Sophie Hannah - The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

The fourth book in the Spilling CID series, 2009

I didnt want to go first.

Three seconds ago-four-I had said, All right. Now Aidan was watching me. Waiting. I bit back the words Why me? You suggested it-why dont you start? To ask would have made him think I didnt trust him, and I didnt want to sully the moment by saying something petty.

The air around us felt charged, taut with anticipation. Energy radiated from our clammy, clasped hands. It doesnt have to be everything, Aidan whispered. Just as much as we can Unable to finish the sentence, he decided he already had. As much as we can, he said again, stressing the last word. His warm breath settled on my skin every few seconds, like a tide of air that kept sucking out, then blowing back in. We hadnt moved from our spot at the foot of the bed, in front of the mirror, but it seemed, suddenly, as though everything was speeding up. Our faces gleamed with sweat, as if wed run for miles, when in fact all our movements-through the hotels revolving glass door, towards reception, into and out of the lift, along the narrow spotlit corridor to the closed door with a gold 436 on it-had been slow and deliberate, a thousand heartbeats to the footstep. We both knew something was waiting for us inside the room, something that could only be put off for so long.

As much as we can, I echoed Aidans words. And then no questions.

He nodded. I saw his eyes shining in the dimness of the unlit room and knew how much it meant to him that Id said yes. My fear was still there, sitting hunched inside me, but now I felt better able to manage it. Id secured a concession: no questions. I was in control, I told myself.

I did something stupid. More than stupid. Wrong. My voice sounded too loud, so I lowered it. To two people. Saying their names would have been impossible. I didnt try. Even in my thoughts I cannot name them. I make do with Him and Her.

I knew then that I was capable of giving Aidan no more than the bare bones, though every word of the whole of it glowed in my mind. Nobody would believe how often I tell myself the story, one unbearable detail after another. Like picking at a scab, except its not. Its more like taking a sharp fingernail and gouging out raw, runny pink flesh from a spot Ive never left alone long enough for a scab to form.

I did something wrong. I keep hoping Ill find a new way to start, at the same time as knowing there isnt one. None of it would have happened if Id been blameless.

It was a long time ago. I was punished. My head throbbed, as if a small, hard machine was rotating inside my brain. Excessively. I never I still havent got over it. The unfairness of it and what happened to me. I thought I could escape by moving away, but I shrugged, trying to affect an equanimity I did not feel.

The worst things stow away in the hold, follow you wherever you go, said Aidan.

His kindness made it harder. I shook my hands free from his and sat down on the edge of the bed. The room wed booked was awful: it had the tall, narrow proportions of a telephone box, and there were green and blue checks everywhere-the curtains, the bedspread, the chairs-with a grid of red lines separating each square from its neighbours. When I stared at the pattern, it warped in front of my eyes. I didnt need to see all the other rooms in the Drummond Hotel to know they were identical. There were three pictures, one above the television and two on the hollow wall that separated the bedroom from the bathroom; three insipid landscapes that begged to be ignored, with colours that were as close to colourless as it was possible to get. Outside, through the thick, rectangular slab of multi-layered glass that made up one side of the room, London was a restless yellow-streaked grey that I knew would keep me awake all night. I wanted to be in the pitch black, blind and unseen.

Why was I bothering with this pretence of a confession? What was the point of telling the only version of events that I could bear to utter out loud-an abstract shadow, a template that could have applied to any number of stories?

Im sorry, I told Aidan. Its not that I dont want you to know, its just I cant say it. I cant say the words. A lie. I didnt want him to know; I had wanted to please him by agreeing that we should tell one another, but that wasnt the same thing. If Id wanted him to know, I could have promised to show him the file under my bed at home: the trial transcript, the letters, the newspaper clippings.

Im sorry Ive told you so little, I said. I needed to cry. The tears were there; I could feel them inside me, blocking my throat and chest, but I couldnt squeeze them out.

Aidan knelt down in front of me, rested his arms on my knees and looked at me hard, so that I couldnt look away. It isnt so little, he said. Its a lot. To me, its a lot. That was when I realised that he wouldnt go back on the deal wed made. He wasnt going to ask me any questions. My body sagged, limp with relief.

I showed no sign of wanting to say more. Aidan must have assumed Id reached the end of the non-story I had not quite told him. He kissed me and said, Whatever you did, it makes no difference to how I feel about you. Im really proud of you. Itll be easy from now on. I tried to pull him up onto the bed. I wasnt sure what the it was that he thought would be easy; he might have meant making love for the first time, or the rest of our life together, all of it. I had left my last life behind, and now I had a new one with Aidan. Part of me-a big, loud, insistent part-couldnt believe it.

I wasnt nervous about the sex, not any more. Aidans idea had worked, though not in the way hed hoped it would. Id confided a little, and now I was desperate to do anything but talk. I wanted physical contact as a way of warding off words.

Wait, Aidan said. He stood up. It was his turn. I didnt want to know. How can the things someone has done in the past make no difference to the way you feel about them in the present? I knew too much about the worst human beings can do to one another to be able to give Aidan the reassurance he had given me.

Years ago, I killed someone. There was no emphasis, no tone to his voice; it was as if he was reading from an autocue, each word appearing on its own and out of context on a screen in front of him.

I had a terrible thought: a man. Please let it be a man.

I killed a woman, Aidan said, in response to my unasked question. His eyes were flooded. He sniffed, blinked.

I felt my body begin to fill up with a new sharp sadness, one I was sure I wouldnt be able to stand for more than a few seconds. I was desperate, angry, disbelieving, but not frightened.

Not until Aidan said, Her name was Mary. Mary Trelease.

Here she is. I see her face in profile and only for a second as her car passes me, but Im sure its her. Detective Sergeant Charlotte Zailer. If she drives past the part of the car park thats reserved for visitors, Ill know Im right.

She does. I watch her silver Audi slow down and stop in one of the spaces marked Police Parking Only. I reach into my coat pockets, allowing my red-cold hands to rest in the fleecy warmth for a few seconds, then pull out the article from the Rawndesley and Spilling Telegraph. As Charlotte Zailer gets out of her car, unaware of my presence, I unfold it and look at the picture again. The same high cheekbones, the same narrow but full mouth, the same small, bony chin. Its definitely her, though her hair is longer now, shoulder-length, and today she isnt wearing glasses. She isnt crying, either. In the small black and white picture, there are tears on her cheeks. I wonder why she didnt wipe them away, knowing the press were there with their cameras. Perhaps someone had told her it would go down better with the public if she looked distraught.