Chapter 17 #3
“Sheridan had a lot of enemies,” Marina said, her eyes flashing. “That man had been in Parliament a long time; he knew a lot of secrets. Isn’t that right, Simon?”
Simon’s face remained impassive.
There was a long silence. “You let Riz dig his own grave,” Simon said through gritted teeth.
“I didn’t want him to die!” Marina shouted. “God, Simon. Yes, Riz was no innocent, but no one deserves that. To be tricked, to be left dead in a bloody car park with a bullet hole—” She broke off and squeezed her eyes shut.
No, Riz wasn’t innocent. He was far from it.
But the image of him in that car, slumped over, his eyes open, his hair spilling over his face.
I couldn’t not see it. The smell of the blood.
The … the bits of his brain and skull over the passenger seat.
I felt bile in my throat. Riz may have been a shit, but no one deserved to die that way. Not alone, not by someone else’s hand.
Riz, like everyone, was complicated. He was flawed and ambitious.
He lied, and he was petty. But he was also a doctor who helped people, who deep down probably loved Simon, and was loved by him.
Who, once upon a time, had been a boy with a mum and dad who loved him very much and had clapped at his graduation, so proud of their son, the doctor.
Now he was ashes in the wind, his body cremated, and his killer free.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, pinching the gap between my eyebrows. “Riz got the photos from someone, you have no idea who?”
Marina nodded.
“He was in contact with this person after the photos came out?”
She nodded again. “I think so. But after the photos, well, he was shaken. I don’t think he knew what it would kick off.”
“You mean everyone and their mum leaking photos of MPs and every dirty little secret habit they had, which cost us three cabinet members?” I asked.
“Not to mention that Welsh MP who tried to hang himself when his internet history got leaked,” Simon muttered.
“Exactly,” Marina said. “It was only ever supposed to be about knocking Guy off his perch. Riz hadn’t intended to shake the whole bloody system.”
“And you have no idea who this person was?” Simon asked.
“Not a clue. I tried to get him to tell me. I really did, Simon, you have to believe me!” Her eyes fell downwards. “I thought he’d got them from you for a few days.”
“From me?” He sounded shocked.
She shrugged. “Your name was mentioned in a few meetings. I was told—” She shifted uneasily in her seat. “To stay clear of you and to tell higher-ups in the party immediately if you offered any information or if I felt something was off.”
“And did you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Simon can confirm that he and I barely spoke two words to one another the whole time.”
I looked at Simon. His scowl – if it was possible – was even deeper than usual.
“Let’s clear this up, once and for all,” I said. My head was hurting from the sun and the hangover. “You say you knew Riz leaked the photos – after?”
“Yes, when Suzy told me that Riz had come clean to her.”
“You had no idea beforehand?”
She nodded. “He’d mentioned some underhand tactics might come into play. That’s why I didn’t tell the police … I thought … well, you know, I should have stopped him earlier.”
“Who was the other Marina in his phone?” Simon asked.
“I have no idea,” she said after a long pause.
“I wasn’t aware … wait, no, I remember once.
He got a phone call from someone when we were in the same room a few days before the photos were leaked, and the caller ID was Marina.
I thought it was strange at the time, and I even asked if he had a friend called Marina. He said he used to work with her.”
“Convenient.” I turned to Simon. “Did Riz only work at the hospital in Salisbury? Do you know where else he’d been employed?”
Simon shook his head. “He did his med school in Edinburgh,” he said. “I think he worked around there for a few years before moving back nearer his parents once he was all trained up.”
“So, this other Marina is the person who had the photos?” I asked out loud. I turned to her. “What about Jed Fulford?”
She shook her head. “The vicar? What about him?”
Simon was rigid.
“Did Riz ever mention him?” She shook her head again at my question.
“No, just that day when the news broke about him being attacked.”
“He was with me that day,” Simon said stiffly. “I got a call, which was the first he knew about it. He didn’t even know who Jed was until then.”
“You never introduced them?” I asked, confused. “Jed and you are friends.”
Simon kept his eyes firmly in that middle distance. “Jed isn’t quite as tolerant about the men who like men stuff as he pretends to be. He likes it kept at a distance.”
I pursed my lips at this. I’d take Simon’s word for it, but that didn’t sound like the man who was happy to be included in dinner parties to set me and Guy Frobisher up, like he had been when I first moved here.
Then again, he’d been a no-show that night on account of an upset stomach, so God only knows.
“Look,” Marina said. “I know I screwed up monumentally. I should’ve told the police about the photos. I will do so – tomorrow. I’ll go in and make a statement.”
A thought occurred to me. “Wait until Monday.”
They both looked at me.
“I need to check on my children,” she said. It was time to go. Marina, with her last bit of confidence, was politely telling us to fuck off.
She ushered us out to the front of the run-down house with its flaking paint on the window frames and weeds in its guttering. I’d lived in houses like this. Simon made for the car, but I held back.
“This.” I gestured to her house. “This isn’t your fault. Riz screwed you over. If you need anything. Anything for the children – don’t be proud, I can help.” I pulled out the receipt for my iced coffee from my pocket. “Have you got a pen?”
She looked surprised but went inside and came back a moment later with one. I scribbled my number on the receipt.
I left her and walked back to the car. Simon was glaring at me. “What were you saying?” he asked.
Inside the car, it was hotter than the fucking sun. “I was offering a hand if she needed help with the kids, if she was hard up.”
“It’s not your problem what mess she’s got herself into,” he said, starting the engine. All of a sudden, the idea of him driving my car annoyed me.
It was okay for Simon, who’d probably never had to worry about money in his life, to say it wasn’t my problem to look out for anyone else’s kids.
But I’d been those kids, with parents too stupid and feckless to figure out how to put a roof over our heads and food on the table.
Whatever the sins of the parents, those kids didn’t deserve to suffer for it.
Apparently, I was glaring at Simon pretty hard because he gave me a sheepish smile. “Okay, I didn’t mean to sound quite so heartless. It’s a nice thing to do.”
He shook his head. “This village gives me the creeps.”
I said nothing. I didn’t feel quite the same way. Forstenmitre felt welcoming to me. Like I could almost hear it laughing, like it wanted me to stay and play.
Simon began to drive in the direction of home. After a couple of minutes, he tried again with conversation. “I didn’t know you were so good with kids,” he said and gave me a cheery look. “They loved you.”
I shrugged. “Little kids always like me; I don’t know why.
Babies as well. I pull a silly face, and they stop crying.
” My mother used to say it was because my dark hair and big brown eyes were easy for the baby to focus on, and they got distracted.
Whatever it was, she used me as a baby pacifier whenever a noisy one came into the pub.
“She teething, is she? Let me get my son from the back. Arek, come pull face for baby!”
“When you come up to Aberdeen, you should meet my sister’s boy. He isn’t very impressed with me, but apparently, he’d think you’re the bee’s knees.”
Oh, now I’m all but coming to live in Scotland, am I? I didn’t know how to feel about that. I changed tack.
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Mhairi,” he said. “She got the traditional name. She’s a teacher like Mum was. Her little boy is four now, and she and her husband, Duncan, have a place north of town.”
“What’s your nephew called?”
He grinned. “You promise not to laugh?”
I frowned. “I changed my name to Arden. Do you honestly think I mock other people’s names?”
He shrugged. “Good point. I forget it isn’t your real name. It’s so … you.”
“It is my real name. I changed it legally.”
He looked at me for a second. “That’s brave,” he said. “You know, you can choose to go by a different name under UK law. There was nothing stopping you from being Arden, without having to sign a single form.”
I didn’t like this conversation. That was what I had done for several years, but eventually I decided I was Arden Forrest. Arkadiusz Puszcza had been dead for several years at that point, and he wasn’t coming back. Goodbye, Arek, hello Arden.
My silence must’ve been telling because Simon switched topics. “His name is Mungo, by the way. After the patron saint of Glasgow. It’s where they met, at uni, and she had to drag Duncan kicking and screaming to the North East.”
“Mungo Anson?”
“Er, no, Mungo Campbell.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you the most Scottish people to ever exist?”
He shrugged. We crested a small hill as we headed home and were blinded by the sun on a corner. Simon pulled the shade down. “This car is a heap of junk. No offence.”
“This car saved my life!”
“Then reward it by putting it out of its misery.”
What is it with men and taking against my trusty Green Mobile? It came back from the dead after I had to slam it into a wall to get away from Tarquin. It deserved respect.
“The only way I’d get rid of it is for one of those nice new electric hybrid thingies,” I said. “But good luck finding a charging station around here.”
Simon scoffed and then pulled a face. “Riz was passionate about installing those.”
“He drove a gas-guzzling SUV.”
“He was complicated.”
Ain’t that the truth? I mulled over the idea that had occurred to me earlier. I decided to go for it. “We should search his house.”