Not Dead Enough

28

Brian Bishop sat on the edge of the large bed, his chin cupped in his hands, staring at the television in his hotel room. A cup of tea on a tray beside him had long gone cold, while the two biscuits in their cellophane wrapper remained untouched. He had turned the air conditioning off because it was too cold and now, still wearing his golfing clothes beneath his jacket, he was dripping with perspiration.

Outside, despite the double-glazing, he could hear the wail of a siren, the faint chunter of a lorry engine, the intermittent parp-parpparp of a car alarm. A world out there that he felt totally disconnected from as he stared at his house – his home – on bloody Sky News. It felt totally surreal. As if he had suddenly become a stranger in his own life. And not just a stranger. A pariah.

He’d felt something like this before, during his separation and then divorce from Zoë when his children, Carly and Max, had taken her side, after she had done a successful job of poisoning them against him, and refused to speak to him for nearly two years.

A mediagenic newscaster with perfect hair and great teeth was standing outside his house, in front of a strip of blue and white Police – Crime Scene – Do Not Cross – tape, brandishing a microphone. ‘A post-mortem was carried out this afternoon. We will be returning to this story in our seven o’clock news. I’m David Wiltshire, Sky News.’

Brian was feeling totally and utterly bewildered.

His mobile phone started ringing. Not recognizing the number, he let it ring on. Almost every call this afternoon had been from the press or media, who had picked up his mobile number off his company’s website, he presumed. Interestingly, other than Sophie, only two friends had phoned him, his mate, Glenn Mishon and Ian Steel, and his business partner, Simon Walton, had also called. Simon had sounded genuinely concerned for him, asked him if there was anything he could do, and told him not to worry about the business, he would take care of everything for as long as Brian needed.

Brian had spoken several times to Katie’s parents, who were in Alicante, in Spain, where Katie’s father was setting up yet another of his – almost certainly doomed – business ventures. They were flying back in the morning.

He wondered whether he should call his lawyer, but why? He didn’t have anything to be guilty about. He just did not know what to do, so he sat there, motionless and mesmerized, staring at the screen, vaguely taking in the cluster of police vehicles jamming his driveway and parked out on the street. A steady stream of cars crawled by, their drivers and passengers rubber-necking, every one of them. He had work to do. Calls to make, emails to answer and send. So damn much, but at this moment he was incapable of functioning.

Restless, he stood up, paced around the room for some moments, then he walked through into the gleaming, clean bathroom, stared at the towels, lifted the lavatory seat, wanting to pee. Nothing happened. He closed the lid. Stared at his face in the mirror above the basin. Then his eye was caught by a row of toiletries. Small, imitation-marble plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and body lotion. He moved them until they were evenly spaced out, but then he didn’t like their position on the shelf, and he moved them several inches to the right, carefully ensuring they were evenly spaced.

That made him feel a little better.

At ten o’clock this morning, he’d been feeling good, contented, enjoying this incredible summer weather. Playing one of the best rounds of golf of his life, on one of the most beautiful days of the year. Now, a mere eight and a half hours later, his life was in ruins. Katie was dead.

His darling, darling, darling Katie.

And the police quite clearly believed he was involved.

Jesus.

He’d just spent most of the afternoon with two policewomen who said they were acting as his family liaison officers. Nice ladies, they’d been very supportive, but he was worn out with their questions and needed this break.

And then sweet Sophie – what was all that about? What the hell did she mean that they’d spent the night together? They hadn’t. No way. Absolutely no which way.

Sure, he fancied her. But an affair? No way. His ex-wife, Zoë, had had an affair. He’d discovered that she had been cheating on him for three years, and the pain when he’d found out had been almost unbearable. He could never do that to anyone. And recently he’d felt things were not right between himself and Katie, and he’d been making a big effort with their relationship, or so he felt.

He enjoyed flirting with Sophie. He enjoyed her company. Hell, it was flattering to have a girl in her mid-twenties crazy about you. But that was as far as it went. Although, he realized, maybe he’d encouraged her too far. Quite why he’d ever invited her to lunch, after sitting next to her at the conference on tax relief on film investments he had been invited to, he didn’t know. All the danger flags had been up, but he’d gone right ahead. They’d seen each other again, several times. Exchanged emails sometimes two or three times a day – and hers, recently, had been getting increasingly suggestive. And in truth he had thought about her a couple of times, during the – increasingly rare, these days – act of making love to Katie.

But he’d never slept with her. Damn it, he’d never even kissed her on the lips.

Had he?

Was he doing things and not remembering them? There were people who did things without realizing it. Stress could cause people mental problems, make the brain function in weird ways, and he’d been under plenty of stress lately, worrying about both his business and Katie.

His company, International Rostering Solutions, which he had founded nine years ago, was doing well – but almost too well. He needed to be in his office increasingly earlier every morning, just to clear all his emails from the previous day – as many as two hundred – but then the new lot would deluge in. And now that they had more offices opening up around the world – most recently in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Sydney, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur – communications were twenty-four/seven. He had taken on a lot more staff, of course, but he had never been good at delegating. So increasingly he found himself working in the office until well into the evening, and then going home and continuing to work after supper – and, to Katie’s displeasure, over the weekends as well.

In addition, he sensed that all was not right in their marriage. Despite her charity and Rotary interests, Katie was resenting the increasing amount of time she was left alone. He had tried to tell her that he would not be working at this pace forever – within a couple of years they might float the business or sell out, with enough money never to have to work again. Then she reminded him he had said that two years ago. And a further two years before then.

She had told him very recently, and quite angrily, that he would always be a workaholic, because he didn’t really have any interests outside his business. Lamely, he had argued back that his baby, the 1962 Jaguar he had lovingly restored, was an interest. Until she had responded, scathingly, that she couldn’t recall the last time he had taken it out of the garage. And, he was forced to admit to himself, nor could he.

He remembered, during the break up of his marriage to Zoë, when he had found himself barely able to cope, his doctor had suggested he check into a psychiatric clinic for a couple of weeks. He’d rejected that, and somehow got through everything. But he had that same low and sometimes muddled feeling now that he’d had then. And he was picking up from Katie some of those same kinds of vibes he’d experienced with Zoë, before he’d discovered she was having an affair. Maybe it was just in his mind.

Maybe his mind just wasn’t working that well right now.