Page 57 of The Unforgiven

Ashcombe House blended into the gloomy atmosphere, today looking like it might house the wife of a professor hidden in its attic. I’m come to love its moods over the years, having anthropomorphised it into some strange Victorian creature a long time ago.

Today it was malignant and foreboding, the ivy that encrusted its walls seeming thicker than normal, the windows dark eyes through which it was impossible to see.

I pushed open the heavy wooden door, the long squeak of the hinge announcing the arrival of someone. Inside the hallway it was quiet, still. Drifts of dust flittered through the air, catchingotherworldly streams of light that had been displaced from a brighter day.

The memory of standing here on my very first day at university, having woken too early and wanting to escape the hubbub of my halls, hit me like a pack of wolves with their claws out. Fear, that I wasn’t in right place. The sense that everything was a lot bigger than me, that I didn’t belong here, that I was in the wrong place being in this building, so full of history and ideas and importance.

And I was the daughter of a dead drug addict and a gangland criminal.

I had no right to be there.

The building was no less impressive twelve and a half years later, maybe more so. But I didn’t fear it anymore, the pack of wolves were in a corner, lying down with their eyes open, rather than running towards me. They were waiting instead.

Dark wood door frames, stained glass and unpolished tiles. Another form of institution, just like I’d been in yesterday, yet so different.

I headed up the curved staircase, noticing the panelling had been dusted since I’d been here last. A set of voices came from a room where I’d had seminars in my third year, in what would’ve once been the morning room, where women would quietly sew or read something deemed appropriate while their husbands read the morning paper.

I wondered if the Manchester sun was as fleeting as it was now.

Upstairs again, and I saw the door to Daniel’s office ajar, a shadow slipping across the oak floor.

It wasn’t Daniel. I knew his movements, how the air changed when he entered a room or occupied it.

When I was at the entrance I saw his assistant, Justine, her back to me as she looked out of the window, through the barrier of trees to the road.

She had no idea I was there, lost in whatever thought was pre-occupying her. I remembered being her once, Daniel’s assistant, full of nerves and awe, spellbound with hero-worship.

The police had changed me, so he said. I was tougher now, confident, self-assured.

Most of the time.

He said I was wasted, not having continued my education with a PhD, carrying on looking at the role of early trauma in the development of criminal psychopathy. No guess for who’d I’d be trying to look at there.

“Is Daniel about?”

Justine visibly jumped, turning around, clutching her hand to her chest. “Jesus. Well, that woke me up.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure how to get your attention.” I wasn’t sorry really. It was strange seeing someone else doing the job that’d mattered so much to me.

Her face broke into a smile. “I can drift away sometimes, forget where I am. Do you want a coffee? I think I’ve just about worked out how to use Daniel’s new machine.”

She was maybe a bit younger than me, her hair tied up this time and glasses perched on her nose making her look bookish.

“That would be great, thank you. No sugar, just milk.” I sat down on the couch, remembering mornings when I was there early, either researching for Daniel at the time, or working on my own studies. I’d liked that time of day best, before everything had begun, a bit like the beach back at home at the point of sunrise, quiet apart from the wind and the gulls.

Some days I missed it. Today wasn’t one.

“How are you finding working for Daniel?” I watched her as she rummaged in the fridge for milk.

“I enjoy it. It’s been nearly three years now, so I’m used to his little quirks.” The machine started to grind, killing any sort of small talk.

“Three years? I haven’t really seen you here before?” Although I hadn’t been here that often, meeting Daniel for the odd meal rather than coming here.

“I’ve seen you a few times. I tend to keep in the background when it’s not Daniel’s students or something to do with work, and I need every moment I can steal to work on my thesis.” She poured the coffee into two mugs, stirring milk in carefully.

“What’s your thesis on?”

“Pathological Empathy: Narcissism, Identity, and the Psychology of Performative Victimhood, is its full title. I decided to look at the idea of victim mentality, basically.” She passed me the coffee and sat down opposite me in a chair I’d never dared plonk down in. That was Daniel’s place, an old, mahogany antique that’d been new when the house was built and never left, just reupholstered every few years.