He was about to argue again but changed his mind. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he conceded. It placated her for now. They finished their meal together, and Jada placed their empty dishes back on the tray and made her way out of his office. ‘I love you,’ she reminded him.
But Anthony couldn’t help but notice how, when she said it, her eyes flitted for the briefest of moments towards the device between them rather than him. It was as if she was hoping that, if their conversation was being monitored, it had picked up on what she had said and not the perceptible tension hanging in the air.
19
Arthur
The car journey to Arthur’s house was brief. It had almosttaken him the same time to pull his stiff joints from the rear seats of Relationship Responder Lorraine Shrewsbury’s vehicle and back out onto the pavement. A distant version of him would think nothing of carrying a 220lb unconscious man over his shoulder. Now he struggled with a shopping bag. Aging was a complication he could do without.
His hand was trembling so much that it took three attempts to type in the code before his front door unlocked. Once it was open, he and his two uninvited guests came to a halt in the hallway.
‘Are you proud of what you do?’ he asked Shrewsbury. ‘Interfering with people’s lives? Harassing people? Making untrue accusations?’
‘No one is saying you’re guilty of anything, Arthur. But it’s my job to help people when they need it, even if they don’t immediately realize it. Where’s Mrs Foley?’
‘She’s gone out.’
Shrewsbury removed a tablet from her handbag and scrolled through it. ‘According to our medical notes, your wife is bedbound and non-communicative.’
‘Who’s there?’ came June’s voice from upstairs. Arthur’s eyes moved in her direction. ‘Arthur?’ she repeated. ‘Is that you?’
Shrewsbury’s eyes followed his then switched to her colleague. ‘Can you confirm she’s all right and explain who we are and why we are here?’ she asked the woman.
‘Don’t you touch her!’ Arthur shouted. ‘Don’t you bloody touch her!’
‘She won’t, Arthur, I promise you,’ Shrewsbury replied. And for the first time, he recognized sympathy in her expression.
She continued to talk but Arthur had stopped listening. Instead, his eyes were drawn to a framed photograph on the wall of him and June in their uniforms. Decades before genes dictated who your perfect match was, he had known June was the one the day she was transferred to his station.
‘Lorraine, could you join me for a moment, please?’ her colleague’s voice came from upstairs.
‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she directed to Arthur.
‘Don’t scare June,’ he said anxiously. ‘She’ll be confused; she won’t know who you are.’
He followed her, but by the time he also reached the top of the stairs, then the doorway to the bedroom, it was too late. They were staring at his wife, trying to make sense of her.
‘Why are they in our room?’ June asked him tearfully. ‘You promised me they wouldn’t take me away! You promised I could stay here, with you, Artie. We didn’t tick the box! We didn’t tick the box!’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘They’re not going to take my girl anywhere.’
Lorraine and her colleague looked to each another, then at Arthur and back at one another again. Finally, their attention returned to June and her dead body. She was wrapped from head to toe in the same stained duvet she had been inside for the last seven months, bound together by parcel tape and rope.
Before Arthur’s legs gave way, he pushed his way towards his wife and collapsed on the bed, wrapping his arms around her.
‘Please don’t take her from me,’ he begged. ‘Don’t separate us. I’m begging you. Just leave us alone.’
20
Roxi
Roxi shifted from buttock to buttock, trying to find acomfortable spot on her seat. She’d drained a can of antiperspirant before leaving the house yet she was convinced she could feel a thin film of sweat emerging across the sweetheart neckline of her dress from the heat of the studio lights.
She tapped her fingernails together but they felt naked without their acrylic tips and colourful polish. Jem Jones had favoured a more natural appearance and now so must she. She rested her hands on the desk, then held them by her side. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, but was unsure what to do with her arms. She was developing a new-found respect for those who made sitting in front of television cameras and an audience of millions appear the most natural thing in the world.
Moments earlier, she had felt a little star-struck when the runner who’d led her into the studio had introduced her to TV news stalwarts Esther Green and Stuart James. They were friendly, but not so much the figure at the other end of the desk. Howie Cosby was a surly, controversial and verbally combative Freedom for All party spokesperson. In her naivety, Roxi had assumed she’d been invited to appear alone. His presence suggested there might be more to it than that.
‘Our next guest is Roxi Sager,’ began Esther. ‘She is a Vlogger and Influencer who, in the aftermath of the death of her friend Jem Jones, believes all homes should have Audites installed and the Government should have the right to record anyone’s conversations.’
