Conviction, page 10
He nods.
‘People like the Viklunds like to have influential people in their pockets to call on should they need them. Most can be bought, but others… they need a push.’
‘So, there’s a possibility they’ve been watching me?’
‘Like I said, you’re one of the best. They would want you on side. All they had to do was keep an eye on you and wait for you to trip up; to give them something they could use against you later.’
‘But they didn’t choose me for the case, not initially.’
‘You probably weren’t the only person they kept an eye on.’
So they had been watching Adrian too. I wonder how many others they have kept tabs on. Do they sit in the public gallery, watching us at work, picking us out like they are at a cattle auction? They will have enough people on their list in case I don’t comply, like Adrian failed to do. Back-up after back-up.
‘Let me see what I can do. When do you need to hear back?’
‘The trial starts Monday.’
‘I better get to work then.’
We stand before each other, unsure what the proper etiquette is to wishing farewell to the private investigator who is your last hope, and for him, a dead woman walking. He touches my arm and gives it a gentle squeeze.
‘You’re tough, Neve. Remember that.’
I have one last thing to ask him. The request that, once uttered, cannot be taken back. This will set the wheels of my deception in motion. Even if I find a way to evade the Messenger’s conditions without throwing the trial, I will have to live with the fact that I did this.
‘There’s one more thing.’ I slip a file from my carry case. ‘I need you to find information on someone.’
I can’t bear to look him in the eye in case he sees the shame within them. He takes the file and peeks at the first page. His demeanour changes when he reads Wade Darling’s name.
‘What kind of information?’
I have to practically force the words from my mouth.
‘The damning kind.’
I still can’t bear to meet his gaze, to glimpse the disapproval in his eyes.
‘If he did something bad in his past, I need to know of it. If he ever raised a hand to a spouse, failed to gain consent in a sexual act, conned anyone in business. Even a speeding ticket. I need to know of every mistake he’s ever made.’
‘Why would you want to know about something like that? To bury it?’
I don’t answer. My silence, it seems, is telling.
‘I see,’ he says.
I finally look at him then, terrified I’ve lost his support, taking his confidentiality a step too far.
‘So you’ll do it?’
He looks deeply into my eyes. Perhaps he is assessing if I am someone he should trust; if I am a good woman in a bad situation, or whether I’m simply bad to the core.
‘I will.’
He heads off the way he came without another word, the coat billowing behind him as he goes, as I process what I have just done; the betrayal I have set into motion. It is as though I have taken the first step off a ledge, my foot dangling above an unknown abyss, as I silently pray not to fall.
15
I return to an ice-cold house and reluctantly shrug off my coat, rubbing my arms to get my blood racing as I turn on the heating. The radiators crackle to life, with the familiar sound of the boiler purring from the kitchen. It isn’t long before Fredrick’s words drift back into my mind.
Families like the Viklunds like to have influential people in their pockets, to call on them should they need them. All they had to do was keep an eye on you and wait for you to trip up; to give them something they could use against you later.
It’s likely the Viklunds have been keeping tabs on me, but how? Just the thought of them lurking nearby without my knowledge makes it feel like my home has been violated in some way, like an unwanted touch. Just like when Matthew went missing, and the crime scene investigators searched about the house in their crisp white suits, rifling through every drawer and cupboard, opening every book on the shelves in the hope something incriminating fell out. They pulled the sofa cushions apart, yanked out their innards and stuffed them back haphazardly, peered behind every picture frame on the wall. But they didn’t find anything to help discover what had happened to Matthew. Not even a single trace of blood.
Whoosh. Thwack.
I scrunch my eyes shut as the memory comes. The scene in my mind is bathed in red: blood splatters, a pool at my feet, swipes of it sprayed violently up the walls from the swing of the club, all unravelling as the church bells chimed and I stood above my husband’s body, wet and dripping with him, club in hand.
I used to think I would be useless in a moment like that. But despite my shock, my legal knowledge and need for damage control crept through. I thought back to cross-examining a forensic crime scene investigator about blood traces, or lack thereof, at a crime scene. She explained that when a suspect used a chlorine-based bleach product to clean up a crime scene to cover their tracks, blood still remained, even after multiple applications. However, when oxygen bleach was used, it eradicated all traces. Environment-conscious homeowners using the more natural counterpart have no idea they are using a product that could help them clean up a murder scene without a trace. It even smells less potent, further disguising when excessive amounts are used. But what I didn’t know was that, while I was scrubbing away at the evidence, the Viklunds were somehow watching my every move.
The doorbell rings, ripping through the silence in the house. I slowly make my way towards the door and slide back the cover on the peephole. Hannah stares back at me, fidgeting on the doorstep from the cold.
I turn the latch and shiver as the evening breeze slips into the house. Hannah looks up at me from the street. Tears shimmer in her eyes.
‘Han, what’s the matter?’
She promptly bursts into tears, covering her face with her spare hand. In the other is a black duffel bag filled to the brim. I usher her inside and shut the door behind her.
The Messenger. He’s approached her, like he accosted me. That’s my first thought. I think of the places I should have jabbed him with my keys when I had the chance. The soft skin at the base of his throat. Those dark, repulsive eyes.
Hannah sniffs back tears as she dashes the streams from her cheeks with her sleeve.
‘Nan and I… we…’
She can’t seem to catch her breath, huffing for air between words.
‘Give me all that and sit down.’
I take her bag and coat, placing the duffel at the foot of the stairs and her coat on the banister, and sit beside her on the sofa. Her face is blotchy and red.
‘We had an argument,’ she says. ‘Nan is such a bitch.’
You’re telling me.
‘What happened?’
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, before sighing it away and looking down at her lap, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve until the fabric bunches.
‘She said we shouldn’t see you anymore because Dad’s gone. That we were holding onto you for all the wrong reasons. That… that keeping you in the fold wouldn’t keep Dad’s memory alive.’
A twang of pain nicks at my chest. I knew Maggie was cold, and knew what she thought of mine and Hannah’s relationship, but I didn’t foresee her stooping this low. Actively trying to pry us apart.
Maggie knows they are the only family I have.
‘She feels threatened, Han, that’s all. We’re close; it must be hard for her at times.’
‘Why are you sticking up for her?’ she asks, brow furrowed.
‘I’m not. What she said was wrong, and hurtful. But that doesn’t mean things have to change between us if you don’t want them to. I want you in my life for as long as you want me in yours, and no one can change that. Not even your nan.’
Her expression softens, her shoulders lowering, and I think of her as a six-year-old again, giggling as Sam licked at her. How Matthew and I looked at one another over her head. If only we had known what lay ahead. We’d have bolted in opposite directions.
‘Did you run away?’ I ask.
‘She knew I was coming here, if that’s what you mean. I told her I would rather be with you than her.’
I glance towards the home phone and see the flashing red dot of the voicemail inbox. Maggie will have filled it to capacity with her angry ramblings, no doubt. When I look back to Hannah at the other end of the sofa, I see the nerves have returned, that same desperate hope flickering in her eyes again. I know what’s coming before she even opens her mouth.
‘Can I stay here for a while?’
I look into her eyes, which are the spitting image of her father’s. It is almost as if Matthew is staring back at me from the other side of the sofa. A memory resurfaces in a sudden flash: Matthew’s death stare, his eyes locked with mine in a lifeless gaze.
‘How long were you thinking?’
Tonight, she looks and seems far younger than her sixteen years. Sometimes, she almost appears as a grown woman in the way she holds herself, but as she sits on the sofa with her cheeks flushed from the cold and her eyes as wide as a doe’s, she looks more like that little girl again.
‘Not forever,’ she replies. ‘Not yet anyway. I thought maybe we could… try it?’
We haven’t even set foot in the courtroom, and already the Darling trial has taken over my life. I don’t know how I could possibly juggle having Hannah waiting for me at home, what with chambers calling for me to sit at my desk until the early hours working on the case. And if the Viklunds are watching me, having Hannah stay here could put her in danger, couldn’t it? Staying here could put her in harm’s way. But with Hannah in front of me, the Messenger’s threat against her feels all the more real now, like a living, breathing thing, watching us from the corner of the room. I would be able to keep a close eye on her, if she were here.
I can’t let anything happen to her.
Her eyes fall to her lap, her throat bobbing with a nervous swallow.
‘It’s okay, I get it.’
‘No,’ I reply quickly. ‘I want you here, of course I do. I was just thinking how we could make it work with my trial.’
Hannah quickly springs to life. ‘You wouldn’t even know I was here. I have school, and homework, and a bunch of my friends live nearby. I cook for myself when Nan is out, and I wash up every night. I’ll clean up after myself and I promise I won’t get in your way.’
My heart breaks at the excited tone of her voice. If only she knew who I truly am. What I am. A monster to fear, rather than a stepmother to love. If she knew of what I did, she would hate me more than anyone else in the world.
‘Let me speak to Nan. Why don’t you go and run yourself a bath?’
She jumps up eagerly, as if I might suddenly change my mind, and heads for the stairs.
I had decided too quickly. I should have put her off, thought about this more thoroughly. This trial, and the task I’ve been given to destroy it, will be enough to drive me crazy in the coming days. Having Hannah here, greeting me each morning, sharing the sofa of an evening, the very physical embodiment of my guilt looking me directly in the eye? It will be enough to push me over the edge.
But helping her is the least I can do, after what I’ve done.
‘Erm, Neve?’ Hannah calls from upstairs. ‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’ I shout back.
‘That.’
I climb the stairs, wondering what she could have found. Living on my own, I could be – or should I say used to be, what with Hannah staying here now – careless about where I left things, with no one around to see them. When I reach the top of the stairs and see Hannah standing in the hall, my heart pitches.
She is staring down at the mess I made of the carpet during my sleepwalking episode.
I had cleaned up as much as I could, after I scrubbed the burning bleach from my body, but the carpet could in no way be redeemed. There is a large yellowish-white pattern all over the hall floor.
Hannah looks at me, awaiting my answer.
‘Oh, that. I spilt a glass of wine and accidentally used bleach to try and clean it up. Made more of a mess than I’d started with. I’ve been meaning to pull that up.’
‘Oh, well… you don’t have to do it now,’ she says, as I get to my knees and start pulling the carpet from the hem. ‘I just wondered what it was, that’s all.’
I pull the edge of the carpet free with a grunt, hearing the fibres rip from the tacks keeping it down, and pause when I spot chips and dents in the floorboards beneath. I’d made them with the golf club, whacking the floor on the odd time I missed Matthew’s head.
‘You’re right,’ I say, and push it back down with shaking hands until it lies flat. ‘I’ll do it another day.’
‘Are you okay?’ she asks, her tone tinged with concern.
I feel dizzy, have done ever since I saw the marks I made with the club, as if all the blood has drained from my head. All the blood had drained from Matthew’s too, in this very spot.
I grab the banister to get to my feet.
‘I’m fine, you go and run the bath.’
As soon as the bathroom door shuts behind her, I drag the rug from my bedroom and out into the hallway, and place it over the stain. It covers most of it, with only the odd yellow splash creeping out from the sides. Another reminder of everything I’ve done.
I must be more careful, now that Hannah is staying here. God knows what else she could find.
* * *
I am sat up in bed working on the case, pages of the brief fanned out before me and scrunched-up yellow pages from my notepad strewn across the bedspread, while listening to Hannah unpacking her things on the other side of the wall. The more she makes this house her own, the less it feels like home to me. I have grown so accustomed to the silence, my own familiar way of things. Now I feel myself treading carefully when I walk, keeping myself covered in case she steps into the room without knocking.
This was a mistake. I never should have allowed her to stay.
Maggie hadn’t taken it well on the phone. I barely said a word before she began shouting down the line at me. It went this way for most of the call before she finally hung up, cutting me off mid-word.
Sitting across from Hannah this evening has made my situation all the more urgent. The Messenger’s threat of harming her had been terrifying but almost otherworldly, as if it were nothing more than a frightening hypothetical. Now she is here, sharing the same rooms, breathing the same air, making the threat dangling above our heads feel overwhelmingly real. I have been going over my plan for the witnesses ever since, looking for ways I can navigate each cross-examination with my main objective in mind. My eyes are burning from lack of sleep, and I occasionally feel the pull of my lids as my brain desperately tries to rest.
I have worked far longer than I should have, and not just because of the approaching conference tomorrow morning, but in fear that when I close my eyes to end the day, I will sleepwalk again. I think of Hannah finding me, how frightening it would be.
A yawn rips from my mouth. I collect up the pages of the brief and tidy them away in defeat, throwing the discarded balls of yellow paper to the floor for the morning. I can’t stay awake forever. I pause when I see the details of one of the notes I’d written: destroy club tomorrow. I rip it into as many pieces as I can and pile them on the bedside table, before switching off the light. I lie in bed trying not to think of the sounds it made, the mess it left behind. My heart races at the thought of seeing the murder weapon again, feeling its cool metal neck.
Whoosh.
Thwack.
Crack goes his head.
I wince and turn over in bed, lying in the dark as I listen to Hannah go about her unpacking. All the while, she has no idea what danger I have put her in.
She shouldn’t be here, it just isn’t safe.
Eventually, I hear her head towards the bathroom to get ready for bed, then return to her room with the quiet click of her door, as she too settles down for the night.
I slip out of bed, take the chair from my dressing table, and jam the back of it beneath the door handle. Only then am I able to close my eyes to sleep.
* * *
I wake with a gasp and the call of the church bells.
The cold night air sucks into my chest. My skin is speckled from the elements, the icy breeze billowing the few clothes I have on. I look about me, blinking away the confusion, but all I see is darkness.
Gong.
Gong.
Gong.
I am not in my bed. I am standing, barefoot, my toes almost blue against the dark earth. I am wearing nothing but night shorts and a cotton vest, and a cardigan that is inside out, whipping against me as the wind picks up. My cheeks are wet where I have been crying, tears I have no memory of shedding. My eyes slowly adjust to the dark, and slowly but surely, I realise where I am.
I am stood before Matthew’s grave.
My chest heaves up and down as I eye the untouched earth at my feet. The cold air burns my throat. Tears fall as the panic takes hold and I look about me, only to find the dark night’s shadows each way I turn, all except for the train tracks gleaming beneath the moon. Beyond the fence, my lawn sparkles with dew. All the lights in the house are off but for the kitchen, where I must have lit the way before leaving the house in the middle of the night. The bell tower peers over the roofs, its last chiming bell echoing through the night.
The hyperventilation doesn’t slow. The panic doesn’t ease.
Hannah.
I rush towards the fence, the stones among the tracks digging into my naked soles, and straddle over to the other side. My feet slip on the wet grass and leave footprints along the patio as I reach the back door, which I had left ajar, squeaking faintly on its hinges.
The house is freezing, the air damp with the outside chill. I creep inside, clicking the door shut behind me, and look about me for any mess I might have made in my sleep. The number of times I have gone about supposedly tidying, putting files and books in the oven, the washing machine running with an empty drum, pyjamas soiled with urine where I’d gone without properly undressing. That’s if I’m lucky. The bad nights are when they are linked to my past: waking up surrounded by bleach, or stood above my husband’s grave.
