Page 72 of Dissection of a Murder
“And how is he going to find out?” she asks. “Are you going to tell him? Because he sure as hell isn’t going to catch me here himself. Let me guess, last time he actually came to visit his mother was, what? A year ago?”
I stare down at the ground, because it’s too embarrassing to look her in the face. She’s right. It’s been months since Julian last visited Audrey.
“Some things never change, Leila,” she tells me. “People don’t change.”
I take a deep breath and shake my head.
“They do, actually,” I say. “People can change. They do it all the time.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But not people like him.”
The wind starts to whip up around us, and the sound of Christmas tunes whizzes by from nearby cars.
“Look, I like Audrey, and I enjoy coming to visit her,” she says. “She appreciates the company. You come a lot?”
“Every week,” I tell her, wrapping my coat around myself to keep warm.
“She’s got really bad. I was last here six months ago or so, and she’s got much worse.”
“I know.”
“Still switched on, though. She’s always been one of the few women who isn’t scared of him. I admire her for that.”
I frown, seeking clarification of what she’s implying.
“Scared?”
“I think you know what I mean,” she says, smiling softly. “Here anytime, Leila.”
Sienna walks to her car, her heels clicking on the path, and I wonder how she became this way. What was her marriage to Julian like? What really happened? I’d love to know. Or maybe I wouldn’t. I watch her drive off and decide I won’t be telling Julian about this.
Audrey’s house is stiflingly hot. Predictably, she’s had the heating on all day.
“Come in, dear!” she sings. “Aren’t I lucky? Two visitors in one day! Just had Samantha here. Lovely girl. I’m sure she used to know Julian.”
I smile, allowing her to chat as I make cups of tea for the pair ofus. Bringing them into the living room, we sit down on the sofa and she throws a blanket over me so I don’t “freeze to death.” Her cheeks are posy pink with too much blush, and she wears a baby-blue knit with a pearl brooch at her left collarbone. Her hand shakes slightly as she lifts the cup to her mouth, so I allow mine to hover beneath in case she drops it.
“For god’s sake, Leila!” she cries out. “I’m not an invalid!”
I ask about her day, and she tells me a fantastical tale about how she went to Knaresborough on the bus and then to the market to buy some groceries. It’s not true, but she believes it is, and that’s enough. I nod along and ask questions, and she gives the most imaginative answers.
But what Sienna said is on my mind and curiosity gets the better of me. I ask her, not knowing what she will say.
“Audrey, what do you think of Julian?”
“Julian?” she ponders, in her little crackly voice. She smiles in that way she does, seeming to have gone into her own little world. She could be anywhere, gazing off into the distance. It was unfair of me to ask—she may not even remember who he is. I lean over to grab my cup of tea, but she reaches for my hand, takes it like a mother would in both of hers. They’re so frail—the blue veins pop through her skin, making it appear tracing-paper thin.
Her eyes look directly into mine.
“You can’t trust him, you know,” she says, very quietly. “That’s why he doesn’t come to see me. He hates women who can see through him. He’s threatened by it. That’s why he doesn’t like you.”
Normally when Audrey says something unusual or bizarre, I correct her. Not today.
She says it with such clarity, such precision, that right now, I believe every word she says.
36
Witness X
