Traces of Red, page 30
He filled the glasses and they bubbled up, pale and frothy, and he clinked his against mine. ‘Budemzdorovy,’ he said. ‘Did you know, oddly enough the Russians don’t have a universal drinking toast.’
‘So what does that mean?’
‘Let’s stay healthy.’
‘I’ll happily drink to that,’ I said.
I watched him. His spare, elegant body, his hair and eyes glinting in the half-light.
‘I like the Russian language,’ he said. ‘I like the sounds it creates and the vocabulary allows an astonishing range of meanings. I prefer it to any other language I know. Perhaps I’ll go to Russia. I could live there as well as in any other country, I believe.’
‘Is this because you’ve been swept off your feet by your Illustrious Russians?’ I picked up the bottle and refilled his glass. ‘We should have a toast to them,’ I said. ‘To despondency, death and disaster.’
He laughed. ‘Right you are. To despondency, death and disaster.’
‘Connor,’ I said, ‘there’s a couple of things I want to ask you about. When you said to me that everything they say about what happens in prisons is true, I was worried about you. So worried, in fact, that I went to see the director at Rimutaka. He called in wardens who knew you and they told me nobody had ever come near you. One of them said you were treated like a hot-house flower.’
‘They would say that, wouldn’t they?’
‘They seemed so sure, though. The other thing. I worked out you must have known the affair I was having was with Joe Fahey. I gave it away when I said it was with someone whose wife was ill and it’s common knowledge that Michelle Fahey has cancer. But why did you write to the TV network telling them I’d been having an affair with Joe and that he’d given me information and introduced us?’
‘I would never do anything to hurt you.’
‘I recognised your writing from the anonymous letter Harry gave me.’ I was lying, of course, but it seemed a safe enough risk.
He sighed. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that. But he was no good for you, Rebecca. I could see how much he’d upset you. I was only trying to protect you.’
‘Like you were trying to protect Angela when you strung up that barbed wire across the track hoping Ian Bailey would run into it?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t blame you,’ I said. I held out the bottle to him, smiling. ‘I would have done the same thing. The guy was a total user.’
He stared at me for a moment. I kept smiling and he refilled his glass. ‘He was hurting Angela. All I wanted to do was to stop him.’
‘Course you did, Connor. You did the right thing. What about Gary? Gary Sands. Did you know about him and Angela? Did he hurt her as well?’
‘Gary Sands? Rebecca, why are you asking me these questions? I don’t understand.’
‘Remember what you said to me way back? “I get out, you get famous.” Well, that’s where we are, now, isn’t it. You’re out and I’m famous. We’ve both got what we wanted. All I want now is to know what happened. Like, how did you know Gary Sands? Did Angela introduce you?’
‘I didn’t know Gary Sands. I never met him.’
‘But you must have known him, Connor. There’s a record of a phone call between your mobile phone and his on the Saturday morning, May 14th.’
‘I never used my—’
God, he was good. All this time and this was his first real slip-up.
‘But you were seen with him at that pub you said you’d been at that Friday night. It was busy, they did that cheap carvery Friday and Saturday night so it was always crowded in the weekend, it’s easier to get lost in a crowd, isn’t it, but someone saw you there together. Someone who knew Gary.’
Another lie. Another risk.
His eyes were narrowed, then he dropped his head. ‘I was so worried about Angela. I knew what was going on. She was talking about leaving Rowan and taking the kids with her. She wouldn’t listen so I had to talk to him and try to stop it.’
‘But Angela was already dead by then, wasn’t she. And what about the chloral hydrate you slipped into Gary Sands’ drink?’
I stood up and leaned back against the balustrade, watching him. It was quite dark now: the moon had slipped behind clouds. I heard the clink as he picked up the bottle and poured more wine into his glass.
‘I knew you liked bubbly,’ I said, ‘from what you said about visiting Tony Wallace. Though I’m not altogether sure what to believe any more. Did you kill him as well?’
‘Tony drowned. It was exactly as I told you. I loved Tony. I loved Angela as well.’
‘So why did you kill her?’
‘I told you. She was going to leave. Take the kids. All I meant to do was to make her say she wouldn’t do it. I thought she’d be on her own that night but everything went wrong. Rebecca, she was going to leave me. She said she loved this… this Gary Sands.’
‘I don’t understand. She already had left you when she married Rowan. She loved Rowan, didn’t she?’
‘She never loved Rowan. She had to marry him because of Katy. Katy’s mine. Angela was going to take my own child away from me.’
I closed my eyes. My head and heart were rushing and I felt a surge of nausea. Oh god. Oh my god.
‘I had to stop her. You must see that.’
He emptied his glass and stood up. I saw him slowly pick up the bottle, holding it by the neck. ‘You see, Rebecca, she was trying to take everything away from me. You can’t let anyone do that to you, not even when you love them.’
He was moving quickly towards me and I was frozen there, breathing hard.
He was close enough to touch. Close enough to take hold of me. I was still and limp as he shoved his body against me, holding me there against the balustrade, swinging his arm back, raising up the bottle above his head.
I moved quickly, slipping to the side of him, clicking open the latch and as he tipped forward I shoved him hard.
I picked up my mobile, punched in the numbers. I switched off my dictaphone, took my torch, climbed down over the rocks and held his head out of the water until they came for him.
46.
When you fuck up badly there are a lot of people you must apologise to. Mum first. Of course I still love you, how could I ever stop?
Dad, David, Anna.
I’m so sorry. So sorry. I behaved unforgivably. I should have listened to you. You were right all along.
But there’s a brand-new baby girl in the family gooing and grinning up at everyone so my misdeeds are not exactly paramount any more. All I can hope for is that the people I love will start to trust me again.
Of course, saying sorry is much easier with the people who love you. Saying it to Katy was much, much harder. But I had to do it.
I fronted up at her house, rang the doorbell and she came out and stood in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, Katy. I’m so sorry. I was wrong. I can’t possibly expect you to forgive me for all the hurt and damage I’ve caused but I have to tell you that.’
She watched me with her arms folded across her chest. When I’d finished she was silent for a moment, then she gave me a quick, wry grin. ‘You got it right in the end. You shoved the bastard down a cliff, didn’t you?’
‘Not quite a cliff.’
‘Pity.’
What I’m working on now is a doco about victims of violent crimes. There are a lot of people saying it’s the crims who get all the attention; the counselling, the re-education opportunities and the four-star accommodation. What about the victims?
So I’m giving people the opportunity to tell their stories. We’re starting the shoot next week and there’s a certain cameraman I’m intending to shower with coffee and muffins until he gets around to asking me out.
And Katy has agreed to tell her story. Somehow, she’s also agreed to be my friend, though her friendship is a gift I don’t deserve. We have coffee together. Sometimes I cook dinner for her in my poncy fucking house.
As I said, I’m lucky.
We were to meet at Maranui café. I arrived there before her and found a free table outside in the sun. I thought she looked slightly pale when she got there and I told her so, asked if she was feeling okay.
‘I’ve been giving blood,’ she said. ‘I’ve been doing that ever since… ever since what happened.’
‘What blood type are you?’ I asked it idly but my heart began to thump hard against my chest.
‘A+. Same as Dad.’
I wanted to throw my arms around her and hug her hard. I want to laugh out loud. All I could do was smile and smile.
‘What?’ she said. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just, it’s good to see you. Just, it’s a great day.’
A plane roared along the runway and the sky and sea glistened as she told her story.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Geoff Walker for his insightful reading of drafts and suggestions and encouragement during the writing of this novel. Thanks also to Katie Haworth for her enthusiasm and commitment, and to the rest of the wonderful team at Penguin.
Thanks to Amie, always my first reader, for her perceptive questioning and responses and, again, to Stephen Stratford for his skilled editing and support.
Thanks to Bill O’Brien for his continued willingness to help with and discuss police procedures. Thanks also to Tony Reeve, for the lab tour and for the ‘science for dummies’ talks. Thanks to the Beatsons, whose Foxton Beach house was such an inspiration and, in fact, to everyone who so generously passed on their expertise.
And, as always, so many thanks to Jim and to my family.
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Penguin Group (NZ), 2011
Copyright © Paddy Richardson, 2011
The right of Paddy Richardson to be identified as the author of this work in terms of section 96 of the Copyright Act 1994 is hereby asserted.
Typeset by Sarah Healey, © Penguin Group (NZ)
Cover image by iStockphoto.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
www.penguin.co.nz
ISBN: 978-1-74228-784-3
Richardson, Paddy, Traces of Red
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‘So what does that mean?’
‘Let’s stay healthy.’
‘I’ll happily drink to that,’ I said.
I watched him. His spare, elegant body, his hair and eyes glinting in the half-light.
‘I like the Russian language,’ he said. ‘I like the sounds it creates and the vocabulary allows an astonishing range of meanings. I prefer it to any other language I know. Perhaps I’ll go to Russia. I could live there as well as in any other country, I believe.’
‘Is this because you’ve been swept off your feet by your Illustrious Russians?’ I picked up the bottle and refilled his glass. ‘We should have a toast to them,’ I said. ‘To despondency, death and disaster.’
He laughed. ‘Right you are. To despondency, death and disaster.’
‘Connor,’ I said, ‘there’s a couple of things I want to ask you about. When you said to me that everything they say about what happens in prisons is true, I was worried about you. So worried, in fact, that I went to see the director at Rimutaka. He called in wardens who knew you and they told me nobody had ever come near you. One of them said you were treated like a hot-house flower.’
‘They would say that, wouldn’t they?’
‘They seemed so sure, though. The other thing. I worked out you must have known the affair I was having was with Joe Fahey. I gave it away when I said it was with someone whose wife was ill and it’s common knowledge that Michelle Fahey has cancer. But why did you write to the TV network telling them I’d been having an affair with Joe and that he’d given me information and introduced us?’
‘I would never do anything to hurt you.’
‘I recognised your writing from the anonymous letter Harry gave me.’ I was lying, of course, but it seemed a safe enough risk.
He sighed. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that. But he was no good for you, Rebecca. I could see how much he’d upset you. I was only trying to protect you.’
‘Like you were trying to protect Angela when you strung up that barbed wire across the track hoping Ian Bailey would run into it?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t blame you,’ I said. I held out the bottle to him, smiling. ‘I would have done the same thing. The guy was a total user.’
He stared at me for a moment. I kept smiling and he refilled his glass. ‘He was hurting Angela. All I wanted to do was to stop him.’
‘Course you did, Connor. You did the right thing. What about Gary? Gary Sands. Did you know about him and Angela? Did he hurt her as well?’
‘Gary Sands? Rebecca, why are you asking me these questions? I don’t understand.’
‘Remember what you said to me way back? “I get out, you get famous.” Well, that’s where we are, now, isn’t it. You’re out and I’m famous. We’ve both got what we wanted. All I want now is to know what happened. Like, how did you know Gary Sands? Did Angela introduce you?’
‘I didn’t know Gary Sands. I never met him.’
‘But you must have known him, Connor. There’s a record of a phone call between your mobile phone and his on the Saturday morning, May 14th.’
‘I never used my—’
God, he was good. All this time and this was his first real slip-up.
‘But you were seen with him at that pub you said you’d been at that Friday night. It was busy, they did that cheap carvery Friday and Saturday night so it was always crowded in the weekend, it’s easier to get lost in a crowd, isn’t it, but someone saw you there together. Someone who knew Gary.’
Another lie. Another risk.
His eyes were narrowed, then he dropped his head. ‘I was so worried about Angela. I knew what was going on. She was talking about leaving Rowan and taking the kids with her. She wouldn’t listen so I had to talk to him and try to stop it.’
‘But Angela was already dead by then, wasn’t she. And what about the chloral hydrate you slipped into Gary Sands’ drink?’
I stood up and leaned back against the balustrade, watching him. It was quite dark now: the moon had slipped behind clouds. I heard the clink as he picked up the bottle and poured more wine into his glass.
‘I knew you liked bubbly,’ I said, ‘from what you said about visiting Tony Wallace. Though I’m not altogether sure what to believe any more. Did you kill him as well?’
‘Tony drowned. It was exactly as I told you. I loved Tony. I loved Angela as well.’
‘So why did you kill her?’
‘I told you. She was going to leave. Take the kids. All I meant to do was to make her say she wouldn’t do it. I thought she’d be on her own that night but everything went wrong. Rebecca, she was going to leave me. She said she loved this… this Gary Sands.’
‘I don’t understand. She already had left you when she married Rowan. She loved Rowan, didn’t she?’
‘She never loved Rowan. She had to marry him because of Katy. Katy’s mine. Angela was going to take my own child away from me.’
I closed my eyes. My head and heart were rushing and I felt a surge of nausea. Oh god. Oh my god.
‘I had to stop her. You must see that.’
He emptied his glass and stood up. I saw him slowly pick up the bottle, holding it by the neck. ‘You see, Rebecca, she was trying to take everything away from me. You can’t let anyone do that to you, not even when you love them.’
He was moving quickly towards me and I was frozen there, breathing hard.
He was close enough to touch. Close enough to take hold of me. I was still and limp as he shoved his body against me, holding me there against the balustrade, swinging his arm back, raising up the bottle above his head.
I moved quickly, slipping to the side of him, clicking open the latch and as he tipped forward I shoved him hard.
I picked up my mobile, punched in the numbers. I switched off my dictaphone, took my torch, climbed down over the rocks and held his head out of the water until they came for him.
46.
When you fuck up badly there are a lot of people you must apologise to. Mum first. Of course I still love you, how could I ever stop?
Dad, David, Anna.
I’m so sorry. So sorry. I behaved unforgivably. I should have listened to you. You were right all along.
But there’s a brand-new baby girl in the family gooing and grinning up at everyone so my misdeeds are not exactly paramount any more. All I can hope for is that the people I love will start to trust me again.
Of course, saying sorry is much easier with the people who love you. Saying it to Katy was much, much harder. But I had to do it.
I fronted up at her house, rang the doorbell and she came out and stood in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, Katy. I’m so sorry. I was wrong. I can’t possibly expect you to forgive me for all the hurt and damage I’ve caused but I have to tell you that.’
She watched me with her arms folded across her chest. When I’d finished she was silent for a moment, then she gave me a quick, wry grin. ‘You got it right in the end. You shoved the bastard down a cliff, didn’t you?’
‘Not quite a cliff.’
‘Pity.’
What I’m working on now is a doco about victims of violent crimes. There are a lot of people saying it’s the crims who get all the attention; the counselling, the re-education opportunities and the four-star accommodation. What about the victims?
So I’m giving people the opportunity to tell their stories. We’re starting the shoot next week and there’s a certain cameraman I’m intending to shower with coffee and muffins until he gets around to asking me out.
And Katy has agreed to tell her story. Somehow, she’s also agreed to be my friend, though her friendship is a gift I don’t deserve. We have coffee together. Sometimes I cook dinner for her in my poncy fucking house.
As I said, I’m lucky.
We were to meet at Maranui café. I arrived there before her and found a free table outside in the sun. I thought she looked slightly pale when she got there and I told her so, asked if she was feeling okay.
‘I’ve been giving blood,’ she said. ‘I’ve been doing that ever since… ever since what happened.’
‘What blood type are you?’ I asked it idly but my heart began to thump hard against my chest.
‘A+. Same as Dad.’
I wanted to throw my arms around her and hug her hard. I want to laugh out loud. All I could do was smile and smile.
‘What?’ she said. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just, it’s good to see you. Just, it’s a great day.’
A plane roared along the runway and the sky and sea glistened as she told her story.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Geoff Walker for his insightful reading of drafts and suggestions and encouragement during the writing of this novel. Thanks also to Katie Haworth for her enthusiasm and commitment, and to the rest of the wonderful team at Penguin.
Thanks to Amie, always my first reader, for her perceptive questioning and responses and, again, to Stephen Stratford for his skilled editing and support.
Thanks to Bill O’Brien for his continued willingness to help with and discuss police procedures. Thanks also to Tony Reeve, for the lab tour and for the ‘science for dummies’ talks. Thanks to the Beatsons, whose Foxton Beach house was such an inspiration and, in fact, to everyone who so generously passed on their expertise.
And, as always, so many thanks to Jim and to my family.
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Penguin Group (NZ), 2011
Copyright © Paddy Richardson, 2011
The right of Paddy Richardson to be identified as the author of this work in terms of section 96 of the Copyright Act 1994 is hereby asserted.
Typeset by Sarah Healey, © Penguin Group (NZ)
Cover image by iStockphoto.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
www.penguin.co.nz
ISBN: 978-1-74228-784-3
Richardson, Paddy, Traces of Red
