Possession: A Novel

Before

1

LONDON, 2008

It’s the sound of my husband’s blood on the floorboards that wakes me.

Like a dripping faucet.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Soft little splashes on the bedroom floor.

I stand over our bed, and I look at him, looking at me, and I think of the day we moved in.

I don’t know why it comes to me, then, but it does: the two of us aching and dripping with sweat.

We christened this bed. We made it ours. And when I peeled my body from his, he stared at me, dazed and gasping—stunned by the force of my love.

He’s looking at me in the same way, now.

Later, I will be asked about this moment: if I saw the body, if I looked. I’ll tell them I couldn’t, of course. That I shielded my eyes, and ran to find help.

But I don’t. I stand over him, watching. The only sound is the tapping, and my—only my—breath.

He’s quite clearly dead: perfectly still, his lips cracked and gray. And in his throat, the knife—my knife, a wedding gift—is angled sharply, like a conquering flag.

I stand over him, and try to piece together a story that makes sense. An explanation.

I remember words exchanged in the kitchen. A woman’s perfume on his skin. The bloody slick of wine around a glass, sediment clinging to the base. His footsteps, leaving me behind.

And after that: nothing.

Only an absence, a blur.

Now, I look at the face of the man I once loved, his pale body cooling in the predawn light.

And I do not feel a thing.

2

I don’t remember, I say, in a voice that’s hoarse from screaming—another thing I can’t recall.

I heard a tapping noise. Like this. I tap-tap-tap on the metal desk. The strip light flickers overhead. More of … more of a drip. And then I opened my eyes.

The officers questioning me—a man and a woman, both fresh-faced and focused—nod.

They don’t believe me. And I can’t say I blame them. I’m not sure I’d believe me, if our roles were reversed.

I was on the floor, I go on. Evie, our daughter—my daughter—shivers in her sleep, her head resting on my lap, body stretched across the bed I’ve built with empty chairs. I run a finger through her curls, the way he used to do with mine. I must’ve hit my head. I was dizzy. But I got up, and… I close my eyes, hoping they’ll take the hint.

He was dead, I want to say. You know that part.

But I can’t. Not in front of Evie. I need to protect her from that, for the moment at least.

I’m asked to sign my statement, which they’ve typed it in on my behalf. I found the victim to be clearly deceased, via a single stab wound to his carotid artery. There’s something soothing about the medical wording—the bare facts of it. Still, I correct it. I didn’t know it was … the artery. Won’t that be for the coroner to … You know?

The male officer smiles. My fault. I thought you were a doctor, so… I know what he’s saying. So you’d know where to stick the knife.

I’m a psychiatrist, I say. Not that it makes a difference: I still went to medical school; still know the basics of anatomy. But I’m not sure he knows that.

He nods, eyebrow raised. Noted. Sign here.

After eleven hours, they let me go. They don’t say it, but I know: this is conditional. A one-way flight to Barbados, right now, would all but confirm my guilt.

I check us into a nearby hotel, where I see myself for the first time in the greenish bathroom light.

I’m surprised at my own expression—at the blankness of it. As though I’m expecting to find myself mid-scream, rigid as a Halloween mask. But aside from the faint sheen of filth on my skin, the clot of dried blood at the back of my head, I’m still very much myself. This is not something I expect to work in my favor.

I imagine conversations taking place at the police station. Not exactly a looker, I think they’ll say. A bit mismatched, weren’t they?

Or: She’s not very friendly. Closed-off. Like she’s hiding something.

I can’t dispute any of this. They’ll think it, because it’s true.

Still, I shower off the day, and crawl into bed with Evie. I smell home on her skin, and pull her close.

People say motherhood brings it out in you: a need to protect your child that verges on madness.

Only now do I realize it’s true.

3

The Friday eleven days later is my daughter’s sixth birthday. And for the first time since the murder, I don’t turn on the news.

It’s a day off for us both—from Graham’s face, and the home we shared, flashing across the screen. From the lurid details of the scene, referred to euphemistically—though, I realize (in a way I hadn’t before) that there’s no such thing as a euphemism when the victim—or suspect—is you.

Instead, we order ice cream from room service, and use a lighter to make her wish. She’s so focused when she blows it out that I flinch at the knock that follows. I unlock the door, and open it slowly, almost expecting him.

But it’s the officers who questioned me before: Stevens, tall and bulky, clean-shaven; and O’Hare, slight, with a TV smile.

It’s over, I realize. They know.

Come in, I say. Too brightly. I hear myself, sounding unhinged.

Stevens is poker-faced. This won’t take long.

I glance at O’Hare, who smiles. It seems automatic; the good cop by default, because she’s a girl.

I sense movement in the corridor beyond, and I wonder who’s watching. Who’ll be there when they lead me away.

But then, O’Hare begins to speak.

The words themselves escape me, but their meaning is perfectly clear.

A burglary gone wrong, she says. Suspect in custody. Yes, we’re absolutely sure.

Stevens doesn’t take his eyes off me throughout. I can feel it in his stare: he doesn’t believe it—doesn’t believe me. He has doubts, but the evidence is clear. His instinct, in this case, is outweighed by the facts.

I understand his surprise.

But I keep this to myself. I say nothing.

I nod. I close the door, and lock it shut.

For a week, I turn housekeeping away. I stack room service trays in teetering piles by our door. I settle Evie in front of cartoons for hours on end, much to her delight (never allowed, when Graham was alive). I don’t shower. I can’t eat. I watch myself from above, circling the room like a caged animal.

Like a woman going mad.

I see my husband, there, on the bed, newspaper slung over his lap. He taps his pen on the page and fixes me with a smile. "Five-letter word, starting with g, an i in the middle, he says. Appropriate response to the death of a loved one."

I blink, and he disappears.

So like him to make a joke at a time like this.

So like him to always have the last word.

Episode One

4

DERBYSHIRE, 2018

For god’s sake, Hannah. You can’t spend your whole life obsessing over the past. Eventually, you’re going to have to move on. Sarah leans back in her black leather throne and smiles. Sorry, but it’s true. You and Dan have been together for—how many years, now?

I clear my throat. The dregs of a tasteless herbal tea cling to my tongue. Seven.

"And Evie adores him, doesn’t she?"

Yeah. I think she prefers him to me, which is—

"And, he’s sweet, in a Bear in the Big Blue House kind of way. She downs the last of her tea, and grimaces. No, I’m sorry. I can’t do it. This is like warmed-up pond water. I need coffee."

I stand and click the kettle on again. At least we can say we tried.

It’s a luxury not to have to sit in the bleak staff room on the edge of the unit, constantly interrupted by nurses with urgent questions, or patients requesting a quick chat.

Unlike the rest of us, given our ever-dwindling budgets, Sarah has her own office, filled with beaming photos of her husband and children (two boys, both gap-toothed and luminous), expensive-looking sculptures and paintings—and her own working kettle and coffeepot.

Our weekly catch-ups are supposed to be essential meetings about what’s happening on the ground in the department she runs. More often than not, however, they turn out like this.

I used to think about fucking him when the kids were little, you know. Like, extremely detailed fantasies?

I blink. The kettle hits the boil. Dan?

Oh, god, no. The bear. A pause. Just me then?

… Yeah.

Her laugh is an openmouthed cackle—the same one I’d been stunned by when we’d first met. Sarah, at eighteen: smudged eyeliner and white-blond, unbrushed hair, making cadavers mime to Madonna, while coming first in the class in everything. For all her gestures toward professionalism, a terrifying twenty-something years later, she’s still the same. Still outrageous. And still the one to beat.

I’m surprised, she says. I thought you and I always shared a type.

"Do I need to remind you about the string of moony Jon Bon Jovi types that passed through your sheets, way back when? Not my type, at all."

"In my defense, that just proves consistency in mine. Jon Bon Jovi and that bear had the same hair for most of the nineties, didn’t they?"

My god. I stir the muddy coffee and put the coffeepot on the desk between us. Did someone just have a breakthrough?

"I knew I was paying you for something."

A barb, there—though I barely feel it. I’m used to it by now. She was always top of the class, and I was—always—right beneath her, in second place. That hasn’t changed, no matter what else may have, since.

Seriously, though. She reaches for a sachet of sweetener, and shakes it out with a flick of her wrist. "What is stopping you? Dan’s clearly not going anywhere—and neither are you. Another jab, delivered with the ruthless whip-speed of a rattlesnake. She moves on before I can respond—though not so quickly that it doesn’t land. So why wouldn’t you make it official?"

Ugh. I don’t know. I twist Graham’s ring around my finger, and squeeze the diamond in my palm. I just wish he hadn’t bought that ring. He knows I don’t want to get married again.

Are you sure it’s for you? She grins. I mean, just because you found it in your house doesn’t mean it’s yours.

That would almost be a relief.

"And you say I’m a coldhearted old cow."

"You are."

She looks at me with a kind of tenderness, and I bristle. I know what’s coming next. "Hannah, I know you think I’m a broken record with this, but … Wouldn’t a fresh start do you good? You drive, what? An hour and a half every day to get here—and Evie’s about to move to sixth form, so it’s as good a time as any. And I can’t imagine there’s much news for Dan to report on in the middle of nowhere. Why not change things up a bit?"

"Because I like it there."

She runs her tongue along her teeth. She’s waiting for me to go on. For Sarah—a resolute city-dweller—the idea of living in a remote, rural village seems like the worst of all punishments. I see the same look in the eyes of our inpatients when we ask them to hand over their phones: as though we’ve asked them to sever their connection with life itself.

What Sarah doesn’t see, though, is that Hawkwood, for me, is a kind of connection. I put myself back together there. It’s where I found security, made new memories; it’s where I watched Evie grow up. The idea of losing that—again—is destabilizing. I can’t do it. And I don’t want to.

Anyway, I don’t see what moving has to do with it, I say, after a pause. "We don’t have to move to get married."

"I know. But if you moved, I wouldn’t have to drive so far to do the whole Matron of Honor bit. We could use it as an excuse to get drunk all the time."

"You could, you mean."

"Exactly. My boring sober friend, finally useful for something. She winks. The thing is, I’m really not saying you should settle for Dan, if that’s what you feel like you’re doing. You’re smart, and you’re pretty, and you’re a catch, and if you want to get back on the market, I’m more than happy to live vicariously through you while you do so. I hear Tinder is a hoot."

I brace myself for what’s coming next. Compliments from Sarah are almost always followed by some suggestion or advice that would otherwise be too callous to say outright. The shit sandwich, one of the nurses called it once—a description that’s horribly apt.

She leans back in her chair, brow arched, eyes fixed on me over the rim of her cup. "I don’t think that’s it, though—is it? You actually do want to be with him."

Yeah. I do.

There you go. Look, all you have to do is say that to him. In those exact words. At the end of an aisle. While wearing a big white dress.

I sigh. You’re going to think I’m ridiculous.

Oh, honey. I already do. Her smile is wicked, and knowing. She’d looked at me in the same way when she offered me the job—though not before calling me a daft cow for doubting myself, and her. At that point, though, we hadn’t spoken in years. My personnel file, sent over by my former employer—no doubt detailing my negative outcomes in forensic detail—sat on the desk between us. I suppose she must’ve looked at it. But she didn’t bring it up that day, and she hasn’t mentioned it since. Go on, she says, now. Spit it out.

I guess I just thought there’d be … I don’t know. More of a…

Oh, no. Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.

What?

She grimaces. "A ‘spark.’"

… Yeah.

She places her coffee on the file in front of her, and leans forward, her hands folded under her chin. Hannah, she says, gently. I need you to listen to me carefully when I say this.

What?

"And I need you to not be offended by it."

Oh, god.

… You’re old now.

You’re older.

By two months. And the difference between you and me is, I’m at peace with it. I buy three different creams for my face. I use them in a very specific order, on the advice of some ten-year-old self-proclaimed beauty expert on YouTube. And— She cuts off my interruption with a raised palm. "I’m not deluding myself by thinking that love at our age is going to feel the same as love at eighteen."

I lean back in my chair. I know she’s right—not that I plan to concede. "We’re not that old, you know. Fifty’s still a fair way off."

I know. But what I’m trying to say is … He’s a nice guy. He loves you. And maybe comparing falling in love with him to whatever you felt when you were falling for Graham at eighteen isn’t all that healthy. Or fair. For any of you.

Wow, Sarah—why don’t you tell me how you really feel?

I’m sorry, she says, after a rare pause. You know I’m not trying to make you feel bad, don’t you? I just want you to—

Yeah, I know. And you’re right. I glance at the clock. I’d better get going. You know Amy Barker’s being readmitted this week, don’t you?

"I saw. I’m already dreading our inevitable call from her lovely mother. I still hear those awful nails of hers clicking in my sleep."

"Well, when you do speak to her—ask her where she gets her Botox done, will you? Since I’m so old and all. I could do with a referral."

You know, she says, "I’ll still love you when you’re really old. Colostomy bag and all."

"I can see it. The two of us, being wheeled over to the nursing home TV, just in time for Bear in the Big Blue House."

She winks, and lays a sheaf of papers across her desk. The boys are out camping all weekend if you want to start sooner.

You’re disgusting, I call, as the door closes with a muffled click behind.

5

Dan leans over the arm of the sofa, book spread-eagled on the floor. There she is. He makes a face as I kick off my shoes. Oh dear. Long day?

It’s like he sees straight through me, the moment I walk through the door. After a long drive home, replaying my conversation with Sarah in my mind, I’m exhausted, and he knows it.

But I can’t tell him why. Not this time. He still doesn’t know I found the ring.

I hang up my jacket and bag, and smile. The longest. Where’s Evie?

Upstairs. Revising. Or sleeping. Possibly both. He rolls up to standing. Have you heard about this thing they’re doing now? Listening to revision tapes when they’re sleeping?

I doubt it’s tapes, somehow, I say. And I’m pretty sure that method was doing the rounds in the eighties. Didn’t work then, either.

He wraps his arms around me. The smell of him is, as always, a balm. All right, doc. Don’t tell her that, though. She’s convinced it’s going to change her life. And anyway, it can’t hurt, can it?

It could, I think, if it replaces real revision. But then, I know Evie. Her grades are impeccable. She’s almost too conscientious, approaching her schoolwork with a focus that manages to skirt outright anxiety—most of the time.

No, I say. You’re probably right.

He laughs, and lets go. Even broken clocks are right twice a day. Dinner’s in the oven, so if you want to…

My phone vibrates in my palm, and I glance at it.

I turn cold.

The distinctive logo: white handcuffs, a C on a blood-red square.

The words, pixel-sharp: Conviction, Season Four: Trailer—The Murder of Graham Catton.

I’ve known, for months, that this might be coming. But denial’s a powerful thing, and I thought—ridiculously, I know—that if I refused to talk, they might not have enough to go on.

I look up at Dan, who’s still talking, though I can’t make sense of the words.

I follow him into the kitchen, and cut him off mid-sentence. I need to talk to you about something.

He looks over his shoulder, searches my face—and smiles. All right. Sit. I’ll put the kettle on.

As he pours the tea, I sit at the table. I don’t know quite how to position myself. Hands resting on the surface: too formal. On my lap, it looks as though I have something to hide. When he turns around, I’m somewhere in between.

Okay. He takes a seat beside me, fumbling with a packet of biscuits. What’s up?

I hold out an open palm. Give me those.

You hate these. They’re junk food.

I need junk food right now.

"Wow. This must be bad."

Not funny. I tear open the packet, and take a bite. The sugar dissolves on my tongue. I feel something light up in my brain, a synapse twitching in response. It’s one of the many things I’ve given up, over the years, along with alcohol, smoking (of course), red meat, bread … Dan, thanks to some (admittedly helpful) cultural conditioning, seems to think all women go through this: the gradual removal of pleasures from their lives, a slow self-sacrifice; a futile battle against ageing. All I know is this: I crave clarity more than I crave those pleasures.

Most of the time.

He reaches for a biscuit. "Is this about Conviction?"

I freeze. How did you know?

They called me. A couple of months ago. I told them where to stick it, but—

"They called here?"

No, no—they caught me at work. Tried the whole ‘one hack to another’ spiel, though it didn’t get them far. Obviously. He shifts heavily in his seat. I was going to bring it up at the time, but I thought … Well, since you hadn’t said anything, I figured they’d decided against it. Plumped for another story instead.

A shadow brushes the window outside, crossing the table between us. A bird, I suppose, or a bat. Apparently not.

Did you talk to them?

No. I … I thought the same as you, I guess. That if they couldn’t talk to me, they’d let it drop. I didn’t expect them to go ahead anyhow.

"I could’ve told you all journalists are untrustworthy bastards. Not that these guys are. Journalists, I mean." There’s an itch of scorn in his voice. Professional jealousy, perhaps. He’s spent his life reporting news, and had some success, until the financial crisis and the internet pulled the floor out of the market. He moved back to Hawkwood—his hometown—the year before I did, to edit the county Gazette.

Conviction, on the other hand—real journalists or otherwise—boasts a following in the millions. I know the numbers almost by heart. I’ve been refreshing their website every day since they called.

Look, he says, finally. He leans forward—tentatively, like he’s expecting me to recoil. He winds his fingers through mine. Hey. I mean it. Look at me. I meet his eyes, briefly; then look away. I know you don’t like talking about what happened to him. And I get that. You want to move on. But…

Dan—

I’m just saying … Would it be worth thinking about it? Talking about it, I mean?

"I don’t need to talk about it. I stare into my cup, watching the lazy curl of steam rising. The thing is … I went to the trial. I heard all the evidence. And that gave me closure. Because they proved it was him. There’s confidence in my voice as I say this, though it feels empty. Like a lie. Still, I go on. Going back over it all, now … It’s been too long. I don’t know that I’d be able to do it without—"

I’m silenced by movement overhead. Evie’s footsteps creak on the beams above, and she emerges at the top of the stairs. More than ever, she’s her father’s ghost, her head tilted, an eyebrow raised in confusion. Is something burning?

Dan’s chair screeches on the tile. Shit. I forgot to…

"How did you not smell it? She laughs. You want to know what he said to me earlier? That I needed to concentrate on ‘the task at hand.’ Good advice, huh?"

Very. As she sits, I resist the urge to reach for her hair, or to make one of the comments I know she’ll parrot back, mockingly. Still, I miss being able to run a comb through her curls. To squeeze them between finger and thumb, and watch them spring back. How’s the studying going?

Fine. All on track. She glances at Dan. Then at me. What was so interesting that you nearly set the house on fire talking about it?

My perceptive little girl. I could throttle her, sometimes.

Dan doesn’t acknowledge the comment. Over to you, he’s saying. Play this however you think is best.

I sigh. We were … we were talking about what happened to your dad.

If there’s a reaction I’m expecting, it doesn’t show. Her face is blank, detached. Calm.

"I don’t know if you’ve heard of a podcast called Conviction—"

A blink. The one about Barry Gibbons?

I nod. Gibbons, the subject of Conviction’s second season, was exonerated after serving twenty years in prison for the rape and murder of a teenage girl. The podcast’s army of fans—every one of them, it seemed, a kind of armchair detective—went on to uncover evidence that not only proved that he hadn’t committed the crime, but that the real killer had gone on to repeat his attacks for almost a decade after Gibbons had been locked away, seemingly without the authorities making the link. It was enough to turn Conviction from a poor imitation of better-known podcasts to a global sensation in its own right.

Evie gnaws at the cuff of her hoodie. It’s a habit I’ve warned her against a thousand times, but today, I let it go. She puts the pieces together with awful quickness. They’re doing a series on him—on the guy who killed Dad?

Yeah. I glance at Dan, who offers an encouraging smile. I don’t know why— I begin. I mean … I don’t know what they’ve found to make them think there’s something wrong there, but—

Wow. She’s thinking. Processing. Do you think… She pauses, choosing her words. Do you think it’s possible? That it wasn’t him?

I feel Dan’s attention sharpen at the question. He couldn’t ask it outright. But she can.

Honestly, Evie, I don’t know. I didn’t, until this happened. I thought the case against him was pretty clear-cut, but it was a long time ago, and I was … I was a bit of a mess. And I have to think, rationally, that if they’ve decided to devote a season to looking into the case, then … they must think there’s something there to find.

She glances at the blank face of her phone. She isn’t reading anything. She’s just buying time to think.

When she puts it down, she’s resolute. I guess that’s good, then. If he’s innocent. If he’s been in prison all this time and he didn’t do it, then it’s a good thing someone’s looking into it.

Her faith takes me aback—both in vague notions of innocence and justice, and in me. The possibility that I might have something to do with it—that I might have anything to hide, at all—doesn’t appear to have occurred to either of them.

She sees something in my face, and her expression changes. The look in her eyes breaks my heart. Mum. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.

I know. Another lie. I’m just … I’m nervous about what they’re going to dig up.

Dan laughs. Come on, Hannah. What do you think they’re going to find? That you got a B in one of your GCSEs? That it took you three attempts to pass your driving test? He gasps. I just remembered that time when you called in sick with the ‘flu.’ You’re screwed if that comes out.

Evie groans. Oh my god, Dan. Never talk about that stuff in front of me. Ever.

I laugh, in spite of everything. Being with them—watching them joke together, cozy and familiar—warms me.

"Seriously, Hannah. I get why you’d be concerned. It’s going to dredge up a lot of stuff from the past—and you won’t be able to stay out of it. You were married to the guy. But you’re as straitlaced as they come. Aside from the fact you leave wet towels on the bed, and you never use a coaster, you’re almost perfect."

Evie rolls her eyes. Look at him, trying to be romantic.

He grins. A for effort, right?

I do my best to force a smile. You’re probably right. It’s another lie. Once the series begins, I know there’ll be no escaping the past. The things I might have done. The things I know I’ve done. This story I’ve spent ten years wrangling, in my own mind: now, it’s someone else’s to tell.

Thank you, I add. Really. For being so…

He waves a hand, batting the thought away, before I have to say it.

Thank you for believing in me, I want to say, though I can’t. Thank you for thinking the best of me. I’m sorry it isn’t true.

You’re all right, he says. And trust me. Whatever happens, with all this … we’ll get through it. You, me, and Evie. As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay. There’s a brief pause, just long enough for the words to settle. And then, he does me another kindness. He moves on. So … What are we going to do about dinner?

Evie peers at the blackened tray. "What even is that?"

It’s what the French call ‘flambé,’ Dan says, pointedly. But I think we might have to write it off. Not sure you two are developed enough in the palate.

How about pizza? My tone is too bright, too sharp. Both stare at me blankly.

Evie’s the first to react. "You want pizza?"

Well, it’s my fault dinner’s ruined. The least I can do is suggest something hideously unhealthy to make up for it. I wince. I’m a psychiatrist at an eating disorders clinic. I know better than to demonize food in front of a teenage girl. It’s not so bad once in a while, anyway.

Evie brings up the menu on her phone. It says they can deliver in an hour.

I see my opportunity, and grab it. Order it for collection. You guys order whatever you want and I’ll go fetch it.

Dan mimes an expression of shock, one hand clutching his chest.

"Not a word, mister. Or you’re going to get it. On foot."

I leave them on the sofa, some laugh-tracked American sitcom blaring on the TV. Evie seems thrilled at the way the night’s unfolded, our usual rules relaxed to accommodate my news. Dan, too, appears to be enjoying himself—though I’m sure later he’ll want to check in and "make sure everything’s