Our Kind of Cruelty(68)

Elaine looked over at V and her face was open, but when I looked at V she had her head tilted down towards her lap. ‘We probably met her about six or so months after they started going out. We always loved Verity; she was a gorgeous girl and she made Mike very happy, which is all you ever want, isn’t it?’

‘And did Mike seem to love her too much, as Mrs Walton suggested, would you say?’

Elaine cocked her head to one side. ‘I don’t know how you love someone too much. He was certainly very keen on her, if that’s what you mean. There were never any other girls or anything like that.’

‘So you must have been surprised when they split up?’

‘In a way. But then again, relationships always change.’

And that is the problem with life. No one else ever really sees what you do. Even Elaine, even she hadn’t seen what V and I are to each other. Only V and I knew and that was the way it would always be.

‘How did Mike seem, after the split?’

Elaine shifted her weight. ‘He didn’t tell us when it happened. I rang him to say happy New Year in early January and he started crying and blurted it all out. About the other woman and everything. He sounded terribly unhappy.’

Xander glanced at the jury. ‘Yes, to be clear, Mr Hayes had a one-night stand in New York which he told Verity about and that was the reason she gave him for ending their relationship.’

‘Yes.’

‘Even though she had started seeing Mr Metcalf by then?’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘It was a very honourable thing of Mike to do though, wouldn’t you say? I mean, he could easily have never told Verity about the one-night stand and she would have been unlikely to find out.’

Elaine nodded. ‘That’s typical Mike, though. He always did the right thing. He’s very moral.’

Xander let the comment rest in the air for a bit before asking his next question. ‘I take it you kept in contact with Mike after that?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And how did he seem?’

‘He remained very upset for a couple of months, but then he started to recover himself and after a while I felt like he was back to normal.’

‘So, in your estimation, when he came back to London in May he was happy and over Verity?’

‘I would say so.’

‘When he got back did you talk about Verity at all?’ Xander tapped his hand against the wood of his table.

‘Only in relation to her wedding. I knew Mike was going, so I asked him about it and he seemed fine.’

‘No more questions, my lord,’ Xander said, beaming at Elaine and then the jury as he sat back down.

Petra stood and walked to where Xander had been standing. ‘I’m interested by your assertion that Mr Hayes seemed fine about the wedding, when Mrs Metcalf rung you to say she was worried about him.’

Elaine looked over at me. ‘That was after the wedding, when they got back from honeymoon. I rang Mike after Verity called me and he admitted he’d sent her some emails he regretted, but he said he’d sorted it out and everything was all right.’

‘Why did Mrs Metcalf contact you do you think?’

Elaine looked at Justice Smithson and Xander, almost as if she expected them to stop the question. ‘Because we’d talked about Mike over the years. She wanted to see if I knew what was going on.’

It made me feel strange to think of them discussing me without my knowing; how my name could be pushed into the air and not touch me; how I never, ever wanted anyone to decide anything about me again.

Petra looked at the jury. ‘Point fifteen in your notes.’ There was the sound of a shuffle of papers. ‘But perhaps I can read one of the emails Mr Hayes sent to Mrs Metcalf whilst she was on her honeymoon.’ Petra put on her glasses and looked at the paper in her hand:

‘Verity,

‘I don’t think this is fair. How many times do you want me to say sorry for what happened in America? It meant nothing. Less than nothing. If it were possible I would reverse time like Superman and never even speak to Carly. If it made you happy I would fly over there now and exterminate her, rid her from the world so she couldn’t infect us any more. But this is too much now. I shouldn’t have let it get this far. I should have stopped the marriage before it actually happened. Because it’s going to be so difficult to get out of now and I’m still not sure what you want me to do or how we’re going to achieve it. And all the time you are having to spend with Angus is ridiculous. Every second you are with him is like a dagger to my heart. I get it, a hundredfold I get it. But you’ve even gone on our honeymoon with him and that is something we will never get back. It doesn’t feel like you are teaching me a lesson any more, more like you are actively being cruel.

‘I love you, V. You know as well as I do the connection that exists between us. I would do anything for you. As ever, I crave you.

‘Your Eagle.’



There was a palpable silence in the court when she had finished and I was aware of Xander shifting in his seat.

‘I haven’t heard that before,’ Elaine said and I could feel her look over at me, even though I kept my eyes lowered. I felt frightened for the first time as this would be hard to explain to those who don’t know us.

‘Perhaps you then also haven’t read the email he sent Mrs Metcalf in January last year in which he details the ways he could exterminate Carly, the woman with whom he’d had a one-night stand. He mentions suffocation, poisoning, hitting her over the head. He says he’s sure no one would miss her.’