Secret Smile

CHAPTER 25

Detective Inspector Rob Pryor was nice, like a normal person that you might meet in the real world. He had curly blond hair and a relaxed, almost lazy manner. He brought me coffee from a machine just outside his office. He introduced me to colleagues. Vicky Reeder, the WPC who had looked after me, came over and said hello. Then Rob – he asked me to call him Rob, and I asked him to call me Miranda – took me into his office and shut the door. He showed me the view from his window. It was really just trees on the other side of the high wall that surrounded the police car park, but he knew what kinds of trees they were. He seemed proud of his view, or maybe he was just being reassuring, because then he turned to me and asked how I was.

I said I was devastated, that we all were, and he nodded and said he understood.

'It's difficult to deal with,' he said.

'It's funny,' I said. 'I thought you'd be puzzled to see me and that you'd just tell me to go away. But you're acting as if you were expecting me.'

He gave a sympathetic smile.

'I wasn't,' he said. 'Not exactly, but it's not a complete surprise. When tragedies like this happen, people go over and over them in their head. They ask themselves if they could have done that or this to stop it. They become obsessed. They need someone to talk about it with. Sometimes they come in here and go over it with us without being exactly sure what they want. It feels so like a crime against them, they can't quite believe it isn't.'

'So you think I'm using you as some kind of therapy?'

He took a sip of coffee.

'You were the one who found your brother,' he said. 'That's a big thing to deal with.'

'That's not it,' I said. 'I've got things to tell you.'

He leaned back in his chair and looked at me warily.

'What things?'

I told him my suspicions. I'd even brought the rope with me. I took it from my bag and placed it on his desk. When I'd finished, he gave a little shrug.

'As I said, these things take time to get over.'

'Which means you haven't listened to what I've said.'

'What have you said, Miranda?'

'I knew Troy,' I said. 'Better than anybody. He wasn't in the mood to kill himself.'

'He was suffering from intense depression.'

'He was in a good phase.'

'Depression can be difficult to assess from the outside. Sometimes suicide can be the first visible symptom.'

'This isn't just a feeling. There were all the other details I mentioned to you. There was the watch.'

He looked at me with a questioning expression.

'You're not serious about this, are you? So he forgot to put his watch on after his afternoon sleep. I do it all the time and he was depressed. You forget things when you're depressed.'

'There's the rope.'

'What do you mean, the rope?'

'I didn't have any rope. This was bought specially. Brendan said he knew nothing about it and then I found this in his luggage. As I told you, I was looking for it when I was found by him.'

'You see, Miranda, I'm with your sister on this one. You don't want to go looking through other people's stuff without their permission. You'll get into trouble.'

'I'm in trouble,' I said. 'They're all furious with me.'

'What can I say?'

'It doesn't matter,' I said. 'The important thing is to sort this out.'

'I don't understand,' he said. 'What is it you really believe?'

I paused. I wanted to express this calmly.

'I think that, at best, Brendan encouraged Troy to kill himself. At worst he, well…' I couldn't say the words.

'Killed him? Is that what you're trying to say?' Rob's tone was harsher now, sarcastic. 'And what? Staged it?'

'That's what I've been thinking about. I think it's worth looking into.'

There was a long silence. Rob was gazing out of the window, as if something had caught his interest. When he turned back to me, I sensed a barrier between us.

' Troy took pills,' I said. 'He had terrible trouble sleeping. When he had taken his pills, he was out for the count.'

Rob picked up a file from his desk.

'Your brother had traces of barbiturate in his bloodstream.'

'Exactly.'

He tossed the file on to his desk again.

'He was taking medication. There was nothing beyond what you'd expect. Come on, Miranda. What would you do?' he said. 'I mean, if you were me.'

'I'd investigate Brendan,' I said.

'You mean, just like that. Investigate?'

'To see what you find.'

Rob looked irritably puzzled.

'What is it with this guy, Brendan?' he said. 'Have you got some problem with him?'

'It's a bit of a long story.'

He was definitely wary now, glancing at his watch.

'Miranda, I'm a bit pressed…'

'It won't take a minute,' I said, and I gave him the quick version of the story of Brendan and me as the view from his window darkened behind him. It "was one of those dark December days. When I finished, it was harder to make out his expression.

'So?' I said.

'You've had a tough time,' he said. 'Breaking up with a boyfriend.'

'He wasn't exactly my boyfriend.'

'And a death in the family. I'm really sorry, Miranda, but there's nothing I can do.'

'What about this creep?' I said. 'Doesn't he sound dangerous?'

'I don't know,' Rob said. 'One of the things I don't do is get involved in private disputes.'

'Until a crime has been committed.'

'That's right. I'm a policeman.'

'Do you want more evidence? Is that it?'

'No, no,' he said urgently. 'Definitely not. You've done enough.' He stood up, walked round his desk and put his hand on my shoulder. 'Miranda, give it some time. In a few weeks, or months, it will seem different. I promise.'

'And you're not going to do anything at all?'

He patted a large pile of files on his desk.

'I'm going to do a lot,' he said.

Laura looked gorgeous. She'd just had her hair done at a place in Clerkenwell where you virtually have to take out a mortgage, but I had to admit it was worth it. Streaked and tousled, it glowed like a beacon on this horrible grey day. It seemed to light up the bar. She looked smart as well. I'd met her straight from work and she was wearing a suit and a white shirt with a ruffle down the front. I suddenly became self-conscious and looked around to see if I could catch my reflection in the window. I had an uneasy feeling that I didn't look particularly presentable. I didn't seem to have had the time for a few days. There had always been something more urgent. I'd been in a hurry to get to meet Laura, walking along Camden High Street, and I'd been going over in my mind what I wanted to say to her, getting it right, when I passed two schoolgirls and noticed that they were giggling and one of them glanced at me. They were giggling at me. I realized I'd been thinking aloud, walking along muttering to myself, like those people you cross the street to avoid because you think you might catch their eye and they might turn scary.

In my sloppier moments, like when I was working hard, without the time ever to get ready properly, I tried to tell myself that I had a cute gamine look. I wondered if it had tipped over and I just looked like someone who had been released into the community.

I brought the bottle of wine over to the table. Now that was another issue. I was going to start keeping track of my drinking. I didn't think it was particularly excessive, but I was going to start thinking about it. Not now, though. I had other things to sort out first. As I poured the wine, Laura looked at me and with a flicker of a smile she took a packet of Marlboro Lights and a lighter from her bag.

'You've started again,' I said.

'I used to love smoking so much,' she said, taking a cigarette from the packet and placing it between her glossy red lips. 'And then suddenly I thought: why not? I'll give up again when I'm old. You want one?'

She flicked the lighter and sucked the flame into the end of the cigarette and then ejected a dense cloud of smoke. I was very tempted. The smell of it brought back late nights in a fog of drink and talk and laughter and intimacy. But I shook my head. Things were bad enough already. I had to make one gesture towards healthy living, however feeble. It took an effort. Laura was breathing the smoke deep into her lungs and when she exhaled she seemed to be savouring its taste on her tongue. I took a gulp of wine to take my mind off it.

'I'd hoped we could go for a walk,' I said.

Laura looked through the window with an expression of distaste.

'In this weather?'

'I wanted to breathe some cold air,' I said. 'Clear my head.'

'You can do that on your own,' Laura said. 'I'm not dressed for it.'

I had planned what I was going to say to Laura, so that it would seem coherent and sane, but it all came out wrong. I talked about Troy and Brendan and going to the police and it turned into a chaotic exercise in free association, hopping from one subject to another as ideas occurred to me. By the time I was finished, Laura was on her third cigarette.

'This isn't like you, Miranda,' she said.

I took a deep breath and tried not to get angry.

'I don't want you to make a judgement about my psychological state,' I said. 'Or at least, not yet. Just listen to what I'm saying. It adds up.'

'You know what I've always admired about you, Miranda? You've always been wonderful about putting things behind you. When I had snarl-ups in my life, you were the one I'd come to and you'd give me this amazingly sensible advice.'

'Now I'm. the one that's coming to you.'

'Listen to yourself,' Laura said. 'I'm so sorry about Troy. We all are. But listen to yourself. I know what it's like to break up with someone. I know what it's like to be dumped by someone. When Saul broke up with me, you remember what I was like. I couldn't get it out of my head. I kept going over and over it, wondering if he would still love me if I had done this thing or that thing differently. It makes me embarrassed to say it, but do you remember that I even came up with schemes to get him back. Do you remember?'

'Of course I do, darling.'

'You do because I poured it all out to you. And what did you say to me?'

'It's a completely different situation.'

'You told me to bite my tongue, not do anything I would regret and just let time pass and that you promised it would look different. I wanted to slap you yet you were absolutely right.'

'This isn't just a break-up and, as you know, I broke up with Brendan, but I don't want to get into that again…'

'For God's sake, Miranda. I've talked to Brendan. He's puzzled by all this, as much as I am.'

'What?' I said. 'Brendan? Have you been discussing me with Brendan?'

'Miranda

'You've gone over to him. That's it. I can tell. You think he's charming? A nice guy? How dare you? How dare you talk about me to him? What have you told him? Have you given away things I've said to you about him?'

'Miranda, stop this, this is me.'

I stopped and looked at her. She was beautiful and slightly evasive. She took a drag on her cigarette. She was avoiding my eyes.

'You like him, don't you?'

She gave a shrug.

'He's just an ordinary, nice guy,' she said. 'He's concerned about you.'

'That's it,' I said. I rummaged in my purse and, dimly feeling I'd done all this before, in a dream, found a ten-pound note and threw it down on the table. 'There. I'll be in touch. Sorry. I can't say anything more. I've got to go. I can't be doing with this.'

And I walked out on Laura. Out on the pavement I looked around, stunned by what I had done. What did I do now? The damp cold stung me. Good. I walked and walked without knowing where I was going.