Chapter 57
Eight years ago, Gregor Levchenko came to see me because his daughter, Emmeline, was living with a man who had seriously assaulted her. The reality, as I’d told him, was that if she wasn’t prepared to co-operate with us there wasn’t a whole lot we’d be able to do about the situation.
I knew that.
And yet the afternoon after talking to him, the memory of Emmeline Levchenko’s pale face, framed by dark hair, with one eye swollen shut, had remained with me. I’d decided I was going to do something about it anyway.
When John Doherty opened his front door, I towered over him.
He was short – five foot five at most – and what little there was of him looked pudgy.
His hair was brown and wispy, receding, and as soft as his body.
His eyes were bleary, as though he was either drunk, had just woken up, or else had been crying.
As I held up my warrant card, I wondered if it was all three. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
‘Mr Doherty?’ I did my best to hide the disgust I felt for him. Ever since my childhood, I’ve always despised violent men. ‘Constable Hicks. Can I come in, please?’
He nodded, looking predictably sorry for himself.
Even this early in my career, I’d seen the reaction countless times before.
Sometimes when you were dealing with domestic abuse, the perpetrators toughed it out, but mostly it was the opposite, mostly it was like this – the men apparently contrite, ashamed, disgusted with themselves.
Afterwards, it was all too easy for the victims to believe the apologies, the promises that it would never, ever happen again, because often the men really meant them. On the surface. Until the next time.
‘Where’s the front room?’
‘Just there on the right.’
His voice was as weak and flimsy as the rest of him, but … something about it struck me. Not a straightforward recognition, but familiarity of some kind. Instead of heading to the front room, I turned around and looked at him, closing the door behind us.
Do I know you?
‘Just there on the right,’ he repeated.
I frowned to myself and went through to the living room.
It was cluttered with random belongings, as though he just accumulated things without having proper places to put them.
There was no settee, just four armchairs, backs pressed against the walls as though space had been cleared in the centre of the room for a party or a fight.
The television was on a coffee table above a swarm of cables, and there were feathered piles of magazines by the chairs.
An ashtray was balanced on top of one; a coffee mug, half full, on another.
Tangled bunches of clothes were scattered around.
I wrinkled my nose at the musty smell of it all. It had been a long time since anyone had opened a window in here, never mind tided up.
‘I’m sorry about the mess.’
That voice.
I turned around slowly, looking at John Doherty again. Do I know you? He was clearing a pile of papers from one of the chairs, his back to me, a roll of belly fat appling out at his hips. His arms were hairless.
Where do I know you from?
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know why you’re here, okay.’
And I would have replied, but that was when I realised. That was when I recognised my brother.
It was obvious as soon as it clicked. There was no mistaking him.
In the twenty years since we’d last seen each other, he’d barely changed at all.
The height, the weight, the soft hair: all the same.
Maybe it was the fact he hadn’t changed that had obscured his identity, simply because you expect people to.
I certainly had, and he showed no sign of recognising me in return.
We looked nothing alike, if we ever had.
Seeing us together now, it would be easy to imagine we’d had different fathers. But of course, that wasn’t the case.
‘I know why you’re here.’ He placed the papers he’d cleared on the floor and ran one hand through what remained of his hair. ‘Christ. Don’t I just know. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
John Doherty.
After we’d been separated, we’d both been given new identities. He’d disappeared into the system, and I’d been fostered. I was born Andy Reardon; my brother had been John Reardon. I’d kept my first name and changed my surname. Apparently John had done the same.
I cleared my throat.
‘Mr Doherty. Would you calm down, please?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘I’m here because of Emmeline.’
‘Yes.’ He gestured at the chair he’d cleared. ‘Sit down, please.’
I wanted to – I felt strange, shaky. The room itself seemed odd and off kilter, as though this might be a dream. I knew how I should be acting, and I knew how I’d wanted to act before arriving here, but the encounter had undermined me: regressed me slightly. I needed to re-establish myself.
‘I’ll stand. You sit.’
Doherty hesitated, then took the seat.
‘Is Emmeline here?’ I said.
‘No. No, she’s gone out. You don’t need –’
‘Yes. I will need to talk to her.’
‘Christ.’ He shook his head, looking down at the faded carpet. And was there a flash of anger there? My brother had never been an angry boy. Not on the outside anyway. ‘She doesn’t need it. She has enough to deal with. We’re working it all through.’
‘I’ve received a complaint.’
‘From her parents.’
He shook his head again. From her interfering parents.
Almost as though Gregor Levchenko had wronged him somehow by reporting what had been done to his daughter.
Once again, this was common behaviour – a glimpse of the reality that existed just below that contrite exterior, the everyday ‘nice’ guy.
In his head, in spite of what he’d done, he was also the victim here, and he was annoyed because the world was forcing him to confront that awkward truth, piling on the pressure, giving him even more to cope with.
Common behaviour. I’d seen it all before.
But this was … this was John.
‘I’ll be talking to Emmeline to see if she wishes to press charges against you. In the –’
‘She won’t. She doesn’t. I told you. We’re dealing with it together.’
In the meantime, I’d been about to say, I’m arresting you on suspicion of assault. But something stopped me. I didn’t know quite what. Maybe I wanted to hear what he had to say. Maybe it was something else.
‘Look. I know what I did.’
He held his hands palms up, trying to emphasise how honest and straightforward he was being. The anger was better hidden now. If anything, he seemed to be on the verge of tears.
‘I know what I did. And I know it was wrong. You don’t understand. I came from a … violent home. I can’t believe that I did what I did. I … I mean, I abhor it. It sickens me. I sicken me.’
I didn’t say anything, realising that John’s prior conviction could be used to supplement this offence; I didn’t know for sure, but it was more than possible that he was on a life-licence of some kind.
But instead of thinking about that, his words were reverberating in my head.
Because I knew exactly what a violent home meant.
I’d lived there too; I’d lived it with him.
Right up to the point where he took our father’s life, and sent both of our own lives on their different courses.
We had come from the same place, he and I.
‘I’m going to anger management.’ John was crying now. ‘I’ve promised to go. We’re going to go to therapy too. I mean, you can’t imagine how disgusted I am with myself; I’d sooner hurt myself than her – I really would. I love her so much.’
‘If that’s true, then you shouldn’t be together.’
He shook his head.
‘Because you will do it again, John.’
‘No. No. I’m not a … bad person. I’m not that kind of person at all. I know how it looks, but you have to believe me.’
I just looked at him. It was ridiculous, of course: I’d heard the same thing a hundred times before; it’s what everybody says.
I’m not a bad person. So no, I didn’t have to believe him, and I knew that I shouldn’t.
But this was John. We’d grown from the same place.
And if he was a bad person, then what was I?
You already know the answer to that question.
No.
Yes, you do.
‘I’m not a bad person. It will never, ever happen again. You can’t … you can’t imagine.’
My brother shook his head.
‘You have to believe me.’
Have to?
No. I didn’t have to. So why did I? I’ve gone over it a million times since.
There are days when it’s all I think about.
I’ve told myself it was down to the shock of seeing him again after all those years, and a misplaced sense of loyalty to him over what he’d done as a child to protect me. And perhaps it was partly that.
But it was also who he was, what he was.
My flesh, my blood. Our father had been a disgusting, violent man.
I didn’t want to believe that my brother had grown up into a similar monster, and that – just maybe – those seeds had been with him from the beginning.
Because if my father was abusive, and my brother was too …
what did that say about me? I wasn’t prepared to accept the possibility. I’d spent my life denying it.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t take him in and I never did get to talk to Emmeline. I slipped that day, and the result was that somebody else fell in my place, and they broke instead. Two days later, Emmeline was dead at my brother’s hands, and John had taken his own life.
A senior detective handled the murder inquiry; all I did was pass on the details of my visit and tell parts of the truth – that I hadn’t thought there was enough evidence to pursue the matter without talking to Emmeline, and I’d never had the chance to do so.
In our country, two women die every week from domestic violence. It’s horrible but not inexplicable. I cling to that belief. That there are always reasons.
And for Emmeline, I know that I was one.