Page 8 of The Stranger in Room Six
There is no time for formalities. No time to say, ‘How lovely to hear your voice’. No time to tell him all the thingsI’ve been saving up in my heart over the years in case – just in case – we ever had a chance to talk again. ‘I need a lawyer,’ I say instead. The words stick in my throat.
Instantly his voice becomes solemn. ‘I don’t understand. Why? Are you OK?’
‘My husband, Gerald, has just died. They think I killed him, but it was an accident.’
‘Belinda, is this some kind of joke?’
‘No,’ I cry. ‘Just find me a lawyer. Please. I’m being held in a police station and I don’t know who else to ask.’
‘Where are you?’ he asks.
I look at the policewoman opposite. ‘Where am I?’ I ask.
She writes down an address.
I try to repeat it, but my words come out wrong. She writes it down for me. I have to say the postcode twice because the words come out twisted. Mangled.
‘I’ll sort it,’ Imran says. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I just want Gerald.’ Then I burst into tears.
7
Of course, I still want Gerald. I want him to explain about Karen. But most of all, I want to see that awful, wrinkled forehead of his. I might not have loved him, but I just need things to be normal again.
‘Just’. Such a small word that can mean so much and yet be utterly impossible.
The lawyer arrives. It’s a man. He seems kind; gentle. In fact, he reminds me of my gynaecologist – something that might make me smile if it weren’t for the circumstances.
Stammering, I tell him what happened. The anonymous phone call. The left-behind sandwiches. The office. The photograph. Coming across Gerald in the high street. Pushing him …
The lawyer listens silently, writing everything down. He says nothing but his face speaks volumes.
‘You don’t understand,’ I say urgently. ‘My husband wasn’t the type to have an affair. That woman, Karen. She must have been out for his money. So, if hehadstrayed, well, it wasn’t his fault. Gerald was sensible. Dull. Boring.’
He makes an ‘Is that why you killed him?’ face.
‘I didn’t want to hurt him,’ I add hastily. ‘I was just angry.’
I could also say that those dull and boring qualities, which had until today been so infuriating, now felt comforting. Grounding. Like rocks of stability that I would give anything to climb back onto.
‘There were witnesses, you say.’
I nod. ‘At least two men and … and that woman. Karen. I’m not going to be charged, am I?’
I’m conscious that my words are spilling out all over the place in my panic.
‘Mrs Wall, your husband is dead. We’re looking at a possible manslaughter charge.’
Slaughter? Visions of an abattoir come to mind. Then Gerald’s blood, spilling onto the pavement, onto my hands. Onto my clothes as I’d leaned over him, begging him – screaming at him – to open his eyes.
They put me in a police cell. There’s a raised block for a bed with a ripped plastic mattress. Nowhere else to sit.
I rock myself back and forth, hands cupped round my knees. Pictures flash through my mind like a horror family album. The hidden photograph in the desk. Gerald’s shocked response – ‘I can explain’ – confirming my deepest fears.
A policeman comes in and takes me to a room marked Visitors. They’re here! My girls! Elspeth runs up to me, buries her head in my chest. Stares up at me with tears in her eyes, begging me silently to fix it; make everything all right as I have done on so many occasions: lost school uniform; mind-boggling maths homework; a row with her sister. ‘What happened, Mum?’
Gillian – always a daddy’s girl – hangs back by the door. Her eyes are stony.
