She looked around, and lowered her voice as she said, ‘No one knew about it. And even if they did, why would they wait ten years? Jesus, why would they do it at all? No. No, Alex, it’s like the stuff of bad fiction.’
‘Well it’s about to get worse. I’m not nailing my colours to the mast on this, just making the case that’s there.’
‘Yeah, so you keep saying.’ She was irritated, as if she didn’t want this to be about any more than the sad but accidental death of a friend, as if she didn’t even want to be reminded of that night, her flight to denial total and unyielding.
‘If by some extraordinary fluke, someone who wanted revenge had found out about it they’d have gone to the police. Even if they’d wanted a more biblical revenge, I don’t think they’d have gone to such extreme lengths to make the deaths look accidental. That would only be really crucial if you couldn’t afford to have anyone linking the deaths and the people concerned.’
She stared at him, her eyes revealing again the swift calculation that was going on behind them. Finally she said, ‘I see; a precaution that would of course be required by one of us, though. And how fortunate that you have a convenient scapegoat for your theory.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean Matt. Clearly you’re ruling yourself out, and if you suspected me I don’t think we’d be having this conversation.’ Her voice became more sarcastic as she said, ‘That leaves Matt, luckily the right nationality to have engineered Rob’s death. And we all know the kind of background Matt comes from, don’t we? It even explains the ten years. No doubt he’s about to make a run for the Presidency and wants to eliminate any problematic hangovers from his wild student days. Seriously Alex, when you write the book I promise I’ll buy a copy, and I hope it has gold letters on the front because I love a really trashy read.’
‘Like I said...’
She cut in angrily.
‘No, fuck what you said! Have you completely forgotten the kind of person Matt MacAndrew was? Did you ever know him? I have no idea how to explain this, or even if there’s anything to explain, but you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting Matt would have anything to do with it.’
He didn’t respond at first, surprised by the strength of her feelings. It seemed unlikely that Matt was behind it, that was true, but the whole thing was unlikely and yet two people were already dead. She looked furious though, perhaps part of the same denial, wanting to believe in some idealized airbrushed memory of the past.
He smiled and said, ‘You’re smarter than I remember.’
She smiled back, struggling momentarily to regain her angry composure.
‘You’re certainly a lot more fucking flaky than I remember.’
‘Which proves the point that we’ve all changed.’
She shook her head, saying, ‘Nice try.’
‘Okay, I’ll admit, Matt probably isn’t behind this, if there’s anything to be behind. All I know is, two old friends have died in as many weeks and I’m casting round here, looking for explanations, and the last thing I need is to hear that you or Matt have been killed too. It’s not a nice thought to suggest one of us might be responsible but I’d rather upset you with that thought and have you vigilant than have you walking around in happy ignorance of the danger.’
She smiled and put her hand on his where it lay on the table, an action that reminded him of the woman in the church, comforting the grief-stricken man.
‘Let’s not talk about it, okay?’ He shrugged, deferring. She let go of his hand then and looked around, saying, ‘Where’s our food?’
He looked around too but felt unsatisfied, annoyed with himself for not making a convincing case. She was probably right, about Matt in particular, but “probably” wasn’t much of an assurance. And for all the quickness of her thinking, she was no more clear about this than he was.
He was paranoid perhaps, hemmed in by his own guilt and remorse, but she was like someone in complete denial, not wanting to be reminded of the truth they shared. What had happened to them ten years before was as much in the realm of bad fiction as what was happening now, but it had happened all the same.
In the real world the worst plots imaginable forced their way into people’s ordered lives. Five kids driving home from a party have a girl throw herself in front of their car. An addict gets murdered with his own drug of escape. A reporter follows a false lead and gets blown straight into the obituary columns. The real world was bad fiction.
Even so, they talked about other things as they ate, the relationships that had come and gone, their careers, families. Natalie was interested in his research but ignored all the obvious cues about his own sleep problems, a skilful determination not to be led back into parts of the past she didn’t want to revisit.
Only as they sat afterwards did Alex manage to drag the conversation back to where he felt he needed it to be.
‘Have you kept in touch with Matt at all since college?’