’

‘That you didn’t recognise the voice, and that you couldn’t even tell whether the caller was a man or a woman?’

‘That’s right. I think they used a voice distorter.’

I can’t stop myself from raising an eyebrow.

‘Interesting. So, why do you think that someone would have tipped you off about this murder?’ I ask, and she shrugs.

‘Because they saw me covering the first one on the news?’

‘You’re not worried it might be more personal than that?’

She looks as though she wants to tell me something, but then seems to think better of it. I don’t have time to play games, so I carry on.

We reach the car park, and I see that the TV truck has gone. The place is pretty deserted actually, not unlike last night when I was here before. I haven’t mentioned that fact to anyone, because just like being at the scene of the crime in the woods on Monday evening, I know it does not look good. The police vehicles, and the rest of the press, are parked at the front of the school, which is where I plan to take Anna now.

‘Where is your team?’ I ask.

‘They didn’t know how long I was going to be detained, so I expect they went to get some breakfast.’

‘I’ll walk you to your car then,’ I say, clocking the red Mini I can’t stand in the distance.

‘Gosh, you really do want me to leave.’

She waits for a response but I don’t give one. We carry on, each step a little heavy, weighed down with our own bespoke awkward silence. She doesn’t appear to see the broken glass until I point it out.

Someone has smashed her car window.

‘Well, that’s just perfect,’ she says, stepping closer, trying to peer inside.

‘Don’t touch anything.’

I call Priya and tell her to send someone out, keeping an eye on Anna the whole time.

‘Something missing?’ I ask, as soon as I’ve hung up.

‘Yes, my overnight bag. It was on the back seat.’

‘Do you still think this has nothing to do with you? Someone – and my money is on the murderer – called to tip you off about the second victim. Now your car window has been smashed and your bag has been stolen. You knew both of the victims. Do you think it might be some kind of warning?’

‘Do you?’ she says, looking up at me.

Her face is visibly paler than before and she looks genuinely afraid. I don’t know whether to hug her or hate her. There is something she’s not telling me, I’m sure of it.

‘I lied,’ she says.

My heart starts to beat so hard inside my chest, I worry she can hear it.

‘What do you mean? About what?’

‘I am worried that this might have something to do with me, but I swear I’m not involved in any way. You must know that.’

‘OK,’ I say.

I’ll tell her whatever she needs to hear, in order for her to tell me what I want to know. It’s a trick we’re both familiar with.

‘Last night, I felt like someone was watching me,’ she says, and I resist the urge to tell her that I’ve been feeling the same. ‘And, I know how silly this will sound, but I think someone might have been in my hotel room, moving things around. I thought I was being paranoid because I was tired and…’

I don’t need her to tell me that she’d had a drink. I can guess that much. I think I can smell a little something on her breath, even now.

‘Was your cameraman staying at the same hotel?’

‘It wasn’t Richard.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because why would he? This all seems connected to Blackdown, someone who knew me from before, maybe?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘How well did you know Rachel?’ she asks. ‘Had you seen her since you moved back here?’

Several times, in all sorts of places and positions.