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

‘He shakes his head-he looks so certain . He says she can’t be alive, because he killed her.’

‘You’ve had this conversation many times?’

‘Hundreds. I’ve told him where she lives. He could go to her house and prove to himself that she’s still alive, but he won’t. He won’t go and see for himself, he won’t take my word for it-I’m getting desperate.’

Charlie Zailer taps her pen against the side of her face. ‘What you’re telling me is very odd, Ruth. Do you realise how odd it sounds?’

‘Of course I do! I’m not stupid.’

‘How do Aidan and Mary know each other?’

‘I… I don’t know.’

‘Brilliant,’ she mutters. ‘Are you sure Aidan isn’t having you on? He didn’t tell you on April Fool’s Day, did he?’ Seeing my expression, she straightens her face and says, ‘When did he tell you? Where were you, what was the situation? I’m sorry, Ruth, but this story is too way out for me.’

‘We were in London. It was last year, December the thirteenth. ’

‘Any particular reason you were in London that night?’

‘We… we went to an art fair.’

She nods. ‘Carry on.’

‘We were in our hotel. It was late. We’d been out for dinner and got back about half past ten. We went straight up to our room and… that’s when he told me.’

‘Out of the blue? With no warning, just, “Oh, by the way, I’ve murdered someone”?’

‘He didn’t say murdered. He said killed. And, no, it wasn’t out of the blue. Aidan was upset. He said he didn’t think our relationship was going to work unless we… unless he confided in me, but he obviously didn’t want to. I could tell he was dreading it. I was too.’

‘Why?’ Charlie Zailer leans forward. ‘Most people don’t dread being confided in by their partners. Most women, especially, would be gagging to know. Did you have reason to believe Aidan might have committed a violent crime?’

‘No, I… no. None.’ Most women. She is talking about people for whom the word ‘secret’ means a tantalising prospect, not a source of anguish.

‘What exactly did Aidan say?’

I close my eyes. ‘He said, “Years ago, I killed someone. I killed a woman. Her name was Mary Trelease.” ’

‘ “Her name was Mary Trelease”?’ Sergeant Zailer looks puzzled. ‘So he said it as if she was someone you’d never heard of, then? He didn’t know you knew her?’

I should have anticipated this question. My mind starts to churn. ‘I don’t know her.’

‘ What? ’

‘I don’t know Mary Trelease.’

‘Then… Again, Ruth, you’ll have to forgive me if I’m being slow here, but if you don’t know her, how did you know she was still alive when Aidan first said he’d killed her?’

She wouldn’t believe me if I told her. Still, I’d risk it if I thought I could say the words without bringing my first meeting with Mary to life again, as if it was happening now. Even thinking about telling the story makes me feel hot and panicky. I stare into my half-drunk tea, squirming, wishing she’d ask another question, but she doesn’t. She waits. When I can no longer bear the silence, I say, ‘Look, all you need to do is check that she’s alive. She lives at number 15 Megson Crescent…’

‘On the Winstanley estate?’

‘Yes, I… I think so.’ I can’t appear too certain, having claimed not to know her.

‘Megson Crescent is a contender for the title of roughest street in Spilling. Most of the ground-floor windows are boarded up.’ Sergeant Zailer raises an eyebrow. ‘Ms Trelease is a struggling artist, I take it? She can’t be making much money from her painting if that’s where she lives.’

I feel a hysterical laugh rising inside me. ‘She makes no money from it.’

‘Does she have a day job?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t you?’ Charlie Zailer says smoothly, as if passing comment on the weather. ‘Do you think I don’t know when I’m being lied to, Ruth? Do you think I don’t meet liars every day? I do-liars of the highest grade. Shall I tell you about some of them?’

‘I’m not a liar. I don’t know Mary, and I hadn’t heard of her when Aidan told me… when he told me…’

‘When he told you that he’d killed her, years ago.’

‘That’s right.’ My words sound like someone else’s, as if they’re not coming from inside me but from somewhere far away.

‘You’re panicking, Ruth, and you’re spewing up lies faster than the magic porridge pot spewed up porridge. Remember that story from when you were a kid?’ Sergeant Zailer yawns, leans back in her chair. ‘Is it possible Aidan killed another woman with the same name?’ she says, as casually as if she were suggesting the answer to a crossword clue. ‘I know Trelease isn’t a common surname, but…’

‘No,’ I say, my voice cracking. ‘I could see the details were familiar to him when I told him. That she lives on Megson Crescent, that she’s an artist, forty-ish, with long black curly hair, silver streaks in it where she’s starting to go grey.’ His face: the absolute recognition, the fear, in his eyes. ‘It’s the same woman, the one he’s sure he killed. I’m not making this up! Why would I?’

‘Silver-grey hair and she’s only forty? Still, they say people with very dark hair go grey youngest.’ Charlie Zailer drums her fingers on the table, raises an eyebrow at me. ‘So, you’ve seen her, then? If you know what kind of hair she’s got, you must have seen her, even if you don’t know her personally.’

I say nothing.

‘Or perhaps you’ve seen a picture of her? No, I think you’ve seen her in the flesh. A picture wouldn’t have put your mind at rest. Aidan told you he’d killed her, and you needed to see her in person, see for yourself that she was still alive. Undeterred by the sheer unlikeliness of anyone pretending they’ve killed someone when they haven’t, you set out to find this dead woman and, lo and behold, she wasn’t dead at all. Is that how it happened?’

The silence between us is unbearable. I try to pretend she isn’t here, that I’m alone in the room.

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ she mutters. ‘Okay, here’s a question you might be happier about answering: what are you doing here, apart from wasting my time?’

‘What?’

‘Why are you here? Aidan hasn’t killed anyone-fine. Mary Trelease is alive-hooray. What do you want from me, exactly?’

Now I can talk freely. ‘I want you to check that what I’m saying is true. If it is, you could… convince Aidan. I’ve tried and failed. You’re the police-he’d listen to you.’

‘ If it’s true? So you’re not a hundred per cent sure Aidan didn’t kill this woman who’s alive. Make up your mind.’

‘I’m as sure as I can be, but… what if the woman I think is Mary Trelease isn’t? What if… I know it sounds insane, but what if she’s some other woman who fits Mary’s description, a relative or… or…’ Or someone pretending. I don’t say it; it would make me sound paranoid. ‘There are things the police can find out that I can’t.’

Charlie Zailer sighs. ‘The police find things out in the process of investigating crimes. Nothing’s happened here, according to you. There’s no crime to investigate. Correct?’ She opens and closes her lips several times, making a popping noise. She appears to be thinking. Perhaps she’s bored, daydreaming. After a few seconds, she says, ‘From my point of view, there are three questions. One: did Aidan kill the woman you’re talking about, the person you know as Mary Trelease?’

‘He didn’t. He can’t have. She’s alive.’

‘All right. Then did he kill another person called or known by the name of Mary Trelease? And lastly, question number three: did he kill or injure anyone? Is there a body somewhere, waiting to be found? Not that it’ll still be a body by now, if the killing happened years ago.’