Unfaithful - Natalie Barelli Page 0,76
They called each other buddy, he and Luis, I mean. Like, ‘Hi, buddy!’ So he wasn’t just friends with her is what I’m trying to say.”
He was taking notes and now he looks up at me. It’s the way I said ‘her’. I couldn’t help myself and it came out with the tiniest stress of scorn on the syllable. As soon as I said it I knew I’d screwed up. My cheeks feel hot and I wonder if I’m blushing. I get up again and open the window a little more.
“Have you spoken to my husband yet?” I ask.
“My colleague is doing that as we speak. Is there anything else you can tell me about her? About her relationship with Mr. Patrick Fowler?”
I shake my head. “No. I only met him once briefly. God!” I rearrange my pens in the holder. “This is really shocking news. I just can’t believe it.”
“What about your husband?”
“I thought we just went over that.”
He checks his notes. “Not yet. How was their relationship?”
“It was normal. Professional.” But my heart sinks. The police will know soon, if they don’t already. It’s not like there’s no record of their affair. There are texts, for one thing. I can’t stop thinking about you. There are probably lots more by now. I wonder what they say?
I’m pregnant. Are you happy?
Deliriously. I can’t understand why Anna hasn’t noticed.
That’s because she’s boring and dull. You two have nothing in common.
You’re so right. I long for you. You’re the only one who understands me.
Everyone will know. It will be plastered across the world wide web in one big fat masthead: Beautiful Curator had Affair with Up And Coming Installation Artist. (More details on every single page of the internet.)
Everybody will know he was unfaithful. They will ask, Which one killed her, do you think? The wife? Probably the wife, it’s always the wife. No, it’s the husband. It’s the husband who killed her.
No, it’s the wife. Because the lover was pregnant.
I taste blood and realize I am biting my bottom lip. I roll it out between two fingers. Pat at the tender spot.
“You okay, Mrs. Sanchez?”
I don’t say, It’s Dr. Sanchez, actually. I say, “Yes, thank you. It’s just such a shock. Poor Isabelle. Yes, she and my husband were friends, friendly, as she must be—must have been, I should say—with a lot of her artists. It’s the way they do things in that world, you see. I can’t imagine myself asking my husband to cook dinner for my colleagues—I see them often enough as it is, truth be told.” Chuckles. “But no, I have nothing to add on that score. Nothing I can think of, sorry.”
“Well, I won’t keep you,” he says, folding his notebook and returning it to the inside pocket of his jacket. Then as we reach the door, he turns around and smiles. “You don’t remember me?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I spoke to you, although not in this office.” He glances around the room. “When your student died.”
I raise my head slowly. “Yes. I remember now. I thought you looked familiar,” I lie.
“Alex, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right.” I rarely ever think about Alex anymore. It all seems like such a long time ago, much longer than the six weeks or so since he died. I try to work out how I feel, hearing his name, and I come up with nothing. I literally feel nothing.
“That’s an odd case, too,” he says.
My jaw tenses. “Is it?”
“Certainly. It’s not every day you investigate someone who died by jumping out of a window. Alex Brooks.”
“That’s right.”
“You were rather close to him. That must have been a shock, too.”
“Of course it was. All of us here in the mathematics department, myself included, were rather close to him, as you put it. I’m pretty sure we spoke at length to the police at the time. To you, I mean, since it was you. I remember now.”
“Just out of curiosity, did you and Alex Brooks ever have any disagreements? Any difficulties working together?”
I have a headache. It’s making my eyeballs wobble and I’m having a hard time focusing. “Why on earth would you ask me that now?” I finally manage to say.
“My apologies. I should have clarified. The examiner hasn’t ruled yet on whether his death was accidental or whether it was suicide. It’s taking some time. Since I happened to be here talking to you, and you and Alex Brooks worked closely together, I was taking the opportunity to ask about his state of mind.