The Roommates

by Rachel Sargeant

  “That was him, the stalker,” she exclaims and follows Tegan into her room.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Tegan smooths the instruction sheets out on her desk, her hands shaking with rage. How dare Marlon come here? How dare …?

  As Phoenix leans over her desk and reads the paperwork, a flush of colour grows from her throat to her ears. “A friend of yours?” she asks suspiciously. “Where did he get this?”

  “He’s a part-time postgrad I got talking to in the Abbi bar.” The lie brings bile to Tegan’s throat. She flicks her hair, thinking fast. “I told him about Amber and persuaded him to help. He works in the NHS. Physiotherapy. He took some convincing but he has a daughter himself. Ginny.” She stops before she develops the lie into a three-bed semi, his mother-in-law’s gout and Ginny’s first ballet exam.

  There’s a scrunched expression on Phoenix’s face. “That guy’s a physiotherapist?”

  “Yeah, you’d never think it, would you?”

  “I thought he was the low-life I’ve seen skulking around campus. Riku must have thought it too. He seemed to be playing bodyguard.”

  Riku a bodyguard. As if. She points at the instructions. “Will you help me?”

  “It’s illegal.”

  “Not really, only a bit.” Tegan shrugs, trying to act casual.

  “Isn’t that like being a bit pregnant?”

  Amber managed it. Tegan nearly says it aloud but thinks better of it. “If we can locate this Cheryl woman, we can park these conspiracy theories and get on with our lives.”

  Phoenix goes to the window and peers out. Her expression is reflected against the darkness. Pained conflict above the cheekbones. Tegan gives her a minute to come round to her way of thinking. But Phoenix stays pondering for so long that Tegan gets up and snaps shut the blind.

  “Do you want me to beg?”

  Phoenix sighs. “I’ll do it. But only because we’re worried about Amber.” She sits down at Tegan’s laptop and takes up the first page of the instructions.

  Tegan puts her hand over the keyboard. “Not here; it can be traced back to me. We’ll have to hope one of the open access terminals in the library is free.”

  “What about Imo? Should she come with us?”

  Tegan shakes her head. “Send her a text, if you must. But let’s keep this vaguely sensible, shall we?”

  Chapter 33

  Tegan

  The lift in the library is out of order and they have to trudge up four flights of stairs to get to the computers. Luckily the study room is deserted, the new academic year not having kicked in completely. Phoenix tells Tegan to open up the screen while she makes sure they’re alone. Tegan is glad of this division of labour; she needs a breather after the stairs.

  When Phoenix comes back, Tegan moves aside to let her sit at the keyboard. Her nimble fingers follow the printed instructions. It takes a while but eventually she’s onto the second sheet.

  The door from the stairwell opens and a man with an ID card round his neck approaches. It’s the librarian who told Tegan she was in the wrong place for the library induction talk. He still hasn’t ironed his shirt. Phoenix closes window after window, as he walks closer and closer. Her typing gets more and more frantic, but they’re still hacked into the National Health Service when he stops next to them.

  “Working late, girls?” he says, wheezing after the stair climb.

  Tegan stands between him and Phoenix, trying to block his view of the screen. “Open twenty-four hours, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, yes. No problem.” He doesn’t move. “Tricky essay, is it?”

  It takes a moment for Tegan to realize what he means. “Something like that, but we’re managing.”

  Behind her, Tegan hears Phoenix desperately clicking the mouse. What now? Make conversation and risk him hanging about?

  All three of them look up when the door opens again. Imo, in a skin-tight zebra print dress. “There you are,” she breathes. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” But when she moves in close to the librarian, it’s clear she’s talking to him, despite squinting straight at Tegan. “I’d like to know where the German section is.” She puts her hands on her hips.

  The man tries so hard not to look at her boobs that his neck bulges. “Ground floor. You can’t miss it.”

  “Will you show me? Please?”

  Imo’s breathless voice is clearly nothing to do with the stairs. Either she’s drunk or she’s pouring all her acting skills into getting the man away from them.

  When the librarian follows her swaying backside to the stairwell, Phoenix has to retrace her steps through the instructions. The librarian’s interruption has cost them several minutes.

  It’s an age before the NHS logo appears on the screen. After more minutes and more clicks, there’s a box for the patient’s name, and another for the town of residence.

  “We’ve only got her old address,” Phoenix murmurs. “Let’s hope the name is unusual enough for a match.”

  As Phoenix types, the door opens again. The librarian. Fair play to Imo; she kept him away for quite a while, but probably scared him off in the end. Tegan doubts he’s been that close to a woman in a dress before, except other librarians in tweed. Maybe if she ignores him he’ll go away. She keeps her eyes on the computer screen, her heart rate racing. There’s one Cheryl Judith Burdett on the system.

  But the man steps closer. “Do you know how to use the library search engine? All the search results have been peer-assessed.”

  Tegan stands up to head him off. “We’re good thanks.”

  Phoenix takes a sharp breath and Tegan sees why. New Name: Jane Brown.

  “Has the firewall blocked you?” The man looks at Phoenix and rubs his neck. “I can show you what to do.”

  He’s still walking towards them. Tegan’s about to say again that they don’t need his help when a better idea comes to her. She smiles.

  “Actually, can you take me to where you left our friend? She’s a whizz at computer stuff. We need her here.”

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  She bites her lip then grins, feeling rather like the snake in The Jungle Book. “How kind. We’re researching gynaecology and need anatomical images.”

  He rubs his neck. “I’ll show you where your friend is.”

  As Tegan leads him away, she sees Phoenix frown at the screen.

  Chapter 34

  Tegan

  By the time they get downstairs, Imo has gone so Tegan dreams up a Business Studies query to keep the librarian downstairs. When she sees Phoenix walk out of the exit, she invents an urgent phone call and leaves him to re-shelve a pile of books.

  Back at the flat, Phoenix is at the kitchen table, leaning over a coffee.

  “Did you get the address?” Tegan asks.

  “Are you sure we should be doing this?” Phoenix looks pale.

  Tegan sighs. She hates it when people get all moral after the fact. If Phoenix didn’t want to hack into the NHS, the time to get a conscience was before.

  “No regrets. That’s the best policy, I always find,” she says briskly.

  “You don’t know what we could be getting into,” Phoenix murmurs.

  Tegan’s senses sharpen and she recalls Phoenix’s intense expression as she left her in the library reading the screen. Phoenix was the one who reckoned Cheryl had vanished without a trace, but now they know she’s alive and living under another name. So why isn’t Phoenix relieved?

  “What else did you find out?”

  Phoenix opens her mouth to say something, then shakes her head. “Just the name change and new address.”

  Tegan’s spent a lifetime with liars. Phoenix’s deception is obvious, but she decides not to challenge it. There’ll be time later to find out what she isn’t telling her. “That’s great then.”

  Phoenix takes a sip of her drink. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should tell Imo I couldn’t find Cheryl and not mention the name change.”

  A sense of disappointment co
mes over Tegan that she can’t understand. The others dragged her into this business and now Phoenix is offering her an out. Why isn’t she grabbing it?

  Phoenix looks up. “And maybe we ought to accept that Amber doesn’t want to be found.”

  Before Tegan can think, Imo bursts into the kitchen. “I heard that. I thought you wanted to find her as much as I do.” She trips in her high heels and grabs at the wall to right herself. “When I got your text, I went to the top floor of the library to help you. Do you know how hard heights …?” Her skin darkens. “You said I should trust my gut, but you’re just humouring me, aren’t you? Then laughing behind my back.”

  “No one’s laughing,” Phoenix says gently. “I’m having doubts for myself, not for you.” She fishes a piece of paper out of her pocket and slaps it on the table. “Here’s Cheryl’s new name and address. You can follow it up if you want to.”

  When Daisy Was Two Years Old

  Daisy sits at her play desk, drawing unicorns. Mummy is in the kitchen, cooking tuna pasta bake. Occasional wafts of melting cheese make Daisy’s tummy rumble. But her thoughts stay on the chocolate mousses she saw get unpacked with the shopping and she hopes they’re for pudding.

  Her baby unicorn has a curly horn. Daisy’s tongue rests between her gappy teeth as she concentrates on keeping inside the lines with her pink felt-tip.

  When the doorbell rings, she ignores the noise and opts for blue for the mane and tail. But it rings again. She clutches her ears, trying to block the sound.

  “Shall we see who that is?” Mummy heads for the door, wiping her hands on her apron.

  But after she’s looked through the spy thingy, she ducks away, her finger on her lips. She runs over to Daisy, keeping low. “Let’s have a little sleep,” she whispers and Daisy finds herself plucked away from her drawing. The doorbell rings as they head for the bedroom quietly and Mummy tells her to shhhhh.

  They snuggle in Mummy’s bed, but Daisy wants her tea. Mummy doesn’t realize, but her hand has slipped over Daisy’s mouth and she doesn’t like not being able to speak.

  The bell rings again.

  “Let’s do your counting,” Mummy whispers. “In our heads to ten.”

  One, two, three. Daisy’s heart beats faster. Five, three, four. It doesn’t help that she can feel Mummy’s heartbeat too. And with the covers over their heads, Mummy’s breath smells sour.

  Long after the bell has stopped ringing, Mummy lifts her out of bed. “Right, sweetie, you can finish your picture while Mummy serves up supper.”

  She kisses the top of Daisy’s head. “I’ll just give your face a little wash. You’ve got pen on your cheek.”

  Daisy barely notices that the blue felt-tip is still in her hand.

  Chapter 35

  Friday 7 October

  Tegan

  Off the M4, up the North Circular, left onto the A40 at Hangar Lane tube station.

  In a rare moment of kindness, Tegan told Imo that if finding Amber’s neighbour meant that much, she’d drive her to the address herself. Now she wishes she’d checked the piece of paper before opening her mouth. The address is bloody Ealing and her car guzzles petrol.

  Imo’s been fiddling with Facebook for the whole journey. Tegan reckons she could have driven her to Edinburgh and she wouldn’t have noticed.

  “We’ll be there soon.”

  Imo puts her phone on her lap. “It was worth a try. I might have got lucky with the first few.”

  “How many have you checked?”

  “Ignoring the ones that show a maiden name and the ones who say they’re retired, I’ve looked on a lot of profiles.” She rubs her forehead. “Maybe forty or fifty.”

  Tegan whistles out a breath as she overtakes a bus. There must be hundreds of Jane Browns on social media and they don’t even know what she looks like. A needle in a rats’ nest.

  Imo’s eyes move out to a squint as she stares through the windscreen. “The more I think about it, the more I know there’s something off about Cheryl changing her name.”

  Tegan shrugs. People must change their names for lots of reasons. She toyed with it herself when she filled in her university application. The idea of arriving as a totally new person tempted her.

  Traffic is chocka, the worst Tegan’s ever driven in. Cardiff seems like a sleepy village in comparison. And why all the bloody hooting? No one’s getting there quicker.

  “Is that it?” Imo points to an apartment block in a service road on the left.

  The sat nav is flashing Destination Reached but the automated voice has packed up. Tegan has to take a sharp left or risk shooting on to the next junction. Adopting the local lingo, she flicks a V to the irate driver behind and doubles back into the service road.

  They park in a designated visitor space and sit in the car for a moment, looking up at the building. One, two … five floors, with a roof terrace. Better than the shoeboxes Tegan imagined London housing to be. Each apartment must be worth half a million, more? Her mind ticks through a projected profit and loss sheet. Maybe in a couple of years she could consider an investment here, if the prices haven’t skyrocketed in the meantime.

  A tower in the same red brick has been appended to the front and interrupts the sleek art-deco features of the rest of the building. Health and safety regulations must have required a wider entrance and fire escape even though the original building survived the Blitz.

  A dog bolts round the building and heads straight for the car. A snarling, barking mound of fang, tongue and claw rears at the windscreen. Imo squeals and cowers in her seat.

  “Now what do we do?” she gasps, head buried in her arms. “We’re trapped. We’ll have to wait until the owner calls it off.”

  Sod that, Tegan’s paintwork won’t last long. She flings open her door, steps out and shouts, “Woof!”

  The dog shrinks away, head down like Imo on one of her off days. After a half-hearted final yap it stalks around the back of the building.

  “Are you coming or what?” she says to Imo.

  “How did you do that?”

  Tegan shrugs. “All dogs need a master.” Her jaw tightens as she remembers her dad saying it to someone down the phone once. She was too little to know what he meant. She knows now. She moves towards the building in angry steps.

  “Don’t walk so fast, Tegan. Wait for me. What if the dog comes back?”

  She halts until Imo catches up. “It won’t.”

  As she guessed, the tower extension is now the main entrance to the building. Imo locates the bell for Flat 413 but Tegan grabs her hand before she can press it. “Don’t warn her we’re coming; she might not let us in.”

  “But … she wouldn’t do that, would she?”

  “Come on, Imogen, we’ve knocked on your door countless times and you haven’t answered, even though we’ve known you’re in there. Hiding.”

  Imo’s face clouds and Tegan regrets adding her final one-word sentence. If Imo wants to hide, let her. It’s better than spilling her mood over the rest of them.

  Looking over Tegan’s shoulder, Imo breaks into an unexpected smile. “Let me get that for you.” She holds the front door with her bum and helps a Nigerian lady lift a pushchair up the steps.

  Tegan takes hold of the internal door after the woman has swiped it with her keycard. “Do you need a hand?”

  “The elevator should be working, thank you,” she replies. Her little boy says bye-bye when the lift shaft opens. Imo waves him off.

  When the lift returns, they step inside and study the buttons. “Fourth floor,” Tegan says.

  “Fourth?” Imo’s voice wavers.

  The lift door closes and Tegan presses number four before Imo can back out. When they reach the floor, Imo steps out like she’s expecting quicksand. Tegan strides past and taps on the door they believe to be Jane Brown’s.

  “Hi, Jane, it’s me,” she calls confidently, hoping Jane’s curiosity will get the door open.

  But there’s no reply and none of the neighbours a
nswer either when she knocks on their doors. She sits on the floor with her back against Jane’s door, cursing the time and money spent getting here. All for nothing.

  “She must be at work.” Imo still sounds nervous, keeping her back to the wall. “We might as well go downstairs and wait in the car. We’ll see when anyone comes to the main entrance.”

  Tegan’s not waiting anywhere. They’ve found out the address exists, so the Cheryl–Jane woman must be fine. Tegan made the gesture to drive Imo here but now she wants to return to real life. There’s a Business Studies meeting first thing and she wants to be there to ensure they go with her idea for their project. If they leave Ealing now, she can have the whole evening in Abbeythorpe to prepare.

  “That dog might come back. Let’s call it a day while the coast’s clear,” she says, feeling shitty for playing on Imo’s fears.

  But Imo’s not moved. “You can bark at it again.”

  A door across the hall opens. An old man, thin hair, even thinner arms, stares at them from its frame.

  Imo’s charm kicks in. “Good morning. I wonder if you can help us. We’ve come to see one of your neighbours, Jane Brown. Is she around?”

  He glides his liver-spotted hand up his grey braces. When he cracks into a shaky smile, Tegan thinks they’re in business but he disappoints.

  “Don’t know, dear,” he says.

  Undeterred, Imo ploughs on. “Have you seen her today?”

  “Don’t know, dear.”

  “Well, do you know where she works?”

  “Don’t know, dear.”

  Tegan stands up, muttering: “Thanks anyway” and pulls Imo towards the lift.

  “Did you shoo that dog?” The man peers at Tegan. “It’s the only peace from its bloody barking I’ve had all week. I can even hear the damn thing when I’m on the roof garden. It plays havoc with the roses.”

  Tegan spots her opening. “Does the dog disturb Jane too?”

  “The lass in that flat, you mean?” He nods towards number 413. “She’s not here much. At college, probably.”