‘You can only use the second door to go to places you know.’ I speak slowly, making sure it sinks in. ‘If you haven’t been there you can’t see there. You have to visualise the details.’ I lean back against the cool wall. ‘It was only when I was alone and missing you one evening that I went through the door to your flat. I wanted to see you. But instead I saw him there with you.’ I pause, and work up some attempt at tears. ‘That’s when I found out. Then I knew.’
She is an open book, Louise. I know she’s working through the logic of what I’ve said. She’s got too much in that head of hers right now to remember the conversation they had in the office that first morning about their drunken indiscretion. The office I’d had the tour of the day before. I remember it, though. Every word and action. Her nerves. His panic. Also, the heat from both of them at seeing each other again. I remember the absolute rage I had to manage until I forced our meeting and she told me about her night terrors. After that my anger melted into perfect joy. Potential enemy turned into a gift from God in those few moments. But for now, at least, what I’ve said makes sense to her. I’ve also given her some vital information. You have to visualise the details. Look at me, even now, helping her.
‘Why didn’t you say something? Why give me all this shit about David? Making me think all this stuff about him? These lies?’
Always looking for answers. Always needing to know. She should have been a detective. ‘Lies and truths are only perspectives. And why do you think?’ I focus on the task at hand, and raise my own voice slightly, upset and hurt. She wants a confession, I’m sure, but my game isn’t over yet. ‘You were my best friend. My first proper friend in ages. I wanted you to hate him. I wanted you to choose me! Why should I lose both of you? How is that fair? I hadn’t done anything wrong!’
That last might be pushing it a touch far given everything she knows, and I must sound like I’m crazy. Of course, as far as she’s concerned, I am crazy.
‘I wanted you to love me the most.’ My voice is softer now, as if my burst of energy has been too much. ‘But you loved him, and you only ever felt sorry for me. Pity and guilt, that was all you ever felt for me while you merrily slept with the man I love.’ I may not have much moral high ground, but the wronged wife is one ledge I’m going to stand on.
‘That’s not true, and you know it.’ A defensive lilt in her voice. I imagine her face has flushed. She’s so predictable. ‘I was your friend,’ she continues. ‘I thought you were mine, and I tried to stop it. It had started before I’d even met you. I didn’t know he was married. I tried to end it. And it did end.’
It’s her turn to be economical with the truth. It did end, but only when I intervened and he found out about our friendship. Louise would have gone on guiltily spreading her legs for him behind my back if he hadn’t panicked and finished it. Protecting her from me. That’s David. Forever saving women. Of course that version of events doesn’t suit her view of herself, so she likes to think her guilt would have won out and she would have ended it anyway. I know people better than that. I know her better than that.
‘Well, now you have lost both of us,’ she says, defiantly.
‘No, I haven’t. He won’t leave me. He’ll never leave me.’
‘You don’t get it.’ She’s talking to me like I’m a child. ‘I believed you. I believed everything you said. I went to the police with it.’
‘You did what?’ I emit an almost-gasp. Surprised. Or at least a good impression of it.
‘I wrote them a letter. Addressed to the policeman who investigated the fire that killed your parents. The one who thought David was involved. I told them all about Rob and how I thought his body was still somewhere on your estate.’
‘You did what? Why would you do that? I never told you to do that.’
‘I did it because I’m stupid and I didn’t know you were crazy then!’
‘They won’t believe you,’ I mutter, standing and pacing the hall, my head down as if I’m frantically thinking. She can’t see me, but she’ll hear my footsteps. She’ll sense my worry. ‘They won’t believe you.’
‘No,’ she says, ‘maybe not.’ A breath. ‘But they will believe him.’
I freeze and pause. ‘What?’ I say.
‘He’s on his way to Scotland to speak to them. He’s going to tell them everything. He’s going to tell them the truth.’
A long moment of quiet falls between us, only the relentless tick of the clock breaking the silence.
‘But he can’t!’ I say eventually. ‘They won’t … He can’t … He wouldn’t …’
‘But he has. And no, they won’t believe him. You’re too good for that. They’ll arrest him.’
I can hear her momentary joy at how aghast I am. At how we’re both hurting now. I see all that potential love for him that she’s denied for so long, burning brightly inside her.
‘We both know he didn’t kill Rob,’ she says. ‘Why can’t you just say that?’
‘They’ll put him in prison,’ I say so quietly it’s barely a whisper. ‘They’ll take him away from me.’ Tears spring from the corners of my eyes. Just the thought of being separated from David can cause a physical reaction in me, even now.