Our Kind of Cruelty(71)
‘He’s a good lad,’ Elaine said, her voice rising over the court. ‘Mike is a good lad.’
It appears I still haven’t learnt that people can always surprise you. I told Xander not to worry about Kaitlyn; I said I was pretty sure she was in love with me and either way we were good friends, so she would be on my side. We like to do that, don’t we? Pretend to ourselves that we know someone, that we’ve worked them out, that their motives are clear, that we have insight. But really it’s all an illusion. None of us knows anything about what goes on in the heart of another. You have to reach the level which V and I have to achieve that and it takes so many years and so many experiences that there is only ever one person with whom you can hope to have that connection in life.
I even felt sorry for Kaitlyn as she took the stand because she looked so translucent, as if the wood she was surrounded by was reflected in her skin. She was dressed in much the same way when V and I saw her cast surreptitious glances over at her as the court settled. I knew without looking that V wasn’t returning the looks and I knew also that the luminosity of V’s presence would be intimidating Kaitlyn. In the end she turned her watery blue eyes to me and her mouth flicked up into a small smile, which I reciprocated.
‘I believe you and Mr Hayes have spent quite a bit of time together since he started working at Bartleby’s?’ Petra said.
‘Yes,’ Kaitlyn replied. ‘We got on well from the beginning.’
‘And what were your initial impressions of him?’
‘I was surprised by how modest he was, if that’s the right word. I mean, with his reputation, I was expecting one of those brash City boys, but Mike was never like that.’
‘What reputation?’
‘Mainly how well he’d done at Schwarz. When his appointment was announced, Lord Falls, our chairman, made a really big deal out of it and we all expected this loud, cocky trader to walk in. But he was the opposite of that.’ Kaitlyn smiled over at me again, which I was starting to find a bit irritating. I hoped V didn’t think there was actually anything between us.
‘Although I believe things never quite came together for Mr Hayes workwise?’ Petra said, which seemed like an odd question.
‘No. He was quite …’ Kaitlyn looked like she was searching for the word ‘… quite volatile.’
‘In what way?’ Petra asked and I too wanted to know the answer.
‘I have friends on his team and they would often talk about him shouting at them. He once made my friend Lottie cry. He told her she was useless and incompetent in front of their whole team.’
I felt a click in my brain, like a wheel I was unaware of turning.
‘Is that behaviour unusual?’
‘Not as unusual as it should be. But also, Lottie lives next door to Mike and he never really acknowledged her. She said they could pass each other in the street and he wouldn’t even smile. I stay at her house quite a bit and it often sounded like there was a party going on next door, when we knew he was home alone.’
‘A party?’
‘Yes. Lots of loud music and banging.’
‘Maybe Mr Hayes was in fact having a party?’
‘No, Mike didn’t know enough people to have a party.’ Kaitlyn glanced up at me apologetically, but I didn’t mind her saying that because who is there worth knowing? ‘I know this sounds terrible, but once Lottie and I were so intrigued we stood on a bench to look over the garden wall. All the lights were on in Mike’s kitchen and he was sort of running around, banging into the walls and the table, like he didn’t even register they were there. He was playing music at top volume, Oasis I think it was, and he was crying. It was really sad. Both Lottie and I were quite upset by it.’
I tried to breathe deeply but my body felt as blocked as my brain.
‘Did you talk to him about what you’d seen?’
‘No, I was too embarrassed. I just tried to be as friendly as I could and make it clear that he could talk to me if he needed to.’
‘Would you say Mr Hayes is a heavy drinker?’
‘Yes,’ Kaitlyn said and I felt the room tip. I saw my mother passed out on the sofa and tried to work out if it made it better that my sofa came from Heal’s and hers was full of cigarette burns. There is no law that says we become our parents, Elaine once said to me.
‘He often came to work looking the worse for wear and he often smelt of stale alcohol. At the time I thought that was maybe what was affecting his performance.’
‘But you still spent time together outside of work?’
‘Yes, a bit. We went for drinks and he came to my house for dinner one night.’ A faint blush rose up Kaitlyn’s cheeks, which in anyone else would have gone unnoticed, but in her radiated like a beacon.
‘And what did you talk about?’
‘All sorts,’ Kaitlyn said. ‘He told me about his upbringing and how he always felt like an outsider, which I sympathised with, working in the environment I’m in. We talked about work, a bit. And of course Verity.’ She nodded over at V when she said this and I couldn’t help following her. V was looking straight at her, her face set like a mask. I repeated the word ‘sorry’ in my head over and over as I stared at the side of V’s head, willing her to hear. Eventually she rubbed the side of her face and I relaxed slightly, knowing she’d received the message.