Secret Smile

CHAPTER 41

I spent a long time choosing the place. First I thought about somewhere with many people, Oxford Street or Trafalgar Square, because at least you lose yourself in a crowd, become anonymous and invisible. But I dismissed the idea immediately. I considered a motorway service station, heading north on the M1, say, standing in a car park or sitting at a table in the corner by a window eating doughnuts and drinking bitter, tepid coffee. But too many people pass through service stations, on their way somewhere else, and it would only take one. Perhaps outside an underground station in the suburbs: the last stop on the line, where London peters out and the countryside has not yet begun. Or in a muddy field somewhere. I could rehearse the route and draw up complicated instructions: take the M11 until Junction 10, head east on the A505. A landfill site, a laundrette in some charmless town, a lay-by off a dual carriageway, a wood at night…

On a bright and freezing New Year's Day I got up early, kissed Don's cheek very softly so he didn't wake. Before I left, I looked down at him. Yes. He'd do. I took the car and drove out of London. The roads were almost empty. I went over Blackfriars Bridge from where I could see the dome of Saint Paul 's shining in the icy light, through New Cross, Blackheath, and on to the A2. Just past Gravesend, I pulled into a garage and filled the car up with petrol. I was handing over my credit card when I changed my mind and paid in cash. I bought a cup of coffee as well, and drank it in the car before setting off again. I felt calm and, in the brightness of that winter's day, things took on a clarity and precision.

I joined the M2 and a few miles later exited towards Sheerness. I could see the Medway estuary now, the mud flats and shabby clusters of houses with a few bare trees bending in the wind and the sky vast and empty of clouds. Soon I was crossing on to the Isle of Sheppey. I pulled over and consulted my map, then drove on, right at the roundabout, right a couple of miles further, on to a bumpy minor road, left towards the church which was visible for miles, the one vertical marker rising out of the marshy. land. At the church, I parked and looked at my watch. It was ten o'clock; I had about two miles to walk and just less than an hour to do it in.

It was bitterly cold when I opened the door and I could hear the desolate call of sea birds on the wind. I pulled on my thick jacket, my scarf, woollen hat and padded biking gloves. Even then, my cheeks felt scoured. I started to walk. If Don had been with me, he could have told me the names of the birds that circled above me in the streams of air, or flew low over the water, calling. I clapped my hands together to keep the blood circulating. There was nobody around; just a few sheep grazing at the tufts of grass, birds picking their way delicately over the mud with long, hinged legs. I turned my back on the sea and walked towards the inland marshes.

After about forty minutes, I saw a dot on the level horizon. The dot became larger, clearer. Became a figure that was walking towards me. Became a woman in a heavy coat with blonde hair escaping her hat and whipping round her pale cheeks. Neither of us made a signal or lessened our pace. We just continued walking towards each other across the marshes until we were a few feet away from each other.

'Naomi,' I said.

'Hello.'

'Everything go all right?'

'I was careful, like you said.'

I had not seen her since those days in court, when I'd tried so hard not to look at her, although I'd been acutely conscious of her, aware of her even when I was looking in the other direction. Once, our glances had touched for a second, less, and then we had both looked hastily away as if we had been scorched. She had lost weight and her pallor was striking. More than that, she seemed older, years older, than the candid, sweet-faced woman I'd met in Crabtrees. Perhaps it was that the innocence had gone, blasted away in just a few months. Brendan had done that.

'Shall we walk, just for a little?' I said and she nodded and turned back on her path. We went single file for a bit, until the path widened at a mobile home park that was deserted and eerie. From here the track led to the sea wall; the wide estuary lay before us, and on the other side the low Kent coastline. There were pebbles and broken shells at the water's edge, and also old cans, broken bottles, shredded plastic bags.

'Was it easy to get away unnoticed?'

'There's no one really to notice any more.' Her voice was quiet and flat; I had to strain to hear it. 'What about you?'

'I told Don I was inspecting an empty property.'

'Oh.'

For a few minutes there was just the crunch of our feet over frosted grass. I was sure we were remembering the same thing – that strange hour when we'd met and like two witches muttered plans and exchanged tokens. From her bag, she'd produced a little sandwich bag with some coarse dark hair inside that she'd pulled from Brendan's brush, and the jagged-edged carving knife wrapped in soft paper towels that she'd handed over by the bottom of its blade, careful not to touch its handle. And then she'd unfolded a dark blue shirt and laid it out before us. I'd held out the index finger of my left hand for her, and she'd taken a safety pin, opened it, and, biting her lower lip, jabbed the point into my finger. A dark ball of blood had welled up and after a few seconds I'd shaken it over the shirt, by its collar and then wiped it there as well.

'Can I ask something?' she said at last.

'Sure.'

'How did you do that to your cheek? You looked awful in court, even all those weeks after.'

It all seemed a long, long time ago.

'When I saw Don pulling up outside, I smashed my face against the kitchen door as hard as I could, as if someone were holding me by my hair and doing it to me. I did it over and over until I couldn't see for the blood.'

'How could you do that?' she said in a whisper.

'I thought of Troy – Laura as well, but mostly Troy. Then it was easy; welcome, even. It was nothing.'

Naomi nodded as if she understood.

'Now tell me something,' I said. 'Something I never had time to ask before.'

'Yes?'

'How were you so certain about Brendan?'

She hesitated. 'Are you sure you want to know? You might find that

'Tell me.'

'He told me what he'd done to Troy. He said he'd do it to me too, if I left him.'

There was a pain in my stomach and a burning sensation behind my eyes when she said this. I squinted into the wind and kept on walking. Somehow it's easier to talk about devastating things when you're moving, your eyes on a fixed point ahead of you.

'He actually told you about Troy?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

She shrugged. 'For the same reason he kept that rope, perhaps? A kind of insane self-confidence. Some things we'll never know, will we?'

'I guess not. But why didn't you go to the police?'

'I thought of what had happened to you. I couldn't be sure.'

'What did he say?'

'He said he'd filled him up with pills and strung him up on the beam and left him to die there.'

'Go on.'

'He said,' she looked round at me and then back at the path again. 'He said he'd tried to call out.'

'What?' My voice was a whisper.

'He'd tried to say your name.'

I went on walking. One foot in front of the other. It's hard to understand how it's possible to keep on walking when you hurt so much and you just want to bend over with your arms around your stomach, curl up into a tight ball and wail like a baby. He called out for me because he thought I was coming home soon. I'd promised him I'd be there and he must have thought I could rescue him. But I was late. I didn't come.

'Are you all right?'

I managed a noise of assent.

'I think this might have been his.' Naomi pulled one hand out of her pocket; she was holding a bracelet made of leather, with three dull wooden beads on it. 'Was it?'

I took the bracelet in my gloved hand. 'Yes. Since he was small. He bought it in Italy, when we were all there together as a family. It's just a cheap old thing.' But I held it against my cheek for a moment, then slipped it over my wrist.

Naomi said, 'My car's not so far from here.'

We stopped and looked at each other.

'What are you going to do?' I asked.

Naomi looked around, as if there might be someone hiding in the reeds or in the long, rippling grass.

'I caught his eye in court,' she said. 'When I gave evidence. He smiled at me. One of his nicest smiles. That's when I was certain about what to do. I'm leaving everything. Starting over from fresh.'

'Can you do that?'

'Why not? I've got no family. Maybe that's why I fell in love with Brendan – I thought we were these two orphans who'd come together to protect each other in the wicked world.' She gave a harsh' laugh, more like a bark, and then shook her head as if to clear it. 'One day he'll be free again and then he'll try to find me.'

'Not yet, though.'

'No, but how long? How many years?'

'They gave him ten, so he'll be out in five or six – you can be sure he'll be a model prisoner; he'll charm everyone. But Pryor's said they're going to re-investigate Laura and Troy 's deaths, so… well, who knows. Maybe he'll be in for longer.'

'Maybe, maybe not.'

Where will you go?' I asked.

There was a pause and she looked at me intently, as if she were committing my face to memory.

'Abroad. But it's probably better if I don't tell you.'

'You're probably right.'

'I know I'm right.'

'Good luck,' I said. 'I'll be thinking of you.'

'What will you do?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'I've got six years. I'll take that, a day at a time, and I'm going to try to love as well as I have hated. After that – well, I'll see.'

'Oh,' she said faintly. 'So you're still waiting?'

I winced. But in a way of course she was right. I was still waiting for Brendan and when he came I would be ready for him, like a soldier who can feel his enemy approaching even in his sleep.

'We'll never meet again, will we?'

'I guess not.'

'This is goodbye,' I said and smiled at her for the first time.

We both reached out at the same time; our hands met in a fierce grip. We stared into each other's eyes and didn't look away.

'It was probably wrong, wasn't it?' she said. 'I try to imagine myself justifying it to people and I'm not sure I could, except…'

'To save your life,' I said.

'I hope so,' she said. 'So what about you? Are you telling your… your boyfriend?'

'Don?' I said. 'I think I should. But I won't. I'd better keep it to myself

There was nothing really left to say. We let our hands drop back to our sides.

'Goodbye,' she said.

'Goodbye.'

She turned and walked back the way she had come and I watched her figure getting smaller and smaller, until it was a dot on the horizon, until it was nothing at all. Then I turned too, into the stiffening wind, and went back over the bleak marshland under the circling birds, back to the old grey church and my car. Back along the small road to the larger one, to the motorway; back to the teeming city where my life was. Back up the stairs to Don.

'I'm home,' I said, listening to the word as I spoke it. I repeated it, to make sure. 'Home.'

'I missed you.'

'Well,' I said, kissing him. 'I'm here now.'

Dearest Troy, I think I need to let you go now. I don't know how I'll manage without you, but I'm going to try.

I'm sorry.