The Lie of You: I Will Have What Is Mine (33 page)
Why could I never understand that expression in her eyes? There were so many clues I missed. The way she looked at my pregnant bump the very first time we met, on the afternoon Philip and I interviewed her for the job. There was her profound reticence whenever I tried to talk to her. I was an open book then and she was a mystery. I do know that she made me feel inadequate and lacking in finesse and in those early weeks of meeting her I often felt the need to apologize or to appease her.
And then I remembered that today is the actual day in October that she died one year ago. What funny tricks our minds play on us.
The last time I saw her alive was that day she came into my office to resign. She looked so in control and so elegant in her black suit. She walked out of my office but not out of our lives; with her death has come a mountain of trouble.
The police carried out their investigation and they found Markus’s fingerprints as well as Heja’s on the glass that held the lethal drink. It is illegal to assist in a suicide and Markus is currently standing trial for assisting in Heja’s death. We are living apart and I’ve been attending his trial every day to give him some support during his awful ordeal.
I work from home now because after Billy was kidnapped I gave up my editorship of the magazine. I did it without a second thought or even a pang of regret as I was never again going to leave Billy in the care of another person. Rather to my surprise, Philip Parr and I came to an understanding and he agreed that I could edit the World Heritage guides from home.
I did ask Fran to look after Billy just for the duration of the trial and she’s been coming to the flat every day. She’ll be here soon so I need to get up. I swing my legs out of bed and put the kettle on. Then I get washed and dressed quickly. Billy’s still asleep so I’ll let him sleep on. I wait for the bell and I buzz Fran in, make her a cup of tea and then hurry out of the flat to get to the court in time.
The last three days in court have been difficult enough for me to sit through so how must Markus be feeling? He sits in the dock and looks impassive, unperturbed almost. I cannot believe he is not in turmoil. No one has come from his family to support him. No one. Heja’s mother and father are here; they have been all week. Her father has looked very emotional at times and has cried more than once during the proceedings. Her mother has kept her composure throughout. She looks a bit of an ice queen, like her daughter. Robert Mirzoeff is here too, sitting next to them.
The trial is getting a lot of press attention, particularly from the Finnish media. Heja was such a big name there, the face of Finnish TV news, and now she is mysteriously dead. I’ve been watching the international news every night on the internet and something of a myth is growing up in Finland around Heja and Markus – the beautiful blonde presenter dead at thirty-five and her left-wing lover in the dock. Their angle seems to be that Markus is an honourable man who helped her die out of love and who is being hounded by a vindictive legal system. A Finnish camera crew has been outside every day and the judge got irritated at one point by the ‘media circus’, as he called it.
Today the testimony is focusing on Heja’s illness. Her father cried a lot while the doctor described the symptoms and trajectory of her dreadful disease. I started to feel hopeful for Markus, though, because the medical evidence gives such a clear motive for her suicide. She was suffering from a catastrophic muscle-wasting disease and it had taken a strong hold of her at the point at which she killed herself. Heja was, of course,
capable
of killing herself. We all knew by then how much she needed to control her life; so why not also the time and manner of her death? And she could have done it so easily on her own. Why did she make Markus play his part?
It’s been another long and upsetting day. At the end of proceedings the solicitor takes me to the small conference room in the court as Markus has agreed to meet with me. The verdict will be given tomorrow and what a very difficult night Markus has ahead of him. I feel no animosity towards him any more; I just want to strip away the secrets and the lies that have built up between us.
Markus comes in and sits at the table opposite me and the solicitor leaves us on our own. It is, finally, an honest conversation between us. He starts by saying that if he’s found guilty then on no account am I to visit him or ever to bring Billy to the prison.
‘You can’t go to jail! It would be too unfair!’
He smiles at my vehemence.
‘One of the things I’ve always liked about you, Kathy, is your optimism and your belief that things will turn out for the best. It isn’t going to be like that. I think there is every chance that they’ll find me guilty.’
Then he tells me everything. How he’d left Heja after yet another fight. It was only a few weeks later that she found out she had the terrible illness and would die prematurely. I said then that he did not know that she was ill, so he mustn’t blame himself for leaving her when he did. I know he does. He said she had been helped by Arvo Talvela, a famous Finnish analyst. Then he died suddenly while Heja was still under his care. It was this that had triggered her move to London. She must have decided then that she needed him to help her die, he said.
‘She was dealt some devastating blows. But why did she make you help her, Markus? She could have done it on her own,’ I said.
‘I’ve been thinking about that too. It was a test, I think, a test to show how much I loved her. I’ve been feeling tremendous rage against her these last few days. I’ve recognized an old feeling from our relationship; Heja drawing me in step by step into doing what she wanted me to do.’
And I think to myself, yes, she did that to him – love, guilt and reparation. Of course, he did love her deeply. There was the deepest connection between them.
I hardly slept last night. Fran arrives early and I get to court and sit down and I’m feeling sick with nerves because it’s the day of sentencing and what happens today will impact on all our lives. The media are here in force again. There is a strong feeling of anticipation in the court as we are all assembled to hear Markus’s fate and the last act is about to be played out.
During the summing-up I can see that two things may go against him. Firstly, there was no evidence that Heja had persistently expressed the wish to die or had shown a ‘clear, settled and informed decision to take her own life’, as they put it. She was ill, but she was coping with her illness, they claim. There was ample evidence that she lived well, held a good job and had a beautiful home.
The second and most damaging fact that has come out is that Markus stands to gain by Heja’s death. She left everything to him, her large flat by the river and a lot of money. Her will was in a box at her flat together with photographs of Markus and every letter and card he’d sent her over the course of their nine-year relationship. Markus has said very little throughout the trial, but he did say that he had no idea that Heja had left him her estate. And crucially Pieter Vanheinen, her father, spoke up for him on this point, saying he believed Markus was wholly motivated by compassion. He said that anyone who knew Markus would know that financial considerations would play no part in anything he did.
I also wonder if Markus’s very reserve, his refusal to plead or even to open up at all under questioning, is also hurting him. He has stood in the dock every day, proud and silent and giving the impression that he does not recognize the authority of the court to judge his actions. He has such contempt for these institutions of authority. I’m afraid this will go against him.
They are about to announce the verdict. I clench my hands so tightly on the wooden bench in front of me, willing them to let him off, to let him have his life back. Markus is a man who needs his freedom so much and prison would be the most terrible ordeal for him.
Markus is pronounced guilty of assisting Heja in her suicide. His face is so pale and set when the judge announces the verdict. He is given a fifteen-month prison sentence.
At the end of the trial I see Pieter Vanheinen and Robert standing together. Her father says, ‘It’s a travesty of justice. I don’t blame her and I don’t blame Markus. My poor little girl must have been so frightened.’
Robert replies in a solemn voice, ‘She was the brightest star, Pieter, and the brightest stars shine for the shortest time.’
Pieter shakes his hand warmly. I look at them standing there, united in their loss and their high-minded feelings, and I’m furious at how they are rewriting history. They’re forgetting what Heja did in the last months of her life; how she caused us so much fear and misery. She stole Billy from his home and now Markus is going to prison. Yet somehow the tragedy of a beautiful woman dying young seems to have absolved her of any criticism. That is the power of a beautiful face.
I hurry over to Markus’s solicitor and ask if he really has to go to prison. Can’t he appeal the sentence? He says Markus has told him he doesn’t want to appeal. He won’t serve the full fifteen months; he will be out in under a year. Under a year. Billy will have no contact with his father for all those months and that is a long time in the life of an infant. And one day we’ll have to tell Billy that Heja kidnapped him; one day we’ll have to tell him that his father went to prison. Markus will never build his arts centre and cinema in Durham now. It was his most cherished project. He will come out of prison but he’ll never really be free because he is implicated for ever in her death. She made sure of that. How cruel and perverse that her legacy to him has helped put him into prison. I’m worried that he will withdraw even more from contact with people after his term in prison. He’s always had a tendency to shut out the world.
I think about her more often than I would like and perhaps more often than is good for me. Is it because I have unfinished business with her? Is it because I never got the opportunity to tell her what I thought of her actions? Looking back, I can see that I was open and optimistic then. I was also a bit careless and unprotected. Now I find myself questioning other people’s motives much more than I used to and I am more guarded in my relationships.
A few weeks later I’m on my way home from one of my occasional work meetings with Philip Parr and I decide to walk back to the flat up Primrose Hill and through the park. As I reach the brow of the hill I stop to admire the view of London laid out below me. There is my city with all its many lives and all its many possibilities. I suddenly feel wistful, as if I’m missing out on those possibilities. That evening I email Hector and tell him that Billy and I are coming to Lisbon for Christmas and I need a friend. I hope he understands. I’m not ready to trust again or get involved, but I need a friend.
Could Markus and I have built something lasting? We came together when we were both feeling lonely and troubled and looking for new beginnings. There were those weeks during my pregnancy when we achieved a precarious happiness. It was a fragile thing and Heja arrived in our lives shortly afterwards.
Heja is dead but the dead do not lie down. She fought so hard against her illness. What extraordinary willpower she possessed to track Markus down, to torment me, to steal Billy and to get Markus back. We get on with our lives, we are productive, but you don’t forget someone like Heja Vanheinen.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
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My warmest thanks to the team at Head of Zeus whose love of books is inspiring; and especially to Laura Palmer for her very smart suggestions that made this novel better and to Becci Sharpe for her support.
I am lucky indeed to have so committed a champion as Gaia Banks, my agent, and thanks too to Lucy Fawcett for her encouragement – both of Sheil Land.
They say you write with an ideal reader in mind. Well I had four: my daughter Amelia Trevette, Roomana Mahmud, Karolyn Shindler and Jan Thompson who all read and discussed earlier drafts with me.
Thanks too to Andrew Smith for his chilling cover design; to Ros Jesson for her meticulous copy-editing and to Nick Trevette for his guidance on police and legal procedure.
Most of all my special thanks to Barry Purchese for his masterly feedback and loving support.
Kathy thinks she has everything:
the job;
the baby;
and him.
But she does not have my will.
She has no hidden places.
To the outside world, Kathy is the very picture of a happy and fulfilled modern woman. She has a beautiful baby boy, a clever, handsome husband and a glamorous, high-powered job.