Fault Lines: Episode 21

Alice slapped her hard across the cheek. Surtsey saw the hand coming but she didn’t do anything to stop it

Mortonhall Road was a freshfaced Victorian semi with high hedges and sturdy gates leading into a smooth driveway. A builder’s van was parked in the street and a large skip sat outside the garage, full of old bits of tiling, a toilet, hand basin and bath. The front door was open and two workies in overalls were carrying packets of tiles inside. “You after Mrs Lawrie, love?” the older one said. Surtsey steeled herself. “Yeah.”

The old guy nodded. The younger one looked Surtsey up and down and smiled at her.

“I’ll let her know,” the older one said. “She’s inside.” Surtsey didn’t know why she was here. Except she had to be. She had to face this down eventually, why not now?

She heard the guy shouting inside. “Mrs L? Someone to see you.”

Part of her had hoped Alice wouldn’t be in, would be off doing whatever grieving widows did.

She looked behind her along the driveway to the road, thought about running away, but her feet wouldn’t move underneath her.

Alice came to the doorway holding a glass of white wine. Surtsey resisted the urge to look at her watch, but it was definitely still morning.

But who was she to judge anyone else?

Nerve

Alice wore black designer jeans, tight, showing off great legs, a sky blue shirt and navy blue jacket. Her blonde bob was shiny, her eyes red.

She stopped and stared when she saw Surtsey. “You,” she said. She took a big swig of wine. “Wow, you’ve got a lot of nerve.”

“Excuse me.” This was the older builder, squeezing past and back out to the van in the street.

Alice waved her hand up the stairs behind her. “Getting a new bathroom fitted. Although Christ knows how we’re going to pay for it now. “Listen to me, ‘“we’, there is no ‘we’ any more.” Surtsey’s mouth was dry, and she had to peel her tongue from the roof of her mouth to speak. “I’m sorry about Tom.”

Alice narrowed her eyes. “Really? That’s all you’ve got? You were playing around with my husband and you’re sorry?”

“So you got the email.”

Alice shook her head. “Christ almighty.”

The workman excused himself past again, leaving the smell of plaster dust and an awkward silence in his wake.

“You don’t seem very surprised,” Surtsey said eventually.

“I am so close to putting this glass in your face right now.”

“Well, you don’t.”

Alice sighed. “You think I didn’t know already? I’ve loved him for 24 years, since you were in nappies. You think I didn’t know he was up to something?

“My God, it was so obvious. The spring in his step, the extra workload, suddenly looking after himself. So many clichés.

“Every women’s magazine in the world tells you to look out for the same signs, for Christ’s sake.

“I didn’t know it was you specifically, but what difference does it make now?”

Surtsey frowned. “Did you send the email?” Alice went bug-eyed. “Are you insane?” “Maybe you were following him. Following us.” “I have better things to do with my time than follow my husband around.

“For a start, trying to keep this family together. So much for that.”

Surtsey took a deep breath. “Maybe you killed him.”

Explain

Alice slapped her hard across the cheek. Surtsey saw the hand coming but didn’t do anything to stop it.

“How dare you,” Alice said. She was glassy-eyed from the wine, or maybe crying.

“Gracie and Belle don’t have a dad any more. Do you want to come back after school and explain to the girls why their daddy is never coming home?” Surtsey shook her head.

“Have you been texting me?”

Alice stared icily at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing.”

Alice put a hand on the door frame, maybe to steady herself. “All I know is that you were making out with my husband, and now he’s dead.”

“That’s not my fault.”

Alice went to close the door, the conversation was over.

“Isn’t it?” she said.

DCI Yates looked as if he’d always been old. The gut, the pockmarked skin, the slump of his shoulders.

Surtsey tried to picture him as a young boy chasing a football or flying a kite in the Meadows. Her mind came up blank. Yates and another officer were sitting in her living room, bulky uniforms and jackets on despite the warm day outside.

Surtsey had hoped to see Ferris, but he was obviously just a lowly uniform grunt. This other cop was younger than Yates but not by much, pale flesh in a double chin, thick, stubby fingers.

The two of them were like something from last century, an anachronism.

They were probably no older than Tom but seemed like a different species, dinosaurs still roaming the earth.

As if to highlight their old-fashioned nature Yates had a small notepad and pencil out. He actually licked the pencil before he started writing.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” he said. Surtsey sighed and looked out the window. The rowing club were out on their afternoon training session, the green seven-seater easing through the calm of the Forth.

She watched the rhythm of their oars for a few strokes, tried to breathe in time with it, but they rowed too slowly for her racing heart.

She had to decide. Tell them everything and implicate herself, or tell them as little as possible, damage limitation.

Quick panic

She turned to Yates and the other cop. His name badge said Flannery. Flannery and Yates sounded like a bad vaudeville act or failed solicitors.

They were squeezed into the sofa, cups of tea on the low table in front of them. Surtsey and Halima got stoned on that sofa last night, and she wondered if there were any threads of grass spilt down the sides.

She had a quick panic, scanned the room for the hash pipe and ashtray, but saw nothing. “Well?” Yates said.

Flannery had a sheaf of papers in his chubby fist. He hadn’t shown them to her, but she assumed they were pictures of her and Tom.

“We were seeing each other,” Surtsey said. “We know that,” Flannery said, giving the papers a shake. “Since when?”

“Six months.”

Flannery pursed his lips.

Yates wrote in his pocket book. “Tell us how it started.”

More tomorrow.