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He looked at a long, typed list in front of him, selected a few, then excused himself and disappeared over to a bank of desks where a group of men were shouting over one another and smoking. “They’re very good,” he told me on his return, and passed them back. “We’ll take these three. How much are you asking?”
I had absolutely no idea, and could not even see which he had selected. I made up a figure on the spot, not sure if it was too high or too low, and we shook on it.
I bought the Telegraph the next day and had to steady myself against a lamppost when I saw which they had used and why. It was Oskar, sitting at the little wooden table by the window in our apartment, brushes and paint arranged in front of him. It was not the picture, though, but the headline that knocked the wind out of me: “Fatal Paris Fire Kills Artist Oskar Erlich and MP’s Daughter.”
I had done it. The body, the necklace, the fire, my whole plan. It had actually worked.
I had succeeded in murdering us both.
Chapter 19
PATRICK, DUBAI, THIRTY-SIX HOURS AFTER HARRY’S DEATH
Being in a cell with no windows and no clock does strange things to your sense of time. Overhead strip lights that are never turned off. Doors slamming, keys jangling, men shouting, crying, praying.
Dinner last night was watery curry with rice, delivered in a plastic container, with a stack of metal bowls and no cutlery. After we had finished—all silently shoveling food into our mouths with unwashed hands—a small pile of thin blankets arrived, but only enough for half of us. We tried to make ourselves comfortable for the night on the floor with spare clothing as pillows. I settled back against the wall with my head on my knees, arms wrapped around them to ward off the icy chill of the air-conditioning.
As I sat there, I tried to shake off the numbness, but still could not force my brain to process that Harry had been murdered, that somehow my fingerprints were on the broken champagne glass used to slash his throat. It felt like a nightmare, but the one thing I knew, as I shifted position again to stop my back from seizing up entirely, was that I was not asleep. Was I being set up for some reason? Harry was being blackmailed, I told the police. Maybe he had confronted the blackmailer and there had been a struggle. That was what they should be investigating. Did I have any evidence that such a person existed, they had asked. I was forced to admit I did not.
Breakfast is dates washed down with water from the few bottles the guard left on the floor, and I am about to take a swig when my name is called. Before they open the cell door, they make me hold my arms out and cuff me—the first time they’ve bothered to do so. Then I am led down a corridor with a series of small, high windows, faint daylight filtering through. The guard barks something at me and, when it becomes clear I don’t understand Arabic, grabs me by the shoulder and turns me to face the wall. Another door is unlocked before I am forcibly turned back around and bodily steered through it.
This room in which I find myself is almost identical to the room in which I was first interviewed. There is a single high window, frosted reinforced glass. A table. Two chairs. On one of them is Sarah. The guard directs me to the chair opposite her. I can tell from her reaction, and the way she quickly tries to mask it, that I must look even more terrible than I feel.
I place my cuffed wrists on the table and her eyes flick to my fingernails, which still have last night’s dinner caked underneath. I give her a reassuring smile. Her face hardens slightly. She knows, I understand from this. She knows about Caroline and me. Or at least she suspects.
“I’m so sorry, Sarah.”
She does not meet my gaze. Her eyes look sore and puffy. Her lips look chewed.
“The police came to the house last night,” she tells me. “They didn’t leave until dawn. They were going through your office, looking through your filing, at your bank statements. They asked about your movements on the night Harry was murdered. I told them that I was working in Abu Dhabi at a wedding, no phones allowed,” she says, slowly, raising her gaze to fix me with an ice-cold stare.
I nod.
“I said that you left me a message to tell me about the painting’s sale and that you were about to drive home, and I am sure you did just that. I told them there was no way my husband was capable of murder. That the very idea was ludicrous.”
She pauses. “That was when they told me about the CCTV footage from the hotel, Patrick. They know when you arrived there. They have you in the lobby, getting into the elevator. They have you leaving the elevator again just after three in the morning. Three in the morning, Patrick.”
I start to speak. She stops me. “They know you’re lying to them, Patrick. And they think the reason is that you murdered Harry. But I know why you were really there.”
I let my head drop. I close my eyes. I deserve this. In some ways I deserve all of this. “Sarah. I’m so, so sorry. I never meant...”
I trail off. It doesn’t matter what I meant or didn’t mean, it matters what I did, and with whom. I have chosen the worst way possible to break my wife’s heart. I have cheated on her with the most hurtful possible person I could cheat on her with.
One of the things I could never quite forgive my father for was the way that each of his affairs poisoned a whole crop of seemingly unrelated memories. “How long?” was what my mother always demanded to know, on discovering his latest illicit dalliance. Meaning which holidays, which Christmases and anniversaries have you sat and smiled through knowing you were sleeping with someone else. Meaning which of the times you said you were working late and missed school plays or bedtimes or birthdays were because you had been sleeping with someone else. Meaning how many times have you said you loved me and been sleeping with someone else. Now Sarah must be going back through all our happiest moments together, our whole life here, and wondering if the entire time I had been pining for Caroline.
“I know you, Patrick. You’re not as hard to read as you evidently think. I always knew that the only way this would work, with us, is if we stayed in Dubai.” She is choosing her words carefully. “I knew that it wasn’t over with her, even if you didn’t. That she was someone who still took up space in your head. So I’m not surprised. But I am angry, I am hurt, and I—”
Her voice catches. “It could have been nice, Patrick. Ours could have been a really lovely, happy life.”
She swallows, rubs at the corner of her eye. “I have a message for you. From Tom. He is at the embassy right now. His law firm has a fixer, and they are trying to get him in here, to speak to you, but he has told me to warn you it all takes time.”
“Thank you,” I say, smiling weakly.
“I am not going to come here again to visit. When you get out, whenever you get out, I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive you, or if I even want to. But if there is any chance of us working through this, I have to ask you something, and I need you to give me an honest answer,” she says.
I nod.
“Are you still in love with her?”