Simon Kernick - Severed

'And don't forget, you have to report back here at nine o'clock Monday morning. It's almost certain that they're going to want to question you again. If that happens, call me and don't say a word until I get here. In the meantime, I'll send you a bill.'

'I don't get it free?' I say, grinning. 'Not even for old times' sake?'

'I'm doing it for old times' sake,' she answers, without smiling, 'but the old times weren't so good that you can avoid paying for my services. I've got a lot better things to do with my life now than spend it bailing out ex-husbands who've got themselves into trouble.' She looks at her watch. 'Well, it's a quarter past twelve, so I don't think there's much point in resurrecting my date. Do you need a lift somewhere?'

'Would you mind driving me home?' The thing I need most is sleep.

Adine's driving an Audi A4 convertible. I ask her what happened to the BMW she received as part of our divorce settlement.

'I fancied a change,' she says as we drive onto the Marylebone Road heading east.

'Removing all traces of me, eh?'

She gives me a sideways look. 'Don't flatter yourself, Tyler. I moved on a long time ago.'

'Thanks,' I say, staring out of the window, caught out by the barbed nature of her words.

'Oh, stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself,' she snaps. 'You moved on while we were still married. It was like living with a ghost.'

'What the hell's that supposed to mean?'

'You know exactly what it means. Perhaps if you took more notice of what goes on around you, things wouldn't be so bad. The problem with you is you're so damn selfish. You pick people up and you drop them. You fall in love with every girl who walks into your life.'

'That's not true.'

'Yes it is. You fall in love, and then the love just fades because basically you can't handle it. I don't know if it was the army that did it, the fact that you were always moving on from one posting to another, but it turned you into a really, really difficult person to relate to.'

I feel a sense of deja vu. This argument has blown up out of nowhere, just as they used to when we were married. The lights of the city pass intermittently across her face, giving me glimpses of what I see as a hard, triumphant expression, and I feel a surge of bitterness.

'You weren't exactly easy yourself,' I say, my voice loud in the confines of the car. 'All you've ever cared about is your bloody work. Nothing else.'

Immediately, I regret my words. I know I'm being massively unfair on her, particularly given the way she was there for me tonight, but it's too late.

The car stops at traffic lights, and she turns furiously in her seat. 'You bastard. You're so damn holier than thou, aren't you? Why don't you try looking in the mirror for once? Go on, try it. Because if you like what you see, you'll be the only one who does.' She shakes her head with a potent combination of rage and pity. 'You know how much you always talked about all that camaraderie in the army, about how you made those friendships for life? How you'd do anything for your mates? Well, tell me, Tyler, how many times did you visit your so-called brothers in arms when they were in prison? Even though they were only there because they were trying to avenge what happened to you. How many times, eh? In three, four years? None. That's how fucking many.'

She stops as suddenly as she began, and an oppressive silence falls in the car. I never realized how strongly she felt. It's a real surprise.

Unfortunately, it's not as much of a surprise as the revelation that she knows I never visited any of the five men court-martialled for the pub attack.

You see, I never told her this. In fact, quite the reverse. I lied to her when she asked me about it once, saying I'd visited all of them at least once, and in some cases more than once, and the reason I'd lied was to alleviate the guilt I felt for not having done so.

In all the time we were married, I never kept in touch with any of those five men. The last I saw of Harry Foxley was at his acquittal party. I think, in fact, it was the last time I saw any of them.

So, how the hell does she know?

The lights turn green, and Adine pulls away.

'I didn't tell you I never went to visit those guys,' I say eventually, without looking at her.

There's another long pause.

'I know you didn't,' she says quietly. Her earlier anger's evaporated.

'How do you know, Adine? Who told you I never went to see them?'

'Harry Foxley.'

'But you haven't seen Harry-' I begin, but even before I finish the sentence I know I'm almost certainly wrong.

'I'm sorry, Tyler. I didn't want you to find out this way.'

We may have been separated for more than two years, but it's still a body blow to hear those words. For a moment I even forget all my current woes. Instead, I remember that at one time I had honestly loved Adine, and that the real tragedy was that she didn't think I had. Even now, it's hard to think of someone else with her, particularly someone I once knew.

'Were you seeing him when you were seeing me?' I ask.

She shakes her head. 'No, I would never have done that.'

'So, it was afterwards?'

'Yes. He called me up out of the blue. He said he'd heard that we'd split up and he asked me out for dinner. We went out a couple of times and, you know, one thing led to another.'

'Yeah, I know. And not content with sleeping with my wife, the bastard took the time to bad-mouth me for not bringing him flowers and chocolate in the glasshouse.'

'I was your ex-wife at the time, and no, it wasn't like that. He wasn't badmouthing you.'

'Wasn't he?'

'No.'

I ask the all-important question, my voice quiet. 'Are you still seeing him?'

Her response surprises me. She lets out a derisive snort, and says, 'That's what I mean, Tyler. You just drift through life. You don't see anything you don't want to see, do you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Harry Foxley died two months ago. He took an overdose of barbiturates.' She looks at me incredulously. 'All your supposed camaraderie, and you didn't even know about it.'

I'm momentarily stunned into silence. It's as if this day is a constant stream of unpleasant surprises. Nothing is what it seems. No-one is who you think they are. I'm finding out things about people I'd rather not know. And none more so, it seems, than myself.

So, Harry's dead now. Added to the deaths of Maxwell and Spann, it means that of the five men court-martialled and imprisoned for the pub attack in 1996, only two are still alive.

And it's them I start to think about now.

We don't really talk much for the rest of the journey. In the end, there's not a lot else to say. Thankfully, the traffic's sparse and it's relatively quick. When Adine finally pulls up outside my house, it's a quarter to one.

She stifles another yawn, and looks at me. There's sadness in her eyes. It's an awkward moment which I do my best to soften by placing a hand on her arm.

'Thanks for tonight. I really appreciate it.'

She responds with a small nod. 'I'm sorry about what I said. I'm tired, that's all. It's been a long day.'

'I know, I understand. Why didn't you tell me about Harry dying?'

'I didn't want you to know that I knew about it. Harry and I hadn't been seeing each other for a while, and I thought if I said anything to you, you might suspect what had been going on. I also assumed someone else had told you.'

'No,' I say wearily, 'no-one did. Did you go to the funeral?'

She nods. 'It was quite a small affair.'

I wonder why he killed himself, but I don't ask any more questions. Instead, I lean over to kiss her, but she deftly turns a cheek and I end up missing her altogether. It seems an apt way to say goodbye.

Coming back to my dark, empty house feels strange after the frenetic events of the day. I'm tired but awake, wired almost. I know I won't sleep well tonight. There's half a bottle of red wine in the kitchen from a couple of nights ago. I take out the metal stopper and pour myself a glass, thinking how different my life was when I first opened it. But even then there was a storm brewing, a storm so strong it's almost swept me away.