‘She is now,’ Jodi said, bursting with the pride of knowing gossip we didn’t. ‘He’s ditched her. Didn’t want to move here after all, and she has that internship at Vogue, so . . .’
Callum whistled. ‘Rasby available. And here I am shackled down.’ Jodi swatted at him and he put his arm around her.
Was that the moment? Did I see a flicker on Mike’s face, a flame of interest at this news about the most beautiful girl in our college? It was easy in hindsight to remember the wrong thing. But the events that followed made me think that maybe, just maybe, the thing that would happen later on that night had already started, right there on the lawn.
Chapter Twenty
The girl in the pictures was skinny, anxious, her make-up badly applied, her clothes a poor approximation of what had been trendy in the nineties. The girl was me, though I felt like an entirely different person now.
I’d come back late from Callum and Jodi’s, the train dotted with weary, late-night commuters. The same train Mike used to get back. I’d spent the next day going through the bills again, looking for answers, and cleaning the house, even though I knew it was futile, trying to feel like it was mine again. I still hadn’t been into the garage, and wasn’t sure I ever would. Now it was Thursday evening, and I was on the floor of the living room, which no longer gave me joy, only reminding me of that meeting with Karen. Of being interviewed by DC Devine. Of Callum, passed out on the sofa. My lower back was complaining at the odd angle, and I was surrounded by old albums from our university days, as well as the photos I’d taken from Jodi and Callum’s. The slip covers of the albums had come loose and the pictures spilled out, curled at the edges. Our young faces, me and Mike. Karen. What I was doing was looking for clues. Scanning these old, shiny pictures, some of which still bore the marks of tape and BluTack from when they’d been stuck on my college walls. Looking for Martha. We hadn’t been friends, but it was a small college. There she was in the corner of that shot of me and Karen in our subfusc, arms tight around each other, finishing Finals. Another shot of her at a bop, dressed as a witch, but looking beautiful instead of sweaty and drunk, like I did in this picture of me and Mike. Somewhere in the background was Karen, snogging a boy in the year above. I groped for his name. Connor? I wondered how it had worked between Mike and Karen. Did he mind when she got off with so many other guys? Was it to make him jealous? How, when I’d been with one or both of them so much of the time, had they even managed it? I was thinking of nights I’d spent in the library, terrified I’d fail my exams, dreading the phone calls home, when Dad would bark questions at me. How much work had I done. Was I spending his money on drink. Was I sure I’d pass, because I’d better make damn sure I did. The way Mike withdrew in our last term. Always studying, or so he said. Karen, failing her degree.
‘What are you doing?’ Cassie was haunting the doorway. I noticed how pale she was, the line of her collarbone jutting over the collar of her pyjamas. In the folds of flannel, she looked like the child she still was. I felt guilt roil in my stomach. In my head, the interminable to-do list was out of control. Find some money. Get Mike’s case thrown out. Visit him in hospital. Look after Benji, get him fed and to school. And Martha – I didn’t even know why it felt important to look at these pictures. Maybe because of Karen’s veiled words – I did it for you – the fear they’d sent prickling up my neck. The need to get ahead of whatever she was planning. With all these things to do, Cassie, who’d always been so independent, had slipped to the bottom. I was sure she hadn’t told me the truth about that night, but I couldn’t think how to get it out of her.
‘I’m just – looking at old photos.’
‘Why?’ I could hear the frustration in her voice. ‘Mum, dwelling on it won’t help. I know you think you all had this amazing time in Oxford, all like, I don’t know, that stupid TV show about the posh people, but I bet it wasn’t as good as you remember. People change, you know? You don’t always remember things right.’
I was floored for a moment – how could she know this, when she wasn’t even sixteen? ‘I know. I’m just . . .’ Looking for a sign your dad had nothing to do with a girl’s murder. ‘I’m just sad, is all. That this happened.’
‘I bet Karen’s sadder.’ Her voice was so cold. She’d turned entirely against her father in such a short space of time, when they’d always been so close.
‘Cassie, it’s not as simple as that.’
‘How is it not? Dad lied, for years and years. She says he did it. Why do you believe him, not her?’
‘Did you want me for something?’ I heard the snap in my voice, the tone that so often came out when Cassie pushed my buttons. The way my own mother had so often spoken to me.
She twisted her hands together. I couldn’t read her face; hadn’t been able to for years now. ‘No. When’s dinner?’
‘I don’t know, I think Bill’s making something.’ I felt ashamed saying that. I’d let him take over, cushion the sharp edges of domesticity, which he was so good at.
‘I’m not really hungry anyway.’ Anxiety. She was too thin.
‘Cass, you have to eat. We have to carry on. And you have to go to school tomorrow, OK? You need to face it sometime.’
‘Why, so we can pretend it’s all normal? Mum, I just found out my best friend is my brother. Dad shagged Auntie Karen for years, and if he ever wakes up he might go to jail. Nothing is normal.’
She was right. As she swept away, making no noise in the thick socks she wore, I found that my hands were trembling holding the photos, and the shiny surfaces wobbled as a few tears dripped on to them. I looked down at an old picture of me and Bill – was it strange, the way we held each other so tightly back then, my head pressed against his chest? – then looked up to see the real one standing in the doorway, older, balder.
‘Is Cassie alright?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. I guess the kids at school know what’s happening.’ I could only imagine what Aaron’s snobby mother, Magda, would have to say about it. She already disapproved of Cassie for not being in the Oxbridge stream. ‘Any luck with that account?’ If I could find out where all our money had gone, maybe I’d be able to get it back.
‘No. It’s strange – the sort code doesn’t match any of the UK banks, or at least not that I can see. I’ll keep looking.’
‘Thanks.’ What the hell had Mike been up to?
Bill came into the room, bringing with him a waft of chorizo and soap. ‘Why do you have these out?’
I said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘Martha.’
He frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Karen said something. About how she’d – helped me out with it.’ Bill just looked at me, as he had all those years ago, and I felt the old familiar shame ooze through my veins, the excuses come to my tongue. Mike was my boyfriend. What else could I do? He just needed my help. ‘Please. I know what you think about it. I need to get it straight in my head. Can you help me remember what happened that night?’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘You couldn’t find him,’ Bill said. We were in the kitchen, and his eyes were turned away from me as he stirred the pasta sauce. ‘It was a few hours into the ball and you couldn’t find Mike. I remember you were upset.’
‘I was pretty drunk.’ I’d been drifting quite happily around the ball, chatting to people, for several hours, until all of a sudden I realised I had lost both Mike and Karen. Karen was much drunker than me, downing shots with the rugby team, a glitter in her eye that I’d come to worry about. It was late, around three maybe, and the fuzzy lamplit joy of the night was suddenly starting to seem muddied. I began to notice the puddles of beer on the floor, the dirty footprints trodden through it, the grass and ketchup stains on people’s ballgowns and shirts, their piggy, tired eyes. ‘I don’t know where Mike was. Maybe with Karen.’
‘I’d just been with Karen. She was – upset. Crying.’ Bill’s tone hid something. I couldn’t tell what. So, as she’d said, Mike had not been with her all night.
‘Did you see her? Martha?’
‘Sure. She was so beautiful that night, remember?’
I did. I could picture her on the lawn in her white silk dress, with her fair hair gleaming. We all knew her relationship was over, but she seemed undaunted, brighter than ever. And the boys did not fail to notice that.
‘Mike always said he found her pretty drunk, and took her into the Fellows’ Garden to sober up. He left her there.’ That’s what Mike had gasped in my ear a few hours later. I left her there, Ali, honest. I was just looking out for her. But if people saw me with her – Ali, shit, this could be the end of everything. And of course I’d believed him. I knew Mike wasn’t the perfect boyfriend – at that point I might even have believed he’d cheat on me, but not that he would have hurt anyone. ‘What you said to me that day . . .’ The memory made my skin tingle, and I forced myself to look at Bill, but he was still turned away, stirring. I watched the shift of his shoulder blades. How thin he still was, when the rest of us were padded by middle age already. Suddenly, I wanted to put my hand on his back, along the lines of his ribs. My eye was caught by the block of knives, which had one missing, of course – it was impounded in the police station somewhere, covered with Mike’s blood.
Bill shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago, Ali. I’m sure you had your reasons.’
‘I was trying to help him.’
‘I know.’ Again, the words in the silence. What if I was wrong? What if Karen was not the first woman he’d hurt? But I couldn’t believe that. Mike and the kids and this house were all I had. I had to fight for them, until someone could come to me with clear and undeniable proof and say, Look, Ali, your husband is a bad man. You thought you had chosen so well, but surprise, you did exactly what anyone would have guessed you’d do.
‘Do you remember anything else from that night?’
Bill hesitated, and I knew he was thinking of the same thing as me. What he’d almost said to me, on the lawn, as dawn broke. His hand in mine. For a moment, I thought he was going to say it. Instead, he said: ‘Nothing useful. Come on, we should eat. The kids will be hungry.’
The next morning, at the police station, Adam Devine moved through the pictures with gentle hands. I had a feeling he’d have liked to be wearing gloves. ‘I’m not sure I understand, Mrs Morris.’
‘I just wanted to show you. What she’s like. Karen. She’s been with so many guys – married men, even.’ It wasn’t coming out right. I tried again. ‘I know that it’s not – that it shouldn’t be a factor. I just want to show that she does this kind of thing. She lies. She’s been lying to me the entire time I’ve known her.’ So had Mike, of course.
‘Mrs Morris – this would be a matter for Mike’s barrister, when you have one. It’s not our decision to prosecute, it’s the CPS’s. And they felt able to proceed.’
‘But if they knew this – if they knew Mike and Karen had an affair for years, wouldn’t that make a difference?’ Again that cool look of his. I could feel the judgement behind it. ‘Look, I know what you must think of me. I know she’s my friend. But he’s my husband, and I don’t, I just don’t believe he could do this, and I can’t stand back and let him go to prison. We have kids.’ Kids who’d be kicked out of their school, and possibly their house, if this didn’t end soon. ‘Could they drop the charges? Does that happen sometimes? If they decide she lied about it?’
‘Sometimes. OK, why don’t you give me a statement anyway about the pictures, and we’ll take it into consideration.’ His large, sure hands gathered the pictures in, and I felt as if I’d handed him our younger selves on a plate, Karen and Mike and me. Back before any of this had happened.
Cassie
She felt them as soon as she walked through the school gates. The eyes. In school, you were nothing if you didn’t have eyes on you. You weren’t really alive unless people saw you. Your new shoes, the streaks in your hair. That you’d lost two pounds on the 5:2 diet, throwing away the sandwiches your mum packed like you were five. She’d been seen before, of course – not too smart for her own good, pretty, rich-ish. Dating the rugby captain. It had been nice, to walk down the corridors and see people nod to her. Even sixth formers. Morning, Cassie. Hey Cass.
This was not like that.
Cassie’s mum used to say how lucky she was. How it was being unpopular at her northern school, too bright and awkward and nerdy for anyone to like her, not willing to smoke behind the bike sheds or go too far with boys. How she realised much later it was a blessing, to be invisible at that age. But Cassie had always ignored that part, and understood instead how lucky she was to be seen. But today something was wrong. She heard the whispers almost at the edge of her hearing as she walked in. Not loud enough for words but still: something. A tiny gust of a laugh, or was it just the wind? She tried to smile at Sarah, off the hockey team, and Sarah turned away, fiddling with her phone. She was a long way off. Maybe she hadn’t seen. But suddenly Cassie was finding it very hard to walk across the school yard. It had felt just last week like her catwalk, like she couldn’t wait to cross it so people could see how she’d done her hair and make-up, how she made the navy school uniform look like couture. Now her legs felt heavy and she stared at the ground, at the crushed remains of a packet of crisps someone had trampled on. She only knew she had to get inside, quick, away from the eyes.
Inside, the hall seemed impossibly loud and echoing. Voices bouncing off the high glass windows. Even teachers seemed to frown at her. Another laugh skittering at the edge. Cassie knew these kids but suddenly she didn’t. Their faces had changed, shut down. She saw Amira, her straight black hair shiny and swinging. She bumbled towards her. What was going on? She wanted to look down to check her skirt wasn’t tucked into her pants or she hadn’t started her period and bled right through, but to look down would make it real and worse, much much worse. You had to keep your head up high. Everyone knew that. Amira would tell her. She almost ran. ‘Hey, what . . .’
Amira’s gaze clicked up to her, down to her phone. Up to her. ‘I thought you wouldn’t come in.’
Her heart failed. ‘Why? What do you . . .’ Because of her dad, obviously, but Cassie knew she had to style it out. It was possible everyone didn’t know yet, and even if they did, it might not be true. He might get acquitted. She knew some of the boys would buy that, the idea that women lied, made things up to ruin their lives. ‘Course I’m in. We’ve got exams. I’m so bricking it, are you?’
Amira wrinkled her pretty nose. ‘Cass, like, don’t take this the wrong way but . . . maybe you should go home?’
‘I can’t go home!’ Just then, Cassie saw him, and her hands started to shake. He hadn’t messaged her all week, despite the ridiculous number of texts she’d sent him. Part of her knew that was a bad sign, that everything she’d been warned about was happening, but all the same she couldn’t accept it. She ran towards him. ‘Aaron. Wait! Wait!’
People were staring. She shouldn’t have shouted. You never did anything to stand out like that, not shout, not run, not cry, not get brilliant marks, not get bad marks. She slowed down, hanging her head. Her face was getting red, she could tell. But Aaron had stopped. He was waiting for her, his blazer slung over his schoolbag and his sleeves rolled up. At the sight of him, his powerful rugby-playing body, the fair hair flopping over his face, all her skin seemed to flare. ‘Why didn’t you text?’ she hissed.
He just stood there, scuffing his shoes on the ground. ‘Dunno.’
‘I’ve been having a really shit time.’ She felt the tears in her voice and tried to swallow them down. ‘I really needed to talk to you.’
‘Cass . . . Mum saw the news. About your dad. Everyone saw it.’
‘We don’t know what happened yet, OK. Maybe she – maybe she lied or something.’
‘Thought you said girls didn’t lie about that.’
She had said that, parroting her mother’s views, though she’d never have admitted it. ‘This is different. She – I don’t know. She’s in love with my dad or
something. She’s trying to ruin our lives.’ She heard the words coming out of her mouth, even though she’d said the opposite to her mother. Even though she didn’t believe this, not really. She didn’t know what she believed.
He looked over his shoulder, to where his mates were waiting, hanging around in that half-moon formation they always took up. Bros, who had each other’s backs. ‘Mum doesn’t want me seeing you. I’ve got my exams.’
‘I’ve got my exams too!’
‘Yeah, well.’ Meaning, he was smarter than her. Meaning, who cared about her stupid exam results.
‘I thought you loved me.’ She knew it was a movie line even as she said it, and hated herself.
Another shrug. ‘I’m just really stressed right now, Cass. I don’t need this. I’m under a lot of pressure.’
He was under pressure? ‘My dad nearly died.’ Her voice was thick now, like she had a cold. ‘You didn’t even come to visit.’ When his granddad was dying, she’d taken flowers, grapes. Trying to be a nice girlfriend. That was what her mum would do, when someone was ill.
‘Get a grip. How can I visit him? He’s a rapist, Cass. I have to go.’
‘Wait. Is this about – what happened?’ Her voice shook. ‘At the weekend?’
Aaron’s face changed. ‘It never happened. OK? Get that straight in your head.’ Then he sloped off, arching himself away from her, and as he reached his mates she heard the laughter bubble up and she stared at her feet, biting the inside of her mouth until she could be sure she wasn’t going to cry. That was who she was now. The rapist’s daughter. She would never forgive her dad.
Someone was coming over. Miss Hall, the deputy head, in her black suit, her tired eyes. Striding past the kids, who scattered and broke up like mercury. Was she in trouble?
What You Did Page 14
