Our Kind of Cruelty(69)

Elaine blanched. ‘No. But I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way.’

‘Would you say these are the emails of a rational person?’

Elaine looked up, down, her eyes darting. ‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen the emails.’

‘What did Mrs Metcalf say when she rang you?’

‘She said she’d had a couple of emails from Mike while she was on honeymoon and she was worried about his state of mind.’ Elaine hesitated. ‘When they were together we’d had a few conversations about how therapy would be good for him. He was deeply affected by his upbringing, as you’d expect. She wanted to talk to me about trying to persuade him to see someone.’

Petra nodded. ‘How would you say Mr Hayes’s upbringing affected him?’

‘It made him suspicious of people. He has a hard time trusting them, which is why he doesn’t have many friends. But then on the other hand, if he does invest in you he gives everything to that relationship. You know, it really matters to him.’ She paused for a moment. ‘But the worst part is how unlovable it used to make him feel, like he wasn’t really worthy of attention. It took him a long time to realise that Barry and I wanted the best for him and he never really got the hang of making friends. When he was younger I used to tell him to invite friends round for tea and stuff, but he never did. It used to break my heart thinking about him in that playground day after day all alone. I once asked him what he did at lunchtimes and he said he liked building things out of stones. Sometimes I’d look at the clock at one-ish and have a bit of a cry thinking about him.’

Something dropped through me when she said that, a bit like one of the stones had found its way back to me, its smooth shiny surface passing through my bones and blood, resting in the end in my internal organs.

Petra removed her glasses and tapped them against her leg. A muscle in her cheek was twitching. ‘But would you not say his upbringing also made violence seem commonplace? Would you not say his easy chat about exterminating Carly is very worrying and his thoughts about Mrs Metcalf’s marriage extend into a realm of fantasy?’

‘Objection, my lord,’ said Xander. ‘This is pure conjecture.’

‘Overruled,’ said Justice Smithson. ‘Although the jury would do well to note that Mrs Marks is not an expert, just someone who knows the defendant well.’

‘I think Mike loved Verity as much as he said,’ Elaine said.

‘Perhaps,’ Petra said. ‘But wouldn’t you say there are parts of his correspondence with her which contain worrying things for him to have thought. The fact, for example, that he was convinced the marriage was a mistake. And that he was ready to rescue her at any time.’

‘He would have rescued her at any time, if she had needed it,’ Elaine said and I loved her at that moment.

‘Yes but she didn’t need rescuing,’ Petra said. ‘She was happy.’

‘I know,’ Elaine conceded.

‘Did Mrs Metcalf ever give you any reason to believe she wasn’t happy in her marriage or that she regretted splitting from Mr Hayes?’

‘No.’

‘Did she leave you with the impression that she wanted to meet with Mr Hayes or was thinking of restarting their relationship?’

‘No.’

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see that V had dropped something which she was leaning down to retrieve from the floor. When she straightened I saw it was only a tissue, which she used to wipe at her nose.

I wasn’t annoyed with Elaine, because why should she understand the nature of our Crave? That was what made it so special, the fact that only V and I could decipher its intricacies. It was worth being misunderstood for, even worth going to prison for.

‘Would you say Mr Hayes is a fantasist?’ Petra asked.

Elaine looked over at me and this time I met her eyes. She smiled ever so slightly at me. ‘No, just confused.’ I smiled back.

Petra looked at the jury. ‘Very confused, some might say.’ I looked back again at V as surely it was impossible that Petra had just said some Oasis lyrics in the middle of the trial without being instructed to do so? I kept my eyes fixed on the side of V’s head, where her hairline was pulled into a tight ponytail, but she didn’t turn towards me. I willed her to, just once, so I could let her know I got it, I too understood that we are the only people ever to have felt the way we do. But her eyes stayed trained on her lap.

‘I believe, Mrs Marks, that Mr Hayes bought your house for you from the council eighteen months ago.’

Elaine blinked. ‘Yes, he did.’

‘That was very generous of him.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you ask him to buy it?’

‘No. In fact, he didn’t tell Barry and I until he’d almost done it.’

‘If someone had done that for me I would feel very, very grateful to them.’

Elaine looked at me. ‘We are. We’d have lost the house if Mike hadn’t bought it when the council decided to sell.’

I smiled at her. I would have bought Elaine’s house for her a hundred times.

‘I would find it hard to say anything bad about someone who had done that for me,’ Petra said, ruining the moment.

But Elaine looked straight at her. ‘I know what you’re implying, but that’s not right. Mike is as lovely as I said. He bought the house because he’s a good lad.’