Chapter 22 #4
“We were down here, drinking,” Simon said. “After a few hours, it was getting late. Jed had recovered and toddled off for a piss and opened the door to Guy’s room. Saw him on the bed.”
There was a very long pause.
“He’d mixed it with alcohol,” Guy said. “Lethal.”
Holy shit.
“Jed freaked out, as one would. There was some naked man upstairs with no pulse on my bed, and where the hell had he even come from, because he wasn’t there when Jed arrived.” Guy took a long sip of his drink. “We’re not proud of what we did next.”
I stood up and began to pace. The room felt close and hot. The thunder was near. Every thirty seconds, the booming claps came.
“It would have ruined us all,” Guy said.
My heel hovered an inch above the ground as I went to take my next step. “You covered it up?” I spat at them.
Both looked like small boys reprimanded by teachers. Their shoulders were slumped. Guy bit his lip. Simon wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“We called one of my bosses,” Simon said. “Asked them what to do. A vicar, and someone of Guy’s status, on the grounds of a stately manor with some dead twink? A scandal.”
“Some dead twink?” I whispered. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I felt sick.
“They advised us to bring him back to the base. I was the most sober,” Simon said. “So, it was my job to do it, while Guy and Jed cleaned up any evidence of him being here. We … had to do things to the body so people wouldn’t know what we’d been up to.”
I screwed my face up. “You washed off all the” – I wrinkled my nose – “evidence that he’d been having sex?”
The thunder boomed. Neither of them would look at me now.
“We had to make it convincing. Death by overdose,” Simon said. “I drove his body back to the base. I snuck into where he lived and … left him in his bed to be found the next morning.”
Silence.
“And then what?” I asked.
“We went back to our lives,” Guy said. “It was the truth, he overdosed. We had nothing to do with that. He took those drugs. It wasn’t our responsibility to know what a grown adult had taken.”
“You took turns fucking him and then disposed of his body?” I said, my anger spilling over. I couldn’t bear to know this.
“We didn’t do that!” Simon protested.
“Really?” I yelled, slamming my hands down on a table. “Because it sounds like you two were high-fiving while you Eiffel Towered him!”
There was silence.
“Look, he died of an overdose!” Simon shouted at me. “The coroner’s report confirmed it. There was nothing we could’ve done.”
“What happened afterwards?” I asked.
Simon fidgeted. “My superiors knew. I was reprimanded. I was essentially fired from the service, but it was more of a suspension. I couldn’t be part of the organisation for a while. They told me it was temporary. So, I became a handyman.”
I scoffed. I needed to throw something. “That’s why you weren’t a spy when I arrived? Because someone in the British intelligence services, somewhere, at least had a bit of a conscience?”
He was silent. Just the thunder.
“And what about now? You’re back in?”
“The project I was working on. It’s nearly at fruition. I was allowed back. But – I’m out of it again until Riz – until this all blows over. I’m a liability. Again.”
“My heart bleeds.”
“Arden, please! We … we did nothing wrong. He took those drugs; no one forced him to. No one forced him to have sex with us. He wanted it. He initiated everything that night.”
“And covering it up and moving his body?” I asked. “Was that his final wish?”
“We’re not proud of what we did,” Guy said.
I fumed. I paced. I kicked a chair – Guy winced. I paced the room some more. The thunder boomed again. I put my head in my hands and scrubbed my face, hoping it would all make sense.
“Why are you telling me this now? What makes you think this is relevant?”
“How could it not be?” Simon asked. “Jed’s attacked, Guy’s career is ruined, my fiancé is killed. It must be someone who knows what we did.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong,” I said in a mocking tone under my breath. Out loud, though, I asked, “Who could know? His family?”
Simon shook his head. “They were estranged. Homophobes, from what he told me.”
“A friend?”
“He was close to a lad on the base, platonic, he was straight. His name was Jeremy. He’s stationed in Qatar now and has been for a couple of years. I’ve … asked around. He’s not been back to the UK in over a year.”
“What about other guys he was with?”
Simon shook his head again. “I haven’t got a clue. I’ve tried to piece things together, but I’ve got nowhere.”
All the while he was running around with me, he’d been doing his own, much more important, investigations. I was only ever to tie up some loose ends. I pursed my lips.
“So, any number of disgruntled ex-boyfriends could have done it?”
He nodded. I resumed pacing. After a few seconds, a thought occurred. “Who else knows? The whole story, I mean? You three, me now, and your superiors?”
They both looked at each other. Guy coughed. “I told Tarquin everything.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I said. It was endless. The tendrils kept on growing and reaching out to find more nooks and crannies to burrow into.
My head was back in my hands. I was so tired.
The thunder boomed. The air was dry and full of a tangy, metallic taste. Maybe we’d get lucky, a lightning bolt would hit Guy’s house, and we’d all go up in flames.
I may have enjoyed that little thought for too long as Guy and Simon were looking at me with concerned expressions. “What was his name?” I asked.
Simon swallowed. “See, that’s the thing. His name was Stuart. Stuart Murray.”
S Murray.
Simon caught up to me as I walked as fast as I could away from that fucking cottage. Lying, manipulative …
“Arden, please, wait, I’m sorry!”
I kept walking.
“Please, I didn’t lie on purpose. Please.”
I spun around. “But you lied. You lied to me again and again and a-fucking-gain! It’s all you do, Simon. From the moment this all started, you’ve played me like a fucking puppet on a string. Just dangling half-truths and twisted facts at me, trying to make me jump.”
Simon stood a few metres from me. The thunder crashed. The wind had picked up. For the first time in weeks, I was cold in just a T-shirt. Simon’s face was wretched in agony. His eyes were wet, his skin was red and blotchy from, I don’t know, holding back tears. Self-pity probably.
“No, Arden, I would never do that to you. Everything was genuine. I desperately wanted your help. Everything I kept from you was to protect you.”
“You kept me in the dark!” I screamed at him. “Someone is pretending to be your dead ex to murder your other ex! And you don’t tell me shit, Simon!”
Tears were rolling down his face. He yelled in frustration and swore at the sky. “I am stuck, Arden. I can’t … if I tell you things, we could both go to prison.”
“Who do you work for?” I yelled as loud as I could, my voice breaking.
“I can’t tell you!” he shouted back.
Tears streaming down my face too. “You are a liar, and you manipulated me and played me for a fool. I – I don’t ever want to speak to you again. For God’s sake, you kissed me this morning. Was that another ploy that I’m not allowed to know about?”
“You know it wasn’t!” he yelled. But he was already talking to my back.
I walked as fast as I could down that path. I’d keep walking. Maybe I’d walk to France.
“Wish I’d never moved to this fucking village,” I said, my voice cut through with sobs. Behind me, I heard him shout my name.
“I wish I’d never met you,” I said, but the thunder drowned my voice out.