“Somebody forced her into that terrible place and killed her there.”
DS Finborough was still patient with me. “But there was no reason anyone would want to kill her. It wasn’t a sexual crime, thank God, and there was no theft involved. And when we were investigating her disappearance, we couldn’t find anyone who wished her harm, in fact quite the reverse.”
“Will you at least talk to Simon again?”
“I really don’t believe there’s anything to be gained by that.”
“Is it because Simon is the son of a cabinet minister?”
I threw that at him in an attempt to make him change his mind, to shame him into it.
“My decision not to talk to Simon Greenly again is because there is no purpose to be served by it.”
Now that I know him better, I know that he uses formal language when he feels emotionally pressured.
“But you’re aware that Simon’s father is Richard Greenly, MP?”
“I don’t think this phone call is getting us very far. Perhaps—”
“Tess isn’t worth the risk to you, is she?”
Mr. Wright has poured me a glass of water. Describing the toilets building made me retch. I have told him about Simon’s lie and my phone call to DS Finborough. But I have left out that as I spoke to DS Finborough, Todd hung up my coat; that he took the cards out of the pockets and neatly laid each one out to dry; that instead of feeling that he was being considerate, each damp card smoothed out felt a criticism; and that I knew he was taking DS Finborough’s side, even though he could hear only mine.
“So after DS Finborough said he wouldn’t interview Simon, you decided to do it yourself?” asks Mr. Wright. I think I detect a hint of amusement in his voice; it wouldn’t be surprising.
“Yes, it was getting to be something of a habit.”
And just eight days earlier, flying into London, I’d been someone who always avoided confrontation. But in comparison to the murderous brutality of your death, confrontation with words seemed harmless and a little trivial. Why had I ever been daunted by it before, afraid even? That seemed so cowardly—ludicrous—now.
Todd was going off to buy a toaster. (“I can’t believe your sister had to grill her toast.”) Our toaster in New York had a defrost function and a croissant-warming mode that we actually used. At the door he turned to me.
“You look exhausted.”
Was he being concerned or critical?
“I told you last night that you should take one of Dr. Broadbent’s sleeping pills I got for you.”
Critical.
He left to go and get the toaster.
I hadn’t explained to him why I couldn’t take a sleeping pill—that it would have felt cowardly blotting you out, even for a few hours. Nor would I tell him now that I was going to see Simon, because he would have felt duty-bound to stop me being “so rash and ridiculous.”
I drove to Simon’s address, which I’d found on a Post-it in your address book, and parked outside a three-story mansion in Kensington. Simon buzzed me in and I made my way up to the top flat. When he opened the door, I barely recognized him. His soft baby face was ridged with tiredness, his designer stubble grown into the beginnings of a sparse beard.
“I’d like to talk to you about Tess.”
“Why? I thought you knew her best.” His voice was snide with jealousy.
“You were close to her too, weren’t you?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“So may I come in?”
He left the door open and I followed him into a large, opulent drawing room. It must be his father’s London pad when he isn’t in his constituency. On one wall, running along the length of the double drawing room, was a vast painting of a prison. Looking closer, I saw that it was actually a collage, the prison made from thousands of passport-sized photos of babies’ faces. It was engrossing and repelling.
“The Serpentine Gallery is closed until April; you couldn’t have met Tess there.”
He just shrugged, apparently unconcerned.
“Why did you lie?” I asked.
“I just liked the idea, that’s all,” he replied. “It made our meeting sound like a date. The Serpentine Gallery is the kind of place Tess would choose for a date.”
“But it wasn’t a date, was it?”
“Does it really matter now if I rewrite our history a little? Make it something I want it to be? Put a little fantasy in? There’s no harm in that.”
I wanted to yell at him, but nothing would be served but the brief instant gratification of expressed rage.
“So why did you meet her in the park? It must have been freezing out.”
“It was Tess who wanted to go to the park. Said she needed to be outside. Told me she was going crazy stuck indoors.”
“‘Crazy’? She used that word?”
I’ve never heard you say it. Although you talk nineteen to the dozen, you choose words carefully, and you’re patriotically English about vocabulary, berating me for my Americanisms.
Simon picked up a velvet bag from a mirrored-glass cabinet. “Maybe she said she was claustrophobic. I don’t remember.” That sounded more likely.
“Did she give a reason for wanting to see you?” I asked.
He fussed around with Rizla rolling papers, not replying.
“Simon…?”
“She just wanted to spend time with me. Jesus, is that so hard for you to understand?”
“How did you find out she was dead?” I asked. “Did a friend tell you? Did they tell you about the slashes to the insides of her arms?”
I wanted to tip him into tears, because I know that tears dissolve into wet saltiness the defenses around what we want to keep private.
“Were you told she’d been there for five nights, all alone, in a stinking foul toilets building?”
Tears were welling up in his eyes, his voice quieter than usual. “That day you found me outside her flat. I waited, just round the corner, till you left. Then followed you on my bike.”
I dimly remembered the sound of a motorbike revving as I left for Hyde Park. I hadn’t taken any notice of it after that.
“I waited, for hours, outside the park gates. It was snowing,” continued Simon. “I was already frozen, remember? I saw you come out with that policewoman. I saw a blacked-out van. No one would tell me anything. I wasn’t family.”
His tears were flowing now; he made no effort to stop them. I found him repellent, like his art.
“Later that evening it was on the local news,” he continued. “Just a short item, barely two minutes, about a young woman who had been found dead in a Hyde Park toilet. They showed the student picture of her. That’s how I discovered she was dead.”
He had to blow his nose and wipe his eyes, and I judged it the right time to confront him.
“So why did she really want to meet you?”
“She said she was frightened and wanted me to help her.”
The tears had worked, as I knew they would, since that first night at boarding school when I broke down and admitted to my house mistress that it wasn’t home and Mum I missed, but Dad.
“Did she tell you why she was frightened?” I asked.
“She said she’d been getting weird phone calls.”