‘We weren’t close.’ Julia Sharkey shrugged as if to indicate that was just the way things went sometimes. ‘Both Simon’s and my parents are dead, and Simon’s brother lives in Thailand. I have a family of my own, two girls, and I work as a GP. When you combine all that, there isn’t much time for anything else. And Simon was always very busy at the hospital.’ Her voice was businesslike, but she drew a tissue from the cuff of her sleeve and wiped away another tear. ‘I hadn’t seen him for at least a year. We had lunch together, just the two of us, somewhere near St Thomas’s. He told me he was going to get married and have a family of his own. All he needed to do was find the right girl.’ She looked up. ‘Had he found her?’
Stevie said, ‘I don’t know. We liked each other a lot, but it was too soon to tell.’
Julia Sharkey nodded. Stevie saw how pale she was and wondered if she too were coming down with something or if grief had sucked the colour from the doctor’s skin.
‘That’s a shame. I would have liked to think of him being happy before . . .’ The sentence trailed away as she dabbed at her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a bit of a shock.’
‘I think he was happy. He found his work fulfilling.’ Stevie brushed a stray hair from her eyes, searching for a way to describe how things had been between them. ‘We enjoyed each other’s company.’
They had enjoyed being in bed together. Everything else had led towards or from that, their two bodies moving together.
Perhaps Julia Sharkey saw it in Stevie’s eyes because she sighed and tucked the tissue back in her sleeve. She pulled an envelope from her handbag and handed it to Stevie.
‘I found it in the tea caddy. A perfect hiding place for something you don’t want to be overlooked, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’ Stevie turned the envelope over in her hands. Her name and address were neatly printed on the outside in Simon’s clear, undoctorly hand. ‘The perfect place.’
Julia Sharkey got to her feet, as if eager to be gone now that her task had been accomplished. She said, ‘If it’s a suicide note, I’d rather not know.’
Stevie followed her into the hallway.
‘The policeman said Simon died of natural causes.’
‘Yes.’ Julia Sharkey paused at the front door and turned to look at her. ‘And so it probably was. But don’t forget, Simon was a doctor, and we doctors have a way with death. If he’d wanted to, he could have killed himself quietly and neatly.’
Stevie put a hand against the wall to steady herself.
‘However neat it was, someone had to find him.’
‘True, but if he did do it, and there’s no evidence that he did, at least he showed some consideration.’ Julia Sharkey leant her back against the door. Her skin was the colour of old bone, her eyes hollow shadows. ‘I’ve seen too many messy suicides to think of them as anything other than acts of revenge.’ She forced a smile. ‘Sorry, that’s what being a GP does to you.’ Julia opened the door and stepped into the lobby. ‘I’m not sure when the funeral will be, there has to be an inquest first, but I’ll let you know. I expect a lot of Simon’s friends and colleagues will turn out for it. I posted the news on his Facebook page and we’ve already had condolences from as far away as Hong Kong. He had a talent for friendship.’
‘I didn’t really know any of his friends. We hadn’t got to that stage.’
‘No.’ Julia stared down the lobby, past the doors to other apartments, towards the stairs. ‘The police said you surrendered your keys to Simon’s place to them.’
The word ‘surrendered’ felt like an accusation. Stevie said, ‘I volunteered them. The police gave me a receipt.’
‘Of course, but is there any possibility you picked up his set?’ Julia looked her in the eye. ‘By mistake?’
‘Finding Simon’s body was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. The last place I’d want to go is back to his flat.’
‘I didn’t mean to imply you’d done anything wrong. It’s just that I’ve not been able to find Simon’s keys, or his mobile phone. I thought it might help me be sure I’d been in touch with everyone who needs to know, but it seems to have vanished.’
Julia Sharkey was one of those women who never meant to imply anything, Stevie decided, but who was adept at making insinuations all the same.
‘I’ve no idea where his mobile might be, but Simon always hung his keys on the hook next to the door. He was meticulous about keeping them in the same place. The first time I stayed the night he made a point of telling me where they were. I teased him and asked if he thought I might do a runner. But Simon was serious. He said he’d seen a family of four who died of smoke inhalation in a house fire, when he was a junior doctor. They were found in the hallway, crumpled against the front door, mum, dad and two kids. The keys were in the father’s jacket, upstairs in the bedroom.’
‘Typical doctor.’ Julia Sharkey smiled sadly. ‘We develop obsessions from our patients’ tragedies, as if their misfortunes might help prolong our own lives. What we should realise is, death comes for us all eventually. The day before the police contacted me about Simon I admitted four previously healthy patients to hospital with the same symptoms you exhibited. One of them passed away, another looks like he may not make it. But here you are, hale and hearty.’ Julia Sharkey glanced at her watch and the shadows caught her face again, showing the hollows beneath her cheekbones, the sockets sunk in her skull. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I took holiday leave when I heard about Simon’s death, but the surgery rang this afternoon and asked me to cut it short. I managed to buy enough time to keep my promise to the girls that I’d collect them from school. They consider it a great treat to see me at the school gate, which makes me feel rather guilty.’
‘Are you saying that what I had was serious?’
Julia shrugged. ‘There’s certainly a nasty virus doing the rounds – as usual the media are making a big thing of it – but you’re young and in good basic health, so probably not. If you were old, or suffering from an underlying condition, it might be a different story. The main thing is you recovered.’ She took Stevie’s hands in hers and gave them a brief squeeze. Her palms were slightly damp. ‘I’m glad Simon had you in his life.’ Julia gave a wry smile. ‘When I saw your name on the envelope and assumed you were a man, it crossed my mind that he might have been gay. Not that I would have cared about that, but he was always so private, I thought maybe he had killed himself out of some kind of misplaced shame. I’m not sure I could have stood that.’
‘So you do think he killed himself?’
‘I think I’m just doing what I’ve seen countless relatives do, trying to attach some kind of meaning to death. Maybe that’s why I’m fixating on his missing keys and telephone, to distract myself from the pointlessness of everything.’ Julia settled her oversized handbag on her arm and her brow furrowed as if something had occurred to her. ‘If Simon was feeling unwell he very possibly locked the door and put them somewhere he wouldn’t normally.’
‘Yes,’ said Stevie. She remembered the damaged door jamb and the necessity of locking the door to keep it closed. ‘I’m sure they’ll turn up, eventually. Things usually do.’
Seven
Stevie put the coffee cups in the dishwasher, poured herself a glass of water and went back through to the lounge. The seat of the armchair was rumpled where Julia Sharkey had sat. She smoothed all trace of her visitor away, lay down on the couch and took Simon’s letter from the pocket of her sweatsuit.