He ventured into the room and was disappointed to see his brother still alive and sitting opposite his parents. His mother’s knees were together. She leaned forward, a balled-up tissue in her hand. It was like a business meeting but in fact, it was the moment the ground disappeared from under him. He didn’t take in what they said to him at that sit-down family conference. His mind just kept saying, Don’t do it, Don’t do it. We can go back.
His father moved out, without saying goodbye. Just an awkward ruffle of his hair and a ‘See you, son.’ He went to work in America, that’s what their mother told them, though looking back he wasn’t sure if this was an excuse for the lack of weekend visits, or a euphemism. Perhaps America was actually Audrey or Ann-Marie. These things were not discussed openly for fear of upsetting someone, he wasn’t sure who – the children? He’d rather have had the facts laid out where he could look at them.
When his dad returned from ‘America’ three years later, his mother said to his father, as angrily as Gary had ever heard her speak, ‘I’ve had them for three years, now it’s your turn.’
And she promptly left. Gary hadn’t realised looking after him had been such a trial for her.
They lived with their father then – no one really had a choice, certainly not his dad – and the best word to describe the following three years until Gary Stanton left home for good was taciturn.
He looks at his watch. It is 1.30 p.m. They agreed to meet at one, he has a room upstairs reserved for the afternoon, no luggage. You’d be surprised how unsurprised hotel staff are – how wearily disappointed by tawdry bedroom shenanigans. If she doesn’t show up soon, he’ll have to head back to the office.
He’s sustained the happy-family illusion much longer than his mum and dad managed it: kids, wife – though he doesn’t wear a wedding ring – promotions in the force, Ford Kuga SUV with heated seats and integrated satnav. It even has a built-in DVD player to keep the children entertained on holidays touring through France. But inside himself, he’s always on his way somewhere, searching out the next diversion. So when he encountered Ellie Bradshaw at Hinchingbrooke Outpatients, it was not unlike him to ask her out for a drink.
He’d had a knee operation – the result of playing five-a-side while carrying an extra couple of stone – and after this his dressings needed to be changed twice weekly. At 55, his muscle strength and recuperative bounce-back are not what they were.
He said to her, as she was kneeling next to said knee, ‘Hang on, you must be a relative of Manon’s.’ They seemed so similar, it was uncanny. And the ‘Nurse Bradshaw’ name badge was a bit of a clue. No flies on him.
‘Sister. I’d shake your hand, but …’ Ellie said, raising her latex-gloved hands which were clasping bandages in one and some sort of medical cream in the other.
‘Gary Stanton,’ he said.
They said nothing further. But he could see down her top – could see her bra beneath her nurse’s uniform. It was rather jauntily like a scene from Carry On Nurse.
‘There you are, all done,’ she said when she’d finished the dressing. ‘Might feel a bit stiff. But walking it out should help.’
It’s not the only thing feeling a bit stiff, he wanted to say, embracing the Carry On theme.
He straightened and bent the knee, feeling for its aches and limits.
It wasn’t out of character, after she had said yes to a drink, to text his wife to say a job had come in and probably an all-nighter as well. It was quite natural for him to book a room at the George Hotel and seduce Ellie there. Adulterous excitement: there was no better way to feel truly alive, exhausting though it was.
It was unfortunate that he’d been with Ellie on the night Jon-Oliver Ross was stabbed, she being a key witness. Unfortunate that he, the detective chief superintendent in charge of MCU, represented a seven-hour hole in Ellie’s alibi – the subject of much irritable texting from her when she was being questioned (‘I strongly suggest you get your arse down to interview room one and call your dogs off.’). More than unfortunate when he was within spitting distance of his pension. Once he’d started to cover for Ellie, there was no way to back out without a gross misconduct notice.
He’d managed to steer Davy away from interrogating that timeline too closely. Besides, it was irrelevant. What was he covering really? A harmless fling, which was no one’s business but their own. Manon’s lad killed Ross. Ellie’s whereabouts had no substantive bearing on the case.
The gases are building in his belly with every sip of his pint and the problem with an extra-marital affair, or perhaps the bonus, is you never get to the farting stage. Everything – gases, stomachs, emotions – must be suppressed in the service of lust. None of the letting yourself go that happens in a marriage. In truth, he wonders how long he’ll be able to keep it up (literally), what with his aching knee and his expanding girth and the way his heartbeats occasionally bunch up together when he gets excited or has too many Tassimos.
She arrives at last, disdainful of him (which is perhaps what turns him on), saying, ‘Which room’ve we got then? Presidential suite?’ As if he hasn’t splashed the cash enough. Truth is, he’s more than a little scared of her. It’s not that she’s threatened him explicitly, but she has a way of making clear that they are ‘in it together’ – that any investigation of her on the night Jon-Oliver was stabbed would quickly become an investigation of him.
Yes, she scares him, grabs him by the balls and doesn’t let go and he’s in it for the ride but what a fucking terrifying ride it is, all the while making him aware that she doesn’t like him much but that their fates are entwined. Nasty sexy sex.
In between the margarine-coloured sheets of the George, a twinge begins its journey up his left arm to clench its fist around his heart. Just the climax, he thinks, just keep going, don’t let her see it’s agony. He is looking at the watercolour above the bed, not at Ellie, lying beneath him, still wearing her bra. The fist clenches more tightly about his heart; his heart clenches back.
And then, what Gary Stanton experiences at the moment of his death, is the silence of the inside of his body, the same as the silence of a car when the engine has been cut but it continues to coast. The brain is last to die. The body has a hum, like that of a boiler, but now there is silence in his ears.
Davy
Harriet stands over Stanton’s body, which lies on the hotel room floor following the paramedics’ attempts to resuscitate.
‘Who was with him?’ she says to the room, which contains a couple of constables and Davy.
‘Reception says a woman, late thirties, light brown hair. Left before the ambulance crews arrived. She’s the one who phoned it in,’ Davy says.
Harriet nods.
‘Well, we don’t need to make a thing of it,’ she says. ‘Natural causes. Christ he’s young, though. Fifty-five.’ Harriet and Davy look down at him. They are both in shock.
‘Death walks among us,’ Davy says.
‘Yes, you’d think we’d know that in our line of work.’
Stanton’s body has grown waxy, the colour of the pale yellow sheets twisted on the bed. ‘Pamela doesn’t deserve to be left with this,’ Harriet says. ‘Stupid fucking man.’