Simon Beckett - Where There's Smoke

Silence.

“Why? Why did you do it?” she burst out.

“I–I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” The cry was wrung from her. She wanted to hammer the receiver against the wall. “Sorry? I don’t even know what to call you!”

“Kate... p-please. I didn’t m-mean this to happen.”

“You didn’t mean it to happen? What the hell did you think was going to happen?”

“I–I’m sorry, I—”

“Stop fucking saying you’re sorry!”

She stopped. She felt breathless, as though she had run upstairs. In a calmer voice, she asked, “Why did you do it?”

The silence went on for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

“I saw your advert.” His voice sounded wet, as though he was talking through tears. “I was in his waiting room, and there was this m-magazine and it was in it. And then, when I went in to see Dr T-Turner, he had to go out for a few minutes, and I saw his jacket on the back of his chair, so... so I t-took his wallet.”

Kate sank down onto the floor, her back against the wall. “Why, though? I don’t understand.”

She heard him sniff. “I kn-knew you wouldn’t want me But if... if you thought I was somebody else... I didn’t know it was g-going to go on for so long. I thought... I thought you’d n-never know, and that you’d have m-my baby, and look after it, and love it, and — and it’d be like me having a second chance!”

Oh, God. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

“And then I met you, and you told me it would t-take months... and I was glad. You looked so...”

Kate squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t. Please, don’t.

“I just wanted you to like me! I didn’t kn-know it’d go on like it did. I... I kept wanting to tell you, but I couldn’t. I knew you w-wouldn’t want to see me any more... I couldn’t—”

“Is that why you killed Alex Turner?”

It seemed strange, saying the name to him, meaning someone else. He didn’t answer straight away.

“He got the fax.” He spoke softly. “He phoned me and said it was important, and I’d g-got to go round straight after work.”

“After work? The printer’s, you mean, or is this some other career you’ve invented?” She felt ashamed as soon as she’d said it.

He faltered. “The p-printer’s. Kate, I—”

“Just go on.”

She heard him draw a shaky breath. “He was there by himself. When I went in, he just showed me the f-fax and then said, ‘Who’s Kate?’ I–I just couldn’t think. He said he’d thought it’d b-been me who’d taken his wallet, but he hadn’t been certain. B-but when he saw what you’d put about my g-grandmother’s St Christopher, he knew then, because I’d told him all about her and what she’d said about it. And he said, ‘Tim, don’t you think you’d b-better tell me what you’ve done? So I told him, and all the time I k-kept thinking about you being pregnant, and that it was our baby, and — and I felt so happy.”

There was a pause. She could hear him breathing, reliving it. His voice when he continued was low, close to breaking.

“And then when I’d finished, he said, ‘You’ve c-caused quite a mess, haven’t you?’ And then he said it’d got to be sorted out, and he was going to have to t-tell you. I said I’d tell you myself, but he said he c-couldn’t let me, it had gone too far for that. He w-wouldn’t l-listen.”

His stammer had grown worse, like a machine shaking itself apart.

“He started telling me to c-calm down, but how c-could I when he was going to spoil everything? If he’d just let me tell you it would have b-been all right, but he wouldn’t, he told me to sit down, and started saying everything w-would be okay, but I knew it wouldn’t be, I kn-knew he was l-lying. Then he told me not to push him, but I hadn’t, I–I’m sure I hadn’t, and then he started going towards the d-door, and I knew he was going to f-fetch them to come and get me, and I’d n-never see you again, so I–I tried to stop him. I just wanted to explain, to m-make him see, and then—”

He stopped. Kate was rigid, every muscle tense. She could hear his breathing, rapid and laboured.

“I didn’t m-mean to,” he said. “It was only because he was g-going to tell you, but there was so much blood. I just didn’t want him to t-tell you, that was all, I couldn’t stand the thought of what you’d think about me, Kate, I...”

Don’t. She wasn’t sure if she’d spoken it or not. “... I l-love you, Kate...”

No.

“P-please, Kate, I’m s-sorry—”

“No.”

“— Please don’t h-hate me, I didn’t m-mean to hurt anyone—”

“Shut up.”

“— Don’t be upset, I wouldn’t hurt you—”

“Shut up!”

“— I only did it because of the b-baby—”

“There isn’t any baby.”

It was a reflexive cry. There was a silence. “What do you m-mean?” His voice held a barely suppressed panic. “K-Kate, don’t say that!”

“I mean there isn’t any baby!”

“There is, I saw your f-fax, you s-said it—”

“It’s dead! I’ve had an abortion!”

Distantly, she felt herself recoil from the words, but there was a savage exultation in lashing out, hurting him back.

“No.”

The denial was hushed. “I had it this morning.”

“N-no, I d-don’t believe you!”

“They killed it.”

The words ran away with her.

“You’re lying!”

“They cut it out—”

“Oh. God, no, oh, G-God, no—”

“and then they threw it in the incinerator and burnt it!”

She stopped, appalled with herself. She heard him moan.

“Don’t,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”

“No, no, God, no, oh, no—”

“Listen,” she began, “I haven’t—”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no—”

The sound of his pain cut through her own. “Please, don’t! You were right, I was—”

“Bitch!” The word hit her like a fist.

“M-murdering fucking bitch!”

“No, listen to me—”

“I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking k-kill you, you murdering BITCH!”

The line went dead. The receiver hummed in her ear. Slowly, Kate lowered it.

She became aware of a weight on her lap. Looking down, she saw that at some point Dougal had come and sat on her knee without her noticing. A noise from the phone made her start, and she almost dropped it as a recorded voice pipingly instructed her to replace the handset. She dislodged Dougal and climbed stiffly to her feet. Her neck and shoulder muscles ached as though she had overworked them in the gym. She replaced the phone in its cradle and looked around the hallway as if she didn’t recognise it. But it appeared no different from how it had ten minutes before.

From the lounge, the quiz show still buzzed with gleeful laughter. Kate walked away from the sound. She went downstairs and checked that both doors were locked. Then she came back up and phoned the police.

It was nothing like the clinic at Birmingham. For one thing, she was fully clothed, sitting on a hard plastic chair instead of lying on a couch. The room was a dull cream colour, NHS instead of private, and lit by a harsh strip light that buzzed like a trapped fly. The doctor was short and plump, and the nurse’s uniform nothing like so crisply ironed. But for all that, Kate couldn’t help but be reminded of the other place. Perhaps it was because one had been a beginning while the other was an end.

She had come a full, futile circle. Her hand went instinctively to her throat, feeling for the gold locket that was now in a drawer in her flat. She lowered it again.

“The procedure for an early medical termination’s quite simple,” the doctor said, and again Kate was faced with a ghost of that other time, the other clinic. “Effectively, what we’re doing is inducing a miscarriage. The drug we use is called Mifegyne, and what it basically does is stop the lining of your womb forming. You’ll have to stay here for an hour after you’ve taken it to make sure there aren’t any side effects, but there rarely are.”