Page 31

SIXTEEN

GARETH

I pushed down on the handle of the door as hard as I could until I heard it clank.

I caught a small glimpse of Mep darting away at the air-splitting sound as I stormed through the door, hurling it shut behind me as hard as I could.

I thought I heard something snap and break, but I didn’t go back and check.

I simply marched around the corner and into the kitchen, hurling my bag onto the table as I did so.

‘What the hell, Gareth!?’ Fran exclaimed, jolting backwards, knocking the pot she had been stirring. It spilt all over the floor and down her top, drenching the top half of her body with thick red Bolognese. She looked like a girl who had just won Prom Queen, before she murdered her classmates.

‘What haven’t you told me?!’ I snapped back at her.

‘What are you talking about, Gareth?’ she said to me, more flummoxed than angry.

‘Are you a murderer?’ I said, staring her down.

I couldn’t ask her if she’d killed O’Neill or Macleod specifically; I didn’t want to know the answer to that one at the moment. But I had to hear her say something.

Fran glared up at me, the thick red pasta sauce still racing down the side of her face and congealing on her chin.

She carefully and purposefully placed the wooden spoon on the worktop counter, then stepped a little closer to look me dead in the eyes.

She placed both of her hands on my arms, as if trying to calm me down.

‘No,’ she said, surprisingly calmly.

We both inhaled, sucking all of the available oxygen out of the room at once.

‘Liar,’ I replied softly.

‘I’m not lying,’ she hissed, her words gradually becoming more venomous. ‘Where is this coming from? You talking to Cis? Is that it? She’s telling you I did it? Cis going on and on about how I’m an awful wife and all that?’

‘This isn’t about Cis,’ I retorted.

‘I can promise you it is. You believe her over your own wife? Is that it? Is that it?’ Fran came right to my face. ‘Fuck,’ she said again. ‘I can’t even talk to you right now. I’m so furious with you.’

She swung around and stormed out of the kitchen, traipsing the Bolognese across our recently fitted cream carpet in the hallway.

I could see Mep had taken sanctuary from all the shouting in the living room.

Seeing Fran come marching towards him made him quickly dart upstairs as fast as his legs could carry him.

‘No, no, no, don’t just run away from me,’ I demanded, following her. ‘Come on, if you didn’t murder O’Neill, who did? Angus?’

‘Why are you bringing Angus into this?’ Fran hissed at me, her hands extending and repeatedly clenching into fists.

‘You tell me?’ I replied, wanting to see her reaction, to survey and examine, to see how she would respond.

‘It’s lost on me, Gareth. I don’t know what you’re getting at?’

‘Angus. He was at the house a few weeks before O’Neill was murdered. And by the way, I know all about his little robbery stint.’

I never saw Fran’s eyes ignite with such fury before. I almost felt the living room lights flicker and begin to dim.

‘How do you know about the robbery?’ she said, so slowly and enunciating every word, like she was about to fling herself at me any second.

‘Oh, you know, I’m not sure if you’ve realised, but I am in fact a police detective. And he did in fact commit a crime. He tried to rob a Tesco Express.’

‘He robbed a Tesco Metro,’ Fran spat at me, instinctively grabbing a coaster off one of our stands and pelting it at me. It smacked into my elbow and ricocheted onto the wall.

‘Nice,’ was all I said. ‘Nice work, Fran. Hope that’s not how you killed O’Neill.’

‘You…absolute…’ Fran said to me through gritted teeth, the red Bolognese now staining into her clothes and marking her skin, ‘… dick. What the hell is wrong with you? You think I murdered O’Neill?

Do you even understand what you’re accusing your wife of, or are you too pigged-up to tell the difference between me and a suspect? ’

‘Don’t say that!’

‘What?!’

‘You know what you’re saying.’

Fran stared back at me, goading me on to say it.

‘Don’t,’ I said, forcing my eyes to stay open as I uttered every word. ‘Don’t say that. I’ve told you how much I hate that word.’

I thought I saw Fran almost mouth the word ‘sorry’, but she was still too angry to put her voice behind it.

We continued to glare at each other. But I knew my wife well enough to see that though her eyes were practically aflame with hot-blooded rage, there was something a little bit fearful behind it.

Fear of me? No, certainly not. Fran didn’t seem to be scared of anything. This must be something else.

‘What are you afraid of, Fran?’ I asked, in as soft a tone I could manage.

‘What am I afraid of?’ she repeated, taken back, her voice breaking momentarily.

‘Because I have this crazy fear that you’ve killed O’Neill, although I can’t for the life of me figure out why you would have done it.

And I’m afraid you’re going to tear our family apart before it even properly starts,’ I stuttered, struggling to get the words out in a coherent flow.

‘I’m afraid that you’ve done something stupid and you’re going to go to prison and I’m going to be left here.

How would we ever come back from that, Fran? ’

Fran wiped away a tear before it had even left her eye, and I watched her visibly swallow a lump in her throat.

‘Well, I’m afraid that you’re going to leave me, and I’m still going to love you afterwards. I’m terrified that you’ll leave me, and you won’t even give me a good reason to hate you afterwards. Do you know how selfish that would be, Gareth?’

We were both silent again for a minute, ten minutes, maybe an hour. Time seemed to go a little askew. The silence lured Mep back; he began to slowly creep into the living room, thinking the chaos was over.

But I couldn’t help myself. I had to know what really happened.

‘Did you kill O’Neill, and did you kill Macleod?’ I asked, as slowly and calmly as I could.

I dodged the book that came hurtling towards me and Mep swiftly drifted around the corner, doing a 180 again to flee the shouting.

‘Why…why would you say that?!’ Fran screamed at me, pushing her face towards mine. ‘Why did I have to marry such a pig?’

‘What did you just say, Fran?’

Fran’s eyes didn’t show any remorse. She meant this.

‘I said you’re pigged up,’ she said, doubling down on the insult. ‘You absolute idiot.’

Lord above. She knew how to push my buttons.

To anyone else, I knew this would sound like such a ridiculous kind of argument.

But every couple has that thing , that word that may seem absolutely bonkers to everyone else but goes off like mints in a fizzy Coke can between them.

My mind was racing, fuelled by rage, searching for an insult that could hurt her as much as what she’d just said hurt me.

‘Whatever you say.’

I paused before speaking again, hoping I would be able to stop myself.

‘Murderer,’ I grumbled.

What happened next was something of a blur.

All I saw was her charging towards me, slamming me against the wall, her forearm against my neck, pushing down with life-threatening pressure.

I tried to look in her eyes and I didn’t see Fran any more.

Her gaze was fixed on my neck and she was continuing to push down tight.

I knew I had enough strength to push her off, but I didn’t know what to do.

The shock of it had made my limbs go lifeless.

My throat was closing in and tightening up, but I watched as she slowly realised what she was doing and lurched herself back.

I glared at her in disbelief. Her skin went the palest shade of white, crimson sauce still moving down her body.

‘Hey,’ I said, reaching out to her. I knew she didn’t know what she was doing. Something else had taken over; she hadn’t meant to do that.

But she simply got up and walked out the door, closing it shut. I heard her car drive off before I even managed to move myself away from the wall.

I tried calling Fran what must have been a thousand times. Ringing and ringing until I didn’t hear any ringing any more. Just a cold, emotionless voice telling me that she wasn’t available, and to please try again later.

I found Mep, who had retreated into the cupboard upstairs, scooped him out and stroked him and held him until he stopped quivering.

‘It’s okay, buddy,’ I said, gently holding him against my chest and running one hand down his back.

By the time I had finished petting him, he seemed more infuriated than scared by the evening’s events.

I wasn’t sure if Fran had fed him, so poured him some food.

He took a few mouthfuls, still looking trepidatious that the shouting could suddenly interrupt him again at any moment.

I cleaned up the kitchen as best as I could.

The Bolognese came easily off the countertops and cupboard doors with a few wipes.

The carpet was more difficult. I filled a bucket of water with bicarbonate of soda and a squeeze of detergent and began scrubbing away.

I put the TV on in the living room to whatever channel seemed best to take my mind off this evening’s events, and spent the next few hours pushing my arm back and forth until my wrist physically couldn’t take it any more.

I would experience an occasional pang of hope whenever I heard a car go past the window, darting my head up like a meerkat at the zoo, only to see it shoot past the house.

It didn’t take long to dawn on me that Fran probably wasn’t coming home tonight.

Why hadn’t she told me that she had been a suspect for murder before? Let go after questioning – but still, the case had never been solved.