Tania Carver - The Creeper

Suzanne listened, heart in her mouth. ‘Keep talking, Julie. Keep telling me what’s happening…’

More tearing and creaking.

Then silence.

‘Julie…’

Suzanne heard a sigh.

‘I’ve done it.’ She laughed, disbelieving. ‘Suzanne, I’ve done it…’

‘Brilliant! Yes!’

‘Yeah, now all I’ve got to do is…’

And then she screamed. Julie screamed, loud and long and hard.

Suzanne’s eyes were wide, staring. ‘Julie…’ She tried to block the noise, cover her ears with her hands but couldn’t manage it. So she had no choice but to listen.

‘No, Julie…’

The screaming died away.

Silence.

‘Julie… Julie…’

Nothing.

‘Julie…’

No response.

‘Oh God, oh God…’

Suzanne started sobbing. Hope. That bastard emotion hope. Suzanne kept sobbing.

Feared she would never stop.

Brasserie Gerard was a French restaurant on the corner of Lower Baxter Street and Abbeygate Street in the old English town of Bury St Edmunds. Sunny, airy and light inside, it had a courtyard-like quality where a spring or summer’s lunchtime meal could easily slip into a leisurely afternoon of French hors d’oeuvres, good company and plenty of wine. How Phil wished he could be doing that right now. He imagined Marina felt the same.

They sat opposite each other, more distance between them than just the restaurant table. Both eyeing each other nervously, trying to smile, not sure whether to touch or not touch. Two tightrope walkers trying to keep their balance.

This is ridiculous, thought Phil. I should be at work, on the case. I shouldn’t be here, pulling a domestic. Then he looked at Marina, her perfect, dark features, her beautiful face, and their daughter lying asleep in her buggy at the side of the table, arms up, perfectly contented. And he knew why he had come.

‘You’re looking well,’ he said.

‘I look about as good as you do.’ Marina managed a smile, concern in her eyes. ‘But it’s nice of you to say so.’

She did look well, he thought. Yes, there was fear and worry etched in all her features but she still looked good. She always looked good to Phil.

Marina looked away, down at her menu. Wavering, her balance going. She sighed. ‘This is a bad idea. Maybe we should do this later.’

Phil kept his eyes on her. ‘Marina, if we don’t do this now, there may not be a later.’

She sighed once more, looked down at the table. The waitress chose that moment to arrive. Phil was about to wave her away but Marina was already ordering herself sea bass with a spinach and tomato salad. He quickly scanned the menu, ordered the first thing his eye rested on, the duck. And a large bottle of water. The waitress disappeared once more, leaving them alone with their silence.

Phil waited.

‘There’s… something between us,’ Marina said eventually. ‘Or, rather, someone.’

Phil forced an intake of breath to his body, steeled himself. He had imagined everything he could think of on the drive up, everything awful that Marina could possibly want to say to him, in the hope that whatever it was he would be prepared for and it wouldn’t feel so bad. Her finding someone else was the worst thing he came up with. And no amount of preparation made hearing those words any easier.

Phil just nodded, waited. Kept nodding.

The waitress brought the water. The bottle stood there on the table, untouched.

Marina looked away from Phil, down at the table. ‘It’s Tony.’

Tony. Marina’s ex-partner. Bludgeoned nearly to death by a killer Phil and Marina had been hunting. Just before Marina had a chance to tell him she was leaving him. So that was it, he thought.

Phil blinked, startled. ‘Tony?’

‘Tony. I…’ Another sigh. ‘I… he’s just lying there. And I keep…’ Her fingers began working on the napkin. ‘I just… I have to make a decision, Phil. He’s lying there on that life-support system and they want me to make a decision. They want me to turn it off.’

Phil’s voice was quiet, calm. ‘Is this why you ran away from me?’

She nodded, fingers now shredding the napkin.

‘But… surely we could have worked this out together…’

Marina looked up, directly at him, eye to eye. Hers were red-rimmed, wet, only the public place holding back full on tears. ‘No. I have to do it. It’s my decision. D’you understand? ’

‘You tell me,’ he said.

‘I can’t do it,’ she said. ‘I just can’t bring myself to switch off that life-support system, to, to… acknowledge he’s dead, really, finally dead, once and for all.’

Phil leaned forward. ‘D’you think there’s a chance he could come back? Is that it?’

She wiped her eyes quickly with the back of her hand, determined not to let any tears fall. She shook her head. ‘No. No, that’s not it. At least I don’t think so, no…’ She shook her head once more. ‘It’s the guilt. It’s… it’s…’ Her voice dropped. ‘Crippling me.’

And that was just how her voice sounded, he thought. Twisted, crippled. ‘The decision?’

She shook her head once more. ‘Not just… no. It’s… eating me away, gnawing inside me… the guilt. I can’t… can’t move forward, can’t… enjoy… myself, my life, or allow myself to enjoy life, until I make that decision. Until I let him go.’ Her head dropped once more, shoulders heaved, like she was bearing a huge weight. She kept her gaze on the table. ‘And I can’t let him go…’

Phil said nothing, taking in her words. He picked up the bottle of water, unscrewed it, poured it into the two glasses.

Neither drank.

Phil kept looking at her. When he spoke his voice was still calm and controlled, the opposite of the emotions raging inside him. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘What about this. If Tony hadn’t… if he wasn’t where he is now, if he had never been attacked, if he was still… I don’t know, with us… what would you do?’

She frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Just that. What would you do? What would you be doing?’

‘I’d…’ She sighed, shook her head, looked away once more.

‘You were going to leave him, Marina. Tell him you didn’t love him any more and leave him. Weren’t you?’

She nodded, head still bowed.

‘For me?’ He made it a question.

She nodded once more.

‘Why?’ His voice was even quieter, calmer. The kind he used in interviews, the one that made people open up to him, trust him.

‘Because… I love you…’

He risked a small smile. ‘That it? That’s all?’

She shook her head once more, looked up. ‘No. Because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Because I’ve never loved anyone like I loved you. Because I’d never met anyone like you.’

‘Who was so like you, you mean.’

She nodded. ‘And because I was pregnant with your child.’

‘Our child.’

‘Our child. And you’re the love of my life.’ She turned away, words choked off by sobs.

Phil waited until she had composed herself. ‘Tony knew you’d leave him, Marina. He was older than you. He was your teacher, what you needed at that stage in your life. He knew you weren’t going to stay with him forever. That you’d go eventually. He expected it. Might not have welcomed it or been looking forward to it, but he expected it.’

Marina wiped her eyes, her nose, with the crumpled and torn paper napkin, her head still bowed. Phil reached across the table, took her hands in his.

‘Isn’t that the problem?’ he said. ‘The fact that you never got to say that to him? That you never gave that relationship closure?’

She pulled her hands away. ‘It’s not just that,’ she said, sniffing. ‘He’s in a coma because of me.’ She looked up, directly at him. Her eyes raw with emotion. ‘And you too, Phil.’