‘What do you take me for? Of course I didn’t. Unless stomping down steps and slamming doors qualify as stupid. Can we not have our talk tonight? I’m not fit for anything. I need to work on keeping it all together for the case.’
Gina pulled away slightly. She could see the disappointment in his expression but she couldn’t have the talk, not with everything that was going on. Her mind was all over the place and the last thing she wanted to go through were the finer details of how her ex-husband Terry died, or more so, how she watched the life leave him at the bottom of the stairs on that stormy night. Briggs had been patient with her for a long time. He sensed her trauma when it came to talking but as the holder of her secrets, he deserved to know everything, and soon she’d tell him, but not tonight.
‘Okay for now, but you have to stop shutting me out. How do you think I feel when you ignore me or try to avoid me?’
‘That’s why I wanted us to end, because of this, and it would have been worse had we carried on. People can see that we share something. They don’t know what. It’s not obvious, but I can’t deal with the fact that I know, okay?’
He pulled a couple of bottles of light beer from the carrier bag. ‘I struggle when it comes to dealing with everything too. This isn’t just about you, Gina.’ He grabbed the magnetic bottle opener from the fridge, cracked open the beers and passed her one.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She took the bottle and sipped the cold beer. ‘I don’t know if I can face food, not after what’s happened tonight.’
He began opening the foil containers on the kitchen table, then he grabbed a couple of plates and some cutlery. ‘You need to try. We’re both running on empty.’
He was right, as always. The part of her that was breathing a sigh of relief at having postponed their conversation had been replaced with a churning anxiety after seeing Hannah with Samuel Avery. She slumped at the kitchen table and slopped some of the sweet and sour onto her plate. Staring at it, she knew she’d struggle to get it down. She pushed the chunks of pork around with her fork and an image of the pig’s head on the butcher’s slab flashed through her mind. She dropped her fork in the food, wishing he would just go home and leave her to wallow.
A few minutes passed and the food had already started to form a skin across the top as it cooled. The silence was too much. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not good company.’
‘Gina, why won’t you tell me all that happened? I know you keep your secrets pent-up. I see what you put yourself through, the nightmares and the crippling anxiety. You hide it so well from the others, but not from me. I’ve seen you wake up in the night, full of fear. I know I wasn’t meant to hear your most personal words at your mother’s graveside but I did and I can’t un-hear them. We can’t go back, only forwards. And we can’t stay in limbo. That isn’t an option.’
She felt her resolve crumbling. For so long her past had remained all hers but now he knew. ‘It tears me up, Chris. I don’t think I can talk about it all. I feel that if I do, I may not even be the same person ever again. I’m so scared of losingme.’
‘Have you ever thought that you might gainyouback?’
She pushed her plate away. ‘He was so cruel to me – Terry. When we investigate these cases, such horrific cases, there are elements of each that often trigger flashbacks. I’ve tried hard to bury everything so that I can move on but they won’t leave me alone. Each of my personal stories of abuse and cruelty are mine to tell. That’s the only power I have over them. I had no choice when he was doing the things he did to me but it’s like I’m in control and I don’t want that control taken from me. Besides, he can’t hurt anyone else, he’s dead.’
‘Are those thoughts controlling you, though?’
Her voice quivered with each word and her heart began to thump. ‘Probably, but I’m a survivor. If nothing else, I’ve proven that over and over again. Believe me when I tell you this, if I hadn’t accidentally pushed Terry down the stairs that night, he would have killed me. I know that much. I wouldn’t be here now.’
Her throat began to close and her hands started shaking. Pushing him was one thing, but holding back until he’d passed away before calling an ambulance, that was on her. Coughing, she ran to the sink and poured a glass of water as she gasped in a few breaths of air. The kitchen seemed distorted, like it was swirling on an axis. The sound of the cat meowing for affection was as pleasurable as nails scraping a blackboard. The cat jumped through the cat flap into the garden, taking the noise with it.
‘Come on. You’ve got this.’ He held her close as she let it all out.
She had felt a release. Was she losing her grip or was she feeling unburdened? That was a question she couldn’t yet answer. A moment, just the briefest of thoughts entered her mind. Like a picture in a film. Her on her wedding day, walking up the aisle towards Terry. Those moments of doubt had crossed her mind. She should have run out of that registry office and never looked back. Life could have been so different but if she hadn’t met Terry, she wouldn’t have Hannah. Every step up that carpeted aisle had felt like she was walking on glue. She would never forget the look in her own mother’s eyes. The one she ignored that said,you don’t have to do this, my love.
She felt the calm beating of Briggs’s heart against her ear and she didn’t want the moment to end. For once she felt safe, but he couldn’t stay. They both knew that. Besides, safe was just a feeling. She wasn’t safe. He wasn’t safe. No one was safe when a potential charming predator was hell-bent on inserting themselves into your life. No one. And now, they had another predator to contend with, one that had taken Holly’s life and that of her unborn child. Had this perpetrator charmingly wormed his way in before gaining her trust and subjecting her to the most horrific of deaths? Now was not the time to lose her focus.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Monday, 11 May 2020
Jacob shuffled into the room behind Gina, taking a seat. Being present at post-mortems was never a pleasure.
‘Can I get either of you a drink?’ the young man asked.
Gina caught a glimpse of the scalpel gliding through Holly’s taught skin and she swallowed. ‘No, thank you.’
The man closed the door, leaving them to it.
‘I’m surprised he didn’t offer us a bit of breakfast. Just the thing to help us through a post-mortem.’
Gina glanced across, taking her dark straggly hair into her hands and forcing it into a ponytail using the elastic band she always kept in her pocket. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘Chill, guv. I’m definitely joking. I know I always say this, it doesn’t matter how many times we’ve seen this happening, it never becomes easier. I’m just glad we’re behind glass. I couldn’t take the smell today.’ He gave a little wave to one of the assistants.
‘Jennifer?’
‘I know, you can’t tell with all the garb she’s wearing.’ His gaze locked onto hers for a couple of seconds.
