Part 29 (1/2)
”Would have been a waste of time. Physically Im fine.”
”Carry on,” Waterhouse says. It feels like an intrusion, though the three of us are supposedly taking part in the same conversation.
”When youre ready, Gaby.” Charlie gives him a look that makes me wonder if shes tired of being his antidote.
Like me and Tim? No. I push the thought away.
”Theres no rush.”
”Thanks, but Id rather get it over with.” Why do people always want you to linger over the bad stuff? Take your time recounting the details of the worst experience of your life at a rate of one word per day, make the story last for three years instead of an hour. No, thanks. ”He said hed come to teach me a lesson. I asked what it was, but he wouldnt tell me straightaway-that would have been too quick and easy. I had to suffer first, so that the lesson would make an impression on me. He undid my belt and my trousers, pulled them down to my knees, pulled my underwear down. At that point I thought he was going to rape me and kill me, but he didnt. Instead he asked me all kinds of sick questions: what was the worst thing he could do to me? Whats the most frightened Ive ever been? Was I more frightened or more humiliated by what he was doing to me? That sort of thing.”
”Twisted f.u.c.k,” Charlie mutters.
Did Lauren hear my answers? I cant go anywhere near the possibility in my mind: the idea that there was an audience. I block it out.
”His plan was to scare me, then spare me,” I say. ”Fill my mind with the worst that could happen, then release me, give me a chance to be good and follow his orders: to stay away from Lauren, say nothing to anyone about what hed done to me. Or else next time would be worse. He didnt say that, but it was clear what he meant.” And here I am telling the police. My vision rocks; I have to close my eyes. Am I trying to prove to myself that Im not scared of next time? It wont work. Im petrified; every cell in my body knows it.
”What happened then, after he warned you?” Charlie asks.
”Once he was satisfied Id learned the lesson he wanted me to learn, he cut my wrists free and walked away.”
”Im so sorry, Gaby.”
”Thanks.” Is that the appropriate response? Ive always hated the linguistic fusing of apology and sympathy. Theres something messy about it. Id have preferred her to say, ”Thats the most horrendous thing Ive ever heard.” Except it isnt; sh.e.l.l have heard far worse stories than mine, the sort that generate shocking headlines: ”Raped and Abandoned to Die,” ”Raped, Tortured and Left to Starve.” Whod bother to read ”Not Raped and Not Even Injured”?
”Im going to show you another picture,” says Waterhouse. Six seconds later, he reaches into his folder. I wait for his hand to reappear but it doesnt, not straightaway. ”Are you ready?” he asks.
I wish hed just show me instead of trailing it. If I need to be warned, that must mean theres something to dread.
He holds up the photograph in front of me. ”Thats Jason Cookson,” I say, as repelled as I was on Friday by the coiffed-p.u.b.es beard and the kink in the shoulder-length hair. Maybe its not from being worn in a ponytail; maybe thats just how it grows.
”For clarity, can you tell us if and when youve met this man before?” Waterhouse says.
”I told Charlie yesterday. I met Jason on Friday at the Dower House. The gates opened as I arrived, and he drove out.”
”Did he identify himself to you as Jason Cookson?”
”No. He didnt need to. I knew it was him.”
”How?”
”The tattoo on his arm: 'Ironman. Lauren told me in Germany that Jason had done the Ironman challenge. Three times,” I add unnecessarily.
”Aside from the tattoo, did you have any other reason for believing the man in the car was Jason Cookson?” Waterhouse asks.
”Yes. The way he talked about Lauren and warned me off going anywhere near her. It was . . . proprietorial, protective. Why? What does it matter how I knew?”
”You didnt know. You cant know something that isnt true.”
He looks at Charlie. I cant make sense of his words, but I can read his eyes, and hers: theyre having a silent argument about which of them should tell me. Tell me what?
”The man in this picture isnt Jason Cookson,” Waterhouse says eventually. ”Hes Wayne Cuffley, Lauren Cooksons father.”
The room tips. I close my eyes until the feeling pa.s.ses, until Im ready to put things back in the right order. Could I have been wrong? I cant think. I need to be scientific about it: measure my certainty before I speak. First I need to track it down.
”But . . . hes too young. Hes about forty, isnt he?” I know this proves nothing. I hear Laurens voice in my head: In twenty years time, Ill be forty-three. No forty-three-year-olds have great-grandkids.
Some forty-year-olds have twenty-three-year-old daughters, though.
”Wayne Cuffley is forty-two,” Waterhouse says. ”Hes only six months older than Jason Cookson.”
”Yesterday you said Jason might as well have had 'Thug tattooed on his forehead to add to his collection,” says Charlie. ”It didnt sink in until this morning. I realized you must have meant his collection of tattoos, and I knew he didnt have any. There are no tattoos anywhere on Jasons body.”
How can she know? Has she seen every part of his body? The idea makes me want to throw up.
All I have to work with is a strong desire to tell her she must be mistaken, her and Waterhouse. I want the man I met at the gates of the Dower House to have been Jason because I hate being wrong. Its not enough. I can think of no reason why Laurens dad shouldnt have completed the Ironman challenge at least once. And I know hes a fan of tattoos; Lauren had ”FATHER” tattooed on her arm at his request-her spare arm, the one that hadnt already been appropriated by Jasons name. I wonder if Wayne Cuffley has a ”DAUGHTER” tattoo that I didnt spot on Friday. Jason didnt reciprocate; maybe Wayne didnt either. Do all the men in Laurens life treat her as their own personal graffiti wall?
”All right,” I say eventually. ”I drew a stupid conclusion.”
”The other picture, the first one . . .” Charlie leaves the sentence hanging.
”I tore up the other picture. It doesnt exist anymore. Thug X. I dont want to know. I dont want to hear it.”
”The man in the photograph you tore up was Jason Cookson,” says Waterhouse.
”I knew youd say that. I knew it.”
”Im saying it because its true.”
It should make no difference. I walked in here knowing Jason Cookson was responsible for what happened to me; why do I feel as if hes used Waterhouse as a conduit to attack me all over again, as if evil has crept one step closer?
”Gaby, theres something I need to tell you that might come as a shock,” says Charlie.
Can you be shocked when youre already in shock? In an ideal world, the second shock would cancel out the first. Jason Cookson would cancel out Wayne Cuffley; neither of them would exist.
”Gaby?”
”What?”
”Jason Cooksons dead. His death wasnt natural or accidental.”
Good. Good to both statements.