Trick of the Dark (2 page)

'I know. I'm sorry. You're worth better than that.'

Charlie thought she heard a trace of pity in Maria's voice and hated it. Whether it was real or her paranoia, it didn't much matter. She hated being in a place where pity was possible. 'What's worst about it is that it's so undemanding. It leaves too many brain cells free to fret about all the things I would rather - no, damn it,
should
- be doing.' She finished drying herself and neatly folded her towel over the rail. 'See you downstairs.'

Five minutes later, dressed in crisp white cotton shirt and black jeans, she sat down at the breakfast table she'd laid earlier while Maria was showering, their morning routine still a reassuringly fixed point in Charlie's emotional chaos. Even on the days when she didn't have work, she still made herself get up at the regular time and go through the rituals of the employed life. As usual, Maria was spreading Marmite on granary toast. She gestured with her knife towards a large padded envelope by the bowl where Charlie's two Weetabix sat. 'Postman's been. Still don't know why you gave up cornflakes for those,' she added, pointing at the cereal bars with her knife. 'They look like panty shields for masochists.'

Charlie snorted with surprised laughter. Then guilt kicked in. If Maria could still make her laugh like that, how could she be in love with Lisa? She picked up the envelope. The computer-printed address label revealed nothing, but the Oxford postmark made her stomach lurch. Surely Lisa wouldn't . . .? She was a therapist, for God's sake, she wouldn't drop a grenade on the breakfast table. Would she? How well did Charlie really know her? Panicked, she froze momentarily.

'Anything interesting?' Maria asked, breaking the spell.

'I'm not expecting anything.'

'Better open it, then. Given you don't have X-ray vision.'

'Yeah. My Supergirl days are long behind me.' Charlie contrived to free the flap of the envelope without giving Maria any chance to see the contents. Puzzled, she stared down at a bundle of photocopied sheets. She inched them carefully out of the envelope. They appeared to offer no threat, only bewilderment. 'How bizarre,' Charlie said.

'What is it?'

Charlie thumbed through the pile of papers and frowned. 'Press cuttings. A murder at the Old Bailey.'

'An old case?'

'Still going on, I think. I vaguely noticed a couple of reports already. Those two city slickers who murdered their business partner on his wedding day. At St Scholastika's. That's the only reason it stuck in my mind.'

'You mentioned it. I remember. They drowned him down by the punts or something, didn't they?'

'That's right. Not the done thing in my day.' Charlie spoke absently, her attention on the clippings.

'So who's sent you this? What's it all about?'

Charlie shrugged, her interest pricked. 'Don't know. Not a clue.' She fanned through the papers to see if there was anything to identify the sender.

'Is there no covering letter?'

Charlie checked inside the envelope again. 'Nope. Just the photocopies.' If this was Lisa, it was completely incomprehensible. It didn't fit any notion of therapy or love token that Charlie understood.

'A mystery, then,' Maria said, finishing her toast and standing up to put her dirty crockery in the dishwasher. 'Not exactly worthy of you, but a chance at least to put your investigative skills into practice.'

Charlie made a small dismissive sound. 'Something to mull over while I'm invigilating, anyway.'

Maria leaned over and kissed the top of Charlie's head. 'I'll give it some thought while I'm torturing the patients.'

Charlie winced. 'Don't say that. Not if you ever want to treat me again.'

'What? "Torturing the patients"?'

'No, suggesting that your mind is on something other than drilling teeth. It's too terrifying to contemplate.'

Maria grinned, revealing an appropriately perfect smile. 'Big girl's blouse,' she teased, wiggling her fingers and waggling her hips in farewell as she headed out of the kitchen. Charlie stared bleakly after her until she heard the front door close. Then, with a deep sigh, she put the two Weetabix back in the packet and her bowl into the dishwasher.

'Fuck you, Lisa,' she muttered as she scooped the papers back into the envelope and stalked out of the room.

2

C
oming home against the stream of humanity heading for work reminded Magdalene Newsam of her years as a junior doctor. That feeling of dislocation, of living at odds with the rest of the world's timetable, had always buoyed her up at the end of another grinding stint. She might have been so tired that her fingers trembled as she put the key in the door, but at least she was different from the rest of the herd. She'd chosen a path that set her apart.

Thinking about it now, she felt pity for that former Magda. To cling to something so trivial as a marker of her individuality seemed pathetic. But at that point, there had been so many roads not taken in Magda's life that she'd had to grab at whatever she could to convince herself she had some shred of independence.

She couldn't help the smile. Everything was so different now. The reason she was weaving through the head-down pavement crowds heading for the Tube couldn't have been further removed from the old explanation. Not work but delight. Awake half the night not because of a patient in crisis but because she and her lover still found each other as irresistible as they had at the start. Awake half the night and not tired but exhilarated, body weak from love instead of other people's pain.

The surface of her happiness wobbled slightly when she turned into Tavistock Square and confronted the imposing Portland stone facade of the block where she still lived. A three-bedroomed mansion flat in central London, only minutes away from work, was beyond the wildest dreams of her fellow junior registrars. They were resigned either to cramped inadequate accommodation in the heart of the city or marginally less cramped housing in the inconvenient suburbs. But Magda's home was a luxurious haven, a place chosen to provide a comfortable and comforting escape from whatever the outside world threw at her.

Philip had insisted on it. Nothing less would do for his Magda. They could afford it, he'd insisted. 'Well, you can,' she'd said, barely allowing herself to acknowledge that accepting this as their home implied that she also accepted her dependence. And so they'd viewed a selection of flats that had made Magda feel as if she was playing house. The one they'd ended up with had felt least like a fantasy to her. Its traditional features were more of a match for the rambling North Oxford Victorian house she'd grown up in. The aggressive modernism of the others had felt too alien. It was impossible to imagine inhabiting somewhere that looked so like a magazine feature.

Accustoming herself to living here had turned into something very different from Magda's first imaginings. Philip had barely had time to learn the darkling route from bed to bathroom before he'd been killed. The breakfast conversations and evening entertainments Magda had pictured never had the chance to become habit. That she occasionally allowed herself to admit that this was almost a relief provoked shame and guilt that triggered a dark flush across her cheekbones. Transgression, it seemed, was not something she could wholeheartedly embrace yet.

She was trying, though. If she was honest, she liked coming home to her flat after a night with Jay. There was something a little sleazy about rolling out of bed and putting on yesterday's clothes, something sluttish about crossing central London unwashed on the Tube, knowing she smelled musky and salty. They'd agreed long before the trial that they couldn't start living together until that was all done and dusted. Jay had pointed out that they didn't want anything to muddy the waters of other people's guilt. There was no suggestion that they should try to hide their relationship. Just a sensible acknowledgement that there was no need to trumpet it from the rooftops just yet.

So in the mornings, Magda came home alone. Dirty clothes in the laundry basket, dirty body in the power shower. Coffee, orange juice, crumpets from freezer to toaster then a skim of peanut butter. Another demure outfit for court. And another day of missing Jay and wishing she was by her side.

It wasn't that she had to brave the oppressive grandeur of the Old Bailey alone. Her three siblings had worked out a rota which meant one of them was with her for at least part of every day of the trial. Yesterday it had been Patrick, dark and brooding, clearly away from his City desk out of wearisome obligation to the big sister who had always taken care of him. Today it would be Catherine, the baby of the family, abandoning her graduate anthropological studies to be at Magda's side. 'At least Wheelie will be pleased to see me,' Magda told her hazy reflection in the bathroom mirror. And there was no denying that Catherine's perpetual lightness of spirit would carry her through the day. Too much isolation made Magda uneasy. Growing up as the oldest of four children close in age, then student flats, then hospital life had conditioned her to company. Among the many reasons she had for being grateful to Jay, rescuing her from loneliness had been one of the most powerful.

Magda swept her tawny hair into a neat arrangement, her movements expert and automatic. She stared at herself judiciously, bemused that she still looked like the same old Magda. Same open expression, same direct stare, same straight line of the lips. Amazing, really.

A stray tendril of hair sprang free from its pins and curled over her forehead. She remembered a rhyme from childhood, one that had always made Catherine giggle.

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good
She was very, very good.
But when she was bad, she was horrid.

For as long as she could remember, Magda Newsam had been very, very good indeed.

And now she wasn't.

3

Subject: Ruby Tuesday
Date: 23 March 2010 09:07:29 GMT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Good morning. The sun is shining here. A blurt of blue irises that wasn't there yesterday hit me when I opened the front door this morning. Almost dispelled the gloomy prospect of watching over 120 Legal Practice students to make sure they're not cheating in their conveyancing exam. But not quite. Every crappy little job I have to swallow right now reminds me of what I should be doing. What I'm trained to do. What I'm best at.

Strange package at the breakfast table this a.m. with an Oxford postmark and no covering letter. Is this your idea of fun? If so, you're going to have to explain the joke. Your Scorpio sting in the tail, I don't always get it.

Wish I was in Oxford; we could walk from Folly Bridge to Iffley and say the things we don't write down. I might even sing to you.

Love, Charlie

Sent from my iPhone

Subject: Re: Ruby Tuesday
Date: 23 March 2010 09:43:13 GMT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Hi, Charlie

but sadly not here, so even if you were in Oxford, we'd have to find something more appealing than a damp river walk. I don't imagine we'd find that too hard, though. You always manage to cheer me up, even on the grey days.

poetry like that, maybe you should be petitioning the Creative Writing department for work. All those novels about serial killers and profiling - you've got the inside track, you could teach them how to get it right. Poor you. Poets shouldn't have to invigilate exams!

is, sadly, nothing to do with me. You must have another secret admirer here among the scheming spires. So what did the package contain?

Nothing much to report here. This morning, I am supposedly working on The Programme. When I first envisioned 'I'm Not OK, You're Not OK; Negotiating Vulnerability' I had no idea it would come to consume my life.

Thinking of you. Wishing we could run away and play.

LKx

Subject: It's a mystery
Date: 23 March 2010 13:07:52 GMT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

1 of 2

Another secret admirer? I don't think so. :-} One would be more than enough anyway, as long as it was the right one. If not from you, then from whom? The only other people I 'know' in Oxford are the few remaining dons at St Scholastika's who taught me, and I can't think why any of them would be sending me a package of newspaper clippings about a current murder trial. Unless someone mistakenly thinks it might interest me professionally because of the Schollie's connection? If so, then it's someone who isn't very current with my present status as the pariah of the clinical psychiatry world.

I've scanned in a couple of the articles for your edification. Just so you know what I'm talking about.

Hope the seminar programme is going well. I don't know where you find the energy. If I end up teaching students how to do what I used to do best, I will send them all on one of your weekend courses to teach them to develop empathy.

Sorry about the weather.

Love, Charlie

2 of 2

From the
Mail

THE BATTERED BRIDEGROOM

Two city whiz kids callously murdered their business partner on his wedding day then enjoyed a night of wild sex together, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

The evil pair smashed Philip Carling's skull then left him to drown just yards away from the Oxford college garden party celebrating his wedding, the court was told.

Shocked wedding guests taking a romantic stroll by the river found the bridegroom's body floating by the landing stage where the college punts were moored, blood from his shattered skull staining the water.