The Alibi Girl

by C. J. Skuse

  Although the Cancer Beanie was unintentional, I swear it’s a godsend. Nobody likes the awkwardness of taking stuff back or the agony of a queue, but if everyone thinks you’ve got cancer, it makes them much nicer. They either want to do something for you or they totally ignore you and want you to go away as soon as possible, so they serve you quicker. I get the best customer service with the Cancer Beanie on.

  Scants tuts and huffs. ‘We talked about this, you lying to everyone you meet.’

  ‘It’s not everyone. It’s the odd one. Or two.’

  ‘You still pretending to the doughnut man across the road that you’re some hotshot novelist with a film deal?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Scants raises his eyes to the ceiling. ‘If you lie about who you are to every person, you’re never going to fit in here. You’re going to lose track of your lies. It’s a small town, word’s bound to get round.’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to be someone else. That’s what you always say: “The truth is an open door to danger.”’

  He has no answer to that. ‘Don’t lie about having cancer, that’s not on. And you better tell him we’re not married either.’ He puts the blue bootlaces in my snack cupboard and hands me the cornflakes, tins of beans, bread, spaghetti, chocolate sponge mix, custard, and green food colouring to put in the one nearest me.

  ‘What do I say instead then?’

  ‘Say I’m your home help. Or your uncle. Or your pimp.’ The Duke of Yorkums rubs against Scants’s shin, and he nudges him out of the way.

  ‘He’s not going to believe that.’

  ‘I don’t see why not – he’s bought your brain tumour, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Aww, you didn’t get the kitchen roll with Woody and Buzz on?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re twenty-eight. Kettle on?’

  ‘I’ll have juice.’ I tear open the KitKats. I break off the end finger, nibble the chocolate all along one edge, then all along the other side. I take the chocolate off the top, then the two ends, then separate the wafers and suck them until they dissolve.

  Scants is still frowning as he’s getting the teabag out of the box. I can’t remember the last time I saw him smile. I think he’s grown a new frown line since I saw him last, actually, slightly above the other one in between his eyebrows.

  ‘Do you want anything to eat?’ I ask him as Earl Grey jumps up onto the draining board and starts lapping at yesterday’s milk in the saucer.

  ‘No, thank you.’ Scants throws me a look, pointedly, so I know he disapproves of cats on the surfaces. Scants is terrified of germs and doesn’t ‘do food’ really, especially anything ‘saucy’. I think he has some kind of phobia. He prefers meals as dry as possible, eats no vegetables and is the only person I’ve ever met who dreads looking at a menu. He once said he’d be happier on a permanent drip.

  ‘When you gonna get some new lino for this floor? It looks terrible.’

  ‘I asked the landlord when I moved in but he said it’s not a priority. I ordered a rug to cover it up but it hasn’t come yet.’

  ‘It’s a health hazard, that’s what it is. It’s not even stuck down, is it?’

  I don’t answer that. I don’t know good lino from bad. And then we’re not talking about badly cut linoleum anymore as the elephant in the room trumpets so loudly, he can no longer ignore it. ‘What was it this time then?’ he says as the kettle rumbles to a rolling boil. ‘You said you had something in the post?’

  I put on my Marigolds and remove the catalogue from the carrier bag under the sink. He takes the bag from me and opens it up. ‘A catalogue?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves? There could be fingerprints on it.’

  He looks down at the book. ‘Yeah, your postman’s and about fifty other people working for Royal Mail. It’s a circular.’

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t sign up for it. Look what it’s selling.’

  He looks around the living room. At the piles of magazines and newspapers and unopened junk mail and leaflets for money off vouchers at the garden centre and all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants. ‘You send off for a lot of catalogues.’

  ‘Only toy catalogues and art supplies. The last thing I ordered was some glitter to make some Christmas cards. I’d have remembered ordering a coffin catalogue.’

  ‘Well maybe you ordered it and forgot about it.’

  ‘I did not send off for a coffin catalogue, Scants. This is serious.’

  ‘Maybe you’re on some mailing list and they sold your address to this company and that’s why you’re getting sent their catalogue.’

  I shake my head. ‘A week ago I was in a hairdresser’s having my roots done and three men came in. I recognised them. Well, I recognised one of them. His laugh. It was them, Scants. The Three Little Pigs.’

  Scants huffs. ‘We’ve talked about this.’

  ‘I know but I had two silent messages on my answerphone in the past week. I’ve got the constant feeling I’m being followed. And now these men show up.’

  ‘Why were you in a hairdresser’s anyway? We send you kits for your hair every six weeks. Have you not been getting them?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m sick of doing it myself. It canes my back bending over the bath. And it never looks as good. I wanted it done properly, for once.’

  ‘Alright, keep your Garnier Nutrisse on. Chances are it wasn’t them or him – the one with the laugh. It’s one of your little nothings, I bet you any money.’

  ‘I recognised his laugh. The straw-haired man. Maybe he’s with a new gang?’

  Scants isn’t convinced. He takes his tea and, shooing Queen Georgie out of the pile of clean washing where she had been curled up asleep, sits down on the sofa. ‘You’re tilting at windmills again, aren’t you?’

  I don’t know what he means but I join him on the sofa. A prolonged advertisement for Jamie Oliver’s new cooking show comes on the TV, accompanied by images of stews, frying meat and a diarrhoea-coloured lamb curry. ‘Join me at six for a live cook-a-long…’ Scants visibly baulks and reaches for the remote.

  ‘Kill me now,’ he mutters, muting him.

  I take a deep breath. This wasn’t something I liked to say out loud, and Scants knew it. ‘I think those three men are the same ones who killed Dad.’

  ‘They’re not,’ he says plainly and starkly, sipping his too-hot tea.

  ‘But—’

  ‘I have told you this about ten times – the men who killed your dad are out of circulation. It’s my job to monitor and review the level of risk against you at all times. That’s literally my job. Two of them are in jail, posing no threat.’

  ‘No known threat,’ I say.

  ‘—and the third died in hospital of sepsis following complications to remove part of his bladder which was injured in a prison fight. They’re all accounted for.’

  ‘You said there were ten in the original cartel. It could be three other members.’

  ‘So who was the laughing man then, if these three were three different men to the ones who killed your dad?’

  ‘I don’t know, but—’

  ‘—they’re all accounted for, Joanne. The cartel has disbanded. There are no threats to your safety. We check every base, look under every stone. Me and the CPS, the Prison Service, all the regional organised crime units, even Border Control. We would know if anyone had slipped through the net, believe me.’

  ‘Then why am I still here? Why can’t I go back to my old life?’

  ‘You’re here because your alibi is working. And it’s only working because you’re here. Can’t you just be happy?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. I want another identity. Joanne Haynes isn’t working for me anymore. Nor is living around here. I don’t fit in.’

  I get the full head back groan. ‘You haven’t given it a chance, have you?’

  ‘You’re supposed to take it seriously when I say there’s been a breach. You have a duty to protect me. I’m frightened, Scants. I’m
completely on my own here.’

  He scratches his eyelid. I don’t think it needs scratching but he’s run out of all other indicators that he’s pissed off. ‘In eight years, you’ve had four new identities: Ann Hilsom. Melanie Smith. Claire Price. Joanne Haynes—’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘—and each one was because someone “looked at you funny” or you were convinced “it was The Three Little Pigs” and somehow you’ve persuaded the authorities you were in danger.’

  ‘A man threw acid in my face in Liverpool.’

  ‘No, a drunk man threw lager in the air when Liverpool won three-nil against Man City in the Champions League. You got in the way. This has all been checked out. Acid didn’t come into it.’

  ‘It could have been acid.’

  ‘It wasn’t. I can’t go to them for a fifth time and apply for a court hearing and another identity because of an unsolicited catalogue and three blokes you “sort of recognised”. They’d laugh me out the room.’

  I move to the coffee table and sit squarely in front of him so he can’t avoid looking at me. ‘I knew that laugh, Scants. You said that after Scarborough if I saw or heard anything suspicious I was to call you directly.’

  ‘This is not Scarborough. You were attacked there and that was eight years ago. Nothing has happened since.’ I want to cry but I hold onto it, keep it locked in tightly in my mind box. ‘The catalogue isn’t anything. It’s just a book.’

  ‘For dead people,’ I add. ‘No, worse than that. For almost dead people.’

  There’s a smell – the unmistakeable smell of whisky breath. He backs off, like he’s realised I’ve clocked it. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Joanne. You know I hate that.’

  ‘I’m really not this time.’

  ‘Did these men say anything? Give you any reason to think they knew you?’

  ‘One held the door open for me as I left and he said “Mind how you go.” And I think he had a Bristolian accent.’

  Scants exhales, long and rattling. ‘Look, you get a brick through your window, I can have you moved on within the hour. A forced entry, a lit firework through the letterbox, these are things I can do something about. A laugh? Junk mail? A possible accent?’ He shook his head. ‘Your panic button’s working properly now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but even that wasn’t fitted properly the first time—’

  ‘—and you were sure the fella who came round to fix it deliberately left a wire out, yes, I’ve heard that one.’

  I hear Emily grizzling in her cot and I go in to get her. When I come out, Scants has unmuted the TV and changed channels. Loose Women have a guest on, some historian. He likes old things. Art and pyramids and stuff.

  I hand him the local paper that came yesterday and at first he seems nonplussed. And then he sees the front page.

  TEACHER DEATH AT HOTEL: SHE WAS RAPED AND STRANGLED.

  He frowns. ‘Isn’t this the place you work?’

  ‘I saw her body before the police came. She was strangled, like Dad was. There were marks around her neck. Bruises. And she looked like me, Scants. Blue eyes. Red hair. Same age.’

  ‘Did you find her?’

  ‘No. But I saw her before they took her away. She was raped as well, Scants. You can’t say I’m making this up. It’s not just a coincidence. I need more protection.’

  ‘You’ve been refused a protection officer because you’re a Low Risk Anomaly. The chances of anyone recognising you are slim to none, you’ve changed a lot in eighteen years. This—’ He motions towards the paper on the coffee table. ‘Unrelated.’

  I scuff into the kitchen to tidy up the surfaces and fold away the bags. I catch him flicking over the paper to take another look at Tessa Sharpe’s happy-go-lucky face on the front page, taken from her Facebook profile. I want to believe him when he says it’s unrelated. I want to believe it so much but he is unsure. I can see it in his eyes.

  ‘I know I’ve lied in the past,’ I say.

  ‘You lie all the time,’ he says, flipping the paper over again and picking up his mug. ‘You’ve grown used to it. The cancer woman is the tip of the iceberg.’

  ‘I’m not lying about this. About the funny phone calls and the coffin catalogue and the feeling of being watched. And now Tessa Sharpe. All the black hair dye in the world can’t cover the fact that I am a redhead. I have blue eyes, same as her. They were looking for me.’ I lean against the washing machine. ‘I want to go home, Scants.’

  He doesn’t look round and his acid smile disappears. ‘You are home.’

  ‘This isn’t home. Our castle, mine and Foy’s, that was home.’ I watch him. He’s doing something slow and sly. Pouring whisky in his tea from a small canister he’s taken from inside his coat. Without saying a word, he posts it back inside and sits back, eyeballing my washing on the airer.

  ‘You should dry all this outside you know. Not healthy to dry it all in here.’

  ‘I want to go home, Scants.’

  He bangs his mug on the coffee table and heads towards the airer and without a word he begins folding my washing into an untidy pile on the sofa. ‘You going to iron all this? Do you have an iron? I’m sure the budget could stretch to one if you haven’t.’

  ‘I want my real name back.’

  ‘I can lend you an iron if you like, until you get one. And get some of that spray.’

  ‘I was happy when I was her. I haven’t forgotten it all, you know. It wasn’t long enough ago. It was the only happy time. I want it back.’

  Scants won’t look at me. I can tell he’s getting angry when he runs out of washing to fold and starts tidying away the DVD cases on the carpet in front of the TV.

  I stand in front the breakfast bar, holding Emily’s little warm head close to my neck for comfort. ‘There was a phone-in on This Morning yesterday, all about closure and how sometimes you have to go back to—’

  In a heartbeat, Scants swings round and points a finger right at me. ‘I want no more talk about this. Nothing, do you hear me?’ The room fills with whisky breath. I know it and he knows it. I don’t think he even cares though. ‘The truth is an open door to danger, you know that. You haven’t been back to Carew, have you?’

  ‘No. I promise, I haven’t.’

  ‘I mean it. You go back there, and we are done. They’ll take away this flat, your panic alarm, they won’t give you anything else, you’ll be all at sea.’

  ‘I know all this. You tell me often enough. But maybe I could—’

  ‘Your name is Joanne Elizabeth Haynes now,’ Scants thunders. ‘And that’s that.’

  I kiss Emily’s head. ‘I keep forgetting.’

  ‘That’s because you keep switching roles.’

  He shakes his head and looks down at Emily. ‘And what about her?’

  ‘She’s my baby.’

  ‘She’s a doll.’

  I gasp and hug Emily tighter. He’s never said this to me before. I know he knew, but he’s never actually said the words. He knows how much I don’t want to hear them.

  I smooth Emily’s fluffy hair with my lips. She feels colder now. And she smells. The sweet smell of new plastic.

  ‘Don’t talk about her like that. She’s my baby.’

  ‘Since when did Amazon do mail order babies? I’m done humouring you with this. You have to immerse yourself in Joanne, forget all these other characters you play. Drown yourself in Joanne until she’s unforgettable. You were born in Liverpool twenty-nine years ago next April.’

  ‘But my birthday’s on Christmas Eve Eve—’

  ‘—you have three brothers – one moved to Brisbane as a systems analyst, one’s out in Dubai and the other’s in York training to be a solicitor. Your parents died in a car accident on the island of Crete ten years ago – Mr and Mrs Steven Martin Haynes.’

  ‘They didn’t—’

  ‘—you went to art school but dropped out. Spent a gap year in India, worked with orphans in Cambodia and have moved back here because you have such fond memories of when your pa
rents brought you all here as kids. You work as a housekeeper at The Lalique to raise enough cash to go travelling again. That’s it. That is you.’

  I sway with Emily pressed tightly against me. ‘Working at The Lalique is the only truthful thing there. The only truthful thing.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ he breathes out, all dramatic. ‘You accepted all this after Scarborough. “Anything to get them away from me and live a normal life,” you said.’

  He marches over and rips Emily out of my hands, throws her face down onto the sofa. She doesn’t cry. At least I don’t hear her.

  ‘You horrible git.’

  ‘You are a grown woman, so start acting like one. You think you’ve got problems now? Go outside and shout your real name and see what happens. Put your name and address on Twitter. I guarantee you’ll be dead within the week.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ A tear tickles my nose. ‘You said there was no threat. Sometimes I think I’d be better off dead – at least then I wouldn’t be so scared all the time.’

  He glances down at Emily and then at his watch. ‘Fuck, I’ve got to get back. I’ve got a departmental meeting later.’ He places his empty mug on the draining board, having left my lounge as neat as it was when I moved in and at no other point since.

  ‘Will you come back again soon?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ This is worrying. He usually gives me some indication of when I’ll see him again, even if it’s a vague ‘few weeks’. As a parting shot at the door, he turns and says, ‘Do me a favour, don’t take the doll outside with you anymore.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re drawing attention to yourself. Say it’s gone to live with its dad.’

  ‘Her dad,’ I correct him. ‘I can’t do that. Too many people know about her.’

  ‘Then tell everyone she’s dead!’

  He knows he’s gone too far now. I pick up Emily from the sofa and bury my face into the join of her cold plastic neck. Everything is breaking around me like stained glass windows. ‘Why are you being so horrible?’