Page 53

Steve took an unsteady step back from my doorway as I crumpled the paper in my hand, not quite sure how to deal with the weight of it.

I saw Steve take a fast glance over at O’Neill’s house.

The police tape and white tents were gone; now it was just an empty house someone had died in a few months ago.

‘And now we’re even?’ Steve asked.

‘We’re even. Just…best not to do snow in the police station, Steve,’ I advised. ‘Where you work.’

I could see that Steve almost found that amusing. I wasn’t really sure why. Perhaps he was laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation or maybe laughing at how blissfully green I was. Maybe they were all doing it, and it was just Steve I had caught.

‘None of us thought you’d stick around,’ Steve said. ‘We gave it a year. Glad that you were gone in less than half of that, for my sake.’

I rolled my eyes, letting a smirk creep across my face, and shook my head as if it was playground talk.

Steve took a few steps backwards, maintaining eye contact, which was probably him trying to psych me out a little.

But after a small stumble on a raised bit of the pavement, he spun around and paced back to his car.

Head down, he risked one last glance at me in my pink dressing gown, perhaps to preserve as one of his more peculiar memories.

You know, though, that Clark will try and make a run for it, and that my sister is going to try and kill him before he vanishes? Angus’s words circled endlessly in my mind as I began sorting all of my police memories and paraphernalia into a small shoebox to lodge at the back of the cupboard.

Deep in my gut, I knew the police weren’t going to arrest Clark, even if everything he and his friends had done came to light during Angus’s trial. Why would they? They’d let him get away with it, just like they had done fifteen years ago.

But Fran wouldn’t. I was certain of that. She needed justice for everything she’d gone through. For Angus, for Edith. Strange, how someone who had been such a massive part of my wife’s life, I had never even known existed.

I was lost in thought when my phone buzzed for probably the eighteenth time today. I’d never been so popular in my life. Who could it be this time? Cis? Vivian? Andrew?

No. The caller ID showed a name I hadn’t seen for months: Fran. She was calling from her personal mobile.

I picked up instantly, but found myself simply at a loss for words. The pause stretched on as I scrambled for something to say, finally just saying her name in what could only be described as a high-pitched breathy pant.

‘Hey, dickhead,’ she responded, her voice a little lighter than when we’d last spoke, but I could still feel the distance between us. ‘I guess you heard the news?’

‘Yeah, I did,’ I replied with a small, awkward chuckle. ‘It’s great news.’

‘Look, I’m with Angus right now at the station. I know this is going to sound really weird, but please tell me you’ve kept…my pants?’

Somehow, it felt weird to say yes. As if I thought she might think I was holding onto them for some creepy perverted purpose.

‘Yeah.’

‘Good, I just really need a pair of pants that are not from prison. I know that’s strange, but the detergent they use is the worst detergent. I just want a fresh pair of pants, my pants. Can you come drop some off to the station?’

‘Yes, yes of course, I’ll be right there.’

It felt weird to be driving back to the station, but this time just as a civilian, not an employee; I almost had to stop myself from turning right into the police entrance.

Instead, I decided to pull up a few streets away, worried that Vivian would call the special weapons team if she saw my car approaching.

I walked to the small grassy park across the road from the station and texted Fran to let her know I was here.

I felt like giving the Met Police a wide berth would probably be in the best interests of everyone else.

Fran emerged about five minutes later, still wearing the clothes they had arrested her in all those months ago.

It felt strange to see her again in the cold light of day; she had changed, clearly.

Her clothes almost looked a little too baggy for her now, her skin was paler, and her hair was so much longer and messier, yet she still walked with an air of grace that ever so delicately and politely crushed my heart into smithereens.

The past few months of trauma hadn’t taken away even an ounce of her beauty.

‘Hey,’ she said with a guarded smile, as she walked over to the grassy patch and stopped a few feet away from me. No embrace, no peck on the cheek, she just planted her feet down as if she had no intention of moving any further towards me.

‘Hi,’ I replied, staying in position.

‘Hi,’ she said back. Her eyes, to me, almost looked a little bit wistful.

Wordlessly, mostly because I didn’t know what to say, I lifted the supermarket carrier bag stocked full of pants. She half groaned, half smirked as she took a step forward to take the bag from me.

‘Thank you,’ she replied, nonplussed.

‘There are some T-shirts and leggings in there, too, if you need a change,’ I remarked.

‘Thank you,’ she repeated, still bemused for some reason.

‘And a bottle of water. I imagine you haven’t had time to drink much today.’

‘You’re right,’ she said again, stopping herself from laughing while her eyes glanced at the grass beneath her feet. ‘I haven’t. But you know, you and I, we still have…’ She sighed. ‘So much to talk about.’

‘We do, we do,’ I agreed. Divorce proceedings would surely be one of those things; no couple could go through what we had and survive, but I couldn’t bear to think about that right now.

‘Look, I know we need to sort things out between us. I get that,’ I continued.

‘But I just want to say…I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I did.

I’m sorry for everything you went through at St Nicholas’s, everything with Edith, everything with Dr Patel. I had no idea, and if I did…’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, Gareth. Slow down a second,’ Fran interrupted, her face scrunched up as it always did when she was baffled by something I had said.

Admittedly, it had been a lot to unload on her at once, though no more than she’d kept hidden from me over the years.

‘How do you even know about any of this?’

‘It’s been a very busy few days. I mean, Lord above, Fran, why didn’t you tell me about any of this?’

‘What could you have done about it, Gareth?’ she said, resignedly. She paused for a second, as I waited tentatively on every word she said. ‘I mean, there’s nothing in our wedding vows about being truthful, you know, just having and holding,’ she added.

‘Oh, piss off,’ I replied with a nervous laugh. I thought I could see Fran chuckle, too, but I wasn’t sure if maybe it was just a gurn. ‘God, I thought I knew you better than you knew yourself, Fran.’ I gave a long sigh. ‘I was so wrong. I had no idea what you went through.’

‘I guess I tried not to think about it all too hard,’ she said, stumbling over the words as she spoke, like it was some kind of rusty memory she was still trying to unearth.

‘I was only a little girl, Gareth. I think…doing what I did made me think that somehow it wouldn’t happen again to anyone else.

No more Ediths would have to experience what my Edith did.

Look, I know that’s ridiculous to say, but… ’

‘No, no,’ I said as assuredly as I could. The image of Fran having to go through all that as a child – losing her sister – it stirred something in me. A fury? A rage? I wasn’t totally sure what it was, especially standing outside the place that had let the organisation get away with it.

‘I didn’t know you had a sister, Fran,’ I said. ‘You know, I could always picture you as an older sister.’

‘I know,’ she said mournfully. ‘I don’t even like talking about her with Angus.’

‘I get it, I do. I…I just can’t even imagine how painful it must be,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ she said, glancing to the ground again. Clearly even this whole conversation was agony for her.

She walked over to the lone, rather miserable-looking swing set in the park and perched herself down on one of the seats, wrapping her hands around the rusty chains as I gingerly approached and sat down on the seat next to her, hoping she wouldn’t scream at me to make myself scarce.

‘I get it, Fran, I really do,’ I said after a moment of silence. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the fertility problems, though? We could have worked through that together?’

‘Honestly, I could tell you that it was because when the investigation heated up I didn’t have a chance, but if I’m being honest with myself, it’s because I thought…I thought that you’d leave me if you ever found out.’

I couldn’t help the minuscule smile that escaped my lips when she said that. How could she be so smart and so silly at the same time? How did she ever think I would leave her because of that?

‘Look, the idea of having children terrifies the shit out of me, Fran, but it’s all less terrifying with you. I would never leave you, not in a hundred years. I thought you knew that?’

‘You would arrest me, though?’

I genuinely belly laughed in shock and disbelief. ‘Whoooa,’ I bellowed as a few passers-by glanced at us, baffled at what these two grown adults were doing sitting on the swing set.