The answer is obvious, of course: it was easier for Verity to never leave her place, so she didn’t. She required Logan to make all the effort in their relationship.
I stand in the living-room doorway, looking around. ‘Amateurs’, is the first word to come to mind. The people who searched my parents’ house in London were professionals. Whenever they had finished their multiple searches, it looked like a hurricane had blown through the house. A vicious, targeted hurricane that was determined to upend, disrupt and uncover everything, right down to the smallest dust mote.
I still think it’s a miracle they didn’t find my diary and clothes from the night Marcus died. Whereas Logan’s place looks as though a friendly breeze has rattled a few things and I wonder what secrets have been missed. I wonder what Logan put away that he did not want anyone to see.
I bit back at Serena in the supermarket, wasn’t having a bar of what she was implying about my brother and her daughter. But what do I know? How do I know that Logan didn’t provoke the attack on himself?
What if she was right? What if my brother was abusive? How would I cope with that? How will I square that circle in my head? I love my brother. How will I cope if he turns out to be like Marcus?
Yes, my secret that I still love Marcus is loose in my head now, but that doesn’t change the fact that I hate him as well. For every molecule of love I have for Marcus, there is one of pure hatred, too. I do not want to have any love for him. I want to just hate him, but I can’t. And that hurts me, that churns me up inside. I do not want conflicting emotions when it comes to my brother. I want him to piss me off, like everyone pisses off everyone at least a few times in their life. I do not want to have reason to hate my brother. I do not want my brother to be like Marcus. I do not want another woman to have suffered at the hands of a man, especially not a man that I love.
September, 1987
‘Poppy, why have you still got your clothes on?’
I was confused. He’d told me to go upstairs, lie on the bed, take my knickers off and keep everything else on. ‘You told me to keep my clothes on.’
‘I didn’t.’
My heart rate leapt up several notches. He did. I was sure he did. ‘You did. You told me to go upstairs and take my knickers off and leave everything else on.’
Emotion rippled across Marcus’s jaw and my heart rate went from racing to galloping. I was sure that’s what he’d said, but his face, his rising anger, told me that I was wrong. That he’d told me to take everything off.
‘I told you, Poppy,’ he enunciated every word with menace, ‘to come upstairs, take off all your clothes except your knickers and then to lie down on the bed waiting for me.’
He didn’t. I was sure he didn’t. I was sure he told me to leave everything on. I was sure. ‘I thought you said it the other way round.’
The ripple moved across his jaw, slid over his face, then settled in his eyes, twin pools of anger at being questioned. ‘I didn’t say it the other way around, Poppy. I know what I said. I know what I wanted and I told you. I asked you to get ready.’
‘I . . . I thought . . .’ I hadn’t been listening, had I? I hadn’t listened properly and now he was angry with me. Now he was angry and he would . . . ‘I’m sorry,’ I said desperately. I scrambled off the bed, picked up my underwear and pulled it on. Sobbing out sorry after sorry after sorry, I took my clothes off with shaking fingers. Then lay on the bed. Finally doing as he had asked.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again as he came towards me. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I was hoping he wouldn’t hit me. And he didn’t. He didn’t hit me.
He didn’t punch me or shove me or kick me. But he was rough. He was brutal, he left me hurting and trembling and doing all I could not to cry. Because if there was anything he hated more than me getting something wrong, it was me crying because sex had hurt.
‘I think you were right, actually, Poppy,’ he said, stretching before he went to sleep. ‘I did tell you to keep your clothes on and take your knickers off. Must have got you confused with Serena. That’s what we did earlier. I’m silly sometimes.’
We both knew he was lying. We both knew he hadn’t got confused. And we both knew I wasn’t going to say a thing about it.
Now
Logan’s flat is tidy now. Righted. Straightened out and perfect. I’ve cleaned as I’ve tidied and now you wouldn’t be able to tell that the police have been through here.
I still think they missed something. I still think that here, his safe place away from the madness of the outside world, away from his intense, secret relationship, he has shared something. It must have been driving him wild being with her, wanting to talk about her, but not being able to.
Pictures. There must be pictures of them together. Out of all of us, he has the most photos on display in his home, he must have photos of him and Verity somewhere. He wouldn’t be able to keep them on his phone in case someone saw. But I’m sure there’d be pictures of them together somewhere. Or even just photos of her. She’s the kind of pretty that men take photos of, let’s face it.
Letters. I know they’re old-fashioned, but I can imagine them sharing letters.
I don’t know what I’m hoping for. What it will prove if I do find something, but I’m looking for it. I’m running my eyes over surfaces, over areas of walls and carpets, over anywhere that might be hiding the treasury to Logan’s love life. I feel like there is a missing piece in all of this. Until he wakes up, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do but make up what fits into that missing piece.
I move to the kitchen, to his spare bedroom, which doubles as an office, back to the living room.
If I were a man trying to hide my relationship, my passionate, ‘complicated’ relationship, where would I store stuff? She’s never been to my flat. She’ll never know if I bring some of her stuff here. But I don’t want anyone asking questions. I don’t want anyone to see the photos or one of her scarfs or read something I’ve written to her on one of the nights I’m not with her.
If I were a man trying to hide my relationship, where would I store stuff? Not hide, exactly. Store, keep, treasure. The police – as amateur as this lot seemed – have looked in all the obvious places. Is my brother a plain-sighter? Would he put things in plain sight for all to see and not notice? I unhook the pictures from the walls, gather up the others that are standing on the fireplace and bookcases and then take out the various photos of the three of us together: Christmas at our parents’, Betina and him. Nope. Not the place. All that is kept in those photo frames are the photos that should be there.
The police have his phone and his computers. Maybe they’re on there. But I don’t think so, not when he’s gone to so much trouble to hide them. Where would I hide something like a USB drive? Everything I ever hid was under the floorboards. So down low. If not down low then up high? I look up – the picture rails are too thin. The shelves have been searched, including the tops I’d imagine.
Where else, where else, where el—? I can only really see it when I am standing in the exact spot I am now. Above the window is a short wooden pelmet that sits just above his white, slatted blinds. On top of that pelmet, where no one would think to look, is something that shouldn’t be there. From where I am standing, if my eyesight was any worse, it would look like a bump, a flaw in the woodwork. But I am looking for something so the white ‘bump’ is a different shade to the wood on which it sits and it is plastic. And is it . . .? I go closer and yes, yes it is; it’s a USB stick.