Deception aka Sanctum

At the nursery everyone patted my elbow and said they were sorry to hear about, well, you know, as if Do

Harry’s mum was there and smiled over at me. I didn’t want to encourage her attentions, so I sort of waved and yanked Margie out of her coat, trying to effect a quick getaway.

I was easing past a small boy when Harry’s mum sidled over, calling, “ Lachlan, hi.” I turned back into the room so that we were talking publicly.

“How are you?” She smiled.

“Fine,” I said. “How are you?”

She said, “Fine,” and dipped her head down, dropping her voice. “I was wonder-”

“How’s Harry? Is he okay?” I said it loudly, making it clear that I didn’t want to have a private conversation, not today.

I was talking so loudly that Mrs. McLaughlin looked over. She had a sleeveless top on, one of those button-up ones with a collar. Her fat arms are red with angry stretch marks down the back like little lava flows.

“She should buy a shirt,” said Harry’s mum quietly, nodding over at her, “and hide her bingo wings.” She smiled at me, raised her eyebrows a little, expecting me to laugh.

In hindsight I can see that she was trying to re-create the success she’d had with the “tanorexic” crack, but coming so soon afterward, it made her seem routinely unkind and wordplay obsessed.

I was tired and distracted and didn’t get the joke this time. I nodded and pressed my lips together, and she had to explain- fat arms, bingo wings. “Oh, yeah, yeah,” I said. “I see, yeah.”

Harry’s mum was wearing a tight red pencil skirt and little heels, which didn’t seem all that appropriate. I know she’s dressing like that for me, but looking at her today, I realized that she’s not my type at all and would probably go to the papers if I as much as touched her bum.

I’m not sure why my interest in her has evaporated. I think it’s because I’m not desperately horny anymore, because of Yeni. I don’t want to feel that I could have shagged either one of them. I want my night with Yeni to mean something and be about more than me being selfish and betrayed and sexually frustrated, but maybe that’s all it was. How depressing.

Yeni has kindly gone to pick Margie up because I was on the phone with Fitzgerald. He takes sooo long to say anything at all. I’m sure it’s a lawyer’s trick, because they charge by the hour. Yeni stood in front of me in the hall and touched her watch, motioning to the door. I raised a finger. She slumped her shoulders and dropped her head to the side. I shrugged helplessly as Fitzgerald droned on and on and on. Yeni pointed to herself, picked her jacket off the coat rack, and pointed at the door, tipping her head inquisitively. I nodded a thank you, I owe you one, and she kissed the tips of her fingers and wiggled them at me as she opened the front door and set off. I watched her through the window, walking away down the path. She has magnificently pear-shaped buttocks. When she wears those thin trousers, her bum looks like two jumbo plums quivering in a silk hankie.

Fitzgerald kept on talking about the sentencing hearing on Monday, telling me which court, what time. He reminded me not to expect any outcome other than the life sentence and said that there might be journalists there, I might like to think about whether I wanted to give them a statement this time. Every time I brought up the subject of the appeal, he swerved around it.

Finally I said it outright. “Well, Susie won’t be in there very long, anyway. You know, because of the appeal.”

Fitzgerald hummed gruffly. “Dr. Harriot, it was my understanding that you were going to visit your wife yesterday afternoon. Did you not go to see her after all?”

I said yes, I’d been out to see Susie in the Vale, although it wasn’t a very satisfactory visit because the police had turned up at the same time and Susie had to see them first.

“So,” he said (and he even took his time about that), “you are aware of the recent developments in the case, specifically those regarding the discovery of Do

“Look,” I said, “I know they found her body up in Cape Wrath.”

He paused for a moment, as if waiting to see whether I would be adding to that statement. “Did your wife tell you, Dr. Harriot, that her wedding ring was discovered under Ms. McGovern’s body?”

I was shocked and defensive. “What? That’s rubbish. How could they possibly know it was Susie’s wedding ring? They all look exactly the bloody same.”

“No,” said Fitzgerald, getting to the point. “When your wife was sacked from her job, she reported her wedding ring missing. She was quite concise about the inscription inside when she gave a description to the prison authorities. The ring found with Ms. McGovern has S amp;L’92 CORFU4EVER engraved inside it.”

The inscription sounded puerile when he said it. It was a secret wedding vow, a commitment to keep on loving each other as we had that first holiday. I asked him whether Susie knew about this yesterday.

“Of course, Dr. Harriot. The police would certainly have mentioned it to her yesterday. It’s a tremendously significant find. It certainly alters any possible course of action we might take over the case. In the event that we pursued an appeal against your wife’s conviction for Mr. Gow’s murder, she would inevitably be tried for Do

I put the phone down and came up here just to be alone for a while. Margie and Yeni are back. I can hear them playing in the back garden.

I’m trying not to take onboard what Fitzgerald said and what it all means. No wonder Susie was beside herself at the visit. No wonder. I can’t even mentally berate her for not filling me in, because she would have had to explain the consequences, and I can’t even think about them.

chapter twenty-nine

I CAN’T SLEEP, AND NOW I DON’T HAVE ANY OLD PEOPLE TO BLAME it on. The smoking isn’t helping, that’s for sure. Alarmingly, the crown broke off my tooth and fell out in my mouth at di

I still think we should give the Do

I was watching telly with Yeni, sitting on the opposite settee so that she didn’t think I was expecting anything. She winked at me a couple of times during the commercials, but I didn’t respond. I was sort of waiting for her to take offense, but she didn’t. She stood up at nine-thirty, said goodnight, and slipped out of the room. I watched the news and put the telly off, ready to come up here to work.

I stopped on the landing and knocked on Yeni’s door. I wanted to say sorry for ignoring you there and thanks for a lovely time last night or something. I don’t know what. I just wanted to see her, I suppose. She shouted, “Come in,” and I put my head around the door. She was sitting in her bed, wearing a T-shirt nightie with pink bu