The Way Back Ch. 09

That's what she did. We entered the hall, she shouted hello to Ann and went upstairs with her bags, shutting the door behind her.

Well I thought, it's a technical breach of the rules we set, but at this stage I don't care. After what Greta said, I don't want to be the cause of more suffering.

I went into the kitchen, and Ann was pouring two mugs of tea. She was dressed in a flowery tee shirt and jeans; no attempt to impress like last time.

"I want to talk in here," she said, "across the table. The living room chairs are too comfortable."

When we were seated opposite each other. She looked at me, and the look was of dislike and unhappiness.

"Have you got anything to say?" she asked, quite aggressively, I thought. "When you've finished, I've got a lot to say. So you'd better get started."

The feelings she projected raised similar feelings in me, and I started to feel angry. She had seen the evidence of her betrayal of our marriage, and here she was attacking me. What had I done? OK. I could dish it out as well as she could.

"I've had enough of your game playing and lies. You profess love for me, longing to get me back. You assure me that your sexual life with Derek is over, and days later you're in bed with him again.

"You say you're torn apart by the attack on me and its results, and yet you constantly side with the man who paid people to kill me so he could deceive you into his bed. You're still siding with him, believing him and implying I'm a liar. I couldn't work out why, until Derek came to see me and then when I went to see Stephanie Fanshaw.

"You were having an affair with Derek long before he tried to have me killed. So of course you want him, and want to keep going back to him. He must be a fantastic lover to have such a hold over you; someone I could never compete with. As he said, you wanted me for the lifestyle and him for decent sex. The evidence of your affair is sitting in Stephanie's files. Of course the folk next door saw him arriving once or twice a week while the children were at school.

"At least he had the honour, if that's the word, to keep your name out of the divorce, at immense cost to him and his business it seems. No wonder you wanted to use my money so badly to get him out of his financial hole.

"Also no wonder either, that he then needed me dead so he could move in on our money. The evidence is all there: the money from his accounts going to the three thugs who did this to me; the forged letter to get you to start on the road to marriage.

"Well, why don't you stop all the play acting and go back to him? Oh of course, the children. They hate him and wouldn't go back to him, and while you love lover-boy's body, you love your children more. So you're prepared to go through the charade of loving me and wanting me back so you can have the best of both again, the money, the lifestyle, the children, and Derek when you get the itch.

"I think what little relationship we have is over. We need to sort out the custody of the children. I will buy a house for you and they can live with me and you can have visitation rights as often as you want. There. It's all out in the open. Don't try gainsaying the evidence; it speaks for itself."

There was a pause. She had been looking more and more angry as I ranted through my tirade, but there was a deep sadness in there as well. She flinched visibly at some of my remarks which I took to be guilt.

"Have you finished?" she asked. I nodded and sat back.

"You are such a stupid bastard Allan sometimes. Now you will listen to me, and you will listen like I did, in silence until I have finished. Then I suggest you get up and leave, and go think about what I've said. I assume your precious little recorder is working?"

"Ann," I replied, "you know I need it. Short term memory is still risky."

"OK, so you can go home and replay it and then think about it. Then come back and talk some more. I've a lot to say, so be patient.

"I met and fell in love with you twenty three years ago. I knew nothing about your life, or about your ambitions or the future. Our early years were lived in relative poverty, as you got your business off the ground.

"When you appointed David as your attorney in case you died or were kidnapped you asked that I take half the company, and I refused. I loved you, not your money. I loved you, not your business. Out of love I put up with your many absences as you travelled round the world on business, and I longed for you to come home.

"As a lover you were second to none. I was deliriously happy with our sex life: it was always fresh, exciting and most of all loving. It was specially intense when you got back from your trips. You were my sole focus, and no one else came into the picture. You need to know that, because we've never talked long enough for you to find that out since you came back.

"Now I know you have memory loss, but I haven't. So my feelings for you are no different now than they were then. I know you don't believe that, but it doesn't stop it being true. I can understand that with a defective memory, you might not feel the same way, you won't have the continuity.

"I'll leave the issue of my so-called affair aside for a moment, partly because it never happened, and partly because it will interfere with the flow of what I'm telling you."

Evidence! Evidence! I thought, but kept quiet.

"When you disappeared my life fell apart. You said, or implied, that no one believed you would go off with another woman but that I did believe it.

"Sorry, Allan, I refused to believe it until the photo evidence came. I'd say here that you should realise that evidence is not enough. I'll come back to that as well because you're wrong about evidence speaking for itself. It never does. It's always interpreted, and we often have insufficient knowledge to interpret it properly.

"Once I was convinced you had really gone off with someone, I then refused to believe that you had really gone away for good. Time and time again I kept saying you'd be back, and I wouldn't let that idea go. I would have forgiven you. I just couldn't understand how you could have done it and I was full of guilt that I must somehow have failed you.

"And yes, you're right, it was only when Derek's forged letter came that I finally gave up. Then I was really angry. You had rubbished our whole family and our life and our value. You had abandoned your family without a backward glance. Again you will not believe this but again it's true, it was only after that letter that I made love with Derek.

"And now I'll deal with Derek. You need to know why I refuse to believe he's guilty of your attempted murder. You won't like it, but sorry, this is how it is.

"We met at that party, the one just before the millennium. He was entertaining. His wife was ill or something and he was on his own. I introduced him to you and afterwards we met him from time to time at parties.

Then I met him again when I was doing some work for Natasha when she was having her first baby. I told you about it at the time.

"It was only during the divorce and in the months after it that he'd visit here, not before. He was distraught; he really loved Stephanie but she was always a difficult woman. You and I, we used to joke about his lunchtime visits when you came home in the evening. I used to say he was a typical builder, always somewhere other than where he should have been. We agreed he shouldn't have been unfaithful to Stephanie.

"But he'd come round when you were here at home, as well as when you were at work. You often went drinking with him and David to cheer him up. We both supported him when he was really low.

"When you disappeared, then he supported me. I was a complete wreck. I had no energy, no direction. I had a breakdown. I sat for weeks doing nothing. The children were neglected and he cheered me up and gave me hope. Claire took on the children.

"Allan he never once made any moves on me at all. He would put an arm round me and I would cry for hours on his chest. He never once kissed me. Never once. He could have, I was longing for some love. I got the kisses from David and Viv and Susan but I need sex as well, and life was frustrating.

"He was gentle and he was caring. He even cooked for the children when I was inert. He did us no favours there; he's a lousy cook. I would ask him why he was doing all this. He would say that we pulled him through his hell of a divorce, now he could do something in return.

"I asked him why he wrote the forged letter when you discovered that he'd done it. He was very embarrassed but said that I was living half a life, and there seemed no chance of you coming back, so he did it to set me free. And it did. I gave up hoping for your return and started to live my life again. I turned to this kind and gentle man and gave him some encouragement and he was so grateful. He had a loving woman again.

"I'm afraid he turned out to be very dull as a life-partner. He lied when he told you he was the better man, he couldn't hold a candle to you in any department, but he was all I had, and he loved me so much, and I in turn loved him, mainly out of gratitude.

"If nothing else much, he was a companion, better than no one at all. He was no good with the children, and he was quite a chauvinist when it came to housework, but he does love me.

"What I'm trying to show you Allan, is his character. He's not a cold-blooded murderer. I know his nature. He was genuinely puzzled as I was by your disappearance. When the PI phoned him and said he had information, he urged me to write and employ him. We did it together."

"The PI phoned Derek?" I intervened.

"Yes. The man lived in York and he heard of Derek's enquiries at the hotel on my behalf. I think he had a relative working there.

"Now, listen," she said, "Do you really think that with all my memories of our love life together I could even stand to be in the same house as someone who tried to kill you? You may not remember much about our life together but I do.

"When you gave me all that evidence about Derek I went back to the house feeling murderous, but when I got there it was clear he was completely at a loss to understand what was going on. I've been with him for months Allan; I know he really didn't understand what was going on. He really thought you were fitting him up in revenge for me having sex with him. I'm sorry Allan, but I love him enough to stand by him when everyone else has him guilty.

"I took the risk of telling you how much I love you, and how much I longed for you to be back with me. I still feel that way. What was your response? Not exactly positive, was it? You wouldn't believe me and you kept saying you were with someone else.

"So I went back to help him out: he is very, very lonely. His life has fallen apart like yours has, and like mine did. So yes, I made love with him while you were away. You weren't going to believe me, or him, and you weren't coming back to me so why should I not?

"You have obviously have no idea how painful it was seeing you with two other women, both attractive, both clever, both sexy, knowing you were sleeping with them; that more than the sex they had the sort of intimacy I wanted with you, that I used to have with you. While you were living with them you weren't ever coming back to me. Viv saw that and you know how she loves to organise other people's lives.

"It was Viv who convinced me to keep trying for you. She had got Peter for Jenny. I know all about your wonderful behaviour with her when you found out, so self-forgetful. That always was you all over. I knew then I loved you more than any need Derek might have and I totally finished with him.

"Now you're doing the 'evidence' thing again. Derek lost his temper when he visited you and said things that weren't true. He wanted to hurt you. I don't know what Stephanie's evidence is but I can tell you that I was not the other woman in her divorce. I'll be asking Derek about that one as well.

"You go on about evidence. I refute what you say. Evidence is always interpreted. I think your evidence is seriously incomplete, and as a result you are wrong about a lot of things. I want you to go and think about what I've said. If you had a complete memory of our life together you'd be living here and you would know that there must be another way of seeing all this. There must be.

"Please, please, Allan," she said, gazing into my eyes, "just try to think of another explanation for your 'evidence'."

She had finished, and sagged.

I was shell-shocked. It was the last thing I expected. I couldn't see another way of seeing things, but her intensity was compelling.

"Thank you Ann," I said, "I'll play it and think about it. I still think the evidence about Derek and you is compelling, but yes I will think about it. I'll go now."

"OK. I'll give you a promise," she said seriously. "Unless or until our explorations and talking are finished and I am certain we are not going to ever get together, I won't have any further sexual relations with Derek. Not because he's guilty, but because I love you more and want you more than anything back in my life."

I didn't understand that either, but I nodded and left. No kiss, no hug.

I drove back to the flat in turmoil. Her aggression and her certainty had floored me. She definitely did not sound like someone who was trying to lie to me. Her dismissal of her adultery, almost as an aside, seemed to be believable. No begging, no sorrow, just an assertion that she was right and she'd acted honourably throughout.

I did as I promised, I sat down as soon as I got in and had a mug of tea in front of me, and I played our talk back. In fact I played it back a number of times, but seemed to be making no progress, beyond a growing understanding of Ann's character.

I played the conversation with her three friends from school, and had to admit that she was fiercely loyal. In that case, her description of her feelings when I went missing seemed accurate. Claire bore it out as well.

I could also understand her loyalty to Derek, but was that loyalty born of adultery? It struck me that she didn't in the end really explain about Stephanie's evidence of Ann's involvement with Derek which was serious enough to provoke a divorce.

So I sat back and thought more widely about what Derek had said and what Stephanie had showed me. I found her remarks on my computer and played both back again and again until I knew them by heart. It didn't help much.

The thing that niggled was that comment of Ann's about the PI from York. Something didn't ring true about that. I wondered how many PIs got in touch with people touting for business like that. How did he know where to phone?

Then what about the fact that the PI kept back two photos which exonerated me. It was Derek who stood to gain from withholding them. It struck me that Derek could have phoned the man and got him to ring.

In the end I gave up in despair and went to bed.

Next morning, Peter rang to ask if I had any objections to Greta doing her work placement with his firm, since her chosen company had fallen through. It was the practice after exams for the students to spend two weeks gaining some experience of the world of work. I readily agreed, and I thanked him for his thoughtfulness.

I asked him how were things with him and Jenny.

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" he crowed, "She's... she's... well..."

"Wonderful?" I asked laughing, and he agreed.

When Jenny came into work, I said, "Hello, wonderful!"

She looked puzzled.

"Peter rang," I said.

She smiled, "Yes, he is rather wonderful. You were right about giving shy men a chance."

We got down to work.

Then came a phone call from David. Would I like to join them for dinner; there were a few ends to tie up about the new building, and it would save us both time.

It wasn't my idea of fun but I had nothing else to do, so I agreed. It turned out to be a good decision.

Dinner was delicious as always, and Viv kept well clear before the meal while we did our business. Afterwards we sat together and drank our coffee. No whisky or liqueurs though: I was driving. The conversation was desultory.

Then Viv told David she needed to pay a bill, and David retorted that she knew the password for the joint account, and why didn't she use it herself instead of getting him to do it. Then he said it.

"Honestly Viv, you're as bad as Ann and Allan. She never used their joint account even though she knew the password, always asked me to transfer money for her."

It was a 'eureka' moment. Joint internet accounts. Passwords. And I suddenly saw what had been eluding me. David asked me what was the matter. I answered that I had some research to do, and his last remark had made a difference. I would tell him when the four met again on Friday.

When I got back to the flat I replayed Stephanie's conversation. There it was. Derek was a lousy businessman as far as money and accounts were concerned. She handled all his accounts. I wondered if he ever changed his passwords. If not, Stephanie would have access to his accounts on line.

So there was someone else who could have moved the money. Derek was not the only person who could have paid off the murderous yobs who 'killed' me. It could be that particular someone who hated Derek.

Derek's guilt was now looking less certain. There was another suspect in the frame, but the more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Derek was the only one who stood to gain. Surely he would have seen the money leaving his business account? After all it was not an inconsiderable amount.

How could Stephanie be involved, and more to the point, why? She had nothing to gain by having me killed. I didn't know the woman until I went to see her, and she didn't know me. She had said Ann and I made a lovely couple; how did she know? She wasn't at the party before the millennium. Perhaps Derek had told her, they were still together then.

What I thought had clarified things only seemed to have muddied the waters. I went to bed.

Tuesday started normally. After Viv's machinations my 'being set up' antenna were sharpened, if indeed antennae can be sharpened to any good effect, but I caught on fast as Jenny made an innocuous remark.

"Ann was asking if you were going for tea tonight. The boys miss you."

"I could do," I said suspiciously. "Can you ring and ask her?"

She did. Her most salient part of the conversation was, "OK, Peter and I will be there."

I suspected something was planned. I was right.

I left work early and was able to play with the boys in the garden for a couple of hours before the meal, and when we entered the house to clean up for tea, there were Peter and Jenny. I said nothing, but held my breath and waited.

The boys left the table and Ann said, "We could continue our talk if you like. Jenny and Peter will keep the lads occupied, they have homework in any case."

Once again she'd broken the rules. We were to make appointments. We were to meet in private.

Once we were alone, I said as much and I was not pleased.

"I'm sorry," she said, and clearly meant it, "but you mentioned Stephanie and Derek's divorce and my part in it, and I think with some help I can clear that bit up. Did you think over what I said?

"Yes."

"And?"

"I've had some ideas, but they're not complete yet, so they'll wait. I remain to be convinced about a number of things but they'll keep. I don't want to talk about them tonight."

"Oh." She was disappointed, I could see, but I didn't get warning of the meeting and I wasn't going to make life easy. Petty I know, but that's how I felt.

We were in the kitchen and I heard the doorbell go and Jenny answer it. There was some conversation, and then into the kitchen came Derek. I started to my feet, my anger rising. I really had been set up this time and I hated it.