Flynn Berry: Under the Harrow

Moretti’s voice is measured and clear. The impression he gives is of someone who is serious and, more than anything, effective.

“CAN YOU COME TO the station?” asks Moretti the morning after the press conference. Rain falls on the yard behind the Hunters, and the foghorn bellows from the village hall. I remember what Keith said about the police suspecting me, but I don’t believe him. It was a bluff. I’m pleased the detectives haven’t closed the inquiry.

A constable collects me at a quarter past eight. This time Lewis is also in the interview room. For a moment I think this must mean there is news, but neither of them looks eager. They look exhausted.

“Why did your last relationship end?” asks Moretti.

“He was unfaithful.”

“How did you know?”

“I found a pair of knickers. I told you already.”

On the Sunday night of his return from Manchester, I reached into his bag and pulled out a fistful of black silk. I spread them flat on the bed to see the dimensions of the body that wore them. The legs and stomach that the lace edged. I imagined a woman lying on her back, topless, biting her finger and laughing.

Moretti shows me a photograph of a pair of black silk knickers, with the same faint blue label stitched to the hem.

“Like these?”

“Yes.”

“They have a shop on the Via Cavour in Rome. They don’t distribute abroad.” I’ve stopped breathing. Both detectives watch me. Moretti says, “When did you find out?”

“Find out what?”

“That Rachel slept with your boyfriend.”

“She didn’t. He was in Manchester that weekend.”

“No, Oxford. He stayed at the George on Prince Street. Rachel met him for dinner and she stayed with him at the hotel.”

The first kick lands. My body turns numb, as it did on that Sunday night. I’m very aware of my movements, of lifting my hand to straighten my shirt, of how much air I displace in the room, as though everything around me is freezing up. It’s not unpleasant. Lewis watches from across the table. He still hasn’t spoken.

“How many times?” I ask. My voice telescopes away from me.

“Once, according to Liam,” says Moretti.

I startle, as though I have been pushed from behind. “He’s admitted it?”

“Yes.”

I look at the photograph and remember placing them on our bed and smoothing the cool silk. Liam was in the shower and I left them like that for him to find.

“Thank you, Nora. That’s all we need for today.”

He hasn’t turned off the recorder. I wonder what else he thinks I might say.

“CAN YOU COME TO Oxford now?” I ask at the first pause in his condolences.

“I’m at work,” says Liam.

“I’m sure you can explain. The train’s only an hour, you can be back in London tonight.”

We arrange to meet at the covered market on the high street. There is a bistro on the second floor. It serves good, rustic French food, though I’m not hungry.

Moretti might be trying to find a motive for me. He may have ordered the knickers from the shop in Rome, not found a matching pair in Rachel’s dresser. I think I told him the brand name.

While I wait for Liam, I sort through all the times I saw them together. A few times the two of them went off on their own. But they were always on ordinary, reasonable two-person jobs. They once did the grocery shopping when we stayed in Marlow, or he drove her to collect her car from the repair garage.

It hurts too much to believe that these expeditions were planned, and eagerly awaited. When they returned, they never seemed tense or guilty.

Moretti never showed me any proof that Liam was in Oxford and not Manchester. He didn’t say how he knew that Rachel stayed at the hotel.

Liam arrives. I haven’t seen him in six months. He wears a soft black jumper and he smells the same, a cologne with cedar and musk that I realized was quite popular after we broke up. Who do you wear it for now? I think before I can stop myself.

“How are you?” he asks.

I shake my head, and then notice the magazine folded in his briefcase. He was able to read on the trip here, and I hate him for it. The server comes and I order a second Campari and soda. Liam orders a beer. He looks so well.

“Did you sleep with my sister?”

Everything around us goes quiet.

“Yes.”

I swipe his bottle and it shatters against the wall. The liquid foams and spills along the floor. The two servers, both young women, stop at the far end of the room and stare. I doubt they heard our conversation, but they can imagine it. Both of their faces are creased with sympathy. I push back my chair and hurry down the stairs. Behind me I can hear Liam apologizing, a zip on his case opening as he searches for notes to leave on the table.

He catches me up in the alley beside the covered market. “It wasn’t planned. We ran into each other on the street and decided to eat together later. I don’t even remember it,” he says. “Neither of us did. It was a mistake.”

“How much did you drink?”

“Two bottles of wine.”

“Each?” I ask, scrupulous, desperate. If it happened after four bottles of wine, I might be able to forgive them.

“No, together.”

We hear footsteps at the far end of the alley and stop speaking. A young woman comes down the cobbles, teetering between us. She has a net bag with vegetables and a bouquet of tulips, and I almost grab her arm and say, Listen to this, listen to what he’s done. She lowers her head demurely as she passes us. Lovers’ quarrel. I wish we were having a row, I wish we were in an alley in London, that there was no reason for us to be in Oxford.

“But you planned it. You told me you were going to Manchester.”

“No. I said I was going to a conference. We didn’t talk about where until afterward. When I came back, I said I’d been in Manchester.”

“Did she ask you to say that?”

“No.”

I’m having trouble breathing. I was so sure he would deny it. No, I would tell the detective. You’re wrong. It never happened.

And if he denied it I would never have to think about Rachel kissing him, about Rachel undressing for him, about the two of them falling asleep together, or about the first time that I saw her afterward and she didn’t tell me. I told her we broke up and she said, “Do you want to come up here for a few days?”

“Did you fancy her the whole time?” I ask.

“No.”

“Was she angry with me?”

“No,” he says. “No, of course not. She hated herself for it.”

I am crying freely now, stoppering my nose with the back of my hand. He looks down at the cobblestones. We don’t speak, and then I say, “Are you seeing someone?”

He rubs his hand over his mouth.

“What’s her name?”

“Charlotte.”

I can picture her. Cheerful and good-natured, shining light brown hair. Going to work and meeting her friends, meeting Liam, afterward. If she were here, if she came toward us now, I would hit her. I would want to claw her to pieces.

She’s waiting for him in London. Tonight or tomorrow night he’ll go to see her. It will be a relief, after this, to be near someone serene and warm. She’ll say, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Liam still hasn’t realized my position. He hasn’t considered the danger he’s put me in.

“I found her.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

“They think I killed her because of this.”

His throat is flushed red, and it spreads down his chest. “No, that’s not possible. I’ll tell them you didn’t know.”

I step forward and his arms close around me. His chest lifts and sinks against mine. I remember the room at the top of the Oxo Tower. Elderflower gin and tonics. I’d thought, I didn’t know things could be like this.