Lasting Damage Read Online Free PDF

again. He’s tall, good-looking, with black hair and a dark complexion. He’s wearing a black suit and a white shirt with thin lilac stitched stripes, like perforated lines. No tie. I can’t stop looking at his Adam’s apple. It looks sharp enough to break skin. I imagine it slicing through his neck, an arc of blood spurting out. I shake my head to banish the morbid fantasy.
    Does he want me to tell him again? ‘I saw a woman lying face down—’
    ‘You misunderstand me,’ he interrupts, smiling to show that he doesn’t mean to be rude. ‘I meant why Simon Waterhouse in particular?’
    Kit is in the kitchen making tea for us all. I’m glad. I’d find it harder to answer the question with him listening. If I didn’t feel so horrible, this might be funny, like a weird sort of pantomime: The Policeman Who Came to Tea . It’s only half past eight; we ought to be offering him breakfast. It’s good of him to come so early. Maybe Kit will bring some croissants in with the drinks. If he doesn’t, I won’t offer. I can’t think about anything apart from the dead woman. Who is she? Does anybody know or care that she’s been murdered, apart from me?
    ‘I’ve been seeing a homeopath for the past six months. I’ve got a couple of minor health problems, nothing serious.’ Was there any need to tell him that? I stop short of adding that the problems relate to my emotional health, and that my homeopath is also a counsellor. My desire to evade the truth makes me angry – with myself, Kit, Sam K, everyone. There’s nothing shameful about needing to talk to somebody.
    Then why are you ashamed?
    ‘Alice – that’s my homeopath – she suggested I talk to Simon Waterhouse. She said . . .’ Don’t say it. You’ll prejudice him against you .
    ‘Go on.’ Sam K is doing his very best to look kind and unthreatening.
    I decide to reward his efforts with an honest answer. ‘She said he was like no other policeman. She said he’d believe the unbelievable, if it was true. And it is true. I saw a dead woman in that room. I don’t know why it . . . why she wasn’t there any more by the time Kit went and looked. I can’t explain it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation. There must be one.’
    Sam K nods. His face is unreadable. Maybe he makes a point of encouraging mad people. If he thinks I’m mad, I wish he’d say it straight out: You’re a nutter, Mrs Bowskill . I told him to call me Connie, but I don’t think he wants to. Since I said it, he hasn’t called me anything.
    ‘Where is Simon?’ I ask. When I rang his mobile last night, his recorded voice told me that he was unavailable – not for how long, or why – and gave a number to ring in an emergency: Sam K’s number, as it turned out.
    ‘He’s on his honeymoon.’
    ‘Oh.’ He didn’t tell me he was getting married. No reason why he would, I suppose. ‘When will he be back?’
    ‘He’s gone for a fortnight.’
    ‘I’m sorry I rang you at 2 a.m.,’ I say. ‘I should have waited till the morning, but . . . Kit had gone back to sleep, and I couldn’t just do nothing. I had to tell someone what I’d seen.’
    A fortnight . Of course – that’s how long honeymoons are. Mine and Kit’s was even longer: three weeks in Sri Lanka. I remember Mum asking if the third week was ‘strictly necessary’. Kit told her politely but firmly that it was. He’d made all the arrangements and didn’t appreciate her picking holes in the plan. The hotels he chose were so beautiful, I could hardly believe they were real and not something out of a dream. We stayed a week in each. Kit dubbed the last one ‘the Strictly Necessary Hotel’.
    Simon Waterhouse is entitled to his honeymoon, just as Kit is entitled to his sleep. Just as Sam K is entitled to deal with my concerns quickly and early, so that he can enjoy the rest of his Saturday. It can’t be the case that everyone I come into contact with lets me down; it must be something I’m doing