The Party: The thrilling Richard & Judy Book Club Pick 2018. Elizabeth Day
Or why, indeed, the police still insist on using cassette tapes in this digitised era of sound-clouds and podcasts and iTunes.
I’ve declined a lawyer. Partly because I don’t want to fork out the necessary funds for a good one and I know, given the circumstances, Ben won’t pay and I refuse to get stuck with some snivel-nosed legal aid type who can’t distinguish his arse from his elbow. I don’t think Lucy’s parents will stump up either. After everything that’s happened, I suspect my in-laws might also be disinclined to help.
‘Right then,’ says the woman, hands clasped in front of her. Short nails, varnished with clear polish. A tiny ink stain on the fleshy part between thumb and index finger. ‘Shall we get started?’
‘By all means.’
Beige Hair presses a button on the giant recording machine. There is a long, loud bleep.
‘This interview is being tape-recorded at Tipworth Police Station, Eden Street, Tipworth. The date is 26 May 2015. The time is 2.20 p.m. I am Detective Constable Nicky Bridge.’
She glances at her colleague, who then identifies himself for the tape.
‘I am Detective Constable Kevin McPherson.’
‘Mr Gilmour,’ she says, looking at me, ‘would you introduce yourself with your full name and date of birth please?’
‘Martin Gilmour, 3 June 1975.’
‘Is it OK to call you Martin?’
‘Yes.’
She clears her throat. ‘You’ve been offered the services of a duty lawyer and declined – is that right, Martin?’
I nod.
‘For the tape, please.’
‘Yes.’
There is a pause. Grey Suit shuffles his papers. His head is lowered. He does not look at me. I find this curiously disconcerting, the notion of not being worth his attention.
‘So, Martin,’ Beige Hair says. ‘Let’s begin at the beginning. Talk us through the events of the evening of 2 May. The party. You arrived before the other guests, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, we did.’
And then I start to tell them.
It begins with a door that wouldn’t open at the Tipworth Premier Inn.
2 May
Tipworth Premier Inn, 5.30 p.m.
‘I DON’T KNOW WHY they couldn’t have put us up in the house,’ Lucy said, slipping the plastic card key into place. ‘Not like they don’t have enough rooms.’
The light beneath the door handle flashed obstinately red. Lucy tried again, impatiently shoving the key into the slot and taking it out too quickly. I could see her getting annoyed but trying not to show it – that tell-tale flush across the back of her neck; the square set of her shoulders; a triangle of concentrated tongue just visible between her lips. I watched as she made several more clumsy attempts, my irritation rising. Who was it who said the definition of madness was doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results? Aristotle? Rousseau?
‘Here,’ I said, finally able to bear it no longer. ‘Let me.’
I took the plastic card, still sweaty from her fingers, and slid it into place, leaving it for a few seconds before smoothly removing it. The light went green. The door clicked open.
‘That’s exactly what I was doing,’ Lucy protested.
I smiled, patting her on the arm. There was a minute retraction in her pupils. Almost imperceptible.
‘Here we are, then,’ she said, too brightly.
We rolled our suitcases into the standard suite. Calling it a suite was optimistic. The floor space was almost entirely swallowed by twin beds. A reproduction of a bad watercolour depicting ladies on a beach hung skewed above the headboards. By the television, there was an electric kettle and a jam jar filled with teabags. Plastic packets of UHT creamer lay scattered around its base, as though some invisible milky tide had swept up and left them there like pebbles on a seashore.
Lucy immediately unwound the cable and took the kettle to the bathroom to fill it from the basin tap. It is the first thing she does on arriving anywhere. When we travel abroad, she will take a foil packet of English teabags with her.
I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the friction of man-made fibres against my chinos, and slipped off my loafers. I checked my watch: 5.37 p.m. Ben wanted us at the house by 7 p.m. for pre-party drinks, so we had a little over an hour. I eased myself back onto the pillows and closed my eyes, hearing Lucy bustling around as she put on the kettle and unzipped her case, unfolding the swishy evening dress she had brought to wear and hanging it in the bathroom where, soon, I knew she would draw a hot bath in the hope that the creasing would magically erase itself in the steam.
These are the things you learn over the course of a marriage: other people’s habits. Those incrementally acquired ways of being: a gradual evolution from attractive quirk to something pointless, stupid, illogical, obsessive and finally maddening. It takes someone else to pick up on them, to be driven to the edge of sanity by their repeated appearance.
‘I mean, how many rooms do you think they have in their new mansion exactly?’
I ignored the question for a few seconds, hoping to fool her into thinking I was asleep.
‘I know you’re awake, Martin. I can tell. Your eyelids are flickering.’
For fuck’s sake.
‘Sorry,’ I said, and sat up. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well I bet it’s plenty. And you’re his oldest friend, after all.’
‘Mmm.’
The kettle boiled, sending a bloom of condensation halfway up the mirror.
‘Has something happened between you two?’
‘God no.’
This was not strictly true but, at that stage, I didn’t feel she needed to know the particulars. It would have involved too much explanation and, to be honest, I didn’t have the energy. There were things my wife – my pliant, adoring little wife – would never understand about the bond between two men.
‘They’ve got loads of family staying,’ I said, unbuckling my trousers in preparation for getting changed. ‘Not just Ben’s but Serena’s lot too. I don’t think Ben wanted to inflict that on us.’
Lucy, a mug of tea in one hand, came over to me. She tilted her head. Moist brown eyes looked at me expectantly. A pulse beat in the purplish semi-circle beneath her left socket, as it always did when she was nervous. She placed her free hand tentatively on the small of my back. I could smell her tea-rose perfume. I used to find that fragrance deeply charming. It was, like Lucy, modest and unshowy. That night, it caught in my throat. Too sweet. Too soapy.
‘I’m sorry, I’m—’
Lucy dropped her head and withdrew her hand.
‘Of course,’ she said. She turned away. ‘Only …’ I could see her weighing up whether to say what was on her mind. ‘It’s been months.’
Not this again.
‘Has it?’
She nodded.
‘I’ve had a lot on my mind. The new book.’
I had just delivered a lengthy manuscript on post-Impressionism to my publishers. They hadn’t been especially enthused by the idea but my agent had talked them round. Pointed out that there was a major Manet retrospective coming up at the Tate and who better to write the definitive work on it than esteemed newspaper art critic Martin Gilmour? I had something of a reputation. My first book, Art: Who Gives a F**k?,