Three Steps Behind You (27 page)

But maybe he means a different sort of double-date? The sort where he is there with double-intent, or to serve a double-function? The pixie will think he is there just for her, when really he is there for me
.

I read his text again. No. It is plain. He means the wrong sort of double-date. I delete it. I delete him. He is gone
.

21 March 2007

No, he is not gone; he is back here, in my head, as always
.

He owes me an explanation, at least. He needs to explain how one minute he promised me everything and the next he was in a pixie cunt. And how he expected to join me in his ridiculous farce
.

Perhaps there is some logical rationale here
.

I shall go and see him and ask him to explain
.

22 March 2007

So I went, and I understand now
.

We are playing the long game
.

When I got there, he and red-beret (who I must learn to call Nicole) were sitting down with a bottle of wine. They invited me in and I shared a glass
.

I asked to speak to Adam alone. Nicole took herself off to the bathroom
.

Although it was my turn to speak, Adam took control
.

‘Don’t judge me,’ he said. ‘I know you’re surprised, I know it’s soon, I know I should have introduced you properly. Nicole and I are together now. I know it’s odd, in Helen’s house. But please try to accept that. After the break-in, everything, my grief over Helen, I need her now. You’ll always be welcome here, too. The double-date thing, it was just an olive branch.’

It took me a moment to understand. But then, because he smiled at me, and the sapphire eyes sparked, and I understood. For
now
(and only now), he is with Nicole. He is playing the long game. But I am welcome ‘always’. I am his eternal companion. It is my opinion he values. It is us who will be together in the end
.

When Nicole came back, the three of us sat on the sofa together. We spoke of many things, including how Nicole wanted Adam to go to the police about the break-in, and how he didn’t want to talk about it, and he broke the wine glass because she wouldn’t be quiet and I had to leave, in person. But I will always be there with them, in spirit, sometimes in person, as long as there is a Nicole. When she goes, spirit and person will be reunited again
.

There are some things I cannot tell him, if I want to be in that game with him. Above all, I cannot tell him I broke into him. He still (wrongly) thinks that was a violation. He still (wrongly) cannot tell me that he loves me. But there are some truths too:

1. I can play the long game;
   
2. Nicole will not last forever;
   
3. I will be close to him again;
   
4. A car killed Helen. It was not my love that did it, nor me, whatever DC Pearce thinks. But my love will make her death a life, always
   .
   

And so book three ends. Maybe Nicole didn’t read it all, maybe she doesn’t know all, just started, and got interrupted, then stopped. Doesn’t know about the break-in reality.

But no, wait – that is not the end, now, of book three.

For there is some handwriting, not mine, not Luke’s. Hers. Nicole’s. She must have added it just now.

It says:

If you didn’t kill Helen,
who did
?

BOOK 4

Chapter 1

She knows.

Like a good and dutiful wife I bet she is out there now calling Adam, telling him how I entered and ripped him apart. I bet she feels glee. It is gossip. Ending my relationship with Adam is all a game.

She knows.

And everything will end, and Adam will hate me, I will hate me, I will be locked up forever just for loving too much.

She knows.

But I can stop her, we can stop her, Luke and I, Luke is I.

We will triumph, we must triumph
.

I leave book three open on the bed – there is no point in locking it away now – and I walk to the door of the bedroom. Peering through the crack in the door, I see Nicole talking on the phone. To Adam, to Adam! It must be Adam! Telling him all the things she’s read, I bet.

But just because she knows, does not mean she can tell.

Luke I we grab her wrist and fling the phone across the floor. No one must talk to our love except us
.

Nicole squeals.

‘It was DC Huhne!’ she says.

From the carpet a man’s voice garbles.

‘It was Adam!’ I shout.

Luke lunges and
I bring my heel down on the phone and smash it, grinding away until there is no voice, no phone, just shards of plastic. ‘I’m sorry, Adam,’ I whisper to it, too late.

‘It was a policeman, taking a message,’ Nicole lies. ‘I was calling to say it wasn’t you, who killed Helen, to say she needed to look for someone else.’

‘You were phoning Adam.’

‘DC Huhne told me to call if I found out anything.’

Lies, lies, lies. She was trying to tell her about Adam. I know it. About me and Adam, Adam and me, my love, my love. He mustn’t know, it mustn’t be shattered. The secret must be kept. I should kill her, now.

But Luke must have his love, Luke must be inside her, Luke must I must be close again, where he has been
.

Yes, there is the closeness, too, the research, only she can provide. Not just for Luke, I confess, now: I will be inside her; I will touch where Adam has touched in his nakedness, and I will be close to him by proxy. As close as I can be while we are still playing this long game.

Luke cannot kill his love before she has been his love,
before I have been where Adam has been.

‘Look, I’m sorry, I just wanted to know for sure, about you, about Helen. My own investigation, since the police one failed. And about the girl, in the flats.’

‘Ally,’ I say, because Nicole is going the same way as Ally, so it doesn’t matter.

Nicole registers the name but she continues.

‘And I understand,’ she says, ‘about Adam. About the ra – about how you love him. You were close, when you were younger, you looked up to him, you wanted to be like him, he was a father figure.’

Understand, understand, how can she understand? She is playing me. Playing for time.
Luke does not have time. Luke must be inside. But not that inside, not prison, no
. We must be inside the one where Adam has been.

Nicole doesn’t understand the urgency. She pauses. ‘Dan, tell me, about Feltham. Why were you in Feltham?’

I don’t answer her. I mustn’t. Because it will be a betrayal of Adam. She mustn’t think secrets are for telling.

‘I need to know, Dan. About my husband? What has my husband done?’

I still don’t say anything.

‘Look, we haven’t really been friends, have we, you and I?’ she says. ‘And that’s my fault, I know – accusing you over things, and it must be difficult for you, with Adam. But I mean it. I need to understand about my husband. About him and Helen.’

If I handcuff and gag her now, we could just skip supper, and make the best use of the time before Adam is here. That is all she needs to understand.

‘Dan, does Adam ever scare you?’ Nicole asks.

Although if we don’t have the supper, then Luke will never know how to really seduce someone. Ally was easy. I just had to put on a suit, buy some champagne and she was dead keen to see me. I never meant for her to be quite so dead. But that was what Luke wanted.
Ride her, ride her, the scarf round her neck, until the bones crack like claws
. But can I (we) do that again? Do I have to be Luke for that?
I am Luke
.

‘Like tonight, when he was, you know, when he had his hands around my throat, I thought this could be it. I was so scared he might, you know, have killed me. If you hadn’t shown up, I might be dead.’

I wish she wouldn’t rub it in.

‘That’s big, isn’t it, Dan? He could have killed me. Christ, my husband. Do you think?’

I know this is a trap. I know that if I say yes, she will go back to Adam and say I raped him and even worse I think he is a murderer. She will stir, Nicole, and I will never see Adam again. And DC Huhne will take great delight in locking me up for my non-crime. It will be worse, much worse than Feltham because they won’t avoid your head when they kick you, and I will never get out again. And Adam, he won’t visit me, he won’t be there, even in a rival gang. There will just be all these men, who will hear the ‘facts’ of what I did and they won’t understand. They’ll be frightened of who I am, what I represent, some of them, and to punish me they’ll rape me. Like really rape me, not make love to me like I did to Adam. And there won’t be chloroform, so I’ll know, throughout, I’ll really know. Then there’ll be other ones who won’t be frightened of me, there’ll want me, think I want them, and they’ll make me enter them and I’ll be further away from Adam than I’ve ever been. And they’ll try to fuck me, but they’ll be raping me and I’ll be destroyed. And I’ll be further away from Adam than I’ve ever been.

I’ve only got this one chance. This one chance for a memento of Adam, some closeness. And also some silence.

‘Dan, do you think Adam …? Do you think he was capable of …?’

How is this relevant? Nicole with her irrelevant questions that aren’t even questions. Adam is capable of anything.

‘Let’s eat,’ I say.

Nicole shakes her head. ‘I couldn’t eat, I’m too worked up.’

She seems to think it is optional.

‘Let’s eat,’ I say again.

‘I meant what I wrote in the diary,’ she says. ‘Someone else must have done it. Killed Helen. And it wasn’t you. But Ally, there’s still Ally.’

She talks on and on about something, nothing, anything, going round in circles. I know what she is doing. She is trying to win my trust before she flees back to Adam and ends my world. But she must stay. Luke must have his knowledge of woman; I must have my last Adam closeness, before they lock me up.

He must seduce his love, I must seduce my love
.

And she must not tell. She must be loved and then she must be silenced.

I must seduce my love, with candles and violins
.

The candle is already lit. I take the violin out of the case.

‘Dan, what are you doing? It’s no time for music. I need to ask you something.’

I start up ‘Frère Jaques’ again. She probably didn’t hear it last time, she was too busy being strangled.

‘Dan. Stop it. We need to talk.’

I put down the violin. She has it all wrong. We do not need to talk. In particular, she needs not to talk. She needs to be romanced, we need to eat, then I need to be inside her. My closeness, Luke’s closeness, my Adam.

‘Look, Dan. What you did to Adam, was, it was horrible. Understandable, I get it, right – closeness? Horrible, wrong, but understandable. But what I don’t understand is Helen. I was so convinced you killed her.’

‘Let’s eat,’ I say, again.

‘You eat. I’ll watch. I told you, I’m not hungry. Listen, do you think …? No, that can’t be right, can it? Tell me I’m being crazy. Please. What you said in the diary, about people not being careful at the funeral, after they’ve … It made me think that maybe …’ She shakes her head. ‘No.’

But she doesn’t seem to believe herself. She keeps shaking her head, and is doing a big frown now. Also, she is white and I see her hands tremor a little.

Fill her, fill her with the sustenance she craves but will not ask for. Delight her, sate her, until her final tremors take her to oblivion
.

‘We have to eat,’ I explain. ‘I cooked the food. Look, it’s there, on the table, waiting for us.’

‘I mean, it’s true, we were having an affair. But when she died, Adam was so sad, I was comforting him.’

I do not need to be reminded, not of that. I just want, all that I want is this: to be in her, like Adam has been in her, and to be that close to him again, maybe for the shortest while but it will be the perfectest while.

Delight, delight, delight in being so close to your love
.

She will not stop us having this.

‘Come through and eat,’ I say.

‘Dan, I said I wasn’t hungry,’ she snaps.

‘And I said you would eat.’

She wraps her arms around herself and takes a step back. ‘So, what you going to do – force me?’

Finally, she understands.

Chapter 2

With each step forward that I take, she takes one backwards. I hold a fish finger aloft. At first, she laughs at me, like it is a game.

‘What, you’re going to force the fish finger down my throat?’ she asks.

I nod.

She snorts.

‘Yeah, like you could!’

‘I could,’ I say. ‘And I will.’

‘Come on then, just you try it!’

I move closer. She moves back. I move forward. She darts behind a chair. I push the chair over, grab her hair, pull back her head, and push the fish finger into her mouth.

She spits it out. Bits of congealed fish get in my eyes.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ she asks. The laughter is gone.

‘Feeding you,’ I say. ‘We’re having a romantic dinner. Look,’ I say, reaching behind me. ‘There’s a candle and everything.’ I hold the candle aloft. I can see the flame flicker in her face.

‘How are we having a romantic dinner? I thought you loved Adam?’

‘I love Adam,’ I say, because I do, and she knows it. That is the first time I have said it out loud. ‘I love Adam,’ I say again, because I can, it’s allowed now, there’s nothing to hide, from her. ‘I love Adam, I love Adam, I LOVE ADAM!’

But Nicole doesn’t like me loving. Look at her, moving into a corner, away from the table, away from the food I have prepared. Look, how she is cowering on the other side of the table, clutching her belly. She does not realise she is here to be seduced. Perhaps it is a mistake to profess your love for a man when trying to win a woman. Maybe I should explain that I am Luke’s research assistant this evening. That I love Adam, and that because of that I have to experience her where he has been, which is helpful for me and therefore also for Luke because then I will know how to write about our sex. For book four, which will sell and sell and sell, thus bringing me closer to Adam again for real, until the long game is over.