Slowly, he pulled back the bolt and opened the cage door. I began, hesitantly, to step forward, fixing on the thought that he might have come to release me; but he thrust me hard backwards so that I fell against the rear panel, before following me in and coming so close that when his chest rose, it pressed against mine. The metal tang of his sweat mixed with the smog seeping into the van, and he waited for a long time, staring straight through me.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘We’re going to talk about you and your husband.’
The faint blue glow that wept from the bulb above us threw long spindly shadows of my limbs on to the floor, making me inhuman in my own sight.
‘Please let me go.’
‘I can’t do that, Mrs Cawson.’ Despite the closeness of the cage, I tried to twist my body past his, but it was so tight he barely fitted into it. ‘What were you doing at Lorelei Addington’s house?’ At those words, my legs became weak and I nearly fell. They must have seen me there searching for the box and the book hidden in Hazel’s bedroom. I wanted to lie, to make something up, but my mind was empty.
‘I–’
‘Why did you think your husband was there?’
I stopped short, failing to understand. Why did I think Nick was there? I hadn’t thought that. I was just going to collect what Hazel had said was hidden in her room. Then it dawned on me: Grest was asking about the first time I had gone to the house, the time when I had found Lorelei. He didn’t know that I had returned and found the ledger-like book. I forced myself not to look at the bag on the floor that held it, and stammered an answer to what he had asked. ‘I thought… I thought he was having an affair with her.’ The shame I felt at those words was nothing compared to my need to hide where I had just been.
‘Did you?’ He slid his hand across the wire mesh side of the cage. I looked at my feet, feeling guilty once more of my unfounded suspicions. ‘How long have you been married to Nicholas Cawson?’
‘Six months.’
‘Not very long.’ A pause. ‘Do you know where your husband really was this afternoon?’
‘With a patient.’
‘Who?’
He knew who. He had been there at the house when Nick told the policeman. He was testing me. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Think.’
It came to me. ‘Taggan! Comrade Taggan.’
‘And do you know who this man, Taggan, is?’
‘No.’
‘So how do you know your husband was there?’
‘Nick said so.’ But, as I said it, I realized how weak that sounded.
Grest nodded. He stepped half a pace away and picked up the scarf I had taken from Lorelei’s house. He played with it in his fingers. I was terrified about what he might do with it. ‘But you don’t know, do you?’
‘No.’
‘So he could be lying.’
Was that right? I supposed it had to be. ‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly.
The reasons I had had for doubting Nick had been absurd when I came to examine them in the clear light of day. But this man’s questions were confusing me, making me uncertain. Had Nick really been at Taggan’s? If he hadn’t, why would he say he had, when it could be checked quite easily? ‘What other secrets does your husband keep from you?’
‘He doesn’t… nothing.’
‘There must be something that he keeps from you, Mrs Cawson,’ he said. ‘Everyone keeps something back. What would it be?’
I heard the sounds of life outside: people nearby, traffic moving. I tried to think of something to tell him – to please him, somehow, so that he would leave me alone. ‘The… maybe something about being a doctor. He can’t tell me about his patients.’
‘He could if he wanted to.’
‘It wouldn’t be allowed.’
‘He could if he wanted to.’ He repeated it in the same precise tone.
‘Yes,’ I relented.
‘Yes.’ He looked me up and down and his voice changed: curious now, instead of accusatory. He let the scarf fall from his fingers. ‘Are you a Socialist, Mrs Cawson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not a Party member, though.’
‘No. I’ll join if–’
‘Do you support the state?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do!’ That was still true, although right then I would have believed in or supported anything.
‘Some people don’t.’ He watched for a reaction.
‘I do.’
‘I believe you.’ He seemed satisfied and retreated just enough so that I could breathe freely and let my mind and body relax a little.
He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Where were you this evening?’ He said it plainly, as if any response held no real interest for him, and yet I realized straight away this was the question he had really wanted answered from the beginning. Somehow, though, because the other questions had been so invasive and this one was put so simply, without threat, I felt a strange urge to tell him the truth.
I forced myself to take a moment, however. ‘I’m sorry?’
He wound the watch. ‘You were away from your house. Where were you?’
‘I went out to think.’
‘Where?’ He looked up with an expression of mild surprise on his face.
‘I… just walked.’
‘With your husband in custody?’
‘I do it when I’m upset.’
And then he dropped the pretence, his eyes boring into me once more. ‘You returned to Lorelei Addington’s house.’
‘No,’ I cried. ‘I didn’t.’ If he found out, the consequences…
‘Why did you go back there?’
‘I didn’t. I just walked.’
‘Don’t lie to me!’
‘I’m not!’ I shouted.
‘You are!’
‘No,’ I sobbed, genuinely breaking down. ‘No.’
He waited, considering me in the blue light. Deciding whether I was telling the truth. My nerves felt like they were on fire. ‘Where were you walking? Which streets?’
My mind sped. I picked a route – the one I took to go to the bakery and greengrocery. ‘Calward Road. Then into March Street.’ His eyes moved to the side, as if he were picturing the path, mentally checking if it were possible. I prayed he wouldn’t find some fault, such as a road closure that would have prevented me from taking that route, or a street that I had missed out along the way. Then his eyes returned to mine.
For what seemed an age he simply stared, unblinking, at me before thumping twice on the panel separating us from the driver. The engine started up again and we began to move.
He was silent while the van shuddered and the wheels turned through potholes. Eventually, with a whining of the brakes, the vehicle stopped. ‘Do you know where we are?’ he asked. His voice was calm again. I shook my head.
He stepped out of the cage and pointed to the rear door. Hoping that this really was the end, I frantically scrabbled on the floor for my purse and bag, before shuffling to the back of the vehicle, grabbing the handle and turning it.
‘Have you got a stepdaughter?’
I froze, my back to him. His words echoed metallically off the sides of the van. It took me a while to answer. ‘Yes.’
For a moment there was silence. ‘How old?’
‘Fourteen.’
Another pause. ‘Nice age.’
The air was damp as I hauled myself out, clutching the leather bag.
8
I found we were in a little side street facing Liberation Square, site of the People’s Hall of Solidarity – the great grey dome of which had dominated London’s skyline for four hundred years. But the golden cross that had once adorned the former cathedral had been melted down and turned into the hammer and compass on the main door; and inside you could see the bullet holes that the trigger-happy Soviet troops had made when they tore into the city. There were no priests there now; those licensed by the state conducted their services in grey concrete basements, regularly harried and harassed by the authorities but clinging on to what they could of the old ways. For how much longer? It was anyone’s guess.