The Affair (2 page)

I look back at the house where Morris and Sian lie dead, and I wonder: what did go on in the privacy of these homes?

Then the rain begins. Thick droplets plopping onto the cellophane of the flowers, not a slow build, but a sudden onslaught, rain like it really means it, like it’s going to punish us for hanging around outside this house of death. You can see it in people’s faces, that they are caught between staying, getting soaked, and leaving and missing what comes next. Beside me, Muriel mutters to herself, something about God-awful British weather, and haven’t they all suffered enough. Gradually, slowly, the crowd begins to cave, pushed away by the rain. Muriel folds her arms tight across her chest and marches away without a backward glance. I stand in the rain. I wish to God I had thought to bring a coat.

The thin woman is still standing there. I’m not sure that she has even noticed the rain, too caught up in her own private hell. I shift, uncomfortable, thinking that my car is parked nearby, that I could run, shelter, maybe reply to some emails while I wait. Then I shake my head, sigh, tuck my arms into my armpits and make my way towards the weeping woman. She looks up at me.

‘Are you okay?’ It is, I acknowledge, a stupid damn question. But it is all I can come up with.

She nods, an uncertain, unconvincing movement.

‘Look, you … you’re getting soaked. You live around here?’

She looks at me, seems to be assessing me – a sensible thing to do, in a community where there has just been a double murder. ‘Two doors down. That way.’ She gestures down the street.

‘Um,’ I look to the sky, where the clouds have stacked themselves up into towers, the rain getting heavier and heavier, ‘you got a kettle?’

Finally a slight smile breaks through. ‘Yes. Come on then.’

I trail behind her, watching as the crowd begin to slip away into their waiting houses. One or two of them watch us as we leave, their faces pursed in disapproval, and my heart sinks. I know what people think of journalists – that we are simply there to cash in on the grief of others. I try to comfort myself with the notion that it isn’t only about that; I am offering this woman some sympathy where others have not, I’m getting her in out of the rain. But lying to myself has never been one of my greater skills and, down at the heart of it, I understand my own motivations. That she was Sian’s friend. That she saw the Myricks on what was possibly their last day. And something else, tickling at the edges of my awareness – that there are things that happen in the privacy of people’s homes, that there are whispers.

She guides me two doors down, pushes open the front door, which even in spite of a double murder she has not locked. It’s a strange community, this one. Rough, dangerous sometimes. Yet with an intrinsic feeling of safety, that one is guarded by one’s neighbours. What, I wonder, will happen now, though?

‘Tea?’

‘Thank you.’ The house is warm, a relief from the cold rain, the decor a throwback to the 1980s, the carpets marked and thin. It’s clean, though – everything in a place of its own. ‘My name is Charlie, by the way.’

‘Wendy. Sit down. I’ll find us some digestives.’

I perch on the end of a sofa.

I study the room. It is large in the way of older council houses, a solid square room with cheap carpets, a Sixties fireplace. A small television in one corner. A bookcase, overstuffed with books – romance mostly, a couple of thrillers.

‘I’ve not seen you round here before – are you new to the area?’ Wendy shouts from the kitchen.

‘I …’ My phone begins to ring. Del. ‘Sorry, hold on,’ I shout to Wendy, and answer the call, ‘Hey, that was fast.’

‘Well, I do pride myself on speed.’

‘Nice. Your wife is very lucky.’

‘I know, right? Okay, you want the info? Bearing in mind I could get fired for this?’

‘I want the info. And I’ll sit on it until you tell me otherwise. You know me.’

‘I do. That’s the only reason I tell you anything. Right, we’ve got a stabbing, by the looks of things. The wife has multiple stab-wounds to the back.’

‘How many is multiple?’

‘I don’t know, jeez. Multiple. As in lots.’

‘Okay, okay. And the husband?’

‘Single stab-wound to the heart.’

‘Any sign of forced entry?’

‘Nope. Doors all locked up nice and tight.’

‘Anything missing?’

‘Not obviously. But there’s something else.’

‘Go on.’

‘Husband was found with the knife in his hand.’

‘Shit!’

‘Yeah. Starting to look like a murder-suicide.’

Wendy comes into the room, balancing a tray with two mugs, a plate of plain digestive biscuits. She is trying not to listen to me – you can see it in the tilt of her head, the conscientious way she sets down the tray. Shit! ‘Um, okay, so thanks for that. Let me know – you know, when I’m good to go.’ I hang up the phone, deliberately looking away from her, trying to adjust my expression. ‘Thank you.’ I wait as she sinks into the opposite chair. ‘How are you doing?’

She shakes her head. ‘Okay. It’s hard, you know?’

‘You were close to Sian and Morris?’

‘We’ve lived on the same street for most of our lives. I grew up next door to Morris. We went to the same school and everything.’ She gives a brittle laugh. ‘I feed their cat, when they’re on their holidays. I mean, we’re all close around here – everyone looks out for everyone else.’ I think of the crowd in the street, the ones who watched her cry and did nothing, and I bite my tongue. Maybe it is that British thing, that we are irretrievably uncomfortable in the face of open grief. And I get that, I really do. I mean, I’m not great. I never know what it is you’re supposed to say. But still … you give it a go, don’t you?

‘I saw a photo, on Facebook, of you guys together at a barbecue?’

She thinks for a moment. ‘Oh, Saturday, you mean? Yeah, they had a load of us round.’

I think of the pictures, the vodka, the Stella. ‘Couple of drinks?’

Wendy pulls a face. ‘More than a couple, to be honest. I had a stinking head on Sunday.’

‘I bet Morris and Sian were steaming?’

‘Well … no. I mean, yes. We all were. But not, you know, out of their minds or anything. Just enough that you stop caring about what you say and …’ She stops, looks down in consternation.

I give her a second, try not to push, because often when you push all that you achieve is to slam shut a door that was opening for you. But sometimes, if you wait …

‘I shouldn’t be telling you this.’ It is truly astounding how often people say that to me, and how rarely that stops them. ‘The thing is, things weren’t great. Not if I’m being honest. I mean, you’ve got to understand. They’ve been together for a long time, since we were in school, and, you know, things happen. They couldn’t have kids, Morris got laid off, so things get tense.’

I think of Morris, with his large frame and his flattened features, the knife clutched in his fingers. Tense.

‘They were sniping at each other, at the barbecue. You know the way couples get. Started off as just the usual backbiting stuff, but then, once they’d had some drinks, it got nastier. Sian saying he was a waste of space, that she’d be better off on her own. To be honest, that’s why it ended as early as it did; people got uncomfortable, started to slope off. I mean, the thing is, with their arguing, you just aren’t comfortable, are you?’ She shakes her head. ‘If I’d have stayed, maybe I could have …’

I study her. Wait.

‘I don’t know. Maybe I could have done something.’

Her face fluctuates, a medley of emotions dancing across it. And I think: you know; you have already come to the same conclusion as the police have, that there was no one else involved, just the two of them.

I hesitate, choosing my path carefully. ‘Did Morris have a temper?’

She looks up, her eyes locking onto mine. Doesn’t answer for long moments, and I think that I have gone too far, that I have jumped too soon.

‘Yes.’ One word, spoken so quietly it is almost lost in the sound of the rain against the windows.

We sit there then, sipping tea, listening to the rain, and it seems there is little else to say. A ray of murky sunlight catches on a thin gold chain that hangs around Wendy’s neck. A single tear drifts down her cheek.

Then there is a sound, the front door opening, and my heart leaps to my throat. I rarely think about these things. I go into these houses and I talk to these strangers, and for some reason it never occurs to me that I am unsafe, even in the heart of a murder. The young man stands in the doorway, shaking off the rain. Tall and not what you would call good-looking, he is broadly built, wears his dark hair hanging down to his shoulders, half-covering his face.

‘Mam? What’s goin’ on? There’s police all over the place out there.’

Wendy stares at him, her mouth moving like she is trying to figure out how to place these horrors into words.

‘Has Morris been arrested or somethin’? I mean, the police … they’re at his house.’

‘No. No, love. Um … this is Charlie. Charlie, this is my son, Toby.’

He stares at me, forehead creased into a frown. ‘Oh. All right. And you are who, exactly?’

‘Toby. Charlie has been very kind to me.’

But still he’s staring at me, his mouth a hard line, and I’m about to say something, to justify myself as a journalist crashing his mother’s grief, when it hits me. She doesn’t know. Shit! I wasn’t wearing my press pass. And, with the rain and her tears, I didn’t think to tell her. I am floored suddenly. It’s like years of driving a car and then suddenly slipping into the driver’s seat and forgetting where the key goes. What the hell is the matter with me? I feel my face start to flush. ‘Look, I should go.’ I make a move to stand, because I have well and truly peed in this particular swimming pool and it is hugely unlikely these people are going to be willing to talk to me, once I do actually tell them who I am. ‘Wendy, I’m sorry, I thought I told you. I’m Charlotte Solomon from the
Swansea Times
.’

She stares at me, her mouth moving uselessly. Her son makes a noise, a cross between a growl and a grunt. ‘I think you’d better get out of here.’ He seems bigger now, has stepped closer to me. Smells of old coffee and cigarettes.

I take a step back. ‘Look, I’ll let myself out. But I just … I’ll leave my card here, just in case you decide you’d like a chat.’

The son harrumphs. ‘She won’t.’

They watch me leave, the house far colder now than it has been. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. What is the matter with me? I can hear the rhythmic rise and fall of their voices at my back. I am such a moron. I cannot believe I have done this. I pull the door behind me, plunge out into the rain and try to reach for that feeling – let’s call it a hunch – that scratches at the back of my brain.

It stays with me as I climb into my car, start the engine, drive down the hill through the town, as I pull up outside the office. What is it? What the hell is bugging me so much? I don’t go into the
Swansea Times
office. Not straight away. Just sit in the car, watch the rain and think. What did I see?

I think of Wendy’s son. I’ve seen him somewhere before, I’m almost sure of it. I bite my lip, then pull my phone out, accessing Wendy’s Facebook page. This one is better protected. I can’t access her main page, can only get to the profile pictures. But there she is, a smile brighter than I would have believed possible. I run through the photos, mentally crossing my fingers. And then I find it – Wendy, her hair styled, lapping around her shoulders, make-up intricately applied, her arm linked through Toby’s. His hair is shorter in the picture, his face clearer.

I’m sure I’ve seen this guy somewhere before.

I flick back through my search history. Go back to the page of Sian Myricks. The picture of her and Wendy, raising a glass to the camera. But this time I’m not looking at them. I’m looking behind them. And there is Toby, his hair tucked back behind his ears, shoulders up. Skulking. That really is the only word for it. I enlarge the picture. And I wonder: what was he doing, late that Saturday night?

I move through the rest of the barbecue pictures to a group shot, unposed – like the participants do not know they are being photographed. It feels … I don’t know, weird. Uncomfortable almost. You would expect that the party would have broken down into groups, people talking in pairs, small knots, but instead it appears that within this group of fifteen, twenty people there is a common purpose. I scan the eyes. Those that are not looking at the ground are looking … where? At Toby. And at Morris, standing beside him.

Then it hits me – the itch I have needed to scratch coming clear. The boy is the image of the man.

Suddenly I get the looks, the way the crowd seemed to flow around Wendy as if she simply was not there, the way they were able to ignore her tears, her obvious heartbreak. Muriel’s frown, her comments. I get the way the crowd’s gaze tracked us as we walked towards the house. It wasn’t about me. It was about her. They were watching as the mistress grieved. They were judging.

Well, shit!

My mind races. Does the boy know? Did Sian? She’d have to, right? What with the gossip within the community. Or was it one of those situations in which everyone knows, apart from the people it most affects? Is that what happened on that Saturday night, when the Stella had been flowing freely: did suspicion turn to accusations, accusations to murder? Did Sian tackle Morris about it, finally, and did he get angry, punishing her with a knife in the back, for spoiling his good thing? Or was it the son, Toby? The happy family image getting too much for him, so that he snaps?

Of course I can’t print any of this. I have no proof. I have nothing on the record, no one willing to spill their guts on the front page of the local rag. In reporting terms, I have naff-all. That’s a technical term, by the way.

There will not be a funeral. Not for a while, at least. The police still have not found the killer, haven’t finished with the bodies. Instead Harddymaes is holding a candlelight vigil, a way for the community to remember. I pull out onto the Harddymaes road, my headlights picking up the puddles that litter the tarmac ahead of me, and suppress a shiver.