Chapter 15
Running through Inverleith Park and there’s a demon at his heels, speeding Matthew on like never before.
The skyline is red with dawn, the castle silhouetted black against it.
His feet are pounding, his heart ready to burst in his chest. Now he’s running down the side of the park, no one around, but in front of him there’s someone on the ground, someone lying still like they’re sleeping, but he knows they can’t be sleeping, no one would be sleeping under a hedge like that, halfway on to the path, and he’s there now, his heartbeats exploding out of him so hard his ears are ringing, and he’s looking down at the dead girl on the ground, and for a moment she’s a total stranger to him, her features blurred until his focus sharpens, the veil lifts, and he knows the dark hair, the face, he knows the face only too well—
‘Daisy!’ he says, and he wakes himself with his own scream. Matthew’s wringing with sweat, his mouth dry, his heart pounding hard as a sprinter’s. But it’s OK, he’s in bed. He’s not looking down at the corpse of his daughter. He opens his eyes fully, sits up.
Not all that OK. It’s his bed, but it’s not his house.
Not his home, anyway. Memories of the night before seep back to him.
He’s looking at the bare walls of the first flat he ever bought, that he moved out of years ago.
The yellow wallpaper is faded, darker rectangles where student tenants must have hung up posters contrary to the agreements they all signed.
Sheets on the bed – that’s something – but they’re rough, mismatched, a hodgepodge of sets that he and Rosalind owned separately and together before they discovered the joys of high thread counts and the White Company.
He can’t believe she’d put the chain up on the door on him like that.
Sure, she says she hates it when he drinks, but it’s not his fault that she’s so oversensitive.
It was nothing to do with him going out.
She’s pissed off that he’s not going on holiday with her and she decided to make a show of him.
She’s lucky he didn’t make more of a fuss.
He can’t be blamed for the way the night turned out.
How was he to know that Dominic would get him barred from the club?
He’s going to have to dig into what happened there.
It must have been a misunderstanding. He’s sure he didn’t get the date wrong.
Though maybe . . . He’s been so fixated on the possibility of being on the jury, maybe he’s messed it up.
At least Matthew didn’t make a scene; he’s wracking his memory and he’s sure he didn’t.
He clutches at his head, trying to wring out of it any hidden shame of shouting, punches thrown. Nothing.
It’s all OK. Unless he sent a message? Made a call?
Adrenaline spiking again, he spies his phone on the floor next to his discarded clothes.
Slowly he crawls over, switches it on. Two calls to Olivia, both unanswered.
Nothing else outgoing since the one he sent first thing about being on the jury.
He can live with that – it’s not as if Olivia hasn’t drunk-dialled him on occasion, too. They know how to ignore each other.
He didn’t even disgrace himself at home, despite the provocation. He’d have been well within his rights to force the door down, smash a window to let himself in to his own bloody house. He kept his cool though.
The sense of panic starts to subside. It could have been worse.
It has been worse.
At least he’s in the flat. The last tenants moved out a year ago and Matthew and Rosalind decided to keep it empty for a while for him to stay in for the nights that he was on call for theatre.
It’s good he wasn’t left out on the streets, though no thanks to her.
Unbelievable behaviour, to bar him from the house like that.
All he’s done is do what he’s been told.
All Matthew ever does is do what he’s told.
Maybe it’s time that changed.
His phone starts screaming and he jumps out of bed, ready for action. He grabs it up only to see that it’s his alarm, not an emergency call from the hospital. Matthew can step down – his lifesaving skills are not required. He’s not a puppet on anyone’s strings today.
Which, when he squints at himself in the bathroom mirror, he can see is just as well. What you’d expect after a night on the malt: greasy, creased, bloodshot. Less silver fox, more decrepit old bastard.
A shower, shit and shave later and there’s a fractional improvement in his appearance.
He scrubs his teeth with a toothbrush, swills his mouth out with mouthwash, trying not to retch when the sharp fluid hits the back of his throat.
Mercifully there’s a clean shirt hanging up in the wardrobe as well.
He’d planned on wearing more casual clothes into court today, but on balance it makes sense to be smarter.
Less obvious that he was on a bender last night.
He makes coffee on the stove in the moka pot from his student days, strong and black.
It wakes him up even more. Practically human now.
Ready to face whatever horrors the trial brings today.
He’ll deal with Rosalind and Dominic later – they’re not important now.
Olivia will call him back, she always does.
Maybe that’s something for tonight? He banks the thought.
What he does need to do is check his emails. The mix-up at the New Club could have been avoided – for all he knows, messages were sent to cancel that he just didn’t see. He turns on the old desktop that lives in the corner to check.
No work emails – the word must have got out that he’s unavailable.
Nothing about last night, either, but he’s not going to worry about that.
He sets up an out-of-office auto-reply, closes down the email browser.
The page defaults to Google, a cursor blinking at him in a way he finds almost hypnotic.
It would be so easy to input the names, see what information he can find out.
The judge’s warning rings in his ears. It would interfere with the course of the trial.
He’s been told not to. Surely, though, that kind of instruction can’t apply to someone like him, with his level of education?
He types the name Christian Shaw in the box, looks at it for a moment.
Then he deletes it. Not because of the judge’s warning, though.
He’s going to come back to it later. But with time to do it properly, not in a few snatched moments before he’s due to leave.
He shuts the computer down, takes stock of his surroundings.
Of his relationship. The chain on the door at his house last night said more clearly than any words how Rosalind is feeling.
Bleak as the flat may be, he’s going to stay here till the trial is over.
Best to be on his own anyway so he can concentrate properly.
Starting with some proper research into what this trial is all about.
Back in court, waiting for the first witness of the day, who seems unaccountably to have gone missing, or to be refusing to come in.
It’s good to feel more familiar with the set-up, to walk in past security knowing exactly where to go, what to do.
He’s walked up the hill at a fair crack and it’s a relief to sit down, wipe the sweat from his brow, discreetly smelling his hand to check that it’s not smelling too much of booze.
Roderick has his notebook out already, pen lined up neatly beside it.
Sarah and Jasmine are chatting quietly to each other, their heads close together.
That ghastly Emma is staring straight in front of her, her jaw moving incessantly as she chews a piece of gum.
He scans the courtroom, hoping the blonde woman will be there. The scent of roses still plays in his memory from their brief encounter the evening before. Her seat is vacant though, the public gallery more sparsely attended than yesterday.
‘Maybe we’re going to hear some more about the dead girl,’ Aisha says.
Matthew’s neighbour, sitting to his left.
She’s talking to herself; a thoughtful woman.
Probably the same age as him, though more accepting of it – she’s cushioned, comfortable in her own skin.
Matthew has a sudden urge to lean against her, rest his head against her cardiganed shoulder and go to sleep.
His head nods down, his eyes heavy. Until a noise splits through his head, a caw of crows. He jumps, sits upright.
Isobel is staring straight at him, eyes defiant, lined in kohl.
He is the first to look away.