Mirrorland, Carole Johnstone [spiritual books to read .txt] 📗

when El went missing. And when she left Granton Harbour she was alone. How could Ross, witnessed by no one, reach her, overpower her, sink her boat, and get back to shore, all while he was supposed to have been somewhere else? Apart from anything else, he can’t swim, is afraid of the water.

But.

There’s the Gumotex kayak in the shed. And someone who had orchestrated some elaborate plot to sink his wife and her boat in the Firth of Forth would say that he can’t swim, is afraid of the water. I think of that Presumption of Death application. Of Ross insisting he didn’t know who Marie was.

I think of forgetting Mouse. Forgetting all the bad that has happened in this house. The lengths Mouse is going to in order to make me remember. I need to email her again. I need to make her meet me this time, no matter what. Because I can’t trust what I believe or think I know any more.

I pour more vodka. Because it’s Ross himself who’s the biggest, reddest flag. When I ignore those old familiar stabs of jealousy every time I think about the HOT GRIEF-STRICKEN HUSBAND who screamed into the sea, I have to admit to myself that it’s pretty hard to reconcile him with the man who’s been in my bed for the past week, whispering into my ear, my skin, my heart, how much he wants me, needs me, loves me. Guilt, or even remorse, could probably look a lot like grief.

I put down the vodka. It hasn’t helped one bit. I tried to drown my sorrows. But the bastards learned how to swim. My head feels heavier, thicker, my body achier. I stand up, holding on to the table for balance.

For God’s sake, Catriona, why are you so useless? But I’m not useless. Or helpless. For weeks, I’ve been trying to look like El, think like El, be like El because I don’t want to be me. I know that. But it’s not the me that came back to this house that I’m scared of. It’s the me that lived in this house. The me that was always afraid. Of falling, of running, of flying. Of facing the truth.

So I go up the stairs, hanging on tight to the bannister. And I only hesitate outside the Kakadu Jungle for a moment. I don’t know when Ross is going to come back. I push open the door to our old bedroom. The biggest shock is that it doesn’t look the same. There are no wooden shutters, no rain-forest wallpaper, no golden yellow bedspread. Instead of the old oak armoire and dressing table, there’s an antique writing bureau and chair, a white chintz wardrobe. The room is magnolia, the carpet lush. This is the only room in the whole house that has been entirely erased and redrawn.

I go to the bureau and its many drawers, start rifling through them. I’ve no idea what I’m looking for, but all I find are empty notebooks and postcards, paper clips, business envelopes, dozens of pens.

I regret the vodka again when I turn too quickly, and the floor starts to list, enough that I have to grab hold of a bedpost to stay on my feet. My mind is sticky, too slow. I look at the double bed, blindsided suddenly by a far too vivid image of Ross and El together. When I glimpse the leather satchel leaning against the legs of a bedside table, I reach for it quickly, glad of the distraction as I try to open its stiff buckles. Inside, there are loose papers and a thick plastic binder. ‘Southwark University’ is printed along the length of its spine in gold lettering below a blue-and-red crest. Bingo.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY

THEME: PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS: GOOD VS BAD MEDICINE;

THE EFFICACY OF THERAPIES VS SAFE RATIOS

APRIL 2ND, 9 A.M.–APRIL 3RD, 4 P.M., 2018

SOUTHWARK UNIVERSITY, ST JAMES ROAD, LONDON

I thumb through the conference timetable, extracts of papers to be presented, Ross’s name on the list of attendees. I remember his By the time I got back, she’d already been missing for at least five hours, and skip to the Contacts page. The first listed is the phone number and email for a Professor Catherine Ward, head of Pharmacy and Pharmacology.

I sit down on the bed, take out my phone, go online, create a new email address. When DI Kate Rafiq isn’t accepted as a username, I give her a middle initial of M. I’ve no idea how to spoof an email address, and I’m too keyed up and too drunk to try to find out. I’m just going to have to hope that Professor Catherine Ward doesn’t stop to wonder why a detective inspector from Police Scotland would be using Gmail. If – when – I get found out, I don’t care. If this breaks a law, I don’t care. I need to know. Something. Anything. My email is short: a follow-up to original enquiries seeking confirmation of Ross’s attendance and movements. As soon as I’ve sent it, I wish I hadn’t.

And then I start a new email to john.smith120594.

Mouse, I know El’s dead. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Please meet me. Please.

I stand up and put the folder back, this time swaying only a little. I return to the landing. The house is still uncharacteristically quiet. The hairs on my forearms and the back of my neck prickle and itch against my skin as I look towards the dark mouth of that corridor between the Clown Café and the Princess Tower. Towards the matte-black door at its end. Bedroom 3. Bluebeard’s Room. The pull of it is like my childhood vertigo: the dizzying paralysis of waiting to fall. Wanting to fall. And when my phone suddenly starts vibrating against my leg, I cry out – high and long – fumble it out of my pocket and answer without looking, such is my sudden and absolute terror of being alone.

‘Cat! Thank God you’ve finally