Evie seems fascinated by the photograph. She picks it up and traces her fingers over the faces.
“What were their names?”
I point to each of them. “April and Esme were the twins. They were seven when this was taken. I was nine. Elias was fifteen.”
“Where are they now?” asks Caroline.
“His parents are dead,” replies Evie. She points to my brother. “He did it.”
Caroline looks shocked. “What about your sisters?”
“They’re dead too,” I say, taking the photograph from Evie. I place it back on the mantelpiece, arranging it at exactly the same angle as before.
“You didn’t tell me that,” says Evie, sounding aggrieved.
“You didn’t ask.”
I change the subject. “I’ll show you upstairs.”
They follow. Whispering. Evie is limping from her blisters.
“This can be yours,” I say, opening a door. The room has a single bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and a window that’s so dirty we could be underwater. Evie looks unimpressed.
“I’ll tidy it up, of course.”
“And get me a new bed.”
“What’s wrong with that one?”
Evie wrinkles her nose. “Your grandparents probably had sex in it.”
“This was my bedroom.”
“Ew! Even worse.”
Caroline admonishes her. Evie isn’t fazed.
“Can I redecorate it?”
“If you wish.”
Evie turns in a slow circle, as if mentally measuring up the room and deciding on color schemes.
I can see Caroline having second thoughts. “Are you sure about this?” she whispers.
“Why?”
“Fostering Nottingham will have to approve of everything . . . including this place.”
“I’ll clean it up, I promise.”
Evie steps outside the room and glances up the stairs. “What’s up there?”
“It’s closed up.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t need any more rooms.”
“Can I see them?”
“No!”
My tone is harsher than I intended. I wish I could take it back. The moment registers with Evie, but she doesn’t react. Instead, I imagine her storing it away, stockpiling weapons for later skirmishes.
“We should get Evie back to Langford Hall,” I say.
“I’ll take her,” says Caroline.
Downstairs, Evie puts on her old duffel coat, which looks incongruous with her new clothes. Caroline gives me a quick hug and Evie hesitates, wondering if she should do the same. Her arms go up and out but never quite reach me.
“I’m sorry it’s so messy and old,” I say.
“At least it’s not haunted,” Evie replies.
“How can you tell?”
“I’ve been in haunted houses.”
23
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
That night I dream the dream.
My mother was the first to die, while cooking saffron chicken-and-prawn paella with peas. My mother with her wicked laugh, her soft spot for underdogs, her hatred of hypocrisy, her love for schoolteachers, dark chocolate, and Baileys Irish Cream. My mother with her posh phone voice and pink lipstick, potpourri-smelling lingerie drawer; her bubble baths behind a locked door, no children allowed. My mother, who could make rice pudding from leftover boiled rice and made us each take turns to get the wishbone when we ate roast chicken. My mother, who grew up on a farm and had a pony called Twelve (because it was twelve hands high), yet who refused to let us have a dog because she still mourned the loss of her own beloved childhood pet, a boxer called Sinbad.
On that night she was standing in front of the freezer with a bag of frozen peas in her hand when the knife scythed through her carotid artery, spilling green and red onto the white tiled floor. She had always complained about choosing white tiles because they showed every spilled crumb, scuff mark, and dropped pea.
The plume of blood sprayed in an arc across the kitchen bench and the sink and the cutlery drawer, which was open, and Tupperware boxes, which she always arranged neatly so she could find the lids when she needed them. The blood stretched all the way to the cat-food bowl in the corner where Tibbles would later lick it into a smear and track it across the floor with her paws.
Dad was next. My father, who worked in property management—a fancy way of saying he collected rents and organized building leases. My father, who taught Elias how to drive and would get him to practice his parking outside a succession of pubs, whereupon Dad slipped inside for a quick half. The White Lion, the Last Post, Beekeeper, and the Commercial Inn. Later Dad would fall asleep on the sofa, snoring through Midsomer Murders.
My father, who brewed his own beer, collected vinyl LPs, and once scored a golfing hole in one that ran all the way along the ground, but he still framed the scorecard. My father, who didn’t like using the word “hate,” but instead said he disliked racists, reality TV shows, Manchester United, pistachios that don’t open, and people who spend fifteen minutes in a queue and don’t know what to order when they get to the counter.
Dad died on his hands and knees, crouching in front of the DVD player because one of the twins had managed to get a disk stuck in the machine. The knife severed his spine, paralyzing him from the waist down. He managed to roll onto his back and hold up his arm, trying to ward off the blows, losing two fingers on his left hand and his right thumb. For a long while they couldn’t find his thumb because it had rolled under the TV cabinet.
My twin sisters were doing their homework or playing in the bedroom they shared. They must have known something was wrong because they locked the door and barricaded it with beanbags and soft toys and a rocking horse that belonged to my grandmother and had no hair on its mane.
April was the elder by twenty minutes and always acted like an older sister. Earnest and bossy, she was the hoarder, the show-off, and the baker of cupcakes, partial to strawberry lip gloss and jelly snakes and able to name every King and Queen of England using a rhyme she’d learned off by heart.
Esme was different but the same—part of a collective child, or two halves with the same face, each slightly different but in symmetry. Esme the shy, the meek, the songbird, with a dancer’s grace and tiny feet. Esme the peacemaker, the advocate, the knitter. Esme, who pressed flowers in the pages of her diary and gave names to every animal she ever met.
Elias used an ax to break a hole through the door before reaching inside and turning the key. He tossed aside the rocking horse and the beanbags. April fell first, which followed the natural order of how the twins handled everything. She ran towards Elias and the knife entered her ribs and came out near her spine. Blood splattered across the wallpaper and the bedspread, the bald rocking horse and the dollhouse.
Esme tried to crawl beneath her bed but was dragged out by her ankles, scratching at the floor and bunching the rug under her body. I try not to imagine her fear or the sound of metal on air or metal on flesh or the silence that followed.
People always ask, where was I?
At football practice or on my way home. It was the second training session of the season and my first year with the Sherwood Strikers. I had moved up to Under 15s and felt a little overawed.
We trained at Brelsford Park, about two miles from the house, or ten minutes if I rode my bike along the towpath. Mum had told me to be home by six. She also told me not to “even think about” stopping for hot chips. Of course I didn’t listen. I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime at school and the Fat Friar did a cone of chips for a quid (although I had to forego the vinegar, or Mum would smell it on my breath).
I scoffed the chips and still had time to ride past Ailsa Piper’s house in the hope I might glimpse her in the garden or coming home from netball practice. Ailsa was a year older than me. I once helped her find a bracelet that she lost on her way to school. We hadn’t spoken since then, but she always smiled w
hen we bumped into each other—happenstances that I tried to orchestrate as often as possible.
Running late, I had to stand up on the pedals and push hard to make it home by six. I wheeled my bike through the side gate and rested it up against the shed. Then I took off my muddy football boots and banged them against the back step. I could hear canned TV laughter coming from the front room as I opened the back door. I called out to Mum. She didn’t answer.
In my dream this is where I wake—as I step into the kitchen, seeing the smear of blood near the litter box. I don’t wake screaming or bolting upright in my bed, but my cheeks are sometimes wet and my voice hoarse. That’s when I get up. That’s when I run.
* * *
On my second circuit of Wollaton Park, a car pulls alongside me, slowing to my speed. Tires crunch over fallen leaves, acorns, and seed pods. The window lowers.
“You’re not allowed to drive on the footpath,” I say.
“I’m pursuing a suspect,” says Lenny.
“What’s he done?”
“He refuses to have a phone.”
“That’s hardly a crime.”
“No, but it’s bloody annoying.”
Her wrist is draped over the steering wheel. Her collar is turned up.
I kick ahead and take a shortcut past the playground. Lenny accelerates and catches up as I reach the lake. She pulls alongside me again.
“We have a problem.”
“In my experience, whenever someone tells me they have a problem, they’re trying to make their problem into mine.”
“I need your help.”
She looks tired. I wonder if, like me, she is kept awake by an unsettled mind or a past that will not stay buried. Slowing down, I walk to a nearby bench seat where I begin stretching, straightening each leg and bending my body over it until my forehead almost touches my shins.
Out of her car, Lenny takes a seat next to me, wrapping her coat around her chest and slipping her hands in the pockets, where keys and spare change jangle.
“The DNA tests are back,” she says, taking out a ChapStick and running it over her lips.
“And?”
“The semen found in Jodie’s hair belonged to Craig Farley.”
“So that’s it.”
“They also tested the second trace of semen found on her thigh, which was too degraded to get a complete profile, but enough to show that it didn’t come from Farley.”
“Jodie had sex earlier in the evening.”
“Or Farley had an accomplice.”
“Nothing else indicates a second perpetrator.”
Lenny scratches at her cheek, leaving a mark on her pale skin. “Farley says he found Jodie in the woods. He says she was already unconscious.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Of course not! He’s a lying sack of shit, but the second semen sample worries me because it creates doubt. A good defense lawyer is going to ask why we haven’t identified an accomplice or a boyfriend or another suspect. That’s why we need to tighten up the case—make sure Farley doesn’t weasel his way out.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Review the evidence.”
“In what capacity?”
“You work for the police.”
“Part-time.”
Lenny ignores the distinction. “Just look at the interviews with Farley and tell me if we missed anything.”
“Can I talk to him face-to-face?”
“No. His lawyer claims we browbeat Farley into making a confession.” Lenny notices my look. “Don’t even go there. We followed procedure. Regular breaks. Kid gloves.” She sounds annoyed at herself for being defensive.
“Are you looking for anyone else?”
“Officially, no.”
“And unofficially?”
“I’m keeping an open mind.”
I’ve been standing still for too long and grown cold. Lenny offers to drive me home. In the car she turns up the heater full blast and negotiates her way out of the park and onto the street.
Silence hangs between us; not a solid divide but one that feels soft and familiar like an old pair of slippers or a favorite sweater. Lenny has known me since I was thirteen and she was in her early twenties. Since then she has been my greatest supporter and harshest critic, a stepmother, rebellious aunt, friend, sounding board, and the person who knows me best.
“I had an interesting call from Fostering Nottingham the other day,” she says as the car pulls up in front of the house. “Seems that someone listed me as a referee on a foster care application.”
I stay silent.
“Apparently, this person wants to foster a young lass with behavioral problems. I took it as a prank call at first. I still think it might be.”
“It’s not,” I say, opening the car door.
“I hear she’s a nightmare.”
“She’s fine.”
“Have you any idea what you’re doing?”
“I hope so.”
“It’s not easy to look after a teenager.”
“I used to be one.”
“You skipped those years,” says Lenny flippantly, but I know she’s right.
“What did you tell them?” I ask.
“I told them you didn’t torture kittens or shoot dolphins.”
“Thank you.”
Lenny leans forward and peers out of the windscreen at the overgrown garden and filthy windows. “You should sell this place. It’s too much for you.”
“Maybe I’ll foster more kids.”
She knows I’m joking. Leaning behind her, she produces a padded envelope from the back seat. Inside are six DVDs.
“Twenty-two hours of interviews—finish that lot and you’ll need a shower or a noose.”
24
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
“Can I help you?” asks the salesman at Dreamtime Warehouse.
His name is “Brad” and he has shaved the sides of his head but left hair on the top to grow untrammeled like weeds on a new allotment.
“I’m looking for a bed,” I say.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place.”
I wonder for a moment whether Brad is being facetious, but his smile seems genuine. We’re standing in a showroom the size of several tennis courts, surrounded by mattresses, bases, ensembles, and assorted bunks.
“What size are you looking for?” he asks. “Single, small double, double, king-sized, or super-king-size?”
“Ah . . . right . . . maybe a single bed.”
“Is it for you, sir?”
“No.”
“A child?”
“A young woman.”
“And are you replacing an existing bed?”
“Yes.”
“And does the young lady have a small bedroom?”
“It’s bigger than her last one.”
“Then perhaps she might prefer something larger—a double.”
“OK.”
I’m fascinated by Brad’s hair, which sways in the opposite direction when he moves his head.
“What type do you have in mind?” he asks. “We have platform, panel, sleigh, trundle, poster, canopy, futon, wooden, brass, wrought iron—”
“Just a regular bed. Something standard.”
“May I suggest a mattress-and-base combination—perhaps in our Slumberland range, which is on special?”
He walks me across the showroom and we stop at a row of four beds.
“That one,” I say, pointing.
“Excellent. Now let’s talk about the mattress.”
“Doesn’t it come with a mattress?”
Brad laughs as though I’m being droll. “You get to choose, sir. You can have open spring, pocket spring, memory foam, latex—”
“What do most people buy?”
“Pocket spring is the more luxurious. It’s made from small individual springs each housed in a pocket of fabric. This means the springs move independently, providing more support so that when yo
u roll over, you’re not disturbing your partner.”
“That’s what I’ll have.”
“Soft, medium, or firm?”
Dear mother of God!
“Perhaps you’d like to try the difference,” says Brad, pointing to the mattresses. “Don’t worry about your shoes—we have mattress protectors.”
I’m expected to lie down. I feel like a corpse in a coffin. Brad is still talking.
“Feel how it supports your hips and shoulders and lower back. It’s particularly good when one partner is significantly heavier than the other.”
“We’re not partners.”
“Oh. I see. Perhaps you should bring her along—let her choose. We’re open seven days a week.”
“I don’t collect her until Friday,” I say.
Brad’s smile disappears like a light being switched off.
“I’m getting her room ready,” I say, trying to recover. “She’s getting out, I mean, she’s coming to live with me.”
“I see,” says Brad, although I don’t think he sees at all.
“I’ll take a medium mattress. Can it be delivered?”
“You haven’t asked the price.”
“How much is it?”
“Normally you’d pay well over a thousand pounds, but I can do it for six hundred and ninety-nine.”
The shock must register on my face.
“It’s a very good value, sir. People spend far more money on a sofa that gets used for a few hours a day, whereas a bed gives us a crucial eight hours.”
“Fine.”
“What about a mattress protector?”
“No, thank you.”
“You’ll need linen. And a duvet.”
He takes me to another section of the showroom and begins to list the different cottons and thread counts. The information washes over me and I become aware of how many extra things I will have to buy before Evie arrives: soap and shower gel for her bathroom. Toilet paper. What about women’s things? She’ll need tampons or pads. I’ve never had to buy those. Will Evie bring some with her? I could ask someone; Caroline Fairfax perhaps. No, I’ve had enough embarrassment for one day.
Good Girl, Bad Girl Page 14
