Behind Her Eyes

‘She doesn’t mention the fire in her parents’ house in the letter she left,’ Inspector Pattison says, ‘but the reports state that it started in the fuse box.’ He’s a thick-set barrel of a man whose suit has seen better days, but he has a world- weariness in his eyes that speaks of a career policeman. He’s reliable. People trust him. He’s calm.

‘The fire she set in your home, Dr Martin,’ he continues, ‘also started in the fuse box cupboard in the kitchen, so perhaps there is some indication of guilt in that.’

‘Do they know what she used?’ David asks. He’s pale and looks gaunt in that way people in shock do, but also so much lighter in spirit. Of course he is. Ding dong, the witch is dead.

‘Turpentine and soaked tea towels.’

David nods. ‘That makes sense. She’d been decorating.’

‘We found the letter she wrote – her confession of sorts – on your desk. In it she confirms everything you said in your statement to DCI Wignall in Perth. She put Robert Hoyle’s body in the well on her estate, and she’d been wearing your watch at the time. We’ve had confirmation from Scotland that the body has been recovered. Obviously it’s in a state of extreme decomposition, but we expect dental records to confirm the identity. Also, given the manner of your wife’s death – the heroin overdose – the same cause of death she gives for Mr Hoyle – it would appear she was attempting to make some amends there. Perhaps she had a conscience to clear on both counts, her parents and Mr Hoyle.’

‘But where did she get the heroin from?’ David asks. ‘She was many things, but she really wasn’t that kind of person.’

‘Anthony,’ I say, as if the thought has just struck me. My throat is still quite raw from the smoke and I sound husky. ‘Anthony Hawkins. I saw him hanging around her a few times. Maybe she got him to get it?’

‘Hawkins?’ The inspector jots the name down.

‘A patient of mine,’ David says. ‘An ex-patient of mine I should say. Drug-user and obsessive. Turned up at the house.’ I see the light go on then. ‘Adele answered the door. Maybe his obsession transferred to her. Adele is – was – very beautiful.’

‘We’ll speak to him. As for your wife’s letter, it was in her handwriting and only had her fingerprints on it so there is no doubt she wrote it.’ He looks up. ‘Which is very good news for you. Although you’re lucky it didn’t go up in the fire.’

‘Typical Adele,’ David says, a bitter half-smile on his face. ‘Even in her last moments, she couldn’t entirely set me free.’

I’m barely listening. All I can think about is that David is holding my hand, squeezing it tightly. I haven’t felt that in such a long time. Last night, even though we were in day three of police purgatory, we made love and we laughed and smiled and held each other tightly. I feel as if I’m in a dream.

‘Will David have to go to prison?’ I ask, concerned.

‘I can’t comment on that until the investigation is over. Then if there are formal charges to be brought, your solicitor will be informed. There are mitigating circumstances, however. She was fragile at the time of Mr Hoyle’s death, and he was trying to protect her. Although even if the death was accidental, there is still the fact Adele hid the body and David was an accessory after the fact.’

‘I know,’ David says. ‘I won’t be fighting any charges on that count.’

‘And I imagine you won’t be practising psychiatry any time soon either?’ Pattison looks sympathetic. Of all the criminals he must have witnessed in his years on the force, David must be the least likely.

‘No,’ David says. ‘I imagine not. That’s another outcome I’m waiting on. I don’t actually mind too much. Perhaps I need a change all round.’ He looks at me then, and smiles, and I smile back so hard I think my face will burst. There’s no need for us to hide our feelings from the policeman. The affair, the love, was all there in the letter.

I should know. I wrote it.

I push unfamiliar blonde hair out of my face as we leave the police station. Louise’s body – my body – still feels strange. Suddenly to be carrying an extra stone of weight slows me down for a start, but I’m enjoying having more curves, and if David likes them then they’ll stay. She needs glasses for distance though. I don’t think she’d realised that yet.

Oh Louise, how perfect she was. How wonderfully she performed. And I have to give myself my due. My plan went perfectly. After my failed attempt to buy smack in that godawful underpass that resulted in a black eye and nearly losing my bag, Anthony Hawkins had fallen into my lap and was so pleased there was something he could do for me. Drugs, needles, everything I needed, he got.

I’d practised with the heroin, so I knew just how much I could inject myself with – between my toes and out of any track mark sight – and not fall into an immediate haze. I’d been practising that day when Louise turned up and then blamed my state on the pills. An unexpected bonus.

I prepared the fire, but didn’t light it. When it got late enough, I texted her my wordy intent to kill myself. I watched her. I saw her trying to see me and giving up. Just before the taxi pulled up outside, I lit the fire and ran upstairs. On the first doorbell ring, I injected just enough heroin, and then hid the remainder of the drugs under the bed where I’d already placed a pair of David’s surgical gloves. I went through the second door. I saw her outside. And here was the trickiest bit. Picking my time after she was empty to go into her. Waiting for the first tremble that something was wrong. A vibration in the air behind me to let me know she was going into my body. If she had pulled back to her body, then I was sure I’d be kicked out.

But fortune favours the brave, and her skin became mine. I grabbed the key from on top of the door lintel where I’d hidden it and raced up the stairs through the thickening smoke.

She was moaning slightly on the bed, her eyes glazed. Unexpected heroin will do that to a girl. She focused slightly when she saw me. Louise there, behind my eyes, looking at me in her body. She was afraid then, in spite of the high. I think she tried to say my name. She gurgled something, at any rate. I didn’t pause for goodbyes. We didn’t have the time for that. I snapped on the gloves and retrieved the rest of the syringe. I injected it between her/my toes. Then it was goodnight sweetheart and all over bar the shouting.

I dropped the syringe on the floor, stuffed the gloves in my pocket to get rid of later, and then hauled her up, thanking myself for having got so skinny, and thanking her for at least going to the gym a little bit. Then I half carried her down the stairs and out into the night. Sirens were wailing in the darkness by then, and the little old lady next door was standing in the street in her dressing gown clutching her yappy dog.

And that was that. When the fire engines turned up, I told them about the text and how I’d dug the spare key up from the plant pot and got in to try to save her. She was dead by then though. She’d probably died halfway down the stairs.

Goodbye Adele, hello Louise.

If you love someone, set them free. What a load of bollocks.