been happy for him. His lawyer knows polygraphs are meaningless. She should be happy too. She’s his wife – she should give him some credit, or at least the benefit of the doubt.
‘Stephanie,’ he says, his voice breaking. He steps further into the room. ‘I’m here. It’s okay. Everything is going to be all right now. It’s all over. She can’t do anything to us any more.’ His wife stares at him, eyes wide. He must make her listen, understand. He takes another step forward. ‘Erica is a liar,’ he says, his voice becoming more forceful. ‘You know that. She wanted money, she wanted to hurt me, that’s all. They let me go because they have no case. They know she made it all up. She’s not credible and she can’t be trusted.’
‘What happened?’ she asks, her voice raw.
He explains. ‘They found out she stole drugs from the drugstore where she worked and sold them. They have proof. Witnesses.’ He sees the shock on her face at the news; she clearly wasn’t expecting this. ‘She’d do anything for money,’ he adds bitterly. ‘She doesn’t care who she hurts.’
She remains silent, as if she can’t grasp what he’s saying.
‘It’s good news, Stephanie,’ he says, trying not to feel too disappointed by her reaction.
‘You failed the polygraph, Patrick,’ Stephanie says at last. ‘What was I supposed to think?’
He feels a surge of annoyance. How many times has he gone over this? He moves over to her now, sits down beside her. ‘I know. And I can explain about that.’ He brushes the hair away from her face in a familiar gesture and she actually moves away from his touch. His heart sinks. He pulls away from her a little, gives her some space.
‘No one was more shocked than me when I didn’t pass the polygraph,’ he says. He looks at her and waits until she lifts her eyes and returns his gaze. ‘But innocent people fail polygraphs all the time.’ He pauses and then continues. ‘Maybe I failed it because I was nervous … because I lied to you about something else, Stephanie, about the extent of the affair with Erica.’ He closes his eyes for a moment so that he doesn’t have to look at her face, but then opens them again, to gauge her reaction. ‘I told you I only slept with her twice, when in truth, it was more than that.’ She looks like she’s going to be sick. He presses on, feeling as if he’s poised on the edge of an abyss. Everything depends on whether she believes him now. ‘I didn’t want to lose you – you and the twins are everything to me. I know I’m not a murderer, but I thought if you knew how often I’d slept with Erica, you would leave me, and that you might not believe me about the rest. And once I told you I’d only slept with her a couple of times, then I had to say the same thing at the inquest.’
Unnerved by the way she’s looking at him, he gets up suddenly and starts pacing back and forth in front of the sofa, the way he has so often since Erica came back into his life. ‘Then they wanted to do the polygraph, and I was terrified. I was so nervous. I think that’s why I failed the test.’ He turns to her, desperation in his voice. ‘But it wasn’t like she said. We weren’t in love. It was always just sex, that’s all. I was twenty-three. My wife was pregnant – we weren’t sleeping together any more. It’s inexcusable, I know. But there is no way in hell I would deliberately kill Lindsey. Not for Erica, not for anything. I’m not a murderer! The idea would be laughable if it weren’t so damn terrifying!’
She looks up at him, appalled. ‘You lied at the inquest,’ she says. ‘You perjured yourself.’
He nods. ‘I know, but it’s over now. They’ll never know.’ And they won’t, he thinks, unless she tells them.
Stephanie stares at him, her eyes large. Finally she asks, her voice a harsh whisper, ‘Did you push her down the stairs?’
He looks at her in dismay. ‘No! No, how can you think that? I loved her!’ He says, his voice breaking, ‘I’m sorry, Stephanie. I’m so, so sorry, for everything I put you through. I promise, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you.’
He watches her, his eyes pleading. So much depends on