The Perfect Girl

SAM

As soon as Zoe Maisey and her Uncle Richard have left my office, I shut the door and look at my watch.

I have a scan booked at 11.30, and a bit later an appointment with the consultant to discuss the result. This is what they’ve described as a ‘fast-track’ service, which was not what I wanted to hear.

I can walk to the hospital from my office, so I have plenty of time to make a phone call, even though I shouldn’t.

I take a deep breath as I flick through the contacts on my phone and find DS Nick George. He’s an old school mate, and I’m wondering if he’ll do me a favour. I can’t ring anybody else, because I shouldn’t be doing this at all; I’m a potential witness.

Before I dial, I decide that this call is best made outside. As solicitors we trade in discretion, but walls have ears, and this isn’t a phone call that should be overheard.

On my way out, my secretary says, ‘In or out for the rest of the day, Sam?’

‘Out,’ I say. ‘Definitely out.’

‘He works too hard,’ I hear her say to one of the other admin staff as the doors swing shut behind me. ‘It’s supposed to be his day off today.’

They don’t know about my appointment, nobody at work does.

Nick George works in CID in Bristol. We met for a drink when I first moved here and I heard about how he’d got married and had twins via IVF and how his wife had struggled to cope with the babies when he worked nights. We’d got on well at school, never close, but friendly, and both of us ambitious. Secret swots. Our paths hadn’t crossed through work yet, but that was probably just a matter of time.

Outside, the streets are already hot. I try Nick’s number as I’m walking through the city centre, keeping to the patches of shade beside by the buildings, and he calls me back a few minutes later as I’m wandering along the edge of the canal and looking for some prettiness in the smooth surface of the water, but instead being distracted by bits of rubbish lapping the concrete edges and reflections of the corporate buildings around me.

‘What’s your interest, Sam?’ Nick asks me.

I come to a stop in the shade beside a waterside bar, where the pavement is sticky from the drinks that were spilled the night before. Beside me, a huge area has been cleared in preparation for some sort of building project. A couple of shallow puddles linger in its centre after the rain, but mostly it’s a vast expanse of dust and rubble.

‘I know them.’ I think it’s best to be forthright with him from the outset, but I suppose I’m not entirely honest, because I don’t tell him that I might be a witness.

‘Not much I can tell except that the body was found outside the front of the house, in some kind of outbuilding.’

I’m relieved to hear that, because I understand immediately that it’s a scenario that could throw up a vast number of suspects, both from inside and outside the family.

It’s important to me that it could be somebody outside the family, for obvious reasons. I want to ask a thousand other questions, like if he knows the cause of death, but that would be definitively crossing a line, and I mustn’t do it.

‘You close to them?’

‘I know the sister of the woman who died.’

‘Oh dear, sorry.’

We both know the conversation is over and that it probably shouldn’t have happened at all. I ask after his wife and kids and just as I’m ready to hang up, he says, ‘I heard that you weren’t well?’

‘From who?’

‘My mum.’ His laugh is a bit embarrassed. ‘The Bideford grapevine is still thriving.’

I did tell my parents about my symptoms and about the doctor’s suspicions. They’re the only people that know. Or the only people who I thought knew. They’ve obviously been talking.

‘I’m OK.’

‘Is it true?’

And suddenly, looking out over the empty site beside me, and missing Tessa, I feel like telling somebody.

‘I have a scan today to help confirm the diagnosis. It’s complicated.’

‘Is it likely?’

‘They’re pretty sure.’

‘I’m so sorry, mate.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘Will you carry on working?’

‘For as long as I can.’

He clears his throat. ‘Drink soon?’

‘Sure. Look I’ve got to shoot off, I’ll call you.’

‘Make sure you do.’

I probably will call him.