Ask Me No Questions Read online

  ‘Don’t you want to see Gabi?’ Mortimer called after him.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, I’m late for work, I have to go,’ he said, and ran out of the stifling room, out to the corridor and into the cold air. He felt the rain on his face, his hair soaked in seconds, but he didn’t care. He had to get out of there. Away from Gabi, away from her husband.

  Suddenly it was all so clear. It was over. She was married. He stopped in a narrow alleyway between two hospital buildings, his breathing shallow, his heart racing. He lit a cigarette with fumbling fingers, taking a long drag of soothing nicotine. The rejection was absolute; all the ridiculous daydreams he’d had about the two of them had been nothing more than fiction. Maybe it had all been wishful thinking, and she’d just been waiting for a tall handsome American to come along. And there he was. All black hair and piercing eyes, friendly and nice, even when his wife was lying in a coma in hospital.

  Harry felt his body sag. The anger started to build. He turned and rammed his fist at the brick wall, punching it with all his might. The pain started in his hand, spreading from his knuckles to his fingers to his wrist, but it felt good. It felt good to have something physical to focus on, when the mental shit was suddenly all-consuming.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he shouted and hit the wall again, punching until he was forced to stop, cradling his smashed right hand in his left, and gently resting his forehead against the rough brickwork. He looked at his shaking hand as the pain took over: shredded skin, broken knuckles. Blood ran down his wrist, mixing with the rain. He was a mess. A barely functioning wreck. How stupid could he be to believe someone like Gabriella had wanted to be with him. What an idiot.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said again quietly, and sank to the ground.

  17

  The nurses pointed him out to Kate when they arrived. She watched him from across the room. She recognised his dress and his posture – there was no doubt to her he was the man who had followed Thea from the police station on Monday.

  She started walking down the ward. He was sat next to the bed, a copy of the Financial Times in front of him. As Kate got closer, she realised he was reading it out loud.

  ‘Does Gabriella like the FT?’ she asked when they were next to him. Mortimer stopped and turned in his chair.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Does anyone? But it’s all I have.’

  ‘DS Munro and DC Briggs,’ Kate said, showing her ID badge. Briggs did the same and he nodded at the introductions.

  ‘Mortimer Breslin,’ he said, making no effort to get up.

  ‘You’re American?’ Kate asked. ‘Where from?’

  ‘Tremont, New York.’

  ‘Nice place?’

  ‘Not really.’

  They looked at each other in silence.

  ‘Mr Breslin,’ Kate started. ‘We’d like to speak to you about the night your wife was attacked.’

  ‘I thought you might.’ He folded the pages of the FT, stood up and gestured for them to follow him. Out of the room he stopped in the corridor, his arms crossed.

  ‘Down at the station, if you would be so kind.’

  ‘Are you arresting me?’

  Kate hesitated. They could place him near the common earlier that night, but that wasn’t exactly solid evidence. She might have a feeling about this guy, but she didn’t want him to know it.

  ‘Not at this point, no,’ she replied, and she heard Briggs make a dissatisfied huff behind her.

  ‘Then I would like to stay close to my wife.’

  Kate nodded, and they moved to a quieter part of the corridor, away from the other rooms, next to the nurses’ station, currently unoccupied. She could hear faint chatter from the kitchen around the corner: people talking, making tea.

  ‘Where were you last Saturday night, the twelfth?’ she began.

  Mortimer frowned, obviously considering his answer. ‘I ate dinner at home, and then went to a nightclub in town.’

  ‘And why did you go there?’

  ‘I was following my wife. I wanted to see her.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No.’ His answers were polite, but unhelpful, making Kate work to gather any information from him.

  ‘Did you talk to anyone that night?’

  ‘Yes, the guy she was with. I believe he owns the club.’

  ‘Why did you speak to him?’

  ‘He seemed … close, with Gabriella.’

  ‘What made you think that?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I saw them earlier that night. He had his arm round her, they were laughing,’ he frowned, his jaw clenching. ‘They were kissing.’

  ‘That must have made you angry.’

  Mortimer stared at Kate without answering and she could see the intensity in his eyes. Yes, he’d been angry, there was no doubt about that. He still was.

  ‘And what happened?’ she pushed.

  Mortimer ran his hand through his hair. He looked tired, his skin sallow.

  ‘The bouncer warned me off. I went back and sat in my car. I waited for a while and then I saw both of them come out and walk down the road. I didn’t follow them,’ he added, quickly. ‘I went home, went to bed. I haven’t seen her since.’

  ‘And where were you this Saturday night? The nineteenth?’

  ‘Home. Alone. I watched television then went to bed at about midnight.’ His reply was smooth, without hesitation. He was slick, this one.

  Kate took a measured breath in. ‘Why are you lying to us, Mr Breslin?’ she asked, slowly.

  Mortimer didn’t say anything. Just looked at her with those calm hazel eyes.

  ‘We have your BMW on camera, jumping a red light north of the common,’ Kate continued. ‘So we know you weren’t having a peaceful night in with Netflix. I’ll ask you again, Mr Breslin. Where were you on Saturday night?’

  Mortimer crossed his arms in front of him. ‘Yes, I went to the club. I parked outside, I waited for about an hour, but I didn’t see anyone. Not Gabriella, not that man, nobody. I felt stupid, sitting there in the cold, so I changed my mind and went home. That’s all.’

  ‘What time was this?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Just after eleven.’

  ‘You expect us to believe you went home, and that was it?’ Kate continued. ‘That you didn’t repeat your trick from the week before and have it out with her?’

  Mortimer shook his head slowly. ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘Except this time, you went too far. You were mad with her for cheating on you, and your anger got out of hand. You attacked her and left her for dead, cold and alone on the common.’ Despite her words, Kate’s voice was quiet and slow. Briggs took a step towards the man, trying to intimidate him. She watched Mortimer closely: he didn’t budge, his feet firmly planted on the floor, his shoulders square.

  ‘No,’ he repeated, speaking carefully, his words measured. ‘I didn’t. I sat outside the club until about eleven, then left alone. But on Monday I changed my mind and went to the house to try and speak to her again. I followed her a few times – at least, the person I thought was her – until I realised it was her identical twin. Thea brought me here, and that’s when I found out. Until yesterday, I had no idea Gabriella was in hospital.’

  Kate noticed his cheeks had flushed; he seemed uncomfortable. He was definitely hiding something. Maybe he wasn’t so unbreakable after all.

  ‘It must have made you pretty furious? Seeing your wife with another man?’ Briggs chipped in, pushing the same point to try and get a response.

  ‘Yes, it made me angry. As I said, I had words with the guy the week before, but it got me nowhere.’ Mortimer met Briggs’s gaze. His voice was level and calm. ‘Being angry has never helped solve a problem, has it, Detective Constable Briggs?’

  ‘You felt Gabriella leaving you was a problem to be solved, did you, Mr Breslin? That’s very clinical.’

  Kate nudged Briggs with her foot, warning him to back off. She wanted to go away, do some more digging. Then, when they had something solid, they would arrest him properly
, do a search, find something and make it stick. She didn’t want to unnerve him too much now.

  Mortimer sighed. ‘I want to help anyway I can, I do. But this is not it. I am not the person you are looking for, however badly you want that to be the case.’ He took a step away from them and picked up a pen from the nurses’ station. Kate watched him write his phone number on a corner of the FT, rip it off and pass it to her.

  ‘Phone me, if you want to talk in a more civilised way. Now, I’d like to get back to my wife.’

  Kate watched him leave, going back into the room and closing the door behind him. She liked him for this; there was something about him. His apparent complete control of his emotions. The way he had followed his wife, tracking her down, like she was property he couldn’t let go. Men like that can’t hold it together forever, she thought; sometimes they snap.

  ‘Well, he’s an interesting fish,’ Briggs said under his breath. ‘He was there that night, and I don’t believe for a second he just changed his mind and went home.’

  ‘Not only that,’ Kate said, turning the piece of paper over in her fingers. ‘Didn’t you see when he wrote down his number? He’s left-handed.’

  18

  Thea saw them standing in the corridor when she arrived, their backs to her as they spoke. She could see Mortimer was annoyed, his posture defensive: hands on his waist, his shoulders back.

  When she’d woken that morning, she’d gone downstairs and seen the empty bottle of wine. She’d looked at the two glasses, then picked up the phone. But what would she say? I’m sorry? She wasn’t sure there were words to make the situation any better.

  She’d had breakfast, drunk a cup of tea. She’d continued her search, scouring the kitchen, emptying cupboards, ticking a few more places off her mental list, then sat on the sofa, impatient. She was fed up of feeling so guilty. She could do something nice: go and visit her twin, take some grapes or flowers – isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? If you were a normal family?

  So Thea had arrived, and crept into the room while Mortimer and the police were in conversation. She sat in the chair next to her sister, and looked at her.

  She saw the bandage round her forehead, the bruises on her arms, the tubes, the wires. She reached over and took her sister’s hand, gently wrapping her fingers round her twin’s. She stared at them entwined together, looking so similar. She missed her; so much, she felt an ache in the middle of her chest, stopping her breathing. It almost hurt, being so close to her sister but not being able to speak to her.

  She saw her eyelids flicker. She felt a finger move.

  ‘I didn’t see you come in.’

  A voice behind her but she didn’t turn. ‘I’m sorry, Mort,’ she said, not able to look at him.

  Suddenly a cacophony of alarms sounded at the bedside, and she heard feet rushing down the corridor. She jumped from the bed as two nurses ran in, closely followed by a doctor.

  She backed away, watching as the nurses and the doctor crowded the bedside, talking in rushed tones, all medical terminology and stethoscopes and concern. Mortimer looked at her, his eyes wide, scared for his wife.

  She couldn’t wait and see what happened. It was all too much. She took one last look, then turned and ran. Away from the lies, the regret, the guilt.

  She should have known better, she told herself as she fled. Secrets had a habit of coming to the surface. No matter how far down you buried them.

  19

  The call came through the overhead speaker in the car, jolting Kate to attention with a blast of adrenaline. She and Briggs were on their way back to the station as Yates’s voice shouted out, loud and sudden.

  ‘Sarge? Go back. Gabriella Patterson. Nurse said something’s happened.’

  Kate swore. Briggs turned the car round in the middle of the road, ignoring the horns around them, and floored it back the way they’d come.

  They parked the car in a disabled bay and ran into the hospital. When they arrived on the ward, Mortimer was standing in the doorway, watching a flock of white coats at Gabriella’s bed, his hand over his mouth.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Kate asked, catching her breath.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I went back in. Thea was there.’ He paused, gathering his words. ‘Then a whole load of alarms went off.’

  Kate looked over. Doctor Riley was leaning over the bed, a melee of nurses and equipment around him.

  ‘What did you do?’ Briggs said, moving behind them, blocking the exit. ‘Did you try and kill her off? Finish what you’d started?’

  ‘What? No!’ Mortimer replied. ‘Look at her!’ He pointed towards the bed. ‘She’s not dying! She moved her fingers. I’m sure she opened her eyes. She’s waking up.’

  The three of them watched as the medical team worked. After a while the curtains were drawn around the bed, blocking their view. Kate fidgeted as time ticked by. Waiting to speak to her, waiting to know more. An hour passed. Eventually the curtain was pulled back and Doctor Riley moved away. He said a few words to the nurse, then came over, flanked by the trailing white cape of enthusiastic trainees.

  ‘Good news – she’s awake, but she’s groggy,’ Doctor Riley said. ‘We made the decision to take her entirely off sedation first thing this morning and it looks like it’s paid off. She’s responded well and we’ve extubated her to make her more comfortable.’

  ‘What set off the alarms?’ Briggs asked.

  ‘She woke and found herself on the machines. It can be distressing for anyone. She’s going to be confused for a few days, but initial tests are good. She seems pretty lucid, all things considered.’

  Mortimer thanked the doctor, then rushed over to Gabriella’s bedside. Kate and Briggs watched him as he sat down and gently took her hand.

  ‘Has she said who attacked her?’ Kate asked the doctor.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, and she probably won’t be able to at this point. We’ll do some more tests later today, but to warn you, it’s likely she’ll have some retrograde amnesia from the head injury.’

  ‘Can we talk to her?’

  ‘For a moment. She’s still healing, so don’t be surprised if she falls asleep. Five minutes,’ he said, and the group bustled away.

  Kate walked over to the bedside, Briggs close behind. The bed had been raised, so Gabriella was now half sitting, pillows propping her up. The white bandage was still wrapped around her head and she had her eyes closed.

  Mortimer was next to her, his face in his hands.

  ‘Do you mind if we have some time with Gabriella?’ Kate asked.

  He nodded and backed away from the bedside. Kate noticed he was more subdued than he had been, his confidence faded. ‘I’ll go and get a coffee.’ Mortimer hesitated. ‘I’m not sure what she remembers. She says she doesn’t know who I am.’ He frowned, took one last look and then left, striding down the ward. Briggs’s eyes followed him.

  ‘Gabriella?’ Kate sat down on the chair next to the bed. ‘Gabriella? I’m DS Kate Munro, this is DC Jamie Briggs. We’re with the Hampshire Police.’ Gabriella opened her eyes slowly. ‘We’ve been investigating your attack,’ Kate continued. ‘Do you mind speaking to us for a moment?’

  Gabriella nodded, a barely perceptible movement.

  ‘I don’t remember much,’ she said, her voice hoarse. ‘I was at that nightclub. The music was loud.’

  ‘Who were you there with?’

  ‘Um,’ Gabriella was silent for a moment. ‘No, no I can’t … They said I was found on the common. Why would I have been there?’ She looked at Kate, confused.

  ‘What else can you recall?’

  ‘I was at the club. I felt terrible, unsteady.’ She winced. ‘But that’s it, it’s all a blank fuzz. I don’t remember leaving.’

  ‘That’s okay, Gabriella, try and get some rest.’ Kate could see the nurse hovering at the doorway. ‘We’ll come back and see you another day. And if you remember anything else, get the nurse to call us.’

  Briggs closed his notebook and t
hey both turned to leave.

  ‘Wait,’ Gabriella said.

  Kate turned back.

  ‘Stop calling me Gabriella.’

  Kate leaned in closer. ‘What do you mean?’

  The girl looked at her, suddenly awake, suddenly very conscious. ‘I’m not Gabriella,’ she said, her dark eyes fixed on Kate. ‘I’m Thea.’

  Part 2

  20

  ‘Didn’t anyone check?’ Kate paced across the office. ‘Didn’t anyone actually confirm that the twin lying in the hospital bed was the right one?’

  ‘We took fingerprints, but there was nothing in the system,’ Briggs said, staring into his coffee cup. ‘And then we found her bag on Sunday, and the driving licence matched up.’ He shrugged. ‘The uniforms picked up Thea Patterson from her house and she came with us without a word, so what were we supposed to do?’

  ‘They look the same,’ Yates added, miserably.

  ‘They’re identical bloody twins!’ Kate shouted. ‘Of course they look the same!’

  ‘But they have the same colour hair,’ Briggs pleaded. ‘The same haircut, the same …’

  ‘Body shape,’ Yates added, and Briggs gave her a grateful look.

  ‘And what the hell was Thea – Gabriella – Patterson playing at?’ Kate added, looking at the photo stuck on the board. ‘Why was she at Thea’s house? She was obviously lying to us all along, laughing in our faces.’

  ‘We’ll interview her again.’

  ‘Yes, we bloody will. And find out all you can about Thea Patterson.’ They both nodded, and looked at Kate expectantly. She walked to the whiteboard and picked up a pen. ‘Let’s start from the beginning – what do we know? And what do we know for certain?’

  Hours ticked by and the night closed in. Alone in the office again, Kate rested her bum on the edge of the desk and knocked her pen against her forehead. In front of her the whiteboard was decorated with rows of faces and names, a long black line with dates and times scrawled along the top.