So he’s here to tell me what Alison meant about Zach. Nausea bubbles in my stomach. This is worse than I thought. ‘Okay, but let’s go across to the park.’ There is no way I will let him in the house.
Although Dominic seems surprised I’ve suggested this, he quickly agrees and less than a minute later we’re sitting on the bench I usually share with Freya, while kids flurry past us, their shouts and screams mingling in the air. At least we’re in public.
‘Before you say anything,’ I say, ‘I can’t discuss anything Alison said during our session, even if she doesn’t intend to come and see me again. You have to understand that.’
He nods. ‘Yes, I thought that would be the case. But I can talk to you about her, can’t I? You don’t need to tell me anything she’s said. Actually, I’m not even sure I want to know what she’s said, although I can hazard a guess.’
I’m not sure about talking to this man; it’s dodgy ground, a grey area I’ve never had to think about before, but if I tread carefully I shouldn’t get in any trouble. ‘What’s this about, Dominic?’ I know the answer but I can’t be the one to bring it up.
A dog runs past us, barking excitedly as it chases a tennis ball. ‘I think I might know what Alison said to you, and I’m so sorry, but, well, she’s a bit disturbed. And if I’m right, she should never have mentioned Zach like that.’ He looks at me and I give a small nod, even though I probably shouldn’t. Dominic takes it as his sign to continue. ‘Telling you he didn’t kill himself, it’s just awful. I don’t know why she said it, and I know you probably need some kind of explanation, but the best I can offer is that she doesn’t even know what she’s saying herself.’
My whole body tenses when I hear Dominic’s words. It’s bad enough that Alison said them to me but now I’m hearing it all over again. From another person I don’t know or trust. And if this man is abusing Alison, then it makes no sense that she’d talk to him about Zach. ‘How do you know what she did or didn’t say to me? Have you talked to her about what she’s claiming?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, but sometimes she mumbles to herself and I don’t think she even realises what she’s saying. She just blurted it out the other day. I don’t think she even knew I heard her.’
The more this man says, the more I struggle to believe him. ‘But why would she say what you’re suggesting?’ I ask. ‘She didn’t even know Zach. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘You’re right. She didn’t know Zach. Look, this is really hard to talk about, especially considering how you lost your husband, but, well, Alison has issues. She’s on heavy medication for depression and anxiety, has been for years and… God, I feel awful talking about her like this, but she’s been prone to concocting stories.’
It takes me a moment to fully understand what he’s saying, and even when I’ve got to grips with it, there is still so much not adding up. ‘But that still doesn’t explain why she would track me down.’
He raises his eyes. ‘Damn it, I probably shouldn’t be saying any of this, but I don’t know what else to do. Here’s the thing: when she was in her third year at university, Alison shared a flat with Josie Carpenter. The flat Zach was found in.’
The ground begins to sink beneath my feet. Hearing that name still cuts like a blade, even now. And this is just one more thing that doesn’t make sense. ‘No, you’re wrong. She couldn’t have. The police said Josie lived alone. She didn’t have a flatmate.’
He nods. ‘She was living alone at the time. Alison had moved out a couple of months before. I guess the police didn’t think that was important.’
Every word he says pierces my gut, but I need to know everything. ‘So they never interviewed her?’
‘No. But why would they? She wasn’t friends with Josie, she hadn’t seen her since she’d moved out. She couldn’t tell them anything that would help.’
But this is not why I’m asking. It’s not Josie Carpenter I need to know about, it’s Zach. ‘So you’re saying I can’t believe anything Alison said?’
He turns around on the bench so his whole body faces me, and for the first time I notice specks of grey in his black hair. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m so sorry, Mia. After everything you’ve been through, that must have been the last thing you needed to hear, five years later. I can only apologise for what she did.’
I shake my head, the one thing I need to know still pounding against my skull. ‘But why did she say it? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘That’s the trouble. Alison rarely does. And I should know, I’ve been with her for years, and she’s rarely been okay in that time. I mean there’ve been glimpses of hope when I thought she’d just… be all right, I suppose, but they’re always short-lived.’
‘How long have you been together?’
‘Three years,’ he says. ‘But I knew of her before that. She was a student at the University of West London when Zach and I were both there. I didn’t teach her, and neither did Zach, as she was studying environmental science. But I’d seen her around. She was hard to miss, with that red hair. It was wavy then, though she straightens it now, of course, and looks quite different, but I guess she was young. The same age as Josie Carpenter.’ His hand flies to his mouth, but the gesture feels fake. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t keep bringing her up.’
When I don’t speak, Dominic fills in the gaps. ‘Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t involved with her when she was a student. I was married at that time, but years later, after my divorce, I met Alison in a hospital waiting room.’ He pauses and his eyes flick upwards. ‘Oh, man, that sounds so bad, doesn’t it? But we’d both been in A&E for hours and once we’d realised she was a student when I was teaching there we just spent the whole time chatting.’ He holds up his wrist. ‘Turns out I’d broken this.’
‘Why… why was Alison there?’ It seems so much of a coincidence.
‘She… Well, it turns out she was feeling a bit low and thought she’d get checked out. Apparently she’d had thoughts of… harming herself. Sorry, Mia, that must be hard to hear after Zach.’
He doesn’t realise that in my job I hear this a lot, and I can’t think about myself at these times. ‘It’s okay.’
‘Anyway,’ Dominic continues, ‘at the time she told me she was there for stomach pain, which she thought might be appendicitis. I was even getting angry with the doctors, cursing them for leaving her waiting so long. So she was pretty much lying to me right from the start. But they say love is blind, don’t they? And it’s not her fault. She just needs help.’
Dominic’s story is convincing. Almost too convincing. How do I know he’s telling me the truth, and that it really is Alison who has been lying? How can I trust anything either of them says?
‘Sorry for rambling,’ he says. ‘Here’s the thing – I said this to you at the funeral, but I still don’t believe Zach had anything to do with what happened to Josie. I really don’t. I don’t know if Alison said anything about that to you – or what she might have said if she did – but I hope you don’t ever believe that Zach was guilty.’
I want to scream at him: How can you know that when you barely knew him? You were just colleagues, passing in the hallway and maybe saying hello to each other. You weren’t friends and he never once mentioned you. But I bite my tongue. If I’m to get information out of Dominic then I need to stay calm. ‘You weren’t close friends, though, were you?’
He shakes his head. ‘We spoke quite a bit. We were in different departments so it wasn’t that easy to find time to get together, but we always meant to go for a drink or something.’
And yet at the funeral Dominic had insisted that Zach was a good man, as if he had evidence of this and knew it without a doubt. But this type of thing is typical of certain people when someone they know dies. They want to be part of it, act as though the loss is theirs.
‘Why did you get divorced?’ I feel as though I’m interrogating him, as if I’m somehow investigating Zach’s death, but I just want answers.