I catch the eye of an old man with yellow whiskers, and when he grins, I look away. The intermittent bang of vending machines turns my headache into a dull throb.
A guard opens a door, beckons us all with a half-arsed finger. ‘Twelve,’ he says to me as I pass him inside the doorway. I find the table, sit down, clasp my fingers together. I don’t want to see him. I never wanted to have to see him again. And yet.
The prisoners file in. I feel Ross before I see him: a trickle of cold against my spine, a flutter in my heart. He stops next to the table, long enough that I have to look up. He looks great. His hair is short. His eyes are no longer bloodshot, the skin beneath them clear. On the day he took the stand, the flesh beneath his cheekbones was sunken, dark with stubble. He was charming, passionate, credible. He cried. Though I’d felt his stare throughout most of the trial, that day he never glanced in my direction once.
‘Hello, Cat,’ he says, and his smile is warm, unsure. ‘It’s good to see you. I didn’t think I would.’ The last is a question, but I refuse to answer it, not yet. I need to be in control of this whole conversation; I can’t let any bit of him in until I’ve made my choice.
He sits down, keeps his smile. When he stretches out his legs, I cross mine at the ankles under the seat of my chair. But when he clears his throat, I make myself look at him. If I can’t do that, I’m screwed before I’ve even started.
‘Why are you here?’ His gaze is too intense. Peat-brown eyes flecked with silver.
I close mine, and they sting. Because I’ve been grieving for him too, I can’t pretend I haven’t. ‘I don’t know yet.’
He leans closer. Close enough that I can smell him. ‘I want – I need – you to know how sorry I am about what happened that night …’ He swallows, and his throat clicks. ‘I’m so sorry that I hurt you, Cat. I’ve thought about it every day, and I don’t blame you for what you said at the trial, I don’t blame you for anything. I promise you I don’t.’
Because I am the main reason he’s here. I am why there was so little in the way of mitigation. I was the Crown’s best witness, and the most damning part of my testimony was not what I’d found or heard, not even the oxycodone and diazepam that they found in my wine glass and my blood – but the fact that Ross and I had been having sex. I endured the telling of that truth, even the snide cross-examination of it by Ross’s QC and then the wider, snider world, because it was so damning. So much of the prosecution’s case was circumstantiaclass="underline" El’s letter, Ross’s false statements, the physical finds, the mobile phone data, camera footage, even the turning up of a will that Ross knew nothing about, in which El left everything of hers to only me. None of it perhaps would have been enough. But her husband – her charming, handsome, grief-stricken husband; YouTube’s wailing widower – shagging her twin sister within days of her disappearance carried a deliciously scandalous weight that would not be moved. Even as I was testifying, I could see the jury members bristling.
‘That last night in Mirrorland, I want you to know that I would never … I would never have – everything just got out of hand, and you wouldn’t listen.’ He shakes his head hard. ‘But I let go, Cat. I let go. You know I—’
‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
He purses his lips, furrows his brow. ‘But I need you to believe that I wouldn’t—’
‘You wouldn’t have killed me.’ It’s an effort to keep my voice steady, neutral, because I’m not sure that’s true. But I believe he believes it. He believes that there was never a shining madness in his eyes, nor fat pulsing veins in his neck as he choked mine tighter. We only ever believe what we want – what we need – to believe.
He smiles. There’s a dried spot of blood under his chin, and I find myself wondering if he shaved for me again. But this time I don’t shiver. I don’t hate him any more. I’ve worked hard at not hating him. Perhaps too hard.
Under the table, I pinch my skin. ‘It’s kind of ironic.’ My voice is too high, too loud. ‘Me visiting you in prison, instead of the other way around.’
Ross flushes, and although his smile endures, it’s insecure, uncertain, hides its teeth. Should he laugh? Is it a joke? Is it a joke he’s supposed to laugh at? I’ve never been disposed to studying his reactions before, but now it’s as if every thought process is lit up in neon above his head. I wonder if he’s always had to pretend to be human, if it’s always been this obviously hard.
It suddenly occurs to me that the prison might be listening in on our conversation. Is that allowed? The possibility makes my heart beat too fast again; cool sweat slides between my shoulder blades. Ross looks at me, and I reach for my calm, my anger, because it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the choice I’m here to make.
I lower my voice, soften my tone, look into his eyes as if I want to. ‘There are some things I need to ask. Things I need to know. And I need you to tell me the truth.’
Ross casts his gaze quick around the room. ‘I’ve told the truth, Cat.’
‘Then it should be easy.’
He blinks. ‘And then can we start over?’
‘I don’t know what happens next yet.’
‘Okay.’ Another smile. When he sees me hesitate, he leans even closer. ‘I didn’t kill her. I swear it, Cat. I didn’t kill El.’
‘That’s not what I want to know.’
He can’t hide his surprise, his relief.
‘Why did you drug us?’
When he immediately shakes his head, I stand up fast, start moving away from the table.
‘Wait. Wait!’ His shout is loud enough to attract the attention of the prison guard closest to us, tall and bored and chewing gum. Ross shows him the palm of his hand and drops his head down, stares at the table between us. ‘Please, Cat. Sit down. I’ll tell you the truth.’
I sit down.
When Ross finally looks up again, his eyes are blurry. ‘Because I wanted you to stay. I always want you to stay.’
‘You didn’t think we’d stay without being drugged?’
‘I know it was wrong, weak. But when Mum left – when she just woke up one day and decided to take me and leave Dad, it shocked me. That someone could do that and never look back.’ He closes his eyes tight like a child. ‘And then, after he killed himself, it terrified me.’
He reaches his hands across the table. His nails are ragged. ‘When El was – when she got depressed … I got scared. I didn’t know what to do. I thought she might try to hurt herself again. I just wanted to look after her, to help her, that was all.’ He leans closer. ‘And with you … I was so scared of losing you again – I could feel it happening. Because when you went to America, Cat’ – he swallows – ‘you never once looked back. Not once. But I’m—’
‘Why did you want me?’
‘What?’ The confusion is back. His hands are reaching for me again, though I don’t think he knows it. ‘Because I love you. I’ve always loved you. You know that.’ He holds my gaze, until I feel something inside me giving way. This is Ross, it says. But straightaway, I harden against it. The reflex and the longing.
‘Then why did you choose El instead of me? Why was it always her?’
For a moment, he’s silent, but the neon over his head is still flashing panic, uncertainty. What does she want me to say?
‘Was it because you wanted her more? Or because you loved her more? Or maybe because she needed you more than I did? Or you needed her?’ I force myself to relax. ‘Just tell me the truth, Ross, that’s all. Not what you think I want you to say, or what you think is the right thing to say. Just the truth. That’s all I want.’